Author: jetbrane

I am a Pastor of a small Church in Mid-Michigan who delights in my family, my congregation and my calling. I am postmillennial in my eschatology. Paedo-Calvinist Covenantal in my Christianity Reformed in my Soteriology Presuppositional in my apologetics Familialist in my family theology Agrarian in my regional community social order belief Christianity creates culture and so Christendom in my national social order belief Mythic-Poetic / Grammatical Historical in my Hermeneutic Pre-modern, Medieval, & Feudal before Enlightenment, modernity, & postmodern Reconstructionist / Theonomic in my Worldview One part paleo-conservative / one part micro Libertarian in my politics Systematic and Biblical theology need one another but Systematics has pride of place Some of my favorite authors, Augustine, Turretin, Calvin, Tolkien, Chesterton, Nock, Tozer, Dabney, Bavinck, Wodehouse, Rushdoony, Bahnsen, Schaeffer, C. Van Til, H. Van Til, G. H. Clark, C. Dawson, H. Berman, R. Nash, C. G. Singer, R. Kipling, G. North, J. Edwards, S. Foote, F. Hayek, O. Guiness, J. Witte, M. Rothbard, Clyde Wilson, Mencken, Lasch, Postman, Gatto, T. Boston, Thomas Brooks, Terry Brooks, C. Hodge, J. Calhoun, Llyod-Jones, T. Sowell, A. McClaren, M. Muggeridge, C. F. H. Henry, F. Swarz, M. Henry, G. Marten, P. Schaff, T. S. Elliott, K. Van Hoozer, K. Gentry, etc. My passion is to write in such a way that the Lord Christ might be pleased. It is my hope that people will be challenged to reconsider what are considered the givens of the current culture. Your biggest help to me dear reader will be to often remind me that God is Sovereign and that all that is, is because it pleases him.

The Cross & Repentance – A Lenten Theme

Here we are a few days into Lent. Of course the practice of Lent and even the use of the Church Calendar among Protestants is considered verboten in many quarters. Some might even style the habit of paying attention to the Church Calendar as apostasy.

However, a significant reason as to why I’ve become at least tender to the thought of the Church calendar is that by its use of ordering time in a Christian direction it shapes us as Christians. Instead of being shaped by Int’l Women’s Day, or Black History Month, or May Day we are shaped by Advent, Epiphany, Lenten, and Resurrection. If Christians have dominion over their Calendar as a habit, it is much easier to believe that they will practice dominion over other areas of life as a habit.

Another reason to be sympathetic to the Church Calendar is that as a people we are shaped by our customs and rituals. Customs become habit forming and as habits customs and rituals shape us. This is true both positively and negatively.

Negatively the custom of course language makes for a reinforcement of a course people.

Positively the custom of praying before meals works to make us a God-conscious people.

Meaning of Lent 

Lent is characterized as a time of especial humility, meekness, and repentance in the Christian’s life. It was to be a time where the Christian identified with the Cross of Christ just as the Easter season was to be a time where the Christian identifies with the Resurrection and triumph of Christ. It became part of the texture of the Church giving a motif to the Christian calendar of humility followed by triumph.

However, over time Lent became burdened with showmanship. People became proud of their performances of humility and repentance.

Another danger in the Lenten season is that there crept into the Church a way of thinking that somehow self-denial and ritual performance was a means of earning favor with God in the sense that man was adding a something needed that wasn’t already present in Christ’s work. This reminds protestants that if we participate in Lent that to enter Lent properly we needs be convinced that there is nothing about Lent that is improving our right standing before God in Christ.

Of course, anything can become abused in the hands of fallen man. And all because a habit is abused doesn’t mean that it is inherently wrong. Scripture clearly calls for  repentance and self-denial and inasmuch as lent has typically been a time emphasizing repentance and self-denial we shouldn’t dismiss that aspect of it out of hand.

We want to spend this sermon talking about repentance and then firmly connecting repentance to the Cross of Jesus Christ. We want to suggest that as Protestants we too can celebrate Lent but in a decidedly different way then as part of the Romish sacrament of Penance, which is part of their merit theology.

As we look at Scripture we discover that the beginning of Jesus ministry demands a call of repentance.

Matthew 4:17 From that time Jesus began to preach, saying, “Repent, for the kingdom of heaven is at hand.”

And then after the resurrection our Lord connects His crucifixion with repentance and forgiveness of sins;

Luke 24:45 Then he opened their minds so they could understand the Scriptures. 46 He told them, “This is what is written: The Messiah will suffer and rise from the dead on the third day, 47 and repentance for the forgiveness of sins will be preached in his name to all nations, beginning at Jerusalem.

Then on the day of Pentecost Peter calls for people to “repent,” and connects that need in light of the crucified Lord and Messiah.

Acts 2:36 “Therefore let all Israel be assured of this: God has made this Jesus, whom you crucified, both Lord and Messiah.” 37 When the people heard this, they were cut to the heart and said to Peter and the other apostles, “Brothers, what shall we do?” 38 Peter replied, “Repent and be baptized, every one of you, in the name of Jesus Christ for the forgiveness of your sins. 

The Greek word for repent is metanoeō and it means to change one’s mind.

F. F. Bruce puts it simply when he wrote that repentance “involves a turning with contrition from sin to God.”

The great presupposition of repentance is the Cross work of Jesus Christ. There on the Cross, the sinner spies for first time not only the magnitude of His sin but also the cure for His sin.

It is a glimpse of and a beginning understanding of the Cross work of our Lord Christ which drives repentance, both of the initial variety that is connected to faith and conversion but also of the life long variety that is to be characteristic of all Christians. In just a bit we will connect the Cross more tightly to repentance.

We remember, after all, that repentance is not a one off reality but is to be characteristic of the whole Christians life. Luther put it memorably when he said in his 95 thesis;

“When our Lord and Master Jesus Christ said, ‘Repent’ (Mt 4:17), he willed the entire life of believers to be one of repentance.”

So repentance is the way of entering into the  redeemed life and repentance is clearly integrally connected with the Cross work of our benevolent master, Jesus.

In light of that let us speak a wee bit about different kinds or repentance;

I.) Natural Repentance

Apart from the Cross work of Jesus Christ repentance is just so many promises to be a better sinner. It is what might be styled as a natural repentance. Fallen man has the capacity to see that something he has done has had consequences that he wished were not present. As such there is a certain repentance — which is really merely regret — that he experiences.

We saw natural repentance recently in the Olympics when the chap who won the Bronze medal in some event publicly apologized on International Television to his girlfriend he had lost due to his recent infidelity. He regretted his actions and so there was a certain horizontal natural repentance.

II.) Legal Repentance

Another wrong kind of repentance is the kind of repentance that thinks that in virtue of the presence of repentance a forgiveness is earned or merited.  We see this kind of repentance in history with traveling flagellants. They would go from city to city beating themselves with whips across their backs. In doing so they believed that their self-injury as repentance was please to God.

J. C. Ryle wrote about this repentance;

The tears of repentance do not wash away any sins. It is bad theology to say that they do. That is the work of the blood of Christ alone. Repentance does not make any atonement for sin. It is terrible theology to say that it does. It can do nothing of the kind. Our best repentance is a poor, imperfect thing, and needs repenting over again. Our best repentance has enough defects about it to sink us into hell. “We are counted righteous before God only for the sake of our Lord Jesus Christ, by faith, and not for our own works or deservings,”1 not for our repentance, holiness, charity, receiving of sacraments, or anything of the kind. All this is perfectly true. However, it is no less true that justified people are always repentant people, and that a forgiven sinner will always be someone who mourns over and hates his sins.

Jc Ryle

This kind of repentance, is a repentance that the Puritans styled a “legal repentance.” Legal Repentance viewed repentance as a work that could be traded up for grace so that what needed to be said is that we are saved by our repentance. Instead of understanding that it is God’s grace, as found in the Cross of Christ, that gives repentance the thought is that it is repentance that energizes the Cross work of Christ. It is the mistake of thinking that our repentance doesn’t need to be imputed with the righteousness of Jesus Christ in order to be accepted. It fails to realize that even our best repentance needs to be repented over. It includes the note of regret – perhaps even the remorse that personal sin exposes one to eternal punishment but there is no change that repentance always bespeaks. This legal repentance believes that this regret or remorse alone will in some measure by itself atone for disobedience against God’s Holy standard.

This legal repentance is exemplified in the person caught in their crime/sin. Sorry that they were caught but seeking to escape consequences via remorse.

This legal repentance is a theme that we find in Western Literature, whether in Shakespeare’s “Macbeth,” or Dostovesky’s “Crime and Punishment,” or more recently in the “Catcher in the Rye.”

Dostoevsky, for example, has his character Raskolnikov confessing his crime to Sonia, the merciful, suffering prostitute whose life became intertwined with his own, yet Raskolnikov continues to struggle with genuine repentance often rationalizing his actions.

In Scripture we find this kind of false repentance in the remorse of Esau. Scripture teaches;

Hebrews 12:17 For you know that afterward, when he wanted to inherit the blessing, he was rejected, for he found no place for repentance, though he sought it diligently with tears.

We see this “Legal Repentance” in the suicide of Judas.

Mt. 27:3 Then Judas, His betrayer, seeing that He had been condemned, was remorseful and brought back the thirty pieces of silver to the chief priests and elders, 4 saying, “I have sinned by betraying innocent blood.”

III.) Biblical (Evangelical) Repentance

Biblical (or Evangelical) Repentance is anchored in the Cross. The Spirit opens the eyes of the awakened sinner to see the truth about God’s character and His holy, just, and good Law that he has repeatedly violated. In the Cross the sinner sees the Holiness of God against his own depravity and sin and seeing God’s holiness the awakened sinner begins to see His danger since he is convinced that “the soul that sins shall surely die.” The awakened sinner begins to sees how filled with the rot of love of self he is filled with and seeing that he cries out to God that God may deliver Him from his body of death.

At the same time the Holy Spirit awakened sinner sees the mercy of God inasmuch as he sees that God is pouring out His just wrath against his own sin upon the second person of the Trinity on the Cross, who added to Himself a human nature, so that the Spirit awakened sinner was not required to pay for His own sins. In seeing the mercy of God he discovers the deep love of the Son for His people. The Spirit awakened sinner, in looking at the cross receives repentance as a consequence of that repentance and faith being graciously won for him by Christ on the cross in his place. The  Spirit awakened sinner repents but he understands that his repentance, like his faith, are gifts of God won for Him by the finished work of our magnificent savior on the cross. The Spirit awakened sinner understands that his faith and repentance are further expression of God’s great grace and favor towards him and are not mechanisms that earn God’s favor.

We see this kind of Repentance was at the heart of Paul’s preaching in the book of Acts. In his farewell to the Ephesian Elders Paul can say;

“I have declared to both Jews and Greeks that they must turn to God in repentance and have faith in our Lord Jesus” (Acts 20:21).

This is in harmony with the Scripture we looked at earlier;

Luke 24:45 Then he opened their minds so they could understand the Scriptures. 46 He told them, “This is what is written: The Messiah will suffer and rise from the dead on the third day, 47 and repentance for the forgiveness of sins will be preached in his name to all nations, beginning at Jerusalem. 

Here we see the intimate connection between repentance and the Cross work of Jesus the Christ. Because the Messiah has suffered and risen from the dead there can be proclaimed the command to repent.

Now, just a few words on the consequences of repentance and trusting the finished work of Jesus Christ.

1.) Biblical Repentance delivers us from seeking to find another means by which our guilt can be taken away. I’ve said this before but it bears repeating that those outside of Christ who know not the forgiveness that faith and repentance bring as looking to Jesus Christ for relief, are forever seeking to fob off their sin, guilt, and misery someplace else. They have no Messiah to take away their sin and so they either carry that sin themselves and so become self destructive or else they seek to cast their sin, guilt, and misery on others around them — often on those who love them the most. They do not own their sin and so they seek to place it on everyone else. Only by doing so can they live with the sin, guilt and misery they can’t escape.

2.) Connected with this is the idea that Biblical repentance provides sanity for the Biblical Christian. Sin that isn’t forgiven because of the Cross work of Jesus Christ that issues forth in faith and repentance leads to mentally unstable people. Sin drives people insane. We tend not to see this insanity because we become accustomed to it, but those who refuse to roll their sin upon Christ are people who are or will become mentally unstable. Those outside of Christ who refuse to repent will eventually, by the weight of all that sin, guilt, and misery they are carrying become tetched. The Cross of Christ takes away sin, guilt, and misery as well as how all that sin, guilt, and misery expresses itself.

Now, the potential consequence of a sermon like this is that people will be frightened that they have the wrong kind of repentance. I have found that folks who have that instinct to be fearful that they have the wrong kind of repentance … a non God pleasing repentance — are the people who have been graciously given Biblical repentance. The hardened sinner does not examine himself on this matter. They who are wheat as among the tares is satisfied with just looking like the wheat.

But if it is the case that we find ourselves convinced that we are too often a practitioner of natural or legal repentance and not evangelical repentance the answer is to look to Christ who receives all sinners. The answer to a lack of Biblical repentance is to look outside of ourselves to Christ who is our repentance before the Father. The prayer is that we would always be impressed with Christ for us and not with our own repentance that needs repenting over.

During this lenten season may we be a repentant people because of how the Lord Christ has, in His cross work set us free.

Tucker Carlson Says; “Satan Rules The World”

“The god of this age has blinded the minds of unbelievers so they cannot see the light of the gospel of the glory of Christ, who is the image of God.” 

I Corinthians 4:4

I will no longer talk much with you, for the ruler of this world is coming, and he has nothing in Me.

John 14:30

“Satan rules the world.”

Tucker Carlson
Interview with Ambassador Mike Huckabee

This is my Father’s world:
Oh, let me ne’er forget
That though the wrong seems oft so strong,
God is the ruler yet.
This is my Father’s world,
The battle is not done:
Jesus who died shall be satisfied,
And earth and Heav’n be one.

Maltbie Davenport Babcock 

I can’t count how many times I’ve heard the Carlson quote from well meaning but errant Christians who cite it in order to suggest that the bad things that happen in this world can be explained by a saying, “Well, Satan is, after all, the God of this world.”

This is a serious misunderstanding of what is being said in Scripture. When John records Jesus saying,”the ruler of this world is coming,” we must take into account a few matters. First, John, throughout is book uses the word “world” in at least ten different ways. Indeed, the word “world” in John, at times, becomes a bit of a frequently used word with a technical meaning.

In 12:40 when Jesus says, “for the ruler of this world is coming,” he does not mean that the triune God is not sovereign over all matters and all men. If Jesus did mean that He would be in contradiction with Himself as He says elsewhere when speaking of the Elect;

“I give them eternal life, and they will never perish, and no one will snatch them out of my hand. My Father, who has given them to me, is greater than all, and no one is able to snatch them out of the Father’s hand”

John 10:28-29

Clearly, if God is “greater than all” that means that God is the ruler over Satan and being the ruler over Satan, God is the ruler over the ruler of this world.

How do we resolve then, this apparent contradiction in John’s Gospel where on one hand Jesus speaks of “the ruler of this world is coming,” and on the other hand Jesus stating that “My Father … is greater than all?”

The answer is not complex.  In John 14 where Jesus speaks of Satan as “the ruler of this world,” He is speaking of the world here, not in a physical sense as if Satan is in charge of planet earth. Instead, Jesus is speaking of Satan being the ruler of this fallen world system as it lies in Adam’s rebellion.

John uses the word “world”in the sense of “world system” other times in His Gospel;
 
John 12:31 Now is the judgment of this world; now will the ruler of this world be cast out. 

John 16:11 concerning judgment, because the ruler of this world is judged.

So, we have to make distinctions then between the John’s usage of the word “world” being use to communicate a contemporary world system in its moral, ethical, and cultural dynamics, which because it is fallen, hates Jesus Christ and His Kingdom and the usage of the word “world” to mean planet earth and everything that happens upon it.

This reminds us that in this world (planet earth) there exists two world systems or Kingdoms. There is the world system (Kingdom) wherein Satan remains the ruler in the sense that it lies under the evil one. Paul mentions this world when he writes the Colossians (1:13) and says, “You’ve been delivered from the dominion of Darkness,” but then adds the phrase that teaches us that there exists also another world system (Kingdom) on planet earth; “to the Kingdom of God’s dear Son, whom He loves.”

So, Satan remains the “ruler of this world” but that does not mean that Satan has a domain that is outside of God’s sovereignty over Satan. Indeed, with the coming of Christ’s Kingdom we know that Satan’s world system is being increasingly driven back. Like a mustard seed the Kingdom that Jesus established is ever growing and with each expansion of growth this present evil age is being constricted. A day will one day come when the Kingdom of God shall cover the earth as the waters cover the sea.

In order to reinforce God’s exhaustive sovereignty in John’s Gospel we remember Jesus’ words to Pilate;

“You would have no authority over me at all unless it had been given you from above.”

Pilate had authority over Pilate the same way that Satan is the ruler of this world. In both cases the authority or rulership is derivative of God’s sovereignty. Yes, each had their authority or rulership but only as governed by the Sovereign God.

All this to say that Satan is not God over God in this world. Satan does not rule the world, though Satan does rule over those who are under His sway, but only so long as the sovereign God determines. Satan has had countless human minions that he once ruled under his world system, but God, who is great in mercy, plundered His elect from Satan’s rule and brought them into a different Kingdom, under a different ruler.

The passage in I Cor. 4 is much the same. Again, we have Satan, as the “god of this age.” But keep in mind that with the triumph of Christ the age to come (which is a different age than “this age”) has arrived and with that arrival of the age to come the strong man (Satan) has been bound (Luke 11:21) and Jesus who has bound the strong man is plundering his kingdom. There remain those (unbelievers) whom the god of this age (Satan) has blinded so that they cannot see the light of the gospel of the glory of Christ, who is the image of God. However, the elect among these unbelievers will, in God’s time, come to see the light of the gospel of the glory of Christ. Satan does not have totalistic control. He is only a god (of this age) in a very limited sense. That limited sense is limited because the Lord God Omnipotent Reigneth and of Him and through Him and to Him are all things, to whom be glory forever.

Amen.

 

Wilson’s Interview With Carlson Reveals Pope Doug Is A Neocon

After watching the full interview between Pope Doug the Wide and Tucker Carlson I have some impressions;

1.) Doug absolutely had his head handed to him. If I were Doug I would not have posted that interview because it was so decimating to his cause.

2.) I’ve noticed that Doug seems to melt down before those who he believes has “gravitas.” I remember Doug debating Christopher Hitchens on Atheism on a TV tour and I kept yelling at the screen at Doug because he was letting Hitchens get away with all kinds of stuff he had no business getting away with. Doug was almost tepid … even shy in responding to Hitchens. I noticed the same personality evacuation in Doug’s interview with Tucker. The swaggering Doug Wilson, who has no problem eviscerating those he thinks are beneath him (I know … I’ve been on the receiving end of that attempted evisceration) suddenly melts as if he is intimidated by those he knows can harm him. Maybe it is not that Doug is intimidated. Maybe he is trying to just be careful with someone he knows is dangerous? Maybe he is just being polite? Whatever it is, the Doug Wilson who is in conversation with a Christopher Hitchens or a Tucker Carlson is a different Doug Wilson who is attacking a Bret McAtee or a Michael Spangler.

3.) Tucker apologized profusely for saying at the Charlie Kirk lollapalooza memorial that he hated Zionists. He then went on to say that we should not hate anyone. Doug clearly agreed. I wonder if Tucker would apologize for saying, “I hate Satanists.” There remains a ridiculous strain of thinking in our Christianity that insists that hate is always wrong all the time. It is not. Inasmuch as Zionists are evil (and remember Zionism is naught by Notseeism for Bagels) in that much they should be hated. Now, of course Zionists might be do comparatively good things (Like Notsees). They doubtless love their mothers and treat their children well. However, when we say “I hate Zionists” we are not saying that Zionists never do anything praiseworthy. We are saying that the ideological/theological foundations of the Zionist worldview requires, out of love to God, a determined hatred. To not hate Zionists, or any belief system that dishonors Jesus Christ, is a hatred of the ascended and ruling Jesus Christ.

4.) Doug found himself in the position of defending the Bagel state in its bombing of schools, hospitals, and Christian Churches. Doug found himself in the position of defending Bagels murdering children in the was in the West Bank. Doug tried to blame all that on Hamas and as unfortunate collateral damage. Doug even tried to invoke Augustine on his side. Tucker was having none of it. Tucker insisted that there is all the difference in the world between besieging a city in the OT resulting in the population inside the city being starved out (a point Doug brought up) and pinpointing a dropped bomb to land on top of a Christian church full of refugees. Tucker kept insisting that Israel was making war on the civilian population which is a different proposition then civilians being killed in the context of battle.

Doug also suggested that it was legitimate to drop bombs on Christian churches in Gaza if Hamas has tunnels underneath those churches. Again, Tucker was having none of it insisting that if a Christian nation is the nation that is giving you the bombs which to drop you do not get permission to drop bombs on Christian churches.

5.) Doug insisted that Israel had a grizzly bear by the ears. Tucker agreed. Neither one of them asked the question … “Why did they grab the grizzly bear to begin with?” Remember, the Bagels showed up in Palestine and forcefully took Palestine from the Grizzly Bear. We shouldn’t be surprised if three generations later the Grizzly Bear takes exception to someone holding it by its ears. None of this is to say that Hamas is righteous, or even that Hamas should be given back the land illegally seized from the Palestinians. It is merely to say that if Israel as a Grizzly by the ears it is because they grabbed the Grizzly bear to begin with way back with the return to Palestine… a return of those who, genetically speaking, are likely not even Bagels, at least in their majority.

6.) Tucker clearly is no fan of Evangelical preachers.

“The people who lie the most are Evangelical preachers.”

Tucker Carlson to Doug Wilson.

Not to put too fine a point on it, but the above doesn’t recognize that Reformed preachers are not technically Evangelical and as such the true statement would be “The people who lie the most are Reformed preachers.” Tucker then launched into a diatribe against clergy that have an all paid trip to Israel and then who come back and are all aglow with reporting on the glories of Israel. I couldn’t help but wonder if Doug was sitting there perhaps feeling cut by that remark since his chief Lieutenant, Rev. Toby Sumpter, had, not long ago, arrived back in the States after an all expense paid trip to Israel and arrived back singing the praises of Israel.

7.) Doug Wilson spent more than a few minutes defending the US dropping of the atomic bomb on Japan. Tucker ate him for lunch reminding Doug that the atomic bomb dropped on Nagasaki was dropped using the largest Christian Church and its steeple as the target focus. The putative Christian US Military did in 9 seconds with the destruction of Japanese Christianity, what the Japanese had not been able to accomplish in the previous 250 years. And that happened despite the fact that the terms of surrender that the Japanese finally signed were the same terms of surrender they had agreed to sign 6 months prior to the bombs being dropped. (See Hebert Hoover’s “Freedom Betrayed.”) What was interesting here is that Doug admitted that his views on this subject have changed, as in years past Doug would have agreed with Tucker. This signals to me, as combined with Doug’s strong support for Israel, that Doug’s worldview has tacked in a neo-con direction over the years. Doug is no longer a reliable voice for Biblical Christianity but has instead reinterpreted his Christianity in a neo-con direction.

8.) Both agreed that antisemitism is evil but neither bothered defining what antisemitism is or gave examples of antisemitism. This is important when we live in a climate where merely saying that “We have no interest in Israel’s wars” is greeted with shouts of “antisemitism.” Clearly, the word “antisemitism” has, in the majority of its usages, merely the purpose of poisoning the well of the conversation. Once that word (or other words like that … “racist,” “bigot,” “misogynist,” “Kinist,” “homophobe,” etc.) is used the person hurling the toxic pejorative automatically wins the conversation unless the person on the receiving end says something like… “you say that like it’s a bad thing,” or, “why thank you but flattery will get not help you in this discussion.”

9.) Tucker mentioned that Israeli cabinet members have said they would like to kill all the Palestinians. What people don’t realize is that this is not an atypical view for those shaped and influenced by the Talmud which teaches that kind of attitude towards not just Palestinians but is a Bagel attitude towards all Goyim. Michael Hoffman in a blurb teasing a podcast on this subject has said;

“To safeguard civilians in occupied Palestine and the Middle East, and for the advancement of human rights and knowledge in defiance of cancel culture, the influence and impact of Talmudic theology on the Israeli government, military and the settlers must become known and challenged by all people of good will. In studying Israeli violence, confining the analysis mainly to “settler-colonialism” seriously limits authentic understanding of the roots of the racist, ethno-supremacist forces at work.”

10.) Doug tried to glibly defend the fact that 90% of US Congressman take money from AIPAC by saying, “they take money from everybody.” Tucker, responded by saying; “Perhaps but if you notice AIPAC doing that you’re instantly called an anti semite.” (Doug also forgets that AIPAC isn’t required to register as being a foreign agent unlike all other foreign agents — another strange perk that Israel gets here.)

Over and over again in this interview Doug tries to defend Israel against Tucker Carlson’s common sense observations touching on how Israel is dominating the US in its policy and in its culture. Doug is a Evangelical neo-con.

11.) Tucker interestingly said;

“Almost all of our foreign policy winds up disproportionally killing Christians.”

This is because the US Government in DC is a main arm of the New World Order and there is no one that the New World Order hates more than Christians.

12.) Doug tries to argue that Israel, unlike the Palestinians, is virtuous enough to be hypocritical about their sins and so deny their brutalities vis-a-vis the Palestinians who just own their slaughters. Tucker disagreed by insisting that what Israel does is to manipulate the US media since they are so dependent upon US aid. In essence Tucker is saying here that Israel is not hypocritical so much as practitioners of the art of distraction via the US media (which the Bagels largely own).

We could go on from here but it is pretty clear throughout the interview Doug was seeking to be an apologist for Israel even going so far as to ridiculously say;

“Islam is a greater threat than the Jews.”

I am reminded of the proverb that teaches;

“The Muslims are the broom which the Jews use to sweep up the Christians.”

I am no apologist for Muslims or Jews. I want the influence of both upon the West to end. I desire the West to be decidedly Christian again and that means the end of the influence of Jews and Muslims upon the Christian West. I won’t live to see that desire come to pass given how the Jews own the infrastructure of the West and give how Muslims now own cities like Dearborn and Hamtramck Michigan and are making significant inroads in Texas and Georgia.

However, while I have breath and life, I will champion the cause of Jesus the Christ in anticipation of the day when every knee shall bow and every tongue confess that Jesus Christ is Lord to the glory of the Father.

Final thought?

Doug Wilson is no friend of the West or of Biblical Christianity. I certainly hope, at the very least, he is profiting from his conversion to JUDEO-Christianity.

 

The Preaching of Law, Gospel … 1st & 3rd Use Of The Law In Preaching

“How were the ten commandments given on Mt. Sinai? not by bare exactions of duty, but fronted with the Gospel, to be believed in the first place; ‘I am the Lord thy God,’ etc.’

Thomas Boston
The Crook In The Lot – p. 60

The Ten commandments, in their original context, were not given in terms of the 1st use of the law  but rather in terms of the third use of the law. For the Christian, preaching should be Gospel, Law (3rd use), Gospel. For the Christ hater preaching should be Law (1st use), Gospel.

The first use of the law (Law – Gospel preaching) has the purpose of illuminating the sinfulness of man’s sin. It is all demand and no relief. It is Pilgrim, in “Pilgrim’s Progress” being bludgeoned to the ground even after appeals for mercy. The first use of the law knows no mercy disconnected to Jesus Christ’s finished work. The first use of the law’s work is to turn a light on the sinfulness of sin in fallen man. The first use of the law finds the law as a rigid schoolmaster which has the purpose of driving the sinner to Christ for relief.

Augustine wrote on this matter;

“The law orders, that we, after attempting to do what is ordered, and so feeling our weakness under the law, may learn to implore the help of grace”  

For the Christian, however, he is reminded of God’s favor upon Him in providing escape from God’s wrath because of Jesus Christ, before He is reminded of God’s standard and then is reminded again, after the preaching of the third use of the law, of God’s graciousness towards Him for both the law that instructs in what is pleasing to God and beneficial to us and for God’s grace that reminds us that though we fall short in walking in full obedience to God’s law, God, for the sake of Christ’s Cross work, lovingly owns us as His people. Preaching ends with the Gospel because the Gospel tells the Christian that “there is therefore now no condemnation for those in Christ Jesus.”

The third use of the law then is only for those who have closed with Christ and own him as their savior. If the first use of the law says, “There is none righteous, no not one,” the third use of the law says, “This is the way, walk ye in it.” Both the first use and the third use of the law is God’s good to His elect. The first use of the law in driving us to Christ. The third use of the law in giving us the good life.

For the Christ hater, he is reminded of God’s wrath. He is explicitly told that God has no favor for him since he has walked contrary to God’s standard. He is told the only cure for God’s wrath upon him for his disregard of God’s righteous law is to repent, have faith, and flee to Christ who alone can provide shelter for Him in the face of God’s decided opposition (wrath) towards the sinner. Only when the sinner has been given God’s law and awakened by the terror of God’s wrath may the sinner be told of God’s mercy provided in Christ. Only after the sinner has been given God’s law can he be commanded to repent. The hot needle of God’s Law (1st use) must be the tool which pulls through the scarlet thread of redemption found only in Christ.

So … yes, preaching is Law – Gospel. But it is Gospel, Law, Gospel for the believer as we see in the quote above and Law – Gospel for the Christ hater.

Only by the preaching of the first use of the law will men outside of Christ see their danger. Only by the preaching of the third use of the law will Christians learn how to love their sovereign who said; “If you love me keep my commandments.”

Such preaching also has the advantage of steering the Christian away from both the Charybdis of antinomianism and the Scylla of legalism. Antinomianism is defeated because by preaching God’s third use of the law the Christian will not be able to say, along with the Dispensationalists an R2K chaps, “God’s law no longer applies.” Legalism is defeated because by a close preaching of God’s third use of the law the Christian will never think that somehow their behavior is currying and earning God’s favor. Christians will leave the preaching rejoicing in God’s freely given grace. 

Horton is Wrong … Calvin was Right … Magistrates Should Enforce God’s Law

“And so Calvin didn’t have Servetus burned; the city council had him burned, on the request of the whole Protestant movement. He was going to be burned by the Roman Inquisition, but escaped. So everybody wanted Servetus burned. Now, having said that, you could almost exonerate Calvin from that part, but not what came afterwards. Calvin then wrote a treatise defending—under the guise of defending the doctrine—the idea; he was really defending his action there and the action of the city council. He wrote a treatise on the necessity of corporal punishment for those who deny the Trinity.”

Mike Horton
White Horse Inn

Horton is R2K. As such most of what Mike Horton says when it comes to Church and State matters is just ridiculous and is a matter of providing cover for his classical Liberal worldview. This is a worldview, that by presupposition, will not allow the Magistrate to enforce the first table of God’s law. It is a worldview that remains in contradiction, not only to the revised Belgic Confession 36, but in extremis to the original Belgic Confession 36 which some church bodies still confess. (You really should read the original Belgic 36.)

So, Mike goes all apoplectic that Calvin (who was not R2K) would write a treatise on the necessity of corporal punishment for those who deny the Trinity. Keep in mind that inasmuch as Mike takes up this position Mike is saying that a social order can be just when there are no consequences for those who deny the trinity. Also, keep in mind that in the OT the penalty for blasphemy was death. Clearly, a denial of the Trinity is blasphemy.

But of course, for Mike, and all his R2K buds, the OT has been dispensationalized. They are, in essence, Baptistic New Testament Christians. (It is interesting here that Baptists also swear allegiance to the necessity of a separation of Church and State that Mike champions.)

All this to say that Horton is not classically Reformed on this issue. It is altogether fitting, proper, and just that the Magistrate visit the denial of the Trinity with capital punishment. It is only Mike’s being beholden to the Spirit of the age (he is a man of his times) that finds him rejecting what so many of the Reformers embraced. Horton, later will plead that we must be guided by the confessions here and not any one Reformed voice from the past and yet, as we said earlier, the original Belgic 36 is still followed by some.

Still, here are just a few voices (I could provide many more) that agreed with Calvin on the necessity of the Magistrate to enforce both tables of God’s law;

 “The law of Christ, when perfectly executed, teaches most rightfully how every injustice must be extirpated from the commonwealth, and how those offending against the law should be chastised.”

John Wycliffe

“Kings are not as lords and rulers over the word and laws of God; but are, as subjects, to be judged by God by the word, as they ought to rule and govern all things according to the rule of His word and commandment.”

Heinrich Bullinger

 

“Kings then have not absolute power to do in their regiment what pleaseth them; but their power is limited by God’s Word. So that if they strike where God commandeth not, they are but murderers; and if they spare were God commandeth to strike they and their throne are criminal, and guilty of wickedness that aboundeth upon the face of the earth for their lack of punishment.”

John Knox

These Reformed chaps from history, and many many more like them would have abominated Mike Horton’s idea that the Magistrate should not enforce both tables of God’s law. They would have agreed with Calvin, as the original Belgic 36 does, that;

“Whoever shall now contend that it is unjust to put heretics and blasphemers to death will knowingly and willingly incur their very guilt. This is not laid down on human authority; it is God who speaks and prescribes a perpetual rule for his Church. It is not in vain that he banishes all those human affections which soften our hearts; that he commands paternal love and all the benevolent feelings between brothers, relations, and friends to cease; in a word, that he almost deprives men of their nature in order that nothing may hinder their holy zeal. Why is so implacable a severity exacted but that we may know that God is defrauded of his honor, unless the piety that is due to him be preferred to all human duties, and that when his glory is to be asserted, humanity must be almost obliterated from our memories? . . .”

Calvin’s work against Servetus

So, we see in this post that Horton is merely serving up to us Baptistic separation of Church and State pig slop, as well as a dispensational type hermeneutic and because of that the man, along with his R2K tribe, should be abominated. If we lived in orthodox times R2K would be ruled as outside the boundaries of the Reformed faith.

Horton is done yet though … he presses on with his inanities;

“But you couldn’t live in Geneva if you were an Anabaptist. You couldn’t live in Geneva if you were a witch. Calvin’s own stepdaughter was a prostitute and she couldn’t live in Geneva. But that was true in Wittenberg; that was true anywhere in Christendom at that time.

It’s horrible, what Calvin wrote. You know, we talk about Luther—Luther, those horrible things that he said…


BLMc responds,

In the first paragraph above Horton is trying to exonerate Calvin from being a tyrant because he didn’t pursue having the Magistrates bring the death penalty for Anabaptists, Witches, and Prostitutes. However, there is also a tone of lament here that the Reformers were so uptight that they would use God’s law to achieve the disallowing of Anabaptists, witches, and prostitutes to live in Christian society. Of course, Horton doesn’t believe Christian society is possible, so that accounts for why Horton would say we should allow Anabaptists, witches and prostitutes to live in our Natural law governed societies.

Notice the recoiling and reviling of Horton over what Calvin wrote… over what the Church embraced for thousands of years until the rise of the Anabaptists.

Mike says… “It’s horrible what Calvin wrote.”

More horrible than a million abortions a year? More horrible than doctors cutting genitals off of healthy children? More horrible than Canada’s MAIDS program?

In indicting both Calvin and Luther for those “horrible things they wrote,” we see Mike Horton as a man of his times.

Mike isn’t quite yet finished;

Well, I think that we can’t just say, “Well, they are people of their time, they’re people of their age.” There were plenty of people, including Reformed theologians, who lamented Calvin’s defense of executing anti-Trinitarian heretics: “Isn’t it time to stop doing this? I thought we had a Reformation so that we only used the word of God and not the sword!” There were people of Calvin’s day—highly respected people: Martin Bucer, his mentor, for example—who didn’t agree with it. And so there were plenty of people of Calvin’s day who did not share Calvin’s view. And it’s a blot on his career. And I think it’s so helpful to study the history because you know a little bit more.

Bret responds,

Perhaps we should agree with Mike here and not be allowed to say that “Mike is just a man of his time,” because there are plenty of people, including Reformed theologians, who lament Horton’s R2K. An R2K which disallows the Magistrate from enforcing God’s law. The original Belgic 36 certainly allows the enforcing of God’s law. The quotes from Reformed chaps throughout history allowed for it;

“Though we have clear and full scriptures in the New Testament of the abolishing the ceremonial law, yet we no where read in all the New Testament of the abolishing of the judicial law, so far as it did concern the punishing of sins against the moral law, of which heresy and seducing of souls is one, and a great one. Once God did reveal his will for punishing those sins by such and such punishments. He who will hold that the Christian Magistrate is not bound to inflict such punishments for such sins, is bound to prove that those former laws of God are abolished, and show some Scripture for it.”

George Gillespie — Westminster Divine
Wholesome Severity Reconciled With Christian Liberty

 

Accordingly, in every state sanctified to God capital punishment must be ordered for all who have dared to injure religion, either by introducing a false and impious doctrine about the Worship of God or by calling people away from the true worship of God (Dt. 13:6-10, and 17:2-5); for all who blaspheme the name of God and his solemn services (Lv. 24:15-16); who violate the Sabbath (Ex. 31:14-15, and 35:2; Num. 15:32-36); who rebelliously despise authority of parents and live their own life wickedly (Dt. 21:18-21); who are unwilling to submit to the sentence of supreme tribunal (Dt. 17:8-12); who have committed bloodshed (Ex. 21:12; Lv. 24:17, Dt. 19:11-13), adultery (Lv. 20:10), rape (Dt. 22:20-25), kidnapping (Dt. 24:17); who have given false testimony in a capital case (Dt. 19:16-21).”

Martin Bucer
16th century Magisterial Reformer

Mike has a number of realities that are blots on his career including his R2K “atheism for the public square” theology. In studying the history we see that Mike is the aberration and not Calvin.