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• One of the universal forbiddings in Scripture – perhaps even the chief forbidding in Scripture is against idolatry.

In the Law we have the text read this morning (Ex. 20:3-6) but there is also a text like Leviticus 19

4“ ‘Do not turn to idols or make metal gods for yourselves. I am the LORD your God.

In the books of history

II Kings 17 – “They built for themselves high places in all their cities . . . . They set up for themselves sacred pillars and wooden images on every high hill and under every green tree; and there they burned incense on all the high places, as the nations had done whom the LORD had carried away before them.” (verses 9-11). Further, they “followed idols, became idolaters, and . . . made for themselves a molded image and two calves, made a wooden image and worshipped all the host of heaven, and served Baal” (verses 15-16)

In the Wisdom Literature Psalm 135

15 The idols of the nations are silver and gold, made by human hands. 16 They have mouths, but cannot speak, eyes, but cannot see.  17 They have ears, but cannot hear, nor is there breath in their mouths. 

18 Those who make them will be like them, and so will all who trust in them.

In the Prophets

The children gather wood, the fathers kindle fire, and the women knead dough, to make cakes for the queen of heaven. And they pour out drink offerings to other gods, to provoke me to anger. Jeremiah 7

History NT Books

Now while Paul was waiting for them at Athens, his spirit was provoked within him as he saw that the city was full of idols. Acts 17:16

Paul’s Epistles

Therefore, my beloved, flee from idolatry. I Cor. 10:4

John’s Epistles

Little children, keep yourselves from idols. I John 5:21

Peter’s Epistle’s (I Pt. 4:3)

For the time that is past suffices for doing what the Gentiles want to do, living in sensuality, passions, drunkenness, orgies, drinking parties, and lawless idolatry.

Apocalyptic But as for the cowardly, the faithless, the detestable, as for murderers, the sexually immoral, sorcerers, idolaters, and all liars, their portion will be in the lake that burns with fire and sulfur, which is the second death.”

Given the prevalence of the warnings against Idolatry in Scripture and given the proneness of men to continually make idols we can understand why Calvin said that the human heart is an idol factory.

The idolatry warned against can be a literal image crafted and shaped and religiously bowed down to or idolatry can be an idea that is lifted over God or a desired emotion

Ill. – Existentialists – meaningful experience

Or Idolatry can involve a person or people that is / are lifted up as God.

Ill. — Hirohito (Emperor of Japan)

So, before we go any further let us get a clear definition on what idolatry is.

“The belief that the cause, meaning and purpose of the whole cosmos can be found in the created order itself as that created order is located in an object, idea, person, or institution with the resulting consequence that that which is taken up as an idol is worshiped by those who have taken it up.”

We can condense that even more to make it more pithy and so memorable. Per. Dr. Joe Boot,

Idolatry occurs when an aspect of creation is exaggerated, absolutized and then is made the foundation of the explanation for everything else.”

So, for example, in Romanticism, Transcendentalism or Existentialism it is mans emotive center that is exaggerated, absolutized and then made the foundation of the explanation of all reality. What man feels or intuits is made God and becomes the foundation of the explanation for everything else. We get catchy phrases like … “The heart wants what the heart wants,” or “If it feels good do it,” and some wait all their lives for a “meaningful experience.” Much of the early drug culture was about finding this idol of experience in the “trip.”

In Rationalism (Enlightenment) it is man’s autonomous reason that is exaggerated (blown up like a balloon), absolutized, and then made the foundation of the explanation of all reality. In Rationalism God’s revelation is no longer considered and man’s fiat Word as an idol is that which legislates all reality.

In Nihilism it is man’s despair that is exaggerated (blown up like a balloon), absolutized, and then made the foundation of the explanation of all reality. In Darwinism it is man as matter in motion that is exaggerated (blown up like a balloon), absolutized, and then made the foundation of the explanation of all reality. And on and on it goes.

Ancient mariners had to navigate by the North Star. What modern man has done in rejecting God is that he has pulled down the North Star and placed a new North Star of his own making to be that reality by which he can both deny God by and by which he can now navigate his life without God. That new North Star is some aspect of the creation exaggerated, absolutized and so given a Transcendence that is not inherent to it, and made the foundation of the explanation of all reality. (i.e. – It becomes the prism through which all reality is translated through).

This is Idolatry.

Having laid this out so far do keep in mind that those people you know who don’t own Christ (and many who do own Christ unfortunately) are all idolaters. If you are not worshiping the God of the Bible you are worshiping some idol. No neutrality. No one lives in a vacuum where they live a worship-less life. Every one has a god or god concept in their lives. God is an inescapable concept.

We see then that in Idolatry that which is created is treated as that which is the creator and is treated accordingly. Idolatry is to prioritize the created over the Creator and then take that which is created and live one’s life in service to it.

Now we turn to idolatry because you and I are living in a unique time because we are currently living in an age when corporately, as a people group, we are being encouraged to own another God. Now the case might be made that we are simply changing one idol out for another but that we are being encouraged to own a different idol is clear for those with eyes to see.

Remember we said that idolatry is worship. As such wherever you find worship going on of something or someone besides the God of the Bible there you find idolatry.

Well, we are seeing the demands for worship everywhere in the last few weeks. You’ve seen the photos. You just didn’t realize you were looking at idolatry.

There they were – our Congressional leaders – bowing and kneeling in the Capital Rotunda to the new Idol… the Black Marxist. There they were in the Street rallies bowing and even splaying themselves out prostrate on the Street to identify with the new black Marxist God. Our women folks likewise, both individually and as groups, are being approached and asked to bow before the Idol of the new black Marxist God and are doing so repenting of their false guilt. There they are – our Police Chiefs and Police forces in different places around the country bowing before the new black Marxist God in town. I think it is obvious to say this bowing and scraping and kneeling and repenting, and confessing is all a matter of idolatry. There is a new God in town and that new God is to be worshiped.

It is all a very religious exercise. There is a new God in town and with the new God come all the accouterments that go with a new religion. One has the sacred category which is occupied by the Holy Marxist minority community. They are the new “people of god.”

One has the unclean category – the Lepers if you please — which is filled with people who point out the irrationality of the new Idol in town. The lepers are unclean and must be treated as those who are to be outside the camp.

You have the sinner category filled with Biblical Christians who refuse to own this new idolatry. They can yet repent and be part of “god’s people.”

You have the Prophets / Priests who represent this new God … Raz in Seattle … Sharpton … Don Lemon. Wherever you find someone who is WOKE in leadership there you find a Priest of this new god in town. However, the upper echelons of Priesthood belongs uniquely to minorities, feminists, or perverts.

You have the false prophets who say they are Christian Ministers but who are in service of this new Idol and idolatry. You remember in the OT that many Prophets would come forth claiming they spoke for Jehovah but were indeed false prophets.

If you throw a dart blindfolded you will hit one. Matt Chandler, Al Mohler, Tim Keller, John Piper, Ron Burns, David Platt, J. D. Greer, J. Ligon Duncan… I could go on for pages … there they are all seeking to lay upon Biblical Christians false guilt with a narrative that is demonstrably false. They are idolaters and are pressing God’s people to call idolatry “Christianity.” The God of the Bible will remember these men.

You have a martyr class … George Floyd, MLK, Malcolm X. Wherever you see a minority killed there you find a martyr for our new idolatry.

It’s all there. We are building a religion bent on worshiping a new God in town and for those who will not bend the knee to this new idolatry … well, the new Sans-culotte class has a plan for us.

And what of this new idolatry? Well, like all idolatry it is the anti-thesis of Biblical Christianity. It sees man as big and God as small. It is characterized by people who have no regard for History or facts. This is the way it is with idolatry. Idolatry is not a fact based enterprise. If we are going to have gods who are not gods and if we always get our definition of reality from our idols than false gods are going to produce false realities and eventually those false realities will become so common place that real reality will strike people as structurally odd.

With a new Black Marxist God will come a new history. As history is the story told by God every new god … (every idol) has his own history and his own facts. In this new Black Marxist God history we know that the Christian white man especially is the devil and the devil has to be destroyed. In this new Black Marxist God history white privilege is the original sin.

We see this motion of idolatry in all the pulling down and destroying of the old statuary – much of it honoring the White Christian men of the West who served the God of the Bible and who built this country. (Columbus, Gen. Robert E. Lee, Texas Ranger Capt. Jay Banks, Presidsent Jefferson Davis). What you are seeing with all the removal of the Statuary is the destruction of the new devil per the new history of the new idol god.

And keep in mind this is all promissory. What is being done to all that statuary is promissory of the desire to do to those who still honor that old statuary and what it represents of the past. The destruction of white heroes of the past is promissory of the elimination of those living whom those statues represent. There is a new god in town. Out with the old adherents of the old god and in with the new adherents of the new god. If White people don’t repent then white people will be killed. If White people do repent then white people will become hewers of wood and drawers of water.

We could go on and on down this chain of reasoning. A new God means a new way of salvation. In what we are seeing the new way of salvation means repenting of Biblical Christianity. No Biblical Christian who does not make the black Marxist as his god can be saved. Further, if we will be saved by this new idol then we must do self-atonement. We must atone for our past sins and the sins of our Fathers by going about in sackcloth and ashes and mouthing the praises at every turn of the new idol in town. Atonement now requires the white man’s move towards masochism as we own all the (pretend) sins that all white men have ever done. In order to be saved and atone for our sins we must denigrate and denounce our Christian Fathers and their Christian ways. In order to be saved and atone for our sins we must denounce the atonement found in Jesus Christ as recorded in the Scriptures.

A new god means a new law system. Every new idol has his own law system. The God of the Bible gave us the true law system in the 10 commandments and the general equity of the judicial law. The new idol requires common ownership of goods. The idol requires a transfer of wealth from the White man to the black Marxist. We call it Reparations. The last figure I heard was 13 trillion dollars. The magazine Christianity Today latest issue headlined our need to give up reparations. The new law system criminalizes the White Christian and criminalizes the law system of the White Christian.

A new God means a new law system.


“All who are content with a humanistic law system and do not strive to replace it with Biblical law are guilty of idolatry. They have forsaken the covenant of their God, and they are asking us to serve other gods. They must be called out of their idolatry into the service of the living God.”

R.J. Rushdoony

Don’t you see… this is all the result of Idolatry. There is a new God in town and everyone will play by his rules. This is not about equity… justice … truth. This is about “top rail on bottom and bottom rail on top.”

And let me round off here by saying … “we deserve this.” God has been patient with Christians in America for decades. But we have rebelled against Him at every turn. We have prioritized our gaining of wealth and materialism at the expense of knowing God. We have become like the Money-Changers we allowed in preferring to be like International Bankers as opposed to being like God. We have sent our children out to the houses of Baal to be educated and then are surprised when they come back to us as children of this age – Whores and worthless men who really are probably better off in their Mother’s basements playing video games.

We deserve this. We, for generations have sown the wind and now we are reaping the whirlwind. God’s judgments are all together just.

However, it is not too late to repent. It is not too late to own the God of the Bible and His Christ. Not to late to prioritize knowing God and His Christ. Not to late to rescue and keep our and God’s covenant seed. Not to late to become epistemologically self conscious and so think God’s thoughts after Him and so fight the idols of this age.

God is patient not wishing any of His people would perish.

Won’t you enter with me in a life long pursuit of Repentance?

Only in such a way can we slay the current growing idolatry in our midst.

“We Deny that political or social activism should be viewed as integral components of the gospel or primary to the mission of the church. Though believers can and should utilize all lawful means that God has providentially established to have some effect on the laws of a society, we deny that these activities are either evidence of saving faith or constitute a central part of the church’s mission given to her by Jesus Christ, her head. We deny that laws or regulations possess any inherent power to change sinful hearts.”

The Statement on Social Justice & the Gospel

1.) Many of the hands crafting this document were Baptists (Voddie Baucham, James White, John MacArthur, etc.) and the whole document as a Baptist feel about it, including this denial. Baptists are forever talking about soul freedom and the separation of Church and State and that mindset that Separates Church and State is seen in this denial. Any flavor of Christianity that separates Church and State is going to, at the same time, fault the Church as Institution having any role in speaking to the State or even the civil-social sphere. Baptists (and lately R2K Baptisterians) are all about saying, “We just need to get people saved and to hell with the social order.” (Well, they don’t say that explicitly but that is what I hear.)

2.) Note the oily way the first sentence is crafted. Political or social activism is written off from the Church’s bailiwick because political and social activism are not, strictly speaking, Gospel issues. The Gospel is the good news proclamation of what God in Christ has accomplished for and in the place (stead) of sinners. The Gospel, narrowly defined, requires nothing and gives all and as such the only activism that is speaks of is the activism of Jesus Christ for sinners.

However, could we agree with that first sentence in the denial above if it said, “We Deny that political or social activism should be viewed as integral components of Biblical Christianity or of any concern with reference to the mission of the church.” I hope we would not agree with such a sentence and yet the way these Baptists have crafted the first sentence we are forced to concede that the Church as Institution is inert when it comes to political and social activism.

And what is political and social activism? Is preaching a sermon on the threat that Marxism presents to Christian civilization to be considered political and social activism? Does forming a men’s militia in the Church with the purpose of preventing the Church from being burned down by anarchistic protesters to be considered a political and social activism?

Allow me to posit that it is precisely the visible Church’s reluctance to embrace a Christianity that politically and socially active that has led to the de-Christianization of Western civilization. Is it really that difficult to preach up Christ in His role as our great High Priest while being involved in activities that preach up Christ as King of Kings and Lord of Lords?

I would contend that this denial is the result of a Gnostic other-worldly pietism. Now, to be sure, the Church of Christ can be lopsided and fall into the social Gospel but something I’ve never seen or heard of is for the Church of Christ to fall into a Biblical Christianity that seeks to build up and protect political and social realities that were born of a Christian tradition. Maybe we should try?

3.) Protesting at the steps of the Supreme court about the scourge that abortion is, isn’t an evidence of saving faith? Working to keep marriage defined as only existing between a man and a woman isn’t evidence of saving faith? Petitioning Seminaries change their bylaws so as to rid themselves of all R2K professors isn’t evidence of saving faith? Joining a militia to protect my neighbor’s business in the context of a riot, and uphold the law, isn’t evidence of saving faith? Who writes this dreck?

4.) Who has ever said that “laws or regulations possess any inherent power to change sinful hearts?” Who are these Baptists aiming at with that statement? Of course laws or regulations do not have any inherent power to change sinful hearts. However, laws and regulations have inherent power to keep a society under a Christian moral tutelage until such a time when the Spirit of God changes hearts.

What these Baptists are doing here is pitting the pedagogical use of the law (reveal sin and drive men to Christ) against the political use of the law (frame a people’s laws so that they can live Civilizationally as Christians). Would these Baptists have the Muslims (Sharia) or the Jews (Noahic laws) shape our laws even though the having of laws based on Christian revelation cannot in and of themselves, by themselves (apart from the Spirit of Christ) change sinful hearts? And if we are to have Christian laws then why shouldn’t the Church as an Institution have a voice in what those laws might look like as the Church instructs and teaches those who will one day be Judges, Lawyers, and Politicians? Why shouldn’t the Church as Institution catechize God’s people in what Biblical law for civilizations look like?

I am not a Baptist and I want no part of this Baptist denial of muscular and biblical Christianity.

“We affirm God made all people from one man. Though people often can be distinguished by different ethnicities and nationalities, they are ontological equals before God in both creation and redemption. “Race” is not a biblical category, but rather a social construct that often has been used to classify groups of people in terms of inferiority and superiority. All that is good, honest, just, and beautiful in various ethnic backgrounds and experiences can be celebrated as the fruit of God’s grace. All sinful actions and their results (including evils perpetrated between and upon ethnic groups by others) are to be confessed as sinful, repented of, and repudiated.

We deny that Christians should segregate themselves into racial groups or regard racial identity above, or even equal to, their identity in Christ. We deny that any divisions between people groups (from an unstated attitude of superiority to an overt spirit of resentment) have any legitimate place in the fellowship of the redeemed. We reject any teaching that encourages racial groups to view themselves as privileged oppressors or entitled victims of oppression. While we are to weep with those who weep, we deny that a person’s feelings of offense or oppression necessarily prove that someone else is guilty of sinful behaviors, oppression, or prejudice.“

Scripture: Genesis 1:26–28; Acts 17:24-26; 1 Corinthians 13:4-7; 2 Corinthians 12:16-18

Statement on Social Justice & the Gospel

The “Statement on Social Justice & the Gospel,” was supposed to be a conservative response to racial Egalitarianism in the Church. Instead we merely got more of Egalitarianism toned down and supported by Scripture improperly interpreted. The document, while indeed better than what is prevalent today in many many Evangelical and Reformed Churches is still a poor reflection of Scripture, an even worse re-articulation of what the Church has taught through the century, and just a poorly and confused written document.

Let’s note briefly just a few embarrassments in what is written above.

1.) On the statement that “Race is not a Biblical category,” see

https://ironink.org/?p=8662&fbclid=IwAR14Xsh7pRhr2kz4yX3zaMFt0H6T4BbH7qH8JrlVzV9tP9HP4R8U_0QMFTE

2.) On inferiority and superiority it is clear that just as there are individuals that are superior to others (Let’s do have Beethoven over for supper honey instead of Charlie Manson) so there are people groups, ethnicities, and races that are superior and inferior. At the very least this is true in terms of varying tasks. For example, it is clear that White Christians have been, until they recently abandoned Christ, superior at building civilizations. Similarly, it is clear if you wanted recipes for cannibalism you would typically have to go to one of the inferior people groups. Concretely speaking, who would argue that Cortez’ Spanish Conquistadors were not superior to the inferior Aztecs that they mercifully conquered? Concretely speaking, when St. Paul spoke of Cretans in Titus he was speaking to them as inferior people. Concretely speaking, when the Hebrews cleansed the land of Canaan they cleansed the land of inferior peoples.

Now, some may consider the idea of inferior or superior people groups as “hate facts” but they remain facts all the same as long as we recognize that all of this is by the decree of God and as long as we understand that any superiority is by grace alone and has nothing to do with any people group being made of better dirt.

In conjunction with the above observation that it is necessary to understand that just as superior and inferior can run through different genres so that we can talk about superior and inferior fugues, superior and inferior Gregorian chants, superior and inferior Big Band music and superior and inferior Rock Ballads so inferior and superior can run through different people groups so that we can talk about superior and inferior hospitality as existing among people groups, superior and inferior courage as existing among people groups, superior and inferior standards of cleanliness as existing among people groups and superior and inferior organization skills as existing among people groups. Recognizing this we might well say that superiority status and inferiority status co-exist together in all people groups depending on what “genre” or “category” one is speaking of. At one time this was readily recognized. We used maxims to describe these. If we spoke about “Dutch clean” everyone knew was was being said. If we spoke about the Irish Temper or the Irish gift of gab everyone knew what was being said. If we talked about how pugnacious the Scots are everyone knew what was being said. When de Tocqueville wrote “Democracy in America” part of his task was to talk about what made Americans superior and inferior. Once upon a time we understood what is being denied today as a sin against egalitarianism. The above statement gets this dreadfully wrong.

3.) There is nothing sinful in voluntary ethnic or racial group segregating even as pursued by Christians. This is another egalitarian canard that is only an infant in its pedigree when measured against the course of Christian civilization. Here we will refute the idea that segregation is sin by quoting from greater men who lived before this time of egalitarian madness.

When the magazine, Christianity Today, did turn to the question of segregation in 1957, Dr. Carl F. H. Henry wrote that civil rights legislation ending segregation would be morally problematic,

“Forced integration is as contrary to Christian principles as is forced segregation,” he argued. “A voluntary segregation, even of believers, can well be a Christian procedure.”

In the same 1957 issue there was also an article by E. Earle Ellis, a Bible professor at Aurora College, in Illinois, who would later teach theology at Southern Baptist Theological Seminary in Kentucky (where, according to his obituary, “many students considered it an honor just to sit in his class”). In his article, Ellis argued that racial segregation could actually be a positive good.

Ellis wrote,

“Segregation has the potential to develop into a partnership of mutual respect … Southerners often wonder whether integrationists are as interested in good race relations as in forcing a particular kind of race relations. The unfortunate fact is that ardent Christian integrationists, however conscientious, are one cause of the worsening race relations in the South today. Their moral superiority complex, their caricature of the segregationist as an unchristian bigot and their pious confession of the sins of people in other sections of the country have not been wholly edifying.”

Dr. H. Morton Smith added this on the subject of segregation,

“If from this we may conclude that ethnic pluriformity is the revealed will of God for the human race in its present situation, it is highly questionable whether the Christian can have part in any program that would seek to erase all ethnic distinctions. That such distinctions may be crossed over by individuals may be granted, but it is at least questionable whether a program designed to wipe out such differences on a mass scale should be endorsed by the Christian. It is this line of argument that the average Christian segregationist uses to back his view. He fears that the real goal of the integrationist is the intermarriage of the races, and therefore the breakdown of the distinctions between them. Many who would be willing to integrate at various lesser levels refuse to do so, simply because they feel that such will inevitably lead to intermarriage of the races, which they consider to be morally wrong. . . .

The mass mixing of the races with the intent to erase racial boundaries he does consider to be wrong, and on the basis of this, he would oppose the mixing of the two races in this way. Let it be acknowledged that a sin in this area against the Negro race has been perpetrated by godless white men, both past and present, but this does not justify the adoption of a policy of mass mixing of the races. Rather, the Bible seems to teach that God has established and thus revealed his will for the human race now to be that of ethnic pluriformity, and thus any scheme of mass integration leading to mass mixing of the races is decidedly unscriptural.”

Dr. Morton H. Smith (1923-2017)
(For more see: Dr. Morton H. Smith on Christianity, Race, and Segregation)

4.) The statement above about identity is accurate as far as it goes. For the Christian his overarching identity is found in who he is in Christ. However, the statement above almost sounds as if the writers are diminishing the importance of the creational identities that God has assigned to us. Again, it is true that our creational identities cannot rise above our identity in Christ for that would be a form of idolatry. However that doesn’t mean our creational identities are unimportant. They are extremely important and shouldn’t be disregarded as important.

5.) “We deny that any divisions between people groups have any legitimate place in the fellowship of the redeemed.”

The problem that the Biblical Christian has here is that this seems to assume the multicultural Church congregations should be the norm. Does this statement mean that the authors and signatories believe that Korean Churches are unbiblical or that Black Churches are unbiblical simply because they could easily be seen as existing because of division of people groups? This statement is unclear as is much of the whole document.

On those portions we have not commented upon we are in complete agreement. However, these statements considered above are poison pills for the whole document and as such the whole document should be eschewed and left unsupported.

The radical declares,

“Everyone belongs to all, and all belongs to everyone. All are slaves and equal in their slavery… Slaves are bound to be equal. Without despotism there has never been either freedom or equality, but in the herd there is bound to be equality…. The moment you have family ties or love you get the desire for property. We will destroy that desire; we’ll make use of drunkenness, slander, spying; we’ll make use of incredible corruption; we’ll stifle every genius in its infancy. We’ll reduce all to a common denominator! Complete equality!”

The Possessed
Fydor Dostoevsky

Dostoevsky was a 19th century Russian writer who explored the human psyche, particularly as that psyche was conditioned by ideology and religion. In the quote above we find that Dostoevsky understood the nascent proto-Marxist type ideology which he believed were Demon like ideas from Western Europe that were possessing Russia.

It is interesting that even in 1873 Russia, Dostoevsky could identify the heart of collectivism that remains with us yet today. Dostoevsky understood that the end of equality, absolutized, is slavery….

Without Biblical distinctions regarding gender, roles, ethnic groups, and authority structure, we will be amalgamated into the herd reality that Dostoevsky warns about. It will be a herd reality where a few elite are, in essence, the Farmers over the undistinguished and undifferentiated mass herd. Those who advocate complete equality in terms of “equality of identity” are the enemy and they are the enemy because Scripture identifies them as such. They are the enemy who overthrow the 5th commandment where a distinction and hierarchy of parents is required before they can be honored. They are the enemy who overthrow the great commission where a distinction of nations is required before those nations can be baptized, discipled and taught to observe all things taught by Christ. They are the enemy who overthrow Galatians 3:28 where a existing distinction between Jews and Gentiles, Slave and Free, Men and Women, must exist before there can be comfort that all can be justified in Christ. They are the enemy who overthrow the 8th commandment where a distinction must exist between what is my property and what is not my property before any forbidding of theft can make sense. Egalitarianism is the enemy and egalitarians are the enemy precisely because their egalitarianism strikes at the heart of God’s revelation. Keep in mind that the ultimate goal of the Father of egalitarianism is to erase the distinction and hierarchy between the Creator and the creature. He desires to make God and man a common denominator. That is the ultimate distinction that is under attack in all of these penultimate battles.

OPC Minister Matthew Kingsbury

Families Are of this World, but the Church Is of the Next

“We begin by observing that marriage is a temporary, for-this-life-only institution. Although marriage is given us by God for several reasons, its main purpose is to symbolize the relationship between Christ and his church, as the Apostle Paul teaches in Ephesians 5:25-32. This primary and exemplary purpose is more central to the institution of marriage than childbearing, which is the means by which a marriage becomes a family.”

Bret

We would note in our hymnody we sing of families being reunited in the next life,

“Thus to the parents and their seed
shall thy salvation come
and numerous households will meet at last
in one eternal home”

But beyond hymnody the speaks of the coming day when the circle of family will be unbroken Scripture gives us reason to think that families exist beyond this life and so contra to Rev. Kingsbury are not temporary. In the book of Revelation there is the repeated mention of Nations present in the new Jerusalem. Now, as Nations are constituted in the Scriptures as a people with a shared lineage (Genesis), a shared history (Exodus), having a common law (Deuteronomy) sharing a common land (Joshua) and having kin leadership (Judges) it seems obvious that when the book of Revelation speaks of Nations in the New Jerusalem that families, like the Church, are of the next world.

Revelation 22:1 Then he showed me a river of the water of life, clear as crystal, coming from the throne of God and of the Lamb, 2in the middle of its street. On either side of the river was the tree of life, bearing twelve kinds of fruit, yielding its fruit every month; and the leaves of the tree were for the healing of the nations.

Revelation 21:23And the city has no need of the sun or of the moon to shine on it, for the glory of God has illumined it, and its lamp is the Lamb. 24 The nations will walk by its light, and the kings of the earth will bring their glory into it…. The glory and honor of the nations will be brought into it.

Rev. Kingsbury seems to think that the new Heaven and Earth is an existence that is largely discontinuous with this life. It is better to think that what is to be expected of the new Heaven and Earth is a transfiguration of this life with all the expected continuities and discontinuities. The result of the consummation then is not abolition of this world and all its rich familial relationship but rather redemption of it including the redemption of a family structure that exists in the next world.

Second, on this point, though the Ephesians 5 passage does teach that Christian Marriage is analogous of Christ and the Church, Ephesians 5 nowhere explicitly teaches that this analogy is the main purpose of Marriage. Now certainly, the primary purpose of Marriage, like the primary purpose of all things that we as Christians do is to glorify God but to say that the main purpose of Marriage is to symbolize the relationship between Christ and his church goes beyond what Ephesians 5 teaches.