If There Is No Secular State, then It Does Matter What Religion Rules
What do you think? Is the Constitution of the United States a religious document? You say, “Nooooo.” Okay, why? I think many people would say, “Separation of church and state.” One part of the first amendment perhaps someone, maybe you, latches on to. It’s called the “establishment clause.” It reads: “Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion.”Without giving him an endorsement, but instead maybe giving him a disclaimer, perhaps you’ve seen the “church lady” that Dana Carvey does, and the line she says: “Isn’t that special?!?” We’ve got an establishment clause. Aren’t we special? I mean, we are going to make no law respecting an establishment of religion, cross my heart and hope to die. Is that true though?Every nation has a ruling religion.I grew up being taught great respect of the United States Constitution. This was an amazing document of government. You’re not a patriotic American if you don’t love the Constitution. It seems a major verbiage of a conservative is, “I love the Constitution of the United States.” You’ve got your little pocket Constitution. You could mock someone who doesn’t know it, like Jesus with the Pharisees, “Have you not read?”Everything about the founding of the country, however, connected itself at least at the beginning with the Declaration of Independence, which was the founding document, with God. Most of all, there’s this: “We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights.” And then there’s this: “the laws of nature and of nature’s God.”
Before the Constitution, the federal government fell under the Articles of Confederation, which didn’t do much, but it did result in the Northwest Ordinance of 1787, which included this:
Religion, morality, and knowledge, being necessary to good government and the happiness of mankind, schools and the means of education shall forever be encouraged.
The Repercussions of Jesus Simultaneously Being Both Completely 100% God and Completely 100% Man
All of us know that 100 plus 100 equals 200, not 100. If a single being is at 100 and Jesus is a single being, then He must be 100, so how can He or could He be 200? What does all this mean? How could Jesus effectively be completely, 100% man, when He is completely, 100% God? This is usually a struggle when teaching about Jesus to anyone. I’ve been asked about it many times and in various ways.
From my study and experience, the number one thought that brings together His complete humanity with His complete Deity is the teaching that by becoming man Jesus gave up the free exercise of His attributes, a doctrine that centers on Philippians 2:7, which reads:
But made himself of no reputation, and took upon him the form of a servant, and was made in the likeness of men.
The words “made himself of no reputation” translate two Greek words, eautou kenoo, the second of which translates into the four words, “made of no reputation.” That second Greek word is the basis for a doctrine called, “kenosis.” The two words, eautou kenoo, mean literally, “he emptied himself.” If it means, “he emptied himself,” of what did Jesus empty Himself?
The doctrine of kenosis says that when Jesus became man, He was still completely, 100% God, but He emptied Himself of the free exercise of His attributes. This is saying that He had all these attributes. He kept all of them. He did not exercise these divine attributes freely. This was an aspect of His condescension and humiliation, which is taught in Philippians 2:3-10.
The doctrine of kenosis (not kenotic theology) has its one proof text in Philippians 2, but it also emerges from the Gospels. It makes sense of certain statements that don’t complement the Deity of Christ very well. You read it and you ask, why? The doctrine of kenosis answers these, bringing harmony to all of these passages.
Consider God’s attribute of omniscience. God knows everything. Many times Jesus shows omniscience. He can read people’s minds. He knows what they’re thinking in a supernatural way (Matthew 9:4, 12:25, Mark 2:8, Luke 11:17, and John 13:5). Jesus told the woman at the well things that He could not have known about her unless He was God (John 4). At the same time, in the Olivet Discourse Jesus said in Mark 13:32,
But of that day and that hour knoweth no man, no, not the angels which are in heaven, neither the Son, but the Father.
Jesus didn’t know this. Only the Father knew it. This is an example of Jesus limiting the free exercise of His attributes. There were other ways that He did, but you get the point.
Theologians call the union in Jesus of the Divine and the human the hypostatic union. To make sense of the hypostatic union means exploring how He did divine works like forgiving sin (Luke 7:48), while doing things as a human being not characteristic of God, such as sleeping (Mark 4:38), weeping (John 11:35), and hungering (Mark 11:12). Luke 2:52 says Jesus grew in wisdom. If Jesus was omniscient, how could that be true?
The purpose of God necessitated the incarnation. Jesus must become man, while remaining fully God. He would not fulfill the Davidic covenant without a human lineage. Jesus rose from dead with Divine power, but He was dead because He was human. As a human He could pay sin’s price for humans and yet rise again as God. Still a tension exists.
Jesus said in Luke 22:42, “Not my will, but thine, be done.” Wait a second. Wasn’t the will of the Father and the will of the Son exactly the same? They had the same will, right? This is where we understand something further in the doctrine of kenosis. As a human being, Jesus must submit His will, His human will, to the will of the Father. As a human being, Jesus must learn obedience. That might sound impossible, but a verse teaches this. Hebrews 5:8 says,
Though he were a Son, yet learned he obedience by the things which he suffered.
Did Jesus need to learn anything? Yes. He didn’t need to learn obedience as God. He and the Father forever had the same will. His subservience to the Father’s will, His submission to the Father’s will, was an aspect of His humanity. Like other human beings, He learned that. This was again part of His emptying Himself of the free exercise of His attributes.
For awhile and today still an argument exists concerning the eternal subordination of the Son to the Father (known as EFS, eternal functional subordination). I understand why people have believed it. The main argument against, and I agree with it, is the following. As both God in essence, the Father and the Son cannot have two wills. They do not have two wills. The obedience of the Son, His earthly submission to the Father, represents kenosis, Jesus’ emptying Himself of the free exercise of His divine attributes.
God is one, so He has one will, not two. As human, Jesus learned obedience. He always obeyed, but that subordination was not eternal. The subordination of the Son to the Father does not extend previous to His incarnation. This is a repercussion of Jesus simultaneously being both completely 100% God and completely 100% Man.
The Cardinal Stanislaus Hosius Baptist Succession Quote: Is it Legitimate?
The Trail of Blood, by J. M. Carroll, which we commended in a recent Friday’s post, contains the following quote by Roman Catholic cardinal and papal legate to the Council of Trent, Stanislaus Hosius:
Cardinal Hosius (Catholic, 1524), President of the Council of Trent:
Were it not that the Baptists have been grievously tormented and cut off with the knife during the past twelve hundred years, they would swarm in greater number than all the Reformers. (Hosius, Letters, Apud Opera, pp. 112-113).
This Hosius quote is widely reproduced in other Baptist literature contemporary with Carroll. However, many non-Baptists have attacked it as illegitimate. For example, Catholics like to claim that Hosius never said anything like this. Other sources also claim Hosius never said it. Even some sincere Baptists–who, unfortunately, clearly did not know Latin–have said he never said it.
One of the problems with the quotation is that standards for citation in past centuries were not the same as they are now. “Hosius, Letters, Apud Opera, pp. 112, 113” is very hard to trace. Furthermore, when Carroll wrote the Trail of Blood, citations did not necessarily have to include “…,” bracketed letters when capitalization was changed, and so on; it was acceptable and widely practiced to slightly paraphrase quotations. What Carroll and many Baptists in his day wrote was a proper citation back then, but it should be more properly cited now–that is, if it is legitimate. Is it?The answer is Yes! The Roman Catholic cardinal and papal legate to the Council of Trent Stanislaus Hosius definitely did make a statement to this effect. Baptists should have no qualms whatever with citing this leading Roman Catholic as evidence of their ancient heritage, far, far before Protestantism. Those who deny that he ever said it do not seem to have taken the time to investigate the matter properly or were ignorant of Latin. (Perhaps a good reason to learn Latin, no?) What they should do, though, is cite the quote in a manner that suits the 21st century. Here is an accurate citation of Cardinal Hosius–this is the quote to use:
For if so be, that as every man is most ready to suffer death for the faith of his sect, so his faith should be judged most perfect and most sure, there shall be no faith more certain and true, than is the Anabaptists’, seeing there be none now, or have been before time for the space of these thousand and two hundred years, who have been more cruelly punished, or that have more stoutly, steadfastly, cheerfully taken their punishment, yea or have offered themselves of their own accord to death, were it never so terrible and grievous. . . . If you will have regard to the number, it is like that in multitude they would swarm above all other, if they were not grievously plagued, and cut off with the knife of persecution.
This translation comes from Richard Shacklock’s translation of Hosius’ Latin in a work entitled The Hatchet of Heresies: A Most Excellent Treaties of the begynnyng of heresyes in oure tyme, compiled by the Reuerend Father in God Stanislaus Hosius, etc. (Antwerp: Aeg. Diest, 1565; Ann Arbor: Early English Books Online Text Creation Partnership, 2011), 44-49.You can find the original Latin Shacklock is translating in Stanislai Hosii S. R. E. Cardinalis, Episcopi Varmiensis, In Concilio Tridentino Legati Opera Omnia Hactenus Edita, In Unum Corpus Collecta (Venice: Apud Franciscum Francisci, 1632), 203, sec. De Haeresibus Nostri Temporis. Here is a screenshot of the Latin text
If you know Latin, you can see the quotation near the top of the page.So the quotation about Baptist succession by Roman Catholic cardinal Stanislaus Hosius is absolutely accurate, and he certainly did say it. Those who deny that he said it failed to research the matter properly.If you would like to read the quote in greater context, or see links to the places where you can get Shacklock’s translation of Hosius or Hosius’s original Latin, please read my article “Famous Baptist Succession / History Quotes in Context” by clicking here. I supply lots and lots of context. So you can use the Cardinal Hosius quote–shout it from the housetops. Just cite it correctly so people do not have a reason to doubt its accuracy.Scripture teaches Baptist church polity and Scripture teaches an actual succession of churches from the first Baptist church, organized by Christ from those baptized by the first Baptist–John the Baptist–the greatest man who had lived other than Christ up to that time (Matthew 11:11). External historical data, such as the testimony of Cardinal Hosius to Baptist succession, support the infallible truth of Scripture, which proves that Baptist churches are the churches of Jesus Christ, founded by the Savior during His earthly ministry and preserved from that time until the present day. All other religious organizations that claim the name of Christian, unfortunately, are more akin in God’s eyes to the Roman Catholic whore of Babylon (Revelation 17) and her Protestant daughters (Revelation 17:5) than to the pure bride of Christ (2 Corinthians 11:2; Ephesians 5). If you are reading this and have not been born again, you should immediately repent and believe the gospel, being justified by faith alone apart from works. Then immediately attend, be baptized into and serve the Triune God in a faithful independent, unaffiliated Baptist church–the kind Christ started in the first century, the kind for which He loved and died and His bride (Ephesians 5:25). If, by His grace, you love Christ, you must and will keep His commandments (John 14:15).
“They Will Reverence My Son”
In a story told by the Lord Jesus Christ during His earthly ministry, He said in Mark 12:6:
Having yet therefore one son, his wellbeloved, he sent him also last unto them, saying, They will reverence my son.
What shall therefore the lord of the vineyard do? he will come and destroy the husbandmen, and will give the vineyard unto others.
My Acceptance of Hell
Hell is a common atheist argument, usually made with disdain. It’s even got a name, “The Problem of Hell.” You’ve got to say it in mocking tones, because scorn is part of the argument. It can be done in one statement something like this: “You’ve got to love God or else He’ll torture you in Hell.” Or, “If God is so insecure, that He needs everyone to love Him, or He’ll send them to Hell, I wouldn’t believe in Him even if He did exist.”
The Hell argument against Theism sets the atheist up as morally superior to Bible believers and God Himself, justifying atheism. It could be a kind of dress rehearsal for an argument before God Himself at the final judgment. It could too serve as an emotional appeal to support a bankrupt position. Others will cheer this on.
Someone is judging in his judgment of Hell. What is this standard for judgment in a random world of matter and motion, atoms colliding with one another? How does someone put even two related thoughts together by a cosmic accident of naturalism? He doesn’t. How does naturalism cause the ability to provide a nuance of disdain? It doesn’t. The atheist mocking Hell borrows from theism by using words, which are abstract, nonmaterial ideas. He constructs a moral system to account for behavior that doesn’t exist in the arbitrary world of the naturalist.
Even so, Hell could at least feel difficult to defend in the world in which we live. The atheist frames it as though you enjoy the future pain and anguish. For that reason among others, people won’t talk about Hell. They call it perhaps eternal death or just eternal separation from God. Knowing how offensive it might sound, thinking it might just shut down a conversation, it’s given little mention, even though Jesus was the one who talked about it more than anyone. There is a Heaven. There is a Hell.
How some people have dealt with Hell is eliminating almost any opportunity for anyone to go there except for someone almost everyone thinks deserves it. Hitler comes to mind. A general audience might choose for a child molester or a serial killer. Almost everyone else goes to, you know, “a better place,” even if they don’t know what or where it is or why that person will go or should be going there. It’s not helpful to give someone false assurance related to Hell. Assigning someone to a better place, when he’s really on his way to Hell, hurts him in an eternal way.
I’ve titled this, my acceptance of Hell, because in a personal way, Hell is acceptable to me. There are general reasons for acceptability. The Bible teaches Hell. Jesus taught Hell. It is also taught in so many different ways. The opposition to Hell isn’t persuasive. It amounts to “I don’t want it” or “I don’t like it,” which is a version of rejection of justice for sin.
Here are my personal reasons for acceptance of Hell.
One, how bad we are.
People just don’t think they deserve Hell. This is very common. When I’m evangelizing, it’s the second greatest stumbling point. I ask, “Do you think you deserve Hell?” 90 plus percent answer, “No.” The idea here is the punishment doesn’t fit the crime. It’s way too severe, reflecting on the nature of God, His righteousness, and His justice. People do not think they’re bad enough to deserve Hell. That’s for very bad people, and few think they’re that bad.
I say I deserve Hell, and I accept that, because I do think I’m bad. How bad we are starts with the nature of God. The Bible compares us to God. I fall very far short of the glory of God. It’s not an accident. I also do the things offensive to God and then just don’t please God on a regular basis.
God created me for His purpose and not only do I not fulfill that, but I don’t want to do it. I want to serve myself. I can give many examples of this. Today at church, while someone was praying, I caught myself thinking about something else. I was thinking about something temporal and superficial and suddenly I awoke out of that trance, not even hearing what someone was praying. I’ve done that many times.
God’s judgment turns us over to our own lusts. Romans 1 uses the language of “gave them up” (vv. 24, 26, 28). God lets people have what they want. He lets them go. They’re getting what they want. They don’t want God. They don’t want what He wants. If you get that, it ends in Hell, because that path leads to where God isn’t. His love is absent from Hell. Where God isn’t, it’s a very terrible place. That’s how the Bible describes it. Hell is the final destination for those God gives up.
I think of this aspect too. In going my own way, I disobey, even ignore, the great command, to love Him with all my heart, soul, mind, and strength. God loves me. No one is better to me than Him. It’s not even close, but I live for myself.
Two, it’s a necessary motivation.
Sin ruined man. It ruins men. Men easily live for themselves. They move from one lust to the next. This is all so strong, that Hell is a necessary impetus to reject that.
I know there’s all the positive too: Heaven, God’s goodness, the death, burial, and resurrection of Christ, and the truth of the Bible. That’s all important. I still see Hell as necessary motivation in spite of all those good things, on the negative side. The flesh is that strong. Human desire is that strong.
You could call all that the world offers, what Jesus calls, gaining the whole world. Even if man doesn’t gain the whole world, the whole world is still out there offering its invitation. The eternal loss of a soul counteracts the lie of the world. It’s a nagging reality. Even if someone wants to block it out, it disquiets and afflicts.
When Jesus told the story of the rich man in Hell, someone sees a man who did have everything in his short lifetime, who would gladly give it all up for even a drop of water, while he’s in Hell. If there’s one thing he wants to do, even when he can’t escape Hell, it’s to get a warning to his brothers. This is a warning to all the living.
Hell is not over the top. Even with it, people still choose to go there with the knowledge of its existence. As severe as it is, it’s still not enough for a vast majority of people. Many atheists would rather mock Hell and God than receive the Lord, despite the reality of Hell.
Hell makes total sense to me personally for these two reasons.
A Defense of the Trail of Blood by James M. Carroll as Accurate Landmark Baptist History
Have you ever read the pamphlet The Trail of Blood by James M. Carroll? It is a classic presentation of the true history of Baptists–that they had an actual succession of churches from the time of Christ, who founded the first Baptist church, throughout the patristic, medieval, reformation, and modern eras until today. If you have not read it, you should do so. I have a link to a free electronic version in the ecclesiology section of faithsaves.net. You can buy a physical copy at the Lehigh Valley Baptist Church bookstore, among many other places. You can even get a copy at Amazon (affiliate link):
However, Amazon will probably charge more than what you would pay from a church-run Baptist publisher, although if you are getting a bunch of other stuff at Amazon anyway, maybe with free shipping their price will be acceptable.
The Trail of Blood gets a lot of criticism. However, that criticism is unjustified.
1.) The Trail of Blood is narrow-minded!
The Trail of Blood is criticized for its teaching that only Baptist churches are true churches, the kind established by Jesus Christ and preserved from Christ’s day until today. However, Baptist churches are the kind of churches established by Christ, a fact validated by their doctrine and practice, and the Bible promises that the churches Christ established would continue until His return (Ephesians 3:21; Matthew 16:18; 28:20, etc.). The promise of succession for Christ’s churches is not given to the “universal church,” for there is no such thing. Scripture, in the Great Commission and other passages, promises an actual succession of true churches. Scripture teaches what is called the Landmark Baptist view of church succession, and Scripture teaches that each true church is Christ’s bride, and so a “Baptist bride” (an ecclesiological, not a soteriological, assertion–one is in the kingdom through repentant faith alone, not through baptism into the Lord’s church).
2.) The Trail of Blood claims non-Baptist groups were Baptists!
First, one must keep in mind that the Trail of Blood is a large pamphlet, designed for a popular-level audience, not a scholarly book. It is too short to give nuance to every single statement that someone might argue about. Second, Roman Catholicism liked to lump everyone together who was not a Catholic and put the worst possible interpretation on their beliefs, something ancient pagans and post-Reformation Protestants were also not immune to doing. To consider some generally accepted examples, ancient pagans who asserted early Christians were cannibals who committed incest because Christians talked about the “body of Christ” in conjunction with “eating” and “drinking,” and they referred to each other as “brother” and “sister” were grossly inaccurate. Reformation-era opponents of Baptists who said that they were violent people who wished to overthrow the State grossly misrepresented the fact that a huge percentage of the Anabaptists were outright pacifists to smear the entire body of those who practiced believer’s baptism with the actions of a few at the city of Munster (many of whom were not even practitioners of believer’s baptism there). So we should not be surprised if Roman Catholics painted groups of dissenting Christians in the worst possible light.
Think about it this way: if by “Anabaptist” a Catholic simply means someone who baptizes believers, he would classify people who believe like a strong independent Baptist church, people who believe like the Watchtower Society, people in the American Baptist Convention who support sodomy and follow woman preachers who deny the inspiration of Scripture, Pentecostals who handle snakes and drink poison, people in the Iglesia Ni Cristo who think Felix Y. Manalo is the final prophet from God, and Mormons as “Anabaptists.” The Catholic could say that “Anabaptists” deny the Deity of Christ, believe in extra-scriptural revelations, believe Satan and Christ are brothers, believe sexual perversion is acceptable, deny the Bible is the Word of God, and handle snakes in their church services. However, that people who do these evil things also baptize believers does not mean that there are not thousands and thousands of people in independent Baptist churches that follow Scripture faithfully. If the situation is such in our day, should we be surprised that medieval Catholics painted those Anabaptists whom they slaughtered and tortured in the worst possible light?
There are many groups of non-Catholic believers in Christianity before the Reformation. Historical sources on some of them are better than for others, but there is sufficient evidence to believe that among groups such as the Waldenses, Cathari, and Anabaptists Christ’s promise of church perpetuity was fulfilled. That does not mean that every person who identified with these groups had sound beliefs, any more than it means that everyone in Oklahoma who says he is a Baptist has sound beliefs. But it is absolutely rational to believe that the line of true churches promised in Scripture is contained among such groups.
3.) The Trail of Blood takes quotes by historical sources out of context or makes up quotes!
Lord willing, we will deal with a few of these quotes in upcoming weeks. If you want a preview, please see the quotations by non-Baptist historians here in their context.
In summary, the Trail of Blood is a valuable historical source demonstrating the Scriptural truth that Christ has kept His promise to preserve His churches. It does a good job for a large pamphlet. If you have not read it, I encourage you to do so, and to share it with others, so that everyone in the world who is born again sees his need to unite with a Bible-believing Baptist church through baptism and serve the Lord Jesus Christ in His New Testament temple.
–TDR
Justin Bieber, The Cross, Evangelicalism, and God’s Grace
This morning I was sitting somewhere, not by my choice, that had a television with a Justin Bieber music video playing. I couldn’t understand the lyrics, but I could see some of the action of the video. I knew it was Justin Bieber. He stood in a gigantic shallow swimming pool, about two and a half feet deep. He was wearing white shorts, a dark t-shirt. Behind him were dozens of women, filling the entire pool, wearing tight, tiny shorts and form-fitting halter tops. They danced in sync with one another, very sexually.
Bieber drew my attention with a cross he wore. As he moved in his sensual manner, jerking and twisting in the swimming pool, the cross flung and hopped all around, hanging around his neck. Justin Bieber made the cross, the cross, a feature of his video. He associated the cross with all the other lurid features of his production. This typifies modern evangelicalism.
The two words together, “the cross,” appear eighteen times in the New Testament. Sometimes it speaks of the actual cross, such as Matthew 27:40, “If thou be the Son of God, come down from the cross,” which is the Gospel usage in Matthew through John. Other times, the Apostle Paul often uses it as a symbol, as in 1 Corinthians 1:17-18:
For Christ sent me not to baptize, but to preach the gospel: not with wisdom of words, lest the cross of Christ should be made of none effect. For the preaching of the cross is to them that perish foolishness; but unto us which are saved it is the power of God.
Paul wraps up his argument for Galatians by using “the cross” in Galatians 6:12 and then verse 14:
But God forbid that I should glory, save in the cross of our Lord Jesus Christ, by whom the world is crucified unto me, and I unto the world.
The Apostle Paul talks about the enemies of the cross of Christ in Philippians 3:18-21:
18 (For many walk, of whom I have told you often, and now tell you even weeping, that they are the enemies of the cross of Christ: 19 Whose end is destruction, whose God is their belly, and whose glory is in their shame, who mind earthly things.) 20 For our conversation is in heaven; from whence also we look for the Saviour, the Lord Jesus Christ: 21 Who shall change our vile body, that it may be fashioned like unto his glorious body, according to the working whereby he is able even to subdue all things unto himself.
13 And you, being dead in your sins and the uncircumcision of your flesh, hath he quickened together with him, having forgiven you all trespasses; 14 Blotting out the handwriting of ordinances that was against us, which was contrary to us, and took it out of the way, nailing it to his cross; 15 And having spoiled principalities and powers, he made a shew of them openly, triumphing over them in it.
How Does a Culture, Including a Christian Culture, Survive Without a Cancel Culture?
Previous Articles (One, Two, Three)
“Cancel culture” has a nice ring to it, a kind of poetic rhythm when one says the two words together. Go ahead, say them, “cancel culture.” It does now have a Wikipedia article. When I googled books with the terminology “cancel culture,” a glut of books appeared written in 2020-2021 with “Cancel Culture” in the title. I’ve not read one of them. I wanted to know how early the term appeared, because it’s been on my radar for at the most two years.
A book, Environmental Impact Assessment, written in 1979, reads:
We have come to the realization—yet again—that knowledge is power, that we need to keep building on our science and be ever mindful that a democratic society is based on genuine public engagement, not the so-called cancel culture that is denying genuine dialogue (author’s italics).
Before I graduated from high school, the quote appeared. Surprising. That’s the first and only usage I found in the twentieth century. I don’t know who popularized it. I went about trying to trace it, but I don’t know who originated the terminology. Originally, it seems, it was “call-out culture,” the idea here being that described by Adrienne Matei on November 1, 2019 in The Guardian:
The contemporary idea of a “call-out”, however, generally refers to interpersonal confrontations occurring between individuals on social media. In theory, call-outs should be very simple – someone does something wrong, people tell them, and they avoid doing it again in the future. Yet you only need to spend a short amount of time on the internet to know that call-out culture is in fact extremely divisive.
She pointed to a statement by former President Obama in an Obama Foundation Summit, which was on October 30, 2019, in which he said:
If I tweet or hashtag about how you didn’t do something right, or used the wrong word or verb, then I can sit back and feel pretty good about myself, because, ‘Man, you see how woke I was. I called you out.’ That’s not activism.
The rise of the term “cancel culture” seems to occur in the middle of 2020, which also happened to be right at the beginning of the Covid-19 ‘pandemic.’ Now it is well entrenched, and the earliest popular book seems to be Primal Screams, which said:
Consider an example that materialized in March 2019, captured in a New York Times piece called “Teen Fiction and the Perils of Cancel Culture.” It reported the case a (sic) young black man who identified as gay and was employed as a “sensitivity reader” by various publishing houses. In that capacity, he enforced “cancel culture” (i.e., the flagging that progressive groupthink would deem unacceptable).
Wouldn’t it be an interesting job to be a “sensitivity reader”? I had never heard of it until this quote. I googled that too, and it appears a lot, 40,000 times. As a pastor, a chunk of your congregation could take that job while listening to your sermons. The New York Times article was written on March 8, 2019.
Cancel culture emerged as perhaps one of the top issues for the 2022 mid-term elections. The cancel culture tried to cancel Joe Rogan on Spotify and failed. On the other hand, Whoopi Goldberg said something offensive about the Holocaust on her show, The View, and they cancelled her for a few weeks, so she could take time to reflect on her ignorance, stupidity, or callousness. Another aspect, it seems, of cancel culture is a reaction to the unvaccinated, losing one’s job even if he has natural immunity. This relates to the trucker protest on the U.S. Canadian border, which is bigger than a vaccination issue.
During this last six months I’ve worked on a lot of writing projects and wrote almost two chapters on sanctification for our book, The Salvation That Keeps On Saving. The two chapters are “Dedication and Sanctification” and then “The Biblical Theology of Sanctification,” the latter of which I’m halfway done, the former I’ve completed. For the latter, I am looking at every use of the related Hebrew Old Testament and Greek New Testament words for sanctification, which is almost 1,000.
You reader know that God canceled in the most severe way everyone on earth except for eight people in Genesis 6-9. He ordered the cancellation of all the Canaanites. When Israel didn’t, Israel suffered greatly for that. The Assyrians and Babylonians tried to and succeeded greatly at cancelling Israel. The Bible requires churches to cancel someone’s church membership, called by us, “church discipline.” Jesus taught that in Matthew 18:15-17 (See our book, A Pure Church).
God says in Leviticus 20:24, “But I have said unto you, Ye shall inherit their land, and I will give it unto you to possess it, a land that floweth with milk and honey: I am the LORD your God, which have separated you from other people.” Two verses later, He continues: “And ye shall be holy unto me: for I the LORD am holy, and have severed you from other people, that ye should be mine.” It’s not just Old Testament. Jesus said in Matthew 13:49, “So shall it be at the end of the world: the angels shall come forth, and sever the wicked from among the just.” Many more examples occur.
Free sacred and classical music
If you would like beautiful sacred and classical music for free, here are some resources. Consider bookmarking this post and come back to it when you want to listen to some good music.
Sacred:
In the ecclesiology section of my website, I have a number of resources for sacred, reverent, and free conservative psalm and hymn music. Lord willing, I will keep those resources updated as links change. So for free sacred music, please click here.
Classical:
Netherlands Bach Society: They are playing everything that Bach wrote, over time, and making it available for free. Their YouTube channel has no ads in their videos (as of the time I am writing this).
So you know, I have a real soft spot for the baroque and for early classical music.
May these resources be a blessing to you, as you offer God holy praise in psalms and hymns, and enjoy the beauty of His design seen in classical music.
–TDR
Righteous: Declared in Romans 4:17 and Made In Romans 5:19
“Justification” is a scriptural term, one used very often, but not as much as the term, “salvation.” When someone is justified, he is saved, but that doesn’t explain his entire salvation. It’s the first part of salvation. When someone is justified, he is said to be “declared righteous.” That is the language of justification. John Owen wrote in 1797:
[I]t is the righteousness of Christ, and not our own, on account of which we receive the pardon of sin; acceptance with God; are declared righteous, and have a title to the heavenly inheritance.
For the imputation of the righteousness of Christ, unto a person in himself ungodly unto his justification, or that he may be acquitted, absolved, and declared righteous, is built on such foundations, and proceedeth on such principles of righteousness, wisdom, and sovereignty, as have no place among the actions of men, nor can have so, as shall afterwards be declared.
I readily allow that there is a very great agreement between justification and pardon, in their efficient, impulsive, and procuring causes, in their objects, or subjects, in their commencement, and manner of completion: the same God that pardons the sins of his people, justifies them, or accounts them righteous; the same grace, which moved him to the one, moved him to the other; as the blood of Christ was shed for the remission of sins, so by it are we justified; all who are justified are pardoned; and all who are pardoned, are justified, and that, at one and the same time; both these acts are finished at once, simul & semel, and are not carried on in a gradual and progressive way, as sanctification. But all this does not prove them to be one and the same, for though they agree in these things, in others they differ; for justification is a pronouncing a person righteous according to law, as though he had never sinned; not so pardon: it is one thing for a man to be tried by law, cast, and condemned, and then receive the king’s pardon; and another thing to he tried by the law, and, by it, to be found and declared righteous, as though he had not sinned against it.
Divines generally make justification to consist in the remission of sins, and in the imputation of Christ’s righteousness; which some make different parts; others say, they are not two integrating parts of justification, or acts numerically and really distinct, but only one act respecting two different terms, a quo & ad quem; just as by one, and the same act, darkness is expelled from the air, and light is introduced into it; so by one, and the same act of justification, the sinner is absolved from guilt, and pronounced righteous.
DECLARED RIGHTEOUS
(As it is written, I have made thee a father of many nations,) before him whom he believed, even] God, who quickeneth the dead, and calleth those things which be not as though they were.
22 And therefore it was imputed to him for righteousness. 23 Now it was not written for his sake alone, that it was imputed to him; 24 But for us also, to whom it shall be imputed, if we believe on him that raised up Jesus our Lord from the dead; 25 Who was delivered for our offences, and was raised again for our justification.
Although the sinner is justified by the justice of Christ, inasmuch as the Redeemer has merited for him the grace of justification (causa meritoria), nevertheless he is formally justified and made holy by his own personal justice and holiness (causa formalis), just as a philosopher by his own inherent learning becomes a scholar, not, however, by any exterior imputation of the wisdom of God (Trent, Sess. VI, can. x). To this idea of inherent holiness which theologians call sanctifying grace are we safely conducted by the words of Holy Writ. To prove this we may remark [on] the word justificare.
Our word justification (from the Latin justificare composed of justus and facere, and therefore meaning “to make righteous”), just as the Holland rechtvaardigmaking, is apt to give the impression that justification denotes a change that is brought about in man, which is not the case. In the use of the English word the danger is not so great, because the people in general do not understand its derivation, and in the Holland language the danger may be averted by employing the related words rechtvaardigen and rechtvaardiging.
MADE RIGHTEOUS
For as by one man’s disobedience many were made sinners, so by the obedience of one shall many be made righteous.
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