Progressive Reduction … Progressive Advance and the Postmillennial hope

The movement of Scripture seems to require a postmillennial eschatology.

Think about it. The Old Covenant moves from the Universal to the Particular after the fall. After the fall God’s salvation design is towards all men, but after the flood and after Babel that design is particularized to one people (Israel). From there the failure of Israel, like the failure of mankind prior to the flood, means an even more progressive reduction moving to “the remnant” and then finally culminating in this progressive reduction in the election of Jesus Christ to be God’s representative for the Redemption of His people. However, with the resurrection of Christ, we find the reversal of the previous progressive reduction to a progressive advance and broadening of redemption. What had been, prior to the arrival of Christ, a redemptive movement of the many to the one, with the resurrection the redemptive energy reverses and is now from the one to the many. We are still looking at election and representation, but the further salvific development unfolds so that from the center reached in the resurrection of Christ the way no longer leads from the many to the One but rather, as seen in the incorporating of the Nations, the movement of Redemption is progressively advancing from the one to the many. Consistently traced out this pattern and trajectory requires a belief in postmillennialism.

This hour-glass movement of Redemption (progressive reduction and narrowing to progressive advance and broadening) is most clearly articulated in Galatians 3:6 – 4:7. In that passage St. Paul begins with the promise to Abraham and his seed and reveals how ultimately the promise is to the Christ (3:16) who effectuates the ransom by His substitutionary death (4:5). This vicarious atonement results in the broadening of Redemption’s reach as all men and people may now become descendants of Abraham (3:26, 29) by faith alone in Christ alone.  All may become “sons and heirs” (4:4-7) through baptism.

Maybe Warfield’s “Universal Postmillennialism” was correct?

In an interesting aside one can also see this double helix hourglass movement in the Christian measuring of time by way of metaphor. Before Christ (BC) the years are numbered in a progressive reduction. However, with the arrival of Christ (AD) the numbering of the years continues to climb progressively year by year. This becomes an excellent illustration for the way that the first Christians measured redemptive time. The center and focal point is Christ and with Christ time is reoriented with the Christ event. 

 

Multiculturalism as the New Religion in Town

Religion — Any system of faith and worship. In this sense, religion comprehends the belief and worship of pagans and Mohammedans, as well as of Christians; any religion consisting in the belief of a superior power or powers governing the world, and in the worship of such power or powers. Thus we speak of the religion of the Turks, of the Hindoos, of the Indians, etc. as well as of the Christian religion We speak of false religion as well as of true religion.

1828 Webster’s Dictionary

“The State is the Divine Idea as it exists on earth. . . . We must, therefore, worship the State as the manifestation of the Divine on earth, and consider that if it is difficult to comprehend Nature, it is harder to grasp the Essence of the State. . . .[T]he State is the march of God through the world.”

Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel

It is my conviction that Religion is an inescapable category. All men organize their social order in subservience to, as Webster tells us, “belief of a superior power or powers governing the world.” Thus, all cultures are naught but the expression of the religion of the people who comprise that culture. Culture then is the religion of a people put into real life social order animation.

One thing we should immediately note is how ridiculous it is to make blanket condemnations as “all religion being bad.” Christians often do this by saying things like, “I don’t have a religion. I have a relationship.” Religion is an inescapable category and so while some religions are worse than others (and all are worse than Biblical Christianity) the reality is that all people and peoples are religious. This is true also of those (usually the atheist crowd) who say “I don’t have a religion.”  That this is true is explained by the fact that it is the religion of people who condemn religion that accounts for their condemnation of religion. The idea of something (in this case “religion”) being “bad” requires a moral foundation upon which to make such a pronouncement and that moral foundation is nothing else but an expression of a religion. In their statement, “I don’t have a religion,” or “Religion is wicked and accounts for all the evil of the world,” they are their own superior power that is governing the world (see Webster’s definition) and so their egoism is their religion. 

For most moderns the State is their god and so provides their religion as the Hegel quote indicates. For those non-Christians who haven’t taken the state as their god, the result usually is that they are their own gods, determining good and evil. As such their individual egos are their own religion. Religion is an inescapable category.

Given all that the above is true we might ask ourselves what is the religion of our culture. Below provides just a bit of a teasing out of the answer to that question.

I.) The Religion of Modernism

Multiculturalist Diversity

The irony here is lodged in the fact that the pursuit of multiculturalism finally arrives in the embrace of a monoculture as everybody is straitjacketed into the singular embrace of a uniform multicultural social order where the equality of all cultures create and reflect the monolithic religion behind multiculturalism.

II.) The Temple / Church of Modernism

US Government outlets (Civic bldgs., Schools, etc.)

All religions have a Temple or gathering place where the worshipers come to worship and be catechized. In the West, the Government facility has replaced the Temple as the Church of Modernism. In Church facilities, we educate our young into the state religion.  We send our tithes and offerings to the Church every year. We place our dead heroes in Temple like structures (think of the Lincoln Memorial). It is all really quite religious as in the State we live and move and have our being.

III.) Priest Class

Bureaucrats / Teachers / Ministers / Professional Class

All religions have a Preistcraft. Modernism as a religion is no different. The Priest class serves to guide the people in how to satisfy the god and how to practice the religion. The Priestcraft have a self-interest in perpetuating the religion since their lifestyle is dependent upon the religion being kept stoked. In the West, the God state is served by a Preistcraft that now includes almost the whole white collar professional class. Because of the totalitarian presence of the State nearly all the white collar professional class is beholden to the religion of multiculturalism and so supports it and inculcates it in all their doings. From Shrinks, to Shysters, to Ministers, to Teachers, to Businessmen, to Medial Doctors, to Academia, they all are tasked with serving multiculturalism as the religion and the State as God.

IV.)  Catechism Motifs

All religions have their catch phrases and pithy motifs that the Preistcraft must teach. In Christianity one might use as just one example, “the chief end of man is to glorify God and fully enjoy Him forever.” In the religion of multiculturalism, we get mindless pithy motifs that all are to embrace such as, “Diversity is our strength,” and, “White people are evil,” and “All people and all cultures are equal.” These and like simple-minded motifs constitute the lubricant that oils the thinking of the whole social order.

V.) Mission’s Agency

United Nations,  Evangelical Church Sending Agencies, US Military

Every religion has an agency whereby the religion is spread to others who are deprived of the great religion. In the social order of the West that Missions agency ranges from the United Nations publishing arm to the most Missionary agencies of most of the Denominations that constitute modern Christianity. Christianity has been reinterpreted through the grid of multiculturalism so that much of what is pushed as Christianity by missionaries (both home and abroad) is just another expression of multiculturalism. When nations are particularly resistant to being convinced of the truth of multiculturalism then we turn to the US Military to convert by the sword.

VI.) Criminal Code

Hate Crimes / homophobia / Sexist / Racist

Every religion develops a criminal code as to what is allowed and what is not allowed. Multiculturalism, as a religion, seeks to criminalize behavior that does not support the zeitgeist. As such multiculturalism creates hate crimes that punish with extra zeal those guilty of hating beyond the normal hate that comes with every crime. Further, homophobia, sexism, racism, while not yet criminal, are so deeply taboo that to violate them puts one outside the company of “civilized” people.

VII.) Propaganda Wing

Hollywood / Top 40 / Government schools / Media Outlets

Every religion has a propaganda wing. The propaganda wing of multiculturalism is Hollywood, Top 40 music of almost all genres, and Government schools, and newspapers, magazines, radio talk show, etc. All of these are not concerned with teaching people to think critically. All are concerned with teaching people what to think. All teach people the virtues of multiculturalism. We are bombarded with messaging that informs us that all relationships are equal. That all sexuality is equal. Christian white people are evil. Patriarchy is despicable. Heirarchy is bias.

VIII.) Main Goal

Overthrow Christianity

Samuel Francis, in his “Leviathan and Its Enemies,” captured this when he wrote,

“The persistence of traditional institutions and systems of belief constrains and impedes the continuing growth of mass organizations and their operations, and it is imperative for the emerging elites to challenge, discredit, and erode the moral, intellectual, and institutional fabric of traditional society that sustains the older elites and the systems of beliefs, or ideologies, on which their rule is based.”

The goal of multiculturalism is to completely destroy Christianity as the religion of the West. It has been largely successful to that end. The emerging multicultural elites are doing all in their powers to overthrow Christ and Christianity in favor of the cultural marxism that drives multiculturalism.

VIII.) Chief method to that end

The use of Critical theory to destroy White people

Critical theory was a means developed to viciously attack any aspect of thinking that had Christianity as its origin. It presupposed that Christian thinking was responsible for social orders that enslaved. It was leveraged as upon the foundation of Cultural Marxism and so all the criticism as run through the prism of Cultural Marxism in order to smash Christianity as evil. The reason that it especially is pointed on White people is that the Cultural Marxist understood that White people have been, historically speaking, the main carriers of Christianity and the builders of Christian civilizations. The Cultural Marxists of the Frankfurt school (the origin of movement multiculturalism) understood that if white people are destroyed the consequence is that Christianity will be destroyed.

This also explains the push for amnesty and the immigration crisis that the West is facing.

IX.) High Holy Days

Martin Luther King Day / 4th of July / Veterans day

Every religion has its own high holy days. Multiculturalism is no different. This explains why multiculturalism so intensely makes “war on Christmas.” Multiculturalism understands that Christmas is a high, holy day in competition with its own high holy days. The high holy days of multiculturalism celebrates egalitarianism and diversity, or the god-state and those who have died for it. (Why anybody can’t see the contradiction in praising, at the same time, both diversity and egalitarianism is quite beyond me.)

X.) Enemy of “The People”

a.) Epistemologically self-conscious Christians
b.) Trustee Family
c.) Property

Multiculturalism understands that it has enemies that it must snuff out. We noted above that Multiculturalism, as a religion, understands that its greatest threat is Christian white people. This category just refines that a wee bit further. Multiculturalism understands that the “enemy of the multiculturalist people” are especially those who are epistemologically self-conscious Christians. Epistemologically self-conscious Christians see through the three-card monte con of multiculturalism and so are understood as a threat and so must be professionally destroyed.

The Trustee family is such a distinct enemy of the adherents of multiculturalism because the Trustee family embraces hierarchy and patriarchy, and so eschews egalitarianism.

Property also is seen as an enemy of multiculturalism because property introduces a “mine, not yours” mentality which wages wars on everyone being and having the same.

So, this is a brief description of the new religion of the West. It is a description that seeks at the same time to reinforce that religion is an inescapable category that can’t be avoided. Either we will return to Christ and so have abundant life again or we will embrace some other religion of death.

Eschatological Musings

“The whole content of Paul’s preaching can be summarized as the proclamation and explication of the eschatological time of salvation inaugurated with Christ’s advent, death, and resurrection.”

Herman Ridderbos
Paul: An Outline of His Theology — pg, 44

For Christians, the Redemptive sequence of events initiated by the birth of Christ marks the future eschatological age as invading the present non-eschatological age. As such, for every Christian since the 1st advent the present crackles with the meaning that the future invests it with. For every Christian died with Christ, is now resurrected with Christ, is now seated with Christ in the heavenlies and is reigning now with Christ. Every Christian has the Holy Spirit who is the anticipation of the end as occupying the present. Every Christian has been translated from the Kingdom of darkness to the Kingdom of God’s dear son. Every Christian is tasting of the powers of the age to come in their existential present. We are living in the eschatological latter days in our current existence because with Christ’s work the latter days have arrived.

Christians are like Tolkien’s elves who occupy two worlds at the same time. As being citizens in the age to come we are God’s agents of change as inveighing against this present evil age wherever we find it. We are those whom God uses to turn the wilderness of this present wicked age into the garden of the Lord so that it blooms with age to come ferocity.

All of this makes us a future-oriented people but it is a future orientation which is rooted and grounded in the past because the future orientation is dependent upon how the Christ event brought the future into the then present.

It is true that we are moving towards the future eschatological age but this is only true because in the Christ event the future eschatological age located and locates itself in the present.

All of this is why St. Paul could say, “We are more than conquerors.”

On the importance of attending Church … If you can find one

 

Once upon a time it was commonly understood, because it had been routinely taught, that it was the Church alone where one could find Word and Sacrament. Now, Word and Sacrament were the alone means by which God fed His people Christ so as they would grow spiritually. In attending Word and Sacrament in the context of Worship, God conveyed His favor in a way in which He conveyed His favor in no other way at no other place. Thus to absent one’s self from attending the means of grace, (Word and Sacrament) would automatically mean the shriveling of one’s soul. As such, devout Reformed folk looked forward to the Lord’s Day because in attending Word and Sacraments they knew that would be nourished and refreshed unto eternal life. The Lord’s Day was thus seen as a festive day of rest wherein one was spiritually rejuvenated.

This thinking has been lost among our people for several reasons.

1.) Reformed Churches are just reflections of the larger cultural landscape and as such there is very little if any of Christ to be found in Word and Sacrament on the Lord’s Day in many Reformed Churches. Much of the Worship of the contemporary Church has been reduced to the level of a bad Neil Diamond concert as combined with a relevant talk.

You wouldn’t go to a restaurant to feast on dog food. Why go to Church to be offered up a false Christ?

2.) Our people have been convinced that religion is defined by the tingling of emotions. Where there is no Pentecostal pizzaz, there Christ is absent, is the current thinking.

3.) People opt for the ephemeral “spirituality” category rather than the doctrine that undergirds Word and Sacrament. One can be just as spiritual staying home and baking cookies as they can be by going to church and attending to Word and Sacrament.

4.) A good number of people don’t even think in terms of “what is and is not good for their souls.” Materialism dominates.

5.) People have never even heard of God giving Himself via preached Word and dispensed Sacrament. Most believe that God can be accessed in any number of ways. This is why “spirituality” is in while theology is out.

Until the doctrine of Word and Sacrament is restored the Church will continue to either languish or recreate itself into something that isn’t Church.

Ask the Pastor…. “But Christians Aren’t Under the Law?”

 

Dear Pastor,

Scripture says that we (Christians) are no longer under law. Can you explain to me why you teach that Christians are obliged to walk by God’s Law-Word?

Patrick
Colon, Michigan

Dear Patrick,

Let’s look at the passage that you reference

Romans 6:12 Therefore do not let sin reign in your mortal body so that you obey its lusts, 13 and do not go on presenting the members of your body to sin as instruments of unrighteousness; but present yourselves to God as those alive from the dead, and your members as instruments of righteousness to God. 14 For sin shall not be master over you, for you are not under law but under grace.

Paul is using the word “law” here to designate that which must be fulfilled as a required precursor to acceptance with God. The Christian has been delivered from being under law as a means of find peace with God. As such, when St. Paul says here that we are not “under law” he is not suggesting that God’s law is no longer relevant to the Christian. Paul is saying that the Christian is not under law as a systematic program to escape condemnation.

If Christians did yet remain under the law as a totalistic program for righteousness then sin would continue to have dominion over the Christian since the law, as a program for righteousness, cannot deliver but can only accuse. Because the Christian is under the reign of grace as God’s means of righteousness the Christian can refuse to let sin reign in their mortal bodies. “Under the reign of Grace” provides a power source for dealing with sin that “Under the reign of Law” could never provide, dead as we were in Adam.

Note also, though that at the Apostle repeatedly talks about “sin.” This implies a necessity for the concept of law because there is no way to even know what sin is apart from a standard (God’s Law) by which sin can be defined and identified. If we were to be done with the law, as many Christians advocate, then we would also be done with any concept of sin. It does me no good to encourage me to say no to sin or to lust if at the same time there is no law that standardizes what sin is.  How could we possibly know what behavior, thinking, attitudes please our great Liege-Lord apart from His Law-Word?

Christ did not redeem us so that we might walk contrary to His Law-Word. The Law’s intent is not so that by the keeping of it we can be saved. We can’t keep it as it is needed to be kept. That is why Christ came as our covenant head. Our Lord Christ fulfilled the law in our stead and because of the righteousness accounted to us we are counted Law keepers. Similarly, our covenant head, the Lord Christ, bore our penalty in our place on the Cross that our indebtedness to the Law is fulfilled as we are united to Christ.

BUT now that the law has been fulfilled for us in Christ’s law keeping and penalty bearing we now walk in terms of God’s law. We delight in God’s law now, not as means of gaining something we do not have. We delight in God’s law now, as a consequence of being given something, via imputation of Christ’s righteousness, that we could not earn or merit.

As WCF IX:18 notes, “Law and grace do doth sweetly comply (agree).” We can not posit Grace against law for the Christian. God’s law for the Christian is gracious and God’s grace unto the Christian was due to its honoring all that the law required.

So, now we study God’s law in order to more fully delight in God’s grace.

Some will contend that we have been delivered from the law and so interpret that to mean that we have nothing to do with the law. This is an unfortunate error in interpreting and thinking. The aspect of the law that we have been delivered from is the condemning aspect of the law. Because we are in Christ we are delivered from the law’s condemnation. There is, after all, therefore now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus. However, deliverance from the law’s condemnation is not equal to the idea of no longer having anything to do with the law. This is why the inspired Apostle can say that; “The law is Holy, Righteous, and Good.”

Praise God for His kindness to usward as expressed by giving us His Law-Word. Praise God that the Lord Christ was and remains the embodiment and incarnation of God’s Law. To properly love God’s law is to love Christ. Correspondingly a lack of love for God’s Law-Word is a lack of love for Christ.