What God Has Joined Together, Let Not Man Separate, Part 1 by John Piper

This is a sermon done by John Piper:

Mark 10:1-12

And he left there and went to the region of Judea and beyond the Jordan, and crowds gathered to him again. And again, as was his custom, he taught them. 2 And Pharisees came up and in order to test him asked, “Is it lawful for a man to divorce his wife?” 3 He answered them, “What did Moses command you?” 4 They said, “Moses allowed a man to write a certificate of divorce and to send her away.” 5 And Jesus said to them, “Because of your hardness of heart he wrote you this commandment. 6 But from the beginning of creation, ‘God made them male and female.’ 7 ‘Therefore a man shall leave his father and mother and hold fast to his wife, 8 and the two shall become one flesh.’ So they are no longer two but one flesh. 9 What therefore God has joined together, let not man separate.” 10 And in the house the disciples asked him again about this matter. 11 And he said to them, “Whoever divorces his wife and marries another commits adultery against her, 12 and if she divorces her husband and marries another, she commits adultery.”

As we come to the end of our series on marriage—this week and next week—it is fitting that we think together about the implications of the meaning of marriage for divorce and remarriage. For many of you who have walked through a divorce and are now single or remarried, or whose parents were divorced, or some other loved one, the mere mention of the word carries a huge weight of sorrow and loss and tragedy and disappointment and anger and regret and guilt. Few things are more painful than divorce. It cuts to the depths of personhood unlike any other relational gash. It is emotionally more heart-wrenching than the death of a spouse. Death is usually clean pain. Divorce is usually dirty pain. In other words, the enormous loss of a spouse in death is compounded in divorce by the ugliness of sin and moral outrage at being so wronged.

The Devastation of Divorce
It is often long years in coming, and long years in the settlement and in the adjustment. The upheaval of life is immeasurable. The sense of failure and guilt and fear can torture the soul. Like the psalmist, night after night a spouse falls asleep with tears (Psalm 6:6). Work performance is hindered. People don’t know how to relate to you any more and friends start to withdraw. You can feel like you wear a big scarlet D on your chest. The loneliness is not like the loneliness of being a widow or a widower or person who has never been married. It is in class by itself. (Which is one reason why so many divorced people find each other.) A sense of devastated future can be all consuming. Courtroom controversy compounds the personal misery. And then there is often the agonizing place of children. Parents hope against hope that the scars will not cripple the children or ruin their marriages some day. Tensions over custody and financial support deepen the wounds. And then the awkward and artificial visitation rights can lengthen the tragedy over decades. And add to all of this that it happens in America to over four out of every ten married couples.
Responding to Divorce
There are two ways to respond lovingly and caringly to this situation. One is to come alongside divorced persons and stand by them as they grieve and repent of any sinful part of their own. And then to stay by them through the transitions and help them find a way to enjoy the forgiveness and the strength for new obedience that Christ obtained when he died and rose again.

The other way to respond lovingly and caringly is to articulate a hatred of divorce, and why it is against the will of God, and do all we can biblically to keep it from happening. Compromises on the sacredness and life-long permanence of marriage—positions that weaken the solidity of the covenant-union—may feel loving in the short run, but wreak havoc over the decades. Preserving the solid framework of the marriage covenant with high standards may feel tough in the short run, but produces ten thousand blessings for future generations. I hope that both of these ways of loving and caring will flourish at Bethlehem.

The Covenant Remains till Christ Removes
One of the reasons that I have emphasized the ultimate meaning of marriage so much in this series is that the meaning of marriage is such that human beings cannot legitimately break it. The ultimate meaning of marriage is the representation of the covenant keeping love between Christ and his church. To live this truth and to show this truth is what it means, most deeply, to be married. This is the ultimate reason why marriage exists. There are other reasons, but this is the main one. Therefore, if Christ ever abandons and discards his church, then a man may divorce his wife. And if the blood-bought church, under the new covenant, ever ceases to be the bride of Christ, then a wife may legitimately divorce her husband. But as long as Christ keeps his covenant with his bride, the church, and as long as the church, by the sustaining grace of God, remains the chosen people of Jesus Christ, then the very meaning of marriage will include: What God has joined, only God can separate, not man.
Getting Serious about Sacredness
O how I pray that one of the effects of this series will be to make us as a people profoundly serious about the sacredness of marriage. The world treats this diamond like just another stone. But in fact, marriage is sacred beyond what most people imagine. It is a unique creation of God, a dramatic portrayal of God’s relation to his people, and a display of the glory of God’s covenant keeping love. Against all the diminished attitudes about marriage in the world—Jesus’ world and our world—Jesus’ words about marriage are breathtaking. This is the work of God, not man, and it does not lie in man’s prerogative to end it.
Jesus Knows His Moses
In our text in Mark 10:1ff., the Pharisees came to Jesus and asked him, “Is it lawful for a man to divorce his wife?” That’s the question. Today, people don’t even ask the question. It is assumed. It’s not only lawful, but easy and cheap. Just Google the word “divorce” and see what you get (“Easy Online Divorce,” “Simple Divorce Online,” “No Fault Divorce, $28.95,” “Easy Online Divorce, $299”). Let me say cautiously and seriously: Those who scorn the design of God and the glory of Christ, and build their lives and businesses and whole industries around making divorce cheap and easy are under the wrath of God, and need to repent and seek his forgiveness through Christ before it is too late.
Jesus knew that the Pharisees in general were an adulterous generation (Matthew 12:39). He knew how they defended their divorces. So he lead them to that very place and asks them in Mark 10:3, “What did Moses command you?” He takes them to Moses. But they should be careful here. Moses didn’t just write Deuteronomy, which they are about to quote. He also wrote Genesis. Verse 4: They said, “Moses allowed a man to write a certificate of divorce and to send her away.” That’s true. It’s a reference to Deuteronomy 24:1.

What will Jesus say in response to this defense of divorce? Verse 5: Jesus said to them, “Because of your hardness of heart he wrote you this commandment.” This is amazing. It implies, in other words, there are laws in the Old Testament that are not expressions of God’s will for all time, but expressions of how best to manage sin in a particular people at a particular time. Divorce is never commanded and never instituted in the Old Testament. But it was permitted and regulated. Like polygamy was permitted and regulated, and certain kinds of slavery were permitted and regulated. And Jesus says here that this permission was not a reflection of God’s ideal for his people; it was a reflection of the hardness of the human heart. “Because of your hardness of heart he wrote you this commandment.”

Back to Creation
Then Jesus takes the Pharisees (and us) back to God’s will in creation and quotes Genesis 1:27 and 2:24 and shows us the way it was supposed to be. Verses 6-8: “But from the beginning of creation, ‘God made them male and female.’ ‘Therefore a man shall leave his father and mother and hold fast to his wife, and the two shall become one flesh.’” That’s the end of his Scripture quoting. Now the question is: What will he do with it? Clearly Jesus sees a tension between Deuteronomy 24 and Genesis 1 and 2. The but at the beginning of verse 6 (“But from the beginning of creation . . .) means: God’s will about divorce in Genesis 1-2 is not the same as his will expressed in Deuteronomy 24.
So the question is: Which way will Jesus go? Will he say: Well, there is still hardness of heart today, even in my disciples, and so Deuteronomy expresses God’s will for Christians today? Or will he say, I am the Messiah, the Christ. The Son of Man has come into the world to gather a people who by faith in him and union with him display the true meaning of marriage in the way they keep their marriage covenant? Will the emphasis fall on the fact that in the church there is still hardness of heart, or will the emphasis fall on the fact that the old has passed away and the new has come (2 Corinthians 5:17)?

Jesus’ Three Conclusions
Jesus draws three conclusions in verse 8b and verse 9. He says (1) in verse 8b, “So they are no longer two but one flesh.” In other words, since God said in Genesis 2:24, “The two shall become one flesh,” therefore Jesus concludes for his day and ours: “So they are no longer two but one flesh.” Marriage is that kind of union—very profound, just as Christ and the church are one body (Romans 12:5).
Then (2) the second conclusion Jesus draws is that this union of one flesh is the creation, the work, of God, not man. He says in verse 9, “What therefore God has joined together . . .” So even though two humans decide to get married. And a human pastor or priest or justice of the peace or some other person solemnizes and legalizes the union, all that is secondary to the main actor, namely, God. “What God has joined together . . .” God is the main actor in the event of marriage.

Then (3) Jesus draws the conclusion at the end of verse 9: “Let not man separate.” The word translated “man” here (“Let not man separate”) is not the word for male over against female, but the word for human over against divine. The contrast is: “If God joined the man and woman in marriage, then mere humans have no write to separate what he joined. That’s Jesus third conclusion from Genesis 1 and 2. Since God created this sacred union with this sacred purpose to display the unbreakable firmness of his covenant love for his people, it simply does not lie within man’s rights to destroy what God created.

Finished with the Pharisees
That’s the end of the Jesus’ conversation with the Pharisees about divorce. He has more to say to his disciples, but he is done with the Pharisees. They ask no more. He tells no more. They came with their question. Jesus gave his answer. They asked, “Is it lawful for a man to divorce his wife?” And Jesus answers: “What therefore God has joined together, let not man separate.” No. It is not lawful. It contradicts the ultimate meaning of marriage.
Of course, someone might say, it has always contradicted the meaning of marriage—even when the permission of Deuteronomy was written. But Jesus is not thinking that way. He is calling his followers to a higher standard than the compromise with hardness of heart in Deuteronomy.

Jesus Didn’t Come to Reaffirm Moses
Jesus did not come to simply affirm the Mosaic law. He came to fulfill it in his own consuming, forgiving, justifying obedience and death, and then to take his ransomed and forgiven and justified followers into the higher standards that were really intended when all of Moses is properly understood. Remember Matthew 5:17, “Do not think that I have come to abolish the Law or the Prophets; I have not come to abolish them but to fulfill them.” And then he gives six examples of what this radical obedience will look like in his disciples. Here are just two: 1) “You have heard that it was said to those of old, ‘You shall not murder . . . but I say to you that everyone who is angry with his brother will be liable to judgment” (Matthew 5:21-22). 2) “You have heard that it was said, ‘You shall not commit adultery.’ But I say to you that everyone who looks at a woman with lustful intent has already committed adultery with her in his heart’” (Matthew 5:27-28). And there are four more like this in Matthew 5.
Jesus Came to Fulfill Moses
In other words, Jesus came not only to fulfill the law in his own work, he came to take his people to a radical understanding of the law and a radical obedience to the law that is not based on law but on himself, and therefore reflects the fullness of what God wills for us—and especially reflects the gospel, the covenant-keeping work of Christ at Calvary for his church. Marriage among Christians is mainly meant to tell the truth about the gospel—that Christ dies for his church who loves him, and never breaks his covenant with his bride.
In essence, Jesus says, “You have heard that it was said, ‘You are permitted to divorce.’ But I say to you, ‘I have come to conquer the hardness of your heart. I have come to die for your sins. I have come to count you as righteous. I have come to show you the drama that marriage was meant to represent in my sacrificial, covenant-keeping love for my sinful bride. I have come to give you the power to stay married, or to stay single, so that either way you keep your promises and show what my covenant is like, and how sacred is the covenant bond of marriage.”

So when the Pharisees are gone and Jesus is in the house with his disciples, he puts the matter even more bluntly and more radically. Mark 10:10-12: “And in the house the disciples asked him again about this matter. And he said to them, ‘Whoever divorces his wife and marries another commits adultery against her, and if she divorces her husband and marries another, she commits adultery.’”

For Next Week
Mark does not report how stunned the disciples were at these words; Matthew does. I will try to show more fully from two important passages in Matthew (5:32; 19:9) and three in 1 Corinthians (7:10-11, 12-16, 39) and one in Romans (7:1-3) why I think we should take Jesus at face value here, and counsel against all remarriage after divorce while the spouse is living. That’s what I think Jesus calls us to as his followers. Keep your marriage vows in such a way as to tell the truth about the unbreakable covenant love of Christ.
Divorce and the Gospel
But in closing today I want to emphasize that what Jesus says here in verses 10-12 is incredibly good news—even to those who have been divorced and are remarried. Here’s why: Jesus says, Don’t divorce your spouse and marry someone else. If you do, you’ve committed adultery. Why is it adultery? Ultimately, it is adultery because it betrays the truth about Christ that marriage is meant to display. Jesus never, never, never does that to his bride, the church. He never forsakes her. He never abandons her. He never abuses her. He always loves her. He always takes her back when she wanders. He always is patient with her. He always cares for her and provides for her and protects her and, wonder of wonders, delights in her. And you—you who are married once, married five times, married never—if you repent and trust Christ—receive him as the treasure who bore your punishment and became your righteousness—you are in the bride. And that is how he relates to you. “Everyone who believes in him receives forgiveness of sin’s through his name (Acts 10:43).
The radical call of Jesus never to divorce and remarry is a declaration of the gospel by which people who have failed may be saved. If Christ were not this way, we would all be undone. But this is how true, how faithful, how forgiving he is. Therefore, we are saved.

The Muslims claim Debunked.

Here is a well done article by Khaled from Answering Islam(for the links, here is the article):

Is the Quran Preserved?
Khaled

The Quran makes this claim:

Verily, we have sent down the Reminder, and, verily, we will guard it. Q15:9

According to Muslim commentators like Ibn Kathir, this Reminder is the Quran since just a few verses before that we read in the same Surah:

But they say, ‘O thou to whom the Reminder has been sent down! verily, thou art possessed.’ Q15:6

Muslims say that, “O thou to whom the reminder has been sent down,” refers to Muhammad and therefore the Reminder spoken about here must be the Quran. Muslims conclude that this is Allah’s promise that the Qur'an cannot be corrupted and is accurately preserved to this day.

Some Christian apologists make the argument that the Reminder refers to all of Allah’s messages including the one revealed in the Bible. Muslims usually reject this claim and say that Allah guards only the Quran. Taking into account everything that the Quran says about the Scriptures of the Jews and the Christians, one can make a solid argument that the Quran presupposes that the Jews and Christians indeed possess God’s authentic and uncorrupted revelation (see these articles). However, since Muslims often do not accept those arguments, the purpose of this paper is to show that their position leads to a set of logical problems. Thus, for argument’s sake I will go along with these Muslim claims, and explore where this interpretation will lead us when taken together with some other Muslim convictions.

In other places, the Quran makes the claim to be impeccable:

falsehood shall not come to it, from before it, nor from behind it - a revelation from the wise, the praiseworthy One. Q41:42

Do they not meditate on the Qur'ran? if it were from other than God they would find in it many a discrepancy. Q4:82

At the same time, Muslims believe that there are verses in the Quran which say that the previous Revelations have been corrupted:

O thou Apostle! let not those grieve thee who vie in misbelief; or those who say with their mouths 'We believe,' but their hearts do not believe; or of those who are Jews, listeners to a lie, - listeners to other people, but who come not to thee. They pervert the words from their places and say, ' If this is what ye are given, take it; but if ye are not given it, then beware!' but he whom God wishes to mislead, thou canst do nothing with God for him; these are those whose hearts God wishes not to purify, for them in this world is disgrace, and for them in the next is mighty woe, Q5:41; check also Q3:78, Q2:79, Q4:46 and Q5:13.

Still, the Quran commands the Muslims to believe in the previous Revelations:

who believe in what is revealed to thee (Muhammad), and what was revealed before thee, and of the hereafter they are sure. Q2:4

The Apostle (Muhammad) believes in what is sent down to him from his Lord, and the believers (Muslims) all believe on God, and His angels, and His Books, and His apostles,- we make no difference between any of His apostles,- they say, 'We hear and obey, Thy pardon, O Lord! for to Thee our journey tends. Q2:285

Say (O Muslims), 'We believe in God, and what has been revealed to thee, and what was revealed to Abraham, and Ishmael, and Isaac, and Jacob, and the tribes, and what was given to Moses, and Jesus, and the prophets from their Lord,- we will make no distinction between any of them,- and we are unto Him resigned. Q3:84

These previous Revelations include the following:

We did reveal the Torah (Tawrat), wherein is guidance and a light ... Q5:44

And already have we written in the Psalms (Zabur) after the reminder that the earth shall my righteous servants inherit.' Q21:105

Subsequent to them, we sent Jesus, the son of Mary, confirming the previous scripture, the Torah. We gave him the Gospel (Injil), containing guidance and light, and confirming the previous scriptures, the Torah, and augmenting its guidance and light, and to enlighten the righteous. Q5:46

Let us summarize the claims that were presented so far:

The Quran is preserved.
God’s Revelations which preceded the Quran include the Torah, the Psalms, and the Gospel.
These Books make up a large portion of the Holy Bible.
The Quran, the Torah, the Psalms, and the Gospel are all the Word of Allah.
God's Word does not change.
The revelations that came before the Quran have become corrupted.
Although Muslims should believe that these previous Books are the genuine Revelations from God,
they have to trust only the Quran as the final revelation and the only one that is preserved.
We now have to deal with this logic:

The Quran, the Torah, the Psalms and the Gospel are all Allah’s Word.
The current Torah, Psalms and Gospel are corrupted.
The final word of Allah, the Quran is preserved.
1st Conclusion: Some of Allah’s Words are corrupted
2nd Conclusion: Some of Allah’s Words are preserved.

Based on the above generalizations we can construct these deductive arguments:

Major premise: Some of Allah’s Words are corrupted.
Minor premise: The Quran is Allah’s Word.
Conclusion: The Quran could be corrupted.

Or we could do it another way:

Major premise: Some of Allah’s Words are preserved.
Minor premise: The Torah, the Psalms, and the Gospel are Allah’s Words.
Conclusion: The Torah, the Psalms, and the Gospel could be preserved.

The Main Problem

Since Allah allowed his previous Revelations to be corrupted by weak human people, this leads to one of the following assumptions about Allah:

Allah is a weak god; he could not protect his previous Revelations. He also gains more power and might throughout time, because he supposedly is now able to protect his last revelation, the Quran.
Allah does not care about people being misled by counterfeit revelations. And yet he will still punish individuals with hell fire because they follow a corrupted Message even though they may have not come to the realization that Allah had allowed it to be corrupted. That means Allah is unjust.
In light of the above, how can we trust that the Quran is preserved if these three Revelations are corrupted? How can a person trust that Allah did not fail to protect his so-called final revelation, the Quran, when he was too weak to prevent people from tampering with his previous Messages?

Maybe Allah needs to a send a fifth revelation? Perhaps he has already sent down this fifth book, and that is actually the revelation given to Baha’ullah the founder of the Baha’i faith?

More importantly, how do Muslims reconcile their position with Allah’s claim in the Quran that “there is no changing the words of God”?

Muslims, you have to make a decision and choose one of these alternatives:

The Quran is preserved and the earlier Revelations are corrupted. In that case, Allah is either weak or he is unjust. That is the only explanation for his preservation of the Quran and letting people corrupt his previous Revelations.
The Quran is corrupted like the other Revelations. Then you should either not read it since you do not read other corrupted Revelations, or maybe you should read these other corrupted Revelations just as you insist on reading the corrupted Quran.
The Quran is preserved, and the previous Revelations have also been preserved. That means then you should read these authentic Revelations (the Bible) for yourself.
The Quran is corrupted but the earlier Revelations are preserved. Obviously, you should then abandon the Quran and read the Bible.
Just a second, I’m not finished yet.

If you picked option number three, then you will be faced with another problem. The Quran contradicts these previous Revelations in many essential points. That means that the Quran is a false message which cannot be from God since God is not the author of confusion. He could not reveal a message that contradicts his previous Messages.

If you do not like these alternatives, then tell me:

What exactly do you think is wrong with my above observations and conclusions?

If you do not accept my premises and therefore reject my conclusions, then:

PROVE TO ME THAT THE QURAN IS PRESERVED.

You have to do that in a rational way without quoting the Quran since that would only be a repetition of the claim, not a proof, or trying to prove that the previous Revelations are corrupted which in no way proves the Quran not to be corrupted, or providing me with (what I consider fake) scientific miracles in the Quran. I want you to resolve the philosophical problem outlined above.

Show me logically and rationally how the Muslim assertion of a perfectly preserved Quran together with an alleged corruption of God’s earlier Revelations is not an insult to God’s perfect justice and great power.

Abortion fails today!

This story makes me sick.

I believe Bob spoke well when he said:

These doctors over step their bounds and think they can play God. I am just so happy that in this case God made a loud statement against these 'high priests'.

Here is the story:

They say twins share a strong bond - but the one between Gabriel and Ieuan Jones was unbreakable.


When doctors found that Gabriel was weaker than his brother, with an enlarged heart,and believed he was going to die in the womb, his mother Rebecca Jones had to make a heartbreaking decision.

Doctors told her his death could cause his twin brother to die too before they were born, and that it would be better to end Gabriel's suffering sooner rather than later.

Mrs Jones decided to let doctors operate to terminate Gabriel's life.

Firstly they tried to sever his umbilical cord to cut off his blood supply, but the cord was too strong.

They then cut Mrs Jones's placenta in half so that when Gabriel died, it would not affect his twin brother.

But after the operation which was meant to end his life, tiny Gabriel had other ideas.

Although he weighed less than a pound, he put up such a fight for survival that doctors called him Rocky.

Astonishingly, he managed to carry on living in his mother's womb for another five weeks - until the babies were delivered by caesarean section.

Now he and Ieuan are back at home in Stoke - and are so close they are always holding each other's hand.

Mrs Jones, 35, a financial adviser whose husband Mark, 36, is a car salesman, said: "It really is a miracle. Doctors carried out an operation to let Gabriel die - yet he hung on.

"It was unbelievable."

"When I felt him kicking madly the morning after the operation, I suddenly knew that he was going to hang on.

"The doctors couldn't believe it when they could still hear his heartbeat the next morning."

Mrs Jones learned she was expecting twins when she was ten weeks pregnant. She said: "When they told us we were over the moon."

But at her 20-week scan, doctors had some devastating news. One of the boys was half the size of his brother.

They didn't know what was causing it, but somehow he wasn't getting enough nutrients.

Then doctors said his heart was three times normal size and it was likely he would have a heart attack or a stroke in the womb.

Mrs Jones said: "They told us that if he died, it could be life threatening for his brother.

"We had to decide whether to end his life and let his brother live, or risk them both."

They said it would be impossible to keep him alive afterwards as he was so poorly.

It would be kinder to let him die in the womb with his brother by his side than to die alone after being born.

"That made my mind up for me. I wanted the best thing for him."

At Birmingham Women's Hospital, when Mrs Jones was 25 weeks pregnant, doctors tried to sever Gabriel's umbilical cord to cut off his blood supply and allow him to die.

But the cord was too thick, and they could not cut through it.


As a last resort they divided Mrs Jones's placenta so that when Gabriel died, it would allow Ieuan to survive. Mrs Jones said: "I put my hands on my stomach thinking of Gabriel. It was devastating. I had said my goodbyes."

But the next morning Mrs Jones felt Gabriel kicking. A scan showed his heart was still beating. She said: "No one could quite believe it."

Gabriel hung on, and his enlarged heart started to reduce in size. He also gained weight.

Mrs Jones said: "They thought it may be because the placenta had been divided. Inadvertently, it had evened out the distribution of nutrition between them, allowing Gabriel to survive.'

When Mrs Jones reached 31 weeks doctors carried out a caesarian to deliver the twins. Ieuan weighed 3lb 8oz and Gabriel 1lb 15oz. Both were kept in hospital, but since going home they have thrived. At seven months, Ieuan weighs 15lb and Gabriel 12lb 6oz.

Mrs Jones said: "The boys are so healthy, they have huge appetites too. Ieuan is the noisy one, while Gabriel is always laughing, it's like he's just so happy to be here.

"There is such a strong bond between them.

"They are always holding hands and if one cries, the other reaches out to comfort him."

"Doctors tried to break their bond in the womb, but they just proved it couldn't be broken."

After the story came out, Peter Pike posted:

I just read this article about a family who tried to abort a "weaker" twin who refused to die. Now I could go on about certain aspects of that, but what I want to focus on here is this stupid statement by the mother:


It really is a miracle. Doctors carried out an operation to let Gabriel die - yet he hung on.
Did you catch that? "Doctors carried out an operation to let Gabriel die"...to let him die????

I suppose if I ever kill someone I can stand before the judge and say, "Your honor, I simply pulled the trigger/cut the throat/poisoned the food of the victim to let the victim die. I didn't actually do anything. It was all passive."

This statement by Mrs. Jones is nothing but a rationalization of abortion by making it seem passive instead of admitting it is the active killing of the unborn. We see the same exact terminology used in euthenasia cases too. "We'll pull the feeding tube and let the patient die. It's what they would have wanted."

All this begs the point that anyone who deprives another person of food will CAUSE that person die. Anyone who engages in activities that will cause the death of another human being is not "letting" death occur, it is causing death to occur.

Words have meaning. The fact that this woman felt pricked in her conscious enough for her to twist her words from an active killing to a passive allowing of a death demonstrates that she knows in her heart that what the doctors were doing was wrong. If the doctor's decision is not morally suspect, there is no reason to pretend that what the doctors do is to permit a death instead of causing the death.

The doctors and the mother should both be tried for ATTEMPT of murder. Unfortunately, this will never happen.

Knox Seminary and the Gage Controversy

I can only shake my head at what's going on. Chris Coldwell has a pretty good summary of what's going on:

The majority of the Knox board members, suspended or fired a professor for what they thought was an extreme view of typology; I don't know if that was the only reason, and this may be an over simplification. The session reversed that decision, and six board members resigned, including R. C. Sproul Sr. Eventually the Stated Clerk ruled that the Book of Church order governed the matter and that the session didn't have the right to overturn the decision (again, this is over simplifying; read the links). The session invited the board members who resigned to unresign, without any stipulations or qualifications. Two weeks later, evidently because the board members who did not resign were suspicions of the motives of the returning members, required a letter to be signed stating the returned members repented and other binding stipulations. Whatever one may think of the issue at root of the suspension/firing; this is just shameful to ask them to come back without stipulations and then, oops, when they took the offer, decide to impose conditions. Again, this is condensed and you should read the two links for the full story and the first link for the documentation from each side.

For further info, go here and here.