Caleb’s Baptism — Heidelberg Catechism — Q. 13

Question 13. Can we ourselves then make this satisfaction?

Answer: By no means; but on the contrary we daily increase our debt. (a)

Now after having given a glimmer of hope in terms of returning to God’s favor in question and answer # 12

“God will have his justice satisfied: and therefore we must make this full satisfaction, either by ourselves, or by another.”

the catechism, methodologically speaking, begins to do the same thing it did in the first division when it shut all doors against man finding favor with God except the door through which one must walk through in order to find favor. The catechism hinting at another who can make satisfaction proceeds to shut the door to all potential providers of satisfaction except the only one who can provide satisfaction. If the one caught in sin and misery is to find his satisfaction in another he must move through the only door the catechism allows him to move through.

And so, the Heidelberg Catechism shuts the door to any idea that fallen man can make satisfaction to God’s righteous law. Notice again here though, the legal aspect of Christianity Caleb. Law broken. Law must be satisfied. Christianity is a faith founded on legal categories. If one doesn’t know that, one will struggle their whole Christian life.

Tis folly to think that we can provide satisfaction for our sin Caleb, and yet that is what mankind apart from Christ universally does. Man, apart from Christ, enters into all kinds of spurious satisfactions in order to ameliorate their inescapable sense of sin and misery. Fallen man has this guilt he can’t get rid of and so he does all kinds of contorted things in order to rid himself of his guilt, thus thinking he can satisfy the sense of God’s opposition.

Nah.1:6 Who can stand before his indignation? and who can abide in the fierceness of his anger? his fury is poured out like fire, and the rocks are thrown down by him.

Typically in order to satisfy his guilt before God fallen man will either turn to greater or lesser degrees of sado-masochism. Either he will seek to satisfy his guilt by rolling that guilt on another thus inflicting harm on others who are serving as providers of satisfaction (sadism) or he will seek to satisfy his guilt by rolling that guilt upon himself thus inflicting harm on himself thus punishing himself for his sin (masochism). This mad desire to find a false satisfaction as opposed to a true satisfaction that can only be found in Christ, as the one who provides satisfaction, explains a great deal of the psychological twisted-ness and the abnormality that we find in the human condition. If one will not look to Christ as the only one who can provide satisfaction unto God’s just justice against us, one will become psychologically bent in their seeking to unload and satisfy their guilt upon someone else.

Indeed, I would go as far to say that the greatest preponderance of the whole “psychological – psychiatry complex” that is so prevalent in our culture exists only as a means to provide men false satisfactions that can never satisfy. Men go to their counseling sessions to receive a temporary declaration of absolution from their Shrink as satisfaction for their sin. But, as the Catechism teaches, this Shrink absolution can never really satisfy, because we daily (minute by minute) increase our debt.

Job 15:16 How much more abominable and filthy is man, which drinketh iniquity like water?

The greatest majority of the psychological – psychiatry complex was invented as a means to rationalize evil behavior and to provide a false satisfaction. True satisfaction can only be found in Christ as our satisfaction, but fallen man will not have Christ’s satisfaction because they will not surrender the authority of their fiat word to legislate reality. The psychological – psychiatry industry, in its majority report, is thus a sham science but it can exist and flourish because so many people want a satisfaction other than the satisfaction found in Christ.

So, fallen man plays this huge game of pretend in order to try and ease from himself this inescapable sense that God’s justice is not satisfied.

Ps.130:3 “If thou, LORD, shouldest mark iniquities, O Lord, who shall stand?”

Fallen man will confess his sins to a Shrink or in public but his confession will be qualified. “I confess though I didn’t really do anything wrong.” Ever notice the explosion of talk shows Caleb? People go live on television or radio to confess their sins, while at the same time often defending themselves that their sins weren’t really sinful. What else is this but fallen man trying to make his own satisfaction? As a pool of guilt grows in any society, the need to seek to satisfy for that guilt through pseudo confessions, through sadism, through masochism will grow exponentially. People are bent by their lack of satisfaction and as long as they refuse to go to the only one who can make satisfaction for them their guilt will eat them up and make them do the oddest of things. This mockery of satisfaction finds the soul trifling with itself — trifling because it can not find the permanent satisfaction for its sins it so desperately needs.

So, the catechism teaches that we can not provide our own satisfaction.

Job 9:2 “I know it is so of a truth: but how should man be just with God? Job 9:3 If he will contend with him, he cannot answer him one of a thousand.”

Instead, the amount of satisfaction that fallen man needs grows daily because his debt grows daily. And experience teaches us the contortions fallen man will go to in order to evade the gnawing sense of guilt that he can not satisfy. Fallen man will damage his relationships, he will conspire against himself, he will make all manners of false confessions, and he will allow himself to be manipulated by those who hold out the brass ring of non-Christ satisfaction for his inescapable sense of guilt that he longs to be satisfied at any price except the price of permanent and eternal satisfaction.

Caleb’s Baptism — Heidelberg Catechism Q. 12

Question 12. Since then, by the righteous judgment of God, we deserve temporal and eternal punishment, is there no way by which we may escape that punishment, and be again received into favour?

Answer: God will have his justice satisfied: and therefore we must make this full satisfaction, either by ourselves, or by another.

As we come to question 12 we begin to consider the 2nd division of the Heidelberg Catechism which deals with the issue of God’s Redemption of man and so man’s deliverance. The 1st division dealt with man’s sin and misery. It’s intent was twofold. First, to convince us how majestic, holy, and transcendent God is. Second, to convince us that we can have no concourse with this God because of our sin and misery. The 2nd part of the catechism is committed to revealing that we may have concourse with this God because of God’s initiative in man’s redemption.

Question 12 serves as a basic summary of the 1st part of the Catechism. The question serves to remind us that all ways are blocked unto being in God’s favor. The effect of the first part of the catechism, psychologically speaking, is to leave the one instructed with both a sense of God’s opposition and a understanding of our peril.

As we consider the answer a glimmer of hope begins to shine through the prison of our sin and misery in the last three words, “or by another.” The Catechism has effectively shut off all other avenues for finding favor with God and with those three words begins to hint to God’s gospel deliverance for those who are convinced of their sin and misery.

Note the theme again in the answer. The theme is legal and personal. God’s honor has been injured (personal) and so the justice that justly rises up against the injured honor of a personal God must be satisfied (legal). This reminds us that God is a personal God and it reminds us that Christianity is a faith that concentrates heavily on legal (forensic) categories. This is important for us to remember Caleb as we continue to move through the Catechism. Contemporary Christianity heavily emphasizes the personal – relational aspect of the Christian faith (though this most commonly is the personal – relational as we envision that and not as Scripture portrays) but often forgets the legal aspect of the Christian faith which sets before us a God who is offended because His law has been violated and who, before He can have a favored relationship with lawbreakers again, must have His law (which is the embodiment of His character) satisfied.

Answer 12 reinforces once again that God’s offended justice will be satisfied. Now keep in mind here that God is not being petulant with this demand for satisfaction. God is the sovereign ruler of the universe and has said, “the soul that sinneth, shall surely die (Gen. 2:17).” Either God’s justice is done and someone makes satisfaction or God dies. The catechism gives a flurry of Scriptures that underscoring that God’s justice will be done,

Exod.20:5 Thou shalt not bow down thyself to them, nor serve them: for I the LORD thy God am a jealous God, visiting the iniquity of the fathers upon the children unto the third and fourth generation of them that hate me;

Exod.23:7 Keep thee far from a false matter; and the innocent and righteous slay thou not: for I will not justify the wicked.

Ezek.18:4 Behold, all souls are mine; as the soul of the father, so also the soul of the son is mine: the soul that sinneth, it shall die.

Matt.5:26 Verily I say unto thee, Thou shalt by no means come out thence, till thou hast paid the uttermost farthing.

2 Thess.1:6 Seeing it is a righteous thing with God to recompense tribulation to them that trouble you;

Luke 16:2 And he called him, and said unto him, How is it that I hear this of thee? give an account of thy stewardship; for thou mayest be no longer steward.

God will not be mocked and so will have His justice uphold His slighted honor.

The catechism teaches we must satisfy God’s justice either by ourselves or by another. Notice the beginning strains of good news here. First, clearly what is being hinted at here is that another can make our satisfaction. This begins to hint at Gospel truths we will look at later such as atonement, justification, reconciliation, substitution, imputation, reconciliation, propitiation, expiation, redemption, and others. Second, the point that we want to scream here is that the catechism, following Scripture, is opening up a window that we might escape the dungeon of our sin and misery. Someone else might bear the lashings of God’s justice in our place.

In the holding out of this possible substitute God’s law is still satisfied, (the soul that sinneth does die in His substitute) and so the legal requirements that we mentioned earlier are upheld, and we enter into a personal knowing of God who is for us at every turn.

The Scripture that the Catechism offers really should be memorized by all believers.

Romans 8:1 — There is therefore now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus, who do not walk according to the flesh, but according to the Spirit. 2 For the law of the Spirit of life in Christ Jesus has made me free from the law of sin and death. 3 For what the law could not do, in that it was weak through the flesh, God sending his own Son in the likeness of sinful flesh, and for sin, condemned sin in the flesh: 4 That the righteousness of the law might be fulfilled in us, who walk not after the flesh, but after the Spirit.

Again Caleb, notice the legal themes here

1.) No condemnation (i.e. — no penalty after judgment)

The threat we were under was a legal threat (condemnation). Because of our substitute was condemned in our place the legal requirement for condemnation has been met in Christ Jesus.

2.) What the law could not do — The law, following God’s holy character, required moral perfection but because of man’s sin the moral law could not give what it required.

3.) Condemned sin in the flesh — Once again, legal categories. Breaking of the law occurred. Satisfaction of the law must be had.

4.) Righteousness of the law might be fulfilled in us — The law requires moral perfection and because of Christ’s moral perfection in the life He lived that righteousness of the law is fulfilled in us.

More on this later but I wanted to end by emphasizing again that the Christian faith is not the Christian faith unless we understand that it moves in these legal – forensic terms.

Yes, Christianity is relational / personal but it is only relational personal if it is also legal / forensic. Many many modern Christians have forgotten this and their faith languishes because of their forgetfulness.

A Older Calvinism

‎”When Kings or rulers become blasphemers of God, oppressors and murderers of their subjects, they ought no more to be accounted Kings or lawful magistrates, but as private men to be examined, accused, condemned, and punished by the law of God…. When magistrates cease to do their duty, the people are as it were, without magistrates … If Princes do right and keep promise with you, then do you owe all humble obedience. If not ye are discharged from and your study ought to be in this case how ye may depose and punish according to law such rebels against God and oppressors of their country.”

Christopher Goodman
Puritan / Co-pastor with John Knox in Geneva

How Superior Powers ought to be obeyed of their subjects; and wherein they may lawfully by God’s word be disobeyed and resisted.

“The fanatic for Calvinism was a fanatic for liberty; and, in the moral warfare for freedom, his creed was his most faithful counselor and his never failing support. The Puritans … planted … the undying principles of democratic liberty.”

George Bancroft — Historian
History of the United States of America — Vol. 1 — pg. 464

“Obedience to God’s Laws by disobeying man’s wicked laws is commendable, but to disobey God for any duty to man is all together damnable.”

John Knox

“On the eve of the Revolution, John Adams asserted that the pulpits of heavily Presbyterian Philadelphia thundered and lightninged every Sunday against the foreign tyranny, which Jefferson described a Virginia in which ‘pulpit oratory ran like a shock of electricity through the whole colony.”

James H. Huston
Religion and the Founding of the American Republic — p. 42

Graduation Season

http://www.mott-multi-media.com/samples/HBCCatalogCover.php

“Education… now seems to me perhaps the most authoritarian and dangerous of all the social inventions of mankind. It is the deepest foundation of the modern slave state, in which most people feel themselves to be nothing but producers, consumers, spectators, and ‘fans,’ driven more and more, in all parts of their lives, by greed, envy, and fear. My concern is not to improve ‘education’ but to do away with it, to end the ugly and antihuman business of people-shaping and to allow and help people to shape themselves.”

John Holt — (1923-1985)
American author and educator
Proponent of homeschooling, and pioneer in youth rights theory

Note the photo in the link above. This photo was chosen to serve as the cover of a homeschooling curriculum catalog. It is supposed work within the reader a sense of nostalgia for a more wholesome time.

The idea that education should take place in the shadow of the cross is something we can salute. Having said that though, the picture

1.) Has children gathering in a school. Much of the Christian community believes that the Scriptures teach that parents are responsible for their children’s education. Why would a homeschooling company reinforce the idea of public schooling by using a public school (even if nostalgic) as their photo for their curriculum catalog?

2.) Note the predominance of the flag. It is placed above the shadow of the cross. It is preeminent and is what draws the viewers eye. Of course in flag decorum the highest flag is the flag with the most honor.

3.) Since it is the State, and the humanist agenda it is pushing, which homeschoolers are struggling against, why does the flag have such a prominent place? Is there something of a hint here of wrapping the cross in the flag? Christians need to realize the dangers of reducing Christianity to a civil religion. The Cross is not Red, White, and Blue. Patriotism — love for country — in our current climate might better be represented by having a photo without a flag so prominently displayed.

4.) The danger that the photo might represent is to reinforce in people’s minds the centrality of the State. By combining this version of what might be called “Judeo-Christianity” with homeschooling what might end up being produced by homeschoolers is little homeschool Statists who are better Statists than the pagan children statists created by the Government schools since our homeschool Statists have become convinced that Christianity and Patriotism are two streams that flow together. Let us say it plainly. Our children, in this climate, ought not to be educated unaware of the designs of the current post Christian West as those designs are incarnated in the State. In point of fact, our children should be educated to know why the humanist American state, needs to be resisted.

During this graduation season what might we look for in homeschool graduates?

1.) Your children graduated knowing the words “catechism,” “confession,” or “creed.”

Whether you know it or not you have catechized your child, even if you have done so without a set catechism. The advantage of education your child with a set catechism (Heidelberg, Westminster, etc.) is that they will have a well grounded understanding in their undoubted catholic Christian faith. Children who are not catechized regarding their Christianity are typically (allowing for the occasional exception) not grounded in their faith and are apt to surrender their uninformed Christianity with the first gale wind of an opposing faith system.

2.) Your children know that all education is driven by some faith system consideration and is what it is because of the theology from which it flows.

3.) Your children know that Thomas Jefferson desired as the motto for the seal of this nation, “Rebellion to Tyrants is Obedience to God.”

4.) Your children know that none of our founding documents teach that this nation is “indivisible.”

5.) Your children make a connection between 1 million dead babies every year and the impact that reality should have on their “patriotism.”

6.) Your children are aware of the concept of “States Rights,” and understand that the States were originally intended to serve as check and balance to the Federal government.

7.) Your children are epistemologically self conscious and are on the road to becoming ever more so.

8.) When asked about “Calvin,” your children know the difference between “John Calvin,” and “Calvin Klein.”

First, Calvinism is the purest expression of the Christian faith and even if you disagree with Calvinism your children should be aware of how Calvinism has influenced all of Protestant Christianity.

Even if you dislike Reformed theology a good education would include information about Calvin since Calvin was considered by the world renowed German Historian Leopold Van Ranke to be “virtually the founder of America.” Historian George Bancroft could say of Calvinists, “The fanatic for Calvinism was a fanatic for liberty, and, in the moral warfare for freedom, his creed was his most faithful counselor and his never failing support. The Puritans … planted … the undying principles of Democratic freedom.” Should your child graduate clueless about the principles of Calvinism that informed both our Republican form of government as well as the Christian faith soil out of which that Republican form of government flowered your child is not educated.

9.) Your children were never offered the blue pill

Reality is not what we are fed by the major media outlets in this country. A complete education will make your child aware that if they want the truth they will have to dig beyond the mainstream publishing houses, media networks, and WORLD magazine. Truth can be found but it is not something that will be found without searching for it.

10.) Your children graduated realizing that many more Christians than Jews were slaughtered by 20th Century Tyrants

The biggest manipulation ploy of the second half of the 20th century is the constant reminder of the Jewish deaths during WW II. Those deaths were tragic and yet their numbers pale in comparison with the number of Christians who were slaughtered by Jews as they were key leaders in the Bolshevik revolution. In the Ukraine alone millions upon millions of Christian Kulaks were slaughtered by the Communists. The Christian Armenian were slaughtered by the Turks. The 20th century has been a blood bath for the martyrs of the Christian faith. Your children should know this by the time they hit 18.

11.) Your children realize that Democrats and Republicans are two wings of the same bird of prey.

Both of our major parties are working in concert towards the same end as designed by the New World Order.

When considering contemporary conservatism as embodied by the Republican party both parents and graduating seniors should be familiar with this quote.

This is a party which never conserves anything. Its history has been that it demurs to each aggression of the progressive party, and aims to save its credit by a respectable amount of growling, but always acquiesces at last in the innovation. What was the resisted novelty of yesterday is today one of the accepted principles of conservatism; it is now conservative only in affecting to resist the next innovation, which will tomorrow be forced upon its timidity and will be succeeded by some third revolution; to be denounced and then adopted in its turn. American conservatism is merely the shadow that follows Radicalism as it moves forward towards perdition. It remains behind it, but never retards it, and always advances near its leader. This pretended salt bath utterly lost its savor: wherewith shall it be salted? Its impotency is not hard, indeed, to explain. It is worthless because it is the conservatism of expediency only, and not of sturdy principle. It intends to risk nothing serious for the sake of the truth, and has no idea of being guilty of the folly of martyrdom. It always, when about to enter a protest, very blandly informs the wild beast whose path it essays to stop, that its “bark is worse than its bite,” and that it only means to save its manners by enacting its decent role of resistance. The only practical purpose which it now subserves in American politics is to give enough exercise to Radicalism to keep it “in wind,” and to prevent its becoming pursy and lazy from having nothing to whip. No doubt, after a few years, when women’s suffrage shall have become an accomplished fact, conservatism will tacitly admit it into its creed, and thenceforward plume itself upon its wise firmness in opposing with similar weapons the extreme of baby suffrage; and when that too shall have been won, it will be heard declaring that the integrity of the American Constitution requires at least the refusal of suffrage to asses. There it will assume, with great dignity, its final position.

~~R. L. Dabney. “Women’s Rights Women”

12.) And most important of all your children will know that God is King, and because His Kingdom is Spiritual it is therefore concrete and growing in history, and consequently in Him we live and move and have our being.

Marzui Attacks Eurocentrism

In the old days in Europe the cultural exclusivity was religious. There was a time at Oxford university one had to subscribe to the articles of the Church of England to be academically eligible. Harvard University was named after a Puritan minister in the 1630’s, was a church sponsored institution for two centuries. The problem at that time was not not Eurocentrism, it was Christocentrism. Harvard was culturally exclusive, but in a religious sense.

The politics of the quota system at American universities was originally intended to restrict the number of Jews admitted in favor of Christians — Christocentrism gone mad. There is still a lot of Christocentrism left at American universities, but most of the university life has been secularized. However, as the 20th century is coming to an end, we have reached yet another cultural frontier. Just as Harvard once had to try and shed off Christocentrism, all American campuses now must shed off excessive Eurocentrism….

Ali Mazrui
Professor — State University New York
Round Table Discussion — circa 1990

Here is the cat is let out of the bag.

1.) Note the reason is all American campuses must now shed off excessive Eurocentrism is precisely because in Eurocentrism one finds the Christocentrism that was previously sloughed off and yet remains expressed slightly in the culture that is Eurocentrism. This quote, from one of the enemies of the West, ties together for us in the most tightly connected fashion the connection in the minds of our enemies between the Christian faith and the White Anglo Saxon Christian and the culture that they built.

What this means of course is that the war being waged against the white man is being waged precisely because the white man was the carrier of the Christian faith — and yet still retains the slumbering remnant of Christianity in its cultural code. What people like Mazrui, Obango, Holder, and other epistemologically self conscious minorities == as well as far more self hating white people understand == is that if Eurocentrism can be finally destroyed then their previous attack to kill Christ will be largely successful. (Though they know that Christ can never be killed so they will be vigilant in each generation to do what must be done in order to keep Christ at bay. They can not succeed.)

Our enemies positively must destroy the White Anglo Saxon Christian Eurocentrism. It is a threat to all that they desire to build on the grave of the West and Christianity.

As an aside it might be asked where the origin of the self hatred of whites lies. The answer is simple. Self hating whites hate Christ and hate God’s moral law and anything of Christ that remains yet in their culture. As such they will, by way of multiculturalism and political correctness, make league with pagan minorities (most often cultural Marxist in their ideology) by ginning up past real and perceived minority grievances, in order to overthrow what remains of Christo-centrism and Euro-centrism. The real irony is when this is pursued in the Church all in the name of Christ. The real Christ will be murdered by a false Christ by self hating whites who would prefer civilizaitonal death than being ruled by Christ.

2.) When the universities favored Christians over Jews there was obviously an understanding that these united States was to be for Christians and be a Christian nation. Was there a reason why the universities at one time were careful to restrict the number of Jews?

3.) When Mazrui mentions that the universities became secularized and so moved away from Christocentrism there is an absolute necessity to understand that this move to the secular was in actuality a move towards anthropocentrism in any number of faith forms. In other words the centrism of Christianity in the universities was exchanged for the centrism of some other faith system. The idea of the “secular” is a myth.

4.) Like it or not Christianity and Christocentrism has been identified with the European and his Eurocentrism by our enemies. It is a convenient identification because by making this identification our enemies can attack us as “racists” when we defend the Christianity that made Europe, Europe when in point of fact we are “Christianists.” Well, if Christianist equals racist then let the whole world be covered with the success of the Gospel turning all men into racists as they are converted to Christianity.