A Few Words On I Corinthians 15:20 & Resurrection, Age To Come, and Union With Christ

I Corinthians 15:20 But now Christ is risen from the dead, and has become the firstfruits of those who have fallen asleep.

This passage is commonly used as a Easter Sunday sermon text. That is appropriate. However, in this post we are considering that even more can be taught from this text than might be first thought.

The most common and accurate point from this text that is taught is the reality of solidarity between Christ and the believer. This solidarity is of such a nature that what is predicated about Christ in terms of His resurrection is predicated about the believer. This is true, however this passage teaches more than solidarity, it teaches Union with Christ … it confirms what Christ Himself said earlier when He said;

5 “I am the vine, you are the branches. He who abides in Me, and I in him, bears much fruit; for without Me you can do nothing.

There is a vital union between Christ and the believer of such a nature that in life the believer produces the fruit of Christ and in death the believer, because of their union with Christ, is part of the harvest because he is one with Christ.

Referring back to I Cor. 15:2o we are told that Christ in His resurrection was the firstfruits of those who have fallen asleep. As is well known firstfruits comes from the Hebrew agricultural world. Paul’s usage of it here in relation to the resurrection is the motif of this whole chapter.  Firstfruits, in the OT described the firstfruits of sacrifice that were brought each year at the beginning of the spring grain harvest in Israel (e.g., Ex. 23:16, 19; Lev. 23:10, 17, 20; Prov. 3:9). Obviously enough, what was being communicated in part was the idea that with the cultic sacrifice the firstfruits were promissory of the whole to follow. However, there is more going on then mere temporal priority. There is also the idea communicated that their is a vital union between the firstfruits and the harvest that will eventually follow. The firstfruits harvest represents the harvest of the whole crop which will come. Christ as the resurrected firstfruit, is promissory of the whole crop because the firstfruits with the whole crop are one.

This whole Pauline concept teaches that just as the harvested firstfruits offered could not be separated from what was to to soon be harvested from the whole field so Christ as the firstfruit of the resurrection life cannot be separated from the whole crop that will follow. To talk about a firstfruit without a following harvest is like talking about a bride walking down the aisle that doesn’t end with a “now you may kiss the bride.”

So, there is more going on here than just the idea that because God raised Jesus from the dead therefore God will raise believers as well, as absolutely true as that is. The more that is here is that in Christ the resurrection harvest has begun and since believers are all part of that same harvest resurrection in Christ the firstfruits, believers themselves as the latter fruit have already experienced the beginnings of resurrection. In Christ’s resurrection, God has begun fulfilling the promise that includes our resurrection.

Dr. Richard Gaffin in his book, “In The Fullness of Time,” provides a helpful illustration;

“If we were to have Paul at a prophecy conference or some other venue and were to ask him, ‘When, Paul, will the resurrection event take place in which believers share?’ The first thing he would likely say is, ‘It has already begun.’ In Christ’s resurrection, the final harvest of bodily resurrection has become visible. He will argue that in some detail later in the chapter, particularly in 15:42-49.”

In having union with the resurrected Christ we as Christians because of our union with Christ likewise partake of His resurrection. This is explicitly taught in Ephesians

2 And you He made alive, who were dead in trespasses and sins,

Because of our union with Christ, objectively we were made alive with Christ in His resurrection while subjectively this resurrection awaited our regeneration where the objective truth was published to our consciousness. And all this because as the Elect in Christ we were united with Christ from eternity.

Ephesians 1:3 Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who has blessed us with every spiritual blessing in the heavenly places in Christ, 4 just as He chose us in Him before the foundation of the world,

With this teaching that Christ’s resurrection is our resurrection because of our vital union with Christ we see that even though Christ’s resurrection lies in the past, because His resurrection is organically related to our future resurrection we can say that the past resurrection of our great Captain, the Lord Jesus Christ, lies still in the future. Christ’s resurrection is the initial part of the eschatological harvest of the resurrection of the saints at the end of history and because of our union with Christ His resurrection has entered into history because Christians are partakers of Christ’s eschatological life. With Christ’s resurrection, the age to come is operational in this present wicked age, through those who have been, because of union with Christ, been raised up with Christ.

A couple implications here. If this is accurate (and it is) then the whole idea of the errant theology of “full Preterism” comes crashing down. Full Preterism teaches that bodily resurrection of the saints is already past and that the age to come has already arrived, not only in an inaugurated sense, but in all its fullness. For the full Preterist (at least some variants. They argue among themselves) there is no “not yet.” All there is for them is realized eschatology. I have even had one of their teachers tell me that while the person will be resurrected his body will not be resurrected. This thinking breaks the chain of logic that unites Christ’s bodily resurrection with His people’s bodily resurrection.

Secondly, given this explanation we should understand that given the tight relation between Christ’s resurrection and the believers future resurrection that we are not talking about two different events here but rather are talking about one event though separated by a time lapse. Christ’s resurrection and our resurrection is of one piece and really is the same event.

So, Christ’s resurrection was the firstfruits of our resurrection to follow but that firstfruits, because of its union with the rest of the harvest, was, in principle, the resurrection of the whole crop. Since our great Liege Lord has been resurrected and since we have union with our great Captain we Christians experience now the inaugurated resurrection life that is itself promissory of the fact that what we live now as inaugurated will one day be completely realized in the future as we, as latter day fruit, follow the firstfruits into God’s presence. This, of course, means that we in Christ are living, in an inaugurated sense, in the future age to come while living at the same time in this present wicked age. 

Continuing To Refute Nonsense That Advocates For Government Schooling For God’s Covenant Seed

JA writes,

1. Homeschoolers fall into the error of univariable analysis. “Literacy is bad at 63% of schools. Since they are run by the government, the only reason for poor literacy must be the fact that they are government run.” No, to meaningfully understand the data, you have to dissect it. What is the literacy rate when you eliminate all the schools in blue cities? What is the literacy rate of a public school that has the same demographics as Christian schools – usually white, middle-class two parent families?

Bret responds,

You really seem not to get the macro picture Josh. Government schooling, by design, prohibits connecting what we know from how we know what we know. Government schools, by force of law, does not allow education to teach Christian ontology, epistemology, anthropology, axiology, or teleology. This means the foundation upon which everything the government schools sit upon is anti-Christ. As such, it is irrelevant if some government schools exist in a white, middle-class two parent family and if because of that those students escape some of the even worse outcomes that are characteristic in blue states. It’s all premised on anti-Christ presuppositions and you seem to not be able to understand that in our conversation. Maybe  you have an interest in not understanding?

JA writes,

2. You can read books on the state of public education, read all the bad headlines, but you still don’t really know how things are going at the school half an hour away from you. The PhDs in the Dept. of Education, or in school administration might announce all kinds of LBGT stuff that is going to get taught, but it often doesn’t happen. Teachers quietly shelve it, because they’ve got to get their students ready for next math, physics, English or chemistry test.

Bret responds,

Oh, I see… so all the books I’ve cited from all the authors I’ve read (some like Gatto criticizing Government schools as a teacher of the year recipient and as from inside the workings of the government schools) don’t really know how things are going on, but you do. Sorry … I’ll cast my lot with Gatto and wait for your book that details how Gatto (and others) have been wrong.

Secondly here, you expect me to take your word that “it often doesn’t happen.” Sorry, I don’t believe you. I might believe “it sometimes doesn’t happen,” but I don’t believe that it “often doesn’t happen,” and I doubt you have anything to back that spurious claim up.

JA writes,

3. You can go to school/college with bad students who don’t want to learn anything, but the resources are there if you want to learn. I went to a “conservative” public university in the South. Plenty there who just wanted to party. But a lifetime wouldn’t have been long enough to make use of all the resources there – including calculus, science, logic professors who professed faith in Christ and were ready to spend hours giving one-on-one tutoring.

BLMc responds,

Again… more anecdotal statements and mere assertions on your part.

If it is only about resources being there, one doesn’t need to attend government schools because there has never been a time when resources are more present outside of the government schools. Indeed, it is kind of what makes your end of the conversation moot. The resources are so ubiquitous in our information age that we hardly need to send God’s covenant seed to brain dead teachers in dreadful peer settings  in order for them to be educated. Indeed, sending them there is in pursuit of anti-education.

I notice you love to talk about the exceptions as opposed to the rule. The rule teaches, as the stats show, that American government schooled children test at the bottom when compared to students from other countries.

JA writes,

4. Public school students spend about 25% of their waking hours at school. Homeschoolers, after you add up time at homeschooling co-ops, athletics programs at the local high school, and the workplace, might spend 15% of their time in the same kind of environment, hearing and seeing all the trash you rightly condemn.

BLMc responds

This argument is “because Homeschoolers are not as superior as they might be therefore they should be even more inferior.”

JA writes,

5. If the child comes from devoted Protestant Christians, he will likely value education like all Protestants once did. He will easily get into honours classes, where they study Newton’s physics (a professing Christian, at least), electricity theories of Faraday (another Christian), and the medical guy who invented anethesthics (also a Christian). He will study advanced math – exercises in pure logic, and “the language of God’s universe,” as one Christian mathematics teacher in the homeschooling movement put it. If you want to exercise dominion over the earth as commanded, you need to know its language, he says.

Bret responds,

And all as presupposing a humanist (and so anti-Christian) starting point.

JA writes,

6. Public education is constantly producing useful studies – just look at all the academic papers cited in “Who is My Neighbour?” There’s a paradox in higher education that is often missed: the LGBT communist profs always making headlines and pushing globalisation, vs. the researchers who are publishing paper after paper demolishing the assumptions of those profs, eg. more diversity means less social trust, interracial marriages more likely to fail, interracial children less healthy and less fertile when adults etc etc.

Bret responds,

The case made by “Who Is My Neighbor” (the whole book) taken as a whole only reinforces my case. If you want to escape your children becoming egalitarian don’t send them to Government schools which is the seedbed for all things egalitarian. Indeed, Government schools are completely premised on egalitarianism. That some children come out having, by God’s grace alone, triumphant over the system is not a rational reason why we should send Christian children into a system that is, by design, thoroughly pagan. You are arguing here that we should go on sinning because grace has been present in a few cases.

JA writes,

8. Our children should do what Paul did as a child: study pagan thinkers. Then they could go to Mars Hill and point out their contradictions like Paul did. “You have all these altars to all kinds of gods, but your pagan poet says you are the offspring of one God who doesn’t need anything.”

BLMc responds,

How many Pharisees who studied pagan thinkers tried to kill Paul? You take one example of God’s marvelous grace and then try to argue from that one instance that therefore we are allowed to raise our children as pagans.

Joshua, the schools are anti-Christ. They are premised upon the anti-Christ foundation that all the wisdom and knowledge is not founded on Christ. This is contrary to God’s revelation which teaches that all the hidden treasures of wisdom and knowledge are known in Christ (Col. 2:3). A child (or adult) cannot be educated with an education that is dedicated to eliminating the God of the Bible as the locus for all knowing.

Then, of course, one has to add in all the social diseases that arises from putting children in a vast peer setting. Postmen writes about this in some of his books. You might want to read them. “The Disappearance of Childhood” could be a good place to start.

Joshua writes,

9. Michael Spangler just posted a very good analysis of homeschooling: it produces domesticated, effeminate young men, because they’re at home all the time with little kids and a female as their main teacher. They’re not getting educated well, they don’t have a public spirit, they develop a bunker mentality that lasts well into adulthood.

BLMc responds,

Shrug … just because Rev. Spangler writes something doesn’t make it true. It sounds like it is all anchored in anecdotal reasoning and not on proof. Honestly, this just sound like the warmed over  nonsensical “but homeschooled children aren’t properly socialized” argument. An odd argument since its inception. Still, I don’t doubt that the above might in some instances be true but on the whole I’d rather have the errors found in homeschooling than the errors found in Government schooling. Similarly, I don’t have a very high opinion of “Christian schools,” though again, I’m sure there are some fine ones out there.

Joshua writes,

10. The Roman Empire supposedly became Christian or at least tolerated Christianity when only approx 15% of the people were Christian. Lots of school districts have more than this amount. If Christians exercised their rights, they could make big changes. The problem is the Christian parents don’t want to confront the nonsense. They just put up with it or take their kids out and hide. That’s a lot easier than seeking grace to boldly but meekly confront teachers and principles about objectionable material.

BLMc responds,

We’ve tried reclaiming the swamp for decades and decades. It’s time to just drain the swamp. See Rushdoony’s “The Messianic Character of American Education.”

Secondly, I seriously doubt that more than 15% of Biblical Christians live in these school districts because if 15% of Biblical Christians did live in these school districts the big changes would’ve been made long ago.

Thirdly, taking their children out is not a matter of hiding. Nice try at poisoning the well there. They take their children out because children are not equipped to withstand or refute the bilge that is characteristic of all Government schools.

As an example… in my little corner of the woods which is largely middle class and white (the standards that you previously mentioned) the Government schools are doing the whole “furrie” thing and the whole Trannie thing and the whole sex education thing.

You’re just massively in error Joshua about all of this. Indeed, for whatever it is worth, you really need to repent for being an advocate for Christians sending God’s covenant seed to anti-Christ government schools. It is sin for you to do this.

Josh writes,

11. A lot of Christian parents don’t take the LGBT crowd head on, because they are shaky on it themselves. They attend churches that say homosexual acts are sinful, but the orientation is not. They let their kids watch movies, listen to songs, spend hours on social media where this stuff is promoted non stop. Their kids are going to get swept away no matter where they go to school.

Bret responds,

So… because parents are rotten therefore it is OK for them to be maximum rotten?

Look, I quite agree that parents are a problem but maybe that is, in part, because the parents attended government schools?

Joshua writes,

12. High school kids are getting more conservative, according to some polls. At my children’s high schools, PRIDE displays get vandalized. Most despise the LGBT crowd. It’s against nature, so they naturally hate that whole agenda.

Bret responds,

When these children become adults with children I’ll then know the general population as gotten “more conservative,” when they refuse to send their children to government schools. Until then, it’s all anecdotal.

Look Joshua… I think we have covered this pretty well and it is clear that we are not making much progress. As such, I don’t know if I will be posting your future protestations. Thanks for being a contestant. There are some lovely parting prizes for some of our contestants who played but didn’t win.

In Defense Of Myself Against The Clergy’s Slander & Libel

“Some have complained that Luther was too severe. I will not deny this. But I will answer in the language of Erasmus: Because the sickness was so great, God gave this age a rough doctor … If Luther was severe, it was because of his earnestness for the truth, not because he loved strife or harshness.”

Phillip Melanchthon

Luther’s Funeral Oration

“The pastor ought to have two voices: one, for gathering the sheep; and another, for warding off and driving away wolves and thieves. The Scripture supplies him with the means of doing both.”

John Calvin

Recently, I was having a conversation with a Pastor I had met for the first time. Before meeting we had corresponded somewhat so we were not complete strangers. Within 10 minutes of our initial conversation he casually commented;

“I knew you wouldn’t bite my head off.”

To which I responded; “Who ever said I would?”

His response was not that surprising I suppose. He informed me that he had “Reformed” clergy friends who had witnessed that we were corresponding and those “Reformed” clergy friends upon seeing our corresponding had said things like, “Ah, now we see where you are trending.” My conversational partner made it clear that I had been marked out as one to be avoided by other Reformed clergy. To his credit, this Pastor defended me in his conversation.

A few months prior to this a little known Reformed clergy member in a phone booth sized Reformed denomination wrote in a public post that “Bret McAtee is the Godfather of Kinism,” and continued to warn people against me. Now, to be honest, I could wear the mantle of “The Godfather of Kinism” as a badge of honor were it true, but alas I am merely the lesser son of Greater Reformed Ministers and Doctors of the Church who came before me and from whom I have learned my Kinism.

There have been sundry other incidents. One time when a couple was considering attending the Church I minister at, the Pastor at the church they were leaving pulled the husband aside and in dark tones warned about attending a “racist” church. Said “Pastor” couldn’t wait to pull that card. Yet, nothing I have said on the subject of race was not said by countless other church Fathers as testified to in the Anthology; “Who Is My Neighbor.”

These attacks on my character and reputation are nothing new to me. Years ago newspapers, radio, and TV outlets across the state blackened my name with typical Lugenpresse lies and half-truths about the beliefs I hold that were the beliefs that I learned from my Christian Fathers. They picked this up from a muscular hate organization (SPLC) who also blackened my reputation and name. Not to be outdone, a major denomination in America went out of their way attempting to destroy my good name — again by allowing the enemies of the Gospel create the narrative without any input from me.

Now combine all this vitriolic slander and libel with the fact that like Luther before me I have been a rough doctor because of the sickness of this age. Indeed, we (the church and the culture) are more sick than we can even begin to plumb. Like Luther, I have been severe because of my love for the truth and because of my love for the Lord Christ. I have been severe, at times, in rebuking idiots because I ardently believe that “bad theology hurts people and hurts them badly.” Like Calvin my voice has, perhaps, slightly been used as much to drive off the wolves and thieves than it has been used to gather the flock. For these realities, I do not apologize. Not in the least. Indeed, it is my daily prayer that God would raise up more shepherds who have the ability to see the danger that exists as coming from those reputed to be pillars in the church.

However, all should be aware that I have paid a price for standing athwart the times while cursing the enveloping and settling darkness. It is the kind of price that St. Paul talks about in the Scripture when he talks about being made a spectacle to the world in I Corinthians 4. It as all been the fulfillment of Christ’s words;

“If the world hate you, ye know that it hated me before it hated you.”

And I have to tell you I do believe that even though a great amount of this hate is coming from “the church” it is really the case that it is coming from the world as in the Church. I believe this because I have said nothing, or believe nothing, that can’t be found in all the greats throughout history whom I have spent my life reading. None of it is new or original to me. It was all there and I found it in my wall to wall reading habits.

My problem, if a problem it is, is that the tight worldview I have does not allow me to see problems in other people’s thinking without at the same time seeing where even the comparatively smallest of errors in that thinking may well lead. If I have erred it has been to err by not just walking away from discussions without pointing out the implications of conversation partners thinking X, Y, or Z. Even at this age I continue to work at not picking at the tiny scabs in other people’s worldviews.

Still, I have lived through the rise of the heresy Federal Vision and have had to fight that. I have lived through the rise of Radical Two Kingdom theology and have to fight that. I have had to fight the dismal New Perspective On Paul theology. Then there have been the old enemies of dispensationalism, Arminianism, and Free Will Theism, not to mention, the whole abomination that was the “Church Growth Movement,” as well as the monster called “The Emergent Church Movement” — which was really just cultural Marxism and Liberation theology coming dressed up in Evangelical Evening clothes. Then there is, of course, the constant infusion of egalitarianism into the church at every turn — more cultural Marxism.

All of these are heresies. All of them deserve the harshest treatment possible. If the Church’s immune system were not shattered each would have been snuffed out in their crib.

So, my crime, if there is a crime, is that I have strongly insisted on the truth of what the Fathers have said. I have used the “drive off the wolves and thieves” voice to scatter God’s enemies. With God as my witness I have tried to be patient through the years. However, in the face of rank and death dealing doctrine I have protested often… and loudly. And so, I find myself enveloped in a reputation given to me by people who may be well intended but are largely dumb and it seems they have succeeded in making me a pariah in many quarters.

Well, my Lord Christ told me that

“If we suffer, we shall also reign with him”

So, I have this comfort. It is the comfort that Machen must have comforted himself with when he was defrocked. It is the comfort that Edwards must have known when he was tossed from his congregation. It is the comfort that the Reformers were familiar with when cast out by the Whore of a Church in Rome. Each and all, as well as countless others through the ages, have suffered far far worse than anything I have suffered. Along with everything else, my reputation belongs to Christ and I am secure in the fact that I have pleased Him by standing for His cause — even if I have hurt the feelings of todays “conservative” “Reformed” clergy.

I don’t suppose, at my age, the pitch and intensity of my voice is going to change much. I am not likely to get much softer when confronted with the utter skubala that is so often characteristic of the visible Church today. Counter-Revolutions are not led by the soft-spoken and retiring.

Folks can be comforted by one thing though… they can be comforted that if they are friends of the Christ who walks through Scripture they will be my friends. They can be comforted in knowing that if they are seeking truth I will be their most patient and best friend in that endeavor.

If they are not… well, then it is the rough doctor for you. But if the Rough Doctor comes out try to understand that he is present out of love of God and love for your soul’s well being.

Please pray for my ongoing need for sanctification. It is never easy to determine when it is time for the thief voice or time for the gather the sheep voice and I admittedly often fail in striking just the right tone. Also pray for the visible church and today’s “conservative” “Reformed” clergy corps that God might be pleased to give Reformation in head and members.

 

 

Ransom … Ransomed

When I was a boy pedaling newspapers in 1973 a crime came to the forefront that found the newspapers for months spilling ink. As my habit was always to read the paper thoroughly before delivering them I followed with interest the kidnapping case of John Paul Getty III, the grandson of Billionaire J. Paul Getty. The kidnappers initially demanded a ransom of $17 million for his release and through twists and turns that included receiving the ear of the 16 y/o grandson in the mail, the Billionaire finally negotiated a 2.2 million dollar ransom price for his grandson. The kidnappers were paid and the boy released. He was ransomed…. that is a ransom price was paid in order the he might be redeemed from those who had imprisoned him and had treated him so cruelly.

The idea of ransom that we read here in Mark 10:45;

“The Son of man came not to be served, but to serve, and to give His life as a ransom for many.”

Is found through out the Scripture.

In the OT the concept of redemption and of ransom as the price paid in order to purchase back something that was captured is found in the Hebrew word “Kopher.” This word is often translated as “ransom” and communicates the idea of the price paid to secure the release of something or someone. So this idea of a ransom price paid for release goes way back.

In Ex. 21:30 we read how the law provided for a ransom payment be paid in order to redeem a life.

  “If payment is demanded of him, he may redeem his life by paying the full amount demanded of him.”

This idea of ransom as the price paid for redemption was a center piece in the the OT sacrificial system as we read in Leviticus 17:11

“For the life of the flesh is in the blood, and I have given it to you on the altar to make atonement for your souls; for it is the blood that makes atonement by the life.”

Here we learn that God’s people were atoned for and so redeemed by means  of a sacrifice that served as a ransom price paid. The sins of the people were symbolically covered because the ransom price was paid — a ransom price of sacrificial blood and redemption was secured.

However, this ransom principle was there in the great Hebrew Passover. There we find the Passover lamb being a type of Jesus. When Jesus says that He came to give His life a ransom for many his hearers should have connected in their minds the Passover lamb as the ransom price paid for the release of the Hebrews from their bondage, sin, and misery inflicted upon them by their Egyptian task masters.

Let us briefly collect here what we have learned about the idea of “ransom.”

The ransom price paid in Scripture was the price paid to redeem … to purchase back something or someone who had been captured and was in a onerous situation characterized by hardship and cruelty.

What we see here is that ransom and redemption in the Scripture goes together like peas and carrots. There is no redemption without a ransom price being paid. Without the shedding of blood as the ransom price there is no forgiveness or release from sin.

We have also learned already — though we are going to tease it out further —  that this ransom that Jesus talks about giving Himself as in Mark 10:45 is another demonstration of how the Scripture speaks as one organic unit.

When Jesus speaks of being a ransom for many He does so in the context of it having been already said of Him by His cousin that “He was the lamb of God who had come to take aways the sins of the world” (John 1:29).

There at the beginning of His ministry Jesus is spoken of as that OT Passover sacrificial lamb whose mission was to pay the ransom price that would redeem God’s people by removing them from the prison-house of Satan and more importantly from the terrors of God’s just wrath.

From the very beginning of His ministry Jesus is marked out as the lamb who would pay the ransom price and then towards the end of His ministry Jesus says explicitly that He is the one who is going to pay the ransom price that would secure redemption for those who would sue for peace.

This idea of ransom and redemption has thus been building throughout the Scriptures. Like a blizzard that finally arrives with the coming of Jesus Christ the storm of salvation has been building and building throughout the OT. Part of that burgeoning storm that was promissory of Christ being a ransom was the idea of a ransom price that had to be paid in order to secure release from inflicted sin and misery and certain wrath to come that we find in the OT.

We find it explicitly in the OT sacrificial system where even though it was impossible that the blood of bulls and goats could ever take away sin, still the blood of bulls and goats were types of one who was coming whose blood could pay the ransom price justly required by the Father and so take away sin.

Types… types… the work of Jesus Christ paying the ransom price that was sufficient was the anti-type of those earlier types. That is to say that Jesus as the lamb of God who gave Himself as a ransom for many was the fulfillment of all that was anticipated by pictures and symbols in the OT. In theological language they were the type … the movie trailer …. and Jesus is the anti-type … all that was promised in the movie trailer.

Or to use my earlier language, salvation is a blizzard coming but in the OT we get only the beginning of the falling snow… that falling snow is a promise of the blizzard coming but the blizzard is not yet here but the early snowfall promises its coming. All that blood, sacrifice, dead animals, in the OT were the first falling salvation snow that were predictive of the salvation blizzard coming that found its arrival in Jesus as that lamb who would serve as a ransom for many.

This is of interest to all Christians because it is by Christ’s paying of the ransom price that we are delivered from the dominion of darkness to the Kingdom of God’s dear Son whom He loves. It is by this paying of the ransom price that we are redeemed from God’s just wrath against sin and sinners. Without Christ giving His life as a ransom for many we remained, like John Paul Getty III, held captive to the forces of destruction.

We pause again to emphasize what we have learned here. We have learned that the Scripture provide an organic unity that speaks of a coming salvation… a coming ransom. We have learned that that organic unity often uses the literary technique of type and anti-type. The type is the movie trailer… the anti-type is all that the movie trailer promises. We have learned that the Scriptures are like a coming blizzard of salvation. In the OT we have the first beginning snowfall that is promissory of the blizzard of salvation that will arrive in the coming of Jesus Christ to be the lamb of God who will give His life as a ransom for many.

If we wanted to we could talk about how the idea of ransom was already being hinted after the fall. There God promised a blizzard announcing the coming of a Messiah who would ransom His people by crushing the head of the serpent. There, after the fall, with Adam and Eve being covered by God with animal skins already there is a hint that without the shedding of blood there will be no forgiveness of sin. And that theme is developed as the theme of ransom is developed throughout the OT. The Passover lamb for the Hebrews is the ransom paid for release. Isaiah 53 explicitly talks about how this lamb who would pay the ransom price would be wounded for our transgressions and how by His stripes we would be healed.

What we have considered so far teaches us that apart from some kind of ransom paid there is no release of the penalty of sin that we are under.

Many are those who have come forward who have tried to insist that this idea of a ransom paid in order to being the price paid in order to release us from our sin and misery and God’s just wrath, is not required by Scripture. Yet, Jesus Himself here says that the Son of Man came not to be served but to serve and to give Himself as a ransom for many.

Let’s spend a wee bit of time breaking that down;

First,  we speak of Christ’s humiliation in His ransom

When Christ’s speaks of His paying the ransom price He is speaking of the final step downward in His work of humiliation. He was born under the law. He was despised and rejected by men. He was in all ways tempted like we yet without sin. Now, however He reaches the apex of his humiliation. He goes to the Cross to pay the ransom price for our redemption. There on the Cross, as our ransom price securing our redemption, the God man endures the turning away of the Father’s pleasure that those who would come under the Ransom peace might one day be comforted with knowing that the Father is pleased with them for the sake of Christ the ransom.

Second we speak of one particular of Christ’s ransom work

The particular I want to speak briefly of here is to whom is the ransomed paid. Some of the early church Fathers spoke of a theory of ransom and redemption that was called the “Ransom to Satan theory of the atonement.” In that theory this ransom price of Christ’s Cross death is paid to Satan as the one who has imprisoned God’s people in the dominion of Darkness. Christ deceives Satan by dying on the cross, becoming as it were bait that Satan might seize and yet the hook in the cross was the resurrection and Satan, being fooled has been plundered of His creaturely captives.

However, it is better to speak of Christ’s ransom price being paid to the Father because the great danger to those needing to be redeemed .. those needing to be ransomed was not being under Satan’s dominion but was rather being under the Father’s just wrath against Sin.

So, when it comes to the Ransom we do not speak as if that price was paid to Satan for our release from his cruelty though that certainly is one of the chief benefits. No, we speak instead of being ransomed from the Father’s just wrath against Sin. This was our greatest fear… and our greatest danger. But the Son pays the ransom price and by His stripes we are healed and God’s wrath is turned away from the Redeemed because it fell instead on the substitute.

So, this ransom was about glorifying God before it was about releasing man, though there was no glorifying God that did not eventuate in the releasing of His church. John Owen captured some of this in His catechism;

Q. In what does the exercise of his priestly office for us chiefly consist?

A. In offering up himself an acceptable sacrifice on the cross, so satisfying the justice of God for our sins, removing his curse from our persons, and bringing us unto him. — Chapter 13.

John Owen

Note that before Owen speaks about the curse being removed from our persons he notes that Christ satisfied the justice of God for our sins. There it is. Christ died for God. Theocentric thinking on the Cross.

This bring us to speak of Christ’s substitution in His ransom

When Jesus says He is going to give His life as a ransom for many He makes it clear He is going to die in their place … He is going to die for them … He is going to die in their stead. This all speaks of substitution. Christ is our ransom because He was our substitution. Christ for us, the hope of glory. An older word for this was the idea that Christ was our surety – one who acts in the place of another.

Because Jesus was our surety … because He acted in our place by paying the just ransom that we could never pay we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ. This is provides one major reason why Christians worship Jesus Christ. They understand that if Jesus had not paid the ransom for them they would continue to be in danger of God’s current and future wrath as well as daily experiencing being under the dominion of Satan w/ all the misery thereof.

But Jesus came to give His life as a ransom for many and the Church is God’s many.

This bring us then to speak of the particularity in Christ’s ransom.

Jesus says here that He came to give His life as a ransom for many. He did not say here that He came to give His life as a ransom for all. This truth squashes the idea of Universalism — that doctrine that teaches that all men who have ever lived will be saved. All men will not be saved because Jesus did not come to die for all men but only for “the many.” Christ came to die for those who would, because of the Spirit’s Work, be convinced of their sin and so be done with themselves as their own god and who would in faith turn from their defiance of God and so know God’s favor.

This particularity of Christ’s ransom … that He gave His life as a ransom for many, and not for all, also puts a stake in the idea of Hypothetical universalism. This is the doctrine that Christ dies as a ransom for everybody without exception yet without everybody being ransomed. Should we believe this perversity that Christ died as a ransom for everybody but everybody is not ransomed we empty the worth of Christ’s ransom. We suggest that it is not really the ransom paid by Christ that rescues us but rather it was our agreement with the ransom that makes the ransom have the quality of ransom-ness.  This belief is to empty the ransom of its potency placing that potency in not what Christ has paid for our redemption but in our concurrence with His potential payment.

Now let us turn to speak of one final implication of Christ’s ransom payment;

Christ pays the ransom price to the Father. That ransom price, as we have said, is the shedding of His own blood, because without the shedding of blood there is no forgiveness of sins. The payment of this ransom price delivers God’s particular people from God’s just wrath and from having residence in the dominion of darkness.

That ransom price is paid. The truth of that was echoed in our Lord’s cry, “It is finished.” The ransom price was paid. Now if the ransom price was paid in full this means that those who have come under the covering of the one who paid the ransom price in their place have had their ransom paid in full. The ransom having been paid, God’s just wrath is passed and we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ.

What this then implies is that the ransom price having been paid there will never be any more yet to pay. This in turn means that once we have looked to Christ for release from the Father’s wrath we will never again be under the Father’s wrath for sins. It means further, that we will not lose what have been gained in our place. It means having been saved, we shall be saved. We will be preserved till the end and we will persevere.  Christ having given His life as a ransom for many those many who have had a good work begin in them by Christ Jesus will run the race and finish the course. Having been ransomed … having tasted the goodness of God in the land of the living … having had our sins taken way, and God’s wrath turned away because of the ransomed paid we will never come under God’s judgment again. The ransom has been paid in full. Our sins, past, present, and future have been paid for and we now are the righteousness of God in Christ.

This ransom paying for our redemption as it does and delivering us from our sin and misery, delivering us from the dominion of darkness, and delivering us from God’s just wrath works in the redeemed a magnificent gratitude for this peace w/ God. Having been ransomed we now live the ransomed life. St. Paul ties these ideas together … the idea of having been ransomed and living a new life when he writes to the Corinthians;

20 for you were bought with a price. So glorify God in your body.

The idea is that having been ransomed … bought with a price … the effect of that ransom is walk as one who has ben brought back from the dead. Having been brought back from the dead we live unto and for God as His happy warriors.

Responding to Aaron Renn’s Complaint About Conservatives “Fetishizing Doctrine”

“Doctrine is important. Obviously bad doctrine is bad. But there’s a tendency in conservative circles to improperly fetishize doctrine to the exclusion of other important things. This is the “America is an idea” of conservative Christianity.”

Aaron Renn

1.) Here we see Aaron Renn fetishizing the doctrine that fetishizing the idea that good doctrine is important is bad doctrine.

 
2.) One presumes that “other important things” are things that have meaning and are to be believed and therefore are doctrinal in nature.
 

3.) What non-doctrinal realities (other important things) is Renn speaking of that can be enumerated w/o becoming doctrinal matters to be believed? In other words can Renn tell me what these “other important things” are without these “other important things” instantly becoming doctrine – something to be believed and acted upon.

4.) If Renn is talking about “other important things” like acting and/or living in a Christian manner one must ask how one gets to acting and/or living in a Christian manner apart from believing Christian doctrine or apart from believing the doctrine that Christians should act and live as Christians?

5.) Renn then segues from the idea that “doctrine is not the only important thing” to the observation that thinking that doctrine is the most important thing is an example of “America is an idea” conservativism. Presumably, Renn holds the doctrine that “America is an idea” is a bad doctrine that should not be held. If Renn, at this point fetishizing the importance of his doctrine that America is not an idea, or more than an idea doctrine?

Understand, at this point I am not weighing in on the subject of whether of not America is an idea is a good or bad idea. I am weighing in on the subject that whether one concludes that the doctrine that “America is an idea” is bad doctrine or good doctrine it remains doctrine, and clearly a doctrine that Renn seems to be fetishizing about.

6.) What we need from Renn in order to substantiate his claim about fetishizing doctrine — or to even understand his claim about fetishizing doctrine are some examples of things that are important besides doctrine that can be articulated without becoming doctrine.

If he cannot provide those examples his statement is completely self-refuting and he is exposed as a not smart man.

Renn then goes on to say;

“So when the creed says “I believe in the communion of saints” that means agreement on doctrine? When the Bible talks about “the body of Christ” that’s about agreement on doctrine? Again, doctrine is important but doctrinalism is missing important things. Never forget, demons are in agreement with perfect doctrine.”

1.) How can I believe in the communion of saints apart from having a doctrine of what communion of the saints means?

2.) Of course “communion of saints” means “agreement on doctrine.” Does it mean, per Renn, disagreement on doctrine? The Scripture asks, “Can two men walk together unless they be agreed (Amos 3:3)?” Agreed on what?  Agreed on doctrine of course. So, “yes,” when the creed says “We believe in the communion of the saints,” a doctrinal belief is being articulated which includes the idea that having communion with the saints means, at least in part, a shared set of convictions and beliefs — doctrine.

3.) How can we know about the “body of Christ” unless we first have a doctrine of “the body of Christ?” So, yes, when the Bible talks about “the body of Christ,” we are talking about a doctrine which then gets fleshed out in our everyday living. If Renn is upset that Christians are not nice enough or that they are inconsistent with their doctrine then let him  say that and let him realize that if Christians are inconsistent with their doctrine then it is because what they say they believe as doctrine is trumped by what they are really believing about doctrine. One cannot separate how a man acts from what a man believes.

4.) Ren then reaches for “Even the demons believe and shudder.” However, the demons believe as those who have lost their first estate. Their shuddering is the shuddering of those who, while believing, are damned for not combining their believing with works. Is this what Renn is fetishizing about? Is Renn trying to make the doctrinal point that too many Christians have right doctrine but wrong behavior? Well, the answer then is not to curse doctrine. The answer is connect the dots between unseemly behavior and unseemly doctrine and then to challenge folks on the difference between their stated doctrine and their lived out doctrine.

Renn then ends this anti-doctrinal explosion with;

One example: “And if I have prophetic powers, and understand all mysteries and all knowledge, and if I have all faith, so as to remove mountains, but have not love, I am nothing.”

1.) Ironic that Renn chooses the chapter in the Bible to make his point that elucidates most clearly the doctrine of Christian love.

2.) Of course we are to have love as Christians but does love really stand in opposition to doctrine? What does love look like? How does it respond to need? What does it mean? We cannot even begin to talk about Christian love without having a doctrine of Christian love.

All of life has meaning. Everything means something. All doctrine does is gives us handles in order to understand the meaning and purpose of life… of everything. Nothing exists that isn’t driven by doctrine. This is why Scripture explicitly teaches … “As a man thinketh in his heart (in the core of his being) so he is.”