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I was not born and raised Reformed. In point of fact, I was raised Arminian (Wesleyan), trained in Arminian theology, and my first ordination was as a Wesleyan Pastor. My theology Professors in undergrad would write glowing notes in my Test books about how well I could demolish Calvinism.

Then I attended Seminary and was exposed to Calvinism by Professors who were Calvinists. The fight began. Thankfully, I lost.

One person that God used along the way to help me think through matters was Dr. R. C. Sproul Sr.. I never met the man but I read at least 20 of his books during this time of my fighting against the hound of heaven, not to mention countless of his video series and tape lectures. I even was able to attend a couple of his speaking confabs. Later I would disagree with Sproul over his errant position on presuppositionalism, theonomy, Reconstruction thought, some of his social order views, and even somewhat on Justification.

Yet still, I am thankful to God for Dr. R. C. Sproul and his ministry and how Sproul helped me to think through the conflict raging in my mind after Seminary. There were many others as well as Sproul, but Sproul was helpful. I remember going to and from work at the Airlines in Columbia, South Carolina listening to Sproul’s “Holiness of God” series and being overwhelmed at how BIG God is. I remember traveling to and from Maine to visit Jane’s family listening to Sproul’s “Dust to Glory” series. I remember working out on my stationary bike in the Basement viewing Sproul’s “Ideas have Consequences” video lectures.

Sproul’s gift to God’s Church was, in my estimation, his ability to popularize the Reformed faith. He was a master at getting the message out. He was to the Reformed faith what George Creel was to the Wilson Administration’s War effort during WW I. God would use Sproul to get ideas out there in the marketplace of ideas and once one came across those ideas they could go elsewhere to get them deeply reinforced. Nobody should underestimate the importance of getting ideas their initial exposure.

I am thankful for the life and ministry of Dr. R. C. Sproul. I look forward to meeting the man someday when we are both members of the Church at Rest.

Then pealed the bells more loud and deep:

“God is not dead, nor doth He sleep;

The Wrong shall fail,

The Right prevail,

With peace on earth, good-will to men.”

That what Longfellow has in mind as “Wrong” is the Biblical Christianity of the South and what he has in his mind as “Right prevailing” is the Jacobin anti-Christianity of the Northern Yankees.

Further, there are stanzas of Longfellow’s poem that don’t find their way into most Christian hymn books. For example,

Then from each black, accursed mouth

The cannon thundered in the South,

And with the sound

The carols drowned

Of peace on earth, good-will to men!

It was as if an earthquake rent

The hearth-stones of a continent,

And made forlorn

The households born

Of peace on earth, good-will to men!

So, Longfellow doesn’t give us a Christmas Carol so much as he gives us Jacobin agitprop. Per Longfellow, the South is responsible for breaking the peace on earth and goodwill to men. This is the opposite of the truth. Per Longfellow, it is the South’s fault that Northern homes are forlorn.

Longfellow doubtless writes this because his son Charlie was significantly wounded once, while a separate time Charlie returned home having contracted a serious fever while at the front.

What we sing, abstracted from the back story is fine but when we know the back story this Christmas Carol is almost as bad as Julia Ward Howe’s “Battle Hymn of the Republic,” while sanctifying the wicked war effort as much as Harriet Beecher Stowe’s “Uncle Tom’s Cabin,” did.

Personally, I’d rather not sing this Jacobin agitprop at Christmas. I hate the cause of the Jacobin Yankees in their work at destroying the last great Christian civilization. I loathe the Lincoln-worshipers with their strained and attenuated understanding of US history.

Of course, you can find a Gospel Coalition article praising the song.

Two birth scenes frame Jacob’s life: the struggle with Esau in the darkness of the womb, when he is born Jacob (Gen. 25:22-23), and the struggle with God in the darkness at the Jabbok river, when he is reborn Israel (Gen. 32:25-33). Similarly, two nocturnal divine encounters shape his life: the dream at Bethel (Gen. 28:10-22) and the struggle at Jabbok….

Just as Abram became a new man when he was circumcised and consequently renamed ‘father of many nations’, so Jacob becomes born again as ‘Israel’ after being crippled in a desperate struggle with a divine assailant (Gen. 32:25-30). As Geller remarks, this passage is extremely significant: ‘the eponymous ancestor of the nation is about to receive a national name.’ In what amounts to a second-birth experience, he fights in the darkness not with his brother (in the womb) but with God. He wins the fight by losing – by being broken – and facing up to his identity (Jacob – Deceiver). Consequently, he tells God who he is (Jacob the deceiver, the heel grabber) and has his name changed to Israel (God’s fighter). Jacob wins the blessing and will be God’s conquering warrior on earth. But he does not emerge unscathed; he is now lame, wounded in the thigh (Gen. 32:26, 33) – the place from which the descendants will come (Gen. 46:26, Ex. 1:5). Jacob has been circumcised in his spirit.

John the Baptist comes pronouncing prophetic warning and woe. One matter he attacks is the Jewish mindset that believes it is special unto God just because it is Jewish. John ends all that nonsense by pulling the props from just that mindset. The Father does not love people solely upon the basis of their ethnicity or race. When the Father loves someone He loves them upon the basis of their identity in Christ.

Now, none of this is to say that having Abraham as their Father was unimportant or insignificant completely. St. Paul himself can later say in speaking of the descendants of Abraham, “Theirs is the adoption to sonship; theirs the divine glory, the covenants, the receiving of the law, the temple worship and the promises.” Paul speaks here of the great privilege of being Jewish. But what Israel had done is they had absolutized their biological ethnicity marker and said that nothing else mattered. John the Baptist informs this that such thinking is the thinking of a fool. It matters not what your lineage is if you do not look to the greater one that John is Heralding and if you do not bring forth fruit in keeping with repentance.

Being part of the covenant community is a great privilege but if you absolutize that membership in such a way that all one is resting in is biological connectedness you are lost.

This tendency to absolutize ethnicity as a marker of God’s automatic favor is not unique to Jews. People groups have done it repeatedly. As just one example in recent history is the Black Liberation Theologian James Cone who has written,

“Therefore, God’s Word of recon­ciliation means that we can only be justified by becoming black. Reconciliation makes us all black. Through this radical change, we become identified totally with the suffering of the black masses. It is this fact that makes all-white churches anti-Christian in their essence. To be Christian is to be one of those whom God has chosen. God has chosen black people!”

“Black Theology and Black Power” by James H. Cone (1969) — pg. 151

This kind of specious thinking goes on among White people as well,

Bertrand Comparet, writing in the American Institute of Theology’s “Bible Correspondence Course,” observes:

“Of course, one of the purposes [in Christ’s coming] was to pay the penalty of the sins of every person who believes and accepts Him as his personal Savior. But this is not all: another purpose of His first coming was to redeem His people ISRAEL which we know are not and never were composed of Jews; but today they are known as the Anglo-Saxon, Scandinavian, and Germanic nations.”

This is a strange quote because it seems to draw a distinction between Christ coming to offer salvation to all while only redeeming white people. Regardless, of its strangeness it is suggesting that ethnic markers limit who can be redeemed.

We see in both these quotes is the same thing here that John the Baptist was warning against in his preaching to the Jews in Luke 3. We see here an absolutizing of ethnic markers so that nothing else matters besides ethnicity.

That is something we must warn against and be on guard against. Our hope, in terms of our salvation, must not rest in ethnic markers, though we can and should thank God for those markers and understand what a great blessing they are. Our hope is anchored in being properly related to the Lord Christ who saves men from every tribe, tongue, and nation, in their tribes, tongues, and nations.