The other day, a friend of mine emailed me some very important questions that have also been on my mind during the covid fauxpocalypse. These questions have also, I think, been on the minds of many other Christians, so I decided to answer them here to the best of my ability. Hopefully, you will find my answers helpful, if only in giving you more to think about in these trying times.

The email reads as follows:

“I have often been reminded when reading Scripture, just during the 'reading for the day,' that the Lord visited Israel with various judgments for various sins. It seems to me that whenever God is judging Israel in the OT they were to repent and submit to the punishment rather than rise up to fight the oppression.

I really don't know if I've got this twisted and would appreciate anything you have written on this. Whilst the Apostles could have rejected Nero, it would seem they did not. But on the other hand, we have passages in the Psalms which do teach about praying for curses on enemies.
[…]

I know that as a nation, Australia has been murdering babies by the hundreds of thousands every year for over 40 years with almost non-existent opposition to the wickedness. Shall not God destroy a nation for such sin? And if I sense judgment in the current Government oppression, am I to resist that, or see it as the hand of God in righteous condemnation and submit as per Jeremiah below?

‘How shall I pardon thee for this? thy children have forsaken me, and sworn by them that are no gods: when I had fed them to the full, they then committed adultery, and assembled themselves by troops in the harlots' houses. They were as fed horses in the morning: every one neighed after his neighbour's wife. Shall I not visit for these things? saith the LORD: and shall not my soul be avenged on such a nation as this?’ [Jer 5:7-9]”

My friend's email has several questions that we can draw out, so I first want to make them explicit, and then answer them accordingly.

Questions

1. Will God judge a nation for its pattern of grievous sin?

2. If God is judging the nation in which a Christian lives, specifically by giving that nation wicked and oppressive rulers, should Christians submit to the judgment (which in this case entails submitting to wicked rulers)?

3. If God is judging the nation, would it be right for Christians to oppose the government (seeing as it is being used by God to judge the nation)?

4. Given the pattern of Israel having to submit to God's judgment, shouldn't Christians also submit to God's judgment?

5. How do we reconcile the passages of Scripture which, on the one hand, call for us to submit to God's judgment on a nation and, yet on the other hand, show us examples of godly men praying that God would destroy his and, consequently, their enemies?

6. What about the apostles and the Roman government?

Answers

1. Scripture is very clear that the Lord will, and does, judge nations for their sins. There is a distinction to be drawn between historical (pre-eschatological) and eschatological judgment, of course, and so I think we would do well to consider what we ought to do if the judgment is not eschatological, as I’m using the term, but historical.

If the judgment is eschatological, then we know the outcome is fixed. Our actions will not lead to some other consequence than which God has declared (viz. Christ will return in power and glory and judge the nations once and for all1). However if the necessary eschatological conditions laid out by Scripture have not been met, then what we see happening is not the eschatological judgment but an historical judgment. Since we don't know the day or the hour of our Lord's return,2 then is it our duty to continue following him faithfully until he returns.

Consider the situation we find in Paul’s second epistle to the Thessalonians. After reminding the Thessalonians of how Christ will return to judge humanity,3 Paul goes on to say:

Therefore we also pray always for you that our God would count you worthy of this calling, and fulfill all the good pleasure of His goodness and the work of faith with power, that the name of our Lord Jesus Christ may be glorified in you, and you in Him, according to the grace of our God and the Lord Jesus Christ.4

It is God's will that his people continue to walk by faith in obedience to him until Christ returns. To that end, the apostle goes on to explain what must come first before Christ returns, and warns the Thessalonians about those who, in contradiction to Paul's delineation of events, claim that Christ has already returned.5

He follows this by telling them –

But we are bound to give thanks to God always for you, brethren beloved by the Lord, because God from the beginning chose you for salvation through sanctification by the Spirit and belief in the truth, to which He called you by our gospel, for the obtaining of the glory of our Lord Jesus Christ. Therefore, brethren, stand fast and hold the traditions which you were taught, whether by word or our epistle.

Now may our Lord Jesus Christ Himself, and our God and Father, who has loved us and given us everlasting consolation and good hope by grace, comfort your hearts and establish you in every good word and work.6

Note the command for the Thessalonians to “stand fast.” Now, note Paul’s benediction – “…may our Lord Jesus Christ Himself, and our God and Father…comfort your hearts and establish you in every good word and work.” The Thessalonians, and all Christians, are to stand fast in the faith and continue in good works, in the assurance that God will comfort us and establish us as we do so, until Christ returns for his bride.

After this, the apostle Paul closes his epistle with several exhortations to the same effect, stating explicitly in 2nd Thess 3:6-13 –

But we command you, brethren, in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ, that you withdraw from every brother who walks disorderly and not according to the tradition which he received from us. For you yourselves know how you ought to follow us, for we were not disorderly among you; nor did we eat anyone’s bread free of charge, but worked with labor and toil night and day, that we might not be a burden to any of you, not because we do not have authority, but to make ourselves an example of how you should follow us.

For even when we were with you, we commanded you this: If anyone will not work, neither shall he eat. For we hear that there are some who walk among you in a disorderly manner, not working at all, but are busybodies. Now those who are such we command and exhort through our Lord Jesus Christ that they work in quietness and eat their own bread.

But as for you, brethren, do not grow weary in doing good.

After explaining the day of the Lord and what must precede the Lord's return, Paul says that the Thessalonians must continue to walk by faith in obedience to Christ. He further reveals what this looks like – withdrawing from brethren walking in open disobedience, working with one’s own hands, not being lazy, and living a quiet life/not being a busybody.

This is important because it shows us that as we await Christ’s return we ought to be loving our neighbors as ourselves. Loving our neighbor as ourselves necessarily implies promoting the well being, and preserving the life, of our neighbor. This ties in to the second answer to the second and third questions raised by my friend’s email.

2 & 3. Seeing as we know we are to love our neighbor while our nation is under historical judgment, and seeing as we are to love him by promoting his well being and preserving his life, it follows that we cannot simply submit to the evil actions of our rulers. So how are we to understand our duty in this situation?

Firstly, note that if the governing authorities are acting contrary to their intended purpose given by God then it follows that they are disobeying God and, thereby, nullifying any claim they have to authority over us in the matter under consideration (e.g. mask mandates, vaccine mandates, vaccine passports, stay at home orders for the healthy, and so on).

Secondly, what is more, if those actions lead to the destruction of my neighbors, for whom I am accountable, then it is my right and my duty to protect my neighbor from those actions in any way that I possibly can. Allowing my government to kill my neighbor because we are both guilty of sin before God, but not for some publicly and evidentially demonstrable crime which God’s law defines, is akin to allowing a stranger to kill my neighbor because we are both guilty of sin before God. Simply put – It is not justifiable.

I can promote the well being of my neighbor, as well as preserve his life, by informing him of what is actually taking place in the world via the government’s oppressive policies, laws, mandates, etc. I can do the same by modeling obedience to God, in contradiction to obedience to men, via acts of civil disobedience. This does not require one to rise up and overthrow the oppressor. It requires something much more difficult to obtain – persistent, resilient, and indefatigable faith in the face of persistent, resilient, and seemingly indefatigable evil. But if we ask him, God will grant us faith to persevere.7

If historical judgment is occurring, given what the apostle Paul says in 2nd Thessalonians it is right and good for me to oppose the rogue government’s actions against myself and my neighbor. The reason for this is that it is my duty to promote my neighbor’s well being and preserve his life against all who would seek to illegitimately destroy him. If the government is subjecting myself and my neighbor to harm and possible death for doing what is lawful before God and men (e.g. refusing to wear a mask while sitting in a public place, refusing to be vaccinated in order to continue working, breaking lockdown restrictions, and so on), then my government has abdicated its proper role, gone rogue, and is now functioning as a body of murderers.

If I don’t oppose what they are doing, then I am complicit in their evil.

4. Yes, there are OT passages in which God tells Israel to submit to their punishment and not rise up in opposition to their oppressors. However, Israel’s situation was unique. As we read in Deuteronomy 4:1-8 –

“Now, O Israel, listen to the statutes and the judgments which I teach you to observe, that you may live, and go in and possess the land which the Lord God of your fathers is giving you. You shall not add to the word which I command you, nor take from it, that you may keep the commandments of the Lord your God which I command you. Your eyes have seen what the Lord did at Baal Peor; for the Lord your God has destroyed from among you all the men who followed Baal of Peor. But you who held fast to the Lord your God are alive today, every one of you.

Surely I have taught you statutes and judgments, just as the Lord my God commanded me, that you should act according to them in the land which you go to possess. Therefore be careful to observe them; for this is your wisdom and your understanding in the sight of the peoples who will hear all these statutes, and say, ‘Surely this great nation is a wise and understanding people.’

For what great nation is there that has God so near to it, as the Lord our God is to us, for whatever reason we may call upon Him? And what great nation is there that has such statutes and righteous judgments as are in all this law which I set before you this day?”

Israel’s life and prosperity as a nation was, like the life and prosperity of Adam and Eve, contingent upon her obedience to the stipulations of the covenant God made with her. This is not true of any other nation in the world, as the passage from Deuteronomy teaches us clearly. Yes, God would destroy nations whose sins would eventually be “complete”8, but that does not imply that these nations were in a covenant relationship with God. It was Israel alone who stood in this relationship to Jehovah.

Additionally, under the Mosaic covenant Israel's disbelief was manifested not merely in their rebellion against the explicitly stated laws of God, but also in their inability to accept the fact that they were breakers of the covenant who were being stripped of their covenantal blessings. Rather than accept that their existence and prosperity was dependent on their obedience to the covenant, they continued in obstinate and unrepentant sin. Rather than admit they were idolaters engaging in all kinds of wickedness that resulted in God removing their covenantal blessings, they hid their idolatry (as we see in Ezekiel), engaged in witchcraft and soothsaying (as we see in Isaiah), persecuted and refused to listen to the prophets (as we see in Jeremiah), and still thought of themselves as being in good standing with God. Being urged to submit to their judgment was a final call, it seems, for them to correct course by repenting and believing God's Words in Deuteronomy 28.

But they did not.

Hence Christ, alluding to Isaiah 5 where God talks about his vineyard that bore bad fruit, confronts the hypocritical leaders of his day who had still refused to accept that they had broken God's covenant, lost their covenant blessings, and incurred God's promised wrath. He tells them the parable of the wicked vine dressers in Matt 21:33-44, a short story which details the history of Israel's rebellion which would culminate in her crucifixion of the Lord Jesus, leading to her undergoing the wrath of God and being stripped of the kingdom. Christ then ends his speech by declaring –

“Therefore I say to you, the kingdom of God will be taken from you and given to a nation bearing the fruits of it.”9

The kind of judgment that Israel underwent seems to now be applied to churches. Unlike the Old Covenant, the granting of the blessings of the New Covenant are not contingent upon our obedience to the Law. However, churches that fail to deal with sin in their camp, and who yet believe themselves to be in good standing with the Lord, can be judged by God, cut off, and stripped of all blessings given to them. In Revelation 2 & 3, Christ makes this clear, declaring –

Ephesus – “Remember therefore from where you have fallen; repent and do the first works, or else I will come to you quickly and remove your lampstand from its place—unless you repent…”10

Pergamos – “Repent, or else I will come to you quickly and will fight against them with the sword of My mouth.”11

Thyatira – “…you allow that woman Jezebel, who calls herself a prophetess, to teach and seduce My servants to commit sexual immorality and eat things sacrificed to idols. And I gave her time to repent of her sexual immorality, and she did not repent.
Indeed I will cast her into a sickbed, and those who commit adultery with her into great tribulation, unless they repent of their deeds.”

Sardis – “I know your works, that you have a name that you are alive, but you are dead. Be watchful, and strengthen the things which remain, that are ready to die, for I have not found your works perfect before God. Remember therefore how you have received and heard; hold fast and repent. Therefore if you will not watch, I will come upon you as a thief, and you will not know what hour I will come upon you.”

Laodicea – “I know your works, that you are neither cold nor hot. I could wish you were cold or hot. So then, because you are lukewarm, and neither cold nor hot, I will vomit you out of My mouth. Because you say, ‘I am rich, have become wealthy, and have need of nothing’—and do not know that you are wretched, miserable, poor, blind, and naked— I counsel you to buy from Me gold refined in the fire, that you may be rich; and white garments, that you may be clothed, that the shame of your nakedness may not be revealed; and anoint your eyes with eye salve, that you may see. As many as I love, I rebuke and chasten. Therefore be zealous and repent.”14

5. My last answer contains some information on how we are to reconcile the seemingly contradictory situation we encounter in the OT where the saints understood they were under judgment and that, given Israel’s breaking of the covenant, they were to accept this punishment, and yet they prayed imprecatory prayers against their enemies. In a word, God’s judgment being executed through wicked rulers and nations on Israel did not exempt those nations from being under God’s Law as well. This means that while those instruments of judgment were materializing divine justice, as it were, they were still responsible for the way in which they so doing.

Consider the following from the book of Isaiah –

The Lord sent a word against Jacob,
And it has fallen on Israel.
All the people will know—
Ephraim and the inhabitant of Samaria—
Who say in pride and arrogance of heart:

“The bricks have fallen down,
But we will rebuild with hewn stones;
The sycamores are cut down,
But we will replace them with cedars.”

Therefore the Lord shall set up
The adversaries of Rezin against him,

And spur his enemies on,
The Syrians before and the Philistines behind;
And they shall devour Israel with an open mouth.15

Israel is under judgment, but instead of repenting chooses to continue in rebellion, refusing to recognize that their situation was directly due to their breaking of the covenant. So God tells them he is raising up foreign nations, ruthless foreign wicked rulers, to punish his people. Yet look at what he says in the very next chapter –

“Woe to Assyria, the rod of My anger
And the staff in whose hand is My indignation.
I will send him against an ungodly nation,
And against the people of My wrath
I will give him charge,
To seize the spoil, to take the prey,
And to tread them down like the mire of the streets.
Yet he does not mean so,
Nor does his heart think so;
But it is in his heart to destroy,
And cut off not a few nations.

For he says,
‘Are not my princes altogether kings?
Is not Calno like Carchemish?
Is not Hamath like Arpad?
Is not Samaria like Damascus?
As my hand has found the kingdoms of the idols,
Whose carved images excelled those of Jerusalem and Samaria,
As I have done to Samaria and her idols,
Shall I not do also to Jerusalem and her idols?’ ”

Therefore it shall come to pass, when the Lord has performed all His work on Mount Zion and on Jerusalem, that He will say, “I will punish the fruit of the arrogant heart of the king of Assyria, and the glory of his haughty looks.”16

God chose to use the wicked nations and rulers to execute justice against Israel, but he held them accountable for the wicked ways in which they performed this task. God judged their intentions. Not only this, but given that these men were not believers it seems reasonable to assume that they also inflicted more violence on Israel than was necessary for executing God’s judgment. In either case, they were to be held accountable by God.

So Israel could simultaneously understand that they were under God’s judgment, and yet pray that the very actions taken against them by God’s instruments of justice be visited upon those nations. Psalm 137 perfectly captures this dual reality. Another reality to consider is the fact that parents are given the responsibility of executing justice in the household, and yet we are warned against doing so in a manner that is sinful. If our children sin, it is right for us to punish them, and it is right for them to submit to the punishment they deserve. However, this doesn’t mean that all that we do in our punishment of our children is righteous. We can have anger and pride in our hearts, attitudes that are not only inherently evil but can also, and I would argue usually do, lead to punishments that don’t fit the transgression/s committed.

6. Regarding the apostles, we need to contextualize their actions as well given that their situation differed from ours in some ways. Firstly, however, we need to remember that God created all of us to be upholders of his Law. Now seeing as God had already given Adam and Eve dominion over all of the creatures,17 and the serpent was included among those creatures,18 they inherently possessed authority over the serpent. Additionally, Adam was given the Law of God constitutive of the covenant of works,19 which shows us that he not only had authority over the animals as respects where they were to be placed and what function they would play in the subdued creation. Adam possessed physical authority over the serpent as well as moral authority over the serpent. Adam was, in other words, the lesser magistrate. Adam could have, and should have, exercised his authority over the serpent’s lying tongue, but he did not do this and so sinned. Not only this, but Adam, as the recipient of the commandment, had a responsibility to uphold justice when his wife had broken it, but he failed to do this as well.

With regard to the non-human creatures, Adam and Eve were the lesser magistrate given the role of upholding God’s justice in the world according to his law. With regard to one another, it is implied, Adam and Eve were also lesser magistrates. Adam was the head, but had he sinned it would be incumbent upon Eve to identify his sin and seek God’s justice for the transgression Adam committed. Though Adam had authority over Eve as the head, in other words, had he told her to sin she would not be in sin for refusing to follow his orders, for her primary duty was to glorify God by doing what he commands and refraining from what he forbids. Similarly, the same applies to Adam and Eve’s children. Had Adam told Cain and/or Abel to sin, it would have been right and necessary for them to refuse to comply with Adam’s sinful commands, seeing as their primary duty was to glorify God by doing what he commands and refraining from what he forbids.

Every man is, in other words, the lesser magistrate. It is incumbent upon every one of us to recognize that God is the supreme authority who has established lesser authorities – Civic authority, Church authority, Family authority. It is also incumbent upon every one of us to recognize that we can never fail to do what is right before God because we “lack the authority” to do what is right. That is simply not the case. If there existed a society in which no one in the chain of authorities established by God was doing what was right, it would still be incumbent upon the individual to do what is right, even if that entails refusing to comply with the authorities above, or even openly and physically opposing them. For if the magistrates above oneself are all acting outside of their jurisdictional boundaries in all that they do, then they are no longer acting as magistrates but as rebels, autonomous transgressors of God’s law, and no one is above God’s law.

This position as lesser magistrate over humans is made more clear in Genesis 9 where God tells Noah –

Surely for your lifeblood I will demand a reckoning; from the hand of every beast I will require it, and from the hand of man. From the hand of every man’s brother I will require the life of man.

“Whoever sheds man’s blood,
By man his blood shall be shed;
For in the image of God
He made man.

And as for you, be fruitful and multiply;
Bring forth abundantly in the earth
And multiply in it.”20

What was implicitly laid out in Gen 1 & 2 regarding man’s inherent physical and moral authority over the animals, as well as man’s moral authority over transgressors of God’s law (in this case murderers), is here made exceedingly clear. Every individual is the lesser magistrate.

Thankfully, God has been merciful to us in every age and has not ever left us with a chain of authorities where every individual up and down the hierarchical order is failing to do his duty as one who rewards what is good and punishes what is evil. Even in the worst societies (e.g. Ancient Rome) there were men who understood when their superior magistrates were acting out of line and chose to oppose those magistrates, choosing instead to interpose on behalf of those who ranked beneath them (e.g. non-political citizenry). What we see in the New Testament, as well as in the early church, is a recognition from believers that there is God given order in society, and that there are means available to non-governmental/non-political citizenry to aid us in seeking justice against the higher magistrate (e.g. an emperor in Ancient Rome). Hence, Paul addresses the Jews as a member of the Jewish community, and addresses Romans on the basis of his own citizenship as a Roman.21 He recognizes the order in society and works within it to seek justice for wrongs done against him (e.g. false claims made about his intentions, his ministry, etc) and, in a word, freedom to do what God has called him to do – preach the Gospel and establish churches.

The post-New Testament church theologians worked in a very similar way. If you read the treatises of men like Justin Martyr,22 Athenagoras,23 Augustine,24 and Tertullian,25 you learn that they recognized an order in society, their position in society as a theologian/minister, and used the means available to them to address the greater magistrate (e.g. writing letters challenging the reasonableness, morality, and legality of the state’s persecution of Christians). The apostles and church fathers didn’t simply submit to persecution, but did so during and after attempts to reason with higher magistrates, appealing to them as authorities who had a role to fulfill as ministers of justice according to their own national laws and philosophy of jurisprudence, and more importantly under the universal Law of God recognized by pagans and Christians alike.

While Christians underwent persecution, therefore, they also recognized that what was happening to them was morally wrong. They suffered gladly for the name of Christ, but they didn’t fail to acknowledge that their persecutors were sinning greatly. In fact, they boldly acknowledged it. Why Christians did not engage in physical opposition to the powers that be is a question that needs to be answered by looking at their individual cases. The caricature of the early church as a pacifistic religion completely opposed to all forms of political involvement, however, is one that is in need of correction. The early post-NT church opposed the state’s wicked use of violence against innocent individuals, e.g. Christians who were not breaking the law, but did not oppose the state’s use of violence as a means of punishing the wicked, and also seemingly were not opposed to Christians being involved in the military.26 What this means is that there was a recognition of order God had given to society, a hierarchical order which could be, and ought to be, opposed when it ceases to perform its divinely ordained task (e.g. the punishment of evil and the rewarding of good).

Concluding Remarks

Our time is rife with political problems, problems that are directly affecting Christians throughout the world. In places like Canada and Australia, Christians are openly under direct attack from the government, being told they cannot engage in corporate worship, or that they can only engage in corporate worship in severely diminished numbers which amount to a fracturing of churches and spiritual harm done to those who don’t attend out of fear of the state’s retributive actions. In America, Christians are being told that religious exemptions from vaccine mandates are going to be closely scrutinized and likely rejected in some places,27 and have been told for going on two years now that engaging in corporate worship is a self health risk that amounts to a form of hating, and not loving, our neighbor.

While engaging in civil disobedience will not stop God’s decreed timeline from coming to fruition, it will demonstrate our commitment to the God who has ordained whatsoever comes to pass, including sin and the judgment of our nations. Submission to God first and foremost means that we acknowledge his law as supreme, and our commitment to his righteous ordinances as our highest and most socially beneficial duty. We ought to avoid violence, and plead with our accusers and enemies in every way that we can – appealing to the highest magistrates in our land, as well as every other magistrate beneath them, utilizing our civil and national privileges in order to peacefully maintain our right to worship God in the manner he has prescribed (inside and outside of the church). However, if the entire hierarchy of magistrates fall corrupt and fail to do their job of rewarding the good and punishing the evil, this merely means that we are to continue to uphold the righteousness of God by functioning as the lesser magistrate, which are all by nature.

As for the COVID related rules and regulations that are being used to destroy our economies, kill our weak, and destroy our lives, one question we might want to ask is:

Are these rules actually coming from our higher magistrates?

I have written on the illegality of these mandates, given the teaching of Scripture regarding the duties of the civil magistrate. However, assuming for the sake of argument that these mandates are not opposed to divine law, is it the case that they are actually coming from our duly elected officials? And if they are not, does this not clearly justify our non-compliance and rejection of those mandates?

I hope to answer these questions in my next post.

Until next time, remember that Christ is the King of all kings. We are duty bound to serve him, even if it costs us our lives.

Soli Deo Gloria.

1 cf. Matt 24:15-27 & 25:31-46; Rev 11:15-19.

2 cf. Matt 24:36.

3 2nd Thess 1:3-10.

4 2nd Thess 1:11-12.

5 2nd Thess 2:1-12.

6 2nd Thess 2:13-17.

7 If my neighbor gives himself over to the rogue governing authorities to be murdered (metaphorically or literally), despite having been reasoned with and warned, then I believe he is guilty of taking his own life.

8 cf. Gen 15:12-16.

9 Matt 21:43.

10 Rev 2:5.

11 Rev 2:16.

12 Rev 2:20-22.

13 Rev 3:1b-3.

14 Rev 3:15-19.

15 Isa 9:8-12a.

16 Isa 10:5-13.

17 cf. Gen 1:26.

18 cf. Gen 3:1a.

19 cf. Gen 2:15-17.

20 Gen 9:5-7.

21 Read Acts 21-22 for a clear demonstration of Paul’s action.

22 See The First Apology of Justin Martyr, https://biblehub.com/library/justin/the_first_apology_of_justin/index.html; also, The Second Apology of Justin Martyr, https://biblehub.com/library/justin/the_second_apology_of_justin_for_the_christians/index.html.

23 See A Plea for the Christians, https://biblehub.com/library/richardson/early_christian_fathers/a_plea_regarding_christians_by.htm.

24 See City of God, https://biblehub.com/library/augustine/city_of_god/index.html.

25 See Apology, https://biblehub.com/library/tertullian/apology/index.html.

26 For instance, see Otto, Jennifer, “Were the Early Christians Pacifists? Does it Matter?” in The Conrad Grebel Review 35, no. 3 (Fall: 2017), https://uwaterloo.ca/grebel/publications/conrad-grebel-review/issues/fall-2017/were-early-christians-pacifists-does-it-matter.

27 For instance, California and New York.

In the Beginning, Work.

The Scriptures begin with God working, creating, forming, organizing, delegating tasks – and his created image bearer being given the blessing and responsibility of reflecting those actions in a creaturely manner. Man was created to be fruitful, multiply, fill the earth, exercise dominion over the creatures, and do so in accordance with the Law of God written on his heart, as well as in accordance with the Law of God given to him in the garden of Eden (cf. Gen 2:15-17). Man was created, in other words, to work. This means that any prohibition against working that is not coming from God is evil. You do not merely have the freedom to work, you are required to do so under divine Law.

So why have so many today forgotten this? Facing the tyrannical mandates of many local governing authorities and the White House’s current Resident, many have chosen to simply cave in to the pressure and cease from working when they are told to, or only continue working once they have met the terms and conditions the powers that be are arbitrarily and wickedly setting up. Why?

In my opinion, it is partly because men are tired – tired of learning, tired of dealing with the shame of having been conned by authorities they once trusted, tired of having to think through novel obstacles to them simply being alive and providing for their families, tired of having to think up novel approaches to get things done in spite of the useless and wicked mandates of tyrannical magistrates. Tired.

I think it is also simply easier to abdicate our responsibility to think individually, and to collate and evaluate and weigh our options as local bodies of responsible and critically thinking individuals. Thinking is difficult. Rather than use technology to assist us in our research as we think for ourselves, we have been conditioned to let Google search results do our thinking for us. Sadly, the internet has become an infallible Magic 8-Ball for many of us, rather than a tool to augment our finite research abilities. And so, many of us just rely on whatever information we receive from the mainstream media online, in print, on the radio, or on television.

The Broader Cultural Problem

However, there is a broader reason for this, I think. It seems to me that in the mid to late 1800s, the academic distinction between the sciences and the liberal arts became more pronounced than it had previously been. With the promotion of Darwinism and the advent of the industrial revolution, practical developments in the hard sciences were desired and viewed as real, i.e. tangible, developments in man’s intellectual, social, and, consequently, material evolution. The liberal arts were viewed as academic disciplines that were not capable of obtaining objective knowledge, but were mere repositories of subjective notions.

Studying philosophy or literature or the arts in general was akin to studying the history of what other people in those fields thought and practiced before they understood that the hard sciences alone were capable of giving us objective truth. This is not to say that there weren’t developments in philosophy and literature, but that they were, and still are, viewed as mere theories whose value primarily consists in raising questions for science to either dissolve (i.e. identify as meaningless and, thereby, disregard) or resolve by means of empirical exploration and experimentation.

With this, it seems, came the general movement toward hyper specialization, a phenomenon further resulting in what one philosopher has called “the tyranny of the experts.”1 Individuals have been encouraged not to gain a broad education enabling them to take in and analyze/critique data gathered, arguments formulated, and conclusions drawn by a wide variety of academic disciplines and social bodies, but to stay in their place. Despite the fact that discovery in any field can come from any human being who just so happens to pose the right questions or answers, men have been discouraged from thinking that they could learn enough to make them competent judges of, at the very least, the arguments being formulated by the so-called “experts.”2

So rather than viewing the question of governmentally mandated prohibitions on working as one which any man with a grasp of the law of non-contradiction and the basic theology of the Bible can meditate on and thoughtfully and, perhaps, correctly answer by making an appeal to logic and the Scriptures, we have seen many men abdicate their responsibility to think about this matter. Men have sought the easier route of giving other men free rein over their own deliberations. And after all, why not? Your position in life, in academia, in the great intellectual chain of being, as it were, is completely distinct from the position of a Fauci or a Gates. On this view, you not only are not on the same level as these men, you are essentially a foreigner who must be led around by the hand through their pretentious academic constructions, and accept their self-disclosure as infallible, inerrant, and the basis for the formation of whatever thoughts in those disciplines you may have.

Back to Work

But this is clearly not the case, given that the Lord God has given us a very simple break down of how things in his creation are to work. In particular, the book of Genesis tells us very early on that work is activity that is required by the Lord. God did not suggest that Adam and Eve ought to work six days and rest on the seventh. He did not insinuate that it might be good for them to follow that pattern. He declared that this was the very purpose of man –

• Be fruitful

• Multiply

• Take dominion over the earth

• Subdue the earth

Man is, in other words, morally obligated to work six days a week. This is divine law, not the fanciful decree of some petty tyrant. Those who make your employment dependent on your submission to their arbitrary commands, mandates, edicts, etc are in flagrant violation of the law of God. To whom then do you submit? Are you arguing that it is in your interest to simply comply in order to not “stir the pot”? Then you are not reading the Scriptures closely enough.

Back to Genesis & the Fall

In the beginning, God created the heavens and the earth. He made man in his image – as a rational, volitional, and moral personal being. Being made in God’s image not only means that man is a rational, volitional, and moral personal being, but that he is such in a way that distinctly mirrors God. Man occupies the highest seat of authority over all of the vegetal and animal creatures in the universe (under God, of course) and, thereby, is capable of, and culpable for, exercising dominion over them. Working, in other words, is an inseparable consequence of man being the image of God. If man is not working, then he is not acting in accordance with his created nature which is the imago dei. Man, by his created nature as well as by divine decree, is obligated, and blessed with the opportunities and responsibility, to work.

If our understanding of the world is to be in accordance with the Scriptures, therefore, we must view man not merely as one who may work and thereby physically and externally reflect God’s image, but one whose being must do so. Not only this, but we must also view any prohibition on man’s ability and responsibility to work, if not explicitly or implicitly revealed by God, to be illegitimate, an illegal order that we ought not obey, lest we find ourselves placing the orders of wicked magistrates and rulers above and against the orders of the King of kings.

Please note that I am not here talking about those who are ill, disabled, etc who cannot work, as such conditions are, I believe, legitimately excusable grounds for one not working, as well as for not requiring another to work. Rather, I am talking about those who are forbidding others to work because they have not met some governmentally decreed arbitrary set of terms and conditions, as well as those who are fully capable of working and yet refuse to work because they have not met those arbitrary terms and conditions set up by the government. These individuals are forbidding what God commands (viz., work), and commanding what God forbids (viz., idleness).

While we exist outside of the Paradise Adam and Eve occupied, our occupation has not changed. Adam was placed in the garden to till and keep it, according to Gen 2:15. And once he had sinned, the Holy Spirit tells us the following –

Then to Adam He said, “Because you have heeded the voice of your wife, and have eaten from the tree of which I commanded you, saying, ‘You shall not eat of it’:

“Cursed is the ground for your sake;
In toil you shall eat of it
All the days of your life.
Both thorns and thistles it shall bring forth for you,
And you shall eat the herb of the field.
In the sweat of your face you shall eat bread

Till you return to the ground,
For out of it you were taken;
For dust you are,
And to dust you shall return.”

[…]

Then the Lord God said, “Behold, the man has become like one of Us, to know good and evil. And now, lest he put out his hand and take also of the tree of life, and eat, and live forever”— therefore the Lord God sent him out of the garden of Eden to till the ground from which he was taken.3

Prior to the Fall, man’s job was to till and keep the earth. After the Fall, man’s job was the same. And this implies that it is likewise our job to this day. Note the words used by the Lord in the passage above –

“…all the days of your life…”
“…till you return to the ground…”

How long is man to work? As long as he arbitrarily determines? Or all the days of his life? Till he gets bored or is too afraid to work? Or until he returns to the ground? The text is clear about this – man is to work, in one way or another, as long as he can, until he returns to the dust from which the Lord created him.

While we await the Lord’s return for his church, we are to work. If we are capable of working, we must. If the governing authorities attempt to tell us we cannot work unless we meet their terms and conditions, we must decide who it is we are going to obey – the Lord of the universe whose jurisdiction is over all of creation? Or those who are acting outside of their jurisdictional boundaries – namely those of rewarding good and punishing evil (as per Rom 13:1-7) – and placing themselves as authorities over and above and against the Creator himself?

1 See my article “The Tyranny of Bureaucracy vs. The Sovereignty of God,” Invospec, Oct 29, 2020, https://www.invospec.org/2020/10/the-tyranny-of-bureaucracy-vs.html.

2 See my article “Debunking the ‘Expertise Rule,’” ThornCrown Ministries, July 10, 2020, https://thorncrownministries.com/blog/2020/7/10/debunking-the-expertise-rule.

3 Gen 3:17-23. (emphasis added)

“We are Republicans, and don't propose to leave our party and identify ourselves with the party whose antecedents have been rum, Romanism, and rebellion.  We are loyal to our flag.”

-          Dr. Samuel D. Burchard, Presbyterian Minister and Union Civil War Veteran

“Our patience is wearing thin.” Thus did the imposter-in-chief and son of Antichrist Joe Biden bellow from the lectern on Thursday. 

More fully, his comments were:

My message to unvaccinated Americas is this: what more is there to wait for, what more do you need to see?  We’ve made vaccinations free, safe, and convenient.  The Vaccine is FDA approved [it isn’t, but that’s another matter]. Over 200 million Americans have gotten at least one shot.  We’ve been patient, but our patience is wearing thin.  And your refusal has cost all of us.  So please, do the right thing.  But don’t just take it from me.  Listen to the voices of unvaccinated Americans who are lying in hospital beds taking their final breath saying, “if only I’d gotten vaccinated! If only!” It’s a tragedy.  Please don’t let it become yours.

With his words, this treasonous liar managed, in very short order, to declare war, not just on unvaccinated Americans, but on all the constitutionally guaranteed liberties of all Americans.

Quite apart from the fact that the Covid vaccines are unsafe and ineffective, Biden’s arrogant and threatening words are among the most disturbing, unconstitutional, and unchristian utterances made by any American politician ever.  It’s that serious. 

There is no provision in our Constitution that allows a president to dictate what medical treatments a person must have.  There is no support for such a thing in Scripture. 

Far from it. 

In 1988, Joe Biden’s bid for the White House was short circuited when it turned out he had, “lifted portions of a speech by United Kingdom Labour MP and Margaret Thatcher challenger Neil Kinnock.”   

It only he had stuck with plagiarizing Neil Kinnock.

Now, when speaking as President in 2021, it seems that Biden has raised his game, lifting his ideas from a higher source.  In this case, Revelation 13 seems to be where Biden is stealing his ideas these days.  There we read, “And that no man might buy or sell, save he that had the mark, or the name of the beast, or the number of his name.”

It is not my point here to argue that the Covid vaccine answers to the prophecy in John’s Revelation. With that said, Biden’s threat to the unvaccinated is certainly of that same spirit we find in Revelation.  “Do what I tell you, or else!” 

It’s also of the same spirit one finds in the Roman Catholic Church, the Great Babylonian Harlot of Revelation.  In the middle ages, Rome was all about “do what we say, or else!”  If you didn’t believe that Christ really, truly was present in the sacrifice of the mass, well, you were in a whole lot of trouble and would likely find yourself on the receiving end of some nasty business.  This is what dogma is.  “Believe, or else!”  No matter how stupid, absurd, and unbiblical Rome’s pronouncements were. You had to accept what the pope and his henchmen said or suffer the consequences.

Back in 2006 in his essay “The Religious Wars of the 21st Century,”  John Robbins wrote, “The Protestant Reformation is indeed over; the respite of peace, freedom, and prosperity it afforded the West from the long history of human brutality is drawing to a close; and the world is about to enter a new Dark Age of slavery, brutality, and war.  Only the second coming of Christ or an extraordinary work of the Holy Spirit can prevent religious totalitarians from imposing their will on billions of people.”

Some may have thought Robbins a pessimist when he wrote that.  But fifteen years later, his words seem downright prescient.

America is suffering under the government of its second Roman Catholic president.  And unlike the first one, John F. Kennedy, Biden not only sees no need to hide his political and economic Romanism, but actually goes out of his way to embrace them.    

By political and economic Romanism, I mean the application of the Roman Catholic Church-State’s (RCCS) theology and philosophy to those two disciplines.

Joe Biden’s Political and Economic Romanism

We’ve already seen one example of Joe Biden’s political Romanism in his arrogant announcement of vaccine mandates.  But one can find many other examples of Biden openly embracing the economics and politics of the Woman Who Rides the Beast. 

On his 2020 campaign website, we read:

In his encyclical, Laudato Si, Pope Francis directed the global community to raise awareness about the growing climate change crisis. Climate change threatens communities across the country, from beachfront coastal towns to rural farms in the heartland. Joe’s plan will tackle climate change and pollution to protect our communities.

By favorably citing Jesuit Pope Francis’ 2015 encyclical Laudato Si, Biden is advancing not only Rome’s environmentalist agenda but the ultimate aim of that agenda: global government.   In Laudato Si, Pope Francis, the current occupant of the office of Antichrist, approvingly quoted his immediate predecessor Antichrist, writing:

Given this situation, it is essential to devise stronger and more efficiently organized international institutions, with functionaries who are appointed fairly by agreement among national governments, and empowered to impose sanctions. As Benedict XVI has affirmed in continuity with the social teaching of the Church: “To manage the global economy; to revive economies hit by the crisis; to avoid any deterioration of the present crisis and the greater imbalances that would result; to bring about integral and timely disarmament, food security and peace; to guarantee the protection of the environment and to regulate migration: for all this, there is urgent need of a true world political authority, as my predecessor Blessed John XXIII indicated some years ago”(emphasis mine).

With the above in mind, is it any surprise that one of Biden’s first acts in office was to put America back into the treasonous Paris Climate Accord?  By doing this, Biden promoted the climate change of globalist lies of the RCCS.

Biden’s praising of Pope Francis’ socialist economics predates the 2020 presidential campaign.  In 2014, when many liberty minded Roman Catholics were aghast of Pope Francis’s open attack on capitalism in his Apostolic Exhortation Evangelii Gaudium, Joe Biden said of one of the Pope’s critics, “As a practicing Catholic, bless me, Father, for he has sinned.”

We have already seen Biden’s thuggish attitude to those who disagree with the Covid vaccine campaign.  But Biden is not the first Covid authoritarian.  And while Pope Francis is certainly not the only Covid authoritarian, he is certainly one of the most prominent. 

Back in February of this year, there was this headline in the Huffington Post, “Vatican Threatens To Fire Employees Who Refuse COVID-19 Vaccine.” Antichrist loves the vax so much that, aping him, his Mini Me in the White House wants to bring the same blessing to Americans coast to coast.  Except, of course, to members of Congress and their staff.  They’re exempted. Rules are for little people!  Shades of the middle ages indeed, where there was one law for the nobility, and another for everyone else. 

Critical Race Theory is another point of agreement between the Biden regime and Antichrist.  They both think it’s wonderful.  In an article titled “Critical race theory and Catholicism go hand in hand,” Jesuit Patrick Saint-Jean wrote that, “CRT [Critical Race Theory] intersects easily with Catholic social teaching.”  Doubtless, it does. But then, that’s a condemnation of Rome’s evil and ungodly Social Teaching, not a confirmation of its righteousness as the Jesuit author of the article thinks.

Unsurprisingly, Joe Biden – it’s worth mentioning here that Biden attends a Jesuit-run parish in Washington D.C. – also thinks CRT is just awesome and something we Americans all need more of. 

How about immigration, migration, and refugee resettlement?  Once again, there is no distinction at all between the policies of the Biden regime and pronouncements of the Antichrists current and past on this topic.  In short, both the Pope and Joe Biden think it’s a great idea to flood the nation with immigrants, migrants, and refugees and stick the American people with the bill, all the while denouncing them as a bunch of depolorables for even so much as questioning whether these policies are good for the American people or make any economic sense.  In his blasting critique of Strangers No Longer, Pastor Ralph Ovadal called this “romanizing America through illegal immigration.” 

But it’s not just illegal immigration that the Popes of Rome, including the current Pope, use to destroy nations. It’s also welfare refugee resettlement.  Both Pope Francis and Joe Biden want to flood America with Afghan refugees.  Antichrist Pope Francis even prayed, “that displaced persons inside Afghanistan receive assistance and protection.”  That is to say, Francis wants them on the public dole.  This is one of Rome’s most flagrant refugee scams, conflating Christian charity, which is always the voluntary giving of one’s own things, with state-run welfare, which is theft. 

Naturally, the Biden regime thinks the same thing.  According to the Wall Street Journal, “Biden Administration Seeks New Law to East Afghan Refugees’ Path to Green Cards.”  So we can import literally plan loads of people, many of whom the State Department has no idea who they are and of whom, “only a small share of those entering the U.S. qualified through the Special Immigrant Visa program intended for Afghan interpreters, drivers, embassy workers and other who directly worked for the American military and U.S. contractors.”  Let the refugee handouts begin! 

I could go on, but the reader by now should be able to see that political and economic Romanism is, far from being accidental, is the very warp and wood of the Biden regime. 

If Americans are to have any chance of retaining any of their remaining liberties, it is imperative for Christians to denounce and refute the political and economic Romanism of the Biden regime.  

In this last part of my series on how to love God and your neighbor, I will present a broad outline of why it is we are exempt from mandatory vaccinations as Christians. The basic argument is simple –

Given that mandatory vaccination overrides the magisterial authority of Scripture, as well as the ministerial authority of Logic and the academic and practical disciplines subservient to it, mandatory vaccination violates our religious liberty to worship God with all of our mind and body.

Mandated/forced vaccination hinders us from worshiping God as he has prescribed in his Word. Indeed, it forces us to sin against God. This not only violates our freedom of conscience, and our freedom to exercise religion, but attacks the very substance of Christian living and, therefore, Christianity itself.

This will be a little lengthy, but I feel the need to get into more details on this matter. I pray that you will find this profitable, and be able to utilize it in any way that will edify the body of Christ.

I. The Scope of Sola Scriptura

As the Westminster Confession correctly explains,

The whole counsel of God concerning all things necessary for his own glory, man’s salvation, faith and life, is either expressly set down in Scripture, or by good and necessary consequence may be deduced from Scripture…1

The scope of the Scriptures’ sufficiency, let us note, is broader than many would like to concede. This is evident from the authors’ use of the universal terms whole and all, as well as by their reference to (a)that which is expressly/explicitly set down in Scripture and (b)that which is necessarily implied by (a). Scripture covers all that is necessary as respects the glorification of God, man’s salvation, the doctrines man must believe, and the day to day actions that man must perform in order to glorify God.

There is nothing hidden from the Word of God, from his verbal/written judgment.2All actions are revealed to be either glorifying to God or not when they are examined in light of the Scriptures’ explicit and implicit teaching. Paul says the same in his second epistle to Timothy, writing –

All Scripture is breathed out by God and profitable for teaching, for reproof, for correction, and for training in righteousness, that the man of God may be complete, equipped for every good work.3

All of Scripture is of divine origin and authority. All of Scripture is profitable for making one equipped every good work. No work of the regenerate man is, therefore, excluded from the explicit and implicit teaching of Scripture. All of our works are subordinate to the Word of God, receiving either approval or condemnation from God. Hence, the Westminster theologians go on to explain that –

The supreme judge by which all controversies of religion are to be determined, and all decrees of councils, opinions of ancient writers, doctrines of men, and private spirits, are to be examined, and in whose sentence we are to rest, can be no other but the Holy Spirit speaking in the Scripture.4

Again, note the universals here – all controversies of religion, all decrees of councils, all opinions of ancient writers, all doctrines of men, and all private spirits – indicating that the Word of God is the supreme judge of all thinking and action.

II. The Definition of “Good Works”

Whatever has been deemed to be a good work, then, must be examined in light of not merely the explicit declarations of God’s Word, but also the implicit teaching necessarily inferred therefrom. When this is done, we see that good works are

…only such as God hath commanded in his holy Word, and not such as, without the warrant thereof, are devised by men, out of blind zeal, or upon any pretense of good intention.5

That which God requires of men, as revealed in his Word, constitutes what we can legitimately call “good works.” If there are actions that are not commanded by God, or which contradict the explicit and implicit teaching of Scripture as to the nature of godly living, i.e. obedient living that brings glory to God, then those actions do not constitute what we can legitimately call good works.6

III. The Scope of “Good Works”

We have defined what constitutes a good work, and now we must turn to Scripture to understand the scope of that which is covered by the term “good works.” Is it a narrowly defined sphere of activity? Or is it the whole of a man’s life? Well, given that the Westminster Larger Catechism, following the Scriptures, states that “man's chief and highest end is to glorify God, and fully to enjoy him forever,”7 it is the case that man’s very existence – the entirety of his life – ought to be lived in a manner that brings glory to God. This implies that every act of man is intended by God to be a good work.

Every action of man ought to be performed in good conscience before God, in faith that what is being performed is that which is in accordance with God’s Law, for “whatever does not proceed from faith is sin.”8 Every action, consequently, must be performed in order to bring God glory. As the apostle Paul tells the Corinthians –

…whether you eat or drink, or whatever you do, do all to the glory of God.9

Good works, then, are firstly those which are explicitly stated in the Law of God, the Ten Commandments. Good works, however, also include all the actions of men, covering every aspect of human existence, taken by faith in accordance with the Law of God explicitly stated in Scripture.

The apostle Paul also makes this clear when he tells the Romans the following –

I appeal to you therefore, brothers, by the mercies of God, to present your bodies as a living sacrifice, holy and acceptable to God, which is your spiritual worship. Do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewal of your mind, that by testing you may discern what is the will of God, what is good and acceptable and perfect.10

We are called to firstly have our thinking conformed to God’s Word, and then our bodies (performing those actions which we have, by faith, determined to be in accordance with God’s Law). This conformation, via testing (i.e. reasoning about our thoughts and actions in the world), enables us to discern what thoughts and actions are good before God (i.e. what actions may be performed in accordance with God’s explicitly stated Law).

IV. Daily Individual Worship and Lord’s Day Corporate Worship

It is noteworthy that Paul defines the whole of our bodily existence as “spiritual worship.” While we are called to not forsake the assembling of the local body which meets together for corporate worship on the Lord’s Day,11 we are also called to individually worship God by having our minds and, therefore, thoughts and bodily actions conformed to the Word of God. Our daily activity is, in other words, worship to God, as is our weekly meeting on the Lord’s Day. These two forms of worship are distinct and complementary to one another, not contradictory. We worship God daily, and meet together as a body to worship him on the Lord’s Day.

V. The Individual Temple

The individual body, like the corporate body,12 is identified as the house of God, the physical place where God dwells and governs over man’s thoughts and actions by his Spirit and his Word. Writing to the Corinthians, the apostle Paul explains –

…we know that if the tent that is our earthly home is destroyed, we have a building from God, a house not made with hands, eternal in the heavens. For in this tent we groan, longing to put on our heavenly dwelling, if indeed by putting it on we may not be found naked. For while we are still in this tent, we groan, being burdened—not that we would be unclothed, but that we would be further clothed, so that what is mortal may be swallowed up by life. He who has prepared us for this very thing is God, who has given us the Spirit as a guarantee.

So we are always of good courage. We know that while we are at home in the body we are away from the Lord, for we walk by faith, not by sight. Yes, we are of good courage, and we would rather be away from the body and at home with the Lord. So whether we are at home or away, we make it our aim to please him. For we must all appear before the judgment seat of Christ, so that each one may receive what is due for what he has done in the body, whether good or evil.13

In this passage, Paul repeatedly identifies the believer’s body as the dwelling place of God’s Spirit. The Holy Spirit governs over the activities of this house, just as he governs over the activities of the corporate house of God.

The apostle Peter, likewise, identifies his body as a “tent,” or “tabernacle,” in his second epistle. He writes –

…I think it is right, as long as I am in this tent, to stir you up by reminding you, knowing that shortly I must put off my tent, just as our Lord Jesus Christ showed me.14

Peter H. Davids’ commentary here is very useful:

Rooted in their previous nomadic life (many of the peoples in the Mediterranean had once been nomadic) and the present use of tents as temporary shelters, the image of a tent for this mortal life is found in the OT (Isa 38:12…), but is more common in Hellenistic Judaism. For instance, in Wisd 9:15 we read, “For a perishable body weighs down the soul, and this earthly tent burdens the thoughtful mind,” a clear indication of both the tent = body imagery and body-soul dualism…15

The apostle Paul elsewhere identifies the believer’s body as “a temple of the Holy Spirit.”16 And these all, of course, are following the Lord Jesus Christ’s identification of his own body as The Temple of God.17 While Christ’s body as the Temple of God has a much greater and richer significance than our individual bodies being temples of God, the point of derivation and overlap cannot be ignored. The Son of God tabernacled among men,18 the fullness of the Godhead dwelling in him bodily,19 and was given the Spirit without measure.20 We are tent-dwelling sojourners in this world, redeemed sinners in whom the fullness of the God does not dwell bodily, and who do not possess the Holy Spirit without measure, whose flesh lusts against the Spirit as he works to conform us to Christ’s image.21

VII. What This Means for Us

The significance of our bodies being temples of the Holy Spirit lies in the fact that they are to be governed by the Holy Spirit as he teaches us from his Word, thereby making us wise and capable of discerning what is the good and perfect will of God. The good and perfect will of God is comprised of those good works which God has ordained for his people,22 and fall under two categories – 1. Good works explicitly commanded by God in his Law, and 2. Works that are judged to be in accordance with God’s Word after prayerful study and reflection on the explicit and implicit teaching of Scripture. And these two categories of good works constitute the whole of our Christian life, rendering all of our daily activities either fulfilled or failed attempts at worship.

Thinking for oneself in light of the Scriptures’ explicit and implicit teaching, in other words, is a daily act of worship in which all Christians must engage. Forcing Christians to act against our consciences, insofar as they are informed by the Word of God, not only violates our freedom of conscience and our God-given right to worship God freely, but also forces us to sin against God. This is an attack on our ability to live in accordance with Scripture and, therefore, an attack on the Christian faith (which addresses all areas of our life) in its entirety.

Consequently, forced vaccination – whether by physical coercion, intellectual and/or emotional manipulation, or government mandates – is something with which we cannot comply, lest we sin against our Lord and Savior by subordinating his Word and Spirit to the words, wishes, and powers of men and their institutions. The Christian system of doctrine teaches us that man’s body is his own possession, a creation meant to be ruled and governed by the Spirit and Word of God. Christians, in particular, are revealed to be temples, places of worship, which must be governed by the Spirit and the Word. The subordination of the Word of God and his Spirit to any authority constitutes a flagrant act of idolatry in which no Christian can, or would want to, participate.

Ultimately, the Christian is free, and must be free, to reflect on all of his actions in light of the revealed Word of God (explicit and implicit). He is free, and must be free, to judge whether or not taking an experimental medication is in accordance with the revealed Word of God (explicit and implicit).

1 Ch. 1, Art. 6.

2 cf. Heb 4:12-14.

3 2nd Tim 3:16-17.

4 WCF, Ch. 1, Art. 10.

5 ibid., Ch. 16, Art. 1.

6 See, Isa 5:20-21; Mark 7:9-13; 1st Tim 1:8-11.

7 WLC, A.1.

8 Rom 14:23b. (emphasis added)

9 1st Cor 10:31. (emphasis added)

10 Rom 12:1-2. (emphasis added)

11 cf. Heb 10:19-25.

12 See 1st Cor 11:17-22 (this is implicit to Paul’s rhetorical question in v.22a), Eph 2:18-20, 1st Tim 3:1-5 & 14-15, 2nd Tim 2:15-21, 1st Pet 2:4-6 & 4:17, Heb 3:1-6 & 10:19-25.

13 2nd Cor 5:1-10.

14 2nd Pet 1:13-14. (emphasis added) [N.B. I’ve used the NKJV rendering here because the ESV does not provide a translation of the original Greek here, but interprets the Greek word as an analogy/metaphor for the body. This interpretation is correct, but it subtly undermines the significance of the original wording. If the body is the Lord’s tabernacle, this ties directly into Peter’s identification of believers as “sojourners” in the present age (cf. 1st Pet 2:11).]

15 The Letters of 2 Peter and Jude (Grand Rapids: Wm. B. Eerdman’s, 2006), 194. (emphasis added)

16 1st Cor 6:19-20.

17 See John 2:13-21.

18 cf. John 1:14.

19 cf. Col 1:19-20 & 2:9.

20 cf. John 3:34-35.

21 cf. Gal 5:16-25.

22 cf. Eph 2:10.

In my last article,1 I didn’t urge readers to not get vaccinated because I didn’t have the time to gather all the relevant articles demonstrating that the mRNA vaccines are not safe and effective. My goal, moreover, was to get Christians to think about the propaganda that they are up against, and to love God with all of their mind by making a wise, God-glorifying decision. Given that the vaccines are being promoted by means of propaganda, however, that is enough for us to refuse them. Manipulation, coercion, threats, emotionalism, and the redefinition of love render any decision made upon such appeals sinful. If we want to love our neighbor, then, we must not act in defiance of the first table of the Law of God by abdicating our responsibility to rationally assess the present situation.

In this article, I am not going to delve into the data that demonstrates how the mRNA vaccines are not safe and effective. Instead, I want to give a single reason, and an important one, for my refusal to get the vaccine. My goal is to make an argument that can be used in everyday (i.e. not overly technical/scientific) discussions with other believers, or with unbelievers, that clearly states why a Christian should not get “the jab.”

You Shall Not Bear False Witness

As of the moment, the mRNA vaccines are being aggressively promoted by the media, government officials, and media personalities. While there are therapeutics that have been shown to be safe and effective in the treatment of COVID-19, these promoters of the mRNA vaccines do not promote them. They not only fail to promote them, they actively discourage the use of these therapeutic treatments. They argue fallaciously in order to manipulate their audiences into getting the mRNA vaccine, rather than getting cheap and safe and effective drugs like hydroxychloroquine and ivermectin.

For instance, rather than reporting on the successful treatment of COVID-19 with hydroxychloroquine, the media reported on a man who had taken chloroquine tablets intended for fish and, subsequently died from it.2 The media’s intention was to make Trump responsible for health misinformation and, consequently, the man’s death. It was also intended to mock anyone who dare to seek treatment that was not approved of by the FDA. One news outlet made the false claim that hydroxychloroquine was not approved of by the FDA for the treatment of COVID-19, despite the fact that it had been given Emergency Use Authorization very early on and would only have that authorization revoked several days afterward.3

Another media outlet called those who were promoting hydroxychloroquine conspiracy theorists,4 falsely claimed that the drug was “condemned by the US Food and Drug Association,”5 deceptively reported that “hydroxychloroquine is well documented for increasing serious heart problems, and in some cases, resulting in death,”6 and mocked President Trump and anyone else who would dare to think differently than the so-called experts. This was more than a simple attempt to dissuade people from using the drug; it was propaganda meant to belittle, ostracize, and vilify seekers of the drug. Many other outlets did the same,7 and are now reusing the same tactics with respect to another drug that is being used successfully as a COVID-19 therapeutic, namely ivermectin.

In a recent article by Oliver Darcy, the CNN reporter, as well as the FDA, misrepresent ivermectin as “an anti-parasitic drug used for livestock,”8 while simultaneously affirming that “there are human uses for ivermectin.”9 Another CNN writer, Chris Cillizza, does the same in his article “What the ivermectin debacle reveals about the hypocrisy of the anti-vaxxer crowd,”10 identifying those promoting the drug as conspiracy theorists. He goes on to identify the drug as “a drug used to de-worm large animals, in stock,”11 and as “medicine meant for horses and cows,”12 only to then state that “there are formulations of ivermectin approved for human use in the United States, but it's intended for intestinal parasites and conditions such as head lice and rosacea,” thereby revealing his equivocal use of the word “ivermectin.”13 The goal? To identify the drug as harmful, unapproved by the FDA, and dangerous.

In a dark twist of irony, however, the same media outlet has an article written by a physician explaining why you should not “wait for full FDA approval to get your Covid shot.”14 This highlights the fact that whether or not one should take hydroxychloroquine or ivermectin or get “the jab” is being determined not by the sheer preponderance of data but the sheer exercise of authority. If FDA approval should not keep one from getting an experimental gene therapy, then why should it keep one from taking hydroxychloroquine or ivermectin, two drugs that have – over their long lifespan – a death rate that is much lower than the 13,000 plus deaths15 attributable to the new mRNA vaccines that have only been in use for about a year or so? This doesn’t add up.

Moreover, given the revelation only a few months ago that Anthony Fauci knew hydroxychloroquine was a safe and effective therapeutic treatment for COVID-19,16 why did he and the media lie about his knowledge of the drug’s efficacy?17 Given that there have been major studies showing the efficacy of ivermectin as a safe and effective therapeutic treatment18 for COVID-19, why are the media, talking heads, politicians, and the FDA arguing deceptively, manipulatively, and fallaciously in a frantic attempt to keep people from getting access to the drug?

We can guess, with reasonable accuracy, the reason behind these attacks on demonstrably successful treatments for COVID-19. It’s simple – If there exist safe and effective alternatives to the vaccines currently being promoted by the government and the media – alternatives whose benefits outweigh their risks, and are more beneficial and less risky than the mRNA vaccines – then the vaccines will lose their EUA status. According to the FDA’s own official document, the organization

...may issue an EUA after FDA has determined that the following statutory requirements are met […]

• The chemical, biological, radiological, or nuclear (CBRN) agent referred to in the March 27, 2020 EUA declaration by the Secretary of HHS (SARS-CoV-2) can cause a serious or life threatening disease or condition.

• Based on the totality of scientific evidence available, including data from adequate and well controlled trials, if available, it is reasonable to believe that the product may be effective to prevent, diagnose, or treat such serious or life-threatening disease or condition that can be caused by SARS-CoV-2.

• The known and potential benefits of the product, when used to diagnose, prevent, or treat the identified serious or life-threatening disease or condition, outweigh the known and potential risks of the product.

• There is no adequate, approved, and available alternative to the product for diagnosing,

preventing, or treating the disease or condition.19

And while bullet point 1 has obviously been met, points 2-3 have repeatedly been shown to have not been met. Given the amount of deaths and adverse side effects caused by the mRNA vaccines, it is not reasonable to believe that they can “prevent, diagnose, or treat such serious or life-threatening disease or condition that can be caused by SARS-CoV-2.”20 This is because the vaccines have not been determined to be safe and effective on the basis of “the totality of scientific evidence available” but by studies that have systematically excluded unfavorable data. Nor has it been determined on the basis of “data [obtained] from adequate and well controlled trials” but has been determined on the basis of incomplete and poorly controlled trials.21 Consequently, EUA has not been granted to the vaccines because “the known and potential benefits of the product, when used to diagnose, prevent, or treat the identified serious or life-threatening disease or condition, outweigh the known and potential risks of the product.” Yet by excluding unfavorable data, drawing conclusions from incomplete and poorly controlled mRNA vaccine trials, and lying about drugs like hydroxychroloquine and ivermectin, the FDA has provided itself a plausible basis for claiming that bullet point 4 has been met.

The truth is that the vaccines have not met the requisite conditions justifying the FDA granting them EUA. There are, and have been, many “adequate, … and available alternative[s] to the [mRNA vaccines] for diagnosing, preventing, or treating [COVID-19]” – e.g. hydroxycloroquine,22 ivermectin, budesonide,23 quercetin alongside high doses of vitamins C and D3,24 and Regeneron25 – to name a few. If these alternatives are ignored, sidelined, lied about, etc, however, and are identified as unsafe and ineffective, then the vaccines retain their EUA.

Conclusion: Why I Am Obligated to NOT Get the Vaccine

Given that the government and media have lied about the safety and efficiency of numerous treatments for COVID-19, and that the government and media have lied about the safety and efficiency of the mRNA vaccines, and that the government and media have utilized fallacious and unsound reasoning in an attempt to retain EUA for an experimental treatment that has been shown to be not only very dangerous but ineffective, I am obligated to obey God and not participate in their false witness bearing. I cannot get the vaccine because doing so would imply that I am in agreement with their lies, lies that have not only been used to destroy the lives of many people who could have otherwise been saved by cheap, safe, effective, and easily accessible treatments, but have also destroyed the personal reputations of many doctors who promoted those treatments because they were concerned with saving lives, and not with lining their pockets with blood money.

So in a word – I am obligated to refuse the jab because I am obligated under divine law to not bear false testimony, and the very reason why the vaccines have EUA and, what is more, have been touted as the best means of fighting against COVID-19 is because the media and government have borne false testimony on numerous levels. These lies have resulted in the deaths of thousands of people, the defamation of many doctors and front line workers, the destruction of innumerable businesses, the psychological ruination of many children, the dissolution of families due to suicide or substance relapse or domestic violence, and the psychological abuse of many elderly people who were denied, and are still being denied, access to their loved ones.

Because love does one’s neighbor no harm, I am obligated to not get the vaccine.

1 See Hiram R. Diaz III, “How to Love God and Your Neighbor – Think Before You Get “The Jab,” ThornCrown Ministries, Sept 2, 2021, https://thorncrownministries.com/blog/how-to-love-god-and-your-neighbor-think-before-you-get-the-jab.

2 See Erika Edwards and Vaughn Hillyard, “Man dies after taking chloroquine in an attempt to prevent coronavirus,” NBC News, March 23, 2020, https://www.nbcnews.com/health/health-news/man-dies-after-ingesting-chloroquine-attempt-prevent-coronavirus-n1167166.

3 ibid. [N.B. While the NBC News article mentions that hydroxychloroquine was being looked at as a potentially useful therapeutic, that is only partially correct. It was granted Emergency Use Authorization on March 28, 2020. The EUA was revoked on June 15, 2020. See “Authorizations and Revocation of Emergency Use of Drugs During the COVID-19 Pandemic; Availability,” Federal Register: The Daily Journal of the United States Government, Sept 11, 2020, https://www.federalregister.gov/documents/2020/09/11/2020-20041/authorizations-and-revocation-of-emergency-use-of-drugs-during-the-covid-19-pandemic-availability.]

4 Jenae Madden, “Hydroxychloroquine: the conspiracy theorists’ answer to coronavirus, explained,” Happy, April 4, 2020, https://happymag.tv/hydroxychloroquine-the-conspiracy-theorists-answer-to-coronavirus-explained/.

5 ibid.

6 ibid.

7 See Daniel Funke, “Conspiracy Theory Proven False: Hydroxychloroquine Is [Still] Not a COVID-19 Cure,” Physicians News, July 31, 2020, https://physiciansnews.com/2020/07/31/conspiracy-theory-proven-false-hydroxychloroquine-is-still-not-a-covid-19-cure/; Ann McLaughlin, “Investigating the most convincing COVID-19 conspiracy theories,” June 23, 2020, King’s College London, https://www.kcl.ac.uk/investigating-the-most-convincing-covid-19-conspiracy-theories;

8 “Right-wing media pushed a deworming drug to treat Covid-19 that the FDA says is unsafe for humans,” CNN, Aug 23, 2021, https://www.cnn.com/2021/08/23/media/right-wing-media-ivermectin/index.html.

9 ibid.

10 CNN, Aug 25, 2021, https://www.cnn.com/2021/08/25/politics/ivermectin-covid-19-fox-news/index.html.

11 ibid.

12 ibid.

13 Ivermectin for animals differs in concentration levels from ivermectin for humans. Logically, this makes the two uses of the word distinct. The genus here is ivermectin, and the species are (a.)animal and (b.)human. By identifying the use of (a.) as proof that (b.) should not be used, the author is committing the fallacy of equivocation.

14 Jonthan Sackner-Bernstein, CNN, July 28, 2021, https://www.cnn.com/2021/07/28/opinions/dont-wait-for-fda-approval-to-get-vaccine-sackner-bernstein/index.html.

15 See Tucker Carlson, “How Many Americans Have Died After Taking COVID Vaccinations?,” FOX News, Brighteon, https://www.brighteon.com/2a2fd903-220a-4b4f-86bf-0f78aaa8fd2a.

16 See Jim Hoft, “SMOKING GUN: FAUCI LIED, MILLIONS DIED — Fauci Was Informed of Hydroxychloroquine Success in Early 2020 But Lied to Public Instead Despite the Science #FauciEmails,” Gateway Pundit, Jun 3, 2021, https://www.thegatewaypundit.com/2021/06/smoking-gun-fauci-lied-millions-died-fauci-informed-hydroxychloroquine-worked-lied-public-instead-despite-science-fauciemails/.

17 See Daniel Funke, “Don’t fall for conspiracy about Dr. Anthony Fauci, hydroxychloroquine,” Politifact, May 6, 2020, https://www.politifact.com/factchecks/2020/may/06/blog-posting/dont-fall-conspiracy-about-dr-anthony-fauci-hydrox/.

18 For example, see Morimasa Yagisawa, Patrick J. Foster, Hideaki Hanaki, and Satoshi Ōmura, “Global trends in clinical studies of ivermectin in COVID-19,” in The Japanese Journal of Antibiotics 74 – 1 (Mar.\ 2021), 45-95. [N.B. The PDF, for now, is accessible online here – http://jja-contents.wdc-jp.com/pdf/JJA74/74-1-open/74-1_44-95.pdf].

19 Emergency Use Authorization for Vaccines to Prevent COVID-19, 3. FDA website, May 25, 2021, https://www.fda.gov/media/142749/download.

20 ibid.

21 See Ronald B. Brown, “Outcome Reporting Bias in COVID-19 mRNA Vaccine Clinical Trials,” in Medicina

57, 199 (2021), https://doi.org/10.3390/medicina57030199; Richard Harris, “Long-Term Studies Of COVID-19 Vaccines Hurt By Placebo Recipients Getting Immunized,” NPR, Feb 19, 2021, https://www.npr.org/sections/health-shots/2021/02/19/969143015/long-term-studies-of-covid-19-vaccines-hurt-by-placebo-recipients-getting-immuni; Lance D. Johnson, “Moderna and Pfizer vaccine trials RIGGED by vaccinating the control group… blatant science FRAUD exposed,” Natural News, Aug 10, 2021, https://www.naturalnews.com/2021-08-10-moderna-and-pfizer-vaccine-trials-rigged-vaccinating-control-group.html; Tyler Durden, “Ex-Pfizer Exec Demands EU Halt COVID-19 Vaccine Studies Over 'Indefinite Infertility' And Other Health Concerns,” ZeroHedge, Dec 6, 2020, https://www.zerohedge.com/medical/ex-pfizer-exec-demands-eu-halt-covid-19-vaccine-studies-over-indefinite-infertility-and.

22 See C. Prodromos and T. Rumschlag, “Hydroxychloroquine is effective, and consistently so when provided early, for COVID-19: a systematic review,” in New Microbes and New Infections 38, Nov (2020), https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S2052297520301281?via%3Dihub.

23 See “Common asthma treatment reduces need for hospitalisation in COVID-19 patients, study suggests,” University of Oxford – News and Events, Feb 9, 2021, https://www.ox.ac.uk/news/2021-02-09-common-asthma-treatment-reduces-need-hospitalisation-covid-19-patients-study; Sanjay Ramakrishnan, et al., “Inhaled budesonide in the treatment of early COVID-19 (STOIC): a phase 2, open-label, randomised controlled trial,” in The Lancet – Respiratory Medicine Vol. 9, Issue 7, (April 9, 2021), https://www.thelancet.com/journals/lanres/article/PIIS2213-2600(21)00160-0/fulltext.

24 See Giuseppe Derosa, et al., “A role for quercetin in coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19),” in Phytotherapy Research, Wiley Online Library, October 9, 2020, https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/ptr.6887; Ruben Manuel Luciano Colunga Biancatelli, et al., “Quercetin and Vitamin C: An Experimental, Synergistic Therapy for the Prevention and Treatment of SARS-CoV-2 Related Disease (COVID-19),” in Frontiers in Immunology 19, June (2020), https://www.frontiersin.org/articles/10.3389/fimmu.2020.01451/full; Joseph Mercola, “Evidence Regarding Vitamin D and Risk of COVID-19 and Its Severity,” in Nutrients 12, October (2020), https://www.mdpi.com/2072-6643/12/11/3361.

25 See Kezia Parkins, “Regeneron’s antibody cocktail helps prevent and treat Covid-19 in Phase III studies,” Clinical Trials Arena, April 13, 2020, https://www.clinicaltrialsarena.com/news/regenerons-antibody-cocktail-regen-cov-helps-prevent-and-treat-covid-19-in-phase-3-studies/; Alistair Smout, “Regeneron’s antibody therapy cuts deaths among some hospitalised COVID-19 patients -study,” Reuters, June 16, 2021, https://www.reuters.com/business/healthcare-pharmaceuticals/regeneron-covid-19-therapy-cuts-deaths-among-hospitalised-patients-who-lack-2021-06-16/; Lenny Bernstein and Laurie McGinley, “Monoclonal antibodies are free and effective against covid-19, but few people are getting them,” Washington Post, August 20, 2021, https://www.washingtonpost.com/health/covid-monoclonal-abbott/2021/08/19/a39a0b5e-0029-11ec-a664-4f6de3e17ff0_story.html.

Seeing as many Christians are aware of the ethically suspect, if not entirely corrupt, process of vaccine development, and are aware of the serious side-effects of the gene-therapies that are now being rebranded as vaccines, there is a growing tide of individuals who feel the need to tell us that we are “not loving our neighbors” if we don’t get vaccinated. Visit social media and you can see them saying “I thought you were a Christian. Aren’t you supposed to love your neighbor?” Listen to the talking heads on television and online media outlets and you can hear them confidently asserting that “Jesus would have gotten the jab,” and so all Christians should get the jab in order to “love your neighbor like Jesus did.”

But what we are not seeing so much of is a biblical answer to the question posed by the singer Haddaway in 1993 –

What is love?

Instead, those who are “encouraging” us to get vaccinated assume that we share their definition of love and, therefore, should feel guilty for not acting in accordance with their definition of love. And, sadly, for many that is actually the case. Upon hearing that Christians who will not get vaccinated don’t love their neighbors, many professing Christians will feel guilty and get vaccinated against their convictions. This kind of manipulation is occurring on a daily basis and warrants a better response that is biblical and to the point. I hope to present that in this short article.

Defining Love

The American Heritage Dictionary online defines love as follows –

A strong feeling of affection and concern toward another person, as that arising from kinship or close friendship.

[…]

A strong feeling of affection and concern for another person accompanied by sexual attraction.

Similarly, Webster defines love in the following manner –

…strong affection for another arising out of kinship or personal ties

…attraction based on sexual desire : affection and tenderness felt by lovers

…affection based on admiration, benevolence, or common interests

What we see in these definitions, which I think are representative of how most people think about love, is that love is an affection – i.e. a favorable and tender disposition toward some person or thing – that arises from kinship or some other kind of intimate relationship we have with others. This understanding of love is problematic for a host of reasons. Let’s look at why it is problematic, and then look at what the Scriptures have to say.

In the first place, defining love as an affection (i.e. a favorable and tender disposition toward some person or thing) means that actions taken toward another person that are not favorable or tender are not loving. Yet our own proclamations of love for people show us that this is not the case. Leaving aside the question of who gets to define what is or is not “favorable” to the object of one’s love, we simply point out that those whom we love are often those with whom we tend to lack tenderness in certain situations. For instance, the father who loves his daughter will reprimand her harshly for using drugs, hanging out with the wrong crowd, disrespecting her mother, etc. He will also “tell her like it is,” knowing that it will drive a wedge between the two of them. Is his love suspended for his daughter when he keeps her from destroying her life with drugs, for instance, because he speaks harshly to her? We recognize that the father’s love is what fuels his response. His response is an instance of love, and it lacks the aforementioned tenderness and favorableness, from his daughter’s perspective that is, that is supposedly definitive of love.

The examples here can be multiplied –

• A sister who does not approve of her brother’s decision to divorce his wife and, therefore, refuses to give him emotional and financial support in his endeavors to split up his marriage.

• A church that disciplines a member who continues in flagrant and unrepentant sin.

• A parent who cuts off financial support for his children so that they can learn how to fend for themselves in the world.

• God taking the life of David’s child born of adultery.

• Christ calling Peter Satan.

The harshness in these examples is not evidence of the absence of love but, in fact, the proof of its central presence in the relationships described. What this means is that affection, as described above, is not essential to love. One can love another person by doing what is, according to that person, unfavorable and harsh. Our popular understanding of love, then, is wrong given our own understanding of our behaviors toward those whom we claim to love.

Secondly, because love is not an affection it cannot “arise from” some relationship we have with another person. Our relationship with another person may lead to us having positive/warm feelings for that person, but that isn’t the same thing as love. Our relationship with another person may lead to us acting tenderly toward that person, but that isn’t the same thing as love. We can interact tenderly with strangers we’ve never before met. We can also interact tenderly with people whom we hate. We can act favorably toward another person as a means of retribution, allowing that person to entertain delusions and engage in all kinds of self-destructive behavior, simply because we want him to suffer. Tenderness and favorableness cannot, therefore, be definitive of love.

So why do most people think love is a favorable and tender disposition toward another person? Simply put – they confuse the feelings they have while expressing love for another person with love itself. Unlike God, we experience emotional changes, as we are temporal and mutable creatures. We relate to others in time, moreover, experiencing emotional changes as time progresses in those relationships, and those relationships either grow to maturity or disintegrate. Is the building up of some shared life goal something that evokes positive emotions? Do those positive emotions grow as two people grow closer and see one another as reliable, trustworthy, considerate, and so on? Conversely, is the breaking of a covenant between two persons something that evokes negative emotions? Do those negative emotions grow as two people grow father apart and see one another as unreliable, untrustworthy, inconsiderate, and so on?

As creatures with passions – i.e. emotional states correlative to our proximity to perceived goods or evils – every relationship we have with others is marked by emotional changes. But as we saw above, we can be favorable and tender toward those we hate (as an expression of our hatred), just as we can be unfavorable and harsh toward those we love (as an expression of our love). Love, therefore, is not an affection, although it is accompanied by affection in many cases.

Another problem we must recognize is that of the love of God. Given that God does not have “passions” (as defined above), because he is perfect and unchanging, how are we to understand love?

Scripture Defines Love

In Romans 13:8-10, the apostle Paul writes –

Owe no one anything, except to love each other, for the one who loves another has fulfilled the law. For the commandments, “You shall not commit adultery, You shall not murder, You shall not steal, You shall not covet,” and any other commandment, are summed up in this word: “You shall love your neighbor as yourself.” Love does no wrong to a neighbor; therefore love is the fulfilling of the law.

Within this pericope, we are given the definition of love, as well as examples of love in action. Love, he says, is the fulfilling of the law. The Law in question here is the law of God, i.e. the Ten Commandments, which include the first table (i.e. those commandments immediately pertaining to our relationship with God) as well as the second table (i.e. those commandments immediately pertaining to our relationship with other people). Actions which are loving are those which do no harm to our neighbor, including refraining from adultery, murder, stealing, and coveting.

But that isn’t everything. Paul adds this small clause “and any other commandment,” thereby implying that it is not merely our adherence to the second table of the law that constitutes love for our neighbor, but our adherence to the first table as well. To love one’s neighbor is to walk in accordance with God’s Law as it pertains to our relationship with him and with our fellow human. Love is the fulfillment of the law. Consequently, any act of love toward one’s neighbor that results in our disobedience to the first table of the law is not an act of love at all. Likewise, any act of love toward God that results in our disobedience to the second table of the law is not an act of love at all.

Consider Christ’s words in Mark 7:9-13 –

And he said to them, “You have a fine way of rejecting the commandment of God in order to establish your tradition! For Moses said, ‘Honor your father and your mother’; and, ‘Whoever reviles father or mother must surely die.’ But you say, ‘If a man tells his father or his mother, “Whatever you would have gained from me is Corban”’ (that is, given to God)— then you no longer permit him to do anything for his father or mother, thus making void the word of God by your tradition that you have handed down. And many such things you do.”

Note here what Jesus is criticizing – it is the Pharisees’ attempt to pit obedience to God (in giving sacrificially to him) against obedience to God (in honoring one’s father and mother). What motivated these hypocrites was not love for God but sin, specifically greed, and that is evidenced by the result their supposed love for God produced – the Word of God was nullified, rendered incoherent, self-contradictory. By pitting obedience to the first table against obedience to the second table, the Pharisees had not done what is commanded by either table of the law.

Our Current Context

Given that love is not an emotion/affect but the fulfillment of God’s Law, are appeals to our duty to love our neighbor and “just get the shot” sound? In short, no. When we are told by others “if you really loved your neighbors you would get the jab!” we are being guilt tripped. This kind of manipulation is particularly nasty, seeing as it explicitly states that you don’t love your neighbor and, therefore, necessarily implies that you also don’t love God. It is important to know how this twofold accusation is false, therefore, in order to not be deceived into supposedly loving God or our neighbor at the expense of either and, consequently, failing to love either.

Let’s look at the argument being made:

If you love your neighbor, you will get the vaccine.
You will not get the vaccine.
Therefore, you do not love your neighbor.

In order for this argument to be sound, at least three things need to be true. Firstly, it must be the case that the vaccine will not harm me. Secondly, it must be the case that the vaccine will do my neighbor no harm. Thirdly, it must be the case that my decision to get vaccinated is not due to me having been manipulated, deceived, guilt-tripped, or coerced.

These three situations must be true in order for this syllogism to be sound. For in the first case, if I knowingly get vaccinated with a drug that will render me unable to fulfill the vocations which God has given me, then I am willingly abdicating my divinely ordained responsibilities (e.g. being a husband, father, worker, teacher, etc). Willingly getting vaccinated, in this instance, would not be an act of love toward God or my neighbor because it would render me incapable of worshiping God as he has commanded by making my body incapable of doing what is necessary to ensure no harm comes to my neighbor. In a word, if getting vaccinated renders me incapable of doing what is necessary to ensure no harm comes to my neighbor, then it is not an act of love toward God or my neighbor.

In the second case, if getting vaccinated does harm to my neighbor then it is an act that is loving toward neither God nor my neighbor. Physical harm is not the only harm that one can do to his neighbor, so even if we assume that the vaccine will not physically harm me or anyone else, there is still the danger of harming my neighbor socially. If getting vaccinated entails being publicly praised and retaining my God-given rights, and not getting vaccinated entails being publicly shamed and having my God-given rights suppressed, then getting vaccinated entails socially, and eventually physically, harming my neighbor who will not get vaccinated. For if my neighbor’s God-given rights are suppressed, then he is hindered from loving God by performing the vocations God has given him in order to love God and love his neighbor.

In the third case, if I get vaccinated because I have been manipulated, deceived, guilt-tripped, or coerced, then I have not acted in accordance with the truth. I have placed obedience to men on a par with, or above, obedience to God and, thereby, have engaged in idolatry. The duty to love God with all of my mind requires me to rationally assess my circumstances, and determine what actions I can or cannot take in order to achieve a goal that will directly or indirectly assist me in not doing my neighbor any harm. If I don’t do this, but instead succumb to the pressure to get vaccinated, I am not acting in accordance with the truth, and consequently not loving God or my neighbor.

Conclusion

Even if the vaccine is safe and effective, loving my neighbor requires me to love God, and loving God requires me to act not in submission to governmental mandates, media manipulators, or frantic family members, but in submission to the Lord God of Truth. If I am being told to succumb to bribes, manipulative emotional outbursts, coercive mandates, and so on, then I am being told to commit idolatry by not subjecting myself to the truth. I don’t have to demonstrate that the vaccines are not safe and effective, in other words, in order to justify not getting vaccinated. If I love God and my neighbor, then I will not obey another authority placing himself above God by forcing me to forgo the reasoning process requisite to making a good and God-honoring decision. If I love God and my neighbor, then I will not get vaccinated if that entails the ostracization of my neighbor because he is convinced that the vaccine is not safe and effective.

Those who are arguing that it is unloving – i.e. sinful – to not “get the jab” are engaging in behavior that is unloving toward their neighbors and God. This is not because they are promoting vaccination per se, but because they are twisting Scripture, disregarding truth, placing the desires of men above the revealed will of God, and placing love for God and love for one’s neighbor in contradiction to one another in their attempt to get their neighbors vaccinated. This is evil and must be rejected and refuted. Christians are to obey God rather than men, and God commands us to rationally assess our life situations in order to make decisions that are good for our neighbor’s well-being, and which bring God glory.

[This article originally appeared on Invospec.org]

The Primary Focus of Black Lives Matter

Whereas CRT (Critical Race Theory) and SJ (Social Justice) are somewhat removed from one’s everyday experience as they are more “abstract” and less personal, Black Lives Matter is concrete, with its leaders, members, and supporters involved in flesh and blood socio-political activism. Repudiations of Black Lives Matter – as a movement as well as a slogan – are often met with negative knee-jerk responses from the movement’s professedly Christian supporters. Christian supporters usually think that BLM is motivated by a desire to right racially motivated social, judicial, and political wrongs. And if that were truly the case, there would be at least a prima facie justification for supporting the movement. Racism – by which I mean the hatred of anyone who is judged as not belonging to one’s phenotypically distinct ethnic group, the flip-side of which is the showing of partiality to those who are judged as belonging to one’s phenotypically distinct ethnic group – is wicked. We ought to preach that hatred is murder. We ought to preach that God condemns partiality. We ought to remind ourselves daily that all men – even those against whom we have what we perceive to be justifiable grievances – bear the imago dei and, therefore, are to be shown respect and honor as such.

However, this is not what Black Lives Matter is primarily endorsing. Rather, BLM is a spiritual movement that is antagonistic toward the truths of the Christian faith. As Hebah H. Farrag and Ann Gleig note in their article “Despite what conservatives think, Black Lives Matter is an inherently spiritual movement” –

Since its inception, BLM organizers have expressed their founding spirit of love through an emphasis on spiritual healing, principles, and practices in their racial justice work.

BLM leaders, such as co-founder Patrisse Cullors, are deeply committed to incorporating spiritual leadership. Cullors grew up as a Jehovah’s Witness, and later became ordained in Ifà, a west African Yoruba religion. Drawing on Native American, Buddhist and mindfulness traditions, her syncretic spiritual practice is fundamental to her work. As Cullors explained to us, “The fight to save your life is a spiritual fight.”1

The leaders of BLM

…see themselves as inheritors of the spiritual duty to fight for racial justice, following in the footsteps of freedom fighters like abolitionist Harriet Tubman.

BLM leaders often invoke the names of abolitionist ancestors in a ceremony used at the beginning of protests. In fact, protests often contain many spiritual purification, protection and healing practices including the burning of sage, the practice of wearing white and the creation of sacred sites and altars at locations of mourning.2

Thus, while some Christians are led to think that marching, chanting, and singing with BLM protesters are merely political activities, the organization does not agree. The organization views participation in its various forms of activism as participation in spiritual practices.

Some have argued that the movement’s spiritual focus takes a backseat to its primary socio-political focus. However, Farrag elsewhere recounts that BLM’s leaders have stated that it is “first and foremost a spiritual movement.” She writes –

On June 2, 2020, Black Lives Matter’s Los Angeles Chapter sponsored an action in front of Mayor Eric Garcetti’s house…The action, what many would call a protest, began like a religious ceremony. Melina Abdullah…co-founder of BLM-LA, opened the event explaining that while the movement is a social justice movement, it is first and foremost a spiritual movement.

She led the group in a ritual: the reciting of names of those taken by state violence before their time—ancestors now being called back to animate their own justice:

“George Floyd. Asé. Philandro Castille. Asé. Andrew Joseph. Asé. Michael Brown. Asé. Erika Garner. Asé. Harriet Tubman. Asé. Malcom X. Asé. Martin Luther King. Asé.”

As each name is recited, Dr. Abdullah poured libations on the ground as the group of over 100 chanted “Asé,” a Yoruba term often used by practitioners of Ifa, a faith and divination system that originated in West Africa, in return. This ritual, Dr. Abdullah explained, is a form of worship.3

By the admission of its own leaders, BLM is “first and foremost” a “spiritual movement” engaging in worship rituals that take the form of political activism.

BLM vs. “Institutional” Christianity

What is more, according to its leaders, BLM’s

…approach necessitates that communities work to dismantle systems of oppression not only in the state, but also between communities, within communities, in families, in gender relations, in religious practice, and ultimately, within oneself.4

To be opposed to “white supremacy,” in other words, is necessarily to also be actively opposed to, and actively seeking to dismantle, systems of oppression in “religious practices.”

Lest one think that BLM is simply opposed to “religious practices” that are legitimately sinful (e.g. hating one’s neighbor under false pretenses of piety), we must note that it is not merely the wicked actions of Christians in the past that are identified as constituting a “system of oppression” but “institutional Christianity” in general. Farrag and Gleig tell us that –

The history of white supremacy, often enacted within institutional Christianity, has often vilified and criminalized Indigenous and African beliefs...5

Note how this ties together “White supremacy” and religious exclusivism, thereby indirectly indicting biblical Christianity – in which there is only one God (namely, the Trinity) and one way of salvation and communion with God (namely, the perfect life, death, burial, and resurrection of the Son of God) – as a tool of systemic oppression that must be dismantled.

Given that the postmodernist wholesale rejection of “metanarratives” is embraced by the founders of BLM, it follows that “institutional Christianity” – by which we may assume it is meant “orthodox Christianity” – has neither an innate nor bestowed right to deem other religious beliefs and practices as illegitimate, immoral, demonic, and of no benefit to any person. This view reduces the Word of God to a mere cultural production that has no claim to universal applicability. Consequently, Christians who declare that the gods of all the nations are demons,6 and who declare that those who follow their false gods become like them (viz. foolish, deaf, dumb, and blind)7 are viewed as purveyors of “cultural genocide,” illegitimately applying their local “truths” universally.8

Institutional Christianity, BLM founder Patrice Cullors, explains “policed the way [blacks] are allowed to commune with the divine.”9 For instance, whereas Christianity explicitly and overwhelmingly predicates masculine attributes of God, understands man’s role to be that of the head of the household, and explicitly teaches that women are not called to the ministry of Word and Sacrament, the Ifa religion places woman at the center of its practices.10 As Oyeronke Olajubu explains –

…[in] the practice of divination among the Yoruba […] female aesthetics feature prominently in all domains of Yoruba religious life. Ifa poetics, symbolism, iconography, and indeed the Odu (the oral texts that constitute the Ifa corpus, which is the wisdom storehouse of the Yoruba and the core of the divination focus) are symbolized as female, often as the essential wives of Ifa.11

Whereas “institutional” Christianity “polices” the roles of women, Ifa gives women numerous prominent religious roles from which to choose.

The Divine Self?

Additionally, whereas the Scriptures teach God and man are ontologically distinct beings,12 and that the desire to be God is the root sin of all sins,13 the Ifa religion teaches that the self is divine. As Wande Abimbola explains –

…the Yoruba religion…is based on what can be described as a worship of nature. We believe that when our divinities, known as Òrìsà, finished their work on earth, they then changed themselves to different forces of nature. […] The earth itself (herself) is a divinity. Human beings are themselves divine through their Ori (soul or unconscious mind) and Èmí (divine breath encased in our hearts), which are directly bestowed on humans from Òlódùmare, our High God.14

Hence, from Oct 2nd – Oct 4th of this year, BLM held “Black Women are Divine” events in which black women were encouraged to “reclaim [their] Divinity in the name of…the countless women [they’ve] lost.”15

BLM is Not Spiritually Neutral

At this point, it should be clear that BLM is not religiously neutral but actively promoting a syncretic form of the Ifa religion that, through political activism, engages in the following practices –

Idolatry
Ancestor worship
Prayers to the dead
Drink libations
Exorcisms16
Healing Ceremonies

All of these behaviors, we must note, are strictly forbidden by God in his Word. As it is written –

Leviticus 19:31 – “Do not turn to mediums or necromancers; do not seek them out, and so make yourselves unclean by them: I am the Lord your God.”

Deuteronomy 18:9-12 – “When you come into the land that the Lord your God is giving you, you shall not learn to follow the abominable practices of those nations. There shall not be found among you anyone who burns his son or his daughter as an offering, anyone who practices divination or tells fortunes or interprets omens, or a sorcerer or a charmer or a medium or a necromancer or one who inquires of the dead, for whoever does these things is an abomination to the Lord. And because of these abominations the Lord your God is driving them out before you.”

Isaiah 8:19-20 – And when they say to you, “Inquire of the mediums and the necromancers who chirp and mutter,” should not a people inquire of their God? Should they inquire of the dead on behalf of the living? To the teaching and to the testimony! If they will not speak according to this word, it is because they have no dawn.

God very clearly detests the actions that BLM is engaging in; consequently, he condemns their actions as abominable.

You Shall Not Be Unequally Yoked

Despite all that has been covered in this article, there will be some who argue that it is possible to work with BLM without engaging in their sins. However, what does the Scripture say?

2 Corinthians 6:14-18 – Do not be unequally yoked with unbelievers. For what partnership has righteousness with lawlessness? Or what fellowship has light with darkness? What accord has Christ with Belial? Or what portion does a believer share with an unbeliever? What agreement has the temple of God with idols? For we are the temple of the living God; as God said,

“I will make my dwelling among them
and walk among them, and I will be their God,
and they shall be my people.
Therefore go out from their midst,
and be separate from them, says the Lord,
and touch no unclean thing;
then I will welcome you,
and I will be a father to you,
and you shall be sons and daughters to me,
says the Lord Almighty.”

 Ephesians 5:11 – Take no part in the unfruitful works of     darkness, but instead expose them.

1 Timothy 5:22 – Do not be hasty in the laying on of hands, nor take part in the sins of others; keep yourself pure.

Revelation 18:4 – Then I heard another voice from heaven saying, “Come out of her, my people, lest you take part in her sins, lest you share in her plagues…”

God’s Word is by no means unclear on this matter – Christians are forbidden from engaging in the spiritual rituals practiced by BLM through political activism. Ironically, however, it is BLM, and not contemporary Christian supporters of BLM, that correctly notes its political activism allies are not neutral participants in a secular demand for a non-spiritual end. One cannot serve two masters – Either one is with Christ and, therefore, against the paganism of BLM (expressed through its slogan chanting, name chanting, marching, singing, protesting, etc); or one is with BLM and against Christ.

There is no other option.

---

1 https://www.mic.com/p/despite-what-conservatives-think-black-lives-matter-is-inherently-spiritual-movement-33913424, Accessed Oct 10, 2020. (emphasis added)
2 ibid. (emphasis added)
3 “The Fight for Black Lives is a Spiritual Movement,” Berkeley Center for Religion, Peace & World Affairs, June 9, 2020, https://berkleycenter.georgetown.edu/responses/the-fight-for-black-lives-is-a-spiritual-movement. (emphasis added)
4 ibid. (emphasis added)
5 Despite What Conservatives Think. (emphasis added)
6 cf. Ps 96:5.
7 cf. Ps 115:4-8, 135:16-18; Rom 1:18-23.
8 For more on this subject, see Turpin, Katherine. “Christian Education, White Supremacy, and Humility in Formational Agendas,” in Religious Education, Vol.112, No. 4 (2017), 407-417.
9 ibid.
10 This notwithstanding, Yoruba culture is patriarchal. Women are considered to be less than men not merely with respect to physical strength but moral capacities as well. For more on this, see Familusi, O.O. “African Culture and the Status of Women: The Yoruba Example,” in The Journal of Pan African Studies, Vol. 5, No. 1 (March 2012), 299-313.
11 “Seeing through a Woman's Eye: Yoruba Religious Tradition and Gender Relations,” in Journal of Feminist Studies in Religion, Vol. 20, No. 1 (Spring, 2004), 45. (emphasis added)
12 cf. Gen 1:26-27 & 2:7; Num 23:19; Job 33:12b; Pss 90, et al.
13 cf. 2 Pet 2:4 & Jude 6; Eze 28:11-19 & Isa 14:4b-21; Gen 3:4-7.
14 “Religion, World Order, and Peace: An Indigenous African Perspective,” in CrossCurrents (September 2010), 308-309. (emphasis added)
15 https://blacklivesmatter.com/black-women-are-divine.
16 BLM leaders believe that through their political activities they can “exorcise” evil from various geographical locations. Elise M. Edwards, in her paper “’Let’s Imagine Something Different’: Spiritual Principles in Contemporary African American Justice Movements and Their Implications for the Built Movement,” writes –

Cullors…is inspired by indigenous spiritualities and Ifà…She explains that the spirituality of many Black Lives Matter activists is not based in traditional or formalized religious communities. Many of the activists felt rejected or even “pushed out” of churches because of their queer identities or challenges to patriarchy. Nevertheless, they continue to practice their spirituality through “healing justice work,” working to exorcise their communities of racism, sexism, and homophobia.

[Religions (2017), 8, 256. (emphasis added)]

[Continued from Pt. 3]

While it cannot be said that Paul the apostle was a non-expert in theology, it is plain to see that the church at Corinth was saturated with theological non-experts. Yet Paul does not shy away from teaching the Corinthians, and every subsequent Christian who would read his epistles, to logically scrutinize the heretical claim made by some professing Christians that “the dead are not raised.” He does this via demonstration by first reminding the Corinthians that anyone who professes faith in Christ necessarily believes that at least one dead man has been raised to life by God, viz. Jesus Christ. He writes –

Now I would remind you, brothers, of the gospel I preached to you, which you received, in which you stand, and by which you are being saved, if you hold fast to the word I preached to you—unless you believed in vain. For I delivered to you as of first importance what I also received: that Christ died for our sins in accordance with the Scriptures, that he was buried, that he was raised on the third day in accordance with the Scriptures, and that he appeared to Cephas, then to the twelve. Then he appeared to more than five hundred brothers at one time, most of whom are still alive, though some have fallen asleep. Then he appeared to James, then to all the apostles. Last of all, as to one untimely born, he appeared also to me. For I am the least of the apostles, unworthy to be called an apostle, because I persecuted the church of God. But by the grace of God I am what I am, and his grace toward me was not in vain. On the contrary, I worked harder than any of them, though it was not I, but the grace of God that is with me. Whether then it was I or they, so we preach and so you believed.1

The Corinthians professed faith in the Gospel Paul and the others preached. The content of that Gospel explicitly states that the Lord Jesus Christ died, was buried, rose from the dead on the third day, and appeared to over five hundred witnesses. To believe the Gospel is to believe that one has already been raised from the dead, namely Christ. Paul, therefore, asks the Corinthians –

…if Christ is proclaimed as raised from the dead, how can some of you say that there is no resurrection of the dead?2

The apostle places the proclamation of Christ as raised from the dead alongside the proclamation that “there is no resurrection of the dead,” drawing our attention to the fact that the resurrection of Christ disproves the universal negative proposition “There is no resurrection of the dead.” As he goes on to explain –

…if there is no resurrection of the dead, then not even Christ has been raised.3

If there is an exception to the universal proposition, then the universal proposition is not true. Christ has been raised from the dead; therefore, the heretics’ proclamation is demonstrably false.

This would be enough for Paul to make his point, but he continues to draw out the logical consequences of the heretics’ belief that “there is no resurrection of the dead.” He writes –

And if Christ has not been raised, then our preaching is in vain and your faith is in vain. We are even found to be misrepresenting God, because we testified about God that he raised Christ, whom he did not raise if it is true that the dead are not raised. For if the dead are not raised, not even Christ has been raised. And if Christ has not been raised, your faith is futile and you are still in your sins. Then those also who have fallen asleep in Christ have perished. If in Christ we have hope in this life only, we are of all people most to be pitied.

But in fact Christ has been raised from the dead, the firstfruits of those who have fallen asleep.

We can translate Paul’s argument from its conversational form into the following –

If “there is no resurrection of the dead,”
then Christ was not raised from the dead.
If Christ was not raised from the dead,
then the Gospel is false.
If the Gospel is false,
then those who believe it are still in their sins.
If believers in the Gospel are still in their sins,
then their faith is in vain.
If faith in the Gospel is in vain,
then preaching the Gospel is in vain.

But Christ has been raised from the dead.
Therefore, none of the above consequences follow.

Note how significant a single proposition is in relation to the entirety of the Christian system. The heretics’ proclamation leads to the destruction of the Christian faith. Inversely, the Christian’s single instance of a resurrection in the Gospel proclamation decimates the heretics’ false proclamation.

Concluding Remarks

As we conclude this series, let us take note of some important truths. Firstly, individual propositions are not insignificant parts of the Christian faith which we can take or leave as we see fit. Every proposition has logical consequences for which we are held accountable. Secondly, therefore, we see from Scripture that if we assent to a proposition, we implicitly assent to what that proposition necessarily implies. Sadly, today there are many who identify this action as “uncharitable,” without realizing what that belief itself implies. In a word, the end result of such thinking is utter blasphemy, as is demonstrable from the following argument –

Anyone who attributes their opponent’s implied beliefs to them is acting uncharitably.
To act uncharitably is to act sinfully.
Therefore, anyone who attributes their opponent’s implied beliefs to them is acting sinfully.
Now, anyone who attributes their opponent’s implied beliefs to them is acting sinfully.
And God attributes his opponent’s implied beliefs to them.
Therefore, God is acting sinfully.

It is true that God alone is omniscient and, therefore, is infallible in any of his declarations that x implies y. However, it is equally true that the blind man of John 9 was not omniscient and yet followed the same pattern of logical scrutiny and subsequent moral criticism practiced by God the Son.

Our contemporary socio-political climate is one in which logic has fallen upon hard times, but that does not mean it is inefficient, or that it is inappropriate for every Christian’s use – whether in apologetic battle or personal meditation of the Word of God and its authoritative statements about the whole of life. We are not experts in every area of life, but we do not need to be in order to address the issues of our day. If we have a basic grasp of the elementary principles of logic, then we are capable of answering others when they ask us “What do you think?”

1 1st Cor 15:1-11.

2 1st Cor 15:12.

3 1st Cor 15:13.

[Continued from Pt. 2]

Respecting the use of logical analysis by Christ’s non-expert disciples, firstly let us consider the man born blind whom Christ heals in John 9. After being healed by Christ, the man – who was likely illiterate – logically scrutinized the Pharisees’ accusation that Christ was a sinner and demonstrated the irrationality and immorality of the Pharisees.

The passage in question is John 9:24-34, which states –

So for the second time they called the man who had been blind and said to him, “Give glory to God. We know that this man is a sinner.” He answered, “Whether he is a sinner I do not know. One thing I do know, that though I was blind, now I see.” They said to him, “What did he do to you? How did he open your eyes?” He answered them, “I have told you already, and you would not listen. Why do you want to hear it again? Do you also want to become his disciples?” And they reviled him, saying, “You are his disciple, but we are disciples of Moses. We know that God has spoken to Moses, but as for this man, we do not know where he comes from.” The man answered, “Why, this is an amazing thing! You do not know where he comes from, and yet he opened my eyes. We know that God does not listen to sinners, but if anyone is a worshiper of God and does his will, God listens to him. Never since the world began has it been heard that anyone opened the eyes of a man born blind. If this man were not from God, he could do nothing.” They answered him, “You were born in utter sin, and would you teach us?” And they cast him out.

Many people have mistakenly treated the blind man’s assertion – “One thing I do know, that though I was blind, now I see” – as an example of how a Christian can simply fall back on his experience of being converted by the Lord if he, the believer, cannot answer a question raised about Christ, the Gospel, and the Christian faith. However, that is not supported by the text itself. To get a clear picture of what is happening we need to look at the passage in some detail.

Firstly, note that the blind man is responding to a claim made by the Pharisees about the Lord Jesus Christ. They exclaim –

“We know that this man is a sinner.”

The blind man responds by stating what he knows to be true about Christ –

“Whether he is a sinner I do not know.”

What is communicated by the blind man is that he did not personally know Christ apart from the healing he performed. This is evident when we look at the next portion of the narrative, John 9:35-38 –

Jesus heard that they had cast him out, and having found him he said, “Do you believe in the Son of Man?” He answered, “And who is he, sir, that I may believe in him?” Jesus said to him, “You have seen him, and is he who is speaking to you.” He said, “Lord, I believe,” and he worshiped him.

The blind man did not know Jesus personally up until this point, but he did know that Christ was not a sinner. We see this during his exchange the Pharisees in John 9:26-28, wherein the blind man and Pharisees imply that the blind man is a disciple of Christ. Upon asking the Pharisees if they were curious about Jesus’ healing miracle because they also wanted to become Christ’s disciples, they declare –

“You are his disciple, but we are disciples of Moses. We know that God has spoken to Moses, but as for this man, we do not know where he comes from.”

Although the blind man does not point this out to them explicitly, let us note that the Pharisees here are contradicting themselves. They begin their interrogation with the claim that they know Christ is a sinner; however, here they claim that they do not know where he is from. This idiom expresses their ignorance of Christ’s person and works.1 If they were ignorant of Christ’s person and works, then they could not make a claim about him and his works either way. However, if they could speak negatively about the person and works of Christ, then this demonstrates that they were not ignorant of his person and works. They could not both know that Christ is a sinner and not know where he comes from, and this is precisely the point the blind man goes on to make.

The blind man takes the assertions of the Pharisees about their simultaneous ignorance and knowledge of the person and works of Christ, drawing out the logical consequence of their self-contradiction. He begins by stating –

“You do not know where he comes from, and yet he opened my eyes.”

The blind man refers back to his knowledge: He was once blind, but now he sees. He then makes reference to the knowledge he and the Pharisees share. He states –

“We know that God does not listen to sinners, but if anyone is a worshiper of God and does his will, God listens to him.”

What he and his opponents know is that God does not hear sinners, but only hears those who do his will and worship him. Therefore, the blind man concludes his speech saying –

“If this man were not from God, he could do nothing.”

The blind man did not know Jesus personally, but he knew the following –

If Jesus were not from God, then he could not heal the blind man.
However, Jesus did heal the blind man.
Therefore, Jesus was from God.

A similar hypothetical deduction from assumed premises occurs in the writing of the apostle Paul in his great chapter on the resurrection of the dead, to which we will turn in our last part of this series.

[Continued in Pt. 4]

1 Matthew Poole explains –

Indeed they did know whence he was as to his human nature, for they often made that the cause of their stumbling at him; that he was of Galilee, that his father was a carpenter, and his mother called Mary: but they knew of no Divine mission or authority that he had: this they might have known also, for he did those things which no man ever did, nor could be effected by any thing less than a Divine power; but their eyes were blinded, and their hearts were judicially hardened; they studied to shut out the light by which they should have seen, and would not know whence he was.

Likewise, John Gill comments –

They imagined they knew the country from whence he came, which they supposed to be Galilee, and the place where he was born, which they concluded was Nazareth; though in both they were in the wrong; and they knew his parents, Joseph and Mary, and his brethren and sisters; but as to his divine filiation, they knew nothing of it; nor would they own his mission, commission, and credentials to be from heaven; and pretended they had no reason to conclude they were.

Calvin, similarly, explains that –

When they say so [viz. that they do not know where Christ “comes from”], they refer not to his country or the place of his birth, but to the prophetical office. For they allege that they have no knowledge of his calling, so as to receive him as having proceeded from God.

[Continued from Pt. 1]

It was the experts during the Lord Jesus’ earthly ministry who were wrong about the most important subjects in Scripture. Jesus frequently demonstrated this by logically scrutinizing their claims. For instance, in Matthew 12 Jesus, addressing the Pharisees’ claim that he cast out demons by the power of the devil, made the following argument –

“Every kingdom divided against itself is laid waste, and no city or house divided against itself will stand. And if Satan casts out Satan, he is divided against himself. How then will his kingdom stand? And if I cast out demons by Beelzebul, by whom do your sons cast them out? Therefore they will be your judges. But if it is by the Spirit of God that I cast out demons, then the kingdom of God has come upon you.”1

Firstly, note that Christ logically scrutinized the claim that “it is only by Beelzebub, the prince of demons, that [he] casts out demons.”2 He drew out what is implicit to their assertion, namely that that there is a kingdom of demons of which the devil is the prince.

Secondly, note that Christ argued from the general to the particular as regards the nature of the kingdom of demons. Specifically, the Lord Jesus stated that every kingdom divided against itself is laid waste (i.e. is utterly defeated/reduced to ruins by its opponents 3). The word “every” is universal, which means that what Christ asserted applies to all kingdoms, including the kingdom of demons. Thus, if the kingdom of demons is divided against itself, it will be laid waste/utterly defeated/reduced to ruins by its opponents comprising the kingdom of heaven/the kingdom of God.

Thirdly, note what Jesus asked his opponents –

“...if Satan casts out Satan, he is divided against himself. How then will his kingdom stand?”

The kingdom of demons does not want to be laid waste. Why then would it oppose itself and seal its own doom? If there is a war between the two kingdoms, and kingdoms that want to obtain victory over their opposition operate as a united front, then this applies to the kingdom of demons as well. Consequently, if the kingdom of demons desires to obtain victory over the kingdom of God it will not be divided against itself.

Fourthly, Christ emphasized his point by asking –

“…if I cast out demons by Beelzebul, by whom do your sons cast them out?”

If the Pharisees believed that their sons cast out demons by the power of God, this implies that they agreed with Christ regarding whether or not a kingdom seeking to obtain victory over its opposition would be internally divided. Thus, Jesus went on to state –

“Therefore they will be your judges.”

Christ, essentially, argued that if the Pharisees believed their sons cast out demons by the power of God, then they agreed that the kingdom of demons is a unified front against the kingdom of God. But if the kingdom of demons is a unified front against the kingdom of God, then it cannot be the case that Jesus cast out demons by the power of the devil. If the Pharisees claimed their sons cast out demons by the power of God, then they tacitly admitted their blasphemous claim about Christ was ipso facto false. Jesus refuted their claim, reducing it to absurdity, but also demonstrated the utter hypocrisy of the Pharisees.

Lastly, Christ drew out the logical consequence of what the Pharisees tacitly admitted to when they claimed their sons cast out demons by the power of God. He stated –

“…if it is by the Spirit of God that I cast out demons, then the kingdom of God has come upon you.”

The assertion here follows the Lord Jesus’ emphasis on the implied unity of a kingdom as it attacks an opposing kingdom. If the nature of kingdoms in general is to seek victory over their opposition by presenting a unified front against them, then it follows that the kingdom of God does the same. Whoever opposes the kingdom of demons, therefore, is on the side of the kingdom of God. Moreover, note the significance of Christ’s assertion –

“…if it is by the Spirit of God that I cast out demons…”

If it is not an evil spirit, namely the devil himself, who is empowering Christ to cast out demons, then it can only be the Holy Spirit who empowers him to do so.

The response given by Christ not only addresses the blasphemous foolishness of his enemies, it also implicitly teaches that the Holy Spirit is a divine person. Whereas the Pharisees said that Christ’s actions demonstrated he had an unclean spirit,4 he stated that his actions demonstrated that through him the kingdom of God had come upon his enemies. Christ is not possessed by an unclean/unholy, intelligent, volitional, and morally deviant agent who can indwell humans and cause them5 to sin – viz. an unclean spirit; rather, he is filled with, and guided by, the clean/holy, intelligent, volitional, and morally pure agent who can indwell humans and cause them to live righteously – viz. the Holy Spirit.

Christ could have given an elaborate Scriptural argument demonstrating why the claim of his opponents was false. Instead, he took their claim and drew out its logical consequences. And his disciples followed suit.

[Continued in Pt. 3]

1 Matt 12:25-28. (emphasis added)

2 Matt 12:24. (emphasis added)

3 This idiom is used repeatedly in Scripture this way. See Num 21:30, Jud 6:5, 2nd Kings 1:17, Ps 79:6-7, etc.

4 See Mark 3:30.

5 While we are all ultimately responsible for our sin, Christ teaches that men can be caused to sin, by which he means they can be urged and encouraged to sin by wicked men, in Matt 18:5-7.

Anyone vaguely familiar with the life of Christ knows that he did not shy away from asking his listeners questions. These questions played a pedagogical function, causing his listeners to reflect on what he had been teaching them. For instance, when he wanted to get his listeners to reflect on God’s care for his sheep, the Lord asked them –

“What do you think?”1

And when he wanted to get his listeners to reflect on who it is that does or not does do the will of God, the Lord Christ asked them –

“What do you think?”2

When he wanted Peter to reflect on what taxing Christ and his disciples implied, Jesus asked him –

“What do you think, Simon?”3

Jesus, knowing the Pharisees’ position on the identity of the Messiah as being merely the son of David, got his listeners to think about what the Scriptures explicitly and implicitly teach about the Son of David by asking them –

“What do you say about the Christ? Whose son is he?”4

And upon receiving their answer, went on to ask –

“How is it then that David, in the Spirit, calls him Lord…?5

“If David calls him Lord, how is he his son?”6

Unlike many people today, Christ encouraged men to think for themselves about what they were being told, as well as about the implications of their words. Although he is to be trusted immediately, without question, Christ nevertheless encouraged men to think about his teaching, to mull it over, and to think about whether or not they were willing to follow him. For instance, in the Gospel of Luke we read –

Now great crowds accompanied him, and he turned and said to them, “If anyone comes to me and does not hate his own father and mother and wife and children and brothers and sisters, yes, and even his own life, he cannot be my disciple. Whoever does not bear his own cross and come after me cannot be my disciple. For which of you, desiring to build a tower, does not first sit down and count the cost, whether he has enough to complete it? Otherwise, when he has laid a foundation and is not able to finish, all who see it begin to mock him, saying, ‘This man began to build and was not able to finish.’ Or what king, going out to encounter another king in war, will not sit down first and deliberate whether he is able with ten thousand to meet him who comes against him with twenty thousand? And if not, while the other is yet a great way off, he sends a delegation and asks for terms of peace. So therefore, any one of you who does not renounce all that he has cannot be my disciple.7

Note that thinking is directly tied to not merely decisions respecting the here and now, but to eternity as well. We find Christ doing something similar in John 6, where after he declared that only those who eat his flesh and drink his blood have life in them, asked the disgruntled disciples –

“Do you take offense at this? Then what if you were to see the Son of Man ascending to where he was before?”8

Christ was getting the disciples to reflect on the nature of their relationship to him. He was getting them to think about the most important information they would ever receive, and to do so without the aid of the experts of their time – viz. the Pharisees.

In the next part of this article series, we will delve into the Scriptures respecting this matter.

[Continued in Pt. 2]

1 Matt 18:12.

2 Matt 21:28.

3 Matt 17:25.

4 Matt 22:41.

5 Matt 22:43.

6 Matt 22:45.

7 Luke 14:25-33. (emphasis added)

8 John 6:61b-62.

“Just Trust the Experts!”

One of the more troubling observable trends in online discussions today is a growing dereliction of duty with respect to critical thinking. It usually takes the form of a fallacious appeal to authority. During the present “pandemic,”1 social media is rife with fallacious reasoning of this kind, where voices of dissent are ridiculed for being “Facebook Doctors,” “Facebook Lawyers,” or “Internet Experts.”2 Along with this derisive name calling, there are typically calls for the dissenter to “trust the experts” or “let the experts do their job.” Belittling any criticism of, for instance, the actions of authorities during a wave of riots, or the claims of medical experts during a “pandemic,” superficially removes the belittler’s responsibility to love God with all of one’s mind, and love his neighbor as himself.

The problem with the appeal to authority being made is that in many cases, though admittedly not all, the criticism of the authorities in question have to do with the rational coherence of a particular idea, set of ideas, report, or series of reports. Such criticisms do not require one to be an expert on the subject being covered, seeing as in these instances the critics are deriving their data from the experts themselves. Instead, they require one to have an elementary grasp of the laws of logic, a love for the truth, and a detestation of what is false.

Logical lethargy is not a neutral practice, but is sin. As Psalm 1:1-2 declares –

Blessed is the man

who walks not in the counsel of the wicked,

nor stands in the way of sinners,

nor sits in the seat of scoffers;

but his delight is in the law of the Lord,

and on his law he meditates day and night.

The Holy Spirit tells us that the righteous man’s meditation is on God’s Word day and night, thereby implying that there is no time of the day, and no activity during that time, that is to be devoid of thinking, consideration, meditation, rumination, and examination rooted in the Word of God. Consequently, the increasingly popular retort to critics of the experts is not only immoral, but irrational. In this article, we will look at some reasons as to why this is so.

Self-Referential Absurdity

To begin with, if one can only speak about x if he is an expert on it, then this applies to his expertise rule (ER, hereafter) as well. In order for one to speak about the ER, he must be an expert on who qualifies to speak about the ER. If he is not an expert on the ER, then he cannot speak about the ER. If he is not an expert on the ER are we to simply take his word for it that the ER is a legitimate rule we must follow when discussing any subject? By declaring the legitimacy of the ER, and not being an expert himself, he would be violating the ER.

However, if one can only speak about x if he is an expert on x, this is an implicit knowledge claim about the nature of x (viz. x is of such a nature that speaking about it requires expertise). This, in turn, implies that one has to be an expert on x before he can tell others that only experts can speak on that matter. If he is not an expert on x, then he cannot speak about x.

Moreover, if one has to be an expert before he can speak about x, but the process of learning necessarily involves one speaking about x before one is an expert (e.g. forming hypotheses about x, debating former and present hypotheses about x, etc), then he could not ever become an expert on x. In fact, no one could.

If we assume the ER to be true, therefore, we have to draw the conclusion that we cannot ever convey that knowledge to others without being experts ourselves, which is, however, an impossibility. The absurdity of the ER should be plain to see here.

Category Confusion & A Fallacious Appeal to Authority

Assuming that the ER is not fraught with logical difficulties, however, there is yet another problem the belittler faces. If the critic’s argument takes for granted the expertise of the proponents of x, but finds that conclusions about x are not logically justifiable, or that statements about x are self-contradictory, then what is at issue is not the data itself but the logical coherence of the claims being made about x or x’s data. To belittle the critic for not being familiar with all the available data, when he is not making an argument against the reliability of the data presented as, and confirmed by the experts to be, “fact,” is to commit a category error by treating the critic’s argument as one being made against the factuality of the experts’ data. If the critic assumes that what is asserted about x in terms of relevant data is true, but criticizes the experts for their logical incoherence, then what must be challenged is not the critic’s knowledge regarding x but his claim that the experts’ claims are not logically coherent (i.e. they are self-contradictory) or logically justified (i.e. they have been argued for invalidly).

As mentioned at the onset of this article, moreover, the appeal to an expert in this particular case is a fallacious appeal to an expert. The reason for this is that the argument made by the critic does not depend upon his familiarity with the relevant data as a whole, but instead depends upon his familiarity with the elementary principles of sound reasoning. If the critic is wrong, in other words, he must be shown to be wrong with respect to his logical analysis. The question of his expertise in the field of x is completely irrelevant to his argument.

Theological Problems

As we bring this article to a close, we need to draw the reader’s attention to the biggest problem with the ER, namely that it results in a denial of God’s sovereignty and omniscience. That this is the case is clear when we consider that logic is, as Gordon H. Clark puts it, the way that God thinks. The laws of logic are not human constructs; they are eternal truths that stand in judgment over all of our reasoning. Thus, if an expert’s reasoning is exempt from logical scrutiny, then that expert’s reasoning is literally not subject to the rule of God, for the laws of logic are divinely revealed truths that authoritatively judge the thoughts of men as either true or false.3 This necessarily implies the blasphemous idea that there exists a class of persons over whom God cannot exercise epistemic, sovereign rulership – namely, the experts whose findings are, apparently, not subject to logical scrutiny. Put concisely –

If experts are not subject to logical scrutiny, then they are not subject to the Sovereign rule of God. But if the Sovereign rule of God does not extend to a person or group of persons, then it is not Sovereign. Thus, if the experts are not subject to logical scrutiny, this implies that God is not Sovereign.

What is more, the idea that the experts are not subject to logical scrutiny further implies that there is a class of propositions which is excluded from the judgment of the laws of logic. This is a problem because the laws of logic are formally universal in scope; they are universal knowledge claims. But if the laws of logic are formally universal in scope, but are not so materially, then they are false. And if they are false, then God, who has revealed them, is not omniscient. More concisely –

The laws of logic are divinely revealed formally universal knowledge claims. But if there is a class of propositions which cannot be judged by the laws of logic, then that class of propositions is not covered by the laws of logic. This implies that while the laws of logic are formally universal in scope, they are not materially universal in scope; and this renders them false. And if they are divinely revealed universal knowledge claims that are not truly universal, and this renders them false, then God, who revealed them to men, is not omniscient.

The problems here should be evident to the regenerate man or woman. God is Sovereign. He is Omniscient. Thus, any belief that implies he is not is false, and a demonic assault on his character. Now the belief that experts are exempt from logical analysis is one that implies that God is neither Sovereign nor Omniscient; therefore, it must be rejected as false by all Christians.

Concluding Remarks

It is neither prudent, nor loving toward one’s neighbor, nor reverent toward God to abandon logical analysis because one is not an expert on x, whatever x may be. If the experts who are speaking on x are contradicting themselves, or using fallacious arguments to draw conclusions about x, then it is your responsibility, Christian, to acknowledge they are uttering falsehoods. You don’t need to be a scholar to point out that a person is contradicting himself or arguing fallaciously. You are made in the image of God, and you have the mind of Christ. Hear what the experts have to say, grant them the benefit of a doubt when they talk about the data they’ve collected. However, if they contradict themselves, if they use fallacious argumentation to prove a point, or if they claim to be beyond the jurisdiction of logical scrutiny (which is impossible), you have a responsibility to reject their claims on that basis.

Soli Deo Gloria.

1 See Berrien, Hank. “Following Death Percentage Decline, CDC Says We’re On ‘Epidemic Threshold’,” The Daily Wire, July 7, 2020, https://www.dailywire.com/news/amid-percentage-of-deaths-having-declined-cdc-admits-coronavirus-on-verge-of-non-epidemic-status?.

2 For example, see Moe, Kristen. “COVID-19 Conspiracy Theorists Are Victims Of The Dunning-Kruger Effect,” Scary Mommy, April 24, 2020, https://www.scarymommy.com/dunning-kruger-effect/.

3 This is true respecting not merely the content of one’s thoughts (i.e. whether or not a particular proposition is true or false), but the structure of one’s reasoning as well, given that the presentation of an argument in favor of x could be reduced to the proposition – “It is the case that my argument leads to conclusion y about x.” For more on this see, Diaz, Hiram R. “The Truth Value of Valid and Invalid Inferences?,” Involuted Speculations, May 5, 2014, https://involutedgenealogies.wordpress.com/2014/05/05/the-truth-value-of-valid-and-invalid-inferences/.