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When I was a boy pedaling newspapers in 1973 a crime came to the forefront that found the newspapers for months spilling ink. As my habit was always to read the paper thoroughly before delivering them I followed with interest the kidnapping case of John Paul Getty III, the grandson of Billionaire J. Paul Getty. The kidnappers initially demanded a ransom of $17 million for his release and through twists and turns that included receiving the ear of the 16 y/o grandson in the mail, the Billionaire finally negotiated a 2.2 million dollar ransom price for his grandson. The kidnappers were paid and the boy released. He was ransomed…. that is a ransom price was paid in order the he might be redeemed from those who had imprisoned him and had treated him so cruelly.

The idea of ransom that we read here in Mark 10:45;

“The Son of man came not to be served, but to serve, and to give His life as a ransom for many.”

Is found through out the Scripture.

In the OT the concept of redemption and of ransom as the price paid in order to purchase back something that was captured is found in the Hebrew word “Kopher.” This word is often translated as “ransom” and communicates the idea of the price paid to secure the release of something or someone. So this idea of a ransom price paid for release goes way back.

In Ex. 21:30 we read how the law provided for a ransom payment be paid in order to redeem a life.

  “If payment is demanded of him, he may redeem his life by paying the full amount demanded of him.”

This idea of ransom as the price paid for redemption was a center piece in the the OT sacrificial system as we read in Leviticus 17:11

“For the life of the flesh is in the blood, and I have given it to you on the altar to make atonement for your souls; for it is the blood that makes atonement by the life.”

Here we learn that God’s people were atoned for and so redeemed by means  of a sacrifice that served as a ransom price paid. The sins of the people were symbolically covered because the ransom price was paid — a ransom price of sacrificial blood and redemption was secured.

However, this ransom principle was there in the great Hebrew Passover. There we find the Passover lamb being a type of Jesus. When Jesus says that He came to give His life a ransom for many his hearers should have connected in their minds the Passover lamb as the ransom price paid for the release of the Hebrews from their bondage, sin, and misery inflicted upon them by their Egyptian task masters.

Let us briefly collect here what we have learned about the idea of “ransom.”

The ransom price paid in Scripture was the price paid to redeem … to purchase back something or someone who had been captured and was in a onerous situation characterized by hardship and cruelty.

What we see here is that ransom and redemption in the Scripture goes together like peas and carrots. There is no redemption without a ransom price being paid. Without the shedding of blood as the ransom price there is no forgiveness or release from sin.

We have also learned already — though we are going to tease it out further —  that this ransom that Jesus talks about giving Himself as in Mark 10:45 is another demonstration of how the Scripture speaks as one organic unit.

When Jesus speaks of being a ransom for many He does so in the context of it having been already said of Him by His cousin that “He was the lamb of God who had come to take aways the sins of the world” (John 1:29).

There at the beginning of His ministry Jesus is spoken of as that OT Passover sacrificial lamb whose mission was to pay the ransom price that would redeem God’s people by removing them from the prison-house of Satan and more importantly from the terrors of God’s just wrath.

From the very beginning of His ministry Jesus is marked out as the lamb who would pay the ransom price and then towards the end of His ministry Jesus says explicitly that He is the one who is going to pay the ransom price that would secure redemption for those who would sue for peace.

This idea of ransom and redemption has thus been building throughout the Scriptures. Like a blizzard that finally arrives with the coming of Jesus Christ the storm of salvation has been building and building throughout the OT. Part of that burgeoning storm that was promissory of Christ being a ransom was the idea of a ransom price that had to be paid in order to secure release from inflicted sin and misery and certain wrath to come that we find in the OT.

We find it explicitly in the OT sacrificial system where even though it was impossible that the blood of bulls and goats could ever take away sin, still the blood of bulls and goats were types of one who was coming whose blood could pay the ransom price justly required by the Father and so take away sin.

Types… types… the work of Jesus Christ paying the ransom price that was sufficient was the anti-type of those earlier types. That is to say that Jesus as the lamb of God who gave Himself as a ransom for many was the fulfillment of all that was anticipated by pictures and symbols in the OT. In theological language they were the type … the movie trailer …. and Jesus is the anti-type … all that was promised in the movie trailer.

Or to use my earlier language, salvation is a blizzard coming but in the OT we get only the beginning of the falling snow… that falling snow is a promise of the blizzard coming but the blizzard is not yet here but the early snowfall promises its coming. All that blood, sacrifice, dead animals, in the OT were the first falling salvation snow that were predictive of the salvation blizzard coming that found its arrival in Jesus as that lamb who would serve as a ransom for many.

This is of interest to all Christians because it is by Christ’s paying of the ransom price that we are delivered from the dominion of darkness to the Kingdom of God’s dear Son whom He loves. It is by this paying of the ransom price that we are redeemed from God’s just wrath against sin and sinners. Without Christ giving His life as a ransom for many we remained, like John Paul Getty III, held captive to the forces of destruction.

We pause again to emphasize what we have learned here. We have learned that the Scripture provide an organic unity that speaks of a coming salvation… a coming ransom. We have learned that that organic unity often uses the literary technique of type and anti-type. The type is the movie trailer… the anti-type is all that the movie trailer promises. We have learned that the Scriptures are like a coming blizzard of salvation. In the OT we have the first beginning snowfall that is promissory of the blizzard of salvation that will arrive in the coming of Jesus Christ to be the lamb of God who will give His life as a ransom for many.

If we wanted to we could talk about how the idea of ransom was already being hinted after the fall. There God promised a blizzard announcing the coming of a Messiah who would ransom His people by crushing the head of the serpent. There, after the fall, with Adam and Eve being covered by God with animal skins already there is a hint that without the shedding of blood there will be no forgiveness of sin. And that theme is developed as the theme of ransom is developed throughout the OT. The Passover lamb for the Hebrews is the ransom paid for release. Isaiah 53 explicitly talks about how this lamb who would pay the ransom price would be wounded for our transgressions and how by His stripes we would be healed.

What we have considered so far teaches us that apart from some kind of ransom paid there is no release of the penalty of sin that we are under.

Many are those who have come forward who have tried to insist that this idea of a ransom paid in order to being the price paid in order to release us from our sin and misery and God’s just wrath, is not required by Scripture. Yet, Jesus Himself here says that the Son of Man came not to be served but to serve and to give Himself as a ransom for many.

Let’s spend a wee bit of time breaking that down;

First,  we speak of Christ’s humiliation in His ransom

When Christ’s speaks of His paying the ransom price He is speaking of the final step downward in His work of humiliation. He was born under the law. He was despised and rejected by men. He was in all ways tempted like we yet without sin. Now, however He reaches the apex of his humiliation. He goes to the Cross to pay the ransom price for our redemption. There on the Cross, as our ransom price securing our redemption, the God man endures the turning away of the Father’s pleasure that those who would come under the Ransom peace might one day be comforted with knowing that the Father is pleased with them for the sake of Christ the ransom.

Second we speak of one particular of Christ’s ransom work

The particular I want to speak briefly of here is to whom is the ransomed paid. Some of the early church Fathers spoke of a theory of ransom and redemption that was called the “Ransom to Satan theory of the atonement.” In that theory this ransom price of Christ’s Cross death is paid to Satan as the one who has imprisoned God’s people in the dominion of Darkness. Christ deceives Satan by dying on the cross, becoming as it were bait that Satan might seize and yet the hook in the cross was the resurrection and Satan, being fooled has been plundered of His creaturely captives.

However, it is better to speak of Christ’s ransom price being paid to the Father because the great danger to those needing to be redeemed .. those needing to be ransomed was not being under Satan’s dominion but was rather being under the Father’s just wrath against Sin.

So, when it comes to the Ransom we do not speak as if that price was paid to Satan for our release from his cruelty though that certainly is one of the chief benefits. No, we speak instead of being ransomed from the Father’s just wrath against Sin. This was our greatest fear… and our greatest danger. But the Son pays the ransom price and by His stripes we are healed and God’s wrath is turned away from the Redeemed because it fell instead on the substitute.

So, this ransom was about glorifying God before it was about releasing man, though there was no glorifying God that did not eventuate in the releasing of His church. John Owen captured some of this in His catechism;

Q. In what does the exercise of his priestly office for us chiefly consist?

A. In offering up himself an acceptable sacrifice on the cross, so satisfying the justice of God for our sins, removing his curse from our persons, and bringing us unto him. — Chapter 13.

John Owen

Note that before Owen speaks about the curse being removed from our persons he notes that Christ satisfied the justice of God for our sins. There it is. Christ died for God. Theocentric thinking on the Cross.

This bring us to speak of Christ’s substitution in His ransom

When Jesus says He is going to give His life as a ransom for many He makes it clear He is going to die in their place … He is going to die for them … He is going to die in their stead. This all speaks of substitution. Christ is our ransom because He was our substitution. Christ for us, the hope of glory. An older word for this was the idea that Christ was our surety – one who acts in the place of another.

Because Jesus was our surety … because He acted in our place by paying the just ransom that we could never pay we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ. This is provides one major reason why Christians worship Jesus Christ. They understand that if Jesus had not paid the ransom for them they would continue to be in danger of God’s current and future wrath as well as daily experiencing being under the dominion of Satan w/ all the misery thereof.

But Jesus came to give His life as a ransom for many and the Church is God’s many.

This bring us then to speak of the particularity in Christ’s ransom.

Jesus says here that He came to give His life as a ransom for many. He did not say here that He came to give His life as a ransom for all. This truth squashes the idea of Universalism — that doctrine that teaches that all men who have ever lived will be saved. All men will not be saved because Jesus did not come to die for all men but only for “the many.” Christ came to die for those who would, because of the Spirit’s Work, be convinced of their sin and so be done with themselves as their own god and who would in faith turn from their defiance of God and so know God’s favor.

This particularity of Christ’s ransom … that He gave His life as a ransom for many, and not for all, also puts a stake in the idea of Hypothetical universalism. This is the doctrine that Christ dies as a ransom for everybody without exception yet without everybody being ransomed. Should we believe this perversity that Christ died as a ransom for everybody but everybody is not ransomed we empty the worth of Christ’s ransom. We suggest that it is not really the ransom paid by Christ that rescues us but rather it was our agreement with the ransom that makes the ransom have the quality of ransom-ness.  This belief is to empty the ransom of its potency placing that potency in not what Christ has paid for our redemption but in our concurrence with His potential payment.

Now let us turn to speak of one final implication of Christ’s ransom payment;

Christ pays the ransom price to the Father. That ransom price, as we have said, is the shedding of His own blood, because without the shedding of blood there is no forgiveness of sins. The payment of this ransom price delivers God’s particular people from God’s just wrath and from having residence in the dominion of darkness.

That ransom price is paid. The truth of that was echoed in our Lord’s cry, “It is finished.” The ransom price was paid. Now if the ransom price was paid in full this means that those who have come under the covering of the one who paid the ransom price in their place have had their ransom paid in full. The ransom having been paid, God’s just wrath is passed and we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ.

What this then implies is that the ransom price having been paid there will never be any more yet to pay. This in turn means that once we have looked to Christ for release from the Father’s wrath we will never again be under the Father’s wrath for sins. It means further, that we will not lose what have been gained in our place. It means having been saved, we shall be saved. We will be preserved till the end and we will persevere.  Christ having given His life as a ransom for many those many who have had a good work begin in them by Christ Jesus will run the race and finish the course. Having been ransomed … having tasted the goodness of God in the land of the living … having had our sins taken way, and God’s wrath turned away because of the ransomed paid we will never come under God’s judgment again. The ransom has been paid in full. Our sins, past, present, and future have been paid for and we now are the righteousness of God in Christ.

This ransom paying for our redemption as it does and delivering us from our sin and misery, delivering us from the dominion of darkness, and delivering us from God’s just wrath works in the redeemed a magnificent gratitude for this peace w/ God. Having been ransomed we now live the ransomed life. St. Paul ties these ideas together … the idea of having been ransomed and living a new life when he writes to the Corinthians;

20 for you were bought with a price. So glorify God in your body.

The idea is that having been ransomed … bought with a price … the effect of that ransom is walk as one who has ben brought back from the dead. Having been brought back from the dead we live unto and for God as His happy warriors.

Jacob,

Thank you for the civil interaction. So often people are breathing fire right out of the gate, thus demonstrating their inability to think through matters.

I will interact w/ your comment by fisking;

Jacob wrote,

Greetings Bret,

A small introduction – I am a Liberal Christian who occasionally reads your blog – primarily because you tend to distill the Christian Nationalist or Kinism movement down to its fundamentals in a very clear manner. Speaking of – this dog breed analogy was very insightful into how you construct your worldview.

Bret responds,

I wonder what you mean by “Liberal Christian?” That could be taken in numerous manners. Did you mean “neo-orthodox (Barthian)”, “Schleiermacher type Liberal,” “Libertarian Liberal” or something else?

Maybe a way to cut to the quick on this is just to ask if you believe in the verbal plenary inspiration of Scripture. Do you believe in the Supernatural — snakes talk, axe heads float, Jesus walks on water, virgins conceive, dead people resurrect and ascend into heaven etc?

My knowing where you are at on these matters will help me know who I am interacting with.

Jacob wrote,

First – my agreements. I also think that genetic, national, cultural, and regional divisions are natural and something to be celebrated. I love visiting a new country or region and observing all the minute differences in how they operate, how they build things, how they cook, how they live. While I also hold these differences should never cause us to consider one another as sub human – I do think each of these cultures should take pride in their unique traditions and strengths.

Bret responds,

Fantastic… we are agreed here. All races/cultures have strengths to be celebrated and weaknesses to be repented of while praying for increased sanctification in those areas.

Jacob wrote,

Another point of agreement is that sin can be communal and generational. Certain groups will struggle with certain sins more than other groups and certain sins are passed down from father to son. I also think we are beings with both spiritual and physical components and there are consequences to believing that.

Bret responds,

Again… fantastic. These points should be rather obvious realities (consider Paul’s observation about Cretans in the book of Titus) but somehow in a weird combination of mixing those worldviews that shouldn’t be mixable we in the West have combined Gnosticism (the material is bad) with cultural Marxism (matter is all there is) in order to repeatedly deny your observation above.

Jacob writes,

Onto some of my disagreements.

First of which is the black and white nature of what constitutes any societal division. In your dog analogy there are clear lines between breeds. However – as far as I can tell there are no universal divisions in the real world. You might claim that your country should be the dividing line- but there are plenty of international borders in the world that cut right through culturally similar people. All similar singular attempts have similar problems – groupings by language, by genetics, by religion, by climate, etc. all have some major exceptions.

Bret responds,

I agree here. For example there has always been “Bordermen” — that is those men who lived as having a foot in two worlds. However, the existence of such people does not disprove the general rule. I mean, if we don’t have an idea of a particular set race, culture, language, or religion then how could we ever identify that which is shaded, jumbled, or a mish-mash? One can only identify syncretism when one knows the different distinct particulars that are being syncretized.

No universal divisions? I can’t agree there. Clearly there is a universal division between the Japanese and the Ndebele. Many other examples could be given but perhaps I am missing your point.

In terms of nations there was a time when the etymology of the word was taken seriously;

“Nation as its etymology imports, originally denoted a family or race of men descended from a common progenitor, like tribe.”

Webster’s 1828 Dictionary

Yes, all have exceptions but you wouldn’t know what the exceptions were if you did not know first what the non-exception was.

Jacob wrote,

So you might claim that the real dividing lines are often a combination of multiple factors put together. Which I might start to agree with. Can groups merge or can they split? Are labradoodles – if there are enough of them – eligible for a new division all together? I guess I see the real world with real societies throughout history as messy – changing affairs and I don’t see the Kinist often acknowledging this. They tend to want to clean things up with nice clean current borders.

Bret responds,

As Kinism does not have a headquarters to send mail to, and as Kinism is a variegated movement it is not helpful, I think, to speak of Kinism as if it has a Universal agreed on position on all matters. So, I will just speak for myself as one Kinist.

I think what the Kinists I personally know want is fewer exceptions and more acknowledgement that exceptions can’t exist as exceptions unless there is a prior rule of thumb. The Christian Kinists look over the global landscape, as they are reading their history, their sociology, and their theology and they see a real live threat that there is an agenda being pushed by very powerful people and Institutions to put the whole globe (cultures, languages, faiths, races, etc.) into a giant blender with the purpose of going all U2 wherein “all colors will bleed into one.” Kinists, following Scripture, are foursquare and adamantly against this plan nicely articulated by Richard von Coudenhove-Kalergi back in the 1920s. This migration agenda was also written down in UN Documents in the 50s and 60s. This messiness, as you put it, is preplanned and some of us are resolved that going back to Babel is not a healthy decision.

I quite agree that history and cultural sociology/anthropology can be quite a messy affair but it becomes even more messy when there is a mass top down push that intends to make the messy affair even more messy. You can’t really believe that all this third world mass migration into the former White Christendom is coincidental or an accident? Certainly, many of the elite are seeking to gaslight Westerners on this issue but some people are not “gasslight-able”

Finally, on this score, as to your “Labradoodle” question, I would say it is possible though historically I don’t see it as being that prevalent or sustainable.

Jacob writes,

This brings me to my second disagreement – that of America. America did not start and certainly did not grow by being a monolithic cultural group. America has always been a messy conglomeration of cultures. We are the proverbial mutts in your analogy.

Bret responds,

Yeah, I don’t agree with this. I believe this is an errant observation on your part. I would recommend reading “Albion’s Seed” by David Hackett Fisher.

Here are a couple quotes that would suggest that you haven’t got this quite right;

Here is Founding Father John Jay’s opinion,

“With equal pleasure I have as often taken notice that Providence has been pleased to give this one connected country to one united people–a people descended from the same ancestors, speaking the same language, professing the same religion, attached to the same principles of government, very similar in their manners and customs, and who, by their joint counsels, arms, and efforts, fighting side by side throughout a long and bloody war, have nobly established general liberty and independence.”

“Heaven hath provided this country, not indeed derelict, but only partially settled, and consequently open for reception of a new enlargement of Japheth. Europe was settled by Japheth; America is settling from Europe: and perhaps this second enlargement bids fair to surpass the first; for we are to consider all the European settlements of America collectively as springing from and transfused with the blood of Japheth … “

(J.Wingate Thornton, The Pulpit of the American Revolution, as cited in Hall’s The Christian History of the American Constitution, p.382)

There are many more quotes like this from the founding fathers in the book “Who Is My Neighbor.” I don’t think your claims stands up to a close examination. We were never proverbial mutts until the 1965 Immigration and Nationality act.

Jacob wrote,

Which is actually another point in itself – your analogy did not account for mutts or the fact that genetic mixing can arguably produce the healthiest dogs even if they start to lose some of their specific strengths.

Bret responds,

I noticed your word “arguably,” and I would argue against your statement.

Jacob wrote,

I grew up in Texas on the Mexican border. I grew up as a white kid eating tacos and hearing a lot of Spanish spoken. And this wasn’t because of some DEI initiative –since European arrival Texas has been a mix of Indigenous, Latin, and European cultures. How do I draw a line around my self and someone from New Jersey that is stronger than a line around me and someone who I grew up but is of Mexican heritage? How do you reduce the culture of America to a white Englishman?

Bret responds,

So you take my “borderman” observation from earlier and say “I have lived that.” It still doesn’t make parts of Texas the norm.

Keep in mind also, that I am of the persuasion that America ought to be split up into several different nations so that your observation would be less of a problem. Indeed, I think at some point this is going to have to happen since America has become such a ethnically/racially and religiously divided country. We really no longer are a “nation” in any meaningful sense.

Jacob wrote,

My last point of disagreement is your application of the talents parable to national divisions. The tendency to want to rank cultures speaks far more of the parable of the splinter in the eye. If you want everyone to embrace national sins and don’t reflect on how your particular group sinned but instead constantly point out how other groups fall short in their sanctification – then I feel like you are doing it wrong.

Bret responds,

I have constantly and repeatedly said that white people must be the dumbest people on two legs on the planet as seen in their rebellion against God…. As seen in their unwillingness to see what is obvious all because they have embraced this silly notion of white guilt – as if white people are somehow uniquely guilty of racial crimes against humanity. If I don’t say that with everything I write you must understand I have said it so much I don’t always see the need to say it again, ad-nauseum. This nation is in the situation it is in because of stupid white people for several generations now just turning over their inheritance to other peoples and religions.

But that may well be all proper and fit since it can also be seen as God’s judgment against our wickedness against Him. It is not as if we have not earned being cast out of the land.

So, not to worry Jacob. I see our and my splinter with great regularity. But thanks for the reminder.

Jacob wrote,

If you tell me a pretty good analogy of a world of dog breeds but didn’t see yourself or your group as the Pitbull – again, I feel like you are missing the point. (Please correct me if I wrongly assumed that white American Christians were not supposed to be the Pitbulls).

Bret responds,

Nah… white American Christians are the collected retards of every breed…. exceptions notwithstanding.

Jacob writes,

Thanks for your time.
Jacob

Bret responds,

Thanks for the conversation. I will try to remember and pray that you will see the problems with your “Liberal Christianity.”

And thanks again for being so civil.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=31nfDvZgTlQ

As we start part V we note that in the introduction of the debate Rosebrough went out of his way to say this interview was not a debate.  Rosebrough’s protestations at the beginning that this was not a debate with Mahler are irrelevant. This was a debate and the reason Rosebrough later wanted to insist that it wasn’t a debate is because Mahler wiped the floor with Rosebrough. It was bad and the real badness of it begins to be seen in this segment.

I will give Mahler this… he excels at what Lawyer’s excel at. He is a master at argumentation. We see in Mahler the classic example of lawyer advice on how to argue;

When the facts are against you, argue the law.
When the law is against you, argue the facts.
When the facts and the law are both against you, argue policy

I would also say Mahler’s ability to keep his composure in light of Rosebrough’s obvious exasperation and incredulity were points in favor of Mahler’s presentation. There were times when Mahler was clearly wrong but his ability to calmly drive his errant points home worked in his favor.

In this segment Rosebrough is exposed pretty badly by Mahler. In this segment we learn that both Rosebrough and Mahler are Statists. Though Mahler does not state it I’m pretty confident that he would contend that the colonists were in unbiblical rebellion for rising up against King George. Meanwhile, Rosebrough insists that the Colonialists were correct for rebelling against King George as following their lesser Magistrates. Yet, Rosebrough also said here that he would obey Stalin and Hitler. Rosebrough would obey Stalin and Hitler but not King George III? That is more than a little arbitrary. It seems that Rosebrough picks and chooses on his own authority what rules of Caesar he will obey and what he will not obey.

Actually, he and Mahler agree here seen in Mahler’s clear inference that Stalin should not have been obeyed. (Mahler references Solzhenitsyn’s counsel.) Mahler and Rosebrough just have different standards for what should and should not be obeyed. As for myself, I would have counseled Christians to disobey all these tyrants.

There was argumentation here on the meaning of Romans 13. Rosebrough was clearly in the wrong here as he seeks to suggest that Romans 13 teaches that Christians must submit to tyrants. In fairness to Rosebrough he seemed to be confused here. At one point he said that Christians should submit to tyrants on matters like speed limits and where they can. At other points he said things like, (paraphrasing) “if the Magistrate wants to kill me as a Christian the Lord will take care of him,” suggesting that the Christian should passively accept his unjust execution.

We’ve written a great deal here on Romans 13. Here are just two of the posts. There are others that can be found by putting “Romans 13” in the search engine here at Iron Ink.

Romans 13:1f … Then and Now

Romans 13 & The Possibility of Civil Disobedience

Rosebrough clearly stated that he would obey Hitler and Stalin but not George III. I would say that Christians had no business obeying Stalin, George III, or Hitler. Especially when Hitler said… “Bring your lame, halt and blind so I can kill them.” Roseborough actually said that it is sin to resist a murderous magistrate.

I would contend that if the Emperor wants to kill you for preaching the Gospel and you willingly surrender to the Emperor to be killed you have just violated the 6th commandment. Rosebrough is confused on this subject as seen in this statement;

“I am not called to armed insurrection on the basis of the fact that the state is opposing Christianity.”

So, the fact that the State is killing millions of babies does not allow us to rise in armed insurrection to oppose the State? The links posted above explain my reasons for so thoroughly and adamantly disagreeing with Rosebrough here.

Rosebrough does allow for a seeming exception with the Colonialists rebelling against George III suggesting that it was not sedition for the Colonialists to rise up against George III since the Colonialists were following lesser Magistrates.  I am pretty sure that King George III and British Parliament would have still called the Colonial rebellion “sedition.”

This section is very important in my opinion. I am of the conviction that pulpits across our land ought to be reverberating with the same kind of counsel that Reformed and Lutheran pulpits reverberated with when the clergy at that time was referred to “the Black Robed Regiment.” We live in a time when pulpits should ring with the counsel of rising up against the tyrant state that we are currently living under. Guys like Rosebrough counsel passivity in the face of the most God-awful and dishonoring behavior as coming from the State. God’s people need to be told by God’s spokesman while speaking from God’s holy desk that tyrants have no license from God to destroy the weak, to persecute Christians, or to tyrannize the public as they are currently doing and have been doing for quite some time. Debate can be had as to how best go about this and the timing of this but the necessity for it can not be disputed.