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By Carl Shank March 22, 2025
"Only the facts. Ma'am!" I recall that phrase said over and over again on TV as a kid watching the old TV series, "Dragnet." Dragnet was an American crime drama television series starring Jack Webb and Harry Morgan which ran for four seasons, from January 12, 1967, to April 16, 1970. This very famous and dour saying was Jack Webb's cryptic remark to interviewed witnesses of a crime. He did not want superfluous or extraneous or personal opinions to cloud the real "facts" of the crime or situation at hand. A current public radio program claims that they are following "only the facts," that they report only factual events as they really took place. They claim to be free of bias and not "progressively oriented" in their reporting. Consequently, a recent show on abortion offered the scientific "fact" of an unborn baby, or fetus, achieving "life status" at so many weeks of gestation. This was said in response to a conservative caller who phoned in citing other "evidence," including the Bible's take on conception, as the beginning of life. The public radio station claimed that the caller was wrong and cited "scientific facts" about the "real" beginning of life. This is an instance and example of what modern society, especially anti-Christian society, considers as "factual" and therefore worth reporting and worth our time. There are actually three problems with what are called "facts" today even when claiming to be fair and unbiased. The definition of what is "factual" has shifted, first of all, over time and history. Hillsdale College publishes speeches in a format called "Imprimis" ( https://imprimis.hillsdale.edu/ ) This very conservative institution offers excellent and gifted speakers who go against the tide of "progressivism" in the country. While they and their invited speakers are often dismissed and ignored by most public and social media today, they offer another look at American culture that is Constitutionally based. One of those speakers noted that in the court system today, progressive constitutional thinking has replaced and overtaken original constitutional mandates. This can actually be traced in the history of the court system. "Facts" seen as such years ago are now replaced by "real" facts, modern facts, today's facts. This is part of the problem of a public radio station purporting to only report the "facts" of a situation today. In the second place, reporters and journalists today have been schooled and educated by liberal elite to discard "old" ways of thinking, especially conservatively based thinking, and report things as they "see" them. And this is the problem. How we process what we see is often, whether consciously or unconsciously, biased in favor of a liberal, anti-Christian way of thinking and seeing. Rather than admit such presuppositional flavoring to "factual" reporting, the modern way is seen as the "only" way to see and process everything. Scientific reasoning, crafted by liberal theologians and philosophers of the Enlightenment, has replaced and driven out any hint of truthful reporting that takes into account biblical truth. And, of course, "religious" truth has been replaced by "scientific" truth, as if humanity's way of reasoning trumps God's revelation. Third, American individualism, copying the French Revolution, has defined American "freedom" today. This requires some explanation. Os Guinness in his Last Call for Liberty: How America's Genius for Freedom has Become Its Greatest Threat (InterVarsity Press, 2018), has carefully cited historical "facts" that link the 1789 French Revolution and the American Left — "The former struggled for "liberté" and "egalité" the latter for "liberation" and "social justice." The former won through violent revolution, whereas the latter seeks to win through a cultural revolution, after which the elite imposes its will through administrative and bureaucratic procedures (regulative bodies and the law courts). And both are characterized by their reliance on the state, their open hostility toward religion, their radical separation of religion and public life, their attempt to control language in order to control reality (French and Soviet "Newspeak," "doublespeak," and American "political correctness"), their unashamed espousal of power, their egalitarian appeal to envy rather than liberty, and their naive utopianism that the removal of repression will mean fulfillment of freedom." (51) He says that American has rejected its covenantal/constitutional heritage of freedom as a republic surrendering to those supoposedly "democratic" forces that redefine our "facts" and our heritage. "Only the facts, Ma'am!" has taken on a new meaning, a new way of thinking and processing, and an anti-Christian, anti-biblical, anti-religious cast that we cannot even see or take into account in our reporting of the "facts."
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April 3, 2025

Week #13 — Day 5

The “Historical Jesus”


Q. 21. Who is the Redeemer of God’s elect?

A. The only Redeemer of God’s elect is the Lord Jesus Christ, who, being the eternal Son of God, became man, and so was, and continueth to be, God and man in two distinct natures, and one person, for ever.

1 Tim. 2:5-6; John 1:14; Gal. 4:4; Rom. 9:5; Luke 1:35; Col. 2:9; Heb. 7:24-25.


Q. 22. How did Christ, being the Son of God, become man?

A. Christ, the Son of God, became man, by taking to himself a true body and a reasonable soul, being conceived by the power of the Holy Ghost, in the womb of the Virgin Mary, and born of her, yet without sin.

Heb. 2:14, 16; Heb. 10:5; Matt. 26:38; Luke 1:27, 31, 35, 42; Gal. 4:4; Heb. 4:15; Heb. 7:26.


“To make men treat Christianity as a means; preferably, of course, as a means to their

own advancement, but, failing that, as a means to anything—even to social justice. The thing to do is to get a man at first to value social justice as a thing which the Enemy demands and then work him on to the stage at which he values Christianity because it may produce social justice.” (C.S. Lewis, Screwtape Letters, Letter #23)


When we talk about what is called the “historical Jesus,” we are not referring to the history of Jesus Christ, but rather the liberal and unbiblical attempts to “classify” Jesus as both God and man, usually with the proviso that He could not have possibly been both at the same time. The article below is long, but outlines this attempt through the centuries and years. 


Tracing the “Historical Jesus”


Judaizers — Jesus “plus” (NT times)


Gnostics (Late 1st century) — denial of the Incarnation (NT times) —Jesus only a
man —“ ‘the Christ’, by which they meant a divine emanation, was within him
only during his public ministry, descending upon him at his baptism
and leaving him before the cross.” (John Stott)


Son of God — only an “emanation” from God the Father


Christ “gained” Godhood by the resurrection (1st – 3rd centuries) — Adoptionism


Father, Son and Spirit only 3 roles not persons (3rd – 4th centuries) — Sabellianism


Son a created being, like the Father but not the same essence as the Father (310–
320 AD) — Arianism


Jesus is God but not truly man (362–400 AD) — Apollinarianism


Jesus had a “dual” personality (428–450 AD) — Nestorianism


Jesus a great man, a moral authority, but not God (1819) — Unitarianism


Jesus “mediates” redemptive awareness of God (1820–1884) — we imitate that
consciousness of dependence (Schleiermacher)


In Christ God draws near us, touches us and takes us up into the divine
consciousness (1806) (Hegel)


The divine Logos (John 1) became a man by reducing himself to our reality and
then increased in wisdom and power to reassume the divine nature (1880s– 1941) Kenotic Theories)


Christ as God simply a faith experience, not objectifiable truth (1780s) (Kant)


Social gospel and good deeds become the most important message of Jesus
(1870–1920s) (Rauschenbusch)


“In the ‘Historical Jesus’ outcome, Christianity becomes a means to my end, defined
by me and verified by dozens of writers and philosophers through the centuries.
What matters is not the Jesus of the Scriptures, but rather the Jesus I want him to be.

Very God and very man. This is the “historical Jesus” we worship, serve and adore.
Beware the temptations to make him so abstract as to deny his humanity or so
human as to deny his divinity, and thus “use” Jesus for our own autonomous ends.”


A Puritan Prayer —

“THREE IN ONE, ONE IN THREE, GOD OF MY SALVATION,

Heavenly Father, blessed Son, eternal Spirit,

I adore thee as one Being, one Essence,

one God in three distinct Persons,

for bringing sinners to thy knowledge and to thy kingdom.

O Father, thou hast loved me and sent Jesus to redeem me;

O Jesus, thou hast loved me and assumed my nature,

shed thine own blood to wash away my sins,

wrought righteousness to cover my unworthiness;

O Holy Spirit, thou hast loved me and entered my heart,

implanted there eternal life,

revealed to me the glories of Jesus.

Three Persons and one God, I bless and praise thee,

for love so unmerited, so unspeakable, so wondrous,

so mighty to save the lost and raise them to glory.

O Father, I thank thee that in fullness of grace

thou hast given me to Jesus,

to be his sheep, jewel, portion;

O Jesus, I thank thee that in fullness of grace

thou hast accepted, espoused, bound me;

O Holy Spirit, I thank thee that in fullness of grace

thou hast exhibited Jesus as my salvation,

implanted faith within me,

subdued my stubborn heart,

made me one with him for ever.

O Father, thou art enthroned to hear my prayers,

O Jesus, thy hand is outstretched to take my petitions,

O Holy Spirit, thou art willing to help my infirmities,

to show me my need, to supply words, to pray within me,

to strengthen me that I faint not in supplication.

O Triune God, who commandeth the universe,

thou hast commanded me to ask for those things

that concern thy kingdom and my soul.

Let me live and pray as one baptized into the threefold Name.”


Excerpt From

The Valley of Vision

Edited by Arthur Bennett




"We must unquestionably receive its [the Bible's] statements of fact,  bow before its enunciation of duty, tremble before its threatenings, 
and rest upon its promises." – B.B. Warfield


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