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.

God’s Law is One… Yet Distinctions Between Moral, Judicial, Ceremonial Remain

There are those Theonomists out there who advocate getting rid of the distinctions between “Moral Law,” “Civil/Judicial Law” and “Ceremonial Law.” They want to insist that as God’s law is one we should not make these distinctions. Still, one can believe that God’s law is one and at the same time continue to insist that the above distinctions are necessary.

We need the distinctions in the law (Moral, Ceremonial, Civil/Judicial) that the Scripture gives us because without those distinctions idiots would be out there involved in the silliest of things like trying to keep the feasts and festivals. (Those come to mind because I just bought a book that details how Christ fulfilled all the feasts and festivals and therefore to go back to requiring those to be practiced would be to go back to the shadows.) The OT feasts and festivals, just like the OT sacrifices belong to the Ceremonial law that was fulfilled in the completed work of Jesus Christ.

The Moral law is distinct from the civil law the way our Constitution is distinct from our case laws that are a result of decisions made based upon the Constitution. God in His graciousness gave us not only the Moral Law (Constitution) but also the civil/judicial case laws that find the Moral Law applied.

The civil law abides both in its general equity (the principle lives on that animated the original civil law such as we find in the OT with railings providing protecting from injury) and when warranted in its exact prescription (such as the consanguinity laws). However, the civil law remains distinct from the Moral law. With the Moral law (10 Commandments) we don’t suggest that it may not be applicable any longer. With the Civil law we do suggest that there may be times when it is not applicable the way the Hebrews applied those case laws. Hence there is a distinction between moral law and civil (judicial) law.

Hence we need the distinctions “ceremonial,” “civil” (or “judicial” if one prefers) and “Moral.” What we don’t need is Ministers who insist that merely because a law is judicial/civil that therefore means we can automatically dismiss its ongoing validity without asking questions like, “what was the principle of the Moral law that was driving this civil law and how can we incarnate that Moral law principle today.”

As you know, if we don’t do that then men become autonomous in establishing their law order and that is the very definition of humanism. If we will not see the relationship between God’s covenant Law rightly interpreted and God Himself we will reinterpret man to be God as seen in the fact that man is the one issuing laws that men must walk by. To say that we want God but not His law properly understood and applied is like saying we want God and we don’t want God. Separating God from His law is separating God from Himself. When we separate God from His law we have fashioned new gods reflecting our new laws.

Many Pastors want to hold on to the Moral law while giving up completely the judicial law merely because that law was the application of the Moral law (R2K is famous for advocating this) are men who really don’t take the Moral law seriously. The Moral law for men like this is a mere shibboleth… something someone tips their cap to but doesn’t really take seriously. In brief, men who won’t take the judicial law seriously and who insist that it has completely passed in every sense with the eclipse of OT Israel and so is no longer relevant for us in terms of law order governance are not ministers of Christ but of Baal.

Dancing With The Baptists On Covenant Theology & Infant Baptism

Of course our disagreement here is NOT primarily infant Baptism, but as you know something far deeper and more significant. The issue is the nature of the covenant. Baptists, like Rev. Bushsong presuppose discontinuity between the old covenant and the new and better covenant. They see the new and better covenant as largely unrelated to the old covenant and because the new and better covenant is a different covenant the Baptist “reasons” that children should not (MUST NOT) be brought to the baptismal font. The new and better covenant is so discontinuous with the old covenant that whereas the old covenant was inclusive of parents and seed the new covenant is inclusive of ONLY “age appropriate” (however that is subjectively defined) confessors. In this commitment to discontinuity the new emphasis finds baptism being primarily about the promises of the one being baptized to be committed to God whereas in the paedo-covenant conviction baptism is NOT primarily about the promises of the one being baptized but is primarily about God’s promises to us to be our God and to take us and our seed as His people. Now surely, as all Reformed Baptism ceremonies communicate, there is a reciprocal promise on the part of God’s people to walk in newness of life. Still, the emphasis for paedobaptists in Baptism is on God is the one doing the saving (and Baptizing) and not, such as one finds in Baptist baptisms, the emphasis being on the communicants resolve to say “I have decided to follow Jesus.” (Hence, the reason that song is so often played in Baptism services.)

One problem here (and there are a multitude of problems) is that all of this presupposes that God works His salvation differently between the Old covenant and the New and Better covenant. In the old covenant, Baptists teach implicitly, God’s salvation was inferior vis-a-vis the New Covenant and therefore a salvation upgrade was required. That salvation upgrade is found in the fact that God has done away with the corporate dimension of salvation wherein the children go with the parents.

When the paedo-Baptists look at the old covenant and new and better covenant they see continuity. They understand “new and better” to be “new and better” because what was only promissory in the old testament is now fulfilled in and with the coming of the magnificent Lord Jesus Christ. Christ did not come to bring in a salvation unrelated to the old covenant but rather Christ comes to fulfill all that was promised in the old covenant. As such, the paedobaptist, understanding the continuity between the covenants, following Scripture, brings God’s covenant seed to the baptismal font in obedience to God’s commands and promises.

The paedobaptist, following Scripture, looks at the history of redemption and covenant history and sees that which each covenantal progression the children and the parents were, without fail, part of the family of God. We see nothing in the New Testament that changes that pattern and steadfastly insist that if there were to be a change to that long established pattern there would be a need for an explicit word in the new covenant that the children are NOT to be included. There is no explicit word to that end. Not even close.

This last point is underscored by the fact there is not one peep in the NT of protest against any refusal to baptize covenant seed and this despite the fact that the Jews were OUTRAGED that the Gentiles were coming into the covenant. So, the Baptists ask us to believe that the Jews were silent in the NT record about their children being kept out of the covenant while the NT record records their outrage about Gentiles coming in? This is an argument from silence but the silence is so loud here that it is deafening.

As to the original post … yes, it clearly is the case that Baptists by disobediently not bringing God’s seed to the baptismal font are assuming that God’s seed given to them are outside the covenant and what else can that mean except that Baptists presuppose their children are vipers in diapers? When Baptists raise their children faithfully in the covenant (and many do) their practice is better than their belief. Felicitous inconsistency, thy name is Baptist.

Paedobaptists believe that there is one uninterrupted scarlet thread of salvation that runs from Genesis to Revelation and and that one uninterrupted scarlet thread of salvation has always included God’s covenant seed. To teach otherwise breaks the unity of Scripture.

More could be said but to what end? It is very seldom the case that Baptists are convicted on this point (though it does happen) and from the Baptist perspective it is also the case that very seldom do paedobaptists decide to believe that their children stand in no relation of belonging to the one covenant of grace since Baptists believe that only the elect belong to the covenant of grace and deny that one can be within the administrative reach of the covenant without being in the covenant and so having the substance of the covenant (Christ).

Rev. Tim Bushsong wrote,

1 & 2: The “newness” of the NC is tied-in with that covenant’s head-for-head integrity; that is, all who are “in” are truly in, salvifically, whereas in the OC, only those who were of faith were *truly* in.

BLMc responds,

This is not true as is clearly taught with Jesus parable about tares and wheat and with the book of Hebrews (6 & 10) warnings against falling away. Also there is I John’s statement,

“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.” (2:19)

Clearly there was some kind of covenantal relationship as seen in the fact that these folks were part of the community. Paul explains all this in Romans 9 where he says that;

“For they are not all Israel, who are descendants from Israel.”

In the old and worse covenant not all in the covenant had the essence of the covenant and yet they are held responsible as covenant breakers. One cannot break the covenant unless one belongs to the covenant. So in the NT not all who are related to the new covenant have the essence of the covenant (Christ) and so they “go out from us.”

It would be literally impossible to warn against covenant breaking if it was not possible in some sense to break covenant.

Rev. Bushsong writes,

3: That is apples/oranges – spiritual benefits have to do with sin/blessing. You assume what has yet to be proven – that obedience requires baby-baptizing.

BLMc replies,

Obedience requiring Baby baptism has been proven so often and so thoroughly through the centuries that to suggest that “it is not proven” is whistling past the graveyard. As Bahnsen liked to say …”I may not have persuaded you. That is not my bailiwick but I have clearly provided the proof.”

Rev. Bushsong writes,

Look: As I said in the vid, I (Baptist) get all the blessings of covenant theology without diluting the nature of the NC. That’s the line we Baptists will not cross.

BLMc replies,

You assume what has yet to be proven, to wit, that obedience does not require baby-baptizing.

Of course that is quite the charge against the paedobaptist of being guilty of “diluting the nature of the New Covenant.” As you surely understand, we here think the same of y’all.

The Bible & National Israel’s Lack Of A Future In The Kingdom Of God

I.) Matthew 21:19: “He said to it, ‘May you never bear fruit again.’ Immediately the tree withered.”

The tree really withered; the disciples “saw it withered from the roots” (Mark 11:20).

The sudden death of the fig tree (symbolic of Israel) dramatized coming judgment on a nation bearing leaves of ritual but no fruit of righteousness.

Jesus here in cursing the fig tree finds the consequence that it is indeed cursed and teaches that God is done with National Israel in terms of having any relevance in relation to redemption or to the eschatological future. Individual Jews may well bow to Christ (and we pray that many will) but the nation of Israel is irrelevant to God. He cursed it. It is dead to Him.

II.) Matthew 21:43 “Therefore say I unto you, The kingdom of God shall be taken from you, and given to a nation bringing forth the fruits thereof.”

The Kingdom of God which was contained within the Israel of God in the OT is taken from Israel. Israel is no longer in any way associated with the Kingdom of God. National Israel is dead to God.

III.) Luke 13:6 He also spoke this parable: “A certain man had a fig tree planted in his vineyard, and he came seeking fruit on it and found none. 7 Then he said to the keeper of his vineyard, ‘Look, for three years I have come seeking fruit on this fig tree and find none. Cut it down; why does it cumbereth up the ground?’ 8 But he answered and said to him, ‘Sir, let it alone this year also, until I dig around it and fertilize it. 9 [c]And if it bears fruit, well. But if not, after that you can cut it down.’ ”

The timeline between the events described in Luke 13 and Jesus’ crucifixion is not precisely defined in the Gospels, but it is generally understood to be around one to two years. This indicates that Israel’s time was up. It did not bear fruit as the Mt. 21:43 passage explicitly teaches and so it was cut down in AD 70 and God is done with national Israel.

The parable of the wicked vinedressers (Mt. 21) really does seal that God is done with national Israel. Yet, we have much more than Matthew 21 to hang our hat on that God has eternally cursed any idea of National Israel. The Dispensationalists were able to revive Israel but that revival was completely man-centered and that revived Israel in terms of redemption means absolutely nothing. Frankly, the preoccupation of the Church with Israel for the last 150 years smells of sulfur. Revived Israel has been a major detraction from the Gospel of Jesus Christ. The violent rejection by the Bagels of 1st century Israel’s Messiah – of the Father’s beloved son – has, as its appropriate consequence, the termination of the Kingdom so far as the Bagels as a nation are concerned.

Interpretations of Romans 13 that find Israel grafted back into the Olive tree after AD 70 are plainly in error.

From the Mailbox; Why Do You Say The CREC Belongs To The Left?

Dear Pastor,

Can you tell me why you say that the CREC is a Christian denomination that is on the left? As a Pastor in the CREC I think I should know this.

Kent

Bret Responds,

Hello Kent,

Thank you for writing and asking.

Of course, I am speaking of the denominational spokesmen like Doug Wilson, Uri Brito, and Rich Lusk. Even if you’re not on the left yourself those people who are the face of the denomination you’re part of are on the left. If the wife I’m married to is a whore it says something about me if I stay married to her.

These are my observations thus about the CREC

1.) They are Alienists (multiculturalists). They insist that race does not exist or that race is a social construct. They keep pushing for documents to be accepted by the denomination that will codify those beliefs. Nobody of any stature before the rise of Franz Boas believed this. Franz Boas non-Christian Gnostic anthropology is what is informing the CREC’s push when it comes to race issues. This is a position on the left.

2.) Doug Wilson is on record as advocating voting for a female for political office (Sarah Palin). This is a position on the left.

3.) Doug Wilson has said

“Our family would be much more involved on an active personal level if terrorists overran Israel that we would if terrorists overran Vermont.”

This is a take from the left. It is a confusion of categories. It is a reversal of the Ordo Amoris to love the stranger and alien over your own countrymen. It is Alienism.

And if Doug insists that it is not Alienism because his wife, and grandchildren putatively have so much Jewish blood in them then it is Kinism which Doug derisively calls “skinism.” A derision that only rises as from the left.

Doug Wilson is the face of your denomination (whether you like it or not) and when he speaks he paints everyone who is part of the denomination. Doug is, as I have said repeatedly now, a man who is holding down the right side of the left, yet even as on the right side of the left he is on the left.

4.) The inclusion by the CREC of both Baptists and non-Baptists in one denomination is a position that only the left could embrace. Reformed Baptists and Reformed non-Baptists are different expressions of the Christian faith so significant that to combine them in one denomination communicates that the denomination doesn’t understand the idea of distinctions. This is a position of the left.

5.) Then there is the whole Federal Vision thing which is humanist to its core since it advocates works salvation. This is the position of humanism and so is on the left. Individual Pastors may not agree with Federal Vision theology but if they are in a denomination that salutes it they are in a denomination that is on the left.

6.) I know for a fact that Wilson has been phoning Pastors of other denominations in order to warn those Pastors against young men who the CREC have deemed unworthy because those young men took up race realist views. This is a position on the left.

You may be my Brother in Christ Pastor Kent and as such it is my responsibility to tell you that you are in a denomination that is on the left.

Where Tucker Carlson Gets It Wrong In His Interview With Nick Fuentes

“The reality of a multiethnic country requires you to sort of set aside community or group interests in favor of corporate interest, universal interests, national interests, and you have to do that or else it doesn’t work.”

Tucker Carlson
Interview Nick Fuentes

With this quote Tucker Carlson in his interview w/ Fuentes reveals he is a classical liberal. Classical liberalism has, as its watchword, the necessity for tolerance and this classically liberal tolerance is what Carlson vomits above.

Allow me to suggest that it is a death wish for white Christians (and that is who Tucker is talking about here) to continue to set aside our community and group interests because the eventuality of doing so means that we become an ever increasing minority in the nation our father’s built. White Christians have spent the last 60 plus years setting aside white Christian community and group interest in favor of corporate, universal, and national interests and the result is that we have a nation that no longer works for anybody. If White Christians continue to set aside their community or group interests white people will indeed finally be replaced.

Carlson is just gravely wrong here.