Every moment Iran or India or the United States spends disregarding the Bible as the king’s word to them, at any institutional or personal level, is a moment of treason. All peoples, tribes, nations are called to entrust themselves to the new king and be his subjects (not to mention that he actually wishes to make them his co-rulers).

This is your hermeneutic on neo-Calvinism:

So we are told to “disciple all the nations.” And how? By baptizing and teaching. Teaching what? “Teaching them to observe all that I have commanded you.”

Everything means our whole Bibles. Jesus said that “Scripture cannot be broken.” He condemned Pharisees for not keeping God’s law. Of course, I’m not saying that Jesus expected the Law to be kept in its Mosaic aspect. Noahic dietary freedoms are fine and blood rituals like circumcision and animal sacrifice are no longer to be practiced as they once were. But the whole Bible, properly interpreted, is our governing document. And by “our” I mean, all humans.

Every moment Iran or India or the United States spends disregarding the Bible as the king’s word to them, at any institutional or personal level, is a moment of treason. All peoples, tribes, nations are called to entrust themselves to the new king and be his subjects (not to mention that he actually wishes to make them his co-rulers).

This means, by the way, that if we preach a gospel that doesn’t communicate to the hearers that the universe now has, by virtue of Jesus’ death, resurrection, and ascension, a new public king–that we aren’t preaching the real gospel. . . . The Great Commission, on its face, outlaws secularism and cultures based on any other god or lord than our Lord Jesus Christ. And it tells all Christians to say so.

And this is your hermeneutic on Calvinism:

He expressly calls himself the Lord and King of heaven and earth, because, by constraining men to obey him in the preaching of the gospel, he establishes his throne on the earth; and, by regenerating his people to a new life, and inviting them to the hope of salvation, he opens heaven to admit to a blessed immortality with angels those who formerly had not only crawled on the world, but had been plunged in the abyss of death. Yet let us remember that what Christ possessed in his own right was given to him by the Father in our flesh, or—to express it more clearly—in the person of the Mediator; for he does not lay claim to the eternal power with which he was endued before the creation of the world, but to that which he has now received, by being appointed to be Judge of the world. Nay, more, it ought to be remarked, that this authority was not fully known until he rose from the dead; for then only did he come forth adorned with the emblems of supreme King. . . .

Let us learn from this passage, that the apostleship is not an empty title, but a laborious office; and that, consequently, nothing is more absurd or intolerable than that this honor should be claimed by hypocrites, who live like kings at their ease, and disdainfully throw away from themselves the office of teaching. The Pope of Rome and his band proudly boast of their succession, as if they held this rank in common with Peter and his companions; and yet they pay no more regard to doctrine than was paid by the Luperci, or the priests of Bacchus and Venus. 324 And with what face, pray, do they claim to be the successors of those who, they are told, were appointed to be preachers of the gospel? But though they are not ashamed to display their impudence, still with every reader of sound judgment this single word is sufficient to lay prostrate their silly hierarchy—that no man can be a successor of the apostles who does not devote his services to Christ in the preaching of the gospel. In short, whoever does not fulfill the duties of a teacher acts wickedly and falsely by assuming the name of an apostle; and what is more—the priesthood of the New Testament consists in slaying men, as a sacrifice to God, by the spiritual sword of the word. Hence it follows, that all are but pretended and spurious priests who are not devoted to the office of teaching.

Christ shows that, in sending the apostles, he does not entirely resign his office, as if he ceased to be the Teacher of his Church; for he sends away the apostles with this reservation, that they shall not bring forward their own inventions, but shall purely and faithfully deliver from hand to hand (as we say) what he has entrusted to them. Would to God that the Pope would subject to this rule the power which he claims for himself; for we would easily permit him to be the successor of Peter or of Paul, provided that he did not usurp a tyrannical dominion over our souls. But as he has set aside the authority of Christ, and infects the Church with his childish fooleries, this shows plainly enough how widely he has departed from the apostolic office. In short, let us hold that by these words teachers are appointed over the Church, not to put forward whatever they may think proper, but that they, as well as others, may depend on the mouth of the Master alone, so as to gain disciples for him, and not for themselves.

And, lo, I am with you always. As Christ gave to the apostles a commission which they were unable to discharge by reliance on merely human power, he encourages them by the assurance of his heavenly protection. For before promising that he would be with them, he began with declaring that he is the, King of heaven and earth, who governs all things by his power and authority. . . .

It ought likewise to be remarked, that this was not spoken to the apostles alone; for the Lord promises his assistance not for a single age only, but even to the end of the world. It is as if he had said, that though the ministers of the gospel be weak and suffer the want of all things: he will be their guardian, so that they will rise victorious over all the opposition of the world. In like manner, experience clearly shows in the present day, that the operations of Christ are carried on wonderfully in a secret manner, so that the gospel surmounts innumerable obstacles.

So much the more intolerable is the wickedness of the Popish clergy, when they take this as a pretext for their sacrilege and tyranny. They affirm that the Church cannot err, because it is governed by Christ; as if Christ, like some private soldier, hired himself for wages to other captains, and as if he had not, on the contrary, reserved the entire authority for himself, and declared that he would defend his doctrine, so that his ministers may confidently expect to be victorious over the whole world.

(Double-bonus: notice the affirmation of Christ’s mediatorial kingship, which is distinct from his kingship as the second person of the Trinity.)

D. G. Hart is Visiting Professor of History at Hillsdale College in Michigan, and also serves as an elder for a new Orthodox Presbyterian Church in Hillsdale. Darryl blogs, along with his partner in the venture, John Muether, at Old Life where this article first appeared. It is used with permission.