It has to be Kuyper’s fault. I have been pondering his words ever since 2003. Someone gave me a copy of his Lectures on Calvinism and it hit me with electrifying power. Now, mind you, I was already versed in Rushdoony, North, Van Til, Bahnsen, and Sproul, but Kuyper was from the past; an ancient past. At least that’s how I viewed him as a novice in Church History. And what is it that brought me to my theological knees when I first read him? It was his non-exhausting claim of the exhaustive Lordship of King Jesus. Here are five propositions that makes him such a superb apologist for the kingdom of Jesus:
a) Kuyper was Trinitarian. In his Pro Rege: Living Under Christ’s Kingship (Volume 1),a he notes that “There can be no separation or contrast between the authority of God and the authority of Christ.” For Kuyper, the dominion power is not inherent in fallen humanity but comes from the divine power of the Son who creates all things. Kuyper does not separate the power of the Son from the Father, but he harmonizes the Triune work. As the Catechism states, “…and these three are one God, the same in substance, equal in power and glory.” Kuyper operates from beginning to end as a Trinitarian Christian. Dominion can only occur in a Trinitarian universe and the Father and the Son work together to ensure it.
b) Kuyper believed in the fulfillment of the Great Commission. Though Kuyper did not use the theological categories of Postmillennialism in his writings, his vision harmonizes quite well with that of his fellow theologian B.B. Warfield who invited Kuyper for the Princeton lectures in 1898. Kuyper notes in profoundly optimistic categories:
Christianity [is] being carried forth into the world, coming into contact with the elements and laws of human life and through that contact modifying and changing life entirely.
Jesus’ Commission was not a mere hope, but the promise that the nations would fall under Christ’s authority. Everything Christianity touches, Kuyper notes, changes for the good.
(more…)- The other quotations come from the same source (back)
