Truth forever on the scaffold, Wrong forever on the throne, Yet that scaffold sways the future, and, behind the dim unknown, Standeth God within the shadow, keeping watch above his own.
Justification is one of those spiritual blessings wherewith the elect are blessed in Christ according to election-grace, before the foundation of the world, #Eph 1:3,4. That justification is a spiritual blessing none will deny; and if the elect were blessed with all spiritual blessings, then with this; and if thus blessed according to election, or when elected, then before the foundation of the world: and this grace of justification must be no small part of that “grace which was given in Christ Jesus before the foundation of the world was”, #2Ti 1:9. We may say, says Dr. Goodwin {14}, of all spiritual blessings in Christ, what is said of Christ, that his goings forth are from everlasting–in Christ we were blessed with all spiritual blessings, #Eph 1:3 as we are blessed with all other, so with this also, that we were justified then in Christ!
Dr. John Gill 18th Century Baptist Theologian
I Timothy 1:9 who has saved us and called us with a holy calling, not according to our works, but according to His own purpose and grace which was given to us in Christ Jesus before time began
Grace was given to us in Christ Jesus before time began. Understand that St. Paul is saying that before the elect took on flesh and blood the elect were given grace in Christ Jesus, the Elect One. Someone please tell me how it is the case that it is a stretch, based on this passage alone, to embrace eternal Justification. What — we were given a grace before time began that did not include the grace of Justification? What kind of given grace doesn’t include Justification?
Look, if you want your Justification time bound, I’m not going to hiss at you. I mean, I think that it is inconsistent but I’m not going to cast you outside the circle of faith. Can you make that kind of space for those of us who want to be consistent in our Reformed theology?
Matthew 5:11 Blessed are ye, when men shall revile you, and persecute you, and shall say all manner of evil against you falsely, for my sake. 12Rejoice, and be exceeding glad: for great is your reward in heaven: for so persecuted they the prophets which were before you.
The SPLC has done it again. For the second consecutive year the SPLC has, because of the Pastor, tagged the Charlotte Christ the King Reformed Church as an extremist hate group. We have a little dot in Mid-Michigan on their hate map that designates us as White Nationalist.
We couldn’t be prouder.
I mean, how many opportunities does one get in life to be proud of being normal? What will we be accused of next by the SPLC? White people who love their white families (White Familialism)? White people who love a White Christ?
It is normal for any Christian, regardless of their race/ethnicity to love their God given people so much that they would desire a nation for their people. To the contrary it is a sign of the deepest kind of mental illness that, regardless of one’s race, that one would not desire a homeland that is uniquely for the people of one’s own race/ethnicity, language, culture and faith. Multiculturalism is aberrant and is not normal. The same is true of multiculturalism when it exists in marriages, families and churches.
I make no apologies for being a White Nationalist. It is just the normal stance for any White Christian who loves Christ and his own people. As a White Nationalist love for my own people would only be interpreted as meaning “hatred for everyone else” by those who took a severe blow on the head as a child, or those who were born without some necessary chromosomes.
Of course these days missing chromosomes is the norm for the Evangelical (so called) leadership. Everyone from Russell Moore to John Piper to Mark Labberton, to Mike Horton to Barney the purple Dinosaur have denounced the idea of white Christian nationalism, choosing instead to embrace some form of multiculturalism and/or cultural Marxist diversity. And the really odd thing about all this? Many of these chaps have the vapors over the idea of the “Jews” having their own distinct nation. Go figure.
For those who have reading comprehension problems, allow me to say once again that love for my own people and my own land does not mean I have hatred for those who are not my own people or for other lands. Indeed, Christians among other peoples finds me with a natural affection for them similar to my affection for my own natural kindred.
To be honest, the really ironic thing right now is that my hostility is now, more often than not, pointed towards my own people — Christian and non-Christian alike. Why is that? Because they all have a death wish and can’t see that the idea of “the great replacement” is not some tin-foil hat conspiracy. Our enemies really desire to see us replaced by those not white and not Christian. The “Christians” among “the great replacement” deniers are those for whom my greatest hostility is reserved. These “Christians” are the ones looking down their nose at me for managing to “embarrass” the Christian faith by landing on the SPLC hate list. These “Christians” are the ones sending their children to Government schools so that their children can grow up to be as torpid as they now are. These “Christians” are the ones who believe in virtue banking and are forever seeking to make deposits by sprinkling their families with different hued babies, by conducting marriage services for polyglot couples, by joining in the fight to denounce Christians like me who are only guilty of saying what previous to 1950 or so all Christians in all places at all times said. I have the quotes to prove it.
Certainly, border-men have always existed. Certainly, polyglot marriages have always existed. Certainly, different hued babies have been adopted in times past. Christians always sought to minister to these exception to the rule scenarios. The difference today however is now we are seeking to make those exceptions the norm. They have never been, are not now, and never will be the norm. Babel will not be rebuilt and if it is rebuilt for a season it will not stand for long.
Let it be said here, once again, to those “Christians” who are heavily invested in virtue banking your judgment against me is going to boomerang against you on that final day. You may indeed be saved (Grace is a glorious thing) but it will be as by fire (I Corinthians 3:11-15). 100 years from now just remember we had this conversation.
As we are celebrating my/our 2nd anniversary on the SPLCE hater list let me note that there are some ways in which I am genuinely disappointed about my relation to the SPLC list. They have me/us down as “White Nationalist,” but fail to give me credit for other categories they have. For example, they list people as “Anti LGTBQ.” Well, I am anti LGTBQ. Why don’t I get labeled with that one? They list “Anti-Semitism.” Well, by their standard I am as Anti-Semitic as they come. Why don’t I get that label? Then there is the label they have of “general hate.” Nope … I don’t get that one either and I am as “generally hateful” as they come. If I am honest I must say that I am feeling slighted by the SPLC here in Mid-Michigan.
Another thing that I find passing odd is the difference between this year’s posting and last year’s posting. This year one has to really go hunting to find out that we made the list for the 2nd consecutive year. Last year the mid-Michigan media did all they could to shout from the roof-top our top honors. The Lansing State Journal gave me not one but two above the fold headlines in their fish-wrapping. Michigan public radio blabbered on for two days about my “sins.” Local television stations ran newsfeed of non-white talking heads standing in front of the Church reporting on my/our crimes. Every local newspaper fish wrapping had something to say about my sins. Local “pastors” of the Elmer Gantry variety ran to microphones to denounce me. A national denomination held a press conference to denounce me which in turn was reported on everywhere across Michigan.
This year it is crickets. I suppose one can reckon that old news is no news. Alternately, one might conclude that last year somebody somewhere was going for a kill shot thinking they could close the church down (and by extension me) by scaring everybody off from the church.
Well, here I am glad to report what they intended for evil God intended for good. As a result of the SPLC and the media onslaught the Church gained in numbers and in general health. Consequently, I owe a debt of gratitude to the SPLC, the Lansing State Journal, Michigan Public Radio, area Elmer Gantry Pastors, The Clown Reformed Church denomination and all the other little people who made this all possible.
“To adopt any theory which would stop the mouth of the Church and prevent her bearing her testimony to the kings and rulers, magistrates and people, in behalf of the truth and law of God, is like one who administers chloroform to a man to prevent his doing mischief. We pray God that this poison may be dashed away, before it has reduced the church to a state of inanition, and delivered her bound hand and foot into the power of the world.”
Charles H. Hodge
19th Century Reformed Theology
When it comes to soteriology R2K has its ordo salutis down just fine. It properly speaks of the necessity to proclaim God as Holy, man as sinful, and Christ as the only solution for man’s problem of a wrathful God. When it speaks of salvation of an individual man or woman it is orthodox.
However R2K so limits its soteriology that its doctrine of salvation ends up being severely truncated. R2K results in any number of saved individuals but as Hodge notes above the salvation that R2K offers ends up binding the saved people of God hand and foot into the power of the world. That doesn’t sound like much of a salvation. At the very least it is the kind of salvation that provides fire insurance against hell but it is not the kind of salvation that brings the aroma of Christ to every area of life. In brief, R2K offers a salvation that Christ would not recognize.
To separate the salvation that is in the atonement from the dominion mandate is to give man a man centered meaning to his life, and also to the atonement, and this is precisely what R2K does. Because R2K constrains the impact of the atonement to the private individual personal sphere, R2K strips the Atonement of its vertical impact and so horizontalizes the atonement so that it merely becomes a means of fire insurance — an escape from Hell.
Not so for the Biblical Christian. The Biblical Christian understands the Atonement and the salvation it secures has put the Christian back in the position of being God’s Dominion man. Having his sins removed man can now handle all that he handles so as to establish God’s dominion in what he handles.
R2K tells those who have been atoned for that their atonement has given them peace with God through the Lord Jesus Christ but at the price of their making peace with the authorities of this wicked age who hate God and His Christ. R2K trumpets an atonement and so a salvation that is flaccid, weak, and emasculated. It is an atonement / salvation for the pacifist, the coward, and the disobedient. It is an atonement / salvation that allows and even demands the atoned and saved to surrender before those who would have dominion over Christ’s totalistic Kingdom.
This is the atonement that is being sold to you by David Van Drunnen, R. Scott Clark, Matthew Tuininga, Mike Horton, J. V. Fesko, T. David Gordon, Carl Truman and all the R2K imp professors at countless Seminaries sprinkled across America.
To see the limits of R2K’s salvation we have only but to quote one of its leading champions — Dr. Mike Horton.
“This ‘good news’ is not moral improvement or a Christian society or any political system—whether democratic or totalitarian, capitalist or socialist. It’s the announcement that in his incarnation, obedient life, sacrificial death, and resurrection Jesus Christ has accomplished redemption from sin, death, and hell and reconciled sinners with God.”
Mike Horton
Westminster-Cal “Theologian
TGC Article — “The Cult Of Christian Trumpism”One chief problem of R2K is it seeks to reduce Christianity to “the Gospel,” (Horton’s ‘good news’ above) as if Christianity has nothing else to say to Christians except as it pertains to learning that Christ will receive and save sinners. Mikey engages in serious reductionism as to what the Scriptures fully mean by “salvation.” Salvation is NOT limited to justification and no more than that. Doubtless “the Gospel” is the centerpiece of Christianity but to suggest, as R2K consistently does, that Christianity = the Gospel and individual salvation is a gross reductio ad absurdum. So, while the good news, narrowly defined is certainly not a Christian society or any political system as Mikey says, that doesn’t mean that the good news of Christianity does not multiply so that it has far-reaching implications that touch the issue of Christian social order, or Christian political systems bringing salvation to those cultural institutions. It does not mean that the salvation found in the Gospel pronouncement is limited to individuals. While the Gospel in its saving power is never less than the salvation of individuals from sin, the Gospel in its saving power is always more than the salvation of individuals from sin.For R2K the individual “soul” is saved but the salvation has no visible effect on society or culture. Instead R2K soteriology results in the saved “believer” retreating to a position outside society (like a monk) waiting for the destruction of the social order. R2K yields a Gnostic salvation of the soul. Thus we see that the soteriology (doctrine of salvation) of R2K is hyper individual to the point of being atomistic. We might say that for all practical purposes it is Baptistic. Individuals get saved but the whole idea of covenantal categories that include children in salvation is negated by R2K’s insistence that the families can not be Christian since family life lies in the common realm and not in the grace realm. Listen to former President of Westminster-Cal. Dr. Robert Godfrey, take Dr. David Van Drunen (DVD) to the woodshed on DVD’s insistence that families could not be Christian,
“Is the family a common institution in every way? It seems to me that the Bible say’s “no, it is not a common institution in every way.” If it were a common institution in every way how could the Apostle Paul talk about the children of belivers as ‘holy?’” Children, it seems to me, must be seen on a Two Kingdoms approach, as Dr. VanDrunen expresses it as a cultural product of a common grace institution, and cultural products of common grace institution are never taken over into the new heavens and the new earth.”
R2K’s denial then that families can be Christian and so spoken of as “saved” is a denial of covenantal categories. Next, in terms of soteriology, while Reformed theology has typically taught that God’s salvation is cosmic so that as salvation comes to peoples and nations so it comes to their Institutions, cultures, and civilizations. R2K denies all of this insisting that salvation is only personal, individual, and private.
Dr. R. Scott Clark, another R2K pop theologian also has a problem with the idea that salvation can be spoken on in anything but an individual sense.
“We might speak of a fourth view: grace transforming nature cosmically beyond redemption. The great question is this: what is the biblical warrant for speaking and thinking this way? Practically, what does it mean to speak of transforming softball or orchestral music or any other cultural endeavor? Why cannot softball simply be what it is, recreation? What is distinctively Christian about “Christian art” or “Christian history” or Christian math”? I understand that the rhetoric is sacrosanct (a shibboleth, as it were) but what does it signify? What are the particulars?”
Here R2K Clark is struggling with the idea that grace has a salvific effect on anything but individuals leading to those other things being transformed. R2K Clark objects to the idea of grace transforming nature (and so culture) preferring instead to say that grace renews nature in salvation. Clark desires to keep the renewing power of grace constrained to humans as it pertains to their salvation. However, this seems to be a constrained view of reality. After all, it is grace renewed and saved people who are the ones who create culture (an embodiment of nature). If grace renews nature in salvation then grace is going to renew everything that those salvifically renewed people are going to create in culture. One simply can’t have grace renewing nature in salvation without that renewal getting into everything the renewed and salvation visited person touches. The products of culture, after all, don’t come into being apart from the renewed or unrenewed people who create them.
Instead of seeing salvation as only personal, individual, and private as R2K Horton sees it listen to the way that salvation and its effects was spoken of in other generations by other men of God;
“A Christian has no right to separate his life into two realms… to say the Bible is good for Sunday, but this is a week-day question, or the Scriptures are right in matters of religion, but this is a matter of business or politics. God reigns over all, everywhere. His will is the supreme law. His inspired Word, loyally read will inform us of His will in every relation and act of life, secular as well as religious; and the man is a traitor who refuses to walk therein with scrupulous care. The Kingdom of God includes all sides of human life, and it is a Kingdom of absolute righteousness. You are wither a loyal subject, or a traitor. When the King comes, how will He find you doing?”
A.A. Hodge 19th Century Reformed Theologian
“We not only claim our rightful place among the commonwealths of education but we have a definitely imperialistic program. No mere Monroe doctrine will suffice. We are out to destroy—albeit with spiritual weapons only and always—all our competitors. We do not recognize them equals but regard them as usurpers. Carthage must be destroyed.” Cornelius Van Til
The problem with R2K’s soteriology is that it is a constrained and limited salvation that is not to extend beyond the boundaries of the individual. Another way to say this is that R2K’s soteriology is without effect except as that effect impacts personal and individual categories. One has to question if such a salvation is really salvation. The Reformed understanding of salvation has always been that individuals being saved bear the effects of that salvation in everything they put their hands to. The saved become the aroma of Christ in all to which God calls them. The saved, being a people characterized as those people who take every thought captive to make it obedient to Christ (II Cor. 10:5) bring the impact of their salvation on family life, education, law, politics, arts, politics and everything else. Can salvation really be salvation when it is constrained, as R2K constrains it, so that its effects are disallowed?
What R2K does to arrive at this consequence free salvation is that they cut off the office of Jesus Christ as King from the office of Jesus Christ as our great High Priest. All orthodox Christians concur with the idea that Christ as our great High Priest saves us from our personal and individual sins. Praise God for so great a salvation. However, our salvation is also related to Jesus in His office as our great liege Lord. As our High Priest Christ has saved us from our sins, and as our Great High King Christ has saved us to be warriors in Christ’s Kingdom seeking to bring the effects of our salvation to everything wherein God has assigned us in our lives so that our families, careers, and every other matter we pursue finds the grace of salvation transforming nature. R2K shrinks the domain of the office of Christ as King relating to our salvation so that Christ’s Kingship governs only our personal individual lives. R2K’s Christianity makes their converts nice people (except to those who don’t like R2K) whose Christian convictions wouldn’t threaten the queers reading at the Drag Queen Story Hour.
Read the quotes above again. Can you imagine any R2K fanboy ever saying anything like what is said in those quotes? Can you imagine Mike Horton, David Van Drunen, R. Scott Clark, or D. G. Hart saying with Van Til on the matter of education, “Carthage must be destroyed?” Of course you can’t imagine that and that is because R2K has a markedly different soteriology when considered in toto than Reformed theology has embraced for generations.
The salvation of the Reformed faith has always been a world conquering, and kingdom of God establishing salvation. The salvation of the Reformed faith has shut the mouths of impious magistrates, while at the same time gently nurturing God’s covenant children placed within our families. The salvation of the Reformed faith shaped the glorious thing we once called Christendom. The salvation of the Reformed faith is heroic.
In the pages of Scripture we see a connection between God’s creative and redemptive work and the establishing of meaning. The drama of God’s divine work in the Old Testament moves through the creation of the world, the redemption out of Egypt, and the conquest of Canaan. Each of these three acts wrests meaning from meaninglessness: first, the world emerges from nothing, secondly, Israel from the grave of Egypt, and thirdly the promised land blooms as from the desert.
In the New Testament this same drama of meaninglessness to meaningfulness moves through the resurrection of Jesus Christ recorded in the Gospels, and the need of the Gospel for the nations in Acts. Each of these acts likewise wrest meaning from meaninglessness: the seeming meaninglessness of the Cross is given meaning by the resurrection, and the nations find meaning only as they submit to the Lordship of Jesus Christ.
All these acts thus interpret one another as works of divine power where the coming of salvation means the dissolution of meaninglessness in favor true meaning. We see here that the progress of redemption is closely tied up with the progress of meaning. In these historical stages the realm of meaning grows.
What is true in the progress of redemption is true for the individual who is caught up in God’s redemption as provided in Christ and applied by the Holy Spirit. The individual outside of Christ is without form and void – he finds no basis for meaning – but when the Spirit of God hovers over the individual in order to recreate by way of regeneration, the individual, by way of salvation, is for the first time given meaningful meaning. The individual is delivered from the kingdom of darkness, characterized as it is by the absence of meaning and significance and is translated to the kingdom of God’s dear Son (Col. 1:13) where for the first time true meaning and significance is found.
It is then, not only the soul that is saved in salvation, but also the mind, for in salvation the mind can find objective meaning and be delivered from the subjectivism and meaninglessness that is so characteristic of those who are without God and without hope.
It is not only the case that we as Christians have abundant life to offer those trapped in their miserly lives of ongoing death, we also have to offer to people who are living life without meaning and significance genuine meaning.
Justification may well be considered as a branch of election; it is no other, as one expresses it, than setting apart the elect alone to be partakers of Christ’s righteousness; and a setting apart Christ’s righteousness for the elect only; it is mentioned along with election, as of the same date with it; “Wherein”, that is, in the grace of God, particularly the electing grace of God, spoken of before, “he hath made us accepted in the beloved”, #Eph 1:6. What is this acceptance in Christ, but justification in him? and this is expressed as a past act, in the same language as other eternal things be in the context, he “hath” blessed us, and he “hath” chosen us, and “having” predestinated us, so he hath made us accepted; and, indeed, as Christ was always the beloved of God, and well pleasing to him; so all given to him, and in him, were beloved of God, well pleasing to him, and accepted with him, or justified in him from eternity.
Dr. John Gill 18th century Baptist Minister
Justification, like Election is completely extra nos (outside of us) and as completely outside of us I can’t understand why Reformed people would get upset over when the “completely outsidedness” of Justification occurs. If Justification is completely outside of us (and it is) and if we do not contribute in one scintilla (and we don’t) to our Justification then why could it possibly matter whether or not Justification is from eternity or whether Justification is after the subjective work within us of regeneration? Never mind that positing regeneration prior to Justification in the ordo salutis finds the Holy Spirit inhabiting a unholy thing (person) who has not yet (in this scheme) been declared righteous before God strikes one as distinctly problematic.
Gill appeals to the Ephesians 1 passage we touched on yesterday;
3 Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who has blessed us with every spiritual blessing in the heavenly places in Christ, 4 just as He chose us in Him before the foundation of the world, that we should be holy and without blame before Him in love, 5 having predestined us to adoption as sons by Jesus Christ to Himself, according to the good pleasure of His will, 6 to the praise of the glory of His grace, by which He made us accepted in the Beloved.
I don’t know how justification from eternity could be made any more clear than what the Holy Spirit inspired St. Paul does here? In vs. 3 the elect are blessed with every spiritual blessing in the heavenly places in Christ. Is Justification not a spiritual blessing? How could we be holy and without blame before Him in love if we were not Justified from eternity? How could we be predestined to be adopted without first be predestined to be Justified? Clearly, all this occurs when we were made accepted in the Beloved and the text teaches explicitly that we were made accepted in the Beloved upon being chose in the Beloved from the foundation of the world.
I honestly don’t understand how this is controversial in the least.