NIGEL TOMES: LSM’s ‘Authority & Submission’ Tampers with the Trinity

[Evangelical]

Originally Posted by Indiana

Such careful and critical thinking as this will bring a highly controversial subject into the light.


This is from Nell 2015 on a thread she started called "The Sin of Noah?".

Genesis 9:18-27
18 And the sons of Noah, that went forth of the ark, were Shem, and Ham, and Japheth: and Ham is the father of Canaan.
19 These are the three sons of Noah: and of them was the whole earth overspread.
20 And Noah began to be an husbandman, and he planted a vineyard:
21 And he drank of the wine, and was drunken; and he was uncovered within his tent.
22 And Ham, the father of Canaan, saw the nakedness of his father, and told his two brethren without.
23 And Shem and Japheth took a garment, and laid it upon both their shoulders, and went backward, and covered the nakedness of their father; and their faces were backward, and they saw not their father's nakedness.
24 And Noah awoke from his wine, and knew what his younger son had done unto him.
25 And he said, Cursed be Canaan; a servant of servants shall he be unto his brethren.
26 And he said, Blessed be the LORD God of Shem; and Canaan shall be his servant.
27 God shall enlarge Japheth, and he shall dwell in the tents of Shem; and Canaan shall be his servant.

(Nell continued)
I recently took another look at these verses and I would like to make a few observations about what the verses actually say.

Rather than “deputy authority” the verses are the obvious account of an interaction between a father and his sons…it's a family matter.

“The sin of Noah”? This passage does not contain the word “sin”. The Bible doesn’t call what Noah did “sin”. He and his family were just off the boat and the earth had been wiped clean. He was apparently new to the vineyard business. What these verses discuss may have occurred at Noah's first harvest of wine when he drank too much and it put him to sleep. Then, he was uncovered “within his tent”.

Speaking to "deputy authority", Noah may have been uncovered in his tent, but to the outside world, Noah was covered ... by his tent.

He didn’t go bar-hopping. He didn’t go out carousing around with the boys, get drunk and take his clothes off. He was drunk and naked in the privacy of his own tent. Since the Bible doesn’t call it sin, should we presume to call sin what the Bible does not? Even though sin is implied, is there enough evidence to convict? Since it is not specifically stated in the Word, Noah's actions could have been unintentional so I can give him the benefit of the doubt.

Noah’s son Ham saw his father’s nakedness and went out and talked about it to his brothers. Shem and Japheth respected their father by simply covering him up. If there is a lesson to these verses, IMHO, here it is. In a family, you’re always going to see things you wish you hadn’t seen. There will be things you don’t want to see. In a family, “nakedness” is always a possibility. Parents aren’t perfect and their behavior will be exposed to the children. Of course, this doesn't excuse bad or sinful behavior of parents toward young children. In this passage though, Noah's sons are adults, so that's the context I'm addressing......

Nell

There was some more to her sharing, but what she has shared shows that she isn't just accepting Nee's line of reasoning but has made "observations about what the verses actually say", and what they don't say.

"When you are trying to determine the value of something as significant as the line of reasoning that Nee used to put Authority and Submission and Spiritual Authority into the Christian landscape, it is worthwhile to actually see where he starts and how he goes through it."

Concerning the sin? of Noah, I think "uncovering nakedness" means more than merely seeing someone naked and not doing anything about it. So God punished Noah's son quite harshly, merely for seeing their dad in the nude? I think any thinking person would question this view. God surely cannot be so petty, and people at the time surely would not be so prudish.

Verse 24 indicates something much more than simply seeing his father in the nude:

24 And Noah awoke from his wine, and knew what his younger son had done unto him.

I have perused the Jewish literature about this matter, afterall, the Old Testament is their Scripture.

Interestingly I found views ranging from Noah's son performing some kind of sexual act, to "uncovering Noah's nakedness" to mean sleeping with Noah's wife or even castration.

It is likely that Noah's son took the opportunity to take advantage of Noah's nakedness for sexual purposes, as did Lot's daughters who got him drunk to have sex with him. It was possibly not only Noah's daughters that were incestuous, but also his sons. If this is true, then I think it is appropriate to call it a sin.

If Noah's sons were not that way inclined, then I think Noah's son wishing to castrate him is a plausible view. It is a fact that after this event, Noah had no more children. It was possibly a jealous son who wished to do something to his father to ensure that he did not have any more sibling rivals. The view is such that Noah cursed Ham by his fourth son Canaan, because Ham must have injured Noah with respect to a fourth son.

There is a possibility of scripture tampering - making a very shocking event sound better by referring to it as "uncovering nakedness". In reality it could have been incest or castration. Hence the apparent jump between the crime? or "sin" and the punishment.

If this is true, then Nee's view on this passage as applying to deputy authority and submission is really blown out of proportion. It's possible that it has nothing to do with exposing Noah's sins, but about what the sons did to him which was far far worse.