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Christ for All of Life and the Lordship of Jesus Christ Theology : Bestial but Legitimate, Legitimacy Not Sanctity

Briefly, it is this common grace , distinct from special grace, which is the basis of civil society —distinct in its turn, and for this reason, from religious society— with its science, its industry, its philosophy, and its politics . Émile Doumergue, “Music in the Work of Calvin,” The Princeton Theological Review VII, no. 1–4 (1909): 534–535.  Kline says that after the fall, cultural functions are mostly profane. What he means by this is that whereas cult must continue to stress exclusive holiness, culture is experienced alongside the enterprise of non-believers. It is “common,” because in the regime of common grace we can no longer do culture in the original way. Culture now “ceases to be holy kingdom culture and takes on a common, profane character.” In particular, political activity is profane. William Edgar, “Cult and Culture,” in Creator Redeemer Consummator: A Festschrift for Meredith G. Kline, ed. Howard Griffith and John R. Muether (Eugene, OR: Wipf & Stock, 2007), 287...

Must we then go back to the old doctrine of Papias, Irenaeus, Tertullian: and interpret the Millennium literally?

 We have already said that, although many in the early Church accepted the belief in the Millennium as a part of orthodoxy, many did not. The historian Eusebius almost contemptuously dismisses Papias’ report. ‘I suppose he got those ideas’, he says, ‘through a misunderstanding of the apostolic records, not perceiving that the things said by them were said mystically in figures. For he seems to have been of very limited understanding’ William Barclay, Revelation of John, vol. 2, The New Daily Study Bible (Louisville, KY; London: Westminster John Knox Press, 2004), 213–214. And Papias, of whom we are now speaking, confesses that he received the words of the apostles from those that followed them, but says that he was himself a hearer of Aristion and the presbyter John. At least he mentions them frequently by name, and gives their traditions in his writings. These things, we hope, have not been uselessly adduced by us. But it is fitting to subjoin to the words of Papias which have be...