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THE MOOD IS NOT THE PROBLEM IN MOSCOW, IDAHO (part three)
Tucker Interview
After already publishing parts one and two in this series, Tucker Carlson teased an interview with Douglas Wilson. This is a boon for he and his brand. Immediately Wilson wrote a post to welcome the Tucker audience with links to his numerous ventures. This gives even greater importance to exposure of Wilson. The content of the Tucker trailer also dovetails closely with this series, because Wilson mentions the gospel.
Wilson surprised me with his representation of Christian nationalism (another still ongoing series here, here, and here). It differed from his norm (see my part three). He gave no hope for Christian nationalism in the United States, except through gospel preaching. In many expositions of Christian nationalism, I don’t remember his saying that. Maybe I missed it. Postmillennialists and theonomist-types like Wilson, who envision their bringing in a physical kingdom on earth, don’t usually convey utter hopelessness remedied only by hot gospel preaching.
Perhaps the whole interview (presently behind the Tucker paywall) will reveal more. Wilson sounded good about the gospel, but he left out infant sprinkling and child communion, something he mixes with the gospel. Shouldn’t he urge Tucker’s audience also to sprinkle its infants? It’s important in his vision of Christian nationalism.
Roman Catholicism
Not Sola Scriptura
Roman Catholicism passed down infant sprinkling among many other scriptural perversions. It condemned maybe as many people to Hell as any false doctrine. Protestants continued in a system of false interpretation and doctrine, albeit better than Roman Catholicism, yet still misleading.
Protestants point to the Latin, sola scriptura, scripture alone, as their heritage. Yet, tradition still guides much of Protestantism. Infant baptism isn’t scripture alone and this challenges the Protestant embrace of sola scriptura. Keeping significant aspects of Roman Catholicism, Protestants also point back to the Catholic fathers as theirs too. Wilson has pieced together a patchwork of belief and practice that required the beginning of a new denomination, the Communion of Reformed Evangelical Churches (CREC). Jesse Nigro in The North American Anglican writes in his analysis of Wilson:
[H]is trajectory has led him into the broader pool of “Reformed Catholicism” that Anglicans occupy.
Catholic Church
Nigro was praising Wilson. Protestants fork off the Roman Catholic line or trajectory, not in the succession of New Testament Christianity or true churches, separate from the state church, since Christ. Roman Catholicism and its stepchild Protestantism resembles little the belief and practice of the church of the New Testament. Scott Aniol writes in his review of Wilson’s book, Mere Christendom::
I am aware that Wilson’s church recognizes Roman Catholic baptisms and welcomes them to the Lord’s Table, but this Baptist considers Roman Catholicism a false religion.
In his book, Reformed Is Not Enough, Wilson wrote (pp. 73-74):
The visible church is also Catholic in an earthly sense, meaning that it is no longer confined to one nation, as it was before under the law. The visible Church is composed of anyone in the world who professes (biblically) to believe in the Christian faith. When they make this profession by means of baptism their children are attached with them. The visible church is to be understood as the kingdom of the Lord Jesus Christ. The Church is the household of God, and outside of this Church there is no ordinary possibility of salvation.
Baptism and Salvation
Later in his section on sacerdotalism, he writes:
Baptism and salvation are not mechanically or magically linked. But in the ordinary course of life, they are linked, and we are to speak of them as though they are.
Furthermore, Wilson writes (p. 111):
By means of baptism, baptism with water, grace and salvation are conferred on the elect.
Paedocommunion
Wilson and Child Communion
In addition to the heretical practice of infant sprinkling, Wilson endorses and practices child communion, inviting the toddlers to the bread and the cup. Wilson writes:
At the very center of the strong family emphasis that you will find in our churches, you will also find our practice of communing our children at the Lord’s Table. This is unusual in Protestant churches, and in some places it is even controversial. . . . [I]n our churches, the Lord’s Table is not protected with a profession of faith; the Lord’s Table is regarded as a profession of faith.
What do Wilson and others imply by children partaking of the Lord’s Supper? They can partake worthily because they have repented, believed, and received forgiveness of sins. Children who cannot believe, do not have the capacity to do so, are said to make a profession of faith through the Lord’s Table. However, the Lord’s Table is a table of examination. A man examines himself and then eats the bread and drinks the cup.
The Wickedness of Child Communion
1 Corinthians 11:27-28 say:
27 Wherefore whosoever shall eat this bread, and drink this cup of the Lord, unworthily, shall be guilty of the body and blood of the Lord. 28 But let a man examine himself, and so let him eat of that bread, and drink of that cup.
So much contradicts clear scripture and biblical teaching with participation of children in the Lord’s Table. Wilson argues that paedocommunion follows paedobaptism, when he writes:
[T]he apostle Paul compares the entire congregation to one loaf of bread (1 Cor. 10:17). And it is our conviction that all who are bread should get bread.
This is a typical turn-of-phrase or rhetorical flourish intended to persuade in some doctrinal or practical position. Wilson sounds interesting, but he’s false. His teaching confuses the gospel. It brings God’s judgment down on unworthy partakers of the table. Finally, it corrupts the true nature of the church. One can truly say that paedocommunion is false worship. It is not an act of faith in God, but man-ordained, human innovation.
More to Come
The Theology of John Wesley and Its Impact on the Methodist and Wesleyan Churches
In my thirty-three years of church planting and then pastoring in the San Francisco Bay Area, I never met a converted or saved Methodist. It was just the opposite. They were some of the most liberal, unsaved people I ever met.
I’m not Methodist. Even when I look at the history, I ask from where do the Methodists get their authority. If I ask about the Methodists, then I definitely ask the same of the Wesleyans. They can’t trace their lineage to a true church. They functioned in and from the state church, taking on some of the characteristics of the apostate denomination from which they came.
The Wesleys and Whitefield
The Wesleys arose within the Church of England. They knew something was amiss there. They changed. When I read Wesley, as have others, I see a heap of contradictions though. They never understood nor broke from the corrupt root from which they sprang.
George Whitefield and John Wesley had their break-up. Whitefield studied and went an orthodox biblical direction. He preached a true gospel the basis of the Great Awakening in the American colonies. Wesley took the Methodists a different direction with a different theology than the true salvation preaching of Whitefield. Every way that Wesley countered Whitefield, he headed the wrong way compared to Whitefield.
Now I look at the fruit of what Wesley taught. Mostly today, Methodism went liberal. Whatever errors John Wesley believed, the Methodists took a trajectory then away and then further away from the truth. The perversion in Wesleyan doctrine interrelates in several points of biblical doctrine. Wesley’s unbiblical errors, even though they leave quite a bit of truth in Wesleyan and Methodist belief, they spoil the whole pot or body.
Wesleyan and Methodist Fruit
While I write on Wesleyan and Methodist error today, I’m working in the Midwest United States in Indiana. With their wrong doctrines, they still associate themselves with Christianity. This dominates my present county and surrounding counties where I serve the Lord. It blinds the population. It produces false doctrine and practice.
I tend to think right away that Wesleyans and Methodists are wrong. However, when I listen to some of them, I hear enough truth that it becomes difficult to sort out where they divert from the truth. There are many subtle errors that massed together they become very significant.
John Wesley and Sin
John Wesley taught a convoluted, unscriptural view of sin. In the Works of John Wesley, Volume 12, p. 394, we read that Wesley wrote:
Nothing is sin, strictly speaking, but a voluntary transgression of a known law of God. Therefore, every voluntary breach of the law of love is sin; and nothing else, if we speak properly.
When you read that first sentence, it might sound good. The next one becomes problematic, especially his saying, “and nothing else, if we speak properly.” Sin is more than just a breach of the law of love. He also says, “voluntary breach,” so that a person must give assent, activate his will, for sin to occur. This definition sets Wesley and his followers up for greater problems.
Perfectionism
If sin is this breach of the law of love, it is easy then to see how that a different view of atonement and salvation occurs. By limiting or twisting the definition of sin, according to John Wesley someone could live without sinning, a theology called “perfectionism.” I might call it, “dumbing down sin.” 1 John 3:8 says:
He that committeth sin is of the devil; for the devil sinneth from the beginning. For this purpose the Son of God was manifested, that he might destroy the works of the devil.
Wesley wrote concerning this in Explanatory Notes on the NT (1818) on p. 661:
Whosoever abideth in communion with him, by loving faith, sinneth not – While he so abideth. Whosoever sinneth certainly seeth him not – The loving eye of his soul is not then fixed upon God; neither doth he then experimentally know him – Whatever he did in time past.
Participatory Atonement
Even though Wesley talks an acceptance of substitutionary atonement, he mixes in other various views of atonement that created a doctrinal quagmire. It’s why you hear so much differing and contradictory doctrine from Wesleyans and Methodists. It’s also why they can easily move into theological liberalism. For instance, Wesley communicates what is called “participatory atonement.”
John Wesley did not have a settled theology or doctrine of salvation before he became the head of a major Christian denomination. He was still working it out. He knew something was wrong in the Christianity he observed. Wesley never pinpointed what was wrong with the Church of England to the extent that he provided a separate correction of Anglican soteriology.
This view, participatory atonement, itself blends together various views of atonement. The cross of Christ is the means by which human beings can die with Christ and be reborn in Him. They experience the crucifixion of Christ with him in a mystical way. Many of the Wesley hymns make reference to this view.
The Place of Moral Example
Participatory atonement has strong parallels with the moral example theory of atonement, where Christ’s death on the cross was a kind of exclamation point of a life of love. By dying, Jesus provided a moral example, that if lived, atonement is received. With the Wesleyan participatory atonement, someone by faith subjects himself to the crucifixion that Christ suffered, fulfilling the law of love. God creates new life in the individual who enters solidarity with Christ in the love of His suffering and death.
The idea of dying with Christ sounds right even to someone who believes in penal substitution. However, this participatory atonement is something different than the historical interpretation of Galatians 2:20 (“I am crucified with Christ”). Concerning the defeat of the works of Satan through His death, Wesley wrote: “It is by thus manifesting himself in our hearts that he effectually ‘destroys the works of the devil’.” This mirrors the participatory atonement view. The Wesleys make more reference than other verse in the hymns of their hymnal than they do Galatians 2:20.
Wesley expressed opposition to the view of penal substitution. He saw the imputation of righteousness as a pass for unholy living. Everything is finished, so someone would just rest in that. Wesley had a great concern for the activation of holiness in a person’s life. He expressed a view of atonement that would yield that moral result.
Baptism and the Lord’s Table
Baptism and the Lord’s Table for Wesley become a means of grace by which men experience participatory atonement. In Wesley’s explanation of Romans 6:3, he writes:
In baptism we, through faith, are ingrafted into Christ; and we draw new spiritual life from this new root, through his Spirit, who fashions us like unto him, and particularly with regard to his death and resurrection.
Concerning the Lord’s Table, Charles Wesley wrote this hymn:
O the depth of love divine,
the unfathomable grace!
Who shall say how bread and wine
God into us conveys!
How the bread his flesh imparts,
how the wine transmits his blood,
fills his faithful people’s hearts
with all the life of God!
The Wesleys believed that the real presence of Christ was found in the elements imparting saving grace. Charles Wesley also wrote this:
With solemn faith we offer up,
And spread before thy glorious eyes
That only ground of all our hope,
That all-sufficient sacrifice,
Which brings thy grace on sinners down,
And perfects all our souls in one.
I’m very sure that most of you reading do not sing these Wesley hymns in your services or for worship. Charles wrote them and others like them though.
More To Come
Thomas Cranmer and the Lord’s Table: How Is the Presence of Christ There?
Since Christ, an important part of the history of true Christianity proceeded from and among the English speaking people. Whatever good came from the English, which affected the whole world, related to a populist association with the Bible. The populist movement against Roman Catholicism in sixteenth century England corresponded to respect for the Word of God. Two main figures served as a conduit for the fulfillment of the English Reformation: King Henry VIII and Archbishop Thomas Cranmer. The former clashed with the pope for personal reasons and the latter for doctrinal ones.
Henry VIII served like a wrecking ball, while Cranmer worked more behind the scenes, picking his opportunities to exact systemic changes to the entire nation. These positive words do not serve as an endorsement of the Church of England. They explain an important departure from Catholic authority over the nation, opening the door for further deference to scripture. True New Testament churches benefitted from this work.
A direction toward freedom of conscience and soul liberty traces from King Alfred’s ninth century translation and circulation of the ten commandments, the psalms, and the four gospels in Old English. In the late fourteenth century John Wycliffe produced a hand written translation of the entire Bible into the vernacular. His followers, the Lollards, were persecuted by authority, but populist seed was scattered. William Tyndale brought about the first printed edition of the New Testament into English in 1525. Shortly thereafter, Miles Coverdale finished Tyndale’s work with an entire English Bible in 1535.
Three major events in Cranmer’s life shaped his biblical influence on England. First, Cranmer’s work as a scholar at Cambridge drew the attention of Cardinal Wolsey for the justification of the annulment of Henry’s marriage to Catharine of Aragon. Wolsey took Cranmer’s suggestion to canvass European theologians for their opinion rather than the Pope. Second, when Cranmer became ambassador to the Holy Roman Emperor, he intersected with influential reformers, who opposed Roman Catholicism. Third, he married Margarete, niece of Andreas Osiander’s wife, leader of reform in Nuremberg. To keep peace with the Catholic Church in England, the pope allowed for Cranmer’s appointment as Archbishop of Canterbury in 1533. Henry was far less the Protestant, but his annulment and then marriage to Anne Boleyn, aligned him with Cranmer. He became sympathetic with separation from Rome.
Jumping past Henry’s death in 1547, Cranmer had exerted great influence in the upbringing and training of Henry’s only son, Edward VI. At Edward’s coronation, Cranmer called Edward a second Josiah and encouraged him to continue reformation of the Church of England. Edward trusted Cranmer more than anyone. Cranmer saw the pope and the Mass as enemies of true Christianity and especially in the Mass. For him, the Mass was false doctrine that resulted in the condemnation of men. In 1550, Cranmer published a paper, “A Defense of the True and Catholic Doctrine of the Sacrament of the Body and Blood of our Savior Christ.” Cranmer rejected the Roman Catholic theology of the Mass or its version of the Lord’s Table.
Thomas Cranmer saw the reform of the Eucharist, the Catholic term for the Lord’s Table, as a return to biblical Christianity. He also thought that the false teaching kept its adherents from the true salvation of their souls. Cranmer believed the corruption sprang from the popish doctrine of transubstantiation or the physical presence of the real flesh and blood of the Lord Jesus Christ in the elements. However, Cranmer did believe that Christ was present spiritually at the Table. Cranmer wrote that the eating and drinking of Christ is the faith of the believer, that those who have believed in Jesus Christ have in them His spiritual presence at the Table through justification by faith. He said that the presence of Christ was not in the elements.
Cranmer rejected and repudiated the continued sacrifice of Christ at the Mass. It detracted from the finished work of Christ, His substitutionary, sacrificial death one time on the cross. He argued that salvation could come only through Christ’s death. Even though Cranmer believed that the celebration of the Lord’s Table may be a good work, it did not win the favor of God or put away evil. He also taught that it was a memorial of Christ and spiritual nourishment to the godly. On the other hand, the belief and practice of the Roman Catholic Church led men into idolatry and endangered their souls, the doctrine of Antichrist.
Upon focusing upon this distinction of Cranmer from the transubstantiation of Roman Catholicism, I ask you reading if the presence of Christ is a factor in the observance of the Lord’s Table? Roman Catholicism says Christ’s physical presence is in the elements, transubstantiation. Later leader of the Oxford movement within the Church of England in the early 19th century, Edward Pusey, revived the doctrine of consubstantiation, the real, spiritual presence of Christ in the elements. This apparently was also Luther’s teaching, rejected by Cranmer. Cranmer taught not the “real presence” of Christ in the elements, but the “real absence” of Christ in them. Instead, the presence of Christ is in the converted soul of the believer as he partakes of those elements.
As I grew up in church, I heard three titles: the Lord’s Table, the Lord’s Supper, and communion. Very often, I refer to the ordinance taught in Matthew 26 and 1 Corinthians 11 as communion. When I call it, when anyone calls it, “communion,” what do they mean? I don’t think I understood that as I grew up in church, but later as I studied 1 Corinthians 10 especially, I did understand. At the Lord’s Table, God intends for not only communion with the other members of the church by partaking of the one bread, but also communion with Jesus Christ spiritually. That seems to me like the Cranmer view of the presence of Christ at the Lord’s Table in the believing person who partakes of the elements.
The Apostle Paul writes in 1 Corinthians 10:15-22:
15 I speak as to wise men; judge ye what I say.
16 The cup of blessing which we bless, is it not the communion of the blood of Christ? The bread which we break, is it not the communion of the body of Christ?
17 For we being many are one bread, and one body: for we are all partakers of that one bread.
18 Behold Israel after the flesh: are not they which eat of the sacrifices partakers of the altar?
19 What say I then? that the idol is any thing, or that which is offered in sacrifice to idols is any thing?
20 But I say, that the things which the Gentiles sacrifice, they sacrifice to devils, and not to God: and I would not that ye should have fellowship with devils.
21 Ye cannot drink the cup of the Lord, and the cup of devils: ye cannot be partakers of the Lord’s table, and of the table of devils.
22 Do we provoke the Lord to jealousy? are we stronger than he?
This is where the terminology “communion” comes, referring to the Lord’s Table. In chapter 10, Paul argues against eating meat offered unto idols because there is the presence of demons with the physical meat. He says that eating is fellowship with or communion with devils. Paul uses the Lord’s Table as part of his argument. He is writing that when someone eats the bread and drinks of the cup, he communes with or fellowship with (same Greek word) Christ. Those eating things of the Gentile sacrifice commune with devils.
Earlier Paul said the idol was nothing (1 Corinthians 8:10). It’s not the hunk of wood or stone that is something, but what is behind the idol that is something, which is, as Paul later shows in 1 Corinthians 10, a devil or a demon. This same teaching goes back to Leviticus and Deuteronomy. Moses writes that they sacrificed unto devils (Leviticus 17:17, Deuteronomy 32:17). Something spiritually is happening with the offering of the meat to the idol. Someone comes into communion with a devil or devils just like at the Lord’s Table someone comes into communion with Jesus Christ spiritually. It is not just a physical act, the Lord’s Table, but a spiritual one.
The same point could be made from the beginning of 1 Corinthians 10:1-4, when Paul says that the passing through the Red Sea for the children of Israel was a spiritual experience. I believe that Paul makes the same point in 1 Corinthians 12:13. A spiritual communion exists with the ordinances. It is more than just a physical act. God is present and with true believers communion with Him occurs. The basis for communion with each other is the communion that regenerated, immersed church members have with God. When believers call it “communion,” we mean “communion” with other believers, but also “communion” with God spiritually. Hence, God’s spiritual presence is there at the Lord’s Table.
When “One” Doesn’t Mean “One”: The Church, One Body
Institutions declare, “One team.” Whole nations announce to themselves and to other nations, “We are one.” You’ve got, “one office,” to promote productivity for the work place. To express the unity of a city, there’s “One Atlanta.” Not surprisingly, you see “One Philadelphia” too.A single team isn’t saying, “We’re numerically one team.” No. The people on the team or the leadership of the team attribute unity or oneness to it. Speaking of the nations of the world at the World Cup, “We are one,” means a desired unity of all the nations. Even an office wants unity, because a unified office gets more work done together. It’s normal for cities to say they are one through all the racial, ethnic, religious, etc. diversity. I could find almost every major American city to possess some initiative toward “One Miami” and the like.When we pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America, we say, “One nation, under God, indivisible.” The Pledge of Allegiance recognizes at least a desire for unity in a nation. That pledge isn’t saying that other nations aren’t nations except the United States. It also isn’t saying there is one mystical nation, maybe even a single invisible nation to which everyone in the world belongs.
Scriptural “One” For Unity
That ye may with one mind and one mouth glorify God, even the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ.
2 Corinthians 13:11, “Finally, brethren, farewell. Be perfect, be of good comfort, be of one mind, live in peace; and the God of love and peace shall be with you.” Philippians 1:27, “Only let your conversation be as it becometh the gospel of Christ: that whether I come and see you, or else be absent, I may hear of your affairs, that ye stand fast in one spirit, with one mind striving together for the faith of the gospel.” Philippians 2:2, “Fulfil ye my joy, that ye be likeminded, having the same love, being of one accord, of one mind.” 1 Peter 3:8, “Finally, be ye all of one mind, having compassion one of another, love as brethren, be pitiful, be courteous.”
Acts 19:34, “But when they knew that he was a Jew, all with one voice about the space of two hours cried out, Great is Diana of the Ephesians.”
One Body
Romans 12:4-5, “For as we have many members in one body, and all members have not the same office. So we, being many, are one body in Christ, and every one members one of another.” 1 Corinthians 10:17, “For we being many are one bread, and one body: for we are all partakers of that one bread.” 1 Corinthians 12:12-13, “For as the body is one, and hath many members, and all the members of that one body, being many, are one body: so also is Christ. For by one Spirit are we all baptized into one body, whether we be Jews or Gentiles, whether we be bond or free; and have been all made to drink into one Spirit.” 1 Corinthians 12:20, “But now are they many members, yet but one body.” Ephesians 2:16, “And that he might reconcile both unto God in one body by the cross, having slain the enmity thereby.” Ephesians 4:4, “There is one body, and one Spirit, even as ye are called in one hope of your calling.” Colossians 3:15, “And let the peace of God rule in your hearts, to the which also ye are called in one body; and be ye thankful.”
Memorial Day and Memorials, Their Scriptural Importance
By dictionary definition, a memorial is something established to remind people of a person or event. The last Monday of May is Memorial Day in the United States, a federal holiday for honoring and mourning those who have died in the performance of their military duties while serving in the United States Armed Forces. The dedication of a certain day as a memorial began with spontaneous memorials in the middle of the 19th century at the tombstones of American soldiers, who fell in battle. Women decorated these stones as a way to honor these who had died. Then it turned into an annual day to decorate these tombstones.A unique day to remind people of the sacrifice of American soldiers started out as “Decoration Day.” By 1890, every northern state celebrated this as a holiday. Not until 1971, however, did Congress designate the day in May as a national holiday, and called it “Memorial Day.”I like visiting memorials. The best ones in the United States are in Washington DC, including the fairly recent and gigantic World War 2 Memorial. Everyone knows about the Jefferson and Lincoln Memorials. The Alamo is a memorial. A memorial stands in Hawaii for the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor. Memorials dot Civil War and Revolutionary War battlefields, and now a big one sits in New York City for those who died on 9/11/2001.The most moving memorial for me was the American Cemetery near Omaha Beach in Normandy, France. I wept again and again. The cemetery staff there did a great job telling the story. I felt thankful to be an American and for the men buried there.The idea of memorial comes from God though. We should use symbols, days, statues, and now what are actually called “memorials” to remember what is very important, not to be forgotten, and use them to motivate us. The Lord’s Table is a memorial. The bread and the cup remind a church of the body and blood of Christ, His substitutionary and sacrificial death on the cross.The word “memorial” is found 32 times in the King James Version. It’s mainly translating a Hebrew word in the Old Testament, tsekaron, found 24 times and means “remembrance.” A Greek word, mnemosunon, meaning, “memory” and translated “memorial,” occurs three times in the New Testament. God exalts the practice of making a special day, display, or monument in honor of something for the purpose of remembering. God wants remembrance.In Exodus 12:14, the memorial is a day. In Exodus 17:14, it’s a book. In Exodus 28:12, they are the stones on the garment of the priest. In several Old Testament references, it is the actual offering in the sacrificial system, for instance, the flour cast on the altar by the priest in the sin offering is a “memorial.” Stones were set out in Joshua 4:7 as a memorial of God’s dividing the River Jordan for the dry land crossing into Canaan. The feast of Purim starts as a memorial to remember the salvation of Israel in Esther 9:28.Remembering is helpful. It’s required. I’m not saying we should try to remember wrong things or discouraging things. We can remember what God has done, our parents have done, and what other godly people have done to give us strength and motivation. Remembering the right things renews the mind in a transformational way. It can lead to a life of praise and thanks. This Memorial Day, let’s all remember.
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