Thousands of wheat and tares gather annually in Katoomba, NSW, during the early weeks of January for the CMS (Church Missionary Society) Summer School. It is a popular event and will likely attract similar numbers from 7-13 January 2012.
I have been handed a brochure promoting the upcoming event and I was struck by the promotional statements contained within it - all surrounding the Speaker and topic. I restate a couple of paragraphs:
Who's Speaking?
Dr Peter Jensen has been the Anglican Archbishop of Sydney since 2001. A key leader in the worldwide Anglican Church, he has written a number of books on Christian doctrine, including "At the Heart of the Universe" (1991) and "The Revelation God" (2002). Prior to his election as archbishop, Peter Jensen was Principal of Moore College and lectured in systematic and biblical theology. He is a gifted preacher and teacher. Peter Jensen will be speaking on the first 11 chapters of Genesis.
This summer join us as Archbishop Peter Jensen takes us back to the beginning. The beginning of the world, the beginning of grace. Be inspired as he opens up the first 11 chapters of Genesis. Be challenged as he draws out the relevance of these ancient stories to modern mission
What is in store for attendees? Will it be erosion of faith or encouragement of faith in the Lord Jesus Christ in all His "offices"? It is terrifying to contemplate the former. Yet it is not without good reason - unless the Archbishop has had a sort of "Damascus Road" experience such as Theologian R.C. Sproule had in recent years. Without such a change we are left to be terrified because of past declared Theistic Evolution sentiments expressed in PTC notes, the appointment to staff at Moore College some years ago of a strong advocate of Theistic Evolution and its mouthpiece in the Church - ISCAST, and the rampant spread of belief in Theistic Evolution within the Diocese of Sydney in the years since.
"the beginning of grace" What grace exists in such a monstrous process of Creation?
Sam Drucker
Sunday, August 28, 2011
Sunday, August 21, 2011
The Church and its Heresies
Search the dictionaries and you will find 'nature' defined as something corresponding to "Thing's essential qualities, person's or animals innate character". On another level, you think, speak and act according to your nature. As our Lord Jesus Christ put it "Each tree is recognized by its own fruit." (Luke 6:44)
It is important to remember this as you consider heresies which have arisen in Christ's Church since Pentecost. I am going to identify and comment briefly on some of the early heresies here following (much of the commentary is direct quoting from "Know The Truth" by Bruce Milne; Inter-Varsity-Press, 1981):
Ebionism
Derived from Jewish Christianity and attempted to solve a perceived problem of the relationship of humanity and divinity in Christ by effectively removing the divinity. Jesus was simply the human, though divinely appointed, Messiah who was destined to return at the end of the age to reign on the earth by God's sovereign power. In effect this left the gulf between God and man unbridged.
Docetism
Dates from apostolic times. In contrast to Ebionism it solved the problem by excising the humanity of Christ. Jesus only seemed human (Gk. doceo - seem). Its roots lie in Graeco-Oriental convictions that matter is inherently evil and that God cannot be the subject of feelings or other human experiences. Docetism was unacceptable because it cut the bridge between God and man at the other end; God did not really come to us, hence no effective sacrifice was made for our sins.
Gnosticism
The thought-world of Gnosticism has been said to be loaded with bizarre speculations, and it is unclear how far it was a unified system of thought. Christ is seen by some Gnostic writers as descended from the heavenly stratosphere or 'fullness' (Gk. pleroma); he united himself for a time with a historic person, Jesus, whose body was formed of a psychic substance, the two elements being loosely linked in him. Gnosticism clearly reflected a strong Docetic tendency. It effectively cut the bridge at both ends; neither true God nor true man, Christ was unfitted to be the mediator.
Arianism
Revolved around the views of Arius (256-336), a presbyter of Alexandria who had been influenced by the great teacher, Origen. Arius came to hold that 'the Son was created'. Arius had imbibed Plato's division between the tangible world of sense experience and the intangible world of ideas. God, the absolutely unique and unoriginated source of all things, belonged to the second of these worlds, so was radically separated from the created world. Once this framework is accepted there is obviously great difficulty in fitting the Son (Logos, the Word, Jn. 1:1) into the picture. Arius concluded that the Logos must belong to the creaturely side of being; hence he is not eternal,al5 but is himself a created being: 'there was a time when he [Christ] was not'. Christ is the most exalted of all creatures certainly, but ultimately only that.
Apollinarianism
Apollinarius (310-390), an over-enthusiastic supporter of Athanasius, held that in Jesus the eternal Word (Logos) took the place of the human soul. At the incarnation God the Son took up residence in a human body, so that Christ did not possess a full human nature. The position, obviously Docetic in tendency, was rejected since it in effect denies that God truly became man.
Nestorianism
Nestorius was appointed Archbishop of Constantinople in AD 428. In the interests of preserving the full manhood of the mediator, Nestorianism taught the separation of the two natures in Christ to the extent of rendering questionable his authentic personal unity; this rendered the incarnation invalid and imperiled salvation. Many scholars today believe that Nestorius himself did not hold many of the views attributed to him by his 'orthodox' opponents.
Eutychianism
Eutyches, an outspoken opponent of Nestorianism, championed the unity of Christ's person and claimed that, while there were two natures before the incarnation, there was only one composite nature after it. This implies that Jesus is a third sort of being, neither true man nor true God, hence unable to act as mediator. Eutyches was condemned at the Synod of Constantinople in 448, but reinstated somewhat dubiously at Ephesus in 449. Clearly matters could not continue in this manner and a major council was summoned at Chalcedon in 451 to resolve the debates once and for all. The statement of the Council of Chalcedon, which was deeply influenced by the more pragmatic theology of the West, failed to please all the parties but has been the basis for orthodox formulations of the person of Christ ever since.
So ends the examples of heresies I am going to recall from the early church. There have been others but sufficient are provided to make the point.
It should be noted that, for all intents and purposes, these heresies arose from people purporting to be Christian. It should also not escape the reader's attention that, at its root, each heresy was a corruption of the 'Nature' of Jesus Christ. Proponents did not think they were maligning the 'Nature' of Jesus Christ. Instead, they likely hoped to be a help toward a right understanding in believers as to the true 'Nature' of the Jesus Christ.
It is clear that in some instances, and probably all, that their world view influenced proponents in the formulation of their doctrine cum heresy.
It is also evident from closer study that some heresies had large following, had been influential in the life of the church for a long time and incurred great pain and diligence to remove them from Christ's Church. Even today, at least one of those heresies has life in religious bodies considered now to be non-Christian.
We should note from this sad history of the church that the 'Nature' of Jesus Christ is not something to be taken casually because it has far reaching consequences for the Gospel of Jesus Christ i.e. His 'Nature', the condition of Man, His work on the Cross for Man and His Resurrection. Clearly, the 'Nature' of Jesus Christ is intrinsic to the Gospel of Jesus Christ and the faithful of old saw this, fought for it and won the battle.
For more than a century another heresy has gained momentum within the church and is proving very difficult to dislodge. Like those heresies of old it corrupts the 'Nature' of Jesus Christ. It is that heresy which ascribes to Jesus Christ a method of creation that is bloody, frustration filled, intelligence lacking, disease and death-riddled and it is that called Theistic Evolution. All those characteristics are necessary components of the Theory of Evolution proposed by Charles Darwin and advocated by Neo-Darwinists today. These same characteristics must therefore be similarly acknowledged by those in the church who seek to super-impose Jesus Christ over the process to arrive at their 'dog's breakfast' - Theistic Evolution.
In their rush to embrace the prevailing world view on Origins, Theistic Evolutionists lose sight of the 'Nature' of Jesus Christ borne in His Incarnate Being. Demonstrating their foolishness these heretics inconsistently recognize the 'Nature' of Jesus Christ in his communications and activities when Incarnate yet are obliged to divorce Him from that same 'Nature' in His creative works at the beginning of Creation. This has to be the consequence of ascribing a bloody, frustration filled, intelligence lacking, disease and death-riddled process to Jesus Christ in His creative works.
Compare for a moment that 'survival of the fittest' principle pregnant in the ordering of life according to the theory of (Theistic) Evolution. Is that principle to be found in the 'Nature' of Jesus Christ? Who:
"being in very nature God, did not consider equality with God something to be grasped, but made himself nothing, taking the very nature of a servant, being made in human likeness. And being found in the appearance as a man, he humbled himself and became obedient to death - even death on a cross." (Phlp. 2:6-8)
and said "Blessed are the meek for they shall inherit the earth" (Matt. 5:5)
and "Blessed are the merciful for they will be shown mercy" (Matt. 5:7)
and "Blessed are the peacemakers for they shall be called sons of God" (Matt. 5:9)
and "Do not resist and evil person. if someone strikes you on the right cheek, turn to him the other also. And if someone wants to sue you and take your tunic, let him have your cloak as well" (Matt. 5:39-40)
and "Love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you" Matt. 5:44)
Theistic Evolutionists, I have some questions for you.
Just who is the Jesus Christ you profess faith in?
What is the 'Nature' of this Jesus Christ you profess faith in?
How long will you espouse to the world the monster deity that you do?
How long will you continue eroding faith in Christ's Church?
Sam Drucker
It is important to remember this as you consider heresies which have arisen in Christ's Church since Pentecost. I am going to identify and comment briefly on some of the early heresies here following (much of the commentary is direct quoting from "Know The Truth" by Bruce Milne; Inter-Varsity-Press, 1981):
Ebionism
Derived from Jewish Christianity and attempted to solve a perceived problem of the relationship of humanity and divinity in Christ by effectively removing the divinity. Jesus was simply the human, though divinely appointed, Messiah who was destined to return at the end of the age to reign on the earth by God's sovereign power. In effect this left the gulf between God and man unbridged.
Docetism
Dates from apostolic times. In contrast to Ebionism it solved the problem by excising the humanity of Christ. Jesus only seemed human (Gk. doceo - seem). Its roots lie in Graeco-Oriental convictions that matter is inherently evil and that God cannot be the subject of feelings or other human experiences. Docetism was unacceptable because it cut the bridge between God and man at the other end; God did not really come to us, hence no effective sacrifice was made for our sins.
Gnosticism
The thought-world of Gnosticism has been said to be loaded with bizarre speculations, and it is unclear how far it was a unified system of thought. Christ is seen by some Gnostic writers as descended from the heavenly stratosphere or 'fullness' (Gk. pleroma); he united himself for a time with a historic person, Jesus, whose body was formed of a psychic substance, the two elements being loosely linked in him. Gnosticism clearly reflected a strong Docetic tendency. It effectively cut the bridge at both ends; neither true God nor true man, Christ was unfitted to be the mediator.
Arianism
Revolved around the views of Arius (256-336), a presbyter of Alexandria who had been influenced by the great teacher, Origen. Arius came to hold that 'the Son was created'. Arius had imbibed Plato's division between the tangible world of sense experience and the intangible world of ideas. God, the absolutely unique and unoriginated source of all things, belonged to the second of these worlds, so was radically separated from the created world. Once this framework is accepted there is obviously great difficulty in fitting the Son (Logos, the Word, Jn. 1:1) into the picture. Arius concluded that the Logos must belong to the creaturely side of being; hence he is not eternal,al5 but is himself a created being: 'there was a time when he [Christ] was not'. Christ is the most exalted of all creatures certainly, but ultimately only that.
Apollinarianism
Apollinarius (310-390), an over-enthusiastic supporter of Athanasius, held that in Jesus the eternal Word (Logos) took the place of the human soul. At the incarnation God the Son took up residence in a human body, so that Christ did not possess a full human nature. The position, obviously Docetic in tendency, was rejected since it in effect denies that God truly became man.
Nestorianism
Nestorius was appointed Archbishop of Constantinople in AD 428. In the interests of preserving the full manhood of the mediator, Nestorianism taught the separation of the two natures in Christ to the extent of rendering questionable his authentic personal unity; this rendered the incarnation invalid and imperiled salvation. Many scholars today believe that Nestorius himself did not hold many of the views attributed to him by his 'orthodox' opponents.
Eutychianism
Eutyches, an outspoken opponent of Nestorianism, championed the unity of Christ's person and claimed that, while there were two natures before the incarnation, there was only one composite nature after it. This implies that Jesus is a third sort of being, neither true man nor true God, hence unable to act as mediator. Eutyches was condemned at the Synod of Constantinople in 448, but reinstated somewhat dubiously at Ephesus in 449. Clearly matters could not continue in this manner and a major council was summoned at Chalcedon in 451 to resolve the debates once and for all. The statement of the Council of Chalcedon, which was deeply influenced by the more pragmatic theology of the West, failed to please all the parties but has been the basis for orthodox formulations of the person of Christ ever since.
So ends the examples of heresies I am going to recall from the early church. There have been others but sufficient are provided to make the point.
It should be noted that, for all intents and purposes, these heresies arose from people purporting to be Christian. It should also not escape the reader's attention that, at its root, each heresy was a corruption of the 'Nature' of Jesus Christ. Proponents did not think they were maligning the 'Nature' of Jesus Christ. Instead, they likely hoped to be a help toward a right understanding in believers as to the true 'Nature' of the Jesus Christ.
It is clear that in some instances, and probably all, that their world view influenced proponents in the formulation of their doctrine cum heresy.
It is also evident from closer study that some heresies had large following, had been influential in the life of the church for a long time and incurred great pain and diligence to remove them from Christ's Church. Even today, at least one of those heresies has life in religious bodies considered now to be non-Christian.
We should note from this sad history of the church that the 'Nature' of Jesus Christ is not something to be taken casually because it has far reaching consequences for the Gospel of Jesus Christ i.e. His 'Nature', the condition of Man, His work on the Cross for Man and His Resurrection. Clearly, the 'Nature' of Jesus Christ is intrinsic to the Gospel of Jesus Christ and the faithful of old saw this, fought for it and won the battle.
For more than a century another heresy has gained momentum within the church and is proving very difficult to dislodge. Like those heresies of old it corrupts the 'Nature' of Jesus Christ. It is that heresy which ascribes to Jesus Christ a method of creation that is bloody, frustration filled, intelligence lacking, disease and death-riddled and it is that called Theistic Evolution. All those characteristics are necessary components of the Theory of Evolution proposed by Charles Darwin and advocated by Neo-Darwinists today. These same characteristics must therefore be similarly acknowledged by those in the church who seek to super-impose Jesus Christ over the process to arrive at their 'dog's breakfast' - Theistic Evolution.
In their rush to embrace the prevailing world view on Origins, Theistic Evolutionists lose sight of the 'Nature' of Jesus Christ borne in His Incarnate Being. Demonstrating their foolishness these heretics inconsistently recognize the 'Nature' of Jesus Christ in his communications and activities when Incarnate yet are obliged to divorce Him from that same 'Nature' in His creative works at the beginning of Creation. This has to be the consequence of ascribing a bloody, frustration filled, intelligence lacking, disease and death-riddled process to Jesus Christ in His creative works.
Compare for a moment that 'survival of the fittest' principle pregnant in the ordering of life according to the theory of (Theistic) Evolution. Is that principle to be found in the 'Nature' of Jesus Christ? Who:
"being in very nature God, did not consider equality with God something to be grasped, but made himself nothing, taking the very nature of a servant, being made in human likeness. And being found in the appearance as a man, he humbled himself and became obedient to death - even death on a cross." (Phlp. 2:6-8)
and said "Blessed are the meek for they shall inherit the earth" (Matt. 5:5)
and "Blessed are the merciful for they will be shown mercy" (Matt. 5:7)
and "Blessed are the peacemakers for they shall be called sons of God" (Matt. 5:9)
and "Do not resist and evil person. if someone strikes you on the right cheek, turn to him the other also. And if someone wants to sue you and take your tunic, let him have your cloak as well" (Matt. 5:39-40)
and "Love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you" Matt. 5:44)
Theistic Evolutionists, I have some questions for you.
Just who is the Jesus Christ you profess faith in?
What is the 'Nature' of this Jesus Christ you profess faith in?
How long will you espouse to the world the monster deity that you do?
How long will you continue eroding faith in Christ's Church?
Sam Drucker
Monday, August 15, 2011
Leupold Genesis part 62 verses 29, 30
29, 30. And God said: Behold, I have given you all herbs yielding seed which are upon the face of all the earth, and every tree upon which there is seed-bearing fruit--to you it shall be for food. And to all the wild beasts of the earth, and to all the birds, of the heavens, and to all the land reptiles in which there is a living soul (I have given) all the green herbs for food. And it was so.
Such basic directions as man needs for guiding his steps in this world which is entirely new to him are here given in the matter of food (v. 29), and at the same time it is revealed to man what manner of food is to provide sustenance for beasts (v. 30). Besides being a very welcome direction, this word is also another indication of the rich and abounding love that the Heavenly Father bears to His creatures, made in His image.
The opening "behold" imparts a certain vigour to this gracious bestowal. The verb "I have given" (nathsstti) stands in the perfect, the usual construction in ordinances or abiding decrees. The perfect gives the impression of a rule firmly fixed and already unwavering. (G. K. 106 m; K. S. 131). Man is permitted to use a great variety of things comprising a vegetable diet. Two great classes are laid open to him: "herbs yielding seed" and, "fruit trees which have seed-bearing fruit." The classes are indicated and the distinguishing marks that are to be observed are stated. This marks two of the three classes of v. 11 as adapted to man's use. Since there is the possibility that since the Fall vegetation may have suffered a very material change, perhaps we are no longer in a position fully to appreciate how apt the descriptive marks mentioned really are. However, the word "all" is indicative of the rich bounty bestowed. In a marvellously rich and beautiful world the rich bounty of very many different kinds of herbs and trees provided the finest proof of the Creator's goodness.
Without a doubt, this word covering what food is permissible was intended to be a complete guide as to what man might eat. If 9:3 be held at the side of this word, the contrast implies that animal food was not permitted. It will hardly do to point to man's dominion over the beasts of the field, over fowl, and over fish (v. 26), for this word (v. 29) very definitely shows man what he may use for food. We believe that sincere regard for the very letter of God's command will have led our first parents to stay strictly within the limits of this word. As to the question, whether any men ventured before the Flood to eat animal food, we can only offer surmises. Not all men continued in the right relation to God, and so there may have been some of the ungodly who ventured to transgress this original permission. But we cannot venture to call such procedure common. Least of all could any true believer have disregarded the restriction implied in this word.
Certainly, a measure of latitude is allowed to man in respect to what may be permissible and wholesome food for him. This broad allowance was never tended to be exhaustive. So it has been pointed out (Dillmann) that nothing is said, for example, about the use of milk and of honey, which may be thought of as lying on the borderline between animal and vegetable food. The critically minded should not forget that a being endowed with the high intelligence that we find in the first man needed no more than a broad outline to guide him to a choice pleasing to God and beneficial for himself.
Such basic directions as man needs for guiding his steps in this world which is entirely new to him are here given in the matter of food (v. 29), and at the same time it is revealed to man what manner of food is to provide sustenance for beasts (v. 30). Besides being a very welcome direction, this word is also another indication of the rich and abounding love that the Heavenly Father bears to His creatures, made in His image.
The opening "behold" imparts a certain vigour to this gracious bestowal. The verb "I have given" (nathsstti) stands in the perfect, the usual construction in ordinances or abiding decrees. The perfect gives the impression of a rule firmly fixed and already unwavering. (G. K. 106 m; K. S. 131). Man is permitted to use a great variety of things comprising a vegetable diet. Two great classes are laid open to him: "herbs yielding seed" and, "fruit trees which have seed-bearing fruit." The classes are indicated and the distinguishing marks that are to be observed are stated. This marks two of the three classes of v. 11 as adapted to man's use. Since there is the possibility that since the Fall vegetation may have suffered a very material change, perhaps we are no longer in a position fully to appreciate how apt the descriptive marks mentioned really are. However, the word "all" is indicative of the rich bounty bestowed. In a marvellously rich and beautiful world the rich bounty of very many different kinds of herbs and trees provided the finest proof of the Creator's goodness.
Without a doubt, this word covering what food is permissible was intended to be a complete guide as to what man might eat. If 9:3 be held at the side of this word, the contrast implies that animal food was not permitted. It will hardly do to point to man's dominion over the beasts of the field, over fowl, and over fish (v. 26), for this word (v. 29) very definitely shows man what he may use for food. We believe that sincere regard for the very letter of God's command will have led our first parents to stay strictly within the limits of this word. As to the question, whether any men ventured before the Flood to eat animal food, we can only offer surmises. Not all men continued in the right relation to God, and so there may have been some of the ungodly who ventured to transgress this original permission. But we cannot venture to call such procedure common. Least of all could any true believer have disregarded the restriction implied in this word.
Certainly, a measure of latitude is allowed to man in respect to what may be permissible and wholesome food for him. This broad allowance was never tended to be exhaustive. So it has been pointed out (Dillmann) that nothing is said, for example, about the use of milk and of honey, which may be thought of as lying on the borderline between animal and vegetable food. The critically minded should not forget that a being endowed with the high intelligence that we find in the first man needed no more than a broad outline to guide him to a choice pleasing to God and beneficial for himself.
Sunday, August 14, 2011
Signpost on the Road to Irrelevance
Youthworks is the name given to a Diocese of Sydney Episcopalian ministry to youth. Earlier in 2011 Ruth Lukabyo, Church History and Evangelism Lecturer, Youthworks College, reported on the results of a survey she had undertaken with 208 Scripture students aged 11 to 14 years.
In State schools in NSW, Australia, parents can indicate on the student's enrolment form whether attendance in Special Religious Education i.e. instruction provided by certain religious organizations, should be available to their child. The format is commonly called Scripture and it allows various religious 'faiths' to sustain or 'evangelize' students in the respective faith. Atheists, Sceptics, Humanists (and their ally - the NSW Teachers' Federation Union) want Scripture removed but are frustrated because it is enshrined in an Act of Parliament.
Ruth Lukabyo was surprised at the result of her survey because she believed that earlier Scripture exposure and a likely proportion of students having come from Christian homes would have produced greater understanding of Christian basics. The four survey questions attracting most attention from students were:
1. How can I know that God exists?
2. How could a good God send people to hell?
3. How can I believe in a good God when there is so much suffering?
4. Doesn’t evolution prove that God doesn’t exist?
The survey also allowed students to pose their own questions outside the range provided. In this aspect of the survey the four most asked questions were:
1. Where does God come from?
2. Why did God make us?
3. If the Big Bang is true does that mean God is not?
4. What is heaven & hell and how do you go there?
Amongst other things Lukabyo goes on to say was: At this age adolescents are being taught the scientific law of cause and effect at school as well as the theory of the Big Bang. They seem to take to heart the maxim that every event has a cause: if the cause of the universe is God, then where did God come from, who made God? If the Big Bang is the ultimate cause of the universe, does this mean that we no longer need to believe in God? We need to clearly engage with these scientific questions of causation and show that a scientific explanation of the world and its origin does not rule out belief in God. The importance of this is shown by the number of children who grow up to give up their childhood faith. Mason et al show that the biggest reason for giving up faith at 16%, was “doing further study, especially science" Are we adequately dealing with the questions of origin to give children a coherent Christian worldview that can stand the test of time?
Sadly, most Sydney Episcopalians let loose in Scripture classes fail students at this point. Having syncretized the foundational Christian belief in Origins with the world's view of Origins they present an indigestible message to students. Even more questions arise. For one thing: How could a good/loving God use a bad means of Creation such as the mechanism of Evolution? For another: If the Creator used a process of death and struggle to create what would a future in Eternity with this Creator involve?
Such is the malaise within the Episcopalian Diocese of Sydney that an affirmative answer to Ruth Lukabyo's question: Are we adequately dealing with the questions of origin to give children a coherent Christian worldview that can stand the test of time? is not to be found in the present order. Only a Reformation from the Hand of God will bring the necessary change. In saying this, I might also validly assert that the Reformation of five centuries ago did not go far enough. While key proponents such as Luther and Calvin upheld the traditional rendering of a six day Creation occurring only thousands of years prior they and others did not go far enough to remove the pagan influence of Aristotle from Christian thought. Perhaps then, the Reformation of centuries past is not yet complete and we ought to pray to God that He will raise up men who will take the Reformation forward to fulfilment. The tools are there on the matter of Origins. There are Christian men and women researching and publishing research which exposes the failings of the Evolution theory of Origins and the alleged Long Age for the Earth. If only alleged Christian brothers and sisters would read the research material and learn the shallowness and futility of the current world view.
If such a Reformation does not occur the increasing irrelevance of Christianity, particularly in the State school system, will hasten the day when provision for Special Religious Education is removed from the Act.
Sam Drucker
In State schools in NSW, Australia, parents can indicate on the student's enrolment form whether attendance in Special Religious Education i.e. instruction provided by certain religious organizations, should be available to their child. The format is commonly called Scripture and it allows various religious 'faiths' to sustain or 'evangelize' students in the respective faith. Atheists, Sceptics, Humanists (and their ally - the NSW Teachers' Federation Union) want Scripture removed but are frustrated because it is enshrined in an Act of Parliament.
Ruth Lukabyo was surprised at the result of her survey because she believed that earlier Scripture exposure and a likely proportion of students having come from Christian homes would have produced greater understanding of Christian basics. The four survey questions attracting most attention from students were:
1. How can I know that God exists?
2. How could a good God send people to hell?
3. How can I believe in a good God when there is so much suffering?
4. Doesn’t evolution prove that God doesn’t exist?
The survey also allowed students to pose their own questions outside the range provided. In this aspect of the survey the four most asked questions were:
1. Where does God come from?
2. Why did God make us?
3. If the Big Bang is true does that mean God is not?
4. What is heaven & hell and how do you go there?
Amongst other things Lukabyo goes on to say was: At this age adolescents are being taught the scientific law of cause and effect at school as well as the theory of the Big Bang. They seem to take to heart the maxim that every event has a cause: if the cause of the universe is God, then where did God come from, who made God? If the Big Bang is the ultimate cause of the universe, does this mean that we no longer need to believe in God? We need to clearly engage with these scientific questions of causation and show that a scientific explanation of the world and its origin does not rule out belief in God. The importance of this is shown by the number of children who grow up to give up their childhood faith. Mason et al show that the biggest reason for giving up faith at 16%, was “doing further study, especially science" Are we adequately dealing with the questions of origin to give children a coherent Christian worldview that can stand the test of time?
Sadly, most Sydney Episcopalians let loose in Scripture classes fail students at this point. Having syncretized the foundational Christian belief in Origins with the world's view of Origins they present an indigestible message to students. Even more questions arise. For one thing: How could a good/loving God use a bad means of Creation such as the mechanism of Evolution? For another: If the Creator used a process of death and struggle to create what would a future in Eternity with this Creator involve?
Such is the malaise within the Episcopalian Diocese of Sydney that an affirmative answer to Ruth Lukabyo's question: Are we adequately dealing with the questions of origin to give children a coherent Christian worldview that can stand the test of time? is not to be found in the present order. Only a Reformation from the Hand of God will bring the necessary change. In saying this, I might also validly assert that the Reformation of five centuries ago did not go far enough. While key proponents such as Luther and Calvin upheld the traditional rendering of a six day Creation occurring only thousands of years prior they and others did not go far enough to remove the pagan influence of Aristotle from Christian thought. Perhaps then, the Reformation of centuries past is not yet complete and we ought to pray to God that He will raise up men who will take the Reformation forward to fulfilment. The tools are there on the matter of Origins. There are Christian men and women researching and publishing research which exposes the failings of the Evolution theory of Origins and the alleged Long Age for the Earth. If only alleged Christian brothers and sisters would read the research material and learn the shallowness and futility of the current world view.
If such a Reformation does not occur the increasing irrelevance of Christianity, particularly in the State school system, will hasten the day when provision for Special Religious Education is removed from the Act.
Sam Drucker
Sunday, August 7, 2011
When Talk Is Cheap.
Amid the deplorable decline in trust in the Word of God within the Episcopalian Diocese of Sydney, and it is accelerating under the 'young guns' being given more print and lectern space than merit warrants, is the devious shift toward literary devices to explain away the original intent of the author of Scripture.
As pertaining to the Creation account, undue worth is given to pagan creation myths, even to suggesting that the Biblical Creation account is influenced by pagan accounts.
In their whoring after the world these Sydney Episcopalians literally adopt the position of the whoring wife which prophet Hosea symbolically married to expose an adulterous Israel. Their dilution of the authority of the Word of God has no boundary and the effect, while noticeable now, will have devastating consequences for the Episcopalian Diocese of Sydney in years to come.
I wonder whether the world, in its own strength, is showing Sydney Episcopalians something of the wisdom the Diocese is abandoning. The inheritance from the fathers of the Protestant Reformation is being cast aside and, to some extent has been taken up by the world.
This thought was reinforced in me recently when reading "Facts and Values - An Introduction to Critical Thinking For Nurses" written by Stan van Hooft, Lynn Gillam and Margot Byrnes and published by MacLennan & Petty Pty Ltd, 1995.
On the subject of Elements of Communication the following extracts provide principles which Sydney Episcopalians, especially the 'young guns', have long abandoned when approaching the Word of God. I cite some of these principles herewith:
Even in the event that the text has not been read by anyone, the writer can still be assumed to have had an audience in mind when he or she wrote it .....
Knowing how to send and receive communications includes knowing how some statements imply others and how certain things cannot be logically coherent. It includes knowing that if something is green it must be coloured, and that it makes no sense to say that it could be not green as well. (Logicians call this the law of non-contradiction.) .....
Also relevant, but more difficult to specify, are shared attitudes. Parties to successful communication must share attitudes in order to understand one another fully .....
A fifth element in the context of communication is difficult to describe in abstract terms. It is the ethics of communication. Parties to a communication have certain responsibilities in regard to it. Somebody who tells me something has an obligation to tell the truth. And I have an obligation to pay attention and to take what he tells me seriously. Authors and audiences must have appropriate intentions for a communication to succeed, and these are requirements of an ethical kind. There are values inherent in communication. It is important to notice that these sorts of requirements can make a difference as to whether a communication succeeds .....
This seventh and final element in communication might be described as levels of meaning. Most of the time we take what people say and write at face value. What the text says is what the author wants to tell us.
I would suggest the aforesaid snippets of understanding are a legacy of Judeo-Christian influence of times past whereas the 'young guns' of the Sydney Episcopalian Diocese derive their thinking and application to that vaccuous proposition of thought - Post Modernism.
Sam Drucker
As pertaining to the Creation account, undue worth is given to pagan creation myths, even to suggesting that the Biblical Creation account is influenced by pagan accounts.
In their whoring after the world these Sydney Episcopalians literally adopt the position of the whoring wife which prophet Hosea symbolically married to expose an adulterous Israel. Their dilution of the authority of the Word of God has no boundary and the effect, while noticeable now, will have devastating consequences for the Episcopalian Diocese of Sydney in years to come.
I wonder whether the world, in its own strength, is showing Sydney Episcopalians something of the wisdom the Diocese is abandoning. The inheritance from the fathers of the Protestant Reformation is being cast aside and, to some extent has been taken up by the world.
This thought was reinforced in me recently when reading "Facts and Values - An Introduction to Critical Thinking For Nurses" written by Stan van Hooft, Lynn Gillam and Margot Byrnes and published by MacLennan & Petty Pty Ltd, 1995.
On the subject of Elements of Communication the following extracts provide principles which Sydney Episcopalians, especially the 'young guns', have long abandoned when approaching the Word of God. I cite some of these principles herewith:
Even in the event that the text has not been read by anyone, the writer can still be assumed to have had an audience in mind when he or she wrote it .....
Knowing how to send and receive communications includes knowing how some statements imply others and how certain things cannot be logically coherent. It includes knowing that if something is green it must be coloured, and that it makes no sense to say that it could be not green as well. (Logicians call this the law of non-contradiction.) .....
Also relevant, but more difficult to specify, are shared attitudes. Parties to successful communication must share attitudes in order to understand one another fully .....
A fifth element in the context of communication is difficult to describe in abstract terms. It is the ethics of communication. Parties to a communication have certain responsibilities in regard to it. Somebody who tells me something has an obligation to tell the truth. And I have an obligation to pay attention and to take what he tells me seriously. Authors and audiences must have appropriate intentions for a communication to succeed, and these are requirements of an ethical kind. There are values inherent in communication. It is important to notice that these sorts of requirements can make a difference as to whether a communication succeeds .....
This seventh and final element in communication might be described as levels of meaning. Most of the time we take what people say and write at face value. What the text says is what the author wants to tell us.
I would suggest the aforesaid snippets of understanding are a legacy of Judeo-Christian influence of times past whereas the 'young guns' of the Sydney Episcopalian Diocese derive their thinking and application to that vaccuous proposition of thought - Post Modernism.
Sam Drucker
Monday, August 1, 2011
Leupold Genesis part 61 verse 28 Subdue
"Subdue," the new word in the account of man's dominion, is kabhash, and it differs from "have dominion" (radhah) in that its root rather implies "to knead", or "to tread," whereas the latter is the stronger according to parallel roots, meaning "to stamp down." Yet this difference is not to be pressed. The statement of the things to be ruled is a bit more condensed than in v. 26, for the last statement summarizes, "every living creature moving about upon the earth." This expression covers everything beyond "birds" and "fish," namely everything mentioned in addition in v. 26 with the exception of "all the earth." Again the text needs no correction or addition of "over the cattle" as Kittel suggests after the pattern of the Septuagint and of the Samaritan Pentateuch. This would merely secure a kind of wooden uniformity plus an idle. repetition. The statement in the text covers all this. This broader meaning of the verb ramas, "to move about," (B D B) is assured by the passages: (Ge 7:21; 8:19; Ps 104:20). "Subdue it," the verb with the object suffix (kibhshuha). offers the only. instance in this chapter of an object without the sign of the accusative ('eth).
A very important institution is brought into being at this point, the institution of marriage. Here is another point of correspondence between chapter one and chapter two, though the latter gives greater detail. After v. 26 has now given the summary account of the creation of one pair, "male and female," v. 27 proceeds to have the divine command laid upon this one pair: "Be fruitful and multiply and fill the earth." The primary purpose of marriage is here indicated. On "fill the earth" Whitelaw remarks: "This clause may be regarded as the colonist's charter"-- a very proper observation.
A very important institution is brought into being at this point, the institution of marriage. Here is another point of correspondence between chapter one and chapter two, though the latter gives greater detail. After v. 26 has now given the summary account of the creation of one pair, "male and female," v. 27 proceeds to have the divine command laid upon this one pair: "Be fruitful and multiply and fill the earth." The primary purpose of marriage is here indicated. On "fill the earth" Whitelaw remarks: "This clause may be regarded as the colonist's charter"-- a very proper observation.
More Light Shines in the Dark
Heard about a panel discussion on Origins at a Egyptian Coptic Church in my neighbourhood tonight. I was free so I thought I would go along.
On arrival I learned that there was to be one each of a Biblical Creationist, a Theistic Evolutionist, an Intelligent Design and an Atheist speaker on the panel. The priest of the church had organised the event as part of the Apologetics stream of church teaching and preparation for the English speaking young congregation. The priest was quite an articulate and most affable man. He announced that every effort to secure an Atheist speaker from the nearby university failed. However, six to ten Atheists (or at least Humanists) turned up to be part of the audience and ask questions. The biblical Creationist was from Creation Ministries International; the Theistic Evolutionist turned out to be skeptic of evolution (but no fan of Biblical Creationism) who taught evolution at a Catholic institution because the curriculum required it; the other speaker was, I think, a member of the Coptic Church who was a medical student, an Intelligent Design advocate and a little antagonistic toward the Biblical Creationist. My rough count put the audience number at eighty plus attendees.
Another member of the church gave a half hour run-down on the different views and laid down guidelines for the audience to watch out for by way of errors of logic in the position to be espoused by panel members.
Each panel member was given five minutes to state their belief then, after a ten minute break, we got into the panel discussion. Most questions were directed at the Biblical Creationist both from other panel members and the audience. He handled it all gently but a little softly for my hearing.
While the priest carefully guided order there was a little disjointedness about the questions asked and answers given. I thought too that some questions and answers were a little over the head of the audience.
One Atheist when asking a question made a preliminary statement observing that this was the friendliest church he had been to. I agree as to the friendliness of the church. I also considered the Atheists to be polite and orderly.
I later overheard the priest in conversation say that his intention of having such an event was to help the young people of the church hear just what the Biblical Creationist position because there had been some animosity toward them from within the young and it was the priest's desire that his young ought not rely on what their opponents say about them. This is commendable but I felt the format did not provide the best means for the Biblical Creationist to state his position with clarity and completeness.
After the event I went to the table in the foyer where the Biblical Creationist's helpers had a table with some of their wares for sale. Notwithstanding my reservations at the format for the event, as I looked at things I heard young members of the church on the way out expressing warm thanks to the Biblical Creationists for coming along. Just politeness or appreciation of what they heard? - I think I read it more the latter. What convinces me most of this were two Sisters/Nuns (in habit) who came to the table while I was there. They were aged in their twenties or thirties and they had a very gentle and earnest manner in desire for more information on the Biblical Creationist position. I listened with interest as they spoke to a helper searching for help. They said they didn't want literature too heavily scientific because they were just starting out exploring the subject. I detected most of all in them that they trusted God, they believed his Word and they had not heard before that there were good reasons to maintain this trust from observations of (empirical and philosophical) science. There was a simple desire to understand their Lord more and this was the highlight of the night for me but close behind that was observing from afar the Biblical Creationist and the Intelligent Design medical student in prolonged discussion after the formalities of the event and then the two going over to the table of wares and the Biblical Creationist handing a book to the Intelligent Design medical student with it being accepted with genuine reception. From antagonism to inquiry - this is information transfer.
May it be that our Lord waters the seeds sown tonight. I'm glad I went and I wish more power to Biblical Creationists in their endeavours in the Name of our Lord.
Sam Drucker
On arrival I learned that there was to be one each of a Biblical Creationist, a Theistic Evolutionist, an Intelligent Design and an Atheist speaker on the panel. The priest of the church had organised the event as part of the Apologetics stream of church teaching and preparation for the English speaking young congregation. The priest was quite an articulate and most affable man. He announced that every effort to secure an Atheist speaker from the nearby university failed. However, six to ten Atheists (or at least Humanists) turned up to be part of the audience and ask questions. The biblical Creationist was from Creation Ministries International; the Theistic Evolutionist turned out to be skeptic of evolution (but no fan of Biblical Creationism) who taught evolution at a Catholic institution because the curriculum required it; the other speaker was, I think, a member of the Coptic Church who was a medical student, an Intelligent Design advocate and a little antagonistic toward the Biblical Creationist. My rough count put the audience number at eighty plus attendees.
Another member of the church gave a half hour run-down on the different views and laid down guidelines for the audience to watch out for by way of errors of logic in the position to be espoused by panel members.
Each panel member was given five minutes to state their belief then, after a ten minute break, we got into the panel discussion. Most questions were directed at the Biblical Creationist both from other panel members and the audience. He handled it all gently but a little softly for my hearing.
While the priest carefully guided order there was a little disjointedness about the questions asked and answers given. I thought too that some questions and answers were a little over the head of the audience.
One Atheist when asking a question made a preliminary statement observing that this was the friendliest church he had been to. I agree as to the friendliness of the church. I also considered the Atheists to be polite and orderly.
I later overheard the priest in conversation say that his intention of having such an event was to help the young people of the church hear just what the Biblical Creationist position because there had been some animosity toward them from within the young and it was the priest's desire that his young ought not rely on what their opponents say about them. This is commendable but I felt the format did not provide the best means for the Biblical Creationist to state his position with clarity and completeness.
After the event I went to the table in the foyer where the Biblical Creationist's helpers had a table with some of their wares for sale. Notwithstanding my reservations at the format for the event, as I looked at things I heard young members of the church on the way out expressing warm thanks to the Biblical Creationists for coming along. Just politeness or appreciation of what they heard? - I think I read it more the latter. What convinces me most of this were two Sisters/Nuns (in habit) who came to the table while I was there. They were aged in their twenties or thirties and they had a very gentle and earnest manner in desire for more information on the Biblical Creationist position. I listened with interest as they spoke to a helper searching for help. They said they didn't want literature too heavily scientific because they were just starting out exploring the subject. I detected most of all in them that they trusted God, they believed his Word and they had not heard before that there were good reasons to maintain this trust from observations of (empirical and philosophical) science. There was a simple desire to understand their Lord more and this was the highlight of the night for me but close behind that was observing from afar the Biblical Creationist and the Intelligent Design medical student in prolonged discussion after the formalities of the event and then the two going over to the table of wares and the Biblical Creationist handing a book to the Intelligent Design medical student with it being accepted with genuine reception. From antagonism to inquiry - this is information transfer.
May it be that our Lord waters the seeds sown tonight. I'm glad I went and I wish more power to Biblical Creationists in their endeavours in the Name of our Lord.
Sam Drucker
Tuesday, July 26, 2011
Christians the 'Whipping Boy" Again.
As time has allowed a more complete assessment of the Facebook page of the Norwegian mass murderer it has become clear the media 'jumped the gun' in labelling the man a "right wing fundamentalist Christian". The following link provides a better evaluation of the man:
worldnetdaily
The man is more Darwinian than Christian.
Sam Drucker
worldnetdaily
The man is more Darwinian than Christian.
Sam Drucker
Sunday, July 17, 2011
THE LORD'S DAY (Part 2)
This is the second and final instalment of an address given some thirty years ago by John Richard de Witt under the heading "THE LORD'S DAY". I take up the address with de Witt making his second point about the fourth commandment:
The second aspect of the commandment on which I had thought to speak is the experiential one. What a blessed thing it is to 'call the sabbath a delight, the holy of the Lord, honourable'! [Is 58.13] No doubt a large part of the difference between Christians who rejoice in the Lord's Day and the keeping of it and those who disport themselves on it very much as they might do on other days of the week is traceable to early experiences at just this point. Many of us can testify to the blessing, and to the blessed memories, given us by our parents in childhood years on the Lord's Day. Henry Ward Beecher once wrote of the sabbath of his parental home: It might have been made happier and better if there had been a little more adaptation to my disposition and my wants; but, with all its limitations, I would rather have the other six days of the week weeded out of my memory than the Sabbath of my childhood. And this is right. Every child ought to be so brought up in the family, that when he thinks of home the very first spot on which his thought rests shall be Sunday, as the culminating joy of the household'. Sir William Robertson Nicoll, writing of the staunch conservative leader of the old Free Church of Scotland, James Begg, who died nearly a hundred years ago, in some reflections both appreciative and critical, had this to say: 'His ideas about the Bible, the Sabbath, and Popery may be open to much criticism. But are not the Bible and the Sabbath what he called them-the two great pillars of visible religion? Has ever religion flourished where the Book and the Day have been despised?'
The third aspect of the sabbath commandment on which I had thought at first to speak is the eschatological one. The Heidelberg Catechism strikes an authentic note-drawn from Calvin-when it describes this facet of the truth: That all the days of my life I rest from my evil works, allow the Lord to work in me by his Spirit, and thus begin in this life the everlasting Sabbath'. In the words of Calvin himself: The purpose of this commandment is that, being dead to our own inclinations and works, we should meditate on the Kingdom of God, and that we should practice this meditation in the ways established by him' [Institutes, 2/8/28]. The same truth is given expression in the Epistle to the Hebrews (it is here, after all, that Calvin learned it): There remaineth therefore a [sabbath] rest to the people of God. For he that is entered into his rest, he also hath ceased from his own works, as God did from his' [4.9, 10]. The spiritual significance of the fourth commandment, then, according to this view - and it surely is a biblical one - is that by leaving off our sinful works and allowing the Lord to work his perfect will in us we foreshadow and in a sense begin already here and now the everlasting sabbath of rest, the life eternal in the presence of the Lord.
The ground which I would have taken, had I followed my original intention, is thus quite clear. But the problem we face - the crisis even - is so urgent and of such significance that it seemed to me I must take another line altogether. What do the Genevan and Puritan - the Continental and British - sabbaths have in common? After all, we are speaking of the closest kinship. And when we read in confessional statements and in the writings of our spiritual forebears we discover that a great deal of ground is shared by these two approaches to the Lord's Day. Moreover, we discover as well that we are - many of us - at a great remove from them in our own practice and in our own attitudes. While Calvin in his Institutes and other writings differs somewhat from the Westminster divines, they were self-consciously walking in what they understood to be his footsteps, and in those of the other Reformers. And while there is no doubt that with respect to the interpretation of the fourth commandment in terms of its theological significance and fulfilment a distinction must be drawn between the 'Continental' and the 'Puritan' sabbath, in practice the Lord's Day observance of Calvin and the Puritans was very much alike. Calvin thus could say: 'If we spend the Lord's day in making good cheer, and in playing and gaming, is that a good honouring of God ? Nay, is it not a mockery, yea and a very unhallowing of his name ?' And again: 'And though the bell toll to bring them [the people of Geneva who were neglecting the worship of God] to the sermon, yet it seems to them that they have nothing else to do but to think upon their business, and to cast up their accounts concerning this and that matter. Some others fall to gluttony, and shut themselves in their houses, because they dare not show a manifest contempt in the open street'. Moreover, while in Calvin's view every day, not just one day in the week, should belong to the Lord and be dedicated to his praise and service, the principle of an observance of one day in seven as a day of worship he held to be a minimum requirement.
What then is the force and effect of all this? One may speak of a crisis in the doctrine of the Lord's Day for many reasons. There is the in credible complexity of the times in which we live. What does it mean to keep the day holy? When we use our telephones, or heat our homes, or cook a meal, we are constraining some to work. Moreover, the very difficulty in keeping the day has led many to increasing degrees of laxity. If one cannot keep it perfectly, then perhaps one need not keep it at all.
Most evangelical Christians at least suppose that they belong in God's house on Sunday morning. But beyond that little is required of them, and they may be permitted to spend the day pretty much as they please. That the greater part of our people do not even go so far as this is evidenced by the fact that the majority of the membership of a typical congregation is not even in church once on the Lord's Day. In my experience - and I do not believe I am far wrong here - a typical congregation of, say, five hundred members may be represented by two hundred, perhaps two hundred and twenty-five at morning worship, and that includes children who have as yet made no profession of faith. What are we to say of the rest? And then what of the second service on the Lord's Day? And what of tile things people do in the afternoon and the evening? What of the abandonment of multitudes to their television addiction on the sabbath day? What of the careless causing of others to work on the sabbath day that we ourselves may be fed? What of the involvement in sporting events on the day? It was once the case - and not so very long ago - that
an athlete who professed faith but engaged in Sunday sports was regarded as suspect in his testimony. Now most Christians appear to have no problem with his conduct, and in fact join him in their enjoyment of the football game or whatever, free of conscience and without a conviction that this is the day which the Lord has made, a day in which to rejoice and be glad in him.
I wonder how many of us may be sabbath-breakers, rather than sabbath keepers. I wonder how many of us may not be careless even at the point of our going up to the house of God. The degree of our indifference to daily chapel services does not speak encouragingly in this respect. I do not, of course, suggest that the daily chapel services here are in the same category as the worship of the Lord's Day. But our joy in the public service of God, as Calvin did not tire of insisting, should extend to the daily praising of his name and the daily hearing of his Word. We have the privilege of worship every day, not only on the Lord's Day. How then is one to interpret and understand our refusal to seize upon and take advantage of an opportunity offered us here which is not likely to be ours again ever in our lifetime?
But what of the Lord's Day - that great pillar, along with the Bible, of true religion in our land? Do you remember the sabbath day to keep it holy? Do you hear God speak in his Word and take delight in obedience to what he commands you to do ? You may say, 'But the Puritan sabbath idea is Sabbatarian, and I want no part of that. I am free; Christ has made me free. And I intend to exercise my freedom'. Do not plead Calvin against the Westminster divines! For one thing, most of us are pledged to the position taken with great emphasis in our confessional standards. We really have no choice in the matter. So important was this issue held to be that, as I have already pointed out, a place of prominence was assigned to the sabbath commandment in the very framework of the Westminster Confession itself. But I need not argue from the Puritans to establish the truth of what I say. I may cite Calvin and cite him freely. And far above and beyond Calvin, I may cite the Word of God itself The other sins prohibited in the decalogue we think are reprehensible. Who of us would rise to the defence of theft, or murder, or covetousness? But what is to distinguish them from disobedience to the fourth commandment? What is to mark them off as far more depraved and aggravated in their depravity than sabbath-breaking, than indifference to the obedience required of us by God with respect to the leitourgia of faith, the service and praise of his name on the day he has reserved to himself for his own worship and for our rest?
As indicated previously, while I look forward to each Sabbath, I need to and will revise what I do on the day to afford myself greater opportunity to be "In the Spirit on the Lord's Day" and to be a vehicle for the Lord to glorify His Name.
Sam Drucker
The second aspect of the commandment on which I had thought to speak is the experiential one. What a blessed thing it is to 'call the sabbath a delight, the holy of the Lord, honourable'! [Is 58.13] No doubt a large part of the difference between Christians who rejoice in the Lord's Day and the keeping of it and those who disport themselves on it very much as they might do on other days of the week is traceable to early experiences at just this point. Many of us can testify to the blessing, and to the blessed memories, given us by our parents in childhood years on the Lord's Day. Henry Ward Beecher once wrote of the sabbath of his parental home: It might have been made happier and better if there had been a little more adaptation to my disposition and my wants; but, with all its limitations, I would rather have the other six days of the week weeded out of my memory than the Sabbath of my childhood. And this is right. Every child ought to be so brought up in the family, that when he thinks of home the very first spot on which his thought rests shall be Sunday, as the culminating joy of the household'. Sir William Robertson Nicoll, writing of the staunch conservative leader of the old Free Church of Scotland, James Begg, who died nearly a hundred years ago, in some reflections both appreciative and critical, had this to say: 'His ideas about the Bible, the Sabbath, and Popery may be open to much criticism. But are not the Bible and the Sabbath what he called them-the two great pillars of visible religion? Has ever religion flourished where the Book and the Day have been despised?'
The third aspect of the sabbath commandment on which I had thought at first to speak is the eschatological one. The Heidelberg Catechism strikes an authentic note-drawn from Calvin-when it describes this facet of the truth: That all the days of my life I rest from my evil works, allow the Lord to work in me by his Spirit, and thus begin in this life the everlasting Sabbath'. In the words of Calvin himself: The purpose of this commandment is that, being dead to our own inclinations and works, we should meditate on the Kingdom of God, and that we should practice this meditation in the ways established by him' [Institutes, 2/8/28]. The same truth is given expression in the Epistle to the Hebrews (it is here, after all, that Calvin learned it): There remaineth therefore a [sabbath] rest to the people of God. For he that is entered into his rest, he also hath ceased from his own works, as God did from his' [4.9, 10]. The spiritual significance of the fourth commandment, then, according to this view - and it surely is a biblical one - is that by leaving off our sinful works and allowing the Lord to work his perfect will in us we foreshadow and in a sense begin already here and now the everlasting sabbath of rest, the life eternal in the presence of the Lord.
The ground which I would have taken, had I followed my original intention, is thus quite clear. But the problem we face - the crisis even - is so urgent and of such significance that it seemed to me I must take another line altogether. What do the Genevan and Puritan - the Continental and British - sabbaths have in common? After all, we are speaking of the closest kinship. And when we read in confessional statements and in the writings of our spiritual forebears we discover that a great deal of ground is shared by these two approaches to the Lord's Day. Moreover, we discover as well that we are - many of us - at a great remove from them in our own practice and in our own attitudes. While Calvin in his Institutes and other writings differs somewhat from the Westminster divines, they were self-consciously walking in what they understood to be his footsteps, and in those of the other Reformers. And while there is no doubt that with respect to the interpretation of the fourth commandment in terms of its theological significance and fulfilment a distinction must be drawn between the 'Continental' and the 'Puritan' sabbath, in practice the Lord's Day observance of Calvin and the Puritans was very much alike. Calvin thus could say: 'If we spend the Lord's day in making good cheer, and in playing and gaming, is that a good honouring of God ? Nay, is it not a mockery, yea and a very unhallowing of his name ?' And again: 'And though the bell toll to bring them [the people of Geneva who were neglecting the worship of God] to the sermon, yet it seems to them that they have nothing else to do but to think upon their business, and to cast up their accounts concerning this and that matter. Some others fall to gluttony, and shut themselves in their houses, because they dare not show a manifest contempt in the open street'. Moreover, while in Calvin's view every day, not just one day in the week, should belong to the Lord and be dedicated to his praise and service, the principle of an observance of one day in seven as a day of worship he held to be a minimum requirement.
What then is the force and effect of all this? One may speak of a crisis in the doctrine of the Lord's Day for many reasons. There is the in credible complexity of the times in which we live. What does it mean to keep the day holy? When we use our telephones, or heat our homes, or cook a meal, we are constraining some to work. Moreover, the very difficulty in keeping the day has led many to increasing degrees of laxity. If one cannot keep it perfectly, then perhaps one need not keep it at all.
Most evangelical Christians at least suppose that they belong in God's house on Sunday morning. But beyond that little is required of them, and they may be permitted to spend the day pretty much as they please. That the greater part of our people do not even go so far as this is evidenced by the fact that the majority of the membership of a typical congregation is not even in church once on the Lord's Day. In my experience - and I do not believe I am far wrong here - a typical congregation of, say, five hundred members may be represented by two hundred, perhaps two hundred and twenty-five at morning worship, and that includes children who have as yet made no profession of faith. What are we to say of the rest? And then what of the second service on the Lord's Day? And what of tile things people do in the afternoon and the evening? What of the abandonment of multitudes to their television addiction on the sabbath day? What of the careless causing of others to work on the sabbath day that we ourselves may be fed? What of the involvement in sporting events on the day? It was once the case - and not so very long ago - that
an athlete who professed faith but engaged in Sunday sports was regarded as suspect in his testimony. Now most Christians appear to have no problem with his conduct, and in fact join him in their enjoyment of the football game or whatever, free of conscience and without a conviction that this is the day which the Lord has made, a day in which to rejoice and be glad in him.
I wonder how many of us may be sabbath-breakers, rather than sabbath keepers. I wonder how many of us may not be careless even at the point of our going up to the house of God. The degree of our indifference to daily chapel services does not speak encouragingly in this respect. I do not, of course, suggest that the daily chapel services here are in the same category as the worship of the Lord's Day. But our joy in the public service of God, as Calvin did not tire of insisting, should extend to the daily praising of his name and the daily hearing of his Word. We have the privilege of worship every day, not only on the Lord's Day. How then is one to interpret and understand our refusal to seize upon and take advantage of an opportunity offered us here which is not likely to be ours again ever in our lifetime?
But what of the Lord's Day - that great pillar, along with the Bible, of true religion in our land? Do you remember the sabbath day to keep it holy? Do you hear God speak in his Word and take delight in obedience to what he commands you to do ? You may say, 'But the Puritan sabbath idea is Sabbatarian, and I want no part of that. I am free; Christ has made me free. And I intend to exercise my freedom'. Do not plead Calvin against the Westminster divines! For one thing, most of us are pledged to the position taken with great emphasis in our confessional standards. We really have no choice in the matter. So important was this issue held to be that, as I have already pointed out, a place of prominence was assigned to the sabbath commandment in the very framework of the Westminster Confession itself. But I need not argue from the Puritans to establish the truth of what I say. I may cite Calvin and cite him freely. And far above and beyond Calvin, I may cite the Word of God itself The other sins prohibited in the decalogue we think are reprehensible. Who of us would rise to the defence of theft, or murder, or covetousness? But what is to distinguish them from disobedience to the fourth commandment? What is to mark them off as far more depraved and aggravated in their depravity than sabbath-breaking, than indifference to the obedience required of us by God with respect to the leitourgia of faith, the service and praise of his name on the day he has reserved to himself for his own worship and for our rest?
As indicated previously, while I look forward to each Sabbath, I need to and will revise what I do on the day to afford myself greater opportunity to be "In the Spirit on the Lord's Day" and to be a vehicle for the Lord to glorify His Name.
Sam Drucker
Friday, July 15, 2011
Leupold Genesis part 60 verse 28 Fruitfulness
28. Then God blessed them, and God said to them: Be fruitful, and multiply, and fill the earth, and subdue it, and have dominion over the fish of the sea, and over the birds of the heavens, and over every living creature moving about upon the earth.
That there is a similarity as well as a dissimilarity between man and all other living creatures is indicated by various means, here particularly by the fact that man's perpetuation of the human race is made to depend upon an effective divine blessing, as in the case of other creatures (v. 22), and by the use even of similar terms: "Be fruitful and multiply and fill." This last expression, therefore, is not a stylistic peculiarity but a historical fact indicative of the similarity just mentioned.
That there is a similarity as well as a dissimilarity between man and all other living creatures is indicated by various means, here particularly by the fact that man's perpetuation of the human race is made to depend upon an effective divine blessing, as in the case of other creatures (v. 22), and by the use even of similar terms: "Be fruitful and multiply and fill." This last expression, therefore, is not a stylistic peculiarity but a historical fact indicative of the similarity just mentioned.
Wednesday, July 13, 2011
THE LORD'S DAY
I look forward to Sundays because of it being the day when I and other Christians gather in the Name of our Lord. It is my most favoured day of the week. Upon reviewing a message delivered some thirty years ago by John Richard de Witt under the heading "THE LORD'S DAY" I am obliged to rethink what I do on the Sabbath because of some things I have allowed to intrude into the day.
In two instalments I will reproduce John Richard de Witt's address. Part One commences herewith:
"The question of the fourth commandment and its observance among us is a difficult one. And yet it is also one which needs to be addressed. The second table of the law is still regarded with some seriousness, at least by most professing Christians. Who would dispute that it is a fearful sin to take life? or to steal what belongs to another ? The problem is with the first table. And while various kinds of idolatry are to be ascertained all around us, and while the name of God is used vainly by multitudes, perhaps none of the commandments of the first table of the law is as widely ignored as that having to do with the day of rest, the sabbath day. I speak now, not of unbelievers as sabbath-breakers, but of those who would describe themselves as believers: not of Christians in general, but of evangelical Christians: not of evangelical Christians without further distinction, but of reformed Christians. How this can be I do not know. In the Reformed theological and spiritual heritage much has been made of the fourth commandment. Indeed, a great deal has been made of the law of God, the decalogue. And it is difficult to see how one can classify himself as Reformed if he is antinomian at even a single point.
Generally speaking. Reformed Christians have been sabbath-keepers. And their aim in being such has been to live in conformity with the holy law of God. At the same time, however, in Reformed theology at its highest and best, the prevalent view of the fourth commandment has not been such as to teach the need for observing one day of the week as a day of rest and worship in a legalistic fashion, confusing the old covenant with the new, Judaizing the age of the gospel: rather, the accent has been upon the joyful, happy observance of a commandment of God that rooted itself in the Lord and his own pattern of creation and rest at the beginning of the world, a commandment, moreover, designed to foster and encourage the life of the people before God and to minister to their own physical and spiritual needs. It is easy enough to find examples of extreme sabbatarianism: a keeping of the day in a legalistic, external, and Pharisaical manner. But those examples, however characteristic they may be of certain periods in the history of the church, represent aberrations and were never normative. It is obviously possible to find corruptions of believing obedience at any level and in any department of life.
I have found it not a little difficult to know how to approach speaking on this subject. My own conviction is that of the Westminster Standards. I do not doubt that the fourth commandment is rooted in the very nature of God, that it rests upon a creation ordinance, and that there is a binding quality about the commandment for Christians in this age as well as there was for Israel in the Old Testament period. One must admit, however, that not all Reformed Christians have thought alike on the meaning of the commandment. John Calvin and the Puritans, for example - though they clearly belong together in the same family and cleave to the same central truths - were not of one mind in this respect. One often hears mention of the so-called Puritan and Continental views of the sabbath.
These two understandings of the fourth commandment find confessional Statement in the Heidelberg Catechism and the Westminster Shorter Catechism. The Heidelberg asks, 'What does God require in the fourth commandment?' And the the answer follows: In the first place, that the ministry of the Gospel and schools be maintained: and that I, especially on the day of rest, diligently attend church, to learn the Word of God, to use the holy Sacraments, to call publicly upon the Lord, and to give Christian alms. In the second place, that all the days of my life I rest from my evil works, allow the Lord to work in me by his Spirit, and thus begin in this life the everlasting Sabbath' [Ques and Ans 103]. The Shorter Catechism is much more particular and pointed. 'What is required in the fourth commandment ? The fourth commandment requireth the keeping holy to God such set times as he hath appointed in his word: expressly one whole day in seven, to be a holy sabbath to himself. 'Which day of the seven hath God appointed to be the weekly sabbath? From the beginning of the world to the resurrection of Christ, God appointed the seventh day of the week to be the weekly sabbath: and the first day of the week ever since, to continue to the end of the world, which is the Christian sabbath'. 'How is the sabbath to be sanctified? The sabbath is to be sanctified by a holy resting all that day, even from such worldly employments and recreations as are lawful on other days: and spending the whole time in the pubic and private exercises of God's worship, except so much as is to be taken up in the works of necessity and mercy' [Ques and Ans 58, 59, 60J. ft should be remembered here also that the Westminster Confession of Faith devotes a whole chapter to 'Religious Worship and the Sabbath Day'. In the Heidelberg Catechism the spiritual and practical significance of the day is emphasized. In the Westminster Confession and Catechisms a theological and exegetical understanding of the fourth commandment is expressed which indicates clearly that, while the practical meaning of the day is not to be ignored, the keeping of the day as such is a matter on a level with the keeping of the other commandments and that the nature of the command in this respect has not basically changed with the advent of the age of the new covenant.
I had originally thought to speak this morning, from the perspective of the Westminster view of the sabbath, on the three biblical aspects of the fourth commandment. The first is the legal aspect: the fourth commandment is one of the ten; and the same God who said, 'Thou shalt not kill'. and 'Thou shalt not commit adultery', said also, 'Remember the sabbath day to keep it holy'. The commandment is clearly rooted in what is said in the Scriptures of the activity of God at the creation of the world: 'For in six days the Lord made heaven and earth, the sea, and all that in them is, and rested the seventh day: wherefore the Lord blessed the sabbath day, and hallowed it' [Ex 20.11; cf Gen 2.1-3].
One need not deny that there are certain ceremonial elements in the Old Testament form of the command. After all, it was then the seventh day that was to be observed; and the observance of the day was also carefully regulated under the Mosaic economy - regulated in a fashion now no longer in force. The Lord Jesus Christ called himself the Lord also of the sabbath, claiming authority over it, changing its character [Luke 6.5], and by his resurrection from the dead changing the day itself. Moreover, there are at least three passages in the New Testament that imply some degree of alteration: Romans 14.5, 6; Galatians 4.9-11; and Colossians 2.16, 17. The last passage is doubtless the clearest: 'Let no man therefore judge you in meat, or in drink, or in respect of an holy day, or of the new moon, or of the sabbath days: which are a shadow of things to come; but the body is of Christ'. I myself believe that these more or less indirect references to the matter in hand have to do, not with the institution of the sabbath itself (which is an ordinance of creation), but with those things in its observance which were peculiar to its nature under the Levitical worship of the Old Testament. Moreover, all those regulations which the rabbis had added to the commandment as given in the decalogue were at once swept away. No one is to judge us any longer in meat, or in drink, or in respect of the holy days of a past which has been fulfilled in Christ. But this is not at all to say that the fourth commandment itself has lost its validity and relevance now that Christ has come. It is the Mosaic, the Levitical, the ceremonial, and the sacrificial aspects of the day that are removed, stripped off, done away. But the day remains.
How extraordinary it would have been were the Lord to remove one commandment from the everlasting and always-abiding law reflective of his own holy nature, without a hint to that effect in Scripture, without so much as an intimation that there was something different, something less permanent about the one as opposed to the others! The presumption is extremely strong - indeed so strong as to be no presumption but a certainty-that the fourth commandment remains always with the other nine: and that the holy law of God in this respect is in force and binding also upon Christians, to be sure, in its own way, a way consonant with fullness of the revelation that has come in Christ. Christians, therefore, are to be the sabbath-keepers, not sabbath-breakers. As Robert Murray M'Cheyne, the gracious and godly Scottish preacher of the last century, put it: 'Ah, guilty men! how plainly you show that you are on the broad road that leadeth to destruction. If you were a murderer or an adulterer, perhaps you would not dare to deny this. Do you not know - and all the sophistry of hell cannot disprove it - that the same God who said, 'Thou shalt not kill', said also, 'Remember the Sabbath day to keep it holy ?' The murderer who is dragged to the gibbet, and the polished Sabbath breaker are one in the sight of God.'"
Remainder in a few days.
Sam Drucker
In two instalments I will reproduce John Richard de Witt's address. Part One commences herewith:
"The question of the fourth commandment and its observance among us is a difficult one. And yet it is also one which needs to be addressed. The second table of the law is still regarded with some seriousness, at least by most professing Christians. Who would dispute that it is a fearful sin to take life? or to steal what belongs to another ? The problem is with the first table. And while various kinds of idolatry are to be ascertained all around us, and while the name of God is used vainly by multitudes, perhaps none of the commandments of the first table of the law is as widely ignored as that having to do with the day of rest, the sabbath day. I speak now, not of unbelievers as sabbath-breakers, but of those who would describe themselves as believers: not of Christians in general, but of evangelical Christians: not of evangelical Christians without further distinction, but of reformed Christians. How this can be I do not know. In the Reformed theological and spiritual heritage much has been made of the fourth commandment. Indeed, a great deal has been made of the law of God, the decalogue. And it is difficult to see how one can classify himself as Reformed if he is antinomian at even a single point.
Generally speaking. Reformed Christians have been sabbath-keepers. And their aim in being such has been to live in conformity with the holy law of God. At the same time, however, in Reformed theology at its highest and best, the prevalent view of the fourth commandment has not been such as to teach the need for observing one day of the week as a day of rest and worship in a legalistic fashion, confusing the old covenant with the new, Judaizing the age of the gospel: rather, the accent has been upon the joyful, happy observance of a commandment of God that rooted itself in the Lord and his own pattern of creation and rest at the beginning of the world, a commandment, moreover, designed to foster and encourage the life of the people before God and to minister to their own physical and spiritual needs. It is easy enough to find examples of extreme sabbatarianism: a keeping of the day in a legalistic, external, and Pharisaical manner. But those examples, however characteristic they may be of certain periods in the history of the church, represent aberrations and were never normative. It is obviously possible to find corruptions of believing obedience at any level and in any department of life.
I have found it not a little difficult to know how to approach speaking on this subject. My own conviction is that of the Westminster Standards. I do not doubt that the fourth commandment is rooted in the very nature of God, that it rests upon a creation ordinance, and that there is a binding quality about the commandment for Christians in this age as well as there was for Israel in the Old Testament period. One must admit, however, that not all Reformed Christians have thought alike on the meaning of the commandment. John Calvin and the Puritans, for example - though they clearly belong together in the same family and cleave to the same central truths - were not of one mind in this respect. One often hears mention of the so-called Puritan and Continental views of the sabbath.
These two understandings of the fourth commandment find confessional Statement in the Heidelberg Catechism and the Westminster Shorter Catechism. The Heidelberg asks, 'What does God require in the fourth commandment?' And the the answer follows: In the first place, that the ministry of the Gospel and schools be maintained: and that I, especially on the day of rest, diligently attend church, to learn the Word of God, to use the holy Sacraments, to call publicly upon the Lord, and to give Christian alms. In the second place, that all the days of my life I rest from my evil works, allow the Lord to work in me by his Spirit, and thus begin in this life the everlasting Sabbath' [Ques and Ans 103]. The Shorter Catechism is much more particular and pointed. 'What is required in the fourth commandment ? The fourth commandment requireth the keeping holy to God such set times as he hath appointed in his word: expressly one whole day in seven, to be a holy sabbath to himself. 'Which day of the seven hath God appointed to be the weekly sabbath? From the beginning of the world to the resurrection of Christ, God appointed the seventh day of the week to be the weekly sabbath: and the first day of the week ever since, to continue to the end of the world, which is the Christian sabbath'. 'How is the sabbath to be sanctified? The sabbath is to be sanctified by a holy resting all that day, even from such worldly employments and recreations as are lawful on other days: and spending the whole time in the pubic and private exercises of God's worship, except so much as is to be taken up in the works of necessity and mercy' [Ques and Ans 58, 59, 60J. ft should be remembered here also that the Westminster Confession of Faith devotes a whole chapter to 'Religious Worship and the Sabbath Day'. In the Heidelberg Catechism the spiritual and practical significance of the day is emphasized. In the Westminster Confession and Catechisms a theological and exegetical understanding of the fourth commandment is expressed which indicates clearly that, while the practical meaning of the day is not to be ignored, the keeping of the day as such is a matter on a level with the keeping of the other commandments and that the nature of the command in this respect has not basically changed with the advent of the age of the new covenant.
I had originally thought to speak this morning, from the perspective of the Westminster view of the sabbath, on the three biblical aspects of the fourth commandment. The first is the legal aspect: the fourth commandment is one of the ten; and the same God who said, 'Thou shalt not kill'. and 'Thou shalt not commit adultery', said also, 'Remember the sabbath day to keep it holy'. The commandment is clearly rooted in what is said in the Scriptures of the activity of God at the creation of the world: 'For in six days the Lord made heaven and earth, the sea, and all that in them is, and rested the seventh day: wherefore the Lord blessed the sabbath day, and hallowed it' [Ex 20.11; cf Gen 2.1-3].
One need not deny that there are certain ceremonial elements in the Old Testament form of the command. After all, it was then the seventh day that was to be observed; and the observance of the day was also carefully regulated under the Mosaic economy - regulated in a fashion now no longer in force. The Lord Jesus Christ called himself the Lord also of the sabbath, claiming authority over it, changing its character [Luke 6.5], and by his resurrection from the dead changing the day itself. Moreover, there are at least three passages in the New Testament that imply some degree of alteration: Romans 14.5, 6; Galatians 4.9-11; and Colossians 2.16, 17. The last passage is doubtless the clearest: 'Let no man therefore judge you in meat, or in drink, or in respect of an holy day, or of the new moon, or of the sabbath days: which are a shadow of things to come; but the body is of Christ'. I myself believe that these more or less indirect references to the matter in hand have to do, not with the institution of the sabbath itself (which is an ordinance of creation), but with those things in its observance which were peculiar to its nature under the Levitical worship of the Old Testament. Moreover, all those regulations which the rabbis had added to the commandment as given in the decalogue were at once swept away. No one is to judge us any longer in meat, or in drink, or in respect of the holy days of a past which has been fulfilled in Christ. But this is not at all to say that the fourth commandment itself has lost its validity and relevance now that Christ has come. It is the Mosaic, the Levitical, the ceremonial, and the sacrificial aspects of the day that are removed, stripped off, done away. But the day remains.
How extraordinary it would have been were the Lord to remove one commandment from the everlasting and always-abiding law reflective of his own holy nature, without a hint to that effect in Scripture, without so much as an intimation that there was something different, something less permanent about the one as opposed to the others! The presumption is extremely strong - indeed so strong as to be no presumption but a certainty-that the fourth commandment remains always with the other nine: and that the holy law of God in this respect is in force and binding also upon Christians, to be sure, in its own way, a way consonant with fullness of the revelation that has come in Christ. Christians, therefore, are to be the sabbath-keepers, not sabbath-breakers. As Robert Murray M'Cheyne, the gracious and godly Scottish preacher of the last century, put it: 'Ah, guilty men! how plainly you show that you are on the broad road that leadeth to destruction. If you were a murderer or an adulterer, perhaps you would not dare to deny this. Do you not know - and all the sophistry of hell cannot disprove it - that the same God who said, 'Thou shalt not kill', said also, 'Remember the Sabbath day to keep it holy ?' The murderer who is dragged to the gibbet, and the polished Sabbath breaker are one in the sight of God.'"
Remainder in a few days.
Sam Drucker
Sunday, July 10, 2011
Offence Taken.
In a pitiful demonstration of capitulation to the world, John Dickson, co-founder of Centre of Public Christianity, in an article for the Sydney Morning Herald on Saturday 9 August 2011 titled Art of Persuasion Not So Simple, consigns his "six-day creationist friends" to an unthinking underclass but, worse, reveals to the world the grotesque god in whom he believes.
In the article John Dickson observes in many people a mindset refusing to accept the obvious and even intensifying resistance as the evidence mounts against their position. On the subject of origins John Dickson says the following:
Other, specifically religious, arguments provide further examples of the powerlessness of facts to change minds. The evidence for biological evolution is good, but my six-day creationist friends seem to get stronger in their beliefs with every new peer review article from the scientific mainstream. Counter evidence does not conquer belief.
There are two deplorable elements to the citation.
The first I address is the insidious attitude so prevalent in the Episcopalian Diocese of Sydney of a veneer of niceness extended to Biblical Creationists while the proverbial knife is being run through their acceptance and worth in the Diocese. Every now and again the veneer of niceness slips and the real sentiment is open for all to see. Sadly, the Sydney Morning Herald has been a vehicle for blatant insult on two occasions. First there was reference to Biblical Creationists as "Hillbillies" by the Archbishop and now this article by John Dickson implying Biblical Creationists cannot discern truth when it is set before them.
It is interesting that elsewhere in the article John Dickson cites Aristotle to make a point. A friend has reminded me of the deathbed comment a few years ago by the man who introduced him to Jesus Christ from Atheism. The comment was "What the Church needs is a Copernican type revolution of thought to remove Aristotle from its theology." This was, in effect, a lament at the state of the Church today which the Reformation was supposed to have overcome. The Reformers certainly set out to remove Aristotle and, Peter Harrison, in his work The Bible - Protestantism and the rise of natural science identifies the position of Luther when he says on page 102:
"Religious reformers, too, launched attacks on the slavish adherence to tradition evident in institutions of learning. Luther had long argued that the universities, 'where only that blind, heathen teacher Aristotle rules', stood in need of 'a good thorough reformation'. Various groups in seventeenth-century England echoed this concern."
Somehow the heathen Aristotle remains an undesirable influence and snare in the Church in similar vein to the Canaanites who, despite the will of God, were allowed by the Israelites to remain in the Promised Land.
The second element of the John Dickson article is a greater offence because the man lays siege to the Word of God, His office as Creator and His nature.
On the basis of that which he believes on Origins, the god who John Dickson declares to the world is not the God revealed in Word Incarnate and Written. John Dickson has accepted the postulations of man over the Word of God. There are no "facts" of evolution on which John Dickson places his faith - only assumptions, extrapolations and postulations. Observed variation within species is not the basis of "facts" of evolution. The fossil record and the Word of God, as historical records, are unsupportive.
As an aside, many Sydney Episcopalians are somewhat duplicitous in their application of Romans 1:20. On the one hand they say that the unregenerate, because of the effects of the Fall, have no capacity to discern God's invisible qualities - His eternal power and divine nature and yet, on the matter of Origins, these same Episcopalians give all capacity of discernment to the unregenerate. This demonstrates the degenerate state of thinking prevalent within the Diocese as it moves further into irrelevance.
A creator god who, in the thinking of John Dickson, used a process of evolution is a monstrous and dysfunctional god something in the order of the gods of the nations surrounding Israel. Only a limit to intelligence would cause a creator god to use a process loaded with frustrations, dead ends, suffering and death such as the theory of evolution proposes as matter of course. Yet this is what John Dickson must accept and this is the god he presents to the world as the god to worship. How many would choose to accept the pagan gods instead?
Oh, I hear you say that John Dickson presents the very lovely Jesus Christ to the world and this is a gift most desirable. Reader, what you fail to see is that Jesus Christ is the great I AM of Exodus 3:14 and John 8:24 (leaving out the translator's added words in the latter passage) who created all things and in His Incarnate Person showed the fullness of God. In His Incarnate Person he performed recreative acts far and away removed in time and functionality from that process postulated in the theory of evolution and demonstrated He was the Creator God come to save mankind from their sins.
John Dickson, in ascribing a process of evolution to Jesus Christ, is seeking preferment of man while stripping Jesus Christ of His glory as Creator, replacing Him with a dysfunctional god no greater than other pagan gods and placing an obstacle in the way of the lost from knowing the One True God revealed in Word Incarnate and Written.
Let Romans 1:21 apply.
Sam Drucker
In the article John Dickson observes in many people a mindset refusing to accept the obvious and even intensifying resistance as the evidence mounts against their position. On the subject of origins John Dickson says the following:
Other, specifically religious, arguments provide further examples of the powerlessness of facts to change minds. The evidence for biological evolution is good, but my six-day creationist friends seem to get stronger in their beliefs with every new peer review article from the scientific mainstream. Counter evidence does not conquer belief.
There are two deplorable elements to the citation.
The first I address is the insidious attitude so prevalent in the Episcopalian Diocese of Sydney of a veneer of niceness extended to Biblical Creationists while the proverbial knife is being run through their acceptance and worth in the Diocese. Every now and again the veneer of niceness slips and the real sentiment is open for all to see. Sadly, the Sydney Morning Herald has been a vehicle for blatant insult on two occasions. First there was reference to Biblical Creationists as "Hillbillies" by the Archbishop and now this article by John Dickson implying Biblical Creationists cannot discern truth when it is set before them.
It is interesting that elsewhere in the article John Dickson cites Aristotle to make a point. A friend has reminded me of the deathbed comment a few years ago by the man who introduced him to Jesus Christ from Atheism. The comment was "What the Church needs is a Copernican type revolution of thought to remove Aristotle from its theology." This was, in effect, a lament at the state of the Church today which the Reformation was supposed to have overcome. The Reformers certainly set out to remove Aristotle and, Peter Harrison, in his work The Bible - Protestantism and the rise of natural science identifies the position of Luther when he says on page 102:
"Religious reformers, too, launched attacks on the slavish adherence to tradition evident in institutions of learning. Luther had long argued that the universities, 'where only that blind, heathen teacher Aristotle rules', stood in need of 'a good thorough reformation'. Various groups in seventeenth-century England echoed this concern."
Somehow the heathen Aristotle remains an undesirable influence and snare in the Church in similar vein to the Canaanites who, despite the will of God, were allowed by the Israelites to remain in the Promised Land.
The second element of the John Dickson article is a greater offence because the man lays siege to the Word of God, His office as Creator and His nature.
On the basis of that which he believes on Origins, the god who John Dickson declares to the world is not the God revealed in Word Incarnate and Written. John Dickson has accepted the postulations of man over the Word of God. There are no "facts" of evolution on which John Dickson places his faith - only assumptions, extrapolations and postulations. Observed variation within species is not the basis of "facts" of evolution. The fossil record and the Word of God, as historical records, are unsupportive.
As an aside, many Sydney Episcopalians are somewhat duplicitous in their application of Romans 1:20. On the one hand they say that the unregenerate, because of the effects of the Fall, have no capacity to discern God's invisible qualities - His eternal power and divine nature and yet, on the matter of Origins, these same Episcopalians give all capacity of discernment to the unregenerate. This demonstrates the degenerate state of thinking prevalent within the Diocese as it moves further into irrelevance.
A creator god who, in the thinking of John Dickson, used a process of evolution is a monstrous and dysfunctional god something in the order of the gods of the nations surrounding Israel. Only a limit to intelligence would cause a creator god to use a process loaded with frustrations, dead ends, suffering and death such as the theory of evolution proposes as matter of course. Yet this is what John Dickson must accept and this is the god he presents to the world as the god to worship. How many would choose to accept the pagan gods instead?
Oh, I hear you say that John Dickson presents the very lovely Jesus Christ to the world and this is a gift most desirable. Reader, what you fail to see is that Jesus Christ is the great I AM of Exodus 3:14 and John 8:24 (leaving out the translator's added words in the latter passage) who created all things and in His Incarnate Person showed the fullness of God. In His Incarnate Person he performed recreative acts far and away removed in time and functionality from that process postulated in the theory of evolution and demonstrated He was the Creator God come to save mankind from their sins.
John Dickson, in ascribing a process of evolution to Jesus Christ, is seeking preferment of man while stripping Jesus Christ of His glory as Creator, replacing Him with a dysfunctional god no greater than other pagan gods and placing an obstacle in the way of the lost from knowing the One True God revealed in Word Incarnate and Written.
Let Romans 1:21 apply.
Sam Drucker
Sunday, July 3, 2011
Defence of Natural Theology But Nay to Gap
I recently read a review of the ministry of Thomas Chalmers in the Banner of Truth Journal for March 1980. Biblical Creationists such as myself are mindful that Thomas Chalmers proposed what has become known as the "Gap Theory" as a means to reconcile the Word of God with the 'world's' adopted view of a great age for the earth.
Essentially, "Gap Theory" places a long age and destroyed earth between Genesis 1:1 and Genesis 1:2. Biblical Creationists regard this 'age' as a significant event inadequately addressed in the text and an unwarranted imposition within the first two verses of the Word of God.
Notwithstanding my disagreement with Thomas Chalmers on this point I was interested to read the following from the author of the review:
Chalmers has been variously assessed as a teacher of theology. He was certainly not without deficiencies. In depth and accuracy of learning he is not in the front rank of Scottish theologians. The course of divinity which he set his students embodied the doubtful procedure of beginning with 'natural theology' before he advanced to the subject matter of Christianity itself.
This is a doubtful criticism of Chalmers considering the detachment of the review author by time and circumstance from Chalmers and his method. The method was not without precedent as the Apostle Paul was required to adopt a similar approach to get a better hearing when in Athens (Acts 17). Circumstances arise when a Christian must have an intelligible argument and point to the Creation/Creator before the hearer is prepared to hear of that same Creator being the Saviour who deals with their sin.
Perhaps it was that Thomas Chalmers saw where Scottish thought was heading and he wanted to prepare his students to meet the challenge with a 'complete' armour. Errant scientific propositions had a devastating affect on the Christian faith in the Nineteenth and subsequent centuries. Chalmers was wrong to impose an unwarranted imposition on the first two verses of the Word of God and open the door to the pernicious notion of Theistic Evolution. Nevertheless, many students were influenced by Chalmers and the Lord God was pleased to bring an 'Awakening' to areas of Scotland in the first half of the Nineteenth Century.
The scene before the 'Awakening' was described by Alexander Duff as follows:
The savour and unction of divine grace was gone; the peculiarities of the gospel were despised as offensive to classic taste and culture, and devotion scorned as fanatical and contemptible . . . Instead of the power and pathos of earnest gospel invitations and appeals, there were substituted cold pretences of academic learning, that froze the generous sympathies of the human heart.
As the article in the Banner of Truth Journal notes, The Moderates preached morality, with almost nothing of the supernaturalism of true Christianity. They ignored the Fall of man, sneered at the idea of a new-birth and said nothing of the perfection and power of the work of the Son of God.
Brothers and sisters, I want you to know that one of the fruits of Theistic Evolution is the deadening of faith in the supernaturalism of true Christianity. Because belief in that pernicious notion of Theistic Evolution is so rife in evangelicalism today the scene is set for repeating the deadening of the Church in our age.
The "Gap Theory" is erroneous but not as heinous an error as Theistic Evolution. It is better for the Church to be rid of both and return to faith in the straight-forward reading of the Creation account in Genesis 1 (supported in Exodus 20:11 and 31:17) to put the preaching of other vital points of the work of God on firm foundation.
Sam Drucker
Essentially, "Gap Theory" places a long age and destroyed earth between Genesis 1:1 and Genesis 1:2. Biblical Creationists regard this 'age' as a significant event inadequately addressed in the text and an unwarranted imposition within the first two verses of the Word of God.
Notwithstanding my disagreement with Thomas Chalmers on this point I was interested to read the following from the author of the review:
Chalmers has been variously assessed as a teacher of theology. He was certainly not without deficiencies. In depth and accuracy of learning he is not in the front rank of Scottish theologians. The course of divinity which he set his students embodied the doubtful procedure of beginning with 'natural theology' before he advanced to the subject matter of Christianity itself.
This is a doubtful criticism of Chalmers considering the detachment of the review author by time and circumstance from Chalmers and his method. The method was not without precedent as the Apostle Paul was required to adopt a similar approach to get a better hearing when in Athens (Acts 17). Circumstances arise when a Christian must have an intelligible argument and point to the Creation/Creator before the hearer is prepared to hear of that same Creator being the Saviour who deals with their sin.
Perhaps it was that Thomas Chalmers saw where Scottish thought was heading and he wanted to prepare his students to meet the challenge with a 'complete' armour. Errant scientific propositions had a devastating affect on the Christian faith in the Nineteenth and subsequent centuries. Chalmers was wrong to impose an unwarranted imposition on the first two verses of the Word of God and open the door to the pernicious notion of Theistic Evolution. Nevertheless, many students were influenced by Chalmers and the Lord God was pleased to bring an 'Awakening' to areas of Scotland in the first half of the Nineteenth Century.
The scene before the 'Awakening' was described by Alexander Duff as follows:
The savour and unction of divine grace was gone; the peculiarities of the gospel were despised as offensive to classic taste and culture, and devotion scorned as fanatical and contemptible . . . Instead of the power and pathos of earnest gospel invitations and appeals, there were substituted cold pretences of academic learning, that froze the generous sympathies of the human heart.
As the article in the Banner of Truth Journal notes, The Moderates preached morality, with almost nothing of the supernaturalism of true Christianity. They ignored the Fall of man, sneered at the idea of a new-birth and said nothing of the perfection and power of the work of the Son of God.
Brothers and sisters, I want you to know that one of the fruits of Theistic Evolution is the deadening of faith in the supernaturalism of true Christianity. Because belief in that pernicious notion of Theistic Evolution is so rife in evangelicalism today the scene is set for repeating the deadening of the Church in our age.
The "Gap Theory" is erroneous but not as heinous an error as Theistic Evolution. It is better for the Church to be rid of both and return to faith in the straight-forward reading of the Creation account in Genesis 1 (supported in Exodus 20:11 and 31:17) to put the preaching of other vital points of the work of God on firm foundation.
Sam Drucker
Friday, July 1, 2011
Leupold Genesis part 59 verse 27 Man
27. So God created man in His image, in the image of God He created him, male and female He created them.
The higher strain of diction is made apparent by a threefold parallelism of the statement--a kind of solemn chant is here inaugurated in the creation narrative. And well might any man who writes an account, of the subject write in a manner that betokens his joy, for the honour bestowed upon man is indeed great. In fact, none could be greater than that a created being be made in the image of God.
The threefold use of the verb "create" (bara') is significant in this connection. To bring things into being that had no previous existence is well described by this word (v. 1). To bring into being creatures endowed with life and a soul is also covered by this word (v. 21). To do so outstanding a thing as to call into being a creature like unto man is in every sense. "to create." However, whether the threefold use of the term is to be accounted for by the fact that the triune God is the Creator, is a question that we feel inclined to leave open. To us such a conclusion seems to lay more into the statement here made than it can justly bear.
Rather important is the possessive pronoun attached to the word "image," namely the singular "his." As much as God, on the one hand, speaking out of the fulness of His powers in the persons of the Holy. Trinity, is able to say, "Let us make," and,"our image," just so much is it a valid and proper statement for Him to say that He created "in His image." One accords fully with the other in the mystery of the Holy Trinity: there is but one God. The Septuagint translators removed a difficulty in a portion of revelation which they should not have tampered with when they simply omitted the phrase "in His image." The notes in the Hebrew Bible of Kittel should not have suggested the deletion of the word.
The change from "His, image" to "the image of God" shows the attempt on the writer's part to make his statement as strong and as dignified as possible. Then, since the second statement, telling of the carrying out of the original command, usually serves in a measure as a commentary of the former, so here a very necessary suggestion is offered. Though from one point of view it is entirely proper to say that God on the sixth day created "man" ('adham), yet, as the rest of the account at once indicates, this term is meant genetically; and, since by a special work of the Almighty woman is brought into being, this first statement of the case amplifies itself into the more exact statement of the case that "the man" (the article of relative familiarity, K. S. 298a) was created "male and female" (zakhar, from the root meaning male; neqebhah, from naqab, meaning to perforate). In other words, all queer speculations about the first man are cut off as well as the quaint heresy. that he was created androgynous, half man and half woman--a notion offered in crudest form by the Jewish speculation which had the two halves of the double creature attached back to back, and then had the Almighty saw them asunder. This account, then, of chapter one shows that its writer knows chapter two and writes in full harmony with the facts of that chapter. As will appear more and more clearly, the first two chapters are in perfect harmony with one another and by no means represent divergent or discrepant accounts. So, according to very permissible different viewpoints, yet without contradiction, the writer may well say: "He created him" and "He created them," even as "our image" and "His image" blend into perfect unity.
Procksch says on this verse: "Man, God's image, man, the crown of creation, man, male and female--we, too, have not been able to advance beyond these thoughts." A characteristic utterance of modern theology and a platitude. Of course, we have not been able to advance beyond this thought; we never advance beyond revealed truth or God's thoughts. This account is not an achievement of the religious genius of P; it is revelation pure and simple.
The higher strain of diction is made apparent by a threefold parallelism of the statement--a kind of solemn chant is here inaugurated in the creation narrative. And well might any man who writes an account, of the subject write in a manner that betokens his joy, for the honour bestowed upon man is indeed great. In fact, none could be greater than that a created being be made in the image of God.
The threefold use of the verb "create" (bara') is significant in this connection. To bring things into being that had no previous existence is well described by this word (v. 1). To bring into being creatures endowed with life and a soul is also covered by this word (v. 21). To do so outstanding a thing as to call into being a creature like unto man is in every sense. "to create." However, whether the threefold use of the term is to be accounted for by the fact that the triune God is the Creator, is a question that we feel inclined to leave open. To us such a conclusion seems to lay more into the statement here made than it can justly bear.
Rather important is the possessive pronoun attached to the word "image," namely the singular "his." As much as God, on the one hand, speaking out of the fulness of His powers in the persons of the Holy. Trinity, is able to say, "Let us make," and,"our image," just so much is it a valid and proper statement for Him to say that He created "in His image." One accords fully with the other in the mystery of the Holy Trinity: there is but one God. The Septuagint translators removed a difficulty in a portion of revelation which they should not have tampered with when they simply omitted the phrase "in His image." The notes in the Hebrew Bible of Kittel should not have suggested the deletion of the word.
The change from "His, image" to "the image of God" shows the attempt on the writer's part to make his statement as strong and as dignified as possible. Then, since the second statement, telling of the carrying out of the original command, usually serves in a measure as a commentary of the former, so here a very necessary suggestion is offered. Though from one point of view it is entirely proper to say that God on the sixth day created "man" ('adham), yet, as the rest of the account at once indicates, this term is meant genetically; and, since by a special work of the Almighty woman is brought into being, this first statement of the case amplifies itself into the more exact statement of the case that "the man" (the article of relative familiarity, K. S. 298a) was created "male and female" (zakhar, from the root meaning male; neqebhah, from naqab, meaning to perforate). In other words, all queer speculations about the first man are cut off as well as the quaint heresy. that he was created androgynous, half man and half woman--a notion offered in crudest form by the Jewish speculation which had the two halves of the double creature attached back to back, and then had the Almighty saw them asunder. This account, then, of chapter one shows that its writer knows chapter two and writes in full harmony with the facts of that chapter. As will appear more and more clearly, the first two chapters are in perfect harmony with one another and by no means represent divergent or discrepant accounts. So, according to very permissible different viewpoints, yet without contradiction, the writer may well say: "He created him" and "He created them," even as "our image" and "His image" blend into perfect unity.
Procksch says on this verse: "Man, God's image, man, the crown of creation, man, male and female--we, too, have not been able to advance beyond these thoughts." A characteristic utterance of modern theology and a platitude. Of course, we have not been able to advance beyond this thought; we never advance beyond revealed truth or God's thoughts. This account is not an achievement of the religious genius of P; it is revelation pure and simple.
Sunday, June 26, 2011
Hillbillies, Fundamentalists, Extremists, Puritans!
"Then I said, 'Ah, Lord GOD! They say of me', ‘Does he not speak parables?’" (Ezekiel 20:49) Such was the response of the prophet Ezekiel after the Lord God had directed him to set his face toward the south, warn the forest of impending fire which will destroy all trees, green and dry and that every face from south to north would be scorched by it. 2 Chronicles 36:15ff reminds us that the Lord God sent messengers again and again to warn Judah of the consequences of their lack of faith in him but the people mocked and scoffed at God's messengers while despising God's words.
The history of God's church is dotted with occasions of the messengers of God being opposed, ridiculed, abused sidelined by those within who preferred the errant faith and practice of the day.
For an example I have chosen the time of the Puritans in England in the Seventeenth Century. Less than one hundred years after the Reformation in England the Church had descended into formality. Nominalism was rife with pews occupied by a vast number who had no relationship with the Lord Jesus Christ while believing they did. These were they who the words of our Lord Jesus Christ "Away from me I do not know you" were to become incredibly personal and destroying.
There is a wealth of books and essays informing as to the circumstances of the time of the Puritans. For this blog I have chosen extracts from Iain Murray's ",Thomas Hooker and the Doctrine of Conversion" published by Bannner of Truth Trust in 1980.
Iain Murray said; "The religion to be found in the majority of parishes in England was not therefore the product of sustained Puritan influence. Consequently, most of the early 17th Century Puritans had to give first priority to changing what they found in the congregations in which they settled. Their sermons did not come to their hearers' ears like the accustomed tones of the church bell. They were different and one fundamental reason for the difference was the Puritan conviction that the prevalence of nominal Christianity was then the foremost hindrance to real Christianity. To evangelize those without was not the need of the hour for all the people were already church-goers, all were 'believers', and all were 'gospellers'. Since the accession of Elizabeth the whole population, a few excepted, had lived under the form of the Church which Parliament had so suddenly made 'Protestant' in 1559. Thus, in theory, Christianity was universal. In reality, to use the words of Thomas Goodwin and Philip Nye, it was religion learned 'through the mere efficacy of education, laws and customs'. The faith most commonly to be found in the parishes of England was only the temporary faith of the 'stony-ground' hearers of Christ's parable; it was a religion akin to that of Nicodemus before his new birth.
Such was the assessment which in the 1620's governed the Puritans' understanding of England's need. East Anglia had probably received more of the gospel than any other part of the land except London, yet at Dedham, John Rogers often thought it necessary to warn his hearers on this point. By true faith, he says,
' .... the believer particularly applies Christ to himself truly, and so lives by him a true sanctified life, which this temporary faith falls short of. Therefore let us beware, and not trust to it, the rather because most of the people of England be deceived herewith, and go no further. Yea, most of the people be of the worse temporaries, only believing the Word of God to be true, and professing it, because law enjoins them so to do; but see how they live after their own lusts, and therefore have no true faith, which purifieth the heart. And this would be seen if any alteration of religion should come, as sheep flee from before a dog, so most of these would turn from the Gospel to the Mass, as they did in Queen Mary's time'.
Quotations of similar nature could be multiplied. At Broughton, Northamptonshire, Robert Bolton, also referring to temporary faith, believed that 'This faith deceives thousands, because they think it sufficient for salvation! When Richard Baxter went to Kidderminster, Shropshire, in 1640, and tried the knowledge of his people 'to discern what they thought of the essentials of Christianity, and of the things that Christ hath made necessary to salvation', he discovered 'multitudes that come all their life-time to Church ... so ignorant that it's hard for scholars to believe it, that have not tried. And we have found that multitudes of them will be brought to learn over all the words of the Catechism that never consider or understand the sense, much less the power and practice of what their tongues recite.'
Thomas Hooker fully shared in this evaluation: 'Most of the people. who lived in the bosom of the Church and profess the faith', he believed to be 'formal gospellers', and he refers to this situation as 'notorious to all the English world'.
It is impossible to do any justice to the burden of Hooker's preaching in Essex between 1626-29 without taking this understanding of the state of the people into account. We may disagree with that understanding - as many of the anti-Puritan clergy did, believing that it caused men needless scruples and distress - but at least it should be recognised that it throws important light upon the question why Hooker and his brethren preached as they did. They meant to trouble mens' consciences; they meant to shake their empty assurance; and they persisted in it with much personal cost. Sometimes, as Hooker once reminded his congregation in New England, the result of this preaching was that the very patrons who had introduced them into their curacies turned against them:
'Many a formal wretch hath at great cost and charges laid out himself and estate to bring a faithful preacher to a place; and when the soul saving dispensation of the Word hath discovered his falseness and laid open the cursed haunts of the carnal heart, shook his hopes, and beat all the holds he had of the goodness of his estate, and battered them before his eyes . . . if he cannot cunningly undermine the man, he would rather leave the place than live under the ministry.'
Secondly, it needs to be said that there was general agreement among the Puritans on the question how the influence of nominal Christianity should be counter-acted. Ultimately they knew that it depended upon the Holy Spirit - in whose power they put their faith - yet they also understood that the Spirit used the truth and that preachers must use 'undeniable evidence of reason out of the Word."
We here at Sydney Anglican Heretics Blogspot have constantly held that holding to the straight-forward reading of the Creation account in Genesis 1 (as has been the mainstream Christian reading through the millennia) is not a salvation issue. However, this writer holds firmly that just as a brown deadness on the tip of a leaf signals a problem within the tree, a failure to trust the Word of God in the Genesis Creation account is a symptom of a deeper problem within the person who professes to be Christian. For such a person, faith in man on the subject of Origins exceeds faith in the Word of God and because "the Word of God" is Jesus Christ (Rev. 19:13) the problem becomes evident.
Just as the messengers of God have been opposed in times past, Biblical Creationists are today opposed and ridiculed as they attempt to call the people back to faith in the Word of God. Just as the Puritans encountered difficulties and censure for confronting those in the Church of England who errantly esteemed themselves as "believing the Word of God to be true, and professing it" and regarding themselves as "gospellers", so Biblical Creationists today have to confront those in the Episcopalian Diocese of Sydney who, in like manner, falsely esteem themselves.
By the Holy Spirit of God we will be instruments for the delivery of some from the cancer that resides within their 'faith'.
Sam Drucker
The history of God's church is dotted with occasions of the messengers of God being opposed, ridiculed, abused sidelined by those within who preferred the errant faith and practice of the day.
For an example I have chosen the time of the Puritans in England in the Seventeenth Century. Less than one hundred years after the Reformation in England the Church had descended into formality. Nominalism was rife with pews occupied by a vast number who had no relationship with the Lord Jesus Christ while believing they did. These were they who the words of our Lord Jesus Christ "Away from me I do not know you" were to become incredibly personal and destroying.
There is a wealth of books and essays informing as to the circumstances of the time of the Puritans. For this blog I have chosen extracts from Iain Murray's ",Thomas Hooker and the Doctrine of Conversion" published by Bannner of Truth Trust in 1980.
Iain Murray said; "The religion to be found in the majority of parishes in England was not therefore the product of sustained Puritan influence. Consequently, most of the early 17th Century Puritans had to give first priority to changing what they found in the congregations in which they settled. Their sermons did not come to their hearers' ears like the accustomed tones of the church bell. They were different and one fundamental reason for the difference was the Puritan conviction that the prevalence of nominal Christianity was then the foremost hindrance to real Christianity. To evangelize those without was not the need of the hour for all the people were already church-goers, all were 'believers', and all were 'gospellers'. Since the accession of Elizabeth the whole population, a few excepted, had lived under the form of the Church which Parliament had so suddenly made 'Protestant' in 1559. Thus, in theory, Christianity was universal. In reality, to use the words of Thomas Goodwin and Philip Nye, it was religion learned 'through the mere efficacy of education, laws and customs'. The faith most commonly to be found in the parishes of England was only the temporary faith of the 'stony-ground' hearers of Christ's parable; it was a religion akin to that of Nicodemus before his new birth.
Such was the assessment which in the 1620's governed the Puritans' understanding of England's need. East Anglia had probably received more of the gospel than any other part of the land except London, yet at Dedham, John Rogers often thought it necessary to warn his hearers on this point. By true faith, he says,
' .... the believer particularly applies Christ to himself truly, and so lives by him a true sanctified life, which this temporary faith falls short of. Therefore let us beware, and not trust to it, the rather because most of the people of England be deceived herewith, and go no further. Yea, most of the people be of the worse temporaries, only believing the Word of God to be true, and professing it, because law enjoins them so to do; but see how they live after their own lusts, and therefore have no true faith, which purifieth the heart. And this would be seen if any alteration of religion should come, as sheep flee from before a dog, so most of these would turn from the Gospel to the Mass, as they did in Queen Mary's time'.
Quotations of similar nature could be multiplied. At Broughton, Northamptonshire, Robert Bolton, also referring to temporary faith, believed that 'This faith deceives thousands, because they think it sufficient for salvation! When Richard Baxter went to Kidderminster, Shropshire, in 1640, and tried the knowledge of his people 'to discern what they thought of the essentials of Christianity, and of the things that Christ hath made necessary to salvation', he discovered 'multitudes that come all their life-time to Church ... so ignorant that it's hard for scholars to believe it, that have not tried. And we have found that multitudes of them will be brought to learn over all the words of the Catechism that never consider or understand the sense, much less the power and practice of what their tongues recite.'
Thomas Hooker fully shared in this evaluation: 'Most of the people. who lived in the bosom of the Church and profess the faith', he believed to be 'formal gospellers', and he refers to this situation as 'notorious to all the English world'.
It is impossible to do any justice to the burden of Hooker's preaching in Essex between 1626-29 without taking this understanding of the state of the people into account. We may disagree with that understanding - as many of the anti-Puritan clergy did, believing that it caused men needless scruples and distress - but at least it should be recognised that it throws important light upon the question why Hooker and his brethren preached as they did. They meant to trouble mens' consciences; they meant to shake their empty assurance; and they persisted in it with much personal cost. Sometimes, as Hooker once reminded his congregation in New England, the result of this preaching was that the very patrons who had introduced them into their curacies turned against them:
'Many a formal wretch hath at great cost and charges laid out himself and estate to bring a faithful preacher to a place; and when the soul saving dispensation of the Word hath discovered his falseness and laid open the cursed haunts of the carnal heart, shook his hopes, and beat all the holds he had of the goodness of his estate, and battered them before his eyes . . . if he cannot cunningly undermine the man, he would rather leave the place than live under the ministry.'
Secondly, it needs to be said that there was general agreement among the Puritans on the question how the influence of nominal Christianity should be counter-acted. Ultimately they knew that it depended upon the Holy Spirit - in whose power they put their faith - yet they also understood that the Spirit used the truth and that preachers must use 'undeniable evidence of reason out of the Word."
We here at Sydney Anglican Heretics Blogspot have constantly held that holding to the straight-forward reading of the Creation account in Genesis 1 (as has been the mainstream Christian reading through the millennia) is not a salvation issue. However, this writer holds firmly that just as a brown deadness on the tip of a leaf signals a problem within the tree, a failure to trust the Word of God in the Genesis Creation account is a symptom of a deeper problem within the person who professes to be Christian. For such a person, faith in man on the subject of Origins exceeds faith in the Word of God and because "the Word of God" is Jesus Christ (Rev. 19:13) the problem becomes evident.
Just as the messengers of God have been opposed in times past, Biblical Creationists are today opposed and ridiculed as they attempt to call the people back to faith in the Word of God. Just as the Puritans encountered difficulties and censure for confronting those in the Church of England who errantly esteemed themselves as "believing the Word of God to be true, and professing it" and regarding themselves as "gospellers", so Biblical Creationists today have to confront those in the Episcopalian Diocese of Sydney who, in like manner, falsely esteem themselves.
By the Holy Spirit of God we will be instruments for the delivery of some from the cancer that resides within their 'faith'.
Sam Drucker
Tuesday, June 21, 2011
Getting Genesis Right (Part 2)
This is the second and concluding blog of dot points made by Dr William Barrick, Professor of Old Testament and Director of Th.D. Studies at Master's Seminary, California, when he recently visited Australia and spoke at a one day conference at St John's Park Baptist Church, Sydney.
"The creation record in Genesis 1:1-2:3 represents some of the highest standards of literature.
The account is a literary masterpiece.
The creation record in Genesis 1:1-2:3 presents a literal historical account.
The creation record in Genesis 1:1-2:3 provides a theological foundation for understanding God, the world, and mankind.
1.0 The beauty and majesty of Genesis 1:1-2:3 does not arise from poetry.
1.1 The creation record lacks the parallelism that characterizes Hebrew poetry.
1.2 The grammar of the creation record is not the grammar of Hebrew poetry.
1.3 No indication of imagery or metaphor occurs in the creation record.
2.0 The historicity of Genesis 1:1-2:3 relies on key elements of Hebrew narrative.
2.1 The verbs and phrases of the creation record indicates actions in chronological sequence.
2.2 The text of the creation record displays formulaic repetitions.
2.3 The creation record comes closer to the pattern of genealogies than to Hebrew poetry.
3.0 Identifying the creation record as narrative Instead of poetry prevents misunderstanding the text of Genesis 1:1-2:3.
3.1 Misidentification leads to bias against the supernatural.
3.2 Misidentification gives the impression that the text does not correspond with reality.
3.3 Misidentification excludes the creation record as a historical witness or testimony.
3.4 Misidentification excludes chronological data.
3.5 Misidentification disrupts the pattern of biblical history.
Conclusion
As historical narrative, Genesis 1:1-2:3 presents six literal days of creation.
As historical narrative. Genesis 1:1-2:3 establishes theological precedents regarding the nature of God and His work.
As historical narrative, Genesis 1:1-2:3 fosters faith in the unity of the testimony Of Scripture."
With the Episcopalian Diocese of Sydney almost bereft of theologians holding firm to the Word of God in Genesis it is a blessing from God that He should send among us, if only for a brief time, one of His own to refresh us.
Sam Drucker
"The creation record in Genesis 1:1-2:3 represents some of the highest standards of literature.
The account is a literary masterpiece.
The creation record in Genesis 1:1-2:3 presents a literal historical account.
The creation record in Genesis 1:1-2:3 provides a theological foundation for understanding God, the world, and mankind.
1.0 The beauty and majesty of Genesis 1:1-2:3 does not arise from poetry.
1.1 The creation record lacks the parallelism that characterizes Hebrew poetry.
1.2 The grammar of the creation record is not the grammar of Hebrew poetry.
1.3 No indication of imagery or metaphor occurs in the creation record.
2.0 The historicity of Genesis 1:1-2:3 relies on key elements of Hebrew narrative.
2.1 The verbs and phrases of the creation record indicates actions in chronological sequence.
2.2 The text of the creation record displays formulaic repetitions.
2.3 The creation record comes closer to the pattern of genealogies than to Hebrew poetry.
3.0 Identifying the creation record as narrative Instead of poetry prevents misunderstanding the text of Genesis 1:1-2:3.
3.1 Misidentification leads to bias against the supernatural.
3.2 Misidentification gives the impression that the text does not correspond with reality.
3.3 Misidentification excludes the creation record as a historical witness or testimony.
3.4 Misidentification excludes chronological data.
3.5 Misidentification disrupts the pattern of biblical history.
Conclusion
As historical narrative, Genesis 1:1-2:3 presents six literal days of creation.
As historical narrative. Genesis 1:1-2:3 establishes theological precedents regarding the nature of God and His work.
As historical narrative, Genesis 1:1-2:3 fosters faith in the unity of the testimony Of Scripture."
With the Episcopalian Diocese of Sydney almost bereft of theologians holding firm to the Word of God in Genesis it is a blessing from God that He should send among us, if only for a brief time, one of His own to refresh us.
Sam Drucker
Sunday, June 19, 2011
Getting Genesis Right (Part 1)
Recently, Dr William Barrick, Professor of Old Testament and Director of Th.D. Studies at Master's Seminary, visited Australia and spoke at a one day conference at St John's Park Baptist Church, Sydney.
In a two part blog I will provide some points made by Dr Barrick during his address, commencing here:
The Last Things replicate the First Things in inverted order.
Or, eschatology recapitulates protology—in reverse.
Isaiah 65:17-new heavens and
Something to think about: If God can create the new heavens and the new earth instantaneously, why not the first?
Genesis 1:1 Creation
...Genesis 1:3 God's Light
......Genesis 1:26 Man's Rule
.........Genesis 2:8-17 Old Eden
............Genesis 3:17 Curse
............Revelation 21:4; 22:3 No Curse
.........Revelation 22:1-2 New Eden
......Revelation 20:4 Man's Rule
...Revelation 21:23; 22:5 God's Light
Revelation 21:1 New Creation
Genesis 1:1 Creation
...Genesis 3:1 Satan's Freedom
......Genesis 6-8 Worldwide Judgment
.........Genesis l0-11 Babel/Babylon
.........Revelation 17-18 Babylon
......Revelation 19:11-19 Worldwide Judgment
...Revelation 20:2-3 Satan's Confinement
Revelation 21:1 New Creation
The First Things and the Last Things point to Christ as the focal point of divine history.
Testimony to creation as recorded in Genesis 1:1-2:3 permeates all of Scripture.
Denial of biblical creation equals a denial of the Creator.
Denial of the Creator in any form (rejection of divine revelation in
creation or in His written Word, or idolatry) is inexcusable.
Denial of biblical creation is exchanging God's truth for man's lie.
Denial of biblical creation results in greater depravity and immorality due to the rejection of the authority of the Creator and His inerrant revelation.
Denial of the doctrines of the First Things (protology) destroys doctrines of the Last Things (eschatology).
Without historical temporal Creation, there is no hope for a historical, temporal Restoration.
The alternative, secular historical science, changes—Scripture does not change.
Modern science mocks the science by which Augustine felt threatened—what will the science be 200 years from now?
When we affirm biblical creationism,
we propose the plain sense of the rest of Scripture
we provide foundational truths for basic Christian doctrine, and
we preserve the salvific focus of the Christian faith—only the Creator can ultimately save and restore.
Part two will follow in a few days.
Sam Drucker
In a two part blog I will provide some points made by Dr Barrick during his address, commencing here:
The Last Things replicate the First Things in inverted order.
Or, eschatology recapitulates protology—in reverse.
Isaiah 65:17-new heavens and
Something to think about: If God can create the new heavens and the new earth instantaneously, why not the first?
Genesis 1:1 Creation
...Genesis 1:3 God's Light
......Genesis 1:26 Man's Rule
.........Genesis 2:8-17 Old Eden
............Genesis 3:17 Curse
............Revelation 21:4; 22:3 No Curse
.........Revelation 22:1-2 New Eden
......Revelation 20:4 Man's Rule
...Revelation 21:23; 22:5 God's Light
Revelation 21:1 New Creation
Genesis 1:1 Creation
...Genesis 3:1 Satan's Freedom
......Genesis 6-8 Worldwide Judgment
.........Genesis l0-11 Babel/Babylon
.........Revelation 17-18 Babylon
......Revelation 19:11-19 Worldwide Judgment
...Revelation 20:2-3 Satan's Confinement
Revelation 21:1 New Creation
The First Things and the Last Things point to Christ as the focal point of divine history.
Testimony to creation as recorded in Genesis 1:1-2:3 permeates all of Scripture.
Denial of biblical creation equals a denial of the Creator.
Denial of the Creator in any form (rejection of divine revelation in
creation or in His written Word, or idolatry) is inexcusable.
Denial of biblical creation is exchanging God's truth for man's lie.
Denial of biblical creation results in greater depravity and immorality due to the rejection of the authority of the Creator and His inerrant revelation.
Denial of the doctrines of the First Things (protology) destroys doctrines of the Last Things (eschatology).
Without historical temporal Creation, there is no hope for a historical, temporal Restoration.
The alternative, secular historical science, changes—Scripture does not change.
Modern science mocks the science by which Augustine felt threatened—what will the science be 200 years from now?
When we affirm biblical creationism,
we propose the plain sense of the rest of Scripture
we provide foundational truths for basic Christian doctrine, and
we preserve the salvific focus of the Christian faith—only the Creator can ultimately save and restore.
Part two will follow in a few days.
Sam Drucker
Wednesday, June 15, 2011
Leupold Genesis part 58 verse 26 Image of God III
To sum up from a slightly different angle we should like to append the thought that the spiritual and inner side of the image of God is, without a doubt, the most important one. It will hardly be safe to say that the body of man is also patterned after God, because God, being an incorporeal spirit, cannot have what we term a material body. Yet the body of man must at least be regarded as the fittest receptacle for man's spirit and so must bear at least an analogy to the image, of God, an analogy that is so close that God and His angels choose to appear in human form when they appear to men (Strack). In fact, we are justified to go even so far as to say that whatever this man is said to have is in a far more real sense a reality in God. Here lies the basis for the propriety of all anthropomorphisms. If man has a hand, an ear, an eye, a heart, not only may these also be possessions of the Almighty; in a far truer sense such potentialities lie in God. Yet, let it be well marked, in saying this we in no sense ascribe corporeality to the Eternal One.
Skinner confuses all basic concepts and departs far from revealed truth, glorifying man and his native ability in an unscriptural fashion, when he remarks: "The `image' is not something peculiar to man's original estate, and lost by the Fall." He justifies this radical departure by the further remark: "Because P, who alone uses the expression knows nothing of the Fall, and in 9:6 employs the term, without any restriction, of post-diluvian mankind." What an untenable assumption even from the standpoint of criticism! Just because what is ascribed to P does not happen to mention the Fall, we at once know what P actually knew or did not know about the Fall. The critic is coming to the point where in his mind the document P and the person P are identical. The passage 9:6 is, of course, to be taken in the light of all that precedes, namely in the light of the Fall, which intervenes between chapters 1 and 9.
When evidence fails to support pet theories in this instance the theory of the derivation of Israelirish knowledge from Babylonian sources--pure suppositions such as the following are resorted to: "The origin of the conception ('image') is probably found in the Babylonian mythology" (Skinner).
What follows is one direction in which the possession of the image of God on the part of man expresses itself dominion over the earth. "Let them have dominion" is the verb radhah signifying "to trample down" or "to master." The breadth of the domain to be ruled by man is expressed by the various spheres of man's dominion that are now enumerated. They are, first of all, the classes previously described as having been brought into being, listed with a slight modification of terminology. The "swarms" or "shoals" previously created (v. 20) are referred to by a term covering the chief members of this class, daghah, "fish" in a collective sense. "The birds of the heavens" are the second group mentioned. Though we have translated behemah "domestic animals," we cannot deny that it might here, as a broader term often so used (cf. (Ex 9:25; 12:12)), include all larger animals, wild and domestic, because man's dominion certainly covered the wild beasts as well, as appears from the remaining terms, yet the wild beasts are not separately mentioned. For the list goes on to mention "the-whole earth," which cannot, as Koenig suggests (K. C.), here be taken to mean "all beings upon the earth" (Erdlebewesen), for then the very last term in the list would duplicate this; nor can it mean "the dwellers upon earth,"-a meaning which "earth" sometimes has, for then the idle statement would result: let man rule over himself. Consequently, we take "the whole earth" in its simplest meaning, as the inanimate earth proper, which man is to master and subdue. We then list, as belonging in this department of his activity, man's mastery the powers of nature, physical, electrical, chemical, physiological and the like. Whatever true scientific endeavour has produced comes under this broad charter which the Creator has given to man. Since, however, man's dominion is to find most frequent expression in the direction of the control of living creatures, the closing statement, the broadest of all, mounts to a climax in the words "over everything that moveth about upon the earth." Every type of being is to be subservient to man. The word employed for this last class is remes, which appears here in the broadest application of its root sense "to move about" and less in the specific sense of "moving about lightly." The verb used (yirdu) is a jussive (K. S. 364h) and actually establishes as a divine word the situation it outlines. Man in reality became the controlling power. Yet there remains--even in the primeval state there remained--much to be achieved by way of a perfect mastery of his whole territory.
Taking the verse as a whole, we cannot but notice that it sets forth the picture of a being that stands on a very high level, a creature of singular nobility and endowed with phenomenal powers and attributes, not a type of being that by its brute imperfections is seen to be on the same level with the animal world, but a being that towers high above all other creatures, their king and their crown.
Skinner confuses all basic concepts and departs far from revealed truth, glorifying man and his native ability in an unscriptural fashion, when he remarks: "The `image' is not something peculiar to man's original estate, and lost by the Fall." He justifies this radical departure by the further remark: "Because P, who alone uses the expression knows nothing of the Fall, and in 9:6 employs the term, without any restriction, of post-diluvian mankind." What an untenable assumption even from the standpoint of criticism! Just because what is ascribed to P does not happen to mention the Fall, we at once know what P actually knew or did not know about the Fall. The critic is coming to the point where in his mind the document P and the person P are identical. The passage 9:6 is, of course, to be taken in the light of all that precedes, namely in the light of the Fall, which intervenes between chapters 1 and 9.
When evidence fails to support pet theories in this instance the theory of the derivation of Israelirish knowledge from Babylonian sources--pure suppositions such as the following are resorted to: "The origin of the conception ('image') is probably found in the Babylonian mythology" (Skinner).
What follows is one direction in which the possession of the image of God on the part of man expresses itself dominion over the earth. "Let them have dominion" is the verb radhah signifying "to trample down" or "to master." The breadth of the domain to be ruled by man is expressed by the various spheres of man's dominion that are now enumerated. They are, first of all, the classes previously described as having been brought into being, listed with a slight modification of terminology. The "swarms" or "shoals" previously created (v. 20) are referred to by a term covering the chief members of this class, daghah, "fish" in a collective sense. "The birds of the heavens" are the second group mentioned. Though we have translated behemah "domestic animals," we cannot deny that it might here, as a broader term often so used (cf. (Ex 9:25; 12:12)), include all larger animals, wild and domestic, because man's dominion certainly covered the wild beasts as well, as appears from the remaining terms, yet the wild beasts are not separately mentioned. For the list goes on to mention "the-whole earth," which cannot, as Koenig suggests (K. C.), here be taken to mean "all beings upon the earth" (Erdlebewesen), for then the very last term in the list would duplicate this; nor can it mean "the dwellers upon earth,"-a meaning which "earth" sometimes has, for then the idle statement would result: let man rule over himself. Consequently, we take "the whole earth" in its simplest meaning, as the inanimate earth proper, which man is to master and subdue. We then list, as belonging in this department of his activity, man's mastery the powers of nature, physical, electrical, chemical, physiological and the like. Whatever true scientific endeavour has produced comes under this broad charter which the Creator has given to man. Since, however, man's dominion is to find most frequent expression in the direction of the control of living creatures, the closing statement, the broadest of all, mounts to a climax in the words "over everything that moveth about upon the earth." Every type of being is to be subservient to man. The word employed for this last class is remes, which appears here in the broadest application of its root sense "to move about" and less in the specific sense of "moving about lightly." The verb used (yirdu) is a jussive (K. S. 364h) and actually establishes as a divine word the situation it outlines. Man in reality became the controlling power. Yet there remains--even in the primeval state there remained--much to be achieved by way of a perfect mastery of his whole territory.
Taking the verse as a whole, we cannot but notice that it sets forth the picture of a being that stands on a very high level, a creature of singular nobility and endowed with phenomenal powers and attributes, not a type of being that by its brute imperfections is seen to be on the same level with the animal world, but a being that towers high above all other creatures, their king and their crown.
Friday, June 10, 2011
An Earnest Cry to Atheists.
A recent publication called Creation Extra from Creation Ministries International contained extracts of a letter from a former Atheist which I believe warrants wider circulation. I obtained permission for Creation Ministries International to reproduce it here following:
The atrocity of atheism
It’s a fate worse than death.
By Gary Bates
CEO, CMI–Worldwide
This month’s Creation Extra is rather sobering, yet encouraging. It should serve as a wakeup call to the very real need to get the truth out about biblical creation as far and as wide as we all can.
Some time ago, Justin S., a former atheist, shared his heart with us. At a time when so many Christians are failing to recognize where the rubber really hits the road when it comes to confronting a secular worldview, this young man really ‘nails it.’ Here are some excerpts of what he wrote:
Dear CMI, I cannot express my gratitude in words. I became a Christian three years ago after struggling with thoughts of suicide due to my atheistic beliefs.
Your ministry truly saved my life.
I was raised in a secular home, and surrounded by atheistic propaganda from an early age … from school or the media. Unsurprisingly, I became an atheist at the age of 12. As the years passed and I truly tried to understand the world around me, I discovered a horrifying truth that had been hidden from me, hidden from everyone.
This is the reason I am writing this letter, as even in your excellent articles on atheism [see creation.com/atheism], you do not truly reveal the extent to which the atheists deceive everyone, even themselves. Atheists often say that they can truly live a happy, fulfilling life. Yet this is a lie, a deception which damns millions of souls to darkness. … Simply put, atheism destroys the possibility of personal identity, choice, and objective and subjective meaning.
Atheism inescapably leads to naturalism, and from naturalism follows atheism’s great skeleton which its followers try to keep hidden; determinism. Determinism is inescapable if one is a naturalist, as all that exists is material and has come about by purely natural processes. This means then, that the mind of man, our greatest treasure, is reducible to material bound by physical laws; namely, our thoughts, feelings, and actions are reducible to reactions of chemicals in the brain.
Few people realize, then, that this destroys all that makes us human. Namely; if our thoughts, feelings, and actions are simply chemical reactions in the brain … This means then, that whatever we do, we do because we have to. We cannot do anything other than what we do, it simply isn’t possible. All actions are the result of prior actions in an unbreakable chain. We are no different than a cog in a watch or a falling domino.
There is no difference between the embrace of a loving husband and the violence of a vicious rapist; the actions of a doctor trying to save a life and the mass murderer who kills at whim; the actions of our greatest leaders and the inaction of a lazy sluggard. Both are totally the same in atheism.
Objective meaning is non-existent, and subjective meaning is incoherent! Would we say the action of a robot picking up a glass bottle has any meaning, value, or significance? Of course not! It’s simply doing what it has to! It can do nothing else! In what sense can an atheist say that he as a person truly exists? The material which composes our body is recycled every seven years, and our consciousness seems to cease every time we go to bed. So in what sense is the mass of matter that wakes up in the morning the same person as the one who went to bed the night before?
As you can see, atheism is utterly horrific! Sadly, most atheists are unaware of these things! I believe if they truly understood the consequences of what they believed, they would reconsider their position.
I know I did, God bless.
Many think that atheism is just a non-belief in a deity. But this well-written letter aptly describes its true meaning. As atheist Cornell biology professor William Provine confirmed, evolution means: “There is no ultimate foundation for ethics, no ultimate meaning to life, and no free will for humans, either.”1 We can see its fruit every day when we read or look at the daily news and see how godless people act on their belief that there is no tomorrow because there is no Creator. Justin was brought up on a diet of evolution and without an alternative viewpoint he was left without hope.
In God’s providence, all it took was for him to be exposed to information that countered the falsehoods that he’d been taught under the guise of science. It doesn’t have to be this way. CMI can do so much more with your help. With your much-needed support, you can help to keep the information machine churning. Even a small amount per month really does help.
Thanks for considering this.
1. Origins Research 16(1/2):9, 1994. Provine also correctly observed that “…belief in modern evolution makes atheists of people. One can have a religious view that is compatible with evolution only if the religious view is indistinguishable from atheism.” In Rossiter, M. ed., Catching up with the Vision, p. S123, 1999.
- End of article -
My heart's desire is for Atheists to come into the truth, that they experience new light and life as did the correspondent cited here.
Theistic Evolutionists would have been no help to this person receiving the truth.
Sam Drucker
The atrocity of atheism
It’s a fate worse than death.
By Gary Bates
CEO, CMI–Worldwide
This month’s Creation Extra is rather sobering, yet encouraging. It should serve as a wakeup call to the very real need to get the truth out about biblical creation as far and as wide as we all can.
Some time ago, Justin S., a former atheist, shared his heart with us. At a time when so many Christians are failing to recognize where the rubber really hits the road when it comes to confronting a secular worldview, this young man really ‘nails it.’ Here are some excerpts of what he wrote:
Dear CMI, I cannot express my gratitude in words. I became a Christian three years ago after struggling with thoughts of suicide due to my atheistic beliefs.
Your ministry truly saved my life.
I was raised in a secular home, and surrounded by atheistic propaganda from an early age … from school or the media. Unsurprisingly, I became an atheist at the age of 12. As the years passed and I truly tried to understand the world around me, I discovered a horrifying truth that had been hidden from me, hidden from everyone.
This is the reason I am writing this letter, as even in your excellent articles on atheism [see creation.com/atheism], you do not truly reveal the extent to which the atheists deceive everyone, even themselves. Atheists often say that they can truly live a happy, fulfilling life. Yet this is a lie, a deception which damns millions of souls to darkness. … Simply put, atheism destroys the possibility of personal identity, choice, and objective and subjective meaning.
Atheism inescapably leads to naturalism, and from naturalism follows atheism’s great skeleton which its followers try to keep hidden; determinism. Determinism is inescapable if one is a naturalist, as all that exists is material and has come about by purely natural processes. This means then, that the mind of man, our greatest treasure, is reducible to material bound by physical laws; namely, our thoughts, feelings, and actions are reducible to reactions of chemicals in the brain.
Few people realize, then, that this destroys all that makes us human. Namely; if our thoughts, feelings, and actions are simply chemical reactions in the brain … This means then, that whatever we do, we do because we have to. We cannot do anything other than what we do, it simply isn’t possible. All actions are the result of prior actions in an unbreakable chain. We are no different than a cog in a watch or a falling domino.
There is no difference between the embrace of a loving husband and the violence of a vicious rapist; the actions of a doctor trying to save a life and the mass murderer who kills at whim; the actions of our greatest leaders and the inaction of a lazy sluggard. Both are totally the same in atheism.
Objective meaning is non-existent, and subjective meaning is incoherent! Would we say the action of a robot picking up a glass bottle has any meaning, value, or significance? Of course not! It’s simply doing what it has to! It can do nothing else! In what sense can an atheist say that he as a person truly exists? The material which composes our body is recycled every seven years, and our consciousness seems to cease every time we go to bed. So in what sense is the mass of matter that wakes up in the morning the same person as the one who went to bed the night before?
As you can see, atheism is utterly horrific! Sadly, most atheists are unaware of these things! I believe if they truly understood the consequences of what they believed, they would reconsider their position.
I know I did, God bless.
Many think that atheism is just a non-belief in a deity. But this well-written letter aptly describes its true meaning. As atheist Cornell biology professor William Provine confirmed, evolution means: “There is no ultimate foundation for ethics, no ultimate meaning to life, and no free will for humans, either.”1 We can see its fruit every day when we read or look at the daily news and see how godless people act on their belief that there is no tomorrow because there is no Creator. Justin was brought up on a diet of evolution and without an alternative viewpoint he was left without hope.
In God’s providence, all it took was for him to be exposed to information that countered the falsehoods that he’d been taught under the guise of science. It doesn’t have to be this way. CMI can do so much more with your help. With your much-needed support, you can help to keep the information machine churning. Even a small amount per month really does help.
Thanks for considering this.
1. Origins Research 16(1/2):9, 1994. Provine also correctly observed that “…belief in modern evolution makes atheists of people. One can have a religious view that is compatible with evolution only if the religious view is indistinguishable from atheism.” In Rossiter, M. ed., Catching up with the Vision, p. S123, 1999.
- End of article -
My heart's desire is for Atheists to come into the truth, that they experience new light and life as did the correspondent cited here.
Theistic Evolutionists would have been no help to this person receiving the truth.
Sam Drucker
Sunday, June 5, 2011
The Genesis of Nothing
Robert Lewis Dabney was a 19th Century Theologian, Chief of Staff to Stonewall Jackson and author. One of Dabney's works was Sacred Rhetoric, published in 1881. In this work Dabney, in addressing the subject of Preaching, said that the state of the pulpit may always be taken as an index of that of the Church. Oh, how Dabney would lament the sorry state of the Episcopalian Diocese of Sydney when so-called evangelicals can speak up a paper called The Genesis of Everything. This paper, by someone who presents himself as some sort of historian, drains the creation account in Genesis 1 of its historical content.
How can a Christian trust what the author of the paper says about New Testament history when he puts as much credibility on a contrary and pagan creation account as that contained in the Word of God and then proceeds to invoke a range of misappropriated literary devices to remove Genesis 1 of its historical narrative genre?
It is almost as if Robert Lewis Dabney had this day's underwhelming historian and theologian in mind when writing about historical sermons and said:
But, for the tyro, the chief difficulty of historical sermons is to catch correctly the precise didactic scope of the sacred narrative, and to limit himself to it. Certain schools, of even Protestant preachers, have given us deplorable examples of error here. They have used the plain histories of the Bible as though they were riddles for the exercise of an ingenious fancy. They have formed allegories where the Holy Ghost has warranted them in seeing none. They have interpreted these histories as though any analogy which a vagrant imagination could invent between a Bible fact and a supposed moral were a perfect demonstration that this was the truth which the Spirit intended to teach in that place. Your own good sense should show you that a mode of interpretation cannot be correct which enables different men to extract the most variant meanings from the same words. It is utterly condemned by what has been established concerning the preacher's mission. He has naught to do save to deliver God's message out of the Scriptures; his only concern is with the meaning intended by the Holy Ghost in the place expounded.
The author of The Genesis of Everything contravenes all principle espoused by Dabney just so he can accommodate the errant and idolatrous theistic evolutionists within his Diocese.
I'll leave the final word to Lauren S. Bottomly who wrote Concluding Thoughts on R.L. Dabney: The Sensualistic Philosophy, 2006, and made the following comment: Evolution theory is maddening to a Christian. It affronts God; it denies his work and perfect intelligence, and it cancels man’s promised destiny of glorious liberty with him.
Sam Drucker
How can a Christian trust what the author of the paper says about New Testament history when he puts as much credibility on a contrary and pagan creation account as that contained in the Word of God and then proceeds to invoke a range of misappropriated literary devices to remove Genesis 1 of its historical narrative genre?
It is almost as if Robert Lewis Dabney had this day's underwhelming historian and theologian in mind when writing about historical sermons and said:
But, for the tyro, the chief difficulty of historical sermons is to catch correctly the precise didactic scope of the sacred narrative, and to limit himself to it. Certain schools, of even Protestant preachers, have given us deplorable examples of error here. They have used the plain histories of the Bible as though they were riddles for the exercise of an ingenious fancy. They have formed allegories where the Holy Ghost has warranted them in seeing none. They have interpreted these histories as though any analogy which a vagrant imagination could invent between a Bible fact and a supposed moral were a perfect demonstration that this was the truth which the Spirit intended to teach in that place. Your own good sense should show you that a mode of interpretation cannot be correct which enables different men to extract the most variant meanings from the same words. It is utterly condemned by what has been established concerning the preacher's mission. He has naught to do save to deliver God's message out of the Scriptures; his only concern is with the meaning intended by the Holy Ghost in the place expounded.
The author of The Genesis of Everything contravenes all principle espoused by Dabney just so he can accommodate the errant and idolatrous theistic evolutionists within his Diocese.
I'll leave the final word to Lauren S. Bottomly who wrote Concluding Thoughts on R.L. Dabney: The Sensualistic Philosophy, 2006, and made the following comment: Evolution theory is maddening to a Christian. It affronts God; it denies his work and perfect intelligence, and it cancels man’s promised destiny of glorious liberty with him.
Sam Drucker
Wednesday, June 1, 2011
From Your God Your Morality Flows
I certainly hope Theistic Evolutionists didn't feel outrage or discomfort at the scenes on the ABC TV Four Corners program on Monday night.
How could they? Their god made a world full of suffering, ripping and tearing and being eaten alive within the animal kingdom which far exceeded the treatment rendered by Indonesian abattoir workers on Australian cattle imports.
For Theistic Evolutionists to take umbrage at what takes place in Indonesian abattoirs is to put themselves above their god. If their god did not have a problem instituting worse suffering and cruelty as part of the creative process then how can Theistic Evolutionists elevate their morality above their god? That is idolatry!
No, just lie back Theistic Evolutionists and admire the capacity of the Indonesian abattoir workers to walk somewhat in the footsteps of your god and pray that you one day will be more cruel than the Indonesians.
Sam Drucker
How could they? Their god made a world full of suffering, ripping and tearing and being eaten alive within the animal kingdom which far exceeded the treatment rendered by Indonesian abattoir workers on Australian cattle imports.
For Theistic Evolutionists to take umbrage at what takes place in Indonesian abattoirs is to put themselves above their god. If their god did not have a problem instituting worse suffering and cruelty as part of the creative process then how can Theistic Evolutionists elevate their morality above their god? That is idolatry!
No, just lie back Theistic Evolutionists and admire the capacity of the Indonesian abattoir workers to walk somewhat in the footsteps of your god and pray that you one day will be more cruel than the Indonesians.
Sam Drucker
Leupold Genesis part 57 verse 26 Image of God II
Koenig's interpretation deserves mention (K. S. 207 a). He claims that an individual reflecting upon a course of action to be followed may appear to himself both as giving orders and as carrying out these orders. He claims such a thing would happen "quite naturally and easily" (naturgemaess leicht). We can hardly imagine any explanation more stilted and artificial. It is a figment of the clever brain, invented to extricate its inventor out of a predicament.
We should yet especially emphasize that the trinitarian view, presented in modified form above; is not, as many charge, transferring the New Testament back into the Old. We have emphasized above that the New Testament marks an advance upon whatever the Old offers under this head. What the Old Testament offers here would never have been fully grasped if clearer and more. elaborate revelation had not thrown its light upon this passage from the New Testament.
The being to be made is called 'adham, a term whose root significance must very likely be sought in the cognate word 'adhamah (see v. 25) which refers to the soil capable of cultivation. 'Adham would, therefore, be "the cultivator of the soil."
The double modifying phrase, "in our image, after our likeness," requires closer study. It is in the last analysis nothing more than a phrase which aims to assert with emphasis the idea that man is to be closely patterned after his Maker. This feature in man's being is a second mode. of setting forth prominently the singular dignity of man: Man is not only made after the deliberate plan and purpose of God but is also very definitely patterned after Him. In making both phrases practically result in an idea which is one composite whole we are not erasing the distinction between the terms. "Image" is for the word tselem, whose root means "to carve" or "to cut off." We cannot go so far as to apply this idea to the physical similarity of man with God, as some have. But, at least, the term refers to more concrete similarity, whereas the second word demiuth, "likeness," refers more to similarity in the abstract or in the ideal. But here again we cannot venture with the Greek fathers to apply the term to man's inner or spiritual resemblance to God. Nor dare we press the change of prepositions; be "in" and ke "as." For though be describes man as being within a certain mold as it were, it yet must also be called a kind of Beth normae (K. S. 332r), for (Ex 25:40) it is used practically like ke. To this must be added the fact that v. 27 considers the use of tselem without demuth sufficient to express what God did, "image" being used twice. Again it 5:1 demuth with be and not with ke, as in our passage, is thought to be an adequate statement of the case. So we shall have to regard the second phrase, "according to our likeness," as merely supplementary to or explanatory of the first. Of course, the possessive "our" in connection with these two nouns is to be explained like the plural of "let us make" above.
But yet we have not defined what the term "the image of God" implies. Those who would rule out the clear passages of the New Testament and construe a picture only by the help. of what this chapter offers, fail to discern the true unity of scriptural revelation and are bound to arrive at a misleading conception. True, the author of the account may himself not have had a full apperception of what all was involved in this concept, but here most especially the principle must be applied. Scripture must be explained by Scripture. Especially such passages as (Eph 4:24) and (Col 3:10) must be drawn upon. The reformers clearly saw that the most important thing involved was a proper attitude of heart in faith. Luther says: "I understand this image of God to be ... that Adam not only knew God and believed in Him that He was gracious; but that he also led an entirely godly life." Cf. also Apology II, 17-22. As adequate a summary of all features involved as any is that of Koenig in TAT, p. 226 S. He lists the following items as belonging to the outward side of the divine image: (a) man's countenance which directs his gaze upwards; (b) a capacity for varying facial expressions; (c) a sense of shame expressing itself in the blush of man; (d) speech. It cannot be denied that all these are physical features which are noticeably absent in all animals. To the inner side of the divine image the same author assigns the following items: (a) on the material side of man's inner make-up stands immortality; (b) on the intellectual side is self-consciousness, reason and Vernunft;( c) on the voluntative moral side is the ability to discern good and evil, the freedom of the will, conscience, and the right use of his moral capacities--the most important of all. We understand Koenig to make this last statement in the sense of the reformer's quoted above.
We should yet especially emphasize that the trinitarian view, presented in modified form above; is not, as many charge, transferring the New Testament back into the Old. We have emphasized above that the New Testament marks an advance upon whatever the Old offers under this head. What the Old Testament offers here would never have been fully grasped if clearer and more. elaborate revelation had not thrown its light upon this passage from the New Testament.
The being to be made is called 'adham, a term whose root significance must very likely be sought in the cognate word 'adhamah (see v. 25) which refers to the soil capable of cultivation. 'Adham would, therefore, be "the cultivator of the soil."
The double modifying phrase, "in our image, after our likeness," requires closer study. It is in the last analysis nothing more than a phrase which aims to assert with emphasis the idea that man is to be closely patterned after his Maker. This feature in man's being is a second mode. of setting forth prominently the singular dignity of man: Man is not only made after the deliberate plan and purpose of God but is also very definitely patterned after Him. In making both phrases practically result in an idea which is one composite whole we are not erasing the distinction between the terms. "Image" is for the word tselem, whose root means "to carve" or "to cut off." We cannot go so far as to apply this idea to the physical similarity of man with God, as some have. But, at least, the term refers to more concrete similarity, whereas the second word demiuth, "likeness," refers more to similarity in the abstract or in the ideal. But here again we cannot venture with the Greek fathers to apply the term to man's inner or spiritual resemblance to God. Nor dare we press the change of prepositions; be "in" and ke "as." For though be describes man as being within a certain mold as it were, it yet must also be called a kind of Beth normae (K. S. 332r), for (Ex 25:40) it is used practically like ke. To this must be added the fact that v. 27 considers the use of tselem without demuth sufficient to express what God did, "image" being used twice. Again it 5:1 demuth with be and not with ke, as in our passage, is thought to be an adequate statement of the case. So we shall have to regard the second phrase, "according to our likeness," as merely supplementary to or explanatory of the first. Of course, the possessive "our" in connection with these two nouns is to be explained like the plural of "let us make" above.
But yet we have not defined what the term "the image of God" implies. Those who would rule out the clear passages of the New Testament and construe a picture only by the help. of what this chapter offers, fail to discern the true unity of scriptural revelation and are bound to arrive at a misleading conception. True, the author of the account may himself not have had a full apperception of what all was involved in this concept, but here most especially the principle must be applied. Scripture must be explained by Scripture. Especially such passages as (Eph 4:24) and (Col 3:10) must be drawn upon. The reformers clearly saw that the most important thing involved was a proper attitude of heart in faith. Luther says: "I understand this image of God to be ... that Adam not only knew God and believed in Him that He was gracious; but that he also led an entirely godly life." Cf. also Apology II, 17-22. As adequate a summary of all features involved as any is that of Koenig in TAT, p. 226 S. He lists the following items as belonging to the outward side of the divine image: (a) man's countenance which directs his gaze upwards; (b) a capacity for varying facial expressions; (c) a sense of shame expressing itself in the blush of man; (d) speech. It cannot be denied that all these are physical features which are noticeably absent in all animals. To the inner side of the divine image the same author assigns the following items: (a) on the material side of man's inner make-up stands immortality; (b) on the intellectual side is self-consciousness, reason and Vernunft;( c) on the voluntative moral side is the ability to discern good and evil, the freedom of the will, conscience, and the right use of his moral capacities--the most important of all. We understand Koenig to make this last statement in the sense of the reformer's quoted above.
Sunday, May 29, 2011
This is Our God!
Recently in the comments section of a blog here I mentioned the Lord Jesus Christ's healing of a man who had been lame for 38 years (John 5).
Subsequent to that comment the following article appeared in the Sydney Daily Telegraph on 21 May 2011:
A PARAPLEGIC man has stood up unaided, moved his legs voluntarily and walked, with help, on a treadmill after neurosurgeons implanted electrodes in his lower spine.
The world-first therapy has been hailed as an exciting advance in the quest to overcome crippling spinal cord injuries.
The electrodes then sent electrical signals to mimic those sent down the spine by the brain to begin movement.
Mr Summers can push up with his legs and reach a standing position, and support his own weight for up to four minutes at a time.
'For someone who for four years was unable to move a toe, to have the freedom to stand on my own is the most amazing feeling,' he said.
Compare the situation of the early Judean man and the Sydney Daily Telegraph's reported lame man. We don't know how the former was made lame. Potentially, he suffered a similar spinal cord injury to the latter day man. Notwithstanding the extent of damaged body parts, each man was completely lame.
Improvement came to both but look at the stark contrast in the time frame and the completeness of healing. The gap is huge and, as I indicated earlier, the healing and recreation wrought by the will of our Lord Jesus Christ was beyond all our capacity to comprehend via modern medical science.
There some 2,000 years ago in Judea, moving among the people, was the Creator of the universe who creates and recreates in an instant.
If only degenerate pseudo-evangelicals of today had more faith in Jesus Christ than they do Charles Darwin and Charles Lyell.
Sam Drucker
Subsequent to that comment the following article appeared in the Sydney Daily Telegraph on 21 May 2011:
A PARAPLEGIC man has stood up unaided, moved his legs voluntarily and walked, with help, on a treadmill after neurosurgeons implanted electrodes in his lower spine.
The world-first therapy has been hailed as an exciting advance in the quest to overcome crippling spinal cord injuries.
The electrodes then sent electrical signals to mimic those sent down the spine by the brain to begin movement.
Mr Summers can push up with his legs and reach a standing position, and support his own weight for up to four minutes at a time.
'For someone who for four years was unable to move a toe, to have the freedom to stand on my own is the most amazing feeling,' he said.
Compare the situation of the early Judean man and the Sydney Daily Telegraph's reported lame man. We don't know how the former was made lame. Potentially, he suffered a similar spinal cord injury to the latter day man. Notwithstanding the extent of damaged body parts, each man was completely lame.
Improvement came to both but look at the stark contrast in the time frame and the completeness of healing. The gap is huge and, as I indicated earlier, the healing and recreation wrought by the will of our Lord Jesus Christ was beyond all our capacity to comprehend via modern medical science.
There some 2,000 years ago in Judea, moving among the people, was the Creator of the universe who creates and recreates in an instant.
If only degenerate pseudo-evangelicals of today had more faith in Jesus Christ than they do Charles Darwin and Charles Lyell.
Sam Drucker
Friday, May 27, 2011
Into the Darkness Light Has Shone.
Oh, how they rail! How they retort their defence over and over "Young Earth Creationism is a hindrance to someone coming to Christ." Those Sydney Episcopalians who distort the Word of God exercise their troubled minds to discover a defence for their desire of the world.
Biblical Creationists know the foolishness of their defence for we know that it is the Spirit of God who does the work of conversion through the Word of Truth. We are familiar with testimonies of former Atheists who have sat under the Word of Truth delivered through the clay vessel of a Biblical Creationist and being brought to conversion by the Spirit of God. Something at least along those lines has happened again.
I was not there and I only have the message third hand but that which I have received indicates the Spirit of God was at work at a Sydney Anglican Church in recent weeks.
Two students who were not Christians (one was a Jew) had an assignment to complete as part of their tertiary studies. They thought the topic of Creationism and the controversy surrounding it might be a worthwhile exercise. They searched the Web, found Creation.com and saw that a message was being delivered by a Biblical Creationist at ........ Anglican Church in the next couple of days. That's handy, they said. They devised their questions to test the veracity of the speaker's position in the face of the Darwinist/Long Age argument and off they went to the event.
During the speaker's address it became evident sensible things were being asserted. Just as the Bereans searched the Scriptures to affirm the message of Apostle Paul these two students searched their sensibilities to affirm the veracity of the message. Questions were being answered. During question time and in private discussion with the speaker afterward all questions were answered. The two guests were profoundly affected under conviction of the Word of Truth. They came away from the event far different in thought and so favourably disposed to the Word of God.
Where things lead for these two students is beyond the scope of this writer to say just now. What is clear is that, once again, when the Spirit of God is at work the Word of God does not return void and Biblical Creationists are instruments in the Hand of God for changing the thoughts of man from death to thoughts of life in the Son.
Sam Drucker
Biblical Creationists know the foolishness of their defence for we know that it is the Spirit of God who does the work of conversion through the Word of Truth. We are familiar with testimonies of former Atheists who have sat under the Word of Truth delivered through the clay vessel of a Biblical Creationist and being brought to conversion by the Spirit of God. Something at least along those lines has happened again.
I was not there and I only have the message third hand but that which I have received indicates the Spirit of God was at work at a Sydney Anglican Church in recent weeks.
Two students who were not Christians (one was a Jew) had an assignment to complete as part of their tertiary studies. They thought the topic of Creationism and the controversy surrounding it might be a worthwhile exercise. They searched the Web, found Creation.com and saw that a message was being delivered by a Biblical Creationist at ........ Anglican Church in the next couple of days. That's handy, they said. They devised their questions to test the veracity of the speaker's position in the face of the Darwinist/Long Age argument and off they went to the event.
During the speaker's address it became evident sensible things were being asserted. Just as the Bereans searched the Scriptures to affirm the message of Apostle Paul these two students searched their sensibilities to affirm the veracity of the message. Questions were being answered. During question time and in private discussion with the speaker afterward all questions were answered. The two guests were profoundly affected under conviction of the Word of Truth. They came away from the event far different in thought and so favourably disposed to the Word of God.
Where things lead for these two students is beyond the scope of this writer to say just now. What is clear is that, once again, when the Spirit of God is at work the Word of God does not return void and Biblical Creationists are instruments in the Hand of God for changing the thoughts of man from death to thoughts of life in the Son.
Sam Drucker
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