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"Take
Heed" Ministries
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Cecil Andrews, PO BOX 13, Ballynahinch, BT24 8AL, Northern Ireland. Telephone/Fax 028 9756 5511. E-MAIL - takeheed@aol.com WEBSITE - http://www.takeheed.net |
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NEWS
FROM THE FRONT
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December 2009
"Be not afraid or dismayed by reason of this great multitude for the battle is not yours but God's" (2nd Chronicles 20v15)
Writing to believers in Thessalonica Paul
told of how they had “turned to God from idols to serve the living and true
God” [1:9]. This obviously brought great joy to his heart. I fear that if Paul
were to look at professing Christianity in the British Isles today his heart
would be grieved and his spirit would be once more “stirred [provoked] in him” just as in Athens [Acts
17:16]. On 8th October Prince Philip opened a new wing at the
Anglican Walsingham Shrine where each year a statue
of Mary is paraded through the town. Next year, the one who promotes the
idolatry of the Roman Catholic Mass, the Pope, is scheduled to visit Great
Britain and rumour has it that he may stay at Buckingham Palace. In September
the Vatican announced that ‘the next International
Eucharistic Congress, to focus on the Eucharist as communion with Christ’ would
be held in Dublin, Ireland in 2012. On 20th October Rome announced
formal plans to accept disenchanted Anglican clergy. Our lead article will
highlight the march of Roman idolatry in the UK and the capitulation to it of
the Church of England. God’s Word is short and simple “flee from idolatry” [1
Corinthians 10:14]. Locally in October that
very subject evoked differing responses from an evangelical politician, the
‘culture minister,’ and a currently prominent evangelical ‘clerical minister’.
The former quite rightly would not countenance attending a Mass under any
circumstances whereas disappointingly the latter would. The politician was
right – he realised that God’s glory ‘trumps’ community relations. John
MacArthur summed such situations up perfectly when he wrote in his latest book
‘The Jesus You Can’t Ignore’ (p 70) “Jesus
knew something evangelicals today often forget. Truth doesn’t defeat error by
waging a public relations campaign”.
Your
servant for Christ
CECIL ANDREWS
Pages 2-6: Expanding Marion idolatry in
England: Pages 7-9: ‘Mary most Holy’ relocated: Pages
10-16: ‘Joy Has Dawned’ – ‘Take Heed’ to what you sing: Enclosure for all –
‘Warren waxing worse and worse with Blair’ [Part 2]
Expanding Marion idolatry in England
Chapter 8 of Bishop
J C Ryle’s book ‘Warnings To The Churches’ was
first published as part of another of his books titled ‘Knots Untied’ in
1877. This chapter 8 is titled ‘Idolatry’ and the scripture reference
cited is “Flee from idolatry” [1st Corinthians 10:14]. The opening lines of this chapter [p142]
read as follows -
‘The text which heads this page may seem at first sight hardly needed in England. In an age of education & intelligence like this, we might almost fancy it is waste of time to tell an Englishman to “flee from idolatry”. I am bold to say that this is a great mistake…I believe that idolatry is near us, & about us, & in the midst of us to a very fearful extent. The second commandment, in one word, is in peril. The ‘plague’ is begun’.
It would seem that
what Bishop Ryle referred to as a ‘plague’ is set to become an ‘epidemic’. In the ‘Introduction’ to a book called ‘The Cult of the Virgin Mary in Early Modern Germany:
Protestant and Catholic Piety, 1500-1648’ by Bridget Heal we read –
Building on the Christian humanist critique of man’s
propensity to focus on external rites rather than on inner spirituality,
reformers such as Zwingli argued that if images survived men would inevitably
be drawn to worship them. For, Zwingli wrote in his Brief Reply Given to Valentin Compar (1524/25),
‘man falls by his nature on the thing that is placed before his senses’.
Zwingli
perhaps had in mind the Israelites and their use of a ‘Golden Calf’, an
incident that Bishop Ryle refers to [pp143-144] in these terms –
‘The children of Israel never thought
of renouncing God when they persuaded Aaron to make the golden calf…the feast
in honour of the calf was kept as “a feast unto the Lord” [Exodus 32:4-5]…But…a
great sin was committed. The honour due to God was
given to a visible representation of Him. The majesty of Jehovah was offended.
The second commandment was broken. There was, in the eyes of God, a flagrant
act of idolatry’.
[2]
One of the ‘by-products’ of the Reformation was that as a
result of the recovery of Biblical truth regarding the glorious Gospel of the
Lord Jesus Christ, nationwide, many of the idolatrous ‘trappings’ of the false
religion of Roman Catholicism were dismantled and removed. Such purgative
actions would certainly not be permitted in today’s multifaith/multicultural
‘politically correct’ United Kingdom but the actions then were I believe
motivated very much by a desire to honour the God of Heaven who declared in
Isaiah 42:6 “I am the Lord; that is my name; and, my glory will I not give to
another, neither my praise to graven images”. Slowly but surely the Church of
Rome has been seeking to reassert its influence and power in England as in
former pre-Reformation days and a further example of its success in this
respect has come with the announcement concerning the plans of an ecumenical
grouping known as the ‘Art and Reconciliation Trust’ to erect a large statue of
Mary at a cost of £1.25 million at the side of the river Thames – a statue that
is due to be unveiled on 13th October 2009. In the Catholic Herald
of 9 May 2008, Simon Caldwell wrote
Plans have been unveiled for a statue of the Blessed
Virgin Mary to stand in London in reparation for the destruction of the
medieval Catholic shrines during the Reformation. The work will be called
"Mary Most Holy" and will stand on land alongside the River Thames at
Chelsea's Embankment Gardens that was once owned by St Thomas More, the Lord Chancellor who was beheaded in 1535. It has
been commissioned by the Art and Reconciliation Trust, a charity set up to
promote awareness of the negative affects iconoclasm can have on culture. It
will cost in the region of £1.25 million. The sculptor is Paul Day, whose
previous work includes a 2002 memorial of the Battle of Britain on the bank of
the Thames in central London; the Meeting Place at St Pancras station, London,
and a memorial to the Queen Mother outside Buckingham Palace in the Mall. The
proposed work, a bronze triptych on a granite plinth, will feature a statue of
a "beautiful" Virgin Mary holding up the Child Jesus against the
backdrop of ruins. One of two side panels will show iconoclasts beheading the
statues of saints - one cradling the head of the Virgin Mary - while the other
panel depicts reformers mocking a crucifix. Unveiling a model for the sculpture
at the Charterhouse in London last week, Mr Day said that its purpose would be
"to recall events in Chelsea's local history that were of national
importance and whose effects can still be powerfully felt in present day
Britain. The destruction of England's medieval shrines and devotional images,
conducted by Thomas Cromwell, was part of Henry VIII's programme for
reform," he said. "In the summer of 1538 Cromwell was ensconced at Chelsea Manor to conduct
his affairs because of an outbreak of the plague in central London. "From there, he ordered [3] the most important Marian shrines in England be
brought to Chelsea so that he could witness their destruction. The dissolution
of the monasteries and destruction of popular pilgrimage sites heralded an end
to the traditional expression of Christianity as passed down through the Middle Ages in England and Wales. "It is therefore
hoped that this sculpture may be sited on or near to the location where the
foremost Marian shrines were burnt." Mr Day said he also wanted his
sculpture to express the "supremely negative impact" of iconoclasm [the destruction
of religious images or objects]…"Iconoclasm seeks to destroy the objects
that define a community by beliefs," he added. "History shows that it
can, under certain circumstances, be followed by a
desire to efface that very community from existence altogether, leading to
genocide." Mr Day said that the
sculpture would create a place for faith communities to reflect on
reconciliation by confronting the truths of the past. A total of 84 shrines
were destroyed in England and Wales during the 16th century and hundreds of
statues of the Virgin Mary were burned… Frances Scarr, chairman of the trust, said the idea for a statue came after a
pilgrimage by a group of Catholics and Anglicans to the sites of the shrines
destroyed during the Reformation. Mrs Scarr said that
erecting the sculpture would be an act of reparation for the destruction of the
ancient shrines and might, she added, help to reconcile people of different
faiths. "I hope that when we come before this
monument we will ask for God's forgiveness and through the intercession of Mary
Most Holy we will pray that she will help us put behind our turbulent past and
lead us forward in unity, peace and reconciliation," she said.
Mr Caldwell’s article also included a picture of part of the model
Mary and the ‘’child Jesus”
In the extracts
quoted from Simon Caldwell’s article I have underlined some particular
aspirations expressed by the chairman of the Art & [4] Reconciliation Trust, Mrs Frances Scarr. In
these aspirations we see the unscriptural nature of Roman Catholicism that God
graciously exposed to the light of His Word at the time of the Reformation,
rearing its ungodly and idolatrous head once more. Mrs Scarr
said – ‘When we come
before this monument’ – Bishop Ryle rightly identified Roman Catholic
idolatry as ‘flagrant’ and as breaking ‘the second commandment’. We read of
that commandment first in Exodus 20:4-6. Later in Deuteronomy chapter 4 Moses
proceeds to ‘flesh out’ that commandment from God in these words – “Take ye therefore good heed unto yourselves…lest ye corrupt yourselves
and make you a graven image, the similitude [likeness] of any figure, the likeness of male or FEMALE…Take Heed unto yourselves
lest ye forget the covenant of the Lord your God, which he made with you, and
make you a graven image of the likeness of ANYTHING which the Lord thy God hath
forbidden thee. For the Lord thy God is a consuming fire, a jealous God”.
Just as a husband
or wife would be rightly jealous if their spouse to whom they have given their
undivided and undying love started to ‘flirt’ with another, so God, who has
given His undivided and undying love to His people [The bride of
Christ] is likewise moved to jealousy and the
‘consuming fire’ of this jealousy was displayed in the ‘Golden Calf’ incident
when we read in Exodus 33:20 “And he [Moses] took the calf which they had made and burned it in the fire”. Perhaps this action by Moses prompted the similar
1538 action taken in the burning of Marian shrines at Chelsea as mentioned in
Simon Caldwell’s article. Mrs Scarr went on to say – ‘we will ask for God’s forgiveness and
through the intercession of Mary Most Holy’ – What delusion, to believe that people can, in what
constitutes a ‘flagrant’ act of idolatry [coming before a statue of Mary], ask for God’s forgiveness on other unrelated issues
that fail to take into account the exceedingly sinful and God-angering manner
of this very method of petitioning. Then we also see the usurping by Rome of
the unique intercessory role in heaven of the Lord Jesus Christ [see 1st
Timothy 2:5; Hebrews 7:24-25; 1st John 1:9 & 2:1] as they place Mary on a par with Christ as a second
heavenly ‘intercessor’. Finally Mrs Scarr said - ‘we will pray that she will help us
put behind our turbulent past and lead us forward in unity, peace and reconciliation’ – again I turn to the words of Bishop
Ryle to respond here to Mrs Scarr –
‘idolatry is a natural
product of man’s heart. It is a weed…which the heart is always ready to bring
forth…we read of the constantly recurring idolatries of the Old Testament
Church - of Peor, and Baal, and [5] Moloch, and Chemosh
and Ashtorath – of hill altars…and images…Does it
surprise us when we read in history how idolatry crept in by degrees into the
Church of Christ…until in Canterbury men offered more at the shrine…of the
Virgin Mary than at that of Christ…I for one am not surprised at the quantity
of idolatry existing both in the world and in the visible Church. I believe it
perfectly possible that we may yet live to see far more of it than some have
ever dreamed of…Romanism in perfection is a gigantic system of Church-worship,
Sacrament-worship, Mary-worship…image-worship…in one word, a huge organised
idolatry…idolatry has decidedly manifested itself in the visible Church of
Christ and nowhere so decidedly as in the Church of Rome…the Church of Rome is
walking amongst us with renewed strength…I offer some practical safeguards
against idolatry… (1) Let us arm ourselves…with a thorough knowledge of the
Word of God…if we once leave that for any by-path…we must never be surprised if
we end with worshipping images… (2) Let us arm ourselves…with a godly jealousy
about the least portion of the Gospel…Let us beware of tampering with anything
of a Romanising tendency. It is foolishness to play with fire… (3) Let us arm
ourselves…with clear, sound views of our Lord Jesus Christ and of the salvation
that is in Him…Christ rightly known, Christ truly believed and Christ heartily
loved is the true preservative against ritualism, Romanism and every form of
IDOLATRY’ [pages 148-149; 158-159; 167-170].
How sad that the Church of England no longer
possesses men with the scriptural awareness and application of Bishop Ryle but
instead is currently led by Rowan Williams who last year visited the Marian
shrine at Lourdes as you will see in the picture [from the British Church Newspaper of 10th
October 2008] at the end of this article. Clearly Mr Williams is living proof of the observation
quoted earlier by the Reformer Zwingli - ‘man falls by his nature on the thing that is placed
before his senses’. Mr Williams and many of his flock are certainly hastening
the Reversal of the Reformation and the very public re-emergence of Idolatrous
Romanism. Another
example of this from the
Roman Catholic Zenit bulletin of 28th
September 2009 reads –
The bishops' of England and Wales estimate some 68,700 people visited the relics of St. Thérèse during the first 10 days of the tour of her relics. The relics of St. Thérèse of Lisieux will be visiting the United Kingdom through October 16. They arrived September 16. The relics have gone through some 40 countries. During the U.K. tour, the relics have just one stop at a non-Catholic site: the York Minster, a cathedral of the Church of England. The dean of York, Very Reverend Keith Jones, said, "I am thrilled that the relics of St Thérèse, the Little Flower, are coming to York Minster, at the request of the Catholic bishops' conference. “She is a gift of God to us all, and this is a chance for Christians of different traditions to pray for unity and renew our faith and our love." [6]
‘Mary Most Holy’ relocated
Some
months after I wrote this idolatry article a further article appeared in The
Catholic Herald. Reproduced here is
the article and I have emphasised some portions in bold. Thanks should be given
to God that this planned idolatry is being restricted to an existing site of
idolatry and therefore will not be further inflicted on the general public, as
had been the original intention with the Thames-side location.
Statue to commemorate destruction of shrines
By Simon Caldwell: 20
March 2009
One of Britain's leading sculptors is to
erect a statue of Our Lady and the Child Jesus on the site of London's medieval
Marian shrine. Paul Day will spend a year creating the work, called Mary
Most Holy, outside the front entrance of the Church of Our Lady of Willesden,
north London. It will commemorate the Marian shrines destroyed during
the Reformation. The sculpture was originally
intended to stand on land alongside the River Thames at Chelsea where King
Henry VIII ordered the statues taken from 64 Marian shrines to be burned on
huge bonfires in 1538. But Kensington and Chelsea Borough Council denied
planning permission at the last minute, forcing the Art and Reconciliation
Trust, the charity that commissioned the work, to look elsewhere. Brent
Borough Council has now formally approved the plans. "As we couldn't
have Chelsea the next obvious place was at Willesden," said Frances Scarr, chairwoman of the trust, which was set up to promote
awareness of the negative effects iconoclasm can have on culture. "It is a
medieval shrine dating back to 939," she said. "It is one of the
original shrines. It was the only shrine to Our Lady in London at that time. It
even pre-dates Walsingham. "We now all
agree actually that where it is going is more appropriate and will also foster
a great deal more prayer. If it had been at Chelsea it would have been in a
garden with a lot of other statues but now it is outside a church and a very
active church at that. She said that she was seeking £500,000 in donations
to help to pay for the work. "If all goes to plan Paul Day will start on
the memorial this September," she said. "It will take about a year.
When we get started I will be able to think of a date and I would like it to be
on a feast of Our Lady. It is too early to start thinking about that yet."
Previous works by Mr Day includes a memorial of the Battle of Britain on
Victoria Embankment, [7]
Westminster, and the Meeting Place at St Pancras Station, London. His latest
work was a statue of the Queen Mother unveiled in February on the Mall outside
Buckingham Palace. The proposed statue of the Virgin and Child will be a bronze
triptych on a granite plinth. A "beautiful" Virgin Mary holds up the
Child Jesus against the backdrop of ruins and two side panels show reformers beheading
and smashing up the statues of saints and destroying a crucifix. When he first
unveiled a model of the statue Mr Day explained that the "ruined setting
evokes rather than represents the dissolved monasteries of England". He
said: "The setting must be contemporary. Ruins mean war and the
destruction that we have caused to our world, the broken world into which
Christ came and the broken nature of the relationship between God and
mankind."
Devotion to Our Lady at Willesden can be
traced back to the late Anglo-Saxon period. Willesden means "spring at the
foot of the hill" and there was a well with supposedly miraculous
properties. The well and the Marian shrine that grew around it were connected
to the Church of St Mary that was mentioned in a 10th-century royal charter. By
1249 there were two statues at the shrine, one of which was a Black Madonna
encrusted with gold, silver and precious jewels. During the medieval period
pilgrims travelled in their thousands to pray at the shrine. St Thomas More was a regular visitor and made a pilgrimage just months
before he was arrested for refusing to take an oath attached to the Act of
Succession. Willesden became an active shrine in the late 19th century
following the establishment of a Catholic mission at nearby Harlesden. A
replica Black Madonna was made and blessed by Cardinal Herbert Vaughan in 1892.
The Romanesque - now Grade II-listed - church was opened in 1931. When Pope
Pius XII declared in the "Marian Year" of 1954 that every diocese
should have a Marian shrine, Willesden was chosen as the centre of Marian
devotion for the Archdiocese of Westminster. For
most Catholic Londoners the Marian Year culminated in a Mass at Wembley Stadium
in which 94,000 people saw Cardinal Bernard Griffin crown the Black Madonna. A
total of 60,000 pilgrims visited the Willesden shrine that year. In
1958 the shrine would also be visited by St Josemaria
Escrivá who reconsecrated his organisation, Opus Dei,
to the Virgin Mary at the church on the August 15 Feast of the Assumption in
1958. Mrs Scarr will appear on Eternal World
Television Network (EWTN)) on March 19 and 25 to discuss the project.
[8]
[9]
Joy
Has Dawned: ‘Take Heed’ to what you sing!
Last December I was
in a situation where a song by Keith Getty was sung called ‘Joy Has Dawned’. As carols go it was very pleasing to the ear
and all went well until the opening lines of the fourth verse. They read as
follows – ‘Son of Adam, Son of heaven, Given
as a ransom’. As soon as I heard the phrase ‘Son of
Adam’ my theological alarm bells started ringing loud and clear. In
consequence I sent an email to the ministry of Keith Getty on 7th
January 2009 and in that email I wrote –
I 'choked' theologically on the phrase 'Son
of Adam' - the whole point of the virgin birth was so that the Lord would
not be a 'Son of Adam' for "as in Adam all die" [1st
Corinthians 15:22] - all humans born since Adam by natural pro-creation
enter this world condemned and unrighteous in the sight of God because the sin
and disobedience of Adam is imputed to all such. Christ was not procreated He
was incarnated by the power of the Holy Spirit and so did not enter the world
as a 'Son of Adam' and so by the unique nature of His birth and His
subsequent sinless life He was qualified to offer an acceptable atoning
sacrifice for sin. A simple change… would correct what is a serious theological
error in an otherwise beautiful carol
I
received a swift and polite response as follows –
Dear Cecil,
Thank you
for your feedback.
I have
passed this on to our team.
Best
Regards, Arlene Crymble, Gettymusic.com
By
27th April sadly I had received no serious feedback to the important
theological issue raised by myself. From what I have read it would appear that
Keith and Kristyn Getty do take seriously the
theological accuracy and implications of the lyrics they compose and so from my
perspective it is very disappointing that they did not apparently take time to
address what is a very serious error in their lyrics for ‘Joy Has Dawned’ concerning
the Person of the Lord Jesus Christ. I hope sincerely that at some stage in the
future they will recognise the gravity of this error and change the lyrics to
agree with what the Holy Scriptures testify concerning the Person of the Lord
Jesus Christ in His humanity. On 27th April 2009 I sent the
following email
Dear Arlene,
Be assured that it brings me
no pleasure to have to contact you again but sadly I have heard nothing
following your email to me of 25th March. In consequence I have
drafted a short article for posting to our ministry website but I want to send
the text of it herewith in the hope that it may spur some reaction from Keith
and Kristyn on the theological error in the lyrics of
‘Joy Has Dawned’.
If I have had no response
from them on this matter by [10]
Monday 11th
May I shall sadly be left with no alternative but to post the article publicly
to our website. Yours in Christ
Cecil Andrews
Sadly I received
neither an acknowledgment nor a response to that email and so an article was
posted to our website. In it I also invited readers, supportive of my position
to email Getty Music and ask them to rethink and rephrase the ‘offending’
expression ‘Son of Adam’. I’m glad to report that quite a number of readers of the article did, as invited, make
contact with Getty Music to express their solidarity with my concerns and they
eventually received a ‘standardised’ reply, although I myself did not
personally receive any such communication. I want now to reproduce this
‘standardised' reply as the various folks received it and to intersperse into
it, in ‘bold type and boxed’, my response to their comments. This was the ‘standardised'
reply –
Dear …,
Although we respect the fervour
with which Mr Andrews is keen to root
out and expose anything he sees as heresy in the Christian church, on this point we feel he
has jumped to a heretical
conclusion that is not there in our text.
I would simply
reaffirm that I view the expression ‘Son of Adam’, when
applied to the Incarnate Lord Jesus
Christ, to be injurious to both His sinless
Person and the perfection of His atoning
sacrifice. In scripture this
title is never applied by or to Him nor for that
matter is the title ‘Son of Heaven’.
The line
“Son of Adam, Son of heaven” points to the uniqueness of Christ – His full humanity and His full deity - a cornerstone of the
Christian faith. Jesus wasn’t half-man, half-God; He wasn’t
‘God in human form’; He was fully
human, while remaining fully God. That’s why
the Bible can state, for example,
that He was “tempted in every way we are, yet
without sin”.
I must confess that I find this
paragraph somewhat confusing and indeed contradictory when in the midst of statements about Christ’s humanity and His deity, about Christ being human and remaining God, statements that I would agree with,
we then read
- He wasn’t ‘God in human form’ - surely this expression totally contradicts the
expressions that immediately
precede and then follow this phrase !.
From my understanding of scripture this is precisely what
Jesus Christ was – ‘God in human form’.
This statement ‘He wasn’t God in human form’
undermines precisely what for example the apostle Paul affirms in Philippians chapter two as you will
read shortly. Paul also wrote to the Colossians concerning the Incarnate Lord Jesus that ‘it
pleased the Father that in him should
all fullness dwell’ [chapter
1 :19] and ‘in him dwelleth
all the fullness of the Godhead
bodily’ [chapter
2 :9]. As Trinitarians we
believe that The Father is God,
The Son is God and [11] The
Spirit is God and so with the birth
of Jesus Christ we do
have ‘Immanuel,
which being interpreted is God with us’ [Matthew 1 :23]
- Consider also these scriptures – ‘Let this mind be
in you, which was also in Christ Jesus. Who, being
in the form of God [Cecil - His divine pre-existence] …took upon
him the form of a servant [Cecil - added humanity
to His person at the Incarnation] and was made in the likeness of men’ [Philippians
2 :5-7] ‘Wherefore when
he [Cecil – the pre-existent
divine Son of God] cometh into the world, he saith…a body hast thou prepared for me [Cecil – the added human dimension of Christ through
His Incarnation]’ [Hebrews
10 :5] ‘Jesus saith unto him…He
that hath seen me hath seen
the Father’ [John 14 :9] [Cecil - Jesus is obvioulsy
not here referring to His physical appearance
when He stated this but rather is referring to His attributes such as for example complete Godliness and miraculous powers that mirror some
of the attributes of God
The Father – this lines up with how Christ is referred to in Hebrews 1:3 as being ‘the express
image’ of ‘God’ already referred to in verse 1] ‘Great is
the mystery of godliness ;
God was manifest
in the flesh’ [1st Timothy 3 :16] When tempted by Satan to fall down and worship him, the Lord replied ‘Thou shalt worship the Lord thy God’ [Matthew 4 :10]. Keeping that in mind we see
Thomas, when confronted by
the risen Christ, declaring.
‘My Lord and my God’ [John 20 :28] and I could
cite other instances when
people clearly ‘worshipped’
Christ and He did not rebuke
them for doing so.
But acknowledging Christ’s
humanity as a ‘son of Adam’ does
not automatically imply Jesus had a fallen
sinful nature. Jesus refers to Himself as the “son of
man” - which can of course be translated “son of Adam”, as
“Adam” means “man”.
Whilst the Hebrew for man is ‘adam’ its
roots are from the Hebrew ‘adamah’ meaning ‘ground’ and that of course is where the ‘material’ that God used
to create the first man Adam came from.
I
think it would be good to gather our thinking on this issue and ‘take stock’ of
humanity. (1) Adam was formed from the dust of the ground (2) Eve was formed
using a rib from Adam’s body (3) Although Luke in Acts 17:26 does identify that
‘all nations of men’ trace their pro-creational bloodline back to ‘one’ (Adam) because they have all entered
into this world BY this process of PROCREATION we must also bear the following
in mind (4) The Lord Jesus Christ did not enter this world by pro-creation
which would have made him of the pro-creational bloodline of Adam, [and keep in
mind the principle of federal headship] but He entered by INCARNATION (only
someone who pre-existed can incarnate) – He did not enter through pro-creation
and so although being fully human this
kept Him separate from the pro-creational bloodline of Adam. We must never forget that Mary conceived the
Lord Jesus when she was overshadowed by the power of the Holy Spirit – the
conception of Christ did not arise as the result of a fallen Son of [12] Adam
impregnating her. In all the Bible translations that I have looked at not one,
for example in Matthew 16:13, uses the expression ‘Son of Adam’ – they ALL
translate the phrase as ‘Son of Man’ and this title ‘Son of Man’ appears in
numerous other passages of Scripture but NEVER, in relation to Christ, do we
find the expression ‘Son of Adam’ used in scripture. I believe it is absolutely
vital NOT to refer to Christ as a ‘Son of Adam’. Unlike all the pro-created,
bloodline, genuine sons of Adam, including you and me who were “born in sin and
shapen in iniquity”[Psalm
51:5] the Lord Jesus Christ was and is in His humanity, because of the
Incarnation, “holy, harmless, undefiled, SEPARATE from sinners” (He was not
tainted with original or any actual sin, unlike all true sons of Adam) see
Hebrews 7:26. Although Christ grew up in
a family situation with a married couple, Mary and Joseph and the offspring
they produced, they all, without exception, entered this world by the process
of pro-creation, as sons and daughters of the federal head of the human race,
Adam, and so they entered as condemned sinners in need of a Saviour, UNLIKE the
Lord Jesus. ("The prince of this world cometh and hath nothing in me"
John 14:30 - Satan, 'the accuser of the brethren' [Revelation 12:10] had
absolutely no grounds for making any accusation against the Lord Jesus). Bearing
in mind that our exchanges have been triggered by what I consider to be a
serious theological error in an otherwise fine hymn perhaps I could quote some
lines from another great hymn this time by Charles Wesley that sum up well the
essence of what I’m trying to say. In verse 3 of ‘And can it be’ Wesley
wrote of Christ that ‘He left His Father’s throne above’ and a few lines
later, referring to Calvary he writes of how Christ ‘bled for Adam’s helpless
race’. Some, perhaps may think that I’m ‘straining at gnats’ over this phrase
‘Son of Adam’ but I don’t believe that I am and the Apostle Paul encouraged Timothy, and so
by implication all who would publicly proclaim the truths of the Word of God,
to “Study to show thyself approved unto God, a workman that needeth
not to be ashamed, rightly dividing the word of truth” 2nd Timothy
2:15. ‘Rightly dividing’ could also be translated ‘accurately handling’ and it
implies a degree of TOTAL accuracy as in the case of a carpenter
who must make sure that something is cut with total precision otherwise
whatever he is making will not fit together or also in the case of a stonemason
who must cut stone with total precision otherwise a building will be ‘off
plumb’. So it is with God’s Word, if we wrongly, as I believe, apply the
unbiblical term, Son of Adam to Christ then we do damage to His sinless
perfection as a person and we would also render His sacrifice for sin as being
unacceptable as such a sacrifice had to be without blemish and without spot [1st
Peter 1:18]. In the Marshall Pickering ‘Evangelical Dictionary of Theology’,
in their section on ‘Adam’ we read the following on page 11 ‘Adam was the head
of the race and brought death to everyone in it; Christ is the [13] head of the
new humanity and brought life to all within it…The scriptural use of Adam,
then, stresses the solidarity of the human race, a solidarity in sin. It
reminds us that the human race had a beginning and that all its history from
the very first is marked by sin. But ‘the last Adam’ has altered all that. He
has replaced sin with righteousness and death with life’. Question 22 of The
Larger Catechism of The Westminster Assembly reads as follows: ‘Did all
mankind fall in Adam’s first transgression?’ And the answer given reads: ‘The
covenant being made with Adam as a public person, not for himself only, but for
his posterity, all mankind descending from him by ordinary generation (Acts
17:26), sinned in him, and fell with him in that first transgression’ (Genesis
2:16-17 compared with Romans 5:12-20 and with 1st Corinthians
15:21-22). ‘Sons of Adam’ are those who ‘descend from him by ordinary
generation’ and the Virgin Birth thus rules Christ out as being designated a
‘Son of Adam’. Louis Berkhof in his book
‘Systematic Theology’ makes these important points (p 334) – ‘The
Incarnation constituted Christ one of the human race’ and he goes on to say
‘Christ assumed His human nature from the substance of His mother…If the human
nature of Christ was not derived from the same stock as ours but merely resembled
it, there exists no such relation between us and Him as is necessary to render
His mediation available for our good’. Keeping these thoughts in mind perhaps
we get a better understanding of God’s Words back in Genesis 3:15 where, in the
wake of sin entering into the world through the sin of Adam, God in grace makes
this promise when addressing the serpent “And I will put enmity between thee
and the woman, and between thy seed and HER SEED; HE SHALL bruise thy head and
thou shalt bruise his heel”. Keeping in mind the
importance of the virgin birth, in that for the birth of Christ, Mary was not
impregnated by a fallen Son of Adam, Berkhoff
wrote on page 336 ‘If Christ had been generated by a man, He would have
been a human person, included in the covenant of works, and as such would have
shared the common guilt of mankind. But now that His subject, His ego, His
person, IS NOT OUT OF ADAM, He is not in the covenant of works and is free from
the guilt of sin. And being free from the guilt of sin, His human nature could
also be kept free, both before and after His birth, from the pollution of sin’.
The early chapters of two gospels go to great lengths to list Jesus’ human lineage
as a ‘son of…’, going all the way
back to Adam in Luke’s gospel.
The genealogy listed in Matthew’s
gospel is that of the ‘legal’ or ‘foster’ father of the Lord, namely
Joseph, and is there to validate Christ’s Kingly and Messianic credentials, beginning as it does with Abraham. John MacArthur,
in his bible study notes in
the introduction to Matthew writes, ‘Matthew is concerned with
setting forth Jesus as Messiah, the King of
the Jews… The opening genealogy is designed
to [14] document Christ’s
credentials as Israel’s king… Matthew shows that Christ is heir of the kingly line… All other historical and theological themes in the book revolve around this one’. Matthew
Henry in his commentary
writes, ‘Concerning this genealogy of our Saviour, observe the
chief intention. It is not a needless genealogy. It is not a vain-glorious one,
as those of great men often are. It proves that our Lord Jesus is of the nation
and family out of which the Messiah was to arise. The promise of the blessing
was made to Abraham and his seed; of the dominion, to David and his seed. It
was promised to Abraham that Christ should descend from him, [Genesis 12:3;
22:18] and to David that he should descend from him, [2 Samuel 7:12; Psalm 89:3
& 132:11] and, therefore, unless Jesus is a son of David, and a son of
Abraham, he is not the Messiah. Now this is here proved from well-known
records’. The purpose of this genealogy was not to trace Christ back to the
first man, Adam but to confirm His Messianic credentials through the line of
his ‘legal’, ‘foster’ father Jospeh. When we turn to the genealogy in Luke’s
gospel we find that although it does make reference in Luke 3:23 to Joseph, the
genealogical line then traced is that of Mary and it does go back to Adam and
for the reason already stated (‘Christ assumed His human nature from the
substance of His mother’) - this established His right to truly be our ‘kinsman
redeemer’ – if someone sold himself into slavery, he could be ‘redeemed’ [bought back into
freedom through an acceptable payment] by one of near kin. When Adam sinned
he sold all of humanity into slavery to sin and its condemnation and so only
one who truly possessed human credentials could pay God’s price to set people
free from their slavery to sin and from His just condemnation and Peter tells
us clearly who our gracious kinsman redeemer is in 1st Peter 1:18-19
“Forasmuch as ye know that ye were not redeemed with corruptible things like
silver and gold… But with the precious blood of Christ, as of a lamb without
blemish and without spot”. It
is theologically untenable to insist on a physical bloodline from Adam directly
to the birth of Christ in order to preserve the full humanity of Jesus
Christ. It is also theologically untenable to express in song or word the
idea that God incarnate can still be fully God and yet born of the
bloodline of Adam as one of the sons of Adam. To say that Jesus is a ‘Son
of Adam’ undoes His true and full humanity and undoes His full deity.
This is why this terminology is inappropriate and not used when referring to
Jesus in the Bible. It is absolutely foreign in both concept (idea) and
word usage (terminology) in the Scriptures.
“Son of
Adam” therefore implies humanity in the same way as “Son of David” implies kingship; to conclude that either implies
a genetic inheritance of a sinful nature we feel is a misapplication
of the phrase.
The condemnation that Adam’s original
sin brought was imputed to ALL his pro-creational, bloodline descendants both
male and [15] female for “as in
Adam ALL die”. All such sons and daughters of Adam are subject to the effects of
the fall one of them being ‘Human depravity’. W H Molland
in his little booklet on ‘Salvation’ wrote, ‘To understand the relationship
between Adam and his posterity is essential to a right understanding of Holy
Scripture. The depravity of the human heart stems from the original offence
committed in Eden’s garden…Adam acted, not for himself as a private individual,
but he transacted for all who would issue from him. (Cecil - This is why it was crucial that Mary was not impregnated
by any fallen Son of Adam but was instead overshadowed by the power of the Holy
Spirit) Adam
stood as federal head and as such legally represented the whole human race (Cecil – this is why
Christ is referred to as ‘the last Adam’ as He represents a new ‘redeemed’
human race) …
The sentence passed upon Adam is upon all the race. If this was not the case no
infant would ever die for they have neither capacity nor opportunity to commit
actual sin (Cecil
– a hypothetical question - if the Lord Jesus had not been sent into this world
to die an atoning death by voluntarily allowing Himself to be taken by cruel
hands and crucified, would He have died – unlike all true ‘Sons of Adam’ the
answer surely is ‘no’ for He was overall sinless and “the wages of sin is
death”).
Of course we recognise that
in Rom 5 and 1 Cor 15 Paul draws the contrast of being “in” Adam or
“in” Christ, but that is a particular application Paul uses for us to understand the redemptive work of the man Christ Jesus as
the ‘second Adam’, and does not negate
the use of the reference to Adam as the father of the human race.
Again we see
the use of an unscriptural term
– just as Christ is never referred to in Scripture as ‘Son of Adam’ so He is not referred to as the ‘second
Adam’ – He is referred to
as ‘the last Adam’ and Paul goes on to contrast how this ‘last Adam’ differs in many ways from ‘The first man, Adam’ [see 1st Corinthians
15 :45-49].
In
conclusion, then, we stand by
the line in the song as being
true and reliable. We acknowledge that there is
room for individuals to misinterpret this and any other line we have written. And no doubt Mr Andrews will continue to
interpret the line in any way he chooses
for publication on his website
- but that is something beyond our control, and engaging in
dialogue with him on this we feel
will generate more heat than light. Best Regards,
I have sought to show from God’s Word and comments of gifted Bible commentators, why I am fully persuaded
that the line ‘Son of Adam’ in Mr Getty’s
song, is not biblically ‘true and reliable’ – I believe it crosses the boundary from ‘poetic licence’ into ‘heretical quicksand’ and ends up misrepresenting God’s Word. In doing so I have sought ONLY to preserve the sinless Person and the sacrificial
perfection of the Lord Jesus Christ. The Lord’s 2000 year old questions ‘What think ye
of Christ? Whose
son is he ?’ [Matthew
22 :42] are still as relevant today as they were
when He first asked them.
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