“Calvinistic
ethics depends on revelation. The
distinction between right and wrong is not identified by an empirical discovery
of natural law, as with Aristotle and Thomas Aquinas, nor by the logical
formalism of Kant, and certainly not by utilitarianism’s impossible calculation
of the greatest good for the greatest number, but by God’s revelation of the
Ten Commandments. This revelation came
first in God’s act of creating man in his own image so that certain basic moral
principles were implanted in his heart, later to be vitiated by sin; second,
there were some special instructions given to Adam and Noah, which no doubt
overlapped and expanded the innate endowment; third, the more comprehensive
revelation to Moses; plus, fourth, the various subsidiary precepts in the
remainder of the Bible.”
Dr. Gordon H. Clark. Essays on Ethics and Politics. John Robbins, ed. (Jefferson:
Trinity Foundation, 1992) Pp. 3-4.
Should Women Be
Ordained to Ministry? Deacons or
Otherwise? Part 2
In this post I will discuss the
creation of humanity, or the more accurate term, mankind. The revisionists are continually trying to
rewrite the common English language to reflect their ideological agenda. Recently, there was a story where a feminist
congress woman said that we cannot use the term manufacture because the word
has “man” in it. The ridiculousness of
the progressive Marxist movement is out of hand, and it has infiltrated the
Evangelical churches through an unbiblical ideology of egalitarianism in the
Christian family.
The first mention of the creation
of mankind is in Genesis chapter 1.
However, in chapter 2 of Genesis we have a further particularization of
how God created mankind. In chapter 1 we
are told that God created them male and female.
Notice that in chapter 1 the reference to humanity is singular and then
plural:
26 And God said,
Let us make man in our image, after our likeness: and let them
have dominion over the fish of the sea, and over the fowl of the air, and over
the cattle, and over all the earth, and over every creeping thing that creepeth
upon the earth. 27 So God created man in his own image, in the
image of God created he him; male and female created he them.
(Gen. 1:26-27 KJV)
If you doubt that the King James
translation is accurate in giving the singular and plural forms of the Hebrew
words, you can consult Biblehub.com to
check the Biblical Hebrew Interlinear: Genesis 1:26 and Genesis 1:27.
In chapter one we have two
different words that convey God’s creation.
In Genesis
1:1 the word used for God’s creating the heavens and the earth is the
Hebrew word “bara”. This word in verse 1 refers to creation by divine
fiat or ex nihilo, out of nothing. But
in Genesis 1:26 the word used for God’s act of creating is the word “asa”,
which means to fashion or work. In other
words, mankind is not created out of nothing as was the universe in verse 1,
but God creates man and woman out of pre-existing materials that He had already
created ex nihilo or by divine fiat. We
also know this from the parallel account of creation in Genesis 2:7, 21-23. It should be noted, on the other hand, that
in Genesis 1:27 the word “bara” is used, not “asa”. This is because only man of all the animals created
is created in God’s image. Man alone of
the animals is the rational and intellectual image of God. (John 1:1, 9; Genesis 1:27; Genesis 9:6; 1
Corinthians 11:7).
However, in Genesis 1:27 we have
a play on words. Whereas verse 26 uses the
word “asa” to make mankind, a qal imperfect cohortative, to show what He is
planning to do, the verse says also that God will “make” man (singular) after “our”
(plural) image. Note also that the word
for God in Genesis 1:27 is Elohim,
the majestic plurality. Here the verse
is clearly referring to mankind as a whole.
Moreover, in chapter 2 we learn
that God creates the first man as one person, Adam. Next, God sees that Adam of all the animals
is alone and has no mate or helper. So
out of Adam’s rib God creates Eve, the mother of all humanity. This is important because the apostle Paul
elaborates on this information. Adam
was formed first; then, God formed Eve from Adam’s rib, and Adam called her
woman because she was taken out of the man.
(1 Timothy 2:13; 1 Corinthians 11:8; Genesis 2:23). Liberals will contend that Adam and Eve are
not historical persons because the Genesis creation account in chapter 1 and 2
are disparate accounts, not parallel accounts of the same historical events. The critics also contend that the Hebrew word
is not the name of a man but is instead a generic term for mankind as a whole. Thus, they see chapter 2 as an etiological myth
to explain the difference between male and female human beings.
In contradiction to this, the
Bible assigns a name to the woman. Her
name is Eve, the mother of all the living.
(Genesis 3:20). We can then see
that Adam is not just a generic term but the name of the first Adam. (Genesis 3:9). This is confirmed in the New Testament as
well. (Romans 5:12-14). In fact, Adam is called the Son of God, the
first man. (Luke 3:38). It is no mistake that the Reformed theologians
refer to Adam as the federal head of the human race, not Eve.
Modern feminist theologians have
tried to re-imagine God as a female.
However, the use of masculine pronouns in reference to God throughout
the Old Testament flies in the face of this innovation.
In 1995 during my field training
class required to obtain the master of divinity degree from Asbury Theological
seminary, I opted to do my field experience by doing one unit of clinical
pastor education through Hospice of the Bluegrass in Lexington, Kentucky. There is another major seminary in the Lexington
area which is associated with the Disciples of Christ. The Disciples of Christ was originally a
product of the Second Great Awakening.
The Cane Ridge revivals just north of Lexington produced growth in several
denominations in the area, including the Methodists, the Presbyterians and the
Baptists. In order to preserve the fruits
of the revival, Charles Finney and others decided to stop emphasizing doctrinal
distinctives and reject formal creeds and confessions of faith. Thus, the saying was that there is no creed
but Christ. Unfortunately, this position
has led to the extreme liberalism of the Disciples of Christ as a mainline denomination.
Of the students in the class
there was a retired mainline Presbyterian minister who was a member of the
Presbyterian Church in the USA, another liberal denomination. There was a female student from Lexington
Theological Seminary, which is the Disciples of Christ school. And, there was a male student from the Free
Methodist Church who had recently graduated from Asbury with the M. Div.
degree. The supervisor of the class was
an intern herself. She was a nun with
the Roman Catholic Church. At the
beginning she told us that she would be evaluating us as students, and, that we
would be evaluating her to determine if she would become a supervisor in the
CPE program.
At the time, I was still a
Pentecostal and had no objections to the ordination of women. I stupidly thought that this would deflect
any criticism by the two liberals and the Roman Catholic nun. I misread the Free Methodist, who was doing
another unit of CPE because he was employed by Hospice of the Bluegrass. I thought the Free Methodist would be immune
to any re-imaging of God as a female. I
was wrong. I was familiar with the re-imaging
movement by feminists because at that point in time it was being openly
promoted and even affirmed by some progressive Evangelicals.
The fireworks started on day one
because the Roman Catholic nun, an elderly lady, insisted that we pray together
as a group. What I did not know is that
apparently there was interaction already taking place before I arrived in the
class. When I prayed, I ended my part of
the prayer with a traditional ending to most impromptu Pentecostal prayers. The ending goes something like this: “Father
God, thank You for hearing our prayers and petitions. I thank You and praised you in the wonderful name
above all names, our Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ.”
The next time we met I was
immediately called out and challenged by the supervisor, Jean. This was the beginning of many challenges I
had to face during that class, which met at the offices of Hospice of the
Bluegrass. However, early on I decided
that I would never compromise my faith to appease papists and theological
liberals or even mainline Free Methodists.
The very first thing that happened on the second meeting was that Jean,
the Catholic nun, objected to my prayer.
I was confused at first because I did not see that there was anything controversial
about it. Jean said that I should not
pray to God as my Father. Now this
really piqued my interest because I had been taught to pray the model prayer
since about first grade through the fourth grade in elementary school in Weaver,
Alabama. “Our Father, which art in
heaven, hallowed be thy name . . .” (Matthew
6:9; Luke 11:2).
When I asked why not I was informed
that the married female student from Lexington Theological Seminary had been
sexually molested as a child by her biological father. So, my first dilemma is whether to cave to
the liberals and the papist, all of whom said that they had no problem praying
to God as “mother.” I decided then and
there that there would be no compromise and that no one had the right to tell
me what to believe. The Bible is the final
authority for me, and it has never changed.
Unfortunately, there are Pentecostals and Charismatics today who no
longer believe that the Bible is the final authority in all matters of faith
and practice. Their Pentecostal experiences
trump and override the Bible.
So began a theological debate in
which I was put on the defensive by the other three students and the papist
nun. Asked why I refused to compromise,
I explained that the Bible is the final authority in all matters of faith and
practice because it is the inspired, inerrant and infallible Word of God. I explained that the Bible determines what I
believe and not what any theologian has to say on such matters. I also explained that Jesus was a male and
that He taught us to pray to our Father in heaven, which, I pointed out, even
the liturgy of the Roman Catholic Church calls for. At this point, the papist nun, Jean, stopped
me in my statement and informed me that her church did not pray to God the
Father. I argued with her about it and
said that I happen to know enough about the Roman Catholic Church to know that
whatever her parish was doing was not in line with the official doctrine of the
Roman Catholic Church. She persisted in
saying that it was not true, despite the fact that she was obviously equivocating. She played the victim card, insisting that I
should not pray to God as Father. To
which I responded that the molestation of the female student was not my problem
and that I would not compromise simply because her biological father had
molested her and that she had a problem with imagining God as her Father.
Jean brought up a couple of biblical
metaphors where God is said to care for us as a mother nurses her baby. You can see a few examples of these verses
here: Female
Images of God in the Bible.
Apparently, there is a movement within the Roman Catholic Church to push
for the ordination of women as priests.
As I said before, at the time I did not object to the ordination of
women because of my affiliation with the Assemblies of God. But the line they wanted me to cross was praying
to God by the title of “Mother God.” I informed
the nun that Pentecostals do not pray to Mary as the mother of God. But she insisted that this was praying not to
Mary but to God as the Mother. I was
taken aback to be honest. The next thing
she brought up after I insisted that Jesus was a male and the Son of God was
that in the book of Proverbs Jesus is personified as a female, Sophia. After some study, I did find out that the
Septuagint translation of the book of Proverbs does indeed use the Greek word Sophia
for the word “wisdom”. However, I informed
her that the Protestant churches do not view the Septuagint as an inspired
translation. The Hebrew word is not Sophia. In short, there is no reference to any woman
named Sophia in the book of Proverbs.
Rather than go into a long detour on the matter, I refer you to the
article from “Got Questions?” here: “Does the Bible
teach that Sophia is the goddess of wisdom?”
After I insisted that I would not
be changing the way that I prayed, Jean suggested that I was being insensitive
to the female who had been molested. My
response was clear and unambiguous. I
would not pray to God as mother because the title that Jesus Himself commanded
us to use was God the Father. Jesus prayed
to God as Father many times in the Bible, even saying that He and His Father
were one. (John 10:30, 12:45, 14:7, 14:9,
et. al.). The entire class that session turned
into a theological debate. I held my
ground. At the end, Jean asked me not to
pray that way. To which I responded that
I would not. So, she asked me what solution I could offer. I offered that we should not pray together at
all. This was something of a shocker to
me because I had expected the fake Evangelical Free Methodist to back me
up. Instead, he sided with the
liberals. Honestly, I was not comfortable
praying with liberals and papists anyway because I did not view them as born
again Christians.
In a later attack, they asked me
how I felt about homosexuals. I again stood
my ground and said that it was an abomination because the Bible said so. Then, they played the victim card again. Turns out that one of the social workers at
the hospice was a gay man whose name now escapes me. Before that session I had gotten along fine with
that social worker. I noticed later that
his countenance had changed toward me. I
did not compromise. I treated him as I
would anyone else, not withstanding my objection to the sin of homosexuality.
During the course, I was attacked
over and over again and at one point I openly asked Jean if she was planning to
fail me for the class because of my commitments to the Bible as my
authority. She refused to answer,
implying to me at the time that she was planning to write a bad review. So, that was a mistake on her part. I was so incensed by even the thought of my
being discriminated against because of my Evangelical faith that I wrote a
scathing review of Jean’s handling of the situation. I said pretty much what I said above and charged
her with constantly attacking my faith.
In short, the supposedly tolerant ones were intolerant of my Evangelical
faith and my right to the freedom of religion.
No one has the right to tell anyone else what their religious beliefs
should be. (Acts 5:29).
On the final day of the class, we
all read our reviews. The other students
all went first. Jean read her review of me,
in which I was surprised to learn that she had not rejected me from passing the
evaluation. I read my review last. It was a scathing review, as I said
before. I stand by that review because I
felt attacked by all four of the others during the entire class. After I read the review, I was reminded by
the other students that Jean needed a good review from all four of us in order
to pass her evaluation to become a CPE supervisor. I told them that I could not lie about what I
truthfully thought about her treatment of me in the class. I got up and left first.
Jesus promised us that when we
were called before councils and authorities that God would give us the words to say. (Luke 12:11-12). Jesus kept that promise.
You can read the previous post of this series here: Should
Women Be Ordained to Ministry? Part 1.
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