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.

Coordinate Interests

“Neither Christ’s perfect humanity in His people nor Satan’s total depravity in His people are ever manifested totally in History.”

Dr. Gary North
Dominion & Common Grace — pg. 61

The antithesis remains real but the absolute fullness of it is only in principle. The fact that Christians still remain in need of much sanctification combined with the fact that pagans can not be perfectly wicked (apart from killing themselves) means that Christians and pagan interests can overlap to the degree that Christians are not yet perfectly sanctified and that pagans have not yet become perfectly conformed to their liege lord.

Now when an overlap of interests occur there will be vast tensions in the mutual agreement, for they are not in agreement in principle, but only in as much as they have not yet each worked out the implications of their Master’s wishes and nature. The agreement occurs in the context where the pagan is seeking (consciously or unconsciously) to build up his master’s Kingdom, while the Christian is seeking to build up his master’s kingdom.

Musings On Common Grace

“Christ is indeed the savior of all people prior to the day of judgment (I Tim. 4:10). Christ sustains the whole universe (Col. 1:17). Without Him, no living thing could survive. He grants to His creatures such gifts as time, law, order, power, and knowledge. He grants all of these gifts to Satan and his rebellious host. The answer to the question, ‘Does God show His grace and mercy to all creation, including Satan?’ is emphatically yes. Satan is given time and power to do his evil work. To the next question, ‘Does this mean that God in some way demonstrates an attitude of favor towards Satan?’ the answer is emphatically no. God is no more favorable toward Satan and his demons than he is to Satan’s human followers. But this does not mean that He does not bestow gifts upon them — gift that they in no way deserve.

Thus the doctrine of common grace must apply not only to men but also to Satan and the fallen angels. This is what Van Til denies, because he defines common grace as favor in general rather than gifts in general. The second concept does not imply the first.

God does not favor ‘mankind’ as such. He showers favors on all men, but this does not mean that he favors men in general. Man in general rebelled against Him in the garden. Adam and Eve, mankind’s representative, brought the entire human race under God’s wrath. God in His grace gave them time and covenant promises, for He looked forward to the death of His Son on the cross. On this basis and only on this basis, men have been given life in history. Some have been give life in order to extend God’s Kingdom, while others have been give life (like Pharaoh) to demonstrate God’s power, and to heap coals of fire eternally on their head.”

Dr. Gary North
Dominion and Common Grace — The Biblical bases of progress –pg. 44-45

Whether or not common grace really exists has been a bone of contention for centuries. If common grace exists then the seeming problem is that we are insisting that God loves those that Scripture teaches he has hated before they were born. A genuine contradiction. If common grace doesn’t exist then the seeming problem is that it is difficult to see how it could be true that “the goodness of God to the reprobate was intended to lead them to repentance,” or how in despising this genuine goodness of God towards them they were storing up God’s wrath. If God never had any inclination of goodness towards them that was to issue in repentance then how could they be storing up God’s wrath by living in defiance of that goodness?

The answer to this is in making distinctions between God’s gifts (favors) given and God’s favor given. Perhaps common grace should be defined as God giving gifts (favors) to those (reprobate) whom He has no favor towards. If we could use this definition then we could say that God extends favors towards the reprobate without extending favor to the reprobate. By extending His favors towards the reprobate, He superintends how His eternal decree works out in time so that the reprobate who have been differentiated from the elect from eternity by God differentiate themselves from the elect in time and history.

Try to imagine the reprobate as Christmas Geese set apart for the day of destruction by Farmer John. Over the course of the year Farmer John gives the Christmas Geese the best of gifts in the way of feed that will fatten them up. On the outside it may even look that Farmer John favors the Christmas Geese even more then the other Geese of the barnyard.

Despite the gifts of Farmer John the Christmas Geese despise Farmer John. Through their despite of Farmer John they are storing up wrath. In all of this Farmer John gave gifts to the Geese without having any intention of favor.

By dividing common grace up in this fashion we avoid the contradiction that God loves those He has set apart for destruction while at the same time we avoid denying that God gives good gifts to the reprobate. We would also be able to truthfully teach that the reprobate despise the goodness of God, that the reprobate have only themselves to blame for not repenting in the face of God’s goodness, that the reprobate, by not repenting have stored up for themselves God’s wrath because of their hardness of heart.

Some might insist (with understandable reasons) that this is equivocating on the traditional definition of common grace. Perhaps we should call this God’s “common benevolence.” If we did that then we could deny common grace while insisting upon common benevolence.

To America’s Anonymous Philanthropist

It has come to my attention that some generous Philanthropist in America has given away millions and millions of dollars away to several Universities on the condition that the University receiving the millions not try to discover who the benefactor is.

So, in the spirit of openness about the ability to be discrete I wanted to publicly declare to this anonymous philanthropist that should (s)he decide that (s)he wants to donate millions of dollars to Charlotte Christian Reformed Church that your secret is safe with us. Indeed, so safe is your secret that even if you only give $250,000.00 to the Charlotte Christian Reformed church we still won’t investigate your secret anonymity.

And, the bonus for you is in knowing that we will use your money far more wisely and for far better educational efforts than any University your giving your money to.

The Homosexual Push

Two examples that the homosexualization of our culture continues apace.

1.) The Miss America contest was determined because one of the contestants insisted that marriage should be between a man and a woman.

2.) The government schools just recently held their “day of silence” event. This is an yearly event that uses the masquerade of homosexuals being harassed to recognize the legitimacy of homosexuality. If you doubt that ask yourself if students would be encouraged to have a day where it is emphasized that they shouldn’t harass students who are into necrophilia or bestiality.

Obviously, no such days would ever yet be established. Homosexuals get a day of silence in order to create compassion for them and their movement and in order to convince students that homosexuality should be treated as “normal.”

A New Pledge Of Allegiance

While attending the Lansing Tea party, and while listening to reports of other tea parties it became apparent that Americans are hopelessly in love with saying the pledge of allegiance. The irony of hundreds of thousands of Americans gathering to protest government oppression all the while reciting a pledge that was created and legislatively exalted with the express purpose of uniting people to the unitary state was overwhelming. It was like viewing people who gathered to protest their enslavement opening their ceremony with a ritual that sang the praise of chains.

I hate the pledge of allegiance for the following reason,

1.) It was written by a Baptist minister (Francis Bellamy) who identified himself as a Socialist and was even defrocked for preaching that “Jesus was a socialist.”

2.) Francis Bellamy once admitted that one purpose of the pledge was to help achieve the totalitarian (socialist) fantasy that his cousin (Edward Bellamy) once wrote about in one of his novels.

3.) By forcing generations to plight their trough to the Nation State more important bonds of loyalty to family and church were implicitly superseded. As such a civil religion and nation state family were created.

4.) The Constitution does not, and never has taught, that the nation is indivisible.

5.) Between 1892 when the pledge was written until 1942 the pledge was said with the right arm stiffly held out with the right hand palm up. Can you say Hail Caesar? Heil Hitler?

6.) The pledge of allegiance is a paean of praise to the borg Nation State.

Since Americans are apparently hopelessly stuck on sentimental pledges, allow me to suggest a pledge for the next batch of tea parties.

I pledge allegiance to the U.S. Constitution
And to the Constitutional Republic it created
Sovereign states
bound, by a dissoluble compact
committed to limiting the actions of tyrannical government
against all