Reciting biblical truths to oneself

[In email I was talking to someone about the power of reciting the truths of the Bible and biblical doctrine to oneself in everyday life...]

>I do that too actually [S. responded]. One line I often repeat to myself is "God created the heaven and the earth." I say it to myself, I think because its a foundational statement that there IS meaning in life, a purpose.

This is important. Because it's sooo easy to slip back into thinking the usual hazy nothingness about everything. Or falling into the temptations atheists try to mock everybody into thinking. Plus there is the ever-present embarrassment in believing the Bible. Or being 'ashamed' of faith, Jesus Christ, the Bible, all of it. That is the word the Bible uses. The apostle Paul even feels a need to say he is not ashamed of the gospel of Christ. Because that is something that sort of rides us. Fear of man. Fear of what others think of us. I also think there is a big fear (for me anyway) of other people losing their valuation for it all, so I am hesitant to sound too 'Christian-y'. I feel that way when I write emails to you guys too.

But overriding it all is not fearing man. That fear keeps me from being in the third state [a Fourth Way term, basically being consciously present in real time everyday life] as well. I've always said when you fear God alone you don't fear man. Then the other day I came across this quote which is similar: "The fear of God is the death of every other fear; like a mighty lion, it chases all other fears before it." —C.H. Spurgeon

- C.

Pure Covenant - Federal - Theology really coming into focus in all its power

I found this to be on-the-mark:

Reformed Baptist Covenant Theology and Biblical Theology - Micah and Samuel Renihan

I've recently also read Brown and Keele's newly published intro to Covenant Theology titled Sacred Bond which I found to be in its own way on-the-mark and very useful for an introduction. I say in it's own way because it harps on the doctrine of infant baptism which is foreign to the Bible, and which distorts Covenant Theology.

The reason though why I found the link above on-the-mark is an understanding of Covenant Theology can be classical and pure Federal Theology without making it the servant of the unbiblical doctrine of infant baptism, and that is what the Renihans have presented. They understand historic, classical Covenant - Federal - Theology, unlike proponents of 'New Covenant Theology' or dispensationalists who have lately discovered that there are covenants in Scripture and have set out to reinvent the wheel and correct and teach everybody while treating historical Reformed covenant theology as if it doesn't exist.

Unfortunately, to disabuse paedo-baptist Reformed Christians of their belief in the doctrine of infant baptism you really have to go at it from the angle of the subject of regeneration, and they demand that subject be off limits. In fact that is where the anger of Cain rises in them (which should be a clue to them that they are off-the-mark).

Ultimately they demand that man have control of regeneration rather than God. They unconsciously detest that regeneration is monergistic. They want regeneration to be effected by man and ritual rather than the word and the Spirit. This demand is, to make an understatement, rather foundational, and leads to deadness in their churches and in their Christian lives. It also leads to an under-valuing of the word of God which manifests in many ways not least of which is a curious laziness in proclaiming it, word for word, to make the call that is potentially effectual in God's elect in the world. They tend to stay snug inside their church's four walls waiting for another birth within their congregation (with attendant baptism) to grow the visible church, or their visible church. It also causes them to look down on the Bible as if it is a mere document that needs them (scholar, pastor-scholar) more than they need it. Which places quite a filter of pride and vanity and self-will between them and the living word of God, which in turn keeps them from what regenerates when regeneration is potential in them.

A belief in infant baptism is either a direct, daylight, front-door demand for the wholly unbiblical doctrine of baptismal regeneration, or it is an indirect, night-time, back-door demand for the wholly unbiblical doctrine of baptismal regeneration. And the way they have to distort biblical doctrine (Covenant - Federal - Theology) to get it in the door amounts to false teaching, which is why they are so ever-vulnerable to attack from actual false teachers such as the current Federal Vision types (and going back in history all false teachers and teachings that ultimately want to do away with justification by faith alone). You can't be in the Covenant of Grace and not in the Covenant of Grace at the same time, boys. But to learn more on that read the link above.

The striking language of cosmoses in biblical doctrine

It is worth remembering that Biblical doctrine, Biblical language, reveals strikingly a language of cosmoses.

This is not explored by theologians of any era, that I know of.

Jesus' language is clear, though, when you are aware of the language of cosmoses. I in He, and you in Me. I the Branch, you the vine. Being cut from one source and connecting to another source.

The closest I've seen is Puritan Thomas Watson and John Calvin referring to man as microcosmos.

But the language of Jesus is clearly the language of cosmoses. Obviously the Kingdom of Satan and the Kingdom of God are different cosmoses in this real sense. We are born connected to the former, and become connected to the latter by regeneration.

And the life source is talked of. Jesus being a fountain of water and life that never ceases. That is cosmos talk. Energy that emerges from out of the inside of a cosmos. Drink from Me and you will never thirst.

This presence of the language of cosmoses is a striking thing to see and remember.

An email on sundry things

I hope **** is feeling well. Somebody can get under the weather in a thousand different ways and you never know it in cyberville. I'm thinking more that perhaps he overdosed on 20th century evil reading that Max Hastings book [Inferno]. I've just been looking at videos of Nazi medical experiments and executions and Liberian violence and on and on, and you can really overdose on such impressions. But use it to recognize the Kingdom of Satan that this world is. Use it to recognize the existence of evil. Use it to validate biblical doctrine.

Remember when we wake up we wake up to the fact that we are in a bad place, for the most part. This is partly why people don't want to wake up. In fact it's why they get mad when anyone tries to awaken them.

People can get overwhelmed by it all.

Notice how humans individually and as a mass just kind of pretend such evil is not real? I guess if it's not happening to us that is easy to do. Plus, it's easy to be ignorant of such things. Willfully ignorant or not.

It's a hellish thing. The victims become the victimizers. The torturers become the tortured. Up is made to be down, good is made to be evil. Everything arbitrary and helter-skelter.

I can feel such impressions in me now from watching them. I think I'm pretty immune, ultimately, though.

We don't want to play around with such influences too much though. Influences and impressions have effect. Positive ones have effect, negative ones. I know classical music has a real effect on me once I listen to it exclusively. Also, I always remember how the Homeric epics - violent though they are, still it's metaphorical of inner being and development - gave me a feeling of health and restart. That makes us sound robotic, but impressions are food, and we are discerning regarding what we eat, aren't we? - C.

Or I could just state that Christians are prophets, priests, and kings and leave it at that

Benjamin Keach wrote these points regarding the duties of church members to their pastor. They are wildly unChristian:

1. It is the duty of every member to pray for his Pastor and Teachers.

Regenerate Christians don't do things because someone says it is a 'duty'. Regenerate Christians do things because it is what they are. Apple trees produce apples, and not out of duty. Christians pray for others when they are inspired to pray for others, not out of some mechanical duty.

2. They ought to show a reverential estimation of them, being Christ’s ambassadors, also called Rulers, Angels, etc.

This is repulsive. Christians don't 'revere' man. Christians revere God alone. Reverence for man is a mark of a worldling living in deep sleep in the world. To fear and revere God alone comes with *not* fearing or revering man.

3. It is their duty to submit themselves unto them, that is, in all their exhortations, good counsels, and reproofs.

This too is silly. Christians don't submit themselves to any man, but to the word of God and their King. Regenerate Christians are prophets, priests, and kings. Any gathering of Christians must be a gathering of kings, i.e. equals. Usually on a battlefield. Metaphorically speaking.

4. It is their duty to take care to vindicate them from the unjust charges of evil men, or tongue of infamy, and not to take up a reproach against them by report, nor to grieve their spirits, or to weaken their hands (Jer 20:10; Zeph 2:8; 2 Cor 11:21, 23).

We all catch hell from the devil's children, don't we? We all experience false witness and have our glories turned to shame. It is part of the experience of being a Christian. Common-sense filters out the obvious attacks that are not true, and good will towards fellow believers plays a role in navigating such matters as well.

5. It is the duty of members to go to them when under trouble or temptations.

Go to a mere man? Why? And why a 'duty'? What is this view of pastors as some sort of higher being? This is truly repulsive.

6. It is their duty to provide a comfortable maintenance for them and their families, suitable to their state and condition.

Everybody needs to eat. Even higher beings.

7. It is their duty to adhere to them and abide by them in all their trials and persecutions for the Word.

Yeah, but trials and persecutions for the word and for being followers of Christ are not limited to pastors.

8. Dr. Owen adds another duty of the members to their Pastor, viz., to agree to come together upon his appointment.

Yes, a general rule is you need to leave a group if you have little or no respect for the teacher/leader of the group.

Capacity now and in heaven

"Your capacity for happiness in heaven is shaped by the development and refinement and depth of your capacity on earth. What we do now is not discarded once we enter eternity. What we learn now is not erased in heaven. Nothing in Scripture leads us to believe that everyone will be instantaneously, equally, and exhaustively educated at the inauguration of our heavenly existence. What we experience in joy and understanding and insight now is not destroyed, but is the foundation on which all our eternal experience and growth is based." - Sam Storms, Heaven: The Eternal Increase of Joy

From the book of quotes Eternal Perspectives, edited by Randy Alcorn

Another great intellectual and man of faith converts to darkness

Some guy named Tyler McNabb is advertising his conversion to Romanism. He lists his accomplishments in the faith in a blog post (the blog seems to have been taken down since) in which he seemed to have everything but regeneration. Which suggests he probably didn't have much living word of God. But, here is one thing he wrote:

"I had no idea that Calvin taught baptismal regeneration"

I actually don't know how someone could come to this conclusion based on Calvin's more known writings, but I always like to point out Calvin's 40th sermon on Ephesians written close to the end of his life. In it Calvin sounds like early Zwingli concerning baptism (it's for simple people who need the visual [paraphrase]). And he mocks rather forcefully any who would think ritual water baptism regenerates:

"In popery, baptism is like a charm, because they think there is no salvation, except by the water. [Y]et it is a diabolical opinion that baptism is able of itself to save us." John Calvin's Sermons on Ephesians, Banner of Truth, pg. 580.

It's really a bad joke that these new converts to Rome are considered newsworthy and that people mourn over them and so on because obviously they were never regenerated by the word and the Spirit to begin with. The problem in the environments they came out of is regeneration is considered a subject one is not supposed to talk about. It's how they protect themselves. Regeneration shows up the juvenile intellectualism and vanity that is rampant in Protestant Reformed circles, so they have to actually mock the fact of it (John Owen wrote about this long ago). This is also why they so easily turn away from the word of God as handed down in a received stream by the Holy Spirit Himself and so giddily embrace ever-changing bibles constructed by scholars. The word of God can't be something they look up to, but it must be a document they look down on and consider it to need them more than they need it.

Also, never (never) underestimate the possibility that people who convert to Rome are doing it because they lust for darkness to hide something that gives them more pleasure than following God.

Covenant Theology in one, easy, aggravated and with little patience left, post

It amazes me how rare a basic understanding of classical Covenant - Federal - Theology is. Perhaps it's because Federal Theology itself is not really very well understood, or maybe it's that it is not known that Federal Theology is Covenant Theology systematized.

Now we've got a movement of dispensationalists and former dispensationalists deciding that they are going to 'discover' the subject of covenants in the Bible, and they are going to explain to all of us just what it all means.

I.e. as if Reformed Theology (which is Covenant - Federal - Theology) has never existed.

This post of a review of one of these new books is a good example:

http://www.aomin.org/aoblog/index.php?itemid=5184

This is what happens when a person can't see the parts in relation to the whole (which is a practical definition of understanding of anything, seeing the parts in relation to the whole).

For instance, if you hold to a soteriology that is anywhere near Reformed soteriology, and yet you either don't see, or refuse to see, or don't see the importance of, a Covenant of Works in the Garden then you clearly are not able to see the whole. Not only that, but you are unable to defend justification by faith alone (and probably unable, ultimately, to even understand it).

Reformed theologians don't help. They are horrible teachers of Covenant Theology. When they're not petulantly using different terminology or denying one or another aspect, or, better yet, 'folding in' one big aspect into another yet never really mentioning it to their audience (folding in the Covenant of Redemption to the Covenant of Grace), again, when they are not doing those things they are flattening everything out in their presentation (as in systematic theologies) leaving the reader to see the significance of each data point and sorting it out by weight. I.e. a chapter on the Covenant of Works over here in this section of the ST, then a chapter on the Covenant of Redemption in a totally different section over there; then a chapter on the Covenant of Grace in a yet different section, just laying out the data, yes, in a logical, or systematic way, but still in a sort of raw material way putting the burden on the student to put it all together. Which is not a completely bad thing, but it doesn't make for wide-spread understanding of the subject.

The two Adams (Adam in the Garden, and Jesus Christ Himself) are the spine of Covenant - Federal - Theology. Jesus came to fulfill what the first Adam failed to fulfill. To get out of the maze and hall of mirrors commentators and theologians make of National Israel's role (regarding for instance the Mosaic Covenant) you just have to know that *National* Israel was as unique a player in God's plan of redemption as the first Adam and as the Second Adam Jesus Christ Himself was/is. National Israel was a prototype of the coming Messiah and was also given special roles by God that no other people have ever been given, such as protecting the Royal bloodline from Adam to King Jesus, and having their very history become the substance of special revelation (not to mention being the guardians of the written word of God). This is speaking of *National Israel.* Individual Israelites are like all fallen human beings, only being saved by justification by faith alone. So *National Israel* as prototype of the Messiah had a works relationship to the Mosaic Covenant (just as the incarnated Jesus did) that fallen individuals don't have. This is also why the Mosaic Covenant is a republication of the Covenant of Works. Jesus came to fulfil what the first Adam failed to fulfill. So do you think Jesus was supposed to 'not eat of the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil'? No, everything in that command God made to Adam was republished in obviously elaborated form on Sinai. Jesus was to be *born under the law.* That law was republished on Sinai. And I shouldn't even have to add this, but *it is part* of the Covenant of Grace that the Mosaic Covenant is a Covenant of Works *for Jesus.* And for the prototype of Jesus before His incarnation, National Israel. NOT INDIVIDUAL ISRAELITES. *National* Israel.

The three covenants - Covenant of Redemption made from eternity, Covenant of Works (in the Garden), and Covenant of Grace (which plays out in history) - are not equal in any way to the other covenants mentioned in Scripture. They are foundational. Once you see these three covenants as they relate to the two Adams, and as they relate to Reformed (i.e. biblical) soteriology, you see God's plan of redemption.