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.

Obam’s Race Card

http://www.realclearpolitics.com/video/2010/04/26/obama_calls_upon_minorities_for_upset_vote_in_2010.html

In the video above B. Hussein Obama implores young people, African-Americans, Latinos and women who voted for him in 2008 to vote in the 2010 midterms for Democrats. The reason why this is interesting for a couple reasons. First, Obama is clearly pitting minority America against White America. Obama, here, is doing more than playing the Race card, he is being revealing his racist colors.

Secondly, it is interesting because the groups that Obama appeals to are the very groups, which I have been insisting for quite some time on Iron Ink, who constitute the shock troops of his cultural Marxist agenda. Remember I have said that cultural Marxism differs from classic Marxism inasmuch as the wedge that the cultural Marxists seek to drive is not economic as much as it is cultural. The proletariat who will overthrow the bourgeoisie is not so much the working class (though some of them may be involved) as it is the disaffected groups that Obama appealed to in his pitch. Minorities are appealed to because as victims they have putatively been kept down by the Christian white man. (Feminist) Women are appealed to because the Cultural Marxist have been able to convince them that they are victims of Male hegemony. Youth are appealed to in this victim coalition because they have been brainwashed into believing that they are the ones who will bring in the brave new world that their parents and grandparents represents.

In Obama’s appeal to Women, young people, African-Americans and Latinos we find an appeal that is both anti-white in its appeal to minorities vis-a-vis non-minorities and anti-Western in its appeal to women and young people who have been convinced by the anti-Western narrative that the West is responsible for the lack of progress and the infliction of all sorts of evils upon the world. What all these people have in common, w/ Obama is a hatred of all things Western.

I can’t remember, in my lifetime, such an overt appeal to racial identity by a sitting President.

My Homeschool, “Run In W/ The Law” Story

This is a story that tells not only about the difficulty that home-schoolers have with law enforcement but also it gives a little bit of insight into the tyrannical and egotistical nature of too many of those who wear a uniform and a badge. I post this true account in order to shine the disinfectant of light on the corrupt nature of too many cops. I haven’t posted it before here because my Son was a little traumatized by what I am going to recount. He is now at an age where he is way past all of that. I, however, remain royally steamed about all of this.

This happened approximately five years ago during the winter months. Anthony had been given the job of keeping the Church sidewalks clear so that government school students could use them going to and fro to their educational internment camps. Since we had received a good amount of snow in the morning Anthony was out snow-blowing the sidewalks about an hour before the inmates were released from school. While Anthony was doing this I was a stone’s throw away in the Church in my study.

While Anthony was snow-blowing a squad car pulled up and the Cop belligerently demanded to know why Anthony was not in school. It seems that the officer was convinced that Anthony was a truant. One would have thought that the officer might have thought it strange that someone would have spent his time skipping school in order to clear sidewalks. Be that as it may, the Cop, copped an attitude from the word “go” w/ Anthony presuming his guilt. When prodded on the question of “why he wasn’t in school,” Anthony finally responded to the question w/ a question of his own. He, politely but directly, asked the rude guy in the squad car, “if it was any of his business as to whether or not he (Anthony) was in school.”

That response flipped the Cop out. He immediately got out of his car and roughly pushed Anthony against the squad car in order to “pat him down.” After patting my Son down he threw Anthony in the back of the squad car. Now, keep in mind, that this was Anthony’s first encounter w/ the police. This was a 15 year old kid who had no idea what was going on or what was being done to him.

Once the officer returned to the vehicle Anthony repeatedly pleaded w/ the Cop to drive the 30 yards to the Church in order that the officer might talk to his father who was in his study. The Cop refused all these appeals, opting instead to make half a dozen radio calls to see whether or not anything could be done to force Anthony into the government schools. He called the Cop at the local High School (which is right across the street from where Anthony was blowing snow) to come and identify Anthony as a student. When the High School Cop couldn’t confirm Anthony as a truant the Cop called the Intermediate Eaton County School District to see if anything could be done to force my Son into their concentration camps they call schools. He also called the local Cop Shop to see if anything could be done to that end. He did everything he could to try and force a situation where Anthony would be compelled to be enrolled at government school and all this only because Anthony had the temerity to ask him if the Cops interest in Anthony’s school attendance was any of his business.

All of this took about 45 minutes to accomplish. 45 minutes of sitting in the back of a squad car, a stone’s throw from the safety of his Father. 45 minutes of having no earthly idea where any of this was going.

Finally, once the Cop realized there was no way to force Anthony into the government schools and that there was nothing he could do with him, the Cop finally decided to listen to Anthony and drive into the Church parking lot to see if I was indeed in my study.

I was.

The Cop came to the door and knocked on it. I keep the Church door routinely locked because I am the only one in the Church and my study is secluded enough from the rest of the Church that people could go in and out without my knowing. Upon hearing the Cops rapping I went out and inquired through the door what the problem was. The officer demanded being let in but as I was alone and as he was 6’5” and about 350 pounds and was wearing a gun I would not let him in until he told me what the problem was. I don ‘t trust Cops and I am not in the habit of letting large armed men into buildings I am alone in unless I know them or unless I have a weapon of my own.

Finally, he informed me that he had my Son. Immediately I burst out the door fearful that Anthony had been hurt in some fashion. I demanded to know what was going on. When the Cop finally told me his considerably revisionist version I was, to put it mildly, outraged, and let him know that in no uncertain terms.

He made some kind of comment about “seeing where he (Anthony) got ‘it’ from.”

The frustrating end to this story is that we complained to the police and never received an apology for the behavior for this all too common behavior. Further, HSLDA, who we paid insurance premiums to for years for just such an eventuality, refused to send any kind of letter asking for redress of the situation. They insisted that it “really wasn’t a school related event.”

One can tell that five years later I’m still roiled about this whole event. My Son was minding his own business and instead of presuming the best the bully Cop presumed the worst and felt like he was threatened by a kid asking him, after he had already been belligerent himself, if he had any authority in the issue that was being demanded.

Cliff Notes — Romans 6

Romans 6

Apostle has spoken so magnificently of the completeness of God’s grace for sinners that he anticipates being accused of what today we would call “anti-nomianism” (against law).

As we said last week we should especially note two things at the outset.

1.) His understanding of the Gospel is so completely Christ centered that he can be accused of antinomianism.

2.) He thoroughly rejects and refutes being antinomian.

For the Apostle Baptism is the hinge point of new realities for the believer. In Baptism we are thoroughly identified w/ Christ so that His death becomes our death and His resurrection becomes our resurrection. This reality has the inevitable implication that we, being dead to sin as the dominating control center in our lives, are free to walk in newness of life.

“Old man” — Reference to who we were in Adam

“Body of Sin” — Whole of our fallen nature or the whole self in all of its fallenness.

“Might be done away” — In the sense of being the necessarily controlling agency in our lives.

In Baptism we died to our old mode of existence.

“Reckon yourselves” — Become who you are

12 — Imperative // 13 Imperative

— Certain realities have been laid out about what God has done and these realities have need to be considered true by believers.

Illustration — Emancipation

14 — Indicative “Sin shall not have dominion” — (Indicative) Promise not (Imperative) exhortation

The Apostle throughout this chapter has often personified sin as all consuming power center. In vs. 14 Paul lays out the promise that Sin shall no longer be their Lord for they have another Lord … Jesus. The reason that sin will not have dominion is because they are

6:14 — “Not under law, but under grace” — Now in light of what is said elsewhere in Romans (3:31, 7:12, 14a, 8:4, 13:8-10) we dare not conclude that this mean that, because of grace we have no relationship to the law.

We must keep in mind the contrast here is between “under law” and “under grace.”

I would submit that what is being said here is that believers are no longer under the law as a condemning reality but are under grace as a reality of God’s undeserved favor towards them.

So, if read this way vs. 14 would teach,

For sin is not your Lord, for you are not under God’s condemnation as thundered by the law against sin but you are under God’s undeserved favor.

If they were under God’s condemnation as thundered by the Law then Sin would be their Lord but as they are now under God’s undeserved favor (grace) Sin is not their Lord.

Such an understanding honors the way that Paul speaks of the Law elsewhere while at the same time making sense of this passage.

vs. 15 —

Again the accusation is raised that the Apostle has just navigated himself into an antinomian position w/ this slight difference

In vs. 1 the false inference gathered from 5:20 that is being warded off is that we should sin to make grace abound. Here the false inference gathered from vs. 14b that is being warded off is that sinful acts to not matter anymore more as far as Christians are concerned because we are no longer under the condemnation of the law but are under grace.

This inference is warded off by an appeal to reason that includes the idea of the Antithesis.

1.) Appeal to reason — You are the slaves of which ever master you obey. Sinful acts do matter because they indicate who your master really is.

2.) Antithesis — You have only two alternatives from which to choose concerning whom you will be slaves to.

Seed of the Serpent vs. Seed of the Woman.

Assorted Thoughts On Romans 6:1-4

Romans 6 — Meets Two Similar Objections From a hypothetical foil

1 — Hypothetical Objection #1

Shall we continue to sin that grace may abound?

Considerations

1.) The Apostle has so heightened God’s favor (grace) and the liberating character of Christ’s work for us (Chapter 5) that he must pause and deal w/ those who might reach inappropriate conclusions based on his teaching.

One wonders if today God’s favor (grace) and the liberating Character of Christ’s work for us is so emphatically heightened that we are forced to pause to reject accusations of antinomianism.

2.) Sinning is the issue that is being dealt w/ here and as obvious as this might seem we must pause to emphasize that there is no way that we would know what sinning is, which we are to be dead to, or what walking of newness of life is, which we are to be alive to, w/o a standard. There must be some standard that informs us what sin is and what walking in newness of life is. That standard ever remains God’s law.

Now for the Christian that Law is redeemed under Christ, which is to say that we are not using the law as a means to curry or earn God’s favor, (we have no need to do that since we have freely been given God’s favor in Christ) but rather the Christian esteems God’s law for it is the standard that tells him what He must turn from and it is the standard that informs him what walking in newness of life means.

Without any objective standard, as found in God’s word, the idea of being “dead to sin” and “walking in newness of life,” would be impossible to qualitatively and objectively determine.

2-14 — Hypothetical Objection Answered

vs. 2 — Emphatic rejection // Rhetorical Question

Parallel passage — Gal. 2:19 — 19 For I through the law died to the law that I might live to God.

Considerations

1.) Died to Sin — Sin is being referred to here as the controlling principle from which the pagan lives. We have died to the necessity that we must be controlled by sin … by who we are in Adam.

This does not mean that we no longer sin individual sins. It merely means that the person who has died w/ Christ is the person who can now say “no” to sin, because Sin is not that principle, or life source, from which they are being animated.

vs.3 — Parallel passage — Gal. 3:27 For as many of you as were baptized into Christ have put on Christ.

Considerations

1.) “Do you not know”

Appeal to the mind. The Apostles expects them to have learned something important. The Christian life can not be lived apart from the life of the mind. He answers this whole objection by seeking to set people’s thinking straight.

2.) The appeal to Baptism

Notice — The appeal isn’t here to somebody’s decision for Christ. Now, that is not to diminish the necessity to make a decision for Christ but it is to say that when it comes to these soteriological matters Paul puts the emphasis on the objective covenant markers in the Christian’s life. The emphasis is on the means of grace when it comes to correction in thinking and growth in Christ.

3.) Baptized into Christ Jesus // Baptized into His death

Identification – In Baptism we are identified w/ the death of Christ. Vs. 10 seems to be what the Apostle is getting at here. Just as Christ died to sin, we, in being identified w/ Christ in Baptism, likewise should reckon ourselves dead to sin.

– In Baptism the previous controlling principle of our life (sin … sometimes also referred to as “the law”) is broken and we are put into Christ. We thus die to sin and are resurrected to walk in newness of life.

4.) Christ was raised from the dead by the glory of the Father

Excursus – Minor proof for reality of Trinity

19 Jesus answered and said to them, “Destroy this temple, and in three days I will raise it up.”

Romans 1:7 — According to the Spirit of Holiness

In the New Testament we find varied places where Christ’s resurrection is attributed to each person of the Trinity. Doctrine of perichoresis.

Bavinck on Grace & Nature

“Therefore, whereas salvation in Christ, was formerly considered primarily a means to separate man from sin and the world, to prepared him for heavenly blessedness and to cause him to enjoy undisturbed fellowship w/ God there, Ritschl posits the very opposite relationship: the purpose of salvation in Christ is precisely to enable a person, once he is freed from the oppressive feeling of sin and lives in awareness of being a child of God, to exercise his earthly vocation and fulfill his moral purpose in this world. The antithesis, therefore, is fairly sharp: on the one side a Christian life that considers the highest goal, now and hereafter, to be the contemplation of God and fellowship w/ him, and for that reason (always being more or less hostile to the riches of an earthly life) is in danger of falling into asceticism, pietism, and mysticism; but on the side of Ritschl, a Christian life that considers its highest goal to be the Kingdom of God, i.e., the moral obligation of mankind, and for that reason, (always being more or less averse to the withdrawal into solitude and quiet communion w/ God), is in danger of degenerating into a cold Pelagianism and an unfeeling moralism. Personally, I do not yet see any way of combining the two points of view, but I do know that there is much that is excellent in both, and that both contain undeniable truth.”

Herman Bavinck
De Theologie van Albrecht Ritschl (Theologicische Studien VI 1888 — pg.397)
Nature & Grace in Herman Bavinck — Jan Veenhof

The Pietist dualistically separates nature from grace and lays all the emphasis on the human being as Christian and so calls the person to give up his humanity (nature) in favor of the pursuit of his Christianity (grace). This can express itself in the Anabaptist who considers the world of nature evil and who thus seeks to completely withdraw from the world or it can find Roman Catholic expression where nature only finds its meaning where it is brought under the canopy of grace. In such an expression nature only has value where it is superintended by the hierarchy of grace as found in the Church. A third way this dualism can express itself is in the R2Kt Kantian system where nature and grace remain cordoned off from one another. In such a dualistic system grace neither calls the faithful away from the world as with the Anabaptist dualism expression nor does it seek to bring nature under the canopy of grace as in the Roman Catholic dualism. Instead what it does is it allows nature to operate independently of and uninfluenced by grace in a common realm that is neither of the devil (anabaptism) or under the mediation of supervening grace (Roman Catholicism). In the R2Kt dualism there is no attempt to solve the dualism that one finds attempted both by anabaptists (nature is all evil) or Rome (nature is controlled by grace).

Bavinck points out however that there is another side of the coin that traditional liberalism falls into. Liberalism of the Ritschl variety tended to deny a supernatural realm of grace and as such the realm of grace was collapsed into the realm of nature, with the result that the nature/grace realm was the realm that must be rescued by deliberate activism. Since there is no unique supernatural grace realm to give a clear word as to what this activism must look like the result of Liberal activism was always autonomous and anthropocentric, and inevitably resulted in a kingdom building effort that, though pursued in the name of Christ, invariably led to Hegelian statist control structures where the representative of the State became God walking on the earth.

As a theologian Bavinck was not satisfied w/ these dualisms, nor was he satisfied with the how Ritschl and other liberals collapsed grace into nature. Bavinck’s contribution to Reformed theology was the attempt to find a way where grace could influence nature without collapsing grace into nature. Bavinck was not satisfied w/ either a nature-grace schematic where nature and grace were divorced from one another but neither was he satisfied w/ a nature-grace understanding where the distinctions between nature and grace were obliterated.

Veenhof in his book suggests that Bavinck limned a third way where grace could be seen to influence nature without either nature swallowing grace or grace swallowing nature. Such a solution is thus a threat to all dualisms and pietisms on one side as well as all autonomously inspired Kingdom projects on the other that lose grace in the putative pursuit of the Kingdom of God on earth which is in reality the Utopian search for the Kingdom of man.

Bavinck’s solution ends up making him the foe of just about all other contenders.