Uncategorized – Iron Ink

God Incomparable Micah 7:18f

Who is a God like You,
Pardoning iniquity
And passing over the transgression of the remnant of His heritage?

He does not retain His anger forever,
Because He delights in mercy.^[j]

¹⁹He will again have compassion on us,
And will subdue our iniquities.

You will cast all ^[k]our sins
Into the depths of the sea.
²⁰You will give truth to Jacob
And ^[l]mercy to Abraham,
Which You have sworn to our fathers
From days of old.

Micah 7:18f

Before we delve into this passage we must first give some context of the book of Micah to help these verses make sense.

We must understand that Micah is largely a book wherein God brings a covenant lawsuit against His people. They have violated covenant and God in Micah promises judgment. We know this from the outset,

1:3 For behold the Lord is coming out of His place;
He will come down
And tread on the high places of the earth
The Mountains will melt under Him,
And the valleys will split
Like wax before fire,
Like waters pouring down a steep place
All this is for the transgression of Jacob
And for the sins of Israel

Throughout the book the sins of Israel over which God is wroth are mentioned,

Sorcery – 5:12-14
Fraud in commerce – 6:10-11
Rich oppressing the poor – 2:1-5
Wicked Leadership – 3

God makes His case against Judah. This perhaps most expressly seen in Ch. 6. As you listen remember Micah is a book where God is bringing a covenant lawsuit against Judah.

6 Hear ye now what the Lord saith; Arise, contend thou before the mountains, and let the hills hear thy voice. ²Hear ye, O mountains, the Lord‘s controversy, and ye strong foundations of the earth: for the Lord hath a controversy with his people, and he will plead with Israel. ³O my people, what have I done unto thee? and wherein have I wearied thee? testify against me. ⁴For I brought thee up out of the land of Egypt, and redeemed thee out of the house of servants; and I sent before thee Moses, Aaron, and Miriam.

And as a result of their wickedness God says He is going to visit them with covenant curses,

¹³“Therefore I will also make you sick by striking you,
By making you desolate because of your sins.
¹⁴You shall eat, but not be satisfied;
^[e]Hunger shall be in your midst.
You may carry some away,^[f] but shall not save them;
And what you do rescue I will give over to the sword.

¹⁵“You shall sow, but not reap;
You shall tread the olives, but not anoint yourselves with oil;
And make sweet wine, but not drink wine.
¹⁶For the statutes of Omri are kept;
All the works of Ahab’s house are done;
And you walk in their counsels,
That I may make you a ^[g]desolation,
And your inhabitants a hissing.
Therefore you shall bear the reproach of ^[h]My people.”

A good deal more could be said about the context but this sets us up to appreciate the passage we are considering today.

In Chapter 7 starting w/ vs. 8 we see a new note struck.

In vs. 8-10 Judah confesses and repents
In vs. 11-13 Micah promises a coming day when Israel again will be salvation to a world under judgment
In vs. 14-15 Micah prays that God would have mercy on Judah, God replies
In vs. 16-17 God promises to judge His enemy nations

And then we hit this crescendo touching the character of God in vs. 18-20

Throughout the book we see that judgment begins in the household of God. The book is a covenant lawsuit bring charges against faithless Judah. This demonstrates, as Sam taught last week, that God is a God of justice. God will not be mocked. As a man soweth, that shall he also reap.

In vs. 18-20 though we learn that the God’s last word to His repentant people is mercy. Tears may last through the night but joy cometh in the morning as the Psalmist says.

Micah has spoken of a coming day when God’s righteousness will be seen. He has predicted the birthplace of the coming Messiah (5:2). Sprinkled throughout the book are reminders that God will not completely abandon His people and will retain a remnant. (2:12, 4:7, 5:3,).

Now here God’s covenant hesed (Faithfulness) is brought front and center.

I.) First We Find God’s Character Stated

“Who is a God like You.”

This may be a play on Micah’s name which literally means, “Who is like Jehovah.”

This is a rhetorical question that is requiring an answer that says “no one.”

Micah is making the point that God is incomparable. This is a point that the Scriptures return to over and over again.

Psa 86:8 O Lord, there is none like You among the gods,…
Exo 15:11 Who among the gods is like You, O LORD? Who is like You…
Psalm 71:19 Your righteousness reaches to the heavens, O God, You who have done great things. Who, O God, is like You?
Isaiah 40:18 To whom then will you liken God?
Or what likeness will you compare to Him?

Constantly we are reminded in Micah and elsewhere that our God is distinct and unique from all of His creation. This truth, that no one is like God would have struck home in the ancient world where polytheism was the norm. Constant were the attempts to define God in terms of the false gods all around them.

We also live in a increasingly polytheistic climate. The gods are increasingly as thick as flies in our culture. This is because multi-culturalism necessitates multi-faithism. We need to be reminded,

“Who is God like you.”

This attribute of God being incomparable reminds us also of the creator creature distinct. In many religions there is this idea that man and god share in the same being with the only difference obtaining that God has more being than man has. This is called “chain of being” thinking. But this passage and passages like it teach that God is one of a kind. His uniqueness applies to all His attributes. We could ask “Who is like God when it comes to Justice?” or “Who is like God when it comes to patience,” or “Who is like God when it comes to His jealousy for His people?”

In this little statement, “Who is God like you,” lies an ocean of depth in terms of the character of God.

We spend so little time thinking about how superior God is to us and that lack of considering God’s superiority leads to our own demise.

One more thing here… because we think God is without comparison we have no respect for the false gods that we come across. It is not that we intend to be rude by having no respect for the false gods. It is just that we know their pretensions to be spoken of as gods. Because God is without comparison we take umbrage at the religions that would suggest their puny god has anything to do with God. God’s character is w/o parallel and we rightly resent any gods trying to draw a parallel with the God of the Bible.

II.) Second this Incomparable Quality of God is Spoken of in a Precise Category.

Micah says “Who is a God like You,” and applies it directly to the fact that God pardon’s iniquity and passes over the transgression of His heritage.”

God has brought covenant lawsuit against His people and yet here we find, though Judah is guilty, God’s promises to pardon iniquity.

Clearly we have in Micah God’s promise to requite for sin with the promise here to pardon iniquity and pass over transgression. How do we reconcile these two seeming opposing ideas in a OT context.

The answer to that begins by looking at the word here for “pardon.” This comes from the Hebrew word “nasa.” It has a broad range of meaning but its primary thrust is “to lift,” “to carry,” or “to bear.” The literal meaning is seen in Gen. 7:17 where the word is used to talk about Noah’s ark being lifted up by the waters.

However when this word is combined with contexts of sin the Hebrew word “nasa” takes on the sense of “lifting up,” “bearing” or “pardoning” the penalty or price for one’s sins. We see this power of the word coming to us in the Day of Atonement ceremonies where we read of the scapegoat nasa (carrying) on itself all Israel’s sins (Lev. 16:22).In Isaiah 53:4 the servant of the Lord nasa (carries or bears) our infirmities. When John the Baptist said, “Behold the Lamb of God who nasa (takes away) the sins of the world one can’t help but wonder if this Hebrew word used in Micah for “pardon our iniquities” was on the mind of John the Baptist.

The point we are making here is that even in the OT we understand that this God who is incomparable in pardoning sins does not pardon them apart from an atonement and the word “nasa” here in Micah 7, we are suggesting, when read in the context of the whole of Scripture, is more than a hint that God’s pardoning comes in the context of the penalty being paid. Christ does bear or carry our sins. Christ is lifted up that our sins might be pardoned.

God pardons Israel of her great sins and passes over her transgressions not by forgetting His justice. Behind the idea of pardoning lies the whole infrastructure of the OT idea of atonement which itself is luminary of the final pardoning as anchored in Jesus Christ, the Lamb of God who nasa (took on) our infirmities (Is. 53:4) and who nasa (carried) away on Himself all His people’s sins (Lev. 16:22).

God’s pardoning of the OT saints was upon the same basis as God’s pardoning of the NT saints.

Another point we want to bring out here concerning that great mercy and grace of God in pardoning sins by bearing (nasa) the penalty Himself in the 2nd person of the Trinity is the idea how in the ancient world this idea for needing pardon was unique to the Hebrew people.

The Hebrew Scripture is filled with the idea that man is a sinner in need of forgiveness. However, this idea of needing forgiveness was itself unique to the Hebrew faith.

Remember, pagan man believed with modern man that man is basically good. The pagan gods were not righteous gods and were often worse in their behavior then their supplicants. Scholars have noted that there are no clear cases of forgiveness in foundational texts like the Homeric epics. The concept of forgiveness as a moral idea was not fully articulated in ancient Greek or Roman thought.

In the ancient world sacrifices were offered to the gods not for forgiveness or for pardon but for insurance. Only the Hebrew mindset and later the Christian mindset knew this need for pardon. The ancients offered up sacrifices as a bribe to the gods for treating you well in whatever venture you might be concerned about. You were buying insurance with your offerings. If the god that you bribed with a sacrifice didn’t come through you moved on to another temple and another god to bribe him. So, the sacrifice was about controlling the gods. It was man centered. Man didn’t see Himself as sinner and so he didn’t need god to pardon Him.

But God has been gracious to us by convincing us first of our need for pardon and then providing a freely given pardon by means of Jesus bearing (nasa) our sins for us.

We might add here that we live again in a time when men see themselves as basically good and do not see their need for pardon. This explains why it is the Gospel cannot exclude the idea of men as sinners. Only when men are convinced they are sinners are they amazed that God is a God who pardons for the sake of Jesus Christ and His atonement.

We would take a moment to consider some application

If God is without comparison and this incomparable God is our God for the sake of Jesus Christ why are we … why am I … so disturbed by all that presents itself in opposition to this God who is without comparison? If God so exceeds all opposition why do we … why do I fear so easily? If this God which none can be compared is for us who can be against us?

III.) Note here the finality of God’s pardoning

“You will cast all our sins, into the depth of the sea.”

This is echoed in Psalm 103:12 with a slightly different metaphor

as far as the east is from the west,
so far does he remove our transgressions from us.

As we get older we reflect on the life lived and we see where we have really sinned and we groan about our sinfulness. We wish that we had never done such and such or said such and such. At such times we have to remind ourselves that God has cast all our sins, into the depths of the sea.

The language used here about casting brings up the memories of the language of how God dealt with the Egyptians (Ex. 15:1-5)

Pharaoh’s chariots and his army He has cast into the sea;
His chosen captains also are drowned in the Red Sea.

Just as the Egyptians were cast into the sea so our sins have been cast into the depths of the sea. God does not remember them. They have been atoned for by the work of Jesus Christ.

It is possible we do not realize what a blessing it is to no longer carry our sins. But keep in mind that people who do not have that blessing become caricatures of what God intended people to be.

The best example of this that I know of in literature is Dostoevsky’s character Raskolnikov in his novel Crime & Punishment.

Dostoevsky masterfully portrays how guilt manifests itself not as a single, overwhelming emotion, but as a slow, gnawing presence that chips away at Raskolnikov’s sanity. He becomes his own worst enemy, constantly trying to justify his crime while simultaneously being crushed by the weight of it.

This is every sinner to one degree or another. They are carrying a guilt that morphs and twists them into something God never intended man to be. The sinner who has not found a way to relieve himself of his guilt will wear that guilt on him or her self like a ancient medieval hair shirt.

But we have been delivered from all that. Our guilt has been cast into the depths of the sea. We are free to be all whom God created us to be.

Whatever thanksgiving you have save the greatest share of your thanksgiving that you no longer bear your guilt and misery.

McAtee Corrects Phil Johnson’s Awful Sermon on “Christian Nationalism” III

We continue breaking down Phil Johnson’s Awful Sermon against Christian Nationalism. I would even say this sermon was blasphemous inasmuch as Johnson in this sermon is denying to Christ His own crown rights. Johnson’s sermon, if owned by his listeners would deplete the urgency of the Great Commission where we are taught,

Go ye therefore, and teach all nations, baptizing them (all nations) in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost: ²⁰Teaching them (all nations) to observe all things whatsoever I have commanded you: and, lo, I am with you always, even unto the end of the world. Amen.

Phil, being premillennial Baptist thinks only in terms of the individual and never in terms of nations.

We should be praying for Phil Johnson. First, that even at his age he might repent but also, Phil is dealing with a life threatening cancer. As much as we are put off by this terrible sermon we still have compassion. Indeed, it is because we have compassion on those who might take Phil seriously that we rebuke Johnson.

Phil Johnson (PJ) sermonizes,

You may be asking, what does any of this have to do with Bible prophecy in the end times? I’m glad you asked. The fallacy underlying almost all strains of Christian nationalism is a post-millennialism (PM) eschatology.

Bret resonds,

This really is the crux of the issue. Remember Phil, was John MacArthur’s right hand man for decades. John MacArthur was the man who said, from the pulpit, “We lose down here.”

So when PJ says the kind of things we have been seeing here it is consistent with his own errant eschatology. However, if nothing else, PJ’s sermon dramatically reveals the difference that eschatology makes in a persons thinking. Because PJ believes that “we lose down here” that means he finds abhorrent any theology that suggests Christians will be victorious, in and by Christ, down here.

PJ embraces an eschatology (the doctrine that teaches the ultimate teleology of the Christian life) that insists that the Kingdom of Christ is totally future and only comes in at the end of history after Christians and the Church have been soundly defeated by the forces of the Anti-Christ. In Premillennialism Christians and the Church are on their last legs ready to go down to utter defeat whereupon Jesus comes back to personally defeat his heretofore conquering enemies. He then sets up an earthly Kingdom with Him as the regent and rules for a thousand years. At that time we have the great white throne judgment and a new heavens and new earth.

So, because of his theology (particularly his premillennial eschatology) PJ cannot have any tuck with a theology (postmillennial eschatology) that teaches that Christ goes from victory unto victory continuing to establish His already present Kingdom by the means of Holy Spirit filled sanctified living of His saints and the faithfulness of His church preaching the Lordship of Jesus Christ over every area of life as they seek to take captive every thought to make it obedient to Christ (I Cor. 10:3-5).

⁴For the weapons of our warfare are not ^[a]carnal but mighty in God for pulling down strongholds, ⁵casting down arguments and every high thing that exalts itself against the knowledge of God, bringing every thought into captivity to the obedience of Christ,

The differences them between PJ’s dispensational premillennialism and postmillennialism are of such a nature it really makes for two very different expressions of Christianity. Further, these differences are worldview in nature. That is, the differences are of such a vast nature that those who hold to these opposing eschatologies end up being very different people.

As an aside, the Reformed Church for hundreds of years, embraced as its majority report postmillennialism. PM was the eschatology of the largest share of the Puritans. PM was the eschatology of the old Princeton crowd of the Hodges, Warfield, and Archibald Alexander and his son J. A. Alexander.

As an example of the optimism of Postmillennialism in contradiction to PJ’s pessimistic premillennial eschatology we offer a quote form Princeton’s J. A. Alexander from his commentary on Isaiah 2,

In commenting upon Isaiah 2:2-4, Alexander sets out the following points:

The prophet sees the church, at some distant period, exalted and conspicuous, and the nations resorting to it for instruction in the true religion, as a consequence of which he sees war cease and universal peace prevail….The prophecy begins with an abrupt prediction of the exaltation of the church, the confluence of nations to it, and a general pacification as the consequence….This confluence of nations is described more fully, and its motive stated in their own words, namely, a desire to be instructed in the true religion. He who appeared in the preceding verses as the lawgiver and teacher of the nations, is now represented as an arbiter or umpire, ending their disputes by a pacific intervention, as a necessary consequence of which war ceases, the very knowledge of the art is lost, and its implements applied to other uses….The event is suspended upon a previous condition, viz., the confluence of nations to the church, which has not yet taken place; a strong inducement to diffuse the gospel, which, in the mean time, is peaceful in its spirit, tendency, and actual effect, wherever and so far as it exerts its influence without obstruction

Jonathan Edwards also wrote a long treatise supporting Postmillennialism.

The Premillennialism of PJ’s persuasion came in like a flood following the Civil War and reached a crescendo with the rise of the theological movement called Dispensationalism.

So, because PJ, by way of conviction, hates postmillennialism he is driven to insist that PM is a fallacy. He does so in favor of his own fallacious thinking that embraces Dispensational premillennialism.

PJ sermonizes,

Postmillennialism is the view that it is the duty of the church to establish the kingdom of Christ on earth and then once the church has gained dominion, then Jesus will return to take the the throne. And I hope you can see immediately why Christian nationalism would appeal to someone with that view of the end times.

BLMc

First, we should note that with the coming of Christ the Kingdom of God was then established,

^{Col. 1:13}For he (God) has rescued us from the dominion of darkness and brought us into the kingdom of the Son he loves, ¹⁴in whom we have redemption, the forgiveness of sins.

We could not be put into a Kingdom that had not yet been established. So, the first error of PJ is to think that Postmillennialists believe that the Kingdom of God is not established and they have to establish something that is not yet a reality. The Kingdom of God is present. Jesus even said, “The Kingdom is in our midst (Luke 17:21)”

Second, it is true though, that while the Kingdom is already present there is the necessity for Christians in their sphere and the institutional church in its sphere to be participants and advocates for an ever growing expression of the Kingdom of God until such a time when in God’s sovereignty the knowledge of the Lord covers the earth as the waters cover the sea (Habakkuk 2:14).

Third, Postmillennialism, contrary to PJ’s assertion, does not teach that the “church is going to gain dominion.” Postmillennialism does teach that the Christian faith is going to gain dominion. The Church will always only have a jurisdiction where, by the faithful handling of the keys of the Kingdom, opens and shuts the Kingdom, by means of Word and Sacrament. PJ’s language hints at the idea that PM’s believe that the institutional church is going to giving all the orders. Quite to the contrary, PM believes that Christians, in their particular callings, will exercise godly dominion to the end that all callings will Kiss the Son, lest they perish in the way. For example, Christian Magistrates, operating in their proper jurisdiction will craft and enforce laws that are consistent with God’s scriptural revelation. It won’t be the “Church” doing that. It will be Christians serving as magistrates. So, beware premillennial scare tactics that the Church is going to turn the globe into one giant ecclesiocracy.

PJ sermonizes,

But the chief problem with PM is that there is no suggestion anywhere in scripture that it is the duty of the church to establish political control in the world before Christ will return to reign and rule. Rather, Christ will establish his kingdom for himself.

BLMc

As we have seen Postmills don’t teach that it is the duty of the Church to establish political control in the world before Christ returns. No, we would say it is the duty of Spirit filled Christians to champion the Lordship of Jesus Christ over every area of life (including politics) to the end that the already present Kingdom leavens all like yeast working through the dough (Matthew 13 – Parable of the Leaven).

Secondly, we do believe that Christ will establish His Kingdom for Himself, as by His Spirit He works in and through the obedience of His people to the end that the Kingdoms of this world become the Kingdoms of our Lord and His Christ.

Thirdly, there is plenty of scripture that teach postmillennialism. We could look at the Parable of the Leaven in Matthew 13. We could look at the parable of the Mustard seed, also in Matthew 13. We could look at Isaiah 2 or Psalm 72. However, for the sake of space let’s just look at I Corinthians 15,

²⁵For He must reign till He has put all enemies under His feet. ²⁶The last enemy that will be destroyed is death

The “He” there is referring to Christ who is even now at the right hand of the Father interceding for His church. The text says that Jesus, the Christ is reigning right now and will continue to reign until all enemies are put under His feet.

We note here the relationship between I Cor. 15:25 and Psalm 110:1b,

“Sit at My right hand, until I make Thine enemies a footstool for Thy feet.”

The inspired Apostle substitutes the word “reign” for the language of Ps. 110 where we read, “Sit at my right hand.” Paul’s language gives the same meaning as in Ps. 110. In the reigning that Paul speaks of we are taught that Jesus is presently and actively putting down His enemies in space and time. This is what it means “to reign.”

This current, present and active reign of Jesus as King of Kings and Lord of Lords is continuous until the “last enemy” (death) is “swallowed up in victory.” So, Christ is actively reigning now and will continue to actively reign until that final enemy is defeated at his appearance (coming).

When we take this in conjunction with the parable of the Mustard Seed and the Parable of the Leaven we conclude that Scripture teaches that the reign of Jesus is not something that is restricted to a future time (as Johnson suggests) but is something that is and will continue to be current and ongoing and incrementally increasingly muscular until Jesus returns to defeat the final enemy (death). We learn thus that the millennial reign, in the terms of Psalm 110 and I Cor. 15, occurs between His resurrection and His appearance (Parousia) whereupon death is swallowed in life.

So, contra Johnson, there is plenty of evidence in Scripture (and we have only touched the tip of the tip of the iceberg) that Christians and the Church will advance so that the gates of Hell will not prevail in politics, economics, family life, law, education, etc.

Johnson is just in error and if it was only Johnson we would leave it alone but this teaching is poison as it works to the end of the kind of defeatism that walks into the pulpit before thousands of people and loudly says,

“We lose down here.”

Quite to the contrary, we are more than conquerors, as Scripture teaches.

Political Cesspool … A brief Defense of Nationalism.

When we consider the biblical case for ethno-Nationalism we build a cumulative case that begins in Genesis at the creation of Eve. Citing R. J. Rushdoony here we observe that,

“Since Eve was created from Adam and is Adam’s reflected image of God, she was of Adam and an image of Adam as well. The meaning of this is that a true help-meet is man’s counterpart, i.e. that a cultural, racial, and especially religious similarity is needed so that the woman can truly mirror the man and be his image.”

– RJ Rushdoony, Institutes of Biblical Law, p. 351

The point here is that in order for Eve to be a genuine helpmeet to Adam she had to be a reflection of Adam. There had to be commonality between the first man and first woman and those commonalities we would today consider to be along racial and cultural lines. From here we would insist that these very same kind of commonalities give marriages the best opportunity to be successful. It only stands to reason that in bringing a man and a woman together in marriage that you want as much common ground as possible and a large part of that common ground desired in marriage is sharing the same racial and socio-culture background.

So, the creation of Eve for Adam as one who was taken from Adam points us in the direction of ethno-nationalism given the fact that Eve was a proper fit for Adam as a helpmeet. No one really believes that Eve as Adam’s helpmeet was a decided stark contrast to Adam in her ethnic and cultural characteristics.

Citing Rushdoony again,

the whole point of marriage is that the wife be a helpmeet to her husband, and the term “helpmeet” means in effect a mirror, an image, one who reflects him spiritually; that is, in terms of faith, in terms of a common background, in terms of a common purpose. Now, marriage between persons of very different races generally doesn’t fulfill that requirement, you see.

“The Law of Divorce”

“[T]he biblical doctrine is that the wife is a helpmeet. Eve was created to be Adam’s counterpart, his image. This means, therefore, in the first marriage, which is a pattern of all marriage, there was a racial, a cultural, and especially a religious similarity and congeniality. Therefore, we must say that mixed marriages, religiously and culturally and racially, are not in conformity to the biblical standard. The wife cannot be a helpmeet, a counterpart to her husband, if she reflects an alien standard. As a result, cross-cultural marriages are normally failures.”

From Rushdoony’s sermon, ‘Marriage and Woman’

From there we see that the idea of distinct nations are first mentioned in Genesis 10 with the listed table of nations. Here we find a clear articulation of distinct nations post-flood. These nations are listed by heredity. They all share Father Noah but like branches off a common trunk the nations are named as an extension of the sons of Noah. From here the word “Nation” is used consistently in Scripture as those descended from a particular common ancestor.

The desire to build the first New World Order wherein all peoples and nations are to disappear was first concocted by a chap named Nimrod. Nimrod desired to bring all the peoples together in order to make a name for themselves as opposed to making a name for God. This was the first attempt at Empire we might say. With this commitment to a global political unity God is displeased because He knows this is a humanistic attempt to fuse all of mankind into a giant blob in order to seize divinity. In order to squelch this God confuses the language of the men of Babel so that they are forced to obey the original command to fill the earth. Genesis 10 and 11 thus form a clear articulation that God intends and delights in nations.

And the presence of nations is not limited to what we find in Genesis 10. Throughout the OT we are presented with the reality of the nations as nations as well as the continuity of nations into the New Jerusalem. For example in Isaiah 2 the prophet writes anticipating the final day,

^{Isaiah 2:2}And it shall come to pass in the last days that the mountain of the Lord’S house shall be established on the top of the mountains, and shall be exalted above the hills, and all nations shall flow unto it.³And many people shall go and say, “Come ye, and let us go up to the mountain of the Lord, to the house of the God of Jacob; and He will teach us of His ways, and we will walk in His paths.” For out of Zion shall go forth the law, and the word of the Lord from Jerusalem. ⁴And He shall judge among the nations, and shall rebuke many people; and they shall beat their swords into plowshares, and their spears into pruning hooks; nation shall not lift up sword against nation, neither shall they learn war anymore.

Here we see nations remaining in their nations on those last days. This is a theme taken up again in Isaiah 19 and again we see a promise that a day was coming when other nations would have God as their Lord and would be counted a people of God’s inheritance.

24 In that day Israel will be one of three with Egypt and Assyria—a blessing in the midst of the land, 25 whom the Lord of hosts shall bless, saying, “Blessed is Egypt My people, and Assyria the work of My hands, and Israel My inheritance.”

Here we see the Spirit inspired prophet writing that in the course of history, as the Gospel would go forward other nations besides Israel would be people of God’s inheritance. Now, to undergird this as not being just my opinion allow me to cite a chap who I have cited before,

NT Calvin Seminary Reformed theologian Dr. Martin Wyngaarden offers here,

“Now the predicates of the covenant are applied in Isa. 19 to the Gentiles of the future, — “Egypt my people, and Assyria, the work of my hands, and Israel, mine inheritance,” Egypt, the people of “Jehovah of hosts,” (Isa. 19:25) is therefore also expected to live up to the covenant obligations, implied for Jehovah’s people. And Assyria comes under similar obligations and privileges. These nations are representative of the great Gentile world, to which the covenant privileges will, therefore, be extended.”

Martin J. Wyngaarden, The Future of the Kingdom in Prophecy and Fulfillment: A Study of the Scope of “Spiritualization” in Scripture (Eugene: Wipf & Stock, 2011), p. 94.

And again,

“More than a dozen excellent commentaries could be mentioned that all interpret Israel as thus inclusive of Jew and Gentile, in this verse, — the Gentile adherents thus being merged with the covenant people of Israel, though each nationality remains distinct.”

“For, though Israel is frequently called Jehovah’s People, the work of his hands, his inheritance, yet these three epithets severally are applied not only to Israel, but also to Assyria and to Egypt: “Blessed be Egypt, my people, and Assyria, the work of my hands, and Israel, mine inheritance.” 19:25.

Thus the highest description of Jehovah’s covenant people is applied to Egypt, — “my people,” — showing that the Gentiles will share the covenant blessings, not less than Israel. Yet the several nationalities are here kept distinct, even when Gentiles share, in the covenant blessing, on a level of equality with Israel. Egypt, Assyria, and Israel are not nationally merged. And the same principles, that nationalities are not obliterated, by membership in the covenant, applies, of course, also in the New Testament dispensation.”

Martin Wyngaarden
The Future of the Kingdom in Prophecy and Fulfillment: A Study of the Scope of “Spiritualization” in Scripture — pp. 101-102.

So, I agree with Dr. Wyngaarden that national distinctions, because they are ordained by God, do not go away even into the new Jerusalem. The reasoning is, if they remain present in the New Jerusalem in the New Heavens and earth then who are we to suggest that they are not important today and should be ignored?

But more important than what Dr. Martin Wyngaarden or I think Scripture itself bears out the continued existence of the nations into the new heavens and earth in Revelation 21,

^{Rev. 21:24}And the nations of those who are saved shall walk in its light, and the kings of the earth bring their glory and honor into it. ²⁵Its gates shall not be shut at all by day (there shall be no night there). ²⁶And they shall bring the glory and the honor of the nations into it.

Here we see the creational distinctions that God ordained in Gen. 10:5, as well as Dt. 32:8, and Acts 17:26 would be perpetually established into the eschaton.

⁵From these the coastland peoples of the Gentiles were separated into their lands, everyone according to his language, according to their families, into their nations.

Dt.32:8When the Most High divided their inheritance to the nations,
When He separated the sons of Adam,
He set the boundaries of the peoples
According to the number of the children of Israel.

^{Acts 17:26}And He has made from one blood every nation of men to dwell on all the face of the earth, and has determined their preappointed times and the boundaries of their dwellings,

Now we must end here by asking, “who is it that historically and philosophically speaking has always opposed this Christian doctrine of the nations.”

And the answer to that question is the Atheistic, Materialistic, Humanistic Marxists. The Marxists have always embraced, as central to their program, the elimination of all nations. The Marxists have always desired to rebuild the Tower of Babel.

‎”What will be the attitude of communism to existing nationalities?

The nationalities of the peoples associating themselves in accordance with the principle of community will be compelled to mingle with each other as a result of this association and hereby to dissolve themselves, just as the various estate and class distinctions must disappear through the abolition of their basis, private property.”

~ Frederick Engels in “The Principles of Communism”, 1847

Or we might consult one Nikita Khrushchev on the matter Bojidar.

“Full-scale Communist construction constitutes a new stage in the development of national relations in the U.S.S.R., in which the nations will draw still closer together until complete unity is achieved…. However, the obliteration of national distinctions and especially of language distinctions is a considerably longer process than the obliteration of class distinctions.”

Nikita Khrushchev

Or perhaps Marx himself,

“Even the natural differences within species, like racial

differences…, can and must be done away with historically.”

K. Marx’s Collected Works V:103,

As cited in S.F. Bloom’s The World of Nations: A

Study of the National Implications in the Work of Karl Marx, Columbia University Press, New York, 1941, pp. 11 & 15-19:

So, when we maintain that God delights in national distinctions we are standing with Scripture, with the Church Fathers, and against those who have most thoroughly hated Biblical Christianity.

McAtee Contra Jay Dyer’s Offerings On Justification On Tucker’s Show – II

“And so when the reformation kicks off there’s this debate about how could you be called righteous if you’re not in fact righteous. So if as a human being you are, you know menstrual rags as Isaiah says, and as the reformers said then how could God call you righteous without being a liar? What enters in is nominalism and nominalism is able to say, ‘ah because things don’t have actually have essences they just have names and so if God calls you that you are that legally even though in actual fact you are not.'”

Jay Dyer
Eastern Orthodox Fanboy
Tucker Carlson Interview

1.) This is the complaint again of the Reformed view of Justification being a “legal fiction.” The Papists and the EO dust bunnies throw the charge at the descendants of the Reformed incessantly. It has been explained away so many times you’d think the accusation would cease being hurled.

2.) Dyer hasn’t taken into account Romans 11:6

“In the same way, at the present time there is a remnant chosen by grace. 6And if it is by grace, then it is no longer by works. Otherwise, grace would no longer be grace.”

Since Dyer is shutting the door to monergistic salvation, he is only left with synergistic salvation wherein man co-operates with God to the end of finally becoming just so that God can declare him just. Yet, per Romans 11:6 this is to transform grace into not grace.

Dyer wants salvation to be completely anchored in the transformative work of the Holy Spirit within us but even the Apostle Paul, towards the end of his life could say he remained “the chief of sinners.” We cannot be saved by the transformative work of the Spirit absent the juridical declaration of righteousness based upon the finished work of Christ on our behalf as our substitute. This is due to the fact that even with Union with Christ / regeneration we remain at the same time sinners. It is true that because of union with Christ we increasingly conform to the image of Christ, yet, as the Heidelberg catechism teaches it is only death that puts an end to our sinning.

Q. Since Christ has died for us, why do we still have to
die?

A. Our death does not pay the debt of our sins.1
Rather, it puts an end to our sinning
and is our entrance into eternal life.2

1 Psalm 49:7.
2 John 5:24; Philippians. 1:21–23; 1 Thessalonians 5:9, 10.

Since it is only death that puts an end to our sinning, if we only had the transformative work of the Spirit as the basis of being right with God we would not be right with God and we would be forever lost. The transformative work of the Spirit is a reality for the Christian. We are constantly putting off the old man and putting on the new man. However, the Christian’s assurance of being right with God is the legal declaration of their sins being imputed to Christ and Christ’s righteousness being imputed to them.

3.) Again, this is not a legal fiction in the sense of being God’s arbitrary decree. God is not just saying, “OK, you’re righteous, even though you’re clearly not.” That would be legal fiction.” All of this is not “legal fiction” because God has legally imputed the non-fiction righteousness of Jesus Christ to the account of His elect. There is no fiction here though there are legal declarations. Dyer simply doesn’t like the Scripture’s teaching that “Christ died, the just for the unjust.” Dyer doesn’t like the idea of Christ as our substitute. We know this because of his complaint against penal substitutionary atonement. Dyer doesn’t like legal categories like atonement, justification, condemnation, propitiation, expiation, reconciliation, sacrifice, adoption, and redemption. However, there is no understanding the whole of Scripture without these juridical categories. So, yes, our righteousness is a legal declaration that we are righteous with the righteousness of Jesus Christ but that righteousness is not a fiction any more than it would be fiction if a Magistrate pardoned a criminal on the basis that a third party Surety was paying the fine for the guilty party. Again, there is no fiction in the accusation of “legal fiction.”

4.) The whole of salvation is a two pronged reality. Our justification is extra nos (outside of us), “Christ for us, the hope of glory.” Our sanctification is the Holy Spirit working within us to renew us to increasingly become what we have been freely declared to be in our justification. Justification is a legal declaration. Sanctification is the transformative work based upon our Union with Christ. Both Justification and sanctification are guaranteed because the elect have been objectively united with Christ from eternity.

Eph. 1:⁴For he chose us in him before the creation of the world to be holy and blameless in his sight.

5.) Nominalism is a real philosophical category. However, the fact is, is that Luther was more of a Tauler/Eckhart mystic than he was a nominalist. Secondly, on this score Luther excoriated the Scholastics with their dependence on Aristotelian categories and yet Luther was a realist enough to embrace consubstantiation, a biblical understanding of Natural Law, as well as a realist embrace of marriage. The claim that Luther was a pure nominalist just doesn’t hold water.

6.) Finally, all non-Reformed views (such as Dyer holds) fail in understanding the Holiness of God and the sinfulness of man in combination with a failure to understand the Creator-creature distinction. Nobody who has come face to face with the Holiness of God and the sinfulness of man will ever think that the Creator-creature distinction can be bridged by the transformative effect of theosis. Any doctrine of “partaking in the divine nature,” that eliminates the distinction between the Creator-creature is nonsense. Any doctrine of “partaking in the divine nature” that finds man being able to say that God accepts man on the basis of the process of transformation into divinity has not come to terms with the sinfulness of man or the Holiness of God. The juridical/legal categories are taught explicitly in Scripture and any denial of these results in a Christianity that is no Christianity at all.

Results in a Christianity that is an illegal fiction.

McAtee Contra Jay Dyer’s Offerings On Justification On Tucker’s Show – I

Tucker Carlson interviewed Jay Dyer. Many years ago on EZ Boards Jay Dyer and I crossed swords more than once. Jay Dyer at one time thought he was a Calvinist but clearly he never was and this interview demonstrates that. Dyer set up a straw man of what Calvinism is, and then proceeded to tear the straw man down.

Jay Dyer said on Tucker’s show,

It’s (Calvinism) also Christologically errant in that the whole idea of what salvation is. (Calvinist’s hold) ultimately (to) one’s legal standing in terms of what’s called justification by faith alone or penal substitutionary atonement. This idea that you’re justified by God through a sort of notional acceptance of a set of ideas and then God’s attitude towards you changes. So it’s dispositional but it’s not focused on an actual ontological change in the person. (Eastern Orthodoxy is very different. God’s disposition is based not on purely a legal stance but on your actual ontological change.

Bret Responds,

1.) Right out of the gate Jay demonstrates that he never understood what Calvinism is, even though he claims he once was a Calvinist. No Calvinist says that justification and salvation are exactly synonyms. For the Calvinist salvation is all God’s Work via election, regeneration, justification, sanctification and glorification. All of that together defines salvation. So, when Jay insists that for the Calvinists salvation = justification he just demonstrates he doesn’t know what he is talking about and so he is building a strawman.

2.) Next Dyer complains about penal substitutionary atonement and the Reformed doctrine of Justification by faith alone. Now, keep in mind here that these doctrines teach that God alone does all the saving. For Jay to denigrate the clear Scriptural truth that God justifies the ungodly (Romans 4:5) Jay has to own that his position is that God only justifies the godly. Yet, that is precisely contrary to what Scripture explicitly teaches.

“But to him who does not work but believes on Him who justifies the ungodly, his faith is accounted for righteousness.” Romans 4:5

“Know that a man is not justified by works of the law, but by faith in Jesus Christ. So we, too, have believed in Christ Jesus, that we may be justified by faith in Christ and not by works of the law, because by works of the law no one will be justified.” Galatians 2:16

“He has saved us and called us to a holy calling, not because of our works, but by His own purpose and by the grace He granted us in Christ Jesus before time began.” II Timothy 1:9

So, Jay Dyer can bleat all he wants about Nominalism, William of Ockham, Gabriel Biel, etc. but at the end of the bleating stands the testimony of Scripture that Dyer’s Eastern Orthodoxy denies. What Dyer and Eastern Orthodoxy want to reach for is salvation by theosis. In theosis the Eastern Orthodox turn justification into a process whereby via our cooperation with grace we contribute to the final realization of our divinization so that God justifies us because we are just. Clearly, there is, for Eastern Orthodoxy and Jay Dyer a required cooperation with grace, which turns grace into not grace. After all, grace is defined as God’s unmerited favor to the ungodly.

3.) Dyer’s complaint reduces here to the age old canard accusation that the Reformers were involved in a “legal fiction.” This accusation finds its anchor in the idea that somehow it is not proper of God to pass a legal declaration upon the ungodly that they are righteous for the sake of Christ’s finished work being imputed to them upon irresistible grace given faith. In brief, Eastern Orthodoxy, like Roman Catholicism and Arminian Protestantism hates the juridical/legal realities that are everywhere spoken in Scripture. Justification is a legal term. In Romans 8 we are told that “there is therefore now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus.” The idea of an absence of condemnation is juridical/legal language.

The problem that Jay has here is he is once again, ignoring the Scriptures. It is not Jay’s supposed realism that explains Scripture. Nor is it nominalism that Jay complains about. Scripture interprets Scripture and Scripture clearly says in Romans 4:17

“I have made you the father of many nations”—in the presence of the God in whom he believed, who gives life to the dead and calls into existence the things that do not exist.”

God, by His grace alone, calls into existence the righteous who are of themselves ungodly and He does so by a legal declaration of our righteousness because of Christ’s finished work on the Cross.

4.) Jay again demonstrates his cluelessness about what Calvinism (and so the Scriptures) teach by injecting all this nonsense about how our notional acceptance causes God to change His disposition towards us.

a.) First, God never changes His disposition towards us. Jay forgets that God’s people have been elect since eternity and that even while we were still sinners Christ died for His people. The idea that we do something (accept notional ideas) that forces God to change his disposition towards us defies the teaching of Scripture.

but God shows his love for us in that while we were still sinners, Christ died for us. Romans 5:8

The reason that Christ died for us is because we were already, even as sinners, set apart for justification (salvation). God does not love us because we accepted notional ideas about God. Rather we accepted notional ideas about God because God loved us from all eternity.

^{Ephesians 2:4}But because of his great love for us, God, who is rich in mercy, ⁵made us alive with Christ even when we were dead in transgressions—it is by grace you have been saved.

The “us” here in this passage is the elect. God’s great love has never been absent from the elect. Even when under the wrath of God, the wrath of God was grace intended to chase those whom God’s never started to love (because they were loved from eternity) to God’s grace of forgiveness.

4.) Finally, on this quote, Dyer, never really being a Calvinist, despite his claims, fails to take into account that salvation in the Calvinist (that is Biblical) understanding incudes union with Christ and regeneration. Salvation, for Biblical Christians is not only legal (though it certainly is legal) but it is also ontological. Before Christ, because of our sin nature all we can do all the time is sin. Upon Union with Christ we are given a new nature and now because we have the Holy Spirit as a deposit guaranteeing that which is to come we now can say “no” to sin as we continue to put off the old man and put on the new man created in Christ Jesus. So, in the Calvinist view there is ontological change … there is a change in nature however, that change in nature is not theosis in the Eastern Orthodox sense. There will always be a creator creature distinction, even in our glorification, though we are pleased to admit that we are being transformed in this life from glory unto glory.

Jay Dyer was never a Calvinist, though he might have thought he was. Jay Dyer may not even be a Christian though he thinks he is. The denial of justification by grace alone through faith alone in Christ alone is a denial that finds one on thin ice before a thrice Holy God. Jay’s belief that he can, via a process, eventually be justified because he is just threatens his eternity. It is my prayer that Jay would one day become a genuine Calvinist and give up his synergistic efforts to become what he never can become without God’s legal declaration of Christ’s righteousness imputed to Jay.