AJ Drexson vs. McAtee on the Bible and Christian Nations / Nationalism

AJ Derxson writes;

Romans 11 has precisely /nothing/ to do with how believers should legislate and govern if they are in positions of power – which is the normal subject matter of “Christian nationalism.”

BLMc Responds,

Remember, AJ, in all that follows, you started this by calling me a “Cultist.”

I am now all confounded AJ because the great theologian Gerharrdus Vos said that Romans 11 was about Christian Nationalism. Now I have to decide if I am supposed to believe you or believe Vos. Here is what Vos had to say on the relation of Romans 11 to Christian Nationalism;

“Romans 11:17, 19, with its “branches broken off” metaphor has frequently been viewed as proof of the relativity and changeability of election, and it is pointed out that at the end of vs. 23, the Gentile Christians are threatened with being cut off in case they do not continue in the kindness of God. But wrongly. Already this image of engrafting should have restrained such an explanation. This image is nowhere and never used of the implanting of an individual Christian, into the mystical body of Christ by regeneration. Rather, it signifies the reception of a racial line or national line into the dispensation of the covenant or their exclusion from it. This reception, of course, occurs by faith in the preached word, and to that extent, with this engrafting of a race or a nation, there is also connected the implanting of individuals into the body of Christ. The cutting off, of course, occurs by unbelief; not, however, by the unbelief of person who first believed, but solely by the remaining in unbelief of those who, by virtue of their belonging to the racial line, should have believed and were reckoned as believers. So, a rejection ( = multiple rejections) of an elect race is possible, without it being connected to a reprobation of elect believers. Certainly, however, the rejection of a race or nation involves at the same time the personal reprobation of a sequence of people. Nearly all the Israelites who are born and die between the rejection of Israel as a nation and the reception of Israel at the end times appear to belong to those reprobated. And the thread of Romans 11:22 (of being broken off) is not directed to the Gentile Christians as individual believers but to them considered racially.”

Geerhardus Vos
Dogmatic Theology Vol. 1 — 118

Now, AJ, I know this might be difficult for you but let’s connect the dots here. If God is electing nations that means those nations are Christian and if those elect nations are Christian then it seems past obvious that those Christian nations are going to be ruled in a Christian manner and the only way to rule in a Christian manner is to have an eye on God’s gracious legislative Law-Word however that might express itself in those various and sundry elect Christian nations.

I do apologize though AJ. I just assumed that a normally rational person could connect those dots without me holding their hand and tracing out the connection. It was stupid of me to assume that.

AJ Drexson wrote

Secondly, separate nations (including Israel) exist because of what happened at the Tower of Babel. It doesn’t follow that the current arrangement is God’s ideal or is permanent. Indeed, God’s intent in the Babel separation “is that they should seek after God, and perhaps feel their way toward Him and find Him” (Acts 17:27).

BLMc responds,

It may be the case that the separate nations arose because of Babel but we see in Acts 2 that God sanctifies Babel on the day of Pentecost as each nation heard the Gospel in their own tongue.

Second, God’s mystery long hidden was that the nations in their nations would come into the Kingdom (Eph. 3:6).

Third, we see in Revelation 21-22 that the Nations as Nations come into the new Jerusalem thus teaching that Nations even exist in the new Heavens and Earth.

Fourth, we have the OT teaching (Isaiah 2 and Micah 4) that the nations in their nations will come unto the Mountain of the Lord to be taught God’s Law.

Fifth, we have not only Vos’s take on Christian Nationalism, but another Theologian, Martin Wyngaarden, taught that the Nations would never disappear, contrary to your dumbass assertion;

“More than a dozen excellent commentaries could be mentioned that all interpret Israel as thus inclusive of Jew and Gentile, in this verse, — the Gentile adherents thus being merged with the covenant people of Israel, though each nationality remains distinct.”

“For, though Israel is frequently called Jehovah’s People, the work of his hands, his inheritance, yet these three epithets severally are applied not only to Israel, but also to Assyria and to Egypt: “Blessed be Egypt, my people, and Assyria, the work of my hands, and Israel, mine inheritance.” 19:25.

Thus the highest description of Jehovah’s covenant people is applied to Egypt, — “my people,” — showing that the Gentiles will share the covenant blessings, not less than Israel. Yet the several nationalities are here kept distinct, even when Gentiles share, in the covenant blessing, on a level of equality with Israel. Egypt, Assyria, and Israel are not nationally merged. And the same principles, that nationalities are not obliterated, by membership in the covenant, applies, of course, also in the New Testament dispensation.”

Martin Wyngaarden
The Future of the Kingdom in Prophecy and Fulfillment: A Study of the Scope of “Spiritualization” in Scripture — pp. 101-102.

And when it comes to Acts 17, you might consider also reading vs. 26 AJ;

26 And He has made from one [j]blood EVERY NATION of men to dwell on all the face of the earth, and has determined their pre-appointed times and the boundaries of their dwellings

Did you catch that AJ? God is the one who appointed the existence of Nations and NOTHING in Scripture suggests that they will eventually all bleed into one. In order for that idea to be accepted one has to go to U2’s Bono.

AJ Derxsen writes;

Which presupposes that ultimately, in a fully restored universe, there will no longer be nation-states. Because everyone in the New Cosmos will have “found” God – and thus the purpose of the Babel separation will have been fulfilled.

BLMc responds,

Do you read the Bible much AJ?

The Glory of the New Jerusalem

Revelation 21:22 But I saw no temple in it, for the Lord God Almighty and the Lamb are its temple. 23 The city had no need of the sun or of the moon to shine [l]in it, for the [m]glory of God illuminated it. The Lamb is its light. 24 And the NATIONS of those who are saved shall walk in its light, and the KINGS of the earth bring their glory and honor [o]into it. 25 Its gates shall not be shut at all by day (there shall be no night there). 26 And they (the KINGS of the various NATIONS ) shall bring the glory and the honor of the NATIONS to it.

22 And he showed me a [r]pure river of water of life, clear as crystal, proceeding from the throne of God and of the Lamb. 2 In the middle of its street, and on either side of the river, was the tree of life, which bore twelve fruits, each tree yielding its fruit every month. The leaves of the tree were for the healing of the NATIONS.

AJ Derxson tells us that with the eschaton there will be no more nation-states. God’s Word tells us that there will be Nations-States and even Kings in the eschaton.

Now, who should we believe?

Infant Baptism Hymn

To the Tune of ” Beneath the Cross”

Beneath the blood stained lintel I with my children stand
A messenger of evil is passing through the land
There is no other refuge from the destroyer’s face
Beneath the blood stained lintel shall be our hiding place.

The Lamb of God has suffered our sins and griefs He bore
By faith the blood is sprinkled above our dwelling’s door
The foe who seeks to enter doth fear that sacred sign
Tonight the blood stained lintel shall shelter me and mine.

My Savior, for my dear ones, I claim thy promise true.
The lamb was for the household the children’s savior too.
On earth the little children Once felt they touch divine.
Beneath the blood stained lintel thy blessing give to thine

O Thou who gave them, guard them, Those wayward little feet:
The wilderness before them, the ill of life to meet.
My parent love is helpless, I trust them to thy care.
Beneath the blood stained lintel, O keep them ever there.

The trust I place upon Thee, Thou wilt not disappoint.
With wisdom, Lord to train them. My shrinking heart anoint.
Without my children, Father, I cannot bear thy face,
I plead the blood stained lintel, Thy covenant of grace.

O Wonderful Redeemer, who suffered for my sake,
When o’er the guilty nations, they judgment storm shall break,
With joy from that safe shelter, May we then see Thine eye,
Beneath the blood stained lintel, My children, Lord, and I.

Lord, keep me from that error, that holds my child outside
And steals from them your promise, that for them you have died
We bless thee Holy Father, Our children you have claimed
Beneath that blood stained lintel, and wearing now your name

The generations gather, in one unfallen line
To jointly lift our voices, to praise your name sublime
You’ve gathered sainted Fathers, You’ve given us our seed
Beneath that blood stained lintel, we have all that we need

Vs. 1-6 — H. A. Ironside
Vs. 7-8 — B. L. McAtee

Scruton on the Relation Between the Living & the Dead; McAtee on Scruton

“The dead and the unborn are as much members of society as the living. To dishonor the dead is to reject the relation of obligation between generations.”

Roger Scruton
On Rousseau

Let us proceed to tease out some implications here;

1.) Of course this is nothing but the cream that rises to the surface from the doctrine called “Kinism,” which is itself merely Christianity as applied to social order functioning. There is not only a relation between kin who are living but also a relation between kin living, kin who have gone before and kin who are yet unborn. Without a honored continuity across the generations man becomes hyper-individualized with no sense of belonging to something greater than himself.

2.) Those who deny this truism are violators of the fifth commandment as Scruton’s second sentence clearly communicates. One simply can not deny Kinism and claim Christ.

3.) The only place left to go if one denies Scruton’s channeling of Edmund Burke is some form of cosmopolitanism. The eschew this wisdom is to embrace the life of the rootless nomad, and the wandering Jew.

4.) Without this principle what evolves is an ugly generational selfishness embraced by each succeeding generation. Without this principle living is only about me, myself, and I. Again, the sense of belonging is almost impossible to re-create.

5.) The only time we have authority to walk away from our forebears our walk away from our children is when our forebears were unfaithful to Christ in their traditions or when our children are unfaithful to Christ and His gracious Law-Word. To have to walk away from either of them for the sake of the King would be gladly done but done as with great tears and heaviness of heart. We would weep over their loss and our loss while rejoicing in gaining the Kingdom.

6.) In order to make this concrete keep in mind that all those “Christians” out there who are decrying Christian Nationalism, or Kinism, or even often-times “Racism” are in point of fact functionally denying the essence of this proverb. Those who deny this have to be considered at the very least “alienists” and at the worse, Enlightenment Liberals or Communists.

Proper Enmity, Then & Now

“And I will put enmity (open hostility) Between you and the woman, And between your seed (offspring) and her Seed; He shall [fatally] bruise your head, And you shall [only] bruise His heel.”  

Genesis 3:15
Amplified

In the Hebrew language the first word here is “enmity.” This is important because in constructing the sentence in such a manner the author is telling us that this idea of “enmity” or “hostility” is being especially emphasized. In an act of magnificent redemptive grace God proclaims that the enmity that the serpent bore responsibility for inciting as between God and our first parents, will be reversed with the consequence that the hostility established between God and our first parents would eventually be displaced with a hostility between the lineage of the serpent and the lineage of the Messiah culminating in the arrival of the promised seed (Messiah) who in a contest with Lucifer (Serpent) would finally completely crush that Serpent suffering  wounding Himself in the contest.

This text is commonly labeled the “protoevangelium” or first proclamation of the Christian Good-News (gospel). It is called this because herein is contained God’s first promise to heal the breach that exists now between His image-bearing creation and Himself with what Christian’s refer to as “The Fall.” In Gen. 3:15 we learn that Satan’s wreckage is not the final word. In Gen. 3:15 we learn that God is a warrior God who will provide a warrior Messiah who will  destroy him who holds the power of death, that is, the devil, and free those who all their lives were held in slavery by their fear of death.

Genesis 3:15 is thus a declaration that announces that redemptive history (the most important history of all history) is going to be characterized by warfare ultimately between the Serpent and the Warrior Messiah, but penultimately also between the Serpent Seed and the Warrior seed. And this proclamation of open warfare… this announcing of perpetual hostility between these contestants is God’s magnanimous grace. To see this placement of hostility as divine grace we have to understand that without this gracious and divinely created hostility man’s hostility to God (Romans 8:7) and God’s hostility toward fallen man (Romans 1:18) would have never been healed with the result that all of mankind would have been without God and without hope. God’s creation project would have been a failure.

The point I want to emphasize at this juncture is that God created open hostility between the contestants (God’s people and the Serpent seed) is pure grace. I emphasize this because of the niceness cult that Evangelicals cultivate. This text teaches that Christians are to be hated by the Serpent seed and they in turn will hate the Serpent seed and that hatred for the Serpent seed is born out of love to God who has delivered them from the kingdom of the serpent and delivered them to the kingdom of God’s Messiah warrior whom He loves. In other words, open hostility between Christians and Serpent seed is a positive good and not something Christians should try to avoid or feel bad about when and where it exists.

Genesis 3:15 also marks out God’s temporal beginning of the covenant of Grace. In this announcement God lets it be known that for His own glory He will rescue what turns out to be a multitude of people and He will do so by making that multitude of people He rescues warrior servants (II Tim. 2:3-4) for the promised warrior Messiah. This reminds Christians again that their Christian walk is characterized by the hostility of the Serpent seed against them and of they against the Serpent seed.

We see this open warfare as imposed by divine grace, break out immediately in the biblical record. In Genesis 4 we find the Serpent seed (Cain) murdering the redeemed seed of the woman (Abel). Likewise we find an ongoing anticipation of the arrival of the ultimate promised warrior Messiah who would crush the Serpent’s head (Gen. 4:1, 25) — an anticipation that would characterize the Hebrews in every generation. It became quickly obvious that the conflict would fester long before the warrior Messiah arrives.

That conflict then is traced throughout the Old Testament and becomes iron furnace hot when the seed of the woman finally does arrive in the New Testament.

One example but this is a theme we find repeatedly developed in Scripture. Think of Jael crushing the head of Sisera, the serpent representative opposing God’s people (Judges 4). Similarly there is Judges 9:52-53 where we find a child of the Serpent persecuting God’s people only to find his head being crushed by an anonymous woman.

 52 So Abimelech came as far as the tower and fought against it; and he drew near the door of the tower to burn it with fire. 53 But a certain woman dropped an upper millstone on Abimelech’s head and crushed his skull.

Another example of the development of the this Gospel conflict theme between the respective seeds, is David vs. Goliath. David is a picture of the Lord Christ fighting solitary for His people against the serpent champion Goliath. Goliath is decked out in scale armor, the Hebrew word literally meaning “scales” (1 Sam. 17:5). Typologically this harkens back to the scales of the Serpent in the Garden of Eden. David posits a stone between the Serpent representative’s eyes and proceeds to cut his head off. Goliath was dressed like a serpent with his scale armor, and he died like a serpent, with a head wound. David, as a type of Christ has crushed the head of the serpent.

Continuing with this theme in 1 Samuel 5:3-4, the false god Dagon of the Philistines falls face down to the ground in front of the Ark of the Covenant with his head cut off. The Philistines, perennial enemies and persecutors of Israel, had captured the Ark and placed it inside their temple, smack in front of their god, Dagon. The result was catastrophic for Dagon. He fell forward and his head came off. Remind you of anything? “He will strike your head.” Dagon and the Philistines are portrayed as the seed of the serpent.

In the New Testament this theme finds its fullest expression. The conflict between the ultimate seed of the Woman (Christ) and the serpent seed is unmistakable. Christ even uses the same type of language when speaking to His enemies that reflects what is promised in Genesis 3:15;

John 8:44 You are of your father the devil, and the desires of your father you want to do. He was a murderer from the beginning, and does not stand in the truth, because there is no truth in him. When he speaks a lie, he speaks his own native tongue, for he is a liar and the father of it. 45 But because I tell the truth, you do not believe Me.

Matthew 12:4 You brood of vipers, how can you who are evil say anything good? For out of the overflow of the heart, the mouth speaks.

And finally in the cross the Serpent and His seed does their worst work in striking the heel of the warrior Messiah drawing blood. The Serpent believes the battle is over with blood and bruise covered pathetic warrior messiah hanging limp on the cross and finally stiff in the tomb. Yet in the cross as followed by the resurrection and ascension the great dragon was cast out, that old serpent, called the Devil, and Satan, which deceiveth the whole world: he was cast out into the earth, and his angels were cast out with him.

10 And I heard a loud voice saying in heaven, Now is come salvation, and strength, and the kingdom of our God, and the power of his Christ: for the accuser of our brethren is cast down, which accused them before our God day and night.

11 And they overcame him by the blood of the Lamb, and by the word of their testimony; and they loved not their lives unto the death.

This theme is likewise taken up after Christ’s resurrection and ascension. In Romans, the Holy Spirit, hearkening back to this theme began in Genesis can say in 16:20, The God of peace will soon crush Satan under your feet.

So, the conflict continues but it continues as a mopping up exercise. Satan is defeated and now the conflict is just a matter of rolling back outposts of his defeated seed. Our warrior Messiah is victorious and His people are victorious in Him. In Christ we likewise have been crucified (Romans 6:4), resurrected  (Col. 2:12) ascended (Eph. 2:6) and in session (Eph. 2:6). In Christ we are prophets, priests, and kings under sovereign God and when we engage in the conflict again the serpent seed we engage in it knowing that the conflict has already been decided and that we are fighting as the victors going from victory unto victory against an enemy that still has the originally place hostility between the seed of the serpent and the seed of the woman still present. The seed of the serpent still hates us and we out of the love of our great Liege Lord Jesus Christ hate the serpent seed enough to oppose them at every turn. We meet their hostility with a grace given hostility to match and more.

We must careful not to reduce the hostility that has been sovereignly placed between the seed of the serpent and the seed of the woman by turning it just a metaphor for fighting against sin. While it is certainly is true that part of our conflict is to fight against sin within us and to fight against yielding to temptation (and many times we will fail) the conflict that we as Christ’s seed have been appointed to can not be reduced only to our fight with sin, essential though that is. No, the conflict is a real conflict where enemy troops align up against one another on real fields of battle. I have experienced in that my own life when the seed of the serpent located in the journalistic serpent seed in the Michigan newspaper, radio, and television media along with the national organization of the SPLC gathered to do battle against me as one of Christ’s warrior seed. I most recently witnessed it when Rev. Michael Shover was assailed by the hordes of serpent seed as he manfully did battle with them in the Iowa State house. Before that it was the great Thomas Achord who did battle with the serpent seed only to be grievously wounded by the vipers. These skirmishes are nothing compared to other contests where greater saints than Achord, Rev. Shover or myself were required to resist to the point of blood. How many saints, in this never-ending conflict have lost their lives for their Liege-Lord only to gain their lives by being ushered into glory to be with their great Captain and their kin who have gone before?

In wrapping up we have need to speak to one more issue. There are those who will fault this line of thinking with being too jagged, too bellicose, to pugnacious. Allow me to suggest that there is nothing inconsistent with what I have said about the conflict between the serpent seed and the seed of the warrior Messiah with the concomitant truth of the necessity of God’s warrior seed to have compassion and pity on the seed of the serpent. Indeed, open hostility to the seed of the serpent is a great kindness to them. Can you imagine how much hatred there is to the seed of the serpent by showering them with what we call “love” today? This pseudo love is seen in any number of denominations who are trying to “love” the seed of the serpent while at the same time taking that seed into the bosom of their denominations. Such behavior is not an act of kindness to the serpent seed but this denial of the grace driven hostility between the seed of the woman and the seed of the serpent only emboldens the serpent seed to take over whole denominations such as we find happening in most of our “white hat conservative Reformed denominations” today. Do you want to have compassion on the serpent seed? Then give them no rest by engaging them in battle. War with them until they sue for peace demonstrating such by repenting and owning Jesus Christ as their Liege-Lord. If the context calls for your being polite while you slip them the shiv then by all means be polite. If the context calls for buying them the next cup of coffee before nuking them then by all means buy that next cup of coffee.

Above all else though, do not forget that you’ve been called to war and as such you should develop the skills of the soldier. In this context that means knowing what you believe and why you believe it and what you don’t believe and why you don’t believe it. This work of the intellect is the equivalent of how a soldier masters the different tools (weapons) of war. You have need also to realize that in warfare you will likely be required to suffer. You will have to pray for the ability to persevere when you no longer have any perseverance left. Then there is the necessity also to realize that the serpent seed who will do you the greatest injury will likely rise from within the Church. Like Judas attacking Christ with a kiss, so it will be the case that those who wound you the deepest may very likely come from members of the household of God. When that happens pray to God that He will give you the strength to pray that they might repent, be forgiven, and be restored to the household of God.

So, there it is. The Christian’s life is a life that is characterized by a call to a centuries old conflict. We, in the new covenant age, have the satisfaction of knowing that the battle has already been won. We have the satisfaction of knowing that we shall go from victory unto victory if we will only fight. We can have the glow of satisfaction when there is open hostility against us by the seed of the serpent, and we in turn can have joy in the open hostility that we have towards the viper brood who would, if they could, roll the Lord Christ off His throne.

 

 

 

 

Covenant of Grace Musings

The fact that the Church is continuous with Israel so that it is the New & Improved Israel is seen in the reality that the Church’s solution to the apostasy of Judas was to immediately select a 12th man to replace Judas with the purpose being to once again have twelve men to lead in God’s New and Better covenant Israel.

This also indicates that the New and Better covenant was merely the full flowering of all the preceding covenants. Frankly, in many respects each successive covenant in the one covenant of grace in the OT could likewise have been referred to as a “New and Better covenant,” in as much with each successive covenant the richness and fullness of the unfolding one covenant of grace is revealed.

Think of the covenant of grace as an extension ladder. The completeness of it was guaranteed in the eternal intra-trinitarain covenant of peace (Pactum Salutis).  There our extension ladder is eternally in the mind of God based on the eternal covenant made between the three members of the trinity. In time what was a reality in eternity is established and like any extension ladder its full height is not reached until the last fly section is fully extended. Each extension was present in the ladder before the extension was put into operation. Only when the ladder is fully extended do you have the full ladder. So it is with the covenant of grace. Each extension of the one covenant of grace was implied in the first expression (Gen. 3:15) of the covenant of grace but only upon the full extension can the full height and glory of the covenant be known. So, the covenant of grace is a unity that is expressed in diversity with no subsequent covenant (Noahic, Abrahamic, Mosaic, Davidic) contradicting anything about the previous covenant. Among the covenants there is a harmony of interests just as we find a harmony of interests in the Pactum Salutis (Covenant of Peace).

Here we see covenantal diversity in covenantal unity. Each successive covenant serving the same purpose and end and yet each successive covenant revealing some nuance that previously was not revealed.
With Christ we have the full flowering of the one covenant of grace and no fuller flowering of the covenant is possible. Because of this there is no need for further revelational gifts such as one finds in Pentecostalism. No further need for miracles. No further need for signs and wonders. With Christ and the revelation of His Word we have all. That fact that Christ has completed covenantal theology with the new and better covenant is proof positive that the one covenant of grace is completed.