Augustine On God’s Providence

“It is the LORD of hosts whom you should regard as holy. And He shall be your fear, And He shall be your dread. Isaiah 8:13

“And even if the demons have any power in these matters (events of history), they have only that power which the secret decree of the Almighty allots to them, in order that we may not, set too great store by earthly prosperity, seeing it is oftentimes vouchsafed even to wicked men like Marius; and that we may not, on the other hand, regard it as evil, since we see that many good and pious worshipers of the one true God are, in spite of the demons, pre-eminently successful; and, finally, that we may not suppose that these unclean spirits are either to be propitiated or feared for the sake of earthly blessings or calamities; for as wicked men on earth cannot do all they would, so neither can these demons, but only in so far as they are permitted by the decree of Him whose judgments are fully comprehensible, justly reprehensible by none.”

Augustine
The City Of God — pg. 66

In Seminary I was taught that the Devil was God’s devil on a leash. This is exactly what Augustine is articulating here. We have no need to fear that which either wicked men or wicked spirits can do to us, who are God’s people, for whatever comes to us needs come to us through the hands of our loving benevolent Father whose every action towards us is one of Fatherly compassion and tender mercy.

Second, note Augustine intimates that we would do well to be careful in judging our estate or the estate of others by circumstances. Providential ordering that looks to be good on the surface happens to wicked people and providential ordering that looks to be good on the surface happens to God’s elect. We can not look at a persons prosperous circumstances alone and adjudicate a person’s standing with God.

Third, Augustine reminds us that we should not be consumed with concern regarding demonic beings he obviously holds to exist. It is somewhat refreshing to read of Augustine’s conviction that Demons exist. The Church in the West today is so caught up in the Scientific nature of Modernity that we forget that their is a very real spiritual realm that doesn’t answer to the cold scientific calculations of Modernity.

Still, despite his conviction that Demons exist, Augustine reminds us that Demons are not to be propitiated (appeased) or feared. Men ought to only fear God. If men will fear God and move in terms of His Law-Word, resting in His favor, what need is there to be consumed by either evil men or evil spirits?

Fear of anything or any one in the created realm is an act of Worship and so a violation of the 1st commandment. When we fear anything or any one but God we are guilty of having a god before God that will be able to, because of our fear, command our allegiance and control our behavior. Such command and control is the essence of worship. Such fear of wicked men or demons is a sin that needs to be repented of. It is a sin I repent of constantly.

As God’s Holy elect we need daily to pray that God would grant us the grace to only fear Him. As frail and weak humans we are prone to allow our fears to push God out of our reckoning and so to not venture out in obedience to Him. Men that cannot overcome their fears are men that are compromised before they begin.

Prayer

Almighty Excellent and Sovereign God we pray that thou would make us a people who fear only you. Grant us grace to understand that there is a Spiritual realm that is very active but at the same time grant us grace to remember that thou art the absolute ruler and commander over this Spiritual realm. Teach us we pray thee to take delight in reality of thy Sovereign decrees that rules over the affairs of men. Remind us that thou art a God who is favorably disposed towards us at all times, for the sake of thy and our Redeemer — the Lord Christ. And being confident of your favor aid us to not fear any lesser being.

In Christ’s name

Amen

McAtee Contra Bahnsen

www.davidbahnsen.com/index.php/2013/01/01/i-can-not-believe-how-badly-some-people-miss-the-point/

First, understand that Bahnsen writes like a neo-con. This means he is a progressive though he interprets everything from the right side of the left. He is not a conservative in any legitimate sense of the word.

Bahnsen

There is nothing to celebrate or bemoan in what happened over the last 24 hours. A little rule-of-thumb of mine may be appropriate to share here: When BOTH parties say they want a certain thing, you can bet that after a whole lot of posturing or politicking and time-wasting, that thing is going to happen. It is not that easy when only one party says they want something. BOTH parties said they wanted the bottom four tax rates to stay where they were. BOTH parties said they did not want the estate tax exclusion amount to revert to the preposterous $1 million level. BOTH parties said they wanted a dividend tax rate at 20% or lower. It is no surprise that all these things are happening.

Bret

There is plenty to bemoan with this legislation.

1.) progressive income tax is a plank in the Marxist manifesto. The fact that any group of wage earner’s tax is going up is plenty to bemoan. Bahnsen has embraced the premise that progressive income tax is something that we just have to live with. I bemoan that we have a progressive income tax instead of a flat tax or something like a flat tax.

2.) The fact that we are getting more spending then tax cuts is outrageous. Not only does the McConnell Tax Hike stick it to the middle class, it raises taxes $41 for every $1 in spending cuts. Those spending cuts are ephemeral as there is $330 billion in new spending and a $4 trillion price tag over the next ten years. This plan is not fiscally responsible for a people who own their souls to the Chinese and are borrowing against future generations wealth.

3.) Keep in mind that with this deal more than 80 percent of households with incomes between $50,000 and $200,000 would pay higher taxes.

Both Hollywood and NASCAR get carve outs. So too do wind energy companies.

Bahnsen

Now, do I want my income tax rate going up? No, and I think it is immorally high even at 35%, let alone 39.6%. However, anyone telling you that the Senate or House voted for a tax increase is lying, and they know it. The law of the land was for a dramatically higher increase in rates across the board to kick in, and there have been huge reductions passed in the last 24 hours from all of those legally set levels. In other words, a tax cut was passed, not a tax increase. Did the Republicans hold their ground about not agreeing to see the top rate go from 35% to 39%? No. Did the always-pompous Obama keep his sworn campaign pledge for rates to go up on all incomes above $250,000? No, with all the leverage in the world he folded like a bad poker hand and agreed to a $450,000 income level for that increase. There are things to like and things not to like, but there is simply no debating that it is better than what we were going to get – by a mile.

Bret

This is typical compromise political speak. Bahnsesn doesn’t know what we were “going to get” so how can he proclaim that this is “better then we were going to get?” This is like a virgin being told that she has to choose between becoming pregnant or contracting a STD and then upon becoming compromise her chastity saying, “Well, I may have gotten pregnant but I didn’t get a STD and so being pregnant is better than I was going to get by a mile.”

What if she had just said “no.” What if the Republicans had just said “no?” Who knows what we would have got?

Bahnsen

So why are people like Erick Ericson so mad? Because this plan does not cut spending the way we want. Well, no kidding Sherlock (I like the real expression better). It does not tackle deficits and debts because THE WRONG PARTY WON THE ELECTION.

Bret

More compromise from Bahnsen. He is cut from the same cloth as Boehner and McConnell.

We are so mad because even though the Republicans won the house they cave at every turn. We are so mad because the Republican moderates (Boehner & Cantor’s people) are forging a ruling coalition with the Democrats against Republican conservatives. Has Bahnsen forgotten how divided Government works? Given the 2012 vote that gave the House to the Republicans and the Presidency to Democrats the people obviously wanted gridlock. All because a Democrat wins the Presidency doesn’t mean that he gets what he wants when there is a decidedly Republican Congress. Bahnsen reasoning is curious.

Bahnsen

The so-called resolution to fiscal cliff is a joke, but that is not because it is a bad piece of legislation. The bad piece of legislation was the initial bill that failed to build in tax reductions on a permanent basis back in 2001 and 2003. Elections matter. Do not ever set policy on the presupposition that your party will never lose again. And when you do lose, do not act like you didn’t. The time to flex our muscle and block spending where we legally can is coming. But there was no possible way to do that yesterday.

Bret

There was a way to do that before this deal. Boehner could have held the debt limit increase that Obama wants in a very short time hostage. He could have used that as a leveraging chip but he didn’t and when the time comes around to debate the debt ceiling limit the Republican will cave AGAIN. Why elect Republicans when they are not going to be fiscally responsible?

Bahnsen

For Republicans mad about this deal, I suggest you do what always has to precede real political improvement in a Republic: Win your elections. The Libertarians and Paul-bots have been sitting around crying in their beer for over thirty years while they capture 1% of the voting public’s attention. Do not stoop to their loser level. Win an election, then demand a harder line on spending. For now, we were facing something far, far worse, and we got an improvement. Keep your eye on the ball, friends. This is a long war.

Bret L. McAtee

This is a untempered statement by someone not thinking through the implications of what he says.

Republicans won MASSIVELY in 2010. Did they do anything? Did they stop the debt ceiling limit? Did they do anything to investigate this President? No .. instead what we got with a Tea Party propelled victory is a Neo Con Speaker. Clearly winning elections do not matter as Rockefeller Republicans dance cheek to jowl with Socialist Democrats. Boehner is not a conservative and neither is McConnel or Bahnsen.

And why is he moaning about the Libertarians if they are so insignificant? Me thinketh Bahnsen doth protest too much.

We are being turned into a slave people and the best Bahnsen can do is lash out at Libertarians?

Ask Dan Brannan — A Christian Response To a Christian Gun Control Enthusiast

Daniel,

So where do you draw the line? Should I have the right to own a shoulder mounted surface to air missile? A jet bomber? a nuclear warhead? Do you think if Thomas Jefferson could have seen the damage a fully automatic UZI could inflict on a crowded cafe that he would have still supported the 2nd amendment in its present form? Or better yet been in favor to modify it. These are the argument that are going to come up not stupidity like this flyer.

Dear Jack,

First, that entire line of reasoning assumes that certain classes of weapons are for the the government alone and that the gov’t is inherently more responsible than the freeholder, or citizen. This would, by definition, be Statism – the bedrock of tyranny – precisely the sort of delusions the founders sought to restrain at all costs. As it turns out, the history of the 20th century fully vindicated the founders’ conviction by the fact that governments have proven far more lethally erratic than the average man. Those who allocate, amass, or support inordinate concentrations of power in Government hands are the danger, not the weapons. Government and the state-worshiping mindset are simply too dangerous to allow them a monopoly on force and violence. That is the entire ethic behind the Lord of The Rings: no one can safely wield that concentration of power – least of all they who in their pride, believe otherwise. All men need checks on their power, and the government more than anyone. And that is precisely the intent behind the 2nd amendment – an authority inherent in the people to restrain or overthrow a runaway government for their own defense.

So the limiting principle for the average man’s armament is packed into the the rationale of 2nd amendment itself – while citizens’ right of self-defense may not be infringed, it is apparent that indiscriminate weapons such as nuclear bombs are safe for men neither in nor out of government. In order not to infringe upon people’s right of self-defense non-discriminant weapons like weaponized viruses and nukes are illegal to all, citizens and congressmen. There is no practical use for such items in anyone’s possession; they protect no one and merely endanger everyone.

But yes, tanks, RPGs, and uzis are rightful parts of an American’s armory precisely because they are the weapons needed to suppress state tyranny. And anyone who says otherwise is promoting an ideology far more dangerous than any uzi.

As Christians, we live by Christ law, not the whim of men.

Beale & McAtee On The Reality Of Now Resurrection

We have already seen in John 5:24-29 that the OT prophesied the last great resurrection as a one time event, but this is fulfilled in a staggered “now- not yet” fashion: believers spiritual resurrection in Christ to be followed by a physical resurrection. However, we must not underestimate the resurrection that we have been given in Christ. As Christ has been raised to a new reality so Christians united to Christ has been raised to a new reality and are to live their lives in terms of this Resurrection New Creational Kingdom (Col. 1:13f)

In I Cor. 15 Paul portrays another version of this staggered resurrection fulfillment; The Messiah is physically resurrected first, and then later his people are raised physically. Remembering that the OT appeared to prophesy that all of God’s people together were to be resurrected as part of one event, Paul views the prophecy of the end time resurrection to begin fulfillment in Christ’s physical resurrection, which necessitates that the saint’ subsequent physical resurrection had to happen. In other words the great event of the final resurrection had begun in Christ but since the event was not completed in the resurrection of others, the completion of that prophesied event had to come at some point in the future.

G. K. Beale
A New Testament Biblical Theology — pg.261

However, we must be careful of the “Spiritual” Resurrection that wherein we have been resurrected. There is a tendency for the Reformed to make “Spiritual” speak Plato as if to mean “non intrusive in our every day to day lives.”

We have been resurrected so that our relationship to the old Adam is superseded by our relationship to the new Adam. This explains why the expectation is that we would walk in “newness of life.” We are resurrected beings and though we are not yet all that we one day will be we are creatures who live in this present age as walking and living in the age to come. Like Legolas in Tolkien’s work we live in two worlds at the same time but the creational age in which we have been resurrected is impinging on all around us that has not yet been resurrected. In some sense then we, as the resurrected, are the bearers of resurrection life to all that we come in contact with.

This reality of having been NOW resurrected with Christ is why Paul can write about our now being seated in the Heavenlies with Christ. It is why he could write that we have been NOW translated to the Kingdom of God’s dear Son, whom He loves. It is why he could write that our citizenship is in heaven, keeping in mind that heaven is invading this present wicked age via His resurrected citizenry.

The “NOW” of our Resurrected status can not be hidden under the bushel of the “not yet.” The Kingdom as come and we are citizens of that future creational age Kingdom bringing the aroma of Christ and that Kingdom unto all we come in contact with.

Edmund Burke on Hatred

“A kind Providence has placed in our breasts a hatred of the unjust and cruel, in order that we may preserve ourselves from cruelty and injustice. They who bear cruelty, are accomplices in it. The pretended gentleness which excludes that charitable rancor, produces an indifference which is half an approbation. They never will love where they ought to love, who do not hate where they ought to hate.”

~ Edmund Burke