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.

Setting the Record Straight … I Was Right Then, And I Am Correct Now

Four years ago at this time I experienced the height of slander and libel from several different media outlets. Below I quote from the Lansing State Journal online reporting. In the section I have chosen from this article I am accused by one Rev. Reggie Smith of the Christian Reformed Church of allowing the spreading a false rumor in the church I serve.

“McAtee’s sermon was like ‘any other traditional church until the prayer time came,’ (Reggie) Smith said, and a woman in the crowd of about 20 asked for prayers for the white people living in South Africa.

‘There was this supposedly false rumor that white people were being killed by Black people in South Africa, which was totally untrue,’ Smith said.

Smith said McAtee ’embraced’ her sentiment.

‘That’s when I knew this was not what I thought it would be,’ he said. ‘There’s something wrong here.’

Lansing State Journal
Online Edition
19 February, 2021

And now I post a testimonial from a white woman in South Africa who was 8.5 months pregnant when her husband was murdered before her very eyes, thus substantiating both the prayer requests that Smith laments and my embrace of the sentiment.

Rev. Reggie Smith was gaslighting people when he said what he said in the quote above. This is proven by the link below.

https://rumble.com/v6jwyzp-wife-of-murdered-white-south-african-farmer-calls-on-americans-to-stop-igno.html

Back To Covenant Theology & Infant Baptism … Conversing With Rev. Tim Bushong (Baptist)

Rev. Tim Bushong wrote,

ALL – covenant members ‘know the Lord,’ they are regenerate, have all their sins forgiven, and have God’s Law written on their hearts and minds, and all these blessings are a present reality for all of them, since “He always lives to make intercession for them.”

BLMc responds,

If all covenant members ‘know the Lord’ and are regenerate then why the warning

26 For if we sin willfully after we have received the knowledge of the truth, there no longer remains a sacrifice for sins, 27 but a certain fearful expectation of judgment, and fiery indignation which will devour the adversaries. 28 Anyone who has rejected Moses’ law dies without mercy on the testimony of two or three witnesses. 29 Of how much worse punishment, do you suppose, will he be thought worthy who has trampled the Son of God underfoot, counted the blood of the covenant by which he was sanctified a common thing, and insulted the Spirit of grace?

Clearly, the warning implies that there are those who are in the outward administration of the covenant of grace but who may indeed not have the substance of the covenant (Christ.). All covenant members who have the essence of the covenant do indeed know the Lord but not all who are in the circumference of the covenant necessarily have the substance of the covenant and so need this warning in order that they may take seriously their covenant membership and so not abandon the faith. Those who have the substance of the covenant will take heed of this warning and not trample the Son of God underfoot. It still remains the case even in the Church that not all of Israel is of Israel; that is not all of the Church is of the Church.

TB wrote,

I believe that the particular structure of this version of covenant theology does something unnecessary (at best) to the nature of the New Covenant, and returns to prioritizing OC typology.

BLMc replies,

I believe that the insistence that church membership is universally regenerate is a particular structure of the version of the new and better covenant that finds us insisting that there were two different ways of covenantal belonging, and so two different ways of salvation. The implication here is that in the Old Covenant covenantal belonging was not by grace alone while in the NC covenantal belonging is by grace alone. This is to severely misunderstand the continuity between the OC and the new and better covenant.

TB wrote,

The discontinuity, or maybe just one of the differences, between the Covenants is evinced in the exchange between local and physical (Israel) with the universal and spiritual (the whole world).

BLMc responds,

Of course this is the common Baptist assertion of radical discontinuity between OC and NW. The OC was not merely local as seen in, for example, Jonah’s work with the Assyrians (Nineveh). Also there are other examples such as Naaman’s cleansing and Nebuchadnezzar’s confession in Daniel. As such we see a hint of the Universal and the spiritual in the OC. With the new and better covenant this is expanded but it remains present in the OC. In the same way there is continuity in the OC to the NC with the administration of the covenant sign to the children of the covenant and the expansion of this covenant sign is seen in the fact that not only males are given the sign of the covenant. Still, just as children in the OC were members of the covenant so children in the NC are members of the covenant and so should be given the ratification sign of the covenant. This is a serious error wherein Baptists fail.

TB wrote,

IOW, the price of ‘all the nations’ being included in the New Covenant meant that mere human progeny was no longer the ticket of admission—axiomatically ‘automatically in’ the Covenant by genealogy—as was the case in the Old Covenant.

BLMc responds

This is just not accurate. The price of all nations being included in the NC is clearly articulated in the OC in speaking of Christ;

“It is too small a thing for you to be my servant
to restore the tribes of Jacob
and bring back those of Israel I have kept.
I will also make you a light for the Gentiles,
that my salvation may reach to the ends of the earth.”

The price of all nations being included in the NC was not the exclusion of the children of God’s children. The price of all nations being included in the NC was the precious blood of Jesus Christ which spoke of a better covenant than one that was only typified by the blood of bulls and goats.

Baptist thinking on this subject does not treat the Scriptures organically and because of that posits an unfortunate individualistic take on covenant theology.

McAtee Contra Dr. Stephen Wolfe’s Assertions On Worldview Thinking

“He who with his whole heart believes in Jesus as the Son of God is thereby committed to a view of God, to a view of man, to a view of sin, to a view of Redemption, to a view of the purpose of God in creation and history, to a view of human destiny, FOUND ONLY IN CHRISTIANITY. This forms a ‘Weltanschauung’ or ‘Christian View of the World,’ which stands in marked contrast with theories wrought out from a purely philosophical or scientific standpoint…. The thing in itself is as old as the dawn of reflection and is found in cruder or more advanced form in every religion and philosophy with any pretension to a historical character.”

James Orr

The Christian View of God and the World — p. 4

Dr. Stephen Wolfe does us the favor of disagreeing with Dr. James Orr in the quote above. Here Wolfe, once again, aligns himself with the same position as the R2K “theologians” even though Wolfe decidedly is not R2K. However, Wolfe does share a great deal with R2K … it sometimes seems as if he shares with them everything but their conclusions.

Anyway, I am going to fisk a Wolfe quote I came across recently on X.

Wolfe writes,

“Worldview” is a reactionary word. Evangelicals found themselves embattled with innumerable, well-accepted ideas in complex fields requiring specialization that seem to oppose conservative Christianity. The average person lacks the expertise in these fields to challenge them on their own terms and by their own methodology. Yet they need to be challenged, because modern life strongly imposes them on everyone. “Worldview” was introduced to neutralize these ideas for the average person, not by analyzing data, refuting propositions, showing invalidity, criticizing methodology, knowing the actual facts on the ground, etc. but by blaming them on “presuppositions.”

BLMc replies,

Of course Wolfe is wrong here as Orr notes above;

“The thing in itself(Worldview) is as old as the dawn of reflection and is found in cruder or more advanced form in every religion and philosophy with any pretension to a historical character.”

Worldview did not jump out of Zeus’ head in the 20th century as Wolfe errantly writes. As such, it is clearly not a “reactionary word” or concept. Here Wolfe just makes assertions without any proof.

In point of fact, an argument can be made that it was not the Christians who first developed an epistemologically self-conscious muscular worldview but rather that it was the Darwinians. If one considers the writings of Herbert Spencer in “Worldviewizing” the Darwinian conclusions in biology one can easily see that it was the pagans who were going all reactionary against the already established Christian Worldview.

For the evidence that a pagan worldview had long been established we read;

(This essay) shows that his (Spencer’s) evolutionism was originally stimulated by his association with the Derby philosophical community, for it was through this group—of which his father, who also appears to have espoused a deistic evolutionary theory, was a member—that he was first exposed to progressive Enlightenment social and educational philosophies and to the evolutionary worldview of Erasmus Darwin, the first president of the Derby Philosophical Society. Darwin’s scheme was the first to incorporate biological evolution, associationist psychology, evolutionary geology, and cosmological developmentalism. Spencer’s own implicit denials of the link with Darwin are shown to be implausible in the face of Darwin’s continuing influence on the Derby savants…

Paul Elliott
Erasmus Darwin, Herbert Spencer, and the Origins of the Evolutionary Worldview in British Provincial Scientific Culture, 1770–1850

What the above quote demonstrates is that

1.) Worldview thinking was already in high gear as practiced by the heathens long before the timeframe that Wolfe errantly proclaims in his observation above.

2.) Worldview thinking was decidedly not introduced by Christians for the reasons that Dr. Wolfe asserts.

3.) Worldview as a philosophical concept long predated the 20th century as Wolfe errantly asserts.

4.) As such worldview as a philosophical concept was never a “reactionary word” as Dr. Wolfe errantly insists.

5.) Dr. Wolfe doesn’t know what he is talking about when he writes,

“Worldview” was introduced to neutralize these ideas for the average person, not by analyzing data, refuting propositions, showing invalidity, criticizing methodology, knowing the actual facts on the ground, etc. but by blaming them on “presuppositions.”

Worldview decidedly was NOT introduced for the reason that Wolfe elucidates. As the opening Orr quote indicates Worldview was not introduced in the 20th century by Christians quaking in their boots at the onslaught of modernity but rather is a truth that, as Orr wrote,

“itself is as old as the dawn of reflection and is found in cruder or more advanced form in every religion and philosophy with any pretension to a historical character.”

All of the above demonstrates that Dr. Wolfe just doesn’t know what he is talking about when he writes about the history of Worldview thinking. In brief what Wolfe says above is embarrassingly stupid and could only be written by someone whose worldview had an a-priori interest in claiming that worldview thinking is not true.

Dr. Stephen Wolfe continued his diatribe;

And “worldview” explained social phenomena with exclusively Christian explanations.

BLMc continues,

Here Wolfe contradicts the Reformed theology of the antithesis which claims the antithesis is a theological principle that is meant to describe the difference between believers and unbelievers and the way they think. There are many ways that we could describe that difference, but we must at the very least describe that difference as limning out the fact that because believers and heathens have different ultimate faith commitments those different ultimate faith commitments color the way each view the totality of life.

As such it is inevitable that Christians, because of the Reformed doctrine of the antithesis would explain matters with exclusively Christian explanations.

In previous explanations Dr. Wolfe has demonstrated that he does not understand the idea of total depravity. Here we see that Dr. Wolfe does not understand the Reformed theological idea of “the antithesis.” Dr. Wolfe has previously admitted that he is not a theologian. We wish he would remember that when he gets into these theological forrays.

Dr. Stephen Wolfe wrote,

These explanations are typically simplistic and don’t explain much. Further, in effect no evangelical sees the need to know anything about these fields. They only need to know a universal method of “worldview analysis.” It’s a general skill for everything.

BLMc responds,

Let me get this straight … owning a uniquely Christian epistemology (we know what we know by way of revelation vs. naked reasoning or some kind of mystic experience or by human tradition) is “simplistic and doesn’t explain much?”

Owning a uniquely Christian ontology (things did not happen by chance or circumstance but by the supernatural intent of a divine creator) is “simplistic and doesn’t explain much?”

Owning a uniquely Christian axiology (the highest value is the Glory of God, the Kingdom of God and the work of Christ as opposed to a axiology that claims that the highest value is the glory of man, the kingdom of man, and the Utopian work of man) is “simplistic and doesn’t explain much?”

Owning a uniquely Christian teleology (the ultimate end/ destination of man is to be homo adorans — man the worshiper who worships the God of the Bible, not owning a teleology wherein man worships himself in either his individualistic or corporate capacity) is “simplistic and doesn’t explain much?”

Dr. Stephen Wolfe writes,

No specialization required.

BLMc responds,

This is what is called the red herring fallacy. No Christian who embraces worldview thinking in an epistemologically self conscious way suggest that “no specialization is required” is a host of different fields. Wolfe is just poisoning the well here in order to advance his idiotic Thomistic thinking. It’s all very insulting.

Dr. Stephen Wolfe writes,

This is why, I think, some evangelicals convert out of Protestantism. They find that their conservative professors, who actually know the field of study well, are often Roman Catholics (or maybe Anglicans), and they find among them an intellectual ecosystem that favors inquiry and critical thought without importing these “worldview” lenses to explains things away. (I’d also add that evangelical academics tend to be political squishes and center-left, at least in disposition). There is nothing about Protestantism or Roman Catholicism in themselves that explains this. Protestant intellectuals dominated intellectual thought in Europe for centuries. It’s entirely to due to historical dynamics, reaction, and the democratization of apologetics. We would become much smarter if we dropped “worldview” entirely.

BLMc responds,

1.) Nobody denies that a Roman Catholic or Anglican can be inconsistent in their worldview, holding to false doctrines touching soteriology but still managing to be correct on some matters in their field of expertise. Nobody denies that Thomistic mathematicians, for example, can count. The question is always, “can they account for their ability to count given their Thomistic worldview that teaches the autonomy of fallen man’s thinking.

2.) Worldview lenses, contrary to Wolfe’s naked assertion, do not merely “explain things away.” That is another red herring and poisoning the well. Is Wolfe really suggesting that those who embrace Worldview thinking who happen to be in any number of fields have not done the heavy lifting of diving into their field of study but instead merely, (presumably with a flippant wave of the hand) “explained things away?”

What is amusing here is that Wolfe himself is merely “explaining worldview thinking away” with a mere wave of the hand as accompanied by a few mindless and untrue assertions on his part.

3.) In this take down of Wolfe I have not used “worldview lenses” to explain things away. I have taken the time to explain and demonstrate where and how Wolfe is wrong in his various assertion. In point of fact it is Wolfe who has used his worldview lens of autonomous Thomistic thinking to explain things away with a mere wave of his hand followed by insulting comments.

4.) I’ve known plenty of Thomists who have been hard left in their specific fields. When Wolfe talks about Evangelicals (presumably with their Worldview thinking in tow) being squishy leftists this is another shot at Worldview thinking that doesn’t taken into account the many “Christians” in various fields who were Thomistic in their thinking and gave up the flag of Biblical Christianity to the Left. (R2K anybody?)

5.) Of course, I’m convinced that “we would become much smarter if we just dropped Dr. Stephen Wolfe entirely. He is poisoning the whole Christian thinking movement.

Now, I’ve been pretty direct here. Part of the reason for that is the gross inaccuracy on Wolfe’s part. Part of it is because how insulting Wolfe has been. The largest part of it is because there is a great deal of stake here. If we as Christians go the direction that Wolfe and the R2K chaps want to take us on Worldview thinking it will be a matter of once again returning to the chaos and dark night of intellectual advance.

This is important.

The Crowds & The Messiah … A Look At Divine Control In Securing Confession That Jesus Christ Is Prophet, Priest, and King

¹⁴Jesus returned to Galilee in the power of the Spirit, and news about him spread through the whole countryside. ¹⁵He was teaching in their synagogues, and everyone praised him.

¹⁶He went to Nazareth, where he had been brought up, and on the Sabbath day he went into the synagogue, as was his custom. He stood up to read, ¹⁷and the scroll of the prophet Isaiah was handed to him. Unrolling it, he found the place where it is written:

¹⁸“The Spirit of the Lord is on me,
    because he has anointed me
    to proclaim good news to the poor.
He has sent me to proclaim freedom for the prisoners
    and recovery of sight for the blind,
to set the oppressed free,
¹⁹    to proclaim the year of the Lord’s favor.”^[f]

²⁰Then he rolled up the scroll, gave it back to the attendant and sat down. The eyes of everyone in the synagogue were fastened on him. ²¹He began by saying to them, “Today this scripture is fulfilled in your hearing.”

²²All spoke well of him and were amazed at the gracious words that came from his lips. “Isn’t this Joseph’s son?” they asked.

²³Jesus said to them, “Surely you will quote this proverb to me: ‘Physician, heal yourself!’ And you will tell me, ‘Do here in your hometown what we have heard that you did in Capernaum.’”

²⁴“Truly I tell you,” he continued, “no prophet is accepted in his hometown. ²⁵I assure you that there were many widows in Israel in Elijah’s time, when the sky was shut for three and a half years and there was a severe famine throughout the land. ²⁶Yet Elijah was not sent to any of them, but to a widow in Zarephath in the region of Sidon. ²⁷And there were many in Israel with leprosy^[g] in the time of Elisha the prophet, yet not one of them was cleansed—only Naaman the Syrian.”

²⁸All the people in the synagogue were furious when they heard this. ²⁹They got up, drove him out of the town, and took him to the brow of the hill on which the town was built, in order to throw him off the cliff. ³⁰But he walked right through the crowd and went on his way.

Luke 4

²⁸After Jesus had said this, he went on ahead, going up to Jerusalem. ²⁹As he approached Bethphage and Bethany at the hill called the Mount of Olives, he sent two of his disciples, saying to them, ³⁰“Go to the village ahead of you, and as you enter it, you will find a colt tied there, which no one has ever ridden. Untie it and bring it here. ³¹If anyone asks you, ‘Why are you untying it?’ say, ‘The Lord needs it.’”

³²Those who were sent ahead went and found it just as he had told them. ³³As they were untying the colt, its owners asked them, “Why are you untying the colt?”

³⁴They replied, “The Lord needs it.”

³⁵They brought it to Jesus, threw their cloaks on the colt and put Jesus on it. ³⁶As he went along, people spread their cloaks on the road.

³⁷When he came near the place where the road goes down the Mount of Olives, the whole crowd of disciples began joyfully to praise God in loud voices for all the miracles they had seen:

³⁸“Blessed is the king who comes in the name of the Lord!”^[b]

“Peace in heaven and glory in the highest!”

Luke 19

There is a harmony of reasoning behind these two events, as unlikely as that might seem upon first glance.

In the first instance Jesus is entering into his official ministry, having just been tried and tempted in the desert. In Nazareth where he is rejected the Lord Jesus calls attention especially to His office of “Prophet,” though even here there are hints in the Isaiah passage that Jesus reads to His office of King as the King was associated with healing (“recovery of sight for the blind”). However the emphasis seems to be that Jesus is saying that he is the long expected great Prophet promised in the OT.

^{Detu. 18:15}“The Lord your God will raise up for you a Prophet like me from your midst, from your brethren. Him you shall hear…

There in Luke 4 with His reading of the Isaiahanic passage Jesus creates the turmoil with His declaration that He is the great Prophet long ago promised. At the conclusion of Jesus speaking the inhabitants gathered from His hometown sought to put Him to death, for they doubtless believed, that Jesus had blasphemed in claiming to be God’s promised great prophet. Quickly a mob mentality developed and as a result Jesus was stampeded to the edge of a cliff. Remember, none of this happens by coincidence. Jesus created the crisis and tumult he desired. The question must be asked … “Why create this scenario? … Why did Jesus let it go as far as it did before the miraculous exit?” I mean, He could have gone all miraculous before the Jewish mob reached a fever pitch.

I believe the answer is found in the intent of the Lord Christ to impress unmistakably on the minds of His hometown the truth that He is the Messiah who fills the needed office of the great prophet. By the reading of the Scripture and by the application of the Isaiah text to Himself Jesus is drilling into the minds of the Jews that He is who He is. His hometown would never forget either His claim nor their response. Their response, in seeking to throw Him off a cliff, would forever be a testimony against them as to the truthfulness of His claim when considered in light of His whole ministry. It was a fulfillment that He was indeed “despised and rejected of men.”

Now near the end of His ministry Jesus does something similar but instead of purposefully creating a scenario where a Jewish mob wants to kill Him because of His rightful claim to be the promised great prophet, Jesus now creates a scenario where a Jewish mob hails Him as the long promised King from the OT prophecies.

There is thus seen a harmony between the opening of Jesus career where Jesus is claiming to be the great prophet required in He who was the Messiah and the end of His career where Jesus creates a scenario again where there is a claim to be the Messiah. The only difference is the office under consideration. In the opening passage from Luke 4, occurring at the beginning of His Messianic ministry, Jesus lets hostility to His claims ripen to the point of the mob killing Him before He miraculously walks away. In the passage from Luke 19, occurring at the end of His Messianic ministry, Jesus lets His claim to Kingship ripen to the point of fevered pitch exaltation by the mob. In each case His Messianic credentials are being established in the mind of the Jews as a people.

Klass Schilder put it this way in his, “Christ In His Sufferings;”

Now at Bethany, His kingly, not His prophetic claims, are the important issue. He is to enter Jerusalem today, and Jerusalem is peculiarly His city. He wants to make His debut as a King to as many people as He can possibly attract to one place. At Nazareth He had called a mass meeting to witness the beginning of His official career. Now He assembles the multitudes again, this time appearing in His official calling as a King. And He does this in order that at that last stage, His priestly “decease,” at once the height and depth of His official life, the whole world may, through the Word, witness the fulfillment of His calling.

Jesus creates and encourages the fevered pitch cries of “Hosanna, blessed is the King who comes in the name of the Lord” that He hears as descending into Jerusalem, just as He created and encouraged the push to toss Him from a cliff when He said at the beginning of His ministry; ““Today this scripture is fulfilled in your hearing.” In each case He is in control of what is happening. He is creating each scenario in service to His Messianic claims of Prophet and King.

In the latter case Jesus fulfills the royal requirement that the beast He enters into Jerusalem upon is one “whereon yet never a man sat.” The fact that He has His disciples fetch such an animal is not accidental. He was aware that by entering into Jerusalem in just such a fashion He was entering as King.

All of this was a demonstration of Jesus fulfilling prophecy;

Rejoice greatly, O daughter of Zion!Shout aloud, O daughter of Jerusalem!Behold, your king is coming to you;righteous and having salvation is he,humble and mounted on a donkey,on a colt, the foal of a donkey. I will cut off the chariot from Ephraim and the war horse from Jerusalem;and the battle bow shall be cut off,and he shall speak peace to the nations;his rule shall be from sea to sea,and from the River to the ends of the earth.

Zechariah 9:9-10

The mention of a donkey in the Zechariah text fits the description of a king who would be “righteous and having salvation, gentle.” Rather than riding to conquer, this king would enter in peace. And so Jesus rides into Jerusalem in such a manner and in doing so the people understand the claim that Jesus is making.

In the ancient Middle Eastern world, leaders rode horses if they rode to war, but donkeys if they came in peace. We see this in I Kings 1:33 where it is said that Solomon is upon a donkey when he was recognized as the new King of Israel. We see other instances of leaders in the OT riding Donkeys as well as in Judges 5:10, 10:4, 12:14, and II Sam. 16:2.

Now add to this the way that Jesus impresses the animal for service — as King exercising His right of confiscation — and one has underscored that Jesus is purposefully making a claim to Kingship. This privilege of confiscation had been heard from the mouth of Samuel as he designated Saul as the first King of Israel.

So there is divine harmony in the replies of the mob participants that are heard surrounding the claims of Jesus to His three offices of “Prophet,” “Priest,” and “King,” at the different points of His ministry. There in Luke 4 the reply of the Jewish mob to Jesus’ claim to be God’s mouthpiece (prophet) is to kill Jesus by tossing Him off a cliff. There in Luke 19 the reply of the Jewish mob to Jesus claim to be God’s great Saviour-King is “Hosanna, blessed is the King who comes in the name of the Lord,” and finally in Luke we find;

¹⁸But the whole crowd shouted, “Away with this man! Release Barabbas to us!” ¹⁹(Barabbas had been thrown into prison for an insurrection in the city, and for murder.)

²⁰Wanting to release Jesus, Pilate appealed to them again. ²¹But they kept shouting, “Crucify him! Crucify him!”

²²For the third time he spoke to them: “Why? What crime has this man committed? I have found in him no grounds for the death penalty. Therefore I will have him punished and then release him.”

²³But with loud shouts they insistently demanded that he be crucified, and their shouts prevailed. ²⁴So Pilate decided to grant their demand. ²⁵He released the man who had been thrown into prison for insurrection and murder, the one they asked for, and surrendered Jesus to their will.

Luke 23:18-25

Again, Jesus the Christ is in control of the situation. We know from Scripture that He could have called an Angelic host to deliver Him from the intent of His enemies and yet Jesus goes as a lamb to the slaughter to the Cross in order to fulfill His Messianic office of our Great High Priest.

So, at every key point of the work of Christ in respect to His offices of Prophet, Priest, and King, we see the Lord Christ as seemingly a victim of circumstances but behind it all we know that He is choreographing every mob response and all of it is serving the end of glorifying His Father, fulfilling the eternal covenant of Redemption, and of saving a particular people and peoples throughout time. There is in all of these events a divine artistic architecture that can only be seen when seeing these events in total and when seen in relation to one another.

Quoting Schilder again;

The first time Jesus took a roundabout way He did so in order to catch the people in their own nets. Nazareth had countenanced Him for thirty years. That long they had accorded Him “grace and favor.” Then He made His first public sermon and attached a pure application to it. Thereupon the hosannas of the citizenry were metamorphosed into the bitterest of curses: crucify Him, crucify Him! And this time He invites the masses to choke the roads so that the whole world may be witness to the fact that the people first shout hosanna, and then, a few days later, when He refuses to become what flesh would have Him be, raise the other cry: crucify Him!

We might say in conclusion that just as there was not one parcel in the life of Christ that was not providentially orchestrated and therefore purposeful so in our own lives as those united to Jesus Christ there is not one iota in our life that is not providentially orchestrated. It is true that we are not the master of our situations as the Lord Jesus Christ was the master of each of His situations but it remains the case that as we are united to Jesus Christ in His death, resurrection, and ascension so our lives are orchestrated under His providence as we serve as prophets, priests, and kings under sovereign God.

There is great encouragement in that truth.

Sermon 02 February 2025 — Deceiving Spirits, Doctrine of Demons, And Hypocritical Liars

As we come to I Tim. 4 Paul segues from talking about the glorious Church and its message at the tail end of Chapter 3 to writing about the fact that this glorious church of the living God which is the pillar and ground of truth is still beset with problems in its midst. This reminds us that while the Church is magnificent there remain in even the very best of church tares among the wheat. Here in I Tim. 4 St. Paul moves to some of those tare problems that Timothy is going to have to deal with.

Now the Spirit expressly says that in latter times some will depart from the faith, giving heed to deceiving spirits and doctrines of demons, 2 speaking lies in hypocrisy, having their own conscience seared with a hot iron, 3 forbidding to marry, and commanding to abstain from foods which God created to be received with thanksgiving by those who believe and know the truth. 4 For every creature of God is good, and nothing is to be refused if it is received with thanksgiving; 5 for it is [l]sanctified by the word of God and prayer.

Here we find a compact unit and as a brief overview we note that we see an indication that apostasy is coming — an apostasy driven by deceiving spirits spreading the doctrine of demons. These deceiving spirits use hypocritical lying false teachers whose consciences have been seared to mediate the doctrine of demons. These doctrine of demons are what will come to be known as Gnosticism which in the 1st century required abstention from marriage and certain foods. All of this is in contradiction to the fact that God created everything to be received with thanksgiving. St. Paul under the Holy Spirit’s inspiration teaches the truth of God’s good creation — the purpose which is to provide for people’s needs.

In this passage the Holy Spirit reminds us that not all who belong to the Church outwardly belong to the church inwardly. Not all that glitters is gold. There are those who will apostatize. Of these types the Holy Spirit teaches in I John

19 They went out from us, but they were not of us; for if they had been of us, they would have continued with us; but they went out that they might be made manifest, that none of them were of us.

The fact that some depart from the faith does not mean that some were once in Christ and then decided to no longer be in Christ. It means that some covenantally identified with the Church — God’s people — and now because they never were in Christ have ceased being covenantally identified with God’s people. They have apostatized.

Now, St. Paul knew that this was coming because the Spirit had explicitly stated it. A mere 1/2 dozen years ago this same Paul addressing the Elders of the Church in Ephesus were Timothy is Pastoring said,

“I know that after my departure ravenous wolves will enter among you, not sparing the flock; and from among your own selves men will arise, speaking perverse things, to draw away the disciples after them.”

A few years after that warning Paul can write in Col. 2 as from a Roman prison warning the congregations who were to receive that circular letter against the error that faith in Christ’s atoning work had to be supplemented by the same type of ascetic beliefs and practices that he will speak of as going on here in Ephesus.

Now these were problems that existed in the latter times they were living in but they are not problems that are necessarily unique to those specific latter times. We deal with these same types of things today as we will see in a few minutes.

From writing to them of what the Spirit has explicitly said about apostasy the Apostle turns to the cause of this coming Apostasy.

Now the Spirit expressly says that in latter times some will depart from the faith, giving heed to deceiving spirits and doctrines of demons… I Tim. 4:1

The Scripture hear reminds us how important it is for each of us to pray earnestly that we would given discernment in who and what we listen to. It is altogether too easy to give heed to deceiving spirits and doctrines of demons as mediated to us by hypocritical liars.

Today we hear frequently about the dangers of misinformation and disinformation and that often from people who would have us believe their own misinformation. The Scripture here underscores the reality that in our information age we live in times festooned with hypocritical liars who are conveying the information of deceiving spirits resulting in a church that is often properly characterized as embracing doctrines of demons.

More often than not these hypocritical liars that Paul speaks of here today are the clergy. In his own time the hypocritical liars were likewise men who thought of themselves as clergy types. These are men who are supposed to be feeding and leading the flock but instead they come in and do great damage. Our churches today are populated by these men today in legions. And so we must have our radar up for them.

However, here St. Paul reminds us that error ultimately stems from deceiving spirits and the doctrines of demons. There is something simple here that we can not miss. Ultimately error is put into the life blood of a person and/or people not by bad ideology or by being infected by bad ideas by themselves.

Ultimately, we are taught here, error arises from spiritual realities. Here we are told that it is deceiving spirits and the doctrines of demons that accounts for some departing from the faith.

Now I pause to point this out because the Reformed movement especially tends to see apostatizing and departure through the grid of theological and ideological errors. We tend to be very rational about it all dismissing the reality of the supernatural as existing behind the errors of theology and ideology.

We can fail to understand that while certainly theology and ideology are in play, that ultimately error arises from an active spiritual world that has an interest in stealing our faith. Satan does prowl around like a roaring lion seeking whom he may devour.

We see here that deceiving spirits exist and are the ultimate explanation why people embrace loopy and stupid ideology and theology. Dealing with people that are in error is not ultimately about getting them to change their theology and ideology. There has to be a understanding that it is not merely bad thinking that is going on but ultimately people’s bad thinking is accounted for because of the very active work of deceiving spirits communicating the doctrines of demons.

We see something of this in II Cor. 4:4 where we read;

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.

Reformed folk don’t tend to be especially good at making this connection. We tend to want to make everything about presuppositions, ideas, and worldviews forgetting that we wrestle against spiritualites and powers. It is true that we are in Worldview warfare but behind that Worldview warfare is a very real spiritual world that we are idiots if we don’t take into account.

Another thing we should note here though is that the deceiving spirits are conveying “doctrines of demons.” This brings us back to recognizing how important doctrine is to the Christian faith. Deceiving Spirits work to the end that we would own doctrines of demons. This reminds us how important it is to embrace sound doctrine. There is no Christianity where there is a distaste for sound doctrine because where sound doctrine is despised what will arise is the doctrine of demons. It is only the work of deceiving spirits that find Christians poo pooing the magnificent importance of the doctrines of the Bible and the Christian faith.

What we are suggesting here is that those who denigrate sound doctrine are themselves under the sway of deceiving spirits and have by their denigration of sound doctrine already embraced the doctrine of demons. Doctrines of demons specialize in convincing Christians that sound doctrine is unimportant.

This was clearly seen in something that Rev. Tim Keller said a few years ago. Keller, a huge influence in the Reformed world during his life, said;

“The Gospel of Christianity which is that you are not saved by good doctrine, not by your good works but by sheer unmerited grace. It pulls out the self righteousness and superiority that tends to go along with religious belief. “

Tim Keller

Let us briefly examine this doctrine of demons.

1.) I’m so confused. Isn’t this a doctrine that Tim is giving me … a doctrine that apparently I must be conversant with in order to be saved. Presumably it is even a good doctrine

If I’m not saved via good doctrine must I be saved via bad doctrine or am I saved with no doctrine? (which of course the advocacy of which would be a doctrine).

This diminishing of doctrine is NOT Christianity but is born of deceiving spirits resulting in Tim Keller owning the doctrine of Demons and Tim’s owning the doctrine of demons was seen in many of the doctrines the man held.

2.) Tim’s doctrine in the first sentence is obviously driving his self-righteousness as seen in his second sentence. Tim obviously views himself, because of his superior doctrine, as superior over those poor benighted Christians who believe that good doctrine is related to salvation.

Little flock … take heed to your doctrine. Be in much prayer that the Lord Christ would make you grow in His doctrine. Do not be fooled by deceiving spirits parlaying doctrines of demons through hypocritical liars.

In I Timothy 4 St. Paul is making war specifically on Gnosticism. Gnosticism is the doctrine that suggests that the more one withdraws from the creational world (or ironically the more one excesses in the creational world) the more Holy one is. In this text Paul specifically mentions hypocritical liars who are deceiving people about the goodness of food and marriage. Food and marriage touch two of the most basic human instincts (life and sex). In the 1st century latter times Gnostic teachers were convincing people that the less connected people were with the physical corporeal world the more exemplary and holy they were. St. Paul slices and dices the godless apostates by reminding Timothy that “everything that God created is good and nothing is to be rejected if it is received with thanksgiving because it is consecrated by the word of God and prayer.”

Now today we still have the Gnostics among us. We still have those who want to suggest that the created world is somehow not to be recognized and/or enjoyed by God’s people. There are those who have imported Gnosticism into the Reformed church by suggesting that some significant creational categories disappear upon redemption. It is nothing but the gasses of Gnosticism that suggest that ethnicity and race are not important for Christians. It is Gnosticism that finds clergy saying things like “race is a social construct” or that “race doesn’t really exist.” We are living with the same Gnostic impulse that Paul viciously rips apart in I Timothy 4. The only difference is that while the 1st century Gnostics were making their appeal in their prohibition of food and marriage our current Gnostics make their appeal to the prohibition of affirming genuine differences between peoples as well as the modern Gnostic prohibition of recognizing the creational distinctions between male and female as seen in their welcoming women to serve as Deacons, Elders, and Pastors in God’s Church. The embrace of New Age fantasies, the embrace of Alienism, the embrace of the barrenness of atheistic philosophies are all the consequence of the fact that the devil and His troops are liars with the devil being the Father of lies.

This might remind us of C. S. Lewis’ excellent work “The Screwtape Letters” where a experienced Demon is giving advice to a Junior demon on how to best deceive humans.

“Like all young tempters, you are anxious to be able to report spectacular wickedness. But do remember, the only thing that matters is the extent to which you separate the man from the Enemy. It does not matter how small the sins are provided that their cumulative effect is to edge the man away from the Light and out into the Nothing. Murder is no better than cards if cards can do the trick. Indeed the safest road to Hell is the gradual one—the gentle slope, soft underfoot, without sudden turnings, without milestones, without signposts,

Your affectionate uncle
Screwtape”

If you haven’t read the Screwtape Letters I would encourage you to do so.

Well, in the 1st century church the Gnostics were insisting upon “no marriage, no meat.” In the 21st century Church the Gnostics are screaming, “no race, no gender.” The particulars which the Gnostics are attacking in the Church changes but the Gnosticism remains the same. For St. Paul it was “marriage is not necessary,” and “abstaining from certain foods is required.” For us today it is “race is not real,” and “gender is insignificant.” Then and now I would argue all is born of this continuing Gnosticism which is a doctrine of Demons.

Before pushing on we should note again that in I Timothy 4 St. Paul clearly communicates that twisted understanding of theology as applied to creational categories (as opposed to redemptive categories) are a matter of serious rebuke and warning. One can abandon the faith not only by thinking wrongly about salvific (redemptive) categories. One can abandon the faith by thinking wrongly about creational categories. Gnostics who deny the goodness of the created world can in no wise be saved.

I note this because in the recent past I was told that I should not camp on what we have noted are Gnostic errors. I was told “you should not spend so much time on these issues because they are not salvific.” I trust you see that the Holy Spirit did not reason that way so that we can say that where the spectre of Gnosticism arises in any area stiff warnings concerning it should be raised.

The Holy Spirit’s counsel here on these matters is straight forward. What God has made and given us , we are to received and render up thanksgiving. There is an objective and subjective movement here. Objectively we are to receive all things created by God because God has made them. Subjectively we are to receive all things created by God in prayers, thus what we are thankful for in prayer is set apart both objectively by God’s Word and subjectively by our prayer.

Now we must throw in a caveat here. We must be precise because there are those who would make this passage walk on all fours and suggest that there is nothing that is restricted to them because God created everything. And so some might say that illicit drugs or excessive alcohol may be taken because they have been created by God. Or you will find that even Christians will say that I am a sodomite or I am a tranny and this is good because God has created me this way. This is a gross misuse of what is being taught here and fails to recognize the distinction between the good that has been created by God to be received in thanksgiving and the evil that is the result not of creation but of the fall.

What God created was male and female and the female as a compliment to the male which would result in heterosexual marriage. Heterosexual marriage as lived in the parameters of Scripture should be received as from God w/ thanksgiving but homosexual marriage, which can’t really exist is an abomination because it is a result of creation marred and fallen. The same is true with excessive alcohol intake or the intake of illicit drugs. These are part of creation and can be received with prayer and thanksgiving but they are can also be easily and are often abused revealing the fallenness of the person abusing.

I only note this because we still live in a Church environment that in many quarters seeks to normalize these things. For example, somewhere around 1/3 of the delegates to the last CRC synod voted in favor of having sodomites and lesbians be members of Christ’s church. Outside the Church we know of the attempt of the broader culture to normalize these things as seen in the fact that our new Sec’y of the Treasury is a sodomite who is allegedly married to another man and has a son. When St. Paul writes

nothing is to be refused if it is received with thanksgiving; 5 for it is [l]sanctified by the word of God and prayer.

He is decidedly not talking about these kinds of abominations.

So we see here from this passage that when we are saved by Christ it is the whole man that is saved by Christ and the consequence of being saved by Christ is that we receive the good of creation as good from God. Our being owned by Christ makes us say, as G. K. Chesterton wrote,

“You say grace before meals.
All right.
But I say grace before the play and the opera,
And grace before the concert and the pantomime,
And grace before I open a book
And grace before sketching, painting,
Swimming, fencing, boxing, walking, playing, dancing
And grace before I dip the pen in the ink.”

This opens up before us the truth that all of life should be lived to the glory of God with thanksgiving unto God. It opens us to the fact that all of creation is God’s theater of glory that is to be received with prayer and thanksgiving. Not only are we to keep the Gnostics at bay in their 1st century incarnation of prohibiting food and marriage but we are to keep them at bay in their 21st century incarnation of prohibiting the embrace of gender, ethnicity/race.

God loves us in Christ and gave us all of life to enjoy. Let us enjoy it to His glory until we are brought up to enjoy eternal life.