Written by Barry Waugh, William S. Plumer |
Wednesday, January 3, 2024
From the day that Christ was born to this hour, all the desirable changes which have taken place in the world, either in persons or communities, have been in consequence of his incarnation and of his glorious progress in setting up his kingdom. So, shall it ever be. His kingdom is constantly enlarging. His diadem is more and more glorious. Every soul saved is a new jewel in his crown.

The following text is a transcription of the chapter, “The Incarnation of Christ,” from The Rock of Our Salvation: A Treatise Respecting the Natures, Person, Offices, Work, Sufferings, and Glory of Jesus Christ, written by William Swan Plumer and published by the American Tract Society in 1867. Dr. Plumer was a profuse writer and many of his works have gone unused, which is particularly a shame because his writing tends to clarity and simplicity due to his keen pastoral sense honed in congregations in Richmond, Baltimore, and other locations. In the transcription some information in brackets [ ] including thoughts on clarification; one paragraph in particular needed some enumeration of points. Brackets also are used for inserted source citations and Bible references.
The last paragraph of Plumer’s chapter comments regarding the practice of remembering Jesus’ birth annually; the post for December 21, 2019, “Incarnation, Archibald Alexander,” presented Dr. Alexander’s sermon, circa 1850, that concludes with thoughts on the same subject. You may want to read on this site the brief biographical post about William S. Plumer. Plumer quotes Jonathan Edwards, John Dick, Basil the Great, William Nevins, and Robert Hall. The chapter ends with Plumer saying, “It is, however, a significant fact, that God has concealed from us any positive knowledge of the day, the month, and even the year of our Savior’s birth.” The review by B. B. Warfield of a book about the history of Christmas also discusses the unknown date of Christ’s birth.
The header is from, The New Testament of our Lord Iesus Christ: translated out of Greeke by Theod. Beza ; with brief summaries and expositions upon the hard places by the said authour, Ioac. Camer., and P. Lofeler Villerius ; Englished by L. Tomson ; with annotations of Fr. Iunius upon Revelation, 1599, as on Internet Archive. I do not think I have ever seen “translated by” rendered as “Englished.” The portrait of Plumer is a copy given to me several years ago by Dr. C. N. Willborn, pastor of Covenant PCA in Oakridge and professor in Greenville Presbyterian Theological Seminary, South Carolina.
Barry Waugh
The Incarnation of Christ
by William S. Plumer
When we say, the Son of God became incarnate, we mean to say that he became the Son of man, taking to himself human nature entire. In the Apostles’ Creed this doctrine is expressed: “He was conceived by the power of the Holy Ghost and born of the Virgin Mary.” The Athanasian Creed says: “He is not only perfect God, but perfect man, of a reasonable soul and human flesh subsisting.” The Westminster Assembly teaches:
The Son of God, the second person of the Trinity, being very and eternal God, of one substance and equal with the Father, did, when the fulness of time was come, take upon him man’s nature, with all the essential properties and infirmities thereof, yet without sin; being conceived by the power of the Holy Ghost, in the womb of the Virgin Mary, of her substance. So that two whole, perfect, and distinct natures, the Godhead and the manhood, were inseparably joined together in one person, without conversion, composition, or confusion. Which person is very God and very man, yet one Christ, the only Mediator between God and man. [Westminster Confession, 8:2]
Respecting Christ’s human nature, many wild and dangerous opinions have been held; but these need not now be formally refuted. The proof of the true doctrine will be sufficient.
The union of Christ’s natures was formed, not by his humanity seeking to be affianced to divinity. This would have been presumptuous aspiring. But his Godhead sought union with manhood. This was infinite love and condescension. Christ’s human nature never existed separately, or otherwise than in union with his divinity. From his conception this union was complete. The pre-existent divine nature took to itself human nature. Christ’s human nature never had a personal subsistence by itself. So that Christ did not assume a human person, but human nature, “His person is not a compound person; the personality belongs to his Godhead, and the human nature subsists in it by a peculiar dispensation. The assumption of our nature made no change in his person; it added nothing to it; and the only difference is, that the same person who was possessed of divinity has now taken humanity” [John Dick, Lectures, v. 2, p. 20]. So that things done or suffered in either nature are ascribed to the one person, Christ Jesus. The properties of each nature are, and will ever continue to be, entire and distinct. Divinity cannot be subject to any change. Humanity cannot cease to be humanity, it cannot become divinity. The Creator cannot cease to be Creator. The creature cannot cease to be a creature.
This union of the two natures in Christ is not without some similitude in ourselves. In his constitution man has two substances, one a soul, the other a body; one spiritual and immortal, the other material and perishable. By their union, one of these substances is not changed into the other. They remain distinct even when united. Yet a man is one person, and not two persons. When we say, someone is sad, all know we refer to his soul. When we say, someone is muscular, all know we speak of his body. Yet in both cases we speak of the same person. So, Christ’s person is one, and not two. When he spake of himself he said, I, mine, me. When his apostles spake of him, they said, he, his, him. When we address him, we say, thou, thine, thee, Acts 1:24. The  Scriptures also use singular nouns respecting him, and call him a Prophet, a Priest, a King, a Shepherd, a Redeemer. The union of his natures could not be more perfect. It is personal, perpetual, indissoluble.
The Scriptures say, Christ was made of a woman. Human beings have come into the world in four ways. [1] The first man, Adam, the very fountain of human nature, had neither father nor mother. Neither man nor woman was the instrument of his existence. [2] The first woman, Eve, had neither father nor mother, yet she derived her nature from Adam, but in no sense from a woman. [3] Since the first pair, every mere man has had both father and mother. Yet none have denied that all these had human nature entire. [4] Jesus Christ had a mother, but no father according to the flesh, even as in his divine nature he had a Father only. He was made of a woman.
To be our Savior, it behooved Christ to have a human nature. His incarnation was fitting and necessary.
It was meet that the nature which had brought our ruin should bring our deliverance.
It was fit that the nature which had sinned should make reparation for our wrongs, and so should die.
This earth, which is the abode of men, not of God nor of angels, was the proper theater for the display of the grace, and mercy, and justice, and power, manifested in the life and death of Jesus Christ. He that was rich thus became poor that we, through his poverty, might be rich, 2 Cor. 8:9. In some respects, this was the most amazing step in our Lord’s humiliation. It is more surprising that a prince should marry a shepherdess than that, having made her queen, he should nobly protect and richly endow her, or even die in her defense.
Christ was made under the law. As to his divine nature, he could in no sense be under the law. He was the Lawgiver. He was God; God cannot live and act under rules fit for the government of creatures. If the Savior was to live under the law as a rule of life, and set us an example in all things, he must do it in a finite nature, and as his mission was to us, most fitly in our nature.
Besides, Divinity cannot suffer, cannot die. But by his incarnation, Jesus was made “lower than the angels, for the suffering of death,” [Heb. 2:9].
Thus, he was made under the law in the two senses of being voluntarily subject to its precept, being thus bound to fulfil all righteousness; and being voluntarily made under the penalty of the law, that he might taste of death for every man. He even obeyed the law of religious rites under which he lived. In his infancy he was circumcised. In his manhood he was baptized. He perfectly, personally, perpetually kept the whole moral law. He never sinned once, even by omission. And he freely placed himself, and lived and died, under the curse of the very law which he perfectly obeyed during his whole life. Edwards says: “The meritoriousness of Christ’s obedience depends on the perfection of it. If it had failed in any instance, it could not have been meritorious; for imperfect obedience is not accepted as any obedience at all in the sight of the law of works, to which Christ was subject. That is not accepted as obedience to a law that does not fully answer it.” [Works of President Edwards, v. 1, reprint of Worcester ed., 1844, 406]. The efficacy of Christ’s death depended on his dying in the room and stead of sinners, who were under the curse of the law. If he did not bear the curse for us, we shall surely be obliged to bear it ourselves.
Let us consider a few distinct propositions.

Prophecy required that Christ should assume human nature. It said he should be of “the seed of Abraham” and of “the seed of David,” Gen. 12:3,7; 17:7,8; Gal. 3:16; 2 Sam. 7:12; John 7:42; Acts 13:23; Rom. 1:3; 2 Tim. 2:8. Other predictions required that he should “at the latter day stand upon the earth,” Job 19:25; that he should have a body, Psa. 40:6 and Heb. 10:5; that he should hang upon his mother’s breasts, Psa. 22:9; and that his body should be dead, Isa. 26:19.

Yet still more clearly, the very first gospel ever preached, even in Eden, foretold that he should have a human nature, and that derived from his mother: “The seed of the woman shall bruise the serpent’s head,” Gen. 3 :15; and later: “Behold, a virgin shall conceive and bear a Son, and shall call his name Immanuel,” Isa. 7:14. So that the Scriptures would not have been fulfilled, if Christ had not had a human nature—a human nature derived from his mother alone. In prophetic vision, Daniel called him the Son of man, Dan. 7:13, 14.

These predictions have been fulfilled. The whole history of our Lord upon earth proves it. God has “sent forth his Son, made of a woman,” [Gal. 4:4]. In the New Testament he is often called a man. In the gospels alone he is more than seventy times called the Son of man. More than sixty times he gives this appellation to himself. The year of his ascension, Stephen saw him glorified and called him the Son of man. Sixty years later John did the same. The gospel of Matthew is styled “The book of the generation of Jesus Christ, the Son of David, the Son of Abraham.” John says: “The Word was made flesh and dwelt among us,” John 1:14. Paul says: “He took upon him the seed of Abraham,” Heb. 2:16. In his first epistle, 1:1-3, John expressly says that by three senses, hearing, sight, and touch, he and the other apostles had satisfied themselves of his incarnation.

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The issue arose because Greg Johnson, the Presbyterian pastor of Memorial Presbyterian in St. Louis who says he is homosexual but celibate, left the Presbyterian Church in America in 2022. Now his church wants to join the EPC. “That has stirred up all kinds of controversy because we’ve got some in the EPC that appear to be very open to bringing him into the EPC, and we’ve got other groups that are absolutely opposed to him coming into the EPC.”

A storm is brewing in the Evangelical Presbyterian Church (EPC) and a “meaningful group of churches” are considering other options, according to Pastor Nate Atwood, the pastor of St. Giles Presbyterian Church in Charlotte, N.C.
Atwood has been involved in the EPC since 1988 and held several leadership roles, including serving as moderator of the General Assembly. He says there is a “crisis of confidence in the current stated clerk, moderator, and leadership team” after an overture concerning same-sex-attracted pastors never made it to the floor of the General Assembly this summer.
Now an issue involving a Pittsburgh church—Beverly Heights Presbyterian Church—is raising more questions about whether the denomination is going to follow its original vision. Beverly Heights is trying to leave the EPC following the stated process, but has clashed repeatedly with the Presbytery, culminating in a civil suit.
According to Atwood, the original vision of the EPC when it was founded in 1981 was to be a Biblical, evangelical, constitutional, and Reformed denomination.
Recent events have raised questions about several of those commitments, Atwood explained, including whether denominational leaders will follow processes outlined in the EPC Book of Order.
An overture presented unanimously by the New River Presbytery—composed of 39 churches—proposed an amendment to the denomination’s Book of Government. “Men and women who identify as homosexual, even those who identify as homosexual and claim to practice celibacy in that self-identification, are disqualified from holding office in the Evangelical Presbyterian Church.”
The issue arose because Greg Johnson, the Presbyterian pastor of Memorial Presbyterian in St. Louis who says he is homosexual but celibate, left the Presbyterian Church in America in 2022.
Now his church wants to join the EPC. “That has stirred up all kinds of controversy because we’ve got some in the EPC that appear to be very open to bringing him into the EPC, and we’ve got other groups that are absolutely opposed to him coming into the EPC,” Donald Fortson, professor of church history and pastoral theology emeritus at Reformed Theological Seminary and long-time EPC member, told Christianity Today.
Normally, when an overture is presented, it goes to the permanent judicial commission (PJC) for examination to ensure it is clear and fits with the church’s constitution and its confession (the Westminster Confession of Faith.) If there is an issue with the overture, the PJC explains the issue and goes back to the presenters with a suggested cure, Atwood said.
In this instance, by a vote of 5 to 4, the PJC claimed the overture was not valid and offered no explanation or cure. Atwood called their action “high-handed and imperious” and a “catastrophic failure of their constitutional duties.”
Instead, the New River leaders, realizing their overture would not be allowed on the floor of the General Assembly for discussion and a vote, agreed to a two-year study of the issue.
Meanwhile, attention toward Beverly Heights’ departure crisis is growing. Observers, like Atwood, are wondering if the presbytery leadership will use strong arm tactics or will follow the proper constitutional protections afforded to churches in the EPC.
According to Beverly Heights Pastor Dr. Nate Devlin, the church that has been part of the EPC since 2007 began the separation process from the denomination in October 2023. An open letter explains the church’s view of events since the separation process began.
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Written by Kurt M. Wagner |
Monday, March 4, 2024
America is obviously getting more polarized and that trend is likely not letting up any time soon. Red and blue as categories can be overly simplistic, but given the modern Democrat platform I think it’s helpful and maps well enough onto Renn’s three worlds model. Roughly speaking, “red” can be viewed as more or less positive, “blue” firmly negative, with perhaps suburban pockets with more moderate, so-called “classical liberal” and/or libertarian-leaning neoconservative types representing what remains of the neutral world. It is clear that much of the Federal government, mostly through the administrative state, has been captured by the Left and is deep blue. Retreating to red states for shelter or to engage in political and cultural battles at the state level may make sense for a lot of people.

As evangelical Christians in America enter and wake up to the reality of living in the Negative World, accurate and depressing descriptions of the times abound. However, practical prescriptions are few and far between as many begin to think about the prospect of having to navigate these uncharted cultural and political waters faithfully. Much of the counsel being offered to address this, including Aaron Renn’s own, is a most welcome and good start. However, we are admittedly only in the beginning of the conversation, the exploratory phase of discovering and implementing faithful responses to the challenges ahead. Things still need to be spelled out at a more granular level, with many sensing that certain specific, concrete steps need to be taken sooner rather than later. We need options: Benedict, Boniface, and everything in between. Understanding the times isn’t enough. We also need to know what ought to be done. 
Thinking about civilizational decline and the loss of the rule of law at a national or even state, much less imperial, level can beggar the political imagination and leave one at a loss as to what to do, what practical action one can take to prepare for further decline while hoping for the best. Don’t get me wrong, I like to speculate about possible regime change, civilizational collapse, or the outcomes of potential reactions as much as the next guy, but it’s draining and unproductive for me more often than not. Though I am very thankful for the national political and cultural actors representing God and sanity, for most people, focusing on national politics has a tendency to suck the civic oxygen out of the room, leaving little energy or will for much else. 
Conversely, the potential effectiveness of focusing on the local governance of one’s own community, where the political rubber meets the road, can be easily judged based on the reaction these efforts get from mainstream media and broader political interests, attracting the tireless attention of the proverbial Eye of Sauron. People on both the right and the left seem to instinctively know this. Things get scary for those ostensibly afraid of the so-called Christian nationalism bogeyman when it begins manifesting itself at the local level. Examples have abounded in recent years of regime-resisting actions (think local action and policy from the COVID era, or regarding DEI, gun rights, marriage licenses, etc.) of humble county clerks, sheriffs, school board members, and local DAs, faithfully practicing, whether consciously or not, the doctrine of the lesser magistrates. These are too numerous to be listed here, but any even moderately informed reader could easily call several of them to mind. 
Christians pursuing national excellence in politics and culture is a worthy goal, and fostering a counter-cultural elite that represents evangelicals at the state (kudos to Oklahoma State Senator Dusty Deevers, e.g.) and national level is undoubtedly important for the long-term survival of America as we have known it. Though a good aspiration for some, it’s just not a realistic goal for most Christians. Ambition isn’t a bad thing in itself, but we can’t all be great. In the near term, many ordinary Christians are just trying to find a place to live where they can raise their families within a society that at least still acknowledges the Tao. This doesn’t necessarily signal cowardly retreat or ultimate defeat, but it is a realistic and practical assumption to have for most people in evangelical America. There is currently a dearth of high-trust, rooted, and intergenerational communities that facilitate family formation, encourage living out Christian ethics, and support positive, explicitly Christian civic engagement, and is doubtful if urban or other progressive centers, the magnets of the elite, will be anywhere near fostering anything like this anytime soon.
Why Local?
America is an extremely vast country. Less than an hour’s highway drive from almost any town or city in whichever direction usually leads to huge amounts of relatively unoccupied, undeveloped, and minimally governed space. And like the US highway system, another often overlooked and underappreciated yet ubiquitous aspect of American life is local (county or equivalent) government: that political infrastructure quietly existing in the civic background of virtually every American. I will argue in this essay that the already existing structures of American local government, if properly leveraged, are at least theoretically sufficient to serve as the political backdrop of faithful Christian living in a quickly declining America. As real-world arenas for natural family life and freedom of religion in the public square, counties offer realistic options in the near to mid-term, and in the long-term could serve as potential springboards to greater, actually viable state and national cultural and political action. 
There are over 3,000 counties or equivalents in America, and this gives me great hope. Decentralization will be key going forward, and I would suggest that drilling down beyond the state into the county level is the right scale at this time for practical Christian self-governance, utilizing extant local political structures as a means to further the ends of the common good rooted in natural law, if not to an explicitly Christian local polity. While most of the  “three C’s” (the campus, the coast, and the city) are squarely fixed in the negative world, it’s conceivable that many suburban areas still have a lot of neutral world characteristics, and that many rural areas are still in the positive world in a lot of ways. It’s the particular matter of cultural influence and elite institutional power that makes negative world areas seem so lopsidedly powerful, punching well above their weight in negativity, geographically speaking.
For most people, the mere thought of local government, with its seemingly petty and provincial details, such things as zoning, sidewalk committees, utilities, waste management, levies (property taxes!), etc., can understandably make one’s eyes glaze over. It doesn’t exactly spark the imagination or inspire zeal. At the same time, local government can also be so accessible and practical that once it is on one’s mental radar, one is almost without excuse for not getting involved to some degree. It falls within a kind of political ordo amoris (town/city, county, state, nation, empire) which has much more of a claim to our immediate civic duty. Maybe that’s why it’s more common to describe, theorize, and speculate about issues on the national rather than local level. There is actually more of the uncomfortable possibility, even obligation, that one get personally involved with the latter rather than the former. As state governments are constitutionally sovereign, focusing locally (at the county or equivalent level) means that the higher authority one is mostly dealing with is the state government, which acts as an intermediary between the local and Federal governments. This serves as a buffer and added level of protection not afforded at the state level, which would be set up for direct challenges from and confrontation with Federal actors. Not many have the stomach (not to mention the actual position, capacity, or skill) for that kind of thing. 
County Government 101
Enough with the generalities, let’s get into the weeds. One can get a quick, basic education on American counties and their equivalents here and here. A few key concepts to know going forward in this essay revolve around what are called Dillon’s Rule and Home Rule, along with the legal term state preemption. These are important terms when considering the feasibility of living out a positive local Christian vision within a viable legal framework. 
Every state’s relationship with its counties or equivalents is unique, generally being written into their constitutions, and counties can vary widely even within the same state. I would encourage everyone to become familiar with their own state and county details, or the details of those in which they would be interested living in. For example, some state constitutions allow for county home rule and charters, allowing for varying degrees of state constitutional county authority within their jurisdictions without direct, specific approval from state legislatures. Other states control their counties in a much tighter way. 
Dillon’s Rule vs. Home Rule
“The founding document of the United States, the Constitution, is silent on local governments. Instead, the Ninth and Tenth Amendments reserve all other powers not previously delegated or prohibited to the states and the people. Therefore, each state is responsible for granting broad or limited authority to each local branch of government, such as counties, municipalities, school districts, and other political subdivisions. There are two guiding principles of governance for local governments: the Dillon Rule and Home Rule.”
Home Rule refers to the constitutional granting of municipalities (towns, cities, and county or equivalents, etc.) more local control over their governing structures, policies, and even some legislative power. Dillon’s Rule on the other hand views local government as merely an agent of the state, created by and deriving all authority explicitly by law from the state legislature. Dillon’s Rule gained more national traction after a SCOTUS decision in 1907 in favor of the states, establishing a precedent for the dominance of this view of state-county relations well into the 20th century. However, in reaction to this, Home Rule later gained more popularity, with many states amending their constitutions to explicitly grant local governments more flexibility and agency in matters of “county concern”. This is especially true in the Western states as counties became responsible for larger and larger legal jurisdictions and service areas. One could make the argument that Home Rule is the local expression of federalism the Founders had in mind, and that the last clause of the 10th Amendment, “or to the people” could refer or apply to local government. 
“The history reveals that, contrary to modern assumptions, local governments were not always seen as subunits of states, but instead, were often treated as voluntary quasi-private associations that possessed considerable power as a matter of custom.”
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