Who Schools? A look at homeschooling as opposed to state school.

THE TENSION

In my opinion, i [sic] would never turn to home schooling. When you are home schooled, you automaticly [sic] loose [sic]the whole social experience of school. In the real world you need to be social. Otherwise you’re going to get know [sic] where. I understand that the learning education might be to an advantage while homeschooling because its [sic] all one on one and you are the only student reciveing [sic] all the help you need whenever you need it. I would never home school my child because I would be holding them back from friends and the social life they will need in the feature [sic]. I would never even consider home schooling. -Macie P.¹

      The overwhelming prejudice against homeschool and homeschooling families by the public school system and educators is not hard to miss.² The stereotypes of homeschool families being unsocialized and awkward has been so “played up” that homeschoolers are beginning to make fun of the stereotypes with bumper stickers and tee-shirts and websites.³ Interestingly, the row raised by non-homeschoolers against homeschooling is one that would not have been raised 150-200 years ago. Although prior to the introduction of compulsory state school attendance laws, most childhood education occurred within the family.⁴ Homeschooling families often reply by demonstrating the faults of the school system. While homeschoolers are castigated for being unsocialized, they will point out the volume of violence and arrests and drug use and overall “bad things and behavior” that takes place in public schools. Homeschooling families will point to better grades and test scores to shore up their position. However, in our day, attendance in compulsory state schools is the norm. This is because the state requires some sort of education of children, and is willing to educate them for “free,” and there is some cost or loss of income in having only one working parent.

      This paper, however, does not seek to present facts on why homeschooling is or is not better than public education; it will not give test score statistics or teen pregnancy statistics, etc. Those things do not deal with the heart of the matter, which is: what has God ordained for the home and for the state? So, instead of those things, this paper will question the legitimacy of public schools and question the agenda of the state in compulsory schools. This paper does assert the primacy of homeschooling or Reformed Christian schools that educate with an eye to an all encompassing Biblical worldview, over compulsory state schools. It does so, however, as a matter of Biblical responsibility and not as an issue to be dealt with on the basis of pragmatics (socialization, test scores, college acceptance rates, etc.).

THE RELIGIOUS NATURE OF EDUCATION

You shall love the LORD your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your might. These words, which I am commanding you today, shall be on your heart. You shall teach them diligently to your sons and shall talk of them when you sit in your house and when you walk by the way and when you lie down and when you rise up. You shall bind them as a sign on your hand and they shall be as frontals on your forehead. You shall write them on the doorposts of your house and on your gates. -Deuteronomy 6:5-9-⁵

One of the most useful tools in the quest for power is the educational system.⁶

      Whether or not one realizes it, education is for a purpose; it is not merely absorbing random facts without regard to how they are pieced together. In the above quotations, the purpose of education is clearly defined from two different worldviews. In the Biblical worldview, the purpose of education is to take, “every thought captive to the obedience of Christ.”⁷ Why? Because education ultimately leads to worship; and whoever is in control, controls worship. Christians presuppose the Bible and the Triune God of the Bible as their foundational axiom. Because of this, Christians recognize the sovereignty of the Triune God of the Bible over all the worlds and all things in all the worlds – in other words, God is sovereign over all the universe. “For by Him all things were created, both in the heavens and on earth, visible and invisible, whether thrones or dominions or rulers or authorities—all things have been created through Him and for Him. He is before all things, and in Him all things hold together.”⁸ The God of the Bible is the maker of all things and the giver of powers to all who are in power; therefore, God alone is to be worshiped and His commands are binding in all of life – even over the state. The education of a Christian is an evangelistic enterprise and the evangelism of a Christian is an educational enterprise. We see this in Deuteronomy 4:5-8:

See, I have taught you statutes and judgments just as the LORD my God commanded me, that you should do thus in the land where you are entering to possess it. So keep and do them, for that is your wisdom and your understanding in the sight of the peoples who will hear all these statutes and say, ‘Surely this great nation is a wise and understanding people.’ For what great nation is there that has a god so near to it as is the LORD our God whenever we call on Him? Or what great nation is there that has statutes and judgments as righteous as this whole law which I am setting before you today?

     In other words, the people of Israel were to live in such a way, that those in who saw how they lived would come to know the Lord. The law of God was taught to them, that they might teach it in the nations where they came.

      The second quotation displays the mind of leaders and the state throughout the world. The proselytizing purpose of education does not stop with only Christians.To illustrate this, one merely needs to look to the book of Daniel. In the book of Daniel, one finds Nebuchadnezzar conquering the world, and as he does so he takes captives back to his capital, Babylon. There, his captives are schooled in the ways of Nebuchadnezzar – in Nebuchadnezzar University. At N.U. The students are completely controlled in everything, from meals, to education.⁹ Those who viewed Nebuchadnezzar as sovereign ate his food and bought his educational program; those who knew the God of the Bible to be sovereign, didn’t – but worshiped Him only. Ultimately, Nebuchadnezzar was training those whom he brought to Babylon, and making them worshipers of him (and of the state, since he was the state), and set himself up to be worshiped by building a statue and commanding worship – those who did not would face death. This demonstrates the very religious nature of education – those who bought into the educational system and lies of Nebuchadnezzar bowed themselves to the figure; those who had been educated in Christian homes knew better, and did not.¹⁰ There can be only one, true sovereign.¹¹ Those who who view the world through humanistic and secular eyes, need a unifying factor – often this is themselves or the state which they represent. Compulsory education came at the hands of men who wanted to see the state gain power. For these men, “state-consciousness was the new form of God-consciousness.”¹² Dewey and his ilk supported the public schools as “religious in substance” but in a way that did not come “at the expense of state-consciousness.”¹³ Dewey, “recognized that the formerly dominant Christianity placed limits on the loyalty that one could have toward the state, but that the new religion of the schools did not.”¹⁴ Their desire for power and control is a desire for worship – whether stated explicitly or implied in their actions. It is a desire to overstep the bounds of the civil government, and to “play God.” “Although many of the most vociferous objections to any confusion of religion and state come from supporters of the public schools, no school of any kind can maintain such separation. Value-free education is a contradiction in terms, and any hierarchy of values constitutes a religious system.”¹⁵ In other words, all education is fundamentally religious; it simply differs on who or what is to be worshiped.

THE QUESTION OF RESPONSIBILITIES

      Seeing the religious nature of education, the question then becomes, “Who is responsible for the education of Christian children?” The text quoted from Deuteronomy makes it abundantly clear, “You shall teach them diligently to your sons.” All of life is to be an education process in the households of believers – the school of the saints is the home (or a school that will teach children to take every thought captive to the obedience of Christ). Children are taught to love God, and to keep His commands, and to take every situation in life – “when you sit in your house and when you walk by the way and when you lie down and when you rise up” – into consideration of God and His commands. This means in scientific and artistic and historical and musical endeavors, man is to strive to view whatever subject he is studying in light of the revelation of God – in general and special revelation. He is to take “every thought captive to the obedience of Christ.” The responsibility of Christian households is to give covenant children the tools needed to examine all of life through the grid and worldview of Christianity. Public, compulsory education will not do that.

      The command to Christian parents is a positive one, and there can be no mistaking his duties: “Train up a child in the way he should go, Even when he is old he will not depart from it.”¹⁶ It is not a duty that can be dismissed or taken lightly; parents have the vital responsibility of raising covenant children. There is no leaving the child to discover the world “untainted” – no, the options are simple; either the parent will fulfill his responsibility and “school” make the child a worshiper of the the Triune God of the Bible by talking “of them when you sit in your house and when you walk by the way and when you lie down and when you rise up.,” as he is supposed to, or the state will take over the parents role and make the child a worshiper of the state. R.L. Dabney said concerning parental responsibility for the education of their children, “The only alternative left the parent is either to bias the child’s soul himself for God and the truth, or to see it fatally biased by other influences against both. The Scriptures here are positive .… Which is that way ? He must ‘bring up the child in the nurture and admonition of the Lord.’”¹⁷ There is, then, no doubt for the Christian parent; it is his God given task to school his children in the ways of the Lord, that they might learn to take every thought captive to the obedience of Christ.

      If it is the parents obligation to educate their children, what precisely is the state’s role? The role of the state is nothing more than to keep peace and law. Romans 13:1-6 reads:

Every person is to be in subjection to the governing authorities. For there is no authority except from God, and those which exist are established by God. Therefore whoever resists authority has opposed the ordinance of God; and they who have opposed will receive condemnation upon themselves. For rulers are not a cause of fear for good behavior, but for evil. Do you want to have no fear of authority? Do what is good and you will have praise from the same; for it is a minister of God to you for good. But if you do what is evil, be afraid; for it does not bear the sword for nothing; for it is a minister of God, an avenger who brings wrath on the one who practices evil. Therefore it is necessary to be in subjection, not only because of wrath, but also for conscience’ sake. For because of this you also pay taxes, for rulers are servants of God, devoting themselves to this very thing.

      The state then usurps its God-given role, taking on that role which God has given to the family, in order to attempt take that honor and worship and sovereignty that belongs to God alone. Schlossberg pinpoints this usurpation and demonstrates the nature of it:

The assumptions of modern public education concerning the nature of man, the function of the state, the nature of truth, and so on are such as to inculcate a set of presuppositions that can only be called religious. Ivan Illich was perfectly justified in saying that the teacher is a font of moral instruction that substitutes for God, state and parents, providing for his students the meaning of right and wrong. ‘He stands in loco parentis for each one and thus ensures that all feel themselves children of the same state.‘¹⁸

      The state is seeking to substitute itself for God and parents in order to establish its own presuppositions in the student in order to make good statists of them. Statists that do not question the agenda of the state, regardless of whether it goes against Scripture and the revealed will of God. Rushdoony adds:

For a state to claim total jurisdiction, as the modern state does, is to claim to be as god, to be the total governor of man and the world. Instead of limited law and limited jurisdiction, the modern antichristian [sic] state claims jurisdiction from cradle to grave … over … education, worship, the family … and all things else. The modern state is a Moloch … it claims total jurisdiction over man and hence requires total sacrifice.¹⁹

     When the state oversteps its bounds and goes beyond restraining evil and rewarding good, it seeks to be the ultimate law. “Similarly, only the power who is ultimate has the right to be the source of law. God is the only true source of law; the state is an agency of law, one agency among many (church, school, family, etc.), and has specified and limited area of law to administer under God.”²⁰ When the state usurps its authority and responsibility, it then seeks to “remove God” from all areas of life, in order to be God in all areas of life, to its subjects. The state is then acting in a blasphemous way. “To ground any sphere of thought, life, or action, or any sphere of being, on anything other than the triune God is thus blasphemy. Education with God as its premise, law which does not presuppose God and rest in His law, a civil order which does not derive all authority from God or a family whose foundation is not God’s word, is blasphemous.”²¹ In other words, for the state to go beyond bearing the sword against evildoers, and to take up a cause beyond its sphere and to set itself up as law, the state is striking against God. It is seeking to do as all who reject the Triune God of the Bible do – suppress the truth in unrighteousness. Dabney put thus, “While the State does not authorize the theological beliefs of the Christian citizens, neither has it a right to war against them. While we have no right to ask the State to propagate our theology, we have a right to demand that it shall not oppose it. But to educate souls thus is to oppose it, because a non-Christian training is an anti-Christian training.”²²

      So then, one must conclude that the education of Christian students is the duty of parents, and not the state. In the nature of the case, the state is overstepping its bounds in order to set itself up a “Messiah.” If the state is seen as imparting knowledge and truth, the masses will turn to it and give themselves to the state. For Christians to turn their children over to the state for education, is to abdicate their role as parents and act in an anti-Christian fashion. Parents have been commanded by God to teach their children the things of God in all of life – to raise them in the nurture and admonition of the Lord. The question then, does not come down to socialization or test scores or college admissions. The question then, isn’t about homeschooling – for there are fine Christian schools that teach all their courses from a Biblical worldview. It is all brought to a head in this:

You shall love the LORD your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your might. These words, which I am commanding you today, shall be on your heart. You shall teach them diligently to your sons and shall talk of them when you sit in your house and when you walk by the way and when you lie down and when you rise up. You shall bind them as a sign on your hand and they shall be as frontals on your forehead. You shall write them on the doorposts of your house and on your gates.

     Do Christians believe that God is commanding them to educate their children in a worldview that encompasses all of their life, or sending them to a state school that will teach them to compartmentalize their faith – to not view science through the lens of Scripture; to not view history through the eyes of God’s outworking of His redemptive kingdom? The threat is real; do believers want their children educated in Nebuchadnezzar University – where they will well fed and well trained, provided that they bow down to the image, to the state? Or do believers want children who will glorify God and enjoy Him forever, even at the threat of their lives? There is only one sovereign who commands all the worlds honor, only one sovereign whose kingdom will fill the whole earth; it is not the state, but the Rock cut without hands.

________________________________

1“Student Opinion | Would You Want to Be Home-Schooled? – NYTimes.com”, November 10, 2011.,

http://learning.blogs.nytimes.com/2011/11/10/would-you-want-to-be-home-schooled/#comment-306803.

2One merely needs to look at the comments section of this article (and the reasons many are opposed to homeschooling) to see the overwhelming response against homeschooling: “Student Opinion | Would You Want to Be Home-Schooled? – NYTimes.com”, November 10, 2011.,

http://learning.blogs.nytimes.com/2011/11/10/would-you-want-to-be-home-schooled/.

3This site is actually run by a homeschooling family that sees the humor in the stereotypes: “Weird,

Unsocialized Homeschoolers”, n.d., http://www.weirdunsocializedhomeschoolers.com/.

4Anna DiStefano, Encyclopedia of Distributed Learning (Thousand Oaks Calif.: Sage Publications, 2004), 224.

5Deuteronomy 6:5-9, emphasis added. All Scripture references are taken from , FoundationPublications., New American Standard Bible., Reference ed. (Anaheim Calif.: Foundation Publications, 1995).

6Adolph Hitler as quoted in, American Vision. and Gary DeMar, Whoever Controls the Schools Rules the World, 1st ed. (Powder Springs GA: American Vision, 2007), 1.

7Foundation Publications., New American Standard Bible., 2 Corinthians 10:5.

8Colossians 1:16–17.

9Daniel 1:4–5.

10Daniel chapter 3.

11Daniel 2:34-35, 44.

12Rousas Rushdoony, Politics of Guilt and Pity (Nutley, New Jersey: Craig Press, 1970), 329.

13Ibid., Rushdoony is here quoting Deweys, Intelligence in the Modern World, 707ff.

14Herbert Schlossberg, Idols for Destruction : the Conflict of Christian Faith and American culture (Wheaton Ill.: Crossway Books, 1990), 210.

15Ibid., 210.

16Proverbs 22:6.

17Dabney, Robert L., Discussions: Evangelical and Theological, vol. 1 (1967: Banner of Truth Trust, n.d.), 685.

18Schlossberg, Idols for Destruction, 211.

19Rousas Rushdoony, The Institutes of Biblical Law (The Presbyterian and Reformed Publishing Company, 1973), 34.

20Ibid. Emphasis Rushdoony’s.

21Ibid., 127.

22Dabney, Robert L., Discussions: Evangelical and  Theological, 3:285.

A long letter

Hi. You don’t know me, but you and I are probably more alike than you realize – regardless of your age, ethnicity, education, or background. Let me show you how. Have you ever thought or even said to yourself, “What is wrong with this world?” Perhaps you have heard of or viewed some sort of senseless violence or been moved to tears over injustice or read a disturbing headline or been frightened by a news blurb or experienced a growing anger over what seems like overwhelming amounts of disease and death and evil? We have all experienced such feelings and thoughts and fears. Not many people are unmoved by all the violence, war, sickness, injustice, and death that takes place in this world. Not many people can hear of the slaughter of other men and women and boys and girls simply because of their ethnicity, and not feel a deep sadness. Not many people can see others starving, and turn away coldly. Not many people have not been affected by disease, whether personally or of a friend or family member. No one has been left unscathed by death – whether of an aged grandparent or the tragic death of a friend. Perhaps you have wondered why there is such sadness and misery and death? Perhaps you have wondered about the answer to the world’s ills? Perhaps you have asked, “Is there any hope at all, for this world?” If so, you and I really are are alike; for, I too, have asked such things. Regardless of your age, ethnicity, education, or background we all want answers; we all want hope – hope that injustice will be corrected, that violence will be avenged, that fears will end, that all will be made right.

I have some good news for you. There is hope. Injustice doesn’t go unnoticed. Wrongs will be righted. Violence will be avenged. And, there is no need to fear. However, here is where you and I may differ. You may believe that racial reconciliation is the answer to all the worlds problems. But, I ask you, don’t men of the same race commit crimes against each other? You may believe that education is the answer to all the woes of man. But, haven’t some of the most horrific crimes been perpetrated by educated men? You may believe that ending poverty is the answer, but do men of wealth commit no crimes? You may believe that if man will simply work together, he can solve his own problems, and through our reason we can make the world a better place. But, isn’t it obvious, that in all man’s attempts to solve his own problems he has never succeeded? (By man’s reasoning, he has deemed some men as less than men, and millions have been slaughtered – Adolph Hitler, is an obvious case-in-point.) With all of man’s advancements in medicine and science, he has not been able to stop death. No matter how man has tried, death and pain and suffering and anguish has lingered with him and been caused by him. So the problem is not man’s circumstances. We see plainly, that neither riches nor poverty or education nor the lack thereof can stop the evil that occurs. So what is the cause of these things? It is a small word, but one that is the cause of all those ills. What is it? Sin. Yes, one tiny word is the cause of all our world’s troubles. So then, what is the answer? Where can hope be found?

Hope, my friend, can only be found in the gospel of God’s grace. There is no other option that will right the wrongs of this world.What is the gospel? It is good news.  The gospel is not merely, good advice; there is a impassable difference between the two. The gospel is the good news of what God has done to deliver sinners; it is not pious advice about what people can do to solve their woes, or pacify His anger or gain His favor. It is absolutely vital to understand this distinction. Bear with me, and I will show this to you. Good advice is like placing a band-aid over the chest of a man who needs a heart transplant, when only a new heart will save his life. Good advice attempts to make man the solver of his own struggles; it attempts to make man his own deliverer – which is to put a band-aid on his chest. When the truth is, he needs someone else to redeem him – to give him a new heart.

So then, the issue comes down to a religious one. How so? Because every other religion in the world (including self-religion and non-religion) is about pious advice. Every other faith treats God as though he were an infantile Being who can be easily satisfied, quickly distracted, or safely ignored. Dealing with him becomes about self-redemption. Ultimately, in those religions (even in “non-religions”), the fate of man is in his own hands. If you’ve felt or thought through any of the problems that were presented earlier, then you’ve already agreed that the world is broken, and it is obvious that man is incapable of fixing it, because he is the cause of that which is wrong. So what is wrong?

What is wrong is that man has rebelled, he has sinned, against his Creator – the God of the Bible, bringing all mankind and the earth into an estate of sin and misery – which is what we plainly see when we turn on the news or read the paper. How did this happen? After He had created the first man and woman, God established a covenant with them. In the biblical sense, a covenant is a relationship established and guaranteed by God. God creates the relationship, and He sets its terms (after all, He is God). This is what God did with the first parents of the human race, Adam and Eve. He did not come down and create them, only to disappear again forever into heaven. He created them in order to relate to them: Then the LORD God took the man and put him into the garden of Eden to cultivate it and keep it. The LORD God commanded the man, saying, “From any tree of the garden you may eat freely; but from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil you shall not eat, for in the day that you eat from it you will surely die.” (Genesis 2:15-17) Our first parents, however, did not live in obedience to this command; they were tempted by an adversary, known as the devil or Satan, and they believed him over God. So, they ate of the fruit, and rebelled against God. There is no way we can understate what happened with that first bite. God created the whole universe out of nothing. In that universe he created a paradise. Into that paradise he placed our ancestors. He gave them everything they could possibly need. He gave Himself to them in fellowship. After doing all this for them, he commanded them to obey. Adam and Eve were not starving when they took the forbidden fruit, and they were not uncertain about God’s command. Their taking of that fruit was an act neither of necessity nor ignorance. It was an act of treason. And it was through that first sin that death and evil gained a foothold in the human race: …sin entered into the world, and death through sin, and so death spread to all men, because all sinned … (Romans 5:12). God had established His covenant with Adam not only for himself, but for all his descendents. So then, what we see, is that the problem with man is not circumstances (God had placed Adam and Even in the best of circumstances), but ungodliness and rebellion against his Creator. Adam and Eve, in their fall, sinned against God and brought sin and misery into the world. All mankind has been born in sin and misery since, and lives in and acts out sin, because of the fall of our first parents. In other words, all mankind by their fall lost communion with God, are under His wrath and curse, and so made liable to all miseries in this life, to death itself, and to the pains of hell forever.

So what we see in the Bible, God’s revelation of Himself to us, is that man because of the fall has a rebellious heart. That is what is wrong in the world – man has a bad heart. He is born in sin (Psalm 51:5, Romans 5:12) tell us. We read concerning man’s heart in Jeremiah 17:9, “The heart is more deceitful than all else, and is desperately sick; Who can understand it?” The word for sick can mean incurable. Further, the Bible says in Genesis 6:5 shows that “the wickedness of man was great on the earth, and that every intent of the thoughts of his heart was only evil continually.” In other words, there is no hope for man except a new heart, because the heart that he has is incurable and continually devising and running to evil. Compounding this wicked rebellious heart is man’s guilty record before God. Man not only has a bad heart before God, he has an active record of disobedience and rebellion to God’s person as He reveals Himself in the world in a general way, and to God as He has revealed Himself in a special way in His Word. Man is actively seeking to suppress the truth of God in unrighteousness, and is sinful in all his ways. The Bible shows in Romans chapter 3:10-18:

There is none righteous, not even one; there is none who understands, there is none who seeks for God; all have turned aside, together they have become useless; there is none who does good, there is not even one. Their throat is an open grave, with their tongues they keep deceiving, the poison of asps is under their lips; whose mouth is full of cursing and bitterness; their feet are swift to shed blood, destruction and misery are in their paths, and the path of peace they have not known. There is no fear of God before their eyes.

In other words, since the fall, man has actively distorted what is plainly evident about God, actively hid themselves from Him, and acted contemptibly toward other men. So, man has a rebellious heart, a guilty record, and an unholy life.

It ought to be obvious, by now, that man cannot help himself, but can only compound his woes. How? Because even our best efforts to please God, and attempts to “make up” for our rebellious heart, guilty record, and unholy life toward Him are tainted. Scripture says in Isaiah 64:6, “For all of us have become like one who is unclean, And all our righteous deeds are like a filthy garment; And all of us wither like a leaf,
And our iniquities, like the wind, take us away.” In other words, even our best efforts to please God, and curry His favor, are stained like a filthy rag. So, then, our need is a new heart, a clean record, and a new life.

If we can’t supply those, who can? God. The good news of the gospel, is that He has purposed to redeem an innumerable multitude of sinners by His grace, to give them the new heart, clean record, and new life that they need. God in His marvelous grace delivers to sinners the good news when He says in Ezekiel 36:24-26:

For I will take you from the nations, gather you from all the lands and bring you into your own land. Then I will sprinkle clean water on you, and you will be clean; I will cleanse you from all your filthiness and from all your idols. Moreover, I will give you a new heart and put a new spirit within you; and I will remove the heart of stone from your flesh and give you a heart of flesh. I will put My Spirit within you and cause you to walk in My statutes, and you will be careful to observe My ordinances.

So then, the only hope for man – for you – is in God’s provision of salvation from your bad heart – that He might give you a new heart, that He might give you a clean record, and a new life. You see, the reversal of culture always begins with individuals this world will not be changed except by God’s salvation of sinners. And you are a sinner. You have rebelled against God (remember Romans 3?) – this rebellion is what brought about the wrongs in the world. So, why does that matter? Because, that rebellion separated you from God and made you spiritually dead to Him. You, are a walking dead man (or woman). Physically you are alive, but spiritually you are dead toward God and the things of God. It is that spiritual deadness that makes men choose evil over the good and beauty that is God the Creator – the God of the Bible.

So how do we get a new heart – one that will make us alive toward God and spiritual things? By God acting through His Son. In God’s marvelous grace, He has sent His Son to deliver man from his bad heart, record, and life. How? Jesus Christ came, and in the place of sinners, loved God the Father perfectly with a submissive heart. He had a clean record – He was born of a virgin, so that he did not have Adam’s guilt. Jesus lived perfectly in submission to God’s will as revealed in His law. In other words, He lived a holy life. All that Jesus did, He did in order to please His Father, and on behalf of those sinners which the Father had given to Him to redeem. Matthew 1:21 says of Christ, “He will save His people from their sins.” In other words, it is on the basis of Jesus’ work on your behalf, that you will be acceptable to God.

You know when you look inside yourself that you do indeed, have a bad heart – you know what you think toward other people; those things you think that you don’t want anyone else to know about; you know that you have a guilty record – you have suppressed the truth of God in someway in your life; you have done it from your youth, and cannot stop no matter how hard you may try. You know that you have lived an unholy life; you have sinned against God’s revealed will, as we have it in the Bible. You know this – and you know the impossibility of and hopelessness you feel when you attempt to change all this on your own. You know that you deserve whatever judgment God may make concerning you at this moment. You need someone to act on your behalf – to represent you before God. The good news is that just as God was under no obligation to make a covenant with humanity, so he was under no obligation to help us once we had broken his covenant. He could have left us all to die. He could have done away with the whole universe at that very instant. He would have had every right to do so. But He did not do so. Instead, God graciously chose to make a new covenant with humanity. He did not leave us to despair, but we find, immediately after the rebellion in Genesis He graciously promises to deliver:

The LORD God said to the serpent, “Because you have done this, cursed are you more than all cattle, and more than every beast of the field; on your belly you will go, and dust you will eat all the days of your life; and I will put enmity between you and the woman, and between your seed and her seed; He shall bruise you on the head, and you shall bruise Him on the heel.

He makes such promises throughout the Old Testament. Such passages give us a sense of the presence of God’s second covenant immediately after the fall and throughout the Old Testament, and point to a coming Redeemer.

The Old Testament does not reveal the specific identity of this Redeemer, but it does reveal that this Redeemer is God, and He will be seen with human eyes. In Jeremiah 33:15-16, there is a prophesy that states that the righteous Branch (the Redeemer) shall be a man: a descendant of David, who was a descendent of Abram, who was a descendant of Adam and Eve – but He will not be only a man. The righteous Branch will also be God: “the LORD is our righteousness.” You see, this is the only answer for man’s problem of sin and rebellion – a righteous branch who is like man, and yet divine, that He might deliver men. In the New Testament, we see that Jesus is the promised Redeemer for sinners. In the work of Christ, the old, diseased heart – the one that only produces rebellion to God – is destroyed on the cross, on behalf of sinners. Romans 6 says: knowing this, that our old self was crucified with Him, in order that our body of sin might be done away with, so that we would no longer be slaves to sin. In other words, when a sinner is in Christ (just as sinners were in Adam) the old heart is destroyed on the cross, and the new heart is raised from the grave. As 1 Peter 1:3 tells us: Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who according to His great mercy has caused us to be born again to a living hope through the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead. Sin and evil has been dealt with in the person of Christ! In the person of Jesus Christ, God Himself arrived on the ruined landscape of history to bring salvation and redemption from sin and death.

Perhaps you are wondering, “If this is true, why haven’t things been fixed? Why do we still see evil in the world? If God really entered history, why hasn’t he dealt with sin?” The answer is that He has dealt with it. Remember that in his covenants, it is God who sets the terms. God has dealt with sin, but he has done so according to his own terms – not according to our expectations. How then has God dealt with sin? He

became man in order to take the punishment for the sins of his people upon himself. What happened on the cross of Jesus is that the sins of the one who trusts in Jesus are paid for and righteousness which man lacks is provided for in the life of Jesus. Remember the passage in Romans 3, where we saw that all men sin? Well, a little further down in that passage in verses 21-26, we read:

But now apart from the Law the righteousness of God has been manifested, being witnessed by the Law and the Prophets, even the righteousness of God through faith in Jesus Christ for all those who believe; for there is no distinction; for all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God, being justified as a gift by His grace through the redemption which is in Christ Jesus; whom God displayed publicly as a propitiation in His blood through faith. This was to demonstrate His righteousness, because in the forbearance of God He passed over the sins previously committed; for the demonstration, I say, of His righteousness at the present time, so that He would be just and the justifier of the one who has faith in Jesus.

In other words, we see from this text, that there was simply no other way. God is righteous, and righteousness cannot ignore evil or sweep it under the rug. Righteousness requires that sin be punished. Every sin is treason, and treason is a capital offence – it must be punished by death. Yet, no sinner can survive a death sentence. How then could God punish the sins of his people without crushing them? Only one thing could be done. In the person of Jesus Christ, God substituted himself. He stood in the place of his people and paid for their sins. The righteous Branch of God was hung on a cross. The Scripture shows us this in 1 Corinthians 5:21: He made Him who knew no sin to be sin on our behalf, so that we might become the righteousness of God in Him. In other words, Christ was substituted in the place of the sinner, that the sinner might be declared righteous in the site of God, and in Christ the believer has his source of holiness provided. On the cross, the full wrath of God upon sin, that was due to sinners, was poured onto his head, and for the sake of his people he was broken.

Standing in the place of those he loved, he bore the full curse and punishment that their sins had earned. Jesus died, and was buried. But that is not all. For two days, all seemed lost, but then something happened; on the third day after his burial, Jesus raised to life, and walked out of the tomb. How could this be? The answer is simple: though he bore the sin-guilt of many, he himself was not guilty of any sin, and as a result, though he died for sins, he himself could not be held by death. In his resurrection, we see the victory of the covenant of grace was accomplished. Because he rose from the dead, those doomed to death in Adam can now be made everlastingly alive in him. It is the fulfillment of God’s covenant promise that he made in the garden, and throughout the Old Testament.

So then, God has delivered from sin & misery. He has done it in two ways. Firstly, Christ died to take away sin. But equally as important, secondly, he lives to provide righteousness – to provide where your rebellious heart, guilty record, and unholy life failed. We have already seen that God‟s righteousness means he cannot ignore sin. Further, God’s righteousness also means that he cannot tolerate anything less than perfect obedience. Yet, no sinner can obey God perfectly. How then can God accept anybody? Only through the righteousness of Christ. Jesus Christ is the only person who has ever kept God‟s law perfectly, and so those who are to be accepted by God must have his obedience applied to them. Since sinners have no righteousness of their own, they must be robed in the righteousness of Christ. The Apostle Paul said it this way, concerning himself (and all sinnners) that his (your) only hope is that we, “may be found in Him, not having a righteousness of my (our) own derived from the Law, but that which is through faith in Christ, the righteousness which comes from God on the basis of faith (Philippians 3:9).

At this point, it might be wise for us to step back and analyze the situation. We have seen that far from being the solver of this world’s troubles, man is the cause of them. We have seen that ending poverty, expanding education, and so on will never be the answer for man, because man’s chief problem is not his circumstance, but ungodliness.. We have seen our guilt as covenant-breakers, and we have seen God’s love as a gracious covenant maker. We have seen the promised Redeemer of the Old Testament promises is Jesus Christ. We have seen that he has completely accomplished redemption for those who belong to him – he gives his people a new heart, a clean record, and a new life. But the question remains: are you one of his? You cannot ignore your sins – you know they are many. Nor can you pay for them yourself, for all your attempts at righteous deeds are as filthy rags. What then is the answer? The Bible proclaims only one way to belong to Jesus Christ, only one way to have his payment for sin applied to your account. That one way is by faith alone. This is stated over and over again in the New Testament, but is perhaps best demonstrated best for us in Romans 4:1-8:

What then shall we say that Abraham, our forefather according to the flesh, has found? For if Abraham was justified by works, he has something to boast about, but not before God. For what does the Scripture say? Abraham believed God, and it was credited to him as righteousness. Now to the one who works, his wage is not credited as a favor, but as what is due. But to the one who does not work, but believes in Him who justifies the ungodly, his faith is credited as righteousness, just as David also speaks of the blessing on the man to whom God credits righteousness apart from works: Blessed are those whose lawless deeds have been forgiven, and whose sins have been covered. Blessed is the man whose sin the Lord will not take into account.

This passage from Romans tells us that in believing God, Abraham was “justified.” What does it mean to be justified? It means to stand in a right relationship to God – a relationship where your sins are covered and you are, as it says of Abraham, “accounted righteous.” In other words, it means to be in a state where the work of Jesus Christ is credited to you. It is vital to note that Abraham was brought into this state by “believing God.” Further, it tells us what it means to “believe God.” It is not just to believe what God says, but to believe in – to trust – the One who justifies the ungodly. So then, the only way to be justified before God, to belong to Jesus Christ and have his work applied to you, is to trust him. Faith is not an act by which you contribute to what he has done, nor is it a special work you do to earn his salvation. On the contrary, faith is an act of complete surrender. It is giving up on any hope of saving yourself, and staking all your eternity on the life and death and resurrection of Jesus Christ. We have seen that you have no hope in yourself. Cast yourself on Christ; abandon yourself to him!

What happens when we abandon ourselves to Christ? God fulfills his promises in Ezekiel. He takes men and women from nations and, sprinkle clean water on them, and makes them clean. He has promised that he will will cleanse you from all your filthiness and from all your idols. And he will give you a new heart and put a new spirit within you. He will remove your rebellious, stony heart and give you a heart of flesh – a heart that is new and seeks him. He will give you the Spirit and cause you to walk in his statutes. In other words, he will change your life and outlook. In the New Testament, the apostle Peter tells us that putting our faith in Jesus Christ will imply major changes in our lives: Now when they heard this they were cut to the heart, and said to Peter and the rest of the apostles, “Brothers, what shall we do?” And Peter said to them, “Repent and be baptized every one of you in the name of Jesus Christ for the forgiveness of your sins, and you will receive the gift of the Holy Spirit. If you are sincere about putting your trust in Christ and becoming a Christian, then you will repent of your sins, and you will turn from living after your own will, and live according to God’s. Why does this matter? If we are saved wholly by the grace and work of Christ, what does it matter how we live? The apostle Paul answers this in Romans 6:12-16:

Therefore do not let sin reign in your mortal body so that you obey its lusts, and do not go on presenting the members of your body to sin as instruments of unrighteousness; but present yourselves to God as those alive from the dead, and your members as instruments of righteousness to God. For sin shall not be master over you, for you are not under law but under grace. What then? Shall we sin because we are not under law but under grace? May it never be! Do you not know that when you present yourselves to someone as slaves for obedience, you are slaves of the one whom you obey, either of sin resulting in death, or of obedience resulting in righteousness?

The point, then, is plain. Our lord is whomever we serve. If we trust Jesus Christ is our Lord, then we cannot serve sin. The second change of life implied by putting your faith in Christ is that you will be baptized and join yourself to the church. Christians are commanded to be baptized, and baptism is a sacrament which Christ gave only to the church, as we see in Matthew 28:18-20: And Jesus came up and spoke to them, saying, “All authority has been given to Me in heaven and on earth. Go therefore and make disciples of all the nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit, teaching them to observe all that I commanded you; and lo, I am with you always, even to the end of the age.” The point is not that baptism – any more than repentance – somehow adds to faith or earns forgiveness of your sins, but the point is showing one’s professed faith in Jesus Christ to be genuine. If Christ is your Lord, you will obey him gladly. In this text in Matthew 18, Jesus promises never to abandon those who belong to him. He is always with us, to the ends of the world and to the end of the time. He dwells in the heart of every believer in the person of his Holy Spirit. We see from the Ezekiel text we read earlier, that the Holy Spirit of Christ that indwells us, and will cause us to walk in the statutes – or laws and ways – of the Lord; not in the rebelliousness that once characterized our life. Through the grace provided by the Holy Spirit, we are enabled more and more to slay our sins and and rebelliousness, and serve our Savior. Though he does these things in us, he does not do them without means. He uses baptism, and the Lord’s supper, and the church to grow us, and make us more like Christ. We find in Hebrews 10:24-25: and let us consider how to stimulate one another to love and good deeds, 25 not forsaking our own assembling together, as is the habit of some, but encouraging one another; and all the more as you see the day drawing near. The Holy Spirit uses other Christians to make us more like Christ. We need to be around those whose heart has been changed – those who are not enemies of Christ any longer, but fellow lovers of Christ. Would you belong to Christ? He is freely yours through faith. But if he is yours, then you are his. And if you are his, then repentance, baptism, and the church are not optional – they signify the new heart that God has given you.

So, with that, we see that sin and misery have been dealt with truly, though not yet finally. They will be, however. We have seen that the gospel of Jesus Christ truly is good news, not merely good advice. It is not a prescription for self-salvation, but the proclamation of Christ’s coming Kingdom. The Kingdom of the Lord Jesus Christ was inaugurated when he accomplished salvation in his life, death, and resurrection. It grows every day as men and women come to put their trust in him, and as they continue to walk in repentance and obedience to his Lordship. Someday, however, it will come in finality. Jesus Christ will return to gather his church to everlasting life and to judge the world. In this final judgment, he will deal with the rebellious men, who have caused such sin and misery on the earth; those who have rebelled against his claim of absolute authority on their lives. We read of this coming judgment in Revelation 20:11-15:

Then I saw a great white throne and Him who sat upon it, from whose presence earth and heaven fled away, and no place was found for them. And I saw the dead, the great and the small, standing before the throne, and books were opened; and another book was opened, which is the book of life; and the dead were judged from the things which were written in the books, according to their deeds. And the sea gave up the dead which were in it, and death and Hades gave up the dead which were in them; and they were judged, every one of them according to their deeds. Then death and Hades were thrown into the lake of fire. This is the second death, the lake of fire. And if anyone’s name was not found written in the book of life, he was thrown into the lake of fire.

Knowing that all rebellious hearts will be judged and condemned, you do not have to live your life wondering if your name will be found in the book of life. You do not have to spend every day in fear of death. Christ is freely offered to all who thirst for him: The Spirit and the bride say, “Come.” And let the one who hears say, “Come.” And let the one who is thirsty come; let the one who wishes take the water of life without cost (Revelation 22:17). Do you thirst the water of life? Do you desire forgiveness of sin and restored communion with God – communion that was cast aside by you rebellious heart? It is yours for the free-taking! You cannot pay. But you do not have to pay – Christ has done it all! This is the gospel. Christ is the gospel. All you have to is trust in him. Abandon yourself to the Lord Jesus Christ, and he will never abandon you. He says in John 6:37: All that the Father gives Me will come to Me, and the one who comes to Me I will certainly not cast out. And again in 6:40: For this is the will of My Father, that everyone who beholds the Son and believes in Him will have eternal life, and I Myself will raise him up on the last day.

So then, I will conclude this letter. Though there are sin and misery all around us, we must all note with seriousness, that what is caused outside of us comes from within us. I counsel you to look to Christ for a new heart – only when what is in us conforms to God’s will and Word, will what is outside of us be peace and joy. Only when ungodliness and rebellion are replaced with obedience and love to Christ will this world be at rest.

Sincerely,

Nick

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Scripture references taken from the New American Standard Bible.

A great indebtedness to Dr. Henry Krabbendam and Jeremiah Montgomery (http://www.pipeandpint.com) is acknowledged.

This is a work in progress, so it might change from time to time.

Wilhelmus a’Brakel on Revelation – a paper

a’ Brakel entitles his chapter on natural revelation, The Knowledge of God from Nature. He begins his monumental work by giving justification for the title of his work.

The title of this book … has been derived from Romans 12:1, ‘… which is your reasonable service.’ Religion consists of four matters: 1) its foundation or basis, 2) its form or essence, 3) its regulative principle, and 4) its practical manifestation.

He states that the foundation of religion is, “the character of God” (3). He then makes the point that God’s omnipotence and benevolence are reasons for man to serve God, but they are not the basis for service; God’s character is the foundation. “God possesses within Himself all glory and worthiness even if there were no creature” (3).

Concerning revelation he states that:

God has decreed within Himself what he desires to reveal of Himself and the extent of this revelation of himself … (Original and essential revelation. The knowledge in the rational creature which corresponds with this is referred to as … (conferred revelation) (5).

God has created within all men an innate knowledge that God is, that is, an acknowledgment that God exists. “This does not mean that man, in his existences, is immediately conscious of God; rather this consciousness comes gradually with an increase of age” (5). a’ Brakel contends that this knowledge/consciousness increases with age, and as man begins to reason about those things with which he is confronted. “Both reality and mental exercises concerning the knowledge of God spontaneously proceed from his own nature, without external stimulation by means of instruction” (5).

From here, a’ Brakel goes on a brief excursus on the use of the term ‘mental image’ by some, wherein he states that, “man does not acquire knowledge about matters from within himself” (6). He uses the illustration that we (a child, newly born) do not have any conception of the form of animals in other parts of the world, which we have not seen or of which we have not heard. They do not exist to us; only in hearing or seeing these things (or in some other sense is made aware) is man made conscious of them, and consciously takes notice of them. He states that it is in a similar fashion that we function within Christianity. Because we hear of God from childhood on, which causes, “the acknowledgment of God ─ to be activated” (7). This knowledge of God becomes reality and increases.

Because of the way in which he was created, man is capable of knowing God in due season, but not by innate knowledge only. He then states that man must have the revelation of God in order to know God ─ man does not know God in His full essence. Man is able, because of the innate knowledge of God, to observe the works of God “in their created nobility … [and] to increase in the knowledge of God … that which is visible could not possibly communicate to man that there is a God if prior to that he did not have an impression of God in his soul” (8). He concludes that from all of this, it is evident that man possesses both an external and internal knowledge of God.

From here, a’ Brakel addresses this knowledge by addressing philosophers, who have made much progress in this knowledge through observing the creation and creatures. He states, with brief explanation, that man increases in the internal/external knowledge of God in a threefold manner: 1) by way of negation; 2) by way of excellence; 3) by way of causality. After this a’ Brakel a series of objections; he does so by showing that the knowledge of God is indeed universal, but is not a saving knowledge.

From this series of objections, a’ Brakel is lead to address the origin of the natural knowledge of God and morality in man. For the answer to this question, he points us to the image of God in man. Though this image was damaged (in its narrow sense … spiritual knowledge, righteousness, and holiness has been removed from all the faculties and propensities of the soul [18]), man still retains the image of God; he does so in that he is a reasonable creature.

Nevertheless, Adam did not lose his human nature. He retained the soul in its essence and propensity, consisting of intelligence, will, disposition, reason, and consciousness of God. The consciousness of God is as natural to man as his ability to reason (18).

a’ Brakel states that it is the consciousness of God that sets man apart from other creatures. Because of the fall, men seek to suppress this consciousness. This consciousness is not saving. He does say, however:

… [H]e who still possesses a remnant of the image of God [that is, in its narrow sense], or a measure thereof, is neither spiritually blind nor spiritually dead, for spiritual life consists in the possession of the image of God …. Man however, possessing both the natural knowledge of God as well as morality is entirely blind and dead …. Consequently there is neither a remnant nor a certain degree of the image of God in natural man (19).

a’ Brakel states that natural (innate) knowledge of God and morality are not synonymous with the image of God. It is not a matter of degree, according to a’ Brakel, but the image of God is of an entirely different nature. He defends this with four propositions.¹

Following this he answers as to whether or not a man might entertain the hypothesis that there is no God by setting aside all the revelations of God in nature and Scripture, “so that by questioning everything … from all angles, he may with more steadfastness conclude that God exists? In sum, may one doubt whether God exists” (20)? He answers this by stating that since the intellect of man has been darkened by the fall, man is inclined to doubt “whether a matter which presents itself is truly as it appears” (20). He answers this with a resounding no ─ because God has created in the nature of man the knowledge of the existence of God; He has further confirmed it to man by “Holy Writ” (21). Because of this, man is not permitted to doubt the existence of God. a’ Brakel says this is a rejection of God and is “tantamount to challenging God face to face and declaring him a liar” (21). He states that the person who is desirous of doing this (wanting to doubt) knows that he is lying. He applies it devotionally by showing that willful doubt never leads to more steadfastness; it only strengthens an already corrupt intellect and ungodly heart. He sets before us that the proper way to increase in the knowledge of God is to believe that He is, and that He is a rewarder of them who diligently seek Him.

He concludes his chapter on the knowledge of God from nature by showing that the knowledge of God in all men is so evident that even the most ungodly, no matter how much or how hard they try, “are entirely incapable of eradicating all knowledge and consciousness of God” – even if they temporarily succeed in becoming insensitive to this consciousness. a’ Brakel concludes with a pastoral note, that when we are assailed by atheistic thoughts, we are to resist such thoughts, and hold to our inner conviction. For, there is no escaping the God who is there.

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1He says knowledge and morality: 1) proceed from different causes, one being the original creative power of God, and the other being the regenerating power of God; 2) function through different means, one being nature and the other being the gospel; 3) have different objects, one being that which is known of God by virtue of His revelation in the realm of nature, and the other being God’s revelation of Himself in the face of Christ; 4) have different results; the one renders man inexcusable, whereas the other results in salvation.

Cornelius Van Til on The Principium Cognoscendi Internum – a paper

     Van Til sets forth his position on Christian Epistemology in chapter three of, An Introduction to Systematic Theology, and then, in chapters four and five, deals critically with the epistemology of Charles Hodge, Valentine Hepp, and Herman Bavinck. To begin his chapter on Christian epistemology, Van Til states,

If the method employed by theology is the ordinary inductive method, it goes without saying that the human reason will be thought of as non-Christians generally think of it; that is, human reason will not be thought of as having been influenced by the fall of man in sin. There will be no recognition of the noetic effects of sin on man (56).

      In this way, human reasoning is placed on par with divine reason. Van Till sees non-Christian reasoning as thinking of reality as one whole that is inclusive of God and man, and consequently thinking of reason as being the same everywhere, whether in God or in man. “Human reason is said or assumed to be potentially divine” (56). Because of this Van Til sees as of utmost importance, the need to point out that there is a distinction between the Christian and non-Christian conception of the place of human reason.

     Van Til acknowledges two tendencies among orthodox theologians concerning the function of reason in theology. There are those who do not wish to address it at all, and there have been those who are anxious, “to prove that theology has a perfect right to consider itself a science” (57). As he sees it, both tendencies have failed to distinguish between the Christian and non-Christian use of reason.

In order to avoid these difficulties in some measure, we must attempt again to show that our conception of the place and function of human reason is directly involved in our conception of God. We must avoid the idea that human reason exists as a known and definable entity apart from God so that we may begin from it as from an ultimate starting point (57).

      Van Til moves on to show that the place that we assign reason in theology is the same as that which we assign to it in other sciences. The theological method is, “but a specialized form of the Christian-theistic method in general, so the place of reason in theology is determined primarily by our conception of Christian-theistic epistemology in general. Christian-theistic epistemology is concerned with the object and the subject of knowledge, and differs from other positions on the question of epistemology.

THE OBJECT OF KNOWLEDGE

      Because of the doctrine we know that, “the whole spatio-temporal world owes its existence to the will of God …. There was no externally existent matter out of which God created the world …. We cannot think of the nonexistence of God” (58). In other words, the universe did not get its existence from any other source, but from God. Because God has given existence to the world, He gives meaning to it. “As the absolute and independent existence of God determines the derivative existence of the universe, so the absolute meaning that God has for himself implies that the meaning of every fact in the universe must be related to God” (58). In other words, Scripture shows us that the world has its whole meaning in the fact that it was created for the glory of God. The existence and meaning of every fact in the universe must be, ultimately, related to the, “self-conscious and eternally self-subsistent God of the Scriptures” (58).

     Because this is the case, we apply this to man’s knowledge by understanding that for the human mind to know any fact truly, it must presuppose the existence of the Triune God of Scripture, and his plan for the universe. Van Til illustrates this:

If we wish to know the facts of this world, we must relate those facts to laws. That is, in every knowledge transaction, we must bring the particulars of our experience into relation with universals …. But the most comprehensive interpretation that we can give of the facts by connecting the particulars and the universals that together constitute the universe leaves our knowledge at loose ends, unless we may presuppose God back of this world (58).

In other words, we must be clear that the ultimate subject of our knowing (predication) is not the universe or reality or being in general, in which God is the universal and historical facts are the particulars. God and the universe are not correlative to each other. “It is precisely in order to set off the Christian position against such correlativism that the equal ultimacy of of the one and the many within the Godhead, prior to and independent of its relation to the created universe, must be presupposed” (59). Christians hold that the universe is a derivative of the one and many, “which can be brought into fruitful relation with one another because, back of both, we have in God the original one and many” (59). That is, if we are going to have coherence in our experience, there must be a correspondence to the eternally coherent experience of God. Our knowledge ultimately rests upon the internal coherence within the Godhead. “Our knowledge rests upon the ontological Trinity as its presupposition” (59).

     The non-Christian takes his stand in the exact opposite position. He takes for granted without question that we can intelligently think of this universe as being self-existent and as having meaning int itself. He takes for granted that our senses can be known truly. He speaks of particulars and universals as if they were ultimate instead of derivative. He does the same with facts and laws. Even if the world was not eternal, and sprung into being in an evolutionary way, he is saying that it is not derivative of a self-existent God. “This is the determining point. Non-Christians hold that whether the world ever came into existence or whether it has always existed, in either case its existence and, therefore its meaning is independent of God” (60).

THE SUBJECT OF KNOWLEDGE

     In the subject of knowledge, Christians hold that the existence and meaning of the human interpreter must be brought into a relation of subordination to God as the ultimate interpreter. In other words, meaningful knowledge is only possible because of the plan of God behind it. Man’s knowledge is derivative, and therefore can never be comprehensive and exhaustive. Because God’s knowledge is archetypal, there is no mystery to Him; his knowledge is back of the facts of the universe. There my be mystery to men, but never to God.¹ The difference between the Christian and non-Christian position is that the non-Christian position is agnostic, and the Christian position is precisely opposite of this.

     Non-Christian thought then, would hold that because man cannot comprehend certain things in his knowledge, to that extent his knowledge is not true. Christians say that we, as creatures, do not need to, and should not expect to comprehend everything (Van Til says anything) fully. God Comprehends fully, and that is enough for us. The fact that we do not fully comprehend something should not make us grow desperate with respect to the truth of that thing; when a Christian sees mystery that surrounds something, he worships God; “when the non-Christian scientist sees the atom surrounded by mystery, he worships the void (61). Again and again Van Til asserts that Christian’s hold human knowledge of the world and God is not exhaustive/comprehensive, and yet it is true (knowledge).²

     From here Van Til moves on to show another difference between the Christian’s view of reason and the non-Christian’s view of reason. Christians maintain that because man is a creature of God, which non-Christians deny, he must be a re-interpreter of God’s interpretation. Because of the fall, the human mind is, “ethically depraved. In contrast to this, non-Christians think that the human mind is ethically normal (61)…. Moreover, those who do not believe in the sinfulness of the human mind do not believe in its created character” (62). Such a fact makes intellectual neutrality impossible; if the Christian position is true, then man will fall into eternal ruin unless he has true knowledge of God.

     Van Til then moves on to address the point of contact with believers. He addresses the issue by looking at different “consciousnesses.” He deals with the Adamic consciousness, the unregenerate consciousness, and the regenerate consciousness. The Adamic consciousness is that reason in man that existed before the fall; it was a derivative knowledge that was true but not exhaustive. It was reason that was, “in covenant with God, instead of at enmity against God” (62). It recognized that its function was interpretation of God’s revelation; in the garden Adam had a true conception of the relation of the particulars to the universals.³

     The unregenerate consciousness is man’s reason after the entrance of sin. The natural man wants to be something that he cannot be; he wants to be as God. He wants to be the judge of good and evil, his own standard of truth; he sees himself as “being the ideal of comprehensive knowledge. When he sees that he will never reach the ideal, he concludes that all reality is surrounded by darkness” (63). He says, in essence, that since he cannot grasp knowledge comprehensively, God cannot either. He sees the meaning of the spatio-temporal world as being immanent, and that man is the ultimate interpreter of the world.⁴ From here, Van Til shows how the natural man suppresses the knowledge of God that is evident to him. The natural man has a great deal of knowledge that is true as far as it goes.

     The regenerate consciousness is the Adamic consciousness “restored and supplemented, but restored and supplemented in principle or standing only” (67). It is restored in that it recognizes afresh its derivative character, because God has regenerated it. It is supplemented in that the regenerated consciousness is now able not to sin (the unregenerate is not able not to sin).

     Because of the state of reason in man, Van Til says we must realize that, 1) there is no Adamic consciousness after the fall. 2) We cannot speak of human reason in general – there is only the regenerate, and unregenerate consciousness. 3) When we deal with unregenerate reason, we must realize that it is operating on monistic assumption; and, so we cannot grant that it has any right to judge in matters of theology (or anything else, for that matter). 4) “[T]hough Scripture does not appeal to the natural man as competent to judge, and though it considers the natural man blind to spiritual things, the Scriptures continue to hod man responsible for his blindness. 5) We are called to speak to and preach to and reason with the lost because God (in whose name we can speak and reason) can cause the blind to see. 6)We must use our regenerated minds to receive and reinterpret the revelation that God has given of Himself in Scripture. “That is the proper place of reason in theology. There is no conflict between this reason and faith since faith is the impelling power that urges reason to interpret aright” (69).

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1 Science today, in consonance with non-Christian thought in general, holds that the facts of this universe are surrounded by an ultimate void, that is, by an ultimate irrationality. We, on the contrary, hold that God as absolute light is back of the facts of the universe. We hold that the atom is mysterious for us, but not for God (61).

2 We are created in God’s image, and therefore our knowledge cannot be exhaustive; we are created in God’s image, and therefore our knowledge is true.

3 For this Van Til points out that he named the animals according to their nature, in accordance with the place that God had given them in the universe. The subject-object and the subject-subject relationship was normal; his knowledge was self-consciously analogical.

4 Van Til says, “The natural man wants to be creatively constructive instead of receptively reconstructive” (63).

One of my favorite poems, by one of my favorite poets …

Holy Sonnet X

Death be not proud, though some have called thee
Mighty and dreadfull, for, thou art not soe,
For, those, whom thou think’st, thou dost overthrow,
Die not, poore death, nor yet canst thou kill mee.
From rest and sleepe, which but thy pictures bee,
Much pleasure, then from thee, much more must flow,
And soonest our best men with thee doe goe,
Rest of their bones, and soules deliverie.
Thou art slave to Fate, Chance, kings, and desperate men,
And dost with poyson, warre, and sicknesse dwell,
And poppie, or charmes can make us sleepe as well,
And better then thy stroake; why swell’st thou then?
One short sleepe past, wee wake eternally,
And death shall be no more; death, thou shalt die.
-John Donne-

Biologos … what are we to think? – a paper

The question of origins has been addressed since the fall of man. The seed of the serpent has always sought to be free from the reality that the Triune God of Scripture created all there is, and makes absolute claims upon His creation. The seed of the faithful has always acknowledged God as Creator. Throughout the history of God’s people, it is evident that most have always understood Scripture’s teaching on creation in a literal sense. However, in our day, when one considers the subject of God’s creation, there are a myriad of theories that are being proposed that differ from Scripture’s account of the origin of all things ─ even by Christians. Many overlook the simple, plain teaching of Scripture, to build complicated theories, all seemingly in order to capitulate to the modern views of science. One such group is The BioLogos Foundation (BLF), of San Diego, California.

The BioLogos Foundation is a group of Christians, many of whom are professional scientists, biblical scholars, philosophers, theologians,   pastors, and educators, who are concerned about the long history of disharmony between the findings of science and large sectors of the Christian faith. We believe that the Bible is the inspired Word of God. We also believe that evolution, properly understood, best describes God’s work of creation. … BioLogos is led by a group of Christians who are committed to promoting a perspective on the origins of life that is both theologically and scientifically sound. ¹

BLF consists of several team members, the most notable of which are Darrel Falk, Karl Giberson and Peter Enns. Falk, the president of BLF, Giberson the vice president, and Enns, senior fellow of Biblical studies, comprise the most vocal members of BLF.

It is the aim of these men and BLF to propagate their doctrine that young earth creationism is not compatible with science, and that evolution and Christianity are not incompatible. However, in their endeavor to make the two compatible, they change one; namely, they change the Scripture and change true interpretation of the Scripture in order to fit a scientific agenda. This can be seen in their writings, which are long on science and quoting other near east sources, but short on Scripture and exposition. Their writings, often tear down traditional interpretation, because science has ‘given us more light,’ or other sources from around ancient Israel speak differently of events or in understanding God.

For instance, Enns, in seeking to answer the question, “Who is us?”, in Genesis 1:26 states:

It might be tempting for readers today to say that the singular in verse 27 neutralizes the plural of verse 26, but that was certainly not good enough for ancient interpreters who took every word of the Bible with utmost seriousness. The plural in v. 26 means something and the aim of interpreters was to find out what. The modern explanation, based on our knowledge of ancient Mesopotamian religions, is that “us” refers to a heavenly court over which Yahweh presides. … A common Christian interpretation, especially in the early church, was that this is a reference to the Trinity. The fact that the Hebrew word for God is grammatically plural (‘elohim) only fed that idea. The problem with this is that a three-in-one God would have meant nothing to ancient Israelites, whereas a heavenly court would have meant something.² (Emphasis added.)

What Enns does here, is akin to what Kline did with suzerain treaties. He looks to other sources to define what those who had God’s special revelation would have understood about God. We are not certain all that the children of God knew about God, but it would seem that Enns is saying they certainly couldn’t have cared about the Trinity; or because courts were more familiar, to those around Israel, they must be more familiar to Israel. Further, instead of plain exegesis and Biblical theology (without consideration of God’s progressive and organic revelation), he seeks to draw on early Jewish interpreters and apocryphal interpretations.

This is not unusual for the team at BLF. The main thrust of the group seems to be to gain scientific credibility, instead of true Biblical understanding. Giberson shows this in his editorial against intelligent design in Christianity Today when he states:

To get credibility in the academy, these theorists need to engage the academy … But first they need a fertile idea—one that generates new scientific knowledge. … Then the academy will welcome you with open arms.³ (Emphasis added.)

In other words, one might say that BLF is willing to allow science to dictate how it views the Bible in order to be accepted by science, rather than letting the Bible dictate how BLF understands science in order to be approved by God. BLF seems content to rest in the claims of science and to stretch the Biblical account to fit their ideas. BLF cannot fathom that the age of the earth might appear old because God created it mature, fully functioning, with an appearance of history that it never had. No, for them, science must be correct in its observations, and Scripture wrong. “You are asking Christians to reject modern science and alienate themselves from the educated world for a doctrine that seems so secondary.”⁴

It is apparent that for the BLF the question of origins ought be on left to science, and that is is not important as a doctrine for the church. This is precisely what atheists and unbelievers claim. BLF does not think a literal Adam comports with science, and so Christians should get their theory of origins from science:

Plus, if Paul believed in an historical Adam as the first human, Christians should too.  The difficulty with this understanding of Paul, however, is that it is difficult to reconcile with the scientific data … These views require a non-literal reading of the Adam story, which follows from the details of the story itself (as we saw above), and from the genetic evidence, and from the significant amount of corroborating textual data that we have from the ancient Mesopotamian world.⁵

Further BLF makes claims in a paper by Falk⁶, that because of scientific data concerning mitochondria in women and Y-chromosomes in men, science can conclude that our ancestral parents were not around at the same time, and were from different areas. BLF does not seem to take into account the universality of the Genesis flood or any other host of Biblical accounts that could explain the matter. Instead, they are staking their faith in science, and downplaying Scripture, “We are trying to help the Church see that there is no doubt about the scientific data. … Scientific knowledge is not deeply flawed and we cannot allow ourselves to be led down this pathway any longer. ”⁷

BLF is content letting science be their guide, but there are those who are responding. There are groups such as Ken Ham’s Answers in Genesis, and there are individuals. Some scientists and some theologians. John MacArthur has done a series on young earth creationism. Most notably and most vocally, however, has been SBTS seminary president Al Mohler. Mohler has taken BLF to task on his blog and radio program and podcast. He has even had the opportunity to speak on NPR and present young earth creationism.

Mohler understands, “It is just not intellectually honest to argue that evolutionary theory deals only with the mechanisms of the existence of the Cosmos and that the Bible deals only with the meaning of creation.”⁸ Further, Mohler understands the ramifications and the pattern of those holding to theistic evolution.

Given the stakes in this public controversy, the attractiveness of theistic evolution becomes clear. The creation of a middle ground between Christianity and evolution would resolve a great cultural and intellectual conflict. Yet, in the process of attempting to negotiate this new middle ground, it is the Bible and the entirety of Christian theology that gives way, not evolutionary theory. Theistic evolution is a biblical and theological disaster.⁹

What is at stake, then, is not just opinions, but ideologies. Christianity is incompatible with theistic evolution, in as much as theistic evolution seems always at the ready to give up Scripture for science. Mohler sees this and notes:

On the other side of the equation, the injury to Christian convictions is incalculable. At the very least, the acceptance of evolutionary theory requires that the first two chapters of Genesis be read merely as a literary rendering that offers no historical data. But, of course, the injury does not end there. If evolution is true, then the entire narrative of the Bible has to be revised and reinterpreted. The evolutionary account is not only incompatible with any historical affirmation of Genesis, but it is also incompatible with the claim that all humanity is descended from Adam and the claim that in Adam all humanity fell into sin and guilt. The Bible’s account of the Fall and its consequences is utterly incompatible with evolutionary theory. The third chapter of Genesis is as problematic for evolutionary theory as the first two.¹⁰

In other words, if one gives in to theistic evolution, there are no brakes on what he has to deny in order to maintain his ‘belief’ in the Bible and his ‘belief’ in science. In order to hold to theistic evolution, inerrancy goes out the window – no matter what Enns and BLF may claim.

BLF must be reckoned with. Ministers must teach their people the truth of Scripture and encourage them to rest there, regardless of what science teaches.

I do not believe that BioLogos is “a buzzing little fly.” To the contrary, I believe that it represents a very significant challenge to the integrity of Christian theology and the church’s understanding of everything from the authority and truthfulness of the Bible to the meaning of the Gospel. A buzzing little fly is only a nuisance. The theory of evolution is no mere nuisance — it represents one of the greatest challenges to Christian faith and faithfulness in our times.¹¹

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1“About the BioLogos Foundation,” The BioLogos Forum, http://biologos.org/about (accessed January 31, 2011).

2 Peter Enns, “Genesis, Creation, and Ancient Interpreters: Who Is “Us”?” The BioLogos Forum, http://biologos.org/blog/genesis-creation-and-ancient-interpreters-who-is-us/ (accessed February 2, 2011).

3 Karl Giberson, “Intelligent Design: Find a Fertile Idea,” Christianity Today, http://www.christianitytoday.com/ct/2010/may/20.50.html (accessed February 2, 2011).

4 Karl Giberson, “How Should Biologos Respond to Dr. Albert Mohler’s Critique: Karl’s Response,” The BioLogos Forum, http://biologos.org/blog/how-should-biologos-respond-to-dr-albert-mohlers-critique-karls-response/#q1 (accessed February 2, 2011).

5 Peter Enns and Jeff Schloss, “How Does the Fall Fit Into Evolutionary History? Were Adam and Eve Historical Figures?” The BioLogos Forum, http://biologos.org/questions/evolution-and-the-fall/ (accessed February 2, 2011).

6 http://biologos.org/questions/the-mitochondrial-eve/

7 Darrel Falk, “The Dawning of a New Day,” BioLogos, Friday, December 31, 2010. http://biologos.org/blog/the-dawning-of-a-new-day/

8 Albert Mohler, “Creation Vs. Evolution — the New Shape of the Debate,” AbertMohler.com, http://www.albertmohler.com/2011/02/01/creation-vs-evolution-the-new-shape-of-the-debate/ (accessed February 2, 2011).

9 Ibid.

10 Ibid.

11 Albert Mohler, “No Buzzing Little Fly — Why the Creation-Evolution Debate Is so Important,” AlbertMohler.com, http://www.albertmohler.com/2011/01/05/no-buzzing-little-fly-why-the-creation-evolution-debate-is-so-important/ (accessed February 2, 2011).

The Sermons You See (or Don’t)

So, I’ve been thinking about sermons that are preached to you, yes, you, every day.  Every movie that you watch, every song that you hear, every Facebook status or even your friend’s Facebook albums that you view … they are all preaching to you.   All of these things deliver a message of either conformity to Scripture and the mind of God, or a message of rebellion against Scripture and the mind of God.

Are you submitting yourself, willingly, to those things which are in rebellion against God?  Are you willingly watching movies that glorify adultery or premarital sex? If so, you are siding with those movies and the stance they take (unless you are watching in a discerning manner and taking note of how they do not align with the Word … but more than likely, you are caught up in the amusement [state of not thinking] of the story and are ‘rooting for’ the protagonist, no matter what the scenario).  Ah, yes, you may be thinking as you watch, but (more than likely)you are thinking of how the plot is unfolding, and not of its conformity to the will of God.  What about Family Guy? (Yes, I am meddling.) No matter how ‘funny’ it is, it is most definitely preaching a sermon to you.  How often is that message a message of conformity to God’s mind as revealed in the Scripture? Are you willingly submitting yourself to songs that glorify adultery, murder, lust … again are you being discerning?

Anything that is encouraging rebellion against God in your thinking, ought to be put away.  If you have friends that profess Christ, who are constantly glorifying drunkenness or carousing, you must rebuke them (lovingly and gently) and not let it stand.  If they are lost, then they are acting according to their nature.  If a friend posts pictures of themselves or others in compromising positions or in provocative attire, you should address it. (If you do not, you are no friend, as you are letting them defame the name of Christ – which is a sermon of rebelliousness.) We are to bring every thought captive to the obedience of Christ to His glory.  Our conformity to His Word, in a sense, is His glory being seen in us.

These sermons are all a battle for the mind.  Is your mind the mind of Christ (Philippians 2:5), or the mind of the world? Is your submission to Christ only in the sermons that you hear on Sunday mornings? The battle for the mind is vital.  The governments of the world haven’t (attempted to) legislated the mind (yet).  But if you are Christ’s, He makes absolute claims on your life … even your mind (Philippians 4:8-9), and He can do that because you are not your own you were bought with a price (1 Corinthians 6:19b-20).

Whose mind are you portraying – the world’s rebellious mind, or Christ’s? What sermon are you preaching in your recommendation of movies or music or Facebook statuses or pictures?

Christians are to Murder…

If I were to tell you that Christians are to be about the business of murder, you’d probably be shocked; unless you have a handle on Reformed theology, then you know precisely where I am going with this. I am talking about mortification – or the hot pursuit of the death of sin.  It takes fits of sorrow and rage, and premeditation to handle sin.  Sorrow and rage when I stumble; premeditation for me to know how I will handle the temptations when they come.

The premeditation is necessary because mortification is not merely defense.  There can be no accidental killing of sin. Mortification must be an offensive strategy.  Owen, in his immortal and essential treatise on the matter,  likened it to killing a serpent; you never stop with just one blow upon the serpent, but you follow with blow upon blow, until the creature is lifeless and no longer able to strike.   You must, you must seek to kill sin through Scripture reading, prayer, the sacraments and the Church (which does entail being accountable to someone).

We don’t like the accountability thing … it is tough to tell others of our struggles, because we are prideful creatures. Often, though, we think, There is no one else who struggles with this like I do.  You’re quite wrong. Sin plagues us all – there is no one who is not affected; therefore, accountability can be encouraging and freeing.

For believers, we must battle sin, daily bringing to mind that we are not our own.  I think the verse that I recall/meditate on most in my struggles with sin is:

You are not your own, for you were bought with a price. So glorify God in your body.
(1 Corinthians 6:19b-20 ESV)

There it is! In that verse I see the dreadful price that was paid for me to be free … it was Christ who paid the price, who bore the wrath! It was Christ who left the realms of glory, came in abject poverty, died a horrible death … all in order that I might know Him, and glorify and enjoy Him, forever.

Therefore, out of gratitude, out of honor, out of love I seek His glory in my body (and thoughts and speech).

Republican? Democrat? Republocrat…

A must watch, it is long but worth it…

http://www.reformedforum.tv/rmr38/

I look forward to getting this book: Republocrat: Confessions of a Liberal Conservative, Dr. Carl Trueman

Everyone should listen to this…especially we Reformed guys.

http://www.sermonaudio.com/playpopup.asp?SID=82809233571