Dr. Gordon H. Clark on Dr. Karl Barth’s View of Revelation

“The difference between the Evangelical position and Barth’s ‘Neo-orthodoxy’ and the key to what may seem a confusing dialogue between Barth and (the Lutheran) Hollaz is that orthodox Protestantism equates the Word of God as the Bible. For all Barth’s attempts to make it appear that the Bible is the Word of God, this equation does not hold in his thinking. Behind the proclamation and behind the Bible there is something else that is the Word of God, an event of revelation, and only in this event does the Bible become the Word of God, and only partially at that. To get to the bottom of Barth’s theory, therefore, is necessary to discover and define revelation.”

Gordon H. Clark
Karl Barth’s Theological Method — pg. 165

For Biblical Christians, the Bible is the Word of God. For Barth and his fanboys, the Bible becomes the word of God in a subjective existential encounter.  In Neo-orthodoxy (Barthianism) the Bible per se was only the fallible word of man, but it “contained the Word of God.”

Would Calvin have had more patience with R2K than he did with Servetus? 

Ministerial calling reaches beyond the walls of the local church, even bringing kings in submission to God:

“Why are prophets and teachers sent? Truly to call the whole world to order; not to spare their hearers but to denounce them freely whenever there is need, even to threaten them when they appear obstinate. If the teacher allows himself to be impressed with any sort of superiority in men, he will not dare to offend those whom he thinks distinguished by power or wealth, or by some reputation for wisdom or honor. There is no remedy against such fears, except for teachers to keep God before their eyes and to be assured that he is the author of their words. When their minds are raised to God, they can look down on all human heights and excellencies. This is the purpose of the words God uses, ‘See, I have appointed you over nations and kingdoms.’ Here God affirms that the authority of his Word is so great that it makes subject to itself whatever is high and mighty upon earth —even kings not excepted.”

John Calvin
Commentary on Jeremiah 1:9-10

Of course, keep in mind that most Reformed Seminaries are teaching R2K now and R2K teaches that Ministers are to keep their mouths shut when it comes to matters that exist in the common realm. Yet Calvin makes it clear that the Minister is to call Kings to account if they walk askance from God’s Word.

Would Calvin have had more patience with R2K than he did with Servetus?

Why The Idea of Christian Nationalism Gives Reformed Leadership Night Sweats

“Too many modern evangelicals re-interpret Matthew 28:19 to mean “make disciples from all nations.” But grammar matters and nations is the direct object of the verb to disciple. Of course, we cannot disciple a nation without making disciples from that nation. But to settle for individual converts without teaching those same people to obey everything God commanded, including obedience at the corporate level as it pertains to all things social, cultural, and political, is to stop short. Our marching orders are to make the nations of the world Christian, including our own, which one could conceivably call Christian Nationalism. “

Rev. Rhett Burns

Are You a Christian Nationalist?



The above-linked article is really quite well done. If I hadn’t known I didn’t write it, I could’ve sworn that I wrote it myself. I don’t know Rev. Burns, though unfortunately, I know he is a Baptist. If only more Reformed people would write articles like the Baptist Burns wrote in the link above maybe we would have enough Calvinists to fill a phone booth.It is definitely the case that Evangelicals today hate the whole idea of Christian nationalism … or at the very least they hate the idea of White Christian Nationalism. Names like Tim Keller, Jonathan Leeman, Russel Moore, Mark Labberton, Kevin DeYoung, etc. are all on record as being appalled at the notion of White Christian Nationalism. For many in the Leadership of the Evangelical Church today I think it is safe to say that they would have no problem with Christian Nationalism as long as white people were not Christian Nationalists. In so many cases the very people who break into a cold sweat while contemplating Christian Nationalism break into that cold sweat because being WOKE any organizing of White people to pursue their interest makes them nauseous. We know this is true because in so many cases these very same people are full-throated supporters of Israeli Nationalism or South African Nationalism as led by the African National Congress are the people who are adamantly opposed to White Christian Nationalism.Alternately, the explanation for why so many in the Leadership of the Evangelical-“Reformed” movements are so adamantly opposed to Christian Nationalism as existing among White people is because they hate the notion of Christ ruling. Face it, at the end of the day all Christian Nationalism is, is the idea that Christ’s sovereignty over the nations — nation by nation — is a reality to which all nations (including White nations) should submit. This attitude of hating the idea (whether admitted or not) that Christ should rule all the nations (See Psalm 2) in my estimation is an example of how bad theology (in this case eschatology) hurts people. It is, at least in part, because people embrace premillennialism and amillennialism (R2K) that they so adamantly are opposed to Christian Nationalism. Premillennialism and Amillennialism, unlike Postmillennialism, do not believe that Christ will be victorious over the nations in space and time and so in a piece of self-fulfilled prophecy on their part they are opposed to what they believe should not and can not happen. Their eschatology tells them that all will end in blood, smoke, and ruin, and the idea that Christ should and shall rule the nations with a rod of iron overturns all their cherished eschatology.

Unfortunately, it is simply the case that most popular eschatologies find it to be a nightmare scenario that finds Christ being triumphant over the nations and in that triumph ruling them. Then when that prospect is combined with the idea that White nations might one day once again be ruled by a vibrant and vigorous Christianity … well, it is enough to make a WOKE person despair.

Imprecatory Praying

“Righteous retribution is one of the glories of divine character. If it is right that God should desire to exercise it, then it cannot be wrong for His people to desire Him to exercise it.”

R. L. Dabney
Discussions, Vol I; Theological & Evangelical

“The imprecatory prayers, invoking God’s judgment on the enemies, are appropriate on the lips of David and the martyrs in heaven. However, they are entirely out of place on the lips of Christians today, guided as we are not by the ethics of intrusion but by the ethics of common grace.”

Dr. Michael Horton

 

Psalm 137

 
7 Remember, O Lord, against the sons of Edom
The day of Jerusalem,
Who said, [a]“Raze it, raze it,
To its very foundation!”
 
8 O daughter of Babylon, who are to be destroyed,
Happy the one who repays you as you have served us!
9 Happy the one who takes and dashes
Your little ones against the rock!
 
“The cries of the Psalmist in this text do not reveal a wicked heart crying out for personal vengeance against an enemy, but they reveal an appeal to the Lord to bring swift judgment and destruction upon the Babylonians according to His will and promise (Is. 13:16; Jer. 51:56; Ez. 35:1-6). God retains His prerogative to do as he pleases. In His mercy, He has not destroyed us all, even though it is what we deserve as rebel sinners. God reserves the right to do with the creatures what He will, and even though it may be difficult for us to understand at times, God is still just and holy when meting out His judgment. While it may be difficult for our modern ears to read of such cries two conclusions suffice
 
‘In line with ethical standards, Psalm 137:8-9 appeals to Yahweh as the judge supreme to mete out justice according to His own edict. And since in God’s economy, no ransom was to be allowed for murder, the Psalmist cries out for divine judgment of compensatory bloodshed.’ (John N. Day — Crying for Justice, 68-69)
 
The principle of strict retaliation cannot be maligned without maligning the character of God, who established it and promised it.”
 
Sean McGowan
Psalms that Curse — p. 32-33
 
In the New Covenant, I would only add that we should pray for God to be merciful as we pray for God to be just. We should pray that God should be as merciful to His enemies as He was and remains merciful to us. As such we should pray for His and our enemies to repent. However, it is altogether proper and righteous to go on to pray,
 
“But O Majestic God, we beg of you that if the wicked will not repent that you will even now crush and destroy them and we pray that in keeping with how your inspired Psalmist prayed. We long for the destruction of all Kingdoms that oppose yours and we understand that those Kingdoms that oppose your Kingdom are not destroyed that their continued presence will continue to be an obstacle to our praying, “Thy Kingdom come, Thy will be done on earth as it is in heaven.”
 
For your justice’s sake destroy your and our enemies O great covenant God that the earth might be filled with the knowledge of the glory of the Lord as the waters cover the sea. Let not the wicked continue to detract from your glory by their seeking to pull down your Kingdom.
 
And then Father, by thy Holy Spirit give us a great joy to see your and our enemies utterly destroyed. In their destruction give us merriment and joy beyond speech that you have revealed your justice against all that opposes you.
 

And yet again, we would ask that you would be merciful on the wicked as you were merciful to us and that you would defeat them by causing them to see their sin and moving them to plead for clemency from you on the basis of the finished work of thy benevolent Son, Jesus Christ.

In wrath, remember mercy, O Sovereign God.”

Addendum

Clearly, this proves that Michael Horton doesn’t know what he is talking about.

Again.

The Popularity of Amillennialism as a Recent Phenomenon. Postmillennialism from the Greats

“The explanation is also greatly strengthened by this fact, too little pressed by Calvinists, that ultimately, THE VAST MAJORITY OF THE WHOLE MASS OF HUMANITY, INCLUDING ALL GENERATIONS, WILL BE ACTUALLY REDEEMED BY CHRIST. There is to be a time, blessed be God, when literally all the then world will be saved by Christ, when the world will be finally, completely, and wholly lifted by Christ out of the gulf, and sink no more. So that there is a sense, most legitimate, in which Christ is the prospective Saviour of the world”

R. L. Dabney
Systematic Theology — p. 525

Charles Hodge famously remarked that “we have reason to believe … that the number of the finally lost in comparison with the whole number of the saved will be very inconsiderable.”

B. B. Warfield held that “nothing less than the world will be saved” by Christ, the world as an organic whole. Indeed, “the number of the saved shall in the end not be small but large,” and will far outnumber the lost.

In a sermon “God’s Immeasurable Love,” Warfield strongly opposed the idea that the elect is a small remnant of the world since they are the world. In this light, he wrote:

“Through all the years one increasing purpose runs, one increasing purpose: the kingdoms of the earth become ever more and more the kingdom of our God and his Christ. The process may be slow; the progress may appear to our impatient eyes to lag. But it is God who is building: and under his hands, the structure rises as steadily as it does slowly, and in due time the capstone shall be set into its place, and to our astonished eyes shall be revealed nothing less than a saved world.”

In “The Prophecies of St. Paul,” he describes the time from the advent to the parousia as “a period of advancing conquest,” Christ “progressively overcoming evil, throughout this period.” Furthermore, Romans 11 “promises the universal Christianization of the world,—at least the nominal conversion of all the Gentiles and the real salvation of all the Jews … the widest practicable extension of Christianity.” We should hope, pray, and work to that end.

Robert Letham
Systematic Theology (Wheaton, IL: Crossway, 2019), 882–883.