Category: ecclesiology

Christmas Eve Service Liturgy — 2014

Welcome and Greeting

Invocation

Eternal God, your promise of a coming Savior is spoken in your words to Eve after the fall, in the psalms of David, in the words of the prophets.  Your Word of deliverance is spoken, eternal God, and takes flesh at last in the womb of the virgin.

We ask that Emmanuel would be honored in the people of your Church and that Nations would find themselves bowing the knee to your Christ who alone can provide redemption and grace. We ask this through him whose coming is certain, whose Day draws near: your Son, our Lord Jesus Christ, who lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit, one God, for ever and ever. Amen.

Nicene Creed (Responsive)

I believe in one God, the Father Almighty, Maker of heaven and earth, and of all things visible and invisible.

And in one Lord Jesus Christ, the only-begotten Son of God, begotten of the Father before all worlds; God of God, Light of Light, very God of very God; begotten, not made, being of one substance with the Father, by whom all things were made.

Who, for us men for our salvation, came down from heaven, and was incarnate by the Holy Spirit of the virgin Mary, and was made man; and was crucified also for us under Pontius Pilate; He suffered and was buried; and the third day He rose again, according to the Scriptures; and ascended into heaven, and sits on the right hand of the Father; and He shall come again, with glory, to judge the quick and the dead; whose kingdom shall have no end.

And I believe in the Holy Ghost, the Lord and Giver of Life; who proceeds from the Father [and the Son]; who with the Father and the Son together is worshiped and glorified; who spoke by the prophets.

And I believe one holy catholic and apostolic Church. I acknowledge one baptism for the remission of sins; and I look for the resurrection of the dead, and the life of the world to come. Amen.

THE FIRST LESSON

Scripture —  Genesis 3:15 / Matthew 1:20 / Galatians 4:4

Congregational Response

We speak with gratitude when we see your promise to Eve, of a coming Savior, fulfilled in the Christ child who crushed the head of the Serpent.

 Carol — “O Come, O Come, Emmanuel”  (Brown —  169)

THE SECOND LESSON

Scripture — Genesis 12:3 / Matthew 1:1  — Genesis 22:18 / Romans 9:5

Congregational Response — Father, Thank you for the promise, to the patriarchs, of a coming Christ and then for the promised fulfilled in Christ’s arrival.

Carol: “Hark! The Herald Angels Sing” (Brown 184)

THE THIRD LESSON

Scripture — Micah 5:2 / Matthew 2:1, Luke 2:4-6

Congregational Response — Praise be unto God for providing us the Bread of life as born in the House of Bread

 Carol —  “O Little Town Of Bethlehem” (Brown 402)

Special Music — Aimee Chauvin

THE FOURTH LESSON

Luke 1:46-55 / Luke 2:29-32

Congregational Response —  We thank you for the promise fulfilled that elicited a response that speaks of gratitude for a Salvation that is both individual and global.

Carol  —  “Come, Thou Long Expected Jesus” (Brown 168)

Special Music — Bacon Voice Ensemble

THE FIFTH LESSON

Scripture — Isaiah 7:14 / Matthew 1:23

Congregational Response — We look for no other Redeemer but He who was and is “God with Us,” the Lord Christ.

Carol — “Joy To The World” (Brown 170)

Special Music — Strings and Flute

THE SIXTH LESSON

Scripture — Isaiah 9:2-7  / Revelation 1:12-16

Congregational Response —  Grant us grace Father, to remember that this child is now your Warrior King and that we walk in the path of His conquering work. 

Hymn — Christ Shall Have Dominion (Blue Psalter — 135 Blue)

SEVENTH LESSON

Candlelight Exhortation — Matthew 4:16
Carol — “Silent Night” (Brown 195)

Words To Go

“Advent is concerned with that very connection between memory of the past and hope for the future which is so necessary to man. Advent’s intention is to awaken the most profound and basic memory within us, namely, the memory of  God who became man. Rightly remembered and held, this is a restorative memory; it brings hope, it brings peace, it brings confidence. The purpose of the Church’s year is continually to recite her History, so as to awaken her memory so that she can discern God’s accomplishment in the past so as to provide fuel in the confidence of his promises for the future.”

_________

“The birth of a king has lost most of its meaning in our day, because the few kings remaining are mainly figureheads. In earlier days, it was, however, a momentous event. Whenever a son was born to a king, the entire kingdom celebrated with a joy our holidays today do not have.

Why was the birth of a king’s son so great an event to the poorest man of the realm, and so great a cause for rejoicing? It meant, very simply, that a protector and defender was born, someone who in the days ahead would provide the leadership, unifying force, and strength to repel all enemies, suppress criminals within the realm, and enforce justice. A kingdom without an heir to the throne had an uncertain future. Men being sinners, the kingdom would face internal and external troubles if no king reigned to enforce justice. The succession being uncertain, the kingdom would risk civil war.

The term “enforce justice” tells us much. Man is a sinner, and he is by nature lawless unless he is regenerated by Jesus Christ. Justice thus must be “enforced,” that is, put into operation by force, because otherwise lawlessness and injustice will prevail. If there is no forceful enactment of justice, there is no justice. This is the grim fact people once knew and are now forgetting.

This tells us too what the Scripture means when it speaks of Christ as King, hailed King from His very birth. The Gospel of Matthew gives us His royal genealogy in its first chapter. Revelation 17:14 tells us that He is the universal King, “for he is Lord of lords, and King of kings.”

When we celebrate the birth of Jesus Christ, we thus celebrate the birth of one who is ordained to right every wrong, overthrow every enemy, and enforce justice. He will put down all enemies before time is ended, and He will reign eternally over His people. The news of His birth, and its celebration, is indeed “joy to the world,” because the Lord is come who shall in the fullness of time enforce justice truly and absolutely.

His promise is peace, not the peace of death and the graveyard, but the peace of justice and prosperity. The Virgin Mary rejoiced, declaring of the justice God and her son would finally establish: “He hath shewed strength with his arm; he hath scattered the proud in the imagination of their hearts. He hath put down the mighty from their seats, and exalted them of low degree. He hath filled the hungry with good things; and the rich he hath sent empty away” (Luke 1:51-53).

If we believe in Christ, we shall rejoice, and we shall be confident, come
what may. We have a King!”

~ RJR

 

Celibate “Gay” Christians

Link,

Gay Christians choosing celibacy emerge from the shadows

The LGBT community has arrived at a trick that they’ve used to advance their agenda. It is a old trick by now but still one that is used with great effectiveness. This trick is to create a distinction between sodomite practice and sodomite inclination. The LGBT crowd will argue, for example, that that homosexual activity is sinful but the orientation is not. Typically celibate sodomites will then insist that they remain “gay Christians,” but are celibate gay Christians. For an example of this kind of reasoning, a recent Denominational annual meeting found one such person standing up and speaking to his denominational ruling structure saying, “I stand before you as a 40-year-old, single, celibate and chaste yet openly gay man … no longer willing to be silent.”

Now where the trick comes in is that it will be advanced by someone in a discussion that sodomites should be allowed to be members of the Church. Typically someone will protest the idea pointing out the appropriate scriptures. Much heat will arise and then suddenly the original agitator will trot out that when they said that “gays should be allowed to be members” they really meant that celibate sodomites who still self identify as “gay” should allowed to be members.

My conviction on this is that this taking in of celibate sodomites, as members in a Christian church, who still self identify as being “gay,” is just one more way in which the sodomite agenda is advanced. The fact that people, though celibate, still refer to themselves as “gay” is, in my estimation, an attempt to maintain the myth that people are born gay just like they are born left handed or are born black or white. There is not one whit of empirical evidence of this that is not produced by people with an agenda. If the LGBT crowd can linguistically manipulate Christians into accepting the idea that other Christians should be thought of as “gay but celibate” it will be easier to move to the next stage of having those same Christians accept the idea of “gay and not celibate.”

Secondly, ideally, the Biblical Christian abhors his sins, cares not to identify with his sins, and wants nothing to do with his sins any longer. He would never label himself a pervert (“gay Christian”) unless he was trying to preserve this sin in his heart. Yet, the Christian faith is supposed to be the new birth where old things are passed away, and where all things have become new. When the celibate “gay Christian” self identifies as “gay” they are retaining an identity that is counted dead. Ask yourself how much sense it would make if someone saved out of bestiality still self identified as a “cow loving Christian.” Would it make sense for a someone saved out of Necrophilia to still self identify as a “dead person loving Christian.” Even if someone is saved out of kleptomania you never hear them self identifying as a “Thief Christian.” And yet, the Church is told today, by many, that it is perfectly acceptable for people to continue to identify with either a former sin or a current temptation.

Please don’t misunderstand. I celebrate and applaud the grace of God that has saved His people out of perversion and cheer that they are celibate. I only discountenance the idea that they should keep self identifying with their sin. St. Paul could write with sodomites and other repentant sinners in mind,

11 And such some of you were [once]. But you were washed clean (purified by a complete atonement for sin and made free from the guilt of sin), and you were consecrated (set apart, hallowed), and you were justified [pronounced righteous, by trusting] in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ and in the [Holy] Spirit of our God.

I understand that progressive sanctification is incremental and so issues of who we are in Christ Jesus take time to comprehend but at the very least we ought to tell those who have been Redeemed out of sodomy that their identification is no longer in their “gayness.” They are most certainly not “gay Christians.” They are Christians, who, like all Christians, struggle with temptations and even besetting sins. Once this is understood we can pray that from that point their sanctification might well bring them to the point of putting off the old man of perverted desires for the same gender and putting on the new man with its normal desire of heterosexuality.

Deconstructing Vanderklay on Rob Bell

Over at this link

http://paulvanderklay.wordpress.com/2014/12/04/rob-bell-as-gateway-drug-but-in-which-direction/

we find a mild rebuke of anyone who would be so arrogant as to question the orthodoxy of Rob Bell. Of course the author of the piece has no problem questioning the integrity of those who question Rob Bell.

What follows is my response to Paul’s thoughts,

1.) The fact that false teachers have always existed, do exist now, and will always exist does not mean that we should support said false teachers in any way. Rob Bell is clearly,

a.) A universalist

Rob Bell, Velvet Elvis, 83:

“This reality, this forgiveness, this reconciliation, is true for everybody. Paul insisted that when Jesus died on the cross he was reconciling ‘all things, in heaven and on earth, to God. This reality then isn’t something we make true about ourselves by doing something. It is already true.”

b.) A denier of the unique authority of Scripture

Rob Bell, Velvet Elvis, 67–68:

“It wasn’t until the 300s that what we know as the sixty-six books of the Bible were actually agreed upon as the ‘Bible’. This is part of the problem with continually insisting that one of the absolutes of the Christian faith must be a belief that “Scripture alone” is our guide. It sounds nice, but it is not true.

c.) Dubious on the central Christian doctrine of the Atonement

The God’s Aren’t Angry. DVD. Authored by Rob Bell

“The blood was never for God, that was just to help humans live with, absorb, and trust, the love of a God who keeps on insisting, trust me.”

Anyone of these would place Bell outside the circle of orthodoxy. All of them taken together distinguishes him very little, in terms of orthodoxy as a whole, from Joseph Smith, The Medieval Cathari, or my ex Brother-in-law who insists he himself is Jesus.

3.) God has even used talking donkeys in the past but that does not mean we should support talking Donkeys as evangelists.

4.) Bell most certainly does not present the Gospel in any positive way. If he is not presenting the Gospel at all (and he is not) then it is not possible to present it in a positive way.

5.) All because there is not a lot more harm that can be done doesn’t mean we should support those who keep doing harm.

6.) Paul Vander Klay said,

“Again, for those of us who are deep into church and the theological landscape if we were to research something we’d have an entire theological filter we’d use to automatically select or de-select churches, books, leaders in order to do our exploration. Normal people don’t work this way. ”

Actually, this is not even close to being true. All people come equipped with a theological filter. Now they may not be epistemologically self conscious about it but they have it all the same and they use that filter just as much as anyone who is “deep into church and the theological landscape.” Paul is just in error here.

7.) Paul V.K. wrote,

“Rob Bell in all of the ways that irritate me is going to put Jesus on the map for millions of people in an attractive way.”

This is another errant statement by Paul.

a.) When Bell speaks about “Jesus” what makes you think he is talking about the Jesus that walks through the Scriptures? Bell’s Jesus is an alien Jesus having precious little, if anything in common with the Jesus in the Bible.

b.) By this reasoning of Paul’s (and yours?) we should rejoice in Mary Baker Eddy, or Sun Myung Moon or Jan Matthys since thy presented Jesus in an attractive manner and gained lots of listeners.

c.) Bell’s “Jesus” is grotesquely ugly. There is nothing attractive at all about Bell’s Jesus.

8.) I do not envy Bell. In point of fact, I pity Bell.

9.) Paul ends by warning us about the “log and speck” danger and yet here is Paul looking to take the speck out of those who critique Bell while missing potential logs in his own eye. This warning about “log and speck” when absolutized would mean that we could not point out error in any one or anything since, as fallen men, we all have our logs with which to contend.

Ambrose contra Symmachus, Piper, Mohler & all R2K

“Those who forsake the law praise the wicked, but those who keep the law strive against them.”

Proverbs 28:4

In the 4th century Emperor Gratian’s removal of the pagan altar of victory from the Senate was the occasion for a great debate between Symmachus, the leader of the pagan aristocracy, and the ablest Italian ecclesiastic, Bishop Ambrose of Milan (St. Ambrose). Symmachus was the classical Liberal in this debate and was arguing against Ambrose that all the ancient pagan religions should be reinstated in Rome and Christianity not be allowed to be the unique religion of the people. Symmachus had all the liberal qualities that arise when liberals are in the minority. Symmachus was tolerant, generous and simply wanted fairness. Symmachus argued that many roads lead to God — why should the old religion of Rome, under whose aegis the Roman state had prospered, not be left in Peace he reasoned.

“We demand then the restoration of that condition of religious affairs which was so long advantageous to the state. Let the rulers of each sect and of each opinion be counted up; a late one(3) practised the ceremonies of his ancestors, a later(4) did not put them away. If the religion of old times does not make a precedent, let the connivance of the last(5) do so….

(Formerly our Emperor) enquired about the origin of the temples, and expressed admiration for their builders. Although he himself followed another religion, he maintained its own for the empire, for everyone has his own customs, everyone his own rites…. Now if a long period gives authority to religious customs, we ought to keep faith with so many centuries, and to follow our ancestors, as they happily followed theirs….

Let me live after my own fashion, for I am free….

We ask, then, for peace for the gods of our fathers and of our country. It is just that all worship should be considered as one. We look on the same stars, the sky is common, the same world surrounds us. What difference does it make by what pains each seeks the truth? We cannot attain to so great a secret by one road; but this discussion is rather for persons at ease, we offer now prayers, not conflict.”

Read those words of the champion of the pagan cause, Symmachus again, and ask yourself how similar they sound to modern day Symmachus like Christian clergy.

“Well, Christians should step back for a moment and recognize that there is something important here at stake. There is no reason why Christians should argue against having a Muslim holiday on the school calendar if there is a significant group or percentage of Muslims in the community – that would simply be fair and it would simply makes sense. We should not claim the privilege of having our religious holidays on the calendar and consider it some kind of Christian victory to keep other religious holidays off the calendar.”

Albert “Symmachus” Mohler

“We express a passion for the supremacy of God… by making clear that God himself is the foundation for our commitment to a pluralistic democratic order-not because pluralism is his ultimate ideal, but because in a fallen world, legal coercion will not produce the kingdom of God. Christians agree to make room for non-Christian faiths (including naturalistic, materialistic faiths), not because commitment to God’s supremacy is unimportant, but because it must be voluntary, or it is worthless. We have a God-centered ground for making room for atheism.”

John Symmachus Piper

Contrary to Symmachus of old, and modern day Symmachus’, Ambrose was the man who stood upon the principle that Christianity as the one true religion must by necessity eclipse all other religions as the God of the Bible eclipses all other gods. Ambrose dealt with Symmachus’ arguments one by one exposing the fallacy in each of them. In that context he addressed Theodosius as to the need to put away the old pagan of religions as they were empty and ineffectual rites. In 392, after Theodosius gained control of the whole empire, he issued an official proscription of paganism, forbidding anyone in any place whatsoever, even in private, to exercise any of the ancient rites of the ancient religion. This action supporting the Christian faith the “Christian” clergy Piper and Mohler would be aghast over.

Ambrose argued against Symmachus, Piper, and Mohler such,

But, says Symmachus, Piper, and Mohler, let the altars be restored to the images, and their ornaments to the shrines. Let this demand be made of one who shares in their superstitions; a Christian Emperor has learnt to honour the altar of Christ alone. Why do they exact of pious hands and faithful lips the ministry to their sacrilege? Let the voice of our Emperor utter the Name of Christ alone, and speak of Him only, Whom he is conscious of, for, “the King’s heart is in the hand of the Lord.”(1) Has any heathen Emperor raised an altar to Christ? While they demand the restoration of things which have been, by their own example they show us how great reverence Christian Emperors ought to pay to the religion which they follow, since heathen ones offered all to their superstitions.

I have answered those who provoked me as though I had not been provoked, for my object was to refute the Memorial, not to expose superstition. But let their very memorial make you, O Emperor, more careful. For after narrating of former princes, that the earlier of them practised the ceremonies of their fathers, and the later did not abolish them; and saying in addition that, if the religious practice of the older did not make a precedent, the connivance of the later ones did; it plainly showed what you owe, both to your faith, viz., that you should not follow the example of heathen rites, and to your affection, that you should not abolish the decrees of your brother. For if for their own side alone they have praised the connivance of those princes, who, though Christians, yet in no way abolished the heathen decrees, how much more ought you to defer to brotherly love, so that you, who ought to overlook some things even if you did not approve them in order not to detract from your brother’s statutes, should now maintain what you judge to be in agreement both with your own faith, and the bond of brotherhood.

Now, it is true that our leaders are hardly Christian but the principle we see in Ambrose is a Christian contending that the one true faith should be honored as the recognized unique faith of the people. This is contrary to the argument that Symmachus, Piper, and Mohler (and all of R2K) advance when they contend that the one true faith of the people is that all the faiths are equal and should be equally honored.

Who will you stand with? Christian Ambrose of Milan or the consummate Liberals Symmachus, Piper, Mohler and R2K?

The full discussion between Symmachus and Ambrose can be found here,

http://www.fordham.edu/halsall/source/ambrose-sym.asp

Thankful for the Explicitness of Rev. Dr. Pastor Lee — R2K Unleashed X

3. Do forget the OT, please. Seriously. You must understand that Romans 12 – 13 and the rest of the NT is a radical departure from OT Israel. Israel’s mandate was to make the land of Canaan (and other nations by extension) submit to its rule and reign. The NT Church is to submit to the reign of the nations. These two mandates are not only different, they are opposite. The prophets were calling the kings to account because it was in their portfolio, it was a theocracy, and the “King” was a type of Christ. NT prophets are preachers, and Caesar is not in their portfolio. Only sin in and among God’s people. This is why Paul says that God himself instituted the civil authority, they are God’s servants, and they answer directly to him, not to him through the church. Romans 13 is not a command. It is a description. They are doing this, now, apart from the Bible or the Church. God has given them sufficient knowledge of good and evil to fulfill their office since the fall.

Dr. Rev. Pastor Brian “Latin reader, no coward, Titles indifferent” Lee

1.) Here we find an explicit dispensationalizing of the OT and a hermeneutic of radical discontinuity. Now, R2K may apply their dispensationalism in different ways but the idea of counseling someone to “Do forget the OT, please. Seriously,” is a Dispensational impulse.

2.) This provides a window into why the Republication theory of the Mosaic Covenant is part and parcel of R2K. R2K needs to slough off any and all general equity talk that remains from the Mosaic covenant, as well as all concrete application of the OT Law to the Post-Resurrection public square. The R2K Republication theory of the Mosaic Covenant serves that purpose. We can make distinctions between R2K and the Mosaic Republication but we must keep before us that the innovative theology that is R2K can not be “successful” apart from their innovative reading of the Mosaic covenant as a Republication with it’s upper and lower registers and its “merit here” but not “merit there” “reasoning.” What the republication of the Mosaic covenant theory offers R2K is the ability to disregard the Mosaic covenant law in any of its concrete expressions, while still retaining the Mosaic law as somehow abstractly abstracted from the Mosaic covenant.

3.) The way that Romans 12 and 13 is read by Lee is yet another example of innovation. I would challenge the reader to read the way that Christopher Goodman read Romans 13 which was fairly typical of men like Knox and a share of the Puritans.

http://www.constitution.org/cmt/goodman/obeyed.htm

Harold Berman offers a good work that traces how the Reformation impacted the Law and Social Order of Nations. Berman traces out how the Reformation applied the insights of God’s Law as expressed in all of Scripture for the ordering of the civil realm.

http://www.amazon.com/Law-Revolution-Protestant-Reformations-Tradition/dp/0674022300/ref=pd_sim_b_6?ie=UTF8&refRID=0HJ54FNAXBDMQ1ZDWVVR

Lee is asserting that his innovative reading of Romans 12-13 should just be accepted upon his word but his assertion is just not accurate.

We need to keep in mind that it is incumbent to read all of the bible in context with all of the Bible. Just consider though how Lee and R2K does not do this. They excise the Mosaic covenant. They tell us to forget the Old Testament … Seriously. They dispensationalize the Scripture. Sure, if you read Romans 13 presupposing your own historically innovative and mistaken matrix naturally one is going to find Romans 12-13 convincingly proving that the Church’s only role is to submit to the anti-Christ State. Lee has need to heed Van Prinsterer’s warning of the need to avoid “serious conceptual confusion when it comes to Church and State and their mutual relation and the misuse that is being made … of the no less apostolic admonition, ‘Let every soul be subject to the higher powers,’ with the result that people run the risk of …. lapsing into a passiveness which is injurious alike to civil liberties and law and order and which in no wise resembles genuine Christian submission.”

All I can do is to beg the reader to look into these things and not accept the assertions of R2K-philes.

4.) Lee’s statement that in the OT the Nations were to ruled by Israel’s religion while in the NT the Israel of God is to b ruled by the pagan religion of the Nations is breathtaking.

“Israel’s mandate was to make the land of Canaan (and other nations by extension) submit to its rule and reign. The NT Church is to submit to the reign of the nations. These two mandates are not only different, they are opposite.”

Please keep in mind, dear reader, that the reign of a nation never happens in a vacuum. To be ruled by a Nation, by necessity, means to be ruled by the religion of said Nation since reigning, like law, has to be informed by some religion or worldview. When Lee tells us that the Church is to submit to the reign of the Nations, he is, by necessity, telling us that the Church is to be ruled by the religion that informs that reign. In my hearing that statement has the sound of treason about it.

Part of our difference here is eschatology but not even amillennialists of old never went so far as to suggest that the Israel of God is to be ruled by the pagan religion of the Nations.

“The thought of the kingdom of God implies the subjection of the entire range of human life in all its forms and spheres to the ends of religion. The kingdom reminds us of the absoluteness, the pervasiveness, the unrestricted dominion, which of right belong to all true religion. It proclaims that religion, and religion alone, can act as the supreme unifying, centralizing factor in the life of man, as that which binds all together and perfects all by leading it to its final goal in the service of God.” (page 194)

Geerhardus Vos
The Teaching of Jesus Concerning the Kingdom of God and the Church

It is Lee’s militant amillennialism (another characteristic of R2K) that informs him. The Nations can not be ruled by the Church’s Christian faith (as opposed to being ruled by the Church) since such ruling can not happen until Christ’s returns. Indeed, for R2K, Christ ruling over concrete Nations in time and space is an impossibility. Hence their hatred for Christendom. You see, their eschatology can not allow it.

Even if you are amillennialist, dear reader, will you close ranks with Lee or Vos on this matter?

5.) Lee’s statement about the mandates being opposite brings us to another conclusion and that is that R2K and standard historical Reformed theology are also opposite. The extremity of the R2K position makes it another Reformed religion. The similarities between R2K and standard historical Reformed theology are only linguistic. R2K has poured new meaning into all the old words and phrases so that even though we may use the same words the meaning is entirely different. One simply cannot rummage around and change beginning principles (covenant, law, denial of general equity, etc.) of our undoubted catholic Christian faith and end up with the same faith.

6.) The fact that Caesar remains in our Portfolio is demonstrated by the fact that in a Constitutional Republic we Christians (Citizens of America and Heaven at the same time) are inclusive of those who are Caesar’s employer. Being Caesar’s employer means that we take of what we learn from our Catechism (LD 40), as it is taught in home and Church, and we apply it in the civil realm. No one denies that a distinction between the two realms exist but to bifurcate the two realms the way R2K does approaches being unfaithful.

As Exodus 18:21 says “But select capable men from all the people–men who fear God, trustworthy men who hate dishonest gain–and appoint them as officials over thousands, hundreds, fifties and tens.” America was set up in this republican form of government. Christians are to be involved in the selection of capable God fearing people to represent society. You will find that the Bible teaches that legitimate civil (not criminal) government is an ordinance of God, and tyrants have no claim upon conscientious submission of Christians in Romans 13.

Ridderbos, an amillennialist, explains how this non-bifurcation realm reality works where the Kingdom of God interacts and transforms the world,

“But the Kingdom of God also defines the Church in its relation to the world. The Church has a foundation of its own, has its own rules, its own mode of existence. But precisely because of the fact that it is the Church of the Kingdom, it has also a positive relation with the world, for the Kingdom of God is seeking acceptance in the world.

A sower went forth to sow. And the field is the world. That is why the Church is seeking catholicity. And this catholicity has a double aspect, one of extension and one of intensity, in accordance with the nature of the Kingdom. So the Church is as wide as the world. The horizons of the world are also the horizons of the Church; therefore its urge to carry on missionary work, to emigrate, to cross frontiers. This is because the Church is the
Church of the Kingdom. She is not allowed to be self-contained.

But there is also an intensive catholicity of the Church because of the Kingdom. The Church is related to life as a whole. It is not a drop of oil on troubled waters. It has a mission in this world and in the entire structure of the world. This statement does not arise from cultural optimism. This is the confession of the kingship of Christ. For this reason, too, the Church is the Church of the Kingdom.

And the third remark is my concluding one: as Church of the Kingdom, the Church is seeking the future. She has received her talents for the present. But her Lord who went into a far country will return. Her waiting for Him consists of working. Otherwise she will hear: What have you done with my talent?”

Herman Ridderbos,
“When the Time Had Fully Come: Studies in New Testament Theology”

Of course the militant amillennialists cannot agree with this quote because for the militant amillennialists the Church and the Kingdom are exactly co-extensive. They are one and the same.

7.) Nobody is advocating that the Civil Magistrate answer to the Church. It’s hard to believe that Lee would make that statement since it is widely known that the Reformed vision, as it came to America, was neither Church over State, nor State over Church. The Reformed vision had it, as it came to the America, that Church and State while distinct were interdependent spheres, each under sovereign God. The State’s end was unto providing Justice to God’s people as God defined Justice, and the Church’s role was to the end of ministering grace to God’s people by word and sacrament in the Christian Church. Each had their own place but neither was cut off and bifurcated from the other. The traditional election cycle sermon is one proof of that.

8.) Finally, the 20th century as the bloodiest century in human history wherein more people were killed by Governments than all other centuries combined completely mocks Lee’s statement, “God has given them (The State) sufficient knowledge of good and evil to fulfill their office since the fall.

This is part of the problem with much of the current ministerial corps. They seemingly have so little knowledge of History. Has Lee never heard of Lenin and Stalin and their murderous purges where tens of millions of people were tortured and killed? Has Lee never heard of Mao, Castro, Pol Pot, Hitler, and any number of other Tyrants who certainly did not have sufficient knowledge of good and evil to fulfill their office?

What Lee and R2K is doing with that kind of magnificently stupid statement is to absolutize the State as God walking on the earth and in doing so may be guilty of fostering idolatry in God’s people. No Institution … no person has absolute authority. All authority is dependent upon and must be in submission unto God’s revealed authority.

Look, in the end R2K is a different Reformed religion. The Understanding of God is different. The understanding of the Kingship of Christ is different. The eschatology is different. The ecclesiology is different. The Hermeneutic is different. The understanding of covenant is different. The understanding of the place and the role of the law is different. It is just a different religion.