Necessity to Advocate for a Totalistic Christianity that Reflects Christ’s Lordship

Psychology

The individualistic attempt to do in an anti-Christian fashion what Sociology attempted to do on a corporate level started as phrenology and eventually developed (?) into what we today call Psychology. Today, Psychology like Sociology is a given in the American mindset, and like sociology in its origin, it was anti-Christ to the core. Psychology became part of the America psyche thanks to work of men like Freud, Jung, Rogers, Maslow, Skinner and a host of others. The various fields of psychology and sociology have spawned countless fields in the West the way Spielberg’s Gremlins multi-duplicated with the addition of water, and with just as much danger.

Clearly, neither sociology nor psychology dwells in a neutral realm and as such the Church needs to proclaim the crown rights of King Jesus over these realms of thought.

I would submit that regardless of what discipline we inquire into (including Christian Theology) we find that Secular Humanist presuppositions and assumptions holding the field so much so that a foundational challenge to these positions is often taken as an un-Christian attack on good wholesome teaching by those in the Church who spent their formative years being trained in the “Secular” realm where reason was King and in a Church where God’s law-word was either ignored or reinterpreted through the assumptions of Secular Humanism. All of this is why in 1961 Harry Blamire could say,


“There is no longer a Christian mind….As a thinking being, the modern Christian has succumbed to secularization. He accepts religion – its morality, its worship, its spiritual culture; but he rejects the religious view of life, the view which sets all earthly issues with the context of the eternal, the view which relates all human problems – social, political, cultural – to the foundations of the Christian Faith, the view which sees all things here below in terms of God’s supremacy and earth’s transitoriness, in terms of heaven and hell.” (14) Harry Blamires The Christian Mind pg. 4

Blamires’ point wasn’t that there weren’t still some people living who thought like Christians, rather his point was that the context for conversations among those people in different disciplines didn’t exist in such a way that the influence of Christian thought could be brought to bear upon a set people or culture. Blamires’ point seemed to be then that those who did think like Christians were so isolated in their various fields that for all intensive purposes the Christian mind was in eclipse.

The purpose of establishing these matters by our light dusting is that,

1.) There is no such thing as a neutral or secular or common realm. Neutrality is a myth. Therefore the Church must proclaim the Lordship of Jesus in these areas.

2.) ‘Neutral’ realms are always reflective of some Theology and are derivative of and beholden to some God concept.

3.) If the transcendent and absolute standard of King Jesus is not the standard by which we measure in the putative secular realm then some other standard of some other Lord will become the standard by which we measure in the ‘secular’ realm.

Though these disciplines have ‘evolved’ over time, there is little evidence that on a large scale they have ‘evolved’ in a Biblical direction. The covenant seed continues to be trained in ways that compromise their confession that Jesus Christ is King.

The reason that the Church needs to return to a proclamation of Jesus Mediatorial Kingship is first because it is the Church’s unique privilege and responsibility to proclaim King Jesus in more than an abstract or gnostic fashion.

Second, none of our other cultural institutions are going to do it since they have already largely been compromised by the Spirit of the age. We are now several generations into this kind of evolutionary, humanistic, naturalistic and statist Weltanschauung and if Reformation and awakening is to come there has to be some institution that is sounding the tocsin seeking to alert God’s people that Jesus is not a gnostic King and that God’s people are responsible to think His thoughts after Him in every area of life and measure by the King’s standard.

From Darkness To Light

This is a proclamation though that the Church must make in the face of severe resistance for our churches are often led by professionals who have been trained in an unbiblical Worldview, who, because of that, will likely feel ideologically threatened by such a bold proclamation. As just one example, see how threatened people feel, if, from the pulpit or the lectern, it is insisted that the Lordship of Jesus requires parents to pull their children that God has given them out of Government Schools since such education is universally premised upon false gods and as such is idolatrous.(15)

Secondly, proclamations of the Lordship of Jesus Christ will also face resistance because frankly much of the Church in America is filled with people who prefer to be entertained and who would leave for other Churches if it were required of them to do the difficult work of thinking. (16)

Thirdly, proclamations of the Lordship of Jesus Christ will face resistance because the implications of submitting to that Lordship could be personally and professionally ruinous for people. Imagine Biology Teachers showing up in school prepared to teach something as innocuous as intelligent design.

Finally, proclamations of the Lordship of Jesus Christ in the Church will face resistance because many churchgoers don’t like and aren’t equipped for the confrontation that this doctrine brings in a culture where other lords are in usurpation against King Jesus.

The remedy for all of this is easy to advocate but harder to implement. The remedy, as we have suggested, is first, found in eliminating the notion of a secular realm, if by secular realm we mean a realm that is unaffected or unmoved by some Theology. While Dr. Martin was correct to insist that there is no institutional hierarchy there can be no doubt that Theology remains the Queen of the Sciences, the protestations of modernism notwithstanding. In order to provide solution to the current problem of compartmentalization, we must first recognize that no realm exists nor can exist that is not derivative of some Lord or lords and hence some Theology. One’s belief about God drives everything. Everything about us is the outward manifestation of our inward beliefs about the character and nature of some God. As a Christian people we must wake up to the fact that everything, that happens around us from School curriculum, to magazine covers, to Presidential Speeches, to forms of government, to what is considered chic in apparel, to hairstyles, to music, to parenting styles, is driven by some faith commitment which in turn descends from some God concept. The only question is which faith commitment and which God. Neutrality is a myth. Once that is recognized we must go on, as Dr. Martin tirelessly repeated to re-interpret every area of life in light of the Scripture.

Second, we must expose the aberrant theologies that are currently being incarnated into this realm we call secular and presume to be neutral. The realm that we now call secular in all actuality is a humanist realm largely ruled by the State and it won’t be satisfied until all Christian notions of ‘sacred’ are either completely isolated to what happens in the Church building on Sunday or isolated to a very private sphere of personal holiness. In heralding the Lordship of Jesus Christ the Church must expose Humanism for the faith system that it is. Like all other faith systems humanism does have a sense of the Sacred (The Nation State absolutized). Humanism is a faith system, like all faith systems, that is replete with Priests (Psychologists to whom moderns make their confession), sacraments, (abortion and the vote) catechisms (school textbooks), and martyrs (Matthew Shepherd). Since it is a Worldview System in opposition to the God of the Bible it’s sense of the Sacred and its Holy is what Biblical Christians would consider profane and unholy. In Secular Humanism, Man, considered either individually or collectively, is that which is ultimately Sacred, and since Man absolutized handles all that he handles apart from God, all that Man absolutized makes sacred is therefore automatically profane from the view of a Christ submitting Christian. If the Church is to return to the proclamation of the Lordship of Jesus Christ from the pulpit then it must at the same time seek to demolish every stronghold and pretension that sets itself up against the knowledge of God. In our times and in this country that means an extended assault on humanism; the de facto established religion of this country. Do the Church and its ministers have the courage to do that?

Thirdly, understanding that Theology remains the core discipline that informs all other disciplines every college student should be required to start with the core discipline of Theology before moving on to other disciplines that are but seeking to express and incarnate the core discipline in sundry ways. Failing the pursuit of that solution, at the very least Professors ought to be required to reverse engineer their disciplines so that the students have the opportunity to see how their discipline is growing up out of the soil of Scripture.

Fourthly, ministry students should be required to take classes that seek to integrate Theology, Worldview thinking, and Christian Ethics.

These four solutions are nothing but the re-articulation of Dr. Martins’ call to know what we believe and why we believe it and what we don’t believe and why we don’t believe it.

Impact

Where the Church and God’s people take seriously Jesus office as King in an unrestricted sense there a cultural context is created that makes it easier for the gospel to be heard by unbelievers. Think of context and text when reading a book. The context helps the reader to make sense of the text that he is immediately reading. The text itself would be nonsense if it were set in an entirely different context. In the same way when the ‘Gospel’ goes forward in a cultural context that is informed by the unrestricted Kingship of Jesus, there the text of ‘Jesus Christ as the great High Priest’ makes more sense. Where Jesus in His Kingly office is lived out there isn’t such a huge disconnect between the message of Jesus Christ crucified and the reality of a culture that is defying King Jesus at every turn. When we don’t live out allegiance to Jesus in His Mediatorial office of King we make it more difficult for people to hear the strains of the message of the great commission because we are helping to create a social order context that is in opposition to the gospel proclamation. Consequently when we disconnect the Great Commission and the Cultural Mandate to have dominion under King Jesus what we inevitably end up creating are Christians who view their salvation as unrelated to their cultural endeavors, or who see their cultural endeavors as unrelated to their salvation. The result would be to give us both an antinomian Church and an antinomian culture.

When we find the proper tension between these offices we discover that people who have been saved and brought into the Kingdom, now seek to bring that salvation wherein they have been saved into every area of life, so that those spheres may experience salvation. In obedience to King Jesus those who have been saved by Jesus as their great High Priest now bring salvation to the gardens they tend, and the children they raise, and the books they write, and the Churches they attend, and the judicial decisions they hand down, and the art they paint, and on and on. So, as Jesus in His Priestly office saves individuals, they bring that salvation to their corporate life in obedience to Jesus in His Kingly office, which in turn, as we noted above, provides a general cultural context where it is easier for unsaved individuals to comprehend the Gospel.

Now if the objection is raised that what I am contending for is a kind of naturalistic program for the Church where I deny the supernaturalistic agency of God for men to be Redeemed and instead am relying on cultural infrastructure to convert lost men, I would respond by saying that God appoints means to ends. The salvation that the Spirit of Christ brings to men, while a spiritual reality, happens inside a physical and corporeal context. I would say that it is gnostic to suggest that we can get to the spiritual reality without considering the physical context. Men will never be saved by the proper cultural infrastructure but it is certain that their natural individual resistance to the message of Christ crucified will be accentuated and emboldened by cultural infrastructure that is built in defiance of King Jesus.

God putting the offices of Jesus together they must not be cast asunder. The Church must return to proclaiming the Crown Rights Of King Jesus in every area of life.

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.