The Best of Belief

Anthony Hoekema; Adventists And Walter Martin, Part I

Posted on 26 October 2012 by Islwyn

Comment on excerpts from, ‘Kingdom of the Cults’, by Walter Martin – Bethany House Publishers, 2003.

p. 535. As an explanation for the inclusion of a chapter in a book on cults entitled, “The Puzzle of Seventh-day Adventism,” (Appendix B), Walter Martin said, “In a volume such as this, dealing with non-Christian cults, the question might logically be asked, “Why include Seventh-day Adventism, especially as the writer has classified them in a full length volume as a Christian denomination?”

p. 536. Because Seventh-day Adventists have not been recognised by many as being orthodox, an opposing view is still held by some Christian apologists (including the late Anthony Hoekema). So Walter Martin, “felt it necessary to include here Seventh-day Adventism as a proper counterbalance – presenting the other side of Adventism and representing the theology of Adventism as the Adventists themselves believe it and not as many critics have caricatured it;” which I thought was very gracious of him seeing it put him at odds with other Christian apologists.

Many Adventists found themselves pleased with what they saw as Walter Martin’s honest assessment and defense of Adventists, even if they disagreed with some of his views. Others were not as generous in their response to Martin’s conclusions on Adventists. Anthony Hoekema held that Seventh-day Adventists have teachings that give them a cult status.

On pages 537-8 Walter Martin explains that because there are some Seventh-day Adventists who do not share all that Seventh-day Adventists church believe and teach in their Fundamental Beliefs, and may hold some teachings that are not considered fully Christian doctrine, it does not mean that all Seventh-day Adventists should be judged by the few, as would apply to Baptists, Methodists, Lutherans etc, where followers may hold contrary teachings to the general church body. So here was a fair and just statement made on behalf of Seventh-day Adventists.

However, I must say, I found a sting in the tail with Martin’s assessment of Adventists, which I will defer to a later post. I felt that he could himself be indicted for which he indicts Anthony Hoekema. But, first, let’s see what criticism he has of Hoekema’s indictment of Adventists which I will take in this and the next post. I will of course be open to any criticism of my criticisms of Walter Martin. But I have no criticisms of Dr. Martin in this and the next post. I see him in full defense of Adventism against Hoekema who he considers being very unfair in his assessment of Adventists.

On p. 551 from the section: Adventist Theology and Classical Orthodoxy, Martin writes,

It is unnecessary to document at great length the fact that Seventh-day Adventists adheres tenaciously to the foundational doctrines of Christian theology as these have been held by the Christian church down through the centuries. Dr. Anthony Hoekema, who believes that Seventh-day Adventism is a non-Christian cult, makes this interesting admission, and since Dr. Hoekema is no friend of Adventism, his testimony on this point could hardly be called prejudiced:

“I am of the conviction that Seventh-day Adventism is a cult and not an evangelical denomination. . . . It is recognised with gratitude that there are certain soundly scriptural emphases in the teaching of Seventh-day-Adventism. We are thankful for the Adventists’ affirmation of the infallibility of the Bible, of the Trinity and of the full deity of Jesus Christ. We gratefully acknowledge their teachings on creation and providence, on the incarnation and resurrection of Christ, on the absolute necessity for regeneration, on sanctification by the Holy Spirit, and on Christ’s literal return.”

Says Martin, “It is puzzling to me, as a student of non-Christian cult systems, how any group can hold the above doctrines in their proper biblical context, which Dr. Hoekema admits the Adventists do, and still be a non-Christian cult. However we shall deal with this aspect of the critics of Adventism at the end of the chapter; therefore, suffice it to say that the Adventists do have a clean bill of health where the major doctrines of Christian theology are concerned.”

More of Walter Martin on Hoekema in the next post.

Posted in Apologetics, Bible, Gospel, Incarnation, Jesus, Second Advent, The New Birth, The Resurrection, Trinity | Tagged christian apologists, religion, seventh day adventists | Comments Off

Our Triune God

Posted on 19 October 2012 by Islwyn

CMI is a website concerned about Origins because of what it says about God and particularly about the Person of Jesus Christ, about His status in the Godhead and about his mission to our world. “If we wilfully reject Jesus’ claim to deity, we in effect nullify His saving grace. It could hardly be more serious” declares CMI.

Posted in Apologetics, Gospel, Jesus, Origins, Saved By Grace, Trinity | Comments Off

Here We Go Again – Karen King Unveils Jesus’ Wife

Posted on 25 September 2012 by Islwyn

A shame to deflate the newspaper stories but to add to the previous post, “I enjoy fairy tales as much as the next person . . . , and some of the best fictional early Christian stories from the late second through the early fourth century are Gnostic fairy tales. It would appear that someone has found a fragment of such a tale and handed it to Harvard Professor Karen King,” says New Testament scholar, Dr. Ben Witherington.

Then Francis Watson claims ‘The Jesus Wife Papyrus Is A Rerun’

‘A British Scholar Gives A New Take On The Jesus’ Wife Papyrus’

And back to Professor Witherington, ‘Did Jesus Have A Wife’, followed by interesting comments

Posted in Apologetics, Archaeology, Jesus | Comments Off

Did Jesus Have A Wife?

Posted on 20 September 2012 by Islwyn

“Harvard Professor Karen King, who is the person who has been entrusted with the text, has rightly warned us that this does not say anything about the historical Jesus. She is correct that “its possible date of composition in the second half of the second century, argues against its value as evidence for the life of the historical Jesus”. But she is also right that this is a fascinating discovery which offers us a window into debates about sex and marriage in the early church, and the way Jesus could be adapted to play a part in a particular debate. If it is genuine,” says Simon Gathercole on the Tyndale website.

“Was Jesus Married? Does The Evidence Say Yes?” asks Mark Roberts

“Major news outlets, such as the New York Times, are reporting on the discovery of a new document that refers to Jesus’ wife. More precisely, a small fragment from a previously unknown document contains a statement by a character named “Jesus” referring to “my wife.”

Does this give us new historical evidence for the literal marriage of Jesus of Nazareth to some woman, perhaps Mary Magdalene?”

Mark Roberts, A Havard New Testament Scholar, gives more credence to Karen King’s intention to her publication than does Albert Mohler who titles the next review of Karen King’s work,

The Gospel of Jesus’ Wife? When Sensationalism Masquerades as Scholarship

“The Smithsonian article states that “the announcement at an academic conference in Rome is sure to send shock waves through the Christian world.” The magazine’s breathless enthusiasm for the news about the papyrus probably has more to do with advertising its upcoming television documentary than anything else, but the nation’s most prestigious museum can only injure its reputation with this kind of sensationalism,” says Albert Mohler.

Posted in Apologetics, Jesus | Comments Off

Archaeology: The Bible And Samson

Posted on 16 August 2012 by Islwyn

“Israeli archaeologists recently discovered a coin dating from the 11th century before Christ. It depicted “a man with long hair fighting a large animal with a feline tail.” Ring any Old Testament bells?

The coin was found near the Sorek River, which was the border between the ancient Israelite and Philistine territories 3,100 years ago. Sound vaguely familiar?” Read on . . .

Posted in Archaeology, Bible, History | Comments Off

Aurora: Why Does God Allow Evil And Suffering?

Posted on 10 August 2012 by Islwyn

All right-minded people would share Jessica Redfield’s sentiments over her experience at the Toronto killing when she said, “That’s when it really hit me. I felt nauseas. Who would go into a mall full of thousands of innocent people and open fire? Is this really the world we live in?”

But of course, this is the world we live in, isn’t it? We read of these things happening around the world, not just in Iraq or Afghanistan, or Libya or Syria, or other war zones. It happens in so-called civilised democratic societies.

Mark Galli of Christianity Today writes, “Yet another shooting tragedy has befallen us in the United States. Starting with Colombine in 1999, it has become a regular feature of American life in the 21st century. Fast forward to Friday, and we are now mourning the absurd slaughter of 12 people trapped in a theater in Aurora, Colorado.” He doesn’t mention the 58 injured, some seriously. It’s already being called the worst mass shooting in American history: 70 people shot by a gunman, 12 of them killed, while they were watching the midnight showing of a new movie.

With no NHS and some victims with either no health insurance or inadequate health insurance, may face a long recovery due to the nature of their injuries. Private donors and local private hospitals have to come to the rescue of the injured. The Associated Press reported that “Just days after the massacre took place, three local hospitals that treated victims of the Aurora shooting said they would limit or completely wipe out victims’ medical bills. Then last week, a fourth hospital said it would waive co-pays for shooting victims, according to 7News.”

When I heard the news of the massacre at Aurora my mind recalled immediately the statement made by the school head at Dunblane: in March 1996: his words were quoted in the press at the time; said the head,“Evil has visited us today”. What else can we call it? Dunblane, Hungerford and Cumbria are considered the worst gun crimes experienced in the UK. Norway had its worst gun crime a year ago.

But why does it happen? Following Aurora Christian leaders in the US have been addressing what is a difficult subject. John Stonehouse of the Christian website, Breakpoint, asks, ‘Why Evil? Why This Evil?’ And then he provides some ‘Thoughts on Aurora’.

Says Stonehouse, “Ignoring evil is a fundamentally wrong approach for Christians. Christianity is a worldview that claims to explain the world as it actually is, and the only world you and I have ever lived in is the one that is deeply and broadly impacted by evil.

“In the face of His weeping friends whose brother had just died, Jesus wept too. In fact, He wept despite knowing that He was going to raise Lazarus from the dead and turn the family’s weeping into celebration. Why would He weep if He knew all this? Because it was the world He had made and the people He had fashioned in His own image that were broken.

To paraphrase the title Neal Plantinga used for his book on the impact of human sin, this world is Not the Way It’s Supposed to Be. And because we live in a world that often veers so distinctly from the good design and order given it by God, trying to offer a tidy explanation for this evil or that evil is futile.

And at the same time, says Stonehouse, it’s quite valid to ask why we recognize evil as such. Why do we recognize the actions of the gunman as disordered but honor the three men who lost their lives by shielding their girlfriends? Or 21-year-old Stephanie Davies, who chose to apply pressure to her friend’s severe wound rather than save her own life?

You see if ours is merely a world “red with tooth and claw” — that is, if ours is a creator-less world that arose by chance, and nature has no rhyme or reason — then heroic acts would be indistinguishable from despicable ones. But no. Our ability to recognize evil as evil reveals something about how we are made. And still the final word we Christians can offer is one we must offer: God is not absent. He is present in the world of human suffering, and He Himself suffered too.

Says Mark Galli of Christianity Today, “we are kidding ourselves if we think we have within our national grasp an educational or psychological or political solution to evil. There is no solution or explanation for evil. Evil is fundamentally irrational; it simply cannot be grasped by means of our intellectual categories. Evil is the very denial of rationality, because it is a rebellion against the Logos, the very principle of the good, the true, and the beautiful who created and sustains the universe, and who has redeemed the universe. The Christian hope in the face of evil is not to explain it or cure it. Our hope is absurd in its own way, turning absurdity on its head.

Says Galli, “We proclaim that evil has already been dealt the decisive blow. And that blow was delivered, paradoxically enough, at a moment when evil seems to have won—on the cross on which Jesus Christ died. Christians “make sense” of tragedies by acknowledging that they are in fact senseless, and that their absurdity is little different than the absurdity of the Cross. And that’s precisely why, when we talk about the gospel, we begin with the absurd. As Paul notes, our preaching is foolish to the Jews, who ask for signs from heaven. And it is foolish to the Greeks, who seek human wisdom. So when we preach that Christ was crucified, the Jews are offended and the Gentiles say it’s all nonsense. (1 Cor. 1:22-23 , NLT)

And the content of the preaching is this: absurdity has been defeated by absurdity, death has been defeated by death. The Resurrection, especially in the preaching in Acts, is mostly about the vindication of Jesus” “The apparent failure of the Cross was, in fact, a victory—a victory over the irrational principalities that currently wreak havoc in the world, . . .”

Addressing the problem of tragedy and suffering the following Sunday following Aurora Lee Strobel quotes what Jesus said in John 16:33. “I have told you these things so that in me you may have peace. You will have suffering in this world. But be courageous! I have conquered the world.”

“In other words, he offers us the two very things we need when we’re hurting: peace to deal with our present and courage to deal with our future. How? Because he has conquered the world! Through his own suffering and death, he has deprived this world of its ultimate power over you. Suffering doesn’t have the last word anymore. Death doesn’t have the last word anymore. God has the last word!”

And as Christians, that is what makes sense to us, isn’t it? Here is the best in Christian belief. We know there is a sin problem in God’s world. The world isn’t as God intended it to be. But because Christ has come into the world and has conquered death (1 Corinthians 15:51-57), we can know God will have the last word. Whatever takes place in our world this side of the kingdom, we know we can trust him. And this is something to share with all who are willing to stop in the serious moments of their lives, to share with them the Good News that things are not going to continue as they are. Jesus Christ has conquered sin and death and for all who put their trust in him will have eternal life. (John 6:40). Lee Strobel’s Sunday Sermon is titled, ‘Why Does God Allow Tragedy And Suffering‘.

Posted in Christ's Sacrifice, Evil, Injustice, Jesus, Salvation, The Gospel, Tragedy | Comments Off

Jessica Redfield’s Last Post

Posted on 10 August 2012 by Islwyn

I picked up a link on one of the blogs on the Internet dealing with the recent massacre at Aurora, Colorado. I say recent, it is reported as the biggest gun crime in the US but it doesn’t take long for its news to fade to give way to more current news, leaving a community to carry its pain alone. The blog I picked up was addressing the general problem of shootings in America. The link in the post led to another blog that got me curios. The blog is or was by a young lady aspiring to be a hockey or sports journalist or sports caster. When I went to the blog I found only two posts. It was the last post that caught me sideways unawares, like that vintage vehicle that intercepted my motor cycle travel – side on – one Saturday that got me on a different ride – in ambulance.

Considered clever, funny and witty, 25-year-old Jessica’s first post showed this side of this young aspiring hockey writer and sports caster. The first post on her blog posted August last year was titled,I Like M y Hocky Like I Like My Men.

She says in the first paragraph of that first post, “I’m fairly new to this kind of dating. I’ve quickly realized there are so many men out there for me to choose from: The Bad Boys, The Party Guys, The Class Clowns, and even The Hot Guy with No Brains, to name a few. I’m having the time of my life going out there and getting to know all these different types of men. I’m starting to figure out what I like and what I don’t like. I have found myself incredibly attracted to some and completely turned off by others. Some that have future potential, and some that just make good friends. Men are like the game of hockey to me, and NHL teams (National Hockey League), are easily compared to a collection of male archetypes that everyone can relate to.” But these are all personified descriptions of the hockey teams that she would be reporting on and be engaged with in reporting on their games.

“Jessica Redfield was going to be a sportscaster, and she was going to be a good one. She was sharp, funny, enthusiastic and had the kind of passion for sports and journalism that makes people succeed,” said her journalist friend, Jesse Spector. “She was opinionated about everything, but in a much less obnoxious way than most of us.”

One can only imagine what interactions there might be between an attractive 25-year-old redhead sports reporter or intern sports caster, and the hunks of handsome masculinity that made up those competing hockey teams.

But then I read her second post dated June this year. What a contrast is this second and last post from June 2011. It’s much more serious and sober. This post is in response to a traumatic experience that few of us experience. It comes back to the kind of situation that took place at Aurora, at around midnight, 20 July (2012). But this took place in the Eaton Shopping Centre in Toronto. A place I visited in 2000 but not associated it with gun crime. The BBC reported that, “Witnesses described scenes of panic after gunfire broke out in the food court of the Eaton Centre.

Jessica Redfield had stopped to eat at the food court in the Eaton Centre just minutes earlier, at the very place where the fatal shooting and others who were injured took place. But for some reason she didn’t know why, she decided she fancied something different to eat which meant moving off outside the food court for her different food purchase. When the gunfire broke she realised she had only just moved out of harm’s way. The last post on her blog is titled, ‘Late Night Thoughts On The Eaton centre Shooting.

Jessica Redfield says that experience was a day that forever changed her life. She said, “It’s hard for me to wrap my mind around how a weird feeling saved me from being in the middle of a deadly shooting.”

“I found out after seeing a map of the scene,” she said, “that minutes later a man was standing in the same spot I just ate at and opened fire in the food court full of people.”

That’s when it really hit me. I felt nauseas. Who would go into a mall full of thousands of innocent people and open fire? Is this really the world we live in?

Then she writes, “I was shown how fragile life was on Saturday. I saw the terror on bystanders’ faces. I saw the victims of a senseless crime. I saw lives change. I was reminded that we don’t know when or where our time on Earth will end. When or where we will breathe our last breath. For one man, it was in the middle of a busy food court on a Saturday evening.”

Her feelings of mortality resonated with me as I have shared elsewhere. Many years later I still sometimes find myself drawing a deep breath, and feeling the privilege of being able to breathe. I couldn’t help reading her blog again, and when I read about her, and you just have to put her name into a search engine, I read that last post in her blog again.

Jessica Redfield found herself in another similar situation six weeks later. On July 20, Jessica was in the Aurora theatre. And there was another senseless shooting. ‘USATODAY’ reported,

“Hours after news broke of a mass shooting at a movie theater in Aurora, Colo., the photographs started circulating – images of a pretty, red-haired woman with a big smile on her face.

“Jessica Redfield, a young sports broadcaster/blogger from Texas who was an intern at a Denver radio station, was one of the 12 people killed in the shooting. Redfield (whose given last name was Ghawi) loved hockey, writing and social media. Her brother, Jordan, confirmed her death on Twitter and his personal blog early Friday morning.”

All right-minded people would share Jessica’s sentiments over he Toronto experience: “That’s when it really hit me. I felt nauseas. Who would go into a mall full of thousands of innocent people and open fire? Is this really the world we live in?” Maybe there will be something in and about Jessica’s ‘last post’ that needs to be kept alive – that it will have some effect of revealing evil to be what it is and perhaps have some restraining influence on those who mindlessly bring pain to our world. But also, Jessica reminds those readers of her blog that there are the important things in life we should not let slip away from us, they are in her ‘last post’.

Posted in Biographies, Evil, Injustice, Tragedy | Comments Off

The Gospel In Isaiah

Posted on 25 July 2012 by Islwyn

There are those who believe Adventists are under the ‘Old Testament’, meaning, Adventists are under the Law of the Old Testament as a means of salvation, whereas Bible believing Christians are under the Grace of God provided through the Lord Jesus Christ as revealed in the New Testament. There is the inference that people in the Old Testament were saved under a different system from those in Christ’s time and onwards. In the Old Testament salvation was by works, whereas in the New Testament salvation is by grace (Ephesians 2:8). But Jesus chided the two disciples he met along the Emmaus Road for being so downhearted about his death, where did he point them to as a source of their salvation? We read of Jesus saying to them in verses 25-27:

“How foolish you are, and how slow of heart to believe all that the prophets have spoken! Did not the Christ have to suffer these things and then enter His glory? And beginning with Moses and all the prophets, He explained to them what was said in the Scriptures concerning Himself.”

It was the Old Testament to which the Apostle Paul directed his readers when he said in 2 Timothy 3:16-17, “All Scripture is God-breathed and is useful for teaching, rebuking, correcting and training in righteousness, so that the servant of God may be thoroughly equipped for every good work.”

And the Apostle Peter affirmed the same for his readers when he wrote in 2 Peter 1:19-21 that,

“ We also have the prophetic message as something completely reliable, and you will do well to pay attention to it, as to a light shining in a dark place, until the day dawns and the morning star rises in your hearts. Above all, you must understand that no prophecy of Scripture came about by the prophet’s own interpretation of things. For prophecy never had its origin in the human will, but prophets, though human, spoke from God as they were carried along by the Holy Spirit.”

So the Scriptures is seen as ‘God’s Word’ to humankind, used by the human instrument to convey his word in human language. But it’s a little puzzling when some fellow believers, (far from all), are critical of Adventists because they see us as ‘under the Old Testament’ as if the New Testament has replaced the Old. The Old Testament was the Bible of the early Christians!

Notice that Jesus didn’t reveal who he was until he had re-established the disciple’s faith in the Old Testament Scriptures. Jesus then went on to show that those Scriptures taught about him and his plans to bring salvation to humankind. The New Testament wouldn’t make sense without the Old Testament, and the story of Old Testament would not be complete without the explanation we find in the New Testament. Salvation is by God’s pardoning grace from Genesis to Revelation.

I’m sure many have wondered what Gospel passages Jesus might have included in the Old Testament study along the Emmaus Road. Whatever those selected Scriptures Jesus expounded on, verse 32 tells us the hearts of those two disciples more than just warmed, they experienced a ‘burning within’! We can make some educated guesses about what passages Jesus might have included, but I feel quite sure that Isaiah 53 would be one of them for sure. Take verses 1-6 for instance:

“Who has believed our message

and to whom has the arm of the LORD been revealed?

2 He grew up before him like a tender shoot,

and like a root out of dry ground.

He had no beauty or majesty to attract us to him,

nothing in his appearance that we should desire him.

3 He was despised and rejected by mankind,

a man of suffering, and familiar with pain.

Like one from whom people hide their faces

he was despised, and we held him in low esteem.

4 Surely he took up our pain

and bore our suffering,

yet we considered him punished by God,

stricken by him, and afflicted.

5 But he was pierced for our transgressions,

he was crushed for our iniquities;

the punishment that brought us peace was on him,

and by his wounds we are healed.

6 We all, like sheep, have gone astray,

each of us has turned to our own way;

and the LORD has laid on him

the iniquity of us all.”

Jesus came to our world to take the consequences of human sin and rebellion upon Himself (Philippians 2:6-8). The idea of substitution has been an established teaching of the Christian church down through history. We are not saved because of our goodness, or even through our obedience! We are saved because of our acceptance of His goodness and His obedience. It doesn’t mean we have a lower moral or ethical code. In fact we should have the opposite because of our regard for Jesus Christ. It was a delight to the Apostle Paul that God should love us that much that, as he says in Romans 5:8, “while we were sinners Christ died for us.”

The substitution idea is the crimson thread running throughout the Bible. It begins from the instruction given to our first parents with regard to the slaying of a lamb, for which Abel was killed (Genesis 4:1-8; Hebrews 11:4),- through to Abraham’s sacrifice of Isaac on Mount Moriah, in intention anyway, (Genesis 22:1-12; Hebrews 11:17-19), – through to the meaning of the blood on the doorposts of the Israelite homes before the Israelites left Egypt (Exodus 12:7, 12-13, 21-27), – through the whole sanctuary system and the sacrificial offerings of the Old Testament, right up to their fulfilment in the death of Jesus on the cross (Matthew 27:50-51; Hebrews 9:1- 28).

The Old Testament sacrifices were a type of what the Book of Hebrews calls the “Once and for all” sacrifice made by Jesus (Hebrews 9:24-26; 10:1-14; cf., 1 Peter 1:18-20). His was a sacrifice that would not need repeating; it was complete and sufficient for all it was intended to accomplish.

One theologian remarked, “This was no mere moral influence to change human perception of God, that we might appreciate Him. This was the horror of plunging into eternal separation from God! Jesus knew that God, who forgives sinners, never forgives sin.” And so his cry of dereliction on the cross, “My God, My God, why have you forsaken me?” He suffered the forsakenness that all mankind must suffer who have not put their trust in him and accepted his sacrifice on their behalf. The Apostle Paul reminds us in Romans 6:23, “The wages of sin is death, but the gift of God is eternal life through Jesus Christ our Lord.”

There are several theories for the sacrifice of Jesus, and Isaiah 53 is one that supports what we call The Substitutionary Theory. As verses 5 and 6 puts it:

“But he was pierced for our transgressions, he was crushed for our iniquities; the punishment that brought us peace was upon him, and by his wounds we are healed. We all, like sheep, have gone astray, each of us has turned to his own way, and the Lord has laid on him the iniquity of us all.”

In verse 26 of Luke 24, the Greek verb is in the imperative. When Jesus said to those two disciples on the Emmaus Road, “Did not Christ have to suffer these things,” it was something Jesus had expected of Himself from the time He understood what his mission and ministry was about. It was all symbolised there in the sacrifices in the Temple services in Jerusalem.

Jesus did try to tell his disciples about what had to happen to Him before He should leave this world. In Matthew 16:21 we read that, “from that time on Jesus began to explain to His disciples that He must go to Jerusalem and suffer many things at the hands of the elders, chief priests and teachers of the law, and that he must be killed, and on the third day be raised to life.”

It was predicted in the Old Testament. This is how the disciples later came to see it when in Acts 2:22-24, the Apostle Peter told the Jewish leaders it had been in God’s set purpose and foreknowledge to hand Christ over to them to be killed (Acts 3:18; 4:27,28).

In Acts 17:2,3 the Apostle Paul is found “explaining and proving that the Christ had to suffer and rise from the dead.” One can think of a whole list of Scriptures that talk about this aspect of Christ’s life and ministry.

There are Christians who balk at the idea of Christ dying for the sins of humanity, the innocent for the guilty. But substitution has been a teaching down through the history of the Christian church. We read it in the Scriptures. It is preached in sermons. We give thanks for it when we take part in the Lord’s Supper. We express gratitude for it in our prayers. We sing it in our hymns.

Think of the power that motivated the Wesley’s in their preaching and song writing. We have Wesley hymns such as:

“Amazing love, how can it be,

that thou my God should die for me.”

And then the hymn:

“O Love divine what hast thou done!

The incarnate God hath died for me!

The Father’s well beloved Son

Bore all my sins upon the tree!

The Son of God for me hath died;

My Lord, my Love, is crucified.”

Think of the popular hymn writer, Fanny Crosby with the hymn,

“Redeemed how I love to proclaim it!

Redeemed by the blood of the Lamb;

Redeemed through His infinite mercy,

His child, and forever, I am.”

And again in the hymn:

“My song shall be of Jesus,

the precious Lamb of God,

Who gave Him-self my ransom,

and bought me with His blood.”

Think of that great churchman Isaac Watts. We find echoes of Isaiah 53:3 in his:

“Man of sorrows, wondrous name,

For the Son of God who came,

Ruined sinners to reclaim,

Hallelujah, What a Saviour.

Bearing shame and scoffing rude,

In my place condemned he stood;

Sealed my pardon with His blood,

Hallelujah, What a Saviour.”

Isaiah 53 finds its place of course in Handel’s Messiah.

Now there have been difficulties in the idea of substitution, which I hope, are not difficulties for us today. It has been thought by some that God has ransomed us from the devil. And 1 Corinthians 6:20 does speak about us being “bought with a price” and that we are not our own. But God owes nothing to the devil, except the judgement.

Again, while the Bible uses the Ransom symbolism, it does not tell us who receives the ransom. If you think about, it is we who are the beneficiaries of this ransom. Think of the exchange God gives to us when we give ourselves to Him! Says the Apostle John in 1 John 5:12, “He who has the Son has life“! Eternal Life now, and Immortality at the ‘last day’.

One thing is sure, Isaiah 53 makes clear to us to what the Old and New Testament writers thought they were referring. There is just One who became the Suffering Servant on behalf of human-mankind.

I’ll close these reflections on Isaiah 53 with the thought expressed in verse 11:

“After the suffering of his soul, he will see the light of life and be satisfied; by his knowledge my righteous servant will justify many, and he will bear their iniquities.”

To justify means to put us right with God. That is all of God’s doing through Christ. We can delight in the Gospel for all that Christ has done for us.

Secondly, he says that “he will see the light of life and be satisfied.” That reminds me of Hebrews 12:2 where the writer exhorts his readers to:

“Fix your eyes on Jesus, the author and perfector of our faith, who for the joy that was set before him, endured the cross, scorning its shame, and sat down at the right hand of the throne of God.”

Both Old and New Testaments speak of only one way of salvation, it is by faith in the grace of the Lord Jesus Christ. Does Christ’s commitment on behalf of fallen humankind have its appeal for us as it did for the great hymn writer who wrote: (317)

“King of my life I crown Thee now, Thine shall the Glory be; lest I forget Thy thorned crowned brow, Lead me to Calvary.”

Fixing our eyes on Jesus can be life changing, and life enhancing – here in the now – and for the eternity to come.

Posted in Apologetics, Bible, Christ's Sacrifice, Forgiveness, Gospel, Jesus, Justification & Sanctification, Salvation, Saved by Faith | Comments Off

Celebrate The Jubilee of Jubilees!

Posted on 10 June 2012 by Islwyn

I was there! Someone describes some great or significant event to you and you could say, yes I know, “I was there!” Watching some of the Queen’s Diamond Jubilee pageantry on Television sent me down memory lane. I was there! I was there at her coronation in June 1953. I slept on The Mall overnight and secured my place near the Victoria Monument. After 60 years the memory of the coronation has never left me. I was there!

O the wonder of it all to a young 16-year-old, alone – and yet enjoying the occasion with so many people, even although I hadn’t met the people before with whom I was sharing the enjoyment! It seemed that every nation was represented among the crowds that thronged from Buckingham Palace to Westminster Abbey – and much of the time the day before stopping at the joyful groups from different countries – celebrating with their singing as they camped out in the nearby parks.

Where do we get the word, jubilee? ‘Jubilee’ has biblical origins. In the Old Testament, people or families who had forfeited their property due to the reverses of life or for any other reason, or had to give themselves over to servitude for similar reasons, their property would revert back to the original owners and those who had given themselves over to servant hood, could go free. If they were struck with good fortune then the reversion of land or release from servant hood could take place before the year of Jubilee. The Jubilee year was obviously a time of rejoicing. People who had been disadvantaged in life were able to return to their property once owned by family or clan, or if they chose to, recover their independence to the laws surrounding the year of Jubilee. It says in Leviticus 25:10, “Consecrate the fiftieth year and proclaim liberty throughout all the land to its inhabitants. It shall be a jubilee for you; each one of you is to return to his family property and each to his own clan.”

In Scripture, we are told God made the earth to be inhabited. The land belongs to God. In Psalm 24:1 we read, “The earth is the Lord’s, and everything in it.” Some people may not like that idea but the Bible makes clear that God is the Landlord and we are the tenants! He expects us to treat each other fairly and justly and mercifully. The golden rule comes from the Bible, do unto others, as you would have them do unto you. We see many things gone wrong in our world with most of the world’s wealth in the hands of the few while most of the world’s inhabitants struggle to eek out a living.

In Hebrews 11 we read that God’s people in Old Testament times looked forward to that day when everything will be put right. Hebrews 11: 13-16 tells us God’s people had not settled down in this world but were longing for a better country – a heavenly one. The earth made new will never be marred by sin and death again (Revelation 21:1-4).

That is the one celebration all loyal followers of Jesus Christ can look forward to. The invitation to that great jubilee to come is a universal invitation. It’s an invitation to all people; no one need miss out (John 3:16).

In Hebrews 11 we read of all those people of faith from Old Testament times who are listed there. When the author closed off that representative list of believers from the past he did so with the words expressed in verses 39-40: “These were all commended for their faith, yet none of them received what had been promised. God had planned something better for us so that only together with us would they be made perfect.”

As far as the Old Testament believers were concerned they had an abiding confidence in God who would one day raise them from the dead, just as Abraham believed God would do with Isaac if Abraham had sacrificed Isaac had God required him to do so (Hebrews 11:17-19, cf Genesis 22:1-19).

Considered the earliest book of the Old Testament, Job knew that his Redeemer lived and that in the end he would see God with his own eyes, for which he yearned for in his heart (Job 19:25-27).

We read of Daniel being assured in his old age that he would go to his rest and to his ‘sleep’ until the day he would be raised to receive his allotted inheritance (Daniel 12:13, 1-4).

Jesus echoed those words of Daniel in John 5: 28-29. In John 6:40 we read of Jesus saying, “For my Father’s will is that everyone who looks to the Son and believes in him shall have eternal life, and I will raise him up at the last day.”

The resurrection is the basis of the Christian faith (1 Corinthians 15:20-23). That will be the Jubilee of all jubilees! A time when we will be free from servitude to others? A time when we will be forever free from the pain and toil and sickness of this world? (Revelation 21:1-5). If we are well heeled we may not appreciate that. But for the two thirds of this world who are without or starving, I think these promises in Scripture would be very meaningful!

In the New Testament we see the authors expanding on the subject of the resurrection. They talk about that day when Jesus comes to claim his own. In Titus 2:13 the Apostle Paul reminded his colleague Titus, and all who down through history, would read his letter to Titus: “we wait for the blessed hope – the glorious appearing of our great God and Saviour, Jesus Christ.”

2000 years have gone since those promises were made, can we still believe in those promises? Some people want to reinterpret the Second Advent promises, and some have indeed reinterpreted the Bible so that these messages no longer mean what they appear to say. There is too long a time gap between when they were written to our present age. There has to be some other interpretation different from the traditional reading of these texts.

But let’s stop there for a moment. When Jesus came the first time, there was a much greater time gap between the time from when the promises of his first Advent were given and when he actually came. As expounded by that renowned 19th century preacher, Charles Spurgeon, Genesis 3:15 is referred to as the “First Gospel.” It goes back to the Fall. Jude tells us in verse 14 that “Enoch, the seventh from Adam, prophesied . . . ‘See, the Lord is coming with thousands of his holy ones to judge everyone . . .” And so we come to Abraham who lived about 1800 –2000 years before Jesus, but believed, not only in the first coming of Jesus but also in the Second Coming of Jesus as the author writes in Hebrews 11.

And when Jesus met the disciples on the Emmaus Road he pointed to the Old Testament as evidence for who he was and the inevitability of his sufferings on behalf of human kind. So the distance in time since Jesus’ first and second coming is no reason for doubting the promises of the second coming as being literal. In Galatians 4:4 we are told that, “when the time had fully come, God sent his Son, born of a woman, born under the law, that we might receive the full rights as sons.”

Whatever the distance in time between the promises and the actual coming the first time puts the time of the second coming in perspective. In verse 9 of chapter 3 of his Second Epistle, the Apostle Peter pleads with his readers not to forget that, “With the Lord a day is like a thousand years and a thousand years like one day. The Lord is not slow in keeping his promise, as some understand slowness. He is patient with you, not wanting anyone to perish, but everyone to come to repentance.” And if death is a sleep as the Bible describes it, then there is no time in sleep – the next moment is to awake at the Coming of Jesus (1 Corinthians 15:51-57).

Coming back to Hebrews 11:39, 40, the author speaks of God’s chosen people down through history, “These were all commended for their faith, yet none of them received what had been promised. God had planned something better for us so that only together with us would they be made perfect.”

The author of the Letter to the Hebrews encourages his readers, and every generation of believers down to our day to keep our focus on the Person of Jesus and his promises. Having recounted a representation of the people of faith of the past, he follows on in chapter 12:

“Therefore, since we are surrounded by such a great cloud of witnesses, let us throw off everything that hinders and the sin that so easily entangles, and let us run with perseverance the race marked out for us.” Let us fix our eyes upon Jesus, the author and perfector of our faith, who for the joy set before Him, endured the cross, scorning its shame, and sat down at the right hand of the throne of God” (Hebrews 12:1-2).

I think what we saw last weekend put the ‘Great’ back into Great Britain. The Queen deserved the thanks given to her by the nation. Who else stands out in our nation showing such commitment and loyalty and fidelity to her family and to her nation and the Commonwealth?

Yet there was a picture taken of her with bowed head in St Paul’s Cathedral where she was thought to be thinking and praying for her husband who was not alongside her. He was in hospital. As great as we think our Queen is, she unashamedly recognises Someone greater than herself to whom she is accountable.

Our Queen deserved the Jubilee, but how much more does the Saviour of mankind deserve our praise and adoration for what he has done for us.

The time is coming when we will celebrate that great Jubilee – when the Lord Jesus Christ will return to claim all those who have put their trust in him. The hymn writer catches the atmosphere of that great Jubilee when we are given back our lost inheritance that has been taken away from us in this fallen world of ours when she writes, http://www.hymnsite.com/lyrics/umh701.sht

“When we all get to heaven, what a day of rejoicing that will be! When we all see Jesus, We’ll sing and shout the victory”

We are all invited to celebrate this great Jubilee! The invitation is still open!

Posted in Gospel, Jesus, Salvation, Second Advent, The Resurrection | Comments Off

How Were The Books Of The New Testament Chosen?

Posted on 8 June 2012 by Islwyn

There have been claims and counterclaims about why some ‘gospels’ (that are claimed to be ‘gospels’) were left out of the New Testament. “Professor and columnist Timothy Paul Jones says there were many books competing for the church’s attention during the forming of the New Testament, but the ones that made it into the Bible stood out for one reason.” Apart from testing their authenticity against the writings of the accepted canon of Scripture of the Old Testament as well as against the writings accepted as authoritative that became the New Testament, for Prof. Jones there is one major reason:

Posted in Apologetics, Bible | Comments Off