There is a fundamental principle of dominion in the Bible:
dominion through service. This principle is understood well by the
modern welfare State. The politicians and planners recognize that
the agency that supplies charity in the name of the people will
gain the allegiance of the people. So, they “serve.” And so they
gain dominion…

Unfortunately, Christians have not understood this link between charity and authority. They have time and again fallen into
the trap that snared Ahaz: alliances with the enemy.

Someone must be in charge. There is no escape from responsibility.
When people are needy, or fearful, or desperate, they seek
protection. Who will give it to them? And what will the protector,
the benefactor, ask in return?

This is why the question of the responsibility for charity is ultimately
a question of authority. And this is why the issue of charity
is such a volatile issue. At stake is ultimate control over the society.
For that men will go to war.

Thus, the battle for the control over charity is very similar to a
military campaign. And God’s people are warned repeatedly by
God: make no alliance with foreign gods. Make no alliances with
the enemy.

George Grant, “In the Shadow of Plenty”, pp. 40-41

Remy Wilkins recently proposed a thesis about serpents and dragons in the Bible. Is there a difference? Are the words interchangeable? And even if they aren’t, how are these animals–and the spiritual truths they were created to represent–related?

This post has been slain and resurrected for inclusion in my 2015 book of essays, Inquietude.

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Kelby Carlson has asked me to have a go at the structure of Psalm 23.

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What the Bible’s matrix teaches us is that if we are faithful to the Covenant Ethics, we are not only under a “light yoke,” but God eventually hands us the kingdom on a platter. Faithfulness is conquest.

Very often, obedience seems to be the exact opposite of what we think should bring about the desired results. But that is the wisdom of men, and the glory achieved is always short-lived. They have their momentary reward, and sometimes it is a head on a platter.

Lasting glory takes time, but God uses that time to build the eternal prize. At the last, all the things the nations sought for, struggled for, even murdered for, will be handed to the faithful on a platter, just as the Lord gave Canaan to Israel, and the Father gave the kingdom to the Son.

God Himself deals in securities and futures, in “fine gold,” and those who inherit it are qualified by the Ethics of the Covenant. They disregard the temporary glories offered by the world and await something that is permanent (Matthew 6:30-34).

The temptation we face in every sphere is impatience, the result of an ingratitude founded in the slander of God. Any attempt to seize for ourselves what we have been given as stewards is an abuse of the hierarchical nature of the world, whether it be silver and gold, or the exploitation of the helpless. Evil men turn the Covenant shelter into a den of thieves.

Jeffery Ventrella writes:

If theonomic postmillennialism is true—and it certainly is—then what differences here and now should this conviction make in the lives of Christians and their churches? What should be the character, and what should be the conduct of a professing postmillennialist?

…Unfortunately, theonomic postmillennialism has been maligned and even slandered as promoting either some form of social gospel or a “Jewish dream.” Nevertheless, the expositors and defenders of this optimistic eschatology have ardently underscored the gospel’s predominance in advancing God’s postmillennial victory. Indeed, the gospel’s priority in postmillennial eschatology has been set forth with utter and unmistakable clarity…

Nevertheless, it is one thing to accurately profess postmillennialism; it is quite another to practice it, that is, to function in terms of its implications. To rightly practice postmillennialism requires that one promote the primacy of the gospel. The gospel is not to be treated as a “spare tire,” simply annexed to the SUV’s of our lives and then hastily grasped only during dire emergencies.

Changing the metaphor, the gospel is not simply the “door” to a new home, something quickly left behind as one proceeds into the living quarters of the house. Rather, the gospel is life itself and it is something that needs to be preached to oneself, even (especially) after one “gets saved.”

Far too often, those holding theonomic and postmillennial convictions have expended time and effort on society’s transformation, but have neglected the cause and foundation for that transformation: the gospel. They have focused on the desired effect, rather than cultivating the necessary cause.

It is no coincidence that John Owen, the craftsman of the explicitly postmillennial Savoy Declaration, rightly warned: “He who has small thoughts of sin never has had great thoughts of God.” The gospel matters. Only a great God can transform a fallen society, a society overrun with sinful men. Yet the Lord has chosen to do just that—by the gospel. The gospel must therefore be primary, not only in theory but in practice.

The Lord in this day has graciously rekindled the vision and hope of optimistic eschatology. This generation’s postmillennialists must therefore grasp the heart of that eschatology, the transformational gospel of Christ. By the power of God, through means of God’s grace is how the serious theonomic postmillennialist operates, therefore he must promote the primacy of the gospel. Absent that emphasis, priority, and passion, one is not a true postmillennialist; rather, he is simply a vain moralistic pretender…

…true postmillennial zeal promotes the primacy of the gospel. The cross is foundational to God’s eschatological victory; in fact, the cross guarantees eschatological victory. Correlatively, theonomic postmillennialism also demands that one demonstrate evangelistic and missiological zeal as well.

Thine Is The Kingdom: Studies in the Postmillennial Hope, pp. 194-195 (edited by Kenneth Gentry). “Ventrella challenges postmillennialists themselves to commit anew to evangelism, missionary endeavors, and other practical applications of our hope. And he urges us to engage the cultural influence of our hope with an appropriate, God-honoring, Christ-glorifying humility. As an insider committed to theonomic postmillennialism, Ventrella calls upon fellow Reconstructionists to Christ-likeness in their pursuits, noting that too often our heavy-duty theology can lead to heavy-handed treatment of others.”

or Calling Security

NOTE: THIS POST HAS BEEN REMIXED AND INCLUDED IN GOD’S KITCHEN.

Years ago, I remember a preacher listing for his audience all the sins that will make you prematurely old. I figured the second part of his sermon to us would be a list of all the benefits of Christian living that keep you young. Well, they are obvious. Don’t tick the boxes in list one. Very wisely, that’s not what he gave us. He listed all the things the Lord expects of us, things that also make us prematurely old. His point was, grow old doing good, not evil.

Tying this to Jordan’s Bread and Wine theology, we understand that bread is made to be broken. Proud young men and women (as we were when I heard that sermon on growing old) won’t stay that way. They will be broken. But one life offered can feed five thousand.

The media sells us a lifestyle of security. This is not biblical prudence. It is paranoia, a worldview without faith, where God and His people cannot be counted on to come to the rescue. The Bible is full of leaders and institutions who pulled back from being broken. God has no pleasure in them. It is the Tabernacle of Lamech, the Temple of the Herods, a hoarded bread that God fills with worms. Bread is not eternal. It is expendable.

Worldly dreams will be shattered. Christ calls us beyond that, to an expectation that we will be broken and poured out. In fact, He calls us to look for opportunities to become prematurely old, to lay down our lives for the next generation. We understand this of parenting. Do we understand this of discipling others?

I’m not talking about pastor’s burnout. Paul knew how to disciple and delegate. Discipleship was a buffer against burnout. For sure, he had his failures, and he excommunicated them to bring about repentance. I’m talking about being a human shield, as Jesus was, standing between the curse and the cursed.

Adam’s sin, as a proud young man with faculties even our most gifted youths can only dream about, was believing that he wasn’t expendable. The single Law called him to be broken under it when tested. He seized a false security instead of becoming security. He was to be a priestly guard, a human firmament, a watchman, cut by the Word to create a safe place, a Holy Place. His failure made us into slaves. As Doug Jones observes, the next question for everyone who is redeemed, in every possible station of life known to human beings, is “Whose freedom are you?”

Calculated risks are the order of the day. As with the Christian life, we don’t set out to build a tower without adequate preparation and prudence. In parenting, in discipleship, we plant with an expectation, not a guarantee, of an increase. My point is that life in the flesh is expendable. Whatever we choose to spend it on, it will be spent. That is its very nature. It was never supposed to last, not even in Eden. The natural would become spiritual. But the path to glory, to security for others (those in the house) and spiritual offspring (bringing in those outside the house), is expensive.

As a perceptive pastor once said, “If you want to be a highway into the kingdom for other people, don’t be surprised when you get walked on.” And as my grandfather said, “The trials of life will make you bitter or better.” Either way, you are food.

“And I will very gladly spend and be spent for your souls;
though the more abundantly I love you, the less I am loved.”
2 Cor 12:15

The world sells us on youth and security, the glory of fresh bread somehow kept in suspended animation. But the world doesn’t even believe the lie, not in the end, when the eulogies are read. When there is no reason to lie any more, even the world recognizes lives spent in such an honorable way.

“Cast your bread upon the waters, For you will find it after many days.”
Ecclesiastes 11:1

Amongst all the recent calls to be “radical,” security is actually good. That question, “Whose freedom are you?” helps us to discern between the guilt trips and the true calls to service. God doesn’t call us all to live on the edge. There’s nothing wrong with living a life of quiet faithfulness and nurturing of others. We all have different gifts. Sometimes it takes more courage and strength to be non-radical. [1] Whether it’s being radical, or just teaching your kids the Bible and being faithful at work, at home and at church, the goal is a legacy in history for God.

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[1] See A Tale of Two Brothers.

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The new atheists believe Christianity is a wet paper bag, and they are intent on punching their way out of it. They don’t understand that Christianity is the source of blessing, and that through their unbelief they are its bastard (or mutant) children. They are unlike the old atheists. Their moral outrages are not at all consistent with their nihilistic beliefs.

The truly evil are the ones who do understand the integrating, empowering, culture-building force of Christianity, and shamelessly steal it for their own ends. Satan knows the Scriptures. His policy isn’t scorched earth. His desire is a thorny crop of his own, and for that he must imitate Covenant hierarchy – a totus Diabolus. An authority structure has the potential for far more carnage than anarchy does, especially one with a dictatorial “Covenant succession” built-in.

It is a strange fact that many tinpot dictators, many terrorists, many proponents of promising but destructive modern philosophies, were products of a Western education. Or is it so strange? Counterfeiters invest a lot of time in studying the real tender before they manufacture their own currency, otherwise their plans will fail. The finished product is identical but for two things: the source of authority (Head); and the end result on the community (Body). Gary North writes:

“Satan needs a chain of command in order to exercise power. Thus, in order to create the greatest havoc for the church, Satan and his followers need to imitate the church. Like the child who needs to sit on his father’s lap in order to slap him, so does the rebel need a crude imitation of God’s dominion theology in order to exercise power. A child who rejects the idea of his father’s lap cannot seriously hope to slap him. The anti-Christian has officially adopted an “anti-lap” theory of existence. He admits no cause-and-effect relationship between lap and slap. To the extent that he acts consistently with this view, he becomes impotent to attack God’s people.

This means that with an increase in epistemological self-consciousness, the ethical aspects of the separation become more and more fundamental. Not logic but ethics is primary. Reprobation is by ethics, not logic. Thus, the increasing epistemological self-consciousness on the part of the power-seeking unbeliever does not lead him to apply Satan’s philosophy of ultimate meaninglessness and chaos; it leads, him instead to apply Satan’s counterfeit of dominion religion, the religion of power. He can achieve power only by refusing to become fully consistent with Satan’s religion of chaos. He needs organization and capital — God’s gifts of common grace — in order to produce maximum destruction. Like the Soviet Union, which has always had to import or steal the bulk of its technology from the West in order to build up an arsenal to destroy the West, so does the satanist have to import Christian intellectual and moral capital in order to wage an effective campaign against the church.

This is the key point in my argument against Van Til’s view of common grace. First, the Christian exercises dominion by becoming epistemologically self-conscious, meaning morally and logically consistent with the new man within him, and therefore by adhering ever more closely to God’s law. Biblical law is the covenant-keeper’s fully self-consistent tool of dominion.

Second, the covenant-breaker exercises power by becoming inconsistent with his ultimate philosophy of randomness. He can commit effective crimes only by stealing the worldview of Christians. The bigger the crimes he wishes to commit (the ethical impulse of evil), the more carefully he must plan (the epistemological impulse of righteousness: counting the costs [Luke 14:28-30]). The Christian can work to fulfill the dominion covenant through a life of’ consistent thought and action; the anti-Christian can achieve an offensive, destructive campaign against the Christians – as contrasted to a self-destructive life of drugs and debauchery – only by stealing the biblical worldview and twisting it to evil purposes.

In short, to become really evil you need to become pretty good.“

Gary North, Dominion and Common Grace: The Biblical Basis of Progress, p. 130-132

or Commanded, Not Controlled

“Josiah was eight years old when he became king, and he reigned thirty-one years in Jerusalem… And he did what was right in the sight of the LORD, and walked in all the ways of his father David; he did not turn aside to the right hand or to the left.” 2 King 22: 1-2

As a very young Christian, I remember being disappointed that the Spirit of God didn’t immediately make obedience to God’s Law easier, well actually, totally easy. Getting into Jordan et al opens up to you the biblical theme of maturity, of God’s desire for us to become wise judges, turning neither to the right nor the left. This takes practice (Hebrews 5:14).

The apostles’ use of the words “obedience” and “disobedience” when it comes the gospel is mysterious to many evangelicals. Is this not works?

“Therefore, King Agrippa, I was not disobedient to the heavenly vision…” Acts 26:19

“Then the word of God spread, and the number of the disciples multiplied greatly in Jerusalem, and a great many of the priests were obedient to the faith…” Acts 6:7

“But they have not all obeyed the gospel. For Isaiah says, ‘Lord, who has believed our report?’” Romans 10:16

We use passive words like “receive” and “accept.” I have heard God’s work in us described as a hand in a glove. That’s exactly what I was looking for — an overridden will. But that short circuits God’s work of maturity. Yes, He works in us, but as A. W. Tozer observed somewhere, He never works in us against our wills.

The only instant change of this nature is at death, and as Jim Carey’s Riddler wisely observed, when given the opportunity to kill an unconscious Bruce Wayne: “Don’t kill him. If you kill him, he won’t learn nothin’.”

The New Testament uses the words obey, obedient and obedience a lot. The New Testament history is a replay of Genesis 6 and its consequences. Jesus and Paul align the Jewish leaders with the sons of God and the Gentile believers with Noah’s animals who willingly submit.

At the bottom of this confusion concerning grace and obedience is ignorance of the structure of Biblical Covenants. This has transformed much of evangelicalism into something new entirely, and tainted the church’s witness and credibility. Phillip Carey, in his new book Good News for Anxious Christians: 10 Practical Things You Don’t Have to Do, calls this distorted thinking “the new evangelical theology.”

The Obedience of Faithful Servants

It’s a good thing to be given good work to do, and the new evangelical theology tries to deprive us of that. It tries — and fails, because it is fighting against God. But what it’s trying to do nonetheless does real harm. It causes us to forget the dignity we have as creatures made in God’s image, and the authority he has given us over the world he has created (Gen. 1:26). Our authority is meant for the good of other creatures, and we will be held responsible for how we use it. Yet it is a good gift, leading not just to our honor, but to the honor and glory of God. And it is a gift which the new evangelical theology would refuse. This rejection is disobedience and it is bad for us.

The problem, it seems, is that we hardly understand obedience anymore. We talk as if it means letting someone else do things (“let go and let God”), or we replace it with unbiblical words like “yielding,” where the idea is you yield up” your heart and will to God. The word “yield” came into the new evangelical theology from the King James Version of the Bible, where one way of describing obedience was to “yield your members” — which means the members of your body — to God, as in Romans 6:13. In more recent translation the passage is rendered, somewhat more accurately, as “present your members” — it’s actually the same word used a little later when Paul tells us to “present your bodies a living sacrifice,” in Romans 12:1.

This unbiblical talk of yielding your heart or will makes no sense of the fact that we irrevocably have hearts and wills of our own: we can’t simply bypass or get rid of them. Obedience does not mean surrendering or yielding up these parts of ourselves, which lie at the core of who we are, but rather using them. We are to use them to do what our Lord commands, like a servant eager to use his mind to learn how to invest his talents well.

Obedience does not mean letting the master do your work for you — it means doing the work he’s given you. It does not mean yielding up your will, but willingly doing what he’s commanded, like a faithful servant or a loving son. Obedience is for responsible adults, such as the son who goes to work in his father’s vineyard (Matt. 21:29) or the servants in the parable of the talents. These servants are slaves, owned by the lord (the original Greek of the parable makes this unmistakably clear) and yet they have dignity and authority, being given control over their master’s property. For a slave to be a slave in the ancient world did not mean you had to be miserable and unimportant, as if you weren’t human. The slaves in the parable of the talents are powerful people, and their obedience is the loyalty of people in a position of high authority, ruling over other servants in the household.

This is the very heart of dominion by Covenant. Obedience is not a drag. It is a privilege, an opportunity to reflect the glory of the obedient Son in Whom the Father delights. And it is a challenge, the flaming sword handed to us as a tool that will continue to fill the world that was spiritually “without form and empty” until the incarnation.

The good news is that those in whom the Spirit of God dwells will persevere. I’ve seen many godly people fall away over the years. I don’t know what went on inside them. What I do know is what goes on inside me. My understanding of the grace of God, and my own “scumhood,” grows daily. Often it all seems too hard to keep fighting, but there is something in me that won’t let me quit. I am constrained, held in orbit, by the love of Christ.

God will complete the work begun in you. It is all of grace because — and I personally testify to this — He gives us a miraculous desire to please Him. It is personal. The obedience-to-death of His Son for us constantly disarms us, and the church multiplies that obedience, responding as a bride to a bridegroom. A response is not passive but active.

Full preterist Samuel Frost has kindly reviewed the book:

Mike Bull recently sent me a copy of his book, Bible Matrix: An Introduction to the DNA of Scriptures, 2010, Westbow Press. Peter Leithart, who I began reading when studying the book of Samuel, writes the introduction. Leithart, as many of you may know, is a close student of the works of James B. Jordan, who is perhaps closer to our view than most, but nonetheless stays within the “orthodox” limits.

I like patterns. I believe the Bible is built on patterns (tupos, or “types”), and that’s exactly what this book is about. “Genesis 1 is the Bible Matrix. As it matures throughout the Scriptures, the identification of this pattern unlocks the book of Moses, Israel’s history, the structure of Jesus’ ministry and the book of Revelation… It also has staggering implications concerning the identity, purpose and future of Christianity…” (15). Amen. God has taught us in the historical unfolding of the Bible (its stories) how He acts, why He acts, when He acts and how we are supposed to act as a result. For me, as a preterist, God doesn’t “cease” acting this way in A.D. 70.

Now, of course, Bull is an “orthodox preterist”. But, this should not deter one from buying the book. It has much to offer in the way it is laid out, and the structuring of the biblical feasts, types, patterns consistently run throughout the book. The contents takes their cue from Bible history, climaxing in the Church. The feasts, furniture of the temple, and many other “patterns” are applied throughout to the people of God. Bull is very much “dominion” oriented (read, postmillennial), and I think does a good job at showing that it is the purpose of His people to take dominion over creation. Through the continual appeals to the patterns, by the time one gets to the end of the book, it becomes clear what this purpose is, unless, of course, God changed everything in A.D. 70 and no longer acts in the way that he has repeatedly revealed; that is, according to His nature. Of what benefit would it be for God to reveal himself over thousands of years in the Bible, only to say, “okay, now I am going to change, but for the next several thousand years, I am not going to reveal anything else.” The point of having revelation “cease” is precisely because he has already revealed all that we need to know! And, as Bull has shown, all that we need to know (the Bible) is framed in terms of patterns (typology).

There are, according to Bull, three, seven-step patterns: creation, dominion and festivals. These three are divided into seven steps which are all formed in a chiastic structure. The organization of the material helps one to “see” the patterns in the Bible and to begin to read the Bible accordingly. I recommend, then, this book. Of course, in the bibliography, Bull cites Jordan’s Through New Eyes, which, when I first read it (when it originally came out), it changed everything for me. Theology was not something only intellectual, but also intellectually visual – a seeing in the mind’s eye. This allowed for the conceptualizing of a “covenantal world” within “the world”. The covenantal world (“the world above”) must be understood not so that we can escape the world below (creation), but so that we can have dominion over creation through the proper understanding of the purpose of creation (Gn 1). If these concepts are ever split apart so as to have no relationship together in the Redemption, then some form of Gnosticism or Escapism will result. Bull ever keeps our feet grounded while he soars the clouds of the spiritual. You will do well to get this book and read it. Cultivate its fruits in your own studies. There is much to glean from it.

bmxreview