Category: Uncategorized

Revolutionary Christianity or Anti-Revolutionary Christianity?


“The movement within which Bavinck rose to prominence, neo-Calvinism, found much of its initial momentum as a rebellion against the influence of the French Revolution across Europe. This struggle to counter this impact of the Revolution exerts a defining influence upon much of Bavinck’s thought on Christianity and culture….

The Revolution was an attempt to cast aside all the old distinctions of class and power: liberty, equality, and fraternity were the new values. Gone were concepts like monarchy, social class, and theism. The new de facto deity, reason, was set in direct opposition to divine revelation. The change attempted in Revolutionary France was highly ambitious: it was a movement of re-creation, an upheaval instigated to change every aspect of French life. The nineteenth-century Revolutionary intellectual Edgar Quinet recognized that such a sudden break with an entire social system could only happen if the preexisting sense of social inter connectedness between citizens was broken: those who have, until now, existed primarily in relationship to each other within a common culture must suddenly think of themselves primarily as individuals. Quinet recognized this has central not just to the French Revolution, but to all evolutionary movements. Thus, in order to change an entire society, all the old social connections had to disappear, and the ‘individual’ had to take their place.

The great irony perceived by the likes of Bavinck and Kuyper was that although revolutionaries were told of their new found individuality, in reality they became far more homogeneous than in the pre-Revolutionary world. Revolutionary France was a place where all were pressured to dress and speak alike, where human worth did not exist beyond one’s social standing (hence the drive for a homogenized society), and where institutions like Christian theism, as pro-social diversity were see as obstacles to those goals.

Having seen these ideals taking hold in France, Bavinck was motivated to combat their influence in Dutch culture. That context sets the scene for his thoughts on the family as a united social entity. His argument was that the family is not an arbitrary collection of individuals, who may or may not have much in common by way of belief. Rather, he argues in favor of the family as an organism made up of distinct but complementary people who together form the building blocks of society.

Introduction — The Christian Family
James Eglinton — pp. XIV – XV

1.) The success of the French Revolution was not limited to the fall of the Bastille. The success of the French Revolution was the beginning of the end for Christendom in the West, for the anti-Christ principles of the Revolution lived on in the turmoil in Europe in 1815, and 1848. The anti-Christ principles of the Revolution came to the states with the work on the Jacobins between 1861-1877. The anti-Christ principles of the Revolution found a permanent home in Russia for 70 years in 1918. The ideals and principles of the French Revolution continue to form and shape the world that we occupy today. The “Liberty” of the French Revolution remains today the attempt of fallen man to find Liberty from God. In point of fact Revolutionary “Liberty,” is lawlessness. The “Equality” of the French Revolution remains today as the ongoing attempt to level all distinctions by insisting that all hierarchy arrangements are merely social constructs to be deconstructed. The “Fraternity” of French Revolution remains today as the bumper sticker meme to “Co-Exist,” and the ongoing recitation of the the Fatherhood of God of all men and the Brotherhood of all men.

2.) For Bavinck the Revolutionary Worldview had to be opposed by all right minded Christians because Revolutionary ideology is part of the disordered sin sick reality that nature was poisoned with. Revolutionary ideology creates sick reality because it identifies sin w/ nature, and creation w/ the fall, and so in order to attack sin and the fall they attack nature and thus seek to pull down God’s institutional created social order that includes family, state, and society, preferring instead a sinful social order where God’s diversity is blended into a humanistic Unitarian sameness. This creates the sick reality that neo-Calvinism has always opposed.

3.) What Eglinton teaches us about Bavinck and the neo-Calvinist school is that they opposed this Revolutionary model that attempted to overthrow God’s ordained social order that was antithetical to Revolutionary “Liberty,” “Equality,” and “Fraternity.” This anti-Revolutionary Calvinism of men like Groen van Prinsterer, Bavinck, and Kuyper found later Calvinist Theologians like Dabney in 19th Century America and Rushdoony in 20th century carrying the anti-Revolutionary torch of the Neo-Calvinist founders.

This reminds us that there remains a thread of anti-Revolutionary fervor that has been characteristic of Biblical Calvinism. In this anti-Revolutionary Calvinism we find the insistence that any Christianity that makes peace with the desideratum of the continuing Revolutionary vision is a Calvinism that is no Calvinism.

4.) The press towards individualism that Eglinton mentions as the consequence of Revolutionary ideology, ironically enough, ends up in a vicious collectivism. When all mediating institutions, as created by the Christian social order, with its model of jurisdictionalism, are destroyed by Revolutionary “Equality” the consequence is a bland sameness where individualism is completely lost.

5.) The lack of this kind of basic understanding of how Biblical Calvinism, as the essence of Biblical Christianity, results in the consequence that modern Christianity reinterprets itself through the grid of Revolutionary ideology. When “Calvinists,” and all other “Christians,” refuse to understand what has occurred, with the success of Revolutionary ideology, is that Christianity is interpreted through the lens of “Liberty,” “Equality,” and “Fraternity.” What this means is that modern Christianity is, in the majority report, Revolutionary Christianity. Instead of challenging the continued onslaught of the Revolution, what happens is that Christianity seeks to make peace with Revolution. A modern Church, that is not self-aware that it must be anti-Revolutionary, ends up discipling its people into being “sanctified” subscribers of the Revolution. Christians who are not epistemologically self-conscious regarding the ongoing Revolution are Christians who stand in the way of Reformation.

6.) Indeed, it is not going to far to say that Christianity that is interpreted in the grid of Revolutionary thought is a different Christianity that is interpreted through the grid of anti-Revolution.

7.) Anti-Revolutionary Calvinism finds in the death of Christ the healing of the Cosmos and a deliverance from personal and individual Revolution that results in the healing of social order Revolution.

8.) There is a neo-Calvinism that is claimed by Leftist Christians. They do agree that all things must be interpreted through a biblical gird but their biblical grid has already itself been reinterpreted through a Revolutionary grid. Neo-Calvinist who advocate for a social order that is consistent with Revolutionary goals is not neo-Calvinism.

Chesterton & McAtee on Courage

“Courage is almost a contradiction in terms. It means a strong desire to live taking the form of readiness to die … The paradox is the whole principle of courage; even if of quite earthly or brutal courage. A man cut off by the sea may save his life if he will risk it on the precipice. He can only get away from death by continually stepping within an inch of it. A soldier surrounded by enemies, if he is to cut his way out, needs to combine a strong desire for living with a strange carelessness about dying. He must not merely cling to life, for then he will be a coward, and he will not escape. He must not merely wait for death, for then he will be a suicide, and will not escape. He must seek his life in a spirit of furious indifference to it; he must desire life like water and yet drink death like wine.”

G. K. Chesterton
Orthodoxy; The Romance of Faith — pg. 136-137

God’s demand of Joshua to be strong and courageous (Joshua 1) reminds us that God’s worth is such that it is better to perish courageously fighting for God while defending His character than to quail before His and our enemies. The same is true of our professional lives today. It is better to value God’s name so highly that one is willing to take courage in hand and make shipwreck of their career at the threat of the enemies of God in order to defend God’s name from their insult and depredations.

To few are willing to risk all for the honor of the great name of the Lord Christ, preferring to play it safe so that they can continue to be part of the con.

Review Of Rushdoony’s “American Indian.” Introduction

“The American Indian is a standing indictment against the Christianity of this nation.”

R. J. Rushdoony
The American Indian — pg. 7

One of the books I’m currently reading is a short book by Rushdoony on the American Indian. I thought I would review it chapter by chapter in order to capture some of RJR’s thinking about ethnic and Statist type issues.

It is clear in RJR’s Introduction that Rush understood that different people groups existed. For example in one place he notes the attitude of American Indians in a quote from an Old Indian summarizing the Indian attitude towards the “White man,”

“The white man wanted what we had, our land, but he didn’t want us. We wanted what the white man had — his improvements, his guns, his modern conveniences — but we didn’t want him. And so we fought, each wanting what the other had but not wanting the other and trying to eliminate him; and we lost. That’s the story.”

A couple of paragraphs later Rush notes the differences between two non-white people groups as seen through the eyes of the American Indian,

“They could not subject him (the American Indian) to slavery…. it was impossible to enslave the North American Indian. He absolutely refused. If Indians were taken captive and enslaved, they either died or they fought and escaped To this very day, the Indians have a strong prejudice against Negroes. They say, ‘The Negro became a slave. You can’t say much for people who became slaves. You either die or fight for your freedom. We fought for freedom, and we were beaten, but we were never made slaves.’

Of course we would disagree here. The Indian was eventually made a slave to the State just as the White men are now largely becoming slaves to the State. The forms of slavery have changed but we remain enslaved all the same. However, having said that, it is clear that Rush was not one who believed that real ethnic differences did not exist and RJR did not believe that those differences should not be noted. Throughout the Introduction there is constant referral to distinct people groups as people groups.

In this Introduction RJR also tells the story of how the White pagan Federal Government destroyed the Indian. In doing so, Rushdoony teases out the dangers of cradle to womb care as provided by a centralized State,

“… the Government didn’t try to teach Indians anything. For many years, the system was simply this; put the Indians on a reservation; tell them that if they leave, the army will go after them; and while they are on the reservation, tell them to report to the government office every Saturday or every other Sunday for a ration of goods, clothing, and necessities of life. Of course that meant that the Indians didn’t have to work. He had his living handed to him. After a few years of government handouts, the Indian Character was completely destroyed.”

A few pages later Rushdoony quotes a conversation with an American Indian foretelling that much the same thing is happening to the White man,

“Look at those people of mine. They’re no good. They’re like me, just no account. All they’re fit for is a reservation where someone puts a fence around them and takes care of them. That’s it. They’re not fit for anything else. But,” he went on, “I’ve been across this country two or three times now in the last few years, and I’ve learned something: the white man isn’t much better. He has reservation fever now. He wants someone to put a fence around the whole North American continent and take care of him. He wants governments to give him a handout. and to look after him just like Uncle Sam looks after us. And he’s going to get it. If some outfit doesn’t come in and do it for him, some foreign country, and turn the whole of the United States into a reservation, he’ll do it to himself. You wait and see. ‘Cause he’s got reservation fever.”

In these last two quotes we see that sin returns all men, regardless of their heritage, to conditions of slavery. It makes no difference if men are Black, Red, or White, men outside of Christ will beg for their chains to be placed upon them and will call “slavery,” “freedom.” However, men will, according to their lineage and heritage express their slavery differently. Slavery is slavery but not all slavery is identical and different people groups will express their bondage differently. Rushdoony captures this idea when he writes,

“… the Indian problem is basically one of faith and character.”

With this every right-minded Christian would agree. The problems of any and all people groups, as those respective people groups stand sundered from Christ, are problems of faith (the dismal things they believe) and character (who they are as that dismal faith integrates with and animates their people group dispositions.

According to Rushdoony the reason that the White man can’t help the Indian is that the White man has been such a hypocrite. According to Rush the Indian see’s the White men’s Christianity as just another White man hand-me-down. Rushdoony, notes that the American Indian sees the inconsistency and contradiction of so many of the White Churches in terms of affirming certain truths but then denying the necessity to live those truths out. One such example that Rush gives is the inclination of quiet Presbyterian Churches to not reach out to the American Indian and welcome them when they come to visit their churches in the city.

“At almost any Church they (American Indian) go to, they will be outsiders. That’s just the plain fact. And they know it; they’ve tried it. They are strangers in any Church they go to. Even if they are met with a glad hand by a handful of people in the church it means nothing to them. The Indians know that they (themselves) are weak in certain character traits espoused in these churches, but they also expect to see some of the practical application of those traits that have, in fact, characterized Indian life.”

Clearly the lesson here is to be reminded that the Gospel is for people from every tribe, tongue and Nation. God has designed to call all the Nations and we should do nothing to put non-biblical obstacles up between men from different people groups coming to Worship Christ.

In the Introduction RJR introduces the old character of the American Indian as being a rugged individualist and how that character was destroyed by pagan American visions of Socialism. RJR tells about the “Ghost Dance” and how this mystical practice was supposed to be connected to the rejuvenation of the American Indians and the destruction of the White people who oppressed them. A mental note might be made here to the end that when people groups are being enslaved and destroyed and are in a position of no longer being able to fight back they will turn to religions of irrational mystical encounters in order to do for them what they can no longer do themselves. The religion of the irrational and the mystical can sometime be traced back to being the last ditch means of attempting freedom by the vanquished and enslaved. RJR notes that once the Ghost Dance failed in what it promised the American Indian turned to the escape of peyote. Irrational activism (Ghost Dance) gave way to irrational passivism (peyote).

Elsewhere in the Introduction RJR communicates the three stages of Government policy pursued in terms of the American Indian once they were defeated. The first attempt in 1887 to the New Deal was to Americanize the American Indian. The second attempt from the New Deal to Eisenhower was to Indianize the American Indian. Rushdoony notes that this was an attempt turn the American Indian into primitive communists. The third attempt beginning with Eisenhower was to rehabilitate the American Indian and to break up the Reservation system. RJR insists this failed because of Government involvement.

“Government cannot create character, although it had destroyed it. It can no more create character in the Indian by acts of administration than it can create character in the American people by acts of Congress.”

In RJR’s Introduction there comes singing through his long war against the pagan state. Likewise, in the Introduction it is clear that RJR sees that distinctions between people groups are real. Further, it should be noted that in the Introduction, RJR, like all Biblical Christians, sees that the Church has a responsibility to disciple the Nations. There is no place in Biblical Christianity for any people group to block the way to the Cross
of any other People group.

May the Lord Christ grant us grace not to so befoul the Christian faith that we make it anathema to the distinct Nations He has ordained. May the Lord Christ reveal to us our own inclination, as a People group, to become slaves to the Pagan State.

Rushdoony On Protesting Abortion Clinics

“In 1988, another revolutionary ploy became the methodology of many churchmen, the demonstrations at abortion clinics designed to violate the laws of picketing and protest and ensure arrest for impeding access. It is questionable whether or not these demonstrations saved the lives any unborn babies: the women seeking abortions simply went elsewhere. Even more, the demonstrators set a precedent in violating civil laws of various sorts. What is to prevent pro-abortion people from blocking access to churches, or even entering them to disrupt the services? If we allow lawless protest to one side, we justify it for all.

No Scriptural justification is offered by these demonstrators. The closest thing to a text to justify them is Acts 5:29, the answer of Peter and the other apostles, “We ought to obey God rather than men.” What does this mean, however? There is no civil government anywhere which does not disobey God at some points, and, for that matter, there are no perfect churches either. The best of churches fall short of perfect obedience. Are we then justified in obeying only when we believe that God’s Word is faithfully observed? Then are those around us or under us entitled to rebel against our authority whenever they feel we fall short of or neglect God’s Word? Nothing in Scripture gives warrant to that. David’s respect for Saul, despite Saul’s sin, gives us another model.

Where freedom of God’s Word in the church, its schools, its families and members is denied, then we must obey God, not the state. We do not disobey to save our money nor even our lives but where God’s Word and its proclamation is at stake.

The moral anarchy which revolutionists advocate is being brought into the church by some men. Not surprisingly, they impugn the Christian character of those who criticize them, men such as Dr. Stanley, and Rev. Joesph Morecraft III.

To believe in the efficacy of violence to change society means to abandon peaceful means. Not surprisingly, peaceful, legal action is being neglected. A pro-abortion justice on the U.S. Supreme Court has said that, in a new case, abortion would lose. Such a case would require much funding and highly competent legal help. The money to do this is being spent in sending people from one end of the country to the other to take part in demonstrations, to bail them out of jail, so on.

The methodology of such demonstrations has been borrowed from non-Christian and revolutionary sources. From one end of the Bible to the other, no warrant can be found for this methodology. To us ungodly means is a way of saying that God’s grace and power are insufficient resources for Christian action. It means abandoning Christ for the methods of the enemies….

Such methodology can be effective, but not for the triumph of grace….

There is a long history of injustice at the hands of mobs. There is no Christian calling to create mobs and to violate laws to achieve a purpose.

The sad fact is that, once we adopt a position, the logic of that faith carries us forward. Thus, I am finding that those who approve of demonstrations, and of the violation of the properties of abortion clinics, find it easy to justify violence against the property (bombing) and against the persons who are abortionists (which means murdering them).

… Just as we believe that the spheres of the church and of the family should not be violated by the state, so we should avoid trespassing on the state’s sphere. The early church faced many evils in the civil sphere: abortion, slavery, and more. Paul spoke against a revolutionary move against slavery but counseled the use of lawful means (I Cor. 7:20-23). The early church took a strong stand against abortion and disciplined severely all who were guilty of it. It organized its deacons to rescue abandoned babies (who had not been successfully aborted earlier), and it took strong stands without ever suggesting violence.

Humanism gives priority to man and the will of man over God, and His Law-Word. If we place saving babies above obedience to God, we wind up doing neither the born nor the unborn any good, and we separate ourselves from God.

It is amazing how many people on all sides of issues are so prone to violence as their first and last resorts. They believe, when they see a serious problem, in taking to the streets, getting their guns, fighting the Establishment, and so on and on, without even using the many peaceable means which are at hand. For them, violence is not a last resort when all other means have been exhausted, but a first resort. Instead of providing answers, resorts to violence mean the death of civilization. The use of violence, whether by Christians or non-Christians, is a way of saying that voting, the law courts, mean nothing, or, that faith and the power of God are irrelevant to the problems of our time.

The resort to revolution or to revolutionary tactics is thus a confession of non faith; it means the death of a civilization because its people are dead in their sins and trespasses. They may use the name of the “Lord,” but they have by-passed him for ‘direct action.’… By assuming that everything depends on their action, they have denied God and His regenerating power.

And they have forgotten our Lord’s requirement: “Ye must be born again (John 3:7).” Regeneration, no revolution is God’s way.”

R. J. Rushdoony
Roots of Reconstruction
Chapter — Revolution or Regeneration, pg. 427-428

Epiphany #2 — The Baptism Of The Lord Christ

 

Significance of Christ’s Baptism

Baptism — Baptism was not new to John’s ministry. In the OT it was a means by which there was a setting apart to a unique and holy purpose. This idea of setting apart by means of washing goes back to priestly ablutions (washings) prior to offering sacrifices (Leviticus 16:4 ,Leviticus 16:4,16:24 ).

4 He shall put on the holy linen tunic, and the linen undergarments shall be next to his body, and he shall be girded with the linen sash and attired with the linen turban (these are holy garments). Then he shall bathe his body in water and put them on…. 24.) He shall bathe his body with water in a holy place and put on his clothes, and come forth and offer his burnt offering and the burnt offering of the people and make atonement for himself and for the people.

So, the OT had categories for purification rites accomplished by water. When John takes this up, the Hebrew people would have had categories to understand what John the Baptist was doing.

We are going to suggest this morning four ways in which the Baptism of the Lord Christ was significant in its Redemptive-Historical setting. It is significant for more than just these four ways we will be looking at. I won’t have time to go into, for example, its significance in terms of its Trinitarian bearing.

The Significance of the Lord Christ’s Baptism is found

I.)In Baptism The Lord Christ Identifies w/ His People As Their Sin-bearer
II.) In Baptism The Lord Christ Identifies As Our Priest — (“Fulfilling all Righteousness”)
III.) In Baptism Identifies as our Sacrifice (Suffering Servant Connection) (Isaiah 42:1)
IV.) In The Baptism Of Our Lord Christ The New Creation Has Been Established

I.) Identifies w/ His People As Their Sin-bearer

John’s Baptism was for the remission of sin (Mark 1:4).

4 John the Baptist appeared in the wilderness preaching a baptism of repentance for the forgiveness of sins.

John recognizes that Jesus has no need of being Baptized and so protests that the roles should be reversed. So, this tells us that Jesus had no need for Baptism unto remission of His own personal sins. As such we have need to ask ourselves why, if the Lord Christ had no sins, did He submit to Baptism.

And the answer is found in the reality that in His Baptism Jesus identifies with sinners. The Baptism of the Lord Christ thus is a covenantal action whereby covenantally the Lord Christ, via His Baptism, is set apart as being the Representative head of His people. He Himself had no sins but He would become the representative head for those who had sins that needed to be satisfied.

Scripture teaches of the Lord Christ,

21 He made Him who knew no sin to be sin on our behalf, so that we might become the righteousness of God in Him.

As such, we might say that in and with His Baptism the Lord Christ becomes the covenantal head of a great company of sinners for whom He will do and preform all things necessary for their salvation.

In this we find the covenantal nature of our Redemption. Christ is our appointed Champion and the success or failure of His mission will be our success or failure. We see again then the covenantal nature of Christianity. God saves His people as they are united with their covenantal head the Lord Christ. His Baptism objectively and covenantally unites Himself to them and His Death objectively and covenantally unites us to Him.

Of course this has implications.

1.) It implies that there is no approaching of the Father apart from being united to the Son

The adherents of false religions who are “nice” people remain dead in their trespasses and sins and remain strangers and aliens to eternal life.

2.) It implies that Christ is our righteousness

The Christian is defined as one who is eager for good works, created in Christ Jesus for good works, one who is filled with the Spirit and so walks in terms of God’s authoritative law and so are doers of the word. Christians are those who show their faith by their works yet at the same time we insist that all our righteousness is in Christ alone who is our righteousness from God.

II.) In Baptism The Lord Christ Identifies As Our Priest — (“Fulfilling all Righteousness”)

As the book of Hebrews informs us, with the coming of Jesus

12 For when the priesthood is changed, of necessity there takes place a change of law also. 13 For the one concerning whom these things are spoken belongs to another tribe, from which no one has officiated at the altar. 14 For it is evident that our Lord [a]was descended from Judah, a tribe with reference to which Moses spoke nothing concerning priests.

We remember that the Aaronic Priesthood of the Old Testament was only a shadow of the Priesthood of Christ, which would be the fulfillment that all the Aaronic Priesthood foreshadowed and anticipated. With the coming of Christ there is a change in the Priesthood and there is a change in the law inasmuch as the sacrificial laws are fulfilled in the Lord Christ. Because we have a change in Priesthood and law there is a necessity for the fulfilled Priesthood of Christ to be consecrated in keeping with God’s law. It was this law of consecration that Jesus was referring to when He said “For thus it is fitting for us to fulfill all righteousness.”

Of course this reminds us that with this new Priesthood from the tribe of Judah (as opposed to Levi) there remains a respect unto God’s law. Yes the Law has undergone a change from shadow to reality but with this defined and restricted change the broader Law of God is respected.

And the broader Law of God that is respected is found in Numbers 8:5-7,

5 ¶ And the Lord spake unto Moses, saying, 6 Take the Levites from among the children of Israel, and purify them.
7 And thus shalt thou do unto them, when thou purifiest them, Sprinkle water of purification upon them,

So, with the coming of Christ we have a new Priesthood but this new Priesthood is inaugurated in keeping with God’s Law so that this New Priest, from the Tribe of Judah, can be consecrated in keeping with God’s law.

When Christ says,

“For thus it is fitting for us to fulfill all righteousness”

This is the Righteousness that is being fulfilled.

a.) So, we are saying that the need to fulfill all righteousness is suggestive of the need to fulfill some concrete law.

b.) We see a harmony between what Jesus is doing and the necessity of Water in the Numbers passage. In Numbers the Priests are consecrated by the sprinkling of water. Here the Lord Christ is being consecrated to His work by the sprinkling of the Waters of Baptism.

c.) The Lord Christ was about to enter His Priestly work as member of a different tribe then those who were appointed the role of Priest. As such He understands His need to submit to the law of consecration. Remember Jesus says of Himself that He always is about the will of His Father. This OT consecration of the Priests was the will of the Father that Jesus is about here.

Implications

** — Christ is our Sin-Bearer, our Priest, and (as our next point will tease out) our Sacrifice. His Baptism connects all those realities. In Baptism He is being set aside to our be Champion before the Father. As such this Baptism is crucial to His ministry and work of Christ. In the Baptism of Christ, the Lord Christ goes from a private Person to a Public Person vested with authority (Spirit’s anointing, Father’s Imprimatur) to accomplish His work that He is set apart to do.

** — As our High Priest He can provide sacrifice before God for the sins of the People, but unlike the old Aaronic Priesthood His sacrifice is once and forever complete.

III.) Identifies as our Sacrifice (Suffering Servant Connection) (Isaiah 42:1)

Christ is not only the one who bears away our sin but He is also the atoning sacrifice in whom the Father is well pleased.

A.) In this phrase of “well pleased” there may even be a hint of sacrificial language. Remember in Genesis 4:4 it was said of God

And the Lord was pleased with Abel and his offering…

In Philippians 4:18 God being pleased is connected to a sacrificial aroma

18 … I am full, having received from Epaphroditus the things sent from you, a sweet-smelling aroma, an acceptable sacrifice, well pleasing to God.

In the Old Testament, sacrifices, done in faith, were pleasing to God. Christ is the one in whom the Father is “well pleased.” As such this “Well Pleased” language may be foreshadowing the work of Christ as the sacrifice that the Father is well-pleased with unto the turning away of His wrath.

B.) This affirmation of the Father from heaven confirms Jesus identification as the servant of the Lord spoken of in Isaiah 42:1

Behold, my servant: I will stay upon him: mine elect, in whom my soul delighteth: I have put my Spirit upon him: he shall bring forth judgment to the Gentiles.

This same Servant of the Lord we learn then later in Isaiah is a suffering servant who is wounded, bruised, and chastised for His people. As such, this identification of the Son in connection with the Father being “well-pleased” harbors Old Testament hints that the Father’s pleasure is based upon the work the Son will preform.

But in the suggestion of the Lord Christ’s humiliation with this phrase “My Son in whom I am well pleased” there is also the suggestion of His eventual exaltation as we see this Sonship language used to trumpet His Kingship.

Psalm 2:6 — “Even I have set my King upon Zion mine holy mountain. 7 I will declare the decree: that is, the Lord hath said unto me, Thou art my son; this day have I begotten thee. 8 Ask of me, and I shall give thee the heathen for thine inheritance, and the ends of the earth for thy possession. 9 Thou shalt crush them with a scepter of iron, and break them in pieces like a potter’s vessel.”

So, yes there are strong undertones in the Baptism of the Lord Christ of His Humiliation but in that song of humiliation there remains a delicate sub-theme in the music of His coming Exaltation.

IV.) Event Communicates that the Lord Christ is the One in whom is found the New Creation

(Compare Spirit hovering in Genesis 1:2 w/ Spirit descending in Mt. 3:16)

And the Spirit of God was hovering over the face of the waters.

16 And when Jesus was baptized, immediately he went up from the water, and behold, the heavens were opened to him,[b] and he saw the Spirit of God descending like a dove and coming to rest on him;

Just as the Spirit overs over the Creation unto the end of work of Creation, just so the Spirit is involved in the work of the New Creation that has come in Christ. With the descending of the Spirit upon the Lord Christ we find the promised new age is dawning with the coming of He who is the New Creation.

Consistent with this we find the themes of coming of the Kingdom. John’s message is “Repent, for the Kingdom of God is at hand.” Just so, shortly after the Baptism of Christ, our Lord Christ can preach the same message. In Christ, the Kingdom of God has come. In Christ the New Creation is present. And the means of entering into this new Creation — this coming Kingdom — is by repentance and by being united with He who is the Kingdom and the new Creation.

Here we must remember our “Now, Not Yet,” hermeneutic. In the arrival of Christ the Kingdom and New Creation has come in Principle and yet it continues to come progressively as more and more men are swept into the reality of that present and coming Kingdom.

So, the Baptism of the Lord Christ is a significant event in the unfolding of Redemptive History and it is a significant event for us personally. In the unfolding of Redemptive History it is the entry point wherein Christ is anointed a Public Person and a Representative for His people. In the unfolding of Redemptive History the long promised Kingdom and New Creation has come. It is a significant event for us personally because we can be confident that in Christ’s Baptism He identifies with us and so can be our sacrifice, our sin-bearer and our High Priest. It is significant for us because when understood properly it comforts and assures us in our personal struggle with sin. We may fail in overcoming but Christ as our representative has overcome for us.

Conclusion,

So we might ask, what is our proper response to the Lord Christ identifying with His people? Might I offer that the proper response of gratitude is to identify with Christ? The Lord Christ identified with us in our sins and we might well respond in gratitude by identifying with Him in the extension of His Kingdom.

Trading burdens in the covenant is central to the economy of Gods kingdom. “Bear one another’s burdens and so fulfill the law of Christ.” He bore the burden of our sins and we bear the burden of seeking His kingdom, a much lighter burden than our sins.

___________________________

Random notes

Baptism — Baptism was not new to John’s ministry. In the OT it was a means by which there was a setting apart to a unique and holy purpose. This idea of setting apart by means of washing goes back to priestly ablutions (washings) prior to offering sacrifices (Leviticus 16:4 , 16:24 ).

4 He shall put on the holy linen tunic, and the linen undergarments shall be next to his body, and he shall be girded with the linen sash and attired with the linen turban (these are holy garments). Then he shall bathe his body in water and put them on…. 24.) He shall bathe his body with water in a holy place and put on his clothes, and come forth and offer his burnt offering and the burnt offering of the people and make atonement for himself and for the people.

So, the OT had categories for purification rites accomplished by water. When John takes this up, the Hebrew people would have had categories to understand what John the Baptist was doing.

This morning we will be considering

I.) The Opening of the Heavens in the Baptism account
II.) The Baptism proper
III.) The Voice and the Words of the Father in the Baptism Account
IV.) The Spirit as Dove in the Baptism Account
I.) Heaven Opens

The heavens were opened (Greek Schizo) torn open, the same word used in Mark 15:38 ”  And the veil of the Temple was rent (Torn) in twain, from the top to the bottom.” At His baptism heaven is suddenly torn open and the Father and the Holy Spirit come together to bless and affirm what the Son was doing and about to do in His ministry.

So, “opening” is too mild of a word here to convey the idea of the word Mark chooses. You are familiar with the Greek word schizo from its use in psychiatric terms such as schizophrenic. Outside that specialized use, the word schizo means to rend, to tear apart, to rip open.  What is happening here in the Baptism of the Lord Christ is in keeping with Isaiah’s prayer,
“Oh, that you would rend the heavens and come down!” (Isaiah 64:1)

  • With the rending of the Heavens in Jesus’ Baptism Mark is demonstrating that God has come down in the Person of Christ.

  • So, again, Mark uses the word twice, once near the beginning of his Gospel and once near the end.  When a unique word is used in this way,  Theologians sometimes refer to it as an inclusio. An inclusio is a literary technique by which the author creates theological “book ends” at the beginning and end of the text for added significance and meaning. This tearing for St. Mark represents the precise beginning (the baptism) and the precise end (the death) of the earthly career of Jesus.

    The ripping open of the heavens is a figurative way of saying that the barrier between heaven and earth is being removed and that God is coming among us through his Spirit-anointed Son. God has come near to His fallen world to heal it in Christ.

     Concerning the Temple we hear,     “And the curtain of the temple was torn (schizo) in two, from top to bottom” (Mark 15:38).  The Temple curtain was a symbolic separation of sinful people from the holy God.

    What adds interest to this “tearing” inclusio is that the ancient writer Josephus tells us what was pictured on the curtain that was later torn:

    Portrayed on this tapestry was a panorama of the entire heavens….

    You see the outer veil of the Jerusalem temple was actually one huge image of the starry sky! Thus, upon encountering Mark’s statement that “the veil of the temple was torn in two from top to bottom,” any of his readers who had ever seen the temple or heard it described would instantly have seen in their mind’s eye an image of the heavens being torn, and would immediately have been drawn back to Mark’s earlier description of the heavens being torn at the baptism.

    So Mark’s Gospel is framed by the ripping open of barriers between God and humanity, the barriers that keep God from coming to us, the barriers that keep us from coming to God. This removing of the barriers is what happens through Jesus Christ. It is a result much to be desired.

    II.) The Baptism itself — The Why

    A.) Fulfilling the Law Requirement For The Change In Priesthood
    Jesus is, emphatically, our Great High Priest.  As High Priest the Lord Christ is the fulfillment of all that the Aaronic line shadowed. Aaron’s line was the echo while Christ is the original.

    The Aaronic priesthood which was shadow anticipating Christ as High Priest belonged to  the tribe of Levi, and were the descendants of Aaron.

    Jesus belonged to another tribe, ‘of which,’ as Paul says, ‘no man gave attendance at the altar. For it is evident our Lord sprang out of Judah, of which tribe, Moses spake nothing concerning the priesthood.’ Heb. vii. 13, 14, and in verse twelve, he says, ‘For the priesthood being changed, there is made of necessity a change also of the law.’

    The point here is that there cannot be a change to the Priesthood without there also, at the same time, being a change to the law as it pertains to this matter.

    Now, when the Aaronic priesthood was first instituted, the tribe to which it pertained was, in a formal manner, consecrated, set apart to this high calling.

    Numbers 8:5-7″ ‘And the Lord spake unto Moses, Take the Levites from among the children of Israel and cleanse them. And thus shalt thou do unto them to cleanse them: SPRINKLE WATER OF PURIFYING UPON THEM.’ ”

    So now we have this great change occurring where another Tribe is given the Priestly task and we should expect the new High Priest to fulfill this requirement.

    And Jesus himself hints that this is what is going on when he says to John the Baptist in the Matthew account,

    14 But John earnestly put him back, saying, I have need to be baptized of thee, and comest thou to me?

    15 Then Jesus answering, said to him, Let be now: for thus it becometh us to fulfill [t]all righteousness. So he suffered him.

    Now, remember, the fulfilling of righteousness has to do with Christ relationship to the Law. Something in the law has to be fulfilled.

    What is the righteousness that needs to be fulfilled of which our Lord Christ speaks?

    I would contend that the righteousness that needs to be fulfilled … the conformity to the Law that God strictly required, is the consecration of the Lord Christ to this office of High Priest that was previously only owned by the Aaronic line.

    What bends us in this direction?

    P.– “It is CERTAIN, according to Jesus own words, that there was some law with which he must comply. This is why he spoke about the necessity of His Baptism so that all righteousness might be fulfilled.

    “Again, it is CERTAIN that in complying with the law, it necessitated the use of water.

    “Again, it is CERTAIN that he felt that he must comply with that law, because he was entering upon his priestly work, not as a descendant of Aaron, or of the tribe of Levi, but as a member of another tribe — Judah.

    “Again, it is CERTAIN that the law quoted was for the very purpose for which Jesus wished to be baptized.

    “Again, it is CERTAIN that if this is not the law to which referred, then no such law was in existence.

    “Again, it is CERTAIN that if there was no such law on record, there would have been no propriety in Jesus saying it was necessary for him to be baptized to comply with the law.

    So, one thing the Baptism accomplishes is it uses the same ceremony that set apart and consecrated the Aaronic Priesthood  to set apart and consecrate the Priesthood of Christ as coming from a different tribe. And the law that was changed that the book of Hebrews speaks of is that the ceremonial law has been fulfilled in Christ.

    And keep in mind that this consecration was done, both in the OT with the Levites and with the Lord Christ in Baptism, by sprinkling and not immersion.

    B.) God’s Second Adam Leading His People through Another Exodus

    Leaning upon a reading of the text that is harmony with all of the OT we might observe that just as Israel was led by Moses and had to go through the sea at the Exodus to enter the promise land, and just as the second generation re-enacted that water passage into the Promised land with Joshua and through the Jordan river, so now that the one has come who will lead His people into the New Creation He brings with Him,  there is a need for a water passage Exodus to identify with the greater Moses and the greater Joshua as the Lord Christ leads His people into the greater promised land — the New Creation.

    Jesus Baptism signifies thus not only the beginning of a new Exodus but also a new creation, as he has come to reverse the fall and the curse.

    III.) The Voice & The Words
    We are in the Epiphany season of the Church calendar and Epiphany begins with Christ’s Baptism and the Father speaking from heaven,

    Baptism —  Mark 1:11 —  Then there was a voice from heaven, saying, Thou art my beloved Son, in whom I am well pleased.

    , and on the Church calendar Epiphany ends with the Transfiguration and the same voice from heaven (Mark 9:7).

    Transfiguration — Mark 9:7 And there was a cloud that shadowed them, and a voice came out of the cloud, saying, This is my beloved Son: hear him.

    There is on other time the Gospels find the Father speaking audibly to the Son.

    A few days prior to death — John 12:28– Then there was a voice from heaven, saying, Thou art my beloved Son, in whom I am well pleased.

    In two of these three occasions the Father announces that He is “well pleased” with the Son. There may be overtones of sacrifice in that language. Consider that in the OT this idea of God being pleased often comes in connection to the sacrifices.

    On sixteen different occasions in the book of Leviticus alone, an “aroma” is mentioned as something pleasing to the Lord. Specifically, the aroma of a sacrifice is important to God. What makes the sacrifice pleasing is that the sacrifice represents the substitutionary atonement for sin.

    Genesis 8:21 — Noah’s burnt sacrifice upon leaving  the ark is said to be a “pleasing aroma” to God.

    Leviticus 1:9 13 says, “The priest is to burn all of it on the altar. It is a burnt offering, a food offering, an aroma pleasing to the LORD.

    Leviticus 2:2 — Despite the fact that this offering involved grain rather than meat, it had “an aroma pleasing to the LORD.”

    Leviticus 23:18 (Feast of weeks which focused on Redemption of sinners) —  “Present with this bread seven male lambs, each a year old and without defect, one young bull and two rams. They will be a burnt offering to the LORD, together with their grain offerings and drink offerings—a food offering, an aroma pleasing to the LORD.”

    (Ezekiel 6:13, ESV) — Offerings made to false gods were also described as having a “pleasing aroma” as well—to the idols, at least

    That the Lord Christ was being seen as a “well pleasing” sacrifice, in the Baptism context, is underscored by St. John’s Gospel, where just before what transpires is that John the Baptist cries out, in reference to the Lord Christ, that he is ‘the lamb of God which taketh away the sin of the world. So, the Father is well pleased with the Son because the Son is the propitiation for Sin.

    The New Testament reveals Christ as the final sacrifice for sin, the ultimate propitiation: “Christ loved us and gave himself up for us as a fragrant offering and sacrifice to God” (Ephesians 5:2).

    Jesus, the Son of God, was the only One who could provide the eternally pleasing sacrifice. He alone is the One of whom the Father says, “You are my Son, whom I love; with you I am well pleased” (Mark 1:11).

    And on top of all that we find echos of this “well pleased” language in one of the suffering servant passages in the OT.

    Behold my servant, whom I uphold,
        my chosen, in whom my soul delights;
    I have put my Spirit upon him;
        he will bring forth justice to the nations.  (Is. 42:1)

    So we find this divine witness of the Father’s voice three times in the ministry of the Lord Christ. Once at the beginning of Christ’s Ministry where He is consecrated unto High Priestly work where he will offer up Himself as our Sacrifice. Once at the clearest demonstration of Christ’s divinity as the fulfillment of the law and the Prophets — both of which pointed to the Lord Christ’s death. And once just before He accomplishes His work on the cross. At each of these speaking the Father places His imprimatur of approval upon the Son’s set apart-ness to be our substitutionary atonement.

    IV.) The Spirit as Dove

    Of course Christians have rightly seen in the Baptism of the Lord Christ a proof for the Trinitarian Character of God. The Son is Baptized, the Father Speaks and the Spirit descends as a dove. Note the importance that the three are working in agreement and harmony. This is the character of the Tri-oneness of God.

    Considering the Spirit, it is not the first time we see the Spirit in the context of water and creation

    A.) Genesis — And the Spirit of God was hovering over the face of the waters.

    The picture of a separation of waters in tandem with the mention of the Spirit of God placing people in a new land seems to go all the way back to Genesis.

    Gen 1:9 ¶ God said again, Let the waters under the heaven be gathered into one place, and let the dry land appear: and it was so.

    Then our first parents are made in God’s image to be fruitful and multiply and have dominion.

    “The same pattern occurs with Noah, where toward the end of the flood we find Gen. 8:1-3a teaching ‘God caused a wind [ruah, often rendered as Spirit] to pass over the earth, and the water subsided …. and the water receded steadily from the earth.” Thus Noah and his family were able to live on dry land again to the end of being fruitful, multiplying and having dominion.  The flood was, as you will recall, a starting afresh. God took Noah and His people, through the waters to the safety of a cleansed promised land.

    A new and better covenant comes and a greater Noah is on the scene and this greater Noah must rescue His people also. And so the greater Noah goes through the waters to a new Creation just as the lesser Noah had, and He goes through the waters to a New Creation that is provided in His person. After going through the water He takes dominion and multiplies by the way of calling disciples.

    And just as Noah goes through the flood and sends out a dove, so God sends His Spirit as a Dove to hover over the waters and His divinely appointed Covenant head who is bringing His people into a new creation.

    So, the Baptism of the Lord Christ is not only a re-play of the waters of the Red Sea and the waters of the Jordan unto the promised land it is a recreation in light of the recreation found in the Noahic story — complete with the sent Dove hovering over both the waters and the New Creation.