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Dear Pastor,

“How does one make the claim exegetically that the atonement (penal substitution) also includes “redeeming culture” as it were?”

Thanks,

Matthew S.

Dear Matthew,

Thanks for a insightful question. I would offer as a thumbnail sketch below,

1.) The world was held in bondage under sin. (Romans 5:12f)

2.) When Christ arrives he announces the coming of the Kingdom (Mark 1:15)

3.) The coming of the Kingdom requires the Atonement in order for Christ’s triumph over sin and all opposition to be complete.

We get this exegetically as we combine the reality of Mark 1:15 with the charge that Jesus gives His disciples after the resurrection. Jesus teaches that the disciples are to baptize the nations teaching them to observe all things wherein Christ commanded. From this we conclude that Christ’s intent was for all the Nations to be won before His return and that winning of the nations is connected to His atoning work. In other words, if Christ had not made atonement there could have been no winning of the Nations before Christ’s return.

4.) There is also the connection between the cultural mandate in Scripture, which is the divine injunction found in Genesis 1:28, in which God, after having created the world and all in it, ascribes to humankind the tasks of filling, subduing, and ruling over the earth. We would contend that the Atonement sets God’s people free to fulfill this cultural mandate.

5.) Christ is redeeming all things- the environment, disease, culture, politics, business, civil government, economics, media—the “seven mountains charismatics” are right on this issue because they agree with the Puritans and the scriptures here:

“and through him to reconcile to himself all things, whether things on earth or things in heaven, by making peace through his blood, shed on the cross.” Col 1:20

“that God was reconciling the world to himself in Christ, not counting people’s sins against them. And he has committed to us the message of reconciliation.” 2 Cor 5:19

Now, granted the Seven Mountains Charismatics are not right on much else but on this point they are like the old blind sow who can find an acorn once in a while.

“A new Crisis and many Christians rush to try and uncover the conspiracy rather than seeking after and studying the God of Providence.”

Presbyterian Minister

1.) False dichotomy. One can both seek after and study the God of Providence while at the same time try to uncover the conspiracy. After all, the Providence of God may be found in understanding the Conspiracy.

2.) Why is it automatically more pious to “seek after and study the God of Providence,” as opposed to seeking to uncover a conspiracy to the glory of God?

3.) Why would any Christian ever not try and uncover the conspiracies that routinely accompany every new Crisis? It would be a violation of the 6th commandment to blindly accept the coincidence narrative inasmuch as accepting the coincidence narrative could well lead to our harm and the harm of our loved ones.

4.) Why couldn’t I just as easily say, “A new Crisis and many Presbyterian ministers rush to blindly accept the coincidence theory rather than seeking after and studying all the instances in Scripture of how history is driven by Conspiracy and then realize they should do the same?”

5.) Why should any epistemologically self-conscious Christian accept at face value the meaning of any new Crisis? Why should any epistemologically self-conscious Christian accept the interpretation of any new crisis as served up by the Lugenpresse and a Government that is long established as expert liars? I should no more, as a Christian, accept the meaning of any new crisis as given by my enemy then I would accept the Chinese explanation of the meaning of the Wuhan crisis. Not delving into the conspiracies that accompany every “crisis” and choosing instead to only focus on God’s Providence, as if I can completely discern God’s decretal will, is completely irresponsible and sentimental mush.

While we are at it, let’s take the opportunity to take a whack at those Ministerial types who teach that when visited by disaster the proper Christian response is to just stoically accept it and not seek to remedy the disaster. For example … “If God gives you a Stalin as a magistrate well, God knows what He is doing and Christian you should accept God’s judgment and get on with life.”

Please realize that if Oliver Cromwell and the Reformed Round-heads had taken this response England would have been Roman Catholic. If John Knox had taken the, “God sent Mary to us so I guess I will bar my neck to God’s judgment and submit to Mary,” Scotland would never have become Reformed. If our American forefathers had accepted the British Parliament being illegally pressed upon them we would still be part of Britain.

These Ministers who teach that Christians just need to submit to their misinterpreted meaning of God’s Providence. How do they know that God’s Providence didn’t intend that the bringing of a tyrant was for His people to repent, rise up, and throw off the tyrant instead of their cowardly interpretation of God’s Providence that Christians are supposed to cower and accept wickedness in high places until such a time that God brings it to an end.

This is what Ben Dorr excelled @ in his interview w/ Beck.

1.) He appealed for funds without appealing for funds. He did not make a direct appeal for money but when asked what the difference was between him and George Soros he answered, “Well, we are significantly less funded.” It’s a subtle and wise way to appeal for funds. He did the same kind of thing a second time. Funds are needed because Soros and the opposition has deep deep pockets.


2.) Ben turned negative press into positive press. Ben and his brothers are constantly being slammed by the press for their rabid and extreme opposition. Ben turned this around by bragging that they indeed fought “nasty” and they will continue to do so in order to defend America’s 2nd amendment rights and to defend American’s liberty. He could’ve quoted Barry Goldwater here,

“Extremism in defense of liberty is no vice.”

3.) Ben turned negative press into positive press a second time when he noted that his support is organic and not astro-turf. The media is constantly carping that the support for team Dorr is artificial and contrived. Ben noted to Glenn that contrary to media reports large amounts of money was not being spent in order to marshal these rallies. They simply created Facebook groups and invited a few of their friends who then invited tens of thousands of their friends. It was these people who showed up for rallies across the states.

4.) Ben also got to reinforce his 2nd amendment even though this was an interview on the public protests at the State Capitals. Of course if we can’t retain our 2nd amendment rights protests are going to be non existent.

5.) Ben made it clear that they were not being unreasonable. That they understood that some areas (NYC) have to be monitored more assiduously, but that those areas that are not suffering need to have their right to assembly retained.

6.) Repetition bears memory. I didn’t count how many times Ben used the word “Freedom,” but it is clear that was used repeatedly in order to grind it into people’s heads. The protests at the State capitals are about FREEDOM.

7.) Ben mentioned the excessive and draconian stipulations being placed upon the citizenry by the State Governors. By providing the most extreme examples Ben paints a background that demonstrates that the protests are completely reasonable in light of Government tyranny. Ben gently mocked the Governors by mentioning some of these diktats. This is right out of Alinsky’s “Rules for Radicals.”

8.) Ben was good natured in the interview, even laughing along with Glenn several times. This is was not accidental. Ben wanted to communicate friendly bonhomie as opposed to an angry demeanor.

9.) Ben kept it focused on the people. This isn’t about his group. It’s about restoring authority to the people. He made it clear that when Governments are diminished in power, that power returns to where it belongs … to the people as represented in the States. This is Federalism 101.

10.) Ben mentioned the Governors by name (although he left out the very worse one — Michigan Governor Whitmer). This puts a face on the opposition. Governors Evers (Wisconsin) Wolf (Pennsylvania), Walz (Minnesota) were mentioned by name. This keeps the heat on and makes the fight personal. (People will fight against known faces. They are more slow to fight against nameless ideas.)

All in all it was a fine interview and moves the ball forward.

Well done Ben.

We take the necessity of logical consistency, Empirical adequacy, and Experiential relevance … what do we put that test to? To the four questions of Origin, Meaning, Destiny, and Morality. What are the subjects? The subjects are God, reality, knowledge, morality, and mankind, which is theology, metaphysics, epistemology, ethics, and anthropology. Three tests. Four Questions. Five disciplines.

Ravi Zacharias

I heard this recently in a Ravi Zacharias sermon and it caught my attention because I was taught something very similar when I was 18, and it has remained central to my own thinking every since.

This was the form in which I learned it from Dr. Glenn Martin. Dr. Martin began every course he taught with the review you will find below. Martin taught me that the Christian, in his apologetic endeavor has to answer the larger questions with lasting answers.

The larger questions were,

“The Origin, Nature, and Destiny of the Cosmos?” &
“The Origin, Nature, Destiny and Role of Man?”

In order to do that one was required to provide answers for

Epistemology — The question of Knowledge

Options

a.) Autonomous Reason
b.) Intuition
c.) Revelation

Teleology — The question of purpose…ends

a.) The Kingdom of God
b.) The Kingdom of Man

Ontology (Metaphysics) — The question of ultimate reality

Extra-mundane Personal Sovereign God
Time plus Chance plus Circumstance

Axiology — The question of values.

God’s Law
Man’s relativism

All of this was then applied to the 7 civil-social Institutions that all social orders build.

A.) Church
B.) Family
C.) Arts
D.) Education
E.) Science
F.) Civil-social (politics)
G.) Law

“We cannot separate Christian morals and the rule of law….”

“My Puritan ancestors of Massachusetts Bay, like their fathers the “Geneva Men” of Elizabethan England, hoped to make the laws of the ancient Jews into a code for their own time—a foolish notion . My Scottish Covenanting ancestors, too, aspired nearly to that. Upon such misconceptions, my great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-grandfather on the distaff side , Abraham Pierce, was tried at Plymouth, Massachusetts,in 1625, for indolence on the Sabbath; by a miscarriage of justice, doubtless, he was acquitted.

Such attempts at legal archaism, being absurd, failed before they properly began; for the particular laws of a people ineluctably mirror the circumstances of an age. Hebraic legal institutions would no more suit seventeenth-century England, say, than the English common law of the seventeenth century would have been possible for Jerusalem in the sixth century before Christ. No, what Christianity (or any other religion) confers is not a code of positive laws, but instead some general understanding of justice.”

Dr. Russel Kirk
1983 Lecture — Hillsdale College

https://imprimis.hillsdale.edu/wp-content/uploads/2016/11/Imprimis-We-Cannot-Separate-Christian-Morals-and-the-Rule-of-Law-Apr-1983.pdf

There is a good deal in Kirk’s lecture that recommends itself to the reader because if provides fodder for a law that refuses legal relativism (Kirk’s Dionysian) as against a law that remains absolute (Kirk’s Apollonian) and for that reason I would recommend reading it.

However, what Kirk gives that is wholesome with the Right hand in that article above he takes with the left hand in the quote italicized above.

Kirk seemingly desired the fruit of Christian law influence quite apart from the root of Christian law. Kirk desired the flavor of Christianity quite apart from the ingredients required in order to yield the flavor he found delectable. Kirk praises the child while damning the parents.

First Kirk faults the Elizabethan Geneva men, the Puritans of Massachusetts Bay, and the Scottish Covenanters. This is no small or insignificant group of ancestors and yet Kirk dismisses them seemingly because Kirk didn’t like Sabbath laws. Kirk gives us no reasons why the proper codification of law as based on a proper understanding of God’s law is “foolish.” Kirk tries to make it sound like the Geneva men, the Puritans, and the Scottish covenanters were trying to repristinate God’s law to such a degree that the result would be the re-creation of 1st century Israel in 17th century England. Anybody familiar with Calvin’s Geneva knows that 17th century Geneva was in no way 1st century Israel.

Clearly Kirk’s aspiration to have a law that would produce Christian morals is limited by what morals he himself did and did not desire. Kirk noted in the article linked that there had to be a balance achieved between being to loose with the connection between Law and Christianity as the source of Law and to strict with the connection between Law and Christianity as the source of Law. The problem we find here is, by what standard will we decide what is and is not to strict? Kirk seems to tell us that we are the standard by which the appropriate amount of strictness will be measured. However, if that is the case we are right back to man being the source of law and not God’s Law-Word.

When Kirk offers that “the particular laws of a people ineluctably mirror the circumstances of an age” we are right back to some form of relativism as the source of law. Law is not objective, per this standard, but rather subjective as reflecting the always changing circumstances of an age. Also, again we find ourselves asking, “circumstances as adjudicated by what or whom?” The Marquis de Sade would have insisted that the circumstances of his age to be quite different than the circumstances his peer, Edmund Burke, would have insisted upon as prevailing. Because this is so we would ask Dr. Kirk, “who is being absurd now?”

Kirk insisted that it is the role of Christianity to provide “some general understanding of justice,” but how can Christianity provide a general understanding of justice apart from the legally archaic particulars of which Kirk gently mocks? For example, how can we have a general understanding of murder unless we know that murder includes, per God’s particular law, both the element of the intentional and the unjust? How could we make distinctions between murder and manslaughter unless the Scripture gave us particular instances and not merely some general understanding? As said earlier, Kirk desires the fruit of the Christian faith informing law (a general understanding) without out the root of the Christian faith informing law (God’s particular case laws).

On the face of it what Kirk offers it sounds reasonable, but in the end it places him in the same camp as those who do not see Law as absolute and particular. Kirk gives us a shifting law that images the circumstance of the age without quite realizing that a shifting law requires a shifting God since Law is a reflection of God’s character.

Having said all that, allow me to say that this is no paen to the idea that God’s Law can’t be differently applied in different eras or among different Christian social orders and cultures. Clearly, God’s Law was applied differently among the Christian social order of Charlemagne and the Christian social order of Calvin’s Geneva. However, even if applied differently, once traced back to its origin one will find in every Christian social order that the Law of the land is distinctly Christian and includes the general equity of God’s particular case laws.

It is encouraging to realize that Dr. Kirk knows better now.