Leddihn On Leftist Identitarianism

“Leftism with its strongly identitarian bent and a non-spiritual, materialistic, enthusiasm either declares race and nationality to be supreme values to which everybody has to conform (as the Nazis did) or they want to ‘explain them away’ and ignore them with iron determination … because they are an obstacle to identitarian uniformity. The Nazis wanted to eliminate by brute force those who did not racially conform, those nationally (ethnically) not conforming by cultural high-pressure methods. The ‘international leftists’ wants us to close our eyes and ignore facts. This is just another process of ‘elimination.’ The rightist, who is a liberal in the genuine (classical) sense of the term, keeps his eyes open and gladly and charitably accepts diversity of mankind. Rejecting egalitarianism (no less than identitarianism), he knows that God’s gifts are distributed in mysterious ways — not only among persons but also among nations and races. Though they cannot be expressed in simple scientific formula and never work out mathematically in time or space, they do not invalidate the rightist principle of suum cuique.”

Erik von Kuehnelt-Leddihn
Leftism — pg. 223

Leddihn, Lasch, & Berman On The Decline Of The West

“The French Revolution is still with us in every way. Not only are its ideas ever-present, but there is much in its historic evolution that can teach us — in North America no less than in Europe. Its initial period began with the undermining of traditional values and ideas, coupled with the demand for moderate reforms. With Voltaire a whole series of scoffers, facile critics, and agnostics in the literal sense of the term made their appearance. They subverted religion, convictions, traditions, and the loyalties on which state and society rested. The process of decomposition and putrefaction always starts at the top — in the royal palace, the presidential mansion, among the intellectuals, the aristocracy, the wealthy, the clergy — and then gradually enmeshes the lower social layers. In this process it is interesting to notice how the high and mighty develop a sense of guilt and with it a readiness to abdicate, to yield to expropriation, to submit to the loss of privileges, in other words, to commit suicide politically and economically. For this masochist act, however, they are well prepared by the ideological propaganda coming from their own ranks…. The members of the nobility who took active part in the intellectual or political undermining of the ancien regime and then participated in the Revolution are very numerous, without their support the French Revolution is well-nigh unimaginable…. One is inevitably reminded of the fact that, statistically speaking, the natural death of states and nations as well as of classes and estates, is not murder but suicide. However, this act of suicide is usually preceded by a period of delusions and follies. Quen deus vult perdidi prius dementat.

Erik von Kuehnelt-Leddihn
Lefism — pg. 88

I would only add here that before political and economic suicide can be committed that theological suicide must first be committed, since politics and economics descends from Theology. I would also observe that when Leddihn speaks of “ideological propaganda,” as Christians we should understand that such ideological propaganda is but a form of theological propaganda.

Leddhin’s observation in this quote supports Christopher Lasch’s, inked 20 years after Leddihn, in his book, “Revolt of the Elites.” In that book Lasch lays the deterioration and decline of the West squarely at the feet of the cultural elite. Lasch cites chapter and verse on how the cultural elite had become the cultural despisers of Western tradition and values. Lasch contends that the overthrow of the West was not orchestrated by the masses, contra Ortega y Gasset’s, “Revolt of the Masses,” but that we have been damaged from within by our cultural gatekeepers.

Morris Berman’s book, “The Twilight of American Culture,” also factors into this theme. Berman, like both Lasch and Leddihn, sees the unraveling of American culture although Berman is inclined to lay the fault at the feet of mass-produced cutlure. Still, that mass-produced culture that Berman speaks of, I would contend, comes from those elites that Lasch excoriates and that Leddihn puts in the dock.

Our problem in the West today is that our best and brightest no longer believe in what made the West the West. Leddihn teaches us that the “Un-Westing” of the West began with the French Revolution and has continued unchecked as Biblical Christianity has lost its power to challenge the various incarnations of the French Revolution that have propelled its agenda of “anti-Reformation,” for each subsequent generation.

Berman, in his book mentioned above, believed it was too late for the West to recover.

I hope he was wrong. I fear he is right.

I Believe In A Place Called Hope

I.) We Have A Problem — Hope is Deferred

Proverbs 13:12 Hope deferred makes the heart sick,
But desire [a]fulfilled is a tree of life.

We have this Hope found in Scripture that

I Corinthians 15:25 Christ must reign until he has put all his enemies under his feet.

Notice the “Now … not yet” Aaron.

In this I Cor. 15 passage we note that the end is contingent: it will come whenever it is that he delivers up the kingdom to the Father. But this will not occur until “after He has destroyed all dominion, authority and power.” (I Cor. 15:24) Consequently, “the end” will not occur, Christ will not turn the kingdom over to the Father, until after He has abolished His opposition. Here is the certain hope (the divinely orchestrated abolishment of God’s opposition) that is currently deferred that, as the writer to the Proverbs inks, “make our heart sick.”

As God’s people we have this sure and certain hope that Christ reigning now, Christ will continue to demonstrably put His enemies under His feet, and yet if we only judge progress by the short term and by the immediate circumstance we might begin to doubt of this certain hope of Christ subduing of His enemies in space, time and History.

After all, if we look around us it seems we are beset on all sides.

Economics

I have repeatedly made it clear, in internal Federal Open Market Committee deliberations and in public speeches, that I believe that with each program we undertake to venture further in that direction, we are sailing deeper into uncharted waters…. The truth, however, is that nobody on the committee, nor on our staffs at the Board of Governors and the 12 Banks, really knows what is holding back the economy. Nobody really knows what will work to get the economy back on course. And nobody—in fact, no central bank anywhere on the planet—has the experience of successfully navigating a return home from the place in which we now find ourselves. No central bank—not, at least, the Federal Reserve—has ever been on this cruise before.

Richard Fisher is the President and CEO of the Federal Reserve Bank of Dallas.

One of the enemies that Christ will put under His feet is the enemy of Humanistic – Marxist – Corporatist economics which currently conspires against Christ’s Lordship in the market place.

And so Hope is deferred in the realm of economics.

Political

“Voters are confused about political cause and effect. They think of a Presidential candidate as their man. In fact, they are his people. They exist so as to get his branch of the CFR elected. Fanatically loyal party voters are the party’s hip pocket voters. The party can safely pay no attention to them. The party must court voters who are not committed to the ideals of its core supporters, who in turn overlook the fact that their man will sell them out on every major issue that did not have support from the CFR. Most of them have never heard of the CFR.”

Dr. Gary North

One of the enemies that Christ will put under His feet is the enemy of Humanistic – Marxist – Democracy which currently so conspires against Christ’s Lordship.

And so Hope is deferred in the realm of Politics.

Educational

The most controversial issues of the 21st century will pertain to the ends and means of modifying human behavior and who shall determine them. The first educational question will not be “what knowledge is of the most worth?” but “what kinds of human beings do we wish to produce?” The possibilities virtually defy our imagination.

Dr. John Goodlad –1969
Nation’s Premier Change Agent
Receiving Federal and Tax Exempt foundation grants for 30 years

From C. Iserbyt’s “the Deliberate Dumbing Down of America”

You can be sure that the human beings that the humanists like Goodlad are attempting to produce are not human beings who Love the Lordship of Jesus Christ.

One of the enemies that Christ will put under His feet is the enemy which is humanist Education which currently so conspires against Christ’s Lordship.

And so Hope is deferred in the realm of Education

Family

“Consequently, we are directly bound to reach the conclusion that unless some unforeseen renaissance occurs, the family system will continue headlong its present trend toward nihilism. There is of yet no force with sufficient power, knowledge, and interest to prevent this current trend. National states … have seemingly little interest in preserving the family. Their social processes are in the hands of bureaucrats and the atomists.”

Carle C. Zimmerman
Family & Civilization

One of the enemies that Christ will put under His feet, before He returns, is the enemy which is Atmomism which seeks to destroy the Biblical family at every turn.

And so Hope is deferred in the realm of family life.

Ecclesiastical

“In dealing with organized religion Leftism knows of two widely divergent procedures. One is a form of separation of church and state which eliminates religion from the marketplace and tries to atrophy it by not permitting it to exist anywhere outside the sacred precincts. The other is the transformation of the Church into a fully state controlled establishment. Under these circumstances the Church is asphyxiated, not starved to death. The Nazis and the Soviets used the former method; Czechoslovakia employed the latter.”

Erik von Kuehnelt – Leddihn
Leftism

What is interesting is that in our current epoch here is that in some quarters the Church is not having separation of church and state forced on them but is willingly embracing it. Similarly, the Church in many quarters is not being forced to be a fully state controlled establishment but is willingly embracing it if only because that is how one draws a citizenry that has become fully state controlled.

One of the enemies that Christ will put under His feet, before He returns, is the enemy which is a wayward Church which has lost its savor and has a bushel over its light.

And so Hope is deferred in the realm of the Church.

II.) And Yet We Still Have Hope

Scripture refers consistently to his Hope that we have. In the book of Romans alone,

Romans 5:2-5 Through him we have also obtained access by faith into this grace in which we stand, and we rejoice in hope of the glory of God. More than that, we rejoice in our sufferings, knowing that suffering produces endurance, and endurance produces character, and character produces hope, and hope does not put us to shame, because God’s love has been poured into our hearts through the Holy Spirit who has been given to us.

Romans 8:24-25 For in this hope we were saved. Now hope that is seen is not hope. For who hopes for what he sees? But if we hope for what we do not see, we wait for it with patience.

Romans 12:12 Rejoice in hope, be patient in tribulation, be constant in prayer.

Romans 15:4 For whatever was written in former days was written for our instruction, that through endurance and through the encouragement of the Scriptures we might have hope.

Romans 15:13 May the God of hope fill you with all joy and peace in believing, so that by the power of the Holy Spirit you may abound in hope.

What is all this Hope based upon?

A.) Scriptural Promises

Matthew 16:18 “I also say to you that you are [b]Peter, and upon this [c]rock I will build My church; and the gates of Hades will not overpower it.”

Yes, we are surrounded but we have Hope because the promise here is that the gates of Hell will not be able to overpower the confession that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of the living God.

Eeardmans commentary,

The gates suggest the picture of a fortress or prison which lock in the dead and lock out their rescuers. This would imply that the church is on the offensive, and its Master will plunder the domain of Satan (cf. 12:29; 1 Pet. 3:18-20).

The Reign of the Lord’s Anointed

2 Why do the nations rage[a]
and the peoples plot in vain?
2 The kings of the earth set themselves,
and the rulers take counsel together,
against the Lord and against his Anointed, saying,
3 “Let us burst their bonds apart
and cast away their cords from us.”

4 He who sits in the heavens laughs;
the Lord holds them in derision.
5 Then he will speak to them in his wrath,
and terrify them in his fury, saying,
6 “As for me, I have set my King
on Zion, my holy hill.”

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.”

10 Now therefore, O kings, be wise;
be warned, O rulers of the earth.
11 Serve the Lord with fear,
and rejoice with trembling.
12 Kiss the Son,
lest he be angry, and you perish in the way,
for his wrath is quickly kindled.
Blessed are all who take refuge in him.

Here clearly is the promise that Christ ruling the Nations will rule the Nations. They will Kiss the Son or Perish in the way. And so while our hope may be deferred it is nonetheless a certain Hope.

I Corinthians 15:25 — For he must reign until he has put all his enemies under his feet.

This passage may be a reference to Psalm 110

The Lord says to my Lord:
“Sit at my right hand,
until I make your enemies your footstool.”

2 The Lord sends forth from Zion
your mighty scepter.
Rule in the midst of your enemies!

Dr. Ken Gentry offers here,

References elsewhere to the Psalm 110 passage specifically mention His sitting at God’s right hand. Sitting at the right hand entails active ruling and reigning, not passive resignation. He is now actively “the ruler over the kings of the earth” who “has made us kings and priests to His God and Father, to Him be glory and dominion forever and ever” (Rev. 1:5).

Here in 1 Corinthians 15:25 we learn that he must continue to reign, He must continue to put His enemies under His feet—but until when? The answer is identical to that which has already been concluded: it is expected before the end of history. Earlier it was awaiting the abolishing of all rule, authority and power; here it delayed until “He has put all His enemies under His feet.” The repetition of the expectation of His sure conquest before the end is significant. Furthermore, the last enemy that will be subdued is death, which is subdued in conjunction with the Resurrection that occurs at His coming. But the subduing of His other enemies occurs before this, before the Resurrection.

But as Christians we have this certain hope from vs. 25, that Christ, reigning now, will continue to exercise that reign that is already established.

In verse 27 it is clear that He has the title to rule, for the Father “has put everything under His feet.” This is the Pauline expression (borrowed from Psa. 8:6) that is equivalent to Christ’s declaration that “all authority has been given Me.” Christ has the promise of victory and He has the right to victory. Psalm 110, especially as expounded by Paul in 1 Corinthians 15, shows He will have the historical, pre-consummation victory as His own before His coming.

B.) The Character & Nature of Biblical Hope

The majority of secular writers in the ancient world did not see hope as being a particular virtue. Paul was accurate when he could write in Ephesians 4:12 that those without God were without Hope. The same remains true for pagans today. Those who have embraced a materialistic worldview live in a closed universe and those who are able to be honest with themselves realize that hoping is largely reduced to wishing.

However “Hope” in the Christian worldview is not reduced to wishing. In the Christian worldview Hope is based upon the Character of God and the fact that the universe is open to God of the Christian who can intervene at any moment.

Because of what God has done in the past in orchestrating world history to the point of the incarnation of Christ and because of what God is now doing in gathering His Church because of Christ’s work and through the Spirit, the Christian as a hope, that is characterized by certitude based on God’s promises and God’s past actions, that future promised blessings yet unseen will come to pass.

The Apostle gives an example of this kind of Hope of which we speak in II Cor. 1:10

10 He delivered us from such a deadly peril, and he will deliver us. On him we have set our hope that he will deliver us again.

Christian Hope therefore is not something, or at least, ought not to be something, that varies with the changing winds of circumstance. Rather Biblical hope, as Hebrews 6 teaches is,

19 … a sure and steadfast anchor of the soul, a hope that enters into the inner place behind the curtain, (i.e. — eternal invisible world).

Because of this kind of Hope we can say with Lowell,

Truth forever on the scaffold, Wrong forever on the throne,—
Yet that scaffold sways the future, and, behind the dim unknown,
Standeth God within the shadow, keeping watch above his own.

This is the Hope that Paul speaks of in Romans 15

Romans 15:13 May the God of hope fill you with all joy and peace in believing, so that by the power of the Holy Spirit you may abound in hope.

God is the one who gives Hope. C.E.B. Cranfield writes in his commentary,

“The double reference to “hope” in this verse is especially significant. An essential characteristic of the believer, as this epistle has very clearly shown hope is perhaps that characteristic which has at all periods most strikingly distinguished the authentic Christian from his pagan neighbors.”

One thing we want to note here is that this hope is grace given. Note in vs. 13 it is by the power of the Holy Spirit that we may abound in hope.

So, we are faced with these matters we spoke earlier of and yet, because of the Grace of God and by the power of the Holy Spirit we have hope.

Why even in the midst of our tribulation we can have Hope because we know that there is some kind of correlation between the our afflictions and our eventual eternal weight of glory.

17 For this light momentary affliction is preparing for us an eternal weight of glory beyond all comparison, 18 as we look not to the things that are seen but to the things that are unseen. For the things that are seen are transient, but the things that are unseen are eternal.

Conclusion,

We can have Biblical Hope by remembering

This Is My Father’s World

This is my Father’s world. O let me ne’er forget
That though the wrong seems oft so strong, God is the ruler yet.
This is my Father’s world: the battle is not done;
Jesus who died shall be satisfied,
And earth and heaven be one.

We can have Biblical hope by remembering,

“History has never been dominated by majorities, but only by dedicated minorities who stand unconditionally on their faith.” R. J. Rushdoony

Who could have ever envisioned that the ancient pagan world would have been conquered by Christianity?

Who could have ever envisioned that despite all the odds, and all the previous setbacks that God would deign to grant Reformation to the West in the 16th century?

Only those who were familiar with Biblical Hope.

The Church’s One Foundation

The church shall never perish!
Her dear Lord to defend,
To guide, sustain and cherish
Is with her to the end;
Though there be those that hate her,
And false sons in her pale,
Against our foes or traitors
She ever shall prevail.

Leddhin & McAtee On Egalitarian Social Orders

“Egalitarianism, as we have already intimated, cannot make much progress without the use of force: Perfect equality, naturally, is only possible in total slavery. Since nature (and naturalness, implying also freedom from artificial constraints) has no bias against even gross inequalities, force must be used to establish equality. Imagine the average class of students in a boarding school, endowed with the normal variety of talents, interests, and inclinations for hard work. The power and dictatorial principle of the school insists that all students of the class should score B’s in a given subject. This would mean that those who earned C, D, or E would be made to work harder, some so hard they would collapse. Then there would be the problem of the A students whom one would have to restrain, giving them intoxicating drinks or locking them up every day with copies of Playboy or The New Masses. The simplest way would probably be to hit them over the head. Force would have to be used, as Procrustes used it. But the use of force limits and in most cases destroys freedom.

A “free” landscape has hills and valleys. To make an ‘egalitarian’ landscape one would have to blow off the tops of mountains and fill the valleys with rubble. To get an even hedge, one has to clip it regularly. To equalize wealth one would have to pay ‘equal wages and salaries,’ or tax the surplus away — to the extent that those earning above the average would refuse additional work. Since these are usually gifted people with stamina and ideas, their refusal has a paralyzing effect on the common weal.

In other words there is a real antagonism, and incompatibility, a mutual exclusiveness between liberty and enforced equality.”

Leftism
Erik von Kuehnelt-Leddihn

Leddihn brings out what we need to realize as a culture and that a social order must choose between Liberty and Equality because it can not have both. Liberty and equality are antithetical to one another. Equality requires standardization and so someone (an elite class) to be the standardizers. A social order, given over to equality, can not allow the individual the liberty to move beyond the expected standardization for such a move beyond the standardization as set by the egalitarians would threaten the egalitarian order.

Egalitarianism is often driven by envy and is embraced by many because of the promise that it holds out to people who, if the egalitarian social order is built, then they will no longer have any reason to have envy for the talents and skills of those whom are superior in giftedness in some area. It delivers people from the insecurity, accompanied by Liberty, that someone else might actually excel above and beyond them in some area. And so the plea for an egalitarian social order is supported and championed by those who, being envious of the gifted, and insecure over their real or perceived lack, believe that what they lack can be nullified by insuring that everyone else is required to share in their real or perceived lack since all are required to be equal.

Of course the cult of the equal, as it pertains to social orders, always means the least common denominator equality. In egalitarian orders, the equality does not lift the slightly talented and marginally gifted person up but instead pulls the significantly talented and the greatly gifted person down. A prime example of this is the “The No Child Left Behind” programs in the schools which leaves no Child behind at the cost of insuring that no Child excels. No Child is left behind because all children are left behind. This is what the cult of equality always yields.

I’ve just started Leddhin’s book. The insights here I’ve culled from the first few chapters as combined with what I learned from the book “Egalitarian Envy,” by de la Mora.

“THE YEAR WAS 2081, and everybody was finally equal. They weren’t only equal before God and the law. They were equal every which way. Nobody was smarter than anybody else. Nobody was better looking than anybody else. Nobody was stronger or quicker than anybody else. All this equality was due to the 211th, 212th, and 213th Amendments to the Constitution, and to the unceasing vigilance of agents of the United States Handicapper General.”

Opening Lines from Harrison Bergeron
|Short Story — Kurt Vonnegut

Caleb’s Baptism — Heidelberg Catechism Q. 22-24

Caleb,

In the last question the catechism instructed us as to the definition of “true faith.” In the following questions the Catechism sets the table for a detailed examination of our undoubted Catholic Christian Faith. Because these next few questions are basically table setting questions for the following questions we will be able to examine more than one question today.

As the catechizers have established what true faith is, they next turn to the issue of what it is necessary for a Christian to believe. They have given us a definition of faith and now they turn to the truths upon which our faith must be anchored.

A couple of things to note briefly here before we turn to question 22.

First, as we have mentioned before, this emphasis that we find in the catechism on the issue of the content of our faith reminds us again that Christianity is the life of the mind. Question 22 asks, “What is then necessary for a christian to believe,” not, “What is necessary for a Christian to feel,” or, “What is necessary for a Christian to experience.” As we have said feelings and experience have their place in the Christian life but it is what we believe — what we embrace as truth — that is the essence of the Christian faith.

Second, we should note that “Faith” is an inescapable category. What I mean by this is that all men live by faith in something or someone. It is not as if only Christians have faith, or only religious people have faith. Every living breathing person you meet has some kind of faith. The humanists have faith. They have faith that man, by the use of putatively autonomous right reason, can arrive at true truth quite apart from any religious considerations. (Of course thinking that one can arrive at truth apart from any religious consideration is a religious faith consideration.) The Materialists have faith that everything happened by time plus chance plus circumstance. Since they were not there, there is no way they can know that their materialism is true. Besides, for the materialists, can there even be discussion about “true,” since “true,” for the materialist, is only the firing of random chemicals in our purely material brains? If the brain secretes thought the way the liver secretes bile can the materialist really speak about “truth?”

When it comes to faith the difference for the Christian and the pagan is that the pagan’s faith reduces to “faith in faith,” while the Christian’s faith is faith anchored in divine revelation.

Very well then, with that as preliminary the Catechism asks,

Question 22. What is then necessary for a christian to believe?

Answer: All things promised us in the gospel, (a) which the articles of our catholic undoubted christian faith briefly teach us.

As they ask what is “necessary” to believe, I understand the catechizers to be communicating that what they are about to give is the basics of Christianity. They intend to stick to the meat and potatoes of our undoubted Catholic Christian faith. The catechism is given as a basic Christianity 101. Now we might find that surprising given that it takes 129 questions in the catechism to give us the basics. We’re used to 30 second sound bites to get us up to speed on any given subject. We think that we can crash course almost any subject and get up to speed in almost no time. But the Catechism, in order to give us just the essentials gives us 129 questions and answers to digest, understand, and own. Of course what is discussed in the Catechism is just the bare essentials. A Christian, having this foundation will learn much much more throughout their whole Christian life and then when they are old and ready to depart they will readily admit that they are but a child in their understanding of their undoubted Catholic Christian faith.

It is interesting that what we are required to believe is all that is promised in the Gospel. This teaches us two truths.

1.) Our undoubted Catholic Christian faith is about grasping God’s promises. The Gospel is first and foremost about God’s promises to us. The Gospel is first and foremost what God has done for us. When we teach a Christian what is necessary to believe we are teaching them to rest in God’s promises. We are teaching them that God has done all the saving in Christ and that He promises to save all those who are weary and heavy laden if they will take God at His Word that “all who call upon the name of the Lord shall be saved.”

2.) The “Gospel,” as we shall see, includes believing in doctrines that sometimes are, in our contemporary Church setting, not seen as being necessary to consider. For example, the catechism will be teaching us that it is necessary for us to believe in a robust supernaturalism. In order to believe the Gospel we are required to believe Divine creation, the virgin Birth, that our Lord Christ was resurrected from the grave and that He ascended into heaven. The authors of the catechism did not countenance a hermeneutic that allowed us to try to understand the Scripture apart from the Supernatural and where we find people in the Church who claim Christ but interpret the Bible in order to avoid the supernatural or who use semantic deception to diminish the supernatural there we find people who are out of step with the Catechism and Scripture.

That belief is necessary for the Christian is taught in John 20:31

“But these are written, that ye might believe that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God; and that believing ye might have life through his name.”

In question 23 the catechism gives us the Apostles Creed as the statement that they will be breaking down in order to explain to us our undoubted Catholic Christian faith. This Creed comes to us from the life of the early Church and gives 12 affirmations regarding the nature and character of the catholic (universal) Christian faith. Often the Apostles Creed is used in Church services. In some of the branches of Christianity you might even find the Creed being chanted during the worship service. As you know we regularly recite the Apostles Creed whenever the Lord Christ invites us to His table (Eucharist).

Question 23. What are these articles?

Answer: 1. I believe in God the Father, Almighty, Maker of heaven and earth: 2. And in Jesus Christ, his only begotten Son, our Lord: 3. Who was conceived by the Holy Ghost, born of the Virgin Mary: 4. Suffered under Pontius Pilate; was crucified, dead, and buried: He descended into hell: 5. The third day he rose again from the dead: 6. He ascended into heaven, and sitteth at the right hand of God the Father Almighty: 7. From thence he shall come to judge the quick and the dead: 8. I believe in the Holy Ghost: 9. I believe a holy catholic church: the communion of saints: 10. The forgiveness of sins: 11. The resurrection of the body: 12. And the life everlasting.

Since we will be looking closely at each one of these 12 statements we allow the Creed to go uncommented on here.

Then in Question 24 they give a brief subdivision of the Apostles Creed.

8. Lord’s Day

Question 24. How are these articles divided?

Answer: Into three parts; the first is of God the Father, and our creation; the second of God the Son, and our redemption; the third of God the Holy Ghost, and our sanctification.

The whole statement of the Apostles Creed is broken down into three subdivisions. One subdivision for each member of the Trinity.

The work of God the Father is associated with Creation. Subsumed under His work of creation we will be looking into His work of sustaining, and governing. God’s Providence will be a matter we pay close attention to.

The work of God the Son is associated with our Redemption accomplished. The Son was set apart from Eternity to be the Representative and Savior for His people. As such we will be looking at matters like propitiation, reconciliation, atonement, and other doctrines associated with the Son’s work of Redemption.

The work of God the Spirit is associate with our Redemption applied. The Spirit, being sent by the Father and the Son, applies the work of Redemption to His people and possesses His people to the end that they go from Christ-likeness to Christ-likeness.

Even though we subdivide the Apostles Creed in these three parts we mustn’t be so wooden as to think that the particular work that is assigned to each member of the Trinity finds the other members of the Trinity uninvolved with that work. For example, even though we rightly ascribe Creation to the work of the Father, we can read in Scripture of the Son and Creation,

Colossians 1:16 For by Him all things were created, both in the heavens and on earth, visible and invisible, whether thrones or dominions or rulers or authorities—all things have been created through Him and for Him. 17 He is before all things, and in Him all things hold together.

Hebrews 2:10 For it was fitting for Him, for whom are all things, and through whom are all things, in bringing many sons to glory, to perfect the author of their salvation through sufferings.

And Genesis speaks of the work of the Spirit in creation,

Genesis 1:2 The earth was [a]formless and void, and darkness was over the [b]surface of the deep, and the Spirit of God was [c]moving over the [d]surface of the waters.

Similar examples could be given for each of the works that are properly ascribed to the members of the Trinity. So, while it is not wrong to think of the Father in relation to his Creator work, or the Son in relation to His Redemption work, or the Spirit in relation to His Sanctifying work it would be wrong to not realize that because of the intimate relationship between each member of the Trinity that when one member is involved in a particular work each member is involved in that work. Each member of the Trinity cooperates in each work.