We are the Chosen – Part 1

Mark Weber at the Institute for Historical Review recently sent out this short video of Gideon Levy (obviously a dissident Jew) explaining why the Israelis have no conscience in their treatment of non-Jews. He breaks it down into three main points:

1. We are the Chosen
2. We are the Victims
3. We are Human

Firstly, we are the Chosen.

How many “Christians” in America assent to this spurious claim with the concomitant notion of a Judeo-Christian tradition? At the root of this mass delusion is a complete misunderstanding of Scripture. Our own Benjamin Morgan Palmer deals a deathblow to this brain-fog very beautifully and succinctly. Please read and re-read it, as it annihilates this claim with the core truth that God never covenanted directly with any mortal individual or people group at any time or any dispensation in history:

“All the promises of grace are made to Christ as the trustee and representative of His people. … It is inaccurate to say that these promises were ever made directly to sinners considered as such. There is not one promise, from the beginning of Genesis to the end of Revelation, which a holy God could speak directly to those who lie under the condemnation of the law. There can be no contradiction in the utterances of God. If, under a dispensation of the law He has proclaimed “the soul that sinneth, it shall die,” then as the lawgiver He cannot say to us, at the same moment, “ye shall live.” He appoints, therefore, His own Son to be the believer’s representative and surety; and the promises of the covenant are made to Him.” pp. 284-5

Benjamin Morgan Palmer, The Theology of Prayer

The ever-astute Dr. Dabney adds his own development of this thought with the following:

“The truth is, both dispensations [i.e., OT and NT] are precisely alike in having two sides to them: a law which condemns those who will persist in self-righteous plans; and a gospel which rescues the humble believer from that condemnation. The obligation of Works, (which was reenacted in the Decalogue), is perpetual, being founded on the very relations between man and God on all except those who are exempted from it by the substitutionary righteousness of the Mediator. It is of force now on all others.” p. 458.

Dabney, Systematic Theology, “The Covenant of Grace, Lecture 38”

The obligation of Works cannot be superseded or set aside by a unilateral forgiveness from God. This is also very important to understand. Again, Palmer writes:

“Let it be remembered that repentance is not atonement. It does not cancel past guilt, but rather affirms it. … It stands an accomplished deed of which some disposal must be made. pp. 232-3. Mercy is not shown in cutting down the law within the diminished ability of the transgressor; nor in introducing a new law with easier requisitions. … The method of grace … never presents God in contradiction with Himself. The language of grace is at the same time the language of law. … Justice, no less than mercy, is the guardian of the believer’s hope. pp. 186-7. All the requirements of justice and of law … must both be satisfied. … No finite being possesses the resources to deal with an infinite problem. p. 236. In [His] human nature [Christ] can bear the sinner’s guilt, and die the sinner’s death, whilst yet the glory of His divinity can fill His obedience with inconceivable luster, and impart to His work of sacrifice an infinite merit.” p. 239.

Benjamin Morgan Palmer, The Theology of Prayer

It’s hard for me to understand how anyone who names the name of Christ could have missed all of this. Read the Gospel of John to see how Christ answered all the proud claims of the Pharisees regarding their lineage. Read the Epistles of Paul to see how he disclaims his own lineage as ‘but dung’ in comparison to the understanding he’s been given about a right understanding of Law and Grace, old and new covenant.

I may do a follow-up to deal with the second and third points of Mr. Levy’s address. This is a lot to digest. Dabney and Palmer are not the lightweight theologians we have on the scene today. They’re two of the South’s finest.

-By German Confederate