Thoughts for Easter
The Two Kingdoms

In the last week of His life Jesus spoke about the two kingdoms that all who follow Him live in. The Pharisees attempted to catch Jesus in a contradiction. Should we pay taxes to Caesar they asked? Procuring a coin, He asked “Who is pictured on the coin?” Upon their response, He uttered a line that should never be forgotten by any of His followers: “Render to Caesar the things that are Caesar’s and to God the things that are God’s.” [Mark 12:17 ESV]. The Pharisees marveled at Him and rightly so. They did not miss the import of what He said.

He did not say there was nothing that you owed Caesar. So much for Him coming back to impose the Messianic Kingdom that will depose Caesar. The Jewish leaders were chaffing under the yoke of Roman rule. They did not like that. When would David’s Kingdom return? They were looking forward to a position in that kingdom as religious leaders granting them secular as well as sacred power.

Note that Jesus does not create a tension between the kingdoms. Nor does He indicate that it is up to His followers to shape Caesar’s kingdom to look more like His. Why? Because His Kingdom is heavenly, spiritual and eternal and Caesar’s is earthly, secular and temporal. It would be foolish to attempt to mix the two. Sounds like a good argument for separation of church and state. And, it certainly does not fit with the theonomic and/or theocratic arguments afoot today for the future of the USA.

Jesus has ascended to be the King over all. But, He has not superseded the secular state. It has a place in the two kingdom paradigm. Caesar heads the civil government that wields the sword so as to promote good. Caesar’s work is not redemptive but provisional in order that the church can do its work of a redemptive nature. All falls under the overruling of King Jesus, but each kingdom has a role to play during this time of grace. Obviously, there is much disagreement on how the state and church interface, what kind of state is ideal or acceptable under the two kingdoms plan and what influence Christians should exercise over the state. But, one thing is certain…our Lord endorses the two kingdoms as our pattern and it is our obligation to make it work.

Thoughts for Easter
Basic Economics

During the last week of His earthly life, our Lord gives to us a lesson concerning worldly possessions. It occurred at the Temple and involved the widow’s mite. While her gift was not as valuable monetarily as the others observed, it was all she had to give. Thereupon, Jesus uttered His famous economic statements: “Truly, I say to you, this poor widow has put in more than all those who are contributing to the offering box.” [Mark 13: 43 ESV] How could that be? Side by side her gift was a mere pittance being far less than the others. But, comparison between folks is not God’s way. When you give all you have to Him it shows a reliance and trust on Him that is not shown by those who give from excess. She gave all she had to live on.” [12:44].

This is the basic economics of Jesus. It can be summed up in the theorem: 1] Give all you have to Him. This is the economics of service and sacrifice for the Kingdom. Remember the rich young ruler? Jesus said to him give all you have to the poor. Not because what he possessed was evil but because the young man had put his trust in his goods and possessions and not in the “good teacher.” Imagine the influence the church militant would have if this was the economics of His people. Oh how the Kingdom would advance if His people gave what they possessed to the Gospel of the Lord Jesus Christ.

Thoughts for Easter
The Praise of Men

If Jesus had been a politician, Palm Sunday would have been his triumph. After three years of public ministry, He rides into the Holy City amidst the cheers, adoration and acclamation of the public. The peoples’ choice was Jesus! But, of course, Jesus was not a politician. He did not rub shoulders with the fat cats, the rich and powerful from the government, public or the religious sector. No, his constituency numbered fishermen, tax collectors, harlots, the sick and lame, the poor, the weak and those without power or influence. Common people just like the Nazarene Himself.

Oh, you can be sure the fat cats were there on Palm Sunday. Not lining the streets, but watching from the shadows with concern etched on their faces. This carpenter’s son from Nazareth was eroding their influence. What could be done? What the crowd, the chief priest, elders and teachers of the law did not know was that this was not the triumph of the Messiah. Did anyone understand? He was not in town to be crowned Messiah. He was not in town for the hosannas of men. He was coming to Jerusalem to please the Father and do His will.

Here is the answer to In His Steps, WWJD or the current popular slogan among the greening crowd: “What would Jesus drive?” It is quite simple…please God not men. Seek to live a life that brings honor and glory to Him. A life that is faithful and obedient to all He commands. We live in a culture of man pleasers. It is more important to us that our neighbor likes us than our neighbor love God. Let’s begin taking our cue from the Lord and live a life that pleases the Father and does His will.

What do you believe?
Good Luck!

How many times have you heard it? You are about to embark on an important endeavor and someone says to you, “Good luck.” I have often wondered, “What has luck got to do with it.” After all, I believe God is sovereign over all events and circumstances.

These folks are well meaning, of course, and do not deserve a lecture on the provision and care of God’s people by God Himself. But, the truth is we must not forget that the Christian is redeemed from luck.

Was it “bad luck” that Joseph was thrown by his brothers into a pit and carted off to Egypt? Was it bad luck that Jesus chose the traitor Judas Iscariot to be one of His disciples? In Acts 12 was James the recipient of “bad luck” and Peter “good luck”? The former dying a violent death at the hands of Herod and the latter being miraculously released from the same tyrant’s jail.

No. God’s providential hand guides all that happens to His people. And, so it is with Christians and non-Christians alike. While we may not understand why, we certainly do not relegate what happens to fate or luck. Those redeemed by a personal God, Who loved them and gave His life for them, must never turn their lives over to impersonal, natural forces.

That is worldly thinking. The Christian believes that all things work together for good to those who love God and are called according to His purpose (Rom. 8:28). That is, all events and circumstances in our lives –even pain and suffering as well as disappointment and failure, are orchestrated by God for our temporal and eternal benefit. RC Sproul says there is not one maverick molecule in the universe. If there were, what certainty of hope would we have? That molecule may provoke an event over which God has no control.

Dark days and trouble are within the providence of God. The Lion of Princeton, B.B. Warfield, puts it this way:
To suggest that it [trouble] does not come from His hands is to take away all our comfort.
William Cowper, who lived through dark days of mental and emotional imbalance, explains the good and bad of providence thusly:
Judge not the Lord by feeble sense;
But trust Him for His grace.
Behind a frowning providence,
He hides a smiling face.

So, the next time you come across one who is about to embark on a major task, wish them not “good luck”. Rather, ask for them “God’s blessings”. For it is not the assistance of blind, impersonal forces one needs, but the blessings of Him Who holds all things together by His power (Col. 1:17; Heb. 1:3). The God in Whom we live and move and have our being (Acts 17:28) and Who rules all things for His glorious purposes. In those purposes, there is no luck involved.

Celtic Proverbs
Trifling is each person when compared to God.

Many will say that it is the other way around, that the often irreconcilable differences between Christian and Muslim and Buddhist and Jew are proof that He is our reflection in a treacherously deceptive mirror. Implicit in this argument is the assumption that because God cannot exist in separate and perhaps contradictory forms, then He cannot exist at all. But the universe is a vast, unchartered wilderness itself laden with contradictions that defy human experience, and those who would tame it by stripping it of all intelligence but their own are themselves talking anthropomorphic nonsense, whoever or whatever their God may or may not happen to be.

R. Martin Helick, Travelers From an Ancient Land, Book XII, An Chros, (Regent Graphics: Swissvale, PA, 1993)

Celtic Proverbs
God’s grace is a worthy sustenance.

That God is at once extrinsic to us and immanent within us is an intuitive thing and must be taken on faith. Because there are many ways in which that immanence can be construed and because divine possession is to the ego as gasoline is to fire, innocent millions have been sacrificed in territorial disputes. It has been said that this tells us that the link between man and God brings nothing but trouble and should therefore be denied. But that is at best a pragmatic judgment, circumventing the truth that it is not God but man who does the mischief. And that it is not His grace that is the culprit but our blundering attempts to describe it.

R. Martin Helick, Travelers From an Ancient Land, Book XII, An Chros, (Regent Graphics: Swissvale, PA, 1993)

Reading
A Secular Faith: Why Christianity Favors a Separation of Church and State

DG Hart has written a new book, the title of which is identified above. I have not yet read the book, but there is a fascinating discussion about its premise on De Regno Christi [The Reign of Christ] website Dr. Hart explains the book thusly:

What A Secular Faith proposes to do is examine a set of assumptions about religion and American politics held primarily by Protestants. The book examines eight of these assumptions, identifies them with important historical figures, from John Winthrop and John Witherspoon to Martin Luther King, Jr., and George W. Bush, and shows how they developed among American Protestants as these believers tried to defend and maintain a Christian America.The first chapter accordingly begins with John Winthrop’s appeal to the biblical refrain of a “city on a hill” and examines the eschatology that has informed American Protestant appeals to their nation’s providential role in human history. The problem, as I see it, is that a flawed eschatology has resulted in two significant errors. The first is an identification of God’s redemptive purposes with the U.S.A. Although many Reformed Christians know better than to equate the U.S.A. with Israel, many Presbyterians do think of America in religious categories that fail to do justice to sovereignty and legitimacy of other nation-states, as if America were better because of its Christian heritage. A second and more important error has been to undervalue the institutional church as the locus of God’s saving work. Because of sufficiency of Christ’s ministry, God’s redemptive purposes are now being carried out not by Israel (or any nation) but by the church, a trans-national and spiritual institution.This does not appear to me to be a very controversial argument for anyone who has imbibed the redemptive historical insights of a Geerhardus Vos or a John Murray. And yet, recognizing that God’s saving work is now spiritual and not physical, ecclesiological and not civil, is a proposition that does not sit well with Protestants who continue to think in some way of America as a Christian nation

With the success at the box office of Amazing Grace, the ideas of how or whether Christians are to be agents of change in government [civil authorities] is certainly a topic of current interest. Darryl Hart poses 3 questions he thinks important for “laying down the gauntlet” of thinking on the 1st chapter of his book:

1] To what extent does eschatology determine one’s understanding of the relationship between church and state?
2] Is the idea of a Christian America a hangover of postmillennial optimism (with pre-millennialism being the pessimistic flipside)?
3] In other words, is the spirituality of the church merely the logical consequence of a-millennialism?

A while back I posted on millennial views. Darryl Hart proposed that millennial views have greatly influenced the way Americas look at their relationship to the civil authorities and maybe we must step back and see why Christians are deeply involved in politics and analyze if that is a proper response for Biblical Christians. Read the comments at De Regno Christi, you will find them fascinating.

Living in the World
Global Warming

Things are “heating up” in the global warming world. Al Gore is testifying today in the House and Senate. In commenting on Gore’s pending testimony, Czech President Vaclav Klaus warned in a response to Congressmen Dennis Hastert and Joe Barton:

It becomes evident that while discussing climate we are not witnessing a clash of views about the environment, but a clash of views about human freedom. As someone who lived under communism for most of my life I feel obliged to say that the biggest threat to freedom, democracy, the market economy and prosperity at the beginning of the 21st century is not communism or its various softer variants. Communism was replaced by the threat of ambitious environmentalism.

For President Klaus, green is red. As I wrote some time ago there is far from consensus on this issue of global warming. In Klaus we see someone who wants to look at the logical consequences of a knee jerk reaction to questionable data. It is amazing that in a world where there is no over arching truth, global warming joins evolution, cigarette smoking and sex and gender matters as the dogmas that are acceptable to the western cultural elite. Thank God for the eastern Europeans who are not yet infected with the political correct hegemony that is unquestioned in the west.

Living in the World
The god of Choice, Part 3

Over the years many arguments have been posited to support abortion. But, how can they stand the test of morality when a fully developed baby is dismembered or has his brains sucked out to end his life? There seems no restraint on the right to choose an abortion. And, for good reason…if we have the unfettered ability to create our own rights and society cannot morally restrain any such conduct, anything goes. Jeffrey Hart, Professor emeritus of English at Dartmouth, in a controversial article about conservatism, believes the abortion is now part of the fabric of America:

Roe relocated decision-making about abortion from state governments to the individual woman and was thus a libertarian, not liberal ruling. Planned Parenthood v. Casey supported Roe, but gave it social dimension, making the woman’s choice a derivative of the woman’s revolution. This has been the result of many accumulating social facts, and its results already have been largely assimilated. Roe reflected, and reflects, a relentlessly changing social actuality.[1]

Note that Dr. Hart believes that the individual, personal choice for a woman to have an abortion is a social fact that has been assimilated into our culture. We are a pro-choice people as a result of social progress. And, while the USSC may have engaged in judicial activism, they are reflecting the social trends.

While Dr. Hart is offering a political analysis, it is not entirely accurate. Roe was an exercise of raw judicial power in saying that the “right of privacy” yields the right to abortion on demand. It surely was not the will of the people and part of the social fabric of 1973. Is it now? If you watched Judge Alito’s confirmation hearings you saw the angst of pro-abortion folks. They know that abortion is not a social given. It is a product of an imperial judiciary that had been more and more brought under scrutiny. And the idea that abortion is a result of a revolution that will not be turned back is, well, fragile prophecy. In the 1970s did anyone see the Communist Revolution collapsing? No, but it still happened.

Since 1973, there has been an increasing uneasiness with abortion. The revolting nature of PBA and the cold calculation of pro-abortion folks to not give an inch in their “right to abortion” has caused many to reassess the issue of abortion on demand. For over thirty years now the philosophy of abortion has been constantly questioned in the marketplace of ideas. Furthermore, political power, judicial, legislative, executive or populist, can shape society but cannot determine morality. Abortion because of right and choice cannot be justified from a moral standpoint no matter what the USSC says. Abortion is the icon of a philosophy that enthrones choice as god. And whether or not Roe is eventually overturned, that philosophy will remain until it is replaced by an ethical system based on the transcendent morality of the real God. Unless or until that happens, America will continue to worship the god of choice.

[1] WSJ Opinion Journal, December 27, 2005 (www.opinonjournal.com)

Living in the World
The god of Choice, Part 2

Abortion is a philosophical issue, not a biological one. All that is required for a conceived child to be born is time. Just as all that it takes for a twenty year old to become twenty-one is time to pass.

Smith puts the real issue as follows:
We don’t disagree about abortion as mush as we disagree about the value of individual rights and what the “quality of life” is all about and whether human life itself is accidental and therefore disposable or sacred and therefore inviolable.[1]
Most pro-choice advocates do not see abortion itself as a good thing. Even Bill Clinton, our strongest pro-choice President, desired abortion to be rare. But, unfortunately, he did nothing to bring about such a result. The issue over abortion is power and politics…choice. Abortion is not a good thing, but the right to an abortion is. That is very odd logic. The thing itself is evil but the authority to do the evil is good.

That is why it is disingenuous to posit that “I do not believe in abortion, but who am I to say a woman should not have an abortion.” If it is wrong to abort a baby, is it not wrong for everyone? Here again, moral right or wrong is no longer perceived as indicia for determining the validity of a choice. If so, some choices may be proscribed by an ethical system that overrides an individual’s preference. And, that is clearly outside the purview of personal choice.

The USSC has also weighed in on this issue of legislating morals. In fact, there is doubt whether there is room for any legislation of moral behavior in this republic. Citing the dissent of Justice Stevens in Bowers v. Hardwick, Justice Kennedy for the majority in Lawrence v. Texas (striking down the Texas statute criminalizing sodomy), the case that overruled Bowers, states:
..the fact that the governing majority in a State has traditionally viewed a particular practice as immoral is not a sufficient reason for upholding a law prohibiting the practice.[2]
One can only imagine what conduct heretofore adjudged morally abhorrent will some day be deemed “a personal, intimate choice central to the dignity and liberty of the actor.”

The USSC has eliminated morality as an objection to abortion legislation. We see this in the especially gruesome partial birth abortion (PBA) controversy. Even the AMA recognizes PBA is different from other abortions because the fetus is “killed outside the womb”.[3] Yet, five Justices struck down a Nebraska PBA law in Stenberg v. Carhart because it contained no exception for the “health of the mother” and because it “imposes an undue burden on a woman’s ability to choose an abortion. In the Congressional fact finding that accompanied the passage of the Partial-birth Abortion Ban Act of 2003, it was determined that PBA is never necessary to protect the health of the mother. Three Federal District Courts have enjoined enforcement of the law and the Eighth Circuit in Gonzales v. Carhart held that the federal law criminalizing PBA is unconstitutional because it lacks a “health of the mother exception” in spite of the Congressional findings.

[1] Ibid, p. 264.
[2] For a more complete discussion of the impact of Lawrence and how, in the view of Justice Scalia, it could be the death knell of all legislation based on community standards of morality, see William C. Kriner, “When Rights Become Wrongs”, SGM Magazine, Vol. 1 No. 4 (January 15, 2005).
[3] Two procedures are used in PBA. Dilation and Extraction (D&X) is where the abortionist pulls the child from the cervix intact, subsequently using instruments to “extract the intracranial contents” of the child by collapsing the skull prior to delivery. Dilation and Evacuation (D&E) occurs when the abortionist uses medical instruments to pull the child from the uterus through the birth canal and while being forcibly removed from the mother the child, due to the fragility of its tissue, is ripped apart. Both of these procedures are used to abort in later stages of pregnancy.

Living in the World
The god of Choice, Part 1
[This is the first of three parts of an article that first appeared in the SGM Magazine.]


Isn’t life about choices? We choose our President, our deodorant, our spouse, our lifestyle and our values. And this idea of choice in all things includes moral decisions. Choice makes no distinctions and is all about immediacy and pragmatism. Choice is the perfect moniker for the “me generation”.

In his book, When Choice Becomes God, F. LaGard Smith sets forth how personal choice becomes the credo of a valueless society:
Having no grand vision about what life is all about, we are reduced to making ad hoc decisions based on opinion polls, media propaganda or unabashed self interest. Without a given worldview consensus, which he Bible once provided, social dialogue is without anchor. [1]
Choice is about the exercise of the radical individualism that permeates our society today. To be pro-choice is to be pro-me.

Nothing is more representative of personal choice than abortion. In fact abortion proponents have for years adopted the label pro-choice. It certainly sounds better that pro-abortion. But the gist of the position is that it is the mother’s right alone to choose whether to have an abortion. Aided by the United States Supreme Court (USSC) abortion has been the centerpiece of the choice agenda.

In Roe v. Wade, the USSC determined in 1973 that a women’s fundamental right to an abortion is inherent in the constitutional “right to privacy”. As the whole world knows, the word “privacy” is not in the US Constitution. It is a construct of the USSC. In Planned Parenthood v Casey, the court revisited Roe 19 years later. It reaffirmed the “privacy right” to an abortion as a fundamental right, but readjusted how to review abortion cases. Instead of the trimester tests of Roe, the court adopted the “undue burden” test. Government action to restrict abortion is an “undue burden” if it purposes or effectively places a substantial obstacle in the woman’s path to an abortion.

In revisiting abortion, the court also tipped its hand as to what lies behind this right to abortion:
These matters, involving the most intimate and personal choices a person may make in a lifetime, central to personal dignity and autonomy, are central to the liberty protected by the Fourteenth Amendment. At the heart of liberty is the right to define one’s own concept of existence, of meaning, of the universe and of the mystery of human life. [Emphasis added.]
For the USSC, ‘privacy’ means that every person is entitled to his or her vision of what is right and proper and may act on such views. For the USSC, choice by an individual is god.

In reality, the pro-choice position buttressed by the right to privacy the court opines we all possess as a constitutional right is the only avenue available to abortion supporters. If a biological standard is used to determine whether abortion is legal, the debate is over. Dr. Jerome Lejeune, Professor of Genetics at Medical College of Paris, France, who discovered Down’s Syndrome, testified in the Judiciary Committee hearings of the US Senate when they were considering The Human Life Bill, S-158, in the 97th Congress of the United States, 1st Session, 1983, Vol. 1, p. 8., as follows:
If a fertilized egg is not by itself a full human being, it can never become man, because something would have to be added to it, and we know that does not happen.

[1] F. LaGard Smith, When Choice Becomes God (Eugene, Or: Harvest House, 1990), p. 35

Living in the World
Wow...aid from unusual quarters

In truly amazing developments, even the "liberal" press seems to be accepting the fact that the Jesus' Tomb story is at best a publicity stunt or at worse a hoax. The Washington Post carried a headline "Lost Tomb of Jesus Claim Called a Stunt"!!! The author of the story, Alan Cooperman, has this quote:

Scorn for the Discovery Channel’s claim to have found the burial place of Jesus, Mary Magdalene and — most explosively — their possible son came not just from Christian scholars but also from Jewish and secular experts who said their judgments were unaffected by any desire to uphold Christian orthodoxy.

Seems as if everyone has caught on, already. Read the entire story at www.washingtonpost.com

The Old Grey Lady even gets into the act. In a story by Laurie Goodstein, she quotes Lawrence E.Stager, the Dorot Professor of Archeology of Israel at Harvard:

This is exploiting the whole trend that caught on with ‘The Da Vinci Code. One of the problems is there are so many biblically illiterate people around the world that they don’t know what is real judicious assessment and what is what some of us in the field call ‘fantastic archaeology. [Emphasis added.]

Read the whole story at www.nytimes.com

Imagine the NY Times quoting a source that says one of the problems in discerning the modern gnosticism flowing from the Da Vinci Code is Bible illiteracy! They did and they are correct. This has to be sweet music to the ears of my friend Woodrow Kroll who has been trumpeting the problem of Biblical illiteracy for years. If Harvard and the NY Times recognizes the problem, why don't Christians and the church? If you want to know more about Dr. Kroll's Bible Literacy Center and his campaign against Biblical illiteracy, go to www.bibleliteracycenter.com

By the way, even though the "gig is up" on this matter, the irrepressible James White has started a blog section to deal specifically with the Jesus Tomb "facts" at http://aomin.org/index.php?catid=21 [In today's entry he sites Ben Witherington, a site we gave you yesterday.] White's apologetics are second to no one and even if this attack on the Christian faith has almost passed into the dust bin of history before it is even shown, you may want to arm yourself for the next anti-Christian follies to surface.

[This post is reproduced from http://sgmmagazineblog.blogspot.com]