Chris Comis

Here’s the historical underlying cause for “Reformed” Baptist shame: “My baptism, my choice!” —> “My salvation, my choice!” —> “My body, my choice!” —> “My gender, my choice!” The Failure of the American Baptist Culture: Christianity and Civilization a.co/d/3CQds8V

Another Roman Catholic coward bites the dust. I mean, where does one purchase the fertilizer to grow these kinds of cowards? He couldn't handle debating with me over the Eucharist, God's covenant interactions with His people; but especially, what it means when the Christ and Paul said, "Do this in My remembrance." But hey, I'd rather get blocked by RCs like this than burned at the stake any day. And thank God we live in a nation now where RCs like this guy no longer have recourse to papal inquisitions.😄 Jackie Oh Henry 🇺🇸 📷 @bigger_bread Wow. So you decided to be a jackass. God bless you, sir. We're done.

There is an even more basic question that we Christians (of every stripe and background) should be asking ourselves, and that is what status or office did the Christ enter into at His ascension to His throne in the highest-heavens? IOW, what exactly did the ascension of the Christ mean then, and what does it mean for us now? The biggest reason I put it this way is because not only does the Bible talk about the ascension of the Christ, but so too do all the early Church creeds mention this, and so every Christian from every background needs to really wrestle with the ascension of the Christ. We modern Reformed and Evangelical types talk a lot about the death and the resurrection of the Christ, but very little typically about the ascension of the same. But it was at the ascension of the Christ wherein He entered into His eternal Kingship over both heaven AND earth (and not just heaven). He was born the King of kings, but He did not enter into His eternal kingship until He came into His Father's presence, and was seated at the right-hand of God the Father Almighty. And this occurred in AD30. So what implications did this world-changing event have for ALL the nations ever since? Well, for starters, it means that EVERY nation on earth is already under His rule and reign. Which should not be taken to mean that every nation on earth since then has self-consciously, or politically, recognized this objective fact about history (not at all!); but it does mean that regardless of what any nation believes or affirms about its nationhood or its political allegiances to this same Christ, that the Christ nonetheless still rules over these. And so no matter how rebellious a nation gets under the reign and rule of the Christ, this will never change the objective state of affairs that was put into place by the Father and the Son (and the Spirit, too!) almost exactly 2,000 years ago now. And if any nation-state wants to try and change this objective state of affairs, by attempting to "burst their bonds apart and cast away their cords from Us," then our Triune God just sits in the heavens and laughs/mocks these same nations. He holds them in derision. I mean, imagine a ten year-old boy dragging out a hose to try and put out the scorching hot sun on a really hot day. He points it at the sun, turns it on full blast, and thinks that this will somehow cool things down for him. It will, but not in the way he thinks it will. He'll just soak himself with cold water, but the same sun will still be beating down on him from above. So all this to say that there is a sense in which EVERY nation on this planet is already a Christian nation; it's just a matter of whether or not any given nation is a FAITHFUL Christian nation, or not. If Christ rules and reigns and literally owns every nation on this planet, and He does, then every nation is already a Christian nation, objectively considered.

According to my calculations, it’s 5,956 years old. Which means we have another 44 years to go until it’s exactly 6,000 years old. By which time, hopefully, the Church will have rid Western Christendom of any and all notions that the universe is billions of years old. So that we can then move into the sixth age of Adamkind, which parallels the sixth day of creation as an antitype. And then the Church will lead the way into the following seventh millennium of Adamkind, which will be of course, the final age of Sabbath rest and peace. This will be the final, postmillennial age of rest and peace for all Adamkind. It all makes perfect sense!😁 And like I’ve said before, every “old earth” cosmology is not only bad cosmic liturgy, but it’s also bad eschatological liturgy. Belie’ dat.

Indeed. The Protesting Orthodox and Catholic Church (POCC; or Too-POCC as I like to call it😁) has been around since the first Church plant in the Garden. And it was quite literally a Church plant, too. But this first Church plant was the very beginning of orthodoxy, catholicity, and even of protestantism. God Himself, who planted this first Church, was the most orthodox and the most catholic and even the most faithful protestant of any other human successors who have come along ever since. And there have been plenty of human successors whom God has raised up over the past millennia now, who have sought to perpetuate the same orthodoxy, catholicity, and protesting standards. The Reformation (some 500 years ago now) was NOT the first protesting movement in the history of the Church. There have been countless reformations, counter-reformations, radical reformations, etc. Even within the so-called ROMAN Catholic and EASTERN Orthodox communions have there been various attempts at reformations and such. There is not only nothing new under the sun here, but there’s also nothing reformationally new under the sun here. It’s all been done before, people. And it’s not gonna stop till the final mic drops, either. It’s not gonna stop until the Final Advent of the Christ, when He finally returns as THE Catholic of all catholics, THE Orthodox of all orthodox, and THE Protestant of all protestants. Belie’ dat.

I know that this pope voted as a U.S. citizen, and not as the pope, but I think it needs to be pointed out that whenever a pastor or a pope votes in a democratic election, there is always some measure of ecclesiocracy at work here. It’s more of an unofficial ecclesiocracy, and not the kind we typically think of when we hear this term getting thrown around, but it’s still at work. share.newsbreak.com/k06rmi0a…

This is exactly what Christians should be handing out this All Hallows' Eve. Bringing together the reformation of the Church, the reformation of the pagan un-holyday of Samhain, as well as giving the kids some good old-fashioned American candy. It just don't get no better than this.

Think about the fact that for millennia, before the invention of the Gutenberg Press, MOST believers listened to the very words of God, and did not read them for themselves. Listening has been the primary means of the dissemination of the very words of God to the people of God, and for the transformation of the same. Reading the words of God has only been in vogue for about the last 550 years or so. Even today, most people around the world learn things aurally, and not via the written word. In point of fact, there are way more commands throughout the Bible to HEAR the very words of God, and do them, than there are to read the words of God. It really was an Enlightenment dogma that reading is the best and most efficient means of communicating thoughts, ideas, etc., rather than that of hearing/listening. Which is why we moderns tend to be really bad at listening, even though we can read through massive amounts of literature throughout our lives. And furthermore, listening tends to presuppose much greater humility and deference on the part of the hearer. Whereas reading tends to presuppose much more "hermeneutical authority" on the part of the reader over what has been written. And this too should make us think a little more carefully (and a little more cautiously!) about why it was that the Enlightenment had such a negative impact on how people read their Bibles.

While I agree that the Scriptures do not teach the kind of "purgatory" that the Roman Catholics have historically taught and dogmatized over the centuries now, I would offer as a kind of Protesting Catholic alternative, the view that there must be some kind of final purgation of the human soul after the death of the body. That is, after the death of every individual, there is a final judgment of every individual, and that this final judgment of individual believers just is their final purgation. But for non-believers who die in their unbelief, there is no final purgation, but only final judgment for them that results in final condemnation as well. And one other thing needs to be said about this final judgment of individual souls, which is that we should not confuse this final judgment of individual souls with THE Final Judgment of all men, at the Final Advent of the Christ. The Final Judgment will be a corporate judgment of the "living and the dead," or of the righteous and the condemned. But this will be a CORPORATE judgment of both categories of human beings, and not an individual judgment of every single person who has ever lived. I mean, just imagine how long it would take for billions and billions of people to be judged individually on the Last Day. We'd all have to take a number, and then wait around for who knows how many millinnia to finally get judged!

No, here’s the Bottom Line: Calvinism: God decrees whatsoever comes to pass, including free creaturely decisions and the responsibility that comes with making these decisions. And these decisions are not absolutely free, but only contingently free. Only contingently free decisions can be responsible decisions. Only contingently free decisions can be held accountable by a higher and greater Judge. Provisionism: Creatures have the innate ability to make free decisions apart from God’s eternal decrees, and this is why creaturely decisions are absolutely free. So these decisions are not contingently free, but necessarily free. Necessarily and absolutely free decisions are by definition decisions that cannot be held responsible or made accountable to a higher and greater Judge. Ergo: Calvinism lays the necessary groundwork for both human freedom and responsibility to a greater Judge, for evangelism, missions, etc. While Provisionism lays the necessary groundwork for a version of human freedom and responsibility that is entirely and wholly self-contained, and therefore has no recourse to a greater Judge. And so Provisionism has no moral obligation or duty whatsoever to evangelize the lost, evangelize the found, or evangelize anyone at all. If human freedom is absolutely free, then so is human responsibility.

But how is it that a Baptist can realistically and consistently call himself a Christian Nationalist? Baptists have historically denied the "mixed multitude" of the historical and visible Church, with both believers and unbelievers (or with both elect and reprobate for all the Calvinistic Baptists out there!), and have done so in the cause of trying to promote the notion that the visible Church here on earth is a "purely regenerate" Church. (Which is why Baptists guard the Font the way they do by demanding a "credible profession of faith" in order for folks to get baptized. Baptists believe that "believer's baptism" keeps all the stinky unregenerate unbelievers out of the visible Church. It doesn't, but they think it does.) There is no such thing as a purely regenerate visible Church this side of the Final Judgment. This won't be the case until AFTER the Final Judgment by the Christ. So what gives with trying to promote a baptistic version of Christian Nationalism? How can there be ANY Christian Nation that is filled with both believers and unbelievers, both elect and reprobate? And if local visible churches cannot have a mixed multitude of believers and unbelievers, then how can visible nations have a mixed multitude of the same? I suppose that a Baptist might try arguing that there is a fundamental divide between visible and invisible nations, according to which only truly regenerate Christians are members of the invisible Christian nations, while both believers and unbelievers are members of the visible Christian nations. But who in their right mind believes there are such political realities as invisible nations?😄

But there are no nations without individuals, just like individuals make up corporate bodies, such as nations. The notion that God only saves whole nations (or damns whole nations) without also saving or damning individuals who comprise these nations is like trying to argue that an airplane full of people that's landing safely on the tarmac is just a plane landing safely without any people on it. This is a form of hyper-corporatism that doesn't jibe very well with the whole of God's Word. God saves whole nations and those individuals that are included within these nations, or He can save whole nations without necessarily saving every individual within said nations, or He can damn whole nations while also saving some (or most) individuals within said nations as well. What God chooses to do on a national scale does not necessarily correspond with what He chooses to do on an individual scale. And Arminians have historically and notoriously tried to argue that while God may save a whole nation or two, this should never be said of His ability to save (or damn) any given individual (or two) within these nations. But this is a false dilemma. God has the power and ability to save or damn whole nations, and He has the power and ability to save individuals within these nations, or not. And nothing that Paul says in the book of Romans contradicts any of this. Paul does use individuals (like Jacob and Esau) as representatives of whole nations, but this should not be taken to mean that the individuals themselves are somehow disregarded or annihilated as a result of this representative principle. This "representative principle" is part and parcel to the entire covenantal matrix of the whole Bible. It is used throughout the Bible. And just like we shouldn't affirm that God is only one God and not three unique Persons, so too we should not try and argue that God is three unique Persons and not one God. He is both, equally and ultimately. So too are individuals and nations both equally ultimate in God's plan of salvation and damnation.

Everyone's a Calvinist in the beginning, too. Even those with the most libertarian view of human freedom believe that human free will decisions fully and finally predestinate individuals forever. And while future free will decisions might limit and circumscribe other future free will decisions (which is itself not a very good look for the LFW position), eventually every human free will decision has to have some kind of eternal and lasting impact that cannot finally be undone. Even LFW begins and ends with some very Calvinistic presuppositions concerning predestinating free will decisions, albeit these are ultimately grounded in human free will decisions and not God's Free Will decisions. God cannot have LFW, only human beings are allowed to have this kind of freedom!🤣

"It is the confessional doctrine of the Reformed churches and of the Reformed churches alone, that all believers' infants, dying in infancy, are saved." - BB Warfield Which would seem to indicate that the death of believers' infants is a sign and seal of eternal election. It is a "special sacrament" in the sense that not all the elect are under obligation to receive this sacrament, unlike Holy Baptism and the Lord's Supper, but it is a unique sacrament that only some of the number of the elect do in fact receive. Kinda like ordination, marriage, children, and a whole host of other "special sacraments" that some, but not all, believers do in fact receive by the sheer grace of God. And remember, a sacrament can be generally defined as ANY event in time and space wherein God's work and providence are "clearly seen through what has been made," or given by God Himself. Which should not in any way denigrate the nature of these sacraments themselves. The sacraments can be both unique and common, all at the same time, without losing either their uniqueness or their commonness. These sacramental realities can co-exist with equal ultimacy. Just like God's very nature can be both one God and three Persons, equally and ultimately.

"[P]resent unbelief is not a sure sign of reprobation in the case of adults, for who knows but that unbelief may yet give place to faith? Nor in the case of infants, dying such, is birth outside the covenant a trustworthy sign of reprobation, for the election of God is free. Accordingly there are many - adults and infants - of whose salvation we may be sure, but of reprobation we cannot be sure; such a judgment is necessarily unsafe even as to adults apparently living in sin, while as to infants who 'die and give no sign,' it is presumptuous and rash in the extreme. The above is practically an outline of the teaching of Zwingli. He himself worked it out in its logical completeness, and taught: 1. That all believers are elect and hence are saved, though we cannot know infallibly who are true believers except in our own case. 2. All children of believers dying in infancy are elect and hence are saved, for this rests on God's immutable promise. 3. It is probable, from the superabundance of the gift of grace over the offense, that all infants dying such are elect and saved; so that death in infancy is a sign of election; and although this must be left with God, it is certainly rash and even impious to affirm their damnation. 4. All who are saved, whether adult or infant, are saved only by the free grace of God's election and through the redemption of Christ."

Even the Roman Catholics have historically understood the distinction between those penalties ascribed to our first death in the first Adam (i.e., original sin), versus the penalties ascribed to our second death under the second and final Adam (i.e., final sin): "Dante, whom Andrew Seth not unjustly calls 'by far the greatest disciple of Aquinas,' has enshrined in his immortal poem the leading conception of his day, when he pictures the 'young children innocent, whom Death's sharp teeth have snatched ere yet they were freed from the sin with which our birth is blent,' as imprisoned within the brink of hell, 'where the first circle girds the abyss of dread,' in a place where 'there is no sharp agony' but 'dark shadows only,' and whence 'no other plaint rises than that of sighs' which 'from the sorrow without pain arise.' The novel doctrine [i.e., a mitigated hell for all infants who have died in infancy] attained papal authority by a decree of Innocent III (ca. 1200), who determined 'the penalty of original sin to be the lack of the vision of God, but the penalty of actual sin to be the torments of eternal hell.'"

"extra ecclesiam nulla salus" = "outside the Church there is no salvation" This should've been stated thusly: "outside the Church there are no ORDINARY MEANS of salvation" God has the power of extraordinary means of salvation, and He has the power to save people outside of, and even in opposition to (in some cases) the ordinary means of salvation. God doesn't absolutely need the means of salvation that He Himself has ordained as the ordinary means of salvation. This was something that our Protesting Catholic fathers in the faith fought tirelessly to preserve, and to show the world just how gracious and powerful our mighty God is to save sinners.

Very well put. Except for one (major) oversight: we are also legally reckoned righteous in the Christ IN SPITE OF our deeds that have actually merited eternal damnation before God, and not simply because we have no righteous deeds that have merited eternal salvation before God. Sinful human beings can and do merit eternal damnation before an absolutely holy and just God. If this were not the case, then our Triune God could actually be accused of being an unjust and arbitrary tyrant, just like Allah. But He’s not. He’s perfectly just and non-arbitrary in His power and ability to judge with perfectly just judgment. Double imputation is a matter of demerited grace, and not just unmerited grace.

1. Our Triune God is an inherently political God, and so He created an inherently political cosmos, and He created image-bearers who are also inherently political. 2. Mankind cannot help but be a political creature. It’s not whether, but which, where, when, why, etc. And now, after the fall of mankind into sin and death, mankind cannot help but be a fallen political creature. But were sin abounds, grace abounds all the more. And so we can trust God’s promises to save us politically, and not just individually, as individual sinners. 3. The chief end of politics is to glorify and enjoy both God and mankind forever. In fact, the God-Man came to this earth to do just this through political means: He came to glorify both God and mankind through political means. Not the kinds of political means that are of/from this world, but the kind that are of/from the highest-heavens, and that will transform this world from one kind of glory to the next. 4. The gospel has inherently good political new for the nations, just like it has inherently good salvation news for the nations. The gospel isn’t just about the salvation of individuals for eternal life, it’s also about the salvation of whole nations and societies for eternal life as well. 5. Even if mankind had never fallen in the first Adam, there would still be the need for political reform, debate, and even transformation. It would just have been a sinless version of all these things. So man as homo politicus does not require sin and fallenness to be a political creature. We can and will do politics all by our Triune-God created selves. 6. Even though politics is not our savior, our Savior came to save politics. The Christ did not simply come to save individual sinners from eternal death, but He also came to save all the political relationships and damage that fallen creatures have caused as well. And yes, He will save all the nations from their political problems BEFORE His final advent. And He will use the one, holy, Catholic, and apostolic Church to do so, once He cleans up our political act first. 7. Christ reigns now as the political King over heaven and earth, and not just over heaven. And He’s not waiting around in heaven now to come back to finally finish what He started almost 2,000 years ago now. There was no “postponement” of His kingly reign or kingdom until He finally returns from Heaven at His final advent, as so many Christians believe these days. He assumed full authority and responsibility over heaven and earth, when He ascended on high, and was forever blessed by God the Father with all power and authority and full responsibility for whatsoever comes to pass in heaven and on earth. 8. Christocracy (and not just theocracy) should be every Christian’s “alpha and omega” political stance, regardless of which other political stances we have. Christocracy is both God-centered and man-centered. It’s not just one or the other, but both, fully and completely. And this is due to the fact that the Christ Himself is both God-centered and man-centered, and He’s not just one or the other. So He’s also both heaven-centered and earth-centered, both heavenly minded and earthly minded. So He’s also very concerned about human political affairs. 9. There needs to be a form of limited and mitigated ecclesiocracy as well. If the whole cosmos is now under the reign of the Christ, and the Church is in “one-flesh” union with this Christ, then the whole Church also reigns from heaven over heaven and earth. The difference now being that the Church militant is still working out on earth what the Church triumphant has already fully accomplished in heaven. And these two different modes of Church existence are distinct, yet inseparable, while also being essentially united, but without confusion. 10. Repeat everything, from the beginning.