Proper Enmity, Then & Now

“And I will put enmity (open hostility) Between you and the woman, And between your seed (offspring) and her Seed; He shall [fatally] bruise your head, And you shall [only] bruise His heel.”  

Genesis 3:15
Amplified

In the Hebrew language the first word here is “enmity.” This is important because in constructing the sentence in such a manner the author is telling us that this idea of “enmity” or “hostility” is being especially emphasized. In an act of magnificent redemptive grace God proclaims that the enmity that the serpent bore responsibility for inciting as between God and our first parents, will be reversed with the consequence that the hostility established between God and our first parents would eventually be displaced with a hostility between the lineage of the serpent and the lineage of the Messiah culminating in the arrival of the promised seed (Messiah) who in a contest with Lucifer (Serpent) would finally completely crush that Serpent suffering  wounding Himself in the contest.

This text is commonly labeled the “protoevangelium” or first proclamation of the Christian Good-News (gospel). It is called this because herein is contained God’s first promise to heal the breach that exists now between His image-bearing creation and Himself with what Christian’s refer to as “The Fall.” In Gen. 3:15 we learn that Satan’s wreckage is not the final word. In Gen. 3:15 we learn that God is a warrior God who will provide a warrior Messiah who will  destroy him who holds the power of death, that is, the devil, and free those who all their lives were held in slavery by their fear of death.

Genesis 3:15 is thus a declaration that announces that redemptive history (the most important history of all history) is going to be characterized by warfare ultimately between the Serpent and the Warrior Messiah, but penultimately also between the Serpent Seed and the Warrior seed. And this proclamation of open warfare… this announcing of perpetual hostility between these contestants is God’s magnanimous grace. To see this placement of hostility as divine grace we have to understand that without this gracious and divinely created hostility man’s hostility to God (Romans 8:7) and God’s hostility toward fallen man (Romans 1:18) would have never been healed with the result that all of mankind would have been without God and without hope. God’s creation project would have been a failure.

The point I want to emphasize at this juncture is that God created open hostility between the contestants (God’s people and the Serpent seed) is pure grace. I emphasize this because of the niceness cult that Evangelicals cultivate. This text teaches that Christians are to be hated by the Serpent seed and they in turn will hate the Serpent seed and that hatred for the Serpent seed is born out of love to God who has delivered them from the kingdom of the serpent and delivered them to the kingdom of God’s Messiah warrior whom He loves. In other words, open hostility between Christians and Serpent seed is a positive good and not something Christians should try to avoid or feel bad about when and where it exists.

Genesis 3:15 also marks out God’s temporal beginning of the covenant of Grace. In this announcement God lets it be known that for His own glory He will rescue what turns out to be a multitude of people and He will do so by making that multitude of people He rescues warrior servants (II Tim. 2:3-4) for the promised warrior Messiah. This reminds Christians again that their Christian walk is characterized by the hostility of the Serpent seed against them and of they against the Serpent seed.

We see this open warfare as imposed by divine grace, break out immediately in the biblical record. In Genesis 4 we find the Serpent seed (Cain) murdering the redeemed seed of the woman (Abel). Likewise we find an ongoing anticipation of the arrival of the ultimate promised warrior Messiah who would crush the Serpent’s head (Gen. 4:1, 25) — an anticipation that would characterize the Hebrews in every generation. It became quickly obvious that the conflict would fester long before the warrior Messiah arrives.

That conflict then is traced throughout the Old Testament and becomes iron furnace hot when the seed of the woman finally does arrive in the New Testament.

One example but this is a theme we find repeatedly developed in Scripture. Think of Jael crushing the head of Sisera, the serpent representative opposing God’s people (Judges 4). Similarly there is Judges 9:52-53 where we find a child of the Serpent persecuting God’s people only to find his head being crushed by an anonymous woman.

 52 So Abimelech came as far as the tower and fought against it; and he drew near the door of the tower to burn it with fire. 53 But a certain woman dropped an upper millstone on Abimelech’s head and crushed his skull.

Another example of the development of the this Gospel conflict theme between the respective seeds, is David vs. Goliath. David is a picture of the Lord Christ fighting solitary for His people against the serpent champion Goliath. Goliath is decked out in scale armor, the Hebrew word literally meaning “scales” (1 Sam. 17:5). Typologically this harkens back to the scales of the Serpent in the Garden of Eden. David posits a stone between the Serpent representative’s eyes and proceeds to cut his head off. Goliath was dressed like a serpent with his scale armor, and he died like a serpent, with a head wound. David, as a type of Christ has crushed the head of the serpent.

Continuing with this theme in 1 Samuel 5:3-4, the false god Dagon of the Philistines falls face down to the ground in front of the Ark of the Covenant with his head cut off. The Philistines, perennial enemies and persecutors of Israel, had captured the Ark and placed it inside their temple, smack in front of their god, Dagon. The result was catastrophic for Dagon. He fell forward and his head came off. Remind you of anything? “He will strike your head.” Dagon and the Philistines are portrayed as the seed of the serpent.

In the New Testament this theme finds its fullest expression. The conflict between the ultimate seed of the Woman (Christ) and the serpent seed is unmistakable. Christ even uses the same type of language when speaking to His enemies that reflects what is promised in Genesis 3:15;

John 8:44 You are of your father the devil, and the desires of your father you want to do. He was a murderer from the beginning, and does not stand in the truth, because there is no truth in him. When he speaks a lie, he speaks his own native tongue, for he is a liar and the father of it. 45 But because I tell the truth, you do not believe Me.

Matthew 12:4 You brood of vipers, how can you who are evil say anything good? For out of the overflow of the heart, the mouth speaks.

And finally in the cross the Serpent and His seed does their worst work in striking the heel of the warrior Messiah drawing blood. The Serpent believes the battle is over with blood and bruise covered pathetic warrior messiah hanging limp on the cross and finally stiff in the tomb. Yet in the cross as followed by the resurrection and ascension the great dragon was cast out, that old serpent, called the Devil, and Satan, which deceiveth the whole world: he was cast out into the earth, and his angels were cast out with him.

10 And I heard a loud voice saying in heaven, Now is come salvation, and strength, and the kingdom of our God, and the power of his Christ: for the accuser of our brethren is cast down, which accused them before our God day and night.

11 And they overcame him by the blood of the Lamb, and by the word of their testimony; and they loved not their lives unto the death.

This theme is likewise taken up after Christ’s resurrection and ascension. In Romans, the Holy Spirit, hearkening back to this theme began in Genesis can say in 16:20, The God of peace will soon crush Satan under your feet.

So, the conflict continues but it continues as a mopping up exercise. Satan is defeated and now the conflict is just a matter of rolling back outposts of his defeated seed. Our warrior Messiah is victorious and His people are victorious in Him. In Christ we likewise have been crucified (Romans 6:4), resurrected  (Col. 2:12) ascended (Eph. 2:6) and in session (Eph. 2:6). In Christ we are prophets, priests, and kings under sovereign God and when we engage in the conflict again the serpent seed we engage in it knowing that the conflict has already been decided and that we are fighting as the victors going from victory unto victory against an enemy that still has the originally place hostility between the seed of the serpent and the seed of the woman still present. The seed of the serpent still hates us and we out of the love of our great Liege Lord Jesus Christ hate the serpent seed enough to oppose them at every turn. We meet their hostility with a grace given hostility to match and more.

We must careful not to reduce the hostility that has been sovereignly placed between the seed of the serpent and the seed of the woman by turning it just a metaphor for fighting against sin. While it is certainly is true that part of our conflict is to fight against sin within us and to fight against yielding to temptation (and many times we will fail) the conflict that we as Christ’s seed have been appointed to can not be reduced only to our fight with sin, essential though that is. No, the conflict is a real conflict where enemy troops align up against one another on real fields of battle. I have experienced in that my own life when the seed of the serpent located in the journalistic serpent seed in the Michigan newspaper, radio, and television media along with the national organization of the SPLC gathered to do battle against me as one of Christ’s warrior seed. I most recently witnessed it when Rev. Michael Shover was assailed by the hordes of serpent seed as he manfully did battle with them in the Iowa State house. Before that it was the great Thomas Achord who did battle with the serpent seed only to be grievously wounded by the vipers. These skirmishes are nothing compared to other contests where greater saints than Achord, Rev. Shover or myself were required to resist to the point of blood. How many saints, in this never-ending conflict have lost their lives for their Liege-Lord only to gain their lives by being ushered into glory to be with their great Captain and their kin who have gone before?

In wrapping up we have need to speak to one more issue. There are those who will fault this line of thinking with being too jagged, too bellicose, to pugnacious. Allow me to suggest that there is nothing inconsistent with what I have said about the conflict between the serpent seed and the seed of the warrior Messiah with the concomitant truth of the necessity of God’s warrior seed to have compassion and pity on the seed of the serpent. Indeed, open hostility to the seed of the serpent is a great kindness to them. Can you imagine how much hatred there is to the seed of the serpent by showering them with what we call “love” today? This pseudo love is seen in any number of denominations who are trying to “love” the seed of the serpent while at the same time taking that seed into the bosom of their denominations. Such behavior is not an act of kindness to the serpent seed but this denial of the grace driven hostility between the seed of the woman and the seed of the serpent only emboldens the serpent seed to take over whole denominations such as we find happening in most of our “white hat conservative Reformed denominations” today. Do you want to have compassion on the serpent seed? Then give them no rest by engaging them in battle. War with them until they sue for peace demonstrating such by repenting and owning Jesus Christ as their Liege-Lord. If the context calls for your being polite while you slip them the shiv then by all means be polite. If the context calls for buying them the next cup of coffee before nuking them then by all means buy that next cup of coffee.

Above all else though, do not forget that you’ve been called to war and as such you should develop the skills of the soldier. In this context that means knowing what you believe and why you believe it and what you don’t believe and why you don’t believe it. This work of the intellect is the equivalent of how a soldier masters the different tools (weapons) of war. You have need also to realize that in warfare you will likely be required to suffer. You will have to pray for the ability to persevere when you no longer have any perseverance left. Then there is the necessity also to realize that the serpent seed who will do you the greatest injury will likely rise from within the Church. Like Judas attacking Christ with a kiss, so it will be the case that those who wound you the deepest may very likely come from members of the household of God. When that happens pray to God that He will give you the strength to pray that they might repent, be forgiven, and be restored to the household of God.

So, there it is. The Christian’s life is a life that is characterized by a call to a centuries old conflict. We, in the new covenant age, have the satisfaction of knowing that the battle has already been won. We have the satisfaction of knowing that we shall go from victory unto victory if we will only fight. We can have the glow of satisfaction when there is open hostility against us by the seed of the serpent, and we in turn can have joy in the open hostility that we have towards the viper brood who would, if they could, roll the Lord Christ off His throne.

 

 

 

 

The Sure and Certain Coming Victory

John 16:33 “I have said these things to you, that in me you may have peace. In the world you will have tribulation. But take heart; I have overcome the world.”

II Cor. 2:14 — “But thanks be to God, who always leads us triumphantly as captives in Christ and through us spreads everywhere the fragrance of the knowledge of Him.”

The Victory of Christ and His people is inevitable. We will win because He has won. Get over it. There is no barrier that can forestall us. There is no Maginot line that can impede us. We will overcome all resistance. You will be assimilated to the Kingdom of God or you will die outside of it.

Rev. 22:15 But outside (The New Jerusalem) are dogs (sodomites) and sorcerers and sexually immoral and murderers and idolaters, and whoever loves and practices a lie.

The Kingdoms of this world shall become the Kingdoms of our Lord.

He was given dominion, glory, and kingship, that the people of every nation and language should serve Him. His dominion is an everlasting dominion that will not pass away, and His kingdom is one that will never be destroyed.  Dan. 7:14

Every battle we may lose serves the purpose of the sure certainty of victory in the War. Every one of us you may kill, either by way of reputation or by way of literal death, guarantees the rise of 10 more of us to come after you with the Praise of God on our lips and a double edged sword in our hands.

You cannot stop us. No weapon formed against us shall prosper. You cannot forestall your final defeat, you cannot reverse this certain triumph. Even your very thoughts will be made captive to Christ.

Your children too will rise and bless the name of Jesus. They will curse your name for cutting off their breasts, for pumping them full of toxins, for attempting to create a hell on earth in which they then have to live. Your children will be the finest disciples of the Christ you hate because they lived long enough to see the world that your vile affections created and they will resolve never to go back to that way of living.

Your Commander in Chief has already been defeated and all we are engaged in now is the mopping up exercise of childish resistance as found in pockets of insanity.

Plead for mercy now. Kiss the Son, lest He be angry and you perish in the way. Sue for peace and receive generous terms of surrender. Why will you refuse such a sweet clemency?

Why will you die in your sin when you cannot win?

Why will you die in your sin when eternal life is on the other side of Christ’s command for all men everywhere to repent?

Does God Only Love “Love” & Always Hate “Hate?”

 

They never will love where they ought to love, who do not hate where they ought to hate.

Edmund Burke

“To idolize love as an absolute value without defining this love in relation to God’s Law is no other sin than Adam’s: to decide for ourselves, arbitrarily, what is good and worthy of being loved, and what is not. Do to so is to put ourselves in the place of God and to confuse all values; it is to put good and evil both beneath the foot of equality. And in this sense, equality — a great idol of our time — abolishes the difference between God and man, between good and evil, and even between creatures themselves, all created by God to respect the place that our Lord and King has assigned them.”

 

Jean Marc-Berthoud

In Defense of God’s Law — p. 10-11

In the above we find the response to those sodomites and others who argue in defense of sodomite marriage that “you have no right to determine who people are allowed and are not allowed to love.” It is true I as the creature have no right to determine who people are and are not to love but God does have that right and as God as assigned sodomy as evil we must hate sodomite marriages and sodomites because of our Love to and for God and for the godly.

Consider God’s Word which underscores my point;

Romans 12:9 Let love be without hypocrisy. Abhor what is evil. Cling to what is good.

Cleaving to that which is good is commended with abhorrence of that which is evil. The one cannot be done without the other. The strength of our love for good measures itself by the energy with which we hate evil. This is the great failing of the modern Church. The modern Church along with the rest of the culture bemoans “hate” and comes up with stupid little phrases like “Love wins” and that quite apart from any consideration of what is being hated and what is being loved. A rightly directed hate is every bit as loving as a wrongly directed love is hateful. It is not love which is good and hate that which is evil. Love and hate can each be a virtue or vice, depending upon the objects to which they attach themselves. And what ultimately differentiates good from evil — in love or hate — is the very person of God, His eternal nature, and Holy character. Further, as God’s Law is a reflection of God’s character we likewise can determine our proper loves and proper hates by looking to God’s law as the norm that norms all our norms of love and hate.

Once Reformation falls again upon the West it will be typified by the elimination of non-discriminating love — which is idolatry — and the embrace of a discriminating law-defined hate.

The Garden Motif

It was garden dirt we were made from and in that garden, man learned his purpose and reason for being. In that same garden, Adam and all his posterity fell. However, before being cast out and blocked from the garden fallen man heard the promise of Redemption in that garden.

That promise was called a seed.

Ever since then fallen man has sought to return to the garden in his own power — his timeless quest for Utopia. But only God can provide our desire for the garden.

Israel never forgot its garden origins. It carried a garden Tabernacle through its desert journey. Israel finally arrived in a garden land flowing with milk and honey and later when they built a Temple to replace the Tabernacle the garden motif was everywhere in the Temple. The Priests of Israel were adorned in garden garments, complete with the precious stones of Eden’s garden woven into the garments.

When the Lord Christ arrived He met his greatest temptation in a garden. In that Gethsemane garden, Jesus refused what Adam embraced when Adam was in his garden.

The Lord Christ as the promised seed died by a garden that He was eventually planted in, only to spring up from that garden and mistaken for a gardener.

Christ rose from that garden and provides the abundant life that only a garden can give. He is the garden vine that reproduces itself in the Father’s garden vineyard. His people are the fruit of that vine and that vine will cover the world.

From a garden, we came and unto a garden, we return in that New Jerusalem garden. There we find that the leaves of the trees in that garden are for the healing of the nations.

In Praise of Hatred

“Hate that which is evil. Cling to that which is good.” Romans 12:9

“A kind Providence has placed in our breasts a hatred of the unjust and cruel, in order that we may preserve ourselves from cruelty and injustice. They who bear cruelty, are accomplices in it. The pretended gentleness which excludes that charitable rancor, produces an indifference which is half an approbation. They never will love where they ought to love, who do not hate where they ought to hate.”

Edmund Burke


Hate gets a bum rap. Here all hate is doing is being the visceral counter-reaction to all that is loved and hate gets hated on. Hate gets maligned with ideas of “hate-crimes,” and “hate-speech,” and “hate-facts.” No one ever faults love when it is invoked for lust and yet hate takes it on the chin by receiving all the bad press and that even when employed properly.

You literature fans… where would you be without hate? How could you have a five star novel without the nobility of hatred in the building conflict? Could Dicken’s, “A Tale of Two Cities” ever have gotten off the ground without building our hatred for Madame De Farge? Would you have ever read Tolkien without Gollum? What would be Beowulf without hatred for Grendel? Even in the Scriptures we keep turning the pages to finally see the Serpent’s head fully crushed.

And what of history? History would be boring if there weren’t people to justly hate. Whether it is Vikud Quisling or Benedict Arnold. Whether it is Judas or Julian the Apostate. Whether it is Pope Francis or Bloody Mary, history wouldn’t be history without a proper hatred for the proper people.

For these reasons alone I think hatred should be toasted. Love gets all the credit but without hated hatred love would just be another ho hum passion losing the ability to be repulsed by what contradicts it.

Consider, for a second, the consequences to our culture because so many have decided that hate is bad. Because we are seeking to ban hate that which fills the vacuum of its absence is tolerance. The consequence of embracing tolerance in place of a full on loving of hate is not that hate disappears but rather is subtly re-directed. We are taught hate is bad and tolerance is good with the result that we now hate ourselves all the while telling ourselves how loving we are being. We used to properly hate those who were seeking to overthrow our the values of a culture that was, at least in part, Christian. Now, we are convinced that it is horrid to hate the opposite what we used to love. It used to be noble to hate sodomy, hate abortion, hate LGBTQ’ism, hate the stranger and alien whose cultural baggage promised the overthrow of our own beloved cultural values. So, hate hasn’t gone away. It has merely changed zip codes. We used to hate the opposite of that which we loved. Now we merely hate ourselves as we tolerate that which is destroying us. We once hated sodomy but we were taught that particular hate was bad and so we replaced our hate with tolerance with the result that we ended up hating our sons as we created a culture wherein they could more easily embrace sodomy. But… hey, it’s all good because we now have the ability to tolerate our sodomite sons. We once hated abortion but we were taught that particular hate was bad and so we replaced our hate with tolerance with the result that we ended up hating our daughters as we created a culture wherein they could more easily secure that needed abortion. We once hated tattoos but we were taught that particular hate was bad and so we replaced our hate with tolerance with the result that we ended up hating our sons and daughters as we created a culture wherein they could more easily ink themselves up. Again… hatred, being an inescapable concept, hasn’t really gone away, it’s merely relocated itself so that we hate ourselves and our kin.

If the God of the Bible hates (Ps.139:22; 119:63; Prov. 6:16-19) , and if we are supposed to aspire to character of God as seen in Christ then hate should be lauded. We see the hate of our Lord Christ in the way He spoke to His enemies and in His expertise in driving out the Bankers out of the Temple. Hate, glorious hate.

Indeed Scripture presses upon God’s people to properly hate.

Ecclesiastes 3

There is a time for everything,
and a season for every activity under the heavens:

8 a time to love and a time to hate,
a time for war and a time for peace.

Psalm 139

Do I not hate those who hate you, Lord,
and abhor those who are in rebellion against you?
22 I have nothing but hatred for them;
I count them my enemies.

Proverbs 8:13

The fear of the Lord is hatred of evil. Pride and arrogance and the way of evil and perverted speech I hate.

And yet we are still told my our clergy corps that Christians ought not to hate instead of being taught that Christians ought not to hate unrighteously and so improperly. In being taught not to hate by our Clergy what we are being taught, by force of inevitability, is the virtue of tolerance, which, as we enumerated above, merely re-locates the address of the inescapable hate so that we become self-haters.

Ironically, in the Church’s “war on hate,” as led by our emasculated clergy, what ends up happening is that Western Christians are having their auto-immune system shutdown so that everything that would have been rejected by the glorious work of auto-immune hate is now slipping through and sickening the Christian faith unto death. Instead of our hate energized auto-immune system spitting out the Aimee Byrds, Greg Johnsons, and Sean Michael Lewis instead without Biblical hate we are infected by their viruses.

No other faith system is doing this to itself. It seems that Western Christians alone have decided that Christians need to love everybody in a multicultural orgy which is promissory of the death of Western Christianity since it can no longer resist the death viruses of a border-less world, New World Order globalism, and the diminution, disappearance or enslavement of the Occidental Christian race which Christ has been pleased, as seen in history, to retain as the carriers of His faith across the world.

Another way this demented war on haters is seen is in the rabid opposition against opposition. The only thing that can be strongly opposed is strong opposition. To strongly oppose is to be “too intense,” or “not morally sensitive,” or even “Fascist.” It is just not good form or socially acceptable to bare one’s teeth at anybody or anything. It is possibly acceptable to be pro-life, pro-borders, pro-marriage, pro-truth in media, pro-just hiring practices but just try being anti-baby killers, anti-immigration, anti-sodomites, anti-lugenpresse, and anti-race quotas. Just see how the invitations to the societal soirees begin to decline. We are so afraid of rabid and reasonable opposition that we will not tolerate plain speaking and insist on circumlocutions in order to avoid being labeled (gasp) “haters.” Of course being “anti-racist,” and anti, “anti-Semite” still is considered acceptable hate and will get you a pass into all just the right parties.

Whence comes this war on hate? Let me offer a few guesses,

1.) A few days ago a friend of mine who is one of the sharpest laymen I know wrote me and reported,

Yesterday morning we tuned into the church webcast to learn that it doesn’t really matter what you know (those were his words) because all you need is LUV. He then spent 20 minutes expounding on that theme.”

I have no empirical data but I suspect that this kind of preaching is not that uncommon in Churches (conservative and liberal) across the nation. If all you need is LUV then hating hate is the preeminent virtue for any Christian.

2.) The ubiquitous conviction by dumbed down Americans that “all is well.” Despite the fact that we are living in an epoch that never called more for hatred of the best vintage we remain convinced that “all is well,” and anybody who says to the contrary is to be shunned. Dr. Andrew Joyce says it well,

Merely sharing your feelings of intense dislike, now termed “inciting hatred,” has been deemed criminal conduct in scores of Western countries. Criminal conduct! This despite the fact there has never been a point in our history more deserving of the deepest loathing, the most scathing contempt, and the most vicious hatred.”

Here we are living with effeminate Churches, chaste queer clergy in skinny jeans and sleeve tattoos, mass immigration of strangers and aliens for whom toilets are a novelty, public library Tranny reading hour, the enstupidification of America’s students, and we are being told that it is just so gauche to express the finest hatred, loathing, barbs of detest, rancor, enmity, and bitterness, that one can find within them. If there was a time for Menckenian opprobrium this is it. If ever we should marshal the sarcasm of Ambrose Bierce, this is it. Let us call down the giftedness of skewering as found in Nock, Johnson, and Chesterton. Our great love for the pure makes this properly a “time for hatred.”

3.) Post-modernism disallows us to characterizes anything as objectively bad. Nothing is intrinsically virtuous and so to be loved and nothing is intrinsically vile and so to be hated. We can handle hearing people say, “I love this or that,” because post-mondernism and deconstructionism teaches us that these kinds of value statements are person variable. However to say, “I hate this or I hate that,” we immediately recoil since that has the ring of a universal statement. How care anybody hate anything since nothing is intrinsically hateful.

4.) We hate Christ. Christ had no problem hating that which was hateful but since we hate Christ we refuse to hate what His Word identifies as hateful.

Conclusion

We have need to understand that there is an effect to this cause. When we choke off our ability to hate we, by necessity diminish our ability to love since love and hate are but the same emotion as pointed in opposite directions. We hate that which contradicts what we love and we love that which reverses or suffocates what we hate. If we cannot hate our capacity to love will be stunted and deformed. Indeed so related are love and hate that should you ever meet someone who tells you they don’t have a bone of hatred in their body, you can be sure you are talking too either a sociopath or a psychopath. Run for your life.