"Then one of them, named Caiaphas, who was high priest that year, spoke up, 'You know nothing at all! You do not realise that it is better for you that one man die for the people than that the whole nation perish." (John 11:49-50)
"He shouted at the top of his voice, 'What do you want with me Jesus, Son of the Most High God? Swear to God that you will not torture me!' For Jesus had said to him, 'Come out of this man, you evil spirit!" (Mark 5:7-8)
It is amazing how the words of the enemies of God have been taken by God to bear testament to his being and purposes. Evil spirits and evil men said things for their own interest but God turned their words to a better use.
Another insightful incident is recorded as follows: "Then Jesus was led by the Spirit into the desert to be tempted by the devil. After fasting forty days and forty nights, he was hungry. The tempter came to him and said, 'If you are the Son of God, tell these stones to become bread.' Jesus answered, 'It is written: 'Man does not live on bread alone, but on every word that comes from the mouth of God.' " (Matt. 4:1-4)
The aforesaid incident is the subject of an article by Russell Grigg, M.Sc. (Hons.) in the latest 'Creation' magazine (vol. 30 No. 2). Looking at the page inside the cover of the magazine I notice that the Creation Ministries International people say "Readers who broadly share our ministry aims may freely photocopy the text of the articles herein for genuine, non-commercial Christian educational purposes ..." I believe this blogspot meets that requirement so I am going to venture reproduction of much of Russell Grigg's article as follows:
"This is surely the most unusual testimony to the truth of Genesis Creation that we will find anywhere in the Bible or for that matter in the whole wide world - that of Satan himself. What Satan said in effect was: If you are God, create ...! Create the required organic molecules, organize them into the needed complex carbohydrates, proteins, fat, fibre, etc.,with appropriate nutritional content, and impart the necessary chemical changes normally caused by cooking. Do all this instantaneously, and do it by word of command.' (emphasis mine)
Why instantaneously? Well, suppose Christ had found a few grains of wheat somewhere, planted them in the ground and watered them while they grew. Then, several months later, He had harvested them, crushed the harvest into flour, mixed the flour with water, and baked it in an oven. This would hardly have complied with Satan's request for a miracle. It certainly would not have been the immediate alleviation of Jesus' hunger that was the motivation for the temptation.
Why by a word of command? And how would creating bread (whether from stones or ex nihilo) prove that Christ was God?
Answer: One of the attributes of God is his omnipotence, i.e., He is able to do whatever He wills (consistent with His own holiness). During Creation Week, the Creator God willed that certain events should occur by the power of His spoken word. For example, on Day 1, He commanded the light to appear. On Day 2, He commanded that there be an expanse. On Day 3, He commanded the land to appear and produce vegetation. On Day 4, He commanded the sun, moon and stars to be. On Day 5, He commanded that birds and sea creatures exist. On Day 6, He commanded that the land animals be, and He created the first man and the first woman.
All of these miracle had two things in common. They happened in response to God's will expressed through a spoken command and they happened immediately. They did not happen via any 'natural' processes over millions of years.
In the temptation, Satan was challenging Christ to duplicate in miniature form the instantaneous and fiat creation that happened during Creation Week. And of course, for the temptation to have any meaning at all, Christ must have the ability to do it. Why? Because it would have been no temptation at all for you and me! So, truly, this is a remarkable testimony by Satan, not only to the truth of Genesis 1, but also to the fact that Christ was the Creator Son of God.
In the event, Christ did not accede to Satan's challenge to use miraculous means to satisfy His own physical needs. Instead He quoted Deuteronomy 8:3 'Man shall not live by bread alone, but on every word that proceeds from the mouth of God'.
At the right time and for the right reasons, Jesus did create. The Apostle John describes seven miracles by Christ which he calls 'signs', and in his Gospel he shows which way these signs point. He writes: 'These are written that you may believe that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God, and that by believing you may have life in His name' (John 20:31). The seven signs recorded in John's Gospel are:
1. Turning water into wine (2:1-11);
2. Healing a nobleman's son (4:46-54);
3. Curing a paralytic (5:1-15);
4. Feeding 5,000 people (6:1-15);
5. Walking on water (6:16-21);
6. Giving sight to the blind (9:1-41)
7. Raising Lazarus from the dead (11:1-44).
These all show Christ's sovereignty over creation. They all have two aspects in common. They all happened in response to Christ's command (whether spoken or just willed); and they all happened immediately. Did any of these miracles occur by chance random processes or over long periods of time? No, not according to the eyewitness records. Christ, the creator of time, was not bound by time."
Writer, Russell Grigg, reminds us of seven eyewitness accounts of miracles recorded by the Apostle John which demonstrate our Lord Jesus Christ's creative capacity. The Apostle John also records another miracle of our Lord Jesus Christ - his creation of all things (John 1:3). There were no human witnesses to this miracle. In this we have to trust God's word recorded in Genesis 1 and summarised in Exodus 20:11.
Also, Russell Grigg reminds us and lends support to arguments I have read here and in other places by various people - that for God to be God he has to create quickly and not by slow and gradual processes. Satan knows this. He also knows that Jesus is the Christ the Son of God and that to lure Jesus into submitting to his will he invited a corrupt use of Jesus' creative capacity.
Conversely, Satan has misled many in the world to believe a corrupted theory of origins which requires a slow and gradual process. Rightly, the atheist believes a slow and gradual process of origins dismisses the need for a Creator God. Sadly, those who purport to believe in Jesus Christ foolishly submit to the will of Satan when they attribute the same slow and gradual creative process to Jesus Christ. It is a corruption of his creative capacity. To compound their foolishness, in their witnessing, they accommodate the slow and gradual creative process which reinforces the atheist's rejection of any notion of God.
"There is a time for everything, and a season for every activity under heaven: ... a time to embrace and a time to refrain, ... a time to keep and a time to throw away, ... (Ecclesiastes 3:1,5b,6b). There is a time to take heed of what the enemies of God are saying. The measure is always how what they say sits with the word of God. Failure to discern this has disastrous consequences.
Neil Moore
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24 comments:
The senior minister at my local Ango church doubts the six day creation because of the old light before sun and moon classic. Fancy not being able to trust God's first recorded words! Anyway, he doesn't listen to God, so there was no way he was listening to me. How ironic.
Jase, I note many instances in the Bible of people ignoring (or refusing) the obvious and it led to disaster. Obstinance often a mask of unbelief.
Neil, the implication is that Archbishop Peter Jensen and acolytes are heeding the wrong message from Satan i.e. they listen when they shouldn't and don't listen when they should, correct?
Sam
That boring old canard? Long ago answered by Theophilus (2nd C) and Basil (4th C), pointing out that God doesn't need the sun to make light, any more than He will need it in in in the new heavens and Earth (Rev 21:23) where the Lamb provides the light. Rather, the fact that God created vegetation on the third day before the sun was used by these great Church Fathers as a polemic against sun worship. Note it was the real history that made it such a great polemic, contrary to Moore's nonsense that Genesis was polemic instead of history.
See also How could the days of Genesis 1 be literal if the Sun wasn’t created until the fourth day?
Sorry Sam for my slowness to respond. Yes, it is exactly as you put it. In so doing they send a mixed message to the world about the person and will of God.
In a similar vein, I have just finished watching the John Dickson produced "The Christ Files" which was aired on 'free to air' Channel 7 in Sydney as that television station's contribution to Easter.
John Dickson sets out to demonstrate how the New Testament is a reliable historical record of events concerning the person and activities of Jesus Christ some 2,000 years ago. In the end, external literary sources are seen to give scant (and disputed) attribution to Christ's person and purposes. It is the internal evidence (via manuscripts of the New Testament books) which are seen to make the stronger case for Christ.
Fair enough, but John Dickson fails miserably to apply the same criteria to the historicity of Genesis 1. Lending more to the credibility of external sources such as the Gilgamesh Epic and to some mystical priestly message in the language of Genesis 1 he strips Genesis 1 of its historicity.
As with the New Testament, the internal evidence of the Bible gives the strongest and least disputable case for the historicity of Genesis 1.
Hand your everyday, garden variety, man on the street (how's that for mixing metaphors?) a copy of the Bible; the script of John Dickson's "The Christ Files" and his address entitled "The Genesis of Everything" at New College a few years ago and that man on the street will very possibly see in John Dickson a hypocrite. The worth of John Dickson's work in "The Christ Files" is therefore undermined.
Neil Moore
Well thought out, Neil.
It's something I've addressed before but I want to briefly revisit a point here which I think is relevant to Grigg's article.
In defeating Satan's claim to rule, Christ chose the place and time of his complete revelation. I'm of course referring to his physical resurrection. This more or less instantaneous miracle showed Satan and his minions (and us!) that he alone was Creator (after all, if the Creator, who made everything, can't physically can't resurrect, who could?!) because he PHYSICALLY resurrected and thus showed that the creation, as it was supposed to be, was perfect. By physically resurrecting he demonstrated to all that He was the Creator and thus it was He, not Satan, who had the right to be worshipped as God of this world.
BTW, I note that Grigg says that John reports that there were 7 miracles. I wonder why John Dickson and the Moore College dupes don't dismiss the historicity of John's Gospel according to their invented and arcane number theory, just like they dismiss Genesis 1's historicity because of the "significance" of 7 days?
Hey Jase,
You ought to throw this quote from Theophilus to your Anglo minister and see what he thinks. I dunno, maybe he is more clever that old Theophilus.
CHAP. XV.--OF THE FOURTH DAY.
"On the fourth day the luminaries were made; because God, who possesses foreknowledge, knew the follies of the vain philosophers [and quite possibly Moore-trained ministers!], that they were going to say, that the things which grow on the earth are produced from the heavenly bodies, so as to exclude God. In order, therefore, that the truth might be obvious, the plants and seeds were produced prior to the heavenly bodies, for what is posterior cannot produce that which is prior."
Obviously Theophilus would have not written such muck if he had heard John Dickson's report to ISCAST.
John, good points once again. Yes, John Dickson & Co, if consistent, should abandon sections of the New Testament long regarded as part of historical narrative where those sections contain chiasmus, for it is chiasmus which John Dickson regards as a poetic device.
Neil Moore
We have been castigated by some Anglicans as being too agressive in our condemnation of the activities and beliefs of some of their brethren.
Apparently they believe we should be more gentle with our brothers who are Godly men seeking the best, just disagreeing on a few unimportant points. However a few days ago I received an update from a friend who is seeking to be licenced as an Anglican minister. One church was interested in having him but eventually said no! The problem was his views on creation and his reaction when told he would have to keep his views quiet! He was refused employment because he believes in 6-day creation. And even if he had been employed he would not have been allowed to mention his Biblical beliefs. And this in a Christian church!
I trust my point is perfectly clear in that these Christian brothers of ours rejected him because he takes God at His Word. The 6-day creation account is obviously so repugnant to them that they could not tolerate even having such a believer in their midst.
With 'Christian brother's' like these who needs enemies?
Of course, Warwick. The bleats about "tolerance" and playing nicey-nice only go one way. We've seen that the slightest firm talk brings out the squeals, but the most vitriolic talk from Cheng, and this latest discrimination against a Bible-believer, results in silence.
This incident demonstrates once again that the Sydney Episcopalian Diocese is wretchedly ill.
The Diocese is on the way to becoming a white-washed tomb, the ruins of Jerusalem when Judah and the remains of Israel had been exiled to Babylon.
They mouth "the origins debate is a non-issue" but really this is just code for "we reject Genesis 1 as historical narrative or prose and will have nothing to do with anything or anyone who advocates it".
They rally the troops for the battle of Connect 09 but they reject the Word of God. Stand back and watch the rout!
Sam
I felt compelled to call Warwick by phone to ascertain the circumstances of the incident he raised.
On the basis of information he gave me I must, for now, withdraw my comment yesterday about the Sydney Episcopalian Diocese.
Sam
Talking to a friend the other day, she asked why I was a Christian. Amongst other things I said that the universe does not contain within itself its own explanation; that is it is contingent (not only philosophically, but practically too).
Her response? But what about evolution?
Her recourse to evolution did not move her to the creator, but away. She saw the creation as displacing the creator and eliminating him, because of evolution.
How the clergy are behind the times. Jase's minister clearly has no idea of the physical implications of light's creation: if light was created first, then the entire electro-magentic spectrum is (I think) implied. This is the basic building block of the physical universe. What was God going to create first instead?
This very thing helps convince me of the truth of God's word and stands it out by far from the ANE mythology: millenia before Einstein, Moses set out accurately and rationally the only possible reasonable order of creation!!
As explained above Sam phoned me today. He had assumed I was talking about the Sydney diosese. I purposely did not mention where this Anglican church is because identifying my friend or the church is not the point. The point is that the Sydney diocese has long been a bastion of orthodox Biblical belief, while most other regions have become very liberal.
Now we see Sydney cantering rapidly after the liberals. Most Sydney Anglican churches are already closed to the 6-day creation message. I remember one where influential members wanted the church to hear the Biblical creation message, they being exclusively fed the theistic evolution line. Under pressure the minister grudgingly agreed that Dr Carl Wieland from the then AiG could address a group but only if the minister could speak against this view. Do you believe it. He desired to speak against the straight-forward orthodox Biblical view.
It appears many in this large congregation were impressed with Dr Wieland's message but rather frustrated when unable(even after repeated questioning)to actually find out what their minister believed! it could be this or it could be that, or... Such a faith-building point of view, not! And we are supposed to consider such men Godly Christian brothers?
I remember when one student minister was told he would not pass at Moore if he kept promoting his 6-day views.
So no matter where this Australian Anglican church is it is very little different to those here who hold to the Moore compromise line.
I am filled with disgust for those who prostitute the Word of God. May God deal with them as he dealt with renegades so many times in the past. Let us pray that Anglicanism here, and elsewhere will return to a totally Bible-based doctrine, as in the past. 'See to it that no one takes you captive through hollow and deceptive philosophy, which depends upon human tradition and the basic principles of this world rather than on Christ.' 2 Col 2:8
'See to it that no one takes you captive through hollow and deceptive philosophy, which depends upon human tradition and the basic principles of this world rather than on Christ.'
Yes, Warwick, that verse just about sums it up. Evolution and long ages are human tradition, not God's, as the Bible CLEARLY teaches.
Furthermore, the basic principles of this world involve such things as the weak dying off for the strong. Christ, however, died for all, particularly the weak, as the Sermon on the Mount instructs.
How deluded are these SADists and Moorites who promote the principles of this world and then have the chutzpah to call them Christ's!
Presuming that Warwick was talking about the Sydney Episcopalian Diocese the incident he related was just enough to tip me over the edge. Upon learning that it was not the Sydney Diocese I am now back on the edge.
Sam
I note all that has been said but I still must share my concern that there is plenty that is wrong in the Diocese. Warwick has mentioned the pressure put on one candidate of Moore College to abandoned what was, in effect, his trust in the word of God. Then there is the 'sleight of hand' deception of some who came onto this site to comment in months past. They were exposed in this. And then, of late there was Mike Paget who clearly said he was coming back to the site in February to communicate further but he has not returned. Instead he seems content to be perceived as a liar.
Neil Moore
Neil I think it is a little strong to refer to Neil Paget as a liar. We don't know what has happened in the intervening period, events which may have kept him from returning to this site.
On the other hand on mature reflection he may feel he has had his say and consider there is no point in continuing to debate the issue here.
It is also possible that one of the more agressive AngloNasties has scared him off. That has happened. Who knows.
Nonetheless there is plenty wrong in the diocese. Some time ago I went along to a north side Anglican church to hear a friend (not part of CMI) talk on creation. I was upset to see the way this serious man was heckled and abused for his faith. I spoke with one of the hecklers later and he was angry that someone would dare suggest that God could be taken at His Word regarding creation. he was unrepentant for the rude words he called the speaker while he was preaching!
The behaviour was very much what I experienced in liberal Uniting churches. Such rudeness and rejection of my right to expound what is the orthodox view of Genesis.
Things is crook in Tallarook and getting crooker!
Warwick, I wish it were something other than Mike Paget telling a lie. He certainly said something that was not true. He said he would return in February and he hasn't. That was an untruth.
How else can I interpret it?
There were things I wanted to discuss with Mike. I am disappointed in the outcome.
Neil Moore
But Neil there may be things stopping him from doing what he truly intended to do.
Warwick, I'll trust my judgement on this. This blogspot is widely read within the Diocese. Someone got to him at Katoomba and he felt compelled not to honour his word. Instead, he held to the 'family' line of not wanting to 'give us oxygen' by engaging with us.
That will not deter me. The problem is with him and those who got to him and steered him into lying. This blogspot will continue as a noticeboard advertising the sin within the Diocese.
Neil Moore
Neil, obviously I don't know what happened to Mike Paget but you could be correct in surmizing he was warned off. The anti-Creation league in SydAng is very vocal and often intimidating. I don't know if I have mentioned it before but I met a man who had attended St Mathias where he defended the 6-day creation view. This caused him to come under considerable attack, quite personal ridicule. Various rumours were being circulated about him so he went to one of the leaders about this, only to discover that this person was behind the attacks upon him! Bizarre.
I remember being at Moore when Perry Wiles and Peter Jensen were asked what views of Genesis creation were taught at Moore to which one or the other replied we teach all views. The next question was- do you teach the 6-day creation view? Ah no! This is equivocation is it not? And from Godly men!
Isn't it extraordinary how agressive AngloNasties become when someone opposes them! On this site few have been prepared to debate the issue and made a great fuss about factual comments I have made about some of the leaders who promote theistic evolution. I found it quite entertaining that they endeavoured to turn this against me. Claiming I was attacking Godly men, and this by telling the truth! Bizarre.
I have had first-hand experience of how cults treat anyone within their midst who questions the party line. By first-hand I mean I have met the parties who have been sometimes physically ejected. What has happened to those who promoted the Biblical 6-day in some SydAng churches is similar. Cultic behaviour.
Warwick wrote: "What has happened to those who promoted the Biblical 6-day in some SydAng churches is similar."
You mean those who promoted the orthodox and historical view!
Indeed John the 6-day creation account is the orthodox and historical view. Conversely the theistic evolutionary view is only an old worldly compromise. Nothing new here!
It is interesting to speculate why some SydAngs are so passionately opposed to the Biblical view, attacking and ridiculing those who take God at His Word. I remember going to a NW Sydney Anglican church assisting an AiG speaker who very graciously put the case for a literal Genesis being the only foundation for a literal salvation. He built a strong case but put it in a very gentle manner asking that people look again, reconsider.
Afterwards I overheard one woman angrily protesting, saying that such a view should not even be heard! I can only imagine the anger and ridicule comes from embarassment,they feeling condemned because the truth cast unwanted light upon their anti-Biblical compromise view.
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