Category: Apologetics

“Do not move an ancient boundary stone set up by your ancestors.”

Christianity is a faith characterized by boundaries, hierarchy, and distinctions. The God of Christianity is a God who assigns roles, who segregates (day from night, land from water, sun from moon, female from male, etc.) and whose existence is the means by which all differences are defined.

Perhaps the greatest boundary in Scripture is the one known as the Creator Creature boundary. It is the boundary that the Serpent and our first parents sought to remove. Not satisfied with a creaturely role our first parents aspired to erase the Creator Creature boundary and transcend so to be as God knowing good from evil.

Since that time the temptation for fallen man has been to transcend the boundaries set by God, in order that, by their own fiat word, they themselves could dictate their own boundaries and so create a reality where they erased Gods’ boundaries and set their own, or at other times merely attempt to erase all boundaries so that “all colors bleed into one.”

We live in such a time when the sin du-jour is the war against all boundaries. Man cannot be limited by his race, his ethnicity, his gender, any transcendent ethic, or any ordained status or definition. This mindset is so ubiquitous that by my usage of the pronouns “his” in the last sentence I have already revealed how insensitive I am to the modern demand that a pronoun boundary that prefers the masculine pronoun is an example of the lack of respect for the erasure of the old boundary once characteristic of the English grammar.

According to our Brave New Egalitarian Boundary-less world man must be allowed to make himself over and over again according to his own fiat word and according to his own template. No boundaries can be allowed to stifle or limit man. Gods after all, by definition, may not be limited.

The evidence of the assault on the idea of boundaries is everywhere, but unfortunately it is getting so common that we no longer have the ability to see it given how close we are to the boundary-less state of affairs. On this subject we have arrived at the proverb, “if you want to know what the water is like don’t ask a fish.

Still the evidence is omnipresent,

1.) The US government, in collusion with the National Chamber of commerce and leftist Marxists are currently literally trying to erase the southern border with Mexico.

2.) It is all the rage among judicial tyrants, by the means of legal fiat, to erase a boundary that has been set in place for millennium in Western Civilization which insisted that marriage requires one from each sex. Judges from Indiana to Utah are telling us that the Christian and historic boundary that defined marriage is now passe.

3.) It was just announced that the Speaker of the House is taking the POTUS to court to sue him because he is not honoring the Separation of powers (Boundaries). It seems that the man who is allegedly POTUS doesn’t care for the boundaries that define his position and role. He will erase those boundaries and set his own.

4.) Recently Facebook went from the traditional two gender option (Male — Female) to a new offering of 51 choices. All previous gender boundaries erased. Man can create his own boundaries in terms of gender.

5.) New forms from the Government no longer read in such a way as to fill in names for “Father,” and “Mother,” choosing instead “Parent 1,” and “Parent 2.”

6.) Recently in Houston, Texas it was decided that public restrooms are now boundary-less.

7.) The fashion world is run by sodomites and so they give us female models who look like little boys with breasts. In such a way the boundary between desiring a woman with curves and desiring a little boy is eliminated.

8.) No ID required for voting. This is to eliminate the boundary between Citizen and non-Citizen. It has become so upside down that it is fast becoming more of an advantage to be a non-citizen than to be a citizen.

9.) Even in the Reformed Church there are those who insist that God requires the boundaries of cultures be extinguished. Such men are convinced that only in a cultural-less, boundary-less “Christian” world can God be glorified.

10.) The mantra is relentless which states that a family can be defined anyway one wants. The boundary that once defined a family as blood relation sharing a common faith has now been eliminated. We all understood that there would be exceptions at time to this truth but for generations we held that normatively, the boundary that defined family, was blood relation sharing a common faith.

11.) The next boundary under assault is between adult and child. Already organizations exist that are lobbying for the sex between adult and children.

12.) The Pulpit used to have a boundary around it by following God’s Word in allowing only Men as Elders. That boundary has largely fallen.

13.) With the rise of deconstructionism in literature the boundary between author and reader has been destroyed. The reader is now the author and the author has been eclipsed. This is the inevitable consequence to eliminating a transcendent Author of all reality. If one eliminates God eventually one must eliminate all other authors. Boundaries in literature fall readily.

14.) Sodomy is on the verge of being publicly recognized. Here is another boundary being erased. Heretofore the public understood that male parts went with female parts. That was a boundary. It is now a receding boundary. Whereas the former boundary said that men and women in marriage should work together to create life. The new boundary insists that the life found in man should be surrounded by death found in the male evacuation canal. The new boundary insists that two women should pursue sterility by rejecting men.

All of this destruction of boundaries is the consequence of Kant’s subjectivism and the subsequent rise of Kierkegaardian existentialism. Man cannot reach the noumena realm and therefore men are allowed to arrange the phenomena realm as they will. Wittgenstein reinforced all this with his language games and postmodernism has sealed the deal for the everyday man on the street.

The elimination of stable and shared boundaries can not help but lead to social order upheaval. No society can long withstand a boundary-less world in religion, morals, fashion, art, education, law, etc. Further the elimination of stable and shared boundaries means the persecution of those who do insist that transcendent boundaries exist. If Biblical Christians will not share in the Brave New Boundary-less world where the only boundaries will be the elimination of boundaries then Biblical Christians become enemies to the State God.

Anthony Esolen on this matter offers this insight on how God is a God who created a world with God given boundaries,

“When God made the world, He made things, with their characteristic boundaries. That is what the sacred author of Job insists upon. God said to Job, “Where were you when I laid the foundations of the earth?” And, “Who shut up the sea within doors, when it broke forth, as if it had issued out of the womb,” and said, “to here shall you come, but no farther, and here shall your proud waves be stayed?”

Likewise in Genesis we see that God divides and distinguishes when He creates, not only when He divides the light from the darkness, and sets the firmament between heaven and earth, and orders the waters into one place so that the dry land may appear. He does so when He makes every living thing after its kind, a crucial phrase for understanding the whole. The kinds are so by means of boundaries: an apple tree brings forth apple blossoms after its kind; birds flock together and mate after their kinds. Man too is made after his kind, male and female; and it is characteristic of man to be made by God, for God: “So God created man in his own image, in the image of God he created him; male and female he created them.”

The sad thing in all of this is that when mankind tears down God’s ordained boundaries they at the same time tear down themselves. Man is not God and man cannot violate God’s order and boundaries without at the same time violating himself.

We live in a time and epoch where boundaries are being attacked. This time is not likely to end soon unless God is pleased to graciously visit us with judgment.

“The more Christianity gains ground, and the more Christians become with their religion, the less cultural differences we will see in the world. In the final day of history, every place on the planet will have the same covenantal views of God, man, law, judgment, and future, and therefore every place on the earth will have the same cultural practices informed by the Christian faith.

In short: people choose their religion, their religion determines their culture. When the world as a whole accepts the Christian religion, the world will be one culture.”

– Bojidar Marxinov

1.) Throughout History the European Protestants formed distinct Protestant cultures. The Swiss Protestants were different from the English Protestants who were different from the German Protestants, who were different from the Dutch Protestants. Is Marxinov telling us that some or all of them were in sin and that postmillennialism requires us to eliminate the differences between Bavinck and Warfield — between Kuyper and Hodge?

2.) Also we need to ask, why is it, given the few cultures that have been considered Christian, by any reasonable estimation, have not all been the same throughout history? If all Christian culture will look the same why didn’t the Christian culture of Charlemagne look the same as the Christian culture of Calvin’s Geneva or why didn’t Calvin’s Geneva look like Puritan New England? Was it because one or all of them were in deep sin?

3.) Marxinov has not taken into considerations the likelihood that Theonomists in one Christian country will come to a different understandings of how the law of God applies in different settings and situations. The reality of this almost certainty has the explanatory power to demonstrate why there might remain legal – jurisprudent differences between two nations in the Postmillennial Kingdom fully flowered.

4.) Marxinov has lost the Many in his search for the One. His God (and so his view of culture) is the view of the Unitarian. Marxinov, channelling U2 actually does believe that all colors will bleed into one. Marxinov has embraced unity and no diversity now remains. Rushdoony pointedly warned against this.

5.) Marxinov’s vision runs face flat into the wall of God’s Word where we find the Nations as Nations still existing in the New Jerusalem. In Revelation 5:9, 7:9 and in 22:2 we do not find the presence of an amalgamated whole in the New Jerusalem, but rather the distinctions of the Nations remain. Marxinov has lost the understanding that Grace restores nature and has exchanged it for the understanding that Grace destroys nature and replaces it.

6.) Marxinov’s vision is the same vision of Saruman who started off with the best of intentions in resisting Mordor but who, because of his desire to save the world, became as evil as Sauron in trying to save the world. Marxinov in seeking to save the world from Marx is actually in competition with Marx seeking to out Marx … Marx.

What a wonderful coincidence that Bojidar’s last name is Marxinov.

We noted last week that during this season of the Church Calendar that what is emphasized is Doctrine and ministry. The idea was that Doctrine would be taught alongside with how that Doctrine could be implemented via some kind of ministry in a person’s life.

This week we want to briefly consider the Christian doctrine of Anthropology.

What we have in Romans 3 is God’s pronouncement on the nature of man. Fallen man is utterly sinful. Even man as Redeemed by Christ realizes that he contends against a nature that is not yet perfected. He confesses his sins weekly and is taught in his catechism to recite to the question,

Q. 82. Is any man able perfectly to keep the commandments of God?

A. No mere man since the fall is able in this life perfectly to keep the commandments of God, but doth daily break them in thought, word and deed.

The Heidelberg echoes this when it teaches,

“even the holiest men, while in this life, have only a small beginning of this obedience (to God’s Law).

Christianity has always taught that man has a sin nature and that the sin nature is not finally put off completely until we put off this mortal coil. So thoroughly has Christianity taught this that the Gospels make it clear that Jesus did not have this sin nature that He might be a pure sacrifice for our sins.

This is so simple and basic but if we get this wrong in our doctrine there is no help of getting anything else correct. And we live in a culture where the idea that man is sinful is

1.) Man is basically good

“I know in my heart that man is good…” — Ronald Reagan

Man left to himself, apart from evil influence, will choose what is good. This is articulated by Cultural Marxist Psychologist Eric Fromm when he writes,

“As far as I know we just don’t have any intrinsic instincts for evil. If you think in terms of basic needs; instincts, at least at the outset are all good — or perhaps we should be technical about it and call them ‘pre-moral’ neither good or evil.”

Another Psychologist Wendell W. Watters writes,

“The true Christian is running furiously on a treadmill to get away from whole segments of his or her human nature which he or she is taught to fear or about which he or she is taught to feel guilty. The Christian is brainwashed to believe that he or she was born wicked … ”

Of course all this denies the plain words of Scripture. If man were basically good and his nature was good then the whole idea of Christianity, and the Church would be irrelevant. Christianity and the Church might exist but if it did exist it would exist as a place where people would attend in order to meet other nice people, hear some uptempo music, listen to sermons about how good they are, how to influence other people, and how to get on in life with people who do not yet know how good they are. If man were basically good then the demand would be for Christianity and the Church to meet felt needs and perhaps be a place where social justice can be pursued. If it were true that men were basically good then there would be no need to hear about a Christ who takes away sin. If it were true that men were basically good then Christianity and the Church would become just about what it currently already is today — currently is that because “man is basically good” is what most of the Church believes today.

But Biblical Christianity does not believe that so when you come to Church you hear God’s law and because as Christians we break God’s law every day in word, thought, or deed, we confess our sins and then hear God’s forgiveness for the sake of Christ.

As we continue to consider Romans 3 we understand that we sin because of our nature. The problem is not primarily with the environment that lies outside of us, but rather what lies inside of us. James underscores this when he writes,

14 But every man is tempted, when he is drawn away by his own lust, and is enticed.

You see both St. Paul and St. James agrees that the problem is within us.

But our culture does not agree with this assessment. Contrary to Biblical Christianity we are constantly inundated with messages that the environment is the problem.

2.) Man’s environment accounts for evil

Psychologist Abraham Maslow has directly said,

“Sick people are made by a sick culture, healthy people are made possible by a healthy culture.”

This means that if man is to discover his goodness, what needs to happen is a change of environment. This accounts for the belief in social engineering. Because this is true, man’s lack of goodness is explained in terms of his family, culture, or social environment. If man is to be changed, man’s environment must be changed.

Anti-Christian doctrine teaches that if man is to be saved, man’s environment must be changed. Change comes from the outside in. Christian doctrine teaches that if man’s environment is to be changed, man must be changed. Change comes from the inside and radiates outward as we are renewed by the Spirit of the living God because of the finished work of Christ on the Cross for His people.

The idea that sick people are made by a sick culture has been around forever. Writing in 1908 Dutch Theologian Herman Bavinck could complain about this kind of thinking,

“Under the influence of the supposition that at this point human beings have already traveled wonderfully far along the path of evolution, people surrender to the illusion that human being can still do infinitely more, and that we can make human beings into whatever we want. If only full use were made of the results that have been and will be obtained by scientific investigation, then nurture would not only furnish outward formation and intellectual development, but it would also improve the human person morally, eliminating the brutish inclinations still at work internally, renewing his heart, and bringing sin and crime to an end, not all at once but gradually.

Complaining about the same tendency in another area Bavinck could say again, “They all suffer from the illusion that by means of external measures, by means of abolishing old laws and implementing new laws, they can change human nature or convert the wicked heart.”

Before Bavinck in the 1840’s the founders of the common school movement were inspiringly optimistic about the power of education. These common-school reformers, beginning with Horace Mann, saw universal public education as a solution to a host of social problems. In their view, public schools would transform children into moral, literate, and productive citizens; and eliminate poverty and crime.

And this form of thought is still with us today as the coin of the realm. I stumbled across this comment about the recent incident where a NBA team owner was caught talking about black people,

“Many Americans were in love with Nazism, one popular example is the architect Phillip Johnson. So the idea of Nazism permeated American society and in 1933 it was current and relevant, one would not be unreasonable in assuming that the parents of Sterling caressed the idea and whispered to little Sterling. That is my point, we cannot rule out the possibility that Sterling’s most impressionable years were in a time of Nazism.”

You see … Sterling’s problem with his words is not because of a sinful nature but because of his environment.

Of course this is in contrast to Biblical Christianity which teaches that man’s sin nature accounts for man’s evil institutions.

And we know that only the Gospel of Jesus Christ crucified for sinners in the context of Union with Christ is the solution for Man’s sin nature.

This is why you hear me constantly say that the cure for what is wrong with us as a people is not more and better programs. The cure for what is wrong with us is the preaching of Christ Crucified followed by the discipling of the nations.

Of course in St. Paul’s statement we find that the agency by which men learn their sin nature is by the trumpeting of that Word in the context of the Gospel in the ark of the Church. Those who oppose this message have their own delivery system in order to evangelize. We talk about the necessity of Word and Sacrament. Word and Sacrament is to repeatedly point us to Christ to remind us of that only Christ can heal us via the forgiveness held out in Word and Sacrament.

However those who hold to the idea that man is basically good have their own agencies whereby they proclaim the inherent goodness of man.

3.) The agency whereby man discovers his goodness is Church & State

Just three quotes in order to support the claim that the agencies that hold to a different anthropology then Christians do — who hold that man is basically good — is mediated by agencies of Church and State

“I am convinced that the battle for humankind’s future must be waged and won in the public school classroom by teachers that correctly perceive their role as proselytizers of a new faith: a religion of humanity that recognizes and respects the spark of what theologians call divinity in every human being… The classroom must and will become an arena of conflict between the old and new. These teachers must embody the same selfless dedication as the most rabid fundamentalist preachers, for they will be ministers of another sort, utilizing the classroom instead of a pulpit to convey humanist values in whatever subject they teach, regardless of the educational level – preschool day care or large state universities.”

John Dunphy on the purpose of humanist education.

“Education is thus a most powerful ally of humanism, and every American school is a school of humanism. What can a theistic Sunday school’s meeting for an hour once a week and teaching only a fraction of the children do to stem the tide of the five-day program of humanistic teaching?”

Charles F. Potter, “Humanism: A New Religion” 1930

So, in Churches that practice Biblical Christianity every week, just by the liturgy we teach people that they have a sin nature that only Christ can heal and every week the State teaches that men are basically good and merely need to be educated and informed of their goodness.

The church in Revolutionary Humanism is the government school as controlled by the State. Of course over time the “Christian” church begins to reflect the Government schools as Government school graduates bring their humanism into the Church. Church and State teach basically good man that it is his role to use any means necessary to change the environment in order to serve the “good.”

4.) The abstraction of mathematical equality is applied to men in their social relations.

Revolutionary Humanism leads to egalitarianism and the egalitarianism here is defined in such a way so that no man is allowed to excel above another. All men being equal results in “all men being the same.” So, whether it is 700 million Chinese wearing the Maoist suit or whether it is men and women sharing public bathrooms, equality is now the order of the day.

5.) Man, being absolutized, is his own God

And man being God there is a movement towards Social Order uniformitarianism. All gods have unity in the godhood and so as collective man is god collective man builds social order where there is very little margin for differentiation among the particular men.

6.) All other mediating Institutions (Family, Church, School, Guild, etc.) are eliminated.

Humanism does not allow for pluralistic jurisdictions (See #5). Everything is for the State and nothing is outside the State. We are seeing this increasingly in our culture. Teachers have long been agents for the State. Soon Doctors will be agents for the State with Obamacare. Ministers, are often Defacto ministers of the State.

7.) The insistence that man, via a reason that is untouched by evil, can ascertain “self-evident” truths so as to construct a world apart from any need of Supernatural Revelation.

Man starting from the autonomous self can answer the question, “How Shall We Then Live,” and so build, a better if not indeed, perfect world. This garnering of “self-evident” truths is commonly pursued by means of legal positivism which reduces to “might makes right.” Oliver Wendell Holmes gives us this in microcosm when he said,

“I used to say when I was young, that truth was the majority vote of that nation that could lick all others…. and I think that the statement was correct insofar as it implied that our test of truth is a reference to either a present or an imagined future majority in favor of our view.

In this view of truth reason has no transcendence reference point to which appeal can be made. It is simply a matter of “licking all others.”

8.) Man’s Teleology (end) is the Kingdom of Man as expressed in some kind of paradise.

All legislation that is pursued it pursued in the name of a Utopian world where man is set free from all constraints.

9.) Man as God, thus can be assured of the inevitability of progress

Since God can not fail, Man as God calls whatever is, “progress.”

Alexander Pope gets at this in his poem, “An Essay On Man.”

All nature is but art, unknown to thee;
All chance, direction, which thou canst not see;
All discord, harmony, not understood;
All partial evil, universal good:
And, spite of pride, in erring reason’s spite,
One truth is clear, Whatever is, is right.