Calvin On The Reformed Magistrate

John Calvin 1509-1564

“But this was sayde to the people of olde time. Yea, and God’s honour must not be diminished by us at this day: the reasons that I have alleadged alreadie doe serve as well for us as for them. Then lette us not thinke that this lawe is a speciall lawe for the Jewes; but let us understand that God intended to deliver to us a generall rule, to which we must tye ourselves…Sith it is so, it is to be concluded, not onely that is lawefull for all kinges and magistrates, to punish heretikes and such as have perverted the pure trueth; but also that they be bounde to doe it, and that they misbehave themselves towardes God, if they suffer errours to roust without redresse, and employ not their whole power to shewe a greater zeale in that behalfe than in all other things.”

Calvin, Sermons upon Deuteronomie, p. 541-542

Note in this quote that Calvin would have found it quite strange to contend that there could be a theocratic arrangement that was not at the same time theonomic in some sense. I mention this because I have read some “smart” people try to make the case that while Theocracy was a part of Reformed tradition Theonomy never has been. This quote makes shreds of that proposition. Still, it must be admitted that the kind of theonomy that was advocated by the Theocratic Reformers would have been an altered form from what was developed in the 20th century. BUT not so altered that there are not touchstones of commonality.

Secondly, note that this was a sermon which means it was preached in a Church. Calvin, speaking as the voice of God in the pulpit, was clearly violating Escondido notions of radical two kingdom theology. In this sermon he is instructing the State how it should operate.

Could Calvin be ordained by R2Kt virus men?

Dr. Clark and Rev. McAtee discuss Two Kingdom Theology

At this link

http://heidelblog.wordpress.com/2008/08/01/flash-reformed-writers-uses-two-kingdoms-categories/#comments

Dr. R. Scott Clark had a bit of conversation on two Kingdom theology. If you want to see the whole context of this conversation I am repeating in an edited form I encourage you to read it there.

Bret,

Of course, as I’ve said many times, the two kingdoms theology was worked out in a theocratic context and yes, some of us are trying to put that theology to use in a post-theocratic context. Why is that wrong?

Dr. R. Scott Clark

Dr. Clark,

The answer is because we don’t live in a post-theocratic context and that it is impossible to live in a post-theocratic context. All cultures or peoples or socieities are organized theocratically, whether in a dejure or defacto sense. Theocracy is an inescapable category and all that.

Lutheran Theology and Reformed Theology are similar only in the sense that Lutheranism partakes of felicitous inconsistency. We may use the same words or phrases but because the systems are different we are using them equivocally when the systems are compared as a whole. This is no different than the similarity one finds between Reformed theology and any other branch you’d like to name. In all branches you can find surface similarities but when you burrow down you realize that you’re not saying the same thing at all.

Thanks for being gentlemanly,

Bret

Bret,

You’ve set up a definition that is inherently circular. It’s one thing to do this with ultimate questions. It’s another to do it with penultimate questions. You’ve rigged the game!

I did not respond to Dr. Clark at his site because I could foresee that this was a conversation where I would be cut off at some point. Therefore I am bringing my response to my site.

Dr. Clark,

Think about it. In your proposed and supposed non-theocratic context there exists a plurality of Gods contending in the marketplace of the culture of society. Now, who will referee how far the competing gods can go? Who will determine in your supposed and proposed non-theocratic context how vigorously the competing gods can walk in the public square? Wherever you locate that institution or person who is setting boundaries on the competing gods in the cultural market place there you find the God of the gods. In our culture, which is the culture that you would contend is “non-theocratic” that referee is the State. Therefore the State is the God in your non-theocratic culture. Another way of saying this is that if in democracy the voice of the people is the voice of God the theocratic arrangement in a democracy is the religion that animates the people which for Americans is a humanism that animates the State.

I therefore, as you can plainly see, most certainly have not “rigged the game” but rather simply recognized the nature of reality. I invite you to join me in embracing reality. It can be quite refreshing.

This is why R2Kt virus theology cannot work. It can not work because there is no such thing as a non-theocratic culture. When the Church refuses to speak to the God State in your putative “non-theocratic” setting what you accomplish is an institutionalizing of the violation of the first commandment.

Finally, because the methodology can be used on ultimate questions it can be used on penultimate questions that depend on the answer given in ultimate question. Because God is an inescapable category, everything that relies on God is likewise inescapable. For example since God is inescapable likewise religion is inescapable. Since some God is inescapable for an individual, God is inescapable for a people. Indeed, it is this shared sense of the Theo in the theocracy that alone makes cohesive culture possible.

By your creation of a non-theocratic realm, you have stated that it is possible to have some realm that isn’t derivative of theology.

I know you think I’ve rigged the game, but I think you’ve not realized what game is being played.

Bret

Reformed Quotes Regarding Two Kingdoms

The Belgic Confession of Faith, Article XXXVI

The Magistracy (Civil Government)

We believe that our gracious God, because of the depravity of mankind, has appointed kings, princes, and magistrates; willing that the world should be governed by certain laws and policies; to the end that the dissoluteness of men might be restrained, and all things carried on among them with good order and decency. For this purpose He has invested the magistracy with the sword for the punishment of evil-doers and for the protection of them that do well.Their office is not only to have regard unto and watch for the welfare of the civil state, but also to protect the sacred ministry, that the kingdom of Christ may thus be promoted. They must therefore countenance the preaching of the Word of the gospel everywhere, that God may be honored and worshiped by every one, as He commands in His Word.

A New And Modified Declaration

When in the Course of God’s Providence, it becomes necessary for His people to cast off the unrighteous political shackles which have been foisted upon them, and to install again, among the powers of the earth, Governments that are reflective of the Kingship of Christ, thus taking to themselves, for God’s Glory, the separate and equal station to which the Law of God requires of them, a decent respect to the curiosities of mankind requires that they should declare the causes which impel them to pursue Reform.

We hold these truths to be therefore self-evident to a right minded and God-fearing people, that all men are created equal before God’s law, and that they are endowed by their Creator — The God of the Bible, with certain unalienable Duties, that among these are the Protection of Life, The Securing of Liberty and the protection of Property. –That to secure these duties, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the Governed as they submit to God’s Law, –That whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Duty of the People to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new Government, laying its foundation on such principles and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to reflect God’s Character and thus to effect the Glory of Their Liege Lord Jesus and their Safety and Happiness. Prudence, indeed, will dictate that Governments long established should not be changed for light and transient causes; and accordingly all experience hath shewn, that mankind are more disposed to suffer, while evils are sufferable, than to right themselves by abolishing the forms to which they are accustomed. But when a long train of abuses and usurpations, pursuing invariably the same Object evinces a design to reduce them under absolute Despotism, it is their right, it is their duty, to throw off such Government, and to provide new Guards for their present liberty and future security. -Such has been the patient sufferance of Present Americans; and such is now the necessity which constrains them to alter their current Systems of Government so that those systems once again reflect governance that is submissive to King Jesus and conducive to Liberty. The history of the present Oppressive Government is a history of repeated injuries and usurpations, all having in direct object the establishment of an absolute Tyranny over these States and the people therein. To prove this, let Facts be submitted to a candid world.

This Federal Government has refused its Assent to Laws, the most wholesome and necessary for the public good.

It has first allowed and then promoted ethnocide in its policy on abortion (Roe vs. Wade, Casey vs. The United States), resulting in the Governmentally sanctioned deaths of 40 million of its weakest and most defenseless citizens.

Consistent with this ethnocidal policy the US Government and its agents have overturned legal referendums seeking to halt illegal immigration, resulting in the exhaustion of the social safety net and the imminent destruction of the American culture with its uniquely Christian influence.

In this refusal to protect our borders it has failed in its responsibility to protect the citizenry from enemies abroad.

It has upheld as legal and thus called evil, ‘good’ the vilest of behavior (Lawerence vs. Texas).

It has made legally right what is morally wrong in its sanction of land seizure and theft (Kelso vs. New London).

It has embraced Polytheism as the official De-facto State religion with its Van Orden vs. Perry and McCreary County vs. ACLU decisions. These decisions are an affirmation of Idolatry and an assault on Christianity.

Through its confiscatory policy of taxation and its onerous regulatory power it has burdened the American public with economic hardship and monetary deprivations.

By its adoption of particular curriculums for the Educational facilities that are under its administration it has sought to procure and establish a godless people.

In violation of the 9th and 10th amendments it has violated its jurisdiction by seizing for itself the sovereignty that belongs to the other appropriate and varied jurisdictions of Self, Family, and Church.

It has erected a multitude of New Offices, thus creating swarms of Officers to harass the people, and eat out our substance.

It is currently pursuing the subjection of the people to international law that has no basis in American Jurisprudence thus allowing a more ‘reasonable’ justification for our oppression. In doing so it is threatening to subject us to a jurisdiction foreign to our constitution and unacknowledged by our laws.

Against American interest it has oversaw the exportation of America’s manufacturing base forgetting that fair trade is to be preferred to free trade, and in doing so it has impoverished America.

It has upheld policy that deprives the superior and more qualified candidates for opportunity in education and career in favor of the pursuit of balanced skin pigment and ethnicity.

It has pursued a foreign policy of Empire that guarantees to earn the enmity of the World.

It has multiplied laws with the result that enforcement is arbitrary since almost any action by any citizen can be construed as a violation of some law.

By its usurpations it has fundamentally altered the Forms of our Governments.

In every stage of these Oppressions We have Petitioned for Redress in the most humble terms: Our repeated Petitions have been answered only by repeated injury. A Prince whose character is thus marked by every act which may define a Tyrant, is unfit to be the ruler of a free people.

Nor have we been wanting in attentions to our Ruling brethren. We have warned them from time to time of attempts by their ‘legal’ machinations to extend an unwarrantable jurisdiction over us. We have reminded them of the circumstances of our Christian History and the tradition of rule of law here. We have appealed to their native justice and magnanimity, and we have conjured them by the ties of our common kindred to disavow these usurpations, which would inevitably interrupt our connections and correspondence. They not only have been deaf to the voice of justice and the sense of a shared culture, but also in response to our pleas have doubled their Tyranny and Trebled their oppression. We must, therefore, pursue the necessity to cast off the oppression, and hold them, as we hold the rest of mankind, Enemies in War, in Peace Friends.

We, therefore, the Representatives of these united States of America, in General Congress, Assembled, appealing to the God of the Bible as the Supreme Judge of the world for the rectitude of our intentions, do, in the Name, and by the Authority of Jesus Christ, solemnly publish and declare, That these United States are, and of Right ought to have again Government that promotes Liberty and is accountable to the only rule wherein Liberty can be secured. Because of the violations of the Federal Government we announce that the current Usurpatious reign has forfeited the obligation of its citizenry to be responsible to all of its rulings. We announce to the World that we intend once again to be governed by the rule of God’s law as expressed in the Constitution and will no longer be slaves to the law of men. And for the support of this Declaration, with a firm reliance on the protection of King Jesus, we mutually pledge to each other our Lives, our Fortunes and our sacred Honor.

The signers of the Declaration represented the new states as follows:

The Problems With General Atonement Evagnelism — A Conversation

Did Jesus Die For Everybody?

Here is an exercise in thinking through the implications of holding to a hypothetical universal view of the Atonement (also sometimes referred to as General Atonement Theory). This view of the Atonement teaches that Christ died for each and every person who lives, has ever lived or will live. Those that hold to such a view are the majority report in American Evangelicalism.

Genera Atonement (GA) Preacher — “God loves you and showed that love by sending His Son to die for your sins.”

Sophisticated Unbeliever(SU) — “You mean to tell me that Jesus died for all my sins?”

GA Preacher — “That is accurate, Jesus died for your sins.”

S. Unbeliever — “Thanks for telling me that. That is a helpful thing to know.”

GA Preacher — “Your welcome. Now you must repent and believe.”

S. Unbeliever — “Why is that necessary?”

GA Preacher — “Because the Scripture says you must.”

S. Unbeliever — “Would it be a sin if I didn’t do that?”

GA Preacher — “Oh yes, a most terrible and grave sin.”

S. Unbeliever — “But the fact that it is a sin doesn’t really matter does it?”

GA Preacher — “Of course it matters! Why would you say that?”

S. Unbeliever — “Well, if Jesus died for all my sins then that would include the sins of my refusing to believe and refusing to repent, and so I am ok. But like I said thanks for the information.”

GA Preacher — “Wait a minute. Thats not the way it works.”

S. Unbeliever –“Oh, so what you are telling me is that Jesus died for all my sins except the sins of unbelief and lack of repentance?”

“But if He didn’t die for the sins of unbelief and lack of repentance then how could anybody be saved, and how could it be that God loves me if God sent Jesus to die for all of my sins except the ones I most desperately need forgiven?”

“It sounds like what you are saying here is that Jesus died for some of the sins of all of the people, but you can’t be saying that cause if that is true then all people will be damned since according to you one sin can separate us from God.”

GA Preacher — “No, no, no. Jesus died for all of the sins of all of the people.”

S. Unbeliever — “Well, that is not what you said earlier but if that is what you believe then I don’t know how it is that not all of the people are saved if Jesus died for all of their sins.”

GA Preacher — “They are not all saved since they don’t all believe.”

S. Unbeliever — Isn’t unbelief a sin for which Jesus died? But let’s leave that alone for now. So what you’re saying is that some people will have had all their sins paid for and still end up damned?”

GA Preacher — “Yes.”

S. Unbeliever — “Just curious. If that is the case then isn’t it at least theoretically possible that Jesus could have died for all the sins of all the people and that without not one person ever being saved”?

GA Preacher — “What do you mean”?

S. Unbeliever — “Well, if Jesus died for all the sins of all the people but His death wasn’t effective to the end it was designed then you have to admit that at least theoretically Jesus could have died for the World without anybody in the World being saved, since obviously His death wasn’t enough to do what needed to be done.”

GA Preacher — “No, that is not what I mean at all.”

S. Unbeliever — “I am sure it isn’t.”

GA Preacher —“Jesus paid for all the sins of all people.”

S. Unbeliever –“What was the sense of paying for their sins if they were going to end up damned anyway”?

GA Preacher — “That’s how much God loves you.”

S. Unbeliever — “God loves me enough to send his Son to die for my sins but doesn’t love me enough to make sure that I don’t end up damned anyway”?

“I’ll wait for a God who makes sense.”