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“The civil government, God’s servant, finds the revelation of God’s holy will in that Scripture. On that basis, Groen Van Prinsterer taught that ‘the state, i.e., the organic whole of all the nation’s interests, cannot be built upon an atheistic or pantheistic system, but only on the authority and will of Jesus Christ, the Head of the Church, and ruler of the kings of the earth. Upon that basis, the states of 1618 ‘let all kings and princes know that the foundation of that Republic was the …. true religion.’ On that basis, we now repeat what Groen reminded us, ‘that religion not only was a desirable attitude of citizens but the foundation of legislation and the administration of justice.’

This would possibly be otherwise if one could say that religion, the doctrine of faith and morals, and philosophy had no influence whatsoever on the nature of legislation and public policy. The question could then be reduced to what Dry Kuyper posed: what is the true relation of church and state? But only as long as one equates Holy Scripture with the gospel, and the way he repeatedly does in his essay. In that case, one, in fact, robs Holy Scripture of authority in matters concerning public power and the public life of the people. But now that it has become clear that the rights and duties of prince and people, the vocation of husband, wife, and child, the rich and the poor, the propertied and the laborer, all must be determined either according to and from out of the Word or from reason, it does not help at all to put Holy Scripture to one side, in or with the Confession.”

Dr. P. J. Hoedemaker
Article 36 of BCF Vindicated Against Dr. Kuyper — 77-78

Hoedemaker, with the observation above, gives key insights into the “theology” of R2K. R2K, like Hoedemaker’s charge against Kuyper reduces the definition of the Christian Scriptures to be exactly coterminous with the definition of the Gospel. Now certainly one finds the definition of the Gospel in the Christian Scripture. Indeed one may even say that the most important part of Christian Scripture is the communication of the Gospel. However, to say that the Gospel is the most important part of Christian Scripture is a very different thing than saying that Christian Scripture = the Gospel. By reducing the Scriptures to be only exactly equivalent to the Gospel one rules out, apriori, the notion that the Christian Scriptures provide a revelatory Word for public life.

But our best theologians never reduced the Christian Scriptures to be exactly equivalent to “the Gospel.” Consider Dr. Herman Bavinck,

The Gospel is temporary, but the law is eternal and is restored precisely through the Gospel. Freedom from the law consists, then, not in the fact that the Christian has nothing more to do with the law, but lies in the fact that the law demands nothing more from the Christian as a condition of salvation. The law can no longer judge and condemn him. Instead, he delights in the law of God according to the inner man and yearns for it day and night.

The Christian Scripture includes the continuing eternal law as speaking to the public realm. This was observed by Dr. J. Gresham Machen,

“The Christians can not be satisfied so long as any human activity is either opposed to Christianity or out of connection with Christianity. Christianity must pervade not merely all nations but also all human thought.”

Christian Scripture cannot be reduced to being exactly coterminous with the Gospel because when one does that one amputates the leaven and impact of Christianity on all areas of life. The Christian Scriptures may first answer the question, “What must I do to be saved,” but from there it goes on to answer the question, “How shall we then live in the public square.”

R2K has a nasty habit of reducing the Christian Scriptures to the Gospel. They are forever asking, “Is this or that a Gospel issue,” as if the negative answer “no, it is not a strictly Gospel issue” therefore means it is not an issue to which the Christian Scriptures speak and so upon which the Christian must take a stand.

Note the connection here between R2K reductios. First, the Christian Scripture is reduced to “the Gospel.” Then R2K reduces the Kingdom to be exactly synonymous to the Church. Well, if one reduces the Christian Scriptures to the Gospel, it only stands to reason that the next reduction is the reduction that shrinks the Kingdom to only the Church. In such a manner the Christian Scriptures, which are reduced to the Gospel, would indeed uniquely belong to a Kingdom that has been reduced to the Chruch. The first R2K reduction implies the second R2K reduction.

But Christian Scripture can’t be reduced to the Gospel as if it does not speak to all of life and all aspects of life and as the Christian Scripture speaks to all of life all that it speaks to can be brought underneath the canopy of the Kingdom of God.

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This post elicited the following conversations with one of my learned friends (LF). I post it for your ability to see the ebb and flow of this issue.

LF

I see what you are getting at. However, the R2k folks would deny they reduce the Scripture to just the “gospel”, but clearly argue for a law/gospel distinction in all of Scripture. They would say the Law is scripture too, but it just doesn’t have authoritative effect on the civil sphere.

BLM

I see them (R2K) saying that the law is Scripture but is overcome by the Gospel and then the law is only personal and individual and really only serves the purpose of making us flee to Christ as opposed to being a guide to life in the public square.

LF

Correct, but some of them (R2K) would still say it is a guide to the “individual’s” life as he lives in the public square, but not a guide for any “institutional” life in the public square. There is no Christian family, state, school, etc.

BLM

But no individual lives his life as divorced from the public square. This private vs. public life is a non-biblical distinction I’m beginning to think. Institutions are comprised of people living in the public square. I don’t see how one can talk about an individual living in the public square as distinct from Institutions in the public square.

LF

I know, makes no sense. I just know they would say all 66 books are Scripture. It just what they do with that Scripture, dichotomizing it with law/gospel is what is maddening.

BLM

Hoedemaker accuses Kuyper of making an Anabaptist move in matters of Church and state.

LF

Seeing that more now.

BLM

Yeah… more and more I’m seeing R2K as a Reformed attempt to save the classically liberal (Libertarian) worldview.

“There is, in other words, no radical dichotomy between the mind and the universe. Logos is common to both, or as Aquinas would say, ‘the light of reason is placed by nature in every man to guide him in his acts.'”

E. Michael Jones
Logos Rising — p. 96

Jones is Roman Catholic and the problem here for Roman Catholics– and the problem for all Natural Law aficionados (R2K; I’m looking at you) — is that Natural Law doesn’t take into account the noetic effects of the fall. It is true that Logos is common to both the mind and the universe but the mind because it ‘suppresses the truth in unrighteousness,’ will not have Logos except in the most accidental manner until man is converted. Natural law is like a radio station putting out a signal on the airwaves but fallen man insists on pushing every other radio button except the button that would hone in on the signal of Natural law.

Our Fathers restricted the value of Natural law to the knowledge of God’s existence and the inescapable awareness of sinfulness while conceding that it provided the ability to give some knowledge of God with a bare subsistence of information touching living in this world.

Article 4

There remain, however, in man since the fall, the glimmerings of natural light, whereby he retains some knowledge of God, of natural things, and of the differences between good and evil, and discovers some regard for virtue, good order in society, and for maintaining an orderly external deportment. But so far is this light of nature from being sufficient to bring him to a saving knowledge of God and to true conversion, that he is incapable of using it aright even in things natural and civil. Nay, further, this light, such as it is, man in various ways renders wholly polluted and holds it in unrighteousness, by doing which he becomes inexcusable before God.

The problem we are facing in many Reformed quarters today is that Natural Law is being looked to as all that is sufficient and necessary in order to live in the common realm. For these “Ministers,” and Professors teaching this view, Natural Law goes beyond “some knowledge” to be all that which is necessary to order the public square. These same men even insist that Natural Law teaches that the Magistrate is not responsible to uphold the first table of God’s law in the social order they rule over. For these men, God’s revealed Law is cordoned off from the common realm because natural law is all we need in the common realm. This despite the fact that the Canon’s of Dordt even says the because of sin man “is incapable of using it aright even in things natural and civil.“

One of the most intelligent men in the 20th century gives us a good insight into how useless natural law is. Betrand Russel testified that he didn’t even know himself. If Natural law cannot give fallen man sufficient knowledge of himself how can it give fallen man sufficient knowledge of anything? Russel wrote,

“Even when one feels nearest to other people, something in one seems obstinately to belong to god and refuse to enter into any earthly communion—–at least that is how I should express it if I thought there was a god. It is odd isn’t it? I feel passionately for this world and many things and people in it, and yet………what is it all? There must be something more important, one feels, though I don’t believe there is. I am haunted! Some ghosts from some extra mundane regions, seem always trying to tell me something that I am to repeat for the world, but I cannot understand the message.”

Bertrand Russell
Autobiography


“Feels” “Seems” “If I thought” “disbelief” “haunted” “ghosts” “extramundane” “trying to tell me” “cannot understand.” Russell was the consummate natural man and yet the sensus deitatis and Natural Law elicits nothing in him but confusion. It is ridiculous speculation that apart from the divine revelation of God’s word one has sufficient and necessary knowledge even to operate in the common realm or even to understand himself. If Russell cannot even understand himself via Natural law then how could he understand anything else?

Let’s just pretend that Babel could reinterpret the Gospel. What would that look like?

1.) Humanists would use Jesus language in order to dress up their Jacobinism.

2.) It would mean that Korean Presbyterys and Classis’ that dot these united States would have to be disestablished because their existence is not sufficiently Gospel Babelistic.

3.) It would mean the Hmong Church in Lansing could no longer be Hmong because their existence is not sufficiently Gospel Babelistic.

4.) It would mean that the new favorite hymn would be “We Are The World.”

5.) It would mean affirmative action hiring programs in the Church and quotas for membership in order to codify Gospel Babelism.

6.) It would mean that the adoption of babies ethnically different from their parents would grant special status to the parents in the Gospel Babelistic Church. Those parents would be known as the REAL lovers of Jesus.

7.) It would mean that high profile Pastors who are forever babbling that Race doesn’t matter would take special pride when, “that which doesn’t matter,” is the very thing that matters when they chortle over their Churches and families.

“Come, let us go down and there confuse their language, so that they may not understand one another’s speech.” (Genesis 11:7)

Here the question that needs to be asked is who are the pronouns “their” and “they” referring to. The obvious answer is the inhabitants of Babel. However, we need to go on and ask, “Who are the inhabitants of Babel,” and with the answer to that question we are right back at Genesis 10 and the table of nations. So, the confusion of “their language” is the confusion of the language of the nations who had disobediently sought to create a unipolar world in defiance of God.

Now, if we grant that it is a small step to think that the confusion of the languages was in keeping with the existence of the nations so that each nation, as descended from Noah, was confused with a language in keeping with its national identity. The reason I point this out is that there exists a kind of school of thought that denies the familial-national dynamic in this passage insisting instead that the division here was not familial-national but only linguistic. The argument seemingly goes that the division at Babel was of such a nature that men from the different family-nations of Genesis 10 were all jumbled up together in the linguistic dispersion. We are therefore expected to believe that all those people who God divided by language were each and all nationally mixed in the linguistic division that God visited them with.

I am suggesting that the weight of the context of the passage is overwhelmingly against that kind of reading. Genesis 11 is not merely a linguistic division but it is a linguistic division in keeping with the already pre-existing familial-national distinctions. God wanted distinct people group Nations and the language confusion was pursuant to that end.

Babel was a nation spreading event and the way God spread the nations was to give them each a tongue so they could not create the unipolar world that defied God and so they should seek God, and perhaps feel their way toward him and find him (Acts 17:27). All of this is more than suggestive that God’s plan for the World is a Biblical Nationalism wherein there is a God-ordained unity and diversity honored. The diversity is found in the reality of nations and the unity is envisioned in each diverse and distinct nation submitting to God as their Creator, Christ as their Redeemer, and the Holy Spirit as their Sanctifier.
Obviously, the sequence of events is that Noah and his family come off the ark, God makes a covenant with Noah and ordains that humans will live under govt, complementing patriarchal rule, Noah’s descendants are then ordered to disperse and inhabit their own territory per ethnic/family divisions, but then they congregate at Babel to establish a conglomerated empire and God has to confuse the languages in order to compel the separation in nations. However, the separation into nations was ordained first, and then the confusion of language was a chastisement due to disobedience. The division by languages may be removed, ultimately, in the New Heavens and New Earth, but the division by nations will remain. (Rev 21:24, 22:2). Alienists will spit blood and foam at the mouth if you try to point this out.

The contemporary church conflates the division by ethno-families, which was part of God’s intention for how mankind should live with the division by language, which was a chastisement for disobedience. The mind of the modern evangelical has been so warped and twisted that it simply will not admit any biblical teaching on the ethnic division. The modern Reformed mind refuses to own that God’s intent for social order is Biblical Nationalism. It’s a type of spiritual blindness imposed by God upon those who desire an egalitarian Internationalist Marxist order.

While reading Matthew Henry I came across something from Henry that really flies in the face of much of what we see in our mad pursuit of multiculturalism, or in suppositions supporting the idea that nations are social constructs that can be held together merely on the basis of propositions. On Genesis 11 (Babel) Matthew Henry can write;

1. Their language was confounded. God, who, when he made man, taught him to speak, and put words into his mouth fit to express the conceptions of his mind, by now caused these builders to forget their former language, and to speak and understand a new one, which yet was common to those of the same tribe or family, but not to others: those of one colony could converse together, but not with those of another.

Understand the implications of Henry’s statement. When God dispersed the tongues the variation and number of tongues were equal to the variation and numbers of preexisting tribes. The fact that God dispersed them by language implies that he dispersed them by tribal identity. If Henry is correct here (and I think he is) this drives a stake through the often-repeated meme of the Christian cultural Marxist fellow travelers that Babel was about languages and not ethnicities. Henry would have us realize that there is a nexus between the confounding of the language and the tribes to whom the languages belonged. When the languages were dispersed, Henry believed, the dispersal was tribe by tribe according to language. Precisely because it was about languages it was about ethnicities. Henry again offers,(4.)

” The project of some to frame a universal character, in order to a universal language, how desirable soever it may seem, is yet, I think, but a vain thing to attempt; for it is to strive against a divine sentence, by which the languages of the nations will be divided while the world stands.”

If according to Henry’s previous reasoning that the confounded tongues corresponded to the confounded tribes then Henry is telling us that ethnic homogeneity for tribes or nations is the divine standard while the world stands. By Henry’s previous reasoning the attempt to build a universal people at Babel was confounded by dividing the tribes by dividing their languages. Current Christian Cultural Marxist fellow travelers, according to Herny, strive against the divine sentence when they insist on pursuing a Christianity that ignores God’s dividing of the peoples. Now, to underscore Henry’s comments we examine how the enemies of Christianity have consistently striven against the divine sentence of dividing people’s and languages of which Henry speaks.

Humanist Manifesto II ELEVENTH:

The principle of moral equality must be furthered through elimination of all discrimination based upon race, religion, sex, age, or national origin. This means equality of opportunity and recognition of talent and merit. Individuals should be encouraged to contribute to their own betterment. If unable, then society should provide means to satisfy their basic economic, health, and cultural needs, including, wherever resources make possible a minimum guaranteed annual income. We are concerned for the welfare of the aged, the infirm, the disadvantaged, and also for the outcasts – the mentally retarded, abandoned, or abused children, the handicapped, prisoners, and addicts – for all who are neglected or ignored by society. Practicing humanists should make it their vocation to humanize personal relations. We deplore racial, religious, ethnic, or class antagonisms. Although we believe in cultural diversity and encourage racial and ethnic pride, we reject separations which promote alienation and set people and groups against each other; we envision an integrated community where people have a maximum opportunity for free and voluntary association.

TWELFTH: We deplore the division of humankind on nationalistic grounds. We have reached a turning point in human history where the best option is to transcend the limits of national sovereignty and to move toward the building of a world community in which all sectors of the human family can participate. Thus we look to the development of a system of world law and a world order based upon transnational federal government. This would appreciate cultural pluralism and diversity. It would not exclude pride in national origins and accomplishments nor the handling of regional problems on a regional basis. Human progress, however, can no longer be achieved by focusing on one section of the world, Western or Eastern, developed or underdeveloped. For the first time in human history, no part of humankind can be isolated from any other. Each person’s future is in some way linked to all. We thus reaffirm a commitment to the building of world community, at the same time recognizing that this commits us to some hard choices.

The 1936 Constitution of the Soviet Union ARTICLE 123.

Equality of rights of citizens of the U.S.S.R., irrespective of their nationality or race, in all spheres of economic, state, cultural, social and political life, is an indefeasible law. Any direct or indirect restriction of the rights of, or, conversely, any establishment of direct or indirect privileges for, citizens on account of their race or nationality, as well as any advocacy of racial or national exclusiveness or hatred and contempt, is punishable by law.

When we compare and contrast a Father of Historic Christianity (Matthew Henry) with the 20th century Humanists and Communists we see a marked contrast between the oikophilia (love of one’s household and one’s faith) of Christianity and the Babelphilia (love of Babel and so hatred of ethnic distinctions) of the Marxists. Now, naturally, this one point of harmony of Christians and Marxist does not by itself prove that Christians who embrace a globalism that automatically attacks ethnic homogeneity in a knee jerk fashion are Marxists but it at least should cause us to ask questions of whether or not such “Christians” are fellow travelers.