Things Scripture Doesn’t Say, Pt. 2 - Getting Saved

 Scripture nowhere says that a person needs to know the exact moment at which he got saved. Are you right now trusting in God to save you? That is the only thing you need to know. At what point in the past that began to be true is not a question you need to answer.

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There isn’t a single verse of Scripture that speaks of becoming a Christian as “asking Jesus into your heart”. And that cheesy, sentimental, romantic way of talking about salvation has probably turned far more men off to the Gospel and the Church than we might think.

Things Scripture Doesn’t Say, Pt. 1 - Only Christian Music Is Allowed

 Scripture nowhere says that it is a sin to listen to “secular” music, music that doesn’t aim to be specifically Christian, or music that doesn’t mention God or the Bible. It’s true that if a person is saved they should at least sometimes want to listen to music that speaks accurately and positively about God. Scripture commands us to sing praises to God, and to “sing to one another in psalms, hymns, and spiritual songs”. But it doesn’t say that is the only kind of singing you’re allowed to do. There are types of music that a Christian shouldn’t want to listen to - if you find yourself wanting to listen to songs like “WAP”, then something spiritually is wrong with you, and you need to repent and correct course on some things. But if there isn’t anything particularly contrary to God’s word about a piece of music, then God has given you the freedom to listen to it. All good things ultimately come from Him, and He puts those things in the world for you to enjoy.

Most Christian music over the past hundred years or so has been terrible. If you don’t like it, then it probably means you have good taste. “For, brethren, ye have been called unto liberty; only use not liberty for an occasion to the flesh, but by love serve one another” (Gal. 5:13). You don’t have to abandon Christianity to enjoy good art - so don’t use it as a excuse to do so.

It Isn’t About You

 In Reformed circles we often like to tell people “it isn’t about you” (“it” being the Gospel, or the worship of the Church, or anything related to Scripture). In our narcissistic age, this certainly has its need. But while God is clearly concerned about His own glory, and often puts wicked men in their place, I think we tend to push this further than Scripture gives us the right to. Salvation is about us, in that it’s us He’s saving. Scripture is filled with statements about the love, the kindness, the mercy, and the goodness of God directed toward us. Scripture tells us that He sent His Son not just to satisfy His own righteous demands, nor simply to bring Himself glory, but out of His love for mankind. His loving acts in this world are not just self-focused, nor focused at those impersonal parts of His creation, but focused on us. “What is man that you are mindful of him, or the son of man that You should care for him?” (Ps. 8). And this is clear in Calvin as well. Using one quote to illustrate:

“For in administering human society he so tempers his providence that, although kindly and beneficent toward all in numberless ways, he still by open and daily indications declares his clemency to the godly and his severity to the wicked and criminal. For there are no doubts about what sort of vengeance he takes on wicked deeds. Thus he clearly shows himself the protector and vindicator of innocence, while he prospers the life of good men with his blessing, relieves their need, soothes and mitigates their pain, and alleviates their calamities; and in all these things he provides for their salvation.”

God’s point often in His rebukes in Scripture is to show His glory, to show His place as God exalted above man and all creation in all His being, and to show that His care for all things is His free choice. But He has chosen. He everyday cares for mankind freely, willingly, gladly, lovingly. And when sin came into the world, the thing that might prevent the giving of His love, He gave even more, that no impediment might stand in the way. In our arrogance we might need a reminder sometimes that we aren’t the center of the universe - that we are not God. But the true God has set His love upon us in such a way that He can call us His children, His friends, and the inheritors of the universe He has created and upheld.

“He will not always strive with us,

Nor will He keep His anger forever.

He has not dealt with us according to our sins,

Nor punished us according to our iniquities.

For as the heavens are high above the earth,

So great is His mercy toward those who fear Him;

As far as the east is from the west,

So far has He removed our transgressions from us.

As a father pities his children,

So the Lord pities those who fear Him.

For He knows our frame;

He remembers that we are dust.

As for man, his days are like grass;

As a flower of the field, so he flourishes.

For the wind passes over it, and it is gone,

And its place remembers it no more.

But the mercy of the Lord is from everlasting to everlasting

On those who fear Him,

And His righteousness to children’s children,

To such as keep His covenant,

And to those who remember His commandments to do them.” (Ps. 103).

I wonder if as Calvinists we don’t sometimes strive with men more than God Himself. Inasmuch as we do, it is a thing of which we must repent. If we have truly been recipients of His grace, how can we do otherwise? 

Does this really arise from a zeal for the glory of God and a love for our neighbor? Or is it merely a lust for power and authority that isn’t rightly ours, with a sadistic need to tear others down? If it is the latter, and sometimes I think it is, then our own salvation must be in question. We are not reflecting the character of the God we claim to be in union with, but rather something of the devil. True godliness speaks not only truth, but in love and humility. 

Thanos and the Scarlet Witch: To Covet Godhood

 At the end of Avengers: Infinity War, we see that Thanos has gone to live in a mountainous region far from civilization in a cabin alone. And at the end of WandaVision, we see that Wanda has done the same. In both cases the camera seems to pan down toward the cabin(s) from a distance, and the fact that the last scene in WandaVision mimics that of Infinity War suggests we are to see a parallel between the two figures. There is a contrast in the two, though. Whereas Thanos comes out of his cabin from the inside and sits down on the steps, having completed the work he intended, Wanda begins sitting down on the front steps, arises, and goes inside her cabin, where we find she is still busy at work constructing her desired reality. The two figures are mirror images of each other. 

But the similarities don’t stop with their visual presentations.

We see in both characters the sort of willful individualism and isolation which is always the tendency of a person failing to deal with their pain and disappointment correctly. Both individuals sought to use their power to construct reality according to their own liking. The power they sought exceeded what they had any right to, and both showed themselves to lack the wisdom and goodness necessary to wield that power properly. No one person can ever have the qualities necessary to rightly conduct another person’s life, let alone multiple other lives. And the desire to do so always reveals a hateful narcissistic evil that can only lead to death. “You will never be a god,” Loki tells Thanos. And this is the heart of all of the occult: it is an arrogant hatred of the one true God, and a desire to kill Him and take His place.

The point of the end of WandaVision, then, is that Wanda has become her abuser, her persecutor, and the very thing she hates. “You took everything from me,” Wanda tells Thanos in Avengers: Endgame. Wanda does the same to the citizens of Westview in WandaVision, and the last scene of the show suggests she hasn’t yet learned to deal with her losses.

As Holy to the Lord

 The Pledge of Allegiance was written by a Socialist, and did not originally have the phrase ”Under God” in it. The Pledge is about religious devotion to the State, such that no Christian should say it, nor should it be recited in church in a worship services. Flags in church buildings are equally an abomination.

While I’m on the subject, I would also voice my disagreement with good Reformed men on the subject of sacred space, including Peter Leithart. It is true that space does not become ”magical”, and we should be careful to make that clear. But certain spaces can and should be set apart as holy for the worship of God. To set up such spaces is a mark of civilization resulting from the work of the Holy Spirit and the triumph of the Gospel. It is when you start declaring everything as equally sacred, in a pagan sense of being magical or even literally “god”, that you can know that the glory of God has departed from you.