Promise Involves Ongoing Levels of Fulfillment

Promise Involves Ongoing Levels of Fulfillment

When the Scriptures deal with God’s Promises we see the fulfillment of those Promises to be dynamic and not static. Whereas in a prediction the fulfillment of the prediction either comes true or doesn’t come true w/ God’s covenant promises you have fulfillment that come true but often in a way different than anticipated when looking at the original Promise.

Ill. – Promise of Engagement / Fulfillment of Engagement promise leading to Wedding Promises leading to fulfillment of Wedding Promises.

The Promise made my two 20 year old in getting engaged are fulfilled on their Wedding day but those promises are fulfilled by the act of other Promises exchanged on the Wedding day so that the original engagement promises are extended and intensified. In turn those wedding day Promises are fulfilled over the course of a married life in a myriad of ways — ways that are dictated by the ebb and flow of the relationship. 65 years later could either of the two young people who originally made promises of engagement have had any idea how that original engagement promise would have ended up being fully fulfilled?

God’s Promises in the Old Covenant are like this except God’s fulfilled promises cover millennium and not mere decades. They are Promises made and Promises kept but they are made and kept in ways that might not have been expected when the Promise was originally made. There is a great deal of this keeping of promises that results in extending and intensifying the original promise.

Ill. – Father Promising 5 year old son all the books in his magnificent library when he turns 18 but between 5 and 18 the Kindle is invented and so at 18 the Father gives the son a Kindle w/ all his library books downloaded instead of the library itself. Has the Father kept the Promise? Would the Son accuse the Father of going back on the promise?

This is the way much of the OT Promises work. God’s relationship w/ Israel was founded on the promises to Abraham in Genesis 12. But even in the OT itself the Promise God made to Abraham is fulfilled in unanticipated ways only to see the promise extended and intensified so that it is fulfilled over and over again in unexpected ways.

For example in one sense God’s promise to Abraham of “seed” is fulfilled with the Birth of Isaac. But of course we all know that the Promise once fulfilled was extended and intensified. A major theme of Genesis is how from one man the posterity of Abraham grows to a community of 70 people — a number that communicates that God is building His own Nation and People to rival the 70 nations mentioned in the Table of Nations. (Gen. 10-11)

Yet the promise fulfillment doesn’t stop there. In Ex 1:7 suddenly we see a people who are ‘exceedingly numerous.’ God’s Promise fulfillment to Abraham to have a seed continues past the OT as we see Jesus as being the singular seed that God had in mind when He made the promise of seed to Abraham. (Gal. 3:16, 19)

Now to Abraham and his Seed were the promises made. He does not say, “And to seeds,” as of many, but as of one, “And to your Seed,”[i]who is Christ.

What purpose then does the law serve? It was added because of transgressions, till the Seed should come to whom the promise was made; and it was appointed through angels by the hand of a mediator.

But even when the original Promise is fully fulfilled in an ultimate sense there are ripple fulfillments to the original promise that wash up on the shores of history. God’s promise to Abraham is also fulfilled in God’s bringing in of believing Gentiles into the covenant so that Father Abraham really does have many sons…. ‘I am one of them, and so are you …”

Here we see a pattern that we find throughout Scripture when it comes to God’s covenant Promises. God fulfills promises in ways that we might not expect (like the Father w/ a Kindle instead of a Library) and then extending and intensifying that promise so that it is fulfilled many times over in more and more glorious fashions.

Consider Abraham again and God’s Promise to make his name great.

Over and over again we find this Promise fulfilled, extended and intensified. When Abraham becomes wealthy in the land his name becomes great as God promised to Abraham in Genesis 12, but God is not finished yet. Abraham’s people go into the Exodus and eventually are brought into bondage. Their name is hardly great and yet God leads them out and once again He fulfills the promise to give Abraham a great name. This promise fulfillment ebbs and flows. As Israel is disobedient their name is brought low. As they are obedient God lifts them up and gives them a great name again. However, we all know that the ultimate fulfillment of this original promise to Abraham is fulfilled in Christ. Christ is the one who is given such a great name that at his name every knee shall bow and every tongue confess that He is Lord. However, once again, there are ripple effects to the ultimate fulfillment of giving Abraham a great name. Now, God conspires to give His Church a great name that His Church might glorify Him.

We could do the same with God’s promise to Abraham of the Land in Genesis 12. Once Israel occupies the land through Joshua God fulfills his promise and yet that promise finds its ultimate promise fulfilled in the Lord Christ who was the great Son of Abraham with the greatest of great names who has occupied for His people the Heavenly Canaan land. However, from the that full fulfillment of the original promise there ripples other fulfillments out from that fulfillment. Today God’s people are told they will inherit not just a piece of real estate in the Middle East but the whole earth (Mt. 5:5).

The repeated extending and intensifying of the original promise prepares us for the expectation that the final fulfillment will not be in terms of the literal details of the original promise like the Kindle analogy.

And here we have rubbed up against the problem of much “literal” readings hermeneutics employed by dispensationalists and others. There are those who don’t understand the idea of extending and intensifying of the promise and so they are still looking for the whole library when the Kindle is staring them clearly in the face.

The clearest example of this is the idea that National Israel still has a future as God’s uniquely covenant people. The promises to Israel were fulfilled completely in the Church. The Church is the Kindle and yet many people still read the Scriptures looking for the whole library that is in their minds National Israel to make some kind of comeback.

However, the Church upon reflecting on God’s Promises in light of Jesus resurrection came to understand as Paul put it, ‘that all the Promises of God are ‘Yes’ and Amen in Christ Jesus.’ The Church, following Scripture has understood that the Old covenant promises only make sense in light of how they have been extended, intensified and fulfilled in Christ. He was the singular seed of Abraham. He was the seed promised to David.

12 “When your days are fulfilled and you rest with your fathers, I will set up your seed after you, who will come from your body, and I will establish his kingdom. 13 He shall build a house for My name, and I will establish the throne of his kingdom forever. 14 I will be his Father, and he shall be My son.

The Lord Jesus is the one in whom all nations of the earth would be blessed. To be in Christ was to be a child of Abraham and therefore to share in the inheritance of God’s people. He is the Passover lamb protecting God’s people from the wrath of God. His death and resurrection has achieved the ultimate Exodus and so is our Moses leading us out of the bondage of our sin and the tyranny of the Devil. Returning to Christ is the ultimate return from Babylonian Exile. In him the Church has been given the inheritance of both the whole earth and the Heavenly Promised Land as fulfillment of God’s promise to Abraham to give him a land. (This is why we aren’t consumed w/ what happens in the Middle East.)
Christ is the mediator of a new covenant. The sacrificial death and risen life of the Lord Jesus has fulfilled and surpassed all that was signified in the Tabernacle, the sacrifices and the priesthood. He was the temple not made with hands, indeed He was Mt. Zion itself – the one where the focus of the name and presence of God rests.

So what we see in all this is that Promises made by God in the Old Covenant are of such a nature that by the time they are fulfilled the fulfillment looks different then the way the original hearers of the Promises might have anticipated. The promises were made in terms of the way the original recipients could understand but the fulfillment as it comes ultimately in Christ is at a different level of reality, though a level of reality that still legitimately corresponds to the original promise.

Throughout the centuries all of this has been misunderstood from time to time.

Ill. – Book of Hebrews

Ill – Dispensationalists who look for a rebuilt temple, reconstitution of the Israel Priesthood and sacrificial system or a battle between biblically identified enemies or a revival of the throne of David.

All of this is to seriously misconstrue the Christian faith and if pursued intently enough it is to pursue a different religion.

A Conversation On Theonomy With A Westminster Graduate

Paul Castelleno (PC)

(Who in another post from this thread reminded everyone he was a graduate of Westminster East.)

“The reason that there is such antipathy towards theonomy, at least from the conversations I’ve had with Historically Reformed people is:

a) Theonomy is the flip side of Dispensationalism – Dispys’ make too much of a distinction between the Church and Israel and theonomists draw virtually no distinction at all.”

Bret (who is not a graduate of Westminster) responds,

This is the kind of statement that one would expect to find coming from an enemy of Theonomists. It is on the same level of the accusations against the early Church that because they took communion they were cannibals.

It is ridiculous to suggest that Theonomy makes virtually no distinction between the Church and Israel. Have you been to a Church service conducted by a Theonomist where he made a sacrifice? Have you been to a Church service conducted by a Theonomist where he insisted that he was a Priest?

What is at the core of this fallacious charge? Could it be that at the core of this fallacious charge is PC’s latent antinominaism? The only reason that Theonomy is scurrilously accused of making virtually no distinction between Israel and the Church is because, unlike antinomianism, Theonomy takes God’s third use of the Law seriously.

PC

“b) Though Bahnsen, Rushdoony, North, et al, have tried, there is no rationally, Biblically, theologically, consistent exegesis that has demonstrated the viability of theonomy today.”

Bret responds,

That a graduate of Westminster could write something like this is absolutely mind numbing. Has he never heard of Bahnsen’s Theonomy and Christian Ethics? Now of course our earnest Westminster grad will insist that this has been refuted … but by whom? Who was convinced by the refutation? The antinomians? Certainly not the Theonomists. J. Ligon Duncan has tried his hand at refutation but his refutation has been itself refuted. There is tons of rationally, Biblically, theologically, consistent exegesis that has demonstrated the viability of theonomy today.

PC

“c) When theonomists require Old Covenant Jewish casuistry and penal sanctions to be a part of the New Covenant, they generally give us the impression that they re-interpret what and how God manifests His grace in the New Covenant. Theonomy gives the impression that there is no recognition of the fact that the Old Covenant was a Bloody Covenant and the New Covenant is a Bloodless Covenant (post crucification of course).”

Bret Responds,

This is the kind of statement that we could expect from a Marcionite. Implicit in this statement is a challenge to God’s immutability. Underlying this statement is the idea that in the OT God was a meanie but in the NT God changed and is now a kinder and Gentler God. So whereas in Paul’s (b) we had implicit antinomianism in Paul’s (c) we have latent Marcionism.

And while not trying to be too snarky you’d think that somebody that touts his Westminister pedigree would know how to spell “C-R-U-C-I-F-I-X-I-O-N.”

Are we to seriously believe that all because Theonomist suggest that God’s penology should still apply that some how proves that Theonomy believes that the New and Better covenant is still a covenant that requires ongoing blood rights in order to have communion w/ God? By this reasoning anybody who believes in any capital punishment at all could be accused of not recognizing the fact that the Old Covenant is a blood covenant and the new covenant is bloodless. Really, this statement betrays more than a large dollop of ignorance.

PC

“d) What eventually arises when one has protracted conversations with theonomists (in my experience) is a type of evangelism via execution! The long suffering and patience of God – allowing unbelievers to heap judgment upon their own heads – seems to give way to immediate, divine retribution and judgment. Which makes one wonder, what then did Jesus accomplish after all if there is no propitiating God at these points?”

Bret Responds,

This is nothing but slander. This is nothing but a violation of the ninth commandment. Does our Westminster graduate really believe that Theonomists believe in evangelism by execution? Once again, if this reasoning is pressed then we must never execute for fear of violating the long suffering and patience of God. Notice the implicit Marcionism again. In the OT God was not patient and long suffering but in the NT now God is patient and long suffering.

No Theonomist wants divine retribution and judgment to be any more or less immediate than it has ever been.

In the final italicized question in (d) above we find ourselves asking when did the Reformed Church go liberal? Does the writer really believe that Jesus propitiated the sins of criminals that commit capital crimes so that capital crimes don’t have to be visited with the sword because Jesus already took the penalty for the consequences of sinners who commit capital crimes?

Finally, how long would our Westminster graduate suggest that sinners should be allowed to heap judgment on their own heads until their capital crimes are visited with punishment. How many repeat offenses of capital crimes must we turn the other cheek over before we actually visit the crimes with their revealed penalties? Some details here would be nice to have.

PC

“e) Lastly (and I can go on), it appears to wreak havoc with any Reformed notion of Common Grace.”

Bret responds,

Gary North has written extensively on this subject affirming Common grace in the sense that God gives gifts to the reprobate though denying that God overall the gifts turn out to show God’s favor. Besides, there are whole tribes of Reformed Christians who deny Common Grace. Has the embrace of Common grace now become a shibboleth that one must speak in order to be considered Reformed?

If I were to reason as our Westminster Grad has reasoned I might say something like … “Embracing Common Grace wreaks havoc w/ any Reformed notion of being Reformed.

Famous Moments With Martha Coakley

Martha Coakley is the Democrat in Massachusetts who is running for the US Senate in the seat vacated by Ted “Kopechene” Kennedy’s death. It is encouraging to me to know that Coakley is seeking to keep alive the Kennedy tradition of saying off the wall irrational things.

http://www.realclearpolitics.com/video/2010/01/16/ma-sen_coakley_calls_curt_shilling_another_yankees_fan.html

In the one above, Martha, obviously clueless about Major league Baseball, notes that the Boston Red Sox hero of the 2004 ALCS against the Yankees was in reality always a Yankees fan.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CJ-ZeLSZPc8&feature=player_embedded

In the one above Marvelous Martha the Mouth says that devout Catholics “Probably Shouldn’t Work in Emergency Rooms since their faith might come in conflict with proposed health care legislation that will not allow people to not participate in medical procedures that violate their faith convictions.

Finally there is Coakley’s reporter incident where one of her Democratic campaign operatives muscled a pesky reporter who was asking to many questions of Coakley to the ground. There are photos of Coakley staring at the incident and yet she has said on record,

“I know there were people following, including two from the Brown campaign who have been very aggressive in their stalking,” Coakley told reporters during an appearance at Kit Clark Senior Services in Dorchester. “I’m not sure what happened. I know something occurred, but I’m not privy to the facts. I’m sure it will come out, but I’m not aware of that.”

Conclusions,

1.) Martha Coakley is brain dead and thus the perfect person to sit in Ted Kennedy’s old seat.

2.) The Democrats, when operating in Mordor, don’t believe they have to run legitimate candidates because they believe that it is a given that whatever brain dead thuggish Democrat they put forward will be elected.

3.) Democrats believe that freedom is the citizenry being free to do exactly what they tell the citizenry to do.

Unraveling Calvinist Confusion

I just received an e-mail from a friend asking me to help him pinpoint the problem w/ a post he found on another blog. Below is the post in question,

The blog writer tees up his quote by saying,

“When I first read this passage in 2000, I realized that I had for years been something close to a hypercalvinist, and I was committing some of the same fallacies as Hoeksema’s Protestant Reformed Church. Klaas Schilder knocked some sense into me and make me start to think covenantally. Steve Schlissel was the man who recommended him to me. This quotation was what did the trick:

“When I declare — and with the pretention of the greatest accuracy in a new binding — that election is the cause and fountain of our total salvation, then I run the danger of making someone, and later the whole church, think that if election is present then the fountain is bubbling, the cause is working, and the process is on its way. “No,” says Twissus [first prolocutor of the Westminster Assembly, and a delegate at Dort], “nothing is going on yet.” He admonished the Arminians, especially Corvinus, three times not to confuse election with the execution of election. Decree and the realization of the decree are two different matters. Election is not the cause. With election, the decree is from eternity. When I merely decide to travel to Amsterdam, then nothing as yet has happened.

The cause of my coming to Amsterdam is that I finally did put on my coat, went to the railway station, and said goodbye to the silhouette of my residence.

When I decide to do something then this decision can still change for at first I did not make a decision at all, or perhaps I would have decided something different, for instance to travel to London. But in God all decisions are unchangeable, a decision or decree therefore does not change anything in Him. Nor in us. That which causes anything in us and which is thus cause and fountain of all salvation, is something which comes in time. The causes all work with and in time…

“Man, stop,” Twissus now says, “you are forgetting that the decree, strictly speaking, is not the fountain or the cause. We do not tell our children and our people, ‘you are elect, for that is what your baptism indicates and you may now conclude that the stream of God’s clear healing water has started to flow.’ No,” says Twissus, “you Arminians forget one thing. The doctrine of election is not a doctrine of causes or fountains. Causes and fountains only occur in history, in what God started in this world. For instance, and that certainly in the first place, the preaching of the Word is a cause and a fountain. That is where the fountain starts to spout water. There the cause is working…

Consequently we do not make people rely upon election, as ground and fountain, but upon the Word.”

Our earnest writer ends with this tag on line,

“I would only add, “and the sacraments” to the end of the last paragraph

Now, I take the time to examine this not only to help my friend who e-mailed me but also in order to get at some of that which drives the Federal Vision error. The following mentions some of the problems w/ the above quote.

1.) The primary problem here is that it confuses ultimate causation with proximate causation. In matters of salvation the ultimate cause is election but that reality doesn’t negate that Word and Sacrament are proximate causes in their own right.

2.) The decision illustration does not work. The beginning point is the decision to do something or not do something. All else results from that decision. If I decide to go to Amsterdam and then change my mind and go to London instead that change still was caused by a change in my decision. Now, the whole notion that we can somehow divorce God’s ultimate causal decree of election that ends with the elect being saved from the God’s decree that the proximate causal means to that end is Word and Sacrament is to divorce heat and light from the Sun. A trip to a Tulip Festival in Amsterdam has both the ultimate cause of making the decision to go and the proximate cause of actually going and continuing to go. Plainly speaking, such divorcing of decree from execution of decree which leads to a prioritizing over the execution of decree over the decree itself, as if the execution could happen w/o the decree, is stupid.

3.) It is not hyper-calvinism to believe passages like Ephesians 1:3-13. It is not hyper-calvinism to believe that what happens in time is pinioned on what God decreed. What is hyper-calvinism is to believe that the decree itself is the accomplishment of the decree. Now I freely admit that there are Calvinist out there who, pragmatically speaking, operate the way our blog writer speaks of but it does us no good to call the belief that time is conditioned by eternity hyper-calvinism.

4.) That which may be being reacted to by Twissus, and later Schilder, and still later by Schlissel and the Federal Visionists is the tendency by some Reformed people to treat predestination and election like Muslims treat Fate. There have been times when the Reformed have been properly referred to as the “frozen chosen.” There have been times in the Reformed Church when being saved meant having your “I’ve been baptized” Union card. But the cure to Reformed people treating predestination and election the same way that Muslims treat fate is not by suggesting that God’s decrees aren’t causal. The way to defeat Reformed views of predestination that end up getting translated as Islamic fate is by emphasizing that God works in history through His covenant people crafting and shaping history just as he has worked outside of history and that God, as He who decrees, is not divorced from God who rules, governs and sustains this world.

5.) If we teach that God’s decrees aren’t the ultimate cause of all that happens we cut the animating nerve between God’s commands and our compliance. For example, it is because of my certainty that God has decreed that all the nations will come to Christ and that the earth will flower again with the success of the Gospel that has me contending for just that. It is my certainty that God has decreed my increasing conformity to Christ that has me seeking to comply with God’s command for that and so finds me attending to the proximate causes for sanctification in Word and Sacrament.

In the end what we have here, once again, is the desire to over-react to a over-reaction. We don’t beat hyper-calvinism by embracing hypo-calvinism. We beat hyper-calvinism by meat and potatoes garden variety calvinism.

Brit Hume & Public Square Christianity

“… the Tiger Woods that emerges once the news value dies out of this scandal — the extent to which he can recover — seems to me to depend on his faith. He’s said to be a Buddhist; I don’t think that faith offers the kind of forgiveness and redemption that is offered by the Christian faith. So my message to Tiger would be: ‘Tiger, turn to the Christian faith, and you can make a total recovery and be a great example to the world.’”

Brit Hume
Senior Anchor – Fox News
Live Comments From Fox News Sunday

After scraping myself off the floor from hearing anything so explicitly Christian coming from anything or anyone associated with the America’s pravada Journalism industry or a major media out let I said to myself, “There is going to be hell to pay by Mr. Hume for that statement.”

I was right. Ever since Hume said this the “I hate Christ” media has weighed in,

I think it’s rude and crass to drag another person’s private faith into the public square for judgment and belittlement, as Hume did to Woods.

Jay Bookman
Atlanta Journal & Constitution

“But doesn’t it also denigrate Christianity when you do that on a Sunday political talk show. This isn’t church, this isn’t some sort of holy setting, this is a political talk show.

By talking about it (Christianity) on a Sunday political talk show. Doesn’t that minimize the significance of Christianity, when you bring a discussion of Christianity into a conversation about politics?

I do think it diminishes the discussion of Christianity. My Christian friends have said as much, that it diminishes the discussion of Christianity and faith when you have a conversation out-of-the-blue on a political talk show. This wasn’t the ‘700 Club,’ this wasn’t ‘Theocracy Today.’

David Schuster
MSNBC

“The fact that a journalist — and I use that term loosely as it pertains to Hume — would go on a national news show and put down another high-profile individual’s faith should tell all of us that religious bigotry, and bigotry as a whole, is a growing problem in this country.”

Eve Tahmincioglu
Huffington Post

“If Hume wants to do the satellite-age equivalent of going door-to-door and spreading what he considers the gospel, he should do it on his own time, not try to cross-pollinate religion and journalism and use Fox facilities to do it.”

Tom Shales
Washington Post Columnist

Before we move on with more quotes notice the theme running through these quotes. The theme is that the public square is not the place to examine “private beliefs.” The assumption is that the public square should be left sanitized of all religious beliefs. Now, of course that assumption is itself just another private religious belief w/ monumental implication but these people just take it as a given and as the way the world works. The religion of Bookman, Schuster, Tahimincioglu & Shales teaches them that it is the most obvious thing in the world that the public square is not to be infected with other religious beliefs that challenge their unstated but omnipresent religious beliefs — religious beliefs that are controlling the public square.

Indeed, I would contend the reason underneath the foaming and gnashing over Hume’s comments is the reality that such a comment is an explicit challenge of the prevailing religious beliefs that hold hegemony over the public square. Hume, in his comments, has inadvertently attacked the guiding religious fiction of the dominant pagan humanists stranglehold over the public square and as such he must be crushed and Christianity put in its place.

Now oddly enough this attitude of wanting to sanitize the public square does fit in w/ some versions of Christianity. For example, I have no doubt that adherents of R2Kt likely thought that Brit Hume was in bad form. No doubt they believe that Mr. Hume would have better served Christ by appealing to what Natural Law teaches on these matters, leaving Christianity out of it. R2K adherents Lee and Misty Irons believe that the church should not be opposed of homosexual marriages and as such why should Christians like Brit Hume be opposed to Tiger Woods teeing up in every sand pit of every golf course with every hooker in America? If R2Kt has taught us anything it has taught us that the public square is no place for Christians to be pushing a Christian agenda.

What we see here is that the Escondido Hermeneutic w/ its R2Kt ancillary implications requires us to reinforce the dominant religious beliefs that Christ or Christianity has nothing to do w/ Journalism, or the public square. Somewhere in the country there are legions of R2K Christians who are sympathetic to the criticisms of Hume cited above. Somewhere in the country there are boatloads of R2K pastors who are actually thinking, “You know when guys like Hume go off like this it just makes our job more difficult.”

But there are more quotes denouncing Hume that we must turn to. In one of my more favorite ones Tom Shales of the Washington Post steps up again,

“(Hume’s comments) sounded a little like one of those Verizon vs. AT&T commercials — our brand is better than your brand — except that Hume was comparing two of the world’s great religions, not a couple of greedy communications conglomerates. Further, is it really his job to run around trying to drum up new business? He doesn’t really have the authority, does he, unless one believes that every Christian by mandate must proselytize?”

Similarly, Ubermensch Keith Olberman makes comments about ill advised Christian proselytizing in this clip,

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GfjcV5hTxWg&feature=player_embedded

But again as in the previous quotes the underlying problem with Brit Hume is that he has the gall to take his Christian faith public.

What shall we say in light of all this?

First, we should note that a Christian faith that can not or will not express itself in the public square and will not or can not influence and inform what the public square looks like is a Christian faith that will either die or will be relegated to Christian ghettos that will, strangely enough, measure their success by how well they ape the evil “world.”

Second, we should give up thinking that if we will just play by our enemy’s rules then we will have a chance to convert our enemies. We have for generations played by our enemies rules and what we have gotten by retiring to our safe church zones, and teaching a Christianity that is to be only private, individual and personal, is a dessicated public square that hates us with more passion with each succeeding generation. Now, this may work if one is a pessimillennialist and believes that all of these unconverted people just proves the world is going to get worse and worse before Jesus shows up but for those Christians who believe that the Kings as well as Journalist must kiss the son, retreatism from the public square is no way to leaven this present wicked age with the age to come.

Third, and similar to the paragraph above we have to give up caring if our enemies hate us. We must surrender giving a tinker’s damn if the pagan elites (and some of the Church elites for that matter) hate us for insisting that Jesus is the Lord Christ over every public square of every nation in the world. Indeed, if their hatred is driven by our public square statements that “Christianity can offer forgiveness,” then we are absolutely duty bound to cultivate their hatred. Let the Journalists rage and plot a vain thing. Let the Kings gnash their teeth and hurl invective against us. Let the Church Doctors and Academics ring their hands over our “confusing their gnostic Kingdom with Christ’s corporeal Kingdom” We must simply stop caring and put up with a generation of not being named “TIME Magazine Man of the Year” or being invited to sit at the head table of the annual “I’m More Reformed (Irrelevant?) Then You” conference. While we are contending for the crown rights of King Jesus we must be willing to embrace ignominy and the status of pariah for a generation so that those who come behind us can triumph. This doesn’t mean surrender. This means fighting against majority opinion, both within and without the Church and wearing as medals the wounds that are inflicted.

Fourth, rebuilding a vibrant Christianity will be resisted. Recognize it, live with it, and get on with the task of Reformation. If your family suggests your doing your children a disservice simply point out their obvious error, smile at them, and raise your children. If fellow saints are offended by your insisting that Christians have no business being in a military fighting to implement pagan humanism throughout the world simply point out their obvious error smile at them, and keep on pointing out the painfully obvious point. If fellow saints lob rhetorical bombs at you for insisting that Scripture has imperatives that apply to this world as well as the indicatives that apply to Redemption just politely mock them and get on with pointing out the obvious.

Fifth, earnestly pray and weep over the enemies of the Gospel and of Christianity. While it is certainly true that we must vigorously resist the pagans it is also true that our hearts must be broken not only over their rebellion but also over their lost-ness. We must petition the great benevolent sovereign of the world that the Spirit of Christ might do for them what He did for us and that is defeat them by the power of the Gospel of Jesus Christ so that they who are now enemies will be friends of the Gospel. Our anger at their attacking Christ must be matched by coursing tears for their lost-ness, their ubiquitous alienation, and for the culture of death they are trapped in.

The Church has, for several generations, followed a path of retreat and appeasement.

This must end.