I horse whip an ignorant or just disingenuous 'Reverend', but it's OK, because I fear and reverence God alone...(call no man 'reverend')

Rev. Winzer writes:

"Now, if you would like to revise Kline's method of argumentation, and revert to a national probation that is different in nature to Adam's probation, then you are free to do so"

Meredith Kline wrote: "This history unfolds within the framework of the national covenant ratified at Sinai and (as we have noted) under that covenant continuance in possession of the typal kingdom was governed by the principle of works. Israel's situation was like Adam's in the creational covenant of works, Israel's probation, however, being corporate and continuing through their generations."

Yes, Israel's probation, however, being *corporate*... Maybe Rev. Winzer doesn't know that corporate here is legitimately a synonym for *national*, or maybe Rev. Winzer has never really read Meredith Kline, or perhaps Rev. Winzer has read Meredith Kline but had difficult understanding him, or, more likely, perhaps Rev. Winzer has read Meredith Kline and has chosen to engage in disingenuous confusion regarding what he has written so as to further his, Rev. Winzer's, chosen demands on biblical doctrine, the motivation for which being as covert as he seems to want it to be.

The Kline extract is from page 127 of his God, Heaven and Har Magedon. Read the rest of that chapter as well. If you have an interested in and actually value Federal Theology that is. Kline didn't invent it, by the way.

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I'm not going to again expose the blather of Winzer's claim that even a corporate probation for National Israel would be different from Adam's because at that point he just throws up a lot of magic dust knowing it will impress his rather slow and obsequious audience at the Not-Very-PuritanBoard forum. (John Flavel would be banned from that forum.) Here's an example of his magic dust:

"We do not need to go the length of Kline in order to validate the elements which have the appearance of works in the covenant with Israel. It suffices to say, with the reformed tradition, that certain elements of the covenant of works were republished in subordination to the covenant of grace. Not that this makes it an altogether unique covenant arrangement because the same elements are promulgated in the gospel, as Romans 2 teaches. The fact is that man was created under a moral order, and every administration of divine providence operates in accord with this order. The modern theory of republication partially chooses when to maximise that moral order and when to minimise it. In doing so it does not rightly divide the word of truth."

You see he snuck a little concession in there, but then he wants to say that the Covenant that Jesus came to fulfill is also then put upon Christians, which is not even an ad hoc hail Mary, but just a rank ignorant statement, if not malicious. It's not that people like Winzer don't understand the two Adam mechanics of salvation, but that he despises it. His fallen nature despises it. He rolls along in covert mode, but when the spirit of disobedience calls on him to repudiate crucial biblical doctrine he's right on cue. He is not alone, of course. The Reformed world is full of his type. They teach in seminaries, and they lead churches.

I really need to find my horse whip

Now, if you would like to revise Kline's method of argumentation, and revert to a national probation that is different in nature to Adam's probation, then you are free to do so, but then you would not be holding to the modern republication theory. A different kind of probation would lead to a different kind of covenantal arrangement, and that would only serve to undermine the idea that "the covenant of works" was republished.

This is asinine in many ways. 'Modern republication theory' is non-existent. Anytime you see someone referencing Kline regarding the republication of the Covenant of Works on Sinai (as if that is a controversial doctrine to begin with) you are dealing with a person who is hiding his motives in the dark and is ashamed of putting them on the table. Whether they be theonomists, or Federal Vision, or, in Winzer's case, a Federal Vision useful idiot because he has a taste for things Romish.

This is what happens when Christian environments ban anybody with a doctrinal I.Q. above two digits. You get the blind leading the blind.

By the way, the answer to Winzer's confusion in his last sentence is Jesus doesn't need a different covenantal arrangement. He is the second Adam. He came to fulfill what the first Adam failed to fulfill. This is a doctrine all useful idiots of Rome calling themselves Reformed hate. Just as you hate the fact that God is sovereign in regeneration, you hate the fact that Jesus fulfilled the Covenant of Works.

If I was in your church I'd toss you out by the back of your pants. And probably horse whip you for good measure.

Explaining the strange and mostly disingenuous non-understanding of the doctrine of the republication of the Covenant of Works on Sinai

I don't know why I do this, but this subject of the republication of the Covenant of Works on Sinai is just such basic Federal Theology, that the curious inability of certain infant baptism demanding Reformed types to grasp it suggests a bit of counter-Reformation aroma is in the room... Rev. Winzer commences:

Historical reformed theology taught the covenant of works appointed a representative head, Adam, who was placed on probation for himself and his posterity, and his fall issued in the condemnation of all who should descend from him by ordinary generation. The children of Adam are reckoned sinners by the immediate imputation of Adam's sin; they were not made sinners by their own probation and fall.

This is called stating the obvious. Thanks for the lesson, Mr. Winzer. You're making absolutely no point relevant to the subject at hand, but thanks for that basic point of Federal Theology anyhow.

The republication scheme allows a personal probation for Israel under the covenant of works, and thereby undermines the universal representative principle which is so pronounced in traditional reformed covenant theology. Says Kline, "The old covenant was law, the opposite of grace-faith, and in the postlapsarian world that meant it would turn out to be an administration of condemnation as a consequence of sinful Israel's failure to maintain the necessary meritorious obedience." He regarded Israel as undergoing its own probation, and falling in its own person, under a republished covenant of works. It was only on the basis of this personal fall of Israel that he could insist on the conclusion that the covenant made with Israel was one of works in contrast to grace: "A satisfactory explanation of Israel's fall demands works, not grace, as the controlling administrative principle." -- Meredith G. Kline, 'Answering Objections to the Covenant of Works,' in Kingdom Prologue, pp. 107-17. Available here: The Upper Register: Papers and mp3's by Lee Irons

If you don't distinguish between National Israel as prototype of the coming Messiah and individual Israelites who are fallen human beings and very much *not* prototypes of the coming Messiah. Yeah, if you don't do that then you have some degree of a point.

Here, then, is another serious departure which the modern republication theory makes from traditional reformed covenant theology. Whereas traditional reformed theology taught the universal nature of Adam's representation issuing in the condemnation of all men in him, the modern republication scheme makes Israel undergo its own probation and fall into condemnation. http://www.puritanboard.com/f31/dabney-broken-covenant-works-71844/

Rev. Winzer, in very much counter-Reformation Romanist priest mode, repeats his little poison pill word 'scheme' here.

No, Rev. Winzer, it's you who don't understand - or value - basic Federal Theology. Jesus was *born under the law.* Jesus came to fulfill what the first Adam failed to fulfill. Instead of Jesus not eating of the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil Jesus followed 100% what that command represented, and what was republished (not reestablished as a way of salvation for individual fallen man, but simply republished) on Mt. Sinai in obviously elaborated form.

National Israel as a prototype of the coming Messiah had the same role vis-a-vis the Mosaic Covenant that the coming Messiah, Jesus Christ, would have. It played out for National Israel as 'do the commands' and stay in the land, 'fail to do the commands' and get kicked out of the land. Just as it played out with pre-fallen Adam. Typically though as the prototype of the coming Messiah.

Individual Israelites were saved by faith in the coming Messiah just as we are saved by faith in the already come Messiah.

National Israel is a different player in God's plan of redemption than individual Israelites were. There are three unique players in God's plan of redemption: Adam in the Garden, National Israel, and Jesus Christ Himself. All three have 'federal head' connections, National Israel's being of the nature of a prototype of Jesus' federal headship.

The Covenant of Works, republished on Sinai, is a covenant of works for Jesus, and by that it is grace for us. I.e. in that sense it is part of the Covenant of Grace for us.

One last important point: this is all just basic Federal Theology. Those of us who can see it don't see it as controversial in any sense. It is just basic Federal Theology. Those who kick and scream and cuss and call it names like 'scheme' obviously have some other motivation. They obviously are fighting against something. And of the false teachers who attack justification by faith alone most subtly they are the very ones who deny not only a republication of the Covenant of Works, but they deny a Covenant of Works altogether. They don't want Jesus fulfilling anything for them or anybody else, because they want *all* in bondage to the death and darkness of the system of the Beast which is works righteousness. They want *you* to have to work for your salvation.

This is why the pure theology does not include infant baptism. Infant baptism downgrades and disdains not only regeneration by the word and the Spirit but the very notion - noxious to fallen man - of God being sovereign in regeneration. Once a person determines they have disdain for God being sovereign in regeneration and demands that ritual and man can and will take the place of the word and the Spirit they are then by default in the system of the Beast and little by little they will downgrade on every other Reformed doctrine central to the faith such as justification by faith alone, and the very existence of a Covenant of Works. You see it over and over and over in the Reformed paedo-baptist community. They are always leaning towards Rome, and because they don't want to come out of the closet totally they make their little stands on doctrine such as the republication of the Covenant of Work on Sinai.

Dave Armstrong Syndrome

I'm the first person to mock the shallowness of academia and academics including of the seminary variety. I'm the first to mock their self-assessed elitism, such as it is. I often refer disparagingly to the priesthood of scholars, and not just regarding modern Bible version issues.

But I'm seeing a lot of lunacy on the internet lately (and people will say I'm projecting, so be it, you should still be able to get something from what I'm about to say) regarding what I'll called Dave Armstrong Syndrome.

Dave, back when he was desperately trying to get Wikipedia to allow a page on him to stay up (which they eventually took down), kind of pulled me into the controversy (I forget how, but I have written several articles for Wikipedia which have actually had some staying power, many also which get nuked quick though), where I just off-handedly told the Wikipedia editor that Dave Armstrong considers his collected blog posts to be as world-historically valuable as the collected works of Luther and Calvin combined. That didn't help his case.

I'm seeing a similar lunacy in other quarters of the Christian blogosphere.

Now, I personally think Professor R. Scott Clark of Westminster Seminary California left the internet because he was seeing this same thing, from his own perspective. I know there was some unspoken thing that occurred where he apologized to his church and so on, but basically I believe, from what I observed over the years, that he left simply because of the lunacy of a thousand instant experts opining and getting to the point where they were showing a rather belligerent lack of respect for people like himself, and they were doing this on issues where clearly they didn't know what they were talking about. (The lack of understanding, persistent, petulant and pious lack of understanding, of law and gospel, the basics of Federal Theology itself, Meredith Kline in numerous ways, etc., is a constant amazement and frustration for many.)

So I listen to an interview where Frank Turk (he's really famous) of Pyromaniacs (a blog) is sounding like Dave Armstrong, or like he too has Dave Armstrong Syndrome. He's quoting the apostle Paul in a context that relates to him and his fellow bloggers ("People are saying, 'I'm of Frank Turk, I'm of Phil Johnson...'"), he's critiquing Reformed theologians on subjects he clearly doesn't grasp, and really has no value for (i.e. he's being a busy body outside his own stated camp).

We don't have a Magisterium in Protestantism, and we don't want one, but I, lowly street Calvinist that I am, beneath Bunyan in my formal education, feel the same frustration when I see slow-brains moderating forums and dictating to others on subject matter they clearly don't grasp. And further, being totally unteachable.

I'm just writing about basic Federal Theology. I understand it. I see the power in it. The simplicity in it. I'm able to come to terminal understanding of biblical doctrine. I can understand that others are still learning, or in different stages of coming into understanding of the whole, and thus not yet able to see the parts in relation to the whole, which is a good definition of understanding. The problem is the lunacy. The vanity. We have bloggers and forum moderators and commentators lecturing people who have written sound books on the subjects at hand, and - important point - they are lecturing from a position of ignorance, and doing it piously and belligerently and making themselves totally unteachable.

One thing I've always been is teachable. I've lost every argument I've ever had with Louis Berkhof, for instance, other than regarding infant baptism. I understand Vos, I understand Kline, and I know how difficult it is when you first encounter them, but there is a lunacy around these days where when you disabuse a person 20, 30 times on some point of doctrine or something they think about Federal Theology or Kline or whatever, where they are clearly just factually mistaken, or don't know the politics involved, or can't yet see the subtlety of the Reformed position, or something similar, and they come back as if you never wrote a word and they continue to lecture in their ignorance, you have to scratch your head and wonder if something else other than invincible ignorance is at work.

Addendum to the 'what Jesus means when he says sell all' post

And of course 'wealth' in the post [which I paste below for reference] refers to all that sustains a person in the Kingdom of Satan. If the root that sustains the plant is connected to the Kingdom of Satan that root has to be cut. That is hard to do. People don't want to do that. Jews especially seem to not want to do that.

It's fortunate if a person starts out poor and already a bit alienated from the world and gradually is drawn into the Kingdom of God; but those who are very fixed in their way of life and the sustenance of the Kingdom of Satan, 'rich' and 'fat' in their family and society and way of life and worldliness and mind and nature and all they've come to hold dear will have a more difficult time 'selling all' and following Jesus...

They can't, ultimately, unless God does it.

But this is why we should not envy the world or the 'successful' in the world, those fixed in the deadness and illusions and delusions of the Kingdom of Satan, and we should only put the highest value on regeneration by the word and the Spirit and glorifying God.

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[Title] What Jesus means when He says sell all you have and follow Him

This biblical insight was derived from a memory of seeing a Jewish man in a Christian bookstore looking at the Jewish Messianic books, and looking furtively at all the Christians in the store. Messianic Jews recognize Jesus as Messiah, but they still don't associate themselves with Christians. They maintain a boundary there.

The insight: when Jesus tells people (Jews) to sell all that they have and follow Him it comes across as if Jesus is saying poverty is part of following Him and part of the faith.

Yet at the same time there are passages that say when you believe on Him you won't suffer worldly needs and you will have access to all God has ultimately.

So here is how to see it. That Jewish man in the Christian bookstore has derived his wealth, all he has, from his people and culture, ultimately. Jesus is saying the fount of that wealth is the Kingdom of Satan (and I'm not associating Jews particularly with the Kingdom of Satan, all who are not in the Kingdom of God are in the Kingdom of Satan, but with Jews it's a pronounced example). It is *that* that the Jew must give up. Wealth from the Kingdom of Satan. Sustenance from the Kingdom of Satan. Sell *that.*

That Jewish man though is very reluctant (scared, as we all are) to give up his wealth, or the source of his wealth (even if he's a low level accountant in his uncle's warehouse company). When you leave your family you leave what sustains you. All that you know. So he sees a necessity to maintain that boundary between him and Christians in general. He doesn't want to stop being a Jew because he doesn't want to give up what the Kingdom of Satan has given him and keeps giving him.

When you become a Christian you go through a process where you separate from even your own family.

You say: "All that is death." And you move in the direction of God.

Two facts that give big insight into death but that are not talked about much

If one is pondering the mystery of death - and the reality of something beyond - there are two facts about it that are big facts about death but that don't get talked about much.

1. The fact that people don't freak out when they die. This is a telling fact. Of course each dying person is in a different condition and situation, pain, medication, the amount of time leading up to the moment of passing - if any time - and all that, but all in all we all (as we get older) have seen people on their deathbeds, and for the most part people don't freak out that they are dying or will imminently die. We also see a lot of evidence that they are being conditioned for the moment of passing. Maybe consciously in some cases, or maybe only just unconsciously, but there seems to be a real conditioning from beyond the veil that occurs.

2. The fact that very elderly people (with exceptions, yes, but generally speaking) become more childlike the more frail and elderly they get. This fact is big because it shows the cycle aspect of human life. And when we see cycles in nature we see that life doesn't end at the end of a cycle. And this childlike nature of elderly people is given away also by the unconscious behavior in other people regarding how they talk and react to the elderly person. A young woman at a cash register will unconsciously talk to a very elderly woman as if she were four years old. "And how are *you* today? You're looking very sharp. Out and about in the sunshine?" etc.

What Jesus means when He says sell all you have and follow Him

This biblical insight was derived from a memory of seeing a Jewish man in a Christian bookstore looking at the Jewish Messianic books, and looking furtively at all the Christians in the store. Messianic Jews recognize Jesus as Messiah, but they still don't associate themselves with Christians. They maintain a boundary there.

The insight: when Jesus tells people (Jews) to sell all that they have and follow Him it comes across as if Jesus is saying poverty is part of following Him and part of the faith.

Yet at the same time there are passages that say when you believe on Him you won't suffer worldly needs and you will have access to all God has ultimately.

So here is how to see it. That Jewish man in the Christian bookstore has derived his wealth, all he has, from his people and culture, ultimately. Jesus is saying the fount of that wealth is the Kingdom of Satan (and I'm not associating Jews particularly with the Kingdom of Satan, all who are not in the Kingdom of God are in the Kingdom of Satan, but with Jews it's a pronounced example). It is *that* that the Jew must give up. Wealth from the Kingdom of Satan. Sustenance from the Kingdom of Satan. Sell *that.*

That Jewish man though is very reluctant (scared, as we all are) to give up his wealth, or the source of his wealth (even if he's a low level accountant in his uncle's warehouse company). When you leave your family you leave what sustains you. All that you know. So he sees a necessity to maintain that boundary between him and Christians in general. He doesn't want to stop being a Jew because he doesn't want to give up what the Kingdom of Satan has given him and keeps giving him.

When you become a Christian you go through a process where you separate from even your own family.

You say: "All that is death." And you move in the direction of God.

The lower order is not the real order

If you don't understand my writing (or John Bunyan's, for that matter) the lower order needs to be provoked by the higher order.

Yes, you've got a lot of sub-normal cases at the lower order who need some sort of basic treatment in a 'church', but the faith is not just defined by the sub-normal or the average (the good, upstanding family types who think producing children makes them righteous). That level really isn't even the true level of the faith.

This is not to say the higher order aren't sick cases. We all are.

One thing that distinguishes the higher order though is unlike the lower order we know our own smell. We know we are sinners, and we know sin isn't cool. We don't define our sin in terms that the world would smile at as if it were something cool. We actually know we are sinners, and that we smell, and that that smell is not a good smell.

A worse smell - far worse - is the smell of people who smell like the worst untreated bacterial infection yet who consider themselves to smell like roses. Meet the lower order.

How do you enter the higher order? You separate from the world. From 'all you hold dear.' You actually engage the word of God as if it is something higher than you. You get it into you complete. And you go on pilgrimage. And no you don't have to trek over deserts and mountains. That is thinking too literally. You cast off your worldly shell and you begin to develop your essential being, and you get your vanity and pride and self-will beaten to a bloody pulp in the process.

Practically speaking you can start this process by engaging influences that you, in your current fear of man, would never think of engaging. Influences just above your current level of understanding, just outside your current circle of interests. Music, art, religion in general, history, philosophy, imaginative literature, science...anything in those general categories. Throw in some performing arts, athletics... Sounds simple, but you really have to engage higher influences. Kind of systematically, until they begin to 'take'. Until they actually form a center in you. Until you value such influences and the direction they lead you in and what they lead to more than you value food, sex, money, and mother-in-law.

These influences contain in them by degree - greater or lesser degree - an even higher influence. You will discern the higher influence by following bits and pieces of ideas and images that occur and recur as you further engage these influences. It eventually leads you to a school, or school knowledge.

Doing this will make the people around you do a double take, then begin to get angry at you, to make accusations against you, to revile you. Then you kind of know you are on your way. You know you are now leaving the camp of darkness and stepping into the light. This makes the world very angry towards you. They'll even try to kill you. But you will have some degree of protection, hopefully. In God's providence he probably hasn't set you in the midst of a Muslim family in an Islamic hell hole, or something similar. So with the word of God, the living word of God, the Sword of the Spirit, you will have some protection.

You'll need more guidance than this note, but you get that on the Way...

What is a real Christian? Read on...

A mark that an era of the faith has downgraded to the level of decadence is those among the faithful who are the most shallow - and the most proudly and unself-consciously shallow - will become the leaders and the educators.

What is a real Christian? Allow John Bunyan to show you.

I recently heard a podcast of two Christian educators and a pastor talking about Pilgrim's Progress. At one point one of them, the pastor, stated that Palace Beautiful was the most "wonderful depiction of church"... No, Bunyan conspicuously didn't portray any church in Pilgrim's Progress. The closest depiction of a church in Pilgrim's Progress is the feckless people sitting docilely outside the gates of heaven waiting for their name to be called so they can get their paperwork all in order *by the authority* of the little man sitting at the table *putting fear into them.*

So what happens? What then happens is a knight in black armor appears, and to the anger and embarrassed astonishment of the feckless pew dwellers sitting there, the knight in black armor draws his sword and takes out the guards in front of the gates of heaven and forces his way through those gates.

Then what happens? Yes, the feckless, angry, embarrassed pew dwellers to further incense them hear *cheering* from within the gates of heaven.

That knight is a real Christian, and it's a fair statement to say it was the *first time* those feckless pew dwellers had ever been that close to a real Christian.

Legalists are silly, and they suck

What a dour, unpleasant, and ridiculous atmosphere legalists create:

http://www.puritanboard.com/f25/what-wrong-tim-tebow-71689/

Someone calls them on it - a woman, oh, my! - and the moralators come out of their dark closets slamming down angry decrees and warnings.

Glowering eyes and low whispers... "We must not suffer this to be..."

No, sorry, we see you. You suck. And read Revelation. Jesus thinks you suck too.

Found a connection between C. S. Lewis and Ouspensky

Anybody who knows Ouspensky and who has read C. S. Lewis knows Lewis got a great many insights from Ouspensky (and the body of writings generally on the subject of what is called the Work).

This is from the book Planet Narnia: The Seven Heavens in the Imagination of C. S. Lewis by Michael Ward:

"He [Lewis] was a keen amateur astronomer who had a telescope on the balcony of his bedroom and enjoyed visiting the Oxford observatory. He knew about such things as Venus' Albedo and was conversant with the broad outlines of the work of such figures in astronomy and physics as Schiaparelli, Ball, Jeans, Eddington, Schrodinger (his Magdalen colleague), and Hoyle, as well as that of more speculative writers such as Dunne, Abbott, Hinton, and Ouspenski."

In a footnote I was led to a book called We Remember C. S. Lewis (ed. Graham):

http://www.amazon.com/We-Remember-C-S-Lewis-Memoirs/dp/0805422994/ref=lh_ni_t

and was surprised to find that J. I. Packer apparently knew him (Lewis) and wrote an essay for the book. There is also another reference to Ouspenski vis-a-vis C. S. Lewis on page 112. Nothing more than a bare reference though.

I would suspect Lewis probably read New Model of the Universe and perhaps Tertium Organum, though many of his deeper and more striking insights obviously come from Work ideas that Lewis recycled in non-Work language.

And those reading this who have no idea what I'm talking about should probably stay far away from anything written by Ouspensky or any other on-the-mark source for such a teaching that he presented. Very dangerous. I'm speaking out of school as it is. Lewis never spoke out of school, but I probably can get away with it, having .0000000000000000000000000001% the audience he had.

An Open Letter to Chris Caughey

Don't fear the word of God, child. You've stepped out of Rome's building; now step out of Rome's shadow.

(This is in reference to this silliness: http://www.scribd.com/doc/70593703/An-Open-Letter-to-Micah-and-Samuel-Renihan )

Cornering Rome

Responding to this:

http://www.puritanboard.com/f31/kingdom-covenant-71536/#post915133

Rev. Winzer responded with this:

In effect, modern antipaedobaptists have etherealised "covenant;" relating kingdom to that etherealised covenant requires the antipaedobaptist to etherealise the kingdom. That is all that is accomplished by the OP. As an exercise in consistency it has gone a long way towards accomplishing its goal. As an incorporation of biblical and dogmatic theology, however, it is disastrous. In terms of biblical theology, the Davidic covenant is the covenant of the kingdom. One must neglect that important development in order to tie covenant and kingdom together from the beginning of revelation. In terms of dogmatic theology, "the kingdom of God" has always been understood as being connected with the visible church in some way. Even the modern modifications of it accept a partial connection. An etherealised kingdom which relates to an etherealised covenant destroys the claim of the church of God on earth to serve a kingdom which is in the world but not of it.

You're right, Rev. Winzer. Rome is not going to be pleased with this turn of events.

(Having said that, I must also state that the author of the post linked above, in rather uncharming man-fearing fashion, threw too many bones Rome's way in the last portions of his post. Anyway, I must also say, this is a step in the right direction, overall, but these guys have further to go. Kingdom, warfare, holiness. They don't involve things you can touch, or eat, or have sex with. Think about spiritual warfare. Rome and its unconscious followers would mock the biblical teaching on spiritual warfare as 'etherealised.' Right, because we must actually burn people at the stake if we are to engage in spiritual warfare. Right? Right.)

Interesting note on Christianity and Greek myth

W. H. D. Rouse wrote a popular book on Greek Myths titled Gods, Heroes and Men of Ancient Greece. I would describe him as an 'old hand' type who was competent in portraying such a thing as Greek myth. I recommend his little volume (only a penny for a used copy on Amazon) for just getting a good rendition of all of Greek myth. But anyway, he had an interesting note in his one-page introduction regarding how Christianity relates to the Greek myths. Of course I'll preface this by saying the Apostle Paul in the 17th chapter of Acts tells the Greeks that he saw their monument to the 'Unknown God' which he told them was the real Creator of Heaven and Earth.

So anyway, he is describing the family of Olympians, the generations before them, and their progeny:

"And all these [Olympians, lesser deities, heroes] were themselves subject to something higher than themselves, which they called Necessity. It is this highest power of all that we call God, and the Greeks were feeling their way towards it, but they thought less about it than they did about the lower powers. These stories [the Greek myths in general] concern these lower powers and how they were mixed up with mankind."

I thought that was interesting because I'd never come across 'Necessity' as the highest power in Greek myth. I might disagree somewhat with Rouse when he says the Greeks were "...feeling their way towards it [God]..." I suppose they were in a way, but rather I'd say they were remembering collectively like reflections through broken shards of glass the truth they had with them in their heart and with them in their collective memory as they migrated, as all people did, from the handed down truth coming from the immediate descendents of Adam.

A thought on the Bible

After reading the Bible complete so many times I am beginning to reflect on thoughts and feelings I've had and have about it.

For instance, I really got angry reading through the history books this last time. I now know why. They are an ongoing depiction of fallen man being fallen man. Those depictions are designed to turn you to Christ and away from your own fallen self-will.

You probably don't need to be exposed to that particular message after you have understanding of it, but that takes a few or more complete readings, so exposed very fully you will be.

The books of the prophets too suffer from this intended limitation, they being commentary on the history books pretty much. And they really hammer points home. Repeatedly. Over and over. Quite a lot. No mistaking the message. If you didn't get it the first go round, then...the seventy-third will nail it down. (I am not mocking them or the style of them, but I am saying that once you have engaged them rather fully and gained real understanding of them then their work may have been accomplished as well.)

The mystery school is of course in the Gospels and Epistles. In everything, of course, but I mean blatantly there.

Another thought I've had today is how we need to remember that our business is really with death and warfare and where we stand and what we stand upon from here on out. These three realities I listed awhile back, kingdom, warfare, holiness, gather it all up rather completely I think. I mean soteriology is in Kingdom, in the sense that being a legal subject of the Kingdom of God involves all that soteriology is. Warfare and the subject of holiness - Christ formed in you - follow.

The end point is death or the Second Coming, and our ability to stand, and the degree of that ability. Yet with the call to watchfulness, and the fear of God alone, eschatology is a present-tense reality always.

Connecting the history of redemption and biblical doctrine to secular history and human nature

It's the usual condition of a Christian to have a vague theoretical/philosophical connection to the faith overall, and to kind of put off that fact and just accept it as the reality of what we are to experience in this life.

We sense the bigness of what we are involved with, but the banality of existence is pretty big too.

One way to get beyond such a thin connection to the history of redemption and doctrine is to connect the history of redemption to secular history and to see doctrine in human nature itself, including your own.

Like seeing animal sacrifice in pagan culture. Why is Odysseus depicted as sacrificing bulls to appease Apollo in the Iliad? The answer is obvious, because the culture that created that epic poem was seeing through a glass darkly and had pieces and parts of the history of redemption, just as all religions and ways and philosophies and so forth have pieces and parts of the truth, not knowing - seemingly not curious - where they came from.

Seeing all the evil in the world - and in ourselves - is similar. An unregenerated person doesn't even want to think in the categories of good and evil and so forth, so the greatest horror shows of evil can pass before their very eyes and it doesn't leave an impression. But a Christian can use the existence of evil to truly 'see' doctrine in action. Original sin. The Kingdom of Satan. Idol worship. Human suffering and death as sacrifice to the idols. Getting expiation of guilt from the idols. Etc. We can see these things in real time, in real history, all around us, and in us.

So in this sense World War II, for instance, becomes a vast pageant of false religion in action; a hallucinogenic horror show of fallen human nature and the forces of the Kingdom of Satan (with the forces of liberty, by the way, not surprisingly represented by the Christian nation and company of nations of America and western Europe).

And the Law becomes a monster of collective force, acting through collective and individual fallen humanity, increasing sin and the power of sin, an actual substantive force, accusing, shaming, policing, while all the while self-justifying the breaking of every commandment brought down by Moses.

And the features of our fallen nature, within us, acting as the corresponding 'reins' the world and the Devil use to direct us and so on.

We're in it. See it around you. See it in you.

Atheists perplexed other atheists are shallow

http://secularright.org/SR/wordpress/2011/11/13/the-idea-of-meaning-or-something/