Sermon on Infant Baptism

5Gen. 17:7, And I will establish My covenant between Me and thee and thy seed after thee in their generations for an everlasting covenant, to be a God unto thee, and to thy seed after thee.

Acts 2:39, For the promise is unto you, and to your children, and to all that are afar off, even as many as the Lord our God shall call.

6/ 1 Cor. 7:14, For the unbelieving husband is sanctified by the wife, and the unbelieving wife is sanctified by the husband: else were your children unclean; but now are they holy.

Joel 2:16, Gather the people, sanctify the congregation, assemble the elders, gather the children, and those that suck the breasts: let the bridegroom go forth of his chamber, and the bride out of her closet.

7Matt. 19:14, But Jesus said, Suffer little children, and forbid them not, to come unto Me: for of such is the kingdom of heaven.

8Luke 1:14–15, And thou shalt have joy and gladness; and many shall rejoice at His birth. For He shall be great in the sight of the Lord, and shall drink neither wine nor strong drink; and He shall be filled with the Holy Ghost, even from His mother’s womb.

Ps. 22:10, I was cast upon thee from the womb: Thou art my God from my mother’s belly.

Acts 2:39, For the promise is unto you, and to your children, and to all that are afar off, even as many as the Lord our God shall call.

9Acts 10:47, Can any man forbid water, that these should not be baptized, which have received the Holy Ghost as well as we?

1 Cor. 12:13, For by one Spirit are we all baptized into one body, whether we be Jews or Gentiles, whether we be bond or free; and have been all made to drink into one Spirit.

1 Cor. 7:14, For the unbelieving husband is sanctified by the wife, and the unbelieving wife is sanctified by the husband: else were your children unclean; but now are they holy.

10 Gen. 17:14, And the uncircumcised man child whose flesh of his foreskin is not circumcised, that soul shall be cut off from his people; he hath broken My covenant.

11 Col. 2:11–13, In whom also ye are circumcised with the circumcision made without hands, in putting off the body of the sins of the flesh by the circumcision of Christ: buried with Him in baptism, wherein also ye are risen with Him through the faith of the operation of God, who hath raised Him from the dead. And you, being dead in your sins and the uncircumcision of your flesh, hath He quickened together with Him, having forgiven you all trespasses.

LD #27 – HC Question 74:

Are infants also to be baptized?

Answer: Yes, for since they, as well as the adult, are included in the covenant5 and church of God;6 and since redemption from sin7 by the blood of Christ, and the Holy Ghost, the author of faith, is promised to them8 no less than to the adult; they must therefore by baptism, as a sign of the covenant, be also admitted into the Christian church, and be distinguished from the children of unbelievers9 as was done in the old covenant or testament by circumcision,10 instead of which baptism is instituted in the new covenant.11

Inasmuch as we have much to consider this morning, I will not be able to deal with this Q & A exhaustively. If you want the whole consideration I encourage you to visit Iron Ink where this is laid out in its entirety in different posts.

As we consider this Catechism question we want to note upfront that what we will be doing this morning is providing a cumulative argument in answering the question; “Should Infants be baptized.” We are going to present a series of arguments affirming that infants should be baptized and in the doing of that we will be appealing to many of the Scriptures that the Catechizers offered as support for this answer.

As we start out here we first note that in what must be considered the old and worse covenant when compared to the new and better covenant God’s grace included the children, but now, per Baptist thinking, in the new and better covenant God’s grace excludes the children and we likewise, if we are to be Biblical must also forbid the little children from coming unto Christ because allegedly they would never comprise the Kingdom of God.

Quite to the contrary what we instead see in the NT is that God’s grace expands, as compared to the OT, in its largess so as to include the Nations, so as to now place the sign of the covenant on both males and females, and so as to promise that it shall conquer the globe. Yet, Baptists would have us believe, by their conviction and doctrine that the one place where God’s grace contracts in the NT is with His and our covenant children. In the NT, unlike the OT, God’s grace is constrained so as to leave out those who were once included.

Next, as to this question of whether or not infants should be baptized we consider;

Gal. 3:29 And if you are Christ’s, then you are Abraham’s seed, and heirs according to the promise.

And what was that promise? Gen. 17:7-8

And I will establish my covenant between me and thee and thy seed after thee in their generations for an everlasting covenant, to be a God unto thee, and to thy seed after thee…

Are we to believe that now that we have been graciously brought into the covenant as Abraham’s seed that the great covenant promise given to Abraham and his seed is no longer operative for us and our seed? If Abraham’s seed was part of the covenant promise then why should it be the case that our seed today, as children of Abraham ourselves, should not be given the sign of the covenant?

When we consider this question of whether our infants should be baptized we note that we believe that in coming to the Baptismal Font we are coming to the place where we find Christ and the promises of God. As the Catechism teaches (HC Q. 66)The Baptismal Font bespeaks of the granting to God’s people free remission of sin and life eternal for the sake of that one sacrifice of Christ accomplished on the cross. At the Baptismal Font we find Christ and all His promises. At the Baptismal font Christ greets and receives us and our children.

And so, following the NT example we bring our children here to Christ and His promises just as in the 1st century they brought their children to be blessed by Christ. And Just as the Lord received children as belonging to the covenant community then as recorded in Mt. 19:14 and as heard in His declarative statement “Let the little children come unto me,” so we believe and know that Christ says to His people today the same and so we bring our children, knowing that Christ is pleased.

And we do so despite the ringing in our ears of Baptists today, like the disciples in Jesus’ day to forbid the children from coming to Christ we continue to bring our children to our and their sovereign Liege-Lord Jesus Christ. And, frankly, we are just as irritated with the Baptists today as Jesus was with His disciples then for their seeking to block the way of the covenant seed coming to Jesus.

Now, the typical Baptist will object here;

Children were and are brought to Christ- not to the Baptismal font.

And to that, as Biblical Christians we respond by noting that “We are presented today with Christ only in Word and Sacrament. There alone we meet and find Christ. If our children are to be received by Christ they can only come unto Him by coming to via Word & Sacrament.”

Next we consider I Cor. 7. When we come to I Cor. 7 we find the Holy Spirit talking about the children of believers and there the Apostle crafts an argument wherein it is assumed that the seed of any one believer are holy — just as they had always been considered through revelational history. The context finds St. Paul talking about marriages between Christians and non-Christians and there the Spirit of God calls such marriages “Holy,” on the premise that if one of the parties to the marriage are part of the covenant than the marriage and the children from the marriage are considered by God as Holy — that is set apart. Now if the Apostle designates such children are considered as set apart and so Holy should they not be given the sign of the covenant that marks out all God’s people as Holy and set apart? If the premise in I Cor. 7 is that children are Holy are they not part of the covenant community and if part of the covenant community should they not be given the sign of the covenant?

Also, when it comes to infant Baptism the book of Acts yields five cases of household Baptisms. Remember, in household Baptisms if the head of the household is Baptized then all in the household are baptized. This was the pattern in the OT and nothing in the NT seems to overturn that. Now, we gladly concede that in none of these household baptisms is it explicitly said that infants/children were baptized. However, we can say upon the household principle that if infants/children were in those households then they were certainly baptized. Now add to this that in Ephesians we find this household language;

Eph. 2:19 Consequently, you are no longer foreigners and strangers, but fellow citizens with God’s people and also members of his household,

This is important in this discussion when we remember that God’s household throughout history had always included infants/children. That being so there is no reason to think that God’s household when we come to the NT is bereft of infants/children.

Now, add to all this the reality that the NT records that many of the Jews were outraged that the Gentiles were coming in but not one peep in the NT from the Jews that their children were now excluded from the covenant and it is past difficult to put off the conclusion that infants/children of God’s people were then and should now be baptized.

When it comes to this issue of infant-Baptism we have St. Peter’s own words

“The promise is to you and your children and for all who are afar off.” (Acts 2:39).

Now, we gladly concede that can be heard through Baptist ears in such a way that does not compel infant Baptism. The Baptist will tend to hear these words as meaning;

“The promise is to you (if you believe), to your children (if they believe), and to many who are afar off (if they believe).”

But a reading of the passage in light of previous revelation drives us to another conclusion. If we hear these words from Peter via the echo of revelational history and covenantal moorings we hear them in light of God’s speaking to Abraham once upon a time;

“It is to you and your children, and also to the nations that the blessing will come” (cf. Gen. 22:17-18).

Is not what Peter is saying in his Pentecost sermon that what was once promised to Father-Abraham in what is now called the “Abrahamic promise” that the promise remains to you and your children — but now the day has finally dawned where that promise goes out to the nations — the afar off ones — as well?”

I submit that is truer to the harmony of Scripture than the spin the Baptists want to put upon it.

Let us sign off by reveling and relishing in the grace and favor of God and His Christ who by His Spirit is so kind and generous to us that he includes in the covenant of grace the second highest of all our loves – our love for our children.

More Growling & Snarling From Van Drunen’s “Pit Yorkie”

“The TheoRecons are theologians of glory, selling conquest and dominion in this life, before Christ returns. But they cannot square that vision with the eschatology and ethos of the New Testament, and it is to the New Testament, not their vision of glory, that Christians are bound.”

Dr. R. Scott Clark
Van Drunen’s Pit Yorkie

1.) All people everywhere at all times are reconstructionists. One is either reconstructing all of life as informed by the Scripture or one is reconstructing all of life as informed by the authority of some other God.

2.)This means that we could call R2K, “The TheoRecons of a false god.”

3.) R2K as Theorecons of a false god are theologians of glory for their god — the God who defeats and crushes the one true God of the theonomists/reconstructionists.

4.) Note therefore the contest between R2K and the theonomists/reconstructionists is a contest between the pagan God of R2K and the one True God of the Bible. The Christianity of R2K is a different religion than the Christianity of the theonomists/postmillennialists and the god and God of those two different religions are at war with one another all across the Reformed landscape. The result of that war will define what it means to be Reformed for generations to come. Choose ye this day whom you shall follow; the god of Escondido or the God of the Bible.

5.) The New Testament, as well as the whole Bible, is a postmillennial document. Again because Scott has a different God than the theonomists he reads the Scripture through the lens of that different false god. Keep in mind that is called IDOLATRY.

6.) It has been said before but I will offer it up again here. R2K is Roman Catholic inasmuch as in their thinking Jesus Christ is always on the Cross. If they were to carry around croziers it would be with Jesus on the Cross. For them, Christ is only victorious in a spiritual manner and so they have him upon the cross still. This is why they complain about postmillennialism being a “theology of glory.” Don’t you care ever suggest that Jesus is not still on the cross and instead is reigning at the right hand of the Father. They can not have an ascended Jesus who is King of Kings and Lord of Lords except in a “spiritual” (read GNOSTIC) sense.

Josh & Becca’s Marriage Homily

The orthodox and Christian expectation is that the Christian faith will cover the earth as the waters cover the sea.  Indeed we are explicitly told in the OT text that is the most commonly cited text by NT authors that;

The Lord said to our Lord,
“Sit at My right hand,
Till I make Your enemies Your footstool.”

All of history is the fleshing out then of the enemies of Christ being conquered by a vibrant Christianity and so being made footstools of our Lord Jesus Christ.

So our expectation and indeed our certainty as adherents of the Christian faith and disciples of Jesus is that because Christ now has dominion Christ shall have dominion.

But now the question arises as to how that happens and the answer to that question is a long answer, all of which we will not be touching now. However, there is one aspect of that answer … one slice of that we want to examine briefly right now and that slice is standing before us dressed in a beautiful white dress and in a natty tux.

This dominion of Christ that is sure to cover the globe begins with husbands loving wives and wives obeying their husbands. The dominion of Christ, before it sweeps across nations, before it animates our social institutions in a Christian direction, before it defeats all contesting ideologies, it shows its first expression in marriage and family.

Dr. Bavinck reminds us that;

“The history of the human race did not begin atomistically, with a group of isolated individuals, but organically, with a marriage and a family.”

 

So, marriage and family are the seedbed of civilization and where that seedbed is fouled there civilizations die. So, if we desire to see the inevitable present triumph of Christ continue to come to pass we have need to tend to our marriages and to our families.

Tending to our marriage and families means concretely that husbands become so selfless that they die to self in order to provide, protect, prosper and train their wives and children in their undoubted catholic Christian faith, thinking, and living. This is why husbands are instructed to love their wives, just as Christ loved the church and gave himself up for her. 

Tending to our marriage and families means, concretely, that wives becomes so selfless that they delight in wearying themselves out creating homes that husbands and children keep looking forward to returning to. This reality is pointed to in Titus 2 when the Holy Spirit encourages the Older Women to

 urge the younger women to love their husbands and children, 5 to be self-controlled and pure, to be busy at home, to be kind, and to be subject to their husbands, so that no one will malign the word of God.

In some ways it sounds so simple Josh and Becca. However, both experience and the evidence around us suggest that it is far from simple. At least that is the conclusion that we must come to if we lift our eyes and look upon the carnage that litters the landscape of our modern culture in terms of marriage and family. You need to take that carnage seriously because the enemy desires to make of your marriage what he has made and is making of so many shipwrecked marriages. Scripture teaches that the devil is a roaring lion seeking whom he may devour and you can be sure as anchored in Christ the devil seeks to devour you and your marriage. Don’t let it happen.

Don’t let God’s glory be diminished in the sight of men because you didn’t cherish your marriage. Don’t split your future children in two because you couldn’t figure out how to be one. Don’t become another statistic that testifies to the success of the enemy.

One way to push back against the enemy is to realize that your Marriage i not primarily about you individually or considered as a couple. The chief end of your marriage is to glorify God by enjoying him in the context of marriage. The secondary end of your marriage is to benefit your people and your church community via the social stability that comes through a healthy marriage, via the knitting of families together, and via the children we pray will follow. Because of that reality the celebration here today is not primarily a celebration of you as bride and groom but rather it is primarily a celebration of the union that God in Christ is creating here.

We here witnessing your vows have great hope for your marriage in successfully portraying Christ and the Church as husband and wife. We here witnessing have great hope that your marriage will be a tool that God uses to evangelize those damaged and bruised by sin, who seeing the beauty of your marriage and family will say to themselves… “Whatever it is that accounts for the beauty, stability, and harmony of that marriage, I want.” We here witnessing your marriage have great hope that your Christian faith, which is more precious than gold, will be passed on to your children.

And now for just a moment I lift my voice to speak more directly to you in attendance. It is altogether possible that there are those here who are in marriages that are a strain to your health and are a raking of your soul. My heart breaks for you. There has been nothing more burdensome in the ministry than seeing marriages crack, split, and finally sunder. To you I can only offer Jesus Christ. To those beat up from marriages gone bad Jesus says “Come unto me you who are weary and heavy laden and I will give you rest for my yoke is easy and my burden is light.”  Apart from the gospel of Jesus Christ I can offer you no hope.  Christ alone can forgive and then heal the selfishness and self-centeredness that often accounts for the failure of the institution of marriage — an institution — which was designed to be the place where one is supposed to find in life the most delight, the most security, and the most love. To those of you truly wronged in marriages and perhaps embittered with life, only Jesus Christ can return to you your joy. If you will cast all your care upon Him you can be certain that you find in Him your only comfort in heartache and sorrow.

Now, let us end where we began. Let us end, Josh and Becca speaking as to how your marriage is going to contribute to the dominion that is characteristic of Biblical Christianity. Let us note again how all this that you are entering into today is much larger, and much grander than what you could possibly imagine. With the crafting and building of your marriage, as consistent with Scripture, you are rescuing civilization and help to rebuild the culture once known as Christendom. You will be passing on to the next generation what you have received from your faithful parents and that is the manful and womanly work of incarnating your Christian faith into hearth and home.  And because God is faithful he will use your marriage and numerous other Christ centered marriages to be a neo-sign pronouncing His faithfulness to His people. By such means God purposes to cover the world with the knowledge of the Lord as the waters cover the earth.

May God bless you and keep you on this grand adventure and may He always remind you of how big all of this is. God is going to use your marriage to help in the work in making His enemies His footstool.

 

 

Dr. Scott Aniol’s Attempt to Rescue Wilson & Baptists Everywhere

Yesterday I wrote a piece taking on Doug Wilson’s reasoning as to why blasphemy laws should not be implemented by a Christian magistrate. Today a well known music leader and professor in the Baptist Church (Scott Aniol) decided to cross swords with me on this subject.

Here is the point I originally made;

If we are not going to give the state the responsibility to enforce God’s law on Blasphemy because it would then become the the chief blasphemer then why would we give the state the power of the sword to enforce God’s law on murder, or rape since doing so would lead to the same?

Dr. Aniol, on Twitter politely responded to my comment

“This is an understandable question, but it ultimately breaks down. Blasphemy and murder are in two different categories, thus the two tables of the law. The first involves internal heart matters and the second involves external relations between humans. No one is suggesting that government stop punishing murder. Government must punish murder because (a) the punishment of murder is the fundamental power given to human government, and (b) defining murder is a whole lot easier than defining blasphemy from an unbelieving perspective, though of course they do try. Every successful society has recognized the need to punish murder.”

Herein I now respond to Dr. Aniol;

1.) Note how Dr. Aniol reasons like a Baptist here. He assumes discontinuity between the Old and New Testament where no evidence in Scripture exists for assuming discontinuity. In the OT the Ten Commandments were seen as apply completely to the Hebrew social order. However, Dr. Aniol, as a Baptist New Testament Christian introduces discontinuity in God’s law as he tells us that all of the Ten Words don’t apply for Christian magistrates today.

2.) Because of the observation of #1 above we would ask Dr. Aniol to prove from Scripture that murder and blasphemy are in two different categories, with murder being enforceable with penalty from Christian magistrates while blasphemy is not enforceable with penalty from Christian magistrates. He can only do so by the most torturous of Baptist Gumby routines. You just can’t derive from Scripture that magistrates today are only responsible for the 2nd table of God’s law and not the first. (By the way, as an aside, the R2K clowns also make this move, demonstrating their Baptist roots.)

3.) God should have given a memo to the Hebrews about different categories so they wouldn’t have stoned those blasphemers in the day. Oh… wait, I forgot, the different categories didn’t arise until Jesus died on the Cross. Jesus died on the Cross so blasphemy could be eliminated as a capitol offense.

4.)  We would ask Dr. Scott if he realizes how novel is reading is about the two categories. With this novel reading you are saying not only blasphemy laws in the past in Western nations were wrong but so were American blue laws that existed in some part of the country up to the 1980s, since the blues laws are also part of the first table (“Remember the Sabbath, to Keep it Holy.”)

 

5.) The idea that 1st table isn’t applicable for modern magistrates to enforce is complete horse hockey. It is made up whole cloth. I can exhaust you with quotes from the Theologians of the past which would be laughter in your face.

We start with a quote from a Baptist so as to give Dr. Aniol’s favored denomination some air time;

“But then there were other judicial laws, which were founded on the light of nature, on reason, and on justice and equity, and these remain in full force ; and they must be wise as well as righteous laws, which were made by God himself, their King and legislator, as they are said to be, Deut. iv. 6, 8. And they are, certainly, the best constituted and regulated governments that come nearest to the commonwealth of Israel, and the civil laws of it, which are of the kind last described; and where they are acted up unto, there what is said by Wisdom is most truly verified, By me kings reign, and princes decree judgment; and if these laws were more strictly attended to, which respect the punishment of offences, especially capital ones, things would be put upon a better footing than they are in some governments, and judges, in passing sentences, would be able to do that part of their office with more certainly and safety, and with a better conscience.

And whereas the commonwealth of Israel was governed by these laws for many hundreds of years, and needed no other in their civil polity, when, in such a course of time, every case that ordinarily happens, must arise, and be brought into a court of judicature; I cannot but be of opinion, that a digest of civil laws might be made out of the Bible, the law of the Lord that is perfect, either as lying in express words in it, or to be deduced by the analogy of things and cases, and by just consequence, as would be sufficient for the government of any nation; and then there would be no need of so many law books, nor of so many lawyers; and perhaps there would be fewer law-suits.”

John Gill
Body of Divinity

Here is one from Rutherford;

” For 1.) If there be no bodily punishment to be inflicted on false teachers and blasphemers, then must Christ by his blood repeal all those laws in the Old Testament; but the Scripture shows us all our parts of Christian liberty in these places of Scripture, Ti.2:14; Rom. 14:4; I Thess. 1:10; Gal. 3:13; Gal. 1:4; Col. 1:13; I Joh. 4:18; Acts 15:10-11; Heb. 4:14, 16; Heb. 10:19,21,22; Col. 2:15-16; 2 Cor. 3:13, 17, 19; Jam. 4:12; Rom. 14:4; Act. 4:9; Act.5:29; 1 Cor. 7:23; Matt. 23:8,9,10; Matt. 15:9; and elsewhere; in all which places nothing is hinted of the false teachers patent under the seal of the blood of the eternal Covenant, that he is freed from the Magistrates sword, though he destroy millions of souls.”

Samuel Rutherford
A Free Disputation Against Pretended Liberty of Conscience etc. — pp. 233-234

And one from Richard Vines;

“For the blasphemous and seditious Heretics, both Lutherans and others of the Reformed Churches do agree that they may be punished capitally, that is for their blasphemy of sedition; but the Socinian stands out here also, and denies it; alleging that the punishment of false Prophets in the Old Testament was speciali jure but by special law granted to the Israelites, and therefore you must not look (saith the Socinian) into the Old Testament for a rule proceeding against false Prophets and blasphemers: Nor (saith Calvin and Catharinus) can you find in the New Testament any precept for punishment of Thieves, Traitors, Adulterers, Witches, Murderers and the like, and yet they may, or at least some of them be capitally punished: for the Gospel destroys not the just laws of civil policy or Commonwealths.”

Richard Vines — English Puritan
The Authors, Nature, and Danger of Heresy
Laid open in a sermon preached before the honorable house of Commons…March – 1646 – pp. 64

In the words of Captain Steve Rogers, “I can do this all day.” Suffice it to say that Aniol’s position is completely modern and so completely novel. Aniol’s position smells more of the Endarkenment thought than it does of Christian thought.

 6.) We would ask Dr. Aniol to prove from Scripture that punishing the crime of murder is the fundamental power of government. This is just not true. The fundamental power of government is justice across the board as God defines justice in God’s gracious Law-Word. As we have seen, God defines justice as punishing blasphemers as well as murderers and that has never been overturned.

7.) Every society has defacto or dejure blasphemy laws. We have them. Try saying the word that sounds like “niggardly” in public and see how one is punished. So, blasphemy laws still exist. We still can’t take the name of our gods in vain. We just hide it from ourselves.

Well, more might be said but we have said enough for those with eyes to see the egg that Dr. Aniol has on his face.

Doug Wilson Insists That the Christian Magistrate Should NOT Enforce Blasphemy Laws

A summary of Doug Wilson’s argument in “Mere Christendom” insisting that the Magistrate should not enforce blasphemy laws.;

 As a theonomist Wilson believes in “the need to restore the Bible as the quarry from which to obtain the needed stone for our foundations of social order” (149), he strongly argues against state imposed punishment for blasphemy. He reminds us that “those who want the government to have the right to kill blasphemers are also asking for the government to have the right to kill those who rebuke their (the government’s) blasphemies” (157), and “When you give the state power to punish a blasphemer, you are giving the state the power to blaspheme with impunity” (171). Since rulers are sinners, a healthy recognition of the depravity of man ought to restrain us from giving them the kind of power that would be required to punish blasphemy. “Whenever you give the state plenipotentiary powers to crack down on x, y, and z, what you are actually doing—please remember this—is giving them plenipotentiary powers to commit x, y, and z” (173). Therefore, “It is better to allow a troubled individual to blaspheme than to give, for the sake of preventing such things, regulatory powers over the definition of blasphemy to the very people most likely to be tempted to get into real blasphemy” (175–76). Wilson calls this “restraining the worst blasphemer first” (the title of Chapter 11). It’s not that we Christians don’t want to eradicate blasphemy—we do. But “we are not waging war according to the flesh” (2 Cor 10:3); “the artillery of the new covenant is more powerful than what the people of God had in their possession in the old covenant” (169). We want to eliminate blasphemy, but “not through the law” (158); rather, we do so through gospel conversion. “The central way that Christians are called to transform the world is not to be found in politics,” Wilson insists (221). “Christ gave us our mission and He gave us our methods. The world is to be brought to Christ, with all the nations submitting to Him, agreeing to obey Him. That is the mission. The method consisted of Word and water, bread and wine” (160).  Wilson argues that inherent protection of free speech by limiting the state’s power “is the theo-political genius of Christianity” (171). He argues that “The founding of our nation really was exceptional, because the men who drafted our Constitution knew that American politicians, taking one thing with another, would be every bit as sleazy as the same class of men from any other clime” (201).

 

The above argument is the “argument” that Wilson crafts to explain why he does not believe that the State should be given authority to bear the sword against blaspheming the name of Jesus Christ in the public square.

Look, I’m not the sharpest blade in the drawer, and as such, I’m sure I must be missing something here because it strikes me that this argument is so absurd I can’t believe anybody can read it without their eyes bugging out. I mean, on this Wilsonian logic why would the state be given the sword to enforce any of God’s law like “murder,” “rape,” or “kidnapping” since giving the sword to enforce those laws would naturally lead to the state using that plenipotentiary powers to commit x (murder), y (rape), and z (kidnapping.)”

Rev. Wilson’s operating principle at work here is: give no one the power for good if they can use it for evil. Which of course reaches beyond absurd into the zip code of Nutville.

Wilson’s citation of I Cor. 10:3 is complete eisegesis and so is irrelevant to the issue at hand. Doug says that we want to eliminate blasphemy “but not through the law,” which every dispensational and R2K antinomian (but I repeat myself) chap worth their salt would stand and applaud.

Next Wilson sets up a false dichotomy (and nobody sets up false dichotomies better than Doug) by suggesting that we can get rid of blasphemy by law (politics) or we can get rid of blasphemy by gospel conversion. This is not a either/or but a both/and. If we can’t get ride of blasphemy by law (politics) than it stands to reason that we can’t get rid of any crime by law (politics) and so the Christian Magistrate should not legislate against any crimes since do to so would mean we are not trusting in gospel conversion. This is a false dichotomy. We should want both laws that force the Christ hater to not blaspheme and gospel conversion wherein  the Christ lover does not want to blaspheme.

From there Wilson implies that Christianity cannot triumph in the context of a Christian magistrate bringing the sword to bear in order to support God’s law. We do believe that the world will be converted (Wilson’s Word, water, bread and wine) but we also believe that along the way to that converted world the Magistrate will continue to not bear the sword in vain so that when anti-Christs arise who want to throw off God’s law as applied to the social order they will be thwarted.

Unless I am missing something (and that is real possibility) this reasoning by Wilson in Mere Christendom is embarrassing.