Apologetics – Page 68

Indiana Wesleyan University 1st Annual “Multi-Culturalism” Day — Seminar’s Examined

Indiana Wesleyan University 1st Annual “Multi-Culturalism” Day

Courageous Conversations Seminars

All About the Bass: Searching for Treble in the Midst of a Pounding Culture War, presented by Dr. Scott Burson:

In recent years, many evangelical Christians have taken up arms against those who are not part of their tribe, whether they be liberals, the LGBT community, or Muslims. This Us vs. Them approach seems to be fueled by the assumption that faithfulness to the righteous standards of the Gospel requires a hostile orientation toward “the Other.” This interactive workshop will challenge this paradigm and explore ways in which Christ-followers can cultivate a more faithful, holistic response to the entire gospel message, a message that emphasizes not only righteousness, but compassion, as well.

Rev. McAtee responds,

Note well the “Us vs. Them” approach implied in this Seminar.

Us = Tribal Members who believe that their assumption the compassionate standard of the Gospel requires a hostile orientation towards “the Other” who putatively wrongly emphasizes the righteousness of God’s character in a culture hostile to Christianity.

Them = Those “others” who believe that compassion and love are defined as speaking the truth, without hostility, about God’s righteous standard to those who are lost and in rebellion against their Creator.

Dr. Burson’s assumption, given the description of the seminar, seems to be that there is no necessary antithesis in a Gospel proclamation. He seems to be hostile to any notion of “other” that Christianity has baked into its very definition. One can’t help but wonder if Dr. Burson might think that the God who hates the wicked every day (Psalm 7:11) is part of the problem with Christianity.

Christianity is certainly compassionate but it does not demonstrate its compassion when it gathers a seminar that seeks to dilute God’s righteous standard.

Indiana Wesleyan University 1st Annual “Multi-Culturalism” Day

Courageous Conversations Seminar

An Intercultural Marriage: A story of God’s love, presented by Dr. Harriet Rojas: Harriet met Ner Rojas when she was teaching in Chiclayo, Peru. Hear more about their love story and God’s love.

Rev. McAtee responds,

The current culture we are living in are slamming kids 24-7 with the virtue and normalcy of Inter-cultural marriage. While certainly inter-cultural marriages can work our children ought to be taught that they are not the norm and create a marriage where many pitfalls exist that do not exist in marriages where there is a shared background and culture. Inter-cultural marriage should be discouraged for those unmarried while still providing community support when such marriages take place.

As a minister who has counseled more inter-cultural troubled marriages than I care to remember I can tell you that inter-cultural marriage, normatively, is not a good idea.

IWU’s “Courageous Conversations” on their first Multicultural Days.
Breaking down the walls, presented by OILE:

This experiential session is designed to unify, empower, and engage participants to break negative socially accepted stereotypes. This activity is meant to question generally accepted beliefs and open a conversation about how we view other people groups and why we feel this way.

___________

Rev. McAtee responds,

One would LOVE to know just exactly what “negative socially accepted stereotypes” we are talking about. What “generally accepted beliefs” are going to be questioned?

In Corporate settings I’ve been a participant in these “experiential sessions,” and typically they are designed consistent with the Delphi technique. Is IWU going to Delphi their students by manipulating a false consensus? Will this really be a conversation or students going to be psychologically herded into a predetermined conclusion?

Finally, note that OILE is going to be asking why people “feel” this way as opposed to why they think the way they think.

IWU’s “Courageous Conversations” on their first Multicultural Days.

Supporting Even When We Don’t Understand, presented by Jackie Stancil, Nicole Stancil, and Risha Ruono:

Students who struggle with mental illness, survivors of sexual assault, or those with questions about their sexuality or gender often bring their struggles to friends before they speak to teachers, doctors, or counselors. What can we say in support without damaging relationships? This workshop offers ideas about how to walk brothers and sisters through painful struggles.

____________

Rev. McAtee responds,

First not all the items mentioned in the description belong in the same category. Survivors of sexual assault or those with genuine mental illness are not necessarily struggling against sin as those who are having questions about their sexuality or gender. These category differences need to be kept in mind when approaching this subject. If the category distinctions are not kept in mind then one runs the danger of not naming the potential sin in the matter sexual and gender confusion.

Naturally, the Christian desires to be compassionate to those who are struggling with what the Scripture calls “Besetting sins.” However, we must first keep in mind that compassion begins by not allowing the person struggling to coddle or excuse their sin. To not challenge the person struggling, even in the context of coming alongside to minister, would be an act of hateful aggression against the one who struggles. There is zero compassion in enabling the sinner in their sin. Sodomy and LGBQT’ism must be named as sin even as we seek to come alongside those who are struggling with these questions.

In terms of damaging relationships, the main relationship we need to keep in mind to avoid doing damage to is our relationship with the Lord Jesus Christ. If we coddle people in their sin … if we enable them in their sin … if we become codependent in their sins we dishonor the Lord Jesus Christ and damage His relationship with us and our relationship with Him.

This workshop concerns me greatly because it has all the potential of winking at the sin of LGBQT’ism.

IWU Courageous Conversations

Authentic Relationships: Why Empathy Matters, presented by Laura Bronsink:

Showing empathy is a key component to building meaningful relationships. It is the only way that we can fully accept others.
Challenging the dominant culture of individualism, this session will cover basic principles of empathy and strategies for building it.

—————-

Rev. McAtee responds,

Who will be empathetic to those who are lifting the prophetic warning concerning the heresy that is Multiculturalism and Cultural Marxism? Who wants to have meaningful relationships with the Prophetic voice that says IWU Multiculturalism days are days of anti-Christ and so death?

Secondly, IWU’s Multiculturalism days SCREAMS that the culture of individualism is dead at IWU. What we are seeing is University-wide group think. IWU challenging the dominant culture of Individualism is like the reporter who went to a Goth bar and asked the Goth patrons why they were into Goth, only to be told, as surrounded by a sea of Goth, that they “just wanted to be different.”

There is no culture of individualism at IWU and there is no dominant culture of individualism in the West and any lecture warning about the dangers of a dominant culture of Individualism is pursued to the end of making sure no individualism survives the group think.

I’m hoping Laura can empathize with me on this.

IWU Day of Courageous Conversation Session Descriptions

Bridging the Gap:

Facing challenges of loving beyond the familiar, presented by Chris Heuertz and Heather Roberson, LMHC: Often our social world can be limited to those who are similar to us in ethnicity, socioeconomic status, religion, and views. In this interactive session we will learn how to challenge our false centers, avoiding the pitfalls of tokenism and one-up helping relationships, in order to create authentic friendships and community at the margins.

____________

Bret responds,

How about the false centers of those running this seminar? They have a false center that insists that one can’t have a true center unless others have the same center they have. Their social world is limited to those who agree with them that social worlds should be diverse. Are they going to be friends with me when I tell them that they are not as diverse friendly as they would like to think they are? If they were really diverse friendly they’d give me a hug every time I told them that these ideas are self-contradictory. Are they going to embrace when I skewer their multiculturalist religious faith tenets? Will I be part of Chris and Heather’s “community at the margins?”

IWU Day of Courageous Conversation Session Descriptions

Loving Refugees;

Student led, facilitated by Dr. Bart Bruehler: This event will seek to raise awareness of the global refugee crisis through stories from IWU students, Gabriella Garver (alum), Ryan Smith, and Whitney Renfroe, who have helped with refugee care in Pennsylvania, Greece, and other locations.

————
Rev. Bret McAtee responds,

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6PzT8vEvYPg

Will awareness be raised by handing out this booklet to each attending student?

https://www.amazon.com/Refugee-Resettlemen…/…/ref=sr_1_sc_1…

Mrs. Corcoran reveals that refugeeism to the States has an agenda that is committed to overturn historic and traditional American culture.

Also, will anyone go into the fact that this global refugee crisis has been intentionally created in order to salt historically White Anglo-Saxon Christian Nations with people of a different ethnic and religious origin to the end of creating a New World Order global arrangement?

R2K Evening Wear — The Sequel

Dr. Hart, over at Oldlife blog, continues to try and rescue himself from his latest comment recorded here yesterday.

Dr. D. G. Hart says:
January 13, 2017 at 3:05 pm

“Robert, the question wasn’t whether Nero should light up his gardens with Christians. It was whether Nero executed Christians.

That is what God ordained the magistrate to do, right? Just because a believer has a special relationship with God doesn’t let the believer disobey the magistrate’s laws. Christianity is not a license for civil disobedience.

That’s why the debates about resisting a tyrant were so intricate. The best the Reformers could come up with was the doctrine of a lesser magistrate. A citizen could not disobey. But a magistrate might be able to.

If a law is unjust or if we must obey God rather than men, then we suffer the consequences of disobedience. That’s what the apostles did. They didn’t form political action committees to overturn Roman laws.”

Bret responds,

1.) Dr. Hart’s comments are not informed as to what “the best the Reformers could come up with.” Here is one of the greatest Reformers,

“In ‘The Appellation’ John Knox denounced the orthodox doctrine of (that required) Christian obedience (to wicked rulers) as sinful. He declared blind compliance to a wicked command to be sin. God has not required obedience to rules when they decree impiety. To say that God does is no less blasphemy than to make God the author of sin. Moreover, if the nobles and people comply with their sovereign in manifest wickedness, they will be punished along with him.

In “The Appellation” Knox also laid the foundation for the theme of his “Letter to the Commonality,” which declared “None provoking the people to idolatry ought to be exempted from the punishment of death.” The personal status of such an individual was of no consequence, be they monarch or commoner. Moreover, the punishment of idolatry and blasphemy does not pertain to only kings and rulers. Rather, it relates to all persons according to their Christian vocation and the opportunity afforded to them by God to administer vengeance. CITING DEUTERONOMY 13, KNOX ISSUED THE CALL FOR REVOLUTION — HE DIRECTED MOSES’ COMMANDMENT TO SLAY IDOLATERS TO ALL PEOPLE, NOT JUST THE NOBLES.

Yet Knox never called for indiscriminate slaughter. He distinguished between the treatment to be accorded idolaters, who had never known ‘true religion,’ and those who had known it but has forsaken it.”

Kyle & Johnson
John Knox; An Introduction to his Life and Work — pg. 104

2.) When Dr. Hart offers that “this is what God ordained the magistrates to do right?,” one is left saying, “no, God has not ordained the magistrates to execute those who obey God’s law.” Romans 13, contrary to Dr. Hart, clearly teaches

³For rulers are not a cause of fear for good behavior, but for evil. Do you want to have no fear of authority? Do what is good and you will have praise from the same; ⁴for it is a minister of God to you for good. But if you do what is evil, be afraid; for it does not bear the sword for nothing; for it is a minister of God, an avenger who brings wrath on the one who practices evil.

We see here that God has ordained rulers to praise those who do good. Good is not defined by any standard except God’s Word. So, when a Magistrate executes Christians for doing good, as informed by the standard of God’s Word, then those Magistrates are doing the very opposite of what God has ordained the Magistrates to do. Dr. Hart is in grave error here.

3.) Biblical Christianity at times is indeed a license for civil disobedience. The Hebrew wives knew that fact. Daniel and his friends knew that. Ehud, the left-handed Hebrew Ninja knew that. John Knox knew that.

4.) Finally, on the point of forming political action committees to overturn bad laws, once again, Dr. Hart is just in error. Dr. Hart needs to realize that the very fact that they were disobeying the law was itself the formation of a political action committee to overturn Roman laws. The disobedience is itself political action by committee.

Is Dr. Hart saying that it is un-Christian and / or not Biblical to form political action committees to overturn bad law?

The Latest In R2K Evening Wear

https://oldlife.org/2017/01/04/is-donald-trump-mainstreaming-apostasy/#comment-151497

“Nero did not violate God’s law if he executed Christians who obeyed God rather than man. If Paul continued to preach after the emperor said he may not, then Nero was doing what God ordained government to [sic] do. Christians don’t get a pass from civil law just because they follow a higher law. John Brown is no Christian hero.”

Dr. Darryl G. Hart
Comment timestamped — January 12, 2017 at 10:52 am
OPC Elder
R2K Heterodox Maven
Doing his best John Knox impersonation

1.) Dr. Hart is now in the position of holding that Nebuchadnezzar did okay when he threw Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego into the fiery furnace. After all, he was just doing what God ordained government is supposed to do.

2.) In Exodus 1 the Hebrew Midwives who disobeyed Dr. Hart’s God ordained Government in Egypt are rewarded for their following a higher law. Now, If Dr. Hart were serious about his statement, and if he were consistent, Dr. Hart would have to say that those Hebrew Midwives were disobedient to God’s ordained order. How will Dr. Hart explain that “God rewarded them with houses” because they did obey a higher law?

3.) When St. Peter says “whether it is better for us to obey God or man, you decide,” thus implicitly appealing to the higher law that Hart so detests, Hart answers, “Christians must obey man over God.” Even the Pharisees knew better than to answer the matter in that way.

4.) One of the doctrines of the church that was recovered in the reformation was the doctrine of the lesser magistrate with its insistence on resistance to tyranny in the name of a higher law than civil law. Both civil and church authority need to be resisted if they become tyrannical. The best proof of this is the protection offered Luther as well as the battle at Magdeburg right after Luther’s death. See, Christopher Goodman’s, “How Superior Powers Ought To Be Obeyed By Their Subjects And Wherein They May Lawfully By God’s Word Be Disobeyed And Resisted.”

5.) Dr. Hart is correct in offering that John Brown is no Christian hero but the reason that John Brown is no Christian hero is that John Brown was not following a higher law but was following anti-Christ Jacobin law. Surely Dr. Hart is not suggesting that the disobedience of John Brown was of the same nature and same character as the disobedience of the Hebrew midwives before Pharoah, the disobedience of the Hebrew children before Nebuchadnezzar, or the disobedience of Christ before Pilate?

Or … maybe he is?

6.) Now, to be sure, Christians who disobey man’s law must be prepared to suffer the consequences such as prison, loss of social standing, or even death. These are all possibilities. However, to intimate that authority figures get some sort of pass, simply because they carry some kind of illegitimate authority is just ludicrous wrapped in ridiculous as stuffed inside preposterous.

But this is the kind of heterodoxy where R2K inanity takes one.

Multiculturalism as the New Religion in Town

Religion — Any system of faith and worship. In this sense, religion comprehends the belief and worship of pagans and Mohammedans, as well as of Christians; any religion consisting in the belief of a superior power or powers governing the world, and in the worship of such power or powers. Thus we speak of the religion of the Turks, of the Hindoos, of the Indians, etc. as well as of the Christian religion We speak of false religion as well as of true religion.

1828 Webster’s Dictionary

“The State is the Divine Idea as it exists on earth. . . . We must, therefore, worship the State as the manifestation of the Divine on earth, and consider that if it is difficult to comprehend Nature, it is harder to grasp the Essence of the State. . . .[T]he State is the march of God through the world.”

Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel

It is my conviction that Religion is an inescapable category. All men organize their social order in subservience to, as Webster tells us, “belief of a superior power or powers governing the world.” Thus, all cultures are naught but the expression of the religion of the people who comprise that culture. Culture then is the religion of a people put into real life social order animation.

One thing we should immediately note is how ridiculous it is to make blanket condemnations as “all religion being bad.” Christians often do this by saying things like, “I don’t have a religion. I have a relationship.” Religion is an inescapable category and so while some religions are worse than others (and all are worse than Biblical Christianity) the reality is that all people and peoples are religious. This is true also of those (usually the atheist crowd) who say “I don’t have a religion.” That this is true is explained by the fact that it is the religion of people who condemn religion that accounts for their condemnation of religion. The idea of something (in this case “religion”) being “bad” requires a moral foundation upon which to make such a pronouncement and that moral foundation is nothing else but an expression of a religion. In their statement, “I don’t have a religion,” or “Religion is wicked and accounts for all the evil of the world,” they are their own superior power that is governing the world (see Webster’s definition) and so their egoism is their religion.

For most moderns the State is their god and so provides their religion as the Hegel quote indicates. For those non-Christians who haven’t taken the state as their god, the result usually is that they are their own gods, determining good and evil. As such their individual egos are their own religion. Religion is an inescapable category.

Given all that the above is true we might ask ourselves what is the religion of our culture. Below provides just a bit of a teasing out of the answer to that question.

I.) The Religion of Modernism

Multiculturalist Diversity

The irony here is lodged in the fact that the pursuit of multiculturalism finally arrives in the embrace of a monoculture as everybody is straitjacketed into the singular embrace of a uniform multicultural social order where the equality of all cultures create and reflect the monolithic religion behind multiculturalism.

II.) The Temple / Church of Modernism

US Government outlets (Civic bldgs., Schools, etc.)

All religions have a Temple or gathering place where the worshipers come to worship and be catechized. In the West, the Government facility has replaced the Temple as the Church of Modernism. In Church facilities, we educate our young into the state religion. We send our tithes and offerings to the Church every year. We place our dead heroes in Temple like structures (think of the Lincoln Memorial). It is all really quite religious as in the State we live and move and have our being.

III.) Priest Class

Bureaucrats / Teachers / Ministers / Professional Class

All religions have a Preistcraft. Modernism as a religion is no different. The Priest class serves to guide the people in how to satisfy the god and how to practice the religion. The Priestcraft have a self-interest in perpetuating the religion since their lifestyle is dependent upon the religion being kept stoked. In the West, the God state is served by a Preistcraft that now includes almost the whole white collar professional class. Because of the totalitarian presence of the State nearly all the white collar professional class is beholden to the religion of multiculturalism and so supports it and inculcates it in all their doings. From Shrinks, to Shysters, to Ministers, to Teachers, to Businessmen, to Medial Doctors, to Academia, they all are tasked with serving multiculturalism as the religion and the State as God.

IV.) Catechism Motifs

All religions have their catch phrases and pithy motifs that the Preistcraft must teach. In Christianity one might use as just one example, “the chief end of man is to glorify God and fully enjoy Him forever.” In the religion of multiculturalism, we get mindless pithy motifs that all are to embrace such as, “Diversity is our strength,” and, “White people are evil,” and “All people and all cultures are equal.” These and like simple-minded motifs constitute the lubricant that oils the thinking of the whole social order.

V.) Mission’s Agency

United Nations, Evangelical Church Sending Agencies, US Military

Every religion has an agency whereby the religion is spread to others who are deprived of the great religion. In the social order of the West that Missions agency ranges from the United Nations publishing arm to the most Missionary agencies of most of the Denominations that constitute modern Christianity. Christianity has been reinterpreted through the grid of multiculturalism so that much of what is pushed as Christianity by missionaries (both home and abroad) is just another expression of multiculturalism. When nations are particularly resistant to being convinced of the truth of multiculturalism then we turn to the US Military to convert by the sword.

VI.) Criminal Code

Hate Crimes / homophobia / Sexist / Racist

Every religion develops a criminal code as to what is allowed and what is not allowed. Multiculturalism, as a religion, seeks to criminalize behavior that does not support the zeitgeist. As such multiculturalism creates hate crimes that punish with extra zeal those guilty of hating beyond the normal hate that comes with every crime. Further, homophobia, sexism, racism, while not yet criminal, are so deeply taboo that to violate them puts one outside the company of “civilized” people.

VII.) Propaganda Wing

Hollywood / Top 40 / Government schools / Media Outlets

Every religion has a propaganda wing. The propaganda wing of multiculturalism is Hollywood, Top 40 music of almost all genres, and Government schools, and newspapers, magazines, radio talk show, etc. All of these are not concerned with teaching people to think critically. All are concerned with teaching people what to think. All teach people the virtues of multiculturalism. We are bombarded with messaging that informs us that all relationships are equal. That all sexuality is equal. Christian white people are evil. Patriarchy is despicable. Heirarchy is bias.

VIII.) Main Goal

Overthrow Christianity

Samuel Francis, in his “Leviathan and Its Enemies,” captured this when he wrote,

“The persistence of traditional institutions and systems of belief constrains and impedes the continuing growth of mass organizations and their operations, and it is imperative for the emerging elites to challenge, discredit, and erode the moral, intellectual, and institutional fabric of traditional society that sustains the older elites and the systems of beliefs, or ideologies, on which their rule is based.”

The goal of multiculturalism is to completely destroy Christianity as the religion of the West. It has been largely successful to that end. The emerging multicultural elites are doing all in their powers to overthrow Christ and Christianity in favor of the cultural marxism that drives multiculturalism.

VIII.) Chief method to that end

The use of Critical theory to destroy White people

Critical theory was a means developed to viciously attack any aspect of thinking that had Christianity as its origin. It presupposed that Christian thinking was responsible for social orders that enslaved. It was leveraged as upon the foundation of Cultural Marxism and so all the criticism as run through the prism of Cultural Marxism in order to smash Christianity as evil. The reason that it especially is pointed on White people is that the Cultural Marxist understood that White people have been, historically speaking, the main carriers of Christianity and the builders of Christian civilizations. The Cultural Marxists of the Frankfurt school (the origin of movement multiculturalism) understood that if white people are destroyed the consequence is that Christianity will be destroyed.

This also explains the push for amnesty and the immigration crisis that the West is facing.

IX.) High Holy Days

Martin Luther King Day / 4th of July / Veterans day

Every religion has its own high holy days. Multiculturalism is no different. This explains why multiculturalism so intensely makes “war on Christmas.” Multiculturalism understands that Christmas is a high, holy day in competition with its own high holy days. The high holy days of multiculturalism celebrates egalitarianism and diversity, or the god-state and those who have died for it. (Why anybody can’t see the contradiction in praising, at the same time, both diversity and egalitarianism is quite beyond me.)

X.) Enemy of “The People”

a.) Epistemologically self-conscious Christians
b.) Trustee Family
c.) Property

Multiculturalism understands that it has enemies that it must snuff out. We noted above that Multiculturalism, as a religion, understands that its greatest threat is Christian white people. This category just refines that a wee bit further. Multiculturalism understands that the “enemy of the multiculturalist people” are especially those who are epistemologically self-conscious Christians. Epistemologically self-conscious Christians see through the three-card monte con of multiculturalism and so are understood as a threat and so must be professionally destroyed.

The Trustee family is such a distinct enemy of the adherents of multiculturalism because the Trustee family embraces hierarchy and patriarchy, and so eschews egalitarianism.

Property also is seen as an enemy of multiculturalism because property introduces a “mine, not yours” mentality which wages wars on everyone being and having the same.

So, this is a brief description of the new religion of the West. It is a description that seeks at the same time to reinforce that religion is an inescapable category that can’t be avoided. Either we will return to Christ and so have abundant life again or we will embrace some other religion of death.

Ask the Pastor…. “But Christians Aren’t Under the Law?”

Dear Pastor,

Scripture says that we (Christians) are no longer under law. Can you explain to me why you teach that Christians are obliged to walk by God’s Law-Word?

Patrick
Colon, Michigan

Dear Patrick,

Let’s look at the passage that you reference

^{Romans 6:12}Therefore do not let sin reign in your mortal body so that you obey its lusts, ¹³and do not go on presenting the members of your body to sin as instruments of unrighteousness; but present yourselves to God as those alive from the dead, and your members as instruments of righteousness to God. ¹⁴For sin shall not be master over you, for you are not under law but under grace.

Paul is using the word “law” here to designate that which must be fulfilled as a required precursor to acceptance with God. The Christian has been delivered from being under law as a means of find peace with God. As such, when St. Paul says here that we are not “under law” he is not suggesting that God’s law is no longer relevant to the Christian. Paul is saying that the Christian is not under law as a systematic program to escape condemnation.

If Christians did yet remain under the law as a totalistic program for righteousness then sin would continue to have dominion over the Christian since the law, as a program for righteousness, cannot deliver but can only accuse. Because the Christian is under the reign of grace as God’s means of righteousness the Christian can refuse to let sin reign in their mortal bodies. “Under the reign of Grace” provides a power source for dealing with sin that “Under the reign of Law” could never provide, dead as we were in Adam.

Note also, though that at the Apostle repeatedly talks about “sin.” This implies a necessity for the concept of law because there is no way to even know what sin is apart from a standard (God’s Law) by which sin can be defined and identified. If we were to be done with the law, as many Christians advocate, then we would also be done with any concept of sin. It does me no good to encourage me to say no to sin or to lust if at the same time there is no law that standardizes what sin is. How could we possibly know what behavior, thinking, attitudes please our great Liege-Lord apart from His Law-Word?

Christ did not redeem us so that we might walk contrary to His Law-Word. The Law’s intent is not so that by the keeping of it we can be saved. We can’t keep it as it is needed to be kept. That is why Christ came as our covenant head. Our Lord Christ fulfilled the law in our stead and because of the righteousness accounted to us we are counted Law keepers. Similarly, our covenant head, the Lord Christ, bore our penalty in our place on the Cross that our indebtedness to the Law is fulfilled as we are united to Christ.

BUT now that the law has been fulfilled for us in Christ’s law keeping and penalty bearing we now walk in terms of God’s law. We delight in God’s law now, not as means of gaining something we do not have. We delight in God’s law now, as a consequence of being given something, via imputation of Christ’s righteousness, that we could not earn or merit.

As WCF IX:18 notes, “Law and grace do doth sweetly comply (agree).” We can not posit Grace against law for the Christian. God’s law for the Christian is gracious and God’s grace unto the Christian was due to its honoring all that the law required.

So, now we study God’s law in order to more fully delight in God’s grace.

Some will contend that we have been delivered from the law and so interpret that to mean that we have nothing to do with the law. This is an unfortunate error in interpreting and thinking. The aspect of the law that we have been delivered from is the condemning aspect of the law. Because we are in Christ we are delivered from the law’s condemnation. There is, after all, therefore now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus. However, deliverance from the law’s condemnation is not equal to the idea of no longer having anything to do with the law. This is why the inspired Apostle can say that; “The law is Holy, Righteous, and Good.”

Praise God for His kindness to usward as expressed by giving us His Law-Word. Praise God that the Lord Christ was and remains the embodiment and incarnation of God’s Law. To properly love God’s law is to love Christ. Correspondingly a lack of love for God’s Law-Word is a lack of love for Christ.