All Things are Possible: The Collective Faith Needed to Establish the Kingdom

by Christopher J. Ortiz
Chalcedon Report, June 2009

If thou canst believe, all things are possible to him that believeth. Mark 9:23

God said, "Go to, let us go down, and there confound their language, that they may not understand one another's speech" (Gen. 11:7). This was His divine response to the arrogant gesture on the part of man to "build us a city and a tower, whose top may reach unto heaven" (v. 4). God would not overturn the walls, as in Jericho, or flood the land, as in the time of Noah. He confounded their language, and the net result was the destruction of the city.

Whenever I read passages like Mark 9:23 about how all things are possible to them that believe, I think of the builders of Babel. Their unified ambition represents a form of faith that I've not considered as deeply as I should. It's the kind of faith that shapes history, whether for good, or evil.

Collective Faith

There are two basic ways most Christians understand faith. It is either an individual's confidence in God's promises (Rom. 4:18-22), or it represents the totality of the Christian belief system (Jude 3). However, a different form of faith operates within the collective hearts of humanistic men. It's a collective faith that is tragically absent from most of contemporary Christianity.

A collective faith involves the mutual hope of a group. It's not merely the concern of an individual, although it can begin with the thinking of individuals. Collective faith is the unified vision that fuels all of man's activities in order that a collective dream may be realized in history. This was Babel:

And the Lord said, Behold, the people is one, and they have all one language; and this they begin to do: and now nothing will be restrained from them, which they have imagined to do. Gen. 11:6

"Nothing will be restrained from them, which they have imagined to do." Why? It is because nothing is impossible to them that believe. The collective faith of the builders of Babel would work to bring the impossible down to the realm of possibility. By this faith, they would attempt to move a mountain:

If ye have faith as a grain of mustard seed, ye shall say unto this mountain, Remove hence to yonder place; and it shall remove; and nothing shall be impossible unto you. Matt. 17:20

This is also where man's faith is futile. Whereas the spirit of antichrist drives universal man to build towers whose tops may reach to heaven, the City of God is a realized order that descends out of heaven from God (Rev. 21:10). Humanistic man may have faith for a world order, but he lacks the heavenly power to complete the project. However, the collective faith of God's people says, "Except the Lord build the house, they labour in vain that build it" (Ps. 127:1).

The meaning is not that Christians do not work for this city, but that the dream, power, and realization are supplied by the Almighty.

The Sower Sows the Word of the Kingdom

The Babelites were of one vision, and because of their ability to articulate and systematize the vision into doctrine, they could sustain a long-term building project. Therefore, God declared war on their vision by confounding the source of their power: their collective faith.

God destroyed their plans for the tower by destroying the multiplying capacity of their worldview. Without language, they could no longer propagate their dream.

St. Paul said that "God is not the author of confusion" (1 Cor. 14:33), but He is when it comes to foiling humanism's plans for a world order. However, the opposite is equally true and effective. Satan can "disrupt" the plans for the universal Kingdom of God, i.e., the Christian World Order, by a similar confusion:

When any one heareth the word of the kingdom, and understandeth it not, then cometh the wicked one, and catcheth away that which was sown in his heart. This is he which received seed by the wayside. Matt. 13:19 (emphasis added)

The simplest way in which the word of the Kingdom is snatched from our hearts is by deeming it impossible. To most Christians, the suggestion of a universal Christian order without Christ's physical presence is as unlikely as a mountain moving into the sea. This is why we are defeated, and it's why humanistic man prevails in the building of his world order. His will to be as god recognizes no impossibility. What if we were of the same collective faith? Then, "nothing would be restrained from us, which we have imagined to do."

Our Lord has sown the word of the Kingdom with the objective of receiving a hundred-fold return of His reign in every sphere.

The Four Grounds

The parable of the sower is about our Lord seeking to establish His Kingdom by sowing that very word—or vision—into our hearts. His objective is a collective faith that would make world dominion—a seemingly impossible notion—a real possibility.

The four grounds of Matthew 13:18-23 illustrate for us the primary hindrances to that vision being cultivated within our hearts. There is the devil who comes to immediately steal the word away (v. 19); there is the rootlessness of those who cannot endure the persecution that comes from proclaiming the global rule of Christ (v. 21); and there are those who embrace the message but are removed from the battle because of the cares of the world or the deceitfulness of riches (v. 22)—the word is choked out by their occupation with other concerns or interests.

Those who have "good ground" hear, understand, and bring forth fruit in progressive stages. This is vital to note, because there will not be an external dominion without a corresponding development of that word within the lives of those who hear it. Remember, the parable states that the enemy "catcheth away that which was sown in his heart" (v. 19, emphasis added). This is not pietism—the heart is the power center for the collective faith.

We are Working Together to Create Good Ground

What is most needed is a collective faith on the part of God's people to seek first the Kingdom of God, and His righteousness (Matt. 6:33). This is the vision of the City of God—the Christian World Order. Until this is the resident belief of the majority of Christians, we will remain victims of the confounding of Satan with the resulting effect of being a scattered people unable to understand each other's speech, and therefore, unable to accomplish what we have imagined to do.

If we all believe, then all things become possible. Therefore, our primary objective should be to proclaim and secure the "word of the Kingdom" in as many as will receive it. If you consider the matter in this light, then organizations like Chalcedon, and a few others, become some of the most vital ministries in the world. We are the keepers of the flame, and the guardians of the brain trust. Our business is the word of the Kingdom.

This includes you, because you are as much a part of the work of Chalcedon as any staff member. Our callings are different, but the vision we serve is the same—we are collective in our faith but diverse in our expression.

This is why our mutual work must increase. We are contending with mass confusion (Babel) on the part of God's people. The world is filled with a multiplicity of churches, ministries, schools, and institutions, but each one advocates a different vision. If we were all to agree that our individual expressions work to serve this central calling of the advancing Kingdom, we would truly see the end of the contemporary Towers of Babel. Rushdoony wrote:

[T]he scattering of the ungodly, as at Babel (Gen. 11:1-9), is to prevent them from realizing their hopes of an anti-God order.¹

As it stands, it is the godly who are scattered, and it is the godly who are not realizing their hopes of a Christian social order. This can be changed, if we believe. It will not change overnight, and it will not be within our generation. Does that matter? The future depends upon our faithfulness now. Shall we leave future generations with little resources, or supply them with reams of literature and lectures from which they can continue the great campaign? By preserving and propagating the word of the Kingdom we are securing the seed that will eventually produce the hundred-fold return for our Lord. The choice is ours.

1. R. J. Rushdoony, The Institutes of Biblical Law: Law and Society (Vallecito, CA: Ross House Books, 1986), 198.

A State of War

by Christopher J. Ortiz

We are therefore in a state of war, war between heaven and humanism, war between the Almighty God and the totalitarian state, war between God and the scientific planners, predictors, and controllers, war between God and all those who deny His infallibility. Such a conflict is a very uneven one, and there can be no doubt as to the outcome of this war.¹

Like our Savior, we were born into battle. Not merely by our natural birth—but by being born of the Spirit: “That which is born of the flesh is flesh; and that which is born of the Spirit is spirit” (John 3:6). For our Lord, the prophetic injunction of the Garden of Eden constrained the ancient serpent to retain a clear eye on the Seed of the woman (Gen. 3:15). What he did not know was that the Seed of the woman would bear a remnant:

And the dragon was wroth with the woman, and went to make war with the remnant of her seed, which keep the commandments of God, and have the testimony of Jesus Christ. Rev. 12:17

 The dragon declared war on them “which keep the commandments of God.” In other words, Satan does not prioritize the antinomian for serious conflict, since the antinomian can expect no outward victory in history—he has forsaken God’s primary means to measurable success. In actuality, the antinomian is a tool to help further the satanic victory, as Rushdoony notes:

The true Church is not destroyed by Satan’s efforts. The false church can be captured and made a tool of autonomous man’s pretensions, but the true Church, the remnant of God, although the object of warfare, cannot be destroyed.²

It is during times of conflict that God helps to provide covering for the true church by causing a false or compromised Christianity to absorb the dragon’s flood (Rev. 12:15). And because the flood is a raging one, victory for the true church is miraculous, since the church is able to traverse the earth on dry ground.

The dragon pursues the people of God and seeks to destroy them. Failing to destroy Christ, Satan seeks to destroy Christ’s people. “And the serpent cast out of his mouth water as a flood after the woman, that he might cause her to be carried away of the flood” (v. 15). The delusions coming from his mouth are every kind of false doctrine and teaching, every delusion of religion and science whereby men try to infiltrate and destroy the true Church of God. But verse 16 reveals that such attempts are frustrated: the earth, that is, the world apart from Christ, so welcomes these delusions that the dragon’s flood of falsity only overwhelms his own people, while the true Church is delivered into safety by God.³

The Devil Makes Them Do It

With whom are we at war? For the overly spiritual Charismatic, we are engaged in a heavenly conflict with principalities and powers requiring only protracted seasons of intense intercessory prayer, viz. “spiritual warfare.” For the average Conservative Christian, we are at war with Democrats, the liberal media, and the ACLU. Two very different perspectives, but do either represent our true spiritual conflict?

At the outset of this article, Rushdoony saw the church as being at war with humanism, the totalitarian state, the scientific controllers, and all those who deny God’s infallibility. How can we harmonize these outlooks with the supposedly clear statements of the apostle Paul?

For we wrestle not against flesh and blood, but against principalities, against powers, against the rulers of darkness of this world, against spiritual wickedness in high places. Eph. 6:12

 At first glance, this text appears to favor the Charismatic view. Isn’t Paul saying that we should look beyond physical opponents and engage in warfare praying against the real source of evil? That was the premise behind Frank Perretti’s best-selling novel This Present Darkness—the book that helped launch the spiritual warfare movement.

The apostle Paul is not denying that we contend with the organized wickedness of men, i.e. “flesh and blood.” This is initially proved by the fact that the offensive weapon of the Christian armor is the “sword of the Spirit, which is the word of God” (v. 17). What Paul is saying is that we should not see men alone as our opposition, but recognize that behind the cultural institutions of this world system is an elaborate super structure of spiritual wickedness. In this sense, our contending with the kingdom of darkness is very much a ground war, because “the prince of the power of the air… worketh in the children of disobedience” (Eph. 2:2).

The Collapsing of Satan’s Kingdom

And he said unto them, I beheld Satan as lightning fall from heaven. Luke 10:18

When the seventy disciples of our Lord returned from preaching the gospel, they celebrated the fact that “even the devils are subject unto us through thy name” (v. 17). To this, our Lord replied that He saw Satan fall like lightning from heaven. However, the disciples did not directly confront the heavenly powers—they were engaged in a ground war that resulted in the collapsing of Satan’s spiritual kingdom. Our Lord did not need to hear the disciple’s testimony of gospel victory. He had seen the end result of their ministry demonstrated in the heavens.

The kingdom of darkness organizes wickedness beneath itself, viz. on the earth. It empowers embedded philosophies such as humanism and provides substantial insight to the social engineers who seek to manipulate history. What the disciples did to the demon possessed, we must do to the social order. Fallen man is aided in his blackened thinking by a sophisticated evil that wants to frame its mischief into law (Ps. 94:20), and it becomes the purpose of the people of God to both resist and rebuild. This is the meaning of Christian Reconstruction.

The Great Christian Protest

This is why Rushdoony perpetually held forth his sustained polemic against the humanistic state. It was for him the embodiment of evil, since he agreed with Hegel that fallen man sees the state as god walking on earth. It is for this reason that devils push for a secularized society—they must remove God from the public sphere in order to establish the satanic-human society. This is the end result of statism, and Robert Lewis Dabney saw this early on and offered a strange prophecy predicting that one day a Christian segment would rise up against the monstrosity of the state:

[T]he Jeffersonian doctrine of the absolute severance and independence of church and state, of the entire secularity of the State, and the absolutely equal rights, before the law, of religious truth and error, of paganism, atheism, and Christianity, has also established itself in all the States; and still the politicians, for electioneering ends, propagate this State education everywhere. By this curious circuit “Christian America” has gotten herself upon this thoroughly pagan ground; forcing the education of responsible, moral, and immortal beings, of which religion must ever be the essence, into the hands of a gigantic human agency, which resolves that it cannot and will not be religious at all. Surely, some great religious body will arise in America to lift its Christian protest against this monstrous result! ⁴

 Dabney was right. A great religious body did arise in Christian protest. It’s called Christian Reconstruction, and it’s a great indicator that victory is sure to come. So long as a persistent Christian voice remains to speak out against the institutions of Satan’s kingdom, there is hope the church of Jesus Christ will hear what the Spirit and the Word are saying.

Two Sides Working for Conquest

We are in a state of war, and set over against us is the covenant breaker working out the implications of his will to be as god. His goal is a victory in history, and without a Christian body to resist him, he will prevail in the short term. The covenant keeping Christian must therefore embrace the call to overcome the world through faith. As Rushdoony says, history is essentially a war between two world orders:

A fourth factor which prevents any destruction of the antithesis is precisely the fact that both the godly and the godless will, if true to their faith, work for conquest. The very unity of the human race in Adam leads men to seek a unified order, but the godly seek the Kingdom of God, and the godless, the kingdom of man. The clash between the two is inescapable. The doctrine of creation gives men a common origin and a common framework of purpose. In the regenerate, this means dominion over the earth under God; in the unregenerate, this means dominion over all things in defiance of God. Conquest is thus a common goal but with very differing programs, two radically different kinds of kingdoms.⁵

 The true nature of spiritual warfare is to contend with the children of disobedience, because the prince of the power of the air works in them (Eph. 2:2). As Revelation says, “they worshiped the dragon which gave power unto the beast” (Rev. 13:4). You cannot separate the one from the other. To defeat the dragon, you must first defeat the beast. Is this a simple task? Not in man’s eyes:

Who is like unto the beast? who is able to make war with him? Rev. 13:4

 “[T]he Lamb shall overcome them” (Rev. 17:14); and with Him are the “called, and chosen, and faithful.” If we keep the commandments of God, and the testimony of Jesus, we shall possess the Kingdom. It need not be our generation, because regardless of the time of God’s visible reign, our participation would be the same. Therefore, war today as if the victory was coming tomorrow!

Originally published in a circular mailing by Chalcedon Foundation.  Republished with the permission of Chris Ortiz and Chalcedon Foundation, April 29, 2009

1. R. J. Rushdoony, Systematic Theology in Two Volumes (Vallecito, CA: Ross House Books, 1994), 7.
2. R. J. Rushdoony, Thy Kingdom Come: Studies in Daniel and Revelation (Vallecito, CA: Ross House Books, 2001), 168.
3. Ibid.,167.
4.  Robert Lewis Dabney, Discussions, Vol. IV: Secular (Harrisonburg, VA: Sprinkle Publications, 1979), 548.
5.   R. J. Rushdoony, Salvation and Godly Rule (Vallecito, CA: Ross House Books, 1983), 224.