Biblical Versus "Christian" Nationalism, Part II: What Is the Role of God-Ordained Governments?

 If the purpose of God is to express His dominion through a world filled up of His images then His command to His images, as we have seen, is to be fruitful and multiply, i.e., to participate in the creation of those individuals. But what of preserving them? 

Obviously, preservation is needed to a degree since the images have to exist in order to create other images. Hence, God lays down in Genesis 9 principles of preservation that become the building blocks for familial and national governments. 

Genesis 9:1-7 reads as follows:

               וַיְבָ֣רֶךְ אֱלֹהִ֔ים אֶת־נֹ֖חַ וְאֶת־בָּנָ֑יו וַיֹּ֧אמֶר לָהֶ֛ם פְּר֥וּ וּרְב֖וּ וּמִלְא֥וּ אֶת־הָאָֽרֶץ׃

     וּמוֹרַאֲכֶ֤ם וְחִתְּכֶם֙ יִֽהְיֶ֔ה עַ֚ל כָּל־חַיַּ֣ת הָאָ֔רֶץ וְעַ֖ל כָּל־ע֣וֹף הַשָּׁמָ֑יִם בְּכֹל֩ אֲשֶׁ֨ר תִּרְמֹ֧שׂ הָֽאֲדָמָ֛ה וּֽבְכָל־דְּגֵ֥י הַיָּ֖ם בְּיֶדְכֶ֥ם נִתָּֽנוּ׃

              כָּל־רֶ֙מֶשׂ֙ אֲשֶׁ֣ר הוּא־חַ֔י לָכֶ֥ם יִהְיֶ֖ה לְאָכְלָ֑ה כְּיֶ֣רֶק עֵ֔שֶׂב נָתַ֥תִּי לָכֶ֖ם אֶת־כֹּֽל׃

   אַךְ־בָּשָׂ֕ר בְּנַפְשׁ֥וֹ דָמ֖וֹ לֹ֥א תֹאכֵֽלוּ׃

    וְאַ֨ךְ אֶת־דִּמְכֶ֤ם לְנַפְשֹֽׁתֵיכֶם֙ אֶדְרֹ֔שׁ מִיַּ֥ד כָּל־חַיָּ֖ה אֶדְרְשֶׁ֑נּוּ וּמִיַּ֣ד הָֽאָדָ֗ם מִיַּד֙ אִ֣ישׁ אָחִ֔יו אֶדְרֹ֖שׁ אֶת־נֶ֥פֶשׁ הָֽאָדָֽם׃

                       שֹׁפֵךְ֙ דַּ֣ם הָֽאָדָ֔ם בָּֽאָדָ֖ם דָּמ֣וֹ יִשָּׁפֵ֑ךְ כִּ֚י בְּצֶ֣לֶם אֱלֹהִ֔ים עָשָׂ֖ה אֶת־הָאָדָֽם׃

    וְאַתֶּ֖ם פְּר֣וּ וּרְב֑וּ שִׁרְצ֥וּ בָאָ֖רֶץ וּרְבוּ־בָֽהּ

Then God blessed Noah and his sons when he said to them, "Be fruitful, multiply, and fill up the earth. Your fear and terror will be over every animal of the earth, over every bird of the sky, over everything which scurries on the ground, and over every fish of the sea. They have been given as your responsibility. 

Everything that scurries which is living belongs to you. It will be for eating.  As I gave you the green vegetation, I give to you everything. Only the meat! You are not to eat it with its life, it's blood. 

Surely, your blood which contains your lives I will most certainly prosecute as the responsibility of any animal or as the responsibility of a man, the responsibility of each man his brother, I will prosecute the life of a man. 

He who spills the blood of a man by a man his blood must be spilled because as the image of God He made the man. 

So you will be fruitful, multiply, swarm upon the earth, and multiply on it."

There are so many things that are often missed in this passage but I will stick to what pertains to our subject. First, the passage exists in the framework of the original command and is therefore a continuation of that original command. Preservation cannot work against creation, as preservation is subservient to creation. Hence, the original command remains as the governing principle. So preservation exists that the image's participation in the creation mandate might continue. 

These preservational elements include two new commands. The first is the expansion of food sources. Since dominion in the original command was a command, not over other humans, but over the animals, God now gives them the right to eat the animals over which they rule in order to preserve their lives.

The second command now includes a dominion over other humans who take the lives of other humans. This is the sole reason given over other people, i.e., to execute murderers. In this context, it can be assumed that to let murder go unchallenged would work against the creation mandate as it would reduce rather than multiply possible images of God upon the earth. Hence, it is the job of the image to be fruitful, to expand his food sources by killing animals, and to execute those who take human life.

This is the job of governmental authority. Whether that governmental authority is a small family like Noah's or that small family grows into a giant family we refer to as a nation. The government is given no other role here. It must promote the preservation of human life by expanding food sources and the preservation of human life that is under the threat of demise from criminals who would take that life. That's it.

Now, as many of you may know, murder is not simply defined in the Bible as when some guy with a hockey mask knifes a bunch of college girls at a sorority house. To reject the original creation mandate in one's sexuality is murder. To steal the food (or other life-giving) sources from someone is murder. To dishonor authorities like parents is murder. Anything that takes the physical life of a civilly innocent human being is murder.

If this is true, and it is the sole job of government to oversee this, then we would expect God to only require this of the nations of the world, as we will see in the upcoming post, only Israel functions as God's priests to preserve human life spiritually and eternally, but the nations are required to preserve the physical life of its people. There is no command here for the nations to function as priests in any way.

In fact, this is what Paul is talking about in Romans 13. Notice, as here in Genesis 9, the authority that God gives over to Noah and to "you" (plural, not singular so that the reader might know that this command is for all humans, not just Noah) to have a "fear and terror" over all of the animals, and now criminals. 

Paul states in Romans 13:1-7:

⸂Πᾶσα ψυχὴ ἐξουσίαις ὑπερεχούσαις ὑποτασσέσθω⸃*. οὐ γὰρ ἔστιν ἐξουσία εἰ μὴ ⸀ὑπὸ θεοῦ, αἱ δὲ οὖσαι ⸆ ὑπὸ ⸇ θεοῦ τεταγμέναι εἰσίν*. 2 ὥστε ὁ ἀντιτασσόμενος τῇ ἐξουσίᾳ τῇ τοῦ θεοῦ διαταγῇ ἀνθέστηκεν, οἱ δὲ ἀνθεστηκότες ἑαυτοῖς κρίμα λήμψονται. 3 οἱ γὰρ ἄρχοντες οὐκ εἰσὶν φόβος ⸂τῷ ἀγαθῷ ἔργῳ ἀλλὰ τῷ κακῷ⸃*. θέλεις δὲ μὴ φοβεῖσθαι τὴν ἐξουσίαν· τὸ ἀγαθὸν ποίει, καὶ ἕξεις ἔπαινον ἐξ αὐτῆς· 4 θεοῦ γὰρ διάκονός ἐστιν °σοὶ εἰς °1τὸ ἀγαθόν. ἐὰν δὲ τὸ κακὸν ποιῇς, φοβοῦ· οὐ γὰρ εἰκῇ τὴν μάχαιραν φορεῖ· θεοῦ γὰρ διάκονός ἐστιν ⸂ἔκδικος εἰς ὀργὴν⸃ τῷ τὸ κακὸν πράσσοντι. 5 διὸ ⸂ἀνάγκη ὑποτάσσεσθαι⸃, οὐ μόνον διὰ τὴν ὀργὴν ἀλλὰ καὶ διὰ τὴν συνείδησιν*. 6 διὰ τοῦτο γὰρ καὶ φόρους τελεῖτε· λειτουργοὶ γὰρ θεοῦ εἰσιν εἰς αὐτὸ τοῦτο προσκαρτεροῦντες. 7 ἀπόδοτε πᾶσιν τὰς ὀφειλάς*, τῷ τὸν φόρον τὸν φόρον, τῷ τὸ τέλος τὸ τέλος, τῷ τὸν φόβον τὸν φόβον, τῷ τὴν τιμὴν τὴν τιμήν*. 

Every soul is to be in submission to the governing authorities. For there is no authority if not by God. But the authorities that exist are set up by God. Therefore, the one who resists authority, rebels against God's order, and those who resist will receive condemnation. For those who rule are not a fear for [those doing] good deeds but for [those doing] bad deeds. Do you want that fear of authority to not be there? Do good and you will have praise from it. For it is a servant of God for you resulting in the good work. But if you do what is bad, fear! For it does not bear the sword for no reason. For it is the servant of God as an avenger resulting in wrath for those who practice what is bad. Therefore, it is absolutely necessary to be in submission, not only because of that wrath but also because of the conscience. For this reason you also pay taxes, for they are administers for God to perform this very governing work. Give to everyone what is owed, whether tax to whom tax is due, revenue to whom revenue is due, fear to whom fear is due, honor to whom honor is due.

It is difficult to imagine that Paul did not have the Genesis 9 text in mind, as he begins by saying "Let every ψυχὴ be in submission." The word ψυχὴ is used throughout the Genesis 9 passage and is an unusual way to start. Why not say "Let everyone" or "Let every man/human"? Secondly, he refers to governmental authority as "fear," which is also the way authority is described in the passage. Finally, the larger idea is that the government exists to preserve civilly innocent human life. It is a servant of God, like the image, to promote "good" [see the use in Genesis 1 as that which creates and preserves human life] and to bring vengeance with the sword, i.e., execution, upon the one who does "bad," the opposite of good. 

This is why Paul has no problem saying this of a pagan government. It is because a pagan government, as long as it performs this role, is functioning as God's servant. In other words, it's a government functioning how God wants it to function, Christian or not, because it is preserving innocent human life, which is its role. It's not a priest of God saving people or pushing them toward Christianity. That isn't its function. That is the function of Israel and then spiritual Israel, the church, as we see throughout the Bible. As long as the government is preserving innocent human life, it is a biblical government and must be honored as such. And the preservation of that human life has to do with temporal preservation upon this earth, not eternal or spiritual preservation which, again, is the job of God's priests, the church.

This is why Paul tells Christians to pray for government that they might lead a quiet and godly life. He also tells them to pray that they might be saved but there is no indication that this is because the government needs to become Christian in order to bring in a utopian society. Instead, he expresses that it is because God desires that all sorts of people in all kinds of stations in life be saved (1 Tim 2:1-8).

If this is all true, then we would expect God to judge the nations for failing to function in this specific way, and not because they are not worshiping YHWH or obeying Sabbath laws or anything specific to God's priests but not generalized to all nations. Let's briefly look at a few of those judgments that represent the larger corpus of God's expressed wrath upon the nations.

For instance, God tells us the reason He destroyed Sodom in Ezekiel 16:49-50.

‘Now this was the sin of your sister Sodom: She and her daughters were arrogant, overfed and unconcerned; they did not help the poor and needy. They were haughty and did abominations before me. Therefore I did away with them as you have seen.

This text says they were judged, not for worshiping other gods or ignoring the Sabbath but because they lifted themselves up over what God had tasked them to do, which was to share their food with the poor (i.e., physically preserving human life by expanding food sources with those in need) and practiced תֹועֵבָ֖ה "abomination," the word used to refer to sexual practices that are not fruitful and do not multiply. In other words, they not only did these things but openly ("before Me") promoted them in their arrogance. Hence, they were doing the opposite of what God had tasked them to do, so He "did away with them."

Even Rome in Revelation 18, which is being judged because it propped itself up as a priest to the nations that spread false religion rather than kept its falsehoods to itself, is also being judged for attacking God's people, and making itself rich by murdering other nations. For "In her was found the blood of prophets and of God’s holy people, of all who have been slaughtered on the earth" (v. 24).

Those who attack Israel and other nations or try to replace God for Israel by promising to protect Israel when they cannot are going to have a unique judgment given to them because they have become the murderers rather than the avengers of those murders. Hence, God becomes the avenger instead upon them. These are not judgments because these nations are not fulfilling the Mosaic law code in their national practices. Almost all of these have to do with these nations attacking God and His people. For instance, in Isaiah 14, God is judging Babylon and Assyria because they oppressed and murdered, not only other people, including God's people, but even their own people.

    "You will not be buried with them, 

    because you destroyed your land 

    and killed your people." (14:20)

In other words, rather than preserve innocent human life by executing murderers, they became murderers of others and their own people. A nation that has continually does things like this is described consistently in the Bible as "arrogant" because they have lifted themselves and their purposes to gain resources through bribery and murder over God's purpose to preserve human life. This is the main reason they are judged.

It must be understood that God speaks about destroying their idols and making fun of the fact that they think these things will save them because they have brought havoc to His and other peoples, so according to lex talionis, He will bring the same upon their gods and temples. It is not because they are breaking some law He gave them concerning worshiping other gods. Instead, when the biblical text talks about the evil of wicked nations, it refers to their oppression, injustice toward the widow and the orphan, promoting sexual immorality (i.e., sexual acts that do not fulfill the creation mandate of being fruitful and multiplying), and allowing the wicked to thrive instead of the innocent. In other words, He judges them for not doing their one job as a governing authority. They are not preserving innocent human life.

There is also a judgment upon the nations when Israel is judged because Israel functioned as the priesthood of the world. When the priest is removed, the world is judged, as the existence of God's priests keep the wrath of God from coming upon the nations. Again, none of these judgments are specifically for idolatry or things that are specific to Israel's law code. 

Hence, the false dichotomy between a wicked nation and a "Christian" nation is unbiblical. The Biblical dichotomy is between a wicked nation and a righteous nation that fulfills its mandate to physically preserve innocent human life. A biblical nationalism, therefore, is one that looks to its government to perform the biblical duty of physically preserving its people by expanding life-sustaining sources and executing justice upon those who would take away that life, Christian prince or not.

Perhaps, we should take our key from Luther (or at least what is attributed to him) who, when talking about what he wanted in a shoemaker stated that he would rather have an excellent shoemaker than a Christian one who was not so excellent and made bad shoes. Of course, he was exhorting Christians to make good shoes but as I reflect upon that I think of all of the horrible governments that claimed to be Christian throughout the history of Christendom who did not fulfill this biblical model, and then I look at nations that have sought to fulfill it and think how much better of a job they have often done than these Christian nations ever did. I would like a Christian prince to rule but not to demand what was demanded by Christ of His people, but that he might know and understand the biblical model of government and execute it in a way that allows the images of God to fulfill the creation mandate.

We'll pursue what relationship Christians are to have with governments like those of Rome that may not be fulfilling the command in times of persecution or in various ways toward people in the next post.

Biblical Versus "Christian" Nationalism, Part I: What the Bible Actually Says about the Cultural Mandate

There is a saying that goes something like, "One day, you'll only be a memory for some people. Be a good one." But we should be more than just good memories. We should actually do the good God has set us to do. So what is our part to play in all of this? What is the good God has set us to do?

In the new world of internet revivalism, where the cultural mandate is anything from influencing the town council in order close bars on Sunday to painting pretty pictures because your art is going to change the world, I thought it might be helpful to actually look at the cultural mandate. "Why?" you might ask. Because it isn't what you think it is. In fact, it's actually the opposite emphasis of what many consider the cultural mandate.

Many people think that the cultural mandate, as they call it, is the building up of material culture through dominion in the areas of hierarchical structures in empires, the arts, entertainment, the ritualistic expressions that dominate a society.

The irony is that the people in Genesis who are doing all of the art, architecture, and cultural influence through those types of externals (craftsmanship, music, physical infrastructure, etc.) are the bad guys. They're in the line of Cain, which in Genesis 4, is framed with an inclusio that presents these people as the murderers, the destroyers, those who are the seed of the serpent and have wandered far afield from God's true cultural mandate. They've emphasized this development of material culture, as Genesis implies, because they believe they are doing good by pursuing the preservation of society through these things. 

But this isn't the cultural mandate that God gave to His images in Genesis 1. Instead, the Hebrew text reads as follows:

 וַיֹּ֣אמֶר אֱלֹהִ֔ים נַֽעֲשֶׂ֥ה אָדָ֛ם בְּצַלְמֵ֖נוּ כִּדְמוּתֵ֑נוּ וְיִרְדּוּ֩ בִדְגַ֨ת הַיָּ֜ם וּבְע֣וֹף הַשָּׁמַ֗יִם וּבַבְּהֵמָה֙ וּבְכָל־הָאָ֔רֶץ וּבְכָל־הָרֶ֖מֶשׂ הָֽרֹמֵ֥שׂ עַל־הָאָֽרֶץ׃  וַיִּבְרָ֨א אֱלֹהִ֤ים׀ אֶת־הָֽאָדָם֙ בְּצַלְמ֔וֹ בְּצֶ֥לֶם אֱלֹהִ֖ים בָּרָ֣א אֹת֑וֹ זָכָ֥ר וּנְקֵבָ֖ה בָּרָ֥א אֹתָֽם׃  וַיְבָ֣רֶךְ אֹתָם֮ אֱלֹהִים֒ וַיֹּ֨אמֶר לָהֶ֜ם אֱלֹהִ֗ים פְּר֥וּ וּרְב֛וּ וּמִלְא֥וּ אֶת־הָאָ֖רֶץ וְכִבְשֻׁ֑הָ וּרְד֞וּ בִּדְגַ֤ת הַיָּם֙ וּבְע֣וֹף הַשָּׁמַ֔יִם וּבְכָל־חַיָּ֖ה הָֽרֹמֶ֥שֶׂת עַל־הָאָֽרֶץ׃

"Then God said, "Let Us make man as our image, according to our likeness; and he will rule over the fish of the sea, over the bird of the sky, over the domesticated animals, over the earth, and over all the scurrying animals which scurry upon the land. So God created the man as his image, as the image of God, He created him, male and female He created them. Then God blessed them and said to them, "Be fruitful, multiply, fill up the earth, take dominion, and rule over the fish of the sea, over the bird of the sky, and over every living thing that scurries upon the earth."

So the image of God is linked to the mandate but what is the mandate? To build magnificent buildings, sculpt beautiful statues, and obtain the mandate through the influence of material culture? 

Let's take a look at the actual command because it's often read as though it is a series of multiple commands where I would suggest that it is actually a single command. 

This is easier to see when we go backward, so let's do that. "Rule over the fish of the sea, the bird of the sky, and the animals that scurry upon the land." How does the image rule over it? By fulfilling the imperative that comes before it. By subduing the land. What is the means the image is to take to subdue it? By fulfilling the imperative that precedes it as well. By filling up the land. How does the image fill up the land? By fulfilling the imperative that precedes it. By multiplying. How does the image multiply? By fulfilling the imperative that precedes it. By being fruitful.

Hence, the singular command is, "Be fruitful in order to multiply. Multiply in order to fill up the land. Fill up the land as the means to subdue it. Subdue it in order to rule over it."

In other words, the means the image is to take to subdue and rule over the earth is to have children, to multiply God's image upon the earth through childbirth. Not painting pretty pictures. Not building fortresses. Not craftmanship and weaponry and ingenuity and innovation. Not in commanding great armies and building empires. But by having children.

Children are the influence we are to leave upon the world. When you die, your memory will fade, your material accomplishments may or may not be remembered, but it does not matter, as that was not your task to begin with. How do we rule the world? Not by might. Not by prestige. Not by impressing the world through empires. Rather, by having godly children, images of God, multiply in the world, filling it up. 

Every invention will be replaced by another. Every city will be buried in the dust. Every attempt at preserving life will fail. All die. There is nothing we can do about that. That is an accomplishment only one can achieve, and has achieved, for us. Our role is not to eternally preserve our children as it was not our parents' role to eternally preserve us. Our role is to have and raise godly offspring so that Christ will eternally preserve them. 

Empires will not save them. They will not save the world. It is not how we take over it. My encouragement is to invest in your family, not as a means, but as THE means through which God will fill up the world to come. 

The reason why the destroyers focus on preservation through material culture is because they are still under the lie of the devil that they are God, that they can do what only God can do, which is to not only to decide whether they will have children (something God just commanded them to do), but also to use their divine powers to preserve them. They bring only death who play God. But they who are the image of God, who subjugate their lust to rule as God rules, and instead, submit to God's rule, will bring forth God's dominion over the earth by multiplying godly children. Their role is one of participation, not in ultimate preservation, but in creation. It is not through aggression, political or physical or cultural, that  the meek shall inherit the earth but through the humble means God has laid out for them. One day, neither you nor your children will be remembered but you and your children will be preserved and brought back into not only memory but life, not through your work but through His and His Son's. We who have this hope pursue His means of dominion and not that of Cain's world, and so we seek to obey the biblical mandate and though our lives are temporary here, and though they look as though they are unaccomplished, we present our bodies as living sacrifices to God and gladly receive children in whatever number He chooses. And though we and our children may be lost for a moment, we look for the world to come, where every child in Christ is restored and every tear of loss wiped away. "And they will rule upon the earth" (Rev 5:10).

Please Pray and Consider Donating

My old Moody Bible roommate’s daughter has been diagnosed with bone cancer. Please pray and consider giving toward her medical expenses.

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Where Two or Three Are Gathered? Why Elders Need More than Just the Right Number

 If you've ever watched a fantasy movie where some mixture of collected elements is needed in order for some magical effect to take place, you know that most of the time it never works the first go-around. It's a common trope used for anticipation for when it does work. Usually, it's because there is some missing element or some tainted element. In one of my favorite movies, Army of Darkness, the clueless protagonist must repeat the right words in order to receive the reward and avoid waking the army of the dead. Of course, you see by the title of the movie, he doesn't quite get it right. He says some words to make a good show, but the act doesn't work. The dead come forth. His attempt to cover it up with other words that are not the same is just smoke and mirrors and hocus pocus. It doesn't work.

I don't say this because I mean to imply that there is some magical equation that will make sure that Christ is speaking through the elders in Matthew 18. However, I do want to note that I think a major component that Christ mentions here has been very much misunderstood, and without that component, we have no assurance that Christ is speaking through a group of elders.

The passage is as follows:

15 Ἐὰν δὲ ἁμαρτήσῃ ⸋[εἰς σὲ]⸌ ὁ ἀδελφός σου,* ὕπαγε ἔλεγξον αὐτὸν μεταξὺ σοῦ καὶ αὐτοῦ μόνου. ἐάν σου ἀκούσῃ, ἐκέρδησας τὸν ἀδελφόν σου· *16 ἐὰν δὲ μὴ ἀκούσῃ, παράλαβε ⸂μετὰ σοῦ ἔτι ἕνα ἢ δύο⸃, ἵνα ἐπὶ στόματος ⸄δύο μαρτύρων ἢ τριῶν⸅ σταθῇ πᾶν ῥῆμα· 17 ἐὰν δὲ παρακούσῃ αὐτῶν,* εἰπὲ τῇ ἐκκλησίᾳ· ἐὰν δὲ καὶ τῆς ἐκκλησίας παρακούσῃ,* ἔστω σοι ὥσπερ ὁ ἐθνικὸς καὶ ⸆ ὁ τελώνης. *18 Ἀμὴν λέγω ὑμῖν· ὅσα ἐὰν δήσητε ἐπὶ τῆς γῆς ἔσται δεδεμένα ἐν ⸀οὐρανῷ, καὶ ὅσα ἐὰν λύσητε ἐπὶ τῆς γῆς ἔσται λελυμένα ἐν ⸁οὐρανῷ. *19 Πάλιν ⸀[ἀμὴν] λέγω ὑμῖν ὅτι ἐὰν δύο ⸂συμφωνήσωσιν ἐξ ὑμῶν⸃ ἐπὶ τῆς γῆς περὶ παντὸς πράγματος οὗ ἐὰν αἰτήσωνται,* γενήσεται αὐτοῖς παρὰ τοῦ πατρός μου τοῦ ἐν οὐρανοῖς.* 20 ⸂οὗ γάρ εἰσιν⸃ δύο ἢ τρεῖς συνηγμένοι εἰς τὸ ἐμὸν ὄνομα,* ⸀ἐκεῖ εἰμι ἐν μέσῳ αὐτῶν. 

Now, if your brother sins [against you], go, speak to him just between yourselves. If he listens to you, you have gained your brother. But if he does not listen, take along with you one or two people, so that upon the testimony of two or three witnesses every spoken word will be established. But if he refuses to listen to them, tell it to the assembly. But if he refuses to listen to the assembly, he is to be to you as a pagan and a tax gatherer. I tell you an absolute fact, Whatever you bind on earth is in the state of boundness in heaven and whatever you release upon the earth is in a state of release in heaven. Again, I say this to you [as an absolute fact], If two among you are in agreement concerning any matter about which they ask, it will be brought about for them by My Father who is in heaven, because where two or three are gathered together in My Name, I am there in their midst.

Now, this passage has been used by every contradictory group to place everyone else on church discipline, excommunicate the other, justify sins, and condemn all sorts of things that are not sin. Why? Well, because if you can just get two or three elders together to agree then you can claim that Christ has spoken through you and you just have to trust that.

However, that's not what this text says. It doesn't say if you just get two or three elders to agree. The Lord adds to what He says with a qualifier that is often ignored. You need elders, as it is made clear throughout Matthew that this is a reference to the apostolic authority that is given to elders/pastors from the apostles. What it actually says is that you have to have two or three elders who are gathered together, agree, and are in Christ's Name.

Now, let me make it really clear that this phrase is completely misunderstood. People think that if they pray and say, "in Jesus' name," this somehow fulfills the element needed here. They think if they believe in their heads that the meeting is "in the name of Jesus," this is all that is needed. 

However, what it actually means is found in the understanding of what Jesus means by "My Name." I've talked about this a bit in other circles but someone's "name" used in this manner is a synecdoche for the entire person and character of the person who has that name. The name represents who Jesus is. His person and character. So what this is actually saying is that the two or three have to have the person and character of Jesus Christ within them.

What this means is twofold. 1. One must actually be a Christian. 2. One must actually have the character of Christ, not just the claim to be a Christian. Any elders who fail either to be genuine Christians or to claim to be Christians but lack the actual mind and character of Christ have no promise here that their decisions are Christ's decisions.

There goes a whole lot of claims made by ecclesiastical authorities from Popes to paupers. It's easy to do evil and then form a church and then declare yourselves innocent by claiming that you're now two or three that has the authority of Christ to do so, but that's not the case. Christ demands that those who would take this authority are actually true, proven representatives of Christ in their decisions, and they prove this through their confessions and character, i.e., by having Christ's Name upon them.

This doesn't mean that everything said by a nonchristian or sinful Christian leader in the church is false. The devil can quote Scripture too, and the Scripture is true. The issue is simply that there is no assurance and not much need to quake at the pronouncements of men who are outside the identity and character of Jesus Christ if they conflict with representatives of Christ who do have His identity and character evident within them. Even Christian elders can be in sin, and this is enough to cast doubt on any of their disciplinary decisions.

A church really needs elders who have both the Spirit of Christ within them as Christians and a mature mind and character that is Christ's mind and character so that it may have assurance that it is being led by Christ Himself through its elders. Everything else is just smoke and mirrors and a bunch of hocus pocus.

My Prayer

 May You, O God, be glorified in justice and mercy.

May all who hate You in their blindness be convicted and turn. 

Let all who have done evil to me, if they cannot see it, be pardoned.

Let no man go to judgment for his sins against me. 

Let all who have purposely sinned against me and yet repent, although their repentance does not reach my ears, let them be pardoned. Let them be restored to You, O God, and be exalted with Your glorious Son. 

Turn all to you. Let your people be forgiven and saved that they may yet praise you and do good upon the earth. May all who call upon your name be blessed.

Now may the love of You, O God, and the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ, and the fellowship of the Holy Spirit be with us all, evermore. Amen

Evaluating the Council of Trent, Part IVa

 Session Six is the council's declaration of the nature of justification and its anathemas toward those who would teach otherwise. 

First, I want to note that the council seems to be bolstering its claim to authority at the beginning of this session as this is the first time it references so many higher ups in the church including the pope. It just seems like an appeal to authority, which is why authorities were declared as both the Scripture and the Church in earlier sessions.

Second, the very first claim made about justification is one that acknowledges and affirms the previous session's declaration concerning original sin but now adds to it the claim that "although free will, attenuated as it was in its powers, and bent down, was by no means extinguished in them." It seems clear, then, that Trent is attempting to argue that free will is not a part of Adam's fallenness "when he had transgressed the commandment of God in Paradise, immediately lost the holiness and justice wherein he had been constituted." I can only imagine that "free will" here must be the ability to make a choice between good and evil since the previous statement declared that neither Gentiles with natural law nor the Jews with revealed law were able to move themselves out of the state that Adam put them in. If that is the case, there would be no disagreement at this point on the nature of "free will," since "free will" would just mean that one can choose, and cannot mean "one has the spiritual and willful ability to do good." If it means the latter, it contradicts the other statements made thus far by Trent.

The council states that Christ died for all, so it rejects limited atonement (although it may be anachronistic to say that), but only those who have his merit transferred to them receive the benefit thereof of course. "So, if they were not born again in Christ, they never would be justified; seeing that, in that new birth, there is bestowed upon them, through the merit of His passion, the grace whereby they are made just. For this benefit the apostle exhorts us, evermore to give thanks to the Father, who hath made us worthy to be partakers of the lot of the saints in light, and hath delivered us from the power of darkness, and hath translated us into the Kingdom of the Son of his love, in whom we have redemption, and remission of sins."

Hence, Trent's definition of justification is as follows:

By which words, a description of the Justification of the impious is indicated,-as being a translation, from that state wherein man is born a child of the first Adam, to the state of grace, and of the adoption of the sons of God, through the second Adam, Jesus Christ, our Saviour. And this translation, since the promulgation of the Gospel, cannot be effected, without the laver of regeneration, or the desire thereof, as it is written; unless a man be born again of water and the Holy Ghost, he cannot enter into the Kingdom of God."

Again, Protestants should agree with this. Some might say that justification is merely a declaration of all of these things that have not actually taken place but this would contradict Scripture. Justification may be a declaration of these things but because they have actually taken place. The believer is now in a state of grace (Rom 5:1-3). He has been adopted as sons of God (Rom 8:15-17). He has been regenerated by grace (Eph 2:4-6).

I would add to this that Trent has already stated on its declaration concerning original sin the following:

"If any one denies, that, by the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ, which is conferred in baptism, the guilt of original sin is remitted; or even asserts that the whole of that which has the true and proper nature of sin is not taken away; but says that it is only rased, or not imputed; let him be anathema. For, in those who are born again, there is nothing that God hates; because, There is no condemnation to those who are truly buried together with Christ by baptism into death; who walk not according to the flesh, but, putting off the old man, and putting on the new who is created according to God, are made innocent, immaculate, pure, harmless, and beloved of God, heirs indeed of God, but joint heirs with Christ; so that there is nothing whatever to retard their entrance into heaven."

Now, if baptism stands in for faith then this statement is essentially a statement that justification is by grace through faith alone. I only say this because the soteriological system that Trent is going to assume contradicts these statements. 

"The Synod furthermore declares, that in adults, the beginning of the said Justification is to be derived from the prevenient grace of God, through Jesus Christ, that is to say, from His vocation, whereby, without any merits existing on their parts, they are called; that so they, who by sins were alienated from God, may be disposed through His quickening and assisting grace, to convert themselves to their own justification, by freely assenting to and co-operating with that said grace: in such sort that, while God touches the heart of man by the illumination of the Holy Ghost, neither is man himself utterly without doing anything while he receives that inspiration, forasmuch as he is also able to reject it; yet is he not able, by his own free will, without the grace of God, to move himself unto justice in His sight. Whence, when it is said in the sacred writings: Turn ye to me, and I will turn to you, we are admonished of our liberty; and when we answer; Convert us, O Lord, to thee, and we shall be converted, we confess that we are prevented by the grace of God."

Here is where the heresy of the semi-Pelagianism condemned in the Council of Orange is established as official, and here is where I would argue is the beginning of Roman Catholicism. The Church before was one that rejected semi-Pelagianism, and even the council here expressly condemns it, and yet it now sneaks it in the backdoor. Not only does it refer to some prevenient grace that makes one alive, with which Reformed Protestants would agree, but it refers to this grace as non-effectual without the assistance of the individual's free assent and cooperation with this grace. Hence, God's grace that is said to be necessary for salvation is not the deciding factor in justification but rather the free will decision of the individual. As Luther rightly noted in his work The Bondage of the Will this is the crux of the issue in Roman Catholic soteriology as the statement that one can gain justification through no merit of one's own is contradicted by the act of "doing" something, which is cooperating with this grace, making his actions more meritorious, having gained Christ's merit through it than that of one who does not cooperate with said grace. Hence, this grace moves but is not the sole cause of the individual's faith and subsequent justification.

Yet, by the council's own words in Session Five, those who argue that the remedy of original sin is through any human merit other than the merit of Christ alone, are anathema. 

"If any one asserts, that this sin of Adam,–which in its origin is one, and being transfused into all by propagation, not by imitation, is in each one as his own, –is taken away either by the powers of human nature, or by any other remedy than the merit of the one mediator, our Lord Jesus Christ, who hath reconciled us to God in his own blood, made unto us justice, sanctification, and redemption; or if he denies that the said merit of Jesus Christ is applied, both to adults and to infants, by the sacrament of baptism rightly administered in the form of the church; let him be anathema."

Roman Catholics may think my pushback means that man is forced into salvation but that is not at all the case. The will of the individual is simply and completely changed by God alone to submit to Christ in faith. This makes it both the individual's joyful will to receive Christ and God's work alone in saving the individual. Hence, no merit is attributed to the individual since the change of the will is effectual, leading to faith and justification. This is consistent with the Council of Orange, and in this regard, Trent here has not only instituted an innovation but a heretical one according to the church's tradition itself.

Orange stated in Canons 5-8:

"CANON 5. If anyone says that not only the increase of faith but also its beginning and the very desire for faith, by which we believe in Him who justifies the ungodly and comes to the regeneration of holy baptism -- if anyone says that this belongs to us by nature and not by a gift of grace, that is, by the inspiration of the Holy Spirit amending our will and turning it from unbelief to faith and from godlessness to godliness, it is proof that he is opposed to the teaching of the Apostles, for blessed Paul says, "And I am sure that he who began a good work in you will bring it to completion at the day of Jesus Christ" (Phil. 1:6). And again, "For by grace you have been saved through faith; and this is not your own doing, it is the gift of God" (Eph. 2:8). For those who state that the faith by which we believe in God is natural make all who are separated from the Church of Christ by definition in some measure believers.

CANON 6. If anyone says that God has mercy upon us when, apart from his grace, we believe, will, desire, strive, labor, pray, watch, study, seek, ask, or knock, but does not confess that it is by the infusion and inspiration of the Holy Spirit within us that we have the faith, the will, or the strength to do all these things as we ought; or if anyone makes the assistance of grace depend on the humility or obedience of man and does not agree that it is a gift of grace itself that we are obedient and humble, he contradicts the Apostle who says, "What have you that you did not receive?" (1 Cor. 4:7), and, "But by the grace of God I am what I am" (1 Cor. 15:10).

CANON 7. If anyone affirms that we can form any right opinion or make any right choice which relates to the salvation of eternal life, as is expedient for us, or that we can be saved, that is, assent to the preaching of the gospel through our natural powers without the illumination and inspiration of the Holy Spirit, who makes all men gladly assent to and believe in the truth, he is led astray by a heretical spirit, and does not understand the voice of God who says in the Gospel, "For apart from me you can do nothing" (John 15:5), and the word of the Apostle, "Not that we are competent of ourselves to claim anything as coming from us; our competence is from God" (2 Cor. 3:5).

CANON 8. If anyone maintains that some are able to come to the grace of baptism by mercy but others through free will, which has manifestly been corrupted in all those who have been born after the transgression of the first man, it is proof that he has no place in the true faith. For he denies that the free will of all men has been weakened through the sin of the first man, or at least holds that it has been affected in such a way that they have still the ability to seek the mystery of eternal salvation by themselves without the revelation of God. The Lord himself shows how contradictory this is by declaring that no one is able to come to him "unless the Father who sent me draws him" (John 6:44), as he also says to Peter, "Blessed are you, Simon Bar-Jona! For flesh and blood has not revealed this to you, but my Father who is in heaven" (Matt. 16:17), and as the Apostle says, "No one can say 'Jesus is Lord' except by the Holy Spirit" (1 Cor. 12:3)."

Trent makes faith and justification dependent upon the free will of the individual who must cooperate with it, giving credit not simply to the Holy Spirit and His grace but to the individual for having cooperated with the Spirit and said grace. This simply contradicts the statements in Scripture that we were made alive and seated with Christ while we were dead in our sins (Eph 2:4-6), that all who the Father gives the Son come to Him and are raised up on the last day to glory (John 6:37-45), and that those who are predestined and called are both justified and glorified (Rom 8:29-30). There is no other group that is given and called that is not justified and glorified. In Ephesians 2:8, Paul states that Christians "have been saved by grace through faith and this not of yourselves." The demonstrative τοῦτο this in the phrase τοῦτο οὐκ ἐξ ὑμῶν this not of yourselves is neuter but χάριτί and πίστεως are feminine and σεσῳσμένοι is masculine. What this means is that the this that is not of themselves is the entire thing, including each of its elements. So none of the salvation that is by grace through faith is of them. They had no part in it. They had not part in the grace, the salvation, or the faith. Both Scripture and church tradition rejects Trent's understanding of faith as dependent upon the individual's cooperation with some prevenient grace.

Trent attributes justification as something "whereby He maketh us just, that, to wit, with which we being endowed by Him, are renewed in the spirit of our mind, and we are not only reputed, but are truly called, and are, just, receiving justice within us, each one according to his own measure, which the Holy Ghost distributes to every one as He wills, and according to each one’s proper disposition and co-operation." 

The problem now is that if the human will is involved in receiving justification, Trent will now go on to argue that the human will must cooperate with the Spirit to maintain that justification, and thus, the entire Roman Catholic system of soteriology is born. We'll discuss that next time.

Evaluating the Council of Trent, Part III

 The fifth session deals with original sin and its effects upon all of humanity, both adults and children. The first couple statements reject Pelagianism with which all of orthodox Protestantism agrees. They anathematize anyone who rejects the idea that Adam lost his holiness and glory (image?) and that he obtained for himself, and for all of humanity after him, a transfusion of sin, the wrath of God, judgment of death and transferred himself and his posterity to the empire of the devil. It also states that the only remedy for this is the merit of Jesus Christ and not any merit obtained by human beings through any other means.  

Now, of course, Protestants would very much agree with this statement thus far but Trent's soteriology will explain this in a particular way that is very much not Protestant. 

The means of applying Christ's sacrifice to both adults and infants is baptism into the church and these doctrines, apart from which, as this session states in its very first statement, "it is impossible to please God."

Hence, the idea that baptism is the means through which imputation occurs carries with it an entrance into the Catholic Church. It is through baptism that one is made completely innocent before God, having completely removed all of the sin and guilt obtained by Adam, in whom there is now "nothing that God hates" is "immaculate, pure, harmless, and beloved of God, heirs indeed of God, but joint heirs with Christ; so that there is nothing whatever to retard their entrance into heaven."

However, Trent argues "that in the baptized there remains concupiscence, or an incentive (to sin); which, whereas it is left for our exercise, cannot injure those who consent not, but resist manfully by the grace of Jesus Christ; yea, he who shall have striven lawfully shall be crowned. This concupiscence, which the apostle sometimes calls sin, the holy Synod declares that the Catholic Church has never understood it to be called sin, as being truly and properly sin in those born again, but because it is of sin, and inclines to sin."

In other words, there is a sin inclination that remains that is not sin itself but rather leans toward sin and must be countered by those who have entered into Jesus Christ. 

Again, no disagreement from Protestant theology per se, although I personally would explicitly differentiate between the water of baptism itself and what it represents, which is one giving his allegiance to Jesus Christ by entering into His church, which I don't identify as Rome itself. But there are Prots who would see the act of baptism as faith itself. This may be the way Peter is using it in both his epistle and in Acts 2:28, so this sort of language of synecdoche isn't really the problem some may make it out to be. Both RC's and Prots agree that it is allegiance to, and unification with, Christ that regenerates an individual and removes all sin and condemnation from him, and Trent would agree with us that this includes children. Hence, it argues for the Augustinian position of baptizing infants against Pelagius. This is not to say that Augustine had it correct but simply that this is not necessarily a Roman Catholic vs. Protestant issue or an innovation of the sixteenth century.

Of course, the biggest disagreements here would be over the fact that after all of this is said, Trent makes sure to state that Mary is not included in these statements concerning original sin. Mary herself declares herself as needing a Savior and at one time we even see her doubt Christ as she and others in his family seek to come get him because they think he has gone crazy (Mark 3:20-32). She is included in the "all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God" with Jesus alone identified by Paul as the sinless one upon whom everyone else's sins, and the sin of Adam, have been placed. 

The final word of the session is actually the longest and deals with reforming the churches so that only qualified teachers within churches, monasteries, and schools are employed. In other words, only teachers who are going to teach what Trent views as consistent with its decrees are to be supported financially and recognized by the church. I don't really have any pushback here as if a church thought they were in the right, theologically speaking, then this would be a proper course to take. 

The council ends by setting the text session date.

The "Both Sides Are Guilty" Admission of Guilt

 Listening to all of the Leftist commentators on the Charlie Kirk assassination this week makes me think we're closer to civil war than ever before. I don't think things are going to cool off this time. The demonic spirit that seems to overtake murderers when they murder someone seems to be growing like a contagion. If you don't know what I'm talking about, I'm referring to the state found in many people who may just decide to murder one person but in the process of doing so, there seems to be some sort of irrational frenzy that comes over them where they end up murdering others or committing suicide, as though the killing of one was like an animal tasting blood for the first time and becoming insatiable in that moment. Usually, this state of bloodthirst ends with the murderer being killed or arrested and the rest of us condemning from the heart his reprehensible act and the arrogance one needs to have in taking an innocent life. However, it seems to have grown unbound as it finds minds and hearts on the Left who rejoice in it, as though they had done the killing themselves and are now thirsty for more, as they not only rejoice in the reenactment of the murder but fantasize outloud about murdering more innocents. These violent delights have violent ends, as murderers must first extinguish their own humanity in order to extinguish the lights of others. 

But what caught me in all of this was the argument that both sides are guilty of political violence. I've commented before that we were in the middle of a church split and those who caused the split or joined it as some sort of cheerleader for it later included a couple people in leadership who were clearly informed of all of the sin being committed by the persons splitting the church. What was interesting to me is that they made this argument. “Both sides are in sin,” they said. Only, both sides actually weren't. 

Can you imagine going up to a woman who was raped and saying to her that, "Hey, both sides, you and the guy who raped you, are sinners, so let's not act like you have the moral high ground." I really don't know what other example to use now since our entire culture thinks that saying this of a man who was murdered and making this argument to the murdered man's family is somehow a convincing argument. 

But why is this argument made? Was WWII everyone's fault? Is every conflict and every time the innocent are slandered, harmed, canceled, killed to be met with the "well, everybody's a sinner" argument? "He has shown thee, O Man, what is good and what the Lord requires of thee, but to do justly." But how is justice possible if everyone, including the innocent victims, are at fault because in the end everyone's a sinner so sin can somehow be found out in anyone?

The truth is that Charlie Kirk was a sinner, so the statement that he wasn't without sin is true. But, biblically speaking, this doesn't matter. He's not guilty of the sin committed against him. Nor is it true that both sides are as guilty as one another in any given conflict. In fact, there is only one reason why the "both sides are guilty" argument is deployed, and that is to lessen the guilt of the actually guilty party.

The truth is, when I heard this from these people I knew what side they were on, the guilty one. Only guilty people use this argument to justify their evil rather than to repent of it. Whenever it's clearly on the side of their opponents, the "both sides" argument is nowhere to be found. When an injustice is done against them, for instance, the evidence clearly points to the condemnation of their opponent. But the “both sides” argument is a subconscious way of admitting that one is on the wrong side. The people making this argument in our case wanted to join the guilty party because they wanted to join the denomination he was joining and they lusted after the power he would give them to make church their way. Yet, it's evil to join evil, so what's a wicked man to do? He just makes both sides equal to justify his decision to be on that side. No one wants to be on the wrong side, the side of the wicked, standing with Korah and not Moses. Solution? Make the sins of Korah and the sin of Moses equivalent and then neither side is better than the other. David and Saul? Well, both sides are sinners. John the Baptist or Herod? Both sides are sinners. Who can blame you for choosing one of two equally bad sides, right? And everyone is a sinner so it's a sure bet that it must be true. After all, anyone who claims to be innocent must be arrogant and self-righteous and thus prove the point that both sides are in the wrong in every single case. It’s impossible to do anything without some sort of sin that can be conjured up somewhere and somehow.

The same thing has happened here. Leftists are now on the side of murder. They are the actual people of hatred and illegal violence. They are the insurrectionists and the destroyers who are harming everyone, and that was proven, not only in the assassination of Charlie Kirk but also in their celebration and justifications of it. But that would mean that they are the bad guys and no one wants to believe that. That would mean that all of the positions they've fought for, the people they've fought with and admired, are people on the wrong sides of those debates which means their stances are an alignment with, and fondness for, those who are evil. 

Cognitive dissonance sets in. There are only two ways out. Do the hardest thing they'll ever do in life and admit that their life has been a lie, turn and join the truly innocent and right side, or do the easy thing that all cowards like these church leaders did, make both sides equivalent so that you don't have to admit that you were not just wrong but wicked and the only repentance is rejecting the side you are now on by exonerating the other side as innocent. Only the truly courageous will do so, and unfortunately, not many people have such bravery to look in the mirror and say, "Thou, not the other side, art the man."

In a way, those who continue to justify themselves re-establish the evil that was done toward those who are innocent perpetually. The sin never dies. It never goes out. As one lie leads to another, the person must continually justify to himself why he is not on the wrong side, and so his whole world becomes a delusion where the evil is done again and again, forever and ever, world without end.  I imagine people in hell will be repeating their arguments for eternity, revictimizing the innocent forever, displaying that their condemnation is just. 

This argument revictimizes the innocent by implying that since both sides are guilty, the innocent party isn’t innocent and deserved to be sinned against.

The truth of the matter is that maybe everyone has sinned. The problem is that this doesn't lessen the sins of others but rather shows that all sin must be weighed in terms of when, where, how, why it is committed. Moses may have sinned in his life and maybe he spoke harshly with Korah rather than building bridges, but the Lord determined that only Korah, not Moses, was in a sin worthy of death. Maybe David flaunted his victories too much in front of Saul or didn't show his gratefulness enough, but the Lord determined that it was Saul who was in a sin worthy of death and David was not. So he gave Saul over to death and put David on the throne. God never makes the "both sides" argument because when someone is being victimized by another, there is only one side that is in the wrong, even if the victim is a sinner. Justice is impartial but iniquity looks to make the scales measuring boulders and pebbles equal.

No one should ever consider himself a Christian or on the right side if this is something that he has done or is doing.

May God grant sight and courage to those who would cease from using the wicked shield of the "both sides" argument and turn from their unity with wicked people before it's too late.

The Most Arrogant People Are Those Claiming Humility via Subjectivism

 I have found the most arrogant people, not to be those claiming that there is an objective meaning in the text that can be known and refute popular or unpopular views, but rather those who claim that humility is found in a pluralistic/subjective view of biblical interpretation. This makes the interpreter supreme over God’s intentions and ability to communicate those intentions through objective linguistic rules rooted in his logical nature. 

https://youtu.be/juFmH12CjyU?si=6IwRXIq_s-wmVQKw

The Difference in Authenticating What the Scripture Is and What the Scripture Says

 Joseph Smith supposedly had a seer stone that allowed him to interpret sacred text. Ellen G. White supposedly had visions that interpreted the Bible for her. Mary Baker Eddy was knocked unconscious and received her key to biblical interpretation. Roman Catholics have a pope. Eastern Orthodox have a bunch of bishops. The Jehovah's Witnesses have the Watchtower Organization. Some Protestants have denominations that function like the Eastern Orthodox. Some churches have head pastors that function as microcosmic popes. And none of these have any extra thing given to them that enables them to interpret the Bible correctly. 

This is because biblical interpretation relies upon the biblical text itself. Language has an objective nature to it already. No one needs someone with spidey-powers to interpret some mysterious text that can't be interpreted without some extra revelation or mystical ability. If that were the case then God would have just used the tongues of angels to write the Scripture, but He didn't. He used the languages of men. Languages that men knew with logical and linguistic rules that men knew, so that using those rules of interpreting language, rules they use every single day to interpret their own languages used in conversations with one another, they would be able to understand what God had written down.

This means that the more "spiritual" someone thinks the text of Scripture is, the less they'll likely understand it because they'll likely not bother with all of that intellectual wrestling with interpretive principles that need to be applied in the interpretation of a text. After all, "It's a spiritual book, not human one," said the Gnostic heretic. The Bible is a spiritual book in terms of what it communicates, not in the way it communicates it. In that regard, it's divine and human in nature. The religious content is divine. The communication of that content is human. And this is what God intended it to be and this tells us that what is needed to interpret it is contained within the language it uses. So it is simply a matter of learning the language of the author as well as possible (his dialect, his vocabulary that includes reference to his world, his grammar, his syntax, and his artistic style of crafting his particular text with particular themes and motifs). 

So Scripture has what it needs to be interpreted within itself. I don't mean that all knowledge needed to interpret it is contained in Scripture. I mean that all knowledge that you would need to interpret it is pointed to in Scripture by its assumption of the rules and referents of a known human language.

But how do we know what the Scripture is without some other authority among humanity telling us what it is? As I said in the last post, this just kicks the can down the road. If a divine agent upon the earth must be authenticated by another divine agent upon the earth then what divine agent is going to authenticate that one, or that one, or that one, or that one, or that one. You get the point. 

Instead, any divine agent would have to be self-authenticating to avoid the problem of infinite regress. This is an easy one for me since I'm a Calvinist and believe that all who are regenerated by God recognize divine truth when it is taught, and this is why Christians have always recognized core texts of the Bible. The books that were disputed was due to the fact that divine truth is contained in other books outside of Scripture, so the antilegomena were discussed texts but not texts rejected because they might contain heresy like the gnostic texts were. Those were not disputed. They were rejected outright. Eventually, the logic of accepting the gospels and Pauline Epistles, texts always received by Christians, led to the reception of the epistles of John, Peter, Jude, etc. and the placement of the Didache or Epistle of Barnabas outside the Scripture, even though the church encouraged believers to still read them since they contain divine truth. 

This, to me, is the only logical conclusion in claiming the legitimacy of any primary divine agency/medium upon the earth. 

Having said this, however, the interpretation of Scripture, though self-preserved in the rules of the language it uses itself, is not self-evident to all who are regenerate because God, having used human means to communicate, requires human means to interpret that communication. This does not mean the Spirit is not involved in opening the eyes of people to see what is in the text, and I think this is what the church is for. This is why Timothy must study to be approved as a workman worthy of God. It is why the elders must labor intensively and exhaustively to study the Word and teach it. The Spirit motivates the teacher to study, taps him on the shoulder to notice what he may have missed in the text, and to teach the text to His people. But the Spirit is the Spirit of Truth and He points to His Word because the Word is Jesus. The Bible testifies to the Person and work of Jesus Christ and it is the Spirit's job to testify of Jesus Christ, and so the Spirit uses God's Word to sanctify His people in truth not as another job that He has but as the task given to Him as another Helper. In other words, the Spirit is involved in committing teachers and their listeners to a deeper understanding of the Scripture by pointing to what is already in the Scripture and can be discerned by anyone works hard and understanding the languages that the Bible itself uses. He doesn't need something extra. He doesn't point to something extra. Hence, every scribe/Bible scholar that becomes a part of the kingdom of God is like a man bringing out treasure both old and new from the text of Scripture. He's not adding to it. He's not twisting it to come up with fanciful interpretations. He's not bending it to fit his traditions. 

I say all of this to simply say that the idea that the Scripture needs anything else to either authenticate it or to interpret it is fallacious. But where the core religion of Scripture is self-authenticating to all who are regenerate, the individual interpretation of various passages must be decided through the rigorous study of the text as the means through which the Spirit teaches His people.

Evaluating the Council of Trent, Part II

As we saw last time, Trent claims the following:

. . . seeing clearly that this truth and discipline are contained in the written books, and the unwritten traditions which, received by the Apostles from the mouth of Christ himself, or from the Apostles themselves, the Holy Ghost dictating, have come down even unto us, transmitted as it were from hand to hand; (the Synod) following the examples of the orthodox Fathers, receives and venerates with an equal affection of piety, and reverence, all the books both of the Old and of the New Testament–seeing that one God is the author of both –as also the said traditions, as well those appertaining to faith as to morals, as having been dictated, either by Christ’s own word of mouth, or by the Holy Ghost, and preserved in the Catholic Church by a continuous succession.

I noted last time that I would evaluate the claims that (1) Christ has spoken through a tradition that is carried through time by a succession of popes and (2) that the argument that sola Scriptura "Scripture supreme" is false because the tradition has the same authority that Scripture has is a self-defeating claim.

So now the second proposition that the claim that Scripture and tradition have an equal authority is a self-defeating claim. It is self-defeating because one can only have one supreme authority, not two. Either both are the same primary authority, and therefore, not different authorities or one must bow to the other. In this case, although Trent is claiming here that both are equal in their authority, the real claim is that the church is the only supreme authority and the Scripture is a product of that authority. This is a very different claim than the one made by the council. 

If Scripture is equal in authority to tradition then tradition cannot say anything contrary to it since it is the same authority. If tradition is equal in authority to Scripture then Scripture cannot say anything contrary to it because it is the same authority. This is simple enough. The problem is that this is not how claims are examined. Because of the claim made by Trent, all scriptural interpretation must conform to tradition, not vice versa. The claim that the Bible is God's Word is not in dispute between Roman Catholicism and Protestants. It is the claim that tradition carries the same level of authority as the Bible, and contrary interpretations mean that the argument is not merely over what the Bible says but whether the tradition accurately interprets the Bible. But this in itself somewhat admits that the Bible is superior to tradition since what is claimed to be the Word of God must be judged by what is known to be the Word of God. Hence, in practicality, the Roman Catholic doctrine implies sola Scriptura in that it must argue that its traditions rightly interpret and harmonize with the biblical text. No one is arguing that the text of Scripture must be altered in order to adhere to tradition (even though this was done a few times in church history). Everyone is arguing that what they believe is biblical or in harmony with the Bible, and in this regard, Trent has already conceded without knowing it. 

The reason why most Roman Catholics don't realize that their doctrine implies sola Scriptura is because they usually have some ridiculous caricature of it. No one is arguing that Scripture contains all truth or that it alone has any authority, etc. It is simply the norm that must norm all other norms, and Trent treats it this way as well. Tradition and Scripture must be in harmony, but only one is claimed to be from Christ (tradition) and the other known to be from Him (Scripture). The one (tradition) is then only made known to be the Word of God by its harmonization with the other (Scripture), which then means that Scripture is supreme. 

Now, modern Roman Catholic apologists have seen this dilemma and shoot back that Scripture is unknown without tradition in terms of what books belong in the canon. The problem with this is that it becomes an impossible dilemma, as the claim that tradition has authority either comes from the Bible, which is supposedly unknown without the authority of tradition or it comes from tradition which is unknown without the known Word of God from the Bible. Again, this ends up being self-defeating. Anyone can claim to have a tradition from Jesus that is authoritative. What is to authenticate such a claim? And this brings us to our next discussion.

In order to escape this dilemma, certain traditions like EO or RC set up the tradition of the physical succession of the apostolic office. Hence, if one has the physical office, he has the authority of the apostles, and if he has the authority of the apostles, then one can authenticate what is the Word of God that way.

Leaving for a moment the idea that this is yet another tradition itself that needs authentication, and is therefore just kicking the can down the road to become self-defeating, how does an EO make a claim against an RC? Which tradition is the apostolic one? "Oh, it's ours because we have the physical seat of Peter talked about in Matthew 16, which we interpret to be the singular bishopric of Rome not mentioned either by that text or anywhere else in the Bible." "Oh, no, it's ours because we have the conciliar authority of the apostles we see in John 20 and Acts 15 that makes no prescriptive argument that apostles transfers to singular patriarchs and bishops that come together in councils." However, even if the Scripture was explicit for any one of these two traditions, this is implying that Scripture is known already in order to establish the tradition that would be rightly interpreting the Word of God. How was it known before it was known? The tradition establishes what the Word of God is among the writings which establishes what the Word of God is in the tradition so that it can establish what the Word of God is in Scripture? This doesn't quite work without assuming that the Word of God is known in Scripture either already without tradition or what the known Word of God is already in tradition without the Scripture being known. Either way, one has to assume which one has a self-authenticating nature to it or one ends up on the merry-go-round.

I would suggest that Trent didn't just get this wrong because it conflicts with Protestant beliefs. It got it wrong because it's illogical. 

Now, one could argue that both are self-authenticating but this begs the question to anyone on the outside of this belief and also as to why Prots accept the Scripture as the Word of God, something that we would argue can only be true of the regenerate ("My sheep hear My voice"), but do not hear Christ's voice in traditions that they see as contradicting Scripture or are unnecessary to knowing Christ. How can they hear Jesus' voice in Scripture and say, "Amen," but not hear His voice in traditions if it is the same self-authenticating voice to those who can only hear if they are genuinely regenerate (1 Cor 2:6-16)? How can one have an ear to hear what the Spirit says to the churches in Scripture but not hear what He says to the churches in tradition if "having an ear to hear" means you hear what He says regardless of the medium?

There is nothing to say that Christians can't hear too much and mistaken their traditions for Christ's voice, but there is plenty in Scripture to suggest that whatever Christ says, His people have an ear to hear it. In fact, this seems to be the point of the new covenant in Jeremiah 31. Everyone, from greatest to smallest, will know Him because His law, i.e., the Scripture, will be written on their minds. Any promise that traditions will be written on their minds too?

There is still all the more to mention how traditions through both popes speaking with authority and councils also speaking with authority have contradicted one another. So what is done? They were judged by Scripture as to whether they were faithful to the apostolic teaching in Scripture. This is the teaching passed down through the creeds and councils we only now accept as the orthodox ones, but at the time, all of that was in dispute, so much so that you even had the bishop of Rome adopt what all sects of Christendom now consider heresies (e.g., Honorius). Where was the physical seat then? (And, no, the claim that no one called him a heretic then only magnifies the fact that no one knew what the heresies were yet because there was no seat of authority that could decide the matter. The teachings of Scripture had to be discussed and debated.)

And who had the right interpretation of the Filioque? Who is to decide? Our tradition versus your tradition? And how do we establish those without an established Scripture? And how do we establish Scripture without an established tradition? To say it like the Reformed Bros., "By what authority?"

I'm going to continue through the council because I think it would be beneficial but this, of course, is a massive problem and why such confusion allows for the altering of so many beliefs and practices through the ages. When there is no real fixed Word of God that is known through self-authentication, and one can interpret it based on tradition rather than via the exegesis of the text itself that already contains what is needed to do so, one ends up being at the beck and call of the zeitgeist (hence, Trent looks different from Vatican I and both look very different from Vatican II and they all will look different from whatever councils we get in the future, but the Scripture says what it says from its creation to this very day). 

 

Hebrews 2:5-8, the Lord's Prayer, and the Devil's Holy Distractions

Rearranging the furniture in a burning house. Sure, why not? If you have to live there while its burning, I guess you can make it more comfortable for yourself. But is it the primary duty of a person to paint the walls and organize the house that will be in ashes not a few minutes later? Probably not. I would think the person should realize that the house is burning and try and save/preserve as many people as he can from the house. If he can do both, fine. But more often than not, one becomes exclusive to the other because like anything we are finite and can only fix our minds and purposes on one thing at a time. The question really becomes whether Christ wants us to rearrange the furniture or save those in the house so that they may live in a better, rebuilt house. After all, what good is rearranging furniture if there is no one left to sit in it? 

It may seem holy to cultivate the environment. It certainly is. But if in cultivating the environment we get distracted from being procreational, we will end up like the world represented by the line of Cain, preserving an environment with very few people to live in it. Much of this debate stems from the idea that the Lord's prayer, specifically the phrases, "Thy Kingdom come, Thy will be done in earth as it is in heaven," reference Christ's current rule over the earth as its mediatorial king, and therefore, carry an ethic that we also should take this current world, its governments, its cultures, etc., and place them under Christ's feet. I'm going to argue that the premise that Christ rules this world mediatorially is false, and therefore, the conclusion that this is what He wants us to do is false. Instead, I will argue that Christ has been given the world to come, so that there is nothing more for us to do but join Him in what He is doing now, which is filling up the world to come with people He has redeemed. We do this through procreation, literally via procreative sexual unions in permanent marriages and spiritually via the gospel. Just like in Genesis, God accomplishes the preservation Himself so that those who pit the two against one another and so focus on preservation have no excuse that they neglected procreation. (Note: I am talking about focus as opposed to the devil's holy distractions with what would otherwise be good things. Of course one is to create environments that are preserving of life, but this is not the primary problem with the world. It is that men's minds are wicked even from their youth, and therefore, they must be not only born but born again. This procreative emphasis is due to Jesus filling up His world to come.)

One of the many texts that teach that Christ's kingdom is not universal until His coming (e.g., the cycles in Daniel and Revelation) is Hebrews 2:5-8. It reads,

For it was not to angels that God subjected the world to come, of which we are speaking. It has been testified somewhere, 

   “What is man, that you are mindful of him, or the son of man, that you care for him? You made him for a little while lower than the angels; you have crowned him with glory and honor, putting everything in subjection under his feet.” 

Now in putting everything in subjection to him, he left nothing outside his control. At present, we do not yet see everything in subjection to him. 

We note a couple things here. 1. That, at present, everything is not subject to Christ in this world, and 2. God has not subjected this world to Christ but rather has subjected the world to come to Him. 

Yet, we are told that Christ is exalted above all things and is seated at the right hand of God the Father. Eph 1:19-21 states:

. . . when he raised him from the dead and seated him at his right hand in the heavenly places, far above all rule and authority and power and dominion, and above every name that is named, not only in this age but also in the one to come. And he put all things under his feet and gave him as head over all things for the church, which is his body, the fullness of him who fills all in all.

Now, universal kingdom advocates have a problem here. Either Christ reigns over everything right now or He doesn't; and by "everything" I mean, not just in an imperial capacity but also as a mediatorial king. Think of the Roman Empire (or any empire for that matter). The Emperor rules over the empire but he is only the mediatorial ruler of Rome, which is the seat from which He oversees the rest of the empire. Now, think of not the cities that are under Rome, but the nations that are in rebellion against Rome but are within its domain. Perhaps a better analogy is one I've given many times before and that is the contrast between David and Saul. Saul has reign over all of Israel but David is anointed/messiahed as king of Israel. Saul still rules Israel. David is waiting for the time when Saul's rule will come to an end even though he is anointed as king long before that time. In the meantime, David is simply overseeing the kingdom from the outskirts. It is not a stretch to see Saul as the Satanic figure in the story and far less a stretch to see David as Christ. 

Those who do not claim that Christ is ruling over all things as a mediatorial king can explain both of these texts. Christ is the rightful ruler of heaven and earth and has been exalted as such at His resurrection and ascension. He is seated on the Father's throne, which is the throne of the Emperor/King of Kings and Lord of Lords, where He rules over all the earth sovereignly but only over Israel mediatorially (Deut 32:7-14) until the time the Father has appointed for Christ to return upon which that sovereign role of the Father is handed back to Him and Christ takes the earthly mediatorial role over Israel/the Church that rules the entire world (1 Cor 15:23-28) as the city of Rome becomes the Roman Empire when all of the nations are subject to it. This is the vision in Daniel 2 and 7. It is not that Christ rules over separate empires but that one empire/kingdom/peoples are left upon the earth for Him to rule and all other authorities and powers, including Saul/the devil, no longer have any mediatorial rule upon the earth. 

In fact, this seems to be exactly what Ephesians 1 is saying. He is exalted to the Father's throne which is above every name and every thing. But then it says that He made Him head/leader/ruler of the Church. What a weird thing to say if He was already the ruler over everything in a mediatorial sense. Then He's head of every nation, not just the Church, but this clearly indicates a distinction between the sovereign reign and the mediatorial reign Christ is given now. As the Auctor says, we do not presently see all things subject to Him because God has subjected, not this world, but the world to come to Him. 

So God has both subjected all things under His feet in one sense (i.e., the imperial one) but not all things yet under His feet in another (i.e., the mediatorial sense). This is why God has exalted Him. "For He must rule until He has put all of His enemies under His feet" (1 Cor 15:25). And this subjection of His enemies in terms of the other powers and authorities in the heavenly places, the devil being the emperor over those entities, is not a continual one, but one that happens at the resurrection, at the end, as 1 Cor 15:23-28 states.

But each in his own order: Christ the firstfruits, then at his coming those who belong to Christ. Then comes the end, when he delivers the kingdom to God the Father after destroying every rule and every authority and power. For he must reign until he has put all his enemies under his feet. The last enemy to be destroyed is death. For “God has put all things in subjection under his feet.” But when it says, “all things are put in subjection,” it is plain that he is excepted who put all things in subjection under him. When all things are subjected to him, then the Son himself will also be subjected to him who put all things in subjection under him, that God may be all in all. 

Nor is it the case that this is a rule that just continues on into eternity as Christ's sovereign rule is handed back over the Father, at which time the Son subjects Himself, as the mediatorial ruler of the world, to the Father, the sovereign emperor of the universe. That seat, although Christ is on it for the sake of preserving and gathering His Church/the kingdom, for the world to come, is the Father's throne (Rev 2:26-27; 3:21). Hence, Christ's eternal throne is different than the Father's.

This is why it can be said that God has both exalted Him above all rule and authority and yet Christ must abolish all contrary rule and authority at His coming and is therefore now only head/ruler over the Church/new covenant Israel, which at that time will be resurrected and rule over all the earth with Him.

All of this to say, the phrase in the Lord's prayer, "Thy Kingdom come" carries all of this theology. It notes that the kingdom in terms of its universal mediatorial rule upon the earth has not yet come. That God's will is not yet done in the earth as it is in heaven because God rules sovereignly from heaven but only mediatorially over Israel/the Church. The prayer is a cry to God to bring the world to come, to send Jesus back so that God's will is done in the earth as it is in heaven. It is the cry that John gives at the end of the Apocalypse, "Come, Lord Jesus," and the longing of every orthodox believer who has loved his appearing. The theology above is the only theology that makes sense of this prayer. Otherwise, it would say, thanks for bringing in your kingdom and that your will is done already in heaven and earth. That's not what it says. It tells us the same thing that all of these texts tell us, which is that we wait for the blessed hope of the world to come, not a reorganization of this world, a rearranging of the furniture in a burning house, into yet another shadow of what is to come. 

Hence, we do the work of Christ and it is an eternal work that moth and rust do not destroy because even if those in Christ die, they will return to fill up the world to come. Not so with the wood, hay and straw of rearranging the furniture in a burning house. What can be destroyed in this world will not last in the world to come. Only what is connected to Christ will remain, and so this, not the obtainment of land and title, is our work in the world.

The Heresy of the Universal Kingdom

 There are those who in recent days have not only declared the biblical doctrine that Christ reigns over heaven and earth upon the transcendent seat of the Father but also as the mediatorial King over the entire earth. The biblical doctrine is that Christ reigns sovereignly as the Emperor of the Universe, but is only the mediatorial King of Israel, which is the Church. 

We've gone over verses before that clearly teach He does not reign as the mediatorial regent over the entire world. The Bible clearly teaches that the devil rules the world and that spiritual powers in the heavenly places rule the individual nations other than Christ's nation, Israel/the Church. 

But the question I want to ask today is whether the universal mediatorial regency of Christ view is heresy according to the creeds, specifically the creed upon which all orthodox creeds assume, the Apostle's Creed.

I would argue that it is. The text says that Christ is seated at the right hand of God. That's His sovereign rule as emperor. However, it also says that He will return to judge the living and the dead. This phrase means that He is not judging the world now, and yet, a king must judge his domain and not delay in doing it if he is a righteous king. A righteous king judges His domain quickly. But if Christ will return to judge the entire world then He is not judging it now. 

Instead, the biblical teaching of Christ is that He is not judging the world now but that God has appointed a day upon which He will judge the world. However, we do see Him judge His domain now because He is a righteous judge. That domain is Israel/the Church. Hence, Revelation 2-3 show Christ as judging His people as a righteous king because that is the domain of His kingship. James 5:9 echoes Revelation 3:21 by saying that Christ as judge of the church is right at the door/gates and ready to judge those within His covenant community who mistreat others in His kingdom. Hence, judgment for the church, according to Peter, is now; but the judgment of the world is later when Christ makes the whole world His kingdom when He returns to judge the living and the dead, i.e., the entire world. 

The domain of His judgment now reveals the extent of His domain upon the earth now. Hence, Paul, as an emissary of Christ, states that he has nothing to do with judging the world but his apostolic office that represents the authority of Christ is to be used to judge the church (1 Cor 5:12-13).

What this all means is that the creed assumes the biblical teaching that Jesus sits on God's throne, which is the sovereign throne over all the universe as the emperor, but only mediatorially now as the King of Israel/the Church. Israel/the Church does not rule over the world now, so Jesus does not rule over the world now as the mediatorial king, since the only nation that belongs to Him mediatorially is Israel/the Church, as He is the Davidic King, not the King of Assyria, Babylon, Greece, Rome, etc. When He returns He will cause Israel/the Church to rule over the world and He will be the emperor over the entire world, having given up the Father's sovereign rule over the universe to the Father (1 Cor 15:24-25). 

Christ isn't the ruler of each nation. He is the ruler of one nation, a holy nation, a priestly nation, and that is the Church. The devil is called the god of this world, the ruler of this age, the prince of the power of the invisible world, the authority at work among the sons of disobedience.

So the idea that Christ rules over the world now is a denial of the statement that Christ is seated at the right hand of the Father and will judge the living and the dead at His return, not now, a phrase which summarizes the theology above; and in that regard, is a denial of orthodoxy.

The Crime of Sola Summa Theologica

Cities are not made for those who will not submit to the proper authorities. They are not made for those who do not wish to submit to the rules of those right authorities. They are made for those who wish to learn laws and customs and abide by them. These are citizens. The others are criminals. Criminals submit to all sorts of rules and authorities, usually their own or some criminal organization or leadership, but not to the right authorities, and hence, they are not true citizens of that city. They have made their own within it and merely exist within a place that does not belong to them.

It is often thought that Reformed Christians are the Christians of the Bible. After all, they teach through the Bible verse by verse, don't they? We identify them as citizens of the kingdom because they quote verses like a rooster crowing at 3am. They talk about theology and are faithful to their theologies, whatever they may be. They are the intellectual side of Christendom. But are they in submission to the right authority?

After being among Reformed churches for some time now, I can definitively say that many, not all, of them are actually Christians of Systematic Theology more than they are of the Bible. Their confessions, although stating that they are summaries of the Bible and that the Bible alone is the supreme authority, the norm that norms all other norms, are often treated above the Bible. 

After all, if the interpretation of the Bible can be easily understood and the Bible itself is difficult to understand then a document that is seen as interpreting the Bible correctly is surely superior to the Bible as a reference for truth. 

I'm sure many will disagree with my analysis, but I do want to point out that people are far more faithful to their theologies than they are to the Bible, especially when the Bible, accurately exegeted, may not support their theologies in the end. 

Now, I believe systematic theologies are important as placeholders, but they must not supplant the rigorous application of exegesis to the text of Scripture. It rather should be assumed by every interpreter of the Bible that it will, as it intends to, supplant his theology. 

Sometimes, it will supplant a superficial understanding of that theology and give it layers and nuance it did not have before. Sometimes, it will completely refute it. Other times, it will simply reveal to the interpreter that it does not say anything one way or another about an issue that he thought it said much about before. In any case, sola Scriptura demands more than just a meme hung on the wall. It demands absolute allegiance to the voice of the one who spoke it so that His words are considered above our first, second, and third impressions of it. It demands that we read it again, and then read it again, and then when you're sure of what it says, read it again. Then read it in the Hebrew or Aramaic or Greek. Then read the context again. Then act like the only thing you have is the immediate context and nothing else. Then act like the literary context of the book is all you have to interpret it and nothing else. Then read it again. 

Systematics are summaries of topics one believes the Bible is addressing. They haven't historically been all that exegetical in nature, although some are attempting to change that. It relies heavy on impressions of the text and the individual depth of knowledge of the theologian of that text so that if the theologian is not also a biblical scholar the chances of misunderstanding the very texts upon which his theology is founded are high. 

Yet, people see faithfulness to Christianity as a faithfulness to their confessions, their particular church's theology, some theological consensus in church history, the theology of their family or what they were taught when they first became committed to Christ. None of this is faithfulness to Christ because it makes Him second tier by making His Word second tier to our systematic expressions of it.

There is nothing wrong with confessions and systematic theologies unless they give people the impression that its all they need. These are the milk of the faith, not the meat of it, and if they are treated as milk then we do well to move up to the richer and meatier food of the Scripture. If we treat them as meat, however, we will inevitably mistake what we are eating as God's Word when it is merely the words of men summarizing, often superficially and out of context, the Word of God.

I hold to confessions. I think the Three Forms are, for the most part, true. But my faith is supported by a much deeper foundation and a much stronger substance than mere summaries of frankly what the writer of Hebrews calls "basic teachings about Christ" (Heb 6:1).

Exegesis is superior to systematizing because it tends toward reading out of the text rather than read into it. Biblical scholarship trumps systematics for this reason, not because systematics are not important and held by everyone but because one should challenge and change the other and the other should not challenge and change the one. He who's theology is not in submission to the exegesis of Scripture is not in submission at all. He is a criminal in a city made for the free.

Why the Bible Doesn't Teach There Will a Millennial Kingdom, Part II

 "Kids, we're going to Disneyland next month!" The screams of excitement and delight cannot be exaggerated enough. The father proclaims with absolute certainty that a magical trip will take place in the near future. That's the way the children take it. It is going to happen. Period. But then a month goes by and the father has lost his job, they can't make rent and are eating their last can of beans from a now barren pantry. Disneyland is no longer their future.

So what do the kids say? "You lied to us, Dad. You said that we were going to Disneyland and would be doing all sorts of fun things but it never happened."

This response is understandable. Children understand everything in absolutes. I once had one of my kids say to me, "Dad, why do you lie to us? You say you're going to give us a spanking but then you give us two or three?" (referring to the fact that my hand went up and down two or three times as though the term "a spanking" means a single swipe of the hand). There is no nuance in their understanding, and therefore, there is little understanding that most of what is spoken has a context to it.

The context of the above scenario is that the father was really just saying that they were going to Disneyland if he didn't lose his job, if the car didn't break down, if the father didn't die, if Disneyland didn't burn down before they got there. In other words, if the contingencies that are needed in order for the promise to take place, that promise will happen. If the contingencies for the promise do not take place, then the promise will not take place.

This is especially true of when we talk about Old Testament prophecies that deal with God fulfilling His part in the Deuteronomic blessings to old covenant Israel.

The first thing to note about Old Testament prophecy is just that. Most of it does not consist of new things being promised to Israel. The prophets are God's lawyers and the Deuteronomic covenant is the law they are using to both prosecute Israel and give a defense as to why God is not bringing about the blessings but rather the cursings of that covenant.

So what was that covenant about? What were the blessings? Deuteronomy 28:1-14 presents the blessings.

“If you indeed obey the LORD your God and are careful to observe all his commandments I am giving you today, the LORD your God will elevate you above all the nations of the earth. All these blessings will come to you in abundance if you obey the LORD your God: You will be blessed in the city and blessed in the field. Your children will be blessed, as well as the produce of your soil, the offspring of your livestock, the calves of your herds, and the lambs of your flocks. Your basket and your mixing bowl will be blessed. You will be blessed when you come in and blessed when you go out. The LORD will cause your enemies who attack you to be struck down before you; they will attack you from one direction but flee from you in seven different directions. The LORD will decree blessing for you with respect to your barns and in everything you do—yes, he will bless you in the land he is giving you. The LORD will designate you as his holy people just as he promised you, if you keep his commandments and obey him. Then all the peoples of the earth will see that you belong to the LORD, and they will respect you. The LORD will greatly multiply your children, the offspring of your livestock, and the produce of your soil in the land which he promised your ancestors he would give you. The LORD will open for you his good treasure house, the heavens, to give you rain for the land in its season and to bless all you do; you will lend to many nations but you will not borrow from any. The LORD will make you the head and not the tail, and you will always end up at the top and not at the bottom, if you obey his commandments which I am urging you today to be careful to do. But you must not turn away from all the commandments I am giving you today, to either the right or left, nor pursue other gods and worship them.

Notice the contingency for these blessings to occur is explicitly stated here. In other words, it should already be assumed that if blessings are promised they are promised contingent upon whether the things in the covenant are obeyed. And inclusio exists between vv. 1 and 14 in that If you indeed obey the LORD your God and are careful to observe all his commandments I am giving you today and But you must not turn away from all the commandments I am giving you today, to either the right or left, nor pursue other gods and worship them both convey the contingent nature of these blessings.

The curses also follow, and this is what the prophets argue are happening to an unfaithful Israel. So what are the promises in the Prophets? They are exhortations that if Israel will turn away from their sin they will receive the covenant blessings instead. That is all they are. 

This is what is being assumed in the background of the Prophets. Don't read them without understanding this context or you will end up like the little children who think their father lied to them.

Now, it is important to note that the blessings are tied to the specific land of Israel and what will happen to old covenant Israel in that land. It is also extremely important to note that these are not general promises to anyone outside the land of Israel who would obey them. This covenant is for Israel in order to "exalt Israel above all of the other nations," so it is not a universal covenant being made with mankind, but only with the ancient peoples who were going to occupy the land of Israel. There is nothing here about the other nations being exalted if they do all of this covenant. There is nothing here about individual blessings or cursings being applied if these commandments are obeyed or disobeyed, and this brings us to something important that is often missed here. The blessings end with the warning to not follow after other gods. This is in parallel to obeying all of the commandments because, in Deuteronomy, obedience to the commandments has to do with those within the land of Israel having a particular relationship with God through them. Hence, the commandments are about knowing and worshiping YHWH, not just doing things that are generally and inherently good and that simply may have good consequences regardless who does them. This covenant is about knowing YHWH and worshiping Him above all other gods so that Israel could be a nation of priests to the nations and be revered as such. 

Now, we know that God wants to make a picture of Israel for the world so that the world ultimately knows what YHWH will do to the world if He rules it, and we know that this is ultimately fulfilled in the new heavens and new earth to come, a world that is completely ruled by Him and is rid of chaos. However, Israel fails to become that picture and so they do not take hold of the blessings described here and are kicked out of the land. After this, the new covenant through Christ begins and so the old covenant, which is filled with these specific blessings and cursings for Israel in the land, has passed away and is no longer in effect. This means that even if a bunch of Jews were to try and fulfill the contingencies of the old covenant, it would not matter. But this also means that if the new covenant does not contain these blessings in shadow form anymore then no Christian can obtain them either since the old covenant is not in effect. And this is obvious since very few of the Christians on earth live in Israel and God is not necessarily granting to them perfect success in all things and a freedom from hostilities both foreign and domestic. They still miscarry, have financial ruin, die young, etc.

Now, what does this have to do with whether the Bible teaches that there will be a Millennial Kingdom? It has everything to do with it because if the Bible isn't teaching that all of the old covenant prophecies and promises to Israel must be fulfilled if they fulfill the old covenant then the Bible isn't teaching that any of these prophecies that are contigent upon the Deuteronomic covenant have to ever be fulfilled. And if they never have to be fulfilled then there is not a time when God must fulfill them. And if there is not a time when God has to fulfill them then all of these prophecies in the Old Testament that surround the Deuteronomic covenant are about Israel in the old covenant, not about some Millennial Kingdom in the future. That's why they talk about Israel have slightly larger borders. That's why they talk about Israel as a physical nation ruling the other nations. That's why they talk about sacrificing animals still. That's why they surround the temple and its cultus. That's why they promise a continuous Levitical priesthood and a continual succession of kings upon the Davidic throne. They are bound to the time and place and circumstances of the old covenant, and so should not be applied universally or to some future kingdom that follows the advent of Christ and the new covenant in His suffering and blood, in His lack of success in the physical world. 

In fact, new covenant believers are not promised any of these things before the new world begins. Instead, they are promised suffering as their Master suffered. They are not promised a reverence from and exaltation over the nations. Rather, they are promised rejection by the world. Paul says he is now considered as the dregs of the world. Jesus was called the devil and His followers will be considered evil all the more so. We are promised the breaking up of our families with the sword of Christ's gospel, dishonor, even death. Quite the contrast between living a really long time and having absolute success in the land/world. 

The promises of the old covenant are a shadow, a picture, for everyone who might long for God and His Messiah to rule over all things and rid us of chaos and death, but they are not promises for anyone, Jew or Gentile, after the inauguration of the new covenant. They remain only relics of what could have been had Israel remembered its God. They are a hope to those who seek the new world and a warning to those who would treat God's covenant, old or new, with a presumption of entitlement without obedience to that covenant's stipulations. But they don't ever need to be fulfilled.

A good example of this is Jeremiah 33:17-18:

For thus says the LORD: David shall never lack a man to sit on the throne of the house of Israel, and the Levitical priests shall never lack a man in my presence to offer burnt offerings, to burn grain offerings, and to make sacrifices forever.

Do you know when David lacked a man on the throne? Immediately after this was said. In fact, no one ever sat on the throne of David again until Jesus sat upon it in His resurrection, and even then, He hasn't physically taken that seat over the land of Israel which is to what this promise refers.

Do you know when the Levitical priests lacked a man to burn offerings and grain offerings and make sacrifices continually? Right after this was said. Because the temple was destroyed and even when rebuilt for a short time, was destroyed again and no levitical priests remain making sacrifices to this very day. 

Now, notice, this never happens nor could it even happen if you plug Christ into it because it says that there will never be a lack, meaning there is a lack before Christ comes for about 500 years. There is a lack of a priest who can give sacrifices in a temple for about 100 years and then after Christ for 2000 years. So this will never be fulfilled, nor does it need to be because it is contingent upon whether Israel turns and obeys YHWH as their God. It is contingent upon the stipulations of the old covenant blessings and promises being upheld. They were not, so it did not happen. It does not need to ever happen and so there is no need to find some time in the future before the new world to make sure they happen. 

I've often brought up Jonah as an example of the absolute nature of language when it comes to contingent promises or warnings. Jonah does not say that Nineveh will be overthrown within 40 days if they don't repent. He just makes the absolute statement, "Forty more days and Nineveh will be overthrown!" Notice that there is no contingency applied. That's because those in the ancient world understand that the warning itself has a contingency. If it were just going to happen then there would be no warning. And, of course, we know there is a contingency to the absolute language because the people do repent and the city is not overthrown in forty days.

The promises are the same. There would be no exhortation to repent so that the promises could happen unless it was possible that the promises could never happen. 

So all of this said, if all of the passages of the Old Testament that are used to argue for some Millennial Kingdom, and there are many, don't actually teach anything about a Millennial Kingdom, then where in the Bible is there any teaching about a Millennial Kingdom needing to occur? We've already spoken about the fact that Revelation 20 doesn't necessarily teach that there will be one, and now we've talked about the fact that the common assumption that one must exist in order for old covenant prophecies to be fulfilled is false. So where now is the biblical basis for the idea that there absolutely will be one and you must pick which version of it you're going to shove into ever biblical text you come across?

Sorry to burn your Disneyland down but we must look for the world come that has been given to Christ (Heb 2:5-18) and not some magic kingdom that God will cut out for His people in this world (whether He will end up doing that or not).