Knowing Christ

Thank you for the invitation to contribute to this blogspot. I agree with much of what has been said thus far although I wouldn't use some of the rougher expressions employed in some postings. John's recent observation of a discrete link between Marcion theology and current Sydney Anglican Diocesan theology is noteworthy.

I suspect a lack of faith in the Person of Jesus Christ is the root of the problem confronting the Sydney Anglican Diocese today. Sam Drucker in his/her posting "Did God Really Say?" touched very briefly on this when he/she mentioned the Lord Jesus Christ speaking to the Jews (John 10:25ff). In this scene the Lord revealed that either his words or his miracles (works/deeds) ought to be accepted as bearing testimony to his Person. Further, he says that he ought not be believed unless he does what his Father does. Here is the nub of the matter of faith that saves - faith in the Person of Jesus Christ as he has revealed himself by word and works.

His death and resurrection are works demanding our faith as are his words but Jehovah's Witnesses and Mormons are with us on this so it must be faith in the Person of Jesus Christ which separates truth and falsehood in the faith that saves. Remember, the Apostle Paul said that when he was with the Corinthian church he resolved to know nothing except Jesus Christ (Person) and him crucified (works) (1 Cor. 2:2).

Among Jesus Christ's other works were what we call miracles. Acts that do not conform to the laws of nature as we understand them. While the liberal church tends to invoke natural means to explain these events, the evangelical church has, for the most part, regarded the events as occurring by supernatural means. This is no new insight for evangelicals but I doubt that most would be aware of a distinction some Sydney Anglicans are making today and it is a distinction which will continue to grow legs.

The hint lies in the address called "Then a Miracle Occurs" - The Blessings and Limitations of Science given by Bishop Rob Forsyth at an ISCAST event in October 2006.

In his address Bishop Forsyth seemed to reveal this distinction - "genuine miracles" and those miracles that can be explained by natural phenomena. For one of his examples of the former he cites the multiplication of the loaves and fishes recorded in the New Testament and his example of the latter is the parting of the Red Sea in the Old Testament. It is incorrect to make such a distinction because both instances involve the use of natural elements viz the bread (albeit elements brought together as a mix) and the fishes in the former example and the wind and the sea in the latter example.

Exodus 14 and Deuteronomy 34:10-12 make it clear that a supernatural event occurred at the Red Sea and God did this through Moses.

Bishop Forsyth's address disclosed the direction of the Sydney Anglican Diocese. Natural explanations will be increasingly sought for Old Testament miracles while New Testament miracles will retain supernatural explanation. This, of course, is an untenable position. Credibility demands this poor standard be equally applied to New Testament miracles. Natural explanations for the New Testament miracles of Jesus Christ will, in time, occur in the Sydney Anglican Diocese.

Perhaps this is occurring already. What is the first of Jesus Christ's miracles as recorded in the New Testament? The turning of water into wine is the usual response to this question but it is incorrect.

The first of Jesus Christ's miracles as recorded in the New Testament is the creation of the universe and all things in the universe (John 1:3). In speaking of this event the writer of the epistle to the Hebrews says that the universe was formed at the command of God so that what is seen was not made out of what was visible (Heb.11:3). Now this surely is a miraculous event! The Lord Jesus' healing of a paralytic (Mark 2:1-12) involved the instantaneous creation of muscles which had wasted away to nothing (if they were ever there) and the instantaneous giving of balance to enable the man to immediately get up, stand and walk away. If this event is regarded as a miracle how much more the creation of the universe out of that which was invisible and, presumably, previously non existent?

All miracles of Jesus Christ recorded in the New Testament reveal an immediacy of result (the two stage healing of a blind man is an inconsequential argument against the point I am making). At a word or action from Jesus Christ an event occurs in such quick time and of such unnatural result as to convince eye witnesses that someone with supernatural capacity was amongst them.

Very few evangelicals doubt that the Apostle Paul has it right when speaking to the Corinthian church (1 Cor. 15:51-58) and Thessalonian church (1 Thess. 4:13-18) of our instantaneous resurrection. Those who once lived and died and whose body disintegrated will be raised up instantaneously with a new body. This too is a miraculous event and on a global scale.

Graduates of Moore Theological College nowadays seem to accept the instantaneous and miraculous activity of the Lord Jesus Christ during his three year earthly ministry, his resurrection from the dead as well as the resurrection of the dead at the last day. However, they stumble badly at the Lord Jesus Christ's activity of creating all things in the universe instantaneously, at just a word, during a six day period as recorded in Gen. 1.

Why is this? Why such inconsistency? It is the same Lord doing his same work isn't it? The reason is fear, absolute fear! They fear man more than they fear God. They fear the ridicule of a world that does not know Jesus Christ. They want to keep in with the world and to do this they are prepared to deny the Person of Jesus Christ as he has revealed himself throughout Scripture. They depreciate his Person in Cosmogony and, instead, choose to cling only to that part of his Person in Incarnation and Return.

They depreciate his Person in Cosmogony by attributing to him evolution as the means of his creative activity. Evolution, according to the theory proposed by Charles Darwin occurs through natural selection working on mutations and this involves survival of the fittest - the weak making way for the strong. This notion is diametrically opposed to the Person, word and work of Jesus Christ. If he had used natural selection in his creative activity why did he, in his Incarnate being, heal the sick, the lame, the blind and why did he bring the dead back to life, even weeping at the mourning of those attending Lazarus' death scene? After all, these sufferings are his doing. Doesn't his sermon on the mount become nothing but hypocrisy in the face of his use of natural selection as his creative means? On the cross, did not the strong die for the weak rather than the weak die for the strong? Natural selection does occur but the Christian ought to understand this as a product of a fallen creation not as part of the "very good" creation. No, the Person of Jesus Christ as revealed in his works and word was the absolute reverse of natural selection and thus contrary to the theory of evolution. It is impossible to attribute to him evolutionary processes for the creation of life.

I ask Archbishop Peter Jensen who has declared his sympathy for the Theistic Evolution view of origins and I ask other like minded Moore College graduates - What would you have said to Adolf Eichmann in the last hours of his life? During Hitler's Nazi Germany regime mentally and physically disabled people were seen to be an unnecessary and unwanted burden on society. Adolph Eichmann was given the task of eliminating them. Some of them had come to faith in the Lord Jesus Christ - a simple faith for the mentally disabled but faith nonetheless. Eichmann exterminated all the unfit. At the end of the war, Eichmann fled Europe but was located by the Jews and taken to Israel to be tried. He was found guilty of his crimes and sentenced to death. A chaplain was sent from England to minister to Eichmann in his final hours. Eichmann was asked would he like to get right with God before leaving this world. At this, Eichmann reared up and replied quite sternly "I have done nothing wrong, I have only done God's work, both the Catholic and Protestant Church in Germany taught me that God used just the same means of selecting out the weak in his creative work." This is a reasonable observation.

It has not gone unnoticed that the direction of the Sydney Anglican Diocese in the last twenty years has been driven by the three sided wedge that is Moore College, Evangelical Union/Sydney University and St Matthias/University of NSW. In the 19th Century observers in Great Britain bemoaned the quality of men entering ministry due to theological colleges pushing for academic status alongside secular institutions. If you want to rub shoulders with the world be prepared to carefully examine yourself and remove that which is impure. The dross of unbelief and Christ hating which exists in secular institutions in Sydney will in some way invade the Sydney Anglican Diocese because of the link between Moore College, those secular institutions, student ministries undertaken in those institutions and the often dangerous pride associated with the name Moore College.

As if to act on Dean Phillip Jensen's observation that a church with 10% of a community's population is seen as a threat by that community, a strategy was developed by Archbishop Peter Jensen and adopted by Synod whereby Sydney Anglican Diocese will strive to have 10% of the population in the church. Is this of God or of men? I would wish that God would act as he did in the time of Whitefield, the Wesleys, Rowland, Edwards, Fletcher and others of the 18th Century and at other times and in other places in the history of his church. However, I just don't don't see God using people who don't have faith in his Person and works as stated in his word. There is so much of this lack of faith in the "cure of souls" that they are likely to disease the flock. Therefore, I think it possible that a decline in Christians within the Sydney Anglican Diocese will occur. Numbers within the Sydney Anglican Diocese were boosted by transfer growth over the past fifteen years as the Uniting Church self destructed through liberal theology. Others have also entered the Sydney Anglican Diocese through the excesses of charismatic churches but both inflows present a false picture that all is healthy within the Sydney Anglican Diocese.

Consider for a moment the number of community festivals conducted around Sydney each year. Tens of thousands of people attend each festival. This is a great opportunity for churches of the Sydney Anglican Diocese to be there and reach the lost. But what happens? If the festival is attended at all by the local Anglican Church the church is so retreated and unable to engage the minds of people that it resorts to any one or more of strategies of giving out free balloons, free tea or coffee, free children's face painting, leaflets advertising church ministries and upcoming events. You can see the disillusionment and false smiles on the face of those staffing the church stall as people pass by time after time. When a conversation does occur it so often bears little or no fruit. Not on display is the engaging of the public mind as occurred with our Lord Jesus Christ and his Apostle Paul. No, this is not the church triumphant, this is the church defeated.

There are so many valuable lessons to be learned from Israel's history. Some similarities exist between the Sydney Anglican Diocese's present state and Israel's first assembly at the verge of the promised land. For Israel, the land lay before them ready to be taken. Faith in the word of God was necessary and with this the perceived threats within the land would come to nothing. However, Israel believed the reports of those within their number who said the occupants of the land were stronger than they. This lack of faith angered God and he would not allow the adult generation of Israel to take possession of the land. Despite God not being with them, Israel then acted on their own volition and entered the land to take possession of it. Without God they were routed!

The Sydney Anglican Diocese seeks to gain a significant influence in the land by winning 10% of the population of Sydney. However, the Diocese does not fully trust the word of God. Instead it fears ridicule from the people of the land on the matter of origins. It puts more faith in the enemy than God and those who are of God. As such, the Sydney Anglican Diocesan strategy to take possession of the land must fail.

Operational science cannot prove the means by which the universe and all that is in it came into being. Operational science can only operate in the present. The emergence of the universe and all that is in it was a past event in history. A reliable eye witness to the event is necessary. Scripture says that the three persons of the Trinity were present and undertook the creation of the universe and all that is in it. Why then do so many graduates of Moore College run to Christ haters and those of inferior faith in Jesus Christ for their postulations on the origin of life. Their first call should be to understand the Person of Jesus Christ, trust in him and trust those who know him in his Person, works and word?

With whom would Moore College graduates identify in the following scenario:

"By faith Noah, when warned about things not yet seen, in holy fear built an ark to save his family. By his faith he condemned the world and became an heir of righteousness that comes by faith." (Heb. 11:7)

Noah trusted the word of God and undertook a huge building project to protect his family (and animals) from an event which was outside the world view of that day. This act of faith was credited to Noah as righteousness. For the rest of the world population of that day, to deride or ignore the faith of Noah brought destruction. This is a lesson for the Sydney Anglican Diocese and its Moore College graduates to resist the world's thinking when it flies in the face of the word of God. And don't try to 'legitimise' your actions by reinterpreting God's words.

Neil Moore