AJ Derxson writes;
Romans 11 has precisely /nothing/ to do with how believers should legislate and govern if they are in positions of power – which is the normal subject matter of “Christian nationalism.”
BLMc Responds,
Remember, AJ, in all that follows, you started this by calling me a “Cultist.”
I am now all confounded AJ because the great theologian Gerharrdus Vos said that Romans 11 was about Christian Nationalism. Now I have to decide if I am supposed to believe you or believe Vos. Here is what Vos had to say on the relation of Romans 11 to Christian Nationalism;
“Romans 11:17, 19, with its “branches broken off” metaphor has frequently been viewed as proof of the relativity and changeability of election, and it is pointed out that at the end of vs. 23, the Gentile Christians are threatened with being cut off in case they do not continue in the kindness of God. But wrongly. Already this image of engrafting should have restrained such an explanation. This image is nowhere and never used of the implanting of an individual Christian, into the mystical body of Christ by regeneration. Rather, it signifies the reception of a racial line or national line into the dispensation of the covenant or their exclusion from it. This reception, of course, occurs by faith in the preached word, and to that extent, with this engrafting of a race or a nation, there is also connected the implanting of individuals into the body of Christ. The cutting off, of course, occurs by unbelief; not, however, by the unbelief of person who first believed, but solely by the remaining in unbelief of those who, by virtue of their belonging to the racial line, should have believed and were reckoned as believers. So, a rejection ( = multiple rejections) of an elect race is possible, without it being connected to a reprobation of elect believers. Certainly, however, the rejection of a race or nation involves at the same time the personal reprobation of a sequence of people. Nearly all the Israelites who are born and die between the rejection of Israel as a nation and the reception of Israel at the end times appear to belong to those reprobated. And the thread of Romans 11:22 (of being broken off) is not directed to the Gentile Christians as individual believers but to them considered racially.”
Geerhardus Vos
Dogmatic Theology Vol. 1 — 118
Now, AJ, I know this might be difficult for you but let’s connect the dots here. If God is electing nations that means those nations are Christian and if those elect nations are Christian then it seems past obvious that those Christian nations are going to be ruled in a Christian manner and the only way to rule in a Christian manner is to have an eye on God’s gracious legislative Law-Word however that might express itself in those various and sundry elect Christian nations.
I do apologize though AJ. I just assumed that a normally rational person could connect those dots without me holding their hand and tracing out the connection. It was stupid of me to assume that.
AJ Drexson wrote
Secondly, separate nations (including Israel) exist because of what happened at the Tower of Babel. It doesn’t follow that the current arrangement is God’s ideal or is permanent. Indeed, God’s intent in the Babel separation “is that they should seek after God, and perhaps feel their way toward Him and find Him” (Acts 17:27).
BLMc responds,
It may be the case that the separate nations arose because of Babel but we see in Acts 2 that God sanctifies Babel on the day of Pentecost as each nation heard the Gospel in their own tongue.
Second, God’s mystery long hidden was that the nations in their nations would come into the Kingdom (Eph. 3:6).
Third, we see in Revelation 21-22 that the Nations as Nations come into the new Jerusalem thus teaching that Nations even exist in the new Heavens and Earth.
Fourth, we have the OT teaching (Isaiah 2 and Micah 4) that the nations in their nations will come unto the Mountain of the Lord to be taught God’s Law.
Fifth, we have not only Vos’s take on Christian Nationalism, but another Theologian, Martin Wyngaarden, taught that the Nations would never disappear, contrary to your dumbass assertion;
“More than a dozen excellent commentaries could be mentioned that all interpret Israel as thus inclusive of Jew and Gentile, in this verse, — the Gentile adherents thus being merged with the covenant people of Israel, though each nationality remains distinct.”
“For, though Israel is frequently called Jehovah’s People, the work of his hands, his inheritance, yet these three epithets severally are applied not only to Israel, but also to Assyria and to Egypt: “Blessed be Egypt, my people, and Assyria, the work of my hands, and Israel, mine inheritance.” 19:25.
Thus the highest description of Jehovah’s covenant people is applied to Egypt, — “my people,” — showing that the Gentiles will share the covenant blessings, not less than Israel. Yet the several nationalities are here kept distinct, even when Gentiles share, in the covenant blessing, on a level of equality with Israel. Egypt, Assyria, and Israel are not nationally merged. And the same principles, that nationalities are not obliterated, by membership in the covenant, applies, of course, also in the New Testament dispensation.”
Martin Wyngaarden
The Future of the Kingdom in Prophecy and Fulfillment: A Study of the Scope of “Spiritualization” in Scripture — pp. 101-102.
And when it comes to Acts 17, you might consider also reading vs. 26 AJ;
26 And He has made from one [j]blood EVERY NATION of men to dwell on all the face of the earth, and has determined their pre-appointed times and the boundaries of their dwellings
Did you catch that AJ? God is the one who appointed the existence of Nations and NOTHING in Scripture suggests that they will eventually all bleed into one. In order for that idea to be accepted one has to go to U2’s Bono.
AJ Derxsen writes;
Which presupposes that ultimately, in a fully restored universe, there will no longer be nation-states. Because everyone in the New Cosmos will have “found” God – and thus the purpose of the Babel separation will have been fulfilled.
BLMc responds,
Do you read the Bible much AJ?
The Glory of the New Jerusalem
Revelation 21:22 But I saw no temple in it, for the Lord God Almighty and the Lamb are its temple. 23 The city had no need of the sun or of the moon to shine [l]in it, for the [m]glory of God illuminated it. The Lamb is its light. 24 And the NATIONS of those who are saved shall walk in its light, and the KINGS of the earth bring their glory and honor [o]into it. 25 Its gates shall not be shut at all by day (there shall be no night there). 26 And they (the KINGS of the various NATIONS ) shall bring the glory and the honor of the NATIONS to it.
22 And he showed me a [r]pure river of water of life, clear as crystal, proceeding from the throne of God and of the Lamb. 2 In the middle of its street, and on either side of the river, was the tree of life, which bore twelve fruits, each tree yielding its fruit every month. The leaves of the tree were for the healing of the NATIONS.
AJ Derxson tells us that with the eschaton there will be no more nation-states. God’s Word tells us that there will be Nations-States and even Kings in the eschaton.
Now, who should we believe?
“AJ Derxson tells us that with the eschaton there will be no more nation-states. ”
This sounds more like New Babylon than New Jerusalem.
The famous classical author Plutarch, in his work “Isis and Osiris” (that gave a philosophical interpretation of Eastern pagan religions) noted that Persian Zoroastrians had their own eschatological vision (most likely inherited from Babylon after the Persians had conquered it) with “unitarian” one-world ideal:
https://penelope.uchicago.edu/Thayer/E/Roman/Texts/Plutarch/Moralia/Isis_and_Osiris*/C.html#ref269
“But a destined time shall come when it is decreed that Areimanius, engaged in bringing on pestilence and famine, shall by these be utterly annihilated and shall disappear; and then shall the earth become a level plain, and there shall be one manner of life and one form of government for a blessed people who shall all speak one tongue.”
You berate and mock AJ, gloat about your superiority in understanding, and praise yourself for your victory over him, a victory which you seem to believe is absolute. I may not understand the goal you are trying to achieve with your abrasive nature, but if by some small chance your goal had anything to do with actually convincing AJ of anything, I question your tact.
I’m not trying to convince AJ of anything. That certainly is not my goal. My job is not to build bridges of understanding. My job is to enter into his worldview and break up his worldview furniture. Hopefully, one consequence of that is people looking on will see the wreckage and say, “Dude, I don’t want to go there.”
If AJ wises up that is just bonus gravy but my wising up of AJ certainly is not my goal.
So my tact is all good.
But thanks for your concern.
Puzzling. Where is the original conversation with Derxsen?
I honestly don’t remember. There is an ocean of stupid out there. I don’t remember where I encounter all of its expressions.