Revelation 12:1-5f Advent #1 Sermon — 2015

And so we come to Advent. The word “Advent” is the English version of the Latin word “Adventus,” which is in turn a word Translated from the Greek world Parousia.” Taken literally they all mean “coming.” In Western Churches this has traditionally been a time where there emphasis is on waiting and preparation as we recall the first coming of our Lord Jesus Christ. In the West Advent has largely become a matter of Aesthetics and contemplation accompanied by certain traditions. And of course both Aesthetics and contemplation, as well as Traditions are important in the life of the Church and the individual believer.

In Church History Advent was a time when new Christians would prepare themselves for their coming Baptism which was held during the January feast of Epiphany. As such Christians, who were to be baptized during Epiphany spent the 40 days of Advent in penance, prayer and fasting to prepare to be clothed with Christ in Baptism.

Our customs for Advent are all rather sentimental. We have our Advent calendars and open the little boxes everyday to read the Scripture verse. We have our various Nativity scenes that we unpack every Advent with the Shepherds, and Three Wisemen, and with one Donkey and one Cow, plus a few hanging Angels over the little framed barn house.  We have the lighting of Advent Candles in Church and the Advent decorations in our Churches and I am not opposed to any of that. In point of fact I think these Traditions provide a positive good UNLESS it is forgotten that Advent is also a time to remind ourselves that the Advent of the Lord Christ was the coming of D. Day for all those who oppose the Reign and Rule of the Lord Christ. Advent is not merely about

“Away in the Manger,
No crib for a bed
The little Lord Jesus
Lay down His sweet head.”

It is not merely about a sentimentalized Jesus. It is also about the rightful heir to the throne being born and the subsequent attempts made upon His life in order to try and keep Him coming into His rightful inheritance. It is about the intent of the Great God to incarnate Himself in order to remove all the false pretenders to the Cosmic throne. It is betrayal, battle and bloodshed. It is about apparent defeat followed by certain irresistible victory. It is about the Lord Christ putting His feet upon the neck of His enemies as the Great Triumphant Sovereign overall.

It is about, in the words of the “Dream of the Rood,”

the young hero (who was God Almighty)
Got ready, resolute and strong in heart.
…the warrior embraced the cross

Advent is God’s invasion campaign to finish what He had promised to do in Genesis 3 when He promised the battle that would result as a consequence of His intent to reverse the Fall. Speaking to the Serpent God said,

15 I will put enmity (hatred — warfare) between you and the woman,
    and between your offspring[e] and her offspring;
he shall bruise your head,
    and you shall bruise his heel.”

During this Advent season we want to begin with examining the Advent that is Invasion. We could look @ Genesis 3 for that which we just quoted but let’s return to the passage read this morning.

A great and wondrous sign appeared in heaven: a woman clothed with the sun, with the moon under her feet and a crown of twelve stars on her head. She was pregnant and cried out in pain as she was about to give birth. Then another sign appeared in heaven: an enormous red dragon with seven heads and ten horns and seven crowns on his heads. His tail swept a third of the stars out of the sky and flung them to the earth. The dragon stood in front of the woman who was about to give birth, so that he might devour her child the moment it was born. She gave birth to a son, a male child, who will rule all the nations with an iron scepter…And there was war in heaven. Michael and his angels fought against the dragon, and the dragon and his angels fought back. But he was not strong enough, and they lost their place in heaven. The great dragon was hurled down – that ancient serpent called the devil or Satan, who leads the whole world astray. He was hurled to the earth, and his angels with him. (vv. 1-5, 7-9)

Philip Yancey, in his book, “The Jesus I Never Knew,” writes, I have never seen this version of the story on a Christmas card. Yet it is the truer story, the rest of the picture of what was going on that fateful night. Yancey calls the coming of Christ, “a daring raid by the ruler of the forces of good into the universe’s seat of evil.”

This is why earlier we referred to the Advent of Christ as D-Day.

Yancey continues,

“It is almost beyond my comprehension too, and yet I accept this notion is the key to understanding Christmas and is, in fact, the touchstone of my faith. As a Christian I believe we live in parallel worlds. One world consists of hills and lakes and barns and politicians and shepherds watching their flocks by night. The other consists of angels and sinister forces and the whole spiritual realm. The child is born, the woman escapes and the story continues as we find in Revelation 12:17

Then the dragon was enraged at the woman and went off to make war against the rest of her offspring – those who obey God’s commandments and hold to the testimony of Jesus. (Rev. 12:17)

You see, Advent is a time that pronounces God’s storming of the beaches, as it were, to reclaim, that which is rightly His. But inasmuch as we belong to the Great King we ourselves are caught up in this Warfare. God’s fulfillment of His word in OT prophecy means war and Advent means the coming of War with the coming of the Christ child.

We turn to the Revelation 12 text now, and while most of the rest of the message will concentrate on the Warfare of Christ and His victory we must keep in mind that His Warfare was anticipatory of His people continuance in that same Warfare. In the words of David Chilton from his book, “Days of Vengeance,”

“The Dragon is fighting a losing battle, for he has already been defeated at the Cross and at the Tomb. There is not a square inch of ground in heaven or on earth, or under the earth where there is peace between the Serpent and the seed of the Woman, and Christ has already won overwhelmingly, on every front. Ever since Christ’s ascension, world history has been a mopping up operation. The Church militant, so long as she is the Church obedient, will be the Church Triumphant as well.”

In turning to Revelation 12 we are mindful that we pivot to a distinct change in Revelation. Whereas 1-12 is concerned with the viewpoint from the throne of the King of heaven who avenges His people and conquers His enemies, Chapter 12-22 reveals the Church in conflict with infernal and worldly principalities but who triumphs over her enemies and then appears the wife of the Lamb.

As we read Revelation we keep in mind that Revelation is Apocalyptic literature. It is not History though it touches History. It is not Poetry, though there is poetry in it. It is Apocalyptic literature and that means a great amount of symbolism, most of which is drawn from the Old Testament. Indeed there is no understanding Revelation without knowing your Old Testaments.

The Church is seen in Revelation 12 as being a Woman clothed with the Sun … (vs.1)

This woman adorned in celestial apparel we believe is the Church as a whole, and Mary as considered individually.  The idea of a Woman as being an image for the Church is everywhere seen in Scripture. Sometimes in a flattering way and sometimes in a not so flattering way. This imagery of Woman as Church is something that would have made an immediate connection in the minds of the recipient of this letter for this is the language of the Scripture which they knew so well.

(Cmp. Isaiah 26; 49-50; 54; 66; Jer. 3-4; Lamentations 1; Ezekial 16; Hosea 1-4; Micah 4)

Like a pregnant woman
    who writhes and cries out in her pangs
    when she is near to giving birth,
so were we because of you, O Lord;

____________

Woman forgetting her nursing child

___________

Micah 4 — Daughter of Zion

__________

So here you have this Woman celestially clothed. I believe the thrust of all this celestially clothing is just to communicate how glorious this Woman is. In the Song of Solomon the Bride is spoken of in a similar vein,

Who is this who looks down like the dawn,
    beautiful as the moon, bright as the sun,
    awesome as an army with banners?”

And this Woman is with Child.

That all this is published in Heaven I take as a way to communicate that it was done openly for all to see and is consistent with the language that the Lord used when speaking to Ahaz about this self same sigh,

10 Again the Lord spoke to Ahaz, 11 “Ask a sign of the Lord your  God; let it be deep as Sheol or high as heaven.”

Well, here is this “high as heaven” sign that Ahaz refused to ask for and it is in connection to the sign that the Lord God eventually gave to Ahaz … the sign that the virgin would be with child.

The fact that all this is pointed towards the Church as Institution and Mary as individual is apparent in vs. 2.

John is giving us a insight into the Cosmic battle going on that was played out with the birth of the Lord Christ.

And Mary, the Individual Woman here, who stands collectively for the Church, is bringing forth the child who will crush the serpent’s head, just as David prefigured all this in severing  the head of Goliath from his serpent scaled armored body. Mary is the embodiment of a Church who through the centuries had birthed deliverers who were themselves types of the anti-type real thing … the Lord Christ.  This Woman as sign is ultimately Mary but penultimately she is the Church giving birth to delieverers. She is Eve giving birth to Seth, Sarah giving birth to Isaac, Rebekkah giving birth to Jacob, Rachel giving birth to Benjamin, Jochabed giving birth to Moses, and Hannah giving birth to Samuel.

The Old Testament Church was a church laboring and in pain to give birth to the Messiah and the Messianic age and now that this Messiah comes there is the Dragon present to seek to destroy this Deliverer.  The Seven heads and ten horns is consistent with the language used in the book of Daniel to describe world Empires that oppose the Kingdom of God.

The idea of the Dragon as Satan is well known theme in Scripture, but as the Woman has both a collective and individual meaning so the Dragon is individually Satan but collectively all the World Empires that have sought to snuff out the Church and the Messiah. Whether referring to Daniel’s 4 Empires that the Kingdom of God destroys (Babylon, Medo-Persia, Greeks, Romans) or the referring to Egypt’s Empire long before that sought to destroy the Holy Seed, or whether it is Herod’s desire for securing Empire to kill the male deliverer, the Dragon is Satan individually but also Empires collectively who seek to be God walking on the Earth. The Dragon is the animating force behind every attempt of God’s enemies to crush God’s people.

It is interesting what we see when we combine OT History with this motif of the Church giving birth to deliverers as combined with  God’s enemies both individually and as Empire seeking to crush this Church in labor and pain which ends with the Individuals and World Empires having their heads crushed.

21 But Jael the wife of Heber took a tent peg, and took a hammer in her hand. Then she went softly to him (Sisera) and drove the peg into his temple until it went down into the ground while he was lying fast asleep from weariness. So he died.

52 And Abimelech came to the tower and fought against it and drew near to the door of the tower to burn it with fire. 53 And a certain woman threw an upper millstone on Abimelech’s head and crushed his skull.

5:1 When the Philistines captured the ark of God, they brought it from Ebenezer to Ashdod. 2 Then the Philistines took the ark of God and brought it into the house of Dagon and set it up beside Dagon. 3 And when the people of Ashdod rose early the next day, behold, Dagon had fallen face downward on the ground before the ark of the Lord. So they took Dagon and put him back in his place. 4 But when they rose early on the next morning, behold, Dagon had fallen face downward on the ground before the ark of the Lord, and the head of Dagon and both his hands were lying cut off on the threshold. Only the trunk of Dagon was left to him.

David & Goliath, Sheba the son of Birchi,

Psalm 68:21 But God will strike the heads of his enemies,
    the hairy crown of him who walks in his guilty ways.

Habakkuk 3:13 You went out for the salvation of your people,
    for the salvation of your anointed.
You crushed the head of the house of the wicked,
    laying him bare from thigh to neck.

Next St. John tells us about the Dragon’s tail. In the words of Farrer,  we need to understand this not as astronomy but as Theology.

In Rev. 1:20 John has already associated with Angels with Stars.

The Dragon sweeps 1/3 of the Angels down from the heavens joining in Lucifer’s rebellion.  This is consistent with what we find in the NT.

II Peter 2:4 For if God did not spare angels when they sinned, but cast them into hell[a]and committed them to chains[b] of gloomy darkness to be kept until the judgment;

Jude 66 And the angels who did not stay within their own position of authority, but left their proper dwelling, he has kept in eternal chains under gloomy darkness until the judgment of the great day—

The fact that the 2 are saved for every three that falls is in harmony with the idea that Christ, as God’s firstborn, receives a double  portion.

17 but he shall acknowledge the firstborn … by giving him a double portion of all that he has, for he is the firstfruits of his strength. The right of the firstborn is his.

So, we have this Dragon waiting to devour the son of the Woman. This time the Dragon “waiting to devour” the seed is Herod the megalomaniac. Herod’s devouring lust, as the pseudo King of Jews, is seen in his slaughter of the innocent. Another attempt to snuff out, God’s invasion to reclaim His own.

The fact that this is seen as invasion by John and is about displacement of usurpers to the throne in favor of the rightful heir to the throne is seen in the next verse.

5 She gave birth to a male child, one who is to rule all the nations with a rod of iron, but her child was caught up to God and to his throne,

The Church, in Mary, gives birth to the long expected child, who has come to, not only displace the servants of the Dragon, but also to crush the heads of those Dragon Representatives who will not accede to the Crown Rights of the legitimate King.

In explaining this John goes back to the OT.

Psalm 2:7 I will tell of the decree:
The Lord said to me, “You are my Son;
    today I have begotten you.
8 Ask of me, and I will make the nations your heritage,
    and the ends of the earth your possession.
9 You shall break[b] them with a rod of iron
    and dash them in pieces like a potter’s vessel.”

Here in vs. 4 St. John collapses the redemptive work of Christ into the incarnation and ascension. The point here is not to bypass the Cross and the Resurrection (those have been mentioned earlier). The point here is to accentuate the failure of the Dragon to consume the Son and the corresponding success of the Son to bridle and rule the Dragon.

John follows the pattern of Psalm 2 where we go from Birth to Victory over the Nations. We learn from this that the goal of the incarnation — the Humility of Christ, was the Ascension — the Exaltation of Christ.

Here we have the inspiration of every successful Western fairy tale. The rightful is King displaced by a usurper. The long rule of tyranny by this wicked usurper King and his line is supported by necromancy and black magic. We see the arising of the rightful King from a line long since thought obliterated. The contest between the seemingly over-matched and overwhelmed true King and his vagabond and unimpressive people — all supported by prophecies of long dead oracles and desert prophets. Victory finally snatched when defeat was thought certain.The enthronement of the True King to rule over His rightful domain and the witness of all the Cosmos to former enemies either kissing the Son or perishing in their way.

Vs, 17,

“Alone of all the Creed, Christianity has added courage to the virtues of the Creator.”

 

In Praise of Hatred

“If any man come to me, and hate not his father, and mother, and wife, and children, and brethren, and sisters, yea, and his own life also, he cannot be my disciple.”  Luke 14:26

Perhaps no emphasis in the 21st century church has been more pronounced the the necessity to “love,” to “be loving,” and to not be guilty of “lacking love.” Such teaching has been around for a very long time in the Church in the West and it has resulted in the enervation of the Church.

This is due, of course, to the fact that the word “love” has also been drained of its meaning.  When love becomes a universal instinct so that all men everywhere must be “loved” no matter what then “love” is a word that has no meaning.

In order for the word “love”to have any meaning it must have borders of definition where it ends and another disposition begins. In order for “love” to have meaning it must hate. Love, in order to be love, must hate.

The Lord Christ supports this,

“No one can serve two masters. Either you will hate the one and love the other, or you will be devoted to the one and despise the other. You cannot serve both…”

You see here that love cannot co-exist without hate. This tells us that the idea that “we should never” hate is non-Biblical and anti-Christ in its roots. Love without hate is an absurdity. A man will only love as deeply as he also hates.  From this we must say that hate, properly oriented, is an absolute virtue. Hate, properly oriented, is the natural outgoing of love and this is so much the truth that without hate love cannot exist.

“We do urge hate; if you love something, that love requires you to hate anything which threatens it.”

Matthew Hale.

Here we see that positive “hate” is a positive good because it is the recoiling action of proper love. Even for those people who insist that they must only love and that to hate anything would be ignoble and sinful we find a residual hatred of all those who disagree with them that love must be ubiquitous. The “love-everybody-ers” end up hating those who actively employ properly directed “hate.”

That our culture has fallen into this “war against hate” nonsense can be seen by our preoccupation with hate crimes. Increasingly, the penalty for a crime is far graver if it can be proved that someone committed their crime because of a particular hatred. Never-mind that all crime presupposes hate at some base level. Never-mind that what is required with this kind of legislation is the ability to prove, and then try to disprove, a presence of a state of mind. This whole body of law turns already disreputable lawyers into the category of the even more disreputable shrink.

As Christians we must come to the point where we pray that the Triune God would not only give us proper love but also proper hate. Our prayer is that we would hate that which is evil. Our prayer is that we would hate what God hates. Our prayers should be that we hate injustice and Marxist concepts of social justice dressed up as God pleasing and defined justice.  Our prayer is that we would demonstrate the strength of our love by the passion of our hate.

The capacity to Biblically hate aids the ability to see through the smoke and mirrors that heresies in the church and falsity in the culture serve up. If we genuinely hate that which is evil this will translate into the ability to sniff it out and define it even when it is covered up in the Church and broader culture. Bovine bunkum smells like bovine bunkum  no matter how it is doused with expensive perfume and hatred for the smell of bovine bunkum can give us the ability to identify bullshit in a sea of Estee Lauder.

Hatred of falsity will give us the ability to detect and resist it. A Biblical hate thus gives us spidey senses that tingle when what and who we love are threatened. Hatred is an important element in family love. When we love our family we will hate that or who threatens or attacks our family. Hate, as the corresponding proper reflection of love, has built Christian Western Civilization.  Without a properly defined hate we would be a weak, vacillating, and forever defeated people. This, in part, explains why so many of the enemies of Biblical Christianity keep pushing such a false narrative of hate that men who have their wives raped and murdered can’t even find it within themselves to be publicly outraged with the beast criminals who are caught. This, in part, explains why men have lost the capacity to be exercised and disheveled when the character and honor of the Lord Christ is pilloried and castigated. Men have been repeatedly and forever told that hatred isn’t proper and because they have believed that the ability to defend with passion what we love has been forfeited.

Without a solid emboldening embrace of biblical hate we are twilight men, men without chests, mere half-lings. Without well know hatreds, if we have any identity at all it is the identity of the limpid and the wallflower. Show me a man who is not epistemologically self conscious in his hatreds and I will introduce to you a dishwater man.

It serves the interests of the elites of our cog culture to distract us from the ability to properly hate. If we can be formed into a people who, at best, “love everybody and everything,” or at worst,  are blase about everybody and everything, the consequence is an easily controlled population. Cattle are best corralled when they are passionless.

The ironic thing in all this is that those who laud this pietistic false love while eschewing a biblical hatred end up not getting love in the least but instead a vitamin deleted and fatigued niceness that is full of paper thin sentimental feelings. This kind of required ubiquitous love for everything and anything means that we love the stranger and alien with the same regard as we love our own children. Thus we give our children the same status as orphans.  This kind of required ubiquitous love for everything and anything means that we love the illegal immigrant the same way we love our fellow citizen. Love must admit of distinctions and degrees, that eventually move into hate or love can not be love.

The ancient Latin poet Decimus Magnus Ausonius (A.D. 310-395) wrote, “Truth is the mother of all hatred.” If we are passionate for the truth we will be full of rightly oriented hatreds. 

More then all this we should have it as our own goal to be hated, or at the very least we should rejoice for being hated for all the right reasons. Our Lord Christ said,

“Blessed are you when people hate you and when they exclude you and revile you and spurn your name as evil, on account of the Son of Man! Rejoice in that day, and leap for joy, for behold, your reward is great in heaven; for so their fathers did to the prophets.” Luke 6:22-23

Thanksgiving Homily 2015

I Thess. 5:18 in everything give thanks; for this is the will of God in Christ Jesus for you.

Thanksgiving is a Holiday. The idea of the word Holiday literally comes from Holy Day. A Holy Day, is a day set apart and distinct from the days that are common. Actually as Christians we have 52 Holidays every year though we seldom think like that anymore. Those 52 days of course are our Lord’s days.

So, we see in the whole idea of Holidays, Thanksgiving included, the idea of distinction. We distinguish this day from the others and we do so by celebration and festivity with kith and kin. On Thanksgiving when giving thanks  we are thankful for the particulars in our lives. When we give thanks for family we give thanks for our family and the families of those we know and love in our Church and community. When we give thanks for blessings we give thanks for the blessings that God has been pleased to pour upon us. When we are thankful for the Church we have particularly in mind our Church. When we give thanks we thanks to the God of the Bible and not the pagan false deities that festoon our culture. Not only is the day a day of distinction but the Thanks we offer up are for peculiar and particular blessings.

We could pray, “Thank you Father for the Human Race and Thank you for every blessing you’ve given everybody ever” but that would make our giving of thanks brief, and abstractly universal and esoteric. This would be non-incarnated gratitude. Thanking God for the particular is incarnating our gratitude. Thank you Father for this wife, for this family, for these fellow saints. Thank you Father for this food, this table, and this roof over our head. Thank you Father for this Church, these musicians, and these leaders.

I merely note this to reinforce the pleasure we should have in the particular. We live in a culture that is at war with the particular and with distinctions. At this Thanksgiving time we should pause to Thank the Triune God for the distinct and peculiar blessings with which He has blessed us.

Knowing the Triune God is for us we can even particularize our Thanksgiving in terms of our struggles as they have been providentially assigned to us as means to our sanctification. These particulars burdens are to us increased Christlikeness and  our character formation.

Samuel Rutherford could write, in what has become  quote I return to repeatedly,

“Oh, what owe I to the file, to the hammer, to the furnace of my Lord Jesus! who hath now let me see how good the wheat of Christ is, that goeth through His mill, and His oven, to be made bread for His own table. Grace tried is better than grace, and it is more than grace; it is glory in its infancy.”

We can easily be Thankful when the Bank account is full, when there is no sickness, when personal resistance to us in the politics of the workplace are minimal but can we be Thankful when the thorn in the flesh is gouging more than usual? Can we be Thankful when when disappointments becomes a familiar companion?

Another thing we might note here is that Christian Thanks giving is a an act that communicates satisfaction with both the past and present indicating a confidence in the future. The person shriveled with animosity regarding the past will not find it in his soul to give thanks. The person not content with the present will not give thanks. And the person convinced that the future is bleak will hardly be a candidate for the giving of thanks. Christian Thanks giving then is a supremely worshipful act communicating volumes regarding one’s disposition towards the past, the present, and the future.”
I posted this thought online and a non-Calvinist who is a very sharp chap took exception with it saying,

Gratitude and reality can co-exist. We have lost much over the last several decades, we are currently in a struggle to the death with forces that are turning our lives into a sewer in the present, and the future, outside some miracle of God, is indeed likely to be bleak before I die. I am indeed grateful that God has seen me and my family through the events of the years we have lived in, and pray that He will give us the resources to survive what’s ahead. But my gratitude is tempered by sadness and loss.

I don’t believe that what we’re experiencing is necessarily what God has ordained or desires for us.

It is easy to appreciate this insight but we have to keep in mind that this is the exact present that God has ordained for us and if that is true we can be thankful. This is not to say we can not have regrets in regards to our failures in paying heed to God’s will of precept. It is to suggest though that we can be Thankful because what has been past, present, and future is what God ordained for us in keeping with decreed will.

Now we are not pollyannas and we do continue to lean against the Darkness but we do it as a people thankful for the file, the hammer, and the furnace.

But having said all this we note that life is not always file, hammer, and furnace and we are thankful for that as well. We are thankful for when we are led so as to lie down in green pastures. We are thankful when he leads us besides still waters and so restores our souls. We are thankful for the wise Mentors he has placed in our lives and the wisdom of the generations he has kept for us in books seldom read. We are thankful for the generations gone behind who have given us such a rich inheritance and we are thankful for the rising of the generations we are seeing coming behind us. We are thankful for cousins, and Aunts and Uncles and Grandparents. We are thankful for Elders.

And we are thankful that no matter how dark it gets outside there is always light to be found by those who are lovers of Truth.

Is David Cameron Blind or Stupid in Not Being Able to See His Own Religion?

First, any strategy to defeat extremism must confront, head on, the extreme ideology that underpins it. We must take its component parts to pieces – the cultish worldview, the conspiracy theories, and yes, the so-called glamorous parts of it as well.

In doing so, let’s not forget our strongest weapon: our own liberal values. We should expose their extremism for what it is – a belief system that glorifies violence and subjugates its people – not least Muslim people.

We should contrast their bigotry, aggression and theocracy with our values. We have, in our country, a very clear creed and we need to promote it much more confidently. Wherever we are from, whatever our background, whatever our religion, there are things we share together.

We are all British. We respect democracy and the rule of law. We believe in freedom of speech, freedom of the press, freedom of worship, equal rights regardless of race, sex, sexuality or faith.

We believe in respecting different faiths but also expecting those faiths to support the British way of life. These are British values. And are underpinned by distinct British institutions. Our freedom comes from our Parliamentary democracy. The rule of law exists because of our independent judiciary. This is the home that we are building together.

Whether you are Muslim, Hindu, Jewish, Christian or Sikh, whether you were born here or born abroad, we can all feel part of this country – and we must now all come together and stand up for our values with confidence and pride.

And as we do so, we should together challenge the ludicrous conspiracy theories of the extremists. The world is not conspiring against Islam;

David Cameron
Prime Minister — United Kingdom
Extremism Speech — July 2015

Not being up on everything all the time this “extremism speech” back in July slipped my attention. This piece is jaw dropping incredible in terms of what is left unsaid in the text. I just could leave this alone without commenting on the absurdity.

1.) Cameron keeps invoking English “liberal values” and how those liberal values should be trumpeted in order to overturn the worldview of the extremists. Cameron even evokes the idea of a shared creed. In point of fact what Cameron has done here is he has invoked Liberalism as a religion to overturn the religion of the extremists, for it is only religion that can produce values and creed. Cameron has told his listeners that the religion of English Liberalism, with its creed and values, is superior to the religion of the extremists.  Indeed so superior is this religion of English liberalism that all other religions can only operate in England as long as those religions submit themselves to the religion of English liberalism with its values and creed.

But think about that for just a moment. Does one really own their own religion if their own religion has to submit to the creed and values of another religion?

2.) If “Muslim, Hindu, Jewish, Christian or Sikh …must now all come together and stand up for our values” and for the shared English Liberal creed  then what is the difference between Muslim, Hindu, Jewish, Christian or the Sikh religions except a few rituals? You see what is going on here is that the religion of English Liberalism with its values and creed is redefining what it means to be Muslim, Hindu, Jewish, Christian and Sikh. Are we to really believe that the values and creed of the Muslim faith, Hindu faith, Jewish faith, Christian faith and Sikh faith are so similar that they can perfectly align with the religious values and creed of English liberalism? If Muslim, Hindu, Jewish, Christian or Sikh, all share a common creed and values with the religion of English Liberalism what is the need for these other faiths?

3.) Now, about those shared values.  It is really the case that all these faith have a shared value of abortion which glorifies violence, that the English religion of Liberalism champions? Do all these religion have the shared value of equality for all those of different sexuality?  Inasmuch as Cameron, as a adherent to the religion of English Liberalism, is seeking to make Islam accept these values in England in that much he is most certainly conspiring against Islam.

4.) Cameron, as an adherent to the religion of English Liberalism with its value and creed, insist that this religion of his allows for “freedom of speech.” If that is true then why has the Home Secretary of England, in contradiction of putative English religious values and creed, blocked the entry into England of Robert Spence, Pamela Geller, and Michael Savage because they want to speak out against Islam? Does  English religious values and creed allow for the freedom of speech that speaks against the English religious values and creed?

5.) Apparently English religious values and creed makes for a theocracy which does not allow for any gods that do not agree with their values and creed and for the kind of violence they glorify.

6.) We see here that there is very little difference between the extremists and the liberal. They each desire that all other religions bow to their creed and values. They each desire to scrub England of its uniquely Christian past in favor of their own competing religions. The disagreement between the extremists that Cameron complains about and the English liberals is the difference between a Trotsky and a Stalin. The disagreement is on methodology and not on substance. Both the extremists and the English liberals  favor their religion to be the reigning religion. The English liberals desire to subjugate people every bit as much as the extremists they complain of.

In the words of C. William Knot Yielding,

 “The liberals envision a multicultural state in which everyone subscribes to liberal ideals. The Jihadists envision a utopian Moslem state in which everyone adheres to Islamic law. It is the mythical belief of the liberals that the Jihadists are not the real Moslems. In the liberals’ eyes of unreality the Jihadists are the bad Moslems who won’t settle down and enjoy the fruits of multicultural Liberaldom.”

Any Christianity that shares values and creed with either Cameron’s religious Liberalism or the Jihadists religious Islam is a Christian that fails to understand his or her own faith.

Christ the King

I.) Inescapability of Kingship

Here in John 18:33f we see the idea of the Inescapability of Kingship. The Jews will not have this man Jesus rule over them as King but that does not mean the category of Kingship disappears. It is never a question of whether men will be ruled by a Sovereign or not. It is only a question of which sovereign … which King will they be ruled by.

Here in John 18-19 the choice for the Jews is either the Lord Christ or Barabbas? The people reject the king for a insurrectionist. (John 18:38f)

After he had said this, he went back outside to the Jews and told them, “I find no guilt in him. 39 But you have a custom that I should release one man for you at the Passover. So do you want me to release to you the King of the Jews?”40 They cried out again, “Not this man, but Barabbas!” Now Barabbas was a insurrectionist.

You see what the Jews have done here is that they have said we would rather have a insurrectionist than the Lord Christ. This makes sense for in that choice they were revealing their own Jewish insurrectionist spirit that would rule over God’s sovereign rule.

Later Pilate asks the Jews again, “Shall I crucify your king?”(John 19:15) In their reply, “we have no king but  Caesar” (John 19:15). In this St. John shows that the Jews’ rejection of Jesus leads them to deny God’s kingship and embrace Roman rule. Here the Jews have decided that the Tyranny of the Roman State is to be preferred above the Kingship of the Lord Christ.

In these two choices of someone besides Christ as King (Barrabas the Insurrectionist and Caesar the Tyrant) we have the only two choices presented to us when we refuse the Kingship of Christ. If we will not bow to Christ the King we will bow to either the Tyranny of Centralized Authority (Caesar) or the Tyranny of individual anarchism (Barrabas).

In the end, Pilate, as representative of all Gentiles and the Jews, intent on Revolting against God, crucify the King but in doing so they do not get rid of the idea of Kingship. Instead they embrace Kingship… the Kingship of the Insurrectionist autonomous individual and the Kingship of the Tyrant.

These choices of Individual anarchy as King over Christ as King or the Statist Tyrant as King over Christ as King can be embodied by a couple quotes.

The anarchist autonomous individual as King is seen in a quote from one Jeremy Rifkin. Jeremy Rifkin, has been an adviser to the European Union since 2002 and has also been head of the largest global economic development team in the world.

In 1983 at a point in the maturation of the 60’s cultural revolution, he declared in “A New Word– A New World”:

“We no longer feel ourselves to be guests in someone else’s home and therefore obliged to make our behavior conform with a set of preexisting cosmic rules. It is our creation now. We make the rules. We establish the parameters of reality. We create the world, and because we do, we no longer feel beholden to outside forces. We no longer have to justify our behavior, for we are now the architects of the universe. We are responsible for nothing outside ourselves, for we are the kingdom, the power, and the glory forever.”

Jeremy Rifkin

Rifkin embodies the same spirit as those Jews who would have Barabbas instead of Christ. They would have themselves as insurrectionist Kings over Christ.

On the other hand if we will not take Christ as King and if we will not have the autonomous insurrectionist individual ala Barabbas as King we will have no choice but to invest the State with Kingship. Rushdoony understood this well and this point was one of the pillars of his ministry,

If there be no God with a governing law over all things then a man-made world order must replace him. The alternative to God and His law is inevitably a humanistic law and world order. An obvious fact that scholars shy away from is this: when Darwin abolished God by reducing the universe to chance there had to be logically a substitute for God. That substitute has been socialism, statism. When there is no God to predestine and control all things, then man and the state must do so. So we have a world-wide explosion of statism with one goal in mind, to replace God with statist controls and regulations, and just as God’s predestination that works from within determines all things the modern state is determined to govern, regulate, and prescribe all things. From the womb to the tomb, from cradle to grave, we are in a religious war! Whose predestination will prevail? That of Almighty God or that of the state? Take your choice.

RJR
Justice & World Law

So there it is. If we will not have Christ’s Kingship we will not escape from being ruled. If we will not have Christ the King then we will have either the Insurrectionist and Revolutionary as King or we will have the State as King. The Bomb-thrower or the Tyrant. It is never a question of if we will be ruled by a King, it is only a question of what King we will be ruled by.

II.) The Character of Christ’s Kingship

Part of the irony of John’s presentation of the trial and crucifixion is that Pilate uses his own authority to declare Jesus’ kingship. Pilate places an inscription over the cross, “Jesus of Nazareth, the king of the Jews” (John 19:19). The chief priests protest, asking Pilate to clarify that this was only what Jesus claimed. But Pilate refuses their request with a solemn pronouncement, “What I have written, I have written” (19:22).

In this way, John crafts his narrative so that Jesus’ kingship becomes most visible in his crucifixion. It is as if his crucifixion is his enthronement as king, the moment at which the declaration of his kingship is made public. Although all four Gospels record the inscription over the cross (cf. Matthew 27:37; Mark 15:26; Luke 23:38),

Here we might note we have the theme of the Theology of the Cross. The Great King enthroned upon a stake. Luther’s God hidden.

And yet we must keep mind also the words of the Lord Christ as King right before His ascension when He spoke with His Kingly authority saying “All authority has been given to me in Heaven and Earth.” There we see His Kingship expressed in his requirement that all the Nations should be discipled.

The Kingship of Christ is expressed both in the dark night of Crucifixion and in the glorious ascension of Christ.

Continuing with this point of the Character of Christ’s Kingship we must speak especially to John 18:36, one of those passages that is so often mishandled.

36 Jesus answered, “My kingdom is not of this world. If my kingdom were of this world, my servants would have been fighting, that I might not be delivered over to the Jews. But my kingdom is not from the world.”

What many many Christians want to make this mean is that Christ has no interest in this world. We often hear this mindset when we advocate for Christ the King’s cause in the public realm. Here we are tenaciously championing the King’s Word and some clergy member will say, with a deep growling pious tone, “Brother, you shouldn’t get so exercised about these worldly matters, after all Jesus said, “My Kingdom is not of this world.”

For example one Reformed Seminary Professor at a flagship Reformed Seminary recently wrote,

The church, as a visible institution, as the embassy of the Kingdom of God and the Kingdom of Heaven, has no social agenda for the wider civil and cultural world.   Dr. R. Scott Clark

You see, the point here is that the Kingship of Christ as revealed in Scripture is not to be championed by the Church. Christ is King but not so much that the Church should champion the King’s cause.

Another Reformed Seminary Professor from the same flagship Reformed Seminary likewise took on the Kingship of Christ when he said publicly,

“Although a contractual relationship denies God’s will for human dignity, I could affirm domestic partnerships as a way of protecting people’s legal and economic security.”

“The challenge there is that two Christians who hold the same beliefs about marriage as Christians may appeal to neighbor-love to support or to oppose legalization of same-sex marriage.”

Dr. Mike Horton — Reformed Theologian
R2K Practitioner
Professor at Westminster West — California

You see, this is just a jettisoning of the idea of the Kingship of Christ in the public square.

Contrast these quotes with the words of another Reformed Seminary Professor of another Generation,

“And if Christ is really King, exercising original and immediate jurisdiction over the State as really as he does over the Church, it follows necessarily that the general denial or neglect of his rightful lordship, any prevalent refusal to obey that Bible which is the open lawbook of his kingdom, must be followed by political and social as well as by moral and religious ruin. If professing Christians are unfaithful to the authority of their Lord in their capacity as citizens of the State, they cannot expect to be blessed by the indwelling of the Holy Ghost in their capacity as members of the Church.”

~A.A. Hodge, from “Popular Lectures on Theological Themes”

John 18:36 does not teach that the Lord Christ abdicated His authority in the public square. What is being taught in this phrase was captured by the Scholar B. F. Wescott,

B. F. Wescott speaking of John 18:36 could comment,

“Yet He did claim a sovereignty, a sovereignty of which the spring and the source was not of earth but of heaven. My Kingdom is not of thisworld (means it) does not derive its origin or its support from earthly sources.”

The Gospel According To John — pg. 260

Dr. Greg Bahnsen echoing Wescott’s work wrote,

“‘My kingdom is not of [ek: out from] this world,’” is a statement about the source — not the nature — of His reign, as the epexegetical ending of the verse makes obvious: ‘My kingdom is not from here [enteuthen].’ The teaching is not that Christ’s kingdom is wholly otherworldly, but rather that it originates with God Himself (not any power or authority found in creation.”

Dr. Greg Bahnsen
God & Politics — pg. 27

John 18:36  is often put forth as a defeater passage for the comprehensive Kingship of the Lord Jesus over this world. Bahnsen clearly shows here, quite in agreement with the Greek scholar B. F. Westcott, that God’s Kingdom, as it manifests itself in this world, is energized by a source outside this world. This is important to emphasize because many people read John 18:36 as proof that the Kingdom of Jesus does not and should not express itself in this world. Often this verse is appealed to in order to prove that God’s Kingdom is only “spiritual” and as such Christians shouldn’t be concerned about what are perceived as “non-spiritual” realms. Support for such thinking, if there is any, must come from passages other than John 18:36.

What we get from some contemporary Calvinists, is the quote of Christ telling Pilate that ‘His Kingdom is not of this World,’ as if that is to end all conversation on the Lordship of Christ over all cultural endeavors. What is forgotten is the way that John often uses the word ‘World.’ John often uses the word ‘World’ with a sinister significance to communicate a disordered reality in grip of the Devil set in opposition to God. If that is the way that the word ‘world’ is being used in John 18:36 then we can understand why Jesus would say that His Kingdom ‘was not of this world.’ The Kingdom of Jesus will topple the Kingdoms of this disordered world changing them to be the Kingdoms of His ordered world, but it won’t be done by the disordered methodology of this World and so Jesus can say, “My Kingdom is not of this World.” Hopefully, we can see that such a statement doesn’t mean that Christ’s Kingdom has no effect in this world or that Christ’s Kingdom can’t overcome the world.

John 18:36 is often appealed to in order to prove that the Kingdom of God is a private individual spiritual personal reality that does not impinge on public square practice(s) of peoples or nations corporately considered. Those who appeal to John 18:36 in this way are prone thus to insist that God’s Word doesn’t speak to the public square practice(s) of peoples or nations since such an appeal (according to this thinking) would be an attempt to wrongly make God’s Kingdom of this world.

The problem with this though is it that it is a misreading of the passage. When Jesus say’s “My Kingdom is not of this world,” his use of the word “world” here is not spatial. Jesus is not saying that His Kingdom does not impact planet earth. What Jesus is saying is that His Kingdom does not find its source of authority from the world as it lies in Adam.

Jesus brings a Kingdom to this world that is in antithetical opposition to the Kingdom of Satan that presently characterizes this world in this present wicked age. The Kingdom that Jesus brings has its source of authority in His Father’s Word. As a result of Christ bringing His Kingdom with His advent there are two Kingdoms that are vying for supremacy on planet earth. Scripture teaches that the Kingdom of the “age to come” that characterizes Christ’s present Kingdom will be victorious in this present spatial world that is characterized by “this present wicked age,” precisely because, in principle, Christ’s Kingdom is already victorious in this present spatial world.

What this means of course for many many Christians is the necessity to jettison the Humanist thinking that insists that we must have separation of Christianity and State. If we separate Christianity and State … if we separate the State, from the Kingship of Christ, the result will be that the State itself will take up the mantle of Christ’s Kingship and as we saw earlier we will then be ruled as by a Tyrant.

Conclusion,

Our Lord as King has crown rights over us by virtue of two facts.

1.) Creation —  “All things were made by him, and without him was not anything made that was made.”  John 1:3.

Col. 1:16 For by him all things were created, in heaven and on earth, visible and invisible, whether thrones or dominions or rulers or authorities—all things were created through him and for him.

2.) Redemption — You are not your own, you were bought with a price

I Cor. 6:20 — you are not your own For you have been bought with a price:
I Cor. 7:23 You were bought with a price; do not become bondservants of men.

Christ is our great King both by way of Creation and by way of Redemption. As such He, as King, as a double claim on us and this claim means we are the people who are eager to champion the great law of the King in our obedience and in our proclamation. We belong to the King and we move in terms of His legislative grace word.

You see of course that this is the problem of Arminianism and many other non-Reformed understandings of Christianity.  Their denial of Christ’s Kingship is hard-baked into their theology. In Arminianism you have man trying to form  joint regency with Christ as King. Man must have a King’s sovereign choice over his salvation.  Man is King over his salvation. Well, if man is going to be sovereign King in the matter of his own regeneration then we should not be surprised when such non Reformed Christians reserve to themselves Kingly rights over every command of God’s law.  When you assert your right to be King in order to choose God then there is no area that you will not claim.

Put succinctly and as pithily as I know how  we must say that  men who believe that they choose Christ as King very shortly come to believe that they can choose their own Kingly law.