Written by J.I. Packer |
Wednesday, April 19, 2023
Christ’s death for me guarantees my preservation to glory. Christ’s death for me is the measure and pledge of the love of the Father and the Son to me. Christ’s death for me calls and constrains me to trust, to worship, to love, and to serve.

The penal substitution model has been criticized for depicting a kind Son placating a fierce Father in order to make him love man, which he did not do before. The criticism is, however, inept, for penal substitution is a Trinitarian model, for which the motivational unity of Father and Son is axiomatic. The New Testament presents God’s gift of his Son to die as the supreme expression of his love to men. “God so loved the world that he gave his only begotten Son” (John 3:16 KJV). “God is love…Herein is love, not that we loved God, but that he loved us, and sent his Son to be the propitiation for our sins” (1 John 4:8–10 KJV). “God shows his love for us in that while we were still sinners Christ died for us” (Rom. 5:8). Similarly, the New Testament presents the Son’s voluntary acceptance of death as the supreme expression of his love to men. “[He] loved me and gave himself for me” (Gal. 2:20). “Greater love hath no man than this, that a man lay down his life for his friends. Ye are my friends” (John 15:13–14 KJV). And the two loves, the love of Father and Son, are one: a point that the penal substitution model, as used, firmly grasps.
Furthermore, if the true measure of love is how low it stoops to help, and how much in its humility it is ready to do and bear, then it may fairly be claimed that the penal substitutionary model embodies a richer witness to divine love than any other model of atonement, for it sees the Son at his Father’s will going lower than any other view ventures to suggest. That death on the cross was a criminal’s death, physically as painful as (if not more painful than) any mode of judicial execution that the world has seen; and that Jesus endured it in full consciousness of being innocent before God and man, and yet of being despised and rejected, whether in malicious conceit or in sheer fecklessness, by persons he had loved and tried to save—this is ground common to all views, and tells us already that the love of Jesus, which took him to the cross, brought him appallingly low. But the penal substitution model adds to all this a further dimension of truly unimaginable distress, compared with which everything mentioned so far pales into insignificance. This is the dimension indicated by Denney—“that in that dark hour He had to realize to the full the divine reaction against sin in the race.”[1] Owen stated this formally, abstractly, and nonpsychologically: Christ, he said, satisfied God’s justice
…for all the sins of all those for whom he made satisfaction, by undergoing that same punishment which, by reason of the obligation that was upon them, they were bound to undergo. When I say the same I mean essentially the same in weight and pressure, though not in all accidents of duration and the like.[2]
Jonathan Edwards expressed the thought with tender and noble empathy:
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Written by R.R. Reno |
Wednesday, April 26, 2023
Today we are subjected to tremendous pressure to endorse transgender ideology, and we are cattle-­prodded to affirm gay marriage. Some resist, because they are rooted in reality and recognize that men are men and women are women. But if we look around the public square, we see that the majority of those standing up against woke tyranny are religious believers. We do this not because basic facts about biology and the male-female difference require the affirmation of revealed truths. Our ability to speak out rests in our freedom, which…comes from our knowledge that we are under the command of a King far stronger than any worldly power.

On March 20, the United States organized a meeting of the United Nations Security Council on the following topic: “Integrating the Human Rights of LGBTI Persons into the Council’s Mandate for Maintaining International Peace and Security.” This effort is but another step in the American-led push to compel the entire world to adopt our progressive social agenda. In April 2022, the Biden administration produced an ­Interagency Report on the ways in which all aspects of our government will advance gay rights around the world. These government measures dovetail with a vast network of academic programs, conferences, and legal clinics, and with foundation-funded activist organizations operating at every level. Were someone to tally the direct and indirect expenditures on gay rights and related causes, I would be surprised if they didn’t reach $1 trillion per year.
The ambition is simple: to strengthen the Rainbow Reich and ensure that it attains global hegemony. From Brussels to Washington, this goal is pursued by every major institution in the West, including, it seems, the Catholic Church in Germany. Often the Rainbow Reich is disguised by calls for the defense of liberal ­democracy. Of course, without exception, no country counts as “liberal” that does not wholeheartedly endorse the latest progressive dogmas. In effect, as the hegemon in Western initiatives and alliances, the United States leads an ideological crusade to conquer the world.
This turn of events paradoxically reverses the roles played by the United States and the Soviet Union during the Cold War. In 1950, under the leadership of Secretary of State Dean Acheson, the recently formed National Security Council was commissioned to assess the Soviet threat and outline an American response. The upshot was NSC-68, the document that guided U.S. strategy during the Cold War.
In his memoir, Present at the Creation, Acheson summarizes the main thrust of NSC-68. The document characterized the essential difference between Soviet and American ambitions: “The priority given by the Soviet rulers to the Kremlin design, world domination, contrasted with the American aim, an environment in which free societies could exist and flourish.” Acheson refines this contrast further. Russia adopted this imperial principle: “No state is friendly which is not ­subservient.” The U.S. adhered to a capacious approach: “No state is unfriendly which, in return for its rights, respects the rights of other states.” Put simply, the Soviet Union wished to globalize its communist regime. By contrast, the United States wanted to protect its own way of life, and we were willing to ally ourselves with other countries organized in accord with quite different principles, provided each respected the right of others to live in peace.
In the twenty-first century, we seem to have ­adopted the Soviet imperial principle. After September 11, a consensus formed concerning the need to convert the entire world to the American system. In his Second Inaugural Address, George W. Bush insisted, “We are led, by events and common sense, to one conclusion: The survival of liberty in our land increasingly depends on the success of liberty in other lands. The best hope for peace in our world is the expansion of freedom in all the world.” He was not calling for a global Rainbow ­Reich, but he established a precedent. The judgment that the American culture of freedom could not survive unless the entire world adopted our conception of liberty (now perverted to entail a right to abort children, marry someone of the same sex, and choose whether to be a man or a woman) is not altogether different from the Soviet ambition of world domination.
Marxist true believers held that communism would inevitably triumph. It’s a sentiment echoed by countless progressives who condemn those deemed “on the wrong side of history.” But the triumph remains in the future. The cause remains vulnerable. Back in the day, the Bolsheviks believed that the survival of communism at home required the success of communism abroad. And they held that the best hope for world peace depended upon the expansion of communism to the entire world. American progressives aim for a different future, but adhere to similar imperialist assumptions. Although coercive, the totalitarianism of the Rainbow Reich proceeds under the sign of choice, as the ideology of abortion makes plain. The Biden administration’s commitment to ensure gay rights everywhere dovetails all too easily with the call for “the expansion of freedom in all the world.”
Seeking greater precision, in his commentary on NSC-68 Acheson once again formulates the contrast between the Soviet Union and the United States. In the early days of the Cold War, “our society felt no compulsion to bring all societies into conformity with it, [whereas] the Kremlin hierarchy was not content to entrench its regime but wished to expand its control directly and indirectly over other people within its reach.” I fear that few in power today would affirm Acheson’s statement about America. In the economic sphere, the “Washington consensus” seeks universal adoption. How can we have a truly free global market unless everyone accepts free-market principles? A mercantilist or protectionist nation spoils the system. In politics, all nations must become liberal democracies. A vast array of human rights that encode progressive ­ideology into their meaning is obligatory, and our embassies fly the rainbow flag. We now play the Kremlin’s role.
Meanwhile, America’s greatest geopolitical adversary has adopted our older and more pragmatic outlook. China feels no compulsion to transform Iran, India, or Indonesia in its own image. Chairman Xi seems satisfied to fold other nations into a Chinese-dominated economic system and enjoy alliances of convenience against American hegemony.
Count me anxious. When the Soviet Union collapsed under the weight of its ideological ambitions, Mikhail Gorbachev famously said, “You will miss us a lot.” I can’t say that I have. But looking back, I find that the Kremlin played a role something like that of the biblical concept of katechon, the power that restrains and withholds. After communism’s demise, American elites were free to indulge in “end of history” fantasies, and the mythical aspect of our country (Novus ordo seclorum—a new order of the ages) became an ideological burden. I fear that unless we regain a habit of restraint, we will collapse under the weight of the Rainbow Reich.
Today’s Tyranny
We do not live in a free country. There are ­many kinds of tyranny. Ours is certainly not like that of Nazi Germany or Communist ­Russia. Government agents are not knocking on doors in the dead of night. Dissenters are not being arrested and sent to prison camps. Nor is twenty-first-­century America quite what Alexis de Tocqueville feared, a ­society of isolated and timid individuals who welcome the smothering embrace of sovereign power that “­covers the surface of society with a network of small, complicated, minute, and uniform rules, which the most original minds and most vigorous souls cannot break through to go beyond the crowds.” It is true that we are atomized and live under a blanket of social control. But the “sovereign power” is not officialdom pure and simple. It is something more diffuse. Like our healthcare system and retirement benefits, the tyranny is distinctly American, imposed by a complex combination of government power and private initiative.
Imagine a lawyer, a devout Christian with traditional moral convictions, who works in a large national firm in New York. In years past, he was required to participate in diversity training seminars. These sessions were not mandated by any government agency. Rather, they were established by management in order to protect the firm in the event of civil rights litigation. He participated and held his tongue when the “training” turned to abortion and gay rights.
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Written by R. Scott Clark |
Wednesday, May 18, 2022
Presbyteries, as an institution of the covenant of grace, do well to remember the limits of their competence and authority and to remember the Christian liberty of their members to disagree with the cultural, poltical, social, and economic opinions of her ministers and ruling elders.

According to the PCA’s denominational magazine, By Faith, the Potomac Presbytery (PCA), on March 19, approved an overture that makes what Presbyterians call “in thesi” statements (which the Dutch Reformed call doctrinal deliverances) against political violence. It is as “Overture 26.” It articulates 17 reasons why the PCA should go on record as officially, as a denomination, opposing political violence. Among them:

The PCA has spoken to other “pressing moral issues” e.g., abortion
The civil magistrate is ordained to keep order
Peacemakers are blessed, Christians are called to do good and to live in peace with all
WLC 135 interprets the sixth commandment to require gentleness etc.
Christ’s kingdom is spiritual in nature
There is an increase in political violence in the USA
Christian symbols have been involved in some of that violence
Some members of the PCA serve in the military and police forces and are called to keep the peace
The 49th PCA General Assembly has spoken to these issues

Therefore:
Be it further resolved, that the 49th General Assembly of the Presbyterian Church in America condemn political violence and intimidation in unlawful expressions, especially that which is illicitly done in the name of Christ; and
Be it further resolved, that the Moderator of the 49th General Assembly of the Presbyterian Church in America appoint a commissioner to pray for peace in our nation and that the Church of Jesus Christ would be instruments of that peace; and
Be it finally resolved, that the 49th General Assembly of the Presbyterian Church in America encourage her members to “seek peace and pursue it” in the public square (Psalm 34:14); to “be subject to the governing authorities” (Romans 13:1); and to pray for peace and for “all who are in high positions, that we may lead a peaceful and quiet life, godly and dignified in every way.” (I Timothy 2:2).
Analysis and Response
Ecclesiastical actions like this one raise a serious question about the nature, vocation, and mission of the visible, institutional church: Has Jesus Christ, as the only head of the church, authorized his church to make such statements? The traditional Reformed view and the official view of the PCA is articulated in Westminster Confession of Faith 31.4
Synods and councils are to handle, or conclude nothing, but that which is ecclesiastical: and are not to intermeddle with civil affairs which concern the commonwealth, unless by way of humble petition in cases extraordinary; or, by way of advice, for satisfaction of conscience, if they be thereunto required by the civil magistrate.
Overture 26 cites this section of chapter 31 and applies it generally to the spirituality nature of the Kingdom of God and it is certainly true that the Kingdom is essentially spiritual. Our Lord Jesus said this in John 18:36, “Jesus answered, “My kingdom is not of this world. If my kingdom were of this world, my servants would have been fighting, that I might not be delivered over to the Jews. But my kingdom is not from the world” (ESV). There Jesus explicitly repudiated the use of violence to advance the interests of his kingdom.
The overture, however, does not directly address the specific intent of WCF 31.4 nor does it address the limitations placed on the visible church in this section. The Potomac Presbytery is an ecclesiastical assembly and thus falls under the rubric “synods and councils.” According to the confession, what sort of business is the church, as an institution, authorized to address? The divines answered this question: “nothing but that which is ecclesiastical.” It is not immediately obvious how political violence is an “ecclesiastical” matter. Further, because the divines knew how often the visible church has been tempted to inject herself into what are essentially secular and civil matters, they specifically prohibited the church, as an institution, from meddling “in civil affairs which concern the commonwealth.” The divines used the word “intermeddling.” Overture 26 does not answer the obvious question here: how is it that, in Overture 26, Potomac Presbytery is not “intermeddling” in the affairs of the commonwealth? Political violence is manifestly a civil affair that concerns the commonwealth. Muslims, Jews, and pagans have as much interest in opposing political violence as does the Potomac Presbytery. Thus, it is not evident what special interest the presbytery has here or what special expertise the presbytery brings to this question.
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