That God is ‘Triune’ is an essential element of the Christian faith—the incarnation of the second person of the Trinity an essential part of the defence in this thesis. The notion that Christ[1] should be no more than a prophet or an angel is therefor in error. Continue reading “Jesus Christ: ‘More than an Angel’ “
After Giles Fraser questioned the virgin birth on his Guardian blog, Ian Paul responds on why we abandon this central Christian truth at our peril.
Source: Sorry Giles, the virgin birth is central to Christmas
We are all deeply saddened to hear of the recent death of one of the great New Testament scholars of the post-World War II era, I. Howard Marshall.
Professor Marshall was born 12 January 1934 and died on 12 December 2015. He was primarily educated at the University of Aberdeen (MA, BD, and PhD), along with Cambridge University (BA), and spent virtually his entire academic career at Aberdeen, where he supervised numerous students who have gone on to make contributions to evangelical scholarship. After teaching for a short time at Didsbury Methodist College in Bristol, Professor Marshall began teaching at Aberdeen in 1964 and became Professor of New Testament Exegesis in 1979, a position he held until his retirement in 1999, at which time he became Honorary Research Professor of the University. After his first wife died in 1998, he later married Dr. Maureen Yeung, who had received her PhD…
View original post 1,023 more words
The connection between saving faith and the Word of God–‘believe it’ or not:
Faith comes from hearing the message of Christ, Romans 10: 17: cf. Galatians chapter three.
According to John’s gospel, Jesus said: ” No one can come to me unless the Father who sent me draws him…Everyone who listens to the Father and learns from Him comes to me,” John 6: 44, 45. Saving faith is related to the word of God in a similar way the new birth is related to the word of God, James 1: 18; I Peter 1: 23. Can we , therefore, speak of “men of faith” apart from the word of God? This is exactly what Satan and his angels want us to believe. However, while the psychological basis may be similar, there is a difference between the spiritual experiences of the people in non-Christian religions and the experiences of the people who hear and accept the word of God, isn’t there? If not, why believe that Jesus is “the way and the truth and the life?” Why contend that “no one can come to the Father except through Him,” John 14: 6? Why propose that “salvation is found in no one else,” Acts 4: 12? Why suggest “he who has the Son has life; he who does not have the Son of God does not have life,” I John 5: 12? We dare to make such claims “because there is no other name under heaven given to men by which we must be saved,” Acts 4: 12.
Jesus Christ was (is) either a deceived egotist (a person or being [like Satan] with a BIG opinion of himself] or a divine messiah. Christianity is either one among many false religions. If there is ‘truth’ they can’t all be right, can they? For many the criterion for amy notion of ‘truth’ is that there is none–at least not if that’truth’ falls foul of personal opinion or a personally dervived ‘philosophy’.
DW
The thesis in this book addresses the Problem of Evil from a biblical perspective as it is the goodness of the God of the Bible that is in question consequently it takes seriously the notion of God’s benevolence. It also takes seriously the notion of mankind’s image bearing status. Moreover, it takes seriously the story of the fall of mankind, his banishment from the presence of God and the subsequent consequences for its own species and for the rest of creation.
Imago Dei
Regarding the ‘emergence of the creatures bearing the image of God, Robinson, Negus and Southgate (p168) rightfully conclude that whatever way the imago dei is understood, an evolutionary perspective raises the ‘thorny’ questions of how and when in the process of hominid evolution the creatures with the image and likeness of God first appeared. Though there are ideas as to when such an event might have occurred the ideas dwell, somewhat, in the realm of speculation — especially when any notion of ‘body-soul’ dualism is opined. However, Robinson, Negus and Southgate offer a scenario through which an evolutionary process may have brought about a state of affairs that would have (coincidently) allowed for the significant changes that may have been ‘responsible for’ the emergence of imago dei:
Bipedalism occurred before the large increase in brain size that characterise the human lineage. It seems that bipedalism may have led to changes in the behaviour that made increased cognitive capacity advantageous…It is not that our higher powers of reasoning enabled us to walk, but that our mode of walking enabled us to think. (Robinson, 2011) Continue reading “Beyond Eden”
Fishing has never appealed to me: sitting out in all weathers waiting for the fish to bite—spending hours waiting—coming home empty handed. I guess it would be more appealing if one was able to move one’s pitch—just to get a change of scenery—so a boat might suffice. Continue reading “Going Fishing?”
In a chapter entitled ‘Evolutionary explanation’ Ian Hutchinson (2011) refers to the dangers of a hospital environment. Hutchinson comments that one reason hospitals are such dangerous places is that, “…the environmental pressures on the bacteria there (in hospitals) are such that they rapidly evolve resistance to the various anti-bacterial agents that hospitals use.” (96) Within the evolutionary ‘framework’ there are a quite remarkable amount of life-forms, some of which might be considered unnecessary intruders, or the kinds of creation that God would ‘surely not have conjured-up’ because they seem to prove a contradiction in terms when one maintains a particular understanding of what a ‘good’ creation would look like. Bacterial life-forms are, as Hutchinson infers, endemic — not only in hospitals but in the whole of the biosphere. They are essential to the whole of the history of the biosphere. Michael Behe (2007, 63) refers to statistics offered by workers at the University of Georgia who estimated that about a billion billion trillion (1030) bacterial cells are formed on the earth each and every year.[1] Dennis Alexander (2008, 277) refers to the necessary effects of biological evolution on its products — advocating that biology is a package deal and that the values only come with the disvalues. However, Alexander goes on to say that the positive side of this is that we are living in an incredibly dynamic world in which there is what he refers to as ‘a huge amount of daily coming and going — the dead of all kinds are constantly making room for the living; all of life is Interdependent’ (279-280). Alexander holds that the God of all creation is also the great naturalist who enjoys all the richness and diversity of the natural world that he has brought into being — including its ‘impressive carnivores’ (281)[2]. Polkinghorne underlines the fact that this current universe is a creation endowed with the physical properties that have empowered it to ‘make itself’ over the course of its evolutionary history: Continue reading “Such a world can only arise via an evolutionary process, which also necessitates suffering and apparent waste”
St John writes (chapter one) that, “In the beginning was the Word”. (Note that ‘was’ is a time word—a word that strongly indicates that ‘the Word ‘always existed and not that the Word had a beginning). John goes on to say that, “the Word was with God…” (with: Greek the preposition pros—suggesting ‘processional nearness’ intimacy with God), “…all things were made through him…in him was life (zóé).” “To all who received him…to those who believed in his name…He (The Word made flesh—even Jesus) gave the right to become children of God…, [NB]…who were born, not of blood nor of the will of the flesh nor of the will of man, but of God.”
So, here’s the thing: God became man (not by the will of the flesh nor of the will of man but of God) and lived among us for a while. The witnesses, who had been with him, saw His glory. Life in Christ is not a physical process but a spiritual transformation. Being a child of God is a gift of God. The Word became Flesh so that we could become Children of God—not though through the flesh but by the Spirit of God. “That which is born of the flesh is flesh, and that which is born of the Spirit is spirit.” YOU/ME, ‘must be born again’. If it is the case that ‘flesh can only produce life in its image’, it is also the case that spiritual regeneration is that which can only be given by God. Yet what does John say? “But to all who did receive him, who believed in his name, he gave the right to become children of God, who were born not of blood nor of the flesh nor of the will of man, but of God.” (1:12,13) There is hope for the lost—for those without ‘life’.
Should we be pressured by the opinion of humanists [secular and religious] or should we be constrained by the love of Christ? It was he that commissioned, those who believe, to ‘go and make disciples–so that the blind would see and the dead have life–even ‘abundant’ life?
Writing 'Allowed' 
You must be logged in to post a comment.