The Synod of Dort
If you’ve ever been to a Synod, you’ll quickly find out that “truth” is determined by numbers.
So remarked a Catholic contributor on a Protestant forum recently. Is this a fair criticism of Protestant disunity? How should we Protestants reply? Thanks to James Jordan’s teaching, I think I can offer an answer.
Ezra took a great risk to bring Levites and riches to the Temple from Persia. Mixed marriages were suddenly of more concern, which poses a difficult question. Things seem to be heading backwards—away from the New Testament rather than towards it.
Why are females baptized?
The Bible begins with the entire physical creation in view and works its way down through a Covenantal ‘world’—Adam-Israel (the blood of circumcision)—to Jesus, in whom the entire old world is slain and resurrected. The Bible then works its way out again through a Covenantal ‘world’—Eve-Israel (the water of baptism)—to a totally redeemed physical creation at its end.
A couple of guys have written a book called Beyond Creation Science. As preterists, they understand there was a symbolic ‘flood’ across the Land of Israel under both Nebuchadnezzar’s Babylon and Nero/Vespasian’s Rome. Problem is, they read this back into Noah’s flood and try to say that this was only a local flood, which then allows them to compromise with old-earth Creationism.
It was ‘long-age’ geological assumptions that provided a ‘foundation’ for Darwin’s long-age biological fantasy. I would recommend Tas Walker’s site, Biblical Geology, for someone who really knows his stuff.
The position of these fellows causes more problems than it fixes. It makes the Bible’s very detailed chronology a joke, and forces a gap of millions of years into Genesis 1.
Here’s the solution:
Adam’s failure brought physical de-Creation. Cain founded a corrupt civilisation whose evil influence triumphed and was destroyed in a literal flood. Just like Cain, Ham was cursed, and his son Canaan’s influence led to social de-Creation. As God raised new land out of the waters after the flood, God would now perform another Creation miracle. In calling Abram, God was socially dividing the waters of the nations into the Land and the Sea. The era of the patriarchs, ruling fathers, began. God called Abram, and tore the world in two.
The land and sea division was a literal, physical land and sea in early Genesis. The ark of Noah was a literal ’world-in-a-box’, a safehouse and doorway to a new world. But when God called Abram, the ‘Land and Sea’ division was purely social, and the Tabernacle and Temple were a symbolic ‘world-in-a-box.’ These guys have confused these two and unwittingly undermined the authority of Scripture.
[Also, on hyperpreterist ‘Covenant Creationism’, see A Chronic Hysteresis.]
Jesus As Yahweh
Veli-Matti Karkkainen points out that Philippians 2:9-11 alludes to Isaiah 45:22-23, where Yahweh declares Himself to be the one and only God, before whom “every knee will bow” and by whom “every tongue will swear.” Thus, “for Paul the resurrected and exalted Christ enjoys the same status as the God of Israel.”
Peter Leithart, www.leithart.com
One of my school friends ended up studying oceanography. He specialised and specialised until, in his own words, he knew everything about nothing.
Theologians have the tendency to invent abstract theology, divorced from the text and contained merely in their own complicated terminology. Generally, seminaries tie their students up with this stuff instead of just teaching them the Bible, and when they do teach the Bible it’s dissected into mostly disconnected little parcels.
On the AV forum, Matthew Cart wrote:
When I was first a Christian I used to believe that it was always wrong to tell a lie, no matter what. Both Leviticus 19:11 and Colossians 3:9 talk about not lying to one another. There are scores of verses that talk about honesty.
I was first introduced to the idea of exceptions to this rule by a friend of mine. He spoke about the Chinese Christians who lie to communist authorities while they are escaping from prison and persecution type situations. Also there are Bible smugglers who lie to get Bibles to Christians in persecuted countries. There is a lot of deceit that happens, even with Voice of the Martyrs, doing things in secret and using deception for the sake of the gospel. You could consider this lying.
Didn’t Christians also practice deception and lying during Hitler’s reign to have the Jews? Someone would come to their house and ask if there were Jews there and they would say, “No”.
I am also challenged by the story in 1 Kings 22 where God put a lying spirit in the mouth of his own prophets in order to purposely deceive someone…
The repeated theme is (I think) actually that of the “warrior-bride” tricking the “serpent” before making an escape, as observed by James Jordan in his lectures. This would possibly include all the examples above plus the Hebrew midwives, Rahab’s hiding of the spies, Jael’s deception of Sisera, Michal’s lie after David’s escape and Esther’s “invitation” to Haman. These and many more were “eye for eye” justice from Eve upon the father of lies, the serpent, fulfilled of course in the cross.
It appears again in Revelation, when the serpent vomits out counterfeit living waters (false doctrine) which is swallowed hook, line and sinker by the Judaisers and Jews (the “Land”), but not the saints. In this case it was like Solomon’s sword – a deception that made plain which woman was the true mother of the living child and which woman was lying.
So Eve deceives the serpent. It is ironic justice.
“I have not come to bring peace, but a sword.” (Matthew 10:34)
Whenever the Word of God comes, it is an end to business as usual. Some people taste life, others taste death, and there is conflict between the quick and the dead. God sends confusion to those who have chosen death, and gives miraculous persevering strength to those who have chosen life. Eventually, the wicked are judged and the redeemed are gathered around God. God lets His Word loose among us to create new life, thresh out the husks and gather the wheat into His barn. He calls the sheep out from the goats and brings them home. He disturbs us to bring us true rest.
Jesus’ parables were a two-edged sword. They forced the believers to wrestle with spiritual truths. They also confused and incited the unbelievers to a showdown that would expose their true natures and hasten their destruction. The Bible is the same. It is living water or a cup of destruction depending upon who is drinking.
“Son of man, take up a lamentation for Pharaoh king of Egypt, and say to him: ‘You are like a young lion among the nations, And you are like a monster in the seas, Bursting forth in your rivers, Troubling the waters with your feet, And fouling their rivers.’ “Thus says the Lord GOD: ‘I will therefore spread My net over you with a company of many people, And they will draw you up in My net. Then I will leave you on the land; I will cast you out on the open fields, And cause to settle on you all the birds of the heavens. And with you I will fill the beasts of the whole Land.” (Ezekiel 32:2-5)
The beast referred to might not be a modern-day crocodile. The sarcosuchus imperator (often called “Supercroc”) weighed up to ten tons, had a 1.8 metre long skull with over a hundred teeth, scales like roofing tiles, and a bulbous structure at the end of its snout with an enormous cavity under the nostrils. This could have been part of a biological mechanism to produce flames and smoke, like the bombadier beetle. If so, Supercroc is possibly the Leviathan of Job 41:18-21, a fire-breathing dragon.
Land beast
The Lord showed Job that He was not only the all-knowing architect of the universe, but also its all-powerful manager. He asked Job to look at Behemoth and Leviathan, not look them up in a book, which indicates that these huge animals still existed.
Based on their detailed descriptions, these two beasts were what we now call dinosaurs, and the Lord made the point that He was the only one who could control them, either with His sword, or by pulling them with a hook (40:19, 24). Behemoth was a huge marsh-dwelling land beast that answered to no one but God. He was the king of the Land, sustained by “springs of water.”
Sea beast
In the Creation account, the word used for “created” (as opposed to “made”) is only used of three things—the three most wonderful things: heaven and earth, man—and the great sea dragons. The sailors who drew such things on their maps saw these awe inspiring creatures. Leviathan was a sea beast that no one dared provoke. He was the king of the sea, and his description is terrifying (Job 41).
The Bible uses these great sea beasts as metaphors for Gentile nations, including Egypt and Babylon. This language was perfect to convey the hostility of the world under Satan, ready to rush over the boundaries of the Land like a flood of monsters from the deep.
One word used to describe these is also the word for “pride” (Rahab). As Leviathan was the king over all the “children of Rahab” (the other beasts, Job 41:34), so the “allies of Rahab” cower before God’s throne (Job 9:13). Like Solomon, the Lord has terrible beasts guarding His throne in heaven. Israel was His throne on earth, so the terrifying beast nations that surrounded Israel were there for her protection—until she disobeyed and He let them off the leash.
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