Apologetics – Page 23

Scripture Alone & Roman Catholicism

“It is the original lie of Satan that God, speaking in his Word, needs an interpreter to give man infallible guidance (Gen. 2: 17; 3: 4). This ancient error now is supreme in the Roman Catholic Church. Thus the Baltimore Catechism (Q. 1328) asks:

“How can we know the true meaning of the doctrines contained in the Bible?”

Answer: “We can know the true meaning . . . from the Catholic Church which has been authorized by Jesus Christ to explain His doctrines, and which is preserved from error in its teachings by the special assistance of the Holy Ghost.”

Thus, while affirming that God has spoken to men in the Bible, the Roman Catholic Church teaches that God has not made clear what he means, and so above the Word of God must stand the authoritative interpretation of the Church (which, we are to presume, has an expert opinion about what God’s Word means). This also means that Rome would have us trust in the clear word of man rather than the obscure Word of God.

The Reformed faith views the matter precisely in reverse, holding that Scripture alone expresses divine truth with perfect clarity, and so regarding the Scriptures alone as finally authoritative. The interpretation of the Church (as in its creeds) must always, therefore, be regarded as less than a perfectly clear expression of divine truth, and as necessarily subordinate to Scripture. The authority of creeds is determined by Scripture, not determinative of Scripture. They have authority only if, and to the extent that, they truly are faithful to Scripture.”

G.I. Williamson

The Westminster Confession of Faith: for Study Classes

1.) Now add the reality that if the average layperson needs the Roman Catholic Church to tell him what Scripture means because God’s speaking is so opaque in God’s inspired special Revelation (Scripture) how is the average layperson supposed to understand the uninspired interpretation of what God speaks in His Word as given by the Church without someone else explaining to him what the Church means when it interprets God’s perspicuous word. In other words this reasoning falls into an infinite regress. If man is not capable of understanding God’s spoken Word aright and so needs an interpreter then it is only reasonable to believe that man is not capable of understanding the interpreter of God’s Word aright and so needs yet another interpreter to interpret the original interpreter’s interpretation of God’s Word…. ad infinitum.

Are we to believe that the Roman Catholic Church can explain with more clarity than the God of the universe?

2.) The Roman Catholic church has made so many errors in Church history that it is laughable that they want to insist that they have been preserved in their teachings from error by the special assistance of the Holy Ghost. Whether it is the embrace of purgatory (nowhere taught in Scripture) or the embrace of relics (nowhere taught in Scripture) or having Mary as a co-redemptrix or mediatrix (nowhere taught in Scripture) the history of the Roman Catholic church is one error after another.

3.) It is a pretty good gig to be in the position as an Institution to give yourself the ability to be the one in charge of what God does or does not say. Rome, when it makes this move, has indeed ascended to the seat of God. It really doesn’t matter what God says if Rome is the one with the final authority of what God says and means. Honestly, it seems beyond obvious that with this doctrine of the Church having authority over Scripture that the Roman Catholic Institutional Church has made itself to be God. With this false doctrine promulgated by Rome it is the case that in the Church we live and move and have our being.

4.) This doctrine underscores another doctrine by Rome and that is their doctrine that their is no salvation outside the Church of Rome. This is an obvious implication of the above authority over Scripture. If the Church is God’s final interpreter of God’s mind then it is obvious that to be out of fellowship with the Roman Catholic Church is to be out of fellowship with God. This Roman Catholic doctrine of being the “mouth of God” keeps people who really believe this chained as slaves inside the Roman Catholic whore of a “church.” If one really believed this doctrine one would never leave Rome no matter what demonic deviation Rome might insists that God really says.

5.) Of course this issue was the formal principle of the Reformation. While “Justification by grace alone through faith alone, in Christ alone” was the material principle of the Reformation (the fuse that was lit that set the whole thing off) behind the material principle was the formal principle which was a dispute of where the authority lie in order to determine where to find the mind of God. Rome, following their epistemological doctrine that the Church is the ultimate authority, the Reformers insisted that the epistemological authority for men is the written word of God.

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.

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.

Klavan Compares Holocaust to Crucifixion … McAtee Recoils

“Let me tell you what the holocaust was. This will drive some of you crazy but it’s true. The holocaust was the Crucifixion on iMax. It was for those who missed the point the first time that this is who we are (this is who people are). That we will take up … if you don’t think that Jesus bled when little children were led into a gas chamber you don’t know who Jesus Christ is. I don’t care what you say. I don’t care how many times you tell me ‘Christ is King,’ you don’t understand. You don’t understand what is going on, you know.”

Andrew Klavin
Author – “The Great Good Thing: A Secular Jew Comes to Faith in Christ.”

1.) The holocaust was the Crucifixion on iMax? Sorry Andrew but no amount of suffering on the part of all people groups combined or by one solo people group alone can compare in any degree to the sufferings of Christ.

2.) Mr. Klaven, it’s probably hard for you to understand but the Bagels did not suffer in any way they did not deserve nor in any way more expansive than any number of other people groups in history. Bagels did not suffer in any way they did not deserve because what all people deserve is eternal death. The surprise is not that Bagels were treated the way the way they were treated during what is called the holocaust. The surprise is that there are any people group doesn’t suffer that way all the time always.

Further, Bagels did not suffer in any way deeper, larger, or more expansive than many other people groups in history is proven by history itself. The Christians murdered during the Holodomor by the Bagel Bolsheviks was much worse in terms of total numbers. The Khmer who were tortured and murdered during the work of the Khmer Rouge in Cambodia was, per capita, far far worse than what the Bagels suffered. The Chinese people during the reign of Mao suffered far more than Bagels. The Armenians suffered per capita far more hardships at the hands of the Muslims ( “Donmeh” – Crypto Bagels) than the Bagels suffered in WW II. You Bagels do not have a corner on suffering, persecutions, or hardships, though the way you act one would think you did think that was the case.

3.) Jesus Christ bled and died once. He has not bled again for any reason for anybody since that time. This is not to say that Christ doesn’t have compassion on those (children and adults) who He has claimed for His own.

4.) It remains an open question whether any Bagels died by being gassed in any oven. The evidence of gas chambers is contested to this day.

4.) This whole quote is just one emotional jag by Klavin meant to make Christian white men feel guilty once again over the poor mistreated Bagels. Would that Bagels would feel guilty about crucifying Christ.

5.) As a whole what this jag does is it seeks to exchange the faith of Christianity for the new faith of Holocaustianity.

Answering the Gnostic Accusation that Bret’s too “Focused Upon This World”

Comment on Iron Rhetoric from a chap named “Machen”

“Ultimately, Bret and his followers are focused upon this world. They are hungry for things that they see with their eyes. They want their own country. But in doing so, they have failed to see that we have a much better country. One that our forefathers sought by faith, and yet they did not see it till death. When will Bret learn to stop cherry picking history and start looking above where Christ is?”

Bret responds with 12 response (One comeback for every Apostle),

1.) You couldn’t fill a phone booth (remember those?) with Bret’s followers.

2.) There was a time I wanted my own wife and my own children and my own friends. There was a time I wanted to Pastor my own church. Then there was a time I wanted my own grandchildren. Did all these realities prove that I was hungry for things I see with my eyes and that said hunger was not Christian?

3.) Damn straight I want my own country. Just like the pagan Chinese have their own country … just like the pagan Bagels have their own country (the US) … just like the pagan Mooselimbs have their own countries. It is the height of disobedience to Christ for a Christian to suggest that somehow it is sinful to desire to have a country that is Christian, White, and Heritage American. What? … it is the case that I am most holy when I go about not wanting my own country?

4.) I trust everyone easily sees how this is Gnostic to the core. Somehow being a Christian in this chap’s world means that corporeal things are un-holy. This chap probably spends his evenings before bedtime flagellating himself till he bleeds.

5.) This chap will have to ask those who have attended funeral sermons I’ve preached if I fail to see and emphasize that we have a better country. However, all because we have a better country coming doesn’t mean that we get to trash the present country we have or might have if we are faithful to the Lord Christ.

6.) I guarantee you this chap is either amillennial or premillennial.

7.) If death and the heavenly country is the be all end all for this chap why doesn’t he pray daily that he might die? If he dies soon he doesn’t have to put up with all the gross stuff that is this life.

8.) Has this chap ever read the verse; “Occupy till I come?” (Luke 19:13)

9.) Cherry picking history? Look if I’m cherry picking history let him and his idiot Gnostic cronies publish not one, but two, 500 page plus volumes of quotes from the Church Fathers who support their Gnosticism when it comes to Christian Nationalism and Kinism. Shoot, bang, I’ll even let him cherry pick if he wants to.

10.) Kinists have ALL the evidence on their side. We have two large published anthologies that supports the truth that the Church fathers have been on our side and that over the centuries.

11.) It is precisely because I make it endeavor to set my mind on things above, not on things on the earth that works in me the working out of my salvation in fear and trembling to the end of making every area of this life serve Christ.

12.) Something about “taking every thought captive to make it obedient to Christ.” Thoughts about social order arrangement. Thoughts about race / culture / faith. Thoughts about history. Every thought.

I pray that this strand of Gnosticism would be arrested and extinguished in the modern church today. I pray that this chap would yet repent and along with all Christ’s people desire a nation of their own.