Guarding His Flock Ministries

Can “new apostles” do “greater works” than Jesus?

“Truly, truly, I say to you, he who believes in Me, the works that I do, he will do also; and greater works than these he will do; because I go to the Father.”
Emphasis added, Jesus, John 14:12, NASB [1]

Introduction
Essential to the claim being made by today’s new apostles or “manifest sons of God”—that they can perform greater “signs and wonders” than Jesus did—is the promise (cited above) the Lord made to Philip and the other Disciples (John 14:12). Referring to this promise, one of the authors of The Physics of Heaven stated: “Jesus said that we would do greater works than He did, but no Christian in history has exceeded Jesus’ works.” [2] The apostlette then adds that doing “greater works” than Jesus “should be an everyday occurrence for us.” [3]

Jesus words are foundational to claims of performing “signs and wonders” by advocates of a New Apostolic Reformation (NAR). John 14:12 serves as their validating text to be able to perform greater miracles in the 21st century than Jesus did in the 1st. Therefore, understanding what Jesus meant when He made this promise to His Disciples becomes imperative for believers today. Should we really expect to perform greater “signs and wonders” than Jesus did? At face value, Jesus seems to have said so. Thus, the context and content of what Jesus actually said must be considered.
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A Serial Book Review & Theological Interaction: Part 2
Review of Chapter 1: The Power of the Zero-Point Field by Judy Franklin [1]

“At present, nobody knows how to exploit the zero-point energy in a macroscopic device that delivers sizable amounts of energy. There is, however, a considerable fringe element (similar to those attracted to UFOs, astrology, numerology and so on) of people who speculate and fantasize about the possibility of exploiting the zero-point energy to achieve various technical marvels and the long-sought ‘perpetual motion.’ Consider yourself warned.”
Atomic Physicist Steven K. Lamoreaux, quoted by John Obienin, Materials Science Researcher at the University of Nebraska [2]

The Manifest Sons of God
The Apostle Paul told believers that “the anxious longing of the creation waits eagerly for the revealing of the sons of God” (Emphasis added, Romans 8:19, NASB). About this verse and others in the passage, Judy Franklin testifies that something “latches onto your spirit and you just have to understand what they [the verses] mean.” (TPOH, 1)  So she asks, “Hadn’t the children of God already been revealed by the time Paul wrote this letter to the Romans?” (TPOH, 2) Well . . . her answer is a qualified “yes” and “no.”

Because Paul wrote Romans years after Jesus’ life and death, and according to Acts “miracles and healings and deliverances and even resurrections from the dead were almost common-place,” (TPOH, 2), the author reasons that in part, the wait was over. With “signs and wonders” as their calling card, sons of God were manifested during the apostolic era and intermittently throughout church history. But Judy felt there was a deeper meaning in the verses (Romans 8:18-22). So she “began earnestly seeking the Lord as to what they meant.” (TPOH, 2) In three stages, God explained to her the future and deeper meaning of “the revealing of the sons of God.”
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A Serial Book Review & Theological Interaction: Part 1

Judy Franklin, Ellyn Davis and others, The Physics of Heaven: Exploring God’s Mysteries of Sound, Light, Energy, Vibrations and Quantum Physics (Crossville, TN: Double Portion Publishing, 2012): xiv + 188.

Introduction

Canst thou by searching find out God? canst thou find out the Almighty unto perfection? It is as high as heaven; what canst thou do? deeper than hell; what canst thou know?
Emphasis added, Zophar to Job, Job 11:7-8, KJV

Beginning about the time of Albert Einstein (1879-1955), Quantum or theoretical physics has influenced the way people view life’s reality, the way in which “we live and move and exist” (Acts 17:28). Whereas “the old physics,” championed by Sir Isaac Newton (1643-1727), assumed that the infinite universe worked like “a clock”—an ordered and predictable cosmos—“the new physics” observes an infinitesimal universe playing itself out like “a game”—a disordered and unpredictable chaos. So in a “blended system” where cosmos and chaos are ever interacting at reality’s macro and micro levels (“as above, so below”), it’s theorized that a butterfly flapping its wings in Africa could stimulate the formation of a hurricane in the Atlantic. This new science, or theoretical way of “observing” the universe has caused many within Christendom, even claimed evangelicals, to adapt their faith to it. [1]

From the Quantum way of looking at reality have emerged theological movements such as Process Theology and Open Theism. [2] To accommodate the way in which quantum physics observes a changing and gaming universe, these theological systems deemphasize God’s ruling over nature (God is creator.) on the one hand, while they emphasize God being in nature (God is evolver.) on the other. But now others in evangelicalism’s “big tent” are slanting their Christian belief system to accommodate a Quantum worldview in another way.

Whereas the former theological adaptations (Process Theology and Open Theism) assert God’s overall impotence as regards the overall functioning and outcome of the universe, some within the Charismatic movement assert that a Quantum merger is taking place between the powers heaven and the energies of earth. They claim that this merger will soon be exhibited in the coming of a second Pentecost in which Spirit filled and transformed Christians will play a “strategic role in releasing the glory of God on earth,” which means that by the exhibition of divine powers God donates to them, they will transform earth into God’s kingdom. No longer will Christians have to pray for God’s kingdom to come (Matthew 6:10). Rather, by exercising supernatural powers they will possess when the coming planetary Pentecost arrives, they will help God to introduce heaven to earth (“as above, so below”).
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Quantum Physics and the New Age/New Spirituality

Beware lest any man spoil you through philosophy and vain deceit, after the tradition of men, after the rudiments of the world, and not after Christ. (Emphasis added, Colossians 2:8, KJV)

In explaining the universe’s origin, the theory of evolution neither wants nor needs God. Assuming matter’s temporality, evolution proposes that by chance something derived and organized itself from nothing; or assuming matter’s eternality, the theory asserts that something evolved from something. So what matters is matter. Thus, the study of it—is it a wave or a particle?—becomes primary in explaining “the system” in which we live, where matter came from and why “It” continues.

By observing the interaction of particles and/or powers at the subatomic level, the science (Latin scientia for “knowing”) of theoretical, particle or Quantum physics attempts to understand why “the system” keeps working. But in light of a possible obliteration of the universe (if gravity should suddenly give up), evolution-based physics offers no comfort to the human soul. Hearts cry out, “How can meaning be found in this immense and threatening universe which many scientists assume commenced and continues by chance?”

Esotericism, or the mysterious spirituality of secrets, proposes to salve the angst. By combining the mystical religion of the East with the science of the West, the New Age/New Spirituality imagines to bring meaning to disturbed human hearts. In American culture, this blending of science and spirituality has become popular and as such, can enamor Christian hearts “after the rudiments of the world, and not after Christ.” So believers need to understand how the spiritualization of science can “capture” their souls.
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The Quantum Spirituality of Rob Bell: A review of “Love Wins”

Rob Bell, Love Wins: A Book about Heaven, Hell, and the Fate of Every Person Who Ever Lived (New York, NY: Harper One, 2011) xi + 198 pages, Acknowledgments and Further Reading. The back cover blurb first states and then incredulously asks: “God loves us. God offers us everlasting life by grace, freely, through no merit on our part. Unless you do not respond the right way. Then God will torture you forever. In hell.” Huh?

Recommended by a who’s who of emergent leaders, Rob Bell’s book Love Wins has, as it is calculated to do, stirred-up controversy. Recently, Time ran a front cover story on it. [1] Eugene H. Peterson lauds the book as being born out of a “thoroughly biblical imagination,” and a book “without a trace of soft sentimentality and without compromising an inch of evangelical conviction in its proclamation of the good news that is most truly for all.” (Front Cover Flap). Open theist Greg Boyd calls the book, “bold, prophetic, and a poetic masterpiece.” (Back Cover Flap). Andy Crouch sees Bell as “a central figure for his generation.” (Back Cover).
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