Last week we looked at the doctrine of Atonement. We considered the Scriptures that teach it. We looked at some of the Greek and Hebrew words wherein the idea of Atonement is found.

We lighted upon a couple definitions though we admit that others could be easily put forth.

The Theologian Leon Morris said of Atonement

“it means a making of one, and points to a process of bringing those who are estranged into a unity… Its use in theology is to denote the work of Christ in dealing with the problem posed by the sin of man, and in bringing sinners into a right relation with God.”

At another point last week we defiined Atonement as,

“Referring to the work of Christ on the cross as provided by the Father where Christ met God’s just and legal ransom demand against man’s sin by paying for the penalty of sin by spilling His blood in sacrifice thereby providing reconciliation by ending the previous sin wrought hostility that existed between God and man and man and God by means of propitiation and expiation.”

We said that we had to keep in mind that Atonement is a general term that includes many particular ideas. We talked about many streams emptying into the river of Atonement. The stream of sacrifice…. the stream of ransom … the stream of reconciliation … the stream of forgiveness … the stream of blood … the stream of substitution… the stream of penal satisfaction … the stream of propitiation … the stream of expiation … the stream of justification .. the stream of mercy seat .. all these streams and others empty into the river of Atonement and create its monstrous meaning. It is a vast River which would take a year of preaching to be exhaustive as to its meaning.

We also talked about how atonement is a legal (forensic) category. I would not have you forget that. I would not have you forget that Atonement is a judicial act whereby sin is dealt with. We note this again because we remind ourselves that in order to be Christian we have to grow in our understanding of these legal categories … these doctrines … if we want to pursue sanctification. Our personal relationship with Jesus Christ will only be as good as is our understanding is of His person and work.

If you remember we said that the Atonement is God’s atonement. He does all the atoning. He provides atonement. He does all the atoning. He does all the suffering. There is nothing left for us to chip in, in this matter of atonement. God has given a completed atonement.

The Scriptures teach this kind of atonement that was completed for us

“For if while we were still enemies, we were reconciled to God through the death of His Son.” Romans 5:10

There it is … we were (past tense) reconciled to God through the death of His Son.

“Who gave Himself for our sins, that He might deliver us out of this present age…”
Galatians 1:4

“In Him we have redemption through His blood, the forgiveness of our trespasses, according to the riches of His Grace.” Ephesians 1:7

Now, if this completed nature of the atonement is true then it is absolutely necessary that the atonement be limited because if God made that kind of atonement as Scriptures teach for everybody then the consequence would be that everybody would be saved. If the atonement has the quality of an accomplished event as we have described and if the atonement was general… that is for everybody then everybody would have to be saved.

The fact that some people die in their sins demands either that the atonement is limited for whom God marked out in unconditional election or that the atonement alone isn’t efficient to save a man and that something more must be added that some people who are atoned for add while others who are atoned for don’t add.

But as we saw last week, any addition would redefine the word “atonement” from what we found in Scripture.

And let me pause here for a brief rabbit trail.

Here we have this word Atonement. We have defined it very precisely in a Biblical Worldview. When we use the word Atonement this is what we mean. HOWEVER, when the religious humanist… the Arminian … the Lutheran… Many Baptists … the Penetcoastal … The Roman Catholic … The Wesleyan … when they use this exact same word they are at the very moment using a completely different word. We share the container word “Atonement” but we have nothing in common in terms of the way we are filling that word with meaning. We are so far apart that we may as well be speaking different languages, yet we are using the same exact word. This is the danger of language. As Christians we use the same words but at the same time we take these same words and fill them with radically different meaning so much so that we are not using the same words.

And so we talk about atonement and we both agree that Jesus provides and is the atonement but our agreement is only a surface agreement. We have such serious lexical differences that when we scratch beneath the surface we discover that we are speaking different languages. We use the same words. Perhaps even recite the same confessions. But have precious little if anything in common.

Having said that let’s look at the scriptures that clearly teach the idea that Christ in His atonement work on the Cross died only for a specific people and not for every person who has ever lived. Let us consider, as Berkhof put it, “that Christ died for the purpose of actually and certainly saving the elect, and the elect only.”

Matthew 1:21 And she will bring forth a Son, and you shall call His name [a]Jesus, for He will save His people from their sins.”

Here Jesus is save His people from their sins. This language should not surprises us for in the Old Covenant on the day of Atonement it was the Hebrews and the Hebrews only whose sins were atoned. The surrounding peoples did not have their sins atoned for on the day of atonement. Only the people of God. In the same way Jesus will be saving a people that are unique to Him and who have been given to Him by the Father.

This particularity is found in the Old Testament when in Isaiah 53:11 we read,

He shall see the labor of His soul, and be satisfied.
By His knowledge My righteous Servant shall justify many,
For He shall bear their iniquities

Matthew’s Gospel hits this theme of “many but not all” again,

20:28 just as the Son of Man did not come to be served, but to serve, and to give His life a ransom for many.”

John’s Gospel repeats this idea,

John 10:11 I am the good John shepherd gives His life for the sheep. … 14 I am the good shepherd; and I know My sheep, and am known by My own. 15 As the Father knows Me, even so I know the Father; and I lay down My life for the sheep. 16 And other sheep I have which are not of this fold; them also I must bring, and they will hear My voice; and there will be one flock and one shepherd.

John 10:26-29 26 But you do not believe, because you are not of My sheep, as I said to you. 27 My sheep hear My voice, and I know them, and they follow Me. 28 And I give them eternal life, and they shall never perish; neither shall anyone snatch them out of My hand. 29 My Father, who has given them to Me, is greater than all; and no one is able to snatch them out of My Father’s hand.

Here we have a clear example of Limited Atonement. The issue is sheep. Jesus has His sheep whom He says very pointedly “I lay down my life for the Sheep,” and “that He knows His sheep.” The simplest logic tell us that the sheep He knows are the sheep he lays down His life for. A few sentences later Jesus says to His enemies, “You are not my sheep.” Again, simple logic tells us that if His enemies are not His sheep, therefore He does not die for them.

The particularity of the atonement is arrived at in a couple passages where we learn that Jeus died for only the Church.

Ephesians 5:25 tells husbands to love their wives as Christ loved the Church and gave Himself for her.

There it is. From whom did Christ die? Here we learn it was for the Church and the Church alone.

Acts 20:28 agrees… there Paul tells the Elders he is addressing,

“to shepherd the church of God which He purchased with His own blood.”

Again… Christ’s death is particular and limited to those who comprise the Church.

The Book of Revelation concurs in this,

13:8 – “Everyone whose name had not been written from the foundation of the world in the book of life of the lamb who has been slain.

Here we see that there is a book titled, “The book of the life of the Lamb who has been slain,” and in that book there are names which are written in it and names which are not written in it. The names in the book which are written are the beneficiaries of the Lamb’s atonement. Those names not written in the book are not beneficiaries of the Lamb’s atonement.

And what of the “Us” passages. Pronouns become a big deal. To the Corinthians the Holy Spirit writes,

“For (God) hath made (Christ) to be sin for us.”

And again in Romans 5:8

“God commendeth His love towards us in that while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us.”

Let us not forget that Paul is writing the Church. He is writing that Christ’s death was for the limited number who did and would comprise the Church.

So it is clear how God speaks in the Scripture regarding the extent of the Atonement.

This next tidbit I offer I think is better read than heard, but we will see how it goes. Hundreds of years ago a Theologian John Owen summed up this whole debate regarding Limited Atonement vs. General Atonement by offering a tight bit of reasoning. It went as follows,

The Father imposed His wrath due unto, and the Son underwent punishment for, either:

All the sins of all men.

All the sins of some men, or

Some of the sins of all men.

In which case it may be said:

That if the last be true, all men have some sins to answer for, and so, none are saved.

That if the second be true, then Christ, in their stead suffered for all the sins of all the elect in the whole world, and this is the truth.

But if the first be the case, why are not all men free from the punishment due unto their sins?

You answer, “Because of unbelief.”

I ask, Is this unbelief a sin, or is it not? If it be, then Christ suffered the punishment due unto it, or He did not. If He did, why must that hinder them more than their other sins for which He died? If He did not, He did not die for all their sins!”

If you didn’t catch that you can read it later.

Now… having established that Scripture clearly teaches that Christ did not die for all people but only for the Elect why is there any debate even left.

Well… the answer to that is because Worldviews are what they are. If people have unbiblical presuppositions they are going to come to unbiblical positions and if they are Christians they are going to find those unbibiblical posittions supported by the Bible.

So, I want to spend the rest of our time looking at some of the texts that the Religious Humanists appeal to in order to “prove” per their worldview, that Christ died for everybody.

The Lutheran, Arminian, Pentecostal, Roman Catholic, General Baptist, Wesleyan etc. will ask about the word “World” in John 3:16. We could take 20 minutes to thoroughly answer that but lets just offer here that John in his writings uses the word “world” in at least 10 different ways. Every time you stumble across John’s use of the word “world” you have to pause and ask yourself how he is using it. For example, one of his usages is a literary technique that he develops in his Gospel to mean The World System as it lies in opposition to God.

John 12:31 Now is the judgment of this world; now will the ruler of this world be cast out.

John 14:30 I will no longer talk much with you, for the ruler of this world is coming. He has no claim on me…

John 16:11 concerning judgment, because the ruler of this world is judged.

As concerns John 3:16 the meaning of the word “World” there probably refers to the realm of mankind. Another example of this usage is,

John 1:10 He was in the world, and the world was made through him, yet the world did not know him.

Alternately John 3:16 might find John using the word “World” here to communicate that God’s interest lay beyond just the Israelite people. Jews were and remain so provincial that John may have reached for the word “World” in John 3:16 to communicate that God loved more peoples than Jews.

Those who do not believe in Limited Atonement will continue to push on the word “World,” asking,

Objector,

Why doesn’t “whole world” mean “whole world” as it says in 1 John 2:2: “He is the propitiation for our sins; and not for ours only, but also for the sins of the whole world”?

————————————————-

Bret

John here is stressing the ethnic plurality of the atonement. It is not restricted to the Jewish nation nor even to those believers he is writing to. The efficacy of the Atonement applies to people from every tribe, tongue and (denomi)nation that God has chosen and so John writes ‘for the whole world.’

And again to take it the way those who hate Limited Atonement take it proves too much. If Jesus is the propitiation for each and every person who has ever lived then each and every person who has ever lived has been propitiated for. The Father’s wrath has been turned from them. This is something that is objectively true and can’t be undone by the subjective will of fallen men. It wouldn’t matter if they told God to, ‘get lost’ they still would be saved since the propitiation has been rendered.

_______________

Objector

Those who eschew Limited Atonement will go to

2 Peter 3:9 says, “The Lord is not willing that any should perish.”

And ask, “Why doesn’t “any” mean “any”?

————————————————-

Bret

Here we insist on the context and demand that the whole vs. is considered,

9 The Lord is not slack concerning His promise, as some count slackness, but is longsuffering toward [c]us, not willing that any should perish but that all should come to repentance.

Peter writes that the Lord is longsuffering towards ‘US’. Who is the ‘US’ that Peter refers to? Obviously it is the covenant believing community he is writing to. So when Peter immediately then says that “The Lord is not willing that any should perish,” it is obvious that the reference remains the believing community. God is not willing that any of His elect should perish. Hence,

John 6:39 And this is the Father’s will which hath sent me, that of all which he hath given me I should lose nothing, but should raise it up again at the last day.

Consider interpreting this the way that our opposition desires. Here we have God not willing any should perish but hang it if some do perish despite God not wanting that to happen. There goes God’s Sovereignty.

__

Objector

The Lord swears in Ezek. 33:11 “As I live, saith the Lord God, I have no pleasure in the death of the wicked.”

————————————————-

Bret

If a judge can have no pleasure in the exercise of the death penalty yet have even less pleasure in seeing the wicked go unpunished then God likewise can have no pleasure in the death of the wicked and yet have greater displeasure in not seeing the wicked visited for their sin and so deal justice eternal justice to the wicked.

God can decree both his displeasure over the death of the wicked and His pleasure at seeing His justice upheld.

___

Objector

Why doesn’t “all mean “all” in 1 Timothy 2:4: “Who desires all men to be saved and to come to a knowledge of the truth”?

————————————————

Bret

This passage follows the Titus pattern. Paul has said that prayers are to be made for all men. He then goes on to restrict that meaning to ‘Kings and those in authority.’ As Paul narrows the definition of ‘all’ down it is evident that he desires prayer for all classes or types of people. Without such a restriction some Lutheran literalist might have prayed for dead people since the word ‘all’ was not restricted by the word ‘living.’ In this context Paul says God desires all men to be saved and to come to a knowledge of the truth. The context requires us to see the word ‘all’ as being restricted in the second instance just as it was in the first instance. God desires all categories or types of men to be saved just as he desired the believers to pray for all categories of men.

Secondly, to take this passage the way Arminians/Lutherans take it is to prove too much. If God desires all men to be saved then all men will be saved since God sits in heaven above and does whatever he pleases. Or do Lutherans teach that God sits in heaven above doing whatever he pleases except when man informs God to, ‘buzz off’ when he desires to save him?

Well, there are many more passages and if you can think of some that you want answered we can talk about them in Sunday School if your like.

Let us close with a common objection to Limited Atonement.
Objections:

1.) Doesn’t this make men lazy in Evangelism?

If Christ has died for a particular number of people and those people will come to Chrit no matter what then why do Evangelism?

First, because that is what the King commands. If the King commands it I don’t question the King.

Second, God has a predestined Elect whom Christ has died for but God also has predestined the messengers who would herald the glad tidings of Christ crucified in order to gather in the elect.

Third, we can’t help it. We have been given the Spirit as a deposit to guarantee that which is to come. As we have been given the Spirit of Christ our desire is to communicate Christ in all of His saving and Kingly offices.

By way of observation we can simply point to the reality that Calvinists throughout the centuries have been the most avid Evangelists. Whether you are talking about

Hudson Taylor in China
John Elliot and David Brainerd among the American Indians in the
Henry Martyn – To Asia
Samuel Zwemer to the Arab Muslim World
Alexander Duff to India
John Gibson Paton to the South Pacific

These and countless others were God’s Evangelists and their belief in the doctrines of Calvinism instead of quieting them made them bold as lions in declaring the command that all men everywhere must repent.

It was the Calvinist missionaries who packed their belongings in coffins to ship off to Africa because they knew they were never coming back and knew they would be buried in those coffins.

So, lets put to bed the objection that Calvinists don’t do Evangelism because of their TULIP.

Indeed, truth be told, we are the only ones doing Biblical Evangelism.

After all the recent hubbub I decided to view “Cuties” for myself. What follows are a few impression.

— Painfully thin plot. African family moves to the West. In that context the daughter is alienated because of her father taking a second wife and because of her unfamiliar settings. Daughter resolves that alienation by rejecting family and owning a feral girls club (Cuties) as her new identity matrix. The narrative then gives us the daughter of Africa exceeding all requirements for sexuality set forth by the feral girls club in order to compensate for her sense of rejection by her Father’s taking of a second wife.

— The film (likely inadvertently) teaches the mistake it is to bring third worlders into Western Civilization. The film makes it obvious that there will be no assimilating between the third world and the West. The Third World brings its customs (polygamy, Shamans, Exorcisms) religion (Isalm in the film) and foods. Bringing the third world into the West results in the Third Worldization of the West.

When it does assimilate it the film teaches that it assimilates with the worst elements of the West. The whole sexualization in dance that the main character excels in is the one way in which she leaves behind her Third world ways and in the film at least, she gives up that sexualization at the end of the film. The problem the end of the film gives us is that now the child now belongs to neither her original Third World roots (seen in her refusal to attend her father’s polygamous wedding) nor to the sexualized dance she had embraced.

Emphasizing the aspect that the Third World does not belong in the West we see that beyond what the film explores that when the pagan Third World hits the West what transpires is a cultural distance that cannot be crossed. This is so because the distance between the two cultures is so vast that the third worlder cannot adjust to that massive of a change without sinking into aberrant behavior. Secondly, what is aberrant for the Christian West is normative for much of the pagan third world. Clitorectomies is one example … treating women as sexual possessions is another example…. Muslim honor killings is a third example… increased crime rates is a fourth example. Importing the third world into Western civilization is like importing Cortez into the Aztec third world culture. Something’s gotta give. What is giving is Western civilization norms in favor of the Third World norms we are importing.

— The film denounces polygamy which is a very odd thing for a modern film-maker to do. Modern man practices cultural relativism and pronounces that all cultural customs are equal yet in this film we see denounced, through the eyes of the main character and her mother that polygamy is evil. The director was a female and a self-admitted feminist and so likely a hater of all forms of patriarchy (both the biblical and unbiblical varieties) and so polygamy is cast as evil in the film.

I note this as someone opposed to polygamy and believe it to be God’s second best for families. I know Scripture gives no positive examples of polygamous homes being functional. Having said that I see nowhere in Scripture where polygamy is pronounced universally as “sin.”However, in a culture such as the West which insists that all cultural behaviors are acceptable and should not be “judged” it is odd to see the film-makers judge polygamy as being a “bad” thing. However, feminists gonna be all feminist like.

— One of the great cultural aberrations of the West is the existence of “youth culture.” Youth culture is a unbiblical category that one finds nowhere existing in Scripture. It was completely created in America by advertising agencies in the 1950’s in order to be able to capture the spending of America’s young people. In the film “Cuties” youth culture is seen as the norm. This is as unfortunate as the normalization of the sexualization that the film also pushes. The main character takes three girls her own age as her new family in the West and her bond throughout the film, until the very end, is with them.

In a sane culture “youth culture” doesn’t exist and young people grow up identifying with their parents and family and seek to yearn to be like them as they mature. However, the West is far from sane in its culture and so “Amy” rebels against her Mother and her folkways in order to fit in with her youth culture family.

— Cuties (again likely inadvertently) teaches what happens to little girls where there is no strong Father figure. Adolescent girls without Fathers often end up looking to men with a sexual interest to find Father approval that they are not getting in a Christian home. The desire for approval from fathers in adolescent girls is off the charts and if adolescent girls will not get wholesome approval from their fathers they will find it in the sexual approval of boyfriends. The little girl, in the film, perceives rejection by her father and so she turns to sexuality. In other news day follows night.

— Cuties is, in my opinion, a film that sodomite lovers of little boys will get off on. The adolescent girls are basically boys with little bumps. All the grinding in the film will be a turn on for sodomites as they see the adolescent girls as merely little boys.

— Finally, the sexualization of little girls is beyond questioning. It is also beyond questioning that this film is a grooming film for pederasts. An 11 year old little girl who might see this film is not going to understand that the sexual twerking is giving us the sexual objectification of little girls, as the film Director insists was her intent. Now add the reality the reality that almost all the adults in the film when viewing the twerking dance contests are all agog and are hooting, hollering, and cheering. What else can this be but a communication that all this sexualization in little girls is normative?

This sexualization isn’t close to subtle. There are repeated crotch shots and humping motions. I cannot think of a better way to sell the trafficking of little girls for sex then showing scenes like “Cuties” puts on the screen.

It is true, that at the very end of the film Amy hears the call of her homeland and walks away from the end of her twerking contest (after all the “best” moves have been caught by the camera) and returns to her home just in time to see her Mother getting ready to attend her husband’s polygamous marriage. Clearly, what is communicated is that Amy understands that she has no home among either her dance family nor her biological family. She is all alone.

When we introduce the Third World into the West everyone ends up alienated and alone finding their only outlet in sex.

The film is sub-par but because it was directed by a black Muslim woman originally from the Third Wold the critics are all raving. The critics at Rotten Tomatoes gave it an 88% thumbs up rating while the viewer rating was 3%. The viewers are not panning films in order to do virtue signaling like the critics.

“The world is blighted by death, demons (i.e. Gretchen Whitmer), and sin. Jesus as Lord has triumphed over them through his death and resurrection. Indeed He has fulfilled the promise of a new Exodus, a new creation, and a new covenant, though in a inaugurated but not consummated manner… The New Creation has arrived in Jesus Christ.”

Thomas Schreiner
The King in His Beauty — p. 548

The emphasis of the NT is that the Kingdom has arrived. Of course the arrival is in an inaugurated yet not consummated sense but the arrival of the Kingdom remains altogether true. Yet the Reformed and the Evangelicals often act like we remain living in the not yet of the old and worse covenant. The Kingdom has arrived with all of its life restorative power. The impact of this already arrived Kingdom means that we as Christians should live in terms of reality that the age to come is rolling back this present evil age. As such our lean should be towards insistence that all men bow the knee to the King’s commands in all areas of life. Our lean should be to fight against those theologies like R2K which want to spiritualize (i.e. — Gnosticize) the presence of the Kingdom so it does not impact family life, law, and education, etc.. R2K is a denial of the presence of the Kingdom in favor of Gnostic faith. The Good News is that in Christ the King and Kingdom has been restored. We should live as if that reality impinges on us.

“Faith obeys Jesus. The parallelism in John 3:36

“Whoever believes in the Son has eternal life; whoever does not obey the Son shall not see life, but the wrath of God remains on him.”

is most interesting, for disobeying (apeitheo) is contrasted with ‘believing.’ in Him, indicating that disobedience is an expression of unbelief. John cannot conceive of those who believe in Jesus but fail to obey Him. Those who trust in Jesus keep (tereo) His word and commandments (8:51-52; 14:15, 23-24; 15:10), for those who refuse to keep Jesus commands do not truly love Him. Jesus defines His disciples as ‘those who keep His Word’ (17:6). Similarly, Jesus’ disciples ‘follow’ (akoloutheo) him (1:37-38, 40, 43; 8:12; 12:26; 21:19, 22), just as sheep follow only their shepherd (10:4-5, 27). Those who refuse to follow Jesus do not truly believe in Him and are not truly His disciples. We see the same theme in I John. Those who truly know Jesus keep His commands (2:3-6; cf. 3:22; 5:3). There are not sinless (1:7-2:2) but they do not persist in a life of sin (3:4-10; 5:18) Sin does not dominate their lives, and they do not give themselves over to evil.

“Thomas Schreiner
The King in His Beauty – p. 532

So, if all the above is true and if we were to add only that Jesus was and is the incarnation of God’s Character, noting that God’s character is His Law-Word then we have to ask why does the contemporary Church so hate theonomists who above all Christians are teaching people that to believe and follow Jesus means that they have a responsibility of obeying God’s Law Word?

But the modern Church has gone all Marcion on this score insisting that the individual Christian has no responsibility to God’s law outside a nod to God’s ten words and then maybe even some of those are truncated. The contemporary Church, outside of the theonomists want nothing to do with God’s case law insisting that God’s case law has all been abolished completely ignoring the whole idea of general equity.

For theonomists this looks all the world like God is schizophrenic. God has one Law-Word for the Old covenant but a different Law-Word for the new Covenant. This is not insignificant because if God’s Law-Word has changed then God’s character has changed since God’s Law-Word is the very definition of God’s character.

To be sure theonomists believe that those aspects of the Law that were related to the proclamation of Jesus Christ in the ceremonies have been fulfilled in Jesus Christ but Law being fulfilled, and so no longer required of us, is not the same thing as Law being abolished apart from fulfillment.

Those who say that the case law is completely abolished should be consistent and advocate, from the pulpit, the elimination of all laws forbidding incest and bestiality. After all, though we do have “Thou Shalt not commit Adultery,” we do not have the case laws of consanguinity or the case laws forbidding human and animal sex in the New Testament. If the case laws are all abolished then they are all abolished and this squeamishness about R2K chaps marrying their sisters or bedding their favorite farm animal has to go. (I mention R2K because they are the most famous for declaring that all the case laws are abolished and that general equity does not obtain.)

Shreiner, rightly notes that the New Testament teaches that believing in Jesus means obeying Jesus but from where I sit, looking upon the modern Reformed world, Jesus has been created as a new God unrelated to the God of the Old Covenant and so obeying Jesus has precious little to do with obeying the God who gave all those nasty case laws. For Dispensationalism and R2K (how much difference is there between the two) as with Marcionism the Jesus of the New Testament presents us with a different God, with a different law that allows us to engage in behavior in the New Testament era which would have had us tossed out of the community of faith in the Old Testament era. For these antinomians Jesus saves us from sin while allowing believers to jettison the case law so that the law and so consequently sin is dumbed down.

Indeed, so dumbed down has the law become in this antinomian world that one R2K minister has insisted that he has no interest in the State passing anti-bestiality laws. Why? Because that belongs to the case laws and the case laws are abolished.

A blurb from an article at the Sovereign Nations website.

https://sovereignnations.com/2019/06/06/black-identity-theories-secular-or-sacred/?utm_campaign=meetedgar&utm_medium=social&utm_source=meetedgar.com&fbclid=IwAR2G3I59mG8UJvJudfS9FjSe_IihdbeIGT6XhSZvcuyB74I_Br9ODu8m1Sw

As you read this keep in mind that “Sovereign Nations” is supposed to be the good guys opposing the slide of the Southern Baptist Convention into Critical Race theory and Intersectionality. With friends like this we might as well just let the enemies have their way.

The article is insightful in terms of its analysis of the origins of Critical Race theory but once she (Ariel Gonzalez Bovat) moves away from analysis to solutions she goes completely off the tracks. In point of fact I agreed with what I was reading until this statement,

“Cross’s model of black identity was an attempt to merge black culture with the unbiblical label of being black as a “race”.”

Black as a race is unbiblical? I’d love to see her prove that.

The fact that race exists is seen in,

1.) Pharmaceuticals that are developed as designed particularly for people of particular races.

2.) The reality of matters like this,

https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/nation/2019/05/30/family-3-year-old-leukemia-plead-bone-marrow-transplant-donor/1293400001/?fbclid=IwAR2l7g2lMSpMekovIaqEGm0pY9E9-RXPgRD5Et9dXaHGIYQG_V951GSZEoU

3.) Forensic Science routinely can identify people from bones found. If Race was merely a social construct forensic science could not identify the races of the deceased by merely looking at bones long in the ground.

4.) The fact that some races are uniquely given to certain diseases while other races are not. For example the black race is given to sickle cell anemia. If race were only a social construct why would this be the case?

Ariel Gonzalez Bovat goes on to write,

“We can reject secular reasoning that asserts our skin color or culture should be our primary identity marker. Skin color is not tied to culture, race does not exist. Prayerfully, this article has proven that Cross and other secular theorists have succeeded in merging race, skin color and culture, creating that firmly held “social construct” that continues to reinforce the necessity of keeping the word “race” in our language, which ultimately informs how we view each other. We are not the totality of our skin color or ethnic culture.Our skin color does not define us, nor does it inform our identity.”

Bret responds,

“Fine we are Christians first, but the fact that we are Christians first does not mean that our skin color or race doesn’t contribute to the informing of our identity.

Second, this assertion is nothing but Gnosticism. Who God has created us to be in terms of race, culture and ethnicity, maleness or femaleness, all contribute mightily to our identity.

Third, she has embraced the postmodern idea that creaturely realities assigned by God are only social constructs that are malleable. This is the opposition to CRT in the Southern Baptists.

Fourth, this smack of hyper individualism… atomistic individualism which treats the corporate categories we are created with nominalistically. Our race, ethnicity, tribe, and family, are assigned to us by God. This view quoted above would make man a single integer which provides for himself his own creaturely identity.

Ariel Gonzalez Bovat is drinking from the well of postmodernism when she starts insisting that race / ethnicity is a social construct. This idea of social construct was barely heard of until the last 20 years or so and now it has been pushed into our social consciousness as an article of faith and those who advocate this are providing either a prime example of gas-lighting or else are themselves suffering from unspeakable insanity.

Race, ethnicity, sex, nationality, citizenship, etc. are all good and creational, God-ordanied categories.When people like James White and some of the authors at Sovereign Nations ignore these realities they are the enemy and we need to fight them perhaps even more then those who they are opposing since the James White crowd are putatively our friends. The statement on social justice that MacArthur spearheaded also said explicitly that race is a social construct, thus demonstrating that MacArthur has his head up his southern most orifice on this subject. All of this is, quite frankly, not merely unwise but completely dishonest. Dear reader, if you haven’t listened to Al Mohler’s exposition of the Table of Nations that he did in chapel you need to do so to learn just how bad it is because slippery Al also reduces ethnicity to language and “worldview” (i.e., religion).

IS THERE ANYBODY WEARING A WHITE HAT OUT THERE OR IS IT THE CASE THAT NOT ONLY THE BAD GUYS ARE WEARING BLACK HATS BUT THE OPPOSITION WHO IS TRYING TO STOP THE BAD GUYS ARE ALSO WEARING BLACK HATS?