Featured Cultural Interaction pt2

Notice the stability of Christ's kingdom, notwithstanding of all these attempts of hell, in the words of my text, Yet have I set my King upon my holy hill of Zion. Where we may notice,

1. The royal office and character of our glorious Redeemer; he is a King: this name he hath "on his vesture, and on his thigh," Rev. 19:16.

2. The authority by which he reigns; He is my King, says God the Father, and I have set him up from everlasting: "The Father judgeth no man; but hath committed all judgment unto the Son." The world disown his authority, but I own it; I have set him, I have "given him to be head over all things to the church."

3. His particular kingdom over which he rules; it is over my holy hill of Zion, an eminent type of the gospel church. The temple was built upon mount Zion, and therefore called a holy hill. Christ's throne is in his church, it is his headquarters, and the place of his particular residence, "The Lord hath chosen Zion, he hath desired it for his habitation. His laws go out of Zion, and the word of the Lord from Jerusalem. There are the thrones of judgment, the thrones of the house of David."

4. Notice the firmness of the divine purpose with respect unto this matter; Yet have I set him King.

Q. d. Whatever be the plots of hell and earth to the contrary, he reigns by his Father's ordination. OBSERVE, That Christ is king in Zion, the alone Sovereign of his church, by his Father's appointment and ordination. Yet have I set my King upon my holy hill of Zion.

 

The Sovereignty of Zion's King
Ebenezer Erskine

First, I say, we may consider Christ's government, as it relates unto his general mediatory kingdom. And so it takes in all things in heaven, earth, and hell; for "things in heaven, things on earth, and things under the earth, must bow at the name of Jesus, and every tongue must confess, that he is the Lord, and that he hath all power and authority in heaven and in earth." Now, considering Christ's kingdom in this extensive view, his government and administration takes in these few things following.


1. His sustaining and "upholding of all things by the word of his power, as the apostle speaks, Heb. 3:3. Our Redeemer, our Almighty King of Zion, is none other than the great God that made the heavens and the earth: John 1:3, "Without him was not any thing made that was made. By the word of the Lord were the heavens made: and all the host of them by the breath of his mouth." And as he made all things by a word, so by the word of his power he upholdeth them in their being; "by him all things consist," Col. 1:17. This world is like a great theatre, upon which a glorious scene was to be acted, for the glory and honour of the free grace of God, in the salvation of a certain number of the lost race of Adam; and whenever the scene is ended, in the salvation of the last elect soul, the theatre is to be taken down, and then "the heavens will pass away with a great noise," &c.; but, until the scene be ended, the theatre, and all things in it, is upheld by the royal power and authority of the King of Zion.
2. Christ, the King of Zion, by virtue of his general mediatory power and authority, permits devils and wicked men to be, and act as they do; for "the deceived and the deceiver are his," Job 12:16. There we are told, that he suffered all nations to walk in their own way; he suffers the devil and persecutors sometimes, for holy and wise ends, cruelly to harass and persecute the righteous; to this purpose is that which he says to the church of Smyrna, Rev. 2:10, "Fear none of those things which thou shalt suffer: behold, the devil shall cast some of you into prison, that ye may be tried; and ye shall have tribulation ten days: but be thou faithful unto death, and I will give thee a crown of life."
Thus, Rev. 12 he suffered the old dragon "to make war with the woman, and her seed, which kept the commandments of God, and the testimony of Jesus." This permissive power and providence, which Christ, as King of Zion, exercises with relation to the enemies of his church and people, is a glorious ground of encouragement to them in all their trials and troubles, that it is the Lord that allows the enemy to do this or that; especially if it be considered,

3. That by this absolute power of the King of Zion, he restrains and bridles up devils and men, and says to them, as he doth to the proud waves of the sea, "Hitherto shalt thou come, but no further." Ps. 76:10, "The wrath of man shall praise thee: and the remainder of his wrath wilt thou restrain." Thus he restrained both Laban's and Esau's resentment against Jacob, and Sennacherib in his destructive designs against the whole kingdom of Judah and Jerusalem. Christ, as King of Zion, he has his chain about the devil's neck, and the necks of all his wicked instruments in the world, and whenever they have gone the length of the link of the chain, which he has ordained, he gives the chain a pull, and then they are obliged to stop; the remainder of their wrath he doth restrain and bind up. We see this in the case of Job; when the devil was let loose to harass him, he went aye as far as his chain allowed him, but then he could go no further, till his chain was lengthened; and the same is the case with respect unto his church and people; Rev. 20:1–3, he lays hold on the dragon, that old serpent, the devil, and binds him a thousand years with a great chain. The devil, and his instruments at this day are burdened with the word of Christ's patience and testimony, and gladly would they destroy the witnesses, and all that cleave to his testimony; but they are like so many dogs, or lions chained by the King of Zion, they can go no further than he allows them; and he will allow them to go no further than he sees for his glory, and his people's good.

 

He continues;
4. Another act of Christ's royal and absolute power, as King of Zion, is his protecting and defending his church in the midst of the most threatening and imminent dangers; hence they are called by the apostle Jude, the "preserved in Christ Jesus." You know when Christ appeared unto Moses in the bush, he saw the bush burning in the midst of the fire, yet the bush was not consumed; the thing represented thereby unto Moses was, the present situation of the church of Israel in Egypt, they were under sharp and exquisite sufferings under their cruel taskmasters; and the safety of the bush in the midst of the flames, represented the safety of Israel in the midst of all these troubles, under the care and tuition of Christ, that he would not suffer them to be swallowed up by their cruel enemies; no, he would see to their safety, "in the floods of great waters they shall not be overwhelmed," and in the hotest flames they shall not be consumed, &c.

5. By the royal authority of Zion's King, he over-rules and governs all creatures, and all their actions, yea, the most dark and cloudy dispensations, for his own and his Father's glory, and for the good and advantage of his church and people, according to that promise, Rom. 8:28, "All things shall work together for good, to them that love God." We see at this day very strange things casting up in the wheel of providence; we hear of wars and rumours of wars abroad; we see the mighty pulled out of their seats by death; we see signs in the heavens above, much like these that were seen before the destruction of Jerusalem; we see the winds blowing in the barn of the visible church, much chaff casting up, many blown away from their former profession; we see God making a separation between those that fear him, and others that are void of his fear; we see the enemy raging in the Lord's sanctuary, breaking down the carved work of the temple, and the crown of Christ profaned, and set upon the head of a mortal creature. Well, sense and reason, when it sits judge of these and the like dispensations, it is put to a nonplus; but if the eye of faith be opened, it will see the King of Zion, by his power, ruling and overruling all these ups and downs to the advantage of his kingdom, and the on-carrying of the designs of his glory in the salvation of his mystical body.

6. By his royal power, as King of Zion, he avenges himself and his church upon all his and their enemies, as we see in the close of this psalm, "He shall break them as with a rod of iron, and dash them in pieces as a potter's vessel." The beast and the false prophet, and the great whore, Gog and Magog, death and hell, shall be "cast into the lake of fire and brimstone," Rev. 20; Ps. 110. he will "make his enemies his footstool, he will strike through kings in the day of his wrath, fill the places with dead bodies, and wound the heads over many nations."

7. He will, at last, finally liberate his church and people from all these evils, sorrows, and troubles, under which she groans, Rev. 21:3, 4. These are some of the acts of Christ's government, in his general mediatory kingdom, over all things.

 

pg273..quoting from Rushdoony;

Here Rushdoony lays out the scope of his program for the mission Dei-
the theocratic reign of God, brought about by his grace and law, manifest in the power and scope of the total gospel.
Holding that regeneration by the Holy Spirit turns peoples hearts toward obedience and love for Gods righteousness, the law of the Spirit of life in Christ, he held that God's Kingdom comes as His law is enforced.
The law of God is the practical program for the reign of God.
By enforced Rushdoony did not mean "imposed" in a top down eccleisiocracy.Theocracy is falsely assumed to be a takeover of government, imposing biblical law on an unwilling society.

 

pg276

Dominion is not given to the state nor the church but to the man and families. It is a serious error to see theocracy, the rule of God, as a government over men by a group of men in the name of God.
The biblical doctrine of a theocracy means, a self-government of a Christian man.

Freedom is predicated upon the rule of God and His word, not the institutions of human society that God intended to be servants and ministers, not centres of power and control.

 

The next several pages are used to show then when people rely on the state rather than God for it's authority it always fails.
He uses the Nazi reign as an example,showing how they not only failed in history, but at it's base failed to uphold both tables of the law.
They did not love God, or their neighbor.

 

Pg287 God and the state had been radically divorced the separation was so terminal that they were blinded with notable exceptions as a broadly christianize people to what the new tyranny represented in German German liberal Christianity, being without God's word, was utterly impotent to face the terror Unleashed by the rise of lawlessness. At the very least the German people in general will lacking the moral courage to confront tyranny and criminality in the public sphere. In this respect they only did what most Christians in the west have done today, they retreated from the world and its public affairs suggesting that God has nothing to say to politics, for religion is a "Private Matter "of inner piety; that you cannot legislate morality. That there are two kingdoms not the world a special Revelation scripture has no jurisdiction over the secular world!
They took the position that God has two laws, one for Christians and one for the world and we have no right to call them into obedience in the public life. The state is the educator and will give her the church just s*** shares the gospel. This typical dualism pietism found in the modern Church even in the name of reformed theology, provides no basis for resistance to tyranny and naked Power, and likewise, in the face of a growing new tyranny today the very same week 2 scene in the German people in the 1930s is Manifest in the western churches we are separated political action in private moral which is indeed a fathomless cynicism. History proves that what has happened before I can happen again.

 

,R.Rushdoony commented-Sanctification is both definitive and progressive, our dedication to God is an accomplished fact by our union with Christ.
The goal of sanctification is to bring all things under the authority of Jesus Christ King of creation.
In fact, the law, being written as desire and delight into the heart by the Holy Spirit, is the very nature of the new covenant promise in Jeremiah 31:31-34 and Hebrews 8:8-12.
This is what it means to be truly human.
Lawless Christianity is a contradiction in terms... the purpose of grace is not to set aside the law but to fulfill the law and enable man to keep the law . If the law was so serious in the sight of God that it would require the death of Jesus Christ, the only begotten Son of God, to make atonement for man's sin, it seems strange for God then to proceed to abandon the law!
Thus the puritan manifesto of hope affirms the abiding relevance of God's law to contemporary society[not just for Israel or the Puritans], because as God recalls us to faithfulness to the creation mandate, to exercise dominion as His priesthood in terms of His law-word, the kingdom of God or the reign of God is established in and through his servant people- this is the meaning of theocracy- the rule of God.
We will either live under God's order or that of an idol. All societies are theocracies. The difference is that a society that is not explicitly Christian is a theocracy of a false god.

 

In discussing the role of the law of God and the Christian he looks to some of the puritan writers and some modern writers to say this period
No nation can be built without law and the law proceeds from the source of authority - for the Christian, the authority is the sovereign God.
The noted puritan Thomas Hooker observed that those who reject God's authority in the matter of law make a futile attempt to justle the law out of its place, and the Lord out of his glorious sovereignty, pluck the Crown from his head, and the scepter out of his hand..
Charles Spurgeon one of the last of the puritans wrote a political manifesto that contemporary mythologists would do well to read.
Spurgeon held that the civil sphere, like every other, was to be under the absolute sovereignty of God and his law;
he wrote this;
I long for the day when the precepts of the Christian religion shall be the rule among all classes of men and all transactions. I often hear it said, do not bring religion into politics. This is precisely where it ought to be and it should be brought and set there in the face of all men on The Earth I would have the cabinet members of Parliament do the work of the nation as before the Lord.

In a published work called the political philosophy for the Christian, he asked a series of questions in the 1st question he asks, are not all mankind under the law of God?
Where and when did the king of all the Earth announce that nations would have been free from his control, and free from all recognition of his existence and authority?

 

lev,24
22 Ye shall have one manner of law, as well for the stranger, as for one of your own country: for I am the Lord your God.

num.15:29 Ye shall have one law for him that sinneth through ignorance, both for him that is born among the children of Israel, and for the stranger that sojourneth among them.

ex.22:21 Thou shalt neither vex a stranger, nor oppress him: for ye were strangers in the land of Egypt.

ex23:
6 Thou shalt not wrest the judgment of thy poor in his cause.

7 Keep thee far from a false matter; and the innocent and righteous slay thou not: for I will not justify the wicked.

8 And thou shalt take no gift: for the gift blindeth the wise, and perverteth the words of the righteous.

9 Also thou shalt not oppress a stranger: for ye know the heart of a stranger, seeing ye were strangers in the land of Egypt.

 

In this section of the book, several quotes are offered that start to increase the intensity of what is being offered.
These ideas if held in the wrong way can turn quickly into error and serious damage can result.
It is necessary to slow down to consider what is offered, one thought and one line at a time.
here are some of those ideas as expressed by several different persons;
pg310;
John Frame notes that theonomic thought past and present believes,"the civil penalties of the Mosaic Law were binding upon present-day civil governments." [past, present, and future]are inescapably accountable to the standards of God's law in matters of crime and punishment [rightly interpreted] not their own, and will be judged by it.

The laws binding validity, even in criminal matters, does not mean, however,that it can be imposed upon an unwilling society.
On the contrary, God's law can only be effectively applied when a godly people demand it in terms of oath and covenant.,and this is how the puritans viewed their society,as a missionary people in Covenant with God.

Rushdoony; In the long run, legal reform without religious reform is not a tenable hope. There must be religious reform before there is judicial or civil reform, or the alternative is coercion.Coercion eventually produces greater evils.

 

In this section of the book, several quotes are offered that start to increase the intensity of what is being offered.
These ideas if held in the wrong way can turn quickly into error and serious damage can result.
It is necessary to slow down to consider what is offered, one thought and one line at a time.
here are some of those ideas as expressed by several different persons;
pg310;
John Frame notes that theonomic thought past and present believes,"the civil penalties of the Mosaic Law were binding upon present-day civil governments." [past, present, and future]are inescapably accountable to the standards of God's law in matters of crime and punishment [rightly interpreted] not their own, and will be judged by it.

The laws binding validity, even in criminal matters, does not mean, however,that it can be imposed upon an unwilling society.
On the contrary, God's law can only be effectively applied when a godly people demand it in terms of oath and covenant.,and this is how the puritans viewed their society,as a missionary people in Covenant with God.

Rushdoony; In the long run, legal reform without religious reform is not a tenable hope. There must be religious reform before there is judicial or civil reform, or the alternative is coercion.Coercion eventually produces greater evils.

 

In this section of the book, several quotes are offered that start to increase the intensity of what is being offered.
These ideas if held in the wrong way can turn quickly into error and serious damage can result.
It is necessary to slow down to consider what is offered, one thought and one line at a time.
here are some of those ideas as expressed by several different persons;
pg310;
John Frame notes that theonomic thought past and present believes,"the civil penalties of the Mosaic Law were binding upon present-day civil governments." [past, present, and future]are inescapably accountable to the standards of God's law in matters of crime and punishment [rightly interpreted] not their own, and will be judged by it.

The laws binding validity, even in criminal matters, does not mean, however,that it can be imposed upon an unwilling society.
On the contrary, God's law can only be effectively applied when a godly people demand it in terms of oath and covenant.,and this is how the puritans viewed their society,as a missionary people in Covenant with God.

Rushdoony; In the long run, legal reform without religious reform is not a tenable hope. There must be religious reform before there is judicial or civil reform, or the alternative is coercion. Coercion eventually produces greater evils.

 

had internet trouble at the truckstop, it posted 3 times, but did not let me correct it, time expired my other posts did not post

 

Theonomic puritanism is the belief that all scripture is totality is God's covenant law-word and as such, properly interpreted remains in force and every detail so Heaven and Earth shall pass away as Vern Poythress notes at the heart of theonomy is the conviction that God's word is the only standard for evaluating all you men actions whether in the social and civil spheres

Such a view, theonomists hold deserves the support of all Christians.
It will not do, as some critics ever, to dismiss civil applications of the law on the grounds of that these historic movements, states and communities of the reformation and Puritan era that have implemented God's law did not last very long and they didn't work sufficiently well in the past.
You could say the same thing about marriages or families, the church and the courts.

 

Joe Boot: The Church and her Mission - YouTube

 

Good question. Joe Boot is making the case that it is indeed both. He says that the church is truncating the gospel in that we are not preaching the "gospel of the Kingdom"
HE QUOTES MANY PEOPLE PAST AND PRESENT.....and is examining this idea that we have whittled down the gospel into an individual concern, rather than obeying mt 28....by making disciples and teaching a more comprehensive worldview.

Earlier I posted this;
Joe Boot offers this;
Christ Jesus reigns over all, for, having been raised from the dead, ascending to sit down at the right hand of majesty and power, all authority and judgment is in his hands, and his royal court is now in session (Eph. 1:20–23; Heb. 1:3–4; Matt. 28:18; Phil. 3:21).

Those born again by the Spirit of God are now sons and joint-heirs with Christ, and are appointed ambassadors of his cosmic dominion.

As 'new creatures' through whom the power of the new creation is already at work, God's people are sent out into all the earth to declare the good news of Christ's reign and salvation and assert his crown rights in every area of life and thought (Ps. 2; Acts 2:29–36; 1 Cor. 8:5–6; Eph. 6:19–20; Phil 2:9–11).


20 Teaching them to observe all things whatsoever I have commanded you: and, lo, I am with you always, even unto the end of the world. Amen.

This task is particularly urgent in our day because the organs and institutions of modern culture have been thoroughly saturated by humanistic and pagan assumptions about the source of nature of truth and freedom.
These pretensions have steadily redefined intellectual, social, familial, sexual, and ethical norms, unleashing real evil and enslaving Western society in radical opposition to Christ and the freedom brought by the gospel.

From the school, the academy, and courthouse, to senates, parliaments, and palaces, the Christian faith is being systematically expunged from public life and ignored or assaulted in our corridors of learning and power.
If we love the gospel, our neighbors, and freedom, Christians must take up the cultural task with faith and courage.

I am proceeding cautiously because of discussing the role of the law/word of God ie,[ theonomy] In forming a biblical worldview. the book is A good read and thought-provoking. I am trying to take in and modify my previous view trying to get closer to truth.

 

Hello Reformed,
I agree with all the comments you have offered.In general while we can rejoice and embrace much Reformed theology,men have a tendency to take truth and go beyond what is written, many times because of a sinful self righteousness.
In the 80's those men from Tyler TX set forth some ideas, but I did not embrace them because I detected inconsistencies that could not be reconciled.
That being said,in this book he is trying to look and see where they went off track and he is trying to put forth teaching more consistent with scripture.
I like that he makes clear that we cannot attempt to just impose a set of laws on the unsaved.
He points to individuals, then families, then churches, being converted and discipled.
Then as these individuals encounter the culture they evangelize them with the gospel of the Kingdom.That would include entrance by new birth,growth in grace and knowledge,
And a setting forth of the biblical vision of the Kingdom going worldwide,making disciples.
With what he is pointing to in scripture, we have much work to do, and from my vantage point it has to start just as he's how's from scripture.
Individuals in the church are the first target audience. Many do not even entertain any such concepts