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.

Caleb’s Baptism — Question 1 (b)

Question 1. What is thy only comfort in life and death?

Answer

That I with body and soul, both in life and death, (a) am not my own, (b) but belong unto my faithful Saviour Jesus Christ; (c) who, with his precious blood, has fully satisfied for all my sins, (d) and delivered me from all the power of the devil; (e) and so preserves me (f) that without the will of my heavenly Father, not a hair can fall from my head; (g) yea, that all things must be subservient to my salvation, (h) and therefore, by his Holy Spirit, He also assures me of eternal life, (i) and makes me sincerely willing and ready, henceforth, to live unto him. (j)

Caleb,

In the previous post we looked at the idea that we gain comfort (Lit. with strength) in the truth that we are not our own, but in the totality of our being and in the full circumference of our life, we belong to Jesus Christ who is the sovereign King over all reality.

In your Baptism, God brands you as one whom He owns. Because we bear that mark of Baptism we can, in times of trials and discouragements, remember our Baptism as a means of bringing back to our consciousness that are owned by Christ. More about Baptism in later posts.

In this post we want to concentrate on how it is we are owned. The catechism will go into this in great depth in later questions and answers. Remember with these first two questions what we have is a introduction. As such we will not go into more depth later.

We are owned, the Catechism teaches (as it is faithful to Scripture) because our faithful Savior bore the penalty that was rightfully mine. Jesus Christ satisfied for my sins.

1.) Satisfaction for human sin was needed in order to quench the just wrath of God against sin and sinners. Without one who stood in our place as a substitute satisfaction for human sin and sinners those who were sinners must themselves satisfy the wrath of God against sin. God required such satisfaction against sin because He promised that the soul that sinneth shall surely die. If God were to not visit satisfaction upon sin God would be found to be a liar.

2.) The satisfaction for sin was in the spilled blood of Christ. His spilled blood was the satisfaction that God required to quench His wrath. Scripture teaches, “without the shedding of blood there is no remission (forgiving) of sin.”

3.) Our sins have been fully satisfied for. This means that there is no longer any sin — past, present, or future, that God will condemn me for in terms of eternal punishment.

Tit.2:14 “Who gave himself for us, that he might redeem us from all iniquity, and purify unto himself a peculiar people, zealous of good works.”

1 Pet.1:18 Forasmuch as ye know that ye were not redeemed with corruptible things, as silver and gold, from your vain conversation received by tradition from your fathers; 1 Pet.1:19 But with the precious blood of Christ, as of a lamb without blemish and without spot:

Now the consequence of this satisfying of God’s wrath is that you are delivered from all the power of the devil. Notice the movement here. He have gone from being under the authority (power) of the devil to being owned by God. Every person you meet Caleb, is either owned by God or is under the power of the devil. For Christians, the devil is a paper tiger. He has no authority over us. We need not fear his braying or his blowhard character.

Heb.2:14 Forasmuch then as the children are partakers of flesh and blood, he also himself likewise took part of the same; that through death he might destroy him that had the power of death, that is, the devil;

1 John 3:8 He that committeth sin is of the devil; for the devil sinneth from the beginning. For this purpose the Son of God was manifested, that he might destroy the works of the devil.

Another consequence is that the Christian is preserved by God.

John 6:39 And this is the Father’s will which hath sent me, that of all which he hath given me I should lose nothing, but should raise it up again at the last day.

John 10:28 And I give unto them eternal life; and they shall never perish, neither shall any man pluck them out of my hand.

We can have strength, in part, because we have security in knowing that God will never leave us nor forsake us. We live and move in terms of a confidence that nothing can separate us from the love of God.

So, In order to simplify as much as possible,

I. ) Where do we find Comfort (Strength)?

A.) In the fact that we are not our own
B.) In the fact that we are owned by God in our complete totality

II.) How is it that we are owned by God?

A.) Because Jesus Christ spilled His blood
B.) Such a substitutionary death satisfies the Father’s just wrath against sin

III.) What are the consequences of being owned by God?

A.) The Devil has no hold upon me
B.) I am preserved to the very end by God who loves me and call me the apple of His eye.

We will pick up more of the consequences of being owned by God in the next post.

Around the Web

I. Theater

A quite good video series based on Henry Hazlitt’s “Economics in One Lesson.” If you can’t or won’t read the book give these videos a spin.

http://www.cosmolearning.com/courses/economics-in-one-lesson/video-lectures/

II.) Library

Was the 14th amendment Constitutionally passed?

http://www.constitution.org/14ll/no14th.htm

Was the 17th amendment Constitutionally passed?

http://www.thelawthatneverwas.com/seventeenth.aspx

The Wizard Of Oz a allegory?

http://www.usagold.com/gildedopinion/oz.html

A exemplary piece of writing on what the Zimmerman trial will be all about,

http://www.canadafreepress.com/index.php/article/46011

A piece that supports the conclusions of the above piece,

How Not To Draft A Probable Cause Affidavit

III.) Audio

http://chalcedon.edu/research/audio/a-theology-of-resistance-and-victory/

Caleb’s Baptism — Question #1

Question 1. What is thy only comfort in life and death?

The first two questions in the Heidelberg Catechism which we are looking at serve as a kind of Introduction to the Catechism as a whole.

Note in the first question the practicality of the Catechism. The very first question is interested in the person studying the Catechism knowing that the material they are about to study and digest has the purpose of giving them “comfort.” Now the idea of comfort when the Catechism was written was not what we associate with comfort today. It was not the notion of stretching out on a sofa relaxing. The word “Comfort,” comes from the Latin. Con is Latin for “with”; fortis for “strength.” When the Catechism asks “What is your only comfort in life and death,” it is asking where is it that you can find strength.

The answer to that question is of incredible importance. Every person living wants to know where they can find strength when hardships come their way, when persecutions come their way, when courage is needed, when disappointments visit them, when life happens, when death looms. When these realities visit our lives where are we to find comfort (with strength)?

The answer that they give is that,

That I with body and soul, both in life and death, (a) am not my own, (b) but belong unto my faithful Saviour Jesus Christ; (c) who, with his precious blood, has fully satisfied for all my sins, (d) and delivered me from all the power of the devil; (e) and so preserves me (f) that without the will of my heavenly Father, not a hair can fall from my head; (g) yea, that all things must be subservient to my salvation, (h) and therefore, by his Holy Spirit, He also assures me of eternal life, (i) and makes me sincerely willing and ready, henceforth, to live unto him. (j)

We will take a few entries to break their answer down.

That I with body and soul, both in life and death, (a) am not my own, (b) but belong unto my faithful Saviour Jesus Christ…

The reason that we can gain strength in not being our own is found in the reality that in being owned by another, (Jesus Christ) ultimately He who I am owned by has taken responsibility for me. Now, the one who owns me, and who has taken responsibility for me is the Sovereign King of the Whole universe of whom it is said (Ephesians 1:20f) that, He is seated at the right hand of God and He towers over all rule, authority, power, dominion and every opposition that can be imagined. The Sovereign King, who holds all things in subjection is the one who I am owned by and who has taken responsibility for me as my owner.

Can you understand why that truth believed would give someone strength?

Finally, for this post, notice the totality of ownership that the Lord Christ has claimed over His people. In your whole existence (body and soul, life and death) you are owned by the Lord Christ. This means that there is no area where Christ does not have a claim on you, and as such there is no area where we can not find strength in the fact that we are owned by Christ.

The Scriptures that support the idea that we are owned by Christ are below.

(a) Rom.14:7 For none of us liveth to himself, and no man dieth to himself. Rom.14:8 For whether we live, we live unto the Lord; and whether we die, we die unto the Lord: whether we live therefore, or die, we are the Lord’s.

(b) 1 Cor.6:19 What? know ye not that your body is the temple of the Holy Ghost which is in you, which ye have of God, and ye are not your own?

A Small Apologetic For Iron Ink

“Bad Theology Hurts People.”

J. I. Packer

The greatest ill that someone can embrace is bad theology because such wrong thinking works itself out in a persons life in an assortment of unhealthy ways. Were I given my heart’s desire the one thing I would ask for is for people to think rightly about God. The fulfillment of such a request would glorify God, it would be health and life to those whose thinking about God is tarnished and unseemly, and it would be the opening act of the promised post-millennial Kingdom that would discover regenerated and epistemologically self-conscious thinkers ever increasingly going further in and farther up in thinking God’s thoughts after Him.

Now, some might contend that such a vision is extremely impracticable since I’m concerned only with matters of theology and doctrine but before such a thing is thought allow me to defend my heart’s desire for the flowering of right thinking about God among 6 billion people by noting that “as a man thinketh in his heart, so he is.” My desire for men to think rightly about God would release a torrent of right living since orthopraxy is always the inevitable consequence of orthodoxy. A man’s actions always follows his thinking.

When we raised our children, and they misbehaved I was seldom concerned about the action in comparison to my concern for the reason or the thinking that motivated the misbehavior. The necessity for a change of behavior from my children would take care of itself if only a change of thinking was embraced and a change of thinking would be embraced only if we got to the nub of how their misbehavior was a reflection of how they were thinking wrongly concerning God and His Word. Since, “As my children thought in their heart so they were,” my remedial work with them, when misbehavior arose, had to concentrate on their theology and doctrine.

Our Theology, as that is poured over who God made us in our varied human-ness, is everything. It is reflected in the fashions we embrace, the hobbies we take up, and the way we worship. Our Theology / doctrine accounts for our architecture, our cultural institutions and our social order. Our Theology / doctrine explains the way we structure family, the way we understand history, the way we educate. The Medievalists were correct when they insisted that, “Theology is the Queen of the Sciences.” The German General Von Moltke once mistakenly said, “war is simply the expression of politics by other means.” What General Von Moltke should have said is that war is simply the expression of theology by other means since politics is simply the expression of theology by other means.

Many are the Christians who say they desire Reformation. If Reformation is to be successfully pursued then the only means of doing it is by theological warfare. Neither individuals, nor cultures will be Evangelized and Reformed until their theology / doctrine is challenged. Evangelism in pursuit of Reformation, is merely theological / doctrinal warfare. Evangelism, or discipleship that doesn’t thoroughly challenge the ascendant theological paradigm of the person being evangelized or discipled is neither Evangelism or discipleship.

The implication of this, in a culture that is post-Christian, means that there are going to be flash-points of conflict between peoples who own differing theologies. It even means that there will be flash-points of conflict between professed Christian peoples who own differing theologies. This was exemplified by the fact that Luther and Zwingli couldn’t hash out there theological differences when it was in both their best interests to do so. They were both Christians but they each owned differing theologies.

So, Reformation can not be had apart from flash points of conflict between competing theological and doctrinal paradigms. When those flash points of conflict arise between people of different or varying faiths it is not because they are “hateful, mean, arrogant, know-it-alls,” who just want to be right. Rather, it might be because they are “loving, compassionate, meek, beggars” who know and understand that bad theology hurts people and so desire people, who are being hurt by their bad theology, to know Reformation.

When I critique bad theology, on Iron Ink, or in the teaching lectern, or in the pulpit, it is not because I think I am perfect or superior, or that because I think my theology is perfect, though I do think it is correct. If I didn’t think it was correct I wouldn’t hold it. When I critique bad theology it is not because I am a bully who just wants to show off how smart I am. When I critique bad theology I am doing Evangelism and / or discipleship. As a minister that is what I am called to do. When I critique bad theology, wherever or whoever that theology comes from, regardless of their clerical standing, I am merely desiring to rid people of the bad theology which is hurting them. To leave bad theology to gain root without critiquing it and trying to stamp it out would be the very definition of a lack of compassion.

It is often the case that the closer that one begins to approach the center of someone’s bad theology the louder they will scream and the more they will start hissing and insisting that the someone is not being nice. People don’t appreciate their worldview furniture being broken up and cast aside. However, it is often precisely at that moment that the cause has to be pursued out of love for the person doing the hissing and howling.

When I was a boy I was afflicted with a childhood disease that required the sores covering my body to be scrubbed till they bled and then treated with a medicinal ointment. Such treatment was always a family affair in my home. My siblings would hold my shoulders down. My father would hold my legs down and my Mother would scrub the sores as required and then place the ointment on my wounds. As a child I did not believe that they were treating me very lovingly. It would have been easy to accuse them of being cruel, mean, arrogant, know-it-alls. Of course, in retrospect, that wasn’t what was happening at all. The thing that I remember the clearest is that my Mother was always weeping while she scrubbed my wounds and applied the ointment.

People often see me scrubbing theological wounds on the internet. What they often miss is that I am doing so out of love and compassion for those who are wounded by the bad theology they have owned. What they can’t see, because they are sitting at some monitor reading my words, are the tears I am weeping for the person I am trying to scrub clean. What they can’t see is the weight of the burden I carry for the souls of those who have embraced bad theology. For me, what goes on at Iron Ink is not a warfare over “who is right,” but a contest for “what is right.” If I am in error being shown that error is the best thing that could ever happen to me.

I remain a sinner saved by grace alone. I have yet to scrub clean all the bad theology out of my own life. However, my sanctification will only go forward as I think God’s thoughts after him, and the best way I know to do evangelism is by continuing to critique the bad theology that people have embraced that hurts them so badly.

The love of God compels me.

Martin & McAtee On Worldview Shelf Life

“Beliefs change very, very, slowly, particularly in the case of nations and civilizations. It is not the case that one worldview is center stage at one moment and at the next moment another worldview appears and drives the first view off center stage. Rather, there is always a gradual super interposition of the new upon the old. There is a twilight period of lengthy transition, during which the old worldview is setting and the new worldview is rising.

The 20th century has been such a period. The Biblical Christian worldview was pushed off center stage…”

Dr. Glenn Martin
IWU Professor Genius

The consequence of such a pushing of Biblical Christianity off center stage is not the disappearance of all expressions of Christianity but merely the disappearance of Biblical Christianity. New Christianities will arise that have reinterpreted Biblical Christianity through the pagan worldview that is in the ascendancy. Such new instantiations of Christianity have as little to do with Biblical Christianity as Hannibal Lectre has to do with with vegetarianism. Biblical Christians need to be aware of this counterfeiting so that they are not sucked into the candy coated zeitgeist.