New Years Day Message: State of the Church 2023
Introduction
As the Christian foundations of our society continue to crumble, animosity is the inevitable result, because in this New World that Christ rules, there is no other integration point, no other peace, no other fellowship. It is literally Christ or nothing. But this doesn’t stop rebellious men in their pride from forging false integration points, politically, culturally, or racially, but since they are all idolatrous rivals to Christ, they will only succeed in deforming men, inciting malice and envy (Ps. 115:8).
Our presbytery recently adopted the following statements in order to address some of the dynamics of our current situation, proposing them to the full CREC to be adopted as memorials:
On Ethnic Balance
We believe the human tendency to congregate around shared affections is natural and can be good—it creates the blessing of cultures and subcultures, for example. But as with all natural goods in a fallen world, there is a temptation to exalt it to a position of unbiblical importance, thus making it an idol. While an ethnic heritage is something to be grateful for, and which may be preserved in any way consistent with the law of God, it is important to reject every form of identity politics, including kinism—whether malicious, vainglorious, or ideologically separatist/segregationist.
On Anti-Semitism
We believe the conversion of the Jews is key to the success of Christ’s Great Commission, and it is incumbent upon us to pray and labor toward that end. While, apart from Christ, the Jews are as all others––alienated from God—they have remained an object of God’s care because the gifts and calling of God are irrevocable. God’s plan for converting them is for them to see Gentile nations under the blessings of Christ’s lordship, thus leading them to long for the same. Hence, the cancerous sin of anti-Semitism has no place in God’s plan.
The Text: “And Jesus answered him, The first of all the commandments is, Hear, O Israel; The Lord our God is one Lord: And thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart, and with all thy soul, and with all thy mind, and with all thy strength: this is the first commandment. And the second is like, namely this, Thou shalt love thy neighbour as thyself. There is none other commandment greater than these” (Mk. 12:29-31).
Rightly Ordered Loves
What we are currently witnessing is a complete disintegration of Christian love and loyalty, and so right on schedule what is beginning to emerge in various quarters are reactionary false forms of love and loyalty: for some time now, statism, socialism, and multiculturalism (unity through government programs and sentimental/gnostic love, “love is love”) on one side and in reaction to that idolatry, a return to the “old gods,” age old ethnic pride, racialism, segregationism, and prejudice on the other side (unity through blood and genes and soil, which is it’s own kind of sentimental/gnostic love, albeit a bit more tangible). So we really have to think and act like Christians, refusing to budge to the headwinds of statist multiculturalism, while refusing to give an inch to reactionary idols. And this means keeping the Bible central and what the Bible says about love and loyalty central.
Biblical love is treating others lawfully from the heart. And Augustine’s definition of virtue as “rightly ordered love” is inherent in being created, finite creatures. We cannot love everything and everyone infinitely; we must choose and calibrate our loves. We must love some things/people more and others less. Sin is disordered love: loving evil or else loving something good too much or too little. Our loves are ranked in the greatest commands: we must love God first, above all else, heart, mind, soul, and strength, and then we must love our neighbors as ourselves (Mk. 12:30-31, cf. Lev. 19:17-18, 33-34). Jesus is teaching this same ordering of loves when He insists that loyalty to Him and His people must rank over our own families and will sometimes even appear as a hatred of them or even your own life (Lk. 14:26, Mt. 12:48-50, Lk. 12:53).
But that ranking cannot be understood as a simplistic abolition of natural loves: Jesus also affirmed the fifth commandment over certain church fundraising programs (Mk. 7:10-12), promised to abundantly restore families and lands to those loyal to Him (Mk. 10:29-30), and honored His own mother greatly (Jn. 19:26-27). Jesus taught a covenantal ordering of loves.
Many modern Christians when faced with a wayward family member compromise their loyalty to Christ and His Word, buying the lie that holding that line means “hating” their family. On the one hand, Jesus clearly taught that following Him would sometimes seem “hateful” (Lk. 14:26). On the other hand, rightly ordered loves insists on loving Jesus more, but that doesn’t mean you cannot also love unbelieving/wayward family members.
Jesus also modeled this in His friendships: He was closer to some disciples than others: the 70 were closer than many, the 12 were closer still, but Peter, James, and John were His closest friends, while John was His best friend. A certain sentimentalism resents this as “not fair” or even “hateful,” but this is the way God made the world. This applies to friends (Prov. 27:6, 17), marriage (Mk. 10:9), and children (Is. 49:15, Mt. 23:37).
Bitter and envious sentimentalism resents this and will eventually defend every form of treachery. We’ve seen this in the modern “Disney” gospels of “follow your heart.” If you disobey your parents, they will apologize to you and and everything will work out in the end – in children’s movies, but frequently adultery and fornication are justified by sentimental resentment everywhere else. Disloyalty to marriage covenants is justified because he/she just wasn’t happy, and they deserve to be happy. But disloyalty in the home can only cultivate disloyalty in a culture/nation. Jesus teaches the ordering/ranking of our loves, which includes our enemies, even unbelieving family. But this is not measured primarily by feelings, but by Biblical duties.
Learning to Love Rightly
Christ is the only true integration point of all things (Col. 1:20). But this reconciliation is not an obliteration of creational differences, loyalties, or loves. The fact that that there is neither male nor female in Christ Jesus does not abolish a husband’s duty to his wife; nor does his godly favoritism mean that he hates all other women.
In fact, the Bible insists that we learn love from the lesser to the greater, from the closer to the further away, from the more concrete to the more abstract. The right kind of love of self teaches us to love our neighbors, beginning with those closest to us (Eph. 5:28), and ultimately teaches us to consider others better than ourselves (Phil. 2:3). David says that he learned to trust in God from his mother’s breast (Ps. 22:10).
This covenant loyalty charges families to provide for their own before others, and so learn godliness and generosity there first (1 Tim. 5:4, 8), which, when done rightly, prepares justice, mercy, and hospitality for strangers and emergencies (cf. Lk. 10:25, Lev. 19:33-34). But it is not true love to give what you don’t have (2 Cor. 8:12). You should not give an extra tithe to the deacons fund that leaves you unable to pay your own electric bill. Bible says that we do bear one another’s burdens (Gal. 6:2), but it also teaches that this begins with every man bearing his own burdens (Gal. 6:5). And this includes the debt of love, beginning in your own homes.
Where these kinds of ordered covenant loves are despised, all talk of “love” is empty, aimless, selfish, and destructive. Just as you cannot really love God (whom you have not seen) if you do not love your neighbor (whom you have seen), neither can you love your neighbor whom you barely know if you do not love the neighbor who lives with you (1 Jn. 4:20).
Provoked to Jealousy
The Bible teaches that envy is the satanic lust at the heart of much animosity (Js. 4:1-5), and vain glory and pride often feed and provoke this bitter envy from both ends (Js. 3:14-16, Gal. 5:26). This can happen inside families and inside churches and communities between families. And it happens generally in the world. But the more faithful God’s people are in particular, the more provoked to envy their enemies will be (e.g. Gen. 26:14). We can expect that as God’s blessing continues to be upon us, there will be many who hate us for that reason, and so we should not be surprised.
However, there is also a godliness that provokes love and good works (Heb. 10:24, 2 Cor. 9:2). And of course, this is what we should be aiming for. We should be seeking to “outdo” one another in love and good works not for bragging rights or to intentionally provoke to fleshly envy but to provoke them to love God and their people better. We should love our people most with the goal of provoking others to love their people the most.
The Bible says that this is what God is doing with the Jews in particular, saving the Gentile nations first “to provoke them to jealousy” and “emulation” (Rom. 11:11, 14) “until the fullness of the Gentiles has come in” (Rom. 11:25). As it relates to the gospel, the Jews are no different than any other nation, but as it relates to covenant history, the gifts and calling of God are irrevocable (Rom. 11:29). Paul says, “For I could wish that myself were accursed from Christ for my brethren, my kinsmen according to the flesh… As concerning the gospel, they are enemies for your sakes: but as touching the election, they are beloved for the fathers’ sakes” (Rom. 9:3, 11:28). Paul’s example teaches us to hate what God hates (all vain glory, malice, lies, theft, unbelief, etc.) and to order our covenant loves faithfully (God, family, church, neighbors, nation, etc.). God is always first, and family is usually next, but if your family is unbelieving or there is an emergency, priorities must shift. And we owe different love/loyalty to different people depending on the circumstances, and what our duties are before God.
Conclusion
The vision in Revelation is of a great multitude that no one can number from every nation, tribe, people, language, standing before the throne worshipping the Lamb (Rev. 7:9-10) and the kings of the nations bringing the glory and honor of the nations into the New Jerusalem (Rev. 21:24-26). This vision is of a glory that is both one and many, with unity and diversity, but it is a unity that the Spirit achieves through a centrifugal love, beginning at the most local, the most intimate, and growing out from there.
No scheme of man can ever conjure this, and so we reject all identity politics: socialism, social engineering, racial vain glory, and all ethnic animosity. The gospel restores families and nations without putting them in a humanistic blender or coercing a false unity through superficial diversity (guilt manipulation, quotas, etc.).
True virtue is a rightly ordered love, beginning with your own people, gathered around shared loves, with worship of the Lamb at the center. So as we begin a new year, consider your own loves and loyalties. Are your loves ordered well? You cannot love everything and everyone the same, and God doesn’t want you to. He wants you to love obediently. Choose your loves, and then love your choices. But choose your loves obediently, faithfully, trusting that it is the love of God for You giving you these gifts.
Photo by loly galina on Unsplash
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