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Unbiblical Presumption in College of Bishops' Sexuality Statement
By Julian Mann
http://cranmercurate.blogspot.co.uk/
August 20, 2014
The Church of England's media statement following the College of Bishops' 'shared conversations' on sexuality this week is biblically unfaithful because, whilst the New Testament teaches assurance, it does not teach presumption. Indeed, the Apostle John's First Epistle clearly teaches that true assurance depends on professing Christians' abiding in the truth of the apostolic message:
That which we (the eye-witness Apostles of the Lord Jesus Christ) have seen and heard we proclaim also to you, so that you may have fellowship with us; and our fellowship is with the Father and with his Son Jesus Christ (1 John 1v3 - RSV).
The meeting included diocesan and suffragan bishops and the eight senior women clergy elected last year. Emitting a toxic fume of spiritual and moral relativism, the statement declares:
As part of the conversations the college shared the different responses being expressed in the life of the church and the deeply held convictions and experiences that inform them. In this the college reflected the diversity of experience and view held by the country as a whole. The college also acknowledged that at this stage it was not seeking to achieve consensus nor to make any decisions but rather the purpose was being open to see Jesus Christ in those who took an opposing view to their own position.
For all the Bishops' attempts to reassure orthodox Anglicans that the introduction of authorised services of same-sex blessing is not a foregone conclusion, this statement is highly proscriptive and indeed dogmatic in its view of revisionist church leaders. It strongly implies that it would be sinful to treat a convinced revisionist as an opponent because he or she must be a real Christian on the basis of their self-perception.
But this approach flagrantly disregards the biblical fact that departing from the New Testament's teaching that sex is exclusively for heterosexual marriage involves the presuppositional rejection of apostolic authority.
According to 1 John, that is how false teachers are identifiable - by their rejection of God-revealed apostolic truth. Such men and women are not in fellowship with Christ's authorized witnesses and are therefore not in fellowship with the Father and Son. Such teachers need to be opposed not affirmed. It is unbiblical presumption to think that we can have the Lord Jesus in our lives if our minds and hearts are divorced from the authentic apostolic message.
John's teaching is harmony with the Apostle Paul's:
And you, who once were estranged and hostile in mind, doing evil deeds, he (the Lord Jesus Christ) has now reconciled in his body of flesh by his death, in order to present you holy and blameless and irreproachable before him, provided that you continue in the faith, stable and steadfast, not shifting from the hope of the gospel which you have heard, which has been preached to every creature under heaven, and of which I, Paul, became a minister (Colossians 1v21-23).
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