Sunday School BF&M section III Man

What if I got up here today and said - girls genetically, inherently you are “scientifically” inferior to me because I’m a man and men are proven better and smarter than girls by nature? What if I said to my best friend hey Michael for the overall good of society I’m going to murder you because you’re black and are unworthy of life? What if I said to a Native American or Australian Aborigine I’m going to enslave you and this is what’s best for mankind and for the world? What if, instead of green technology and recycling, I recommended the genocide of entire people groups so that whites could have more natural resources? What kind of monster would you think I was?

Today we’re going to start by looking at the beliefs and teaching of Charles Darwin and how that differs with the BF&M doctrine of Man.

Darwin’s common ancestry of life theory really comes into its own when it is applied to human origins. While he scarcely mentions the topic in The Origin of Species, Darwin later wrote extensively about it in The Descent of Man. “My objective,” he explained, “is to show that there is no fundamental difference between man and the higher animals in their mental faculties” - even in morality and religion. According to Darwin, a dog’s tendency to imagine a hidden agency in things moved by the wind “would easily pass into the belief in the existence of one or more gods.” Like materialistic philosophers since ancient Greece, Darwin believed that human beings were nothing more than animals.

Darwin was pro-slavery and is commonly quoted by evolutionists denying that He would apply his theory to human beings. But in Origin of Species, he extrapolated laws of insect behavior for the benefit of all organic beings. Why beings? By his reasoning, all animals should be more commonly referred to as organisms or beings (not distinguishing between man and animals). For Darwin wrote, "[I]t is far more satisfactory to look at such natural instincts as... ants making slaves... not as being specially endowed or created instincts, but as small consequences of the one general law, leading to the advancement of all organic beings, namely: multiply, vary, and let the strongest live and the weakest die."

Originally entitled: On the Origin of Species by Means of Natural Selection, or the Preservation of Favored Races (that’s whites btw) in the Struggle for Life, if read by parents they might have gained some inkling of the inherent racism propagated by this controversial theorist. Had they actually read Origin, they likely would be shocked to learn that among Darwin's scientifically based proposals was the elimination of "the negro and Australian peoples," which he considered savage races whose continued survival was hindering the progress of actual civilization.

In his next book, The Descent of Man (1871), Darwin ranked races in terms of what he believed was their nearness and likeness to gorillas. Then he went on to propose the extermination of races he "scientifically" defined as inferior. If this were not done, he claimed, those races, with their much higher birthrates than "superior" races, would exhaust the natural resources needed for the survival of better people (white Europeans) and eventually dragging down all of actual civilization.

Darwin even argued that advanced societies should not waste time and money on caring for the mentally ill, or those with birth defects. To him, these unfit members of our species “ought not to survive”, as they violated Darwin’s Golden Rule: multiply, vary and eliminate the competition.

In later editions of Darwin's Origin of Species editors dropped the phrase "Favored Races" from the book's title. But consider this quote from another book by Darwin: "At some future period, not very distant as measured by centuries, the civilized races of man (so whites) will almost certainly exterminate and then replace, throughout the world, the savage races (blacks and Aborigines). At the same time the anthropomorphous apes (part man/part apes), as Professor Schaaffhausen has remarked, will also no doubt be exterminated.” Darwin dreamed of a day when the present small gap between “the negro or Australian [aboriginal] and the gorilla” was widened to the gap from the Caucasian to the baboon, thinking that modern man in a desire to eliminate the human competition would eliminate all lesser versions of mankind and all of the higher versions of ape.

-Charles Darwin, The Descent of Man, p. 156.

Darwin on Women

"The chief distinction in the intellectual powers of the two sexes is shown by man's ability to attain to a higher eminence, in whatever he takes up, than can woman—whether requiring deep thought, reason, or imagination, or merely the use of the senses and hands. If two lists were made of the most eminent men and women in poetry, painting, sculpture, music (inclusive both of composition and performance), history, science, and philosophy, with half-a-dozen names under each subject, the two lists would not bear comparison. We may also infer then, from the law of the deviation from averages, so well illustrated by Dr. Galton, in his work on 'Hereditary Genius,' that if men are capable of a decided pre-eminence over women in so many subjects, then the average of mental powers in man must be above that of woman."

-Charles Darwin, The Descent of Man, p. 564.

This is what has replaced a Christian worldview in the Marketplace of ideas in America, Racist-Sexist-Naturalistic Macro-Evolution. And with the bases of Naturalistic Macro-Evolution being that there isn’t a God and that Nature is continuingly evolving upward and is just getting better and better, let’s read the BF&M’s doctrine on Man…

BF&M 2000 section III on Man (referring to Mankind not just dudes)

1 - Man is the special creation of God, made in His own image.

2 - He created them male and female as the crowning work of His creation.

3 - The gift of gender is thus part of the goodness of God's creation.

4 - In the beginning man was innocent of sin and was endowed by his Creator with freedom of choice.

5 - By his free choice man sinned against God and brought sin into the human race. Through the temptation of Satan man transgressed the command of God, and fell from his original innocence whereby his posterity inherit a nature and an environment inclined toward sin.

6 - Therefore, as soon as they are capable of moral action, they become transgressors and are under condemnation.

7 - Only the grace of God can bring man into His holy fellowship and enable man to fulfill the creative purpose of God.

8 - The sacredness of human personality is evident in that God created man in His own image, and in that Christ died for man; therefore, every person of every race possesses full dignity and is worthy of respect and Christian love.

Quotes from leading evolutionary minds:

James Watson – Nobel Prize winning scientist and co-discoverer of the double helix structure of DNA strands, states that Charles Darwin will eventually be seen as a far more significant figure in human history & thought than Jesus Christ.

Richard Dawkins – said in the Wall Street Journal that evolution proves God never existed and if you meet someone who still claims to not believe in evolution that person is ignorant, stupid, insane or wicked!

Early Church Fathers on Abortion

Mathetes, A.D. 80 - 160

[Christians] marry, as do all. They beget children, but they do not destroy their offspring. (ch. 5)

Letter of Barnabas, A.D. 80 - 130

You shall not slay a child by procuring an abortion, nor shall you destroy it after it is born. (ch. 19)

[In the way of darkness] are people ... who are murderers of children and destroyers of the workmanship of God. (ch. 21)

Early Church Fathers on Creation:

Mathetes, AD 80-160

God has loved mankind. He made the world on his account. He made all the things that are, in it subject to Man. He gave him reason and understanding. To mankind alone God imparted the privilege of looking upwards to Himself [a reference to the fact that man alone is capable of relationship with God]. He formed Man after his own image. He sent Man His only-begotten Son, has promised Man a kingdom in heaven, and will give it to those who have loved Him. (ch. 10)

Augustine, c. A.D. 400

In the case of a narrative of events, the question arises as to whether everything must be taken according too a figurative sense only, or whether it must be expounded and defended also as a faithful record of what happened. No Christian will dare say that the narrative must not be taken in a figurative sense; but is it also literal? (The Literal Meaning of Genesis ch. 1, as found in Ancient Christian Writers, vol. 41)

For further study I’d suggest

Lee Strobel’s A Case for a Creator

Ben Stein’s Expelled: no intelligence allowed DVD

Darwin’s Dilemma – on the Cambrian explosion (fossil record)

The Deniable Darwin by PHD David Berlinski

Signiture in the Cell – on DNA and the evidence for ID by PHD Stephen C Meyer

Website: Dissent from Darwin - 20 pages of top PHD scientists and professors who either strongly doubt or no longer believe that random mutation or natural selection can account for the complexity of life found on our planet.

Al Mohler on the status of the SBC

I am SBC not by birth or tradition but by deep conviction.
The SBC is full of messed up people, but I'd rather be our kind
of messed up than other kinds of messed up (referring to
Presbyterians and Lutherans).

Albert Mohler defines Expositional Preaching

"Expository preaching is that mode of Christian preaching that takes as its central purpose the presentation and application of the text of the Bible. All other issues and concerns are subordinated to the central task of presenting the biblical text. As the word of God, the text of Scripture has the right to establish both the substance and the structure of the sermon. Genuine exposition takes place when the preacher sets forth the meaning and message of the biblical text and makes clear how the word of God establishes the identity and worldview of the church as the people of God."

Al Mohler quote

Al Mohler quote 09-28-2011 Q & A session with Steve Lawson

[Referring to Presbyterians:] They use too little water, too soon. 

If all I had was the Bible, I wouldn't know that infant sprinkling
even existed, cause it doesn't exist in the Bible. 

From the Reformed Baptist Fellowship

The History & Theology Of Creeds

by Roger Nicole

EVERY PERSON HAS A NATURAL desire to express the major features of his or her conviction in a pithy and perhaps even catchy formula. This was true among the Jewish people before Christ, who confessed the Shema: “Hear, O Israel: The Lord our God, the Lord is one” (Deut. 6:4). This is true of the Muslim who recites, “Allah is the only God and Mohammed is His prophet.”
In the New Testament, we find a number of such condensed expressions of the faith: “Jesus is Lord” (1 Cor. 12:3); “You are the Christ, the Son of the living God” (Matt. 16:16); “My Lord and my God” (John 20:28); “There is one body and one Spirit … one hope … one Lord, one faith, one baptism, one God and Father of all, who is over all and through all and in all” (Eph. 4:4–6); “Maranatha” (1 Cor. 16:22).

The Early Church
Beyond the New Testament times we find that the Christians used the symbol of a fish to recognize one another. This was an acrostic for “Jesus Christ, God’s Son, Savior.” Catechumens recited more ample declarations at the close of their training period, often at the time of baptism for those who had come to faith beyond infancy.

One can find traces of these declarations in the writings of early fathers. At the Council of Nicaea in 325 a.d., Eusebius of Caesarea proposed an ancient baptismal creed of his church as a means of resolving the Arian controversy. It is this creed, with certain modifications intended to screen out Arianism, which became the Nicene creed. With further modifications, most notably the extension of the article on the Holy Spirit, this became, on or about 381, a statement widely received in Eastern and Western churches, including many Protestant bodies.

In the West, by a slow process of accretions and deletions, the confession known as the Apostles’ Creed emerged in its final form late in the fifth century. In 451 the Formula of Chalcedon was framed, designed to crystallize the doctrine of the two natures in the one person of Christ. This too has enjoyed very wide ecumenical acceptance.

The Reformation
In the 16th century, the impulse of the Reformation generated a tremendous activity in confessional writing. Until 1545 confessions were focused mainly on defining Protestant doctrine over against Roman Catholic views. This is true of the Augsburg Confession (1530), the Apology (1530), and the Articles of Smalcald (1537) in the Lutheran church; and of the Zwinglian documents (1523–1531), the first confession of Basel (1534), and the Tetrapolitan Confession (1530) in the Reformed churches.

The Catechisms of Luther (1529) and Calvin (1541), on the other hand, were intended to provide instruction on the Christian faith and life as a whole. So were Calvin’s Confession of the Church of Geneva (1536) and the second Basel Confession (1536), also known as the First Helvetic Confession.
In the Lutheran Church, the Formula of Concord (1576) was designed to bring to a close several internal controversies and to define the Lutheran view over against the Reformed position.
This period was one of great flowering for Reformed Confessions. The Gallican Confession, drafted by Calvin and revised as the Synod of LaRochelle (1559), is still in force in France. Its twin, the Belgic Confession (1661), is one of the three formulas of unity acknowledged by the Reformed Church of the Netherlands and the various churches issued from it in which the name Reformed was preserved. In 1563 the 42 articles prepared by Cranmer for the Church of England in the reign of Edward VII (1553) were reduced to 39 by the elimination of seven articles and the introduction of four new ones.

In the year 1556, the Second Helvetic Confession, written earlier by H. Bullinger as a personal statement, was adopted in the Swiss cantons where it is still in force.
The first Scotch Confession of faith of 1560 viewed as especially repugnant the church of Rome’s doctrine that permitted women to administer baptism in emergencies. The second Scotch Confession is also known as the National Covenant of 1580 and constitutes a strong anti-Catholic manifesto.
In Hungary two extremely long Confessions were drafted in 1562, one of which was patterned after a Confession written by Beza, intended for his father and first published in 1558.
To this period belongs the Heidelberg Catechism (1563) that may with good reason be viewed as the most successful of all Reformed catechisms. It is still in very general use in Reformed churches.

The Post-Reformation Era
The 17th century was a period of synthesis in which the scriptural truths asserted in earlier confessions were often presented in a more systematic way so that their mutual relationships could be more clearly discerned.

Here belong the Irish Articles of religion (1615), composed by archbishop J. Ussher.
The Canons of the Synod of Dort (1619) constitute an international statement of the five points of Calvinism on the doctrine of grace.

Especially noteworthy are the Westminster Standards (1647) including the Westminster Confession of Faith, perhaps the most discerning and equipoised of all Reformed statements; the Shorter Catechism, of deserved world repute; and the Larger Catechism, which is a detailed expression of Reformed doctrine and ethics.

The Westminster Confession, with certain slight modifications and two important additions probably due to the pen of John Owen, spawned the “Savoy declaration” (1658), representing the faith of Congregationalism.

In 1677 the Particular Baptists also modeled their statement on the Westminster Confession and the Savoy Declaration, producing the Second London Confession of Faith. It was republished in 1688 and 1689. This text, with some modifications because of the different political situation in the United States, was adopted by the Philadelphia Association of Baptist Churches in 1742 and is therefore often called the Philadelphia Confession of Faith. One look at W. L. Lumpkin’s Baptist Confessions of Faith shows clearly how inept is the statement often heard nowadays: “Baptists are not a creedal people!” In fact they may well have produced more creeds than any other Christian denomination.

For Better and for Worse
Confessions contain great theological significance, but entailed in them can be both advantages and possible dangers. The advantages are:
• Confessions serve as important articulations of the way some people or bodies understand the teaching of Scripture. As such they identify the confessors.
• Confessions serve to bring together people of diverse origins by providing a basis on which all can agree. As such they unify the confessors.
• Such statements of faith set apart people and views at variance with sound doctrine as held within the ranks. They discriminate the nonconfessors.
• And confessions serve as the basis for instruction of the young or those unacquainted with the tenets of the church. This is the main purpose for catechisms—they instruct those who would be confessors.
Here are some possible dangers of creeds:
• They can become substitutes for the Scriptures, instead of guides for biblical understanding. It should always be confessed that confessions are subordinate to the Bible, the supreme norm of the faith. In the minds of the confessors, then, confessions should always be subject to correction based on a proper appeal to Scripture.
• Creeds can focus too much attention on the doctrinal contents of the Christian faith to the neglect of other important aspects—ethics, spirituality, Christian action, and the like.
• Confessions can constitute barriers preventing collaboration or even union of churches by an undue emphasis on matters that should not precipitate division.
These dangers, of course, do not militate against confessional statements as such. The risks can be, and often are, avoided by wise supporters of the various confessions.
Creeds distill, crystallize, and synthesize the teachings of Scripture. Those who oppose them give the impression that they resent the light a clear formulation casts upon their own indecisiveness—or even their heretical tendencies. As Paul Scherer wrote in For We Have This Treasure, “Any religion that boasts of being creedless is either misrepresenting the facts or writing its own epitaph.”

Adult Sunday School BF&M 2000 doctines # 2 & 3

The Murder of God

So the question I want you to think about with the Crucifixion of Christ is who was involved in Murdering God? Was it the ordinary Jewish people, the Romans, the Sadducees, the Pharisees, the Scribes, Hared, Pilate, was it Christ - who intentionally came to Jerusalem to be killed (so a form of suicide), was it Judas, the Spirit, Satan or the Father? The answer of course is yes; all of these, as well as my sins and your sins brought Christ to the cross.

I’m not going to go over each of the Gospel descriptions of the Crucifixion, as I’m sure it’s the one thing in Scripture we all know a bit about, but I just wanted to list some of the info for you from them. Something that Sandra and I talked about last week that I find helpful is not expecting a full description of any 1 doctrine or event from any 1 section of Scripture. What the Crucifixion event tells us is that the Bible is often like a Mosaic where bits and pieces come together from different parts of Scripture to reveal the bigger picture.  

So starting in reverse order: John is by far the most Calvinistic book in the New Testament and he wants to drive home the fact that this wasn’t a mistake or an error that got out of hand or that the Jews or Romans had any power over Christ, so he’ll say over and over this was to fulfill Scripture X 3, to say this is what God had planed all along and it happened just like He wanted it to.

So in John 19 we’ll see that Pilate really didn’t want to kill Jesus but he idolized his power and position and feared the mobs and upsetting Caesar, Jesus is declared King of the Jews, the soldiers cast lots for his clothes, Jesus gives his mom over to the Apostle John (the only Apostle we know of that witnessed the Crucifixion), he drank sour wine, his side was pierced by a spear and he had no broken bones – most of that had to do with fulfilling Messianic Prophecy.  

In Luke 23 we see the mercy of Jesus as he asks the Father to forgive the very people that are beating, mocking and murdering him, and we see the conversion of the thief, who came to fear the afterlife more than his current crucifixion, he confesses his sinfulness and Christ’s sinlessness, he confesses that he was receiving his just punishment for his sins, and he cries out to Christ for mercy.

In Mark 15 we meet Simon of Cyrene and his sons: Alexander and Rufus. Simon is made to carry Christ’s cross to Golgotha (and according to church history Simon, Alexander and Rufus all become known leaders or missionaries within the early Christian Church, often the Church Fathers reference Acts 11 & Romans 16 to support this) and we also find in Mark the confession and conversion of the Roman Centurion in charge of the Crucifixion.

In Matthew 27 we find out that Pilate’s own wife knows Jesus is innocent and wants Jesus released, then the Jews choose the terrorist Barabbas over Jesus, the mobs says His blood be on us and our children - accepting the penalty for His death, we see Christ is mocked by everyone: the thieves, soldiers, and even the Chief Priests of the Temple come out to taunt him. And in Matthew we see miracles, signs and wonders - the curtain that separated the Holy of Holies from the rest of the Temple is torn in two; darkness covers the land, earthquakes, rocks (like the one that sealed Christ’s tomb) are split, tombs are opened and there is even the resurrection of dead believers.

So to answer Robert’s question about where was the Holy Spirit and what was he doing during the Crucifixion, I would say it looks a lot like the Book of Acts – the Holy Spirit is there pointing sinners to Christ, he’s converting people even right there at the Crucifixion, he’s fulfilling prophecy, and he’s effecting signs, miracles and wonders that are meant to make us realize that this isn’t just the death of a normal individual, we’re meant to Marvel at the Murder of God in human flesh. 

Doctrine of Pneumatology - which means the study of the Spirit

Facts about the HS and Scripture references:

The Holy Spirit is God (important fact) who can and does kill - Acts 5:3-6 Ananias and Sapphira (& probably 2 Samuel 12:15-23 David’s son)

The Holy Spirit is everywhere (omnipresent) – Psalm 139:7-8

The Holy Spirit authored Scripture – 2 Peter 1:19-21

The Holy Spirit convicts men of Sin – John 16:8-11

The Holy Spirit lets us know God loves us – Romans 5:5

The Holy Spirit points people to Christ – John 15:26

The Holy Spirit glories Christ not himself – John 16:14

The Holy Spirit enables men to understand and believe – Acts 16:13-15

The Holy Spirit effects regeneration – Titus 3:4-5

The Holy Spirit enters believers at the moment of Salvation - Romans 8:9

The Holy Spirit immerses Christians into the “invisible Church” or body of Christ at conversion –1 Corinthians 12:12-13

The Holy Spirit guarantees eternal salvation – Ephesians 1:13-14

The Holy Spirit helps us when were weak, praying and interceding for us – Romans 8:26-30

The Holy Spirit gives various spiritual gifts meant to benefit the Church to whomever He wills– 1 Corinthians 12:4-11

The Holy Spirit cultivates Christian character (or sanctification) more gifts the HS gives– Galatians 5:22-25

The Holy Spirit is a comforter, helper and guide to believers – John 14:16-17

Recommended reading The Holy Spirit by Charles Ryrie $7 on Amazon.

Common errors or questions regarding the Holy Spirit

The Cults view of the Spirit –

Jehovah’s Witnesses (or Watchtower Press) - The “holy spirit” (which is always lower case for JW’s) is the invisible active force God uses to move His servants to do His will. Jehovah’s Witnesses deny the personhood and the deity of the Holy Spirit, proclaiming such beliefs to be inspired by Satan. No joke a JW thinks you are demon possessed if you think the Holy Spirit is a person and not just a power, like divine cosmic electricity.

Mormons - Founder Joseph Smith taught that the Father, Son and Holy Spirit “constitute three distinct personages and three different Gods.” He further said, “The Holy Ghost is yet a spiritual body and waiting to take to himself a physical body as the Saviour did or as the other gods before them also took bodies.” So you can’t be a Mormon if you believe the Trinity.

Muslims – Islam denies the deity of the Holy Spirit, whom the Koran describes as “the angel which brought revelation.” The Koran also calls the Holy Spirit “Gabriel” (I believe that’s sura 2 ayat 97). So the HS is not just a force for Muslims but he’s still not God, he’s just an angel, its just another name for Gabriel.

Christian Science (not really that popular anymore anyone know anyone who’s a Christian Scientist) - said that the Holy Spirit was a scientific system of divine healing. So again the HS isn’t God, it was a process of healing not an actual person.

So is the Holy Spirit a person or a force/power?

Many Christians have an unbiblical perception of the Holy Spirit. Some understand the Holy Spirit as a power or force from God to us. This is not Biblical. Pneumatology teaches us that the Holy Spirit is a Person, with a mind, emotions, and will and that the Holy Spirit is Jesus' "replacement" on earth (John 14:16-26; 15:26; 16:7). The Holy Spirit is received at salvation (Romans 8:9) and is the permanent possession of every believer in Christ (Ephesians 1:13-14). Pneumatology helps us to understand these issues and recognize the Biblical roles of the Holy Spirit in our lives today.

The study of Pneumatology is of immense benefit to the Christian. In the pages of Scripture, we come face to face with the third Person of the trinity, God himself in spirit, and we see His very personal and intimate ministry to us. Through Him, we come to know God’s love for us “because the love of God has been poured out in our hearts by the Holy Spirit who was given to us” (Romans 5:5). To understand the ministry of the Holy Spirit is to find joy in His role as our Comforter (John 16:7; Acts 9:31) who not only helps and comforts us, but who comes to our rescue when our hearts are so burdened we cannot even pray for relief (Romans 8:26). When we pursue the knowledge of the Holy Spirit we find, to our great delight, that He not only lives within us, but He does so forever, never to leave or forsake us (John 14:16). All these truths are burned into our hearts when we study Pneumatology.

Is God the Holy Spirit a he, she or it?

Linguistically, it is clear that masculine theistic (or God) terminology dominates the Scriptures. Throughout both testaments, references to God use masculine pronouns. Specific names for God (e.g., Yahweh, Elohim, Adonai, Kurios, Theos, etc.) are all in the masculine gender. God is never, never, never given a feminine name, or referred to using feminine pronouns. The Holy Spirit is referred to in the masculine throughout the New Testament, although the word for "spirit" by itself (pneuma) is actually gender-neutral (like a Ken doll). And the Hebrew word for "spirit" (ruach) is actually feminine in Genesis 1:2. But remember that the gender of a word in the original Greek or Hebrew had nothing to do with gender identity the way words are used today. In the end, whatever our theological explanation, the fact is that God used exclusively masculine terms to refer to Himself and almost exclusively masculine terminology even in metaphors (Metaphors that don’t - Job says God gave birth, Jesus describes himself a mother hen, and Jesus also describes the HS as a woman who lost some coins and is searching for them). So, while the Holy Spirit is neither male nor female in His essence, He is properly referred to throughout the Bible as a He and He taught us how to speak of Him, and it was always in masculine relational terms.

The HS is often called the 3^rd member of the Trinity so is the 3^rd member of the trinity – the 3^rd due to ranking; is the HS like coming in 3^rd place in a God relay race? And where do we get the idea that he’s the 3^rd?

Basically unlike the race example Christians call the HS the 3^rd member of the Trinity due to Matthew 28:19 which says, Go therefore and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit.

Preposterous PostModerism!