Pride will destroy you, your ministry, and people around you

September 5, 2023March 1, 2024 / MurrayCampbell

You may be familiar with this famous saying, “Pride goes before destruction, a haughty spirit before a fall”. It comes from the Bible, Proverbs 16:18.

We have mixed feelings about pride in Australia. On the one hand, we like to run over any tall poppy with the lawnmower. And yet pride is splashed across Instagram and Facebook pages all the time: pride in achievement and success, pride in people, pride about identity. Pride has become an idea or slogan to embrace and celebrate.

We have a discombobulated relationship with pride.

To quote Pride and Prejudice,

“[Mr. Darcy’s] pride,” said Miss Lucas, “does not offend me so much as pride often does, because there is an excuse for it. One cannot wonder that so very fine a young man, with family, fortune, every thing in his favor, should think highly of himself. If I may so express it, he has a right to be proud.”

“That is very true,” replied Elizabeth, “and I could easily forgive his pride, if he had not mortified mine.”

I think Australians are selective about the pride we denounce and the pride we embrace.

As a Church last Sunday we looked at the reign of King Uzziah from 2 Chronicles 26. In the account, the theme of power and pride rears its ugly head in devastating form.

Uzziah comes to the throne at the age of 16 and he starts well. While most teenage boys are gaming and playing cricket and using their testosterone for all manner of quick fulfilment pursuits, Uzziah was ruling a nation. He begins well,

4 He did what was right in the eyes of the Lord, just as his father Amaziah had done. 5 He sought God during the days of Zechariah, who instructed him in the fear of God. As long as he sought the Lord, God gave him success.

Uzziah rebuilds military towers and rebuilds towns. He organises and leads the army well. He brings people together. He led the army in battle against the Philistines, verse 7, ‘and the Lord helped him’. It’s not difficult to imagine the excitement surrounding this positive beginning. Uzziah is doing what pleases God and he’s looking after the people and protecting them. He oversees State run building projects that run on time and to budget.

Then it goes horribly wrong. Verse 16 spells out the downward progression,

But after Uzziah became powerful, his pride led to his downfall.

Power – pride – downfall.

While power is usually spoken in negative and abusive ways today, power isn’t inherently bad or wrong. God is all-powerful. By his powerful word, God created the universe and he made you. By his powerful word God exercises justice and administers mercy. In this strength, he stops nations and cares for the hungry. God also gives people strength – physical, mental, and spiritual strength.

Power can achieve much good and also much sin. In the hands of sinful people, which is all of us, power and strength is a present temptation. We have the creative ability to twist and misuse power in all kinds of ways.

Power doesn’t inevitably lead to pride but when it swims in the bathtub of humanity, it’s like putting an egg in boiling water for 6 minutes; the outcome is pretty likely.

1. Pride grows in all kinds of soil

We mustn’t think of pride in a one-dimensional way. Pride can grow in all kinds of soil: in success, in power, in failure, in suffering. Pride is adaptable and fits snuggly in all different sizes.

Pride is having that concern for yourself and your reputation over and above God and his glory and the good of others. Pride is a belief that I am better or that I deserve better.

Pride includes but isn’t limited to boasting and feeling big about yourself.

John Piper is right when he observes,

Boasting is the response of pride to success.
Self-pity is the response of pride to suffering.

Boasting says, “I deserve admiration because I have achieved so much.”
Self-pity says, “I deserve admiration because I have suffered so much.”

Boasting is the voice of pride in the heart of the strong.
Self-pity is the voice of pride in the heart of the weak.

2. Pride redefines reality, defining identity and worth against other people.

In Uzziah’s case, his pride is fed by power. He came to believe that power justifies freedom to live on one’s own terms. Uzziah comes to believe that power is a road to autonomy and freedom for defining life’s norms. He no longer felt the necessity to follow God’s laws. He had the liberty to take licence. He thought, I can even enter the Temple ignore the law and relate to God as I decide.

This pride exhibits itself in a shameful act in God’s Temple.

16 But after Uzziah became powerful, his pride led to his downfall. He was unfaithful to the Lord his God, and entered the temple of the Lord to burn incense on the altar of incense.

Of course, the reality is Uzziah was never independent. All the good he achieved only came about because of God’s help. As verse 5 reminds us, “As long as he sought the Lord, God gave him success” The Lord blessed his endeavours. The Lord was his helper. Not only that, the people he serves are God’s people. And this is God’s Temple and yet Uzziah’s self-confidence persuades him to strut about on his terms.

It’s here that I think it’s worth seeing how the story plays out and in doing so displays the stupid stubbornness of pride and its ability to destroy.

3. Pride doesn’t listen to wise counsel

We read that a large delegation of priests warn Uzziah and urge him to stop his behaviour,

17 Azariah the priest with eighty other courageous priests of the Lord followed him in. 18 They confronted King Uzziah and said, “It is not right for you, Uzziah, to burn incense to the Lord. That is for the priests, the descendants of Aaron, who have been consecrated to burn incense. Leave the sanctuary, for you have been unfaithful; and you will not be honored by the Lord God.”

Pride doesn’t listen to wisdom. Pride ignores warning.

3. Pride produces anger

Pride doesn’t know when to stop. It’s insatiable and when confronted, the typical response is anger. Pride and anger go hand in hand. Pride is never an isolated or controlled sin. When challenged, the proud responds with anger. Why? Because you’re questioning my identity and my freedom. We get very defensive.

19 Uzziah, who had a censer in his hand ready to burn incense, became angry. While he was raging at the priests in their presence before the incense altar in the Lord’s temple, leprosy broke out on his forehead. 20 When Azariah the chief priest and all the other priests looked at him, they saw that he had leprosy on his forehead, so they hurried him out. Indeed, he himself was eager to leave, because the Lord had afflicted him.

This idea of freedom is as ancient in time and as contemporary as the next model iPhone. Personal autonomy is perhaps the number 1 value today in Western cultures including Australia.. We want freedom and search for it, even demand it. Take pride! Express yourself!

Of course, Jesus said, ‘You can gain the whole world and yet forfeit your soul’, but who today believes Jesus?

Pride isn’t an ally, it cheats you. Pride is like a performance-enhancing drug that gives illusions of greatness and being faster and smarter than everybody else, but it is an illusion that will wear off.

Pride sets us up against other people and so you either become envious and jealous because those people are more successful or more liberated than you or you look down on others who are less successful and enslaved by the very things you have broken away from.

In a certain book of the year, there is this great line, “Progress panders to our pride”. It’s true. We love to talk progress: in technology, ethics, education, and science. Much progress is positive and brilliant, but as we engage morally and intellectually better than those who lived before us. We are quick to judge past generations. We even mock and condemn ideas that were considered normal 10 years ago.

Even Christians jump eagerly onto the pride wagon as though our grasp on the Bible today is greater than Christians from former days.

We live in a proud culture. I feel sorry for most Australians whenever Melbournians talk. They must think Melbourne has an identity crisis because we’re constantly going on about how great we are. We’re the capital of this in the capital of that. And in case we thought years of lockdown might humblest us a little bit, they were wrong.

I no longer need God. I will use God on my terms.

I am God.

Pride give us a sense of freedom. Susan and I had this nostalgia moment last night, so to quote that 80s Pop group, Tears For Fears,

It’s my own design

It’s my own remorse

Help me to decide

Help me make the

Most of freedom and of pleasure

Nothing ever lasts forever

No matter how confident we are in our proud bubble, reality will always catch up. God can’t be outmanoeuvred. No matter how rich, influential and powerful, we can’t out-power play God.

4. Pride has consequences

In Uzziah’s case when he took licence with God, God showed him who is God.

That’s the thing with pride, it doesn’t respond to gentle correction or open rebuke. When pride is confronted it either turns to defiance or to bitterness.

As Uzziah stood in the Temple in defiance against God’s law, leprosy broke out on his forehead. It’s a powerful real life illustration. In God’s holy Temple where nothing unclean can enter, Uzziah’s unclean and proud heart is now visibly unclean.

He is subsequently banished from the Temple and so removed from the presence of God and the only place where he could atone for his sin. He is also removed from the palace, the seat of his rule. Uzziah can no longer perform his duties as King or enjoy the privileges of being King.

Uzziah spends his final years in isolation. The message is, pride does not end well.

Uzziah’s obituary, in verse 23, reads, ‘he had leprosy’.

5. The way to break pride before pride destroys you

Uzziah’s start was so promising and yet he didn’t reach the finish line.

Pride isn’t just a societal problem; it is an ever present temptation for people in ministry. Pride will destroy your ministry and harm the people around you. Sure, it may go unnoticed for some time, and it may be excused because of your ministry successes, but the outcome is fixed. If only Uzziah had listened to the priests.

The only saving grace is to humble ourselves before the one who made himself nothing for us. There is one King of Israel who can truly say, ‘I’m the greatest’ and yet he chose to live in the dust and dirt and make friends with sinners and die on a cross.

He broke the chain: power – pride – fall.

Jesus took the harder path: power – humility – exaltation

Philippians ch.2 gives us this astonishing insight,

“In your relationships with one another, have the same mindset as Christ Jesus:

Who, being in very nature God,
did not consider equality with God something to be used to his own advantage;

rather, he made himself nothing
by taking the very nature[b] of a servant,
being made in human likeness.

And being found in appearance as a man,
    he humbled himself
    by becoming obedient to death—
        even death on a cross!

Therefore God exalted him to the highest place
and gave him the name that is above every name,

that at the name of Jesus every knee should bow,
in heaven and on earth and under the earth,

and every tongue acknowledge that Jesus Christ is Lord,
to the glory of God the Father.”

No one has more power than God and the Son of God shares this authority and power. And yet he laid aside his glory and took the path of humility and suffering and shameful death. What Jesus reveals about God is breathtaking. God says, I’ve come to serve. He humbled himself that we might share in his resurrection.

At the recent Athletics World Championship, there was this beautiful moment between 2 female pole vaulters, America’s Katie Moon and Australia’s Nina Kennedy. All the other contestants had bowed out. After a gruelling competition, both Moon and Kennedy were exhausted. They had successfully cleared 4.90m but both failed in their third attempt at 4.95m. The umpires wanted to continue and lower the bar and award first place to whoever successfully jumped first.

Kennedy looked across to Moon and said to her, ‘‘Hey, girl, you maybe wanna share this?’

The expression on Moon’s face said it all. They are now both world champions. It was such a lovely moment.

One of the things that makes Christianity unique and good is that God’s Son came to us and he says’ I want to share with you my victory over death and sin’. He longs to share with those who’ve failed and have no hope of coming near God. When we grasp the nature of Divine grace, there is no room for pride in our ministry and life, but only thankfulness and gratitude that moves us to a life of service for the sake of others.

Pride will destroy you. Pride is an ugly ministry companion that doesn’t let go easily. Pride will undo years of ministry, preaching and leading. If a friend has the courage to say, I think you’ve become proud, listen to that loving correction. Let God break that chain before it breaks you. Daily immerse ourselves in the humbling grace of God in Christ, that we might avoid the route taken by Uzziah and instead walk the one taken by the Lord Jesus

Richard Dawkins asks an important question and here is my answer

August 31, 2023 / MurrayCampbell

I can imagine Richard Dawkins sitting in the back row at the Areopagus, stern-faced and shaking head, and leading a small chorus of sceptics.

Richard Dawkins is continuing his mission to evangelise people out of Christianity (and religion altogether) and to secure his message of a world without hope.

Today in a video message, he asks, ‘Do you want to be comforted by a falsehood?’

It’s a good question and an important one. Does anyone want to find consolation in a fabrication? Does anyone want to pour all their hopes into a dead end? For Professor Dawkins death is of course the dead end, with nothing beyond and no light to give hope to either the dead or those who are left behind.

“When your brain decays there is absolutely no reason to suppose your consciousness will continue, so the grounds of plausibility, the balance of plausibility is heavily in favour or there been no survival after death and that is something and that is something we need to live with. It’s not all that horrifying a prospect when you think about it because we think as Mark Twain said, ‘I’ve been dead for billions of years before I was born and never suffered the smallest inconvenience.”

I suspect that Dawkins’ answer will arouse applause and retweets from fans and devotees, and with a satisfied Amen. Leaving aside for a moment the question of whether he’s right or not, his answer isn’t particularly consoling. Dawkins says that he finds solace in the finality of being no more, but I suspect most people including a lot of atheists are not so convinced. Our intellectual commitments (whether theistic or atheistic) come under a sudden assault when death approaches and when a loved one is lowered into the grave. There is a longing for death not to win. There is palpable hope that life may continue and love to beat any final breath.

Why divorce cognitive processes from heart filled yearnings? Of course, the two can be in conflict and they can also partner together as a harmonious duet, as we find in Christian theism.

Dawkins (and fellow atheists) believes that once our final breath expires and we are buried, the totality of what we were begins to rot and we cease to be. All that is left is the box in the ground holding our biological material and the memories that people have of you. Again, some readers may find that a satisfying end of the story, but most of us don’t. Whether we find it satisfying or not isn’t evidence of what is ultimately true.

The thing about the Christian view of resurrection is not one of lacking commitment to the intellectual process but appreciating that there is more going on. It is not wrong to appeal to deep heart filled longings, for those emotional impulses are part of who we are as human beings. We are more than those heart desires, not less.

I believe, along with Oxford and Cambridge Dons, scientists, poets, plumbers and children, that the Christian explanation of resurrection is both intellectually satisfying and emotionally, psychologically, spiritually liberating and consoling.

Something happened that day just outside Jerusalem that changed the world. Women and men saw something that didn’t compute. The evidence defied their prior assumptions and challenged their emotional state. They saw and heard and touched Jesus raised from the dead.

Before we line up the Biblical accounts with ancient mythology, we mustn’t assume that resurrection was a commonly held view in the ancient world, for that is not the case. Many ancient religions believed in some kind of life after death, although not all (including many Athenians in the First Century AD). The Christian notion of resurrection is altogether different

As Dr Chrisopher Watkin summarises in his new volume, Biblical Critical Theory,

“The nature of the resurrection is very different to the ancient notion of rising gods known as apotheosis. The bodily nature of resurrection sets the Christian claim apart from other superficially similar narrative patterns in the ancient world. The Romans, for example, were familiar with the idea that a mortal person could undergo an apotheosis to become a god, but apotheoses were spiritual, not bodily, and the deified mortal would not be expected to tread the streets of Jerusalem for forty days before ascending to heaven. Apotheosis was also a privilege reserved for the rich and mighty, not for the common artisan and certainly not for the crucified criminal. Christ’s resurrection was also different from the myths of dying and rising agricultural gods in other pagan religions. N. T. Wright, author of the 740-page The Resurrection of the Son of God insists that “even supposing Jesus’s very Jewish followers knew any traditions like those pagan ones—nobody in those religions ever supposed it actually happened to individual humans.”

Richard Dawkins talks about plausibility, as does the Apostle Paul at the Areopagus. He insists, let’s examine the evidence. At that centre of Athenian learning and thought, Paul argues for the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead. He began,

“He [God] has given proof of this to everyone by raising him from the dead.”

Proof? I can hear Dawkins of Athens reproving! What proof? Dead people stay dead. Their brains, blood, muscles and organs decay and become a manure in a box.

Of course, Paul, like Jesus and like Christians everywhere, knew that dead people don’t rise. That’s the point and the resurrection testifies to our wrong assumptions about God and life and death.

What I found interesting in Dawkins’s tweet is how he relies heavily on Bible reasoning in order to muster an argument against God and the notion of life beyond death. Take, for example, this paragraph from Paul’s First Letter to the Corinthians,

“But if it is preached that Christ has been raised from the dead, how can some of you say that there is no resurrection of the dead? 13 If there is no resurrection of the dead, then not even Christ has been raised. 14 And if Christ has not been raised, our preaching is useless and so is your faith. 15 More than that, we are then found to be false witnesses about God, for we have testified about God that he raised Christ from the dead. But he did not raise him if in fact the dead are not raised. 16 For if the dead are not raised, then Christ has not been raised either. 17 And if Christ has not been raised, your faith is futile; you are still in your sins. 18 Then those also who have fallen asleep in Christ are lost. 19 If only for this life we have hope in Christ, we are of all people most to be pitied.

20 But Christ has indeed been raised from the dead, the firstfruits of those who have fallen asleep. ” (1 Corinthians 15:12-18)

The Apostle, and subsequently Christian theologians, scientists, and believers in general, all understand the implausibility of resurrection and understand that single event of history that dumbfounds the Sadducees and Epicureans of every age.

It is worth noting that Paul’s words were written within 20 years of the events that surrounded Jesus’ death in Jerusalem. He even says to his readers, that many eyewitnesses are still alive so go and talk to them. His are not the words of someone covering up evidence and trying to commit fraud on the public. The resurrection is a public event that is open to investigation.

For Dawkins, as brilliant a scientist as he is, he believes in a closed universe and so it’s unlikely that he’ll accept any compelling evidence that punctures his system. Even Jesus was aware of how our a priori commitments block us. He famously said, “‘If they do not listen to Moses and the Prophets, they will not be convinced even if someone rises from the dead.’”

Why? Because there is more going on in our minds and hearts than just intellectual questions and the pursuit of what happened.

Richard Dawkins may have made up his mind, but death will continue to haunt us. The grave is the one appointment we hope to avoid and yet will come. To take consolation in Christ is not fake or feeble, but reason finding hope.

If you are interested, below is a short summary of the evidence outlined in the New Testament as well as a summary of some of the more popular objections to the resurrection.

The facts:

1. Weeks out from his death on the cross Jesus predicted with startling accuracy what would happen.

“Jesus began to explain to his disciples that he must go to Jerusalem and suffer many things at the hands of the elders, the chief priests and the teachers of the law, and that he must be killed and on the third day be raised to life”. (Matt 16:21)

2. Jesus genuinely died and his death was verified by the executing authorities (Matt 27:50-54)

3. After Jesus’ death had been verified, Pilate released the body to Joseph of Arimathea who buried it in his own new tomb, carved out of rock in a garden near the place of the crucifixion (Matt 27:57-60).

4. The tomb was sealed and was guarded by Roman soldiers (Matt 27:62-66).

5. A number of women witnessed the burial and presumably the posting of the guard (Matt 27:61)

6. On the Sunday following the crucifixion the body was no longer in the tomb (Matt 28:1-7).

7. That same day, and over the next 40 days, Jesus met with his original disciples and others (later Saul). During this period the commission to be his witnesses, first to the Jews and then to the nations, was given by Jesus himself (Matt 28:1-20)

8. After 40 days Jesus was taken up into heaven, a cloud hiding him from sight (Acts 1:9-11)

Some arguments against the resurrection:

Theory	Chief exponents	Some suggested responses
Intentional fraud by the disciples	Jewish High Priests; H.S Reimarus (1787)	How could it be done despite the guard and the suspicion of the authorities? How could the lie be sustained for the rest of their lives and in the face of fierce persecution?
Swoon Theory	Paulus (1833) Huxley (1896) Thiering (1992)	His death was verified by experts when Pilate raised questions. If he did revive in the cool of the tomb, how did he roll away the stone, get past the guard, and walk all the way to Emmaus with those wounds?
The women went to the wrong tomb	Lake (1907)	The women were nearby as Jesus was buried. Joseph of Arimathea would certainly know which tomb was his. The guards and the seal would have made the tomb rather conspicuous. The authorities could have just gone to the right tomb and produced the body.
Jesus was never actually crucified (someone was)	The Koran	It is inconceivable that the Jewish authorities would have stood by whilst the Romans crucified the wrong man. Surely this argument would have been used by the Jews to combat the apostle’s preaching if it was true (and even if it wasn’t but was credible)
The resurrection is an allegory not a fact	Woolston (1728)	There is no evidence in the Gospels that this part of the narrative is allegorical as opposed to the rest.
Hallucination	Strauss (1835) Spong (1993)	The number and variety of people, times, and types of appearances tell against this theory. This attitude of the disciples was either fearful or aggressively opposed (Saul) at the time of the appearances. Fear and aggression are not the usual preconditions for a hallucination of an unprecedented event.
Spiritual resurrection and/ or divine vision evoking faith in the disciples	Keim (1883) Lampe (1966) Carnley (1987)	Jesus himself goes to great lengths to demonstrate he is not a ghost or a vision. The empty tomb is unnecessary and the arguments of Paul do not make sense if the resurrection does not involve the crucified body of Jesus. What happened to the body?

The Voice and what we prayed at church yesterday

August 28, 2023August 30, 2023 / MurrayCampbell

The 2023 Australian Indigenous Voice referendum is less than two months away. This national conversation is producing strong emotion and opinion across political and social spheres, and not without reason.

The Yes and No Campaigns are in full swing and trying to capture the votes of everyday Australians. It appears as though influencing the religious vote has become a crucial part of campaign strategy. Leaving aside the question as to whether the category of ‘religious vote’ exists, politicians and community leaders are trying to win over religious Australians, so much so that The Australian recently ran a piece examining, ’Faithful on both sides hear rival gospels of the voice’.

On both religious and secular platforms, articles are being published and events organised to help religious Australians consider The Voice. For all the arguments about divorcing religion from the public square, it seems as though churches and religious societies are a useful mule to carry the message for both proponents and opponents of the Voice.

As a Christian, I believe the Bible gives us principles that shape how we engage in society and how we think through critical moral issues. I can no more neglect seeing the world through the lens of the Bible than I chew food through my mouth or speak with an Aussie accent.

The Bible orchestrates tremendous theological principles that inform our thinking and attitudes about social issues: love of neighbour, reconciliation, justice and mercy, and more. These are deeply Christian ideas, ones that are so embedded in Australian society that we often don’t recognise their origins. Indeed, many of our secular assumptions today are the vapours of Christian theism, continuing to influence our desires for civil society and to do good.

I’m not suggesting that there is always a direct and clear line between a Bible principle and a moral or societal issue. Sometimes that is the case, but often it’s not. I think this is where some Christian voices fall down as they argue for or against the Indigenous Voice to Parliament. There isn’t a single Bible verse that confirms or rejects the Government’s proposal. Rather, it is a matter of wisdom and discerning how to apply healthy and good ideas to particular situations.

The Referendum is also a constitutional debate. The Referendum is a legal, political, and societal consideration, and so relying on gut instinct or emotive argument isn’t sufficient. At the same time, we shouldn’t ignore the heart-felt emotion that is being expressed, especially by Indigenous Australians. Listening well and understanding the other is something we can afford to do. This also means that Christians might (and should) find common agreement on guiding principles and yet may find themselves landing on different sides of this proposal on account of legal and constitutional considerations. I’m not for a moment suggesting an even split or spread among Christians; I don’t know. I am simply making the point that Christians in agreement with principles may come to different conclusions about their practice in the Governmental and constitutional spheres.

For Christians, this Referendum is unlike the marriage plebiscite of 2017 where there is a clear and direct line between the Bible and the definition of marriage. Our position on marriage was and remains in line with both the Bible and what I’d argue is the anthropological and classical understanding. At the time our church prayed that Australians would continue to affirm the classical understanding of marriage, but we also restrained from instructing people how to vote.

Neither is this Referendum analogous to the Republican referendum of 1999; this is more consequential. And I don’t think this referendum is identical to the 1967 referendum which ensured that Aboriginal people are counted as part of Australia’s population and considered under Australian law. That referendum was a long overdue correction, and the fact that 10% of Australians didn’t support the referendum is to our shame. Slowness in acknowledging the imago dei and therefore equality and dignity of Indigenous peoples before the law is a reminder of a sin-stained history, but also one where wrongs have been righted and progress made.

Among Christians, there are divergent views about the model presented by the Albanese Government and the chosen wording. That doesn’t mean that every viewpoint is valid or helpful or Biblically sound, but there are considered Christian voices arriving at slightly different conclusions, from Michael Jensen to John Anderson, Gray Connolly and Andrew Judd. Even among Indigenous Christians, there are varying thoughts about The Voice to Parliament (I don’t know whether, like the general Indigenous population, the majority of Aboriginal Christians support the Voice. Someone might be able to point to data on this). My aim here isn’t to delve into these debates and to weigh various arguments, nor suggest who may or may not be correct in their judgments.

My aim here is one step further back, or perhaps it is a forward step, and that is to encourage considered and prayerful engagement on this issue, and with an awareness that Australians are looking to see how Christians speak to the Voice. I understand that by saying this, some folk will be disappointed. Others will be frustrated because I’m not urging a vote for or against. I can hear the rude jibes already. So be it. Perhaps there lays the very thing that I want to address.

I appreciate how Churches may feel pressure to campaign one way or the other, and many pastors no doubt hear impassioned pleas from congregation members to make public statements in one direction or another. It is okay for Christian leaders to offer another way:

The issue deserves careful inspection and as citizens, we are responsible for informing ourselves. Encourage people to read and understand.
Praying is a good thing to do. It really is. This is the one task churches must surely undertake.
Show respect and kindness toward those who hold a different to the one you have.
Don’t allow this Constitutional issue to create disunity in a church.
Ignore and refuse to buy into the unkind or hyperbolic rhetoric being thrown around on social media and news bites.
Be careful to avoid binding the consciences of others where the Scriptures are not binding us. On this point, if I can clarify, Christians must oppose racism wherever we see it and are positioned to oppose and restore proper dignity and recognition. Racism is evil and is anti-Christian. Christians should also be concerned for the well-being of Indigenous Australians. I believe most Christians are, and while many believers support the Voice, others are not convinced that this is the right model. Avoid assuming people’s motives.

I mentioned prayer above. Here is what we prayed as a church yesterday at Mentone Baptist Church. Perhaps it is a prayer others might like to pray also as our nation faces a testing time over the coming months:

“Abba Father

Our nation’s past is complex, Lord, and so are our hearts. We pray for all the debate happening around the referendum about the Aboriginal Voice to Parliament at the moment.

You are a God of justice, and we pray that the outcome would be a just one. You are a God of mercy, and we pray that the outcome would be a merciful one.

You are a God who cares for the widows and orphans, the weakest among us, and we pray that the outcome and the way the debate is conducted would honour the weak and helpless.

We pray for our own hearts, that your Holy Spirit would convict us of our own sinful attitudes, wherever they may lie.

We pray for our Aboriginal brothers and sisters in Christ. We thank you for the deep godliness and sanctification of many aboriginal Christians who are living for the Lord, often in tough circumstances. We pray you would keep them faithful to your word, and fill them with your Spirit boldly to declare the praises of him who called them out of darkness into his marvelous light. We pray that you would open a door for their ministry, so that more and more aboriginal men and women can find freedom, fulfilment and life in Christ.

With issues like the Voice likely to cause divisions among Christians, we pray the words that Jesus himself prayed in John 17:

“My prayer is not for them alone. I pray also for those who will believe in me through their message, that all of them may be one, Father, just as you are in me and I am in you. May they also be in us so that the world may believe that you have sent me. I have given them the glory that you gave me, that they may be one as we are one— I in them and you in me—so that they may be brought to complete unity. Then the world will know that you sent me and have loved them even as you have loved me.”

We pray in Jesus’ name,

Amen”

Hope from grief in Korumburra

August 14, 2023August 31, 2023 / MurrayCampbell

The small Victorian towns of Korumburra and Leongatha are reeling at the deaths of 3 much loved members of the community and their local Baptist pastor who remains in seriously ill.

The case of the mushroom poisonings has captured national interest and curiosity, perhaps in part because of the number of victims and much more because of the ongoing mystery surrounding what actually happened. The story continues to make front-page news across Australia after two weeks. Journalists are feeding papers and television screens with any minuscule update, and sometimes with a splash of speculation and suspicion.

This isn’t just a story akin to an Agatha Christie whodunnit, this is impacting real people in very real ways and in the most horrible of circumstances. Media intrigue is understandable, although some reporting is unhelpful by whipping up public attention and innuendo, making it more difficult for grieving families and friends to process the unspeakable.

The situation is far from over; Ian Wilkinson remains in critical condition although he is improving and police investigations are ongoing. Respecting privacy and process remains paramount.

There are times when we feel the pain experienced by a stranger, how much more the grief of friends. Korumburra Baptist Church shares the same Baptist heritage and association as the church where I serve.

I would like to draw attention to a single note that has become clear through what has been a horrific couple of weeks for the Patterson and Wilkinson families. This note that has sung above all the discordant sounds is that of faith in God. Journalists have repeatedly highlighted ‘the faith’ shared by Heather and Ian Wilkinson and Don and Gail Patterson, and the faith that is also evident among members of Korumburra Baptist Church.

This faith, of course, has an object. This faith is not in faith itself nor is it grounded in an uncertain immaterial subject matter or hopeful imagination, but in a real person who died a real death and really rose from the dead and confirmed to be the son of God.

They talk about faith in a person most trusted. There is great consolation found in Jesus Christ. For in him we find there is God who understands, who cares, and who offers stunning hope. Suffering and death are not foreign to him. Indeed, the most awful of circumstances hasn’t diminished trust in Jesus but finds assurance in such moments.

The Psalms, for example, explore the highest and lowest moments of human experience, the deepest joys and greatest sorrows. Psalm 23 famously describes the harrowing journey through the darkest chapter of life, The Psalmist retells the experience in stark terms, not downplaying the horror but also filling it with comfort. There is something peculiar and substantive about this Christian hope in the face of terror and darkness.

“Even though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death,

I will fear no evil,

for you are with me;

your rod and your staff,

they comfort me.”

This Psalm serves as encouragement, that even through the darkest descent, God isn’t absent. Indeed, the Bible shows us how Jesus has walked that treacherous path in advance of us. The Lord Jesus trod that darkest path and did so through to the very end. He walked through ahead of us, that he might see us through. The Psalmist exclaims that life wins; through death comes eternal dwelling in the house of the Lord forever.

Consider these words, to which the Psalmist is shadowing,

“Praise be to the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of compassion and the God of all comfort, 4 who comforts us in all our troubles, so that we can comfort those in any trouble with the comfort we ourselves receive from God. 5 For just as we share abundantly in the sufferings of Christ, so also our comfort abounds through Christ. 6 If we are distressed, it is for your comfort and salvation; if we are comforted, it is for your comfort, which produces in you patient endurance of the same sufferings we suffer. 7 And our hope for you is firm, because we know that just as you share in our sufferings, so also you share in our comfort.” (2 Corinthians 1:3-7)

This Jesus punches through history, like the dawning of the sun providing warmth and light and giving life. In a world where there is so much darkness, we hear daily reminders of suffering and evil, and yes that ultimate enemy, death. Faith in the risen Lord Jesus sources a hope that doesn’t disappoint or fade. While we may feel weak and unable to face the times, His resurrection speaks a stronger word than the strongest opposition.

From two tiny Victorian towns that few Aussies knew existed, Australians are hearing a note of exquisite hope in the midst of terrible pain. When you next hear of the ‘faith’ that sustains the Pattersons, Wilkinsons, and people of Korumburra, I recommend leaning in closer to see who it is that offers such peace that passes understanding.

Life is short. It is precious, temporary and with an undisclosed due date. Except there is more to the story. The Jesus story has exposed the nihilist agenda, for he died and then rose from the dead. The resurrection of Jesus is a permanent sign inscribed in history that evidences hope is sound. It is this solid hope that sustains grieving families.

Come, Lord Jesus

Christian Nationalism is part of the problem, not the solution

August 5, 2023 / MurrayCampbell

We live in an age of schisms and divisions, suspicions and attributing the worst of motives on those with whom we disagree. Kindness and gentleness are beyond the pale, and considered conversation is slammed as a betrayal to the pursuit of truth and justice.

Christians and non-Christians alike across the social and political spectrum are frustrated. We see a culture dumping Christian thought and ideals as though it’s nuclear waste. Many feel the need to lob rhetorical grenades across the trenches and snipers sit at the ready to shoot any messenger who dares motion into no man’s land.

Of course, I’m using hyperbolic language…but only just. The tectonic plates of belief and hope are moving and causing major disruptions to every sphere of life. Of the answers being proposed by Christians (in some circles) is one gaining some traction in some areas of American and European Christianity, and it’s finding its way onto Australian shores as well: Christian Nationalism.

It’s not as though Christian Nationalism is brand new; iterations have existed at different points in history, often with long-term disappointment, bloodshed, and Gospel compromise.

I understand why Christians across the United States are concerned and even angry at the some of values and views that have captured hearts. I appreciate why Aussie believers are troubled by various moral agendas that have been normalised in our political and educational institutions. However, frustration and concern with politicians and the political process is not a reason for reactionary theology and poor exegesis.

We don’t fix one problem by adding another one; that way we end up with a bigger mess!

Stephen Mcalpine has begun a series of articles examining, Stephen Wolfe’s The Case For Christian Nationalism’. It’s not that McAlpine is itching to read Wolfe, but he notes how ideas like Wolfe’s are crying loud in both America and Australia, and a sizeable pack of mostly younger Aussies are hearing and repeating these ideas.

I encourage people to read McAlpine on this.

One of the standard bearers of Christian Nationalism in America is a pastor by the name of Doug Wilson. He serves at a church in Moscow (Idaho) and he offers a politico-religious rhetoric that could almost find a home in that other Moscow.

This week a 2021 video with Douglas Wilson has been doing the rounds again on social media. As Wilson exhorts an audience to pray for family and country, he says,

“When God raises up the right stand bearer…now is the time, don’t take the bait, wait until God’s deliverance arrives, and when that happens we will know”

Who is this deliverer Wilson is waiting to arrive and to deliver America from what?

To quote one friend, “Errmmmm. Pretty sure God’s deliverance already arrived about 2000 years ago?”

Grabbing Biblical words may appear strong and compelling but fusing Christological promises and categories with political identities is one bad technique. There is only one Saviour of the world, and his name isn’t Donald Trump or Joe Biden or any world leader. There is one ultimate deliverer, the one whom the Israelites in Egypt waited and for whom the Exiles prayed and who finally came and is revealed in the person of Jesus Christ.

This is what happens when we grab OT language and remove it from its context and ignore how the Bible’s own logic tells us that OT promises are pointing to and fulfilled in Jesus Christ. American theology too often falls down on account of weak Biblical Theology. Whether it’s prosperity teaching, Christian nationalism, or even sexual ethics, ignoring the Bible’s big storyline leads to misusing words and categories, and that leads to all manner of problems. Thanks to theologians like Graeme Goldsworthy, Barry Webb, and many others, we ought to know better here in Australia. It’s not that Biblical theology is a new idea, just read Paul in Romans 9-11 for a masterclass in biblical theology. The story of redemption and how the various threads and themes of the Old Testament come to their climax and fulfilment in Christ is all there on the pages of the New Testament. But like its cousin prosperity teaching, Christian Nationalism has the bad habit of taking Old Covenant promises to Israel and misapplying them straight into modern day political systems, as though America is the new Israel (or Australia).

The topic of Christian Nationalism is on my radar this week as I’m preaching tomorrow on 2 Chronicles ch.7. It is a sublime passage that features the Temple and sacrifice and the presence of God. It is a chapter that gives both a word of warning and blessing to Israel. 2 Chronicles 7 contains a verse that is often used (or rather misused) as a call to a nation to abide by. 2 Chronicles 7:14 says,

“if my people, who are called by my name, will humble themselves and pray and seek my face and turn from their wicked ways, then I will hear from heaven, and I will forgive their sin and will heal their land.”

Russell Moore notes how this verse is sometimes torn from its intended purpose and used by American Nationalists to claim Divine blessing should America wear more Jesus t-shirts and grow bigger beards,

“But the fact is 2 Chronicles 7:14 isn’t talking about America or national identity or some generic sense of “revival.” To apply the verse this way is, whatever one’s political ideology, theological liberalism.”

He’s right. This verse was addressed to God’s covenantal people, Israel. The fulfilment of God’s promises to Israel is found in Christ. The people of God in the new covenant aren’t any given nation, but the church and the church is international. The fulfilment of God’s promises to Israel no longer carries physical terrain and border and a nation’s sovereign political and judicial system. Citizenship is about belonging to the church.

The book of Hebrews wonderfully explores how these themes in 2 Chronicles 7 are made perfect and permanent in Christ. In another place, the Apostle Paul explains what the Gospel accomplishes in redeeming a people for God. The Gospel bursts barriers and borders and builds a church,

“For he himself is our peace, who has made the two groups one and has destroyed the barrier, the dividing wall of hostility, 15 by setting aside in his flesh the law with its commands and regulations. His purpose was to create in himself one new humanity out of the two, thus making peace, 16 and in one body to reconcile both of them to God through the cross, by which he put to death their hostility. 17 He came and preached peace to you who were far away and peace to those who were near. 18 For through him we both have access to the Father by one Spirit.

19 Consequently, you are no longer foreigners and strangers, but fellow citizens with God’s people and also members of his household, 20 built on the foundation of the apostles and prophets, with Christ Jesus himself as the chief cornerstone. 21 In him the whole building is joined together and rises to become a holy temple in the Lord. 22 And in him you too are being built together to become a dwelling in which God lives by his Spirit.”

We may grieve how people in our suburbs and streets are turning their backs on God, but how amazing is it that the Gospel is booming in places like Nigeria and Iran and Korea and Brazil and China. The Gospel’s flavour is multi-ethnic and international and bursts through political barriers and national borders. Praise God!

I’m not saying that Christians in Australia walk away from the public square and sit tight on uncomfortable pews behind stained glasses windows. It’s not that Christians shouldn’t participate in the political process. It’s not that we should ignore social issues and cultural debates. Such things are part of common grace and ways we can love our neighbours. It’s not however the main game. The halls of Parliament and legislative offices are not the places where God is working out his redemptive plans. It’s not just Christian Nationalists who are making that grave mistake, but some of our (theological) liberal friends who see Governmental involvement as the way to tear down sinful structures and build the Kingdom of God. In that sense, both left and right can be guilty of rubbishing due diligence with biblical theology and therefore distorting the gospel itself.

Christian Nationalism is a scourge and it will serve no good for the future of God’s Kingdom. Christian Nationalism ends up making the State into the Church and the church into a political party and turning the Gospel of grace into a weapon to beat down political opponents. Instead of being God’s message of reconciliation, it distorts the gospel into a message of social conservatism and one that sees political progressivism as the great Satan. Social and moral conservatism can be as dangerous to spiritual health in its intentions to create new forms of legalism and allegiances.

The Apostle Paul engaged with the Gospel Governors and doorman, soldiers and businesswomen, intellectuals and slaves. Where he preached, small communities sprung up, called churches. These communities, filled with men and people transformed by God’s gracious gospel, lifted up something beautiful and good, making people envious to see the beauty and grace and goodness of God,

“You will know how people ought to conduct themselves in God’s household, which is the church of the living God, the pillar and foundation of the truth. 16 Beyond all question, the mystery from which true godliness springs is great:

He appeared in the flesh,
    was vindicated by the Spirit,
was seen by angels,
    was preached among the nations,
was believed on in the world,
    was taken up in glory.” (1 Timothy 3:15-17)

If you want to impact society, believe the Gospel, serve your local church, and love your neighbour.

World Cup players explain how gender difference is harming players

August 2, 2023August 3, 2023 / MurrayCampbell

Melbourne came alive 2 nights ago as the Matilda’s turned around their World Cup by defeating Canada 4-0 in their final group stage match). As exciting as it is to see Australia progressing and finding form, there was another different story making news this afternoon from the Soccer World Cup.

The Herald Sun is reporting that a significant number of professional women’s soccer players have missed the World Cup due to knee injuries or have sustained injuries during the early parts of the competition. It is not just the numbers that are concerning but the fact that the numbers reflect a failure to recognise the difference between men and women athletes.

The paper quotes this interesting observation from England’s Captain Leah Williamson. She says,

“There’s so many things (different between men and women). Our hips are aligned slightly differently, hormones and stress all contribute.”

In one sense, Williamson hasn’t said anything outrageous or controversial, but in another way, she has just kicked a goal against a big social heresy: she’s admitted that men and women are not identical. Contrary, to the mass verbiage that seeks to downplay and even deny difference, sometimes reality spills out and scores on the counterattack.

We are conditioned to believe there are no differences between men and women. Men and women are identical and even interchangeable. Try suggesting at work that that’s not the case and see how long it is before the HR Department invites you in for a special meeting. If there is ever any difference that can be admitted, it’s that Ken is bad and Barbie is good.

Built into many of these conversations is a flawed premise. These days ‘difference’ has become a trigger word, a slur implying inferiority or lesser status. Of course, that’s not the case. Genesis, for example, declares an inherent goodness in the distinction between male and female, and together they share the imago dei. Different bodies and different hormones and psychological differences in no way indicate degrees of worth, but rather, a beautiful complementarity (yes, I did use that word!).

A sense of equality between men and women doesn’t derive from chasing the evolutionary wheel of the strongest and fittest, or from the imaginings of Greek myths, but in those ancient words which Jesus upheld and which remain powerful today, informing and providing Divine meaning for men and women alike,

“So God created mankind in his own image,

in the image of God he created them;

male and female he created them.”

The Herald Sun story goes on to point out,

“The little research there is suggests that female players are at least three times more likely to do an ACL than men.

Williamson wants to see an immediate improvement for how young female talent is prepared before professional to ensure their bodies are not shocked by dramatic changes in training regimens.

“The women’s game, my generation; one day we’re a kid playing football and the next we’re a professional,” she said.

“We got form training a few times a week to training every day, playing Champions League, World Cups, European Cups etc.

“Until it changes to be more like the boys where they’re literally bred for it from day one of being signed at six years old, this will happen more.

“We’re not ready for that. There’s so much now that we need to make more focused to women or this will happen over and over again. Our bodies are completely different, the studies around professional sports women are few and far between.”

None of this comes as a surprise to me, having 3 children who have played a lot of sports over the years, including a daughter. I hope Football Associations and medicos take note of these players pleas. But I suspect like a harmonic clash, we’ll keep preaching one message and practicing another.

It is possible that we overplay differences between men and women (let’s be honest, this can sometimes leads to harmful outcomes), but as these professional footballers are informing us, rejecting difference also produces injurious outcomes.

There is something good and vital about valuing the substantive overlap between men and women, and there is something good about respecting and honouring where difference exists. Instead of playing foosball with sex and gender, in the real world biology does matter and does shape our physical and psychological activities.

As women and men take note of important differences, there will be frustration. Sometimes it’s because there is lurking misogyny. Sometimes it’s moral or intellectual laziness. The cause is just as likely to be something else: We live in a highly defensive culture. Our sexular age doesn’t score many goals but its fervour for defending dangerous tackles and throwing out creational rules is second to none. You can receive a yellow card for admitting any gender difference, and be disqualified from the tournament altogether. The problem is, who suffers? Women do.

It may not be today, and probably not tomorrow, but a time will come when we can say without hesitation, embarrassment or fear of repercussion,

“There’s so many things (different between men and women”…so praise God for we are wonderfully made.

Missing

July 31, 2023November 10, 2025 / MurrayCampbell

Adventure summoned like a morning trumpet,
The clarion sound sang brilliant and brittle,
Commanding snap attention,
With vibrato that bent uncertain.

Flying away,
To pursue the future.
Pushing away the cloud and smoke,
As though swimming freestyle through the pool.

The disappearing dot,
Motions eagerly across the horizon, 
And beyond both eye and ear.
He has gone.

A camouflaged uniform deceives,
Like the wallaby hiding among the rocks.
In that assumption found and grasping hope,
A long wait begins and motions without sound.

Believing and wondering, 
Drowning anticipation of tomorrow’s sky,
Screaming at the Ecclesiastes dot that is no longer there,
And inhaling the nightmare prayer.

The drone of technology is a vicious servant,
Punching holes in the earth and exposing all who claim safety,
Calculated and precise, sniffing out its prey,
Those found are obliterated into an early grave.
 
Never found, 
Nothing to hold or see, 
Absent, 
Missing.

Terror insists control,
Only to dump the soul in Hades anger,
Who but Orpheus can enter that realm, 
And row my son home?

The willow leans upon the corridor wall,
Lonely and observing passers by.
His cap protrudes from on top the stand,
Without a head to shape its home.

Grabbing at the thinning air, 
And wielding a deadened heart, 
Throw it at the Ypres salient, 
To where his body somewhere lays.

The blue sky mocks those who are fallen,
And those who remain glare at its endless cheerful derision.
It is forever stained with red,
A graffiti fit for a missing tomb.

Can mortal men be consoled by immortal God?
A Father to the lost and missing?
Our hands emptied, no grasp is felt, 
Might a gracious Father welcome them home?

‘For this son of mine was dead and is alive again; he was lost and is found.’

When we fail to learn from the story of Ananias and Sapphira

July 26, 2023August 2, 2023 / MurrayCampbell

He’s done it again!

Last week I wrote about a local pastor who has come out and publicly rejected penal substitutionary atonement (PSA). I explained how his argument fails on several fronts: 1. It fails because the Bible repeatedly and consistently affirms PSA and that it is central to the atonement, 2. It fails in that PSA has been taught and believed by Christians throughout church history, 3. By rejecting PSA, he strips people of the only hope we have for the forgiveness of sins and new life.

In my article, I also observed that there is a connection between rejecting PSA and rejecting the Bible’s teaching on human sexuality and sin. Those who follow the new sexual narrative eventually end up redefining the gospel and the heart of the atonement. Rob Buckingham of Bayside Church is simply the latest of a litany of pastors and churches that are following that trajectory.

Calling out local pastors isn’t something I like to do, hence why I have rarely done so. I’m thankful to God for the local pastors who are preaching the gospel and faithfully upholding God’s word and ways. Praise God for them! This instance is somewhat different because Rob Buckingham is a notable figure around Melbourne and there are 10,000s of people living in the area where he teaches (and where I also serve). It’s one thing for the average secular Steve and Lucy to cast aspersions on the Bible, but it’s a very different game when a church representative encourages people to doubt and disbelieve God.

It turns out, it’s not only the atonement and sexual ethics where Buckingham does a rewiring of the Bible. Buckingham believes other bits of the Bible aren’t true either.

Acts 5:1-11 is historical

In his latest article, Buckingham explores the story of Ananias and Sapphira from Acts ch.5. The story is, as Buckingham admits, disturbing. However, rather than accepting the story as true and historical (as we are meant to read it), Buckingham wants us to think the story is almost certainly not real. Why? Because as he explains, the God presented in Acts 5 isn’t the kind of God he wants to worship, therefore the story is probably untrue.

“A literal understanding of this story troubles me because it doesn’t appear to reflect God’s nature of unfailing love and forgiveness.”

I’ll come back to this thesis later on. But let’s notice the idea that weaves throughout Buckingham’s presentation of Acts 5,

‘The story may be a parable rather than a literal historical event.’

“what KIND of truth is found in Acts 5? Is it factual, or is it symbolic, a parable designed to teach truth while itself not being a true story?”

“People sometimes get hung up on facts rather than truth.”

He then raises doubts in readers’ minds, suggesting that maybe Peter got it wrong,

“Peter pronounced the sentence, possibly operating a gift of the Holy Spirit. Was he a novice in using these powers? Did he learn from this?”

We’re not meant to imitate Bultmann

It’s like Buckingham heard someone mention Rudolf Bultmann and decided, ‘demythologisation is the way to go!’ For those who are unaware, Bultmann was a 20th Century theologian who thought the Bible was largely unbelievable and so he stripped the pages of much of its history and instead tried to find metaphorical and moral meaning in the text. Just as Buckingham has found a moral nugget for his readers to keep. Apparently, Acts 5 is there to teach us, ‘Honesty is the best policy’!

In contrast to the ifs and maybes and couldn’t be’s that Buckingham proposes for Acts 5, the reality is, the author of Acts was a skilled historian who wrote down with great care the things he heard and saw and knew. In his first Volume, the Gospel of Luke, Luke explains his process for writing,

“Many have undertaken to draw up an account of the things that have been fulfilled among us, 2 just as they were handed down to us by those who from the first were eyewitnesses and servants of the word. 3 With this in mind, since I myself have carefully investigated everything from the beginning, I too decided to write an orderly account for you, most excellent Theophilus, 4 so that you may know the certainty of the things you have been taught.” (Luke 1:1-4)

Luke then begins volume 2 with this introduction,

“In my former book, Theophilus, I wrote about all that Jesus began to do and to teach 2 until the day he was taken up to heaven, after giving instructions through the Holy Spirit to the apostles he had chosen.”

There is no sense in which Luke wants us to think the stories are mere parables or fiction with a moral attached. This is history. This is the history of the now risen Christ empowering his people by the Holy Spirit to preach his word to the ends of the earth.

The one thing Buckingham seems to be confident about is this,

“If Ananias and Sapphira were real people, they were a part of the church and Christians. They would have been considered “saved.” There is no pronouncement that they were “lost”. I hope they’re in heaven.”

In other words, the story probably isn’t true but if it is, this couple would be saved and in heaven today. Buckingham may ‘hope’, but his hope has no warrant in the text which argues against him. It’s quite the example of how to bend and manipulate a Bible text against its’ own given meaning. The Bible text gives us no indication that Ananias and Sapphira were genuine born again believers who are now in heaven with God. Peter’s pronouncement on them and the fact that they died immediately, suggests quite the opposite: The text suggests that this married couple were not real Christians and were not saved. Whatever their involvement and interest in the Church and their apparent ‘generosity’, with Apostolic authority Peter says,

“how is it that Satan has so filled your heart that you have lied to the Holy Spirit and have kept for yourself some of the money you received for the land? 4 Didn’t it belong to you before it was sold? And after it was sold, wasn’t the money at your disposal? What made you think of doing such a thing? You have not lied just to human beings but to God.”

There’s the warning. This Bible story isn’t offering us a platitude about honesty being the best policy. It is raw and real in warning those who think we can con God. We can’t fool God. We can play Christian and play the role of church but God knows our hearts. And of course, that’s the sticking point for Buckingham. He doesn’t believe God would judge this married couple, let alone them not being in heaven.

What happens when the Bible clashes with our view of God?

Returning to the reason why Buckingham encourages readers to doubt the historicity of Acts 5, according to Buckingham’s view of God, He loves and forgives but he doesn’t seem to judge or punish.

The Bible does beautifully tell us that God is love and that God forgives. The Lord Jesus came to save sinners. The Gospel is God’s word of redemption to all who believe.

Numbers 14:18 reminds us that God’s heart to forgive isn’t just a New Testament idea but one that comes from and is patterned in the Old Testament. After all, the God of the Old Testament is the same God of the New Testament.

“‘The Lord is slow to anger, abounding in love and forgiving sin and rebellion. Yet he does not leave the guilty unpunished; he punishes the children for the sin of the parents to the third and fourth generation.’” (Numbers 14:18)

The same Scriptures also teach us that God opposes sin and he judges sin. Indeed, God’s opposition to sin and God judging is an aspect of his love. Did Jesus never condemn? Did Jesus never judge? It’s not hatred that drives God to speak and act against peoples’ lying and stealing and murdering and raping. It is love for people and love for righteousness that leads God to oppose and punish evil. After all, do we really want to believe in and worship a God who isn’t angry about sin?

The godfather of Melbourne evangelicalism, Peter Adam, wrote these words in 2018,

“What is true? Is God loving or is God wrathful?

The answer is that both are true. We find God’s love and God’s wrath in the Old Testament…We find God’s love and God’s wrath in the teachings of Christ…We find God’s love together with his God’s wrath in the rest of the New Testament too.”

Adam rightly summarises, ‘We should fear God as judge and trust him as Father. God is both just and loving: God judges those who turn from him, and he cares for those who turn to him.’

It is Jesus who said,

“And if your eye causes you to stumble, gouge it out and throw it away. It is better for you to enter life with one eye than to have two eyes and be thrown into the fire of hell” (Matthew 18:9)

“But I will show you whom you should fear: Fear him who, after your body has been killed, has authority to throw you into hell. Yes, I tell you, fear him” (Luke 12:5)

As we read Acts 5, the Apostle Peter exposes the depth of evil lurking behind Ananias and Sapphira’s decision to deceive God and the Church. Buckingham, on the other hand, downplays their action to the point where he suggests the punishment is excessive and maybe Peter is playing the hypocrite

“The punishment doesn’t appear to fit the crime. Far worse sins are recorded in the New Testament Scriptures without death as the punishment. Consider the case of a young man committing incest with his stepmother and Peter’s rank hypocrisy that Paul condemns to Peter’s face. But Peter doesn’t drop dead as a result.

If this is a literal historical event, my only thought is that the apostles wanted to protect the baby church. Such protection wasn’t needed as the church matured.”

Who should we believe? Peter the Apostle (who was present) or Rob?

Does it matter whether this story is true or not? Yes, because Acts is recording history not myth. Yes, because like the rest of Acts, chapter 5 is showing us the real God who really saves and who really judges.

We can’t con God

One of the responsibilities of pastors is to give people confidence in the Bible and that we can trust that the Bible is God’s true, good and sufficient words. Let the Bible speak for itself. Let God through his word, encourage and correct and rebuke us. Not us moulding God into our own image and justifying our own moral preferences, but God renewing our hearts and minds.

No wonder unbelievers have little interest in the Bible and little confidence in God; because there are Christian leaders leading the charge to create disbelief in the Bible and the God of the Bible.

We know what happened following this incident because Luke tells us,

First of all, “Great fear seized the whole church and all who heard about these events.”

Second, the Apostles continued their ministry and the church continued to meet in public. Some people didn’t dare join while ‘more and more men and women believed in the Lord and were added to their number’.

While Buckingham wants readers to think the story isn’t true and that it doesn’t reflect his god, in real life this incident caused people to take God seriously, many believed the Gospel, the church grew and many others were blessed by the work of the Apostles. You see, we don’t need to take Buckingham’s path in order for the Gospel to work today and for churches to remain relevant. Instead, let God surprise us and shock us. Let his word create intrigue and challenge us. Let his holiness cause us to fear and to sorrow. And may his Gospel of grace cause us to confess our sins and to find eternal consolation in His Son.

Penal Substitution Evidences the Godness of God

July 19, 2023September 15, 2024 / MurrayCampbell

“Bearing shame and scoffing rude,

in my place condemned he stood,

sealed my pardon with his blood:

Hallelujah, what a Savior!”

Man of Sorrows is a much-loved hymn that meditates on the wonder of Christ’s death for us. Like so many Christian songs that churches sing with conviction and praise, we are reminded of the intense beauty and grace of God’s sacrifice on behalf of sinners.

What happens though when a pastor decides to tell his congregation that the heart of the gospel is not only not the heart of the gospel, but is objectionable and not believed by him?

A Facebook comment appeared on my feed yesterday that caught my attention, and so, in a moment of mimicking my greyhound chasing the rabbit. I followed.

Now, I am friends with some of the local pastors and there are others whom I have never met or don’t know personally. What I discovered yesterday though made me profoundly sad. I love my local community and long for people to hear the good news of Jesus Christ, and grieves me when pastors and preachers espouse alternative gospels. In this particular case, a local pastor who is well known across Melbourne recently presented a series of sermons and blog posts on the atonement. The first message in the series was dedicated to debunking penal substitutionary atonement.

I’m sure Rob Buckingham thinks he is doing churches a service, but I found his commentary disappointing and misleading, and again sad. Sad, because the Gospel is good news and I fear Buckingham has turned it into bad news that needs changing. The message of the cross is considered shameful to many, but as the Apostle exclaimed, it is the power of God and the wisdom of God. The significance of Jesus’ death on the cross centres on atonement. The Bible shows us many facets or aspects of the atonement: Christus Victor, reconciliation, example, and redemption are all aspects of the atonement, and yet at the heart of the cross is penal substitutionary atonement (PSA). This, Buckingham admits, he no longer believes belongs to the Gospel.

I will explain how this is the case shortly, but let’s first visit Rob Buckingham’s argument against PSA.

Dr Jones and how sexual ethics can change the cross

Buckingham’s opening question is this, ‘Did God kill Jesus?’, a line he borrows from Tony Jones. Buckingham explains how his own thinking has been influenced by Jones’ representations of the atonement. For those who don’t know the name Tony Jones (no, not the former ABC presenter), he’s a theologian who was part of the Emergent Church scene in the late 90s and early 2000s. The emerging Emergents saw the dust collecting in many churches and decided to make church relevant again. Sadly, we’re still paying the price today. Many of Emergent’s notable figures, including Jones, ended up seeing Christian orthodoxy as the problem and began dumping doctrine and ethics overboard faster than a hot air balloon throwing off passengers in order to gain more altitude. Jones, for example, came out in 2008 in support of same-sex marriage, long before Obama and Joe Biden realised the shifting pendulum. In 2012 Jones wrote a book, ‘A Better Atonement: Beyond the Depraved Doctrine of Original Sin’, outlining why he rejects not only original sin but also penal substitutionary Atonement. It is this material that Buckingham leans heavily upon.

I wanted to pause and mention Jones here because he’s emblematic of holding that two-barrelled deadly combination. This combination of rejecting PSA and affirming the new sexual ethics is commonplace. If I was given $100 for every time I hear of another pastor/church supporting the new sexual milieu and later learning that they no longer hold to other Christian doctrines, especially PSA, I could retire next year! I don’t think it’s a coincidence. Indeed, my understanding is that Buckingham’s theology of sexual ethics has also changed and moved to closely align with current secular sexual ethics. There is a connection between what churches believe and teach on human sexuality and how they view the cross, and that means we can’t play that disingenuous game of ‘what we have in common is greater than any disagreement’ and ‘we share the same Spirit and body despite these differences’.

If you doubt the connection, last month Buckingham wrote a separate piece where he explains, ‘How the Bible works’ and there he claims,

“This progression of truth is called the Arc of Scripture. Over time, the Bible shifts from the revenge mentality to a better way. The Bible’s arc shows how people’s view of, and relationship with, God has matured over time…. gender diversity, LGBTIQA+ rights, and dozens of other examples demonstrating that the Bible is not a static book.”

Back to his argument against PSA, Buckingham alleges it’s the Holy Spirit who’s told him!

“In recent years I have sensed the gentle nudging of the Holy Spirit to find out if this really is an accurate representation of the Gospel, the good news of Jesus, and I don’t believe it is”

While Buckingham suggests that it is the Holy Spirit who has changed his thinking, I think it’s best for Christians to stick with what the Holy Spirit has written. The Spirit of God doesn’t give mixed messages or contradict the Scriptures. After all, he is the author of all the Bible! The formula is as old as Eden, ‘did God really say?’

Penal Substitution is older than the Reformation

Buckingham introduces PSA with a reference to the Reformation. He suggests that PSA was ‘popularised during the Reformation’. He then later returns to discount another aspect of the atonement that he finds deeply immeshed in the Reformation. Maybe I’m misreading him here, but it’s almost as though Buckingham uses Reformation as a byword to represent ideas Christians should avoid today. First of all, every Protestant denomination owes its existence to the Reformation. We are children of the reformation whether we like it or not. Second, Buckingham’s brief reference doesn’t do justice to church history. PSA has been taught and affirmed in Christian churches since the earliest days, indeed in the Scriptures itself. This single point is important because Buckingham is trying to build a case that conflicts with Christian churches extending from the book of Acts right through to today.

A thousand years before the Reformation, the Early Church Fathers taught, affirmed and wrote about PSA. Here are a few examples,

“If the Father of all wished His Christ for the whole human family to take upon Him the curses of all, knowing that, after He has been crucified and was dead, He would raise him up, why do you argue about Him, who submitted to suffer these things according to the Father’s will, as if he were accursed, and do not rather bewail yourselves?” (Justin Martyr)

“Thus, taking a body like our own, because all our bodies were liable to the corruption of death, He surrendered His body to death instead of all, and offered it to the Father. This He did out of sheer love for us, so that in His death all might die, and the law of death thereby be abolished because, having fulfilled in His body that for which it was appointed, it was thereafter voided of its power for men. This He did that He might turn again to incorruption men who had turned back to corruption, and make them alive through death by the appropriation of His body and by .the grace of His resurrection. Thus He would make death to disappear from them as utterly as straw from fire.” (Athanasius)

“But as Christ endured death as man, and for man; so also, Son of God as He was, ever living in His own righteousness, but dying for our offences, He submitted as man, and for man, to bear the curse which accompanies death. And as He died in the flesh which He took in bearing our punishment, so also, while ever blessed in His own righteousness, He was cursed for our offences, in the death which He suffered in bearing our punishment. And these words “everyone” are intended to check the ignorant officiousness which would deny the reference of the curse to Christ, and so, because the curse goes along with death, would lead to the denial of the true death of Christ.” (Augustine)

Not only did the early church affirm and explain PSA, but so did Christian theologians throughout the early and high middle ages, the Reformers, and Evangelicals from the 18th through to the 21st Century. Thomas Aquinas, John Calvin, John Bunyan, John Owen, Martyn Lloyd Jones, John Stott, and Tim Keller are but a few of the countless names who preached and believed that Christ died in the place of sinners and satisfied the righteous anger of God.

Definitions matter

Of course, in understanding what someone believes it’s useful to listen to their own words, because definitions and meanings can differ depending on the person. Buckingham suggests this definition of PSA:

“God loves you but is also angry with you because of your sin. Because God is just, he cannot simply forgive you. God’s justice must be satisfied. And so, because he loves you, he punished his Son instead of you. Jesus’ death on the cross appeased God’s wrath. You no longer need to bear God’s wrath if you believe this. If you reject this, you must take the punishment of God’s anger both now and forever. In summary, God killed Jesus for your benefit.“

There are several flaws in this description, not least the final phrase that Buckingham puts in bold. There is this glaring omission in this summary: the Son is also God. This qualification matters immensely as I’ll explain below. At this point, Buckingham seems to buy into the same fallacious view of the atonement that Steve Chalke and others have thrown around in recent years, suggesting that PSA is a form of ‘cosmic child abuse’. Buckingham pulls up short of repeating that allegation, but he does say this,

“What loving parent would punish their own child for the wrongdoing of another?”

We may not, but God did and in doing so the Son wasn’t thrust onto the cross against his own volition and desire, he willingly went to the cross.

In what is one of the most important volumes written on the atonement, Steve Jeffery, Mike Ovey, and Andrew Sach open Pierced for our Transgressions with this summary of penal substitutionary atonement and notice how it differs from Buckingham in tone and substance,

“The doctrine of penal substitution states that God gave himself in the person of his Son to suffer instead of us the death, punishment and curse due to fallen humanity as the penalty for sin.

This understanding of the cross of Christ stands at the very heart of the gospel. There is a captivating beauty in the sacrificial love of a God who gave himself for his people. It is this that first draws many believers to the Lord Jesus Christ and this that will draw us to him when he returns on the last day to vindicate his name and welcome his people into his eternal kingdom. That the Lord Jesus Christ died for us – a shameful death, bearing our curse, enduring our pain, suffering the wrath of his own Father in our place – has been the wellspring of the hope of countless Christians throughout the ages.”

Buckingham overlooks the vital piece of the puzzle, ‘God gave himself in the person of his Son’. The Triune God was acting in perfect unity and will on that cross. God himself is bearing the penalty for sin, out of love for sinful human beings. As true as it is that the Father gave his only Son, it is true that God is offering himself. As Donald Mcleod wrote, ‘God surrenders himself to the worst that man can do and bears the whole cost of saving the world.’

Does forgiveness require sacrifice?

Buckingham proceeds to argue that God can forgive sin without sacrifice. He says, ’“The cross was not needed for God to forgive people” (I think he’s pointing to life before the New Testament as an example of this). The problem here is that the claim isn’t true. Throughout Old Testament, God made provision for blood sacrifices to be offered for the sins of his people. Those sacrifices, as Jesus indicates at the Last Supper and as Hebrews explains, were a shadow pointing to the real and sufficient sacrifice for sin: the cross.

Hebrews 9:22 states,

“without the shedding of blood there is no forgiveness”.

Both prior to and following the events of Easter, Jesus himself said, he had to die.

‘The Son of Man must suffer many things and be rejected by the elders, the chief priests and the teachers of the law, and he must be killed and on the third day be raised to life’ (Luke 9:22).

The verb, ‘must’, functions as a Divine imperative, reinforcing the notion that in God’s wisdom, he ordained for his Son to enter the world and to die on the cross.

PSA affirms the Godness of God

Rob Buckingham has a gift of clarity and he’s upfront in explaining why he can’t accept PSA. There are two reasons and in my view, both trip the alarm. I’ve already mentioned the first, his imagining that the Spirit of God has changed his min, and this doozy,

“This theory makes God somehow less than God. God loves you and wants to save you, but he can’t until his justice is satisfied. See the problem? It makes justice greater than God. Justice is in charge here, and God becomes its servant.”

There we have it. Penal Substitution clashes with Buckingham’s view of God. He has a certain view of God, and that means reinterpreting the Bible to fit that self-made portrait. He shares how God is good and gives good gifts to his children. Yes, he is and God does. But why must we choose between the two? Is God not both? Does God not demonstrate both anger and kindness, grace and judgement? The cross is the superlative example of where God exercises his justice and mercy, his love and wrath.

Why divorce justice from God? Buckingham’s argument fails in this way: for example, according to Buckingham’s logic, the concepts of love and holiness and righteousness and truthfulness are also greater than God and therefore make God somehow less than God. Love isn’t hovering somehow above God. No God is love. God’s righteousness and holiness are not external entities that attach themselves to the eternal One. Does God contradict God? Can God act outside of his own character? Of course not. He is the God of justice and he acts in accordance with his righteousness. This is one of the sublime truths of the cross:

“God presented Christ as a sacrifice of atonement, through the shedding of his blood—to be received by faith. He did this to demonstrate his righteousness, because in his forbearance he had left the sins committed beforehand unpunished— he did it to demonstrate his righteousness at the present time, so as to be just and the one who justifies those who have faith in Jesus.” (Romans 3:25-26)

Does the Bible teach and affirm penal substitutionary atonement?

The answer is yes. Both Old and New Testaments teach that PSA is central to atonement and they do so by their employment of specific language (ie propitiation) and in the many symbols, metaphors, and images that are sprinkled across the pages of the Bible.

If I may cite 3 examples here:

First, the temple was central in Israel’s life and key to ministry of the temple was the sacrificial system, and at the heart of the sacrificial system was the blood of an animal taking the place of the sinner to avert the wrath of God. Indeed, the most sacred day in the calendar was Yom Kippur. Kippur (or atonement), carries connotations of forgiveness, ransom, cleansing and averting God’s wrath, and this final aspect is clearly on view in the teaching about the day of atonement in Leviticus 16.

A second example is the Servant Song of Isaiah 53; it may only constitute a small part of this prophetic book and an even tinier part of the OT, but its significance is rarely overestimated. The Servant Song delivers more than a penal substitutionary view of the atonement, but PSA lays at the heart of its presentation of the work of God’s servant.

The four Gospels either explicitly quote or implicitly reference the Servant Song more often than any other OT passage. R.T France is correct when he talks about Jesus‘ repeated self-identification with the servant of Isaiah 53. Thus, the entire trajectory of Jesus’ earthly ministry as recorded in Scripture is an embodiment of the suffering servant whose life culminated in a cross and death, before climaxing in a resurrection:

“But he was pierced for our transgressions,

he was crushed for our iniquities;

the punishment that brought us peace was on him,

and by his wounds we are healed.

We all, like sheep, have gone astray,

each of us has turned to our own way;

and the Lord has laid on him

the iniquity of us all.”

A third example is Paul’s tome, the letter to the Romans. Paul explains that the primary human condition is sinful rebellion against a righteous God who is now revealing his wrath against us. No human effort can save us from this judgment, only the substitutionary death of Christ. The great turning point of Romans is that masterful exegesis of the gospel in 3:21-26, which spells out God’s gift of righteousness that comes through faith in Jesus Christ and by his propitiatory death on the cross. Throughout Romans, Paul explores the full gamut of the atonement, in all its facets and with many of its wonderful implications, but laying at its heart is PSA.

“With the other New Testament writers, Paul always points to the death of Jesus as the atoning event, and explains the atonement in terms of representative substitution – the innocent taking the place of the guilty, in the name and for the sake of the guilty, under the axe of God’s judicial retribution” (J.I Packer, Knowing God)

There is one point where I found agreement with Buckingham, and that there is no single dimension to the Bible’s presentation of the atonement. The Bible offers us richness in the significance of Christ’s death on the cross: from Christus Victor to example, and indeed penal substitution. Buckingham (and do some theologians) calls these ‘theories’. The weakness of the word theory (and metaphor for that matter) is that it can imply a disjunction between theory and reality. This is why I prefer to use the language of facet and aspect to describe the different parts of the atonement. I think this matters because the cross carries more than symbolism, it affects actual judicious judgment, brought upon the Son in the place of sinful human beings. The cross brings real salvation and genuine reconciliation. We can no more speak of the cross as metaphor and symbol, as we would of the Federal Court of Australia sentencing a guilty person to prison. There may be symbolism and metaphor to be found, but the atonement cannot be reduced to those categories; it is an actuality.

The old rugged cross

Much more can be said, but I hope this is enough to help readers grasp what’s at stake with the atonement. I imagine Buckingham wants to give people confidence in the message of the cross, but denuding the cross of its power and refusing the Bible’s own testimony doesn’t build confidence. It strips people of the Christian hope. The world needs a God who judges and a God of mercy: that God should take onto himself in his Son my sin and its penalty, this is the kind of good news that saves lives and secures hope for the future. Of course, it’s controversial. The cross creates shame and embarrassment and disagreement, but the way forward isn’t to reframe the cross so that it fits more neatly with the wisdom of the Greeks and the morals of the Romans, Instead, let us cling ever tighter to the old rugged cross.

Listen to Jesus and not the Archbishop of York

July 8, 2023 / MurrayCampbell

While England’s cricket team is battling it out against the Aussies in Yorkshire, the Archbishop of York has picked a fight with God. Stephen Cottrell yesterday addressed the General Synod of the Church of England, arguing that praying to God as ‘our Father’ is problematic.

Understand, unlike the Aussies who play cricket within the rules of the game, Cottrell thought it smart to break the rules of both the Bible and society. As Cottrell would surely know, refusing to use someone’s preferred gender pronouns is paramount to heresy in today’s Western culture. More than that, God gets to choose how he is addressed, and yet the Archbishop of a church has announced that he is stepping outside the crease and he is proud of it.

“For if this God to whom we pray is ‘Father’ – and, yes, I know the word ‘father’ is problematic for those whose experience of earthly fathers has been destructive and abusive, and for all of us have laboured rather too much from an oppressively, patriarchal grip on life – then those of us who say this prayer together, whether we like it or not, whether we acknowledge it or not, even if we determinedly face away from each other, only turning round in order to put a knife in the back of the person standing behind us, are sisters and brothers, family members, the household of God.”

Yes, Stephen Cottrell hasn’t downright rejected Jesus’ call for us to address God as Father; doing so is a step too far for a Church of England Archbishop…for now. Nonetheless, the Archbishop has denigrated the idea of praying ‘our father’ and maligned Jesus in the process.

The Archbishop of York offers 2 reasons why we may (or should) be reluctant to ascribe God as Father. First, he says that some people have terrible fathers. This is sadly true. It is also the experience of many that they have had cruel, abusive, or difficult mothers. As we minister to people we certainly don’t wish to ignore the fact that in our congregation and in the wider community, many people have been mistreated by their Dad. God as Father is unlike them. He is perfect in love and trustworthiness and care and goodness and strength. Praying to ‘our father’ isn’t problematic, it is the ultimate resolution to every need and hint of longing for a good father.

Cottrell’s second objection is more concerning. He asserts that father language smacks of patriarchy. Is the Archbishop implying that Jesus lacks pastoral awareness and that Jesus was complicit in advocating a system of injustice? Patriarchy has become shorthand for sexism, misogyny, inequality, and abuse. In drawing such a close connection between Jesus’ words and patriarchy, the Archbishop comes perilously close to calling Jesus a blasphemer. On this, he doesn’t quite step outside his crease, but he is tempting both keeper and umpire. How far can he go and what can he get away with?

Of course, it was not uncommon for the religious leaders of the day to call Jesus a blasphemer, especially as Jesus identified God as Father and he as God’s Son. On one occasion, Jesus called out his opponents,

“what about the one whom the Father set apart as his very own and sent into the world? Why then do you accuse me of blasphemy because I said, ‘I am God’s Son’? Do not believe me unless I do the works of my Father.” (John 10:36-37)

Jesus wouldn’t be defined by the theological position of Jerusalem’s religious mafia, including their progressive teaching on sexuality. Let’s remember, the Pharisees justified their own sexual inclinations by trying to rewrite the Scriptures whereas Jesus reaffirmed the goodness of God’s design and pattern that is laid out in Genesis chapters 1 and 2.

That’s the thing, when you play with the Bible’s teaching on sexuality and gender, you end up fiddling with the doctrine of God. Stephen Cottrell is among the majority of English bishops who supports the introduction of prayers of blessing for same-sex couples.

A distortion in our anthropology naturally leads to ripping apart the doctrine of God. In recent times Australian politicians have employed a vague and boundary-less concept of a loving God to justify all manner of gender and sexual proclivities. It is one thing for political representatives to fudge God, but it is quite another for a church leader to mislead the people of God.

The pressures to give in to current waves of sexual and gender attitudes is tremendous and standing on Scripture can cost you friends, family and work. The Church should be the one sanctuary where believing God and trusting Jesus isn’t debated and where you’re not called names for sticking with the Bible. Sadly, not so in many cathedral walls and brick parishes.

It shouldn’t surprise us to see ministers who reject Jesus’ teaching on marriage, also cast doubt on what Jesus teaches us about God.

If we think that our understanding of humanity doesn’t interfere with our understanding of God then either, we haven’t been paying attention to ecclesial debates or we’ve convinced ourselves that these matters are not so important.

In order to sustain the view that God is pleased with same-sex marriage and that any gender distinction is arbitrary and even immoral, pastors, and theologians, eventually know that they have to deal with the question of God’s self-revelation. Of course, there is nothing new in Cottrell’s comments. These have been circulating around liberal theological circles for decades, like the boos from a drunken crowd at the Ashes. There is nothing original in his remarks, but they reinforce the perilous state of the Church of England.

The Triune God is revealed to us in the words of Scripture as Father and Son and Holy Spirit. While there are a few examples in the Bible where a feminine simile is used to describe God and by God, there are no feminine metaphors or names used, whereas masculine ones are found frequently.

The Holy Spirit is spoken as he, ““When the Advocate comes, whom I will send to you from the Father—the Spirit of truth who goes out from the Father—he will testify about me.” (John 15:26)

The Son of God is the son and not the daughter, and the Son incarnate became a man, not a woman.

God the Father is the Father.

On the question of similes and metaphors, it’s important to observe a linguistic distinction. For example, someone says to me, ‘Murray you’re as slow as a snail.’ Such a statement is not intending to convey something ontologically true about me, as though I am a snail, but that my walking habits remind them of this slumberous creature. However, God’s self-disclosure as the Father and as the Son is making a statement of ontological reality. That is not to say that God is male or female. God is neither man nor woman (although the Son became a man and is to this very day, fully man and fully God), for sex and gender are tied to biology. God is Spirit and does not have a body. And yet, God reveals himself in his word with gendered language and attributes.

None of this denigrates femaleness in any sense. Both male and female share the imago dei, indeed, Genesis seems to say that it is in the male and female distinction that we together are made in the image of God. As the Bible’s storyline develops, familial language is used by God to describe himself and his love for his people. For just as a son and daughter are equally loved by their earthly father and have equal dignity and worth, so boys and girls and men and women are loved by our heavenly father.

The Archbishop went on to talk about unity and mission, as does every denominational leader who is trying to keep the sinking ship afloat with one hand while drilling a hole with the other. Gospel unity and Gospel mission are sublime, vital, life-giving and God-glorifying realities. But redefine sin and you’ve redefined the atonement and you’ve removed the message of God’s mission. Redefine God and you’ve created a new religion and walked away from the Spirit-given unity as the body of Christ.

Don’t take the Archbishop of York at his word. Listen instead to Jesus. God defines God. Jesus reveals God. Jesus invites us to know God as ‘our Father’. There is beauty and joy and confidence in such prayer, not a problem.

Praying, ‘our father’ isn’t problematic, it is the greatest joy. To ascribe God as ‘our father’ is to hallow his name. It is to be secure in his love and care.

Adoption is the greatest of all Christian gifts given to us through the Lord Jesus. The privileges of being sons and daughters and knowing God as our ‘Father’ is the height of the Christian experience.

“For those who are led by the Spirit of God are the children of God. The Spirit you received does not make you slaves, so that you live in fear again; rather, the Spirit you received brought about your adoption to sonship. And by him we cry, “Abba, Father.” (Romans 8:14-15)

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