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Contra Stavrinides
by Frank Nelte
PART XIX: GENESIS 22:12
On tape #4 Dr. Stavrinides talked about God's attributes. Some of the things he said were:
"With God there is no gain and there is no loss. God does not NEED senses or tools to work."
"There is nothing He does not know."
Then he turned to handout # 8 entitled "GENESIS 22:12" and he said:
"All I need to do is show what it DOESN'T mean!"
That last statement is typical of ALL the scriptural objections that have been raised to question his theory.
Just think about this for a minute:
He is talking to a group of ministers, who have come out of this world's societies and its ways, who have made a commitment to base the rest of their lives on God's Word, the Bible and who are serving congregations of people who likewise have committed their lives to living by every word that proceeds out of the mouth of God ... and his attitude is: ALL I NEED TO DO IS SHOW WHAT IT DOES NOT MEAN!
That's as carnal as you can get!
It is an attitude of trying to DISPROVE the scriptures ... that's his self-professed goal!
It was in this context that he made the statement that I have already quoted earlier ... "If in doubt regarding the Hebrew, YOU ARE SAFE to take it as a figure of speech!"
That is one of the most powerful tools of those who strive to disprove the scriptures ... turning everything into "a figure of speech".
Next he referred to Deuteronomy 8:2 ...
And thou shalt remember all the way which the LORD thy God led thee these forty years in the wilderness, to humble thee, [and] to prove thee, TO KNOW WHAT [WAS] IN THINE HEART, whether thou wouldest keep his commandments, or no. (Deuteronomy 8:2)
... and said: "IT IS NOT FOR GOD TO LEARN ANYTHING!".
He then asked the question:
"Does God KNOW everything we'll do for the rest of our lives?"
He then drew little patterns on the board and talked about trains going to different destinations and "different senses of 'know'" and "reducing God to a spatial being" and that "here 'know' is ambiguous" and knowing in a causal or a non-causal way, etc.. I guess I was supposed to be impressed with all that. But to me it sounded like the ramblings of a totally muddled mind.
And he said, Lay not thine hand upon the lad, neither do thou any thing unto him: FOR NOW I KNOW THAT THOU FEAREST GOD, seeing thou hast not withheld thy son, thine only [son] from me. (Genesis 22:12)
In the Handout he is immediately critical of "the person who reads the account at face value".
Dr. Stavrinides is telling us that HE DOES NOT BELIEVE WHAT GOD SAYS!
He then twists the reasoning to say that the person who believes what this verse tells us says, in effect:
"God did not know everything; until the particular moment in question He did not know that Abraham feared God."
His reasoning displays a total lack of spiritual discernment. The truth of the matter is that in Genesis 22 ...
God KNEW that Abraham feared Him. What God did not yet "know" was TO WHAT DEGREE that fear would TRANSLATE INTO ACTIONS in Abraham's life. God LEARNED that the fear of God TRANSCENDED everything else in Abraham's life, including a love for his son Isaac!
Remember, his goal is just to show what it DOESN'T mean! So he then proceeds to ARGUE (like a lawyer looking for a loophole in the law that will let him get off on a technicality) against the verse being literal by saying that it was "the angel of the Lord" who did the talking. He then announces:
"No objection can be raised by the literalist, because his method has been adopted, in this instance."
Like I said at the beginning, we must remember that we are dealing with a carnal mind, devoid of God's Spirit, that argues from a carnal point of view with a desire to disprove the Scriptures!
"The person who firmly believes that this passage is to be taken literally should not have the privilege of reading "angel of the Lord" in a non-literal way, as a reference to someone other than the angel of the Lord. THEREFORE, THAT OBJECTION HAS BEEN ANSWERED!"
When you read those words, you can almost hear the spectators in the packed courtroom bursting into spontaneous applause at the sheer brilliance of this lawyer who has once again found a loophole in the law to get his guilty client off the hook!
What God is actually trying to tell us in these verses, does not for one moment enter into Dr. Stavrinides' thinking. His whole goal is to prove that Genesis 22:12 means nothing at all! They are just a bunch of words with no meaning, no message and no purpose.
"ALL I NEED TO DO IS SHOW WHAT IT DOESN'T MEAN!"
" Statement: Now I know, etc. (still in literal terms)
Translation: There was a time when I did not know what intentions you had in your heart. ... the events that I have perceived (with my own eyes) have brought about an important change in me, WHICH ENRICHES ME BY ... ."
That is typical of the way Dr. Stavrinides twists and distorts the biblical facts! His "translation" can only be termed one thing ... WEIRD!
"The passage is to be taken IN FIGURATIVE TERMS!"
INCREDIBLE!
"The person who firmly believes that this passage is to be taken in FIGURATIVE TERMS, should not have the privilege of reading the rest of the verse in a literal way!"
Therefore, according to his reasoning, the rest of this verse is also figurative. Thus ...
His claim that "the passage is to be taken in figurative terms" is absolute nonsense! But that is the kind of philosophical nonsense you can expect when people want to "reason" about the Bible without ever bothering to look at what it actually says!!
Dr. Stavrinides then calls it "CONDESCENSION" (page 19, Handout). His conclusion of placing Genesis 22:12 in the same category as "the trees selecting a king" or "the mountains skipping with joy" is patently dishonest and will only fool someone who doesn't bother to actually read the Bible for himself.
After travelling for three days, Abraham has now built an altar, bound his son Isaac on it and has raised his arm to slay his own son on God's instructions! At that moment a voice from heaven speaks out ...
IN FIGURATIVE TERMS ???????
It is a dramatic moment! It is the climax in all of the testing that Abraham underwent in his long life! He has PASSED the test! And at that moment God says to him (whether Christ was speaking or whether an angel spoke on Christ's behalf is unimportant here):
"I can't really ever learn anything new, but ... well, let's say, figuratively speaking, I have sort of learned something new about you , if you know what I mean, Abraham."
It just doesn't make sense! It doesn't "fit"! It would not have meant anything to Abraham! God did not intend for Abraham to interpret His statement in a philosophical way!
When you look at this verse and the whole context, the inescapable conclusion is:
GOD WAS SPEAKING IN LITERAL TERMS! HE WAS NOT TELLING ABRAHAM SOME PARABLE!
Once more Dr. Stavrinides' ideas stand exposed as false!