Bully's Blog

Under the title Baptism working against you…, my Presbyterian friend Uri Brito wrote:

“Reprobation is a real theological and biblical idea. It is directly related to the idea of apostasy. Apostasy is a real theological and biblical idea. It is directly related to baptism. In baptism, apostates find their worst nightmare. It is better to be baptized by a cult (which is an invalid baptism to begin with) than to be baptized by an orthodox Trinitarian church. The problem for the apostate with the latter baptism, is that they incur the full wrath of the waters. As Leithart writes: ‘Their baptisms are effective in being witnesses against them.’ Baptized apostates will receive what the Egyptian army received.”

How can an involuntary baptism be a witness against anyone? If I am in a coma for some reason on my wedding day and the best man has to make the vows for me, what sort of case are the witnesses going to have if I break those vows because I feel like I have woken up with Leah instead of Rachel?

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Related both to The Significance of Tubal-Cain and Schism or Resurrection?

With Tubal-Cain as an artisan of the false Tabernacle, Jubal becomes the music director. This Tabernacle is at Firstfruits in the Adam-to-Noah pattern, which means that to be true it should have been a tent of silence. The Tabernacle of Moses is silent because it sits and listens to God. It is the submission of the “head.”

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“There is a very important connection between the Church’s worldview and the Church’s hymns. If your heart and mouth are filled with songs of victory, you will tend to have an eschatology of dominion; if, instead, your songs are fearful, expressing a longing for escape—or if they are weak, childish ditties—your worldview and expectations will be escapist and childish.

Historically, the basic hymnbook for the Church has been the Book of Psalms. The largest book of the Bible is the Book of Psalms, and God providentially placed it right in the middle of the Bible, so that we couldn’t miss it! Yet how many churches use the Psalms in musical worship? It is noteworthy that the Church’s abandonment of dominion eschatology coincided with the Church’s abandonment of the Psalms.”

—David Chilton, Paradise Restored.

God calls a man (Ark/Light/Sabbath)

…..He is set apart and slain (Veil/Light-filled Cloud/Passover)

……….He is “resurrected” as food for others before God
……….(Altar & Table/Land/Firstfruits)

……………His witness to the Law fills others (Lampstand/Lights/Pentecost)

……….They grow into an army (Incense/Light-filled Clouds/Trumpets)

…..They are “resurrected” to inherit the Gentile lands
…..(High Priest/Mediators/Atonement)

God fills the new united kingdom (Shekinah/Global Light/Tabernacles)

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See Big Government for how the whole Bible follows this pattern as God’s mission.

Interesting stuff from James Jordan’s Trees and Thorns: A Commentary on Genesis 2-4

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“…swarmers-creepers are described as creatures that break the boundaries of human life and invade the human house, defiling the house.”

The first two of the four curses upon the serpent are found in Genesis 3:14. Only the serpent is directly cursed, and the word You is emphatic in Hebrew. The man and the woman are not cursed directly, but mediately through the soil, an important distinction that we shall address in due course.

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Fool’s Gold

An Atheist’s Praise of Evangelism in Africa

The Holy Headbutt

Die the Death of 100 Foreskins

The Three Shepherds – 1

The Three Shepherds – 2.

With Biblical Horizons, nothing is sacred. Or everything is.

Peter Leithart, Creation: Purity

Athanasius’ letter to Amun (354) is a meditation on purity. Defilement, he argues, occurs “when we commit sin, that foulest of things.”That is what Jesus meant when He said that we are defiled by what comes out – out of the heart.

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What was the Reformation?

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“The unity of Rome is the unity of unbroken Adam and unbroken Saul.
It is a unity that will not go to the cross to be broken and resurrected.
It is a unity that would not confess when confronted by Nathan.”

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Have been having some debate with Bryan at “Called to Communion” blog on the nature of the church. Was the Reformation a rebellious schism or did the true church outgrow Rome? No guarantees on my scholarship but here’s some large excerpts that might be helpful or at least thought-provoking. Mike in roman type, Bryan in italic.

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I agree with you that the Church that Christ founded is not “limited to any human institution”; we believe that it is a divine-human institution, because its founder is both divine and human. But its being a divine-human institution does not mean that it is a “merely human” institution, nor does it mean that it is not a human institution. To deny that it is a human institution is, in that respect, to deny Christ’s humanity. It is to assume (mistakenly) that the only kind of human institution there can be is a merely human institution. That’s like claiming that the only kind of human there can be is a mere human, not a divine human.

Before Jesus ascended, He gave the keys of the Kingdom to Peter. Christ still governs the Church, of course, but He does so through those whom He gave authority. That is why it is right for us to “Obey [our] leaders and submit to them, for they keep watch over [our] souls, as those who will give an account.” (Heb 13:17) That would not make any sense if only Christ governed His Church from heaven.

The church that Christ founded was not limited to any human institution as far as a centralised government goes. With the ascension of Christ, the government of worship by men moved from earth to heaven. It is now out of Satan’s reach and thus incorruptible. Local churches, as in Rev 2-3, are frequently assessed by Christ, and either nursed back to health, or, if consistently rebellious, he “snuffs” them out. Whether or not they remain as institutions, they are no longer part of the body – just as the cicada shell of Judaism is today.

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“The LORD will strike you with the boils of Egypt, with tumors, with the scab, and with the itch, from which you cannot be healed.”  Deuteronomy 28:27

The Bible matrix pattern brings out some interesting parallels. Step 5 is about a military multitude in unity after being tested under the Law of God. It is Deuteronomy. It is Trumpets. It is the swarms of fish and birds on Day 5. It is the step of plagues and plunder. It is the step where Jesus tells His disciples they will now need both swords and moneybags.

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Another quick thought on this difficult passage (previous post). Continue reading