Thoughts on the Fervor at the Republican National Convention—Good or Ominous?
Jul 24, 2024 by David Fowler
Despite my thirty-year political pedigree, or maybe because of what I’ve come to learn during that time, I just couldn’t get interested in watching the Republican National Convention. But what I did see, along with video excerpts on social media, was sufficient to convey the evangelistic-type enthusiasm and fervor exhibited for Donald Trump’s candidacy and the possibility of Republicans wresting control of Washington from Democrats. What I sensed can be easily summarized.
As I reflected on what I observed and added to it my thoughts on the preamble to the Party’s new platform covered in last week’s podcast, two things kept running through my mind. I will express them in the context of observations made by the man who is perhaps the greatest theologian England ever produced and who served Parliament and Oliver Cromwell during that period of the English Revolution that helped frame the formation of our nation. His name is John Owen.
Both observations are taken from His book Christologia, over 300 pages of moving profundity on the person and work of Christ. It deserves to be read and can be found online.
Thought No. 1:
The following quote pertains to whether any president, including Donald Trump, or any change in the composition of Congress can bring about the change in our nation’s direction that many professing Christians seem to hope for:
In other words, a Christian political agenda that is not informed by or does not take into consideration the doctrine of Christ as (1) God, (2) as the Person who is the eternally begotten Son of God, and (3) as the mediator between God and man is not fully Christian in the true sense of that word, and anything, divorced from Christ, is devoid of the transformative power Christians would hope for.
That proposition would have made no sense to me a few years ago, and if it makes no sense to you, I encourage you to read Owen’s book.
Thought No. 2:
The second thought relates to this observation by Owen:
This quotation may seem obtuse and unrelated to the enthusiasm I observed in connection with the convention and the humanistic frame of the platform’s preamble, but this is my application.
God has given to His people a perfect representation of Himself[i] with all the “power” and “wisdom of God,”[ii] and He “dwells in” them by His “Spirit.”[iii] “But,” they are exhorted, to “let patience have its perfect work, that you may be perfect and complete, lacking nothing” (James 1:4 NKJV).
However, God seems to have tarried in the work that some, perhaps many Christians think is needed to rescue our nation, as if its restoration to some indeterminate past greatness is indispensable[iv] to the “glory in the church”[v] He has ordained “according to the eternal purpose which He accomplished in Christ Jesus our Lord.”[vi]
Consequently, many of them seem to have substituted or are on the verge of substituting something else for Christ and His ways for the sake of accomplishing what may, at bottom, be their purposes more than His eternal one.
I hope I am wrong, because Psalm 2 tells us that going against God’s “anointed” does not end well.[vii]
As I reflected on what I observed and added to it my thoughts on the preamble to the Party’s new platform covered in last week’s podcast, two things kept running through my mind. I will express them in the context of observations made by the man who is perhaps the greatest theologian England ever produced and who served Parliament and Oliver Cromwell during that period of the English Revolution that helped frame the formation of our nation. His name is John Owen.
Both observations are taken from His book Christologia, over 300 pages of moving profundity on the person and work of Christ. It deserves to be read and can be found online.
Thought No. 1:
The following quote pertains to whether any president, including Donald Trump, or any change in the composition of Congress can bring about the change in our nation’s direction that many professing Christians seem to hope for:
Whatever notional knowledge men may have of divine truths, as they are doctrinally proposed in the Scripture, yet — if they know them not in their respect unto the person of Christ as the foundation of the counsels of God — if they discern not how they proceed from him, and center in him — they will bring no spiritual, saving light unto their understanding. For all spiritual life and light is in him, and from him alone.
[T]ruths professed, if doctrinally separated from him, or their respect unto him, have no living power or efficacy in the souls of men. When Christ is formed in the heart by them, when he dwelleth plentifully in the soul through their operation, then, and not else, do they put forth their proper power and efficacy. Otherwise, they are as waters separated from the fountain — they quickly dry up or become a noisome puddle; or as a beam interrupted from its continuity unto the sun — it is immediately deprived of light.
In other words, a Christian political agenda that is not informed by or does not take into consideration the doctrine of Christ as (1) God, (2) as the Person who is the eternally begotten Son of God, and (3) as the mediator between God and man is not fully Christian in the true sense of that word, and anything, divorced from Christ, is devoid of the transformative power Christians would hope for.
That proposition would have made no sense to me a few years ago, and if it makes no sense to you, I encourage you to read Owen’s book.
Thought No. 2:
The second thought relates to this observation by Owen:
He [God] had taken care that there should be a glorious image and representation of himself, infinitely above what any created wisdom could find out, [namely, Jesus].
But as, when Moses went into the mount [to receive the Ten Commandments], the Israelites would not wait for his return, but made a calf in his stead, so mankind — refusing to wait for the actual exhibition of that glorious image of himself which God had provided — broke in upon his wisdom and sovereignty, to make some of their own.
But as, when Moses went into the mount [to receive the Ten Commandments], the Israelites would not wait for his return, but made a calf in his stead, so mankind — refusing to wait for the actual exhibition of that glorious image of himself which God had provided — broke in upon his wisdom and sovereignty, to make some of their own.
This quotation may seem obtuse and unrelated to the enthusiasm I observed in connection with the convention and the humanistic frame of the platform’s preamble, but this is my application.
God has given to His people a perfect representation of Himself[i] with all the “power” and “wisdom of God,”[ii] and He “dwells in” them by His “Spirit.”[iii] “But,” they are exhorted, to “let patience have its perfect work, that you may be perfect and complete, lacking nothing” (James 1:4 NKJV).
However, God seems to have tarried in the work that some, perhaps many Christians think is needed to rescue our nation, as if its restoration to some indeterminate past greatness is indispensable[iv] to the “glory in the church”[v] He has ordained “according to the eternal purpose which He accomplished in Christ Jesus our Lord.”[vi]
Consequently, many of them seem to have substituted or are on the verge of substituting something else for Christ and His ways for the sake of accomplishing what may, at bottom, be their purposes more than His eternal one.
I hope I am wrong, because Psalm 2 tells us that going against God’s “anointed” does not end well.[vii]
"For My people have committed two evils: They have forsaken Me, the fountain of living waters, and hewn themselves cisterns--broken cisterns that can hold no water.”
Jeremiah 2:13 (NKJV)
Jeremiah 2:13 (NKJV)
[i] Col 1:15 NKJV – “He is the image of the invisible God, the firstborn over all creation.”
[ii] 1Co 1:24 NKJV – “but to those who are called, both Jews and Greeks, Christ the power of God and the wisdom of God.”
[iii] 1Co 3:16 NKJV – “Do you not know that you are the temple of God and [that] the Spirit of God dwells in you?”
[iv] Isa 40:15 NKJV – “Behold, the nations [are] as a drop in a bucket, And are counted as the small dust on the scales; Look, He lifts up the isles as a very little thing.”
[v] Eph 3:21 NKJV – “to Him [be] glory in the church by Christ Jesus to all generations, forever and ever. Amen.”
[vi] Eph 3:11 NKJV – “according to the eternal purpose which He accomplished in Christ Jesus our Lord.”
[vii] Psa 2:2, 4-5 NKJV - The kings of the earth set themselves, And the rulers take counsel together, Against the LORD and against His Anointed, saying, “He who sits in the heavens shall laugh.” . . . The Lord shall hold them in derision. Then He shall speak to them in His wrath, And distress them in His deep displeasure.”
