“If any man teach otherwise, and consent not to wholesome words, even the words of our Lord Jesus Christ, and to the doctrine which is according to godliness; he is proud, knowing nothing, but doting about questions and strifes of words, whereof cometh envy, strife, railings, evil surmisings, perverse disputings of men of corrupt minds, and destitute of the truth, supposing that gain is godliness: from such withdraw thyself,” 1 Timothy 6:3-5.
A controversy has broken out as a result of the evil ravings of one, Joshua Heath, a junior research fellow at Trinity College, Cambridge. Heath claimed in a sermon that Christ had a “simultaneously masculine and feminine body” during the Crucifixion. He was supported in his vile assertions by Michael Banner, dean and director of studies in theology at Trinity, who said Heath’s view was “legitimate”!
It is reported in the press that worshippers left the chapel on Sunday of last week weeping, with one shouting “heresy” at the dean. I have not reproduced the news reports in any great detail for what it was this evil man said in his sermon, which caused some understandably to weep, is so offensive to decency, I was unable to read very much of the report before I was forced to stop,
Sadly, I feel, that the same ‘weepers’ will likely be back at this ‘chapel of corruption’ next week again. It seems that all too many professing Christians put loyalty to their place of worship far above loyalty to God and His Word.
God’s command to those offended by the evil surmising of these agents of the devil is plain.
“Be ye not unequally yoked together with unbelievers: for what fellowship hath righteousness with unrighteousness? and what communion hath light with darkness? And what concord hath Christ with Belial? or what part hath he that believeth with an infidel? And what agreement hath the temple of God with idols? for ye are the temple of the living God; as God hath said, I will dwell in them, and walk in them; and I will be their God, and they shall be my people. Wherefore come out from among them, and be ye separate, saith the Lord, and touch not the unclean thing; and I will receive you, and will be a Father unto you, and ye shall be my sons and daughters, saith the Lord Almighty,” 2 Corinthians 6:14-18.
The basis of Joshua Heath’s view of Christ (he is one of the many ‘educated ejits’ masquerading as God’s servants today) was the ‘Renaissance and Medieval paintings of the crucifixion’. These vain imaginings of these artists, most of whom if not all were men of utterly corrupt character, depicting the crucifixion of the Saviour hundreds of years after the event, is the ‘Bible’ upon which Heath rests his ‘evil surmisings’!
To liken this process of reasoning unto basing your view of God upon the 19th century work of children’s fiction, ‘Grimm’s Fairy Tales’ or making the fairy tale, ‘Goldilocks and the three bears’, the foundation of your thesis on matters divine, would be to grossly understate the matter.
Rather it is to be likened unto the depraved mental processes at work amongst the antediluvian perverts which the Lord observed and gave us an account of in His Word.
“And GOD saw that the wickedness of man was great in the earth, and that every imagination of the thoughts of his heart was only evil continually,” Genesis 6:5. It is further stated in that chapter that: “The earth also was corrupt before God, and the earth was filled with violence,” verse 11.
May that not be said of the corrupt moral conditions that prevail today? The filthy and unhinged speculations of Joshua Heath and Michael Banner, the unholy Cambridge University duo, fit right in with the prevailing social atmosphere of these last days which, according to the Saviour, are to be a repeat of the days of Noah.
“But as the days of Noe (the Greek form of the name, Noah) were, so shall also the coming of the Son of man be. For as in the days that were before the flood they were eating and drinking, marrying and giving in marriage, until the day that Noe entered into the ark, and knew not until the flood came, and took them all away; so shall also the coming of the Son of man be,” Matthew 24:37-39.
This pair of Cambridge blasphemers unwittingly are heralds of the approaching return of Christ. Their sacrilegious speculations are what the Lord Jesus has told us would mark the days just prior to His return.
“And many false prophets shall rise, and shall deceive many. And because iniquity shall abound, the love of many shall wax cold. But he that shall endure unto the end, the same shall be saved. And this gospel of the kingdom shall be preached in all the world for a witness unto all nations; and then shall the end come,” Matthew 24:11-14.
Abounding iniquity is the harvest produced by the labours of ‘false prophets’, who today are busily setting forth their foul and corrupt notions and views of God. The whole advancing of perverted beliefs regarding sodomy and transgenderism, presently invading the pulpits and pews of churches and found in the the pronouncements and laws issued by our government and corrupting the classrooms of schools and colleges and the ethics and practises of the work place, is but the fruit of the sowing of latter-day deceivers such as these Cambridge ‘academics’.
We would all do well to heed Paul’s earnest advice to Timothy.
“O Timothy, keep that which is committed to thy trust, avoiding profane and vain babblings, and oppositions of science falsely so called: which some professing have erred concerning the faith. Grace be with thee. Amen,” 1 Timothy 6:20-21.
Surely it was because of an awareness of the dangers of the unsanctified imaginings of men that caused David to pray: “O LORD God of Abraham, Isaac, and of Israel, our fathers, keep this for ever in the imagination of the thoughts of the heart of thy people, and prepare their heart unto thee: and give unto Solomon my son a perfect heart, to keep thy commandments, thy testimonies, and thy statutes, and to do all these things, and to build the palace, for the which I have made provision,” 1 Chronicles 29:18-19.
For our encouragement, we can see prophesied in God’s Word a day when men will not be misled by such as Joshua Heath and Michael Banner. Jeremiah speaks of that day in 3:17. “At that time they shall call Jerusalem the throne of the LORD; and all the nations shall be gathered unto it, to the name of the LORD, to Jerusalem: neither shall they walk any more after the imagination of their evil heart.”
It is the day of Christ’s reign over this world.
“And it shall come to pass in the last days, that the mountain of the LORD’S house shall be established in the top of the mountains, and shall be exalted above the hills; and all nations shall flow unto it. And many people shall go and say, Come ye, and let us go up to the mountain of the LORD, to the house of the God of Jacob; and he will teach us of his ways, and we will walk in his paths: for out of Zion shall go forth the law, and the word of the LORD from Jerusalem. And he shall judge among the nations, and shall rebuke many people: and they shall beat their swords into plowshares, and their spears into pruninghooks: nation shall not lift up sword against nation, neither shall they learn war any more,” Isaiah 2:2-4.
It will be a day when the parents of any false prophet will utterly reject their offspring out of obedience and loyalty to Christ.
“And it shall come to pass in that day, saith the LORD of hosts, that I will cut off the names of the idols out of the land, and they shall no more be remembered: and also I will cause the prophets and the unclean spirit to pass out of the land. And it shall come to pass, that when any shall yet prophesy, then his father and his mother that begat him shall say unto him, Thou shalt not live; for thou speakest lies in the name of the LORD: and his father and his mother that begat him shall thrust him through when he prophesieth,” Zechariah 13:2-3.
May there be a measure of such a spirit, in keeping with New Testament moral principles, seen amongst God’s faithful ones today.
Rev Ivan Foster (Rtd),
28th November 2022