Lies vs Confusion

Well alright, I hope you're having a good day today. Today in Rutland we have a pretty rainy overcast day, which I've always kind of liked rainy days, so I'm having a good day. But I wanted to talk about two things today, actually two people that, and really more their ideas, that I just, you know, I hope these can be used as examples.

I mean there's kind of two sides of the coin here, and I'm gonna go out on a limb and say something that I haven't really been saying very much. I mean I've tried to not judge motivations and to not judge which of the social justice crowd are like the super zealots who no matter what will just twist things no matter what, and then the people that are kind of thinking they're doing the right thing but confused.

And so I haven't really made those kinds of judgments, but I'm definitely, I feel comfortable doing it in this case. This is a person who's consistently either lying or just a complete ignorant person.

I don't think he's ignorant, I think he's a smart guy, I think he knows what he's doing. It's this guy Timothy Isaiah Cho, he's one of the, I think he's the editor of Faithfully Magazine, which is one of the worst magazines you could ever imagine.

Timothy Isaiah Cho and the Westminster Confession

Social justice 101, basic level stuff. So this guy is, his Twitter feed is full of lies, full of misrepresentations, and I wanted to just show you an example, two examples that I just happened to screenshot because I thought they were so interesting.

I don't remember exactly when he tweeted these things, it's all been within the last week or so. But look at this, so this one's not as bad because he's just lying about the Westminster Confession. Now it's not okay to misrepresent people, it's not okay to bear false witness, but it's just the Westminster Confession, it's not the Bible that he's lying about here.

So let's look at this. This is one of the Westminster larger catechism questions, and the question is, are all transgressions of the law of God equally heinous in themselves and in the sight of God? And the answer to that question, according to the Westminster Confession, is all the transgressions of the law of God are not equally heinous, but some sins in themselves and by reason of several aggravations are more heinous in the sight of God than others.

Now this is very true, I mean, the Westminster Confession, I believe, is one of the, I believe it is, the Westminster Standards, I should say, are the greatest summary of the doctrine of the scriptures that we have at this point.

I'm not saying it's the greatest ever, I'm not saying it's infallible, but it is amazing. Now Timothy Isaiah Cho, I believe, is a Presbyterian, so that's why he's referencing the Westminster Confession, which is really good.

But this is true, a lot of people think that all sin is the same just because all sin separates from God, and that's true. All sin does separate from God, but a small lie, even though God hates it, is not as bad as killing someone.

I mean, I think that's pretty obvious. Some people will argue about that, but I don't think it's very arguable. The Bible very clearly has a list of sins, and some of them are more heinous than others.

We can tell that by the scripture, but we can also tell that by the law of nature. We just know from experience and how God has created the world that some sins are worse than others. That's very true, and so the Westminster Confession is right here.

But look at what Timothy Isaiah Cho gets from this statement, this very clear statement that the only thing is that some sins are worse than others. Look at what Timothy says about this. He says, in other words, so he's translating this question and answer, he's translating in the Westminster Catechism here.

He says, in other words, love covers a multitude of sins, but it does not cover up heinous injustices and abuses. How in the world does he get that from this? Do you see what I'm saying? How in the world does he say, well, just because there are worse sins than others, that means that the scripture, when it says love covers a multitude of sins, it's not talking about heinous injustices and abuses.

How does he understand it in that way? I'll tell you how, because he has a narrative, and it doesn't matter what he reads on the page. It doesn't matter what the scriptures say. It doesn't matter what the Westminster Confession says.

He's got a narrative to push forward. He's a zealot. He's a zealot. He's got a narrative, and it will change the meaning of words. There is no way that you could say this question and answer, larger catechism, number 150, this means that love does not cover up extra heinous sins.

That's not true at all. That's an example of him lying about the Westminster Confession. Now, let's look at this one. This one's a little bit more heinous, in my opinion. This is worse. This is more heinous than the one about the Westminster Confession.

Look at this. Here's what he says. He says, the Bible is written from the lens of the marginalized. If you come from a group or community that is historically not marginalized, you need these voices and perspectives, or else your understanding of the word, the gospel, and the Christian life will be thin and weak.

Here's the reality. The Bible says that the scripture is sufficient to teach, to correct, to exhort, all of these things. The Bible is exactly what it intends to be. Timothy Isaiah Cho says, uh-uh. The Bible is sufficient, but only if you hear the voices of the marginalized communities and things like that.

If you happen to live in a gated community or you happen to live in a country that's prosperous, you're going to have a thin and weak Christian life because you need the marginalized perspective. It's not just that the scripture is sufficient.

You actually need people as well. You need marginalized, poor, whatever it is, racial minorities, people. Timothy Isaiah Cho is just directly contradicting the scripture here, but he's got a narrative to push, you understand.

He's got a narrative to push. He's contradicting the scripture, but it's for a good cause in his opinion. Let's take a step back for a second. Is this statement even true? Is this statement even true?

The Bible, is it written from the lens of the marginalized? That's a very good question. Some people will be tempted to say something like this, well, the scripture is inspired by the Holy Spirit. These are the words of God.

God's not marginalized. I think that that's, in a sense, that's true. We have to understand the scriptures are the literal words of God. And so the lens from which it is written is God's lens, and that's clearly not true.

But I think that there's something to be said here because obviously the scripture was also written through people. So God, prophets and God's people, they wrote as they were carried along by the Holy Spirit.

It doesn't mean that the Holy Spirit just sort of, they went blind and the Holy Spirit just moving their hands or write whatever the Holy Spirit wants. No, it didn't happen like that. The Holy Spirit used these people's experiences, their perspectives, and worked through that because the Holy Spirit's amazing.

The Holy Spirit is an amazing person. So he took over, but not in a sense that they didn't know what they were writing. They knew what they were writing. They used their education. They used their background.

They used all of that to compose the scriptures, and the Holy Spirit was in charge of it all because we're Calvinists here, right? But here's the question. Were the people who wrote the scripture marginalized?

That's a serious question because this is just off the top of my head, right? Moses wrote the books of Moses, right? He was from a well-to-do Egyptian upbringing. He was adopted by a high-class Egyptian.

He was educated. He was powerful. He was all these things, and then he went with his people after that, but he wasn't marginalized. This is a well-to-do kind of guy. Think about the book of Joshua. Joshua probably wrote that.

So Joshua was second in command, then he became first in command in Israel. This is a leader. This is a powerful man. Is he marginalized? Absolutely not. Think about the prophets and Proverbs and things like that, the Psalms.

I mean, King David wrote the Psalms. This is a rich man. This is a powerful man. This is not a marginalized man. Now, there were times in his life when he was marginalized, but this is a powerful man.

The prophets, the priests, these were people that had power. They had education. They had all of this stuff. Think about the New Testament, right? Like these books, Matthew, Mark, Luke, John. I mean, Luke was a physician, most people think.

He wrote Acts as well. Matthew, Mark, John, these people were middle-class Israelites. You know, they had jobs. They owned things. They owned businesses. I mean, they weren't rich by our standards, but they were middle-class people, people who had some power, some level of authority.

Think of Paul. Paul was a Pharisee. Paul was a Jew of Jews. Paul was a powerful man, an educated man. A lot of people think, even unbelievers think, that this guy was a genius level man, you know, well-educated, powerful, Roman citizen.

This was not a marginalized person, right? And so were there books of the Bible that were written by marginalized people? Off the top of my head, I would just assume that probably there were, but to say that the scriptures were written from the lens of the marginalized is just false.

It's just false. But you understand, Timothy, he's got a narrative to push forward. He's got a narrative to push forward. Yeah, so I'm just gonna say this. I think, I believe that Timothy knows what he's doing.

I think he knows he's got this narrative to push forward, and so his tweet log will push this narrative forward, whether he has to lie, whether he has to misrepresent, whether he just has to make things up, like here.

He's gonna push that narrative forward because that's the most important thing to him. What the scriptures actually say is not important to him. What the Westminster Confession or Catechism actually says, it's not important to him.

This is a zealot. This is a true zealot. And honestly, you know, I can't imagine taking him seriously after reading stuff like this. Anyway, let's move on to someone who I don't think is necessarily a zealot.

Justice, Mercy, and the Gospel

This is Joe Carter, right? And Joe Carter was responding to Jacob Brunton here, who has some issues with social justice as Joe Carter defined it. And it has to do with the idea of the scriptures, or I'm sorry, the Gospel Coalition saying that giving to the poor is a justice matter, not a mercy matter, not a charity matter.

And I agree with Jacob. I think that there's a distinction between justice and mercy. Now, they're related, obviously, in some ways, but there's a distinction between justice and mercy. We see this in the Gospel.

And this is why I was so concerned, or I have such strong words for what the Gospel Coalition's founding documents say, because it's a confusion in the Gospel itself. Here's the thing. God's a just God and God's a merciful God.

And in the Gospel, we see justice and mercy, but it's not the same thing. It's not a synonym. Because justice is that you get what's due to you. You get what you deserve. And what sinners deserve is death.

We've rebelled against God. We rebelled against the creator who gave us life, who gave us breath. And we spit in his face intentionally. It wasn't an accident. We didn't sin by accident. No, we sin because we think we know better than God knows.

And so we deserved death. That's what the Bible says. That's what justice is. God is holy and just. And so we deserve death. And God's going to give us death, except for the fact that God's also merciful.

And so he has mercy on his people, those who he's chosen from the foundations of the earth. He has mercy on those people. And what mercy is, is some kind of clemency. It's saying, I know you deserve death, but I'm not going to give you death.

I'm going to have mercy on you. I'm going to give you blessings. Do you see what I'm saying? So there's a difference between mercy and justice. In the gospel, we know that. And in the founding documents of the Gospel Coalition, they try to blur those lines a little bit.

They say, look, giving to the poor is a matter of justice. It's what they're due. Because God didn't treat us like totally just giving us justice without mercy. And so you have to do the same thing. It's a justice issue.

And I think that that confuses the gospel. And I think it also confuses our duty before God. And so to kind of blur the line between justice and mercy, I think is a serious problem, especially for a coalition that supposedly defines itself by the gospel.

And so Jacob Brunton here asks him, he says this. He says, do you have a verse or an argument for calling mercy justice or suggesting that the recipient deserves it? So in other words, he's saying, look, I think that giving to the poor is an obligation for Christians, but it's not a justice issue because that would mean that they have a claim.

That means that they deserve what I'm giving them. So and again, if you're going to tie this to the gospel, that would mean that God's mercy that he had on us, we deserve that mercy. We had a claim to that mercy.

And that's not what the gospel says. We have no claim. When we come to the table of the Lord's Supper, we have no right to be there in ourselves. The only reason that we are invited is because Christ died for our sins.

Christ took our penalty. That's why God is perfectly just, but also merciful. The penalty was paid for our sins by Christ. And so God is perfectly just. He didn't sidestep justice like the God of Islam does.

He didn't sidestep it and just ignore it. No, he still executed perfect justice in Christ, in that sacrifice and had mercy on us. Do you see what I'm saying? So Jacob here is asking, how do you say that mercy and justice are the same thing?

Here's what Joe Carter says. I think he thinks he's got a good point here, but it's a confused point. I don't think Joe Carter is a real zealot. I don't think that he is, but I think he's confused. Here's what his verse is.

Is not this the kind of fasting I have chosen to loose the chains of injustice and untie the cords of the yoke to set the oppressed free and break every yoke? Is it not to share your food with the hungry and to provide the poor wanderer with shelter?

That's from Isaiah 58. And Jacob responded, yeah, I'm pretty sure most Christians would agree that oppression is an instance of injustice. And Joe Carter's confused. Well, what is the point of disagreement then?

And here's the point of disagreement. Joe Carter thinks that what's happening here is God here is speaking and he's saying that, look, I want you to break the chains of injustice and set the oppressed free.

And then Joe Carter is thinking that this next sentence means that the injustice is the fact that they're not sharing food with the hungry and providing for the poor and things like that. I don't think that that actually is what this means, because here's what I think this means.

I think these are two separate ideas. They're related, of course, but they're two separate ideas. There's the injustice, the oppression that's happening, and then there's also the lack of mercy. Oftentimes, these things go together.

If you're, if people are, are, are promoting injustice, like for example, in Jim Crow days, there was injustice going on against black people. There's no question about that. And at the same time, there was also a lack of mercy.

Do you see what I'm saying? And so it's not saying that the lack of mercy is the injustice. It's saying that there's injustice and also you're not providing for the poor and hurt as well. I think I have a really good example.

Have you ever heard a homosexual Christian advocate, a gay Christian advocate talk about the sin of Sodom? And so it says like, this is from Ezekiel. They'll often say something like this. Look, this was the sin of your sister Sodom.

She and her daughters were arrogant, overfed and unconcerned. They did not help the poor and the needy. They were haughty and did abominable things before me. So you see what I'm saying? Like, like there are numerous sins that usually go together.

So in other words, just because Sodom was also unconcerned with the poor and haughty and overfed and arrogant didn't, didn't also mean that they weren't doing other things as well. They were also practicing homosexuality.

That's the abominable things that Ezekiel is talking about. And so when we look at, you know, this verse from Isaiah, it's not surprising to see that they're sinning in multiple ways, but it doesn't mean that this is an injustice.

You see what I'm saying? Like, like scripture in Ezekiel talks about the abominable things that Sodom and Gomorrah were doing. That doesn't also mean that they weren't lacking in mercy. So there was injustice there, of course, but there was also a lack of mercy.

And so I see these again, this, I don't think this scripture proves what he thinks it does saying that mercy and justice are the same thing. And again, we have to understand that if you combine mercy and justice and make it, you try to crush it down into the same thing, you've got a serious problem with the gospel because the gospel was not something that we were due.

Just like my money is not something that poor people are due, but I am commanded by God to be merciful because I've received mercy. It's like the servant, the ungrateful servant. I have to be merciful because I've received mercy.

And guess what will happen if I don't, if I don't, if I lack mercy, there will be judgment without mercy for me. That's what the scripture says, judgment without mercy for those who have lacked mercy.

And so if I'm lacking mercy, there's a good chance I'm unregenerate and I'm going to get justice. And there's a big difference between justice and mercy. The other thing is too, you know, the oppression here, this is, this is kind of left undefined, right?

But oftentimes, um, oppression is defined in scripture. Here's a, here's a, here's a good, uh, here's a good example. Let me see here. You show, this is from Leviticus chapter 19, which by the way, talks about mercy and also justice.

Uh, in verse nine in Leviticus, it talks about, uh, the gleaning laws and that's a matter of mercy. God commands us to do it, but there's no justice issue there. If you did not leave your, the corners of your field, uh, for the poor, there was no crime there.

There was no justice issue there. However, later it says this in verse 13, you shall not oppress your neighbor or rob him. And then it goes on to describe what oppression is. The wages of a hired worker shall not remain with you all night until the morning.

You see what I'm saying? So like, um, because you are rich, oftentimes you have a little more leeway. So look, if you want to keep the money a little, an extra day or so, you know, what's the poor person going to do?

Take you to court. I'm rich. I've got better lawyers than you. That's oppression. That's oppression. And this is consistent, you know, uh, not paying what you agreed to pay. That's oppression. Um, taking people to court, that's oppression unjustly.

Um, things like that. This is defined very often. And so we need to make sure that we are defining justice and mercy biblically. And I think we have very clear ideas of what that is. I think Joe Carter here thinks he's doing the right thing.

I do not consider him a zealot. I do not consider him in the same category as Isaiah. But this kind of thing is a confusion. We have to make sure we define these terms very clearly. Justice and mercy are not the same thing.

Justice and mercy are not the same thing. Anyway, I hope this was helpful. God bless.