“I have a friend in Hollywood. He is an actor. He is a well known actor. He has work. He strongly supports President Trump. He’s a real patriot. He just asked me to be sure that I don’t tell anybody (that he supports Trump) because of the system.”
Roger Stone
Interview with Robert Davi
I am running this quote not in connection with the political aspect but rather with the reality of the fear that people have in connection with their putative convictions. I say, “putative” because how much of a conviction can someone hold who is ashamed of that conviction, or fearful of what would happen to them should their conviction be known?
I have had, as a minister, on more than one occasion have had people speak to me the same kind of idea that Roger Stone had spoken to him by his Hollywood actor friend. More than once I’ve had people say something like, “I agree with you but I can’t be associated with you because it would put my career in danger”, or “I would lose my friends,” or “my family wouldn’t understand,” or “agreeing with you publicly would make it hard on my children.” Another version of this is, “I agree with you but you make the issue at hand far more important than it really is.” Usually, such statements circle around Theonomy, or Kinism, or my views on Government schooling.
I can be very bi-polar about my response to this. On one hand I understand the necessity sometimes to play one’s cards close to the breast. There are times when one keeps the false flag flying and doesn’t raise the Jolly Roger to let everyone know you’re a pirate. I, myself, have, in the past, played the “clever to protect myself” game. I genuinely understand the more than a few ministers who correspond to me telling me that they agree with my Kinism but they dare not let Kinism come from the pulpit or in their online writings — and that even though they agree it is a Biblical doctrine. The price to be paid by especially clergy is a high price to be paid. It means very possibly the end of their career, the inability to provide for their family, and the hatred of countless numbers of dumb people (i.e. — the Normies).
So, I understand the sentiment captured in the opening quote. And I get people’s fears. I myself live with those fears daily.
But at some point it is my conviction that people have to rise above these natural fears because until people in the shadows come out and nail their flags to the mast, the depredations of our egalitarian culture, our lawlessness, and our thinking destroying habits is going to destroy us, first as a visible church, and then as a people. If we will not stand up in favor of Kinism, in opposition to government schooling, and in opposition to the prevalent opposition to God’s law then we will disappear as a people and our children and grandchildren will be the victims of what too often is nothing but cowardice dressed up in the evening clothes of personal pragmatism and an egocentric self protection.
Jesus spoke about the necessity of taking up the cross, and denying one’s self. The writer to the Hebrews reminds his recipients not to give up on Christianity because of the difficulties they were facing by embracing Christianity, reminding them, “you have not yet resisted unto the point of blood.” Bunyan’s “Pilgrim’s Progess” is all about the theme of the winning through the difficulties of following Christ. It was not about the theme of avoiding the difficulties of following Christ.
I can hear now the potential protests. “But those issues and those types of issues are not really hills to die on. They are not the issues upon which Christianity pivots.” It’s hard to believe that someone would argue this way given how government schools are brainwashing our children against Christianity, and given how our culture (and Church) is manifestly doing everything it can to evade championing God’s law, and given the egalitarianism that has now gone so far as to seek to normalize the most aberrant of behaviors. This egalitarianism did not start with the transgenderism that we are embracing as a culture now but started far further up on what turned out to be the slippery slope of all slippery slopes.
And yet people are frightened. So frightened that even some of them don’t want to it to be publicly known that they embrace what Trump symbolically stands for. (Admission … I like Trump as a symbol, but I do not think the man matches the symbol and so will not be voting for Trump.) However, fear, is no reason to not play the man and come forward consistent with one’s “secret convictions.”
Here I am in the middle. Being frightened myself I get that people are scared. However, the whole idea of courage is the ability to stand even in spite of legitimate fears.
I hope, that in the near future, Roger Stone’s Hollywood friend can have enough courage to come out of the closet and let it be known he is done being ashamed of his convictions, and that regardless of the cost.
Calvin wrote under a pen name, many Reformers did, many of the American colonial founders did as well. Lots of people use aliases on the internet in the age of cancel culture. It’s not always because of cowardice or being “ashamed” of a controversial view. Whistleblowers especially.
I understand that and sympathize.
My point is, is that if people keep self censoring publicly then the issue is never going to win the day.
Being anonymous is certainly an option in some cases but victory can not be had unless more than a few people tack their colors to the mast.
And in some of the cases I know of it has been an issue of cowardice and being ashamed.
It’s hard to say for certain when the wind shifts. It is indeed very circumstantial. Many remain muted until they sense critical mass has been achieved. In 1987, if an East German vandalized the Berlin Wall, they would be executed. If they did it on Nov 9, 1989 they would be making history. IHMO, we need to be about building until that critical mass is reached. And that means going easy on some who sympathize but wince at the thought of being identified with “extremists”. It is well know that only 3% were willing to be identified with the cause for American independence. Probably most were paralyzed by fear into inaction. And the normies were the tory loyalists. But once the chemical reaction was set in motion with the “shot heard ’round the world”, ignition took place because 3% was all the critical mass that was needed to persuade the paralyzed mushy middle into taking a side. So we should be bold in our rhetoric and charitable towards those in the middle. When “critical mass” is achieved is known only to God, but when the scales tip, everyone will sense it. Communism fell in a flash. Cyrus issued his decree and that was the end of the captivity. We are just creatures on God’s stage.
This is a fair response.
However, the wind will never shift if more and more people don’t come out of their foxholes.
This is not a new thing:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nicodemite
“The term was apparently introduced by John Calvin (1509–1564) in 1544 in his Excuse à messieurs les Nicodemites.[7]”
fascinating
Could it be possible that instead of what you view as cowardice, some Christians might not appreciate having their consciences bound by a pastor who makes issues that he deems important more significant than his calling? Maybe they don’t consider themselves a theonomist and they don’t like the idea of a pastor putting theonomy above Christianity?
The way this blog post reads is that if you are a Christian but not being persecuted along with the writer for the issues that the writer declares most important in the culture war, you aren’t really a Christian. Are you really sure, as a pastor, that you want to die on that hill? Are you saying the only people that attend your church and support your causes are the only ones who are not cowards?
1.) Yes, it could be possible. Anything is possible.
2.) Theonomy above Christianity? An esteem for God’s law is not Christian? Isn’t that antinomian?
3.) It is true, that as living in this anti-Christ culture it is my expectation that Biblical Christians will be persecuted. I find it odd that someone would find that odd.
4.) No, I’m not saying that. I am saying that Christians should be found fighting where the battle is the hottest. The battle is the hottest on the kind of issues I wrote about (government schooling, racial realism, and theonomy).
My own question for you ….
Are you Dutch and so Amillennial and liberal yourself? What issues are you ready to take up your cross, deny yourself and follow Christ for?
Let me guess … you’d die to squash people like me.
Now we are getting to the heart of the matter.
Are Christians who don’t have a theonomy flag automatically antinomian? Haters of God’s law?
What about the ones who are surrounded by four generations of family members, living and working together and marrying within their local Christian community, but they refuse to use the new word, kinist? Are they not Christian? Not kinist because they won’t acknowledge it, but aren’t they living it?
How about the Christians being persecuted weekly at the abortion mills for protesting murder, are they not Christians because they aren’t being persecuted for your three main issues of the day? Not a hot enough battle?
Would a Dutch, amillenial like myself be welcome at your church on Sunday? And what would he find? A courageous, thriving congregation being daily persecuted for their willingness to confront the main issues of our day? No one employed by the government or their schools? No one on unemployment? No one working on the Sabbath? No one participating in our egalitarian workforce? A courageous and growing congregation sacrificing everything to stand tall for the issues of our day?
Why does it so concern you who your enemies are and why do you spend so much effort assuming they are concerned with squashing you?
John Vwyk asks,
Are Christians who don’t have a theonomy flag automatically antinomian? Haters of God’s law?
Bret
So, you’re asking if Christians who refuse to operate in terms of God’s revelation are automatically antinomian? I mean, isn’t the answer to that kind of obvious?
John Vwyk writes
What about the ones who are surrounded by four generations of family members, living and working together and marrying within their local Christian community, but they refuse to use the new word, kinist?
Bret responds….
A rose by any other name is still a rose.
Why do you ask such inane questions?
John Vanwyk writes,
Are they not Christian? Not kinist because they won’t acknowledge it, but aren’t they living it?
Bret responds,
See rose answer above.
John Vanwky asks,
How about the Christians being persecuted weekly at the abortion mills for protesting murder, are they not Christians because they aren’t being persecuted for your three main issues of the day? Not a hot enough battle?
Bret answers
Now John, you have to have reading comprehension skills before you are allowed to take home any studio prizes for playing along.
Did you read this part of what I wrote?
“The battle is the hottest on the KIND OF ISSUES I wrote about.”
Besides since abortion is murder it would fall under the category of “theonomy.” You know … “Thou Shalt Not Murder.”
Let me guess… you didn’t take logic at University.
John Vanwyk wrote,
Would a Dutch, amillenial like myself be welcome at your church on Sunday?
Bret responds,
All sinners are welcome in the house of God. Indeed, sin is one of those things we all have in common.
Besides, I have all kinds of friends who are optimistic amil. Are you optimistic a-mill John?
John wrote,
And what would he find?
Bret responds,
A group of sinners saved by grace. Maybe you were expecting to find a bunch of Rolling Stone groupies?
John Vanwyk wrote,
A courageous, thriving congregation being daily persecuted for their willingness to confront the main issues of our day? No one employed by the government or their schools? No one on unemployment? No one working on the Sabbath? No one participating in our egalitarian workforce? A courageous and growing congregation sacrificing everything to stand tall for the issues of our day?
Bret responds,
Congratulations John. You’ve achieved the herculean task of proving that any group of gathered Christians still have sanctification to progress in. Let me guess …. for your next demonstration of genius insights you are going to remind me that we all sin every day in word, thought, or deed. Well done John. You have completely unarmed me.
John Vanwyk writes,
Why does it so concern you who your enemies are and why do you spend so much effort assuming they are concerned with squashing you?
Bret responds,
1.) As to why I pay attention to my enemies; Well, I’ve read my Sun Tzu and my Machiavelli and my Bible.
2.) Honestly John, it doesn’t take any effort at all.
3.) Usually, part of what “enemy” means John is that they desire to squash you.
What world are you living in?
Well, this was fun John but I’m pretty sure that this is the end. I’m sure you can find something more productive to do w/ your time.
Like your excellent work of protesting abortion clinics.
John,
I’ve been a casual follower of Pastor Bret’s blog for some years now, trying to figure out how it is I can wholeheartedly agree with him sometimes (as with Kinism), and vehemently disagree with him at other times. I’ve concluded that it’s because his thinking (contra Romans 12:2) is completely informed by his eschatology.
I’m definitely Reformed in my theology, and an unapologetic Kinist, but I’m neither a cultural nor a theological imperialist, arrogating to myself God’s prerogative regarding who is saved and who is lost. Stonewall Jackson, who I much admire, was a man who like Enoch ‘walked with God’, but he had an excellent and gracious spirit towards those of different denominations and theological views. He became a Presbyterian, but his wife writes that he even entertained for awhile, Roman Catholicism.
Hello Ron,
1.) So, my thinking is conformed to this world?
I think your conclusion is informed by your dislike of Biblical eschatology.
2.) In terms of “arrogating to myself” well, I merely follow the Scriptures, the Creeds, and the Three Forms of Unity here. For example, when the Confession says.. “Therefore we detest the errors of the Anabaptist,” I think we must detest the errors of the Anabaptist. I mean when one swears to uphold the confessions that oath means something right?
3.) It is not gracious to have a gracious spirit towards those with different theological views when owning those heterodox theological views may well lead to their eternal separation from God? Besides Ron …. how much like old Stonewall are you being towards me by saying my thinking is conformed to this world?
Methinks that you think that all because I challenge people in their thinking that therefore I am not being gracious. Sorry, Dude, it would be a sign of my hatred for people if I did not challenge their thinking.
As I have repeatedly said, the Reformed faith is the highest and most consistent expression of the Christian faith. That does not mean other expressions do not find Christians in their midst. It merely means that if one desires the most truth oriented and wholesome expression of Christianity one must be Reformed. It is thus, out of my love for Christ and for people, to desire to all men to become Reformed.
In this age when the ability to think critically is so lacking, I should think that such love for people would be highly spoken of.
Finally, it is awful culturally and theologically imperialist of you to denounce me as being a cultural and theological imperialist. I mean … how dare you think yourself correct?
Ron, I would agree with your comments. I would not call myself a kinist because it is merely a movement that has been destroyed by the foolishness of its creators, much of what you describe here. Modern day judaizing. It is common sense that most ethnicities live by and worthless to elevate it to the head of the table.
Praise God for real men like Stonewall Jackson and those who acknowledge Christians in the church-at-large.
Bad eschatology is dangerous, especially post-reformation views that conflict with what was taught in all times and in all places.
Donald G. Bloesch notes:
“postmillennialism was already anticipated in the church father Eusebius of Caesarea” (A.D. 260-340). Schaff traces it back even farther, observing that Origen (A.D. 185-254) “expected that Christianity, by continual growth, would gain the dominion over the world.”
Two other prominent church fathers whose historical confidence appears to express a nascent postmillennialism are Athanasius (A.D. 296-372) and Augustine (A.D. 354-430). As Zoba notes, Augustine teaches that history “would be marked by the ever-increasing influence of the church in overturning evil in the world before the Lord’s return.” This would eventually issue forth in a “future rest of the saints on earth” (Augustine, Sermon 259:2) “when the Church will be purged of all the wicked elements now mixed among its members and Christ will rule peacefully in its midst.”
This early incipient postmillennialism contains the most basic element of the later developed system: a confident hope in gospel victory in history prior to Christ’s return.
It is right for you to realise, and to take as the sum of what we have already stated, and to marvel at exceedingly; namely, that since the Saviour has come among us, idolatry not only has no longer increased, but what there was is diminishing and gradually coming to an end: and not only does the wisdom of the Greeks no longer advance , but what there was is fading away. … And to sum the matter up: behold how the Saviour’s doctrine is everywhere increasing, while all idolatry and everything opposed to the faith of Christ is daily dwindling, and losing power, and falling. … For as, when the sun is come, darkness no longer prevails, but if any be still left anywhere it is driven away; so, now that the divine Appearing of the Word of God is come, the darkness of the idols prevails no more, and all parts of the world in every direction are illumined by His teaching.
Athanasius, AD 296-372
Incarnation
Early Church Father Postmillennialist
Care to make any more stupid assertions John?
John,
All Liberals accuse those who esteem God’s law word as “Judaizers.”
But, just so as to be clear, the law is fulfilled by Christ and those who follow Christ as saved by grace alone.
However, shall we go on sinning that grace may increase? God forbid?
And how can we know that sin is without the law to define it.
You really are antinomian Brother.
Did you catch that John? I called you “brother.”
Take care and I trust you’ll continue to read Church history so that you learn things like “pessimillennialism has not been believed in all times and in all places.”
One more comment just to clarify my position. I may have been a little hyperbolic in my earlier comment. I tend to get a little miffed by the ‘triumphalist’ facet of the postmillenialist position. Somehow, to me, it smacks of the exclusivism of Jewish Messianism.
I don’t hate eschatology. I ‘incline’ towards an amil position (but would put eschatology in the category of ‘doubtful disputations’ just because there’s been honest disagreement among good men throughout church history), but the only view I’d consider heretical would be the premil Zionist-dispensational view.
Pastor Bret will no doubt call me an R2K er, along with any number of other pejoratives in his arsenal, but my views are shared by many of the Puritans we both admire. Actually, it’s only the here and now triumphalism of the church and the abrasiveness of its adherents that I find objectionable in the post-mil position. Otherwise, I’m pretty much in agreement with them.
Example from pessimist and defeatist Richard Sibbes, who I’m reading right now:
“That the church or any particular Christian suffers in this world, it is but that there may be conformity between the spouse and the husband. The Head wore a crown of thorns, and went to heaven and happiness through a great deal of misery and abasement in the world, the lowest that ever was. And it is not meet the church should go to heaven another way.” p. 180.
Richard Sibbes, ‘Bowels Opened’, Sermon 19, Works, Vol. 2
Ron,
Exclusivist Jewish Messianism? Please. How can you say that when postmills affirm that all the nations of the world are and will become the nations of our Lord? Postmills are not excluding anyone. I don’t doubt that non-postmills will be saved. I only affirm that they will be very surprised one day. I also insists that their pessimistic eschatology is self-fulfilled prophecy. They believe things are going to get worse and worse and because they believe that Christ can’t come back before the world is going to hell in a handbasket they retreat from proclaiming the Crown Rights of King Jesus. I mean if Jesus can’t come back until the world lies in the hands of the evil one then it is a good thing for them to make sure that the world lies in the hands of the evil one.
Actually, Ron, the Puritans were predominantly postmill as a reading of Ian Murray’s “The Puritan Hope” demonstrates in spades. Now, no doubt, there were puritans who were not postmill but taken on the whole the Puritans, like most of the both prior to and subsequent to the Reformation until the fall of Princeton was Postmill. With the fall of Princeton, Westminster is established by Machen and one unfortunate result was that Machen took all the amil Dutch Theologians w/ him so that Westminster, unlike Princeton before was churning out pessimistic pastors. This change, combined with the rise of the Dispie movement combined with the flowering of the Bible College movement and Prophecy conferences in the context of WW II was the end of majority report postmillennialism in the Christian church in the West. Pessimism and defeatism triumphed over biblical triumphalism.
Now the church is in a position where it so loves defeat that it will complain about the “Triumphalism,” of postmillennialism even when postmillennialism teaches that triumph lies through the path of hardship, persecution and suffering. It never ceases to amaze me when I am charged with “Triumphalism” given all the shizer I have taken from national movements like the SPLC, and the absolute libelous blackening of my name by the statewide media in Michigan and by the CRC press conference supporting the media take. Do you consider that “Triumphalist” Ron?
I’m not sure what you mean by “here and now” triumphalism Ron. If you mean that we expect Christ to have dominion then color us guilty. If you mean we think it is going to happen tomorrow then color me not guilty. I agree w/ Scripture that teaches, “through many hardships we must all enter the Kingdom of Heaven.” I agree with Scripture that teaches that “if we will reign with Him we must suffer with Him.” However, that doesn’t negate the fact that Christ now having dominion He shall go forth from dominion unto dominion. Just as we sing;
“Christ shall have dominion
Over Land and Sea
Earth’s remotest regions
Shall His Empire be.”
I don’t know enough about you Ron to suggest you are R2K. I do know that R2K cannot exist apart from its militant amillennialism. However, I realize that not all amillennialists are R2K. I thank God for that.
As far as me being abrasive … well, don’t blame that on postmillennialism. Just blame that on my sin nature. However, you might also, at the same time you’re rightfully blaming it on my sin nature ask yourself if you find me abrasive simply because I have demonstrated you are in error in your thinking. Often “he’s being abrasive towards me” is just code language for; “He just handed me my head in this discussion.”
I think you will be disappointed in learning Ron, that the puritan Richard Sibbes was a postmillennialist, as were the majority of those Purtians. Here are a few other Puritans who were postmill.
Thomas Brightman
In 1609, Thomas Brightman published an optimistic commentary on of the book of Revelation. Even amidst present persecutions of Christians, he claimed that the scriptures promised of an era of triumph for the Church on earth. This era will be characterized by the conversion of the Jews and the fullness of the Gentiles, of peace on earth, a revitalized Church, and Christ ruling the nations by His Word.
William Gouge
William Gouge, Presbyterian minister, and one of the leaders of the assembly who produced the Westminster Confession, published and wrote many postmillennial works including his own book, The Progress of Divine Providence in 1645.
“There are more particular promises concerning a future glory of the Christian Church, set down by the prophets in the Old Testament, and by Christ and his disciples in the New, especially in the book of the Revelation, then we have either heard of or seen in our days to be ‘accomplished. The glorious city described, Rev. 21:10, is by many judicious divines taken for a type of a spiritual, glorious estate of the Church of Christ under the gospel yet to come, and that before his last coming to judgment…. But this is most certain, that there are yet better things to come than have been since the first calling of the gentiles. Among other better things to come, the recalling of the Jews is most clearly and plentifully foretold by the prophets (William Gouge, The Progress of Divine Providence).”
The “glorious estate” of the Church prior to the Day of Judgment – an estate characterized by the calling and conversion of the Jews and the fullness of the Gentiles into one visible Church – is a recurring theme that runs throughout the writings of the Puritans.
The Savoy Declaration
It is significant that, immediately after the adoption of the Westminster Confession by the English Puritans and Scottish Presbyterians, the independents drew up their own confession, called the Savoy Declaration of 1658, in which they explicitly affirmed their postmillennial hope.
… we expect that in the latter days, Antichrist being destroyed, the Jews called, and the adversaries of the kingdom of his dear Son broken, the churches of Christ being enlarged and edified through a free and plentiful communication of light and grace, shall enjoy in this world a more quiet, peaceable, and glorious condition than they have enjoyed (Savoy Declaration, 26.5).
We should note that although this is a historicist view with the papal power depicted as “Antichrist,” the confession falls solidly within the bounds of a postmillennial hope that was prevalent among the Puritans and Separatists.
John Owen
The great Puritan preacher John Owen noted six scriptural promises that would eventually characterize the Church and the world during the present millennial reign of Christ.
God in his appointed time will bring forth the kingdom of the Lord Christ unto more glory and power than in former days, I presume you are persuaded. Whatever will be more, these six things are clearly promised:
Fullness of peace unto the gospel and the professors thereof, Isaiah 11:6,7; 54:13, 33:20,21; Revelation. 21:25.
Purity and beauty of ordinances and gospel worship, Revelation 11:2, 21:3.
Multitudes of converts, many persons, yea, nations, Isaiah 9:7,8; 66:8, 49:18-22; Revelation 7:9.
The full casting out and rejecting of all will-worship, and their attendant abominations, Revelation 11:2.
Professed subjection of the nations throughout the whole world unto the Lord Christ, Dan. 2:44, 7:26,27; Isaiah 60: 6-9 – the kingdoms become the kingdoms of our Lord and his Christ, Revelation 11:15.
A most glorious and dreadful breaking of all that rise in opposition unto him, Isaiah 60:12.
Now, in order to the bringing in of this his rule and kingdom, with its attendances, the Lord Christ goes forth, in the first place, to cast down the things that stand in his way, dashing his enemies “in pieces like a potter’s vessel” (John Owen, “The Advantage of the Kingdom of Christ in the Shaking of the Kingdoms of the World”).
After the Protestant Reformation in the 1500s, there were new significant thrusts of missionary activity into uncharted regions of the world, namely, North and South America, Africa and Asia.
Postmillennialism in America’s history
This victorious view of the Church’s role in history emerged as the common doctrine of eschatology in early America. Many American Puritans can also be described as postmillennialists. In fact, the colonization of America was fueled by this Puritan hope.
In the 1600s, the Pilgrims and Puritans brought the Gospel to America with the stated goal, according to the Mayflower Compact.
For the glory of God and advancement of the Christian faith.
William Bradford Governor of Plymouth Colony wrote of the Pilgrims’ purpose in founding a new colony:
A great hope and inward zeal they had of laying some good foundation, or at least to make some way thereunto, for the propagation and advancing the gospel or the kingdom of Christ in those remote parts of the world; yea, though they should be but stepping-stones unto others for the performing of so great a work …
John Winthrop
John Winthrop, Governor of Massachusetts, wrote of his optimism for the spread of the Gospel in the New World in his famous sermon, “A Model of Christian Charity.” Winthrop penned these words while en route to the New World on board the ship the Arbella. Winthrop outlined the purposes of God for New England. He described a harmonious Christian community whose laws and government would logically proceed from a godly and purposeful arrangement.
We shall find that the God of Israel is among us, when ten of us shall be able to resist a thousand of our enemies, when He shall make us a praise and glory, that men shall say of succeeding plantations, “the Lord make it like that of New England.” For we must consider that we shall be as a city upon a hill, the eyes of all people are upon us. So that if we shall deal falsely with our God in this work we have undertaken and so cause Him to withdraw His present help from us, we shall be made a story and byword throughout the world, we shall open the mouths of enemies to speak evil of the ways of God and all professors for God’s sake, we shall shame the faces of many of God’s worthy servants, and cause their prayers to be turned into curses upon us till we be consumed out of the good land whither we are going.
And to shut up this discourse with that exhortation of Moses, that faithful servant of the Lord in His last farewell to Israel (Deut. 30), “Beloved there is now set before us life and good, death and evil, in that we are commanded this day to love the Lord our God, and to love one another, to walk in His ways and to keep His commandments and His ordinance, and His laws, and the articles of our covenant with Him that we may live and be multiplied, and that the Lord our God my bless us in the land whither we go to possess it. But if our hearts shall turn away so that we will not obey, but shall be seduced and worship other Gods, our pleasures, our profits, and serve them, it is propounded unto us this day we shall surely perish out of the good land whither we pass over this vast sea to possess it. Therefore let us choose life, that we, and our seed, may live, and by obeying His voice, and cleaving to Him, for He is our life and our prosperity”
(John Winthrop, A Model of Christian Charity).
Here we see that when the Puritans first came to America, they hoped to build a Christian society that would be copied the world over. They were not naive, however, and understood that a lessening of Christian influence over the years could lead them to be cursed rather than blessed of God. If they disobeyed, they would be cut off and God might raise another Christian civilization in their place. Thus they began the Puritan settlement with postmillennial optimism.
It would be good Ron, for you and John to read some books that demonstrate the muscular presence of postmillennialism in the Church throughout history. Ken Gentry’s “He Shall Have Dominion” is a real keeper.
I suppose we could trade quote salvos all day long. Sadly, Richard Sibbes no longer lives in this world to settle the issue. However, here’s just one further brief quote from him that doesn’t sound very post-mil to me:
“All churches are so far true churches as they have consanguinity with the primitive apostolical and prophetical churches. … For the latter times are apostate times … which the Scriptures foretold directly that we should not take scandal at it. The church did fall to a kind of admiration of antichrist, and embraced doctrines of devils, 1 Tim. 4:1.” p. 189.
Here’s just one more from Thomas Goodwin:
“[In] Hebrews 10:12-13, He is said to sit in heaven, “expecting till His enemies be made His footstool;” the destruction of which enemies will add to the manifestative glory of His kingdom. Now, as that will add to the fullness of His greatness, so the complete salvation of His members will add to the completeness of His glory. And as the expectation of His enemies’ ruin may be said to be an imperfect affection, in comparison of the triumph that one day He shall have over them, so His joy which He now has in His spouse is but imperfect, in comparison of that which shall fill His heart at the great day of marriage.” p. 80.
Thomas Goodwin, ‘The Heart of Christ in Heaven Towards Sinners on Earth’
My pastor, who’s post-mil (but I love him anyway) suggested that the marriage supper of the Lamb described in Revelation, is something that has already taken place, but this sounds pretty much future tense to me.
I’ve read Kenneth Gentry’s tortured exposition of Matthew 7:14, and I guess I would say I’ll be as soon convinced of his take on it as you’ll be convinced that Hitler was all-in-all a pretty good guy who tried to save Western Christendom from the dark night of Bolshevism — which is something absolutely other. Winston McCuen gets it.
Calvin is a forerunner to the flowering of the postmillennialism of the reformers Martin Bucer (1491-1551) and Theodore Beza (1519-1605). Following in their train but with greater clarity still are the Puritans William Perkins (1558-1602), William Gouge (1575-1653), Richard Sibbes (1577-1635), John Cotton (1585-1652), Thomas Goodwin (1600-1679), George Gillespie (1613-1649), John Owen (1616-1683), Elnathan Parr (d. 1632), Thomas Brooks (d. 1662), John Howe (d. 1678), James Renwick (d. 1688), Matthew Henry (1662-1714), and others.
The Puritan form of postmillennialism generally holds not only to a future glory for the church, but that the millennial era proper will not begin until the conversion of the Jews and will flower rather quickly thereafter, prevailing over the earth for a literal thousand years. A purified church and a righteous state governed by God’s Law arises under this intensified effusion of the Spirit. This culminates eventually in the eschatological complex of events surrounding the glorious Second Advent. Many of the Puritans also hold that the Jews would return to their land during this time.
Wow. Thanks for making my point for me. Here’s what Calvin said about “salvation is of the Jews”:
‘Salvation is of the Jews’. By these words he means that they have the superiority in this respect: that God had made with them a covenant of eternal salvation. Christ … was descended from the Jews; and indeed, since all the promises of God were confirmed and ratified in him, (2 Cor. 1:20), there is no salvation but in him. But as there can be no doubt that Christ gives the preference to the Jews on this ground, (that they do not worship some unknown deity, but God alone, who revealed himself to them and by whom they were adopted as his people); by the word ‘salvation’ we ought to understand that saving manifestation which had been made to them concerning the heavenly doctrine. But why does he say that it was from the Jews when it was rather deposited with them? [Was it] that they alone might enjoy it? He alludes, in my opinion, to what had been predicted by the Prophets, that the Law would go forth from Zion, (Is. 2:3, Micah 4:2), for they were separated for a time from the rest of the nations on the express condition that the pure knowledge of God should flow out from them to the whole world.
It ought to be observed that the Jews, when they had treacherously set aside the covenant of eternal life which God had made with their fathers, were deprived of the treasure which they had till that time enjoyed; for they had not yet been driven out of the Church of God. Now that they deny the Son, they have nothing in common with the Father; for whosoever denieth the Son hath not the Father, (1 John 2:23, 5:23, John 5:23, 15:23).
John Calvin, ‘Commentary on John 4:22’
LOL… all because Calvin was wrong on the Jews doesn’t mean he is wrong on postmillennialism and a good deal of the rest that he wrote.
I provided this Calvin quote because it is here I think he’s spot on about the Jews, and the Puritans are dead wrong and should have known better. What makes Palestine ‘their land’? They forfeited any promissory rights as a covenant people when they rejected Christ. The gospel and epistles of John put an exclamation point to this. Gen. 12:3 was a promise to Abraham that had its fulfillment in Christ as Paul in Galatians makes very clear. I know that you know all of this. I believe Romans 11 simply is saying that God has a remnant of individuals among them, but as a people? No. The Parable of the Vineyard and Christ’s cursing of the fig tree are good proof texts.
If you can find a copy of Veronica Clark’s book, I’d highly commend it to you. It goes into depth on how Jewry infiltrated England and injected their wormwood into many of the Puritans as well as the English aristocracy and ruling classes:
https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/18794077-warwolves-of-the-iron-cross
Thanks for the dialogue. I’ve benefited from it. I understand better now why many of my Southern friends have a problem with the Puritans.
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
I suppose if I want to remain a consistent Kinist (and I do) I’ll have to accede to at least some of what Professor Vos is saying (and I do). After all, I’m certainly not advocating that we’re created atomized individuals. On the contrary, as individuals we have a duty (Pflichterfullung) towards our family and our race that remains both before and after conversion. That said, I still think the good professor’s argument for a future ‘calling of the Jews’ is more a begging of the question than a laying out of an established fact from Scripture. My own pastor (again, post-mil) recently finished preaching a series on Revelation where the gist was that God finally judged the Jews as a nation and polity in 70 AD. The Romans did a thorough job of destroying even their genealogical records, so that probably most of those today in Israel have no ethnic relation to the Jewish patriarchs. It’s more likely that those they’re genociding in Gaza do.
Thanks again for the discussion.
Oh, I quite agree that God is done with the people group Jews in relation to redemptive history. I agree w/ you and your Pastor on that point.
“The roots of Christian Zionism can be found in the Protestant Reformation. John Calvin espoused a belief that the covenant of the OT and the NT were concurrent. Calvin and Luther understood “Israel” in Romans 11:25-27, the promise that “all Israel shall be saved,” to mean Jewish and Gentile believers, while their successors Theodore Beza and Martin Bucer, preferred to apply the word to unbelieving Jews and Judaism. The 1557 & 1560 editions of the Geneva Bible defined “Israel” as “the nation of the Jews,” a definition that was later expanded to suggest the future conversion of the Jews; “He sheweth that the time shall come that the whole nation of Jews, though not everyone particularly, shall be joined to the Church of Christ.” Through this translation, which was the preferred translation of the Puritans, and the most popular among all English-speaking Protestants until the 1611 publication of the AV (KJV) “the idea of the conversion of the Jewish people spread in Britain and the American colonies. It was thus under Protestantism that, to quote Sizer in “Christian Zionism;”
‘A proto-Zionist movement emerged, convinced the Bible promised that the Jewish people once “converted” to Christianity, would return to Palestine and enjoy a national existence alongside other Christian nations prior to the second advent.'”
Giles Corey
The Sword of Christ — p. 44-45
Just in case the point is lost, Corey is saying that Luther and Calvin would not have agreed with the notes on Romans 11:25-27 that was placed in the Geneva Bible. Those notes were not based on Calvin and Luther’s exegesis but rather were based on the work of Beza and Bucer.
To this day, this misinterpretation of Romans 11:25-27 creates a Zionist mindset among otherwise good Reformed men.
And again,
And so all Israel will be saved — Romans 11:26
“Many understand this of the Jewish people, as though Paul had said, that religion would again be restored among them as before: but I extend the word Israel to all the people of God, according to this meaning – “When the Gentiles shall come in, the Jews also shall return from their defection to the obedience of faith; and thus shall be completed the salvation of the whole Israel of God, which must be gathered from both ….” The same manner of speaking we find in Gal. vi.16. The Israel of God is what he calls the Church, gathered alike from Jews and Gentiles.
John Calvin
Romans 11:26
Here we find Calvin insisting that “All Israel shall be saved,” refers not uniquely to Bagels but rather refers to the whole Church. As for the view that “all Israel” refers to ethnic Jews in our future, we can immediately know that this view is incorrect. With the passing of the old covenant in AD 70, there is no covenantal Israel other than the united Jew-Gentile church. The things of the old order passed away. So the covenant promises in Romans 11 cannot refer to the modern nation of Israel or to the modern Jewish race or community. The only “Israel” in the New Testament that was to be cleansed from sin is the Jew-Gentile church, the body of Israel’s Messiah.
Loved your last comment. We agree! Maybe we should quit while we’re ahead … for now at least.