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When we consider our Preaching calendar we hope this week and next week on this current series. That will bring us to the 1^st Sunday in November which Lord Will will be an Election year sermon. I may need one more week on the 2^nd Sunday November to complete this series on TULIP. We shall see.

Currently we continue in our series on TULIP. This morning we will complete our discussion on Irresistible grace but first we will spend some time gathering some threads of where we have thus far been as well as teasing out some more significant implications.

What we are doing here is akin to what is done when a house is framed. I have a good friend in Idaho who frames magnificent houses. One can tell how majestic these house will be by just observing the framing of the house.

Well, in what we have been doing we have been framing this magnificent worldview of Calvinism. My friend in Idaho uses timber in his framing , while we – you and I – are using the Word and words to do the same kind of work in the realm of worldview / belief / ideology / theology.

And just as it is the case that people will dwell in those magnificent homes my friend frames so it is the case that we all live in our worldviews and if it is the case that people spend a great deal on their homes how much more should it be the case that we spend a great deal on a magnificent world and life view?

Instead people – including many who live in physical mansions — decide, by in large to live in shacks in terms of their worldviews. Like the hovel that Jane and I lived in during Seminary people spend their whole lives living in worldview homes that are garbage pits… indeed, to call these places homes is to do vast insult to the word “home.”

Choosing to reject Calvinism with all its worldview implications (only some of which we have teased out) people are living in fictitious realities. In rejecting Biblical Christianity and embracing religious humanism, Arminianism, Lutheranism, Roman Catholicism etc what people have done is they have chosen to live in false realities.

Josef Pieper was getting at this when he wrote,

“The Sophists he [Plato] says, ‘fabricate a fictitious reality.’ That the existential realm of man could be taken over by pseudo-realities whose fictitious nature threatens to become indiscernible is truly a depressing thought. And yet the Platonic nightmare, I hold, possesses an alarming contemporary relevance. For the general public is being reduced to a state where people are not only unable to find out about the truth, but also become unable to even search for the truth because they are satisfied with deception and trickery that have determined their convictions, satisfied with a fictitious reality created by design through the abuse of language.”

Joseph Pieper

Abuse of Language – Abuse of Power — pg. 34

So, understand what is going on if we and Pieper are correct. We are living among a whole culture that is itself living in a fictitious reality…. living in framed houses crafted with skubala. In the words of Scripture they are houses built on sand.

We have observed some of these fictitious realities along the way. Here we have framed our house with the timber of Total Depravity. While those who are living in fictitious realities have framed their worldview house with either “man is only kind of depraved” timber or “man is basically good” timber. We have framed our worldview house with the quality lumber of unconditional Election which we saw – when teased out – means the worldview house we live in allows for a God who is discriminatory and gloriously prejudiced allowing us to embrace a biblical discrimination and a biblically based prejudice. Those living in a fictitious reality have framed their house with the trash lumber of a hypothetical Universalism where God loves everybody equally. Their fictitious reality … their worldview house does not allow for discrimination, prejudice and so pursue egalitarianism.

Along the way we begin to see that non-Calvinists are from Venus while Biblical Christians are from Mars. We are living in two different worldview homes … two different realities. The difference between us and them is the difference between Charlie Manson and Charlie Martel. They are living in un-real fictitious realities and we are living in real reality.

So, we see that holding to the Doctrines of Grace is not merely having a view on soteriology (salvation)… it is a matter of living in real reality and it sets us apart from those who have framed their houses with other words besides God’s Word and so are living in fictitious realities.

And we are now living in a time where the difference between those living in real reality and those living in fictitious reality is coming to a crescendo, which is to say, that we are living in a time where two vision of reality are in vicious conflict.

This sermon series then as not been merely about different ways on how to understand how we are saved. Our doctrines of Grace begin to frame for us a whole weltanschauung … a whole way of thinking about everything. Being a Biblical Calvinist who embraces the doctrines of Grace with all their implications means being self conscious about adopting a whole worldview home.

Secondly, along the way in this series we have tried to emphasize that what the Doctrines of Grace as properly understood teaches us is that Biblical Christianity is juridical and legal at its core and NOT relational except as by the Spirit’s work of uniting us to Christ we have a relationship with our advocate.

God gave His law. God’s Law was broken. The penalty promised for broken law must be paid. Man as creature broke the law… man as creature must pay the penalty. Man the creature cannot meet all that the penalty required. God, showing mercy meets His own requirements of His law and pays the law penalty for sin in our place. God then imputes (legally counts) the righteousness of Christ to our account and we have peace with God.

LEGAL … JURIDICAL … FORENSIC … JUDICIAL
LEGAL
LEGAL
LEGAL
LEGAL

Why do I hammer this so decidedly? Because at least since the 2^nd great awakening these categories have been dismissed and replaced by relational categories. Jesus my friend. Jesus who meets me in the garden alone. Jesus whom I know lives because He lives within my heart. Jesus is my girlfriend type of worship songs. All this relational sentimentality has made the Christian faith insipid, sentimental and weak. And this is the karo syrup diet the Church has been on for several generations.

Not me… not here. I salute Gordon H. Clark who wrote two generations ago,

“As for having a ‘personal relationship’ with Christ, if the phrase means something more than assenting to true propositions about Jesus, what is that something more? Feeling warm inside? Coffee has the same effect. Surely ‘personal relationship’ does not mean what we mean when we say that we know someone personally: perhaps we have shaken his hand visited his home or he ours, or eaten with him. John had a ‘personal relationship’ with Christ in that sense, as did all the disciples, including Judas Iscariot. But millions of Christians have not, and Jesus called them blessed: They have not seen and yet have believed. The difference between Judas Iscariot and the other disciples is not that they had a ‘personal relationship’ with Jesus and he did not, but that they believed, that is, assented to, certain propositions about Jesus, while Judas did not believe those propositions.”

Look, I get it that there will always be a relational aspect to our undoubted catholic Christian faith but it should not be given its head so that the Christian faith becomes some kind of harlequin romance novel. The Christian faith is primarily legal and any relationship that exists, exists because of how our legal Advocate fulfilled God’s law in our place – obeyed all that God’s law required for us and received all the penalty that God’s law required as against our disobedience.

We have to understand that one reason that Calvinism has such rough sledding is that the Church has been taken over by those who argue for the necessity of a “personal encounter with Jesus” by which they are calling for the same kind of feeling for Jesus required in conversion that a 18 year old guy has when he meets the woman of his dreams. And if isn’t that kind of expectation unto conversion then we get the minister who preaches that Christianity is about trusting a person not believing a creed as if it were possible to Trust the person of Christ without having a Creed. Both of this bushwah ratiocination has just decimated the Church so that our Churches and pulpits are filled with the simplistic, the moronic, and the vacuous. Just see if you could join any other organization and be so completely brain dead about what the organization is all about as you can when being part of the modern Church.

As we have been looking at the Doctrines of Grace we have seen that Christianity has substance and that you can’t be part of Christianity unless you can affirm that substance. You can’t make up your own Christianity and if you do it is no longer Christianity. You can’t, in an epistemologically self conscious fashion, reject the Doctrines of Grace and be a Christian.

And irresistible Grace is an one of the pedals of our Tulip.

Insuperable grace explains how it is that in time and space the elect chosen by the Father and atoned for by the Son are delivered from their total depravity and intense Christ hatred. Undefeatable grace is what moves us from what the writer of Hebrews calls being spiritual bastards to being sons of God. (12:8).

Last time we considered this doctrine we looked at John 6 but let us see that we also find it articulated by the Spirit of God in Romans 8:29-30

29 For whom He foreknew, He also predestined to be conformed to the image of His Son, that He might be the firstborn among many brethren. 30 Moreover whom He predestined, these He also called; whom He called, these He also justified; and whom He justified, these He also glorified.

To get this passage right we have to understand that the word foreknew means “knew before He knew,” or “knew ahead of time.” We could even say it means “foreloved.” Gen. 4:1 tells us that Adam knew Eve. In Eternity past God had an unique and special knowledge of His elect.

Secondly, the word “call” here refers to the effectual call and not merely what we have spoken of as the external call. This effectual call is another phrase for the Unconquerable grace we have been speaking of. It is what explains why a a totally depraved person comes to life and so trusts Christ.

So what we are seeing is the unity of the Doctrines of Grace. St. Paul states that there is an inexorable sequence of realities that begins with the eternal love of God (His foreknowing us) and our calling in space and time. Because God foreknew His elect there was a certainty they would be effectually called …. and conformed to the image of His Son.

This passage is often referred to as “the golden chain of salvation,” and the reason that the word chain is used is that each reality … foreknowing, predestining, calling, justifying conforming to the image of the Son and even our glorification are all links in one chain. There is a certainty to all this. God, even more than the Canadian Mounties, “always gets his man.”

Now of course I say again we Calvinists are alone in believing this. But that’s ok… Calvinists have broad shoulders and bright minds.

Our opponents on this score in the Church are everywhere.

The fight between Augustine and Pelagius that occurred in the 4^th century gave us one the earliest conflicts on this in Church History. Augustine articulated the position on irresistible grace that the Bible sets forth while his sparring Partner denied it. Pelagianism taught that man was NOT totally depraved but rather sinned by way of bad examples around him. The problem was not man’s sin nature but man’s environment. As such Pelagius and his peeps denied denied that man needed Insuperable grace since Unconquerable grace presupposes total depravity. Per the Pelagians there is no need for the Holy Spirit to help man do good.

Another position raised up against the Doctrines of Grace was a mediating position between Pelagianism and Augustinianism. This position came to be known as semi-pelagianism. As its names implies it held the position that a little less poison in one’s doctrine than full poison would be delightful.

The semi-pelagians believed that man was not as evil as the Augustinians said but neither was he quite as good as the Pelagians said. So, they basically said man was sick but not dead and there byword… which remains the by word for Arminians and Roman Catholic is that man must cooperate with grace. God does his part and man does his part and between the two of them man can convert.

I heard this kind of thing growing up. The Evangelist would come to town and at some point along the way I would hear some version of, “There is one area of your life that God will never touch and that is your will. He will never cause you to believe. That’s your job. Only you can do it,” as if even God didn’t know which way one would choose. God wants you to choose for Him but there are some things that even a God can’t get.

This is why our standards can say, (Canon of Dort)

Article 10 –

But that others who are called by the gospel obey the call and are converted is not to be ascribed to the proper exercise of free will, whereby one distinguishes himself above others, equally furnished with grace sufficient for faith and conversions as the proud heresy of Pelagius maintains; but it must be wholly ascribed to God, who as He has chosen His own from eternity in Christ, so He confers upon them faith and repentance, rescues them from the power of darkness, and translates them into the kingdom of His own Son, that they may show forth the praises of Him who hath called them out of darkness into His marvelous light; and may glory not in themselves, but in the Lord according to the testimony of the apostles in various places.

Look, at the end of the day if your theology teaches that one can say “no” to God’s “yes” of irresistible grace unto eternal life you don’t believe that God is sovereign. That God is a weemus and like Elijah @ Mt. Carmel I mock him.

If like Lutherans, Pentecostals, and Arminians, and Evangelicals in general say we say that man can of himself accept or reject the gospel as he pleases, we have made the eternal God dependent upon man. We have then, in effect, denied the incommunicable attributes of God.

Evangelicals talk to us of a pleading God
As if man were the True inspector
As if man were casting the tiebreaking vote
To determine if God would be victor
As if God is submitting His career resume
For the position of our ‘Lord Protector’
And they wonder if God can secure the job
From those who are His electors

____

Steven Layfield writes,

Inter-racial Marriage Today

Thus, finding our universal identity in Christ whatever our national or linguistic ancestry, we are now members together of the Israel of God. The universal Christian Church comprises Mongols, Americans, Africans, Malaysians, Chinese, Australians, Europeans, etc, etc. We may hold on to our ethnic identities, but we must do so in a God-honouring way in full accord with the Scriptural paradigm.

BLMc responds,

1.) The above is true just as saying;

Thus, finding our universal identity in Christ whatever our gender, we are now members together of the Israel of God. The universal Christian Church comprises males and females. We may hold on to our gender identities, but we must do so in a God-honouring way in full accord with the Scriptural paradigm.

2.) Steve, like so many others, seems to miss that the Church of Jesus Christ is comprised not of a bunch of abstracted individuals but is comprised as a confederacy of nations so while men and women are members together of the Israel of God they are members as Mongols, Americans, Africans, Malaysians, Chinese, Australians and Europeans. In other words, our belonging to Christ isn’t a belonging absent our race, ethnicity or gender. Belonging to Christ doesn’t negate who God has ordained us to be in our creatureliness.

SL writes,

Accordingly, we must resist the temptation to judge with our eyes. For Paul tells us, ‘he is not a Jew (i.e. Christian), which is one outwardly; neither is that circumcision, which is outward in the flesh: but he is a Jew, which is one inwardly; and circumcision is that of the heart, in the spirit, and not in the letter; whose praise is not of men, but of God.’ (Rom 2:28-29). Kinism fails to recognise this fundamental spiritual identification. Instead, it seeks to build a sophisticated pseudo-theology based upon the actual blood running in our veins.

BLMc responds,

This is probably the most ignorant thing SL wrote. The problem here is that SL really does seem to think, at some level, that once once becomes Christian our corporeal categories disappear. In sections like this it sounds very much like SL is Gnostic.

No Kinist denies Romans 2:28f and no Kinist thinks they are right with Christ on the basis of their blood. SL seems to not understand what Kinism is vis-a-vis Christian Identity. Kinism most certainly does not seek to build a sophisticated pseudo-theology based upon the actual blood running our our veins. However, we do expect Gnostics to accuse us of that. Kinists, like the Apostle Paul merely believe there is nothing wrong with having a special affection for one’s own people just as Paul expresses in Romans 9.

3 For I could wish that I myself were accursed from Christ for my brethren, my Kinsmen according to the flesh…

Kinists do not teach their children that they are saved because of their blood though they do teach their children what a privilege it is that they were born into a Christian family where God has promised to be our God to a thousand generations as each generation walks in terms of the Covenant and so show that they have placed their faith in Christ who alone has kept all the covenant stipulations on their behalf.

SL writes,

Moreover, scientifically Kinism does not stack up. Basic to a proper understanding of genetics is the realisation that within a biblical ‘kind’ (Heb = bara) there is a rich reservoir of genetic information capable of finding expression outwardly in a wide variety of forms: long-haired, short-haired, tall, squat, strong, energetic, sensitive to smell, ferocious, timid, etc, etc. Unseen genetic coding at a microscopic level accounts for a host of external, visible traits together with many unseen internal characteristics (emotional, psychological, linguistic, musical, etc.) Selective breeding over generations can produce creatures with very noticeable outward features. In dogs they give rise to Pit Bulls, Huskies, Great Danes, Labradors, Terriers, etc. Thoughtful dog owners choose their preferred breed carefully! However, specialisation brings with it inherent trouble. The genetic information required for all round good health gets diluted. Consequently, pure breeds of sheepdogs may well exhibit physical ailments. Labradors are often genetically prone to hip and elbow dysplasia. Other inherited diseases can include eye disorders such as progressive retinal atrophy, which can cause blindness. Degenerative myelopathy is a common condition among German Shepherds – an untreatable disease that results in progressive paralysis. Curiously, and no doubt significantly, crossbreeds and mongrels are generally physically healthier than purebreds, more psychologically stable and invariably live longer. Now, if that basic scientific principle applies to humanity, we should find that ‘so called’ inter-racial progeny are healthier and perhaps more inherently ‘capable’ than interbred cousins.

BLMc responds,

Yes… I’m quite sure the offspring a plow horse and a Clydesdale is sure to be the next winner of the Kentucky Derby.

Nobody ever said that too close inbreeding is a good thing anymore than to far outbreeding is a good thing.

And the whole idea that dog-breeding proves that inter-racial progeny are healthier and more inherently capable is just more of Steve’s speculation as on steroids.

Does Steve ever deal with his opponents arguments or does he keep building straw-men in order to knock down as as to claim victory?

Finally, after thousands of years of world history I wonder if SL would mind too terribly of naming a mongrel and crossbreed race which has stood athwart the world and ruled it as the English have or as the French have or as the Mongols once did or as the Romans did.


SL writes,

We are living in an era of increasing scientific discovery and empirical experimentation. Never before has such extensive travel been available to us. Never before has the possibility of marrying someone raised on the other side of the globe over successive generations been possible. It is this author’s contention that we will discover, just as was found to be so with dogs, so humanity is destined to recover some (at least!) of what was lost or damaged genetically back at Babel!

BLMc responds

More of Steve’s famous speculation.

Christians keep talking about the “reversal of Babel.” Babel will only be reversed in Hell where finally all distinctions are fully and finally eliminated. In hell men and women will be gender-less. In Hell John Lenon’s Imagine will come to pass because in Hell you can be sure there will be no countries … no races .. no ethnicities. In Hell doubtless humans will be like dogs and get back what was lost or damaged genetically back at Babel.

SL writes.

Perhaps this simple consideration, coupled of course with an increased propensity to covenant keeping statecraft, might so enrich future civilisations of humanity that we shall begin to see God’s curse substantially lifted or at least attenuated. This again resonates with the long term vision of Biblical prophecy. Is it not yet a very little while till (Z) Lebanon shall be turned into a fruitful field, And the fruitful field be esteemed as a forest? 18 (AA) In that day the deaf shall hear the words of the book, And the eyes of the blind shall see out of obscurity and out of darkness. 19 (AB)The humble also shall increase their joy in the Lord, And (AC) the poor among men shall rejoice in the Holy One of Israel. 20 For the terrible one is brought to nothing, (AD)The scornful one is consumed, And all who (AE)watch for iniquity are cut off— 21 Who make a man an offender by a word, And (AF) lay a snare for him who reproves in the gate, And turn aside the just (AG)by empty words. 22 Therefore thus says the Lord, (AH)who redeemed Abraham, concerning the house of Jacob: “Jacob shall not now be (AI)ashamed, Nor shall his face now grow pale; 23 But when he sees his children, (AJ)The work of My hands, in his midst, They will hallow My name, And hallow the Holy One of Jacob, And fear the God of Israel. 24 These also (AK)who erred in spirit will come to understanding, And those who complained will learn doctrine.” (Isaiah 29) 20 “No more shall an infant from there live but a few days, Nor an old man who has not fulfilled his days; For the child shall die one hundred years old, (AI)But the sinner being one hundred years old shall be accursed. 21 (AJ)They shall build houses and inhabit them; They shall plant vineyards and eat their fruit. 22 They shall not build and another inhabit; They shall not plant and (AK)another eat; For (AL)as the days of a tree, so shall be the days of My people, And (AM)My elect shall long enjoy the work of their hands. 23 They shall not labour in vain, (AN)Nor bring forth children for trouble; For (AO) they shall be the descendants of the blessed of the Lord, And their offspring with them. (Isaiah 65) Steve Layfield – September 2020

BLMc responds,

Here we see that Steve’s eschatology is basically a vision completely consisting with the Humanist New World Order only as “Christian.” Steve sees a global amalgamated coffee-latte crèam colored community under Christ where all colors have bled into one. This is John Lenon’s “Imagine” vision Christianized. Steve sees this as a possible curse attenuated world whereas this vision without nations strikes me as hell on earth. Biblical Postmillennialism believes in Nations. In Micah 4 and Isaiah 2 – passages often understood as a foreshadowing of the postmillennial age – we see the nations as nations streaming to the “Mountain of the Lord.” Nations do not go away in the postmillennial age and anybody who teaches that they do is not teaching Biblical Christianity but a kind of NWO Christianity.

“This [Senate Judiciary] Committee isn’t in the business of deciding whether the dogma lives too loudly within someone. This committee isn’t in the business of deciding which religious beliefs are good and which religious beliefs are bad and which religious beliefs are weird.

This committee isn’t in the business of deciding which religious beliefs are good and which religious beliefs are bad and which are religious beliefs are weird. I just want to say as someone who is self-consciously a Christian, we’ve got a whole bunch more really weird beliefs; forgiveness of sins, the virgin birth, resurrection from the dead, eternal life…they’re a whole bunch of really, really crazy ideas that are a lot weirder than some Catholic moms giving each other advice about parenting.”

Sen. R2K Ben Sasse
Republican – Nebraska

First, it should be known that I’m not a fan at all of Ben Sasse since he serves as the poster child of R2K in the US Senate. Sasses is joined at the hip with the Escondido West-Cal boys and shares their characteristics of smarminess and condescension. Secondly, I’m not a fan of Sasse because he believes in a hard separation of church and state as this quote reveals.

1.) Sasse says that “it (government) isn’t in the business of deciding which religious beliefs are good and which religious beliefs are bad,” and on first blush this sounds noble and even-handed, especially as it is heard in American ears. However, it is utter tripe. Think about it for a second… let’s pretend the Senate Judiciary committee has a candidates for judge that comes before it. This judicial candidate is Hindu and still believes in the ancient Hindu religious practice of Suttee where widowed wives are burned alive on the funeral pyre with their deceased husbands. Now, I don’t know about Sen. Sasse but I want my judiciary Committee to ask Justice Bavishi if he thinks this religious belief is good, bad, or weird. Call me picky. Alternatively, I might want my judiciary committee to ask Justice Abdallah if he believes with Islam that Hijra is a perfectly legitimate way to go about stealth invasion of Western Christian lands, or even if Justice Abdallah believes with his religion that it is proper to “kill the infidel.” Yet again, I might want my Judiciary Committee to ask Justice Yellowhawk if he believes, consistent with his Native American religious beliefs that smoking peyote is a perfectly acceptable way to prepare for hearing arguments before his court.

The point is that Sen. Sasse, following a long and storied tradition of idiocy on this matter is just flat out wrong. It most certainly IS the business of the Judiciary Committee to decide which religious beliefs are good and which are bad and to pretend that isn’t true is like pretending that Sasses is qualified to be a US Senator.

Honestly, on this point it is my conviction that Sen. Sasses is saying that when it comes to the public square generally and the judiciary committee particularly Jesus Christ has given up His Lordship. Christians, like Sasse, don’t have to use Christ’s standard of right and wrong and good and bad in order to measure the beliefs and belief systems of future candidates. Come come my friend Sen. Sasse how is this not treason against the Lord Jesus Christ?

2.) Now, Sen. Sasse admits he is a Christian but then turns around and says that his beliefs are crazy and weird? I find that to be really really crazy and weird of Sen. Sasse to say that. Were I Sen. Sasse’s Pastor I’d be calling the man on the carpet for referring to the beliefs of Christianity as crazy and weird.

In the same speech Sen. Sasse offered,

“Religious liberty is the basic idea that how you worship (and it) is not of the government’s business…. so, whether you worship in a mosque or a synagogue or a church, your faith or your lack of faith is not the government’s business… This is a fundamental American belief.”

BLMc responds,

1.) Sen. Sasse styled his speech as a 8^th grade civics lesson, so for the sake of all 8^th graders everywhere let me just say that Sasse is, once again, historically ignorant. Now, we must concede that originally the US Constitution forbid the FEDERAL government from having any business in what the states did when it come to establishment of religion in their respective states. However, it could well be the business of State governments themselves (and often was the business of state governments) to legislate on how people worshiped and you can bet the farm that there was no way in Hades that a Muslim worshiping in a Mosque or a Jew worshiping in a synagogue would have ever served in public office were many of the state constitutions required public office holders to hold Christian doctrines. So, while Sasse is right that Religious Liberty is fundamental American right in terms of the Feds not being allowed to dictate to the states, Sasse is wrong that Religious Liberty is a fundamental American right in terms of the State governments have established religions.

2.) Please note that Sasse has said that it is the government’s business to ensure that no American who’s faith requires them to exclude all other faiths is allowed to have any input in the US Government. As such Sen. Sasse is saying only those who practice the American religion that allows for all faiths in the public square can participate in the public square. Those who believe that only one true faith that excludes all other religions are not allowed in the public square and men like Sasse will make sure they can’t come in.

I don’t agree with Sasse’s #1 principle of civics. Per Sasse that makes me “un-American.” Problem is, is that this was never true of historic Americans but instead Sasse is trying to push the worn out worlview of Enlightenment Classical Liberalism. However, this worldview has died of its own excesses and Sasse isn’t bright enough to realize it. Classical Liberalism was always a myth but it was a myth that could work when the pluralism you were asking from it was restricted to various expressions of Christianity as held by those of European descent. However, Classical Liberalism, as we are seeing, cannot work in a social-order comprised of people who embrace absolutely antithetical beliefs.

We continue with this brief series interacting with Steve Layfield’s thoughts on racial realism. We do not over-fault Mr. Layfield for his errant thinking on the subject as even many if not most of our putatively learned Doctors in the Church are disastrous on this subject due to the rise of postmodernism. Postmodernism has eaten the race narrative that every Churchmen that I can find prior to 1950 or so embraced. You can find that same narrative assumed in Shakespeare in plays like “Othello,” “The Merchant of Venice,” and “The Tempest.” You can hear it in the voices of many outside the Church. Here are some examples,

“For each nation has different customs and divergent laws and institutions, and should consolidate those things that are proper to it, and should form and develop out of the same nation the associations for the fusion of its life. For just as each animal mates with its own tribe, so it is right that each nation should marry and cohabit not with those of other race and tongue but of the same tribe and speech. For hence arise naturally harmony of thought and intercourse among one another and friendly converse and living together; but alien customs and divergent laws are likely on the contrary to engender enmities and quarrels and hatreds and broils, which tend to beget not friendship and association but spite and division.”

Emperor Constantine VII
De Administrando Imperio
Early 10^th century

“Perhaps the most bitter irony of our time lies in the fact that celebrity apologists who purport to defend an incarnational religion have joined the chorus of those who deny the importance of flesh and blood. The bloodless creed such gurus peddle is a cold, ineffectual abstraction, one which the great Christian teachers of yesteryear would find alien. If we are serious about combating the neopagan temptation, we need to remember our ancestors–spiritual as well as biological.”

Jerry Salyer
Chronicles Magazine
January of 2015

“White conservatives don’t want to take the lead in preserving what remains of this country’s now tenuous White, Anglo-Euro culture. To take on such a responsibility would make them even more vulnerable to the racial bullets and daggers they have been ducking for years.”

Elizabeth Wright
Black Conservative Author

“Before the camps, I regarded the existence of nationality as something that shouldn’t be noticed—nationality did not really exist, only humanity. But in the camps one learns: if you belong to a successful nation you are protected and you survive. If you are part of universal humanity—too bad for you.”

Alexander Solzhenitsyn

There is nothing in the least un-Christian about noticing the reality of race and admitting that race makes a difference beyond the jejune claims that “it’s just a matter of melanin.”

Turning to interaction with Steve Layfield we read,

SL Writes

Shadows & Types

The great thing to understand as you read your OT is the prevalence of shadows and types. They’re everywhere! Such an awareness is the hermeneutical key that unlocks the plethora of mysteries we encounter throughout its pages. The resounding message echoing throughout the pages of every drama we encounter is this: that God will overturn first in time, and afterwards forever, throughout eternity, the effects of sin in His creation. Jesus Christ as His Messiah will subdue Satan (crush His head) through His cross & resurrection (the bruising of His heal) and so every nation, every tribe and every tongue will come at last and bow the knee confessing Jesus is Lord! But this great work of redemption and salvation would not occur suddenly. Rather it is a slow, gradual sanctifying process that unfolds over generations (Matt 13:31ff).

BLMc responds,

Here SL makes our own case. Nations as nations, tribes as tribes, and peoples as peoples will convert to Christ. This is what we find in the book of Revelation where we see the Nations existing as Nations in the New Jerusalem. Salvation of nations, tribes, and peoples did not eliminate the reality of nations, tribes and peoples.

Revelation 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 [o]into it. 25 Its gates shall not be shut at all by day (there shall be no night there). 26 And they shall bring the glory and the honor of the nations into it…. 22 And he showed me a pure river of water of life, clear as crystal, proceeding from the throne of God and of the Lamb. 2 In the middle of its street, and on either side of the river, was the tree of life, which bore twelve fruits, each tree yielding its fruit every month. The leaves of the tree werefor the healing of the nations.SL writes,

Important Hermeneutical Considerations

Now, in seeking to establish a principled approach towards our fellow ‘citizens of heaven’ from every nation, tribe and tongue here in the present, it is necessary for us to contemplate the progressive nature of God’s program of sanctification. Because the world and its citizenry are being healed gradually over time it was necessary for God to express His requirements (commandments for us to keep) pragmatically. Such pragmatism in no way violates His absolute holiness. We readily acknowledge that His absolute moral law, as expressed in say the Decalogue, is a reflection of His own holy character. But, because of ‘the hardness of our hearts’ God necessarily ‘winked at sin’ (Acts 17:30). There is therefore an inherent hierarchy in God’s commandments which we must properly take into account when we seek to comprehend what God temporarily tolerated in time for the sake of His final glorification in eternity. Failure to recognise the historical unfolding of God’s redemptive purpose gives rise to a spurious hermeneutic which insists that what God temporarily permitted must be embraced as a moral blueprint. Perhaps, the 19th chapter of the Westminster Confession (WCF) seeks to make the same point: To them also, as a body politic, He gave sundry judicial laws, which expired together with the state of that people, not obliging any other now, further than the general equity thereof may require. (section 4) The general equity of God’s law is far-reaching, most important and wholly relevant for today’s situation. However, it requires much careful reflection and spiritual wisdom to comprehend the practical outworking of its equity in contemporary life. Thus, • Deceit (lying) was sanctioned when confronting evil (Ex 1:15-21; Josh 2 & Heb 11:31; Josh 8, etc) • Divorce was sanctioned for adultery; divorce was never part of God’s original design for husband and wife. • Slavery was sanctioned for either those captured as part of the conquest of Canaan or for those within the commonwealth of Israel who through recklessness or indiscretion found themselves in financial debt. • Polygamy was sanctioned for various practical reasons (e.g. the loss of men through war; the establishment of land rights; etc) In all of these instances, God sanctions something that was never part of His original blueprint for human society. They are warranted because the sinful context into which they were spoken needed to be principally managed. God could have addressed each infraction of His perfect will by removing the guilty sinner/criminal directly into Hell. This seems to have been the fate of the Sons of Korah (Num 16) and Herod (Acts 12:23) but generally, the wheels of providence turn more slowly. God’s ordained means of procedure requires for His children to be ‘as wise as serpents and as innocent as doves’ (Matt 10:16). In following God’s commandments, principled pragmatism requires that (i) a murderer have his own life violently removed from him by civil execution (without violation of the Sixth commandment); (ii) a naughty child be chastised by his father (e.g. forfeiture of weekly allowance without violation of the Tenth commandment); (iii) a watchman learns how to wake his sleeping neighbours without compromising his consideration for their health and well-being!

BLMc responds,

This singular sentence encapsulates the whole problem with the above paragraph;

“In all of these instances, God sanctions something that was never part of His original blueprint for human society.”

The question here for Steve is “How does he know this?” Where in Scripture does it say that God no longer sanctions those matters He earlier sanctioned? If SL desires to argue that God completely negated “slavery,” or negated “deceit when being threatened by evil,” or negated “divorce for pornia” or negated “polygamy,” then he has to show that from the New Testament. Now, on one of these I think that can be done but I see no warrant to say that God no longer approves of slavery, deceit when threatened by evil, or divorce for pornia and I see no warrant to just assume that these realities were never part of God’s original blueprint for society. If God regulated something then it seems to me it is sanctioned by God and continues to be sanctioned unless explicitly overturned, such as what we find with animal sacrifice.

The implication of SL’s statement here seems to be that even though we can find repeated admonition in the Old Covenant for people’s to remain ethnically distinct we no longer have to take that seriously in the new and better covenant because God has voided what He clearly said earlier on that issue. However, if SL wants to argue that way then he has to show in the NT where God changed His mind.

Christ said Himself,

“For verily I say unto you, Till. heaven and earth pass, one jot or one. tittle shall in no wise pass from. the law, till all be fulfilled.”

SL writes,

Kinism & Culture

And so it is with Kinism. In that OT dispensation, one’s identification with national Israel was tantamount to one’s identification with God’s covenant people. The general assumption throughout the OT narrative is that one’s own local culture was an outward expression of one’s inward religious convictions. Thus, various tribal/national practices were deemed ungodly by covenant keeping Israelites who recognised God’s own Law as the foundational bed-rock upon which Jewish culture grew. A vast array of cultural life represented an audio-visual testimony to the grace of God and a corporate recognition of God’s rightful rule and ownership of His people. It was that implicit identification – readily discernible and admitted by every OT saint – that formally prohibited marriage to anyone from a pagan (Gentile) nation. God had established a form of godliness among the familial descendants of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob. They were to constitute God’s kingdom among the nations. Their prospect was glorious. They were to exercise God’s dominion over the nations who were anticipated everywhere throughout the OT to ‘come to Mount Zion’, to the city of the living God and there fully participate in their covenant privileges and blessings. Thus, the psalmist rejoiced, His foundation is in the holy mountains. 2 (A)The Lord loves the gates of Zion More than all the dwellings of Jacob. 3 (B)Glorious things are spoken of you, O city of God! Selah 4 “I will make mention of Rahab and Babylon to those who know Me; Behold, O Philistia and Tyre, with Ethiopia: ‘This one was born there.’ ” 5 And of Zion it will be said, “This one and that one were born in her; And the Most High Himself shall establish her.” 6 The Lord will record, When He (C) registers the peoples: “This one was born there.” Selah 7 Both the singers and the players on instruments say, “All my springs are in you.” (Ps 87)

BLMc responds,

1.) Understand that SL is arguing here that we are to deal with a different God in the NT than the God we find in the OT. This is a form of Marcionism.

2.) As postmillennialists ought it not be our expectation that a day is coming when because of God’s grace in winning the nations that all the varied Christian cultures will be an outward expression of a people’s inward religious convictions? Ought we not today as Saints in the new and better covenant deem those nations whose law is severed from God’s law as “ungodly?” Ought we not to champion God’s law as being the foundational bedrock upon which the cultures we inhabit find their growth? Ought it not be the case that we pray for the day when our own cultures serve as an audio-visual testimony to the grace of God? Ought we not to work towards the end when our nations also corporately recognize God’s rightful rule and ownership of His covenant people in each distinct nation? Are not, we as Christians, desire that our nations become clear and vivid expressions of God’s Kingdom?

3.) It seems to me that SL is pulling some kind of Dispensationalizing move here and that without giving any Biblical warrant that God’s law remains unchanging in its general equity impact. Again, there are matters that have changed from the Old Covenant to the new. The Signs and Seals of the Kingdom have changed. The fulfillment of the sacrifices in Christ means we no longer as getting our hands bloody. I would argue that the dietary laws are no longer in effect given evidence we find in the New Testament when Christ talks about that which goes into a man does not make him unclean. Certainly these matters can be discussed but SL has to do more than just assert that God’s law discontinues just upon his “say-so.”

Let us close here with another Church Father who speaks directly to this issue of the Nations continuing as Nations in the New and Better Covenant,

“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.

“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.”

Wyngaarden, pp. 101-102.

https://www.bing.com/videos/search?q=youtube.com+charlie+kirk+critical+race+theory+will+destroy+america&docid=13891749625347&mid=F87A552C1DEB1D3B5B3AF87A552C1DEB1D3B5B3A&view=detail&FORM=VIRE

Above some chap named Charlie Kirk gives a really smooth but troubling explanation of what Critical Race theory is. Kirk’s main fault seems to be that he views the Enlightenment as the good old days. Remember it was the Enlightenment that gave us the anti-Christ postulates.

1.) Man is basically good
2.) Progress is inevitable
3.) Autonomous Reason is how we know what we know
4.) Time + Chance + Circumstance accounts for our cosmological beginnings
5.) Man is the measure of all things.

What Kirk seems to be saying is that the modernity of the Enlightenment is to be favored over post-modernity. This is like saying that Stalin is to be preferred to Mao. Neither one of these epochs are favorable to the Christian faith.

Below are some comments on Kirk’s words in the video’s above. If you view the 7 minute video the comments below are linear to what Kirk is presenting in the video.

1.) Kirk says the Critical theory started with the Frankfurt School. The truth of the matter is that Critical theory started with Marx approximately 100 years prior to the Frankfurt School. Marx called it Critical Philosophy. We see this in this snippet from a letter from Marx to one Arnold Ruge in Dresden.

“In fact the internal obstacles seem almost greater than the external difficulties. For even though the question ‘where from?’ presents no problems, the question ‘where to?’ is a rich source of confusion. Not only has universal anarchy broken out among the reformers, but also every individual must admit to himself that he has no precise idea about what ought to happen. However, this very defect turns to the advantage of the new movement, for it means that we do not anticipate the world with our dogmas but instead attempt to discover the new world through the critique of the old. We are therefore in a position to sum up our journal in a single word: the self-clarification [critical philosophy] of the struggles and wishes of the age. This is the task for the world and for us.”


2.) Kirk mentions that the Frankfurt school scholars became expatriates to these united State. Just to fill that out a bit we would say that they were expatriates to this country thanks to the fact that as Jews their work on Internationalism Marxism was not welcome in Germany. Also on this score the reason that the Frankfurt “scholars” ended up here in the States was due to the work of the Fabian Socialists at Columbia University. Columbia University ended up infecting our whole University system w/ Cultural Marxism.

3.) Kirk mentions Herbert Marcuse. Keep in mind that Marcuse wrote “The Authoritarian Personality” which was monumental in removing this country from a Christian presuppositional base.

4.) As noted earlier Kirk seemingly melds the Enlightenment with Christendom. This is not well reasoned. Christianity is every bit as opposed to the Enlightenment project as it is the postmodernity project where Critical Race theory finds a home.

5.) He also misinterprets Gal. 3:28. If Critical Race theory wants to errantly reduce everything to what group (race – ethnicity) one belongs to Kirk makes the Enlightenment mistake of reducing man to the atomistic individual. As Christians we must say that both man in his identity of belonging to a family grouping and man as the individual are truths that need to be kept together.

6.) Kirk seems to suggest that Martin Luther King was on the side of the Angels because King spoke about the content of one’s character being the determining agent of analysis. However, Martin Luther King was using Marxian Dialectics when he talked about not caring about the color of one’s skin. That was said to assuage the rightful fears of the White Community that the black Marxists of King’s ilk desired to use Civil Rights as the Communist camel’s nose under the Western tent.

Also, on this score if the content of one’s character really was King’s own benchmark then Kirk should reject King for his excessive whoring, and plagiarizing.

7.) Kirk talks about “racism.” Just a reminder, that “racism” for these people is power plus privilege. Only White people thus can be racist. It is not possible for minorities or perverts or feminists to be racist. The “racism” card is the perfect tool to overthrow Western Christian civilization because Western Christian Civilization was built by the White Christian.

8.) Kirk needs to be very careful because when he says that Critical Race theorists do not believe in dialectics he couldn’t be more errant. Now, it is true that they don’t believe in conversation (dialogue) but they are practitioners extraordinaire of the Hegelian Dialectic. So, on this point Kirk’s statement is grossly misleading.

9.) Kirk is high as a kite to suggest that it was the Enlightenment that gave us the realities that he ticked off in the video. It was Christianity that gave us those realities. It is clear by now that this man (Kirk) is part of the problem and not part of the equation.

Kirk is really errant on the Enlightenment. Some have rightly noted that where we are at now is just the Enlightenment on steroids. Postmodernism is modernism (Enlightenment) on speed. There is some truth to that observation. (Also some misleading to that observation.)

10.) At the end Kirk says that “Christ did Aristotle better than anyone else?” Say what? Christ was Aristotelian?

This guy is smooth but dangerous.