Monthly Archives: April 2011

Satan blinds the world to the moral law

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So I’ve heard via the twittersphere that Satan never hides the Law, only the Gospel.

It is a contextless statements, like any tweet, so I don’t know if there is some salvageable nuance that got lost in tweeting. But as it stands, it is utter nonsense.

  • Satan does not work to make people think that abortion is OK and should be legal?
  • Satan does not work to make people believe that marriage should include relationships between two people of the same sex?
  • Satan does not work to make people think that prison is civilized and execution is not?

OK, that last one might not be as self-evident to all Christians, but the point is still obvious. We all know quite well that Satan works to hide the moral law.

He does this for two reasons (at least)

  1. He doesn’t want people to feel sinful so that they can be convicted and begin to desire forgiveness.
  2. He wants people to refuse to submit to Christ.

You will notice that the first reason fits into a “law-gospel” paradigm. The second reason, however, is also true, and it points out that the Moral Law is commanded by Christ. Jesus is a King who forbids murder and homosexuality and many other practices. The Great Commission states that we are to teach all nations to obey everything Jesus commanded because he has been given all authority in heaven and on earth. When Satan successfully disciples nations to go the opposite way, he is warring against Christ’s kingdom.

 

John Piper: “Be a Wilberforce or a Wesley”

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Of all the lessons that we could draw out of these truths, let me close with just one, and hope that you will make others to your own heart.

Since external conformity of unbelievers to God’s designs of justice and honesty does in one way delight the heart of God, it was right of William Wilberforce to devote 20 years of his life in Parliament to the abolition of English slave trading, even though the great majority of those merchants who gave up the trade did it under constraint and not for any holy reasons at all. It was the work of God’s grace that rid England of the barbarisms of the African slave trade. And therefore the Lord looked down with delight February 22, 1807, when the House of Commons passed the decisive bill.

He delighted most in the living power of holiness in the life of Wilberforce and Henry Thornton as they embraced one another and frolicked in the snow like schoolboys outside the chamber.

And, in a different and mysterious way, God also delighted in the shell of holiness that took shape in English society when it was purged of the slave trade once and for all. For he delights in the work of his hands.

John Wesley, the great evangelist, wrote to Wilberforce to strengthen his hand in God. He said,

Unless God has raised you up for this very thing, you will be worn out by the opposition of men and devils, but if God be for you who can be against you? Are all of them together stronger than God? Oh, be not weary in well-doing.

There are battles to be fought today in America against manifold injustices and indecencies. May the Lord give us wisdom to know whether we are called to fight like Wesley or to fight like Wilberforce.

via The Pleasure of God in Public Justice – Desiring God.

“Oops! I hated You, the wife you gave me, and decided that talking snakes are more trustworthy than you are.”?

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And one other thing:

“God therefore does not call us back to complete the task that the first Adam fumbled.”

via Creed Code Cult: Sola Fide and “Kingdom Work”.

This is such a bad way to state what happened with original sin. If Genesis revealed that God struck the human race with depravity and death because Adam forgot which animal was the Llama, then “fumbled” would be a great term and it would also be an attack on God’s character.

Adam left his wife to give testimony to words she never heard, let her eat death fruit and then ate only after she survived the ingestion, and then blamed her and God to God’s face.

This was not a “fumble.” It was a high handed act of unbelief and involved a character assassination of God that was immense in its ingratitude.

Excommunicating traditional Presbyterianism as Galatian heretics

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“Those who hold to a traditional Protestant view of justification consistently should not find a redemptive transformationist position attractive. As some of the Reformers grasped, a two-kingdoms doctrine is a proper companion to a Protestant doctrine of justification.”

via Creed Code Cult: Sola Fide and “Kingdom Work”.

Get that? Charles Hodge and Benjamin Warfield did not hold to a “traditional Protestant view of justification consistently.”

And then this lovely insinuation: “setting aside the issue of whether those who espouse a transformationist position do so in order to deny sola fide specifically or whether they just espouse it by default without much thought to the ramifications”

There never really is a bottom in this “discussion” and no matter what happens I find I have never lowered my expectations enough.

By the way, pretending anyone cares about issues, the book refers to “the first Adam, who was to perform his cultural work during a period of probation.” Probation was to last the entire time required for taking dominion over all creation? Who has ever believed this? The probationary period was to be settled before they even had children. “Be fruitful and multiply” could not possibly be for the probationary period,” unless you think generations or sinless children could not fall by their own sin (which they would be free to commit or not), but would be struck with wrath and depravity and death the moment Adam sinned even when they hadn’t.

Or is the idea that they would all suddenly sin at once?

Bizarre.

God sent you because he loved the world

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For God so loved the world, that he gave his only Son, that whoever believes in him should not perish but have eternal life.

So try this as one application:

For God so loved the world, that he gave his son/daughter, [your name here] in and for His unique Son Jesus Christ, that whoever believes in Jesus should not perish but have eternal life.

Blasphemous? Misleading? Lets look at it.

  1. First of all, Jesus doesn’t hesitate to make amazing claims for Christians that Christians themselves might be tempted to reserve for Jesus alone. One of my favorite examples:

    Only hold fast what you have until I come. The one who conquers and who keeps my works until the end, to him I will give authority over the nations, and he will rule them with a rod of iron, as when earthen pots are broken in pieces, even as I myself have received authority from my Father.

    That’s Jesus speaking to the Church in Thyatira. Psalm 2 prophesies Jesus and you! Go figure.

  2. Jesus presented Israel with a calling that he took on himself as Israel’s King. Jesus’ self-designation, “Son of Man” was itself first used for Israel (Psalm 80). In the Sermon on the Mount, Jesus explicitly called on hearers to be true Israelites (“sons of your Father in heaven,” “city set on a hill” [Jerusalem], “Do not even Gentiles do the same,”)by turning the other cheek–a path that he followed to the cross himself. He called on his hearers to take up their crosses and follow him.

  3. After his death and resurrection Jesus renewed this call on his followers to accept his own mission (albeit in a new and derivative way to his own work), “As the Father has sent me, even so I am sending you.”

  4. And the work of the Church in going to the nations is described as Jesus going to the nations: “And he came and preached peace to you who were far off and peace to those who were near.” Thus we read in Ephesians 2 how Paul describes the Gospel going to those who never witnessed Jesus in the flesh. The evangelists going out is Jesus going out.

So God loves us and sends us in Christ’s mission. He gives us for the sake of the world–our part of it, at least.

From Solomon to Peter to Augustine: Rule yourself by breaking free of vices

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In this world, therefore, the dominion of good men is profitable, not so much for themselves as for human affairs. But the dominion of bad men is hurtful chiefly to themselves who rule, for they destroy their own souls by greater license in wickedness; while those who are put under them in service are not hurt except by their own iniquity. For to the just all the evils imposed on them by unjust rulers are not the punishment of crime, but the test of virtue. Therefore the good man, although he is a slave, is free; but the bad man, even if he reigns, is a slave, and that not of one man, but, what is far more grievous, of as many masters as he has vices; of which vices when the divine Scripture treats, it says, “For of whom any man is overcome, to the same he is also the bond-slave.” 2 Peter 2:19

via CHURCH FATHERS: City of God, Book IV (St. Augustine).

To understand what’s on my mind, see my previous post and follow the links.

The only way to be autonomous

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  1. If we take the -nomos suffix as “law” then theonomy is good and autonomy is evil, because one should submit to God’s law rather than be a law to oneself.
  2. But being “autonomous” does not typically mean being a law unto oneself in all contexts. It can means simply being self-governed. A child becomes “autonomous” to a degree at the age of eighteen because the child becomes an adult and is permitted to make choices for him- or herself. One becomes “autonomous” when one is given space and time to make one’s own decisions without immediate supervision.
  3. In other words, you are autonomous when you are expected to supervise yourself rather than be supervised by someone else.
  4. Autonomy can be a matter of degree: you can be told to report back in two weeks or six months on a project. You are autonomous in that you are “on your own” until the appointed time of review. Or you can be given a mission without being given minute instructions on how to succeed at the mission. Determining your best strategy to complete the mission is part of the mission itself. So in both cases you have a lesser or greater degree of autonomy without denying a higher authority.
  5. So God has left us largely autonomous, or rather, with the charge to become autonomous and thus complete his mission for us.
  6. In other words, God wants us to grow up. We have to learn to supervise ourselves rather than come under someone elses’ perpetual supervision.
  7. And if we are supposed to supervise ourselves, then each one of us must be obligated to bring one’s self under one’s control as a unified person in order to be a fit instrument and weapon for for an end.
  8. But to what end? If we don’t have at least an overarching plan for human beings in mind, then how can we unify our desires, perceptions, and impulses toward an intelligible goal? With no goal, we become slaves to vices. With a false goal, we will eventually find that our “autonomy” is actually slavery to some principle that doesn’t truly suit us.
  9. If God is truly the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit revealed in the Bible and in the Gospel of Jesus Christ, then only by governing ourselves to serve him and model ourselves on him can we be truly self-integrated and self-governing.
  10. So, this is the conclusion of the matter: The only real autonomy is found in theonomy.

What do the qualifications tell us?

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There are basically two main passages that list the qualifications for holding office in the Church. Here is Paul’s first letter to Timothy (3.1-8):

The saying is trustworthy: If anyone aspires to the office of overseer, he desires a noble task. Therefore an overseer must be above reproach, the husband of one wife, sober-minded, self-controlled, respectable, hospitable, able to teach, not a drunkard, not violent but gentle, not quarrelsome, not a lover of money. He must manage his own household well, with all dignity keeping his children submissive, for if someone does not know how to manage his own household, how will he care for God’s church? He must not be a recent convert, or he may become puffed up with conceit and fall into the condemnation of the devil. Moreover, he must be well thought of by outsiders, so that he may not fall into disgrace, into a snare of the devil. Deacons likewise must be dignified, not double-tongued, not addicted to much wine, not greedy for dishonest gain.

Got that? Just for the sake of completeness, here is what Paul wrote to Titus (1.5-9):

This is why I left you in Crete, so that you might put what remained into order, and appoint elders in every town as I directed you— if anyone is above reproach, the husband of one wife, and his children are believers and not open to the charge of debauchery or insubordination. For an overseer, as God’s steward, must be above reproach. He must not be arrogant or quick-tempered or a drunkard or violent or greedy for gain, but hospitable, a lover of good, self-controlled, upright, holy, and disciplined. He must hold firm to the trustworthy word as taught, so that he may be able to give instruction in sound doctrine and also to rebuke those who contradict it.

So what do these qualifications tell us? Not about officers. About lay people. What sort of people does Paul think that Timothy and Titus get to select from as members in good standing in the Church?

If these are the qualifications for being an overseer or elder, what are the qualifications for a Christian lay person?

Why “security” is a hoax

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The TSA has been a pointless, useless, unconstitutional organization from its very inception. Preventing another 9/11 required two things, and we’ve already done them both: strengthen cockpit doors so hijackers can’t force their way in, and let passengers know the old conventional wisdom “During a hijacking, the best course of action is to be quiet and do what the hijackers tell you” is wrong.

Everything else since then has been pointless: the bans on tweezers and similar grooming items, the restrictions on toiletries, all these and more have done nothing but erode the fourth amendment protection against unreasonable search and seizure. Back in September 2006 I said of the TSA: “these stupid rules aren’t meant to make us safer, but only train us in habits of evermore mindless obedience.”

via Ravings of a Feral Genius: Fiddle About With Uncle Ernie Sam.

The rest of the post is more awesome, but I wanted to relate this observation which seems completely obvious to me.