“For various reasons, I consider this post as one of the more important things I have written. Not to overstate it, or to puff it up, or to give way to ungodly hype, but I do believe we are converging on a crisis moment in our nation, and the way we respond to that crisis moment when it comes will be critical….

So the takeaway lesson for conservatives is: don’t take the bait. Under no circumstances should we take the bait. I think I may have mentioned before that we should not take the bait.”

Rev. Doug Wilson 
Blog & Mablog post

1.) In 1775 Paul Revere rode through the Massachusetts countryside warning the colonials, “Don’t Take the Bait,” “Don’t Take The Bait.”

2.) During the Battle of the Bulge in World War II General Anthony McAuliffe was defending Bastogne, Belgium when he became encircled by the German Army. That German army sent a surrender ultimatum to McAuliffe and his 101st Airborne division.

Lawyer Kaffee: You coerced the doctor! Colonel Jessep, did you order the Code Red?                    

Judge: You don't have to answer that.

Colonel Jessup: You want answers?                     

Lawyer Kaffee: I want the truth!                   

Colonel Jessup: You can't handle the truth!                   

Son, we live in a world with walls that must be guarded.                   

Who's gonna do it? You?

You, Lt. Weinberg?                   

I have more responsibility

than you can fathom....                   

I haven't the time or inclination to explain myself ...

Lawyer Kaffee: Did you order the Code Red?

Colonel Jessup: I am not taking that bait.

Last week we continued our trek through the implications of the Kingship of Jesus Christ.

We have posited and demonstrated from Scripture that Jesus Christ is a King… indeed a King of Kings. We have labored to demonstrate that this Kingship is not limited, nor is it etheral, nor is it pietistic nor is it Gnostic. He is King and His Kingship exercises authority and so flows into every nook and cranny of life.

This passage that we are again considering this morning teaches the Kingship of Christ. All authority has been given to Him in heaven and in earth. Only a King has all authority and Christ is King. This is what we have been examining and this has been the Testimony of the Church through the ages;

“It is a profound political reality that Christ now occupies the supreme seat of cosmic authority. The kings of this world and all secular governments may ignore this reality, but they cannot undo it. The universe is no democracy. It is a monarchy. God himself has appointed his beloved Son as the preeminent King. Jesus does not rule by referendum, but by divine right. In the future, every knee will bow before him, either willingly or unwillingly. Those who refuse to do so will have their knees broken with a rod of iron.”

R.C. Sproul

, “In one word, if anything is made clear in the Bible concerning ministerial duty, this is clear: that Christ has appointed the pastors and evangelists of his church to be the teachers of religion to men, the appointed school-masters of the world in the one science of theology. But as Lord Bacon shows, this is the splendid apex of the whole pyramid of human knowledge. It is the mistress of all sciences to whom all the rest are tributary, history, ethnology, zoology, geology, literature, and especially philosophy, her nearest handmaid. The mistress must dominate all and rule all lest, becoming insurrectionary, they should use their hands to pull down the foundations of her throne. The teachers of the supreme science must not be ignorant of any other science. They ought to be strong enough to lead the leaders of all secular thought; for if they do not, the tendencies of the carnal mind will most assuredly prompt those secular leaders to array their followers against our King and his gospel.”

R. L. Dabney

Of course the point of the Dabney quote is that the minister is responsible to trumpet the Kingship of Jesus Christ over every thought discpline making sure that every thought discipline continues paying tribute to Christ the King.

With that in mind, taking a minimalist approach, and looking at matters deductively we have taken a birds eye view of the Kingship of Jesus Christ. As Reconstructionist … as Biblical Christians … as those who take every thought to make it captive to King Jesus we have considered the following items in this series. We have admitted there is overlap in these but when you slice matters thin that is inevitable.

1.) Theocentric thinking
2.) Organic or Holistic thinking
3.) Presuppositionalism
4.) The Reformation Solas
5.) Limited and Constrained Government (which implies Hard money)
6.) Jurisdictionalism (Sphere-Sovereignty / Subsidiarity)
7.) Covenant Theology
8.) Postmillennialism

Today we wrap up this series by considering Missions and Oikaphilia.

Perhaps the best way to start this morning is by noting in the text the requirement of Christ to

19 [g]Go, therefore, and make disciples of all the nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit, 20 teaching them to [h]follow all that I commanded you; and behold, I am with you [i]always, to the end of the age.”

There is here the requirement to go to the nations and teach them to follow all that Christ has commanded.

It is the nations – nation by nation – which are to be taught all that Christ commanded (theonomy). This presupposes that Christ intends to own the world as it is gather nation by nation in their nations and this ownership includes their being instructed in Christ’s commandments.

So, here we see the bringing together of Missions, Theonomy, and Kinsim.

It appears here then what we have is what we spoke of last week and that is theonomy dressing itself consistent with National covenantalism. We are to collect the nations by Baptism and then disciple the Nations teaching them all things Christ has commanded. Just as Israel was separated and brought into National Covenant at Sinai so the nations are to be gathered to be discipled, taught God’s law (all that Christ commanded) and are to swear National covenant, thus both segregating one ethnos from one another while at the same time bringing in a spiritual unity by their mutual national allegiance to Jesus Christ. This segregating of the various ethnos (people-groups) continues unabated until they enter the new Jesuralem nation by nation in the eschaton

Revelation 14:6 – “Then I saw another angel flying in midair, and he had the eternal gospel to proclaim to those who live on the earth– to every nation, tribe, language and people.”

Revelation 15:4 – “Who will not fear you, O Lord, and bring glory to your name? For you alone are holy. All nations will come and worship before you, for your righteous acts have been revealed.”

The nations in their nations come into the New Jerusalem.

Rev. 20:23 And the city has no need of the sun or of the moon to shine on it, for the glory of God has illuminated it, and its lamp is the Lamb. 24 The nations will walk by its light, and the kings of the earth [ad]will bring their glory into it. 

So, in the Great Commission the nations are gathered in their nations and in the eschaton the Nations continuing as nations will bring their glory into the New Jerusalem.

The national emphasis of the covenant is reiterated in the Great Commission, commanding all covenant nations to conform to all that God hath commanded.

Now we pause here to note that when Christ says to the disciple to teach the nations all that Christ has commanded we see that as being harmonious with what God has commanded of men in all times and places. We don’t argue, as some do, that the God of the OT had one law while Christ as a new and different command for people. So when Jesus says … “teaching wherein all I have commanded you,” we hear the law according to its original intent and yes that includes the general equity of the civil law.

So, we see in this Great Commission that Jesus lays upon the disciples includes both a overt presupposition of Nationalism but also an overt insistence on theonomy.

We should not miss that Nations begin with patriarchal lines of authority. That is the way it was in the Old Covenant and there is nothing in the NT where we get the sense that Nations are not patriarchal in their lineage. Fathers of people groups are the gatekeeper of those nations and so when Christ commands to disciple the nations I understand that to mean that we are to begin with the heads of household (Fathers) in converting the nations.

So, what have we seen here so far. We have seen there is laid upon the Church by King Jesus to gather the Church nation by nation via baptism which proclaims Christ crucified and upon the gathering of the Church there is to be a theonomic push to disciple the nations. We have seen the nations should be gathered, baptized and discipled through the Fathers as Nations are understood by means of patriarchal lines. The Fathers are the heads of the family covenant lines. Many household lines descended from one patriarch comprise a nation. The idea of the word “household” in the NT underscores this idea as generally (not universally) in the NT the heads of households were patriarchs.

So, in this Great Commission is implied, familialism, missions, and theonomy. Each strand contributing to the whole enterprise. The Great Commission does not overthrow the covenantalism of the Old Testament wherein the family and the father is at the center of the organizing principle of the nation.

One implication of all this is that no one can credibly argue that the Great Commission abolishes the idea of a distinction of nations and races because the Great Commission itself affirms their meaningful continued existence, and abiding distinction when it calls for a gathering, baptizing and discipling of all NationS.

All said, Christ’s Great Commission so thoroughly presupposes familialism (Kinism) that any attempt to construe it in an anti-nation by nation fashion only pits the Christ against His own words. Which is merely to render the Christiantiy self-contradictory and incoherent.

So, Christianity does not create a New World Order where internationalism becomes the socio-political means of the organization of mankind. The success of the Gospel means that the Nations as Nations continue to exist. In such a way the long standing Christian principle of unity in diversity is maintained. When the Great Commission is taken in its Biblical context, according to its original intent, the converted World finds a spiritual unity in Christ while the diversity of who God has ordained them to be as Nations continues on. In such a way the created One and many reflects the un-created One and Many.

Supporting this older reading that focuses on nations as nations in discipleship are chaps like Matthew Henry who could say on Matthew 28,

[2.] “What is the principal intention of this (Great) commission; to disciple all nations. Matheµteusate-“Admit them disciples; do your utmost to make the nations Christian nations;’ not, “Go to the nations, and denounce the judgments of God against them, as Jonah against Nineveh, and as the other Old-Testament prophets’ (though they had reason enough to expect it for their wickedness), “but go, and disciple them.’ Christ the Mediator is setting up a kingdom in the world, bring the nations to be his subjects; setting up a school, bring the nations to be his scholars; raising an army for the carrying on of the war against the powers of darkness, enlist the nations of the earth under his banner. The work which the apostles had to do, was, to set up the Christian religion in all places, and it was honourable work; the achievements of the mighty heroes of the world were nothing to it. They conquered the nations for themselves, and made them miserable; the apostles conquered them for Christ, and made them happy.”

Note in that Henry quote the implied postmillennial eschatology.

What Christ envisions in the Great Commission was exactly what was anticipated in the Old Testament. Theologian Martin J. Wyngaarden speaking of Isaiah 19 wrote 60 years ago,

“Now the predicates of the covenant are applied in Isa. 19 to the Gentiles of the future, — “Egypt my people, and Assyria, the work of my hands, and Israel, mine inheritance,” Egypt, the people of “Jehovah of hosts,” (Isa. 19:25) is therefore also expected to live up to the covenant obligations, implied for Jehovah’s people. And Assyria comes under similar obligations and privileges. These nations are representative of the great Gentile world, to which the covenant privileges will therefore be extended.”

Martin J. Wyngaarden, The Future of the Kingdom in Prophecy and Fulfillment: A Study of the Scope of “Spiritualization” in Scripture (Eugene: Wipf & Stock, 2011), p. 94.

“More than a dozen excellent commentaries could be mentioned that all interpret Israel as thus inclusive of Jew and Gentile, in this verse, — the Gentile adherents thus being merged with the covenant people of Israel, though each nationality remains distinct.”

“For, though Israel is frequently called Jehovah’s People, the work of his hands, his inheritance, yet these three epithets severally are applied not only to Israel, but also to Assyria and to Egypt: “Blessed be Egypt, my people, and Assyria, the work of my hands, and Israel, mine inheritance.” 19:25.

Thus the highest description of Jehovah’s covenant people is applied to Egypt, — “my people,” — showing that the Gentiles will share the covenant blessings, not less than Israel. Yet the several nationalities are here kept distinct, even when Gentiles share, in the covenant blessing, on a level of equality with Israel. Egypt, Assyria and Israel are not nationally merged. And the same principles, that nationalities are not obliterated, by membership in the covenant, applies, of course, also in the New Testament dispensation.”

Wyngaarden, pp. 101-102.

And the heirs of the Reformation have taken this task of Missions seriously through the centuries.

Before we chronicle some of that let’s make something clear here. Missions is one of those inescapable category realities. Everybody is a missionary for their God or god. Everybody seeks to evangelize those who don’t agree with them on the subject of religion. The Government schools, for example, are great Missiological Institutions. Every day they are working to convert the poor souls present. Legislation is all about Missions as legislation seeks to coerce you to worship a particular god. Authors, Musicians, painters and sculptors are all doing Missionary work with their art… they are seeking to win you to think like them in terms of religion.

So Missions is inescapable and the question is never whether or not you will be a Missionary. The question is only what kind of Missionary for what god or God will you be.

This passage calls all of us to be Missionaries for the God of the Bible. As we are going (“Go and make Disciples) we are to be heralding Christ. The need to be Missions minded as never been so great. The Institutional Reformed Church, exceptions notwithstanding, isn’t doing Missions for the God of the Bible. I’ve seen their Mission to the World up close and personal and I can tell you that the God they champion is a different God than the God of the Bible. I suspect that is true of all Reformed denominations. Consider how bad the rot is that you see in the Church in the West and ask yourself if you believe the Mission sending agencies of those churches have escaped that rot?

The Church, when healthy has always been a Missions sending agency.

The Reformation itself was a Missions reality and those of the Reformed faith more than any other have been God’s Missionary’s extra-ordinare.

The Reformation restored the Gospel and without the Gospel there is no Missions. Without the proclamation of justification by grace alone through faith alone in Christ’s righteousness alone any Missionary effort would have been converting people to another faith besides Christianity.

The Reformation was Missionary through and through. Ironically enough it took the Gospel to what was known as Christendom. Calvin’s Geneva pumped out Missionary after Missionary to herald the Gospel of Jesus Christ in Nations that had become pagan because of the bastardy of Rome. Because of the Missions effort of the Reformation France would see the rise of the Huguenots pushing that nation towards Reformation as upwards to 1200 Pastors left Geneva to plant 2000 Churches in France. Those French Reformed Church then in turn sent Reformed ministers to Brazil for the first time.

Knox was trained in Geneva and was sent out to win Scotland and that is what happened. The authors of the Heidelberg Catechism were trained in Geneva and we are to this day touched by their missionary efforts.

The Reformed have always been God’s Missionaries whether it was John Eliot with his praying Indian Towns (Algonquian) or David Brainerd working with the Seneca & Delaware Indians or Jonathan Edwards working with the Mohicans.

It was the Reformed during the 19^th century who packed their belongings when headed to Africa in coffins because they knew they weren’t coming back and were going to be buried in Africa so they packed their belongings in their coffins. Read the great Missionary stories of Henry Martyn, of Stanley Livingstone, of John Paton of the New Hebrides, of Hudson Taylor, William Carey to India. Read them … Read them all. Give them to your children. Read them and learn of the great Missionary impulse among the Reformed to see men bow to King Christ.

And what of us today? Is there any less of a need to be Missionaries right where we are? If the Reformation excelled in Missions to then Christendom what greater need is there today to excel at Missions to the former Christendom in the West that is now crumbling down around us. How much greater the need to be God’s Missionaries who speak forth the Vanilla Christianity that we have been considering these past few weeks? There is a need for Missions here in America. Our communities … our families, out country needs the Reformed, postmillennial, theonomic, covenantal, anti-Statist, blood soaked Gospel of Jesus Christ. We again must command all men everywhere to repent. We must again stand on the Scripture alone presupposing God and His Word as our starting point. It is this Gospel that we must speak forth once again and that into the teeth of whatever resistance.

Good Missionaries should be pucker up or duck kind of people. That is what we see of St. Paul and those who went with him on the Missionary journeys. People either loved the stuffing out of them or they hated them. Was this not what St. Paul was getting at when he said,

II Cor. 2:15For we are to God the fragrance of Christ among those who are being saved and among those who are perishing. 16To the one we are the aroma of death leading to death, and to the other the aroma of life leading to life. And who is sufficient for these things? 

It is not uncommon for me to engage with people who want to inform me that Fascism is a positive good and that it is merely an expression of Nationalism. After round and round of typically fruitless exchanges that include me jumping up and down pointing to their common Marxist roots the conversation ends and we both go on our way pitying each other for how blind the other poor chap is.

Many don’t seem to realize that Marxism has a multitude of incarnations. These various incarnations are brought forth and explained somewhat in books like Jame’s Billington’s “Fire in the Minds of Men,” and Daniel J. Flynn’s “A Conservative History of the Left.” I would highly recommend both books. These various incarnations include but are not limited to Communism, Fascism, Syndicalism, Socialism, Fabianism, Social-Democratism, Leninism, etc. In point of fact, some have even argued, convincingly I think, that Anarchism is nothing but Marxism as applied to the individual. Certainly, Marxism was leavened along the way of its intellectual journey by Anarchism.

Below is a quote from Christine Shelton’s book; “Alger Hiss; Why He Chose Treason.” It does a good job of making clear the common ground between Fascism and Communism. It will, of course, not end the argument. True believers of any religion/ideology will never give up their position.

“One of the beliefs perpetrated by the ‘left’ during the twentieth century was that Fascism was an ideology on the ‘right’ of the political spectrum, that Fascism was the antithesis of socialism and Communism or any other ideology on the ‘left” that Fascism was a development out of capitalism, even though the essence of capitalism is the free market and Fascism certainly is not about free markets. This false belief has been used to justify support for socialism and Stalin’s Russia, especially during the Hiss years of the 1930s and 1940s… For many intellectuals, the Depression was a result of the collapse and failure of Capitalism, and they turned to socialism to address that failure.”

John Ehrman, a former CIA official wrote that the CPUSA was respected by many American liberals because Liberals and Communists ‘made common cause to promote unions and civil rights for black Americans. He claimed that ‘Moscow’s prestige among liberals and intellectuals increased further when, unlike the Western democracies, it seemed to take a stand against the spread of Fascism.’ Many on the left, in fact, felt that this argument gave them ‘cover,’ especially when the US was at war with Nazi Germany. As a result, during WW II progressives viewed Moscow’s intentions as benign and advocated reaching an accommodation with the Soviet Union. Perhaps this is one reason why Moscow and the ‘left’ in the US depicted Hitler as a ‘right-winger’ and made Fascism seem to be a rival to Communism and Socialism. The belief prevails to this day. Calling a political opponent a ‘fascist has become the ultimate epithet weapon for the ‘left,’ as term synonymous with absolute evil used for someone on the ‘right’ of the political spectrum.

But Fascism is not an ideology of the ‘right.’ It arouses out of the Marxian milieu. It emanates from the ‘left’ – from Marxian revisionists, many of whom felt that Marx underrated Nationalism, wrote A. James Gregor, professor of political science at the University of California, Berkeley. Fascism has its roots in Marxism; is no accident that Hitler called his movement ‘National Socialism.’ The first Fascists were almost all Marxists – serious theorists who had been identified with Italy’s intelligentsia of the left. Mussolini himself had been a leader of the Italian Socialist Party and was an acknowledged leader among Marxist Intellectuals. ‘It was Italy’s intervention in WW I, not right-wing versus left-wing dispositions, at first that divided Italian Marxists. The myth of Fascism as ‘right-wing’ is embedded in the false notion, promoted by Communists, that Fascism is conservative according to Gene Edward Veith Jr., professor at Concordia University Wisconsin. This notion obscures its true meaning. Veith states that ‘Marxism defines Fascism as its polar opposite. If Marxism is progressive, Fascism is conservative; if Marxism is left-wing, Fascism is right-wing; if Marxism championed the proletariat Fascism champions the bourgeoisie; If Marxism is socialist, Fascism is capitalist.

Of course, these comparisons are fiction, Veith continues. While Communism and Fascism have been rival brands of socialism, it is commonalities that have defined them. Both strongly opposed the bourgeoisie. (The Nazis scorned bourgeois democracy as decadent.) Both attacked conservatives; both developed into mass movements; both favored a strong, authoritative, centralized government; both practiced a control economy and opposed free markets; both practiced strict control over the populations; both rejected the notion of individual liberty; both placed the state above the individual; both had dictatorial regimes that were extralegal and extra-constitutional; both had ‘leadership cults’ surrounding their rulers; both practiced the pervasive use of propaganda, official censorship, and terror; and both committed massive crimes against humanity. In his gripping history, ‘Bloodlands; Europe Between Hitler and Stalin,” author Timothy Snyder in discussing the mass murders each was responsible for, states, ‘Hitler and Stalin thus shared a certain politics of tyranny: they brought about catastrophes, blamed the enemy of their choice, and then used the death of millions to make the case that their policies were necessary or desirable. Each of them had a transformation utopia, a group to be blamed when its realization proved impossible, and then a policy of mass murder that could be proclaimed as a kind of ersatz victory.

While Fascism and Communism were bitter and deadly ideological enemies at the time, they were contemporary regimes flying the socialist banner. Some differences were: Communists claim that the history of civilizations can be explained only as a struggle of classes, while Fascism denies ‘class struggle; as the agent for social change; Fascism unlike Communism, views the ‘State’ as a spiritual and moral fact, and is opposed to Communism’s anti-nationalism. ‘But their opposition to each other should not disguise their kinship as revolutionary socialist ideologies.’ So, however, different Marxist-Leninist systems were from Fascism, Gregor asserts that given their different histories, ‘the family traits are evident.’ At their core, Fascist and Communist ideologies are both antidemocratic and opposed to individual freedom. They view individual rights as conditional, not inalienable…

(Robert) Conquest pointed to the common beliefs of Fascism and Communism: ‘The overwhelming claim of the collective to the individual’s allegiance thus emerged as the basis not only of Communism but also of Fascism and National Socialism. All three, one in power, subordinated the individual to the State, as representing the community.’ It was argued that the individual best expressed himself as part of a mass experience. National Socialist ideology was more than its crude racialism. Conquest maintained. ‘The central message …. was the new identification of the German individual with the nation and the state.’ Conquest wrote that the late Huge Seton-Watson, dean of British Sovietology, noted the Nazis were ‘the fanatics… who rejected not only Christianity but also traditional morality as such.’ Seton-Watson added ‘moral nihilism is not only the central feature of National Socialism but also the common factor between it and Bolshevism.’ People passed with ease from Communism to what were, in theory, its most virulent enemies, Fascism and National Socialism. Moreover, Conquest, asserted that Hitler himself said Communists were far more easily became Nazis than Social Democrats did. Conquest noted that Hitler also claimed that the ‘reds we had beaten up became our best supporters.

According to J. B. Matthews, ‘In the early months of Hitler’s triumph in Germany, the Communist Internationale officially viewed Fascism as a sort of unwitting ally of Communism in their common goal of democracy’s destruction.’ The Communist Party ‘made its position clear in its official publication, the ‘Communist Internationale.’ It declared: ‘The establishment of an open fascist dictatorship, by destroying all the democratic illusion among the masses, and liberating them from the influence of social-democracy, accelerates the rate of Germany’s development towards proletarian dictatorship.’ Matthews continued, ‘Nothing could be clearer than that. In August 1931, when the Nazis called for a plebiscite in Prussia with a view to overturning the social democratic government, the Communist Internationale ordered the Communists of Germany to vote with the Nazis!.’

Once again we continue to take up this idea of the Kingship of Jesus Christ and what that looks like in very concrete matters. We have said, and this is important to continue to keep in mind, that this is a top-down approach. We are taking a birds-eye view on this matter. Each one of these sermons from the past four weeks could easily be 4 or five sermons. That is what they would be if we were seeking to do a worm’s eye view. Another way of saying this is that this sermonic approach is deductive in its methodology as opposed to inductive.

We have posited and demonstrated from Scripture that Jesus Christ is a King… indeed a King of Kings. We have labored to demonstrate that this Kingship is not limited, nor is it ethereal, nor is it pietistic nor is it Gnostic. He is King and His Kingship exercises authority and so flows into every nook and cranny of life.

We spent time considering what life has become in just four areas (and we could have done many more) as we have surrendered the Lordship of Jesus Christ. We looked at Law, Psychology, Sociology, and Education. We provided quotes and proof that these realms are now being thought of and understood in terms of man’s Kingship as opposed to Christ’s Kingship. We have spent time along the way considering what these realms might look like if Jesus Christ was owned once again. We have also punctuated repeatedly warnings against a movement that goes under the name of Christianity which seeks to insist that Jesus Christ’s explicit Kingship is not totalistic but rather only applies to the realm of grace while insisting that the common realm is only ruled by Christ implicitly via a nebulous thing called Natural Law.

Subsequent to all that we began to consider a minimalist approach to the Kingship of Jesus Christ. We said that the minimalist approach has been called “Reconstructionism,” and the practitioners of it have been called “Biblical Christians.”

Slicing matters thinly we have looked at

1.) Thecentric thinking
2.) Organic or Holistic thinking
3.) Presuppositionalism
4.) The Reformation Solas
5.) Limited and Constrained Government (which implies Hard money)
6.) Jurisdictionalism (Sphere-Sovereignty / Subsidiarity)
7.) Covenant Theology
8.) Postmillennialism

Now, none of these have been given the time they deserve because of this birds-eye approach we have been taking but we are seeking to see the whole and not just the parts.

We have yet to consider

1.) Dominion
2.) Theonomy
3.) Familialism / Kinism / Oikaphilia
4.) Missions / Outreach

We have insisted that all of this probably shouldn’t be named anything but vanilla or pedestrian Christianity. We have said the fact that some kind of adjective has to be added to Christianity in order to distinguish Reconstructionist Christianity from Christianity, in general, is an indication of how far Christianity has fallen.

So, with that re-cap in front of us, we continue to consider Biblical Christianity lived underneath the Lordship of Jesus Christ. Of course what is presupposed in all of this is that before man can live and move and have his being underneath the Lordship of Jesus Christ he must own His sin, make an appeal for forgiveness in the context of faith, repentance, and Baptism, and so look to Christ as savior, mediator, and great High Priest.

Dominion

In the Scriptures, the word Dominion can have a positive or negative connotation given the context and the word that is being used. Positively, the word is used in Gen. 1:26 & 9:1

And God said, Let us make man in our image, after our likeness: and let them have dominion over the fish of the sea, and over the fowl of the air, and over the cattle, and over all the earth, and over every creeping thing that creepeth upon the earth. Gen. 1:26

So God blessed Noah and his sons, and said to them: “Be fruitful and multiply, and fill the earth. And the fear of you and the dread of you shall be on every beast of the earth, on every bird of the air, on all that move on the earth, and on all the fish of the sea. They are given into your hand.

These passages communicate the idea that the entrusting of man with Dominion is for the purpose of serving as a steward who improves upon the charge that God has given him. It is a responsibility to care, tend, keep, and bring out the latent potential in what God is entrusting man as His steward to have dominion over in terms of creation.

I get this thought from Gen. 2 which contains a parallel account of creation, adding detail to certain parts of the narrative of the first chapter. Notice God’s expanded instruction in Gen. 2,”Then the LORD God took the man and put him in the garden to tend [dress, KJV] and keep it” (verse 15).

This gives definition to the force of “have dominion” and “subdue it” from Gen. 1.26f

Tend (Hebrew ‘abad) means “to work or serve,” and thus referring to the ground or a garden, it can be defined as “to till or cultivate.” It possesses the nuance seen in the KJV’s choice in its translation: “dress,” implying adornment, embellishment&improvement.

Keep (Hebrew shamar) means “to exercise great care over.” In the context of Genesis 2:15, it expresses God’s wish that mankind, in the person of Adam, “take care of,” “guard,” or “watch over” the garden. A caretaker maintains and protects his charge so that he can return it to its owner in as good or better condition than when he received it.

However, elsewhere in Scripture, the word Dominion can be used in a negative sense to mean tyrannical domination. The Greek word used (and the context must be considered) is Katakurieuo. We see that word and meaning in Matthew 20:25

25But Jesus called them aside and said, “You know that the rulers of the Gentiles lord it over them (κατακυριεύουσιν) and their superiors exercise authority over them.

There the meaning is, to exercise authority over, overpower, master. From kata and kurieuo; to lord against, i.e. Control, subjugate.

This word likewise communicates the idea of dominion but clearly, the kind or type of dominion communicated is very different. We might say that one type of dominion is godly dominion. It is the type of dominion that seeks to exercise control that allows whatever one has dominion over to flourish and fulfill all its potential. The other type of dominion we would characterize as a Satanic dominion. Its purpose is to lord over, to rule tyrannically over, to keep others under the heel.

There can be no greater difference between these two kinds of dominion. It is the difference between Cinderella being under the dominion of her Step-mother and Step-sisters and Hobbiton being under the dominion of King Elessar & the Kings of Gondor. It is the difference between being under the dominion of Stalin and being under the dominion of King Alfred the Great.

So, Biblical Christianity … Christianity that takes Jesus as King means that we are dominion men and women underneath the dominion of our great and high King. We take up the responsibility of Kingship by seeking to disciple the nations understanding that nation discipleship … that dominion we’ve been speaking of begins with our own wives and children.

And we should be clear on something here.

We must understand that dominion is an inescapable category. Either we will take dominion as kings under the Kingship of Jesus Christ and His revealed Law-Word or we will be dominated in the Cinderella and her step-mother sense by the domination of some wicked religion with its wicked god and its wicked law-word. There can be no neutrality here. Either we will rule as those who care, tend for, cultivate with the purpose of adorning, embellishing, and improving or we will be dominated by those who are of their father the Devil and so who seek to kill and destroy.

And to clarify yet even further on this subject of godly dominion,

You can be sure that if we seek to take up this mantle of dominion that we have been charged with (Making disciples of the nations teaching them to obey all things that Christ has commanded) that those who are outside the covenant community will scream the loudest that we are being tyrants and seeking to employ ugly domination. They will accuse us of the very things they do when they are in power. And they should since they hate the Lordship of Jesus Christ and everyone who rules consistent with His Kingly rule.

Theonomy

And here we arrive at a great crossroads of Reformed thought. Since the 1970’s the Reformed world has been in a death cage wrestling match over the issue of theonomy. Typically it has been the Reformed hoity-toity blue blood who have manned the gates against those who “grew up on the wrong side of the Reformed tracks,” that is the Reformed who have embraced the principles of Theonomy. In my estimation, it can continue to be justly characterized as this kind of battle.

That theonomy has been hated by the blue blood is seen in the words of Greg Bahnsen,

“Of all the wicked heresies and threatening movements facing the church in our day, when Westminster Seminary finally organized their faculty to write something in unison, they gave their determined political efforts not to fight socialism, not to fight homosexuality, not abortion, not crime and mayhem in our society, not subjectivism in theology, not dispensationalism, not cultural relativism, not licentiousness, not defection from the New Testament, not defection from the Westminster Confession of Faith, all of which are out there and they can give their legitimate efforts to… boy the thing they had to write about (and against) was theonomy! How many times can a man turn his head and pretend that he doesn’t see the problem?”

The blue bloods … those born to the manor … have in the past and continue to this very day to excoriate theonomy as being works salvation and that no matter how many times it is clearly laid out to them the falsity of that accusation.

Theonomy means literally God’s Law. It is the belief that the 10 Commandments were the equivalent of God’s eternal Constitution for all time for God’s people throughout time and that the Judicial (Civil) law was the equivalent of God’s case law that applied the 10 commandments in their particularity as the practical application of the 10 commandments Constitution in their general equity.

So, theonomy believes that the judicial law continues to apply in their general equity. And by that, we mean that the principle contained within the judicial law continues as that principle carries over into subsequent cultures. So, the classic example of general equity is that the law requiring to build fences around roofs no longer applies to our roofs since the principle is translated as the requirement to protect people that your are entertaining from injury. People in the ancient world would often entertain on their flat roofed houses and so fencing was required as an application of the 6^th commandment – “Thou Shalt Not Kill.” Today we no longer entertain on our pitched roofs but the general equity of this law remains as we may well, in light of the general equity, build fences around our pools.

We see St. Paul invoking the idea of general equity in Scripture

I Timothy 5:17Elders who lead effectively are worthy of double honor, especially those who work hard at preaching and teaching. 18For the Scripture says, “ Do not muzzle an ox while it is treading out the grain,” and, “The worker is worthy of his wages.”

Here we see St. Paul taking the general equity of the law regarding the Ox treading out grain and feeding and takes the principle of that civil law concept to say that effective Leaders are to be generously paid (double honor). St. Paul demonstrates the ongoing validity of God’s Judicial law by drawing out a matter of general equity.

Of course other of God’s laws are completely transferred over time. For example, the laws against incest, sodomy, and bestiality from the OT continue to be in force and are just assumed to remain valid in the NT.

It is actually reported that there is sexual immorality among you, and such sexual immorality as is not even [a]named among the Gentiles—that a man has his father’s wife! 2 And you are puffed up, and have not rather mourned, that he who has done this deed might be taken away from among you. (cmp. Romans 1)

7 The nakedness of thy father, and the nakedness of thy mother, shalt thou not uncover: she is thy mother; thou shalt not uncover her nakedness. 8 The nakedness of thy father’s wife shalt thou not uncover: it is thy father’s nakedness.

So, clearly, we see a theonomic motif. Jesus Himself supported a theonomic reading of the law when He

Matthew 5:17 Think not that I am come to destroy the law, or the prophets: I am not come to destroy, but to fulfil. 18 For verily I say unto you, Till heaven and earth pass, one jot or one tittle shall in no wise pass from the law, till all be fulfilled.

He also endorsed the minutia of the law’s continuance when He said,

Matthew 23:23Woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, you hypocrites! You pay tithes of mint, dill, and cumin. But you have disregarded the weightier matters of the law: justice, mercy, and faithfulness. You should have practiced the latter, without neglecting the former.

And we see our savior going all theonomic with the woman caught in adultery in John 7:53–8:11.

This they (Pharisees) said, testing Him, that they might have something of which to accuse Him. (John 7:6)

“Something of which to accuse Him.”

If Jesus let the woman go His enemies could accuse Him of antinomianism and condemn Him. If Jesus affirmed the necessity of the woman being stoned He would have been violating Rome’s hegemony.

So, instead what Jesus does is He appeals implicitly to what the law taught in terms of due process. We know this from the language of the text. In John 8:4, we read,

(Scribes) and said to Jesus, “Teacher, this woman was caught in the very act of adultery.

the Greek word used for “was caught” is κατείληφθη (kataileptai), this is the aorist passive indicative tense of the word “catch.” The import of this is that that accusers are relating a story that they were not active participants in. In other words, they are bringing this woman caught by others committing adultery but they themselves did not catch her in the act. If this is accurate we might read Jesus saying,

 “Whoever among you is guiltless may be the first to throw a stone at her.”

differently than the way we typically read it. We typically read this as if Jesus is saying “whomever among you is guiltless in committing adultery like this woman may be the first to cast the stone. But what if Jesus is saying instead, “Whoever is without the guilt of bringing me this woman without being a witness to her crime let him cast the first stone?”

If this reading is accurate then the reason that these people dismissed themselves is they knew that they had violated the law of Moses and so had no standing in stoning the woman. Jesus handled this scenario as a Theonomist.

Having said all this I recognize that theonomist disagree among themselves in terms of application. Rushdoony did not always agree with Bahnsen and vice-versus. There are going to be disagreements. They are present in this Church among theonomists. I believe that the festivals have been fulfilled in Christ. I believe this if only it would be blasphemy to celebrate Passover. If one festival is fulfilled then they are all fulfilled. Others disagree.

I believe that when Jesus says,

Matthew 15:11 it is not what goes into the mouth that defiles a person, but what comes out of the mouth; this defiles a person.”

That means the OT dietary laws are no longer in force.

Other theonomists disagree. That’s alright. We ought to be able to allow a certain amount of disagreement here. This is why we try to provide pork-free dishes when we have our fellowship meals.

Other examples of disagreement could be adduced but these examples suffice to demonstrate that we have to forbear with one another on this issue lest we rend the body of Christ apart.

However we can have no tuck with those who seek to extinguish some expression of theonomy from God’s revelation.

Kline admits that the original Westminster Confession actually taught theonomy and that the American revised version continues many of those strands. Kline notes and when you hear the word Chalcedon here you should interpret it as “Theonomy”:

“Ecclesiastical courts operating under the Westminster Confession of Faith are going to have their problems, therefore, if they should be of a mind to bring the Chalcedon aberration under their judicial scrutiny” (p. 173).

Elsewhere Kline states:

“If, providentially, anything good is to come of the Chalcedon disturbance, perhaps, paradoxically, it will come from the very embarrassment given to churches committed to the Westminster standards by the relationship that can be traced, as noted above, between the Chalcedon position and certain ideas expressed in the Westminster Confession. Perhaps the shock of seeing where those ideas lead in Chalcedon’s vigorous development of them may make the church face up to the problem posed by the relevant formulations and reconsider the Confessions position on these points. . . .”

Interestingly, Presbyterian Church in America teaching elder and New Testament scholar R. Laird Harris has negatively critiqued theonomy in Covenant Seminary’s Presbyterian Covenant Seminary Review (Spring 1979), p. 1 and yet he has to admit of theonomy in his second paragraph:

“The view is not really new; it is just new in our time. It was the usual view through the Middle Ages, was not thrown over by the Reformers, and was espoused by the Scottish Covenanters who asked the Long Parliament to make Presbyterianism the religion of the three realms—England, Scotland and Ireland.”

So these men admit that Theonomy is consistent both with the Westminster confession and with Church history and yet they have desire to snuff it out. These types continue with us today. All of Radical Two Kingdom theology hates Theonomy with a blind passion.

Let the lovers of antinomianism and the haters of theonomy rage. We know that vanilla Christianity which owns Christ as King has always been theonomic and if Christianity is once again to walk in the public square it will because it has returned to a commitment to both Dominion and Theonomy – constituent aspects of Biblical Christianity.