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Before we get to this text proper we see the paranoia of the enemies of Christ. With these guards assigned to guard the body of Jesus there is a triple redundancy in the provision to make sure that Christ doesn’t fulfill his promise to rise as repeated several times during his Ministry.

Matthew 16:21

From that time on Jesus began to show His disciples that He must go to Jerusalem and suffer many things at the hands of the elders, chief priests, and scribes, and that He must be killed and on the third day be raised to life.

John 10:18

No one takes it from Me, but I lay it down of My own accord. I have authority to lay it down and authority to take it up again. This charge I have received from My Father.”

Matthew 26:61

“This man said, ‘I am able to destroy the temple of God and rebuild it in three days.'”

Here were these promises that Christ’s enemies seemed more conversant with than Christ’s disciples. Christ had repeatedly promised to rise from the dead and His enemies knew it and were determined to stop it at all costs.

One of the impediments to Resurrection is the Stone mentioned in Matthew,

He (Joseph of Arimathea) rolled a big stone in front of the entrance to the tomb and went away (Matthew 27:59,60).

But not only was there the matter of the Biggly Stone that was no easy matter of dispensing of from the inside there was also the

Roman seal on the Stone and a Roman guard to insure that the Stone was not going to be removed and the body stolen.

And they went and made the grave secure, and along with the guard they set a seal on the stone (Matthew 27:66).

The idea of making the grave secure means they worked to the end that no one was toing to easily get inside that tomb… or get out of that tomb It was secure. The enemies of Christ were doing their flat level best to make sure Jesus Christ stayed in that grave.

Now understand that Roman seal, if broken, bore the penalty of death for the one who broke the seal illegally.

So … we have the big stone… we have the grave made secure … we have the Roman seal. Next there is the guard assigned.

The guard assigned was either the Roman guard or the Jewish temple police.

Pilate said to them, “You have a guard; go, make it as secure as you know how.” And they went and made the grave secure, and along with the guard they set a seal on the stone (Matthew 27:65,66).

There is a question as to which one of the two groups was watching over it. The context seems to favor the Roman guard. The Roman guard, which in my conviction was likely the guard that was set was a sixteen-man unit that was governed by very strict rules. Sixteen Roman soldiers were watching a grave made secure, as closed by a big stone having upon it a Roman seal that promised death for all who would dare break the seal.

Now … this Roman guard found each member responsible for six square feet of space. The guard members could not sit down or lean against anything while they were on duty. If a guard member fell asleep, he was beaten and burned with his own clothes. But he was not the only one executed, the entire sixteen-man guard unit was executed if only one of the members fell asleep while on duty.

And remember all this against an opposition who couldn’t stand up against a servant girl making inquiries as to whether or not the chief disciple was indeed a disciple at all.

This redundancy of all this to protect the grave from potential chicken hearted grave robbers reminds us of Houdini hancuffing himself, putting himself in a safe, and then wrapping the safe in chains before dumping it into the harbor.

But despite all their redundancies their best laid plans came undone.

2 There was a violent earthquake, for an angel of the Lord came down from heaven and, going to the tomb, rolled back the (Big) stone and sat on it.3 His appearance was like lightning, and his clothes were white as snow.4 The guards were so afraid of him that they shook and became like dead men.

Just like that … the Big Stone … the Roman Seal … the 16 man Roman guard. Poof.

Then we are told
11 … behold, some of the guard came into the city and reported to the chief priests all the things that had happened. 12 When they had assembled with the elders and consulted together, they gave a large sum of money to the soldiers, 13 saying, “Tell them, ‘His disciples came at night and stole Him away while we slept.’ 14 And if this comes to the governor’s ears, we will appease him and make you secure.” 15 So they took the money and did as they were instructed; and this saying is commonly reported among the Jews until this day.

We note here that the response of the Deep State elite here was to create a conspiracy that would both dismiss the facts of what really happened while at the same time reconstructing a false narrative at to what really happened. While certainly not the first occurrence of what we now call “fake news” it is a classic example of CNN or New York Times type reporting.

Here we learn from God’s Word that God’s enemies will consistently do all they can to invert and twist truth. God’s enemies live by conspiracy and as God’s enemies own the organs of information now as they did on that Resurrection Sunday as Christians we must not be so naive to believe the “news” as reported by God’s enemies who always have an ax to grind against God’s narrative. The Scripture repeatedly teaches us that the wicked conspire and we are fools if we don’t seek to see through the conspiracy of dunces put forth on a daily basis.

If nothing else, Resurrection morning reinforces the idea that we should be believers … big believers in conspiracy theory. To not believe in conspiracy theory would have found us believing that Jesus had not really resurrected but instead his body had been stolen by the disciples. This ranks right up there with the single bullet theory, that high rise buildings which have not been hit by hit by jetliners fall down, and that a virus can cause all by itself a multi-trillion dollar worldwide economy to fall.

Second, we should note that the purpose of all this skulduggery on the part of the deep state at the time was to keep a community from rising which would worship Jesus as the Messiah. The Pharisee deep state had an interest in controlling the people and part of that control was to control what they would and would not believe. A community of faith would never rise up to follow a Messiah who remained dead and buried and so they created a false narrative that would steal the resurrection from any fledgling faith community. Take the money. Tell a lie. Shut up.

I don’t want to press this too far but we still have a deep state that has an interest in not seeing a faith community corporeally gather to worship. Don’t physically gather. Shut your services down. You can risk your lives by going out to get your food and liquor but don’t you dare go out to get your food unto eternal life. Trust us. We wouldn’t lie. We know what’s best for you. Worship at home.

Third we should note here that this narrative underscores the advice that this Pastor always reminds you of and that is when it comes to the truth of matters an important consideration is to always follow the money. If one had followed the money that the Roman guards pockets were heavy with they would have found out what was motivating the lies on that Resurrection morning. Follow the money is good counsel.

Note next that the Pharisees now know beyond any shadow of doubt that Christ had resurrected. They had first hand hostile witness accounts of what had happened. These guard had experienced some form of catatonia (Mt. 28:4) and yet had remained aware enough to realize what had been going on. They were the first and perhaps most direct witnesses of what the Father had done in raising the Son. They were the most immediate witnesses and they had reported directly to the Pharisees what they had not only heard but which they had seen with their own eyes, what they had gazed upon and what had put them in a catatonic fit.

Did the Pharisees then and there repent? Did they cover their mouths in shock admitting that they had been wrong about their Messiah? Did the truth that they had murdered their long promised Messiah cause them to second guess themselves? No … instead they went all MSNBC and doubled down and concocted a plan that would keep their false narrative as the narrative.

And remember this is all in the face of being told by their own guards who had been scared whitmerless by witnessing the resurrection. That’s what the text says. These guards witnessed to the Pharisees ALL THAT HAD HAPPENED.

This reminds us in our apologetic endeavors that people don’t give up the lie they are invested in simply because they are brought face to face with a indubitable and indisputable truth. Instead what they are prone to do is to find someway to support their false narrative that they have invested themselves in.

Of course this action by the Pharisees proves what Jesus had said, by way of parable, that

Luke 16:31 ‘If they do not listen to Moses and the Prophets, they will not be convinced even if someone rises from the dead.’”

They had first hand testimony that someone had indeed risen from the dead and they believed enough to try and suppress the story in unrighteousness but not enough to bow to the truth. At this point they know they are actively seeking to cover up the Resurrection. They know what has happened but they intend to kill the story.

This account of Matthew and the payola to shut up the guards who witnessed the resurrection is the best evidentiary material that Christ was bodily resurrected. His resurrection here isn’t a matter of “the faith of the early church” that some talk about.

Some Christians infected with modernity talk about “the faith of the early Church,” and by that they mean that the early church believed such and such but they also often mean that just because that is what the faith of the early Church was that doesn’t mean that is what really happened. Rather it is merely what the early church believed happened. If you even hear someone talking about “the faith of the early Church” you need to ask said person if they believe to be historically and actually true what the early Church believed.

So, here we have testimony that Christ was resurrected. Physically resurrected. Not a resurrection that was spiritual. Not a resurrection that finds Christ “rising into History.” Not a resurrection that was a result of mass hysteria. Not a resurrection that was metaphorical. Not a resurrection that finds its reality in the fact that “He lives within my heart,” but rather a real live genuine physical historical resurrection as testified to by men who suffered paralysis in the presence of this happening.

John Updike

Make no mistake: if He rose at all
it was as His body;
if the cells’ dissolution did not reverse, the molecules
reknit, the amino acids rekindle,
the Church will fall.

It was not as the flowers,
each soft Spring recurrent;
it was not as His Spirit in the mouths and fuddled
eyes of the eleven apostles;
it was as His Flesh: ours.

The same hinged thumbs and toes,
the same valved heart
that — pierced — died, withered, paused, and then
regathered out of enduring Might
new strength to enclose.

Let us not mock God with metaphor,
analogy, sidestepping transcendence;
making of the event a parable, a sign painted in the
faded credulity of earlier ages:
let us walk through the door.

The stone is rolled back, not papier-mache,
not a stone in a story,
but the vast rock of materiality that in the slow
grinding of time will eclipse for each of us
the wide light of day.

And if we will have an angel at the tomb,
make it a real angel,
weighty with Max Planck’s quanta, vivid with hair,
opaque in the dawn light, robed in real linen
spun on a definite loom.

Let us not seek to make it less monstrous,
for our own convenience, our own sense of beauty,
lest, awakened in one unthinkable hour, we are
embarrassed by the miracle,
and crushed by remonstrance.

You will forgive me if I belabor this point but so much of the Church today doesn’t believe in this kind of resurrection…. Doesn’t believe in a Resurrection where there are nail prints in a real body that can be examined by him whom we dub, “Doubting Thomas.” Doesn’t believe in a Resurrection that is so concrete that hardened military men are left in a catatonic state by coming face to face with the Resurrected one. Doesn’t believe in a Resurrection that finds the Resurrected one sharing a breakfast with His disciples,

John 21:12 Jesus said, “Come and eat!” But none of the disciples dared ask who he was. They knew he was the Lord. 13 Jesus took the bread in his hands and gave some of it to his disciples. He did the same with the fish.

To much of the Church no longer finds it credible to believe in a Resurrection that is corporeal, distinct, and personal. Jesus had a glorified body to be sure but it was not more glorified than it was body nor more body than it was glorified.

And so on this Resurrection Sunday we articulate again for those with ears to ear that we believe in the Resurrection of the body, and the life everlasting.

Christ is Resurrected. He now sits at the right hand of the Father as the Resurrected God man. Your life beyond this life depends on your faith in this Resurrected Christ. A lack of faith in this Resurrected Christ means that you go from this life to eternal and unremitting death. A presence of faith in this Resurrected Christ means that you go from this life to eternal and unremitting life. It means that you go from life unto life in this life. It means life and life abundantly. It means the only familiarity you will ever have with death is the fleeting moments you go from this life to even more life.

Friends.. own Christ. Cast your all on the Resurrected Christ. Taste and see … know for yourself the quality of the Resurrected life as given by the Resurrected Savior.

Romans 5:10 For if, while we were God’s enemies, we were reconciled to him through the death of his Son, how much more, having been reconciled, shall we be saved through his life!

The necessity of reconciliation bespeaks estrangement. It is those whom are estranged from one another who need reconciled. The need for reconciliation presupposes a previous relationship that was fractured and needs to be restored. This is indeed the case. By way of creation we, as in Adam, were all sons of God but with the Fall that original relationship was so sundered that God took us as enemies as we took Him as an enemy. The hostility was mutual and could only be satisfied with a one of a kind reconciliation.

That reconciliation required someone who could mediate the sundered relationship and provide a means to put an end to the mutual raging hostilities. Such a reconciliation required a mediator who had the capacity to meet the demands of an offended deity as properly brought against the sons of Adam and one who could, at the same time, represent the offended God. That mediator was and is the Lord Jesus Christ who reconciled God to us and us to God. The Lord Jesus Christ, with and in His work on the Cross effected the reconciliation of the Father to man by quenching the Father’s just wrath against man’s sin and effected reconciliation of man to God by being the offering that the sin of man required. This is why St. Paul can say to the Church, “Therefore we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ.”

This reminds us again of the centrality of Jesus Christ and His work on the Cross. If we are not found in Christ and His reconciling work we have naught to deal with but a God of wrath. No Christ … no peace with God. This is why Christians are adamant that there is no salvation outside of a known Christ. A well intended Jew, Muslim, or Hindu maintaining their identity as Jew, Muslim, or Hindu is un-reconciled and as un-reconciled God’s intent for them is their complete and utter destruction both in this life and the life to come. The Father can only be experienced and known as reconciled as gazed upon and approached through the Mediatorial reconciling work of the Son. Besides, no-one un-reconciled by the Son desires themselves to be reconciled to the Father but instead as un-reconciled they are full of hatred and vitriol for God. Any kind words that may be upon their lips for Jesus hides the dagger with which they intend to use to extinguish the biblical idea of God.

There is good news in this for the sinner. They can be sure that if they genuinely desire to be reconciled to God that is indicative of the fact that God has reconciled them to Himself in Christ. No sinner has a heart to be reconciled to God who cannot be confident that God has reconciled Himself to that sinner as they look to Christ. The earnest and genuine desire to be reconciled then is a warrant that reconciliation has taken place.

When we consider “reconciliation,” we consider it as occurring in the family since inasmuch as when we are reconciled we are adopted as “Sons of God.” Other aspects of the Atonement (reconciliation is only one) happen in other conceptual worlds. Redemption, conceptually speaking, happens as in the slave-market world. Propitiation, conceptually speaking, occurs as in the Temple sacrifice world. Justification, conceptually speaking, happens as in the Court-room world. But reconciliation, conceptually speaking, happens as occurring in the context of the family world. Before reconciliation we were strangers and aliens but now because of the reconciling work of Jesus Christ we are now members of God’s Household (Ephesians 2:19).

Reconciliation is an objective reality. Having been reconciled we are forever reconciled. This is something we need to keep close to us when we become overwhelmed at the sight of our sin. There are times when our sin absolutely haunts us like a specter reminding us how unworthy and guilty we really are. When those times come, as they must come for all believers, we must remember we are reconciled with a reconciliation that cannot be canceled or forfeited.

We should also note that the death of Christ did not make the Church’s reconciliation possible. The death of Christ made the Church’s reconciliation actual. There is nothing the elect have to do in order to make certain their reconciliation. It was all accomplished at the Cross. This is true for the members of the Church who were alive when the Cross took place and it was true for all the members of the Church who were yet to be born. The Cross was the Church’s reconciliation.

This stands in direct contrast to those who say that Christ made reconciliation available for every one. No, if Christ only made reconciliation possible on the provision that we give our assent then Christ didn’t provide reconciliation but only made it possible that we could reconcile ourselves.

This stands in direct contrast to those who say that we only have to believe in order to be reconciled. No … we will believe because we have been reconciled. Our reconciliation is not contingent on our belief. Our belief is contingent on the fact that we were reconciled @ the Cross.

Christ did the work of reconciliation on and at the Cross. To suggest that the reconciliation was mostly or provisionally completed is to empty the Cross of its glory.

Dr. Anthony Fauci, Director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases announced the African American community is being disproportionately affected by COVID-19 in a press conference Tuesday.

“We have a particularly difficult problem of an exacerbation of a health disparity. We’ve known literally forever, that diseases like diabetes, hypertension, obesity, and asthma are disproportionately afflicting the minority populations particularly African Americans.”

“Unfortunately when you look at the predisposing conditions, that lead to a bad outcome with coronavirus, the things that get people into ICUs, that require intubation and often lead to death, they are just those very comorbidities that are disproportionately prevalent in the African American population.”

Dr. Anthony Fauci

Now, we have been being told for quite some time that “race doesn’t exist,” and, “race is a social construct.” If race is a social construct and doesn’t exist than how does the Wuhan virus know how to zero in on black folks (whoever such a group might be) more than white folks and how do we know what such a thing as a “African-American population” is? In point of fact how could we possibly even talk about such a grouping? What doesn’t exist doesn’t exist and can’t be talked about. If race doesn’t exist notions of an African-American population is not a great deal different than notions of an “eoo7yix-8iert ecvkn”population.

If race really did exist and if one race was more prone to catch the Wuhan virus than other races wouldn’t it make sense that the policy of segregation in pursuit of quarantine might be a medically wise course of action? We could have a “Minority only” hospitals and even “Minority only” water fountains, all in the name of saving the minority community from the Wuhan virus.

But as race doesn’t exist and is only a social construct than of course there is no way to give special help to minorities (whatever that is).

Over here,

https://mereorthodoxy.com/freedom-pandemic/?fbclid=IwAR0D_3rz01ovFpjGs1VhTD1WSjyCSGNw8dXLJh7lTP9tTbWV5d8Uq5frEY0

We have one of the really bright young Reformed smart guys who has all kinds of shiny impressive degrees offering advice on how the Church should react to the political climate in which we currently live. I encourage you to read the whole piece because I don’t intend to interact with the whole piece and I want the reader to be sure I haven’t take any of Dr. Littlejohn’s quotes out of context and to make sure I haven’t misrepresented Dr. Littlejohn’s overall thrust.

At the outset let us note that if the American Colonialists in the run up to their hard feelings with the Brits in what became known as the “War for American Independence,” had reasoned the way Dr. Littlejohn reasons in his piece we would still have London has our Capital.

Dr. Littlejohn labors to demonstrate that in our current crisis American freedoms are not really at stake in light of the current actions of the Tyrant State. The State, per Littlejohn, just wants to make sure we are safe and sleeping well at night. The State, per Littlejohn, has no malevolent intent in its current actions and it really is quite wrong for any of us to have our suspicions raised. The State, per Littlejohn, has every right to sequester your Constitutional rights when times are really really pandemic scary. The last thing one wants to deal with is freedom when it is pandemic scary outside.

Littlejohn’s trust in the State is a curio in our time when the State, during the 20th century forward, has given us one long string of proofs that total depravity remains solid ground for Anthropology. Indeed, any familiarity with the role of the American State in the 20th century forward demands that the citizenry be ever suspicious of the State. For anyone, but especially someone nurtured in Reformed thought, to grant the State the benefit of the doubt when it comes to its stated intent is evidence of a willful blindness concerning the continued and routine wickedness of the American State for numerous decades. More on that anon.

Very soon in his piece Littlejohn gets to the hub of the matter,

“We do, to be sure, have a duty to question our governments, though also, as the Scriptures tell us, to cheerfully submit to them—and submission, mind you, happens not when you already agree, but when you’re inclined not to. How to balance the two? That is, of course, the great question of the whole history of Christian political thought, and I will not try to answer it here.“

Just to be clear, Scripture teaches we are to cheerfully submit to our governments when our governments are cheerfully submitting to God’s authority. Christians have no authority to submit (cheerfully or otherwise) to a Government that is rebelling against the authority of God and His Law. I would contend that Littlejohn’s article definitely bends the debate on submission to wicked State authorities definitely in the favor of wicked State authorities. Everything in Littlejohn’s piece is suggestive that the State just wants to do us good and we should just give them every benefit of the doubt and so just submit to their good intentions. So, our disagreements with Dr. Littlejohn are going to be characterized by our assumptions. Littlejohn assumes that the modern state wants to look after us. I assume that the modern state wants to look after itself.

Littlejohn next gives us another of his operating assumptions that many right-minded people will take grave exception,

“But, as someone who has closely tracked the pandemic since it first emerged in Wuhan, it seems clear to me that our leaders are acting on the basis of the best data and research currently available.”

Best data and research currently available? What research and data is that? The research and data as coming from the Chinese Communists? The research and data as coming from the Chinese Communists owned and operated World Health Organization? The research and data coming from other globalist organizations — The Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation? The politically animated Center for Disease Control? Can Dr. Littlejohn tell me why I should trust any of the best data and research currently available? Keep in mind that this is the best research and data that started this whole hysteria we are currently living in by saying, that 2.2 million Americans would die. Yesterday those people with the best data and research who gave us the original model that predicted 2.2 million deaths readjusted their prognostication to 60K deaths. This represents a 97% reduction from the original prediction. Plus, keep in mind that the original data set used by IHME (our best data and research) for the first two projections included the usage of “social distancing,” and limited public closures. 60,000 deaths also represents that typical annual death total one gets with influenza. So, given this represents our best research and data Dr. Littlejohn won’t mind overmuch if I rudely belly laugh whenever anyone talks about our ‘best research and data.’ By all appearances the statisticians and researchers are making it up as they go and so the tyrant magistrates likewise can only be making it up as they go. Littlejohn is wrong.

We quote Littlejohn again when he argues,

“The first point I want to establish—albeit briefly, since this could easily turn into a political theory lecture—is that the government does indeed have the power to shut businesses and restrict the movements of individuals in time of emergency.“

Littlejohn then goes on to reference Aristotle, Augustine, and Locke as all agreeing on this matter. And that may well be, but Littlejohn needs to move out of theory and show me in the US Constitution or the State Constitutions where that power is granted to restrict the movement of individuals and shut down businesses. Littlejohn talks about enumerated powers but still fails to provide examples of how the States, per their own Constitutions, have the explicitly enumerated power to restrict the movement of its people, to seize up the economy, and to basically seize property without due process. Forget, Aristotle, Augustine and Locke and go to the texts of the Constitutions (Federal and State) and show me where this power is explicitly given to the state in the time of a putative pandemic. Littlejohn can’t do that and so Littlejohn is wrong.

Can anyone imagine John Knox arguing like this?

Littlejohn next offers up this gem,

“But in the present case, the measures proposed have all, to date at least, been directly related to curtailing the genuine threats posed by the emergency.“

But you see Dr. Brad that there is no way of knowing this is true if we do not know for certain what the genuine threat is that is posed by this current putative emergency. Everywhere Littlejohn assumes what has yet to be proven and that is that this Wuhan virus plannedemic is any graver of a threat to human existence than any previous plannedemic — say of SARS, or H1N1, or AIDS for that matter. For all I know this may be nothing but a pestilence version of H. G. Wells, “War of the Worlds,” where untold numbers of people really were convinced that the Aliens were invading Burr Oak, Michigan and other sundry American villages and Hamlets in order to take over the world and who freaked out over such news. “Well, I heard it on the radio Mildred. It must be true.”

Secondly, how can Littlejohn know that the measures taken to curtail the genuine threat are not a greater threat than the putative “genuine threat?” He can’t know that since he can’t know what the threat really is and as such he is just shilling for the Tyrant State. How can Littlejohn know that effect upon people whose lives are affected now by the virus will be greater than the effect upon people who lives are being and will be destroyed by the effects of a global economic shutdown and impending worldwide depression? Littlejohn can’t know that and so can’t say with any certainty at all that “the measures proposed have all, to date at least, been directly related to curtailing the genuine threats posed by the emergency.” Unless Littlejohn has taken up omniscience as well as his prowess in political theology there is no way he can know this.

Pressing on with Littlejohn,

“Indeed, I think that it should be easy to show by extension that the civil magistrate has the authority to close churches in a situation such as this…. In case of emergency, it should not be difficult to see that the authorities can indeed prevent the church from carrying out its ordinary meetings.”

Well, count me as one who is having difficulty seeing that the authorities can indeed prevent church from carrying out its ordinary meetings during a plannedemic. I am known for someone who hates R2K but who at the same time has conceded that there is room for some 2K thinking in the Church and this is one of those times. The idea that the State has no jurisdiction over the Church in relation to when the Church opens and closes its doors comes under the tent of the idea of jurisdictionalism or sphere sovereignty and there is nothing inherent Roman Catholic about the idea as Littlejohn insists. Sphere sovereignty merely teaches that there exist multiple spheres of jurisdictions the authority of which is delegated to differing Magistrates in those spheres. As such the authorities in one sphere may not seek to exercise their authority from another sphere in a sphere that is not under their charge. So, the Church has one jurisdiction over which the Elders rule as the delegated authorities and the State has a differing jurisdiction over which the state Magistrates have delegated authority. State authorities may not impinge upon the proper authorities of the Elders in the Church. By this doctrine of jurisdictionalism alone, the State, contra Littlejohn, does not have the authority to shut down Churches. The State magistrates may make recommendations but they may not, of their own authority, close Churches for they have no authority to that end. The State may no more shut church doors than the State may tax the Church. In both cases — taxation and Church hours — the State is seeking to legislate authority over a realm over which it has no authority. The State dictating the opening or closing of Church doors is like Canada magistrates trying to make laws for people who live in Texas. Littlejohn is in error.

We move on to one of the best knee-slappers in Littlejohn’s piece.

“No, I think we can safely say that, whatever is motivating our authorities (and those all around the world, for that matter–the consensus around the need for lockdowns has been almost global), it probably isn’t old-fashioned lust for power.”

Well, there goes the Reformed doctrines of original sin and total depravity. That Littlejohn could write that with a straight face is staggering. Has Littlejohn never read Machiavelli or has he just forgotten? Has Littlejohn never read Hobbes or has he just forgotten? Has Littlejohn never read the Bible or has he just forgotten? Littlejohn doesn’t really believe that magistrates desire office because they just want to do good does he? Lust for power is why politicians hold office to begin with and to think that lust for power wouldn’t be an animating factor in their decisions in the context of a plannedemic is a naivete that is epic. From the bite of that fruit in Eden the lust for power is ever in the heart of men – how do we dare deny its constant operation in all men at all times everywhere to some degree? How can someone who insists they believe in total depravity make such an observation as Littlejohn is quoted above making?

Next up Littlejohn insists that we shouldn’t listen to those conspiracy kooks out there who see Tyranny in every event, even going so far as to mock the 9-11 truthers. Littlejohn writes,

First, for every genuine Reichstag fire, there are probably at least a dozen persistent conspiracy theories claiming to have uncovered the next such plot. They should be taken with a very large grain of salt. 9/11 Truthers, anyone?

What should be taken with an even larger grain of salt are those who believe in the coincidence theory of history. Does Littlejohn realize that it was a conspiracy theory that said that Jesus rose again from the dead? Truther indeed. Does Littlejohn realize that for decades it was thought that it was a conspiracy theory that the Lusitania was carrying military ordinance? Now we know that it indeed was. Truther indeed. Does Littlejohn realize that for decades it was a conspiracy theory that said that Pearl Harbor was not a surprise attack? Now we know it was not a surprise to FDR. Truther indeed. Does Littlejohn know that for decades it was conspiracy theory that the Gulf of Tonkin incident never happened? Now we know indeed that it did not happen. Truther indeed. Does Littlejohn really believe that building #7 on 9-11 fell by magic? Methinks Littlejohn needs to read some history not written by court historians.

Given that Governments “reason for being” is to lie and given that the well known maxim teaches us “never let a crisis go to waste,” it boggles the mind that any educated person would knee jerk in the direction of automatically believing Government explanations or who would think it unnatural to think that governments consistently act out of lust for power or who thinks that conspiracy theorists should go consume some salt.

Littlejohn needs to revisit the idea that Governments are just kindly helpful servants of the people. It is not for no reason that Jefferson said that we needed to tie down our government with the chains of the Constitution. Littlejohn needs to remember that “Government is not reason, it is not eloquence,—it is force,” and as Government is force it is not to be trusted, not to be given the benefit of the doubt, and not to be left unchallenged in the way it analyzes and governs any given situation.

Littlejohn is wrong. 

Yet it pleased the LORD to bruise him; he has put him to grief:

Isaiah 53:10a

The Hebrew word (Qal) “pleased” here means, “To incline to, to bend, to be pleased with, desire.” The word clearly communicates the idea of willful intent driven by a happy desire. There is no sense of regret or recrimination. The Father was pleased to bruise the Son.

Now understand this pleasure of the Father in bruising the Son is a pleasure as seen in the context of what could be argued as the greatest cosmic injustice ever to be seen in the chronicles of the history of man. Here, we find the innocent and morally perfect God-Man being offered up as a sacrifice and in all that the Father is pleased with this bruising that is assigned to His agency. The Father is pleased with His bruising of the Son.

Now, in retrospect, we understand that the Father was pleased with that bruising because in that bruising of the Son the Father’s character as Holy and Just are sustained and His character as merciful and loving are demonstrated. Further, the Father is pleased because in His bruising of the Son, His name is glorified inasmuch as His character is seen as perfect as it never ceased nor ceases to be, sin is seen as consequential as it always was promised, and His people are atoned for.

Now, if the Sovereign Father was pleased with His bruising of the Son, can there be any other action of our sovereign God with which He is not pleased?

I bring this up in the face of those who want to suggest that God is sad about the Wuhan pestilence that we are currently experiencing, as if God is a spectator of an event He is helpless to alter. Indeed, if the Father was pleased to bruise the Son how much more must the Father be to have bruised with the Wuhan virus? If somehow you have missed it this is a greater to lesser argument.

Yes, God is pleased with what is happening now with the Wuhan virus, just as He was pleased with smiting Sodom and Gomorrah, just as He was pleased with the fall in the Garden, just as He was pleased with smiting Egypt during the Exodus, just as He was pleased with Rome’s descent on Jerusalem in AD 70, just as he was pleased with bruising the Son. There is nothing that God does that He is not pleased with.

That God has done the Wuhan virus is indisputable given the teaching of the Scripture,

Shall there be evil in a city, and the Lord hath not done it? (Amos 3:6b)

I form light and create darkness; I bring prosperity and create calamity. I, the LORD, do all these things. (Isaiah 45:7)

But he (Job) said unto her (his wife), Thou speakest as one of the foolish women speaketh. What? shall we receive good at the hand of God, and shall we not receive evil? (Job 2:10)

So, what we have established so far is that,

a.) If God was pleased to bruise the Son then He is pleased in everything else He does.

b.) Everything that happens is what God does.

Let us consider next if it is possible for God to both be pleased in doing what he does while lamenting over what happens? I bring this up because Christianity was represented in TIME magazine by Dr. N. T. Wright who emphasized God’s lamenting over the Wuhan virus at the price of giving up God’s sovereignty and God being pleased to bruise us with Wuhan. Dr. Wright’s God brings us back to the Open Theist God who is good for sitting down next to the suffering and crying with them about their hardships but who, excelling at lamenting, sucks at being able to do anything about your problems. Dr. Wright’s motto might be something like,

Times may be tough
Times may be gritty
But God has limits
Though He sure takes pity

This is not to say that God doesn’t lament. It is to say that if God laments His lament is not inconsistent with His pleasure in bruising us with Wuhan. There are times when God bruises and laments simultaneously.

When I was a child I had a bad go with impetago. At that time the recommendation for the disease was to scrub the wounds till they bled and then apply a medicine on the wounds after the scrubbing. My recollection is my father would hold me down so that my mother could scrub my wounds. My recollection is also that my Mother was weeping — weeping because she could observe how much pain her child was in from this scrubbing routine — while she was scrubbing my wounds. She was lamenting though it pleased her to bruise me. Lamenting and being pleased to wound me were not inconsistent.

In the same way God can be both pleased to ordain both the disease and the cure while lamenting with His people of the necessity of the wounding.

Also, we have to consider that

But since you rejected me when I called and no one gave heed when I stretched out my hand, since you ignored all my advice and would not accept my rebuke, I in turn will laugh at your disaster; I will mock when calamity overtakes you. (Proverbs 1:24-26)

The LORD does whatever pleases him, in the heavens and on the earth, in the seas and all their depths. He makes clouds rise from the ends of the earth; he sends lightning with the rain and brings out the wind from his storehouses. He struck down the firstborn of Egypt, the firstborn of men and animals. He sent his signs and wonders into your midst, O Egypt, against Pharaoh and all his servants. He struck down many nations and killed mighty kings Sihon king of the Amorites, Og king of Bashan and all the kings of Canaan. (Psalm 135:6-11)

There are times when God belly laughs when the wicked perish since what the wicked are receiving is the just deserts of their wickedness. Would any of us not delight in the destruction of a serial murderer? Would any of us not delighted in the destruction of a Stalin or a Mao or Pol Pot or a Castro? All who are outside of Jesus Christ who are perishing from the Wuhan virus results in God being delighted. After all, He had warned them to repent or they would “perish in the way.”

Speaking of repentance brings us then to a further point in this brief essay.

There was a time in our history when our Christian father’s understood that such visitations of pestilence such as we are now experiencing with the Wuhan virus were times wherein God’s people especially needed to repent. Such times were for the proverbial sackcloth and ashes. This would be preached from pulpits. Assemblies would be called for the purpose of public repentance. God’s people understood then that “Judgment begins in the household of God,” and believing that they set about a season of repentance.

For example, during the Pequot war (1637-1637) when the Pequot Indians attacked Boston, the area ministers called a synod to ask: “What are the evils which have called the judgment of God upon us? What is to be done to reform these evils?” The Boston area clergy did not search for sinners to whom they could ascribe blame. Rather, they asked what they themselves had done to test God. They assumed the need for their repentance.

And why wouldn’t they? This need to repent in light of tragedy seems to be the point of Jesus at the tower in Siloam incident.

Luke 13 There were present at that season some who told Him about the Galileans whose blood Pilate had mingled with their sacrifices. ² And Jesus answered and said to them, “Do you suppose that these Galileans were worse sinners than all other Galileans, because they suffered such things? ³ I tell you, no; but unless you repent you will all likewise perish. ⁴ Or those eighteen on whom the tower in Siloam fell and killed them, do you think that they were worse sinners than all other men who dwelt in Jerusalem? ⁵ I tell you, no; but unless you repent you will all likewise perish.”

There is never a time that is not a good time for repentance as Luther reminded us in theses #1 of his 95 thesis,

“When our Lord and Master Jesus Christ said, ‘Repent’ (Mt 4:17), he willed the entire life of believers to be one of repentance.”

however, in times of crises the need for repentance is perhaps even more necessary if we are to take the example of our Reformed forefathers as precedent.

We should understand that there was a reason why our fathers in Christ immediately moved to repentance when crisis was at hand. The reason was that unlike us they believed that the world was God’s world and that everything that happened in this world was an effect behind which God was the cause. They believed in God’s personal providence. They believed that God was involved in the affairs of men, and so unlike moderns they did not just chalk up “natural disasters” to nature. They saw the finger of God in what today we refer to as “natural disasters.” For them God was the ultimate cause and as such the ultimate cause must be considered in any and every event and so they would cry out to God for relief, while at the same time teaching that God’s ways are altogether just.

Of course, the danger in this kind of thinking is the ever present temptation to say with authority and certainty, “this is that.” There is a danger among certain clergy to step forth as the spokesman of God and say the reason we are experiencing this earthquake, or this flood, or this pestilence is that the wicked are committing this or that particular sin. To be sure we can always speak truly enough by saying things such as “just as God justly judged Sodom so He is justly judging America and the world,” or “If God is just then His justice is unquestioned in judging a world where the judicially innocent are tortured and murdered.” However, this kind of speech, apart from considering our own need to repent for our own sins come across more as “I told you so” then the prophet who is laboring over his people’s sin.

Having said all the above, I close by offering the caveat that I’m not convinced that the Wuhan Virus is all that the doomsayers are saying that it is. Personally I’m more concerned about the death and mayhem that will come from the result of what looks to be largely manufactured crisis. I’m more concerned by the liberties lost as a result of the Tyrant-State gone wild.

But even if that happens … it will be the case that God was pleased to bruise us by means of the Tyrant-State