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 Book Of Acts & The Preaching Theme of Resurrection & The Kingdom of God – Easter 2025

 Luke 24:44 He said to them, “This is what I told you while I was still with you: Everything must be fulfilled that is written about me in the Law of Moses, the Prophets and the Psalms.”

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. 48 You are witnesses of these things. 49 I am going to send you what my Father has promised; but stay in the city until you have been clothed with power from on high.”

Acts 1:1 In my former book, Theophilus, I wrote about all that Jesus began to do and to teach 2 until the day he was taken up to heaven, after giving instructions through the Holy Spirit to the apostles he had chosen. 3 After his suffering, he presented himself to them and gave many convincing proofs that he was alive. He appeared to them over a period of forty days and spoke about the kingdom of God. 4 On one occasion, while he was eating with them, he gave them this command: “Do not leave Jerusalem, but wait for the gift my Father promised, which you have heard me speak about. 5 For John baptized with[a] water, but in a few days you will be baptized with[b] the Holy Spirit.”
6 Then they gathered around him and asked him, “Lord, are you at this time going to restore the kingdom to Israel?”

7 He said to them: “It is not for you to know the times or dates the Father has set by his own authority. 8 But you will receive power when the Holy Spirit comes on you; and you will be my witnesses in Jerusalem, and in all Judea and Samaria, and to the ends of the earth.”

This morning as we consider the Resurrection of our magnificent Lord Jesus Christ I want to fix in your minds the relationship between the Resurrection of Christ and the Kingdom of God as well as the relationship of our resurrection in Christ and the Kingdom of God. The point I am laboring to sustain is that the Resurrection itself had a teleos … a purpose, and the purpose of the Resurrection was to provide the beginning point of the extension of the long anticipated Kingdom of God.

In getting started we want to define our terms.

When we talk about Resurrection we mean here;

“God’s act to raise, first Christ, and then his people from the dead to a bodily and glorified eternal life in the new creation.”

When we talk about the Kingdom of God here we mean;

“The total reign of God in the hearts and lives of men.”

What we will be laboring to demonstrate from the Scriptures is that there is the tightest and most intimate relationship between the idea of resurrection and the idea of the Kingdom of God. God’s people had for millennia been looking for the Kingdom of God and with the Resurrection of Jesus Christ the Kingdom has arrived as inaugurated.

This is so true that there is no understanding resurrection apart from its foundation for the presence of God’s Kingdom and there is no understanding of the present Kingdom of God that does not begin with Christ’s resurrection.

The manner in which we will accomplish this is by first noting the tight relationship between these two as seen by a top down overview the preaching of the disciples in the book of Acts. We will see there that in the book of Acts the two main themes of their preaching was the Resurrection and the Kingdom of God and further how that preaching was greeted by the opposing Kingdoms that it had arisen to challenge.

(((From there next week we will begin with Genesis and we will demonstrate, block upon block, how resurrection and the Kingdom of God were present as a motif in the OT – often as typologically presented and perhaps along the way we will learn somewhat of what this Kingdom was to look like.)))

So, having mapped out what we are doing and how we will be doing it we turn to the book of Luke-Acts.

 Lk. 24:45-47

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 find the resurrected Jesus describing Himself as the Messiah. By doing so He has identified Himself as a King. This great King opens the minds of the apostles to understand the Scriptures about the suffering, resurrection and proclamation of forgiveness of sins in His name. The Resurrected King intends to bring people into a Kingdom through the preaching of the Disciples whom Jesus declares “are his witnesses.”

The fact that this Kingship of Jesus – proven as it is by His resurrection – is global is seen in his command to the disciples that “the forgiveness of sins will be preached in his name to all nations, beginning at Jerusalem. “

As we move to Acts we find the Kingdom of God once again being emphasized by the Resurrected King;

“He (Jesus) presented himself alive to them after his suffering by many proofs, appearing to them during forty days and speaking about the kingdom of God. (Acts 1:3)

These verses together reveal that the resurrected savior centered his post-resurrection appearances on the Kingdom of God and that this Kingdom of God is not merely a provincial affair but is global in its outreach. The Kingdom of God led by His Mediatorial King covers the globe.

On this Resurrection Sunday we have again to realize that the Resurrected Christ is intent on the Christian faith being a global affair. This Global reach of the Christian faith is emphasized in Matt. 28 in the great commission where the disciples are commanded to disciple the nations and it will be emphasized again by the Resurrected Jesus when after being asked if he were now at that time going to restore the Kingdom to Israel tells His disciples in Acts 1:6;

7  “It is not for you to know the times or dates the Father has set by his own authority. 8 But you will receive power when the Holy Spirit comes on you; and you will be my witnesses in Jerusalem, and in all Judea and Samaria, and to the ends of the earth.”

I submit to you that the Great King Jesus never intended for the Church to be on its heels in a defensive posture. The King of Kings and Lord of Lords upon being resurrected inaugurated a present Kingdom that was intended to be a reality that would cover the globe. To be sure resistance would be met – and the book of Acts tells of that resistance but the resistance to the ever present Kingdom, in the end, is always overcome.

This is a truth we need to be reminded of. The Resurrection means the Kingdom of God has been inaugurated. We are not waiting for the Kingdom of God to yet come in the some future time. In the resurrection of Christ the Kingdom has come. Now, that present Kingdom has also has a future component so that we are await the full bloom of that bud already present, but the Kingdom has come and is present about us.

We see the advance of that Kingdom throughout the books of Acts. The Church is formed as what we might call the armory of the Kingdom. It is in the Church that we come learn of the character of the King, of what the Kingdom looks like, and of what it means to disciple the nations but the Church is not the whole Kingdom of God but only its armory. In and with the Church we learn to put on the whole armor of God. In the Church we learn what it means to take every thought to make them obedient to the great King. In the Church we take every thought captive to make them obedient to Christ. In the Church we learn from the Scriptures that we have been translated from the Kingdom of darkness to the Kingdom of God’s dear Son whom He loves. So, the Church is instrumental to the Kingdom but it is not the whole of the Kingdom. The Kingdom extends beyond the walls of the Church so that eventually, over the course of time, the present Kingdom that the Resurrected Jesus brought out of the grave with Him covers the nations as the waters cover the sea.

The resurrected Jesus brings in the inaugurated Kingdom of God and the Kingdom of God finds its armory in the Church and from that armory the Kingdom expands into every area of life. Jesus is a great King who brings all domains under His sway and rule – and that more and more explicitly so as His Kingdom advances over time and in the context of the obedience of His people walking in terms of the King’s Law-Word.

We see the effect of that Kingdom that Jesus brings in affecting more and more areas. In the family realm we find in the NT that whole households are Baptized coming in as Households into the Kingdom of God. In Acts 17 the Resurrected Jesus and the Kingdom of God is such a threat to Thessalonica we read (and note the explicit relationship between Resurrection and Kingdom here;) In Thessalonica Paul

explains and demonstrates that the Christ had to suffer and rise again from the dead, saying, “This Jesus whom I preach to you is the Christ.”

This message is getting traction until Jews using evil men stir up resistance and go looking for Paul and Silas;

6But when they could not find Paul and Silas, they dragged Jason and some other brothers before the city officials, shouting, “These men who have turned the world upside down have now come here, 7and Jason has welcomed them into his home. They are all defying Caesar’s decrees, saying that there is another king, named Jesus!”

Did you catch that? They come preaching the Resurrected Christ and everyone understands them to be preaching another King besides Caesar … the great resurrected King Jesus.

In the social-order realm there in Athens in Acts 17 we find Paul as the Resurrected King’s ambassador speaking to the Athenians about their Idols that are governing their social-order and culture and we see Paul by use of Scripture and Holy Logic tearing down those Idols that the Kingdom of God may advance over the social-order of the Athenians. In Acts 19 we find the Kingdom of God being a threat to the Economic order of the Ephesians as the presence of the witness of Christ seeks to over turn the Economic foundation of the city pinned, as it was in the making of idols; As I read this note the economic overtones in the passage;

23 About that time there arose a great disturbance about the Way. 24 A silversmith named Demetrius, who made silver shrines of Artemis, brought in a lot of business for the craftsmen there. 25 He called them together, along with the workers in related trades, and said: “You know, my friends, that we receive a good income from this business. 26 And you see and hear how this fellow Paul has convinced and led astray large numbers of people here in Ephesus and in practically the whole province of Asia. He says that gods made by human hands are no gods at all. 27 There is danger not only that our trade will lose its good name, but also that the temple of the great goddess Artemis will be discredited; and the goddess herself, who is worshiped throughout the province of Asia and the world, will be robbed of her divine majesty.”

The Kingdom of the Resurrected King is chronicled in the book of Acts and wherever the preaching of the Kingdom goes the Resurrected King and His law-Word is preached and wherever the Resurrected King and His Kingdom is Preached there you find conflict and conversion.

On this resurrection Sunday we continue to preach the Resurrected King who inaugurates the Kingdom of God and we continue to receive the same kind of reward that those who preached the resurrection and the Kingdom received in the 1st century.

But we have gotten ahead of ourselves haven’t we? Back to the earlier book of Acts and its testimony that the preaching of the Resurrection of Christ and the Kingdom of God go together like peas and carrots.

In Acts 3 where the Apostles heal the lame man they heal the long lame beggar in the name of the resurrected Christ;

 “Silver or gold I do not have, but what I do have I give you. In the name of Jesus Christ of Nazareth, walk.” 7 Taking him by the right hand, he helped him up, and instantly the man’s feet and ankles became strong. 8 He jumped to his feet and began to walk. Then he went with them into the temple courts, walking and jumping, and praising God

This miracle is present in the Acts text to demonstrate the presence of the Kingdom. The thing we need to keep in mind here is that the OT itself connected healing and wholeness with the Kingdom of God;

In Isaiah 35:5-6, for example, it says:

And when he (Messiah) comes, he will open the eyes of the blind
and unplug the ears of the deaf.
The lame will leap like a deer,
and those who cannot speak will sing for joy!
Springs will gush forth in the wilderness,
and streams will water the wasteland.

By this healing ministry in the name of the resurrected Jesus, the Apostles demonstrate that the Kingdom of God has arrived and the expectation is that people will bow to the resurrected King in whose name and by whose authority these miracles are being done.

The thing we want to emphasize though is the Resurrected Christ means the presence of the Kingdom and the presence of the Kingdom means that God is ruling now through His and our great mediatorial King. That same King who resurrected from the grave and who inaugurated the Kingdom of God remains the great King in 2025 and that Kingdom He inaugurated remains a present Kingdom now.

Even before we get to this healing in Acts 3 the same connection between Resurrection and Kingdom is spoken up in Acts 2. There we learn that because the King of God’s Kingdom – Jesus – is alive He now reigns as the Father’s mediatorial King.

Peter proves this conclusion for us in his very first post resurrection sermon in Acts 2

In that Pentecost sermon, Peter declares that when David wrote Psalm 16:27 he was prophesying about Jesus’ resurrection as the true king of God’s kingdom,

“he (David) foresaw and spoke about the resurrection of the Christ, that he was not abandoned to Hades, nor did his flesh see corruption. This Jesus God raised up, and of that we all are witnesses”

(Acts 2:31–32).

Peter reaches his crescendo a few versus later when he exclaims,

Let all the house of Israel therefore know for certain that God has made him both Lord and Christ, this Jesus whom you crucified (Acts 2:36).

The idea that God has made Jesus Christ includes the idea of King and God has confirmed Jesus to be Lord and Christ by the resurrection.

Jesus’ resurrection proves he is the rightful mediatorial king of God’s kingdom. And if the king is here, the kingdom of God is here. King Jesus conquered death and lives forever. And because he lives forever, he reigns forever. And because he reigns forever, his kingdom, God’s kingdom, will never end. As the king goes, so goes the kingdom.

So, we see that from the book of Acts that the resurrection of Jesus is fused together with the message of the Kingdom? Not enough evidence yet for y’all? Well we turn to Acts 13 where once again we see these twin motifs of Resurrection and Kingdom walking together. There Paul says that “those of Jerusalem put Jesus to death, (26-29)” and goes on to say “But God raised Him from the dead (vs. 30).

Paul continues on in that passage speaking of the Resurrection citing Psalm 2:7 and Isaiah 55:3 and then again from David’s 16th Psalm; “You will not allow your Holy One to see corruption.” But in that Sermon from Acts 13 we also read about the Kingship of the Resurrected one

23 From this David’s seed, according to the promise, God raised up for Israel a Savior—Jesus

The mentioning of David’s seed reminds us of God’s promise that David would always have his descendant upon the throne. The reference to Jesus as “Savior” also points to a deliverer – that is a King who would rescue His people.

Then in vs. 38-39 in this sermon of Paul from Acts 13 the Holy Spirit fuses the idea of resurrection and Kingship together by preaching;

“Therefore let it be known to you, brethren, that through Him forgiveness of sins is proclaimed to you, and through Him everyone who believes is freed from all things from which you could not be freed through the Law of Moses” (vs. 38-39).

The resurrected Savior and Kingly seed of David brings freedom from sin and brings in the inaugurated Kingdom.

These are only a few places in Acts where we see the marriage of Resurrection and the Kingdom of God. If one goes to Acts 5 we hear these words of Peter upon being told to shut up about the message. Listen for the combination of Christ as Prince and the Resurrection;

29 But Peter and the other apostles answered and said: “We ought to obey God rather than men. 30 The God of our fathers raised up Jesus whom you murdered by hanging on a tree. 31 Him God has exalted to His right hand to be Prince and Savior, to give repentance to Israel and forgiveness of sins. 32 And we are His witnesses to these things, and so also is the Holy Spirit whom God has given to those who obey Him.”

We have only hit the highlights this morning of the theme of the preaching of the early Church. That preaching was that the Resurrected Christ was the great King of the Line of David whose resurrection confirmed the presence of the Kingdom of God. The Resurrection of Christ means the Kingdom has come.

This present Kingdom has come has inaugurated and by that we mean that there is a fullness of the Kingdom that remains yet to arrive. But the Kingdom inaugurated means there is a immediacy … a nowness to the Kingdom of God. A nowness that could not be a reality if it were not for the resurrection of Jesus the Christ.

Because the Kingdom of God is inaugurated by Christ it is not something that we are still waiting for to arrive at some yet future point. Christ has brought in the Kingdom and we have been, as Paul says, translated from the Kingdom of Darkness to the Kingdom of Gods’ dear Son whom He loves. We are in this Kingdom now. We have been united with the Resurrected one as Paul teaches in Romans 6 and being united with the Resurrected one we too are now living resurrected lives in the newness of the Father’s Kingdom. Unlike those who know not Christ we are not dead men walking but we are the resurrected saints who put off the old man and put on the new man created in Christ.

This Kingdom of Christ is an expansive Kingdom that is not limited to the confines of the Church. As a mustard seed the inaugurated Kingdom of God expands and expands. Like the cut out Rock in Daniel the Kingdom of God smashes all other Kingdoms that resist it.

As we have seen in the book of Acts the declaration of the Resurrected Christ and the presence of the Kingdom challenged political alignments, social-order climates, family life, and economic arrangements. The Resurrected Christ inaugurated a Kingdom that was totalistic in its expanse. This Kingdom of Christ that the Resurrected Christ inaugurates finds the Church as its armory for the equipping of the saints, finds the church as the Kingdom hospital for the saints where the cure of the Gospel can be found for those who know they are sinners, and finds the church as a gymnasium of the Kingdom where the Saints are built up in Christ. The Church is all this in the Kingdom but the Church can not be identified solely with the Kingdom. The Kingdom of God impacts every area of life where God’s people are called to be salt and light. The Church is the advance guard of the Kingdom and it knows that the gates of Hell cannot prevail against it. Because the inaugurated Church is present with the Resurrected Christ we can confidently pray;

Thy Kingdom come
Thy will be done
On earth
As it is in heaven

The resurrection of the King has reached us… has caught us up in its tornado force gales. We now have been resurrected with Christ as Ephesians 2 teaches:

Eph. 2:4But because of His great love for us, God, who is rich in mercy, 5made us alive with Christ even when we were dead in our trespasses. It is by grace you have been saved! 6And God raised us up with Christ and seated us with Him in the heavenly realms in Christ Jesus,

So not only has Christ been resurrected and is the mediatorial King of the Kingdom of God but it is also the case that by the power of the Holy Spirit those who have been irresistably called by Christ and who own Christ likewise have been resurrected with Christ so as to now live the inaugurated resurrected life.

And we are now prophets, priests, and kings under sovereign God. We are those who herald Christ and command all men everywhere to repent and kiss the King lest he be angry and they perish in the way.

This is the preaching of the book of Acts and the Scriptures and this is what Resurrection Day means. As you can see it is both comfort and summons. Comfort because nothing can undo what God has done in the Resurrection of Christ. Comfort because Christ has named us and owned us and thus nothing can separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus.

But it also is a summons… a summons of all God’s people to contend for the Crown Rights of Jesus Christ in every area of life. This is no area … no academic discipline … no career calling .. where this resurrected King does not point to saying … MINE. Will we live in terms of the Resurrected King’s Kingdom?

There are any number of people in the Christian Church who will not agree with this message. They will insist that I have what they call “a over-realized eschatology.” In other words they will accuse me of seeing that the Kingdom is too present now while not appreciating enough the not-yetness of the Kingdom. To such people I can only say that I think the real problem is that your eschatology is too under-realized. You do not appreciate the transformative effects of Biblical Christianity once it takes hold of people. You do not understand the intent of what it means for the Resurrected Christ to rule until all things are brought under His feet. You are not mindful of the expansive power of the Kingdom – of how big that mustard tree will become .. of how a little leaven leavens through the whole loaf. You have not plumbed the meaning of “the gates of Hell shall not prevail.” You have underestimated the desire of the Resurrected King that the Nations should be discipled. To those who say my eschatology is over-realized all I can urge you to ruminate upon the meaning of our praying…

“Thy Kingdom come, thy will be done on earth as it is in heaven.”

The Right Response Ministries & Their Wrong Response To Praying For a “Good Pope”

Joel Webbon’s “Right Response” group has a podcast session where they encourage Protestant to pray that the next Pope of Rome would be a “good” Pope. It seems they especially want to see a Pope who would oppose mass migration and who would oppose sexual perversion. The group further refers to other differences between Rome and Protestants as merely being differences that are “this, that or the other.”  They refer to a need for a “good Pope — a godly man who stands firm…”

What are these Baptists smoking?

Good Pope? That’s like saying; “healthy processed fast foods,” or, “conservative sodomite,” or “benevolent dictator.” Some words just can’t be put together without causing severe mental disorientation to those who have not yet been plagued with madness.

I can see praying for a “Good Pope,” if by that one means that they are praying for a Pope to come to power who will dismantle the whole Christ denying idolatrous blasphemy that Rome is. Seriously, anybody whAllo can string the words Good Pope together with “a godly man” need to return to Church history 101.

I suppose if the Right Response team had said; “If you are a Protestant you can pray for a Pope who will be comparatively less bad than other Popes,” I could understand but the idea of a “good Pope,” who is a “godly man” indicates that some people don’t understand their un-doubted catholic Christian faith. Might as well pray for a good bout of herpes.

All of this reminds me of C. S. Lewis’ “Prince Caspian” Novel where the Old Narnians are on the cusp of being defeated by the Telemarines. In that novel a villainous dwarf named “Nikabrik” resolves to overcome looming defeat at the hands of the Telemarines by summoning for the old nemesis of the Narnians, “the Great White Witch.” Nikabrik is confident that she will help to defeat the hated Telemarines. It’s the old “the enemy of my enemy is my friend” strategy. However, the White Witch, while an enemy of the Telemarines was not friend to the Old Narnians.

In the same way the Baptists on the Right Response podcast want to find aid from a “Good Pope” in order to hold off our current New World Order Telemarines. This is not sound strategy. What matters it if the West is rolled over by the New World Order or if it is rolled over by a reinvigorated Roman Catholicism? One of those in the discussion (Wesley?) even suggested what a wonderful thing it might be if a Good Pope could bring back the millions who have left Rome because of false Pope Francis. Is Wesley sane? Should he be allowed a voice of influence? Protestant don’t want millions going back to the shackles of Rome all because there might once again be a “Good Pope.”

Anybody who reads Iron Ink with any regularity knows that I am all about Christianity covering the globe. I am all about the Church going forward to conquer the enemies of Christ. However, that cannot be done by embracing an organization and a Pope who does not have the Gospel. There is no such thing as a “Good Pope.” This kind of reasoning of Right Response is to put the cart before the horse. We are not going to recover the West by looking to Institutions that have officially condemned the Gospel of Jesus Christ.

During his life time the great J. C. Ryle warned that the Anglican Church embracing Roman Catholicism would destroy England. He was right. In the same way we are correct in saying that the Christian faith looking for help from a “Good Pope” would finally completely destroy the West. For Pete’s Sake the West was only saved by being done with all Popes.

On Building Basic Reality Maps or Striving To Be Epistemologically Self-Conscious

“The only reasonable approach to understanding the world is to read old books, build a basic reality map from the old models, and then use your reality map to navigate the deluge of new content.”

I saw this quoted on TwitteX, though there was no author cited. Of course C.S. Lewis also famously said something similar when he offered the palliative to overcoming the current intelligentsia zeitgeist was;

 “to keep the clean breeze of the centuries blowing through our minds, and this can be done only by reading old books.”

I basically agree with this though I would like to add a twist. The twist has to do with the opening quote with its talk about building a basic reality map in order to provide a kind of map key to understanding the ongoing conversation.

It is true that reading old books is key to rising above the fog of the current intellectual scheme. However, I would add that not only reading old books is key but every bit as important is reading books that deals with the history and progress of ideas. Some have referred to this as reading widely and deeply in Intellectual and Social History. Old books will present one to new ideas that challenge the current zeitgeist but books dealing with the history of ideas allows one to see the how ideas have arisen and fallen in history and how those ideas have impacted men and historical movements.

Of course any book dealing with the History of Ideas is only as good as the beginning point and Weltanschauung of the author. As such, one will have to read more than a few books by different authors on the history of ideas. Once one begins to understand the workings of ideas and how they influence men and cultures one can find some traction in building a mental reality map that can be used in order to understand other mental maps when one encounters them. By building one’s own mental reality map one reinterprets all reality through that reality grid and is not themselves reinterpreted by unfiltered and unknown ideas that could well be alien to the Christian faith.

Having a well functioning mental reality map also helps in knowing how to frame an argument. I have often thought it is like a surgeon knowing which size scalpel (blade) to use for a necessary incision. If we have a understandable reality map and if we know how different ideas work then we are prepared to analyze almost any argument we encounter as well as knowing how to best frame an argument.

However, none of this does any good unless we first have our own mental reality map by which to navigate the wild seas of the intellectual zeitgeist. To try to be somewhat concrete here I am arguing that as Christians we have to have the mental reality map that can identify someone advancing, for example, Mysticism, Romanticism/Transcendentalism, Deism, Monism, Nihilism, Gnosticism, Darwinism, Spencerism, Existentialism, Phenomenology, Postmodernism, etc.  This sounds intimidating and of course it does take some time and practice but it really is not as difficult as it might first sound to build a Christ honoring reality map.

It helps to know at the outset that once worldviews are boiled down to their essence there exists really only two worldviews, though there are countless variants to those two worldviews. There is the Christian World and life view and there is the Humanist world and life view. There are only two and there can be no others, though, once again, the variations can be endless. For example, within Christianity the different variations are Reformed, Lutheranism, Baptist, Holiness Churches, Pentecostal, etc. The purest version of the Christian World life view is non-Baptistic Calvinism. All other variations are weakened because they have in their systems some admixture of humanism and so are inconsistent and often incoherent. Still, a epistemologically self conscious Pentecostal is going to have a worldview that they understand is on a collision course with Existentialism (for example). Well, at least I think they would. I’ll let you know if I ever meet an epistemologically self-conscious Pentecostal.

As we keep building our basic reality maps over the course of our lives (and it is a lifetime adventure) we become better equipped to demolish arguments and every lofty opinion raised against the knowledge of God, and to take every thought captive to obey Christ.

It should to without saying that this basic reality map cannot be restricted or contained to any one sphere of thought. Basic reality maps are by necessity totalistic. That is, basic reality maps map out every area of life. Of course this means that all “Christian” dualisms that arise are going to be ruled as a basic reality map that is spurious. (Yes, R2K, I am looking at you.)

When we begin to get our basic reality map down then every book we read, every lecture we listen to, every conversation, every bit of music becomes both subject to our basic reality map and potentially a new bit of information to add to our basic reality map.

Now, returning to old books, they can be helpful in all this because they are going to be written according to a reality map that we likely are not going to see much of any longer, though, and this is important, old books can easily be just as full of errors as recent books — only as coming from a different direction than what we might be used to seeing in our own thought conditioned age. For example, reading Aquinas might be profitable for someone with a muscular basic reality map, but it will ruin someone whose reality map is not yet mature. (I’ll get in trouble for that observation.) Still, even if you don’t like my example, you can think of other examples that might prefer. A more acceptable example might be spending time reading Lyman Beecher — who if taken seriously would really scrooge up anybody’s basic reality map.

In the end, it is not the age of the book that matters so much as the ideas that are being presented. The advantage of old books is that they could well present to us ideas that are now obsolete given the fact that idea grids come and go in terms of popularity.

As an aside here, it is because basic reality maps are now in flux and changing that accounts for so much of the conflict in what is thought of as being the conservative church. The basic reality map that guided the era of the Enlightenment, advancing in muscularity so that it found its greatest strength in what is now called “the Post-War consensus,” is being ripped up by a younger generation who has come to see the falsity of many aspect of that basic reality map. Naturally enough, I see some of that as exceptionally good and some of what is being offered by way the new reality maps replacing the old as horrid.

Good old books that help in building good basic reality maps;

Augustine – The City of God
Augustine – De Magistro
Athanasius – On The Incarnation
Francis Turretin – Elenctic Theology (3 volumes)
Jean-Henri Merle d’Aubigné – History of the Reformation
John Calvin – Institutes of Christian Religion
Johannes Althusius – Politica
Samuel Rutherford – Lex Rex
Martin Luther – Bondage of the Will
John Owen – The Death of Death in the Death of Christ
Erasmus – In Praise of Folly
John Bunyan – Pilgrim’s Progress
John Milton – Paradise Lost
Three Forms of Unity / Westminster Confession

Authors tracing the history and/or impact of ideas that help in building good basic reality maps

Harold Berman – Law and Revolution: The Formation of the Western Legal Tradition (Two Volumes)
Gordon H. Clark -Thales to Dewey / A Christian View of Men & Things
C. Greg Singer – From Rationalism to Irrationality
Stow Persons – American Minds: A History of Ideas
Glen Martin – Prevailing Worldviews of Western Society Since 1500
Francis Nigel Lee – Communist Eschatology
Erik Von Kuehnelt-Leddihin – Leftism Revisited: From De Sade and Marx to Hitler and Pol Pot / Liberty or Equality: The Challenge of Our Times
Henry Van Til – The Calvinistic Concept of Culture
David Naugle – Worldview; The History of A Concept
J. Gresham Machen – Christianity and Liberalism
Cornelius Van Til – The New Modernism
R. L. Dabney – Secular Discussions
R. J. Rushdoony – The One & The Many / Institutes of Biblical Law
Colin E. Gunton – The One, the Three and the Many: God, Creation and the Culture of Modernity / The 1992 Bampton Lectures
John Frame – History of Western Philosophy and Theology
Carroll Quigley – Tragedy and Hope

Clearly, I can’t give an exhaustive list and there are many other books that need to be on these lists.

 

 

 

McAtee contra Rev. Joe Spurgeon On The Comparative Ontology of Race & Sex

Let me say at the outset since some folks will find what follows to be controversial that I acknowledge that Rev. Spurgeon has a marriage that should be honored as Christian and so should be respected. The fact that I think that interracial marriage is normatively unwise and ill advised does not mean that where it is contracted that such a marriage should not be supported as much as possible short of endorsing such marriages and short of offering our own children to such marriages.

However, with that being said I have all of Church history before 1960 or so in repudiating Rev. Spurgeon’s offerings on the issue of race that we find below. Nobody, in all of Church history that I know of has ever come up with the logic chopping in order to justify interracial marriage as we find in Rev. Spurgeon’s offerings.

Indeed, two recent large anthologies of quotes from Church history substantiates that Rev. Spurgeon’s (as well as all Alienist’s) understanding of race and humanity is completely sui generis.

It would be nice if the Alienists like Rev. Spurgeon would admit that they are adamantly opposed to the received wisdom of the Church for two centuries on this subject but alas the Alienists remain silent on the Anthologies, “Who Is My Neighbor; An Anthology in Natural Relations” and “A Survey of Racialism in Christian Sacred Tradition” by Alexander Storen. Both these Anthologies mock Spurgeon and the Alienists attempt to justify their aberrant view of race and humanity.

Rev. Joe Spurgeon writes (hereinafter RJS);

One of the accusations I sometimes get is that I’m inconsistent for affirming sexual hierarchy while denying things like white supremacy. People say, “If you believe in male headship, why not racial hierarchy too?” Or they accuse me of making sex primary while downplaying race, and call that a contradiction. But I want to explain why that’s not inconsistent at all.

BLMc responds,

1.) Keep in mind that Rev. Spurgeon is in a mixed race marriage and as such he has a pronounced bias for arguing the way that he does on this subject. Also, keep in mind that if we were to own RJS’s arguments as legitimate that would by necessity mean nations (or even families) would no longer be defined as what we find in the 1828 Webster’s dictionary;

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

In order to pursue a flattening of racial distinctions wherein theoretically the world could become one vast racial melting post RJS is willing to deny that racial distinctions can indeed mean superiorities and inferiorities in various races.

2.) To affirm that race is real is not necessarily to affirm White Supremacy though it might be to affirm White Supremacy in any number of different areas, just as might affirm Yellow Supremacy or Brown Supremacy in different areas.

3.) We will see here that Rev. Spurgeon is indeed involved in a contradiction and that his explanation while clever does not hold water. Whatever one makes of the mark of Cain or the blessings and cursings on the sons of Noah, one cannot doubt that there is some kind of hierarchy involved here even if one does not think it is racial, though through the centuries it has often been seen as racial.

RJS writes,

It actually rests on a biblical and philosophical foundation that distinguishes between what is essential to human nature and what is not.

BLMc responds,

Here we are being set up for the idea that Maleness and Femaleness is more important to who people are then any idea of race. By doing this RJS is setting up the idea that while sex is not malleable for human reality, race is malleable for human reality and therefor sexuality is essential for the mannishness man while race is not essential for the mannishness of man. However, here we would note that both sexuality (gender) and race were definitional of the manishness of man. Adam and Eve were created as genders and they were also created as the race they were as they fell from the hand of God. The fact that other races arose in God’s providence and ordination does not mean therefore that Adam and Eve were raceless. So, contrary to RJS we would say that both race and sexuality (gender) were endemic to man.

This idea that race isn’t essential to the manishness of man and thus isn’t as impactful as sexuality (gender) is to the psyche and disposition of individuals and peoples is part of what we call “Alienism.”  Our history here in the states, as just one example, suggests that it is just not true that race isn’t essential to persons and peoples. The history of South Africa also might be entered in to give testimony that there is ontological reality in the idea of race just as there is ontological reality in the idea of sex.

RJS writes;

 

The distinctions between sex and race are not the same. Both are real. But they are not on the same level. And to help us think rightly about this, I believe the language of classical philosophy—particularly the categories of substance and accidents from Aristotle—is extremely helpful.

BLMc responds;

We are being told here that distinctions do exist but as it comes to race they are distinctions that can be successfully ignored, unlike the distinctions between sex. But if God ordained distinctions exist (whether at creation or by providence)  is it proper to prioritize or ignore these God ordained distinctions?

Secondly, what RJS offers here concerning that the distinctions between male and female and the distinctions between races are not both essential to the mannishness of man is not supported by Scripture. Consider;

All nations whom thou hast made shall come and worship before thee, O Lord; and shall glorify thy name – Psalm 86:9

Here we see that just as Eve was made female by God with all the distinctions that includes, so the nations were made by God with all the distinctions that includes. If this is true of nations how much more true of races?

RJS writes; 

A substance is what something is in itself—what is essential to its being. An accident is a property or characteristic that a substance has, but which is not essential to its being. That is, accidents can change without changing the nature of the thing itself.

BLMc replies;

Here we are being teed up for the claim that sex is essential to our being but race is not essential to our being. This, by necessity, if accepted, would mean that (as I said earlier) that race can, compared to sex, be ignored because it is malleable while sex compared to race cannot be ignored because it is not malleable.

But is it an argument that we really want to make that the macro distinctions that God created us with and as should be ignored?

RJS writes,

With that framework, my argument is this: Sex—male and female—is not an accident. It is part of the substance of what it means to be human. Genesis 1:27 says, “God created man in His own image… male and female He created them.” You cannot be human without being either male or female. The male-female binary is foundational to humanity. It is how we were created to fulfill the mandate to be fruitful and take dominion. So sex is a property of substance, not an add-on. It is immutable and intrinsic.

Now contrast that with race. What race was Adam? What race was Eve? You can’t really say. And what race were their children? The truth is that race develops over time through ancestry, geography, and the providential unfolding of history. Race consists of inherited, accidental features: things like skin tone, bone structure, hair texture, other genetic features and even certain cultural traits that develop in communities over time. These are biologically real and passed down generationally—but they are not essential to what it means to be human.

BLMc responds;

Here I quote some correspondence from a friend overseas;

Spurgeon acknowledges the reality of racial differences but then dismisses them as accidental/incidental as opposed to the hard differences of male/female. Except that Scripture itself invokes FAMILIAL terms within a legal framework to describe kindred nations (thou shalt not despise an Edomite for he is your brother). In other words, racial brotherhood (inter-ethnic kinship) is to be understood in terms of Biblical family law. Therefore the Creational bonds of family run far deeper and greater than mere immediate family or even extended family. Indeed the same principles are in operation. And since family is Creationally foundational so too is race and ethnicity. Spurgeon’s arguments ignore what Scripture itself says about kinship and are therefore both false and irrelevant.

Also, RJS’s observations regarding biological sex isn’t exactly true. Mankind began with Adam even before Eve was created. This is a relatively minor point, but one that still bears on this conversation. This is important because all of his “reasoning” hangs on the fact that sexuality (gender) is more important than race as it relates to the manishness or man since Spurgeon is insisting that man wasn’t man until Eve was created. In brief, man was man before Even was created.

RJS writes;

This is why sex is ontologically higher than race. The male-female distinction is rooted in the very creation of mankind. There is no humanity without it. Race, by contrast, comes after. It is still natural, still real, and not merely a social construct—but it belongs to the category of accidents in the Aristotelian sense. It marks variation within the human race, not distinctions of essence between human beings.

BLMc responds,

Of course there is not a lick of Biblical support for this argumentation. What matters it if the distinction that God has placed upon men is by creation or by providence? Who is man that he should overturn those definitional and essential distinctions that God has placed upon us as humans? Understand that by this reasoning all mankind could well become a blenderized race, thus achieving one goal of the New World Order project.

RJS writes,

This distinction helps us avoid two extremes. On the one hand, we reject the liberal colorblind egalitarianism that pretends racial differences don’t matter at all. On the other hand, we reject the racial absolutism of the biodeterminist crowd that treats race as the most fundamental aspect of identity. Both are wrong.

BLMc responds;

1.) Under this arrangement how are we avoiding the liberal colorblind egalitarianism that pretends racial differences don’t matter at all. If racial differences mattered at all they would matter enough to determine the coupling of man and wife in marriage.  Spurgeon is arguing that race still matters but it doesn’t matter in the one area (marriage) where if it were to matter at all it would matter enough to consider such marriages unwise and ill advised at best.

2.) Notice how Spurgeon has labeled is opponents “biodeterminists” as if his opponents are all drinking from the well of Darwin or Herbert Spencer. One does not need to be a biodeterminist in order to believe that race is ontologically the equal of sex in who God has created mankind to be.

3.) In point of fact Spurgeon’s position does embrace liberal egalitarian notions. He wants to say “race is real” but at the same time say “but race doesn’t really matter that much.” If race doesn’t really matter as much as sex then why can’t race be a social construct?

RJS opines;

This also helps us when thinking about the structure of nations and the ordering of society. A nation is not merely an idea or a set of shared propositions. It is a people—a real and providentially ordered community bound together by more than just consent or ideology. While race is one of the accidental features that can shape a people, it is not the only one, nor is it always the most decisive. A people can be formed through shared language, lineage, customs, heritage, law, religion, heroes, and land. These are also accidents—not essential to humanity itself—but they are powerful instruments in the hand of God to forge real unity.

In fact, many of these accidental features can bind people together more deeply than race. The concept of a nation includes shared stories, a common legal and moral order, and a collective historical memory. You may have more in common with your neighbor who worships the same God, speaks your tongue, and lives under your laws than with someone who shares your genetic background but none of those things. For example, I share more in common with my black neighbor than a white man in Russia. So while race contributes to peoplehood, it must not be treated as the foundation of it. The stronger bonds of nationhood are forged by providence, not biology alone.

BLMc responds,

1.) Let us refocus on what, etymologically speaking, the word “nation” means;

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

So, on the one hand RJS wants to say that a nation isn’t propositional but he also wants to say then on the other hand that a nation isn’t blood and soil by insisting that race is only an accident of a nation and does not belong to its substance. If race does not belong to the substance of a people than all that is left for RJS is the reality of the nation being construed by agreed upon propositions.  Those characteristics that RJS offers as providing common bonds all depend normatively upon the fact that there is descent from a common progenitor.

Not even a shared religion can unite a people into a people. This was demonstrated in Acts 6;

 In those days when the number of disciples was increasing, the Hellenistic Jews among them complained against the Hebraic Jews because their widows were being overlooked in the daily distribution of food. 

2.) I would contend that where racial harmony is absent in a significant majority expression in a nation there one will find a lack of a unifying motif to bind a people together. For example, Quebec, being French, has always had friction with the English Canadians.

3.) I can only speak for myself, but I do not take it as a given that I have more in common with my Black neighbor than I would have with a white man in Russia. I could easily not have enough in common with either of them to become friends. Generally speaking though, given the violent crime rates among blacks there may difficulty to have more in common with my black neighbor.

RJS writes,

 (The NT) does not uphold a racial hierarchy within the church. It acknowledges the ongoing existence of nations, tribes, and tongues—even in Revelation—but it does not rank them. It doesn’t assign spiritual authority based on ethnicity. So while distinctions persist, the church is not structured along racial lines, and we should not use race to exclude or subordinate fellow believers.

BLMc responds,

I am confident that when Paul said “All Cretans are liars” that statement should have been taken as a word of warning about placing Cretans in leadership positions.

Also, we have God’s Word to suggest that each people congregated in one set congregation should be led by their own people;

Deut. 17:15 –  you may indeed set a king over you whom the Lord your God will choose. One from among your brothers you shall set as king over you. You may not put a foreigner over you, who is not your brother.

So, we see that RJS is wrong here. God’s Word does speak to this subject. People will have to decide to listen to God’s Word or to listen to RJS.

RJS writes,

Therefore, it’s not inconsistent to affirm sexual hierarchy while denying racial hierarchy. Why? Because the nature of the distinctions is different. Sex is part of the substance of human nature—it is binary, immutable, and foundational to image-bearing. Race is an accident—real, significant, and influential in the civil realm, but not essential to human personhood.

So, for example: A man pretending to be a woman is rejecting God’s created order and trying to alter something essential to his being. But a man marrying into another racial group is not denying the substance of who he is. You can’t transition your sex. But racial lines can and do change across generations through intermarriage and the passing of time. That’s because race, while real, is an accidental feature of nature—not an immutable one.

 

And ultimately, Christ redeems nature—He doesn’t erase it. He restores the natural order, puts it back in its place, and teaches us to walk in harmony with it. That means we can uphold the reality of race without making it ultimate. And we can declare the truth of biblical patriarchy while rejecting racial supremacy.

There’s no contradiction here.

BLMc responds,

We have seen the contradiction in RJS’s woeful thinking. The Church Fathers never thought such contradictory thoughts on this subject as Rev. Spurgeon does.

1.) It is past hilarious that Spurgeon implies that interracial marriage is an example of God restoring nature when God, by nature, made a person to be the race they are. In point of fact a case could easily be made that interracial marriage does not restore nature.

Indeed, on this point RJS has none other than John Calvin against him;

“Regarding our eternal salvation, it is true that one must not distinguish between man and woman, or between king and a shepherd, or between a German and a Frenchman. Regarding policy, however, we have what St. Paul declares here; for our, Lord Jesus Christ did not come to mix up nature, or to abolish what belongs to the preservation of decency and peace among us….Regarding the kingdom of God (which is spiritual) there is no distinction or difference between man and woman, servant and master, poor and rich, great and small. Nevertheless, there does have to be some order among us, and Jesus Christ did not mean to eliminate it, as some flighty and scatterbrained dreamers [believe].”

John Calvin (Sermon on 1 Corinthians 11:2-3)

I will close here by quoting from my friend who lives overseas who brought this to my attention and who is even more apoplectic about this Spurgeon nonsense. (And I’m pretty exercised myself.)

So, race is essential to personhood and RJS denying that could easily be seen as merely a justification for his own marriage.

Look, in the end Rev. Joseph Spurgeon is suggesting that race be no barrier to marriage because being of one particular race isn’t essential to being human (whereas being male or female is)… over against this we need to point out that this is a nonsensical standard because someone with Down’s is just as essentially human as someone with a normal IQ … but that the qualitative difference, as opposed to any essential difference, is what discriminates between them. In other words, qualitative differences have just as much validity as essential differences.

Palm Sunday 2025

Luke 19:28 When He had said this, He went on ahead, going up to Jerusalem. 29 And it came to pass, when He drew near to [a]Bethphage and Bethany, at the mountain called Olivet, that He sent two of His disciples, 30 saying, “Go into the village opposite you, where as you enter you will find a colt tied, on which no one has ever sat. Loose it and bring it here. 31 And if anyone asks you, ‘Why are you loosing it?’ thus you shall say to him, ‘Because the Lord has need of it.’ ”

32 So those who were sent went their way and found it just as He had said to them. 33 But as they were loosing the colt, the owners of it said to them, “Why are you loosing the colt?”

34 And they said, “The Lord has need of him.” 35 Then they brought him to Jesus. And they threw their own clothes on the colt, and they set Jesus on him. 36 And as He went, many spread their clothes on the road.

37 Then, as He was now drawing near the descent of the Mount of Olives, the whole multitude of the disciples began to rejoice and praise God with a loud voice for all the mighty works they had seen, 38 saying:

“ ‘Blessed is the King who comes in the name of the Lord!’
Peace in heaven and glory in the highest!”

39 And some of the Pharisees called to Him from the crowd, “Teacher, rebuke Your disciples.”
40 But He answered and said to them, “I tell you that if these should keep silent, the stones would immediately cry out.”

John 12:12-19
Mark 11:1-11
Matthew 21:1-11
Luke 19:28-44

As we consider this account we remember the earlier words of John the Baptist announcing Jesus as the Lamb of God who taketh away the sin of the world. With His entry into Jerusalem on Palm Sunday Jesus is in the chute, so to speak, of going to the Cross where He will take away the sins of His people. This marks the beginning of Holy Week and we call it Holy week because the events of this week all lead our Lord to the Cross.

The Palm Sunday account is unique in Scripture inasmuch as it is mentioned in all four of the Gospels. It is not common for one event to reported in all four of the Gospels. The fact that Palm Sunday is recorded in all four communicates its centrality to the Gospel account. With this action Jesus the Christ is purposely fulfilling one of the prophecies of the OT.

“Rejoice greatly, O daughter of Zion! Shout, O daughter of Jerusalem! Behold, your King is coming to you; He is just and having salvation, Lowly and riding on a donkey, A colt, the foal of a donkey.

Zechariah 9

Jesus rides in on a donkey because in this ancient culture Kings would ride horses during times of war but during times of peace Kings would ride donkeys. The Messiah Jesus comes to His people in humility to offer peace and His ride into town would have been understood in just that way.

Consider I Kings 1:33 where Solomon @ David’s direction rides to his anointing as King on a donkey;

33 And the king said to them, “Take with you the servants of your lord and have Solomon my son ride on my own mule, and bring him down to Gihon.

So, while this entering into Jerusalem on a foal of a donkey might well seem strange to us it was pregnant with meaning to the folks of that culture. The King has come and His terms are peace.

As the Lord Christ descends to enter the Holy City the crowd spreads their garments on the road just as the disciples had used their garments to cover the back of the foal of the donkey that Jesus rides in upon. There is a symbolism going on here. Jesus is being given what we would call a red carpet treatment. The Jewish officials of the city have refused to greet Christ with honor and so in a kind of populist uprising the rank and file of the city provide for Jesus their own royal entry. They do this because they do recognize that their Messiah King is in their midst. This greeting is a royal greeting. The kind of greeting one would expect a King to receive from His people.

And this royal greeting is proper because Jesus Himself is self-consciously entering as a King. In this pericope not only is the Zechariah 9 passage in play but less obviously so is the fact that Jesus is fulfilling King Jehu’s anointing as King in II Kings 9. There we read;

13 Then each man hastened to take his garment and put it under him (Jehu) on the top of the steps; and they blew trumpets, saying, “Jehu is king!” II Kings 9:13

In this entry, planned by Jesus to announce His Kingship, Jesus is the greater Jehu. Jehu rode to his kingship over his followers clothes to destroy the temple of the enemy Baal (II Kings 9:11-13; 10:18-28) the entry of Jesus upon the garments of those hailing Him will end with the making obsolete the vaunted Jewish Temple in Jerusalem.

The antithesis seems to be clear in this passage. We will either be those laying down our cloaks in the honor of the King or we will be those who in opposition to the King try to silence His praises.

When it comes to the life of Jesus theologians talk about how in His incarnation Jesus’ life goes from humiliation to exaltation. That is to say, that as you track the live of Jesus you see all humiliation reaching crescendo in the Cross. After the Cross then we talk about His exaltation beginning with His Resurrection, followed by His ascension and then His session at the Right hand of the Father. Phil. 2:5-11 traces this humiliation to exaltation.

When we come to Palm Sunday we might think that we are seeing part of the exaltation of the Lord Jesus. There is all this raucous celebration. Jesus is purposefully arriving as the King of the Jews. He is being received as the King of the Jews by the hoi polloi.

But there is something going on here that Matthew brings to our attention of this event that suggests that what we read of here is not part of Christ’s exaltation but is instead part of his humiliation.

Luke’s account tells us that while all this exuberance is going on Jesus the Christ reveals by His tears that this is not about His exaltation but His humiliation. Listen to the text;

41 Now as He drew near, He saw the city and wept over it, 42 saying, “If you had known, even you, especially in this your day, the things that make for your peace! But now they are hidden from your eyes.

This really is a study on contrast. On the one hand you have the populist uprising, on the other hand you have the city Fathers going around insisting on shushing everybody, and finally you have Jesus weeping.

But why do we say this is part of His humiliation?

Well, first we know, and Jesus knows, where this is all going. Remember, earlier Luke had recorded;

Now it came to pass, when the time had come for Him to be received up, that He steadfastly set His face to go to Jerusalem, Luke 9:11

He set His face like flint to go to Jerusalem because that is where the path to His humiliation apex lies. Jesus knows that the apex of His humiliation lays yet before Him in and at the Cross and this celebratory mood is only a well intended but misplaced enthusiasm. Misplaced because these folks want all the glory but none of the Cross. They want to be delivered, not from their sins, but from Roman tyranny. The delirious crowds have identified His office of King but they have misinterpreted it. He has not come as King to slay the Romans. He has come as King to be slain. The heights of exaltation cannot be reached without going through the depths of humiliation.

With this in mind it is significant that the Palm Sunday texts explicitly identify two of Jesus offices.

In Luke we hear;

“ ‘Blessed is the King who comes in the name of the Lord!’
Peace in heaven and glory in the highest!”

In Matthew there is this exchange;

10 And when He had come into Jerusalem, all the city was moved, saying, “Who is this?” 11 So the multitudes said, “This is Jesus, the prophet from Nazareth of Galilee.”

So this delirious crowd understood that Jesus came as King and they identified Him as a prophet but what they couldn’t own that which made them fall away when the tide turned was the fact that Jesus came as a Priest who would offer Himself as a sacrifice. They could go all hyper happy at the idea of King and Prophet but the notion of Christ as Priest who would offer Himself as a sacrifice for sins was something they only understood after the resurrection.

Jesus is coming as Prophet, Priest, and King. The crowds drop the Priest part and misinterprets the prophet and king truths.

So, all of this is humiliation for our Lord Christ. It was like having a party thrown in your honor when all along the people who are throwing the party are completely clueless of why it is you are to be honored.

Next this is humiliation for Jesus to see how they were bending and twisting the royal word of the King – the scriptures. The people use the texts and psalms in the praise they are giving to Jesus but the crowds are willing to accept the prophecy only as it seems to fit with their preconceived notions.

Listen to the way that Reformed theologian Klaus Schilder put this;

“Jesus therefore suffers acutely now…. “

And the “now” here refers to Jesus observing the frenzy of praise.

“the false interpreters of Scriptures are concentrated upon Him. This distortion is an earmark of that basic sin which is leading Jerusalem to its grave. Israel wants to shed its light upon Him, but He must illuminate Israel…. Whoever looks at the Christ in his own light withdraws himself from the influence from Jesus through the Word. Those who do this excludes himself from that influence, though He shout “Hosanna” a thousand times. To see Christ in our own light is to sin terribly, for it is to deny Him the right to minister His threefold office to us.”

We talk about this often here but the humiliation of Jesus here is discovered in the fact that this crowd is reinterpreting Jesus through their own sinful prism. They are making Jesus in their own image. They are shouting Hosannas but the Hosannas they are shouting too is to a Jesus who is not the Jesus who is before them, but a Jesus they have constructed in their heads.

And in that Jesus suffers the humiliation. How long had He been among them and yet they misinterpreted both His person, mission, and the Scriptures that spoke of Him? They could never accept a suffering servant Messiah. In this same vain Peter rebuked Him when Jesus spoke of going to the Cross.

21 From that time forth began Jesus to shew unto his disciples, how that he must go unto Jerusalem, and suffer many things of the elders and chief priests and scribes, and be killed, and be raised again the third day. 22 Then Peter took him, and began to rebuke him, saying, Be it far from thee, Lord: this shall not be unto thee.

So, for this crowd there is no room for the Christ and no room for the Cross. Instead, they reinterpret Jesus, twisting the Scripture, thus committing linguistic deception and in that there is humiliation for Jesus the Christ.
As we mentioned just a moment ago, they want the Jesus that brings them all the glory. They are praising Jesus for the carnal good that He is going to do them. None of this praise is about praising God, but it really is about praising of self. Hosanna to God in the highest because of how I or we will be advantaged by the Messiah setting us on high.

You see they want the power but not the justice of God. They want the glory but not the suffering servant. Jesus has come into Jerusalem to satisfy God’s justice. God’s holiness has been set aside and through the centuries God winked at and overlooked man’s wickedness but now in this arrival of Jesus in Jerusalem we have the one who will do the Priestly work of offering up Himself to meet God’s justice against our sin. Yet, all that these crowds are crowing about is how the might of God is going to advantage them. There is not a word of praise for the one who will satisfy God’s justice, fulfill the righteous requirements of the law, and turn away the Father’s wrath. Not one word of praise for the one who will bring them peace with God by reconciling them to God through His bloody redemptive work on the Cross.

All kinds of praise for the might/power of God for what it can do for them but not a word about the rights of God against rebellious man in his sin.

And because of this Jesus weeps and the valley of humiliation continues on to the Cross. This is not exaltation. This is humiliation painted in cheerful colors.

On this score note the fickleness of this populist movement. Here they are frenzied for Jesus because of what He might do for them and yet only in a few days when Jesus is clearly being set forth as the one who satisfies God’s justice all they can scream is “Crucify Him.”

And we have to yet speak of the more wretched in this account. The scribes and the Pharisees are more wretched because they sin against a better knowledge here.

Here again we see the humiliation of Jesus the Christ.

There is humiliation also to be found in the enemies of Christ here. We know from the Scripture that already this crew was planning on Killing Christ and this due to the fact that the rise of the popularity of Jesus the Christ meant the diminishing of their influence. Just prior to this entry Jesus had raised the dead (Lazarus). Because of this the populist movement was in high gear and the Jewish deep state had to do something to erase this threat to their power. The rise of Jesus of Nazareth meant the removal from power of the establishment. So, Palm Sunday was very political;

John records the political side of all this;

“Then the chief priests and the Pharisees called a meeting of the Sanhedrin [their supreme court]. ‘What are we accomplishing?’ they asked. ‘Here is this man performing many signs. If we let him go on like this, everyone will believe in him, and then the Romans will come and take away both our temple and our nation’ John 11

And so Jesus must bear the humiliation of being resisted by those very people who were supposed to be the shepherds of Israel… supposed to be those people who should’ve been His greatest supporters.

But they were too interested in power and they too, like the crowds, missed the purpose of His coming, even though they ended up being used by God to be chief aids in the accomplishment of the Messiah’s mission.

It may be that the words from the Pharisees came in the context of all this rejoicing being within site of the Roman Citadel Antonia where the Roman garrison was housed in Jerusalem. Rome was always especially on alert during the religious festivals held in Jerusalem. And I can see the Pharisees urging Jesus to hush his disciples while looking with worry that the citadel might empty itself to forcefully disburse this crowd.

Jesus responds by saying … Look, if these should be silent a stone choir would raise their voice in praise. Even the stones would cry out … inanimate creation would burst forth in praise. It may be here that Christ is recalling the prophecy of Habakkuk.

“The stone shall cry out of the wall, and the beam out of the timber shall answer it”

Despicable men and yet how often have we been mute about the glories of Christ when we should be signing His praises. How often have we been silent when we should have sang like stones?

And so again we see humiliation. He is the great King. He is worthy of all this praise and more and yet He has to deal with the leadership who should be leading the praises and yet are doing all they can to shut this down.

This humiliation is an ironic thing. God uses these very men who are committed to doing all they can to grind Jesus into utter humiliation and yet it is by their work of opposing Jesus and by ushering Him into His crescendo of humiliation in the Cross that His exaltation is arrived at.

This is the eucatastrophe of the humiliation. In God’s providence the catastrophic visits the Messiah and yet out of this catastrophic the victory of God is achieved. Covering Christ with this humiliation the enemy aims at victory but through and because of this humiliation the catastrophe of the Cross is overcome in the exaltation of Christ – an exaltation that means that God’s justice is upheld, God’s people are delivered, and the age to come continues to overcome this present wicked age.

All this humiliation and yet at the end of it, it serves the purposes of exalting Christ.
The humiliation around Palm Sunday reminds me of the hymn we sang yesterday at Ross’s funeral;

Ye fearful saints, fresh courage take;
The clouds ye so much dread
Are big with mercy and shall break
In blessings on your head.

  1. Judge not the Lord by feeble sense,
    But trust Him for His grace;
    Behind a frowning providence
    He hides a smiling face.

     

  2. His purposes will ripen fast,
    Unfolding every hour;
    The bud may have a bitter taste,
    But sweet will be the flow’r.

     

  3. Blind unbelief is sure to err
    And scan His work in vain;
    God is His own interpreter,
    And He will make it plain.