If not from men, then what gives the Constitution its meaning? The great divide between men is their world view. And their world view can be determined by how they answer this question…

Whom do men say that I am? [Jesus Christ quoted from Mark 8:27]    

Is he the promised Messiah, or is he someone else? The generation of men from the Great Awakening answered yes to that question. And the world around them was shaped by the prevailing idea that Christ has all authority and rules the nations according to His will. They submitted to His revealed will and the kingdom of God was advanced along with the principles of liberty and equity. Advanced means moved forward; it does not mean perfection.

The men today have a different answer. And the world they live in must be reshaped according to their answer. The Constitution cannot stand in a world that denies the fallen condition of man; a condition that requires men and institutions to be subject to Christ’s righteous law; a law known and honored among the people so that the civil magistrates and clergy and all other authorities can be measured by an absolute standard of righteousness.

Re: http://townhall.com/columnists/DrPaulKengor/2010/08/16/president_obama_cites_bush_and_christ—sort_of

Here is the statement made by Jesus Christ in context…

“If you then, being evil, know how to give good gifts to your children, how much more will your Father who is in heaven give good things to those who ask Him! Therefore, whatever you want men to do to you, do also to them, for this is the Law and the Prophets” [Matthew 7:11-12].

We must ask first of all, what is the context? Who is Christ talking to? Is He addressing all men, state governments or individual Christians? Who does the ‘you’ refer to? This passage is taken from the Sermon on the Mount given in Matthew chapters 5-7 and introduced in Matthew 4:23 as the ‘gospel of the kingdom’. It is of interest to look closely at Christ’s use of the word ‘you’ in this sermon. Here are some examples…

“Blessed are you when they revile and persecute you, and say all kinds of evil against you falsely for My sake. Rejoice and be exceedingly glad, for great is your reward in heaven, for so they persecuted the prophets who were before you” [Matthew 5:11-12].

“You are the salt of the earth; You are the light of the world” [Matthew 5: 13-14].

“I say to you, that unless your righteousness exceeds the righteousness of the scribes and Pharisees, you will by no means enter the kingdom of heaven” [Matthew 5:20].

The context of the sermon makes it clear that Christ is addressing His people; the people of His spiritual kingdom of heaven where righteousness dwells under the authority of His word. He is not addressing men or nations of men in general.

Christ says this is the teaching of the Law and Prophets.

Islam has no anointed one or Messiah who fulfills the anticipation of the Old Testament scriptures, even though they acknowledge them to be God's inspired self-revelation. For this reason the theology of Islam is incomplete. They continue to live under a heretical view of the Old Testament without a gospel message to mankind.

Without the affirmation of the promised Messiah, Islam cannot proclaim an assured word of salvation to those who know that they stand guilty before a holy and just God. Christianity is uniquely the religion of salvation by grace through faith in the finished work of the Christ.

Islam cannot teach such good news of a salvation all of grace through faith. By not trusting in the work of God's Messianic Son for redemption, in their own distinctive ways they are committed to some form of works-righteousness or legalism. They are left to seek a right standing before God through imperfect good works performed in human wisdom and strength. [from Bahnsen]

The unbeliever has a tendency to separate the rule of love for man from the commandment of the love for God. The Golden Rule becomes the sum and substance of all ethics. But in the sermon the Golden Rule is preceded by the context of loving God above all. If we love God, then we will love his image bearers.

The next time they come preaching hope and change rather than a return to constitutionalism, we can know that they not only do not understand the importance of liberty, but are its enemies.

An imperfect system where liberty reigns is much to be preferred over any system without liberty. The elites think their system is better as long as they have more and more control over us. America has demonstrated that law is the best king, but the heart of the tyrant keeps rising up against us. His world view must be put to death again.

How did those who oppose liberty get into office to make the lifetime appointments to the federal bench? How did the tyrants get into office to approve of the judicial picks? The current Congress approves of judicial activism because it insulates their agenda from the will of the people. And we the people keep electing them to office because we are content with tyranny or unable to discern it.

Like the first amendment that guarantees freedom of religious expression and freedom of the press, the intent of the independent judiciary has been turned on its head. That which was intended for good and for the conservation of liberty has been turned into the instruments of tyranny under the influence of deceitful men void of integrety; men that do indeed ‘feel themselves independent of heaven itself.’

Having won our independence, will we now return to the house of bondage? Will we sell our birthright of liberty for a mess of pottage?

The prophet Malachi speaking of the apostasy of the OT priesthood has some choice words for the messengers of the New Covenant…

      The law of truth was in his mouth,
      And injustice was not found on his lips.
      He walked with Me in peace and equity,
      And turned many away from iniquity…

      But you have departed from the way;
      You have caused many to stumble at the law…

     “Therefore I also have made you contemptible and base
      Before all the people,
      Because you have not kept My ways
      But have shown partiality in the law.” [Malachi 2:6-9]

 
‘If anyone thinks that he knows anything, he knows nothing yet as he ought to know. But if anyone loves God, this one is known by Him’ [1 Corinthians 8:2-3].

That man thinks that he knows something, who is delighted with the opinion that he entertains of his own knowledge, and despises others, as if he were far above them. For Paul does not here condemn knowledge, but that ambition and haughtiness which ungodly men contract in consequence of it. Otherwise he does not exhort us to be skeptical, so as to be always hesitating and hanging in doubt, and he does not approve of a false and counterfeit modesty, as if it were a good thing to think that we are ignorant of what we do know. That man, therefore, who thinks that he knows something, or, in other words, who is insolent from an empty notion of his own knowledge, so that he prefers himself before others, and is self-conceited, he knows nothing yet as he ought to know.

Why is Lincoln referenced in the context of ‘no recourse from ballots to bullets’? Wasn’t Virginia and the South defending themselves against his war of Northern aggression? It is a strange paradox that the Southern slave states were fighting for liberty against federal encroachment and that in the name of freeing the slaves the federal government saw the beginning of its tyranny over all the states.

Like the first and second revolutions, the world view of the culture must change before men will risk all for the sake of liberty. The men of today are willing to abide with tyranny as long as they have their personal peace and affluence. A culture given over to atheistic naturalism is not likely to revolt against anything.

We thank Mr. Jeffrey for appealing to revealed truth in making his argument. This is the only argument that matters. Everything else reduces to the opinions of fallen and finite men.

He is right to point out that the same law that prohibits theft and murder also prohibits adultery, meaning that the only legitimate expression of human sexuality is the marriage bed…

‘Marriage is honorable among all, and the bed undefiled; but fornicators and adulterers God will judge’ [Hebrews 13:4].

But what about the sodomites?

‘Do you not know that the unrighteous will not inherit the kingdom of God? Do not be deceived. Neither fornicators, nor idolaters, nor adulterers, nor homosexuals,nor sodomites, nor thieves, nor covetous, nor drunkards, nor revilers, nor extortioners will inherit the kingdom of God' [1 Corinthians 6:9-10].

So, contrary to the opinions of men, these things are not the private moral view of religious bigots, but the word of the living God. But the unbelievers will cavil that this is an opinion. But we answer with this question. Is the death and resurrection of Jesus Christ an opinion of men or is it attested to by prophecy and by eye witness accounts? Are there testimonies of grace and revivals of true religion throughout church history? Are the promises of redemption being fulfilled in every nation and every generation? Does the kingdom of God endure as nations rise and fall?

The secularists want to recreate America in their image; they want to remove the foundations of law and morals and knowledge. Their world is void of truth. So when they tear down the foundations, there is nothing to build on except the vain imaginations of man.

If liberty, once lost, is lost forever, the question is why? Here is the rest of Adams’ quote…

We are seeing first hand that the Constitution (as good as it may be in its intent to limit the powers of men by multiple checks and balances) cannot stand against the abuses of lawless men; men void of integrity who take an oath to defend the Constitution while opposing it from the heart.

Adams might say that the people have lost their discernment in continuing to elect and reelect authoritarians to public office who have no respect for the public treasury. They are drunk on public funds and use the people’s money to empower themselves over the people, promising them liberty, but delivering them into the tyranny of perpetual dependency.

‘There is a way that seems right to a man,
But its end is the way of death’ [Proverbs 14:12 & 16:25].

Law must be grounded in truth, or it becomes arbitrary. In a culture that rejects truth, arbitrary becomes the characteristic of morality, ethics and law. Our Constitution becomes subject to arbitrary thinking because definitions lose their context.

What is ‘general equity’ and how did this Reformation principle empower the West?

"…the law of God which we call the moral law is nothing else than a testimony of natural law and of that conscience which God has engraved upon the minds of men…this unchanging moral law is the foundation of all particular civil laws. The moral law is the equity or the common, natural basis of all civil law." [from Calvin’s Institutes]

The expression ‘general equity’ defines the element of justice, derived from natural law, which belongs to all civil laws, despite the variation between the political constitutions of different nations.

When civil law is based on the principles of general equity derived from the self-revealed and eternal I AM, then men have an absolute reference to morals, ethics and law. This is part of the liberty promised by Messiah in the coming of the New Covenant.

The law is a rule of faith and practice for the believer. But for the unbeliever, its use is to restrain the wickedness of men. Let’s ask a question regarding the civil laws surrounding marriage and divorce. What effect will no fault divorce have on the institution of marriage? Will it not lessen the significance of the covenant relationship? Will men work at preserving their marriage or walk away when problems arise? Marriage was instituted before the Fall. Now it is a divine remedy for the sanctification of fallen men. Divorce for any other cause but adultery and abandonment of the marriage bed promotes lawlessness and the degeneration of the culture.

The issue of interest is the breakdown in authority that has led to the acceptance of autonomous reason over the eternal wisdom of Christ. That’s why we consider Darwinism as the enemy of the cross and therefore the enemy of liberty based in constitutionalism and general equity. Not only was Darwin wrong; the fruits of his vain philosophy are dangerous and destructive.

Re: http://townhall.com/columnists/DavidHarsanyi/2010/08/06/time_for_a_divorce

That ‘pestering theologian’ wrote the Institutes of the Christian Religion which is a systematic theology of Reformed thought and the foundation for the advance of Western thought and culture.

To demean Calvin is to demean our heritage. How is it any different than when the Far Left does the same thing? Would we consider the times and circumstances of Calvin’s Geneva? Calvin was engaged in untangling the abuses of church-state hierarchies and establishing a free church and a free state based on biblical authority.

No one is saying that he got everything right, but we do say that he helped advance the cause of liberty in the midst of a revival of Biblical Christianity that had been suppressed for a 1000 years. The real question is what role should the state have in its civil law as minister of God’s law to enforce the principles of general equity. The American Founders answered that question in terms of Natural Law.

What is the origin of the rule of law as associated with constitutionalism? What is the origin of the work ethic where any man’s honest labor is considered honorable and the fruit of his labor is as sacred as any other private property. When was a man’s conscience given its due liberty in matters of religion? These are all fruits of the Protestant Reformation. And least we forget, America was settled and its independence was won by Reformation Men.

These men had a different view of John Calvin; they honored him as Reformer and Theologian of the West. We would do well to reconsider the view of those who were engaged in the struggle.

Regarding the Marriage Ordinance: it was the Protestant answer to the tradition of the marriage sacrament, which was Augustine’s mistake. Would we consider that civil law provided a safe guard against unjust divorce, protecting women and their children? Would we consider that this helped to stabilize the family and the culture?

Today we are like the culture of Pharisees who put away their spouse for any reason. But Christ taught that “from the beginning of the creation God made them male and female. For this cause shall a man leave his father and mother, and cleave to his wife; And they twain shall be one flesh: so then they are no more twain, but one flesh. What therefore God hath joined together, let not man put asunder.” [Mark 10]

Christ uses these events as a model of the conditions expected at His coming again in sudden and final judgment on the wicked, but in gracious deliverance of the redeemed.

Why do men deny history as well as their own experience as men? Why do men boast in their denial of the existence of God and His judgments against sin when they are His image bearers, including a sense of morality? Why do they invent alternative realities that help them suppress the knowledge of God? Why do they deny the words of the Great prophet who entered the holy place not made with hands and made a once for all atonement for sin, offering up His own blood? [Hebrews 9]

“For everyone who does evil hates the light, and does not come to the light, lest his deeds should be exposed” [John 3].  Men know the truth, but delight in their sin, preventing them from coming to the light. And with this the Apostles agree. Peter says that men are 'willingly ignorant' [2 Peter 3], and Paul says that they know God but suppress their knowledge of Him in unrighteousness [Romans 1].

With the advances in technology and education, why is it that the societies of men degenerate into the same destructive behaviors? And they do so in the name of social progress until destruction comes. No one heeded Noah’s warning, but the eight who boarded the ark. Lot and his family had to be urged to leave Sodom. Men today are not isolated from the historical record, but they are still held captive to their sin.

That which has caused America to differ is the same thing that makes a difference in men. Grace and grace alone is what causes men to differ [1 Corinthians 4:7]. Grace enabled men to give us an open Bible that had been closed for a 1000 years, and grace helped men apply the New Covenant principles to the American covenant.

After 400 years, what begun in New England as advancing the Kingdom of God as the New Covenant Israel of God in the hearts of many, is now becoming more like New Sodom. We are not unlike ancient Israel who came to destruction after rejecting its heritage, forsaking the God of all grace.

Re: http://townhall.com/columnists/KenBlackwell/2010/08/05/marriage_and_the_constitution

God’s moral Law bears witness to man in his conscience. Men agree with the righteousness of the Law when they condemn other men as transgressors. But when they do this they condemn themselves and are without excuse before God in that they commit the same sins.

What you call a fundamental right are the rights protected in the covenant we call the constitution. The state cannot award these rights, nor can they prohibit them. They belong to men as image bearers of their Creator.

The lawless federal judiciary has violated the Natural Law in the grosses manner possible in advocating what is unnatural in the demeaning of the covenant of marriage.

The guardians of the rule of law have already undermined the marriage covenant in the matters of adultery and divorce. Now what God established at creation for the good of man is becoming a testimony to the depravity of man in his autonomous wisdom. In their approval of the perversions of sexuality and what God calls abomination, they declare their disapproval of and hatred for their Creator.

In abusing its God given authority, the state becomes more and more like an illegitimate magistrate and unworthy of obedience. Mr. Jefferson has some choice words on this subject recorded in the Declaration of Independence. But those words were written for a people with a consensus in their love of truth and liberty; a people intolerant of unrighteousness and tyranny.

This question goes much deeper in that it brings into question the moral order of the universe. Can the eternal I AM define sin as the transgression of His Law? Will the objections of men prevent God from the eternal punishment of the unrepentant transgressors? Will the blood of Christ be eternally and perfectly effectual in the redemption of His people?

The Bible brings the charge of deliberateness against man’s sin. Just as “the righteousness of God is revealed from faith to faith”, so also “the wrath of God is revealed from heaven against all ungodliness and unrighteousness of men.” This wrath is revealed against men who “hold down the truth in unrighteousness”. Sin is deliberate.

“And even as they did not like to retain God in their knowledge, God gave them over to a reprobate mind”. Fallen men refuse to have God in their knowledge because they do not approve of God. Here again is the charge of deliberateness…

“Who knowing the judgment of God, that they which commit such things are worthy of death, not only do the same, but have pleasure in them that do them”.

These three statements from Romans 1 reveal the essential nature of sin and especially the element of deliberateness. How far removed they are from that other picture of man which represents him as a victim of another man’s sin or as creatures bound by their genetics! How far removed from the idea that says that sin is due merely to lack of education! The fact is that sin is altogether and entirely something active and militant, and it is at the very heart of man. [from Martyn Lloyd-Jones]

How can men be bound genetically to certain behaviors and still have a free will? Are men predestined to certain behaviors? This is a strange belief for those who despise the Bible for its doctrines of election and predestination.

Men are free only to act according to their nature, but are without strength to change their nature. So free will in its normal use that men are in control of their own destiny is a myth…

http://valiantfortruth.blogtownhall.com/2010/05/08/myth_of_free_will.thtml