Richard Hooker #3: (Bible Analysis)

Welcome once again everybody to greatbiblereset.com which refers to a national recommitment to God's law in Exodus 20-24 and is our only hope for delivery from the slavery of Klaus Schwab's great economic reset. Now one of the complaints or common complaints against the law of God is that it is too harsh. But stop and think for a moment. In the first place, how do you like the gentle hand of tyranny that rules in America that has outlawed God's law from the public discourse? In the second place, have you considered God's provision for a one-time monetary substitute or ransom that may be extended to all but one of the 15 death penalty crimes in the Old Testament by virtue of the death of the coming Redeemer? And this is found in Exodus 21 right after the Ten Commandments and is dependent on the clemency of the victim. Now we've seen how the teaching of Richard Hooker reinforced the idea of the divine right of kings during the Reformation era of the 1500s and the Revolutionary era of the next century, the 1600s. The Bible opposes the theory of divine right of kings. The Hebrew king Saul, for example, was subject to the Bible in 1 Samuel 15, 22, and 23. He was also subject to the checks of other officials in 1 Samuel 14, 45. The Bible does not teach that the king has no earthly restraints but answers to God alone. For instance, the Hebrew king was sustained and restained in his rule by a Senate of elders in Numbers 11, 16, and 17. There was also a commons in Numbers 10, 3 usually called the Congregation. Now besides this horizontal division of power, the Bible lays out a system of graded courts. Power was divided vertically between Moses and the tribes in Exodus 18 and this federal system relieved Moses of the total burden of government. It served to diffuse and localize authority. A Bible system of checks and balances woven into the structure of civil government is a vital safeguard against tyranny. Such a system was built into the US Constitution, but even that system is not enough to forestall an encroaching tyranny. And that's because the Constitution has divorced itself from the authority and protection of God. Any nation that refuses to enter into formal covenant with God opens itself to the risk of a divine right dictator. Now regarding natural law, Hooker stated, quote, we see then how nature itself teaches laws and statutes to live by, end of quote. But once again the hackneyed theory of natural law raises its ugly head in Richard Hooker. Nature is fallen and cannot provide a consistent standard of truth that may be summarized in laws and statutes. Man too is fallen. The mind of man is severely limited in his ability to interpret God's revelation in nature, tending to worship the creature rather than the creator. According to the biblical doctrine of general revelation, nature provides intuitive knowledge regarding the nature of God, including such things as his glory, the wrath of God, his eternal power, and Godhead. However, that general revelation is intended to drive man to God's specific or special revelation in the Bible for laws and statutes to live by. Hooker reverses that order, elevating the book of nature above the book of God's revelation. An example of Hooker's mysticism is his statement that, quote, the union therefore of the flesh with deity is to that flesh a gift of principle grace and favor, for by virtue of this grace man is really made God. A creature is exalted above the dignity of all creatures, and hath all creatures also under it, end of quote. Now man shares a community of life with God, the Christian man, but in no way does he transcend the creator-creature distinction. We cannot deny that God has exalted man by redeeming him in Christ and making him a member of the divine family. In Christ he enjoys the status of a son of God and even called a friend and brother of Christ. In spite of all this we must be ever careful to maintain the creator- creature distinction. God is declared to his glory will he share with no other. But for Hooker to declare that man is really made God is to go too far. It is to transgress that boundary. It is to partake of the sin of Eve who succumbed to the temptation of Satan that ye shall be as God knowing or determining good and evil. It was this sinful presumption that unleashed hell on earth and cast man into that cursed estate which only the death of Christ could remedy. Hooker also stated quote, finally since God hath deified our nature though not by turning it into himself yet by making it his own inseparable habitation we cannot now conceive how God should without man either exercise exercise divine power or receive the glory of divine praise. For man is in both an associate of deity end of quote. Such statements by Hooker diminish the authority of Christ over civil government. God has regenerated and purified our nature and we enjoy a community of life with God but nowhere does the Bible teach that God has deified our nature. God has in fact exalted redeemed humanity to a position of sonship above the status of Adam before the fall. Adam was created as a servant of God but nonetheless able to sin or able to choose to sin during a period of probation. Redeemed man in his final state of glorification will be unable to sin but this will be by virtue of his perfected human nature not because of his deified nature. In the words of Jesus spoken as if to God the father through the Apostle Paul quote for perhaps he therefore departed for a season that thou shouldst receive him forever not now as a servant but above a servant a brother beloved especially to me but how much more unto thee both in the flesh and in the Lord and that's in Philemon's 15 and 16. However, Hooker goes much further in asserting that God had deified our nature crossing the forbidden boundary. Such an assertion by elevating man necessarily demotes Christ. Hooker says as much when he goes on to declare that quote we cannot now conceive how God should without man either exercise divine power or receive the glory of divine praise end of quote. To state that God cannot exercise divine power apart from man is an incredibly arrogant position. It opens the way for ambitious men to exercise their own will in matters of civil government apart from the law and rule of Christ. That was exactly how Hooker's philosophy played itself out during the reign of James the first and Charles the first in England. There is no question that natural laws employed by Hooker serve to undermine the authority of scripture. Whenever the mind of man is granted an element of autonomy it necessarily detracts from the authority of scripture. Hooker simultaneously undermined the Bible, church authority, and individual authority replacing it with the word of the all-powerful King who stood as a semi-divine representative of God on earth subject to no earthly counterbalance. When men seek to escape the alleged tyranny of the law of God they end up slaves to the real thing, grinding oppression without the protections afforded by the Bible. So in this way Hooker promoted Erastianism, the subjection of the church to the powers of the state. Hooker started with the assertion that the Bible contains no clearly defined directives for church government. The rules for church polity must instead be derived from natural law as interpreted by the autonomous mind of man, in particular the mind of the King. Thus the church is demoted to a position subordinate to the state becoming in effect a department of the state. The result is a kept church with clergy paid by the civil government and therefore muzzled in their declaration of truth because what government funds government controls. As noted previously under Anglican church government bishops are appointed and controlled from above either directly or indirectly by the King. Leadership is thus imposed on a congregation rather than arising to the surface by general approbation of the people. In the Presbyterian form deacons and elders are nominated by the congregation based on demonstrated capacity for leadership and upon election, ordained to office by existing clergy. This was a pattern followed in Act 6.3 in which the congregation was instructed to pick out from among them seven men of good repute whom the apostles could appoint as deacons over the business of administrating the resources of the church. In Titus 1.5 Paul directs Titus to quote ordain elders in every city end of quote but there is no reason to conclude that this would depart from the normal biblical pattern of nomination that is found in both the Old and New Testament. For example in Deuteronomy Deuteronomy 1.13 the scripture reads choose wise and discerning and experienced men from your tribes and I will appoint them as your heads leaders of thousands and of hundreds of fifties and of tens and officers for your tribes end of quote. Again this illustrates the folly of the tragic decision of canon press to give an audience to a neophyte such as Stephen Wolfe, author Stephen Wolfe who admits in his introduction he doesn't know how to interpret or exegete scripture. The damage done to the Great Commission is incomprehensible and incalculable over the long run. Lay hands on no man suddenly. Based on church history and the Bible the consequence of this decision to elevate the speculations of a novice in defense of Christian nationalism can only result in disaster. This was done at the expense of God's definition of Christian nationalism that we find in Exodus 20-24. Canon press has taken the Arminian or Eurasian position that exalts the free will of man in the state above the Presbyterian position of limited delegated powers. Canon press departure from the authority of God's law as expressed in their own doctrinal statement of the Association of Classical and Christian Schools is similar to the chain of apostasy ignited by Anselm after the Battle of Hastings. Anselm presumed to prove God and the incarnation God and the incarnation by Aristotelian logic. This led to Abelard's failure to recognize that his list of 150 inconsistencies in the Bible were antimonies not contradictions. This led in turn to Gratian's concordance which was the first to separate canon law from theology. It is written that Anselm moved closer to Augustine later in life and on his deathbed ordered his assistant to burn the draft of his book. The assistant made a copy and burned the original. Please refer, like, and subscribe at greatbiblereset.com pick up a free copy of Keys to the Classics, A History of the Decline and Fall of Western Civilization at the Kingsway Classical Academy bookstore.