Basic HTML Version
SUMMER 2012
15
need to be agnostic as to whether Jesus
rose from the dead or not.
I find his discussion consistently fair,
clear-headed and convincing. For
example, Licona points out that no
ancient writer would invent the story
that it was women who first discovered
the tomb to be empty and went and
told the men! The willingness of the
early disciples to suffer martyrdom
means that they were willing to die for
what they knew was true. It is plain
that they were convinced that they had
seen the risen Jesus. That is a secure
historical datum.
Licona shows that if we hold a view of
reality that allows the supernatural, the
“resurrection hypothesis” is the only
viable theory that takes account of the
historical bedrock. Here, then, is a book
that moves debates over the resurrection
of Jesus significantly forward.
Greg Goswell lectures at the Presbyterian
Theological College, Melbourne
In Living Color
Images of Christ and the Means of
Grace,
Daniel R. Hyde, Grandville:
Reformed Fellowship, 2009.
Peter Barnes
These are strange days in the Reformed
camp. Many entertained high hopes
that Mel Gibson’s
The Passion of the
Christ
would prove a wonderful aid to
evangelism. John Frame, too, has
argued that the rejection of pictures of
Christ runs the risk of Docetism, the
view that Christ did not really come in
the flesh. Daniel Hyde has sought to
argue for the classic Reformed position
that images of the triune God are not
allowed. Man’s media consists of
images, but God’s media are the word
and the sacraments.
Pope Gregory I of Rome (590-604)
famously argued that images are books
for the illiterate: “And if any one
should wish to make images, by no
means prohibit him, but by all means
forbid the adoration of images.” The
problem here is that God forbids in the
Second Commandment both the
worship and the making of images. Art
is God-given; art used to portray the
Godhead is fraught with spiritual
danger. We can be thankful for Hyde’s
clear and comprehensive tackling of
this issue.
Is Hell for Real or Does
Everyone go to Heaven?
Christopher W. Morgan and Robert A.
Peterson (eds), Grand Rapids:
Zondervan, 2011.
Peter Barnes
Hell has been marginalised even in the
churches. In response, here are seven
short essays in a short book to deal with
the biblical evidence. Back in the 19th
century, William Gladstone
commented that hell had been
“relegated ... to the far-off corners of
the Christian mind ... there to sleep in
the deep shadow as a thing needless in
our enlightened and progressive age”.
Henry Ward Beecher was one of many
preachers who attacked the “spiritual
barbarism” and “hideous doctrines” of
the Bible. The sensitive John Stott
declared in 1988: “I find the concept
[of eternal punishment] intolerable,
and do not understand how people can
live with it without cauterizing their
feelings or cracking under the strain.”
However, the biblical evidence is surely
insurmountable. The Gospels alone are
sufficient to teach this – Matthew 5:22,
39-30; 7:13-14; 10:28; 18:8-9; 23:15;
26:31-46; Luke 16:23; Mark 9:43, 45,
47-48; John 3:36; 5:28-29. More than
anybody else, and contrary to popular
opinion, it is Jesus who teaches most
about hell. J. I. Packer says that we are
not all “doomed to be saved”, for “the
universalists’ dream – fantasy, rather –
is in truth a kite that will not fly”. Love
without wrath cannot exist. This book
does not make for pleasant reading, but
it does make for necessary reading for all
who take the Christian faith seriously.
AP
Subscription Form
Please send me AP magazine...
If you are interested in receiving the
AP
and are not currently
a subscriber please fill in your details below, and forward the
completed form to the AP office.
Deliver to:
Name __________________________________________
Address _________________________________________
______________________ City/Suburb ______________
State________________________ Postcode ___________
Country ________________________________________
Phone __________________________________________
My Donation towards the costs of
AP
Please find enclosed
Cheque/money order to AP for: $ _____
Please debit $__________ from my
Visa
Mastercard
Account number:
Expiry date: ___/___ Name on Card ____________________
Signature__________________________________________
Please send completed forms to:
AP, PO Box 4014, Croydon Hills VIC. 3136
Phone: (03) 9005 8256 Fax: (03) 9876 1941
Email: manager@ap.org.au
✄
AP is provided as a ministry tool through the generous support of the Presbyterian Church of Australia.