If Hart’s Scholarship Is Anything Like His Internet Interaction — Katy Bar The Door

Darryl G. Hart to Mark Van Der Molen:

Mark, you mean the overture written by some who accused Westminster California of Pelagianism?

(Of course, Hart thinks that it is absurd to suggest that Westminster California might be guilty of Pelagianism, so this is his attempt to portray the authors of the overture as kooks.)

Mark responds to DGH:

Darryl, would you supply some evidence that some ministers made this accusation?

(Rather than rushing to judgment, Mark asks Hart for the evidence.)

DGH to Mark:

Mark, are you looking for more evidence or are you taken aback that this charge would be made? I’m reluctant to give you another flawed source to quote against ministers in your denomination.

Anyway, I thought you knew more about the criticisms than I did.

(Notice that initially Hart defers. Of course, he gives a reason for his deferral, but see what happens.)

Mark to DGH:

No, Darryl, it’s neither of those things.

To put it in your terms, I’m just calling your bluff.

So where’s your evidence of an OPC minister accusing WSC of Pelagianism?

(Attorney Van Der Molen clarifies his request.)

DGH to Mark:

Mark, I thought you thought I didn’t know what was going on in the OPC. Why don’t you stick to the URC and leave Presbyterianism to us Gentiles?

Here is an excerpt from the lengthy Kerux (http://www.kerux.com/pdf/Kerux.24.03.pdf) review of The Law Is Not of Faith

(it culminates a lengthy introduction to a bloated review that puts the entire book in the context of coming down on the wrong side of Augustine vs. Pelagius):

“This is unwitting Pelagianism (calling it “typological” does not alter its essential and substantial character) and Augustinian Calvinists are correct to see it as a threat to sola gratia as Augustine saw it 1600 years ago.”

I guess this just proves that no one reads Kerux.

Of course, saying that a particular author is committing unwitting Pelagianism is quite a bit different, from having “accused Westminster California of Pelagianism,” but wait – there’s more!

Mark to DGH:

Darryl, I asked for evidence that the authors of the overture I mentioned had accused WSC of Pelagianism.

You answer with the Kerux article who argued that theology that says sinners can “merit” God’s reward is “unwitting” Pelagianism.

None of the authors of the Kerux article were authors of the overture.

So, where’s the evidence?

(Mark notices the key problem with Hart’s evidence. Hart’s evidence isn’t from the pen of one of the authors that Hart was defaming.)

Mark continuing:

For the readers’ {and Darryl’s} benefit, here’s the overture:

http://theaquilareport.com/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=5975:overture-proposed-to-opc-presbytery-seeks-study-on-republication-of-the-covenant-of-works-in-the-mosaic-covenant&catid=50:churches&Itemid=133

Notice that Mark provides evidence.

DGH to Mark:

Mark, so let me get this straight. WSC is guilty of infidelity for the slightest infraction of departure from the glories of neo-Calvinism. But if an overture originates from a presbytery where a seminary is located whose founder has a journal that makes complaints about a book similar to those of the overture, it’s only coincidence?

Once again, your slipperiness is astounding. Just be honest and above board in your disagreements. Make a case that this view is outside the standards of our churches. Don’t simply traffic in innuendo.

At least the 2kers are upfront about their disagreements. Your complaint seems to be no more than they disagree with what you’ve always thought. I wonder where you would have come down on Calvin and Luther.

————————–

Rather than apologizing for his defamation, Hart accuses and defames Mark of “slipperiness” and suggests that Mark is dishonest. Then, without batting an eye, Hart accuses and defames Mark, suggesting that he not “simply traffic in innuendo.”

One wonders whether Hart’s presbytery is aware that this is how Hart acts on the Internet.

________________

All this from a exchange at Green Baggins.

This post cut and pasted from Turretin Fan’s Blog.

Some Genocides Get More Publicity Then Other Genocides

“Revealing the truth about the Allies’ role in supporting Stalin and his crimes would undermine the whole bogus mythology of World War II …

Those who considered the Jewish Holocaust a unique historical crime were not eager to bring attention to Stalin’s genocide lest it diminish or dilute their own people’s suffering….

Then he (Solzhenitsyn) published a book about a hitherto taboo subject, the prominent role of Russian Jews in the Communist party and secret police. The book provoked a storm of criticism in North America…”

Eric Margolis – Journalist
http://www.bigeye.com/fc081108.htm

Quick… how many blockbuster films can you name that chronicle holocaust or genocide of a people group other than the Jews? Now compare that to the films made that chronicle the holocaust and genocide of the Jews.

What do you suppose counts for the disparity?

Most people do not know that the estimate is that 45,000,000 Christians have been martyred in the twentieth century. How many films have you seen that have made you sympathize with the plight of Christians?

Here it is in as plain as language as possible. One has to wonder if the constant published theme of Jewish suffering is a means of manipulating the guilt of the West. One wonders if it is part of the same tactic that is used to beat down the Christian character and conscience of the West in order to supplant it with a character and conscience that is not particularly Christian.

I’m not interested in a contest to see who can be more victimized than thou. I’m interested in Christians not being harangued to the point that they no longer believe that Western culture historically has been noble, heroic, and Christ honoring.

The Eclipse Of Thought — Quote From Ellul’s Propaganda

“(When examining propaganda) we shall stress the dissociation between thought and action, which seems to us one of the most disturbing facts of our time. Nowadays, man acts without thinking, and in turn his thought can no longer be translated into action. Thinking has become a superfluous exercise, without reference to reality; it is purely internal, without compelling force, more or less a game. It is a literature’s domain; and I am not referring solely to ‘intellectual; thought, but to all thought, with concerns work or politics or family life. In sum, thought and reflection have been rendered thoroughly pointless by the circumstances in which modern man lives and acts. He does not need to think in order to act; his action is determined by the techniques he uses and by the sociological conditions. He acts without really wanting to, without ever reflecting on the meaning of or reason for his actions. This situation is the result of the whole evolution of our society. The schools, the press, and the social pragamatism are just as responsible for this as the psychotechnics, the modern political structure, and the obsession with productivity. But the two decisive factors are the mechanization of work and propaganda.

The mechanization of work is based on entirely on dissociation: those who think, establish the schedules, or set the norms, never act — and those who act must do so according to rules, patterns and plans imposed on them from outside. Above all they must not reflect on their actions. They can not do so anyhow, because of the speed with which they work. The modern ideal appears to be a reduction of action to complete automatism. This is considered to be a great benefit to the worker, who can dream or think of ‘other things’ while working. But this dissociation, which lasts eight hours a day, must necessarily affect all the rest of behaviour.

The other element that plays a decisive role in this connection is propaganda. Remember that propaganda seeks to induce action, adherence, and participation — with as little thought as possible. According to progaganda, it is useless, even harnful for man to think; thinking prevents him from acting with the required righteousness and simplicity. Action muct come directly from the depths of the unconcious; it must release tension, become a reflex. This presumes that thought unfolds on an entirely unreal level, that it never engages in political decision. And this is in fact so. No political thought that is at all conherent or distinct can possibly be applied. What man thinks either is totally without effect or must remain unsaid. This is the basic condition of the political organization of the modern world, and progapganda is the instrument to attain this effect. An example that show the radical devaluation of thought is the transformation of words in propaganda; there, language, the instrument of the mind, becomes ‘pure sound,’ a symbol directly evoking feelings and reflexes. This is one of the most serious dissociations that progapanda causes. There is another: the dissociation betwen the verbal universe, in which propaganda makes us live, and reality. Propaganda sometimes deliberately separates from man’s real world the verbal world that it creates; it then tends to destory man’s conscience.”

Jaques Ellul
Propaganda — The Formation Of Men’s Attitudes
pg. 179-181

Rev. McAtee Contra Rev. Stellman — Rev. McAtee Contra R2K (Again) — Part II

Rev. Stellman writes,

What, then, of the dominion mandate?

We read in Psalm 8 a divine commentary on Genesis 1:28, one in which David speaks of man thus:

You have made him a little lower than the angels and crowned him with glory and honor. You have given him dominion over the works of your hands; you have put all things under his feet… (vv. 5-6).

Sounds great, right? It sounds like the dominion mandate is still in force, reiterated in all its prelapsarian glory. But again, we need to keep reading. When we come to Hebrews 2, which is a commentary on Psalm 8 (which is a commentary on Genesis 1), we see a truly Christocentric interpretation of the dominion mandate. According to the writer,
Now in putting everything in subjection to [man], [God] left nothing outside his control. At present, we do not yet see everything in subjection to him. But we see Him who for a little while was made lower than the angels, namely Jesus, crowned with glory and honor because of the suffering of death, so that by the grace of God he might taste death for everyone (vv. 8b-9).

Talk about an already/not yet hermeneutic! According to the author here, there is a promise to man of dominion that is still outstanding and unfulfilled, one which we do “not yet see.” But what do we see? “We see Jesus” who, like Adam, was made for a litte while lower than the angels. He is the One who exercises dominion, the One to whom has been given all authority in heaven and on earth. Will we, the men and women whom Jesus represented and whose nature he assumed, ever get to share in this dominion? Indeed we will, but the writer to the Hebrews insists that this dominion is “not yet.” Immediately preceding the quotation from Psalm 8, Hebrews says:

Now it was not to angels that God subjected the world to come, of which we are speaking (v. 5).

The implication is that though this present fallen order is not under man’s control, the world to come will be. The conclusion, then, is clear: The dominion mandate of Genesis 1 has not been revoked, but due to the Fall, man cannot by his own cultural labors usher in the power and glory of the kingdom like Adam could have. Rather, this promise is now reformulated Christocentrically, with Jesus experiencing “the dominion of the resurrection” now, as demonstrated in his ascension to the Father’s right hand. We, on the other hand, do not see these things with our eyes, but only embrace them by faith and hopeful cross-bearing. The day will come, however, when faith will give way to sight and the cross will give way to glory. On that day, and not before, “the kingdom of this world will become the kingdom of our Lord and of his Christ,” and we will reign with him forever and ever.

1.) Rev. Stellman’s point is that because Christ reigns from heaven the Church, as organism, is not to seek to extend the Crown Rights of King Jesus over every area of life. In order to reign in this fashion the Church, as organism, has to wait until Christ’s return in order to share in the Lord Christ’s dominion.

And yet, Hebrews 11, which Rev. Stellman does not allude to, tells us that we are to emulate the faith of the Old Testament saints. And some of the faith of those OT saints we are to emulate was of such a character that,

32 And what more shall I say? For time would fail me to tell of Gideon, Barak, Samson, Jephthah, of David and Samuel and the prophets— 33 who through faith conquered kingdoms, enforced justice, obtained promises, stopped the mouths of lions, 34 quenched the power of fire, escaped the edge of the sword, were made strong out of weakness, became mighty in war, put foreign armies to flight.

These OT saints, who earlier in the chapter were described as “strangers and exiles on the earth,” still had the character of faith to conquer Kingdoms, and the quality of the OT Saints faith is what is being held up to the Hebrews as faith to emulate. Apparently the writer of Hebrews was not a advocate of R2K “theology,” for if he were he never never would have included examples of Faith for these NT saints to emulate that included “conquering Kingdoms.” Apparently the inspired writer didn’t get Rev. Stellman’s memo that the NT saints are not to share in Christ’s dominion until He returns.

2.) Rev. Stellman’s analysis likewise falters by the fact that he conveniently leaves out other divinely inspired commentary on Psalm 8. In I Corinthians 15 St. Paul gives us some commentary that makes hash of Rev. Stellman’s Klinean amillennial theorizing.

22 “For as in Adam all die, so also in Christ shall all be made alive. 23 But each in his own order: Christ the firstfruits, then at his coming those who belong to Christ. 24 Then comes the end, when he delivers the kingdom to God the Father after destroying every rule and every authority and power. 25 For he must reign until he has put all his enemies under his feet. 26 The last enemy to be destroyed is death. 27 For “God[c] has put all things in subjection under his feet.”

Paul’s presentation of the postmillennial kingdom in 1 Corinthians 15:20-27 overturns all the innovative commentary offered by Rev. Stellman. This clear Scriptural testimony reminds us that, contrary to the teaching offered in the blockquote above, that we should anticipate Christ’s, in principle already accomplished gospel triumph as it unfolds in history.

The teaching here in I Corinthians 15 forces us to take the strongest exception to Rev. Stellman’s handling of Hebrews 8 for what I Corinthians 15 teaches is that which is to precede the conclusion of history is not the gloom and despair found in the amillennial report but rather in vs. 24 we read, “the end will come, when he hands over the kingdom to God the Father.” The end of earth history is brought about “whenever” (literally) Christ “delivers up” the triumphant kingdom to the Father.

Dr. Ken Gentry helps us out with the Greek construction of I Corinthians 15,

In the construction before us the “delivering up” of the kingdom must occur in conjunction with “the end.” The Greek for “delivers up” here is (paradidoi), which is a verb in the present tense and subjunctive mode. When the word translated “when” or “whenever” (hotan) is followed by the present subjunctive (as here), it indicates a present contingency that occurs in conjunction with the main clause, which is “then comes the end.” Here the contingent factor is in regard to the date of the “end”: “whenever” it may be that he delivers up the kingdom, then the end will come.

Associated with the predestined end here is the prophecy that the kingdom of Christ will be delivered up to the Father. But this occurs only “when he has destroyed all dominion, authority and power.” In the Greek text the hotan (“when”) is here followed by the aorist subjunctive, katargese. This construction indicates that the action of this subordinate clause precedes the action of the main clause. The phrase here should be translated: “after he had destroyed all dominion, authority and power.”

So, in summarizing what the exegesis is teaching us, we note that the “end” is dependent. The “end” is dependent upon whenever the Lord Christ delivers up the Kingdom to the Father. However, this only occurs “after he has destroyed all dominion, authority and power.” Consequently, “the end” will not occur, Christ will not turn the kingdom over to the Father, until after he has abolished his opposition. Here is the certain hope of postmillennialism!

Listening to Dr. Ken Gentry again,

As we continue to vs. 25 of I Corinthians 15 we read, “he must reign until he has put all his enemies under his feet.” Here the present infinitive translated “reign” indicates the continuance of a reign then in progress. References elsewhere to the Psalm 110 passage specifically mention his sitting at God’s right hand. Sitting at the right hand entails active ruling and reigning, not passive resignation. he is now actively “the ruler over the kings of the earth” who “has made us kings and priests to his God and Father, to Him be glory and dominion forever and ever” (Rev. 1:5).

Here in 1 Corinthians 15:25 we learn that he must continue to reign, he must continue to put his enemies under his feet—but until when? The answer is identical to that which has already been concluded: it is expected before the end of history. Earlier it was awaiting the abolishing of all rule, authority and power; here it delayed until “he has put all his enemies under his feet.” The repetition of the expectation of his sure conquest before the end is significant. Furthermore, the last enemy that will be subdued is death, which is subdued in conjunction with the Resurrection that occurs at his coming. But the subduing of his other enemies occurs before this, before the Resurrection.

In verse 27 it is clear that he has the title to rule, for the Father “has put everything under his feet.” This is the Pauline expression (borrowed from Psa. 8:6) that is equivalent to Christ’s declaration that “all authority has been given Me.” Christ has the promise of victory and he has the right to victory. Psalm 110, especially as expounded by Paul in 1 Corinthians 15, shows he will have the historical, pre-consummation victory as his own before his coming.

So, we see here that if we are to listen to all the New Testament commentary on Psalm 8:6 and not just the commentary that Rev. Stellman would direct our attention to, we can not conclude that there the Dominion mandate is a “Spiritual” dominion, or that it is a Dominion Christ has no intent of bring to bear until His return. Rev. Stellman’s theology is all “not yet,” and while we must surely avoid the opposite error of having a theology that is all “now,” we can surely see that all of Scripture does not allow us the retreatist mindset that Rev. Stellman’s teaching inculcates in God’s people who take it seriously.

3.) Rev. Stellman seems to be on the verge of denying the Unio Christi. God has placed all things under the feet of Christ. We (the church) are the body of Christ and the physical presence of Christ on earth. In other words we are the feet, connected to the Head, under which all things have been placed. To suggest that the head (Christ) has Dominion without His body taking any part in that Dominion strikes me as a casting asunder what God has placed together. Now, once again, it would be a mistake to embrace a eschatology that is too over-realized but it is just as grievous an error to embrace a eschatology that is too under-realized. Remember, one of the ways that the new covenant is distinguished from the old covenant is that in the old covenant the “not yet” of the “now, not yet” was front-loaded because the King and the Kingdom had not yet come. However, with the coming of King Christ, and with His ascension to rule we are now living in a covenant that is front loaded with the “now.” Now, certainly a “not yet” remains but compared to the Old and worse covenant it is a retiring “not yet.” One of my problems with the Escondido “Theologians” is that they seem to live in the old and worse covenant with their front loaded “not yet” pessimism. The Lord Christ has bound the strong man. The Lord Christ pronounced “It is Finished.” The Lord Christ has ascended on High and is seated the right hand of the Father in the heavenly places, 21 far above all rule and authority and power and dominion, and above every name that is named, not only in this age but also in the one to come. 22 And he put all things under his feet (note the Psalm 8 commentary again) and gave him as head over all things to the church, 23 which is his body (note the unio Christi theme again), the fullness of him who fills all in all.

4.) We see this heavy gloom and doom “not yet” theology in Rev. Stellman’s statement, The implication is that though this present fallen order is not under man’s control the world to come will be.”

Remember, the point that Rev. Stellman is laboring to prove is that Redeemed man should not have dominion, nor should expect to have dominion, so when Rev. Stellman says the above italicized statement what he is telling us is, by way of logical necessity, that non-redeemed man will have dominion. Look, Dominion is an inescapable category. Either the redeemed will have it, or the Christ haters will have it. There is no neutrality. You can not make Dominion go away by pretending there is a neutral common realm where nobody and / or everybody will have dominion. All the Escondidoists have to do is open their eyes. Is it not self evident (a little “Natural Law” lingo there for my R2K fans) that currently Dominion is being exercised by the Christ haters in the common realm?

So, what Rev. Stellman does is he concedes that the “age to come” ushered in by our Lord Christ is to have no impact in his “common realm” — a realm that is characterized in the Scripture as “this present wicked age.” This is a very odd stance for a minister of the Gospel to advance.

5.) When Rev. Stellman writes, “man cannot by his own cultural labors usher in the power and glory of the kingdom like Adam could have,” he does those who oppose him a disservice for none of us believe that man can by his own cultural labors usher in the power and glory of the Kingdom like Adam could have.” All of us who oppose R2K Escondido Theology believe that the Spirit of God ushers in the already present in principle Kingdom in its finality as men who are filled with the Spirit of God increasingly bring all things into submission to God’s revelation. It is not man, in his own power who usher’s in the power and glory of the Kingdom but man as he humbly submits to God’s instruction as he is filled by the Spirit of the living God to do so. There is no humanism in those who oppose Rev. Stellman.

6.) Rev. Stellman gives us a “tell” in his theology when he writes, “On that day, and not before, “the kingdom of this world will become the kingdom of our Lord and of his Christ,” and we will reign with him forever and ever/”

This is classic Klinean amillennialism. Rev. Stellman has told us bluntly and with the full force of his expression that the Kingdom of God is not present in this world. Oh, sure, it might be present in the Church, but the Kingdom that Christ brought is not and never will be invading this present wicked age. In my way of thinking that is a breath-taking assertion and explains why the R2K lads are forever railing against notions of “Christian Education,” “Christian Families,” “Christian Magistrates,” or “Christian culture.” It is their conviction that these areas, being non-redemptive in definition can not be affected by the impact of the “age to come” on these realities as they exist in this present wicked age.

Besides what I’ve covered in Parts I & II of McAtee Contra Stellman, what Rev. Stellman has written is something I fully agree with.

Conversation On R2K, McAtee contra Stellman — Part I

R2K Aficionado Rev. Stellman writes,

“I agree that God told Adam to exercise dominion over creation, and I agree that Adam’s dominion-taking would have helped usher in God’s eternal kingdom, a kingdom which would have brought with it eternal life and Sabbath rest for Adam and his posterity. But where many go wrong, in my view, is in the fact that they seem to stop reading at Genesis 1.

After the Fall, God tells man that the elements of prelapsarian life, such as marriage, childbearing, and labor are to continue on, albeit in a context of curse. In a word, these aspects of life will now be perverted to reflect the curse sanction that God had pronounced on creation due to Adam’s rebellion. Marriage will now be a power-struggle, childbirth will now be painful, and bread will now be produced through sweat and an uncooperative earth. The same is true of the dominion mandate.”

Bret responds,

1.) Stellman seems to see no progress of Redemption between the Covenant of Grace before Christ ushered in the Kingdom and the Covenant of Grace after Christ ushered in the Kingdom. In Rev. Stellman’s thinking the “not yet,” of the “now, not yet,” is front loaded in both covenants. With the coming of Christ, who now has Dominion, the capacity of God’s people is not enhanced in their dominion taking activity even though we have the Spirit in order to, with earnest purpose, live according to all the commandments of God. Instead, even though the Kingdom has now come in Christ Rev. Stellman tells us that the thing that is most important about our existence is that we live in the context of the curse.

2.) Rev. Stellman, like all R2K practitioners is afflicted with amillennialitis. Rev. Stellman presupposes that we can not have dominion because good never excels over evil in history and as such, voila, he finds in Scripture that God’s people can not have dominion because good never excels over evil in history. When engaging with R2K types one must always keep before them their rabidly pessimistic eschatology. That pessimistic theology drives the rest of their “theology.”

3.) To hear Rev. Stellman tell it, all Christian marriages are disappointments as Christian men and women are constantly at each other’s throats. All babies are only children as the pain mothers have in childbirth make them resolve to never have another child. All vegetables are grown in a desert. Yes, we continue to struggle against the reality of our fallen world and our own fallen-ness but none of that negates the call to take godly dominion.

4.) The main problem is that while God pronounced the curse on our parents that Rev. Stellman notes, God never in that pronounced curse says, “And Cursed be you for in the day you ate of the fruit thou dids’t give up being a dominion bearing agent as you struggle in the context of the curse.” So, when Rev. Stellman says, “the same is true of the dominion mandate,” he is both adding to the text and subtracting from the text by voiding God’s clear command. The Scripture does not have good things to say about those who add to, or subtract from, the text.

Rev. Stellman presses on,

“The dominion motif comes to the fore again after the flood, only now Noah is to practice his mastery over creation in the context of a covenant that is not redemptive but common, a covenant made “between Me and you and every living creature that is with you, for all future generations” (Gen. 9:1-17). As shown by the inauguration of the kingdom of man in Genesis 4, the cultural work of human hands is valuable for building a temporal, common kingdom, but due to the Fall, our cultural endeavors cannot bring about the kingdom of Christ (a kingdom which Jesus said “is not of this world”).”

1.) Note here the propensity in all R2K “Theologians” to divide “cult,” from “culture,” as if culture has no direct and intimate relation to cult. R2K advocates are forever calling for a “common culture” as if a common culture is not the consequence of the people who are sharing a common culture embracing a “common cult.” A common culture can only happen among people who embrace a common cult. Different peoples living in one social order embracing different cults always produce culture wars, which make the common realm anything but common. This severing of cult from culture is perhaps one of the most dreadful errors of R2K.

2.) Rev. Stellman’s reading of Gen. 9 is innovative to Dr. Meredith Kline. Scripture never says that the dominion mandate of Gen. 1:28 and the re-capitulation of it to Noah in Genesis 9 are divided the way the disciples of Kline insist. It is just as possible to read Gen. 9 as Noah coming through the flood to a new garden existence and as a type of second Adam he is given the earth and as God’s image bearer he is told to have dominion. Scripture never says that the dominion mandate of Genesis 1:28 and the dominion mandate of Genesis 9 are anything but the same command given at two different times.

3.) Actually, it is easier to make the argument that the “Great Commission,” of Matthew 28 is a re-articulation of the dominion mandates of Genesis 1:28 and Genesis 9 then it is to argue that Gen. 1 and Gen 9 are to be divided the way the disciples of Kline would have us believe. In Matthew 28 dominion is advanced over all the world by making disciples and by teaching men to observe all things that Christ has commanded. Certainly success in the Great Commission would lead to the complete godly dominion over all the earth that all Biblical Christians anticipate before Christ returns.

4.) “‘My kingdom is not of [ek: out from] this world,’” is a statement about the source — not the nature — of His reign, as the epexegetical ending of the verse makes obvious: ‘My kingdom is not from here [enteuthen].’ The teaching is not that Christ’s kingdom is wholly otherworldly, but rather that it originates with God Himself (not any power or authority found in creation.”

Dr. Greg Bahnsen
God & Politics — pg. 27

B. F. Wescott speaking of John 18:36 could comment,

“Yet He did claim a sovereignty, a sovereignty of which the spring and the source was not of earth but of heaven. My Kingdom is not of this world (means it) does not derive its origin or its support from earthly sources.”

The Gospel According To John — pg. 260

John 18:36 along with Matthew 22:15-22 are two of the passages that are often put forth as defeaters for the comprehensive sovereignty of the Lord Jesus over this world. Bahnsen clearly shows here, quite in agreement with the Greek scholar B. F. Westcott, that God’s Kingdom, as it manifests itself in this world, is energized by a source outside this world. This is important to emphasize because many people read John 18:36 as proof that the Kingdom of Jesus does not and should not express itself in this world. Often this verse is appealed to in order to prove that God’s Kingdom is only “spiritual” and as such Christians shouldn’t be concerned about what are perceived as “non-spiritual” realms. Support for such thinking, if there is any, must come from passages other than John 18:36.

What we get from some contemporary Calvinists, is the quote of Christ telling Pilate that ‘His Kingdom is not of this World,’ as if that is to end all conversation on the Lordship of Christ over all cultural endeavors. What is forgotten is the way that John often uses the word ‘World.’ John often uses the word ‘World’ with a sinister significance to communicate a disordered reality in grip of the Devil set in opposition to God. If that is the way that the word ‘world’ is being used in John 18:36 then we can understand why Jesus would say that His Kingdom ‘was not of this world.’ The Kingdom of Jesus will topple the Kingdoms of this disordered world changing them to be the Kingdoms of His ordered world, but it won’t be done by the disordered methodology of this World and so Jesus can say, “My Kingdom is not of this World.” Hopefully, we can see that such a statement doesn’t mean that Christ’s Kingdom has no effect in this world or that Christ’s Kingdom can’t overcome the world.

John 18:36 is often appealed to in order to prove that the Kingdom of God is a private individual spiritual personal reality that does not impinge on public square practice(s) of peoples or nations corporately considered. Those who appeal to John 18:36 in this way are prone thus to insist that God’s Word doesn’t speak to the public square practice(s) of peoples or nations since such an appeal (according to this thinking) would be an attempt to wrongly make God’s Kingdom of this world.

The problem with this though is it that it is a misreading of the passage. When Jesus say’s “My Kingdom is not of this world,” his use of the word “world” here is not spatial. Jesus is not saying that His Kingdom does not impact planet earth. What Jesus is saying is that His Kingdom does not find its source of authority from the world as it lies in Adam.

Jesus brings a Kingdom to this world that is in antithetical opposition to the Kingdom of Satan that presently characterizes this world in this present wicked age. The Kingdom that Jesus brings has its source of authority in His Father’s Word. As a result of Christ bringing His Kingdom w/ His advent there are two Kingdoms that are vying for supremacy on planet earth. Postmillennialism teaches that the Kingdom of the “age to come” that characterizes Christ’s present Kingdom will be victorious in this present spatial world that is characterized by “this present wicked age,” precisely because, in principle, Christ’s Kingdom is already victorious in this present spatial world.

All nations will bow to Jesus and all kings will serve him and his mustard seed kingdom will grow to become the largest plant in the garden with the nation-birds finding rest in its branches. His kingdom is the stone which crushed the kingdoms of men in Daniel 2 and which is growing to become a mountain-empire which fills the whole earth, until all His enemies are made His footstool.

Because Christ’s Kingdom is victorious on this planet His Kingdom extends beyond the personal private individual realm and so impacts the public square. Another way to say that would be precisely because Christ’s Kingdom continues to be populated by a swarming host of individuals those individuals take that Kingdom that has overcome them and in turn overcome all that they touch with the Kingdom.

Dr. Geehardus Vos was not a postmillennialist but some of the things he taught captures what I am trying to communicate regarding Christ’s Kingdom while at the same time delineating Darryl’s misconceptions. Vos wrote,

“The kingdom means the renewal of the world through the introduction of supernatural forces.” (page 192)

“The thought of the kingdom of God implies the subjection of the entire range of human life in all its forms and spheres to the ends of religion. The kingdom reminds us of the absoluteness, the pervasiveness, the unrestricted dominion, which of right belong to all true religion. It proclaims that religion, and religion alone, can act as the supreme unifying, centralizing factor in the life of man, as that which binds all together and perfects all by leading it to its final goal in the service of God.” (page 194)

Geerhardus Vos
The Teaching of Jesus Concerning the Kingdom of God and the Church

So, what Christ was saying to Pilate when He said “My Kingdom is not of this world” was “My kingdom does not gain it’s authority from Rome or the Sanhedrin. My authority comes from on high.” Pilate understood this. The irony is that the pagan tyrant understood, but Christians like Rev. Stellman expressly insist that it doesn’t mean that today. So the authority of Christ’s kingdom is not of this world, but nonetheless, the kingdom has invaded this civil realm, the family realm, law realm, economics realm, and every other realm you can think of for “the earth is the Lord’s and the fullness thereof.” Every aspect of our social order is touched by the kingdom of God.