HC 33 — Christ as the μονογενῆ Υἱὸν (One and Only Son)

The Heidelberg Catechism continues to track and explain the Apostle Creed. In doing so the HC is explaining to us the basics (fundamentals) of our undoubted catholic Christian faith. The HC is, by this method, at one and the same time giving us a proper understanding of the Apostles Creed and a proper understanding of Christianity 101. Remember, if we embrace the explanation of the Heidelberg Catechism then we must refuse other denominational expressions of Christianity that are in contradiction to the explanation of the HC. If we refuse to do that we shouldn’t attach ourselves to Reformed Churches as members.

In the Apostle’s Creed we confess that we believe;

“In Jesus Christ His only begotten son,” and so the HC asks,

Question 33: Why is Christ called the only begotten Son of God, since we are also the children of God?

Answer: Because Christ alone is the eternal and natural Son of God;1 but we are children adopted of God, by grace, for His sake.2

The work here is to distinguish between our sonship and the sonship of the only begotten Son of God.

First, note the brevity here. The catechizers could have spent paragraphs here explaining the eternality of the Son but instead simply states that Christ is the eternal and natural Son of God. The labor here is not to explain the second person of the trinity but rather the labor here is to build an understanding in our minds that there is a distinction between the sonship of Christ and the sonship of men and women as those in Christ.

Christ as a person of the Trinity has been from eternity God’s Son.

1John 1:1, In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God.

Heb. 1:2, (The Father) Hath in these last days spoken unto us by His Son, whom He hath appointed heir of all things, by whom also He made the worlds.

Of course this understanding chases off heresies like Arianism (Jehovah Witnesses) which insisted that Christ was not from eternity God’s Son but was God’s highest and best creation. It chases off heresies like Sabellianism (one form of Modalism) which embraced that the Son was only a mode of God and not a distinct person from eternity. Oneness Pentecostalism is one modern example of those who would deny HC 33.

Christ is the eternal and natural son of God but we are sons of God in a non-eternal and non-natural manner; that is by way of adoption.

but we are children adopted of God, by grace, for His sake.2

Behold what manner of love the Father has bestowed on us, that we should be called children of God! Therefore the world does not know us, because it did not know Him. (I John 3:1)

2Rom. 8:15–17, For ye have not received the spirit of bondage again to fear; but ye have received the Spirit of adoption, whereby we cry, Abba, Father. The Spirit itself beareth witness with our spirit, that we are the children of God: and if children, then heirs; heirs of God, and joint-heirs with Christ; if so be that we suffer with Him, that we may be also glorified together.

Eph. 1:5–6, Having predestinated us unto the adoption of children by Jesus Christ to Himself, according to the good pleasure of His will, to the praise of the glory of His grace, wherein He hath made us accepted in the beloved.

In adoption we move from the court room where we are justified to the family room where we are part of the family of God. As adopted we have access to the Father through our elder Brother the majestic and ever awesome Lord Jesus Christ.

We should understand that this adoption is also a legal category. We have been laboring throughout to demonstrate that Christianity can never be understood apart from understanding the legal categories that are intrinsic to the definition of Christianity. Adoption is a legal category. We are not merely adopted by good intent. We are legally adopted by grace for the sake of Jesus Christ. Christ as our Elder Brother gives us introduction to the Father and serves as the legal surety for our adoption. We are sons of God because of the legal relationship between the eternal and natural son of God and we the younger brethren of the Lord Jesus who are adopted by the grace of His surety.

Legal categories are a superior way to understand Biblical Christianity than purely relational categories. Relationships can wax and wane but relationships that are anchored in legal realities are firm fixture that cannot be moved by our ever shifting experiences or emotions. Adoption, while no doubt relational, is legal before it is relational. Because Adoption is anchored in the surety of Jesus Christ we know that nothing can separate us as adopted sons and daughters from the love of God.

It is a great privilege to not only be justified but also to be adopted. May God grant us grace to be full of praise for this privilege and to bank on it when troubles enter into our lives. Those troubles can never negate our legally established adoption as sons of the God most High.

HC 32 — Christians as Prophets, Priests, and Kings Under Sovereign God

HC 32 asks;

Question 32: But why art thou called a Christian?

Answer: Because I am a member of Christ by faith,7 and thus am partaker of His anointing;8 that so I may confess His name,9 and present myself a living sacrifice of thankfulness to Him;10 and also that with a free and good conscience I may fight against sin and Satan in this life,11 and afterwards reign with Him eternally, over all creatures.12

The HC moves us from examining why it is that Jesus has the title “Christ” in question 31 to asking why we are called “Christian” (i.e. — Little Christ one). You will notice as we move through this question that the HC authors use the same methodology that finds them concentrating on the three offices of Prophet, Priest, and King that we looked at in HC 31. This is important because it places our standing in Christ upon judicial categories and not merely on the basis of “a personal relationship with Jesus.”

The HC begins by establishing the necessity of faith alone in order to have a
interest in Christ. We are Christians because we are regenerated unto having a faith alone that embraces Christ and all His benefits.

For by grace you have been saved through faith. And this is not your own doing; it is the gift of God…. (Eph. 2:1)

And he said to the woman, Thy faith hath saved thee; go in peace. (Luke 7:50)

If men will not have a faith that is comprised of a ever growing knowledge and assent then they can not presume to be a member of Christ. This ever growing knowledge and assent embraces all that the Scripture’s reveal concerning the person and work of the Lord Jesus Christ.

HC 32 goes on from the teaching that faith alone makes us a member of Christ;

7 1 Cor. 6:15, Know ye not that your bodies are the members of Christ? shall I then take the members of Christ, and make them the members of an harlot? God forbid.

Christ is the head of the Church and the Church, in all its variedness is the body (members of Christ).

Note the anti-Gnostic thrust of this passage above.

Because we are members of the body of Christ, who is the head, we partake in His anointing to the office of Prophet, Priest, and King. This means that all believers are prophet, priests, and kings under sovereign God. We have all been invested to mighty offices because of our union with the Lord Jesus Christ. We understand here that our investiture to these offices is derivative only of Christ’s investiture to these offices but that investiture remains very real.

First HC 32 teaches that the Church and the members thereof are anointed 

8 1 John 2:27, But the anointing which ye have received of Him abideth in you, and ye need not that any man teach you: but as the same anointing teacheth you of all things, and is truth, and is no lie, and even as it hath taught you, ye shall abide in Him.

Joel 2:28, And it shall come to pass afterward, that I will pour out My spirit upon all flesh; and your sons and your daughters shall prophesy, your old men shall dream dreams, your young men shall see visions.

As we noted in HC 31 this anointing is a setting apart to particular offices to the end of being agents of God’s Kingdom work. As Christians we are anointed to the office of Prophet under sovereign God;

and thus am partaker of His anointing;8 that so I may confess His name,

9 Matt. 10:32, Whosoever therefore shall confess Me before men, him will I confess also before My Father which is in heaven.

As Biblical Christians we have the duty and privilege to practice the office of prophet in this life by confessing Christ. This prophetic confessing of Christ is not only in terms of verbal words but our whole lives are characterized by confessing the Lordship of Jesus Christ. As we confess Christ we echo the work of Jesus Christ in His office of our great High Prophet. As we confess Christ as prophet we speak and live forth the word of God from God to people around us. Our words and our lives in their totality should be a confessing of His name.

This confessing of His name will mean that many people will hate us since if they hated Jesus as God’s prophet they will also hate us (John 15:8). This confessing of His name also will mean that many people will love us given how great is the company of fellow prophets.

Note what HC 32 does not mean when it comes to being prophets under sovereign God. It does not mean Pentecostal silliness of prophesying the unknown future. This role of prophet is speaking forth the revealed Christ in Scripture before men who refuse the person and work of Jesus Christ.

Not only are we invested unto the office of Prophet, but the HC 32 teaches that we are invested unto the office of Priest also. HC 32 teaches that we are to;

  present myself a living sacrifice of thankfulness to Him

10 Rom. 12:1 – I beseech you therefore, brethren, by the mercies of God, that ye present your bodies a living sacrifice, holy, acceptable unto God, which is your reasonable service.

Here we learn that our whole lives, including our bodies are to be “living sacrifices” unto God. All of our lives are lived in light of the reality of who God is. The implication of this is that we die daily to sin, and self. HC 32 characterizes this living sacrifice as one that breathes of thankfulness. Note, unlike the OT sacrifices that were left lifeless that our sacrifice is characterized as “living.” Our whole lives as Priests go from sacrifice of thankfulness to God unto sacrifice of thankfulness to God. This idea anticipates the third section of the HC that teaches on our gratitude. All of our living as priests before God is anchored in our thankfulness of His sacrifice in our stead — on our behalf.  We render our lives as glad sacrifices for all that He sacrificed for us as dead and lost sinners. Our sacrifice is akin to the thanks offering rendered up in the OT sacrificial system (Lev. 3:1). We bring of our best to the Master and offer it up unto Him in praise for all that He has given to us.

We have a third office we are invested into as Christians and that is the office of king under sovereign God.

and also that with a free and good conscience I may fight against sin and Satan in this life…

11 Eph. 6:11–12, Put on the whole armour of God, that ye may be able to stand against the wiles of the devil. For we wrestle not against flesh and blood, but against principalities, against powers, against the rulers of the darkness of this world, against spiritual wickedness in high places.

1 Tim. 1:18–19, This charge I commit unto thee, son Timothy, according to the prophecies which went before on thee, that thou by them mightest war a good warfare; holding faith, and a good conscience; which some having put away concerning faith have made shipwreck.

First, note that we are described as having a “free and good conscience.” We have a free and good conscience to fight because our consciences can no longer condemn us because Christ us paid for our sin and so the accuser of the Brethren’s accusations fall harmless. We are indeed, great sinners but we have a greater savior, who, because of the salvation He has provided, frees and cleans our conscience so as to fight.

Next, as Christians we are anointed and so invested into the office of King and as Kings under sovereign God are orders are to fight.

My orders are to fight;
Then if I bleed, or fail,
Or strongly win, what matters it?
God only doth prevail.

The servant craveth naught
Except to serve with might.
I was not told to win or lose,–
My orders are to fight.

Ethelwyn Wetherald

Our fight HC 32 teaches is against sin and Satan in this life. We must be careful not to be too pietistic in this interpretation. Our fight against sin and Satan in this life is not only internal. Our fight is not only against our wicked dispositions that still haunt all believers in this life but also against external expressions of sin that we find around us in our broader world. As Christian Fathers, Citizens, Elders, and Magistrates we are obligated as Kings under sovereign God to fight against sin and Satan. So, this fighting has both an internal and external dimension. We must fight sin and Satan as we find greed or sloth or pride, etc. in our lives but we must also fight sin and Satan as we find it and him in wicked Magistrates, wicked Corporations, or wicked Churches. Christ has indeed bid us, as Bonhoeffer noted, to come and die, but Christ has also bid us to come and fight the good fight with Him as anointed Kings under sovereign God.

Too often Christians in the 21st century refuse to fight against wickedness where it is found in this life. Too often Christians abandon their calling as Kings under sovereign God and so refuse to fight reasoning that “this world is not my home, I’m only a passing through,” as if their great High King is not King of this world. They listen to forked tongue theologians who keep pounding into them that “in this world we have no continuing city” as if that means we are just to roll over and surrender to those who are plying their trade as kings in Satan’s service. R2K for example is guilty of taking the stuffing out of our calling as Kings under sovereign God with their retreat and surrender in the name of a specious “holiness,” that finds them making every effort to retreat from the latest advance of the legions of the enemy. As Christians who are devotees of HC 32 we should hate R2K theology with the white hot hatred of a thousand suns because it either spiritualizes or divests us from our callings of kings under sovereign God.

And then once our course of fighting again sin and Satan — both internally and externally — is finished in this life then we take up the mantle of King in the life to come and reign with our Great High Liege Lord — the Lord Jesus Christ in heaven.

 and afterwards reign with Him eternally, over all creatures.12

12 2 Tim. 2:12, If we suffer, we shall also reign with Him: if we deny Him, He also will deny us.

Our anointing to the office of kings under sovereign God continues into the life to come. We are to be co-regents under His regency. We will rule forever and ever. In this life our battle is ongoing but in the life to come there will be no resistance to our reign with our great Captain, the Lord Jesus Christ.

All of these offices of prophet, priest, and king that we are invested in are realities because of the work of Jesus Christ on our behalf. Because we have been anointed to these offices and so invested into them as God’s people we have a judicial standing unto the work of prophet, priest, and king, just as our fathers were invested into these offices. All of this bespeaks judicial categories. We fulfill these munus triplex (three in one) offices because of the juridical categories that we are invested in by the anointing of the Holy Spirit. Our authority under Christ is judicial before it is relational but because it is judicial it is also relational.

We should end by asking ourselves if this is our self-understanding? Do we see ourselves as God’s men? Do we see ourselves as Christ’s warriors in the fight against sin, Satan and self? Do we see this life as a contest to expand the already present glorious Kingdom of our Lord Jesus Christ as good soldiers employed in His service?

I pray God that we might for too much of the church today from our leadership to our rank and file are fleeing the battle.

Never has there been a greater need for prophets, priests, and kings, under sovereign God.

 

Doug Wilson, R. Scott Clark, Michael Shover and Me

In the video above Doug Wilson does a classic presuppositional take down of R. Scott Clark as Wilson dissects an interview that R. Scott Clark did w/ the Babylon Bee on the subject of Christian Nationalism.

It is clear that Doug desires a Christian nation contra the idiot R. Scott Clark on the subject. And on that point Wilson undresses Clark and publicly humiliates him for all with eyes to see.

So two cheers for Doug on this score.

However, we can’t toss that third cheer for Doug up in the air because even though Doug desires a Christian nation he does not desire Christian Nationalism which is the only way one can get to a Christian nation. Doug is championing some form of Christian multiculturalism/multi-racialism for a nation and for that we have no respect and so must lift a Bronx cheer for Doug on that score.

Now, when I make that point above Rev. Michael Shover publicly made the following comment I’d like to respond to;

Rev. Shover writes,

I think one of the main issues of concern that Doug and others have about talking about an ethno-nationalist state in multicultural America, is how one would effectively accomplish that? Round people up and kick them out of the country? And who is going to determine that? And who is going to stay, and who is going to go? And the concern is that black Americans have ancestors that have been here longer than some white Americans ancestors. The whole situation is indeed very messy and we cant just say we need ethno-nationalism, as if that is going to solve any problems. It very well could and would create new and possibly worse problems. The toothpaste is out of the tube. You cant put it back in. And I think that when people who dont know you hear you talk about these things, they think you want to round up the blacks and asians and Indians and Mexicans and forcibly remove them from America. I think that is what people think you are saying.

1.) First we have to insist that there is no genuine nationalism except for ethno-nationalism. All other Nationalism are propositional in some sense and so are not genuinely Nationalisms.

2.) I quite agree that the toothpaste is now out of the tube and can’t be put back in. The toothpaste continues to squeezed out of the tube as the borders are virtually non-existent. The Politicians are even saying that we are looking at 4-5 million more illegals in the next 2 years. If the politicians are admitting that it is likely four or five times that many. All of that is on top of the 20-30 million illegals that are already living in this country. Clearly the toothpaste is out of the tube and is never going to be put back in.

3.) Keep in mind that my argument has always been that in order to function as a Christian Nationalist state we don’t need 100% racial/ethnic purity. Along with other Kinists I have argued that if we had the percentage that we had before the 1965 Immigration Act we would be fine.

4.) However, we will never now get to that point as the charts and stats are telling us. By the year 2100, per recent stats I have been looking at, my youngest grandchild (who will be 78 at that time) will be living in a country that is 42% white. My grandchildren will be a minority in the land that their father’s built.

As a side note, this is going to be very bad news for blacks as this new coming nation is not going to feel it incumbent to uniquely provide a safety net that privileges them. If the projected numbers are correct they will statistically be far less than both Hispanics and Whites and not much ahead of Asians.

5.) That is why, I advocate for the break-up of America in order to reach a Christian Nationalist state. This country is already balkanized beyond repair and the only hope now for Christians of European descent is to have some small nation to call their own as gerrymandered from the former United States of America.

6.) Actually, the break-up of the US is something that all people should hope for given the inevitability of totalitarian top down tyranny that is coming our way if something like a break-up doesn’t happen. These Davos people are dead serious with their New World Order Great Reset.

One more observation on this subject. Part of the immigration problem probably could be solved in terms of the saturation levels of people from Mexico and Central American countries coming here if we would but turn off the spigot of government benefits and largesse for these people. It is likely that at least a healthy percentage would then return to their homes if they were receiving handouts upon arriving here.

Inferior Cultures … Inferior Men … Inferior Gods

The belief in the equal validity of all culture’s and so all the truths of all cultures which arises from postmodernism must necessarily lead to the devaluing and suppression of objective truth. Further, the concomitant belief in the equal value of all cultures must necessarily lead to the devaluing and suppression of the reality that some cultures are superior while other cultures are inferior. AND since culture is just the outward manifestation of a peoples inward beliefs, the belief that all cultures are of equal value carries with it the necessary belief that all theologies are of equal value and therefore suppresses the reality that cultures informed by Biblical Christianity are superior to those inferior cultures that are informed by the religious beliefs reflective of other inferior gods.

This means that it is not true that all cultures must be respected. Indeed many cultures, should we desire to treat them honorably, should be disrespected, opposed, and attacked. It would be the very definition of being hateful to treat with kindness a culture that is deeply inferior.

Of course, saying this out loud in public will find one tagged with the label of “hater,” but should we ever pull ourselves out of the morass of the inferior culture we are now living in more and more of us must be willing to stand up and say our culture is inferior. We likewise must say, as even living in an inferior culture, that other cultures can be even more inferior.

The denials of inferior R2K “theologians” notwithstanding we must herald a Christ who can heal and so transform and lift cultures. We must bring a Christianity that promises the renewal of individuals and so the renewal of the inferior cultures in which they are currently living. We must tell men as part of giving them God’s Law that men live in inferior cultures because they are inferior men and they are inferior men because they serve and worship inferior gods. Cultures, men, and the gods they serve are all intertwined.

The Noble Savage?

Behold the peaceful culture of the American Indian;
___________________________

“Given that human sacrificing and scalping were part of American Indian culture, but not mentioned in Government school textbooks, it is not surprising that the cannibalism that was also present in many tribes likewise is not mentioned. A little known fact is that the Mohawk tribe derived its name from its habit of eating human flesh. Alpheus Hyatt Verill writes: ‘ The Mohawks were notorious eaters of human flesh, and were called Mohowauock or man-eaters by the Narragansets. William Warren, a native of the Chippewas, noted in his History of the Ojibways (1852) that his people occasionally ate human flesh. In 1853 John Palliser wrote that the Sioux and Minitares had their women cut pieces of human flesh from slain enemy warriors. These pieces were then broiled and eaten. Eskimos, especially during times of stress, also consumed human flesh. The Pawnees would roast their prisoners for food. The French explorer, La Sale, reported that the encountered an instance in which the slaves of Indians were forced to eat their own.

In the 1670’s Father Chrestien Le Clercq described some Iroquois cruelties that often including forcing prisoners to eat their own flesh. The Roman Emperors, Diocletian and Nero, the two savage persecutors of the early Christians, ‘would hold in horror the vengeance, the tortures, and the cruelty of the Indians of New France [Quebec], and above all the Iroquois, towards their prisoners. Le Clercq noted that the Iroquois cut off the prisoners’ fingers, burned them with firebrands, tore away their nails, and made ‘them eat their own flesh.’

The Menace of Multiculturalism
Alvin J. Schmidt — pg. 48
_______________

The point of the quote and the book from which it is taken is to bring some perspective to the whole “the evil White Christian European” and all the damage that Western Culture has done. Doubtless we, like all cultures have our sin, but to suggest that other peoples have been more noble is just ridiculous. Western Culture is the greatest Culture that mankind has ever produced and that is so because Western Culture was shaped by Christianity.

When you talk about Western Culture you’re talking about the culture produced by a people who were intoxicated with the Lord Christ.
Next time someone wants to tell you about the evil culture of the white man you might want to recite the above. Our Forbears called them “savages” for a reason.