Many thanks to Neil Moore for his helpful insight into the Person of Jesus Christ. It came at a time when I was looking at another manifestation of the Lord Jesus Christ - his glory.
"He is the image of the invisible God, the first-born over all creation. For by him all things were created that are in heaven and that are on the earth, visible and invisible, whether thrones or dominions or principalities or powers. All things were created through him and for him. And he is before all things and through him all things consist." (Col. 1:15-17)
Only Christ, and no other, was fit to bear and uphold this glory. The glory of his person is such that the blessedness of all creatures depends on their being centred on him in his glorious office as head of the new family in heaven and earth. This then, is the glory which God purposed to give to his only incarnate Son.. Here we have an insight into God's purpose to glorify himself in the incarnation of Christ. God purposed that his eternal, only begotten Son would be made man.
What did God purpose to accomplish by this incomprehensible work of his wisdom, love and power?
By the incarnation of Christ, God intended first of all to redeem the church by the sacrifice of his Son. But there is a greater reason for the incarnation of Christ, one which centres on the glory of God. This was that he might "bring all things in heaven and on earth together under one head, even Christ" (Eph. 1:10). The whole creation, especially that which was to be eternally blessed, was to have a new head given to it. From him all graces were to flow into this new family, and from this new family worship, praise and gratitude would flow back to him. All communication from God to this new family would be channelled through Christ and all worship and gratitude to God from this new family would also be channelled through Christ. Who can describe the divine beauty, order and harmony of all things under its new head, Jesus Christ? The union and communion between angels, men and other created life, the order of the whole family in heaven and earth, the communication of life, grace, power, mercy and comfort to the church and all things being ruled for the glory of God all depend on Jesus Christ. This glory God purposed for his incarnate Son, and it was the greatest, the highest glory that could be given to him.
If we thought more of this glory of Christ, and of the wisdom of God in the restoration of all things in Christ, how much more wise we would be to the realities of life and how full of gratitude we would be for the glorious privilege of being part of this new family!
In particular, the Lord Jesus Christ is glorified in his repairing the violation of the glory of God in creation by sin. How beautifully ordered all things were as they lived and moved in dependence on God. But sin destroyed this order and harmony. But all is restored, repaired and made up in this restoration of all things in our new head, Jesus Christ. Now divine creation is made more beautiful than it was before. So "the whole creation has been groaning" as it longs for this glorious restoration of all things. "The creation waits in eager expectation for the sons of God to be revealed" (Rom. 8:19).
In this work of restoration, Christ is also glorious because he is appointed as the only way by which all the treasures of the infinite wisdom of God towards his creatures are opened up and revealed. In the first creation, infinite wisdom was the inseparable companion of infinite power. "How many are your works, O Lord! In wisdom you have made them all." (Psalm 104:24) But when the effects of this divine wisdom were defaced by sin, greater treasures of wisdom were required to repair the damage done. And in the restoration of all things in Christ, God showed what he intended to do in dealing with his creatures. By his restoration of all things under one head, the manifold, unsearchable wisdom of God was made known to the angels themselves (as Eph. 3:10 infers). They had no idea previously of what God intended to do after sin had entered the world. They had no idea how God would repair the damage done by sin but by this purpose to gather all things in Christ, the manifold wisdom of God was made known to them. So in Christ "are hidden", and by him are gloriously displayed "all the treasures of wisdom and knowledge" (Col. 2:3) In this he is glorious and will be forever.
The glory of Christ is also seen in the stability and security that is given to the whole new creation. The first creation was glorious but everything depended on God under a covenant of obedience. Everything was brought down by the sin of angels and men. But now everything that belongs to this new creation, including every believer in the world, as well as the angels in heaven, being gathered together under this one head, are all infallibly kept from ever being ruined by sin again. In this new head all is "strong, firm and steadfast" (1 Pet 5:10).
All includes representation from other creatures frustrated by the sin of angels and men. Nothing must be excluded from restoration else God's perfect and glorious plan is incomplete for God's creation was made to give glory to God. "You are worthy, our Lord and God, to receive glory, honour and power, for you created all things, and by your will they were created and have their being" (Rev. 4:11). The intent in creation under heaven was that in man using creation rightly and thanking God for all that he had created for man's use, God was to receive glory from the animate and even the inanimate creation.
Nothing that God intended can be denied him. The effect of sin must be thoroughly reversed in "the renewal of all things when the Son of Man sits on his glorious throne" (Matt. 19:28).
Now, consider very carefully the glory that is found in Jesus Christ. The glory in his creative work and the purpose of his creation, the glory of his incarnation, the glory of his triumph over sin and its effects, the glory emanating from the renewed creation under its new head.
It defies all sensibility to apply to Jesus Christ a creative activity riddled with frustrations and mutational errors such as the paradigm of evolution requires. When I say frustrations I mean obstructions. To advocate Theistic Evolution is to say Christ was, in his creative process, willing into his creation obstructions to resist and retard at the very same time he was willing progressions. By all observation, this argues a gross defect of intelligence on the part of the Creator. There is no glory to Christ in such activity. It is, instead, an insult and the insult, by means of evolution's need of time, is an eons long demeaning of the glory of Christ. Only a corrupted mind could conceive of a creative process comprising frustrations, disability, disease, survival of the fittest, death and extinctions as being glorious and giving glory to its Creator. No, such a proposition derives from "the father of lies" who will not give glory to God.
Friends have told me that Dean Phillip Jensen, when Rector at St Matthias Anglican Church, Centennial Park, Sydney, said words to the effect of "whether or not God used evolution in creation is a non-issue." If so, Dean Jensen has most dangerously 'given oxygen' in the church to a notion of creation that steals from the glory that is due Jesus Christ. My experience of Dean Jensen is that he is a fine man who indicates a love for the Lord Jesus Christ. However, his alleged decision to run away from the robbery of Christ's glory is a thorough disappointment. As so often happens, he has taken others with him in his flight. This is evidenced by his spawning of Matthias Media with its resident writers' capitulation to a 'broad' view on origins.
If my advice on the position of Dean Jensen is incorrect then I must withdraw my reference to him in this posting. If it does represent a correct observation of his position then .... The Lord Jesus, in responding to an erroneous request of a disciple replied "Don't you know me, Philip?" (John 14:9) Today, in Sydney, Australia, the question may be altered only so slightly to "Don't you know me, Phillip?"
Sam Drucker
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Romans 1:20 says: ‘Ever since the creation of the world his invisible nature, namely, his eternal power and deity, has been clearly perceived in the things that have been made. So they are without excuse.’
But leading evolutionists like the late Stephen Jay Gould claim that all we can see from evolution is that ‘there’s nothing else going on out there—just organisms struggling to pass their genes on to the next generation. That’s it.’ (See Darwin’s real message: have you missed it?) So if evolution were true, there is no evidence for a God from what has been made, but evidence only for ruthless struggle for existence. So why are unbelievers held to be ‘without excuse’ if evolution were true?
Similarly, 2 Peter 3:3–6 states: ‘Scoffers will … deliberately ignore this fact, … the world that then existed was deluged with water and perished.’
But the Moorites and the likes of progressive creationist Hugh Ross deny that there was such a cataclysm, or that it was just local and left no traces. So why does God's Word hold the scoffers culpable for ‘deliberately ignoring’ the fact of the Flood if there is no evidence?
Yes, those who actively promote a theistic evolution paradigm for origins are, in effect, 'trashing' Christ because they reduce his glorious creative activity to a stumbling, bumbling, counter-intelligent act.
Have you ever known an intelligent being to ever deliberately work for and against himself at the same time?
To attribute such nonsense to the Lord Jesus Christ is, as I say, 'trashing' his glory. It really shows how low your thinking can become when you have a greater fear of the world than of the Lord.
Sam Drucker
I am very curious about Phillip Jensen's comments as I thought that he wasn't one to explicitly follow Moore College's line on origins.
As I read your post Sam it occurred to me how transcendent God becomes when Christians make comments that reduce God's creative activity to an irrelevancy. By saying it doesn't really matter, it pushes God farther and farther away, so much so that in the end these Christians make further comments that we can't see God's method of creative operation now. That is, the evidence for God's activity on Earth is no longer available for scientific scrutiny and one must make tremendous leaps of unreasonable faith to "know" God has acted here. By doing this it only provides large amounts of wiggle room for the atheist.
The other thought that occurred to me is just how Platonic such a theology becomes. The world is no longer a real world (i.e. God's creative activity can be witnessed right now, here!) but one must, in order to know the truth, escape, without reasonable reason, to 'another" world. This is clearly exemplified, for example, in Dave Lankshear's posting about his father-in-law's belief in cosmic rays from a far-flung galaxy organising the DNA code here on earth. In order to "know" that such did occur one just has faith supported by no proof. There are a lot of doubting Thomases i the world that need evidence and the SA throw anti-intellectual stumbling blocks for them. SA pride themselves on their intellectual solidness so this is all the more ironic.
John
John, I think my understanding is correct. I am happy to apologise to Dean Phillip Jensen if I have made an error but I reckon I am "on the money".
This understanding is added to by observation of the Moore College/St Matthias influenced Diocese of Sydney's tendency to say the 'origins' issue is not a Gospel issue. Such a decision is to set a course to preach part of Christ but not all of him that is available to be taught.
John, many in the Diocese do push God further away and as you would be aware - this leads to Deism.
Bad as that is there is a silver lining if history repeats. Deism prevailed in the Church of England in the 18th Century. God had been pushed away. But God would have none of this. God drew near through the preaching of certain men. Something like this in the 21st Century would be a blessing. I think correspondent, Gwen, raised aspects of this a couple of weeks ago.
Your thoughts concerning the observation of God's activity by viewing creation today seems to be a reference to Apostle Paul's observation recorded at Romans 1:20. Moore College graduates regurgitate that because of our fallen state we aren't able to properly observe God's invisible qualities through creation.
What is your view on this?
Sam Drucker
Sam,
I have a great deal of time for men like Francis Schaeffer who continually said, "Although fallen, not totally, because are made in God's image." From my university life I saw very much an 'us and them' mentality at work in, for example, EU in which outreach was seen as a way of making recruits according to some methodology rather than the bringing of ALL the truth to the lost. If people didn't hear their message, then of course they were part of the reprobate.
Why Moore and Moore-influenced bodies can't really take Romans 1 on board is because it would kill off part of their theological belief about the total depravity of man's mind. The SA and Moore believe that men are completely irrational and appealing to the rational mind (the rational mind that Paul is clearly speaking about in Romans 1) would destroy their belief that some men really want to know God. Many men search the world for real and truthful answers. Some want to know if it's all just a big accident, they want to know if they've evolved from an amoeba, they want to know when they look at the stars or see a Redwood forest and wonder how it got here. Paul says origins is important; Moore says it's not. Paul says that rational understanding about the world is a starting point about Christ; Moore says it's trivial at best, a stumbling block at worst.
It's ironic that Moore's belief about the fallenness of men's minds was never spoken about by Christ. It really shows something about their gospel, the one they love to talk about and which they say we creationists are not bringing to men.
John
Thanks John, there certainly seems to be an inconsistency promulgated at Moore Theological College these days.
When I read of Apostle Paul saying "since what may be known about God is plain to them, because God has made it plain to them. For since the creation of the world God's invisible qualities - his eternal power and divine nature - have been clearly seen, being understood from what has been made, so that men are without excuse" I just cannot abide with those who attempt to sweep away the clear intent of the words. There must be something in the creation, now fallen as it is, to gain very helpful understanding of God.
As you seem to suggest, perhaps the Moore College allowance for theistic evolution presents an image of a God who is a horror. A creative process involving death, struggle and survival of the fittest is horrible an no recommendation of the God they try to present to the world. Yet, by accepting theistic evolution, they have 'fashioned' this type of God and are left with an inconsistency. They therefore attempt to remove the nature and invisible qualities of their 'God' of creation from their message to the world. Diluting this passage of scripture of its intent is part of the act. This is all very hard to do and leaves them in a very difficult 'gymnastic' position.
On the positive side, there seems to be so much wonderful observations of the Lord to be unpackaged if we take Apostle Paul's words seriously.
Sam
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