John Milton #3 (Bible Analysis)

Oliver Woods discusses the idea that God requires a return to His law as summarized in Exodus 20-24. This is essential for Christian nationalism and the discipleship of nations. He emphasizes the need for individuals and nations to study and internalize this law for survival and to establish biblical justice. Woods also mentions John Milton's concept of revolution and the duty of lower rulers to oppose tyranny. He highlights the potential for anarchy in Milton's theory and discusses Milton's career and his works. Woods critiques Milton's views on divine right, the source of law, and marriage. He concludes by mentioning positive effects of the fall in Milton's works and referencing Philemon for further exploration. Hello everybody, this is Oliver Woods welcoming you again to TheGreatBibleReset.com, which stands in opposition to The Great Economic Reset of Klaus Schwab and the World Economic Forum. It is the simple idea that the one and only thing that God requires of us, or demands of us, at this particular time in our history, is a return to His law as summarized in Exodus 20-24, which is the Mosaic Covenant. This is the lawful use of the law of God, or one of the lawful uses of the law of God in the New Testament era, that He requires of men and nations in 1 Timothy 1 verses 8-12. This is the very heart of Christian nationalism, or better, the heart of what it means to be a Christian nation. This is the vital lifeblood of what it means to disciple the nations in Matthew 28, 19-20. It includes both an individual and a corporate response. So read this passage every day for 30 days, pray over it, internalize it. If you don't understand it, keep reading it. You can pick up my commentary at the bookstore at kingswayclassicalacademy.com, it's called The Book of the Covenant, A Handbook of Biblical Law for Leaders of Church and State. So study it on your own, study it in a group, but our very survival as a nation is at stake in this. We must re-establish biblical justice as defined by this summary of God's law. And maybe, if God sees enough of us taking His law seriously, He will stay His hand of judgment in this impending tyranny that we're facing. So how are we to respond to the threat of tyranny? Well, there's a tendency to respond with a lack of humility, like the zealots of Jesus Day who failed to recognize the hand of God's judgment in the Roman oppressor. So let's consider Milton's concept of revolution as found in his book, The Tenure of Kings and Magistrates. The biblical response to tyranny lies in prayer, and second, the doctrine of the lower magistrate. It's an appeal to God for delivery in prayers of repentance. Any order to disobey God must be met by passive resistance. On the other hand, it's the duty of the lower ruler or the lower magistrate to lead the people against an unbearable tyrant. This goes back to Calvin in the book of Judges in the Bible. The lower ruler or the lower magistrate must be vested with lawful authority or lawful power from God. This is a pattern we find in the book of Judges and other scriptures. But there's a potential for anarchy in Milton's theory of revolution. While quoting scripture and church authority profusely in The Tenure, this essay is somewhat tedious and unclear. For example, on the final page, he notes that to do justice on a lawful king is to a private man unlawful, but to an inferior magistrate is lawful. Yet his appeal is for any who have the power to call to account a tyrant. This has led some to conclude that the treatise is therefore a justification of extra-legal revolution, according to Encyclopedia Americana. This ambiguity is found in other Milton pamphlets as well, where he seems to take Luther's priesthood of the believer to the extreme, recommending that not only the office of bishop or pastor, but a priest also be abolished, thus leading to a radical individualism, which would be a democratic rather than a republican politic. So John Milton's career was divided into three periods. Prior to 1640, he wrote poetry. From 1640 to 1660, the first phase of the Puritan revolution, he wrote political prose in defense of the commonwealth and Cromwell's protectorate. This included such classic works as Areopagotica, Defense of the Free Press, The Tenure of Kings and Magistrates, which is a justification for the regicide of Charles I, and then The Ready and Easy Way to Establish a Free Commonwealth, just prior to the restoration of Charles II. He worked for Oliver Cromwell, a devoted Christian commander, and supported him. After the first phase of the war, when Cromwell's army had defeated Charles I, Cromwell sought to restore a seemingly reformed King Charles I to a constitutional throne. But here's an example of how at certain points Cromwell relied on a subjective internal voice of conscience rather than the clear word of God. So when Cromwell personally intercepted a secret message to France from Charles I, which stated, quote, when the time comes, I shall know very well how to treat these rogues, and instead of a silk and garter, I will fit them with a hempen halter, end of quote. All empathy at that point for Charles I evaporated. Milton's magnum opus, Paradise Lost, his epic poem, was produced during the final stage of his career, after 1660, just after 1660. Although generally orthodox in faith, Milton had a humanistic tendency that contributed to the secularization of life in England over the course of the 17th century. Milton displays an Aryan tendency throughout Paradise Lost, which makes Jesus less than God, who was elevated to a sort of divine vice-presidency due to his merit in volunteering to die as the redeemer of mankind. So this kind of semi-Aryanism virtually always works to elevate the divine aspirations of the earthly monarch, which was an outcome that undermined Milton's arguments against the divine right of kings. Another key question is related to the purpose of the oath of office, according to Milton. And how does this purpose line up with the biblical purpose of the oath found in 2 Kings 23.3, where it says the king stood by the pillar and made a covenant before the Lord to walk after the Lord, to keep his commandments and his testimonies and his statutes with all his heart and all his soul, and the people stood to the covenant. According to Milton, the purpose of the office, however, is to provide a means by which the king might be held accountable to the people subsequent to their original grant of power. This challenges the theory of divine right under which the king is held to be responsible to none but God. But in the Bible, the oath of office is a promise rendered before God that invokes his blessing or cursing depending on the performance of the promise to keep his law. The name of God is invoked not merely as a ceremonial formality or a cloak of religion, but as a solemn vow to rule in accordance with the law of God by the king. Thus, the oath governs primarily the vertical relationship between God and the king, or God and the kings-people, rather than the horizontal relationship between king and people. But how, then, does Milton's theory of the source of law compare with that of the Bible in 1 Timothy 1, verses 8-12? According to Milton, laws are invented by the people, quote, either framed or consented to by all, that should confine and limit the authority of whom they choose to govern them, end of quote. So Milton ties together law and reason, which he declares would be abstracted or summarized from personal errors and frailties. In other words, he seems to be saying that law is derived by trial and error in the crucible of human experience. By contrast, the Bible insists that the only source of civil law in New Testament times must be the Old Testament law against such crimes as murder, sodomy, and kidnapping that we find in 1 Timothy 1, verses 8-12. Furthermore, Milton says that governing power is derivative of the people, or as the U.S. Declaration of Independence puts it, deriving their just power from the consent of the governed. But the Bible does not teach that just power of government is derived from the consent of the governed. According to Romans 13, Kings derive their just power from God, not from the people. The powers that be are ordained of God, according to Romans 13. It's more accurate to state that kings derive their just nomination from the consent of the governed. A man may not advance to the point of ordination without having first been picked out, according to Acts 6-3, from among the congregation by the congregation. To assert that power is derived from the people is to embrace the fundamental axiom of democracy, whose operative principle is the will of the majority, not the word of God. This is the essence of the social contract, which stands in opposition to the covenant model of civil government. However, by ignoring the law of God, deemphasizing hierarchy, and demoting Christ, Milton promoted a secularized republic, and at the same time a heavy emphasis on the human rights of the individual, as in a democracy. He took his place, therefore, as one of the British commonwealth men, along with James Harrington, who was emulated by the American founders, such as James Madison, who gave the U.S. Constitution a republican skeleton and a democratic social heart, or social contract heart, divorced from God. Now, turning to the family, because his first wife deserted him, Milton argued for desertion as breaking the marriage covenant and grounds for divorce, in addition to immorality. This would be supported by passages such as Exodus 21.10, where even a slave wife must be released if her husband refuses to provide food, clothing, and conjugal rights. The shoe seems to be on the other foot in 1 Corinthians 7.11, where a woman who habitually deprives her husband physically is described as being unmarried. In Paradise Lost and Paradise Regained, Milton presents certain positive effects of the fall, but he may have missed the most important one of all, in Philemon, where Jesus, speaking allegorically as Paul to Philemon as God, says, For perhaps he was for this reason parted from you for a while, that you should have him back forever, no more as a slave, but more than a slave, as a beloved brother, especially to me, but how much more to you, both in the flesh and in the Lord. If then you regard me as a partner, accept him as you would accept me, but if he has wronged you in any way, or owes you anything, charge that to my account. I Jesus am writing this with my own hand. I will repay it. To explore this further, you can pick up a free copy of My Biblical Analysis of John Milton and 49 other classical authors in the bookstore at kingswayclassicalacademy.com. It is titled, Keys to the Classics, A History of Decline and Fall of Western Civilization. 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