Toby J. Sumpter's Blog, page 50

Inescapable Theonomy

Introduction
I recently wrote an article entitled “Inescapable Theocracy” in which I argued that everybody is a theocrat. Everybody serves somebody; everybody serves a god. There’s no value-neutral place in all of the universe. There is no god-free zone in all the earth. And while it would seem to follow that this also means everyone is a theonomist, applying the standards, rules, and laws of their god/s to every area of life, I feel quite sure it would be helpful and generally edifying to everyone if we just came out and said it plainly. Everyone is a theonomist. There you go. I’ve said it. Write that down. Let’s say it together: Everyone. Is. A. Theonomist. I’m a theonomist, you’re a theonomist, Scott Clark is a raving theonomist, Donald Trump is a yuge theonomist, and Bernie Sanders is a wicked weeeahd theonomist.

Now you might be tempted to think I’ve watered down the term, that applying it so broadly and liberally, I’ve effectively emptied the term of all meaning. But I beg to differ. Theonomy means “God’s law,” and it means applying God’s law to the real world, to the whole world, to the church, to families, and to nations and civil magistrates, and urging all men everywhere to submit to it. And so I do. This is what Jesus is Lord means. It means that His law, His standards are goodness and light. They are sweeter than honey; they are more precious than gold. Nothing you may desire compares with the law of God.

Where’d You Get that Yard Stick?
Just because you’ve rejected Jesus as your Lord doesn’t mean you have somehow escaped theonomy. No, you’re just in the process of replacing the true God’s law with a false god’s law. Man-made law is always a claim to transcendence and godhood. Every human law aims in some way to uphold justice, protect the innocent, or in some way do good. And by now you should know the question to ask: By What Standard? How do you know what justice is? Where did you get that measuring stick? What is innocence? What is “good”? And all of those claims, if they mean anything at all, are claims to transcendent value and virtue, and well, God or gods.

So humanism, even so-called “secular” humanism, is just another form of theocracy with its own form of theonomy, full of nails and needles and hatchets ready to steal, kill, and maim. This is what idolatry always does, and it does it by divine fiat, by the word of the gods, by the demands of the idols, by the torah of the demons, by the powers of Wall Street, and the peer-reviewed papers of that sexy goddess SCIENCE (peace be upon her). And what do the gods demand? They demand blood. Every one of them. To hate God and His wisdom is to love death. To reject God’s law and the blood of Jesus is always to embrace tyranny and murder. It is not a question of whether you will have a death penalty. The only question is by what standard will the death penalty be imposed, and whether the death of the only innocent man in history will overshadow it all or not.

Helpful Memes Inc.
And all of this is partially related to recent doings on the interwebs where critics of yours truly and my esteemed associate Douglas Wilson were painted as [gasp] theonomists, and to their credit, they chose a fine line from CrossPolitic’s recent show at the G3 Conference to memefy, where I was in the middle of making something of the same point I’m making here — that theonomy is inescapable. And I was correctly quoted as saying that the immediate come back question, if you stand by God’s entire Word unflinching and unapologetic and unconcerned, whistling your favorite hymn with your thumbs in your suspenders — the come back is always: What about the command to stone adulterers or the death penalty for the rebellious son? (And this is always said with that ha-gotcha smirk, but apparently word hasn’t gotten around yet that we’ve heard that one before and they haven’t got anything.) But I said on that show that the first thing we must do is stand there without a twinge of guilt in all the world. We must stand there and keep whistling that favorite hymn, and let’s hope it’s one of those good Puritan ones with 10 verses or so. They aim to shame us for some portion of God’s holy word, and as far as we are concerned nothing doing.

For far too long, Christians have cowered right there on the spot. They have grimaced or winced and in some small way admitted the God-hater has a point. But he doesn’t have a point. He doesn’t even have a small one. If you got out the most powerful microscope in the world and examined the spot his fat, sweaty finger was pointing at, there’d be a vast blankness. There’s nothing there, and this is because there are no problems with God’s Word. There are no “problem passages.” There are only problem people — us — rebellious, blind, difficult, confused sinners. God is good and merciful and just and loving and holy. And He does whatever He pleases, and our only response to His acts, to His word is worship, praise, and deep gratitude. And this must include the holy war in Canaan, the death penalties in the law, those fun bits about menstruation and shell fish and mixed fabrics, and the world wide flood, and most importantly the most awful event recorded in the whole book: the crucifixion of the Son of God.

And for some reason they never bring that part up. If they are so concerned with cruelty and justice, why do they never bring up the worst part? Why do they never bring up the part about the only innocent man, the only good man to ever walk this planet and how sinful mouths condemned Him, mocked Him, spat on Him, how sinful hands struck Him and pulled out His beard and drove nails into His hands and feet? And this is why we are not ashamed of any of it. Because the Eternal Living God sent His Only Son to take on our shame, to bear our sin in our place, to set us free, to make us completely clean, to give us eternal life. If He saved us like that, how can we be ashamed of anything He has said or done?

But the Death Penalty?
But very kindly, the meme also included the fact that I immediately added that having affirmed the goodness of God’s Word, we needed to get to work studying it carefully in order to apply it with wisdom. So what about the death penalties? How shall we then apply them? We must apply them the way the Bible teaches us to apply them, which includes studying the entire law code carefully and not merely picking and choosing laws at random. We must study the entire law code in context of the entire Old Testament, noticing how the laws were actually applied by wise and godly kings and prophets. And of course, most importantly, we must study the entire law code in the context of the fullest revelation of God’s law and character: Jesus Christ and the New Testament. Jesus did not come to reveal to us that the god of the Old Testament was His grumpy uncle and sorry about all that blood and violence. No, Jesus came to do the will of His Father, the one who spoke Exodus and Leviticus and Deuteronomy. And Jesus came living by every word that proceeds from the mouth of God.

Some of you are still reading because you simply want to know whether the death penalty is ever an option for adultery or rebellious sons. And the answer is absolutely yes. Otherwise, we accuse God of injustice. Was it ever just to put adulterers to death? Then under those circumstances it would be just today. Justice doesn’t bend, doesn’t change, doesn’t shift — that’s the whole point of justice. And it is rooted in the unchanging holiness of God. He does not shift or change. And those Christians who want some kind of work around, free pass from having to deal with the laws of God in the Old Testament really do have a problem. And it’s a gospel problem if I can put it that way: If God’s standard for justice can change over time, if the death penalty might have been just in 1400 B.C. but not in 2020 A.D., then you have a gospel problem because our salvation hinges on the death penalty executed on Jesus Christ for our sins. Did Jesus perfectly obey the law of God? Which law? Has justice been done in the cross of Christ? Have our sins been fully paid for? Has the death of Jesus satisfied the wrath of God? Has the obedience of Jesus been fully credited to you? Obedience to whom? Obedience to what standard? If God’s standard for justice has ever changed, then it can change again, and you have no eternal security, not now and not when we’ve been there 10,000 years.

But to the practical questions — how should we apply the death penalty today? One of the things we see running through the Old Testament is that most of the death penalties were maximum penalties. Only capital murder requires the death penalty — life for life. But all of the other death penalties were maximum sentences depending on degrees of severity and aggravation. And for some reason all the #metoo-ers and Christian feminists all up in their virtual-holy-panics are the ones upset with biblical theonomists? We’re the ones that think the serial child rapists would be very good candidates for the death penalty. Who are the ones enabling abuse now? But most Mosaic penalties were paid in restitution, and biblical justice knows virtually nothing about prisons. Most penalties meant putting things back as much as possible in this fallen world. Asa, Jehoshaphat, and Josiah suppressed sodomy and exiled sodomites in Judah during their righteous reigns, and we reason from this that the death penalties associated with sodomy in the law were maximum sentences (cf. 1 Kgs. 15:12, 22:46, 2 Kgs. 23:7). Turns out there were laws on the books of most states for most of American history criminalizing sodomy and adultery. How do we apply God’s law to our day? How about we start by honoring our most immediate fathers in this land, our founding fathers, and work for the sort of gospel Reformation that upholds the laws they gave us that were enforced in our land until about five minutes ago?

Conclusion
So there is no escaping theonomy. The question is not whether you will have a law from a god, the only question is which god and whose law? And the answer is necessarily the same. Whichever god you go with, that is the law you have chosen, whatever your stated caveats and exceptions and fine print in the footnotes. The gods brook no deals, and they break all rules. They laugh at their victims. They swallow them whole, and they do not remember the names of their servants. And by the same token, whichever law you have chosen, no matter what is announced at the press conference, whoever wrote that law, that is the god you are serving. If it is the law from Mt. Sinai, the one revealed in complete fullness on Mt. Golgotha, then you are serving the Living and True God, the Father of the Lord Jesus Christ who was crucified for sinners and rose from the dead to make all things new. But if it is the law from Mt. Olympus, you have chosen to serve Zeus and his pantheon of chaos and strife. If it is the law from Mt. Demos, you have chosen to serve The Man and his deranged, careening hubris who has thus far demanded the blood of 61 million babies executed on the altar of his lusts and whims. It’s not whether there will be a death penalty, it is only who will be executed and by what standard.

Don’t give me your ridiculous panicky hysterics about theocracy and death penalties. We live in a theocracy. We are under the regime of the theonomy of false gods right this minute. And these gods are far more bloody and violent than the strictest application of Old Testament law. Give me the law of God every day.

For further Reading: By This Standard, Greg Bahnsen; The Shadow of Christ in the Law of Moses; God and Government, Gary Demar

And there’s a 10 part video series by Gary Demar available for Fight Laugh Feast Club Members.

Photo by Tamas Tuzes-Katai on Unsplash

Good Works as Free Market

Introduction
There is no shortage of confusion among Christians about basic biblical economics. The fact that many conservative Christians do not blink when Trump and run of the mill Republicans pass yet another trillion dollar budget and meanwhile, flaming red conservative states are passing socialized medicine bills, pouring millions into socialized government education, and robbing their citizens in taxes to pay for it all tells you that we’re in a mess. The fact that these “conservative” Republicans have the audacity to print “fiscal conservative” on their brochures and tout it in their campaign speeches and be elected and re-elected by Christians tells you we’re in bad shape. Either someone is lying or someone is stupid and probably both. And the fact that some Christians might even consider Breadline Bernie a reasonable option tells us that things are really on fire. 

“And let our people also learn to maintain good works, to meet urgent needs, that they may not be unfruitful” (Tit. 3:14).

Four Important Words
A big part of our problem is that we don’t read our Bibles. The most essential economic principle found in the Bible is found in four of the most ignored words of Scripture: thou shalt not steal. This is the foundation of the notion of private property. But what many Christians have forgotten is that private property is foundational to personal freedom. To own something is to be free to use it as you see fit, whenever you please. And, just to connect the dots here carefully, when something is stolen, you are no longer free to use it. There’s a great deal here that needs careful thought and study, but suffice it for now merely to point out that the most precious possession that belongs to a man is his own body, his own life, strength, energy, intelligence, creativity, and time – ordinarily involving a man’s labor and whatever goods or services are produced by that labor. And most modern forms of taxation are claims to some percentage of ownership of a man’s labor and its fruit. And that, to put it bluntly, is evil. And it is not any less evil by a majority of your neighbors voting to steal from you. It is not any less evil for you to have joined in with your neighbors to vote to rob one another. If there is a threat of violence on the other end of the request for money that is not contractually owed for products or services rendered, we call that robbery, or at least we used to.

Maintaining Good Works
But the point I want to make here is from the very end of Paul’s letter to Titus. First, notice that Paul says that Christians must learn how to maintain good works. Paul is not talking about Good Samaritan good works. Those are important and necessary for Christians to be ready to meet – the unexpected emergencies. But those are not good works that you can maintain by their very nature. Paul is talking here about the sort of good works that need maintaining. They are to be continuous, regular, and routine. What might those be? Paul tells us: meeting urgent needs. Christians are to look for needs around them and seek to meet some of them by their labors. What are some of those needs? Usually, communities begin with the most urgent and work their way outward: food, clothing, shelter, medicine, safety, etc. This would include farming, raising and butchering animals, logging, carpentry, textiles, bricklaying, fuel, weapons, firearms and related industries. The most urgent needs would begin with evangelism, worship, and education, since that’s the center of the Great Commission, and that would include the labors of evangelists, pastors, and teachers. But all of these good works require education and learning in order to maintain them, in order to improve them, grow them, and make them fruitful. So Paul’s exhortation presupposes schools, colleges, and universities, mentorships, internships, and vocational training of every sort. Maintaining good works is something that requires learning.

Only By Grace
Ok, one more point. Notice then that part of a pastor’s job is to exhort his people to learn how to work hard, how to maintain good works to meet the needs around them, in order to be fruitful in every way. Notice that he is not required to teach the math classes or repair classes, he is to exhort the people to go learn, to go find the appropriate teaches. A pastor does this first of all by modeling it – by being a learner, a student, a disciple, as well as an industrious and fruitful man, given to good works. But then his mission and calling is discipling Christians, teaching them to obey all of God’s word, including the Ten Commandments, including the one about not stealing, and while we’re at it don’t forget the one about not coveting. But of course parents are also included in that teaching/learning process, and notice that it is not the government’s job to provide education. Closely related would be the fact that it is not the civil government’s job to create jobs. The civil government’s job is to punish evil doers and protect citizens from harm to their persons or property, and otherwise stay out of the way. This is true freedom.   

The point of underlining who does the teaching about good works and productivity and fruitfulness is to emphasize the fact that true fruitfulness grows in the soil of grace. The Great Commission of the Church is a fundamentally gracious ministry, and when people come into that grace it begins transforming families. But civil government exercises its power by the sword. It is an inherently coercive power concerned with the administration of justice, which is why it must be limited by God’s word. Of course church and family authorities can abuse their power and become coercive and manipulative in their own ways and therefore they are also limited by God’s word, but their power is primarily exercised through teaching, instruction, and discipleship, not threat of violence.

But to our point: good works – truly good works – can only be done as a grateful response to the grace of God. While the threat of punishment may be a prod to what appear to be good works, good works done under compulsion, or fear of punishment are not really good works. All attempts at good works apart from the grace of God in Christ are inherently manipulative and coercive – even if they are attempting to avoid consequences or fines. Ultimately, the do-gooder who is trying to earn points with God is trying to trick blessing out of God or at the very least avoid God’s judgment, trying to manipulate and coerce God into blessing him. But you cannot live like that before God and not end up doing the same thing whether you are a butcher, a baker, or a candlestick maker. You cannot view the world as essentially stingy and then magically become generous in your day to day dealings. 

Better to Give
In other words, the unconverted heart is fundamentally trying to get something, and this is covetousness and theft. And when you are trying to get the government to get you something, it is still covetousness and theft. But the converted heart has been transformed in such a way as to receive a gift of such inestimable valued (forgiveness, eternal life) that now it has truly become better to give than receive. To have Christ living inside of you is for His joy to be your joy, and His joy is found in giving. And so the point is that the good works of farming and agriculture and medicine and textiles and technology and building and construction and education – and all the others, are at their highest and best when they are done in response to the grace of God as gifts, offered to the glory of God and for the good of our neighbor. And they can only be true gifts if they are given without compulsion, without coercion or manipulation or threat of injury or punishment. And when they are given like that, they are given like grace, and by God’s blessing, they become the kind of gifts that make the recipients of them want to offer something in return. This is what we call a free market.

It’s a free market because it is driven by the free grace of God. It is free because it is not coerced. And it’s free because it consists of two (or more) men given what truly belongs to them to someone else. They used their time, energy, creativity to produce something of value to someone else, something they needed, perhaps urgently needed, and in return, something of comparable value is tendered out of gratitude. This is the free exchange of good works. What makes the whole thing such a blessing is that what is received on either end of the transaction is of more value to the recipient. It truly is more blessed to give than to receive, but precisely because that is the case, when you have given like that, the blessing is at least in part the unexpected gift of the “payment.”

Conclusion
There’s a great deal we need to learn and re-learn about biblical and Christian economics, but the good news is that the Bible is completely open and wonderfully free. But the Bible is open like Narnia is open, like Heaven is open. It really is open. It really is free. But we must be made open in order to truly enter the Word. We must be set free so that the Word may run free in us. And this means that men must be converted to God. They must be given completely new hearts. When that happens, that grace inevitably spills out in good works, like free and wild vines, families and businesses and schools and cities.

Photo by Clark Young on Unsplash

Inescapable Theocracy

Introduction
One of the most important lessons every Christian must have settled in their hearts and minds is the fact of inescapable theocracy. There is no square inch in all of the universe in which God or a god or gods are actually banished. There is no god-free zone in all of human existence. Human beings are inescapably religious. Human beings are homo adorans. We are worshipping beings. And therefore, the question is not whether a god will be worshipped and served. The only question is which God or gods will be worshipped and served. Which God or gods will be reverenced and honored in the home, in the schools, in the marketplaces, in the public square? Whose moral laws will be applied in the home, in the schools, in the marketplaces, in the halls of justice? Atheism is a lie, secularism is an elaborate myth, religious neutrality is fairy tale meant to obfuscate the plain-as-day fact that gods are stampeding through the back door. There is no value neutral space in this world, and this is because there is no space in which transcendent values are not vying for supremacy. 

The Dangers of Gravity
There is only one true God, the Triune God of the Bible, revealed in Jesus Christ, and He is always there. He cannot be banished. Stand all the PhDs and Politicians and Media Priests of this world on a stage and let them pontificate about the dangers of theocracy, and watch nothing happen. Watch their words disappear in the air. And watch them all grow old and die. God doesn’t care. Well actually He does, but their pontificating might as well be sermons on the dangers of oxygen and gravity and mathematics. Reality doesn’t care. And in that sense, God is unmoved and untroubled by the drunken ravings of mad men, even when the mad men have managed to tuck their shirts in and form sentences that are grammatically correct. 

But this is the thing: the only stick you can shake at the Absolute is some other claim to be absolute. Of course, your stick is really small and silly in the face of the Absolute. Sort of like throwing pennies at the sun. But the point is that the only claim that denies the Absolute is itself an absolute. The only way to deny the Absolute is with an absolute denial. And even in the case of so-called agnostics, who wrinkle their brows in faux sophistication and arrogantly claim that there’s just not enough evidence to prove or disprove God – to the extent that they are trying to camp out in that place, they are making that claim in the face of Absolute clarity. The resistance needed to face that clear and unmistakable Glory is nothing less than an absolute doubt. That doubt really is no bigger than a man’s hand, covering his own eyes to block out the Sun, and insisting that there’s just not enough evidence for the theory of a big ball of burning gas that keeps us all alive. But every form of resistance against the Living God is an absolute claim, and therefore a god, an idol, an allegiance, a loyalty that trumps the claims of Christ.  

Inescapable Blasphemy
Whatever the excuse is, whatever the reason given to deny the Absolute claims of the Eternal God – that is your god, your religion. That is your absolute reason for refusing Absolute Reality. And that reason of necessity cannot help but exert its authority. It demands loyalty and allegiance. It brings a retinue of expectations and laws. It is a theocracy, a pitiful theocracy to be sure, but still a theocracy for all that. And this means that there must be blasphemy laws – or “hate speech” if you prefer. It’s all the same. The gods must be reverenced, honored, hallowed. In the beginning, it is merely a demand for the right to stand there defying the Living God without being laughed at. But it cannot stop there. All claims to deity require absolute allegiance. This is the nature of worship. It entails complete surrender, complete submission. And that surrender is either to the Living God who gives Himself and therefore gives life and existence and immortality or it is a false god, an idol, a demon that is a parasitic parody of the Real God, sucking life and limb and liberty from everyone that gives it the time of day. And the idol’s right to exist necessarily transposes into the right to be reverenced and pretty soon that loyalty and allegiance is being pressed into the schools, into the marketplace, into the public square, and eventually into every home.

You cannot admit the pantheon and then object when the gods demand their due. And if one of the gods has been blasphemed, this is nothing but hate, and there must be blood, there must be fines, there must be discipline, there must be punishment. And in modern societies this is all carried out under the liturgies and vestments of secularism and neutrality and reason. But it is just as religious. These are graven images, idols with names like science, popularity, common sense, logic, sociology, philosophy, political science, statistics – whatever silly ride we’ve pimped out with the latest gaudy bling.

Theocracy Now
We live in a theocracy now. We always have. Gods are being worshiped now. They always have been. At the founding of our country, a majority of those involved, worshiped the Triune God and the laws of our land reflected that allegiance. Our laws were largely limited to reflect God’s law, limited to restrain human hubris, and limited to require self-government and individual responsibility. But the laws of our land have changed and are changing. And this is because there are new gods, and the new gods bring entirely new conceptions of life and liberty and law. They always do. In a predominantly Christian culture, people don’t advertise their household idols, their high places. The demurring begins as a high brow doubt, or skepticism, philosophical quibbles and exceptions – but those are religious claims. There are gods in the doubts and quibbles. For they are of necessity transcendent doubts and quibbles. There is no other kind of doubt sufficient to functionally deny the authority of the claim that Jesus is Lord – that He died and rose again and is the rightful King of every nation. 

So this is the point: Christians must stop being bullied by the accusations of theocracy and simply insist that every human being is already a theocrat. Every human being serves a god or gods. The only question is which one? The current communist Left is helpfully revealing all of this as we speak. They are more and more openly religious in their fanaticism and demands. But there will always be conservatives willing to go back three or five decades to where those gods and that religion were just beginning to build their high places, where they simply want to be respected as a reasonable alternative. But idolatry is always a cancer. It is not merely a moral or spiritual cancer. It is a political and economic and cultural cancer. Idols are insanity. And therefore it is insanity to let them roam free.

Conclusion
A Christian moral order, an explicitly Protestant and Reformed public square protects the rights of individual conscience. It is not a sharia law. But that’s because the Christian God is not Allah. And neither is the Christian God the modern secular state. What has the modern secular state given us? It has butchered over sixty million babies, mugs us in taxes when we lie down and when we rise up, and has the audacity to make laws about straws and smoking and what I do while I’m driving in my car, and will very soon no doubt be counting the number of times I flush my toilet in my own home. Why? Because the gods are inescapably totalitarian. You cannot deny the Absolute without making claim to be absolute. You cannot banish the gods. You will either serve the Living God, the Life-Giving God, or you will serve some substitute, and the substitutes bring their own sharia laws with them. Theocracy is inescapable. As for me and my house, give me God’s law. God’s law is full of life and liberty. God is King. Christ is King. We already live in His theocracy. 

Photo by Francisco Ghisletti on Unsplash

Efficacious Love

Mal. 1:1-5

Introduction
This message is directed at men, and husbands and fathers in particular, but there will be plenty of applications to go around for everyone in the room since the basic message can be summarized as “if God so loved us, we ought also to love one another” (1 Jn. 4:11). We begin with God’s efficacious love, and then we press that into the corners, beginning with the men and then to all. 

A Summary of the Text: This final book in our Old Testament begins with a “burden” or a judgment from God against His people, sometime in the late 5th century B.C., most likely during the days of Nehemiah (Mal. 1:1). This burden comes as a stinging rebuke to those who had returned from exile and rebuilt the temple and were seeking to reestablish Israel as a nation. The difficulties of rebuilding have piled up and discouraged the people to the point of significant moral compromise, such that when Malachi opens with the announcement of God’s love, the point was clearly to address the fact that they have come to the point of questioning it (Mal. 1:2). Malachi’s answer is God’s election of Jacob over Esau, and traces that out in history, pointing out that Esau’s rebuilding projects have not succeeded since God’s wrath abides on Esau/Edom forever (Mal. 1:2-4). Malachi concludes this opening salvo with the promise that the eyes of Israel will be opened to see the Lord’s efficacious love and then they will proclaim the glory of the Lord (Mal. 1:5).

All the Excuses
These people were the dedicated ones. They had sacrificed much. They had moved back to Jerusalem, endured hardships, and were painstakingly seeking to rebuild Jerusalem. But the work of Reformation is never easy and is often long and slow. The rest of Malachi addresses three areas of significant problems which all flow out of the initial question posed in Mal. 1:2. Forgetting God’s sovereign love has led to polluted worship, unfaithful marriages, and robbing God of tithes. All of these areas demonstrated a significant breakdown in the Israelite families. The men put up with weak and lying priests because that gave them an easy pass with their own wives and children. And when men fail to love and lead their families faithfully, they frequently try to buy them off, which often results in robbing God of tithes. But the root cause of it all is pride. “How has God loved us?” is perhaps one of the most insolent questions a creature can ask, even if true hardships preceded that appalling point. At its heart, it’s the resentful sentiment of the older brother in the parable: “Lo, these many years I have been serving you… and yet you never gave me a young goat, that I might make merry with my friends” (Lk. 15:29). 

Jacob I Have Loved
God’s answer is intended to humble Israel: “Was not Esau Jacob’s brother? Yet I loved Jacob, and I hated Esau” (Mal. 1:2-3). The answer is one of startling, sovereign freedom. Not only were Jacob and Esau twin brothers, but God chose Jacob in the womb before they were even born (Gen. 25:23). And Paul underlines the point: “For the children being not yet born, neither having done any good or evil, that the purpose of God according to election might stand, not of works, but of him that called – it was said unto her, the elder shall serve the younger. As it is written, Jacob have I loved, but Esau I hated” (Rom. 9:11-13). The answer to Israel’s discouragement and frustration and pride was a straight shot reminder of God’s free and sovereign love. God might have chosen Esau. There was nothing intrinsically better about Jacob. The reason for God’s choice to love Jacob was not in anything in Jacob or Esau or anything good or evil they might do. It was merely “that the purpose of God according to election might stand, not of works, but of him that called.”

What follows is the evidence that God had stood by His choice: despite all the difficulties, Jacob (Israel) had rebuilt Jerusalem, but all of Esau/Edom’s building projects were doomed (Mal. 1:3-4). The book of Malachi ends with a promise that God will save His people and destroy the wicked. He had already done this, but He will continue. He will remember His people like jewels and spare them like a son (Mal. 3:17). He will turn the hearts of fathers to their children and the hearts of children to their fathers (Mal. 4:6). This is the sovereign, efficacious love of God, finally accomplished in Jesus.  

Husbands Love Like That
The startling thing is that this standard of love is held up for husbands to imitate toward their wives, and by implication, their children. “Husbands love your wives as Christ also loved the church, and gave himself for it; that he might sanctify and cleanse it with the washing of water by the word, that he might present it to himself a glorious church, not having spot, or wrinkle, or any such thing, but that it should be holy and without blemish” (Eph. 5:25-27). Malachi had condemned Israel for forgetting God’s love and putting up with polluted worshiped, being unfaithful to their wives, and financial folly, and here Paul calls men of the new Israel to remember God’s love in Christ and so be faithful and diligent in their love of their wives, which is connected to the church honoring Christ (worship) and building households of wisdom (finances). 

The center of the faithfulness required is love that imitates Christ, and that love is efficacious. Contrast this efficacious love with the modern notion of sentimental love. Sentimental love merely feels things and acts in order to feel some more. Efficacious love primarily acts in order to accomplish; efficacious love is aimed at a goal, like a General, a Coach, or a Builder. Efficacious love is efficacious because it takes responsibility for the challenge and sacrifices for the assigned outcome. Responsibility means you fully embrace her challenges as your challenges, just as Christ took our sins upon Himself. Sacrifice means laying your life down to sanctify and cleanse your bride from every spot or wrinkle. And since you are not Christ, and you are not perfect, this means you must also factor in all of your challenges, weaknesses, and sin. Again, many moderns, even modern Christians, think that sacrifice is primarily about making a point – I love you THIS much. But that is sentimental love, not efficacious love. Christ’s death was not merely making a point, it accomplished a task. So husbands are to love their wives like that, which means doing what needs to be done to present your wife without spot or wrinkle to the Lord.   

Perhaps most importantly, it means laying down your pride and dwelling with your wife in an understanding way (1 Pet. 3:7). But this doesn’t mean doing whatever she says or whatever anyone else says. It means obeying God, and by His grace, doing what needs to be done to bring your wife and whole family to heaven. And that includes a lot of prayer. Efficacious love sees the goal of glory and beauty and holiness, and it drives eagerly toward the goal, doing whatever it takes to get there. This kind of love is to be as efficacious as a man’s love for his own body (Eph. 5:28). This absolutely must include food, clothing, and basic provision, but it is also clearly more than that. Think of this in terms of athletics, particularly in areas of endurance – the head game is intense. You must listen to your body, but you must still lead your body. You must coach your body. And with that image, think of being a husband as being the best coach you ever had: they push you, encourage you, correct you, but you love them for what they are driving you toward. This is a persistent, uncomplaining, humble, joyful leadership in every area of life: entertainment, clothing choices, education, finances, family culture, work schedule. 

And wives, your love for your husband is to be primarily communicated through submission and respect in everything, as the church is to Christ (Eph. 5:22-24). You should do this because God says to, but if it helps, think of this also as the primary way you encourage him. This means you must be on his team, fully loyal, into his style and personality, while giving him the kind of feedback that helps him do his job.

Conclusion: Love One Another
“Herein is love, not that we loved God, but that He loved us, and sent His Son to be the propitiation for our sins. Beloved if God so loved us, we ought also to love one another” (1 Jn. 4:10-11). Why did Christ die? To turn away God’s just wrath (propitiation for our sins) to set us free. “For when we were yet without strength, in due time Christ died for the ungodly… But God commendeth his love toward us, in that, while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us… when we were enemies, we were reconciled to God by the death of His Son” (Rom. 5:6, 8, 10). For whom did Christ die? For the ungodly, for sinners, for His enemies to reconcile us to God.

“He hath chosen us in him before the foundation of the world, that we should be holy and without blame before him in love, having predestinated us unto the adoption of children by Jesus Christ to Himself, according to the good pleasure of His will, to the praise of the glory of his grace” (Eph. 1:4-6). For whom did Christ die? For those He chose before the foundation of the world to be holy. 

The cross was not an attempt to save everyone but successful with only some. Everyone God has chosen, He loves, and Christ died for them and will not lose one. They will be made holy by His efficacious love. Why? So we would praise the glory of His grace, or as Malachi puts it: that we would proclaim the glory of the Lord (Mal. 1:5).

How are we to love one another? Like that. Husbands, wives, parents, children, siblings, roommates, co-workers, neighbors. Plotting blessing. Giving freely. Forgiving gladly. Without growing weary. Not expecting anything in return. Keeping vows. Out of sheer joy in Christ for His efficacious love. 

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Push Your Sin Out the Window

The beginning of Jehu’s reign in 2 Kings 9-10 is a wonderful example for Christians who would be free of their besetting sins. When Jehu was anointed by Elisha’s assistant, he drove his chariot furiously straight to meet Joram the son of Ahab and killed him and Azariah, the visiting King of Judah. Arriving in Samaria, he called for Jezebel’s servants to throw her out of her upper chamber window, and her blood spattered on the wall and the dogs ate her. But Jehu didn’t stop there. He immediately wrote a letter to the elders of the city asking for the heads of seventy sons of Ahab. And soon, he had secured his victory when the heads of Ahab’s seventy sons were brought to him in baskets and placed at the city gates for all to see. Finally, he gathered all of the prophets of Baal in the house of Baal and slaughtered them all. He brought out the images from the house and broke down the pagan temple.

Sin wars against your soul. Sin is plotting against you. “Beloved, I beg you as sojourners and pilgrims, abstain from fleshly lusts which war against the soul” (1 Pet. 2:11). Your sin is like Ahab and Jezebel and the prophets of Baal corrupting your mind, infecting your heart, even weighing your body down with stresses and sickness. But hear this, you who belong to Jesus: you have been anointed in baptism and by the Holy Spirit to go to war with your sin. You are authorized by the death and resurrection of Jesus to lead a holy coup. 

So what is your Ahab? Your Jezebel? What are your prophets or temple of Baal? Is it lying? Is it lust? Is it bitterness? Is it envy? Is it a complaining spirit? Christ died so that every one of your sins might die. He rose so that you might rise to new and obedient life. You are called to war. Do not go easy on any sin. Do not make any excuses, do not blame others, do not say it’s too late or its been too long. Strike your envy and resentment down. Push your lust and lying out the window. Confess your sins, ask for forgiveness, write a letter, get accountability, and make the changes required to really change.  

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The Great Wall of Blessing

Nothing stands between you and any good thing except the blessing of God. And God’s blessing is a great and glorious and impenetrable wall. On the one hand this is one of the ways you know that you belong to Jesus: however hard your flesh may try, you find that you cannot break out of that wonderful wall of God’s blessing. When the Spirit convicts you of sin and you confess and are forgiven, that’s the great wall of God’s blessing keeping you inside His blessing. He will not let you go.

But there are gates in God’s wall of blessing that lead into other parts of His blessing. Some gates lead into the blessing of marriage and children. To others He grants the blessing of showing forth His praise in hardship and suffering. And to others He grants the blessings of industry and creativity and leadership. There are also gates that lead into extraordinary blessing in missions and evangelism and reformation and revival. People have of course tried to pick the locks of these gates for centuries, some have tried schemes of breaking in or scaling over the top, but God is the only one who can open any of those gates for His people. He holds the keys to all of them. And He is the One who leads us in and out of these blessings. 

And so again it is true that nothing stands between you and any good thing except the blessing of God. God in His infinite wisdom opens the gates of His blessing to those He chooses in His good timing. So what if God blesses one brother in this way and that brother in a different way? What if God blesses this sister in that way and that sister in another way? He is the Lord of Glory. He commands the glory. He commands the blessing, and it always obeys Him. 

But this is such good news. Nothing stands between you and any good thing except the blessing of God. And has He not brought us into the land full of His blessing? It’s not whether we will be blessed forever in Jesus Christ. The only question is which blessings has He prepared for us? And this table is simply a wonderful picture of this fact. This is the bread and wine of blessing in Christ. What would you have: blessing or blessing? Are you seeking Christ? Then open your mouth wide, and He will fill it. Ask, seek, knock, and you will find.

So come and welcome to Jesus Christ.

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The Lord Has Given Us Over

Jesus is Lord. He is not trying to become Lord. He is not running for office. He humbled himself and took the lowest place, taking the curse of our sin and death, and therefore God has highly exalted Him and given Him the name that is above every name. Jesus has been given all dominion, glory, kingdoms, people, nations, and languages. 

This means that Jesus is Lord of our land right now, this minute. Nothing happens in our cities, counties, states, or in Washington D.C. that is outside of the authority of Jesus Christ. And this means that all of the evil that is being celebrated and perpetrated in our land – the slaughter of the unborn, the pride of perversion, the idolatry of the state, and every form of unjust and senseless violence – all of it is happening because the Lord Jesus has permitted it to happen. 

Throughout Scripture, the pattern is utterly clear: when God’s people turn away from Him and worship idols, God gives them over to the power of their idols. God has given us over to our idols. This means that while it is good and right to bear witness to the truth of God’s word in every area of life: working toward the end of abortion, the honoring of the marriage bed, and freedom from government tyranny, it must be fixed in our hearts and minds that nothing will change this current regime except the worship of the Triune God. 

The Church has so little authority and power because we have turned to false gods, particularly the idols of Respectability, Niceness, Trendiness, and the Hip-Cool. These insidious demons have infected everything in the church. Everything must be nice, up to date, sensitive, respectable, and according to the tastes and preferences and whims and lusts of the people. And so it is that the Lord Jesus has given us over to the oppression of these gods.  

The answer to all of this is to turn back to Christ. The answer is to fall on our faces before the King of the whole earth and cry out for mercy and grace. The answer is to repent of all our idols and worship the only true God, the Triune God. And if we will worship Him alone, He will pour out His Spirit of true authority and power, and then the numbers will not matter, and sanity will return to our land. 

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All We Need or Ruminations on G3 & the CP Road-trip

Introduction
Want to say again here how thankful I am for the prayers, gifts, and encouragement we received on the recent CrossPolitic G3/East Coast Tour. God was so good and kind. What follows is a quick summary of some of the highlights and a few initial observations. 

We arrived in Atlanta on Wednesday, January 15th and immediately set up for our first interview that evening with Ricardo Davis, President of Georgia Right to Life. From that point, we conducted 15 more interviews with 21 individuals in 10 days, including conversations with Gary Demar, Douglas Wilson, James White, Tom Ascol, Virgil Walker, Roger Skepple, Erick Erickson, Sho Baraka, George Grant, David French, Ryan Helfenbein, Walter Williams, Maj Toure, and Curt Kennedy. And a 1000 miles later, we flew out of La Guardia in New York City. This was definitely one of those trips where any number of things could have gone wrong from bad weather to cancelled flights to major sickness to technology fails to a car breaking down, and all in all, the whole thing was an absolute success. There were a few days of limping with some sickness, but God was incredibly merciful and kind. We are looking forward to sharing the many hours of content we collected on the trip. 

A Takeaway Observation
And here’s one initial takeaway observation from all the conversations and discussions. 

If God is for us, who can be against us? 

And I’m not talking about CrossPolitic. I’m talking about conservative, Bible-believing Christians in America. If God is for us, who can be against us? 

Let me begin with our conversation with economist Walter Williams. Walter Williams shares a unique platform of honor with Thomas Sowell as being one of the very few prominent black men to stand against the tide of idiocy and immorality in our nation, particularly as it relates to economics. Standing on that sure Word of God and the basis for all Christian economics – Thou Shalt Not Steal – Dr. Williams has insisted for decades now that government regulation, socialized ponzi schemes, and all monopoly money scams are evil, ludicrous, and corrupting. He told us he’s always had a rebellious streak which got him into trouble during his time in the US Army, which I learned later included him defending himself against court martial charges for bucking against Jim Crow practices in the Army. He was acquitted of the charges. Later, when was sent to Korea during the war, he checked “Caucasian” for race on his personnel form just to keep things spicy. 

But when we asked Williams about his outlook on current American culture, he told us plainly that he has no hope for America. He pointed to all the corruption and immorality, and then referred us to the many great empires that have come before, now lying in ruins. He told us that he assumed we were heading for the same. He pointed to the fact that the Churches are full of the same economic nonsense that fills our universities and governments. When’s the last time you heard a sermon where the pastor urged his congregation not to take Social Security? He asked us. And he has a point. But this is where we pushed back, on two fronts. 

Our Reply To Walter Williams
First, we noted that we are actually in the somewhat awkward position of being able to point to our own pastor as someone who is on record urging Christians to do everything they can to opt out of Social Security and all the government programs. Dr. Williams looked at us somewhat incredulously, and then asked us, does anyone in the congregation actually listen? And we nodded and assured him that a bunch of us have. We told him about New St. Andrews College and the fact that it takes zero government dollars precisely because the founders of the institution wanted a truly free college. We mentioned the fact that we have pulled our kids out of government schools and we are building a Christian community built on the free grace of Jesus that necessarily includes a free market. 

And that was the second point of pushback. We happily granted Dr. William’s point that humanly speaking there is no hope for America. If reformation depends on human effort, human institutions, human ingenuity, then we are absolutely sunk. We are not merely at the edge of a cliff, facing disaster, we are already over the edge, plummeting downward. The pride parades and crossdressing pedophile story hours are the sounds a culture makes when it is already in free fall. There are no anchors, no foundation, no grappling hooks to fire off to save this thing.

But we reminded Dr. Williams of the gospel. We reminded him that Jesus died on a Roman cross and rose from the dead in order to save sinners who have no hope, who are exactly like our culture, plummeting toward Hell with no hope, no exit strategy. And we pointed to the fact that while many cultures have finished that fall and disappeared and God is absolutely free to do the same to America (and it would be absolutely just), it also true that God has at times worked miraculous reformations and revivals. He has sometimes intervened with gospel preaching that was not merely a momentary emotional hiccup, but the kind of hot gospel thunder that shook the very foundations of empires. The announcement that Jesus is King does not merely change human souls, but if it truly changes them, it changes them in all that they do. It changes how they see everything, think about everything, and the Holy Spirit works in them, to will and to do according to God’s good pleasure in business and education and politics and economics. Just as God has sometimes let rebellious nations fall to their own destruction, He has sometimes been pleased to pull them back from their Hellish ways and set them back on the firm foundation of His word. He has sometimes commanded the demons out of a culture and the culture has been found sitting, clothed, and back in its right mind again. 

We pointed out to Dr. Williams that something is happening in our land. There are hundreds of thousands and perhaps millions of Christians at this very moment who have rejected every socialist offer from Democrats and Republicans alike. They have pulled their kids out of government schools, have started their own businesses, and are working together with other like-minded believers to form communities committed to obeying the Bible in everything. And they have begun building cultures of life and freedom, centered around the reverent worship of the Triune God every Lord’s Day. They are tired of man-centered worship bands and latte-hipster pastors, and they are hungry for God’s word to be taught and proclaimed from Genesis to Revelation, and they are fed up with all the schemes and solutions of man, and they just want to follow Jesus. 

We didn’t say all of that to Dr. Williams, but we gestured it at, pointing to the strange phenomenon of Donald Trump, the equally surprising but pleasing story of Kanye West, even the strange success of CrossPolitic and the Fight Laugh Feast Network, and the very warm reception of our Pastor Douglas Wilson at the G3 conference. 

One Last Piece of the Puzzle
But here’s the last piece of the puzzle I’m looking at this morning. And here, I turn to our last interview in Fishtown, Philadelphia, in a little boutique bookshop, where we sat down with Pastor Curt Kennedy and Black Guns Matter Founder Maj Toure. We talked through a bunch of things related to guns, race, the failure of government programs, and American culture, but the thing that struck me in particular was the moment in the conversation where we pointed out that the Bible actually teaches that God has ordained three primary governments in the world: the civil magistrate, the church, and the family. The only job God gave to the civil magistrate was to punish evil doers and protect the righteous and innocent, according to God’s standard of justice found in the Bible. God did not give the government the job of healthcare, education, or welfare — those jobs were given to the family and when family cannot or is not able to, the Church and/or Christian community is to step in. It has been a massive failure of the church, which was given the Word and sacraments, to teach the whole counsel of God to these respective governments, beginning first with the foundational government: self-government, which is only possible by the presence and power of the Holy Spirit.

And the real kicker was a moment in there where Maj Toure’s eyes seemed to light up. I could be wrong, but it looked to me that this generically Christian libertarian suddenly had an epiphany. I pointed out that I was against the modern prison system because I don’t believe it’s biblical to hold men in cages and treat them like animals when they could do restitution to the people they actually harmed and make things right. But I believe that because of the book of Exodus. I’m not making stuff up. And I’m not merely trying to burn everything down. But the Bible actually has answers to our problems. The Bible has answers for how to handle poverty and healthcare and immigration and mass incarceration and racism and violence. And I don’t want to read too much into it, but somewhere in there Pastor Curt Kennedy blurted out, “In that sense, we’re all theonomists!” And Amen to that.

But here’s the point. I strongly suspect that there are hundreds of thousands, if not millions, of Christians in this land that are sick and tired of the humanistic mess we have made. They are tired of being mugged by their government in taxes from morning until night, and twice in their sleep, and they are tired of the pastors who refuse to feed them with God’s entire Word, applied to all of life. And frankly, they’re getting a bit ticked off. And I would point to the Trump phenomenon as a great indication of that. But I think all of this means that Bible believing Christians are poised to offer Biblical answers to the ticked off Christian masses. We’re in a position to say, “Here’s how to be ticked off to the glory of God.” They know the state has become an idolatrous false god. They know porn on demand and the abortion slaughter is insidious. They know men need to step up and provide for their families, be faithful to their families, and that includes protecting their families, with firearms if necessary. So we’re buying guns, starting businesses, loving our wives, teaching our children, running Christian schools and home schools, and worshiping with likeminded believers every Lord’s Day, pleading with God to lead us, guide us, and deliver us. 

The Answer
But a big part of the answer to that prayer is just to open the Bible and read it. I don’t just mean random Hallmark verses to give you warm fuzzies in the morning. I mean read the whole thing from Genesis to Revelation, and read it like your life depended on it. Read it like our businesses and families and churches and nation depended on it. Because they do. 

The problem isn’t that there is no way out of this mess, the problem is that there is only one way out of this mess. And that way is the path of faith and obedience to Jesus Christ. It’s the path of reading the Bible and then doing whatever it says, however falteringly. It’s the path of reading the Bible and saying out loud what it says, and urging everyone around us that it’s the best way, the only way because Jesus is the only way, the truth, and the life.

This is the pattern over and over and over again in the Bible and in the history of the world: When God’s people turn back to His word and obey it, God pours out His blessings. And that is all we need. If God blesses, nothing can stop us. If God blesses, our enemies will fade away. If God blesses, we are in the midst of a great prison break that cannot be stopped. If God is with us, who can be against us? 

Every Cross is Mercy

“Then Jesus said to His disciples, “If anyone desires to come after Me, let him deny himself, and take up his cross, and follow Me. For whoever desires to save his life will lose it, but whoever loses his life for My sake will find it” (Matt. 16:24-25).

When we renew covenant here with the Lord, God is reminding us of His promises to us, but we are also remembering the vows that we have made to the Lord. God’s promise is to forgive all our sins and to present us before His throne faultless, spotless, and perfect, for the sake of Christ who died and rose again. And faith is the only means of receiving that glorious promise. And God gives that faith needed to believe that promise, and that gift of faith can do. nothing other than rest in God’s promise. 

But at the very moment of this justification, God awakens in every Christian the desire to follow Christ, to obey Christ, to deny self, and a glad willingness to lose life itself for the sake of Christ, eager to find eternal life in Christ, eager to praise Him all our days. And this too is what we remember and celebrate in this meal. We remember justification – our secure, forgiven standing in Christ alone, by faith alone, but we also remember our sanctification, that in Christ, we want nothing but to chase after Christ, to follow after Him, to take up our cross out of grateful love for His cross, to lose our lives as living sacrifices to His praise, that we might find true life in Him. We are eating and proclaiming both of these realities. We are eating and drinking the proclamation of His justifying grace, and that grace wells up within us, burning with desire to follow Him, to obey Him, to imitate Him, to lose our lives and so find them fully in Him. 

And this is because for those who have met Jesus, all of His commands are more grace. For those who know Christ, every cross is full of mercy and love, because everything God gives is for our good. The new heart of Christian life sees the hardships, the sacrifices, the loss, the suffering, the pain, even death itself as nothing but the birth pangs of glory. Look! Christ won by His death, and now He is winning in the same way in us.

So come and welcome to Jesus Christ.

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Worship as Surrender

Worship is surrender. When God’s people proclaim that Jesus is Lord, they proclaim that He is their Master, their Commander, their King. When we sing praise to the Lord, we are declaring that all that the Lord does is good and right and glorious. And this includes all that the Lord has done in the world, in history, and in our lives. He is Lord, and He has commanded every atom, every detail, and it has obeyed. Nothing is an accident. Nothing is random. Nothing is out of place. This includes your past, things done to you, friends and family lost, every hardship, every missed expectation.

Everything is meaningful because everything was meant. It was intended by our Loving Father, our Good and Glorious Lord. And worship acknowledges this fact. To worship is to bow down, to lay all objections down, to surrender everything to the One who has done it all in masterful perfection. 

You cannot truly worship God while holding anything back. You cannot fully surrender if you are withholding anything from God. You cannot truly submit, if there is anything in your heart that resists the sovereign rule of the Lord. So, are you clutching at anything? Is there a particular difficulty in your family that eats at you? Strained or broken relationships? Loneliness, sickness or suffering? A job loss or being passed over for promotion? Regrets? Failures? To worship the Lord is to lay all of it down and praise Your King. Praise Him for all of it. Praise Him in all of it. 

We do not worship an impersonal will. We do not worship a faceless power. We worship the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ. We worship the One who was born of a virgin, the One who lived as one of us yet without sin, the one who was crucified for our sins, the One who was raised in glory, the One who is seated at the right hand of Glory. We worship the One who loved us and gave Himself for us. When we surrender, we surrender to the One who did not spare His own Son but gave Him up for us all. 

Christians do not surrender to the void. Christians do not surrender to incoherence or apathy or stoicism. Christians surrender to a Love that is stronger than death. Christians surrender to pure and unending Goodness. Worship is Christian surrender to God’s most wise counsel – a perfect plan that cannot be improved upon, that is saving us and bringing us to an unimaginable glory. So come let us worship and bow down. He is our Maker. He knows what He is doing. 

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