Sunday School - The Roman Catholic Controversy - Part 4

Silicon Valley Reformed Baptist Church

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May 21, 2023

The Roman Catholic Controversy Part 4 Date: May 14, 2023 Teacher: Pastor Brian Garcia

Adult Sunday School - Going Public Part 5 (Chapter 5)

00:00: It's a great honor to come before you this morning to congratulate you for your sacred service and worship that is only due to you,
00:07: Lord, as we worship and as we turn our attention to teaching. We ask,
00:12: Lord, that you would enable and grant to us the gift of thy Holy Spirit to receive the teaching from your
00:18: Word, that we examine the Gospel of peace, and Lord, that we cross -examine the fulfilling doctrine of the
00:25: Gospel. We pray, Lord, that you would grant us grace to be able to serve you.
00:44: And this is where things begin to get more interesting as we discuss the substantive differences between Roman Catholicism and the cross -examining doctrine.
00:56: Now, James Roy is very intentional with bringing out in this chapter the
01:02: Gospel of peace and emphasizing the peace aspect of it. What are some things in your readings this week that may be subject to you, or things of motivation or questions that you may have concerning this chapter?
01:19: Is it necessarily a peace that holds us good as a community? That's right.
01:25: So we're relying really on half the pieces of possession of Christian when we receive the
01:32: Gospel, pieces of possession of Christian. And it's something that involves us.
01:38: It's an interesting contrast to the Roman Catholic Gospel. How about that quote?
01:52: It's not about how you can't help. That's the opposite of the peace and security that we have.
02:00: That's right. That's right. David has that quote. It's a really good one. If you can sum up in a word, what is it that a
02:12: Roman Catholic supports in their Gospel? They lack assurance.
02:23: Now, yesterday we had a performance here by the grace of God. We were able to have a
02:29: DVD forward, and it was a wonderful event. And we had a whole section of performance that showed up, which is one of the reasons why
02:37: I encourage the Church. When we have these events, when we have these dialogues with other churches and other faiths, it's important that we be here in one.
02:45: We can have a whole temple of Mormons, and that's an opportunity for Christians. It's an opportunity for us to minister to these people who would, by all means, be here unless, you know, if not for the event.
02:56: And so one of the things that was interesting as I was speaking to some Mormons, and in particular the former
03:03: Mormon Bishop, was when we were talking about salvation. And even as he was talking about it from the stage here, the
03:12: Mormons, like the Roman Catholics, also lack assurance. And when
03:18: I talked to my supposed mother, and I talked about salvation, she too lacks assurance.
03:26: What is true of all false religions is that they try to sell something that they themselves don't have.
03:33: Every false religion tells you, here's the pathway to family happiness, here's the pathway to peace, here's the pathway to all these things, and yet they themselves are not possessive.
03:44: They're not possessors of that which they peddle, for that which they claim to have and sell. And the same is true in the grand scale of the
03:52: Roman Catholicism. Why is it that the false religions of the world, Roman Catholicism, Jehovah's Witnesses and Mormons, every other, why is it that they lack assurance?
04:12: Why do they lack assurance? They're given more, and not given peace right away.
04:24: I mean, I almost think it's absurd that you would, how dare you think that you're by the God, and he's given people more to do.
04:34: That's right. And also, Protestantism has to be wrong, because look at all the denominations.
04:46: So they have, it's chaos. That's the sort of thing that was made extra medical in the bishop. There's Protestantism, and you know, we're a sort of church.
04:58: Yeah, that's it, they all deny the sufficiency of Christ, which really is the heart of the gospel.
05:05: Yes. If Christ isn't sufficient, then who's going to make up that, which is lacking?
05:11: And it's you, and you were imperfect, so therefore, how can you have assurance while you were infallible?
05:18: Yeah, that's very important. It's just my idea, it's just kind of anecdotal, it's not from the book, but also if you preach a gospel that lacks assurance, then
05:28: I as the congregant need you, and you've got control over me. And I really look at all the cults, and I don't have to name them all, but one of the unifying factors of them all is control.
05:38: And people, they don't believe in the spirit working in people, and people's own responsibility. It's a matter of control, and it's kind of worldly, but I think it's true.
05:52: The lack of assurance, because yesterday is the most recent, more clear example of someone who would say,
06:02: I believe the Bible, I believe in Jesus. I don't think,
06:08: I don't think Catholics would be far from that. But when you start digging into the question of why they lack assurance, it's really a bigger issue of how they view
06:19: God, and their understanding of God's plan. You know, when they say, well,
06:29: I have to do this, and they continue to mention, like, God, like,
06:37: I hope God would save me, you know, based on what I've done. Or like, you know, maybe
06:42: I'll be good enough. It just shows that they really do have a poor view of God, and an understanding of Jesus Christ and His sufficiency.
06:55: So they try to fill the gap, because they don't understand what
07:01: God's done. Well, I think I mentioned several weeks ago, one of our
07:07: Saints, Paul, mentioned that Book of Mormon, well, that you're saved by grace, and for all you do. And the bishop mentioned it yesterday.
07:16: He quotes it. He quoted it from 2 Nephi, Book of Mormon. And again,
07:21: I think that that makes them honest about that.
07:28: Whereas other groups, such as the Jehovah's Witnesses and the Catholics, believe the same thing essentially. But don't have it quite as eloquently just come out and say that you're saved by grace, and after all you can do.
07:39: Why is that? Not just from a Mormon perspective, but from a Catholic perspective. Why is that contradictory?
07:45: That idea, that phrase, you're saved by grace, after all that you can do. Because grace is so meritorious.
07:51: That's right. So, you know, let's change the language a little bit. You are saved by other to favor, after you merit all that you can do.
08:02: Think about that for a moment. It's contradictory. It doesn't make any sense.
08:07: And yet that really is the dogma of every other religion. Is there's a grace component to it.
08:13: Grace is kind of there to make up the, you know, if you do 50%, 65%, grace is going to kind of fill in the gap.
08:21: And whatever the alarmatory number might be.
08:27: Which I think what was brought up yesterday in the discussion with the former bishop was actually really good.
08:33: Where the pastor asked, well what is that all that you can do, Mark? Right? What is that,
08:38: Mark? And I thought that was one of the highlights of his discussion yesterday. And so, you know, one of the ways the
08:46: Roman Catholic Church defines grace according to their Catholicism is, it's very interesting.
08:54: Everyone knows what it is. It says our justification comes from the grace of God. Grace is favor.
09:00: The free, undeserved help that God gives us to respond to his call to become children of God.
09:08: Adopt a son, to partake of the divine nature of eternal life. Now that is a really good point.
09:16: Why is that we need that position? What does this mean? It has, rather than it just being that gift fully from God, it has man playing a part in their response to being part of the grace.
09:34: Yeah, so again, what the Roman Catholic dogma falls into is avoiding grace with grace.
09:40: By saying grace is just a help that we use in order to respond to God's call to action.
09:49: Right? So it's not what takes us from A to Z. It's just one step for us as free will agents to do all that we can in order to care for God's favor in eternal life.
10:05: And so, it's not undeserved honor to favor salvation.
10:12: Rather, it's undeserved help that helps us respond to God so that we can save him.
10:19: Right? I think one of the problems with them is that they believed in infused righteousness.
10:27: And so, instead of Christ imputing his righteousness to you and you having his righteousness before God, they believe through some mystical means that he actually infuses it in you.
10:42: And so, it's a righteousness that is still some sort your own. If you can't return to your
10:52: Romans chapter 11, we're just going to look at one quick verse in verse 6.
11:02: This is in context of the remnant of Israel. God left for Israel.
11:10: But notice verse 6, it's like a rematch. But if it is by grace, it is no longer on the basis of works.
11:22: Otherwise, grace would no longer be grace. This is such an important passage in talking to the
11:27: Colts or to Mormons or Catholics.
11:33: Because it defines grace so beautifully and masterly there that if it is by grace, it is unmerit favor of God.
11:43: It's no longer on the basis of works. One of the things the Roman Catholics and the Mormons would say is, well, when it talks about works, it's really talking about the law and Moses.
11:52: It's not talking about works of general register in particular. Because it's talking about Israel, it's talking about the law.
11:59: The question I would ask, what other law has there been given? Well, we're not talking about God's law.
12:06: What law are we talking about? Right? And so that's the first thing I would bring up in the confirmation of the
12:12: Bible. The second thing is, if it is a basis of works, a basis of works, grace would no longer be grace.
12:22: Right? So you avoid grace, but what it actually is, as soon as you add something on to it, which is wonderful, is that by grace alone, in the
12:31: Scriptures, in Each Chapter 2. And so if it is anything added to grace, grace ceases to be grace.
12:39: Right? If you can merit it, if you can favor it, if you can muster up the power, the energy to be deserving of something that's undeserving, then it's no longer grace.
12:49: Now it's merit. Now it's, now you have, you have, you worked for it.
12:54: And now it's due to you. It's owed to you. Because it is a wage, and it's not by grace. If you work for it, it's wage, and you get paid by God.
13:03: That is not a gift of grace. Because you've earned it. You've merited it.
13:08: But if it is given to you without work, or if you've been given a gift, then that is grace.
13:16: Because you didn't merit it. It's not merit. It's a bastard. I was going to ask, you know, the Roman Catholic scholars are not stupid people.
13:24: They were very, very intelligent. They must know the languages, you know, as well and better than any of us.
13:29: How do they justify? Do you know where they go to justify this idea of, you know, just growing in grace that way?
13:35: They all go to James Chapter 2. You know, all of them. They go to Mormon. They go to Jehovah's Witnesses.
13:41: Anyone I say I've experienced in my conversations, and I saw Mormons go straight to James 2.
13:47: You know, that's just their go -to. And they say, well, you see, that man is justified not solely by their faith, but by their words.
13:54: That's James 2. I think all of us have a different view, interpretation. I don't know if you've heard of that. Sure. It being more so a faith that is important to us, being the fruit of the fruit of salvation.
14:09: So, clearly, we would not deny that works as an essential aspect to Christian life and sanctification.
14:15: But that rather, you know, where the Roman Catholic goes, they say, look, you have a clear statement from James where, you know, you are justified.
14:26: Let's look at that text, because that comes in often in James Chapter 2. And let's look at verse 22.
14:47: Talk about Abraham, his faith, and the offer to Isaac. It says in verse 22, you see that faith was active along with his works.
14:56: And faith was completed by his works. And that the scriptures were fulfilled that says,
15:01: Abraham believed God and he was counted to him as righteous. That's the idea of imputing righteousness.
15:06: And imputing that that's counted to you. That it's spread to you. And he was called a friend of God.
15:14: You see, a person described by works and not by faith alone. Well, that's a tough pill to swallow if you just accept
15:22: God's services and don't dig a little deeper. Because don't we believe by faith alone, by grace alone?
15:28: But don't we, don't we have that attachment to our own tradition? And this is what
15:34: I was going to say. In the same way, was it not also for Abraham to possibly justify by works when she received a messenger and sent them out by the way?
15:43: For as the body of the heart was assertive, so also the heart of the Lord was assertive. And just to give you some, essentially what we're coming out of the
15:56: Petitional Transition, it is all of this. This is what their section on justification.
16:02: They say that the grace of the Lord has on our injustice that is to cleanse us from our sins and to communicate to us the righteousness of God through faith in Jesus Christ and through baptism.
16:13: So again, they have the word baptism. And it's just, it's not something that is imputed, but rather communicated to us.
16:21: So it's not just righteousness that's held towards us. It's imputed righteousness around us that is just communicated to us through faith and through the works of the church, which is diocese.
16:36: So works is a major part of the Recapitulation. So how would we answer this question?
16:44: How would we answer this? Whether it's a woman or a Roman Catholic. I'm sorry.
16:57: No, no, no. Go ahead. My understanding is that it's using justification in a different sense.
17:08: It's not like in the legal sense that, oh, because Rahab did that, now she's accounted righteous. But more in the sense of justification of this demonstrates that her faith is legitimate.
17:22: That fruit shows that she actually has the grace. Yeah. There's a lot to say in response to this, but I guess just two things.
17:33: One was, is I think a good first rebuttal to that verse is just to show that Romans 4, once again on the surface, says the exact opposite.
17:42: And so the two have to be reconciled. It says in Romans 4 .2, for if Abraham was justified by works, he has something to boast about, but not before God.
17:49: But what does the scripture say? Abraham believed God and was counted in as righteousness. So Paul takes the exact same verse from the
17:56: Old Testament to say, once again on the surface, the exact opposite thing. He's justified not by works, but by faithful love.
18:03: And then the other thing I'd point out, once again among many other things that I have a lot of time.
18:10: In James 2, when it talks about Abraham sacrificing Isaac on the altar and relating it to the verse, therefore it says
18:18: Abraham believed and is counted in as righteousness. There's a time difference between those two events.
18:25: And a lot of people imagine, okay, so he doesn't swear, but then because he believes, he's counted in as righteousness. Actually, the statement that he believed in is counted in as righteousness, meaning a decade before he sacrificed
18:33: Isaac on the altar. So he's justified a decade before he has that work. And once you see that timeline spelled out, how can you say that what
18:44: James is talking about is he needs the work in order to be justified? Rather, he's talking about that in order for it to be complete, in order for this whole demonstration of the righteousness of God to manifest, in order for us to be justified before men in the sense of demonstrating that we do really have faith, that this has to happen.
19:10: But there's a decade difference. Matt? I noticed that if you compare the
19:17: ESV and the KJV, that a good cross -reference is 1
19:24: Timothy 3 .16, where it says that God was manifest in the flesh, justified in the spirit, seen of angels, preached unto the
19:35: Gentiles, believed in the world, and received up into glory. But when you read the ESV, it says vindicated in the spirit.
19:40: So you could say that in James's context, vindication and justification are synonymous?
19:49: That's interesting. Pretty much what Emmanuel is going to say, if you study justification, just do a word study on it, it can also mean, like he just pointed out from the
20:01: King James, vindication or proof of something. And so the context is the ruler there.
20:07: And if he's justified in, as Pastor Owens was saying, Genesis 15, that's one kind of justification, that's justification before God, and then later in 22, as is used by James, it's a proof, a vindication of the faith.
20:25: So let's take James 2 and 2 and look at the context for a moment. In James 2,
20:32: James is contending with the sin of impartiality in the congregation, in the church.
20:38: And he begins to point out all the, you know, essentially, he comes up, he makes the critical statement, if you transgress in one area of the law, you are guilty of breaking the law, right?
20:49: And so you're transgressing there, right? And when he talks about the sin of impartiality in the first couple verses, he says, you know, you're judging people in the church, and you're assigning them a seat accordingly, and you're showing impartiality.
21:09: And so what James is dealing with at the end of this, he's saying, you know, essentially, you see your brother, and he needs to be clothed.
21:18: So do you just say to him, be well, be clothed, and go on your way? Or do you do something about it, right?
21:25: And so what James is concerned with, he's concerned with the doing aspect. He wants to see if you claim to be a disciple of Jesus, if you believe that faith will be accompanied with works that match your faith.
21:39: He's not saying that justification is something that comes by the effort of works apart from faith.
21:45: But he's saying, show me your faith accompanied by your works.
21:51: Rather than this, I'm saying, let me see the fruit of your works. Let me see the fruit of your mind.
21:58: And this is something that we have to remind people today, because sometimes in evangelical circles, we fall into hyper -grace, which is basically, you know,
22:09: I can live however I want to do what I want, do as I please, and I have no concern for works, no concern for the future, no concern for acts in accordance to biblical values, because I'm covered by grace.
22:23: It's a hyper -grace mentality. Which is really interesting, because you have to be really clear about how to hold on to what you do.
22:30: And they're like the most legalistic bunch of people. As long as you pray this prayer one time, you're set, you're good to go.
22:37: As long as you pray this prayer, you're going to have it.
22:42: Even if you don't agree with the King James Bible, but if you don't agree with the King James Bible, you're going to have it. I don't know how to not.
22:48: I mean, it's interesting, for sure. But we don't hold on to that.
22:54: We believe that there is an evidence that is in accord with Abraham's coming today.
23:01: And that works are the evidence of our true religion.
23:13: What James says, the thing that he says, he closes the verse. He says, the body apart from the service is dead, so also the faith apart from the works is dead.
23:22: Which is to say, there's no faith at all. Even if you say you have faith, but there's no proof, there's no works, then you're demonstrating that you're just not having faith.
23:32: And that's the point that James is making here. He's not contradicting Paul in Romans chapter 4.
23:39: Nor is he contradicting Paul in Ephesians chapter 2. As a matter of fact, they both are completely borrowed.
23:46: Especially when you think about Ephesians 2 verses 8 through 10. We're talking about you received by grace faith.
23:53: You received by grace, and then you have this statement in verse 10. That you are God's which were heeded for his works.
24:05: So the fact that you were received by grace, you were received onto good work. And that's the flip side.
24:14: And that's Roman Catholicism and Mormonism view.
24:20: Is that you flip that. You know, you got to do your works, then attain.
24:28: The fruit analogy, I agree with James.
24:35: I think that means the interscript, the staple fruit onto which James is saying, go do more of this, and that's all.
24:50: In the early Ephesians context, what James is saying, you see that verse, He's saying your faith, your statement of faith is not a submission to God's act of investigation.
25:05: In your life. It has to be accompanied by evidence.
25:13: Just like why people like Paul, they teach this. You're all to be evidence of salvation.
25:21: If it cracks like a duck, walks like a duck, and it's a duck. If it doesn't, then it's something else.
25:28: So the dog naturally barks. The duck naturally quacks. The chicken naturally turns towards the owl.
25:34: The wolf turns towards them. That's regeneration. So, your thoughts and questions.
25:44: So now we know more or less what we can read about the false understanding of James. And just to give you some more from the
25:50: Roman Catholic Catholicism. He says this for reference to justification. And I think that this is an interesting thing.
25:58: Justification is not just corroboration between God's grace and man's freedom.
26:04: On the man's part, it is expressed by the assent of faith to the Lord God, which bites into perversion.
26:09: And in corroboration of surety, in the prompting of the whisperer, which heeds and observes the dissent.
26:16: The language here is very man -centric. You know, it's man's assent, it's man's decision, it's man's free will.
26:24: And that justification is just a corroboration between God's grace and man's ability to justify.
26:34: Which is worth reading. And this is why the Roman Catholics are smart. As Dr. Josh mentioned earlier, the
26:41: Roman Catholics are smart. And one of the ways that they demonstrate their smartness,
26:47: I think, is how they look up the language. So neatly. I'm going to serve as your prophecy.
26:53: You read this and you're like, I can't agree with that. But if you dig a little deeper, you actually see they mean something totally different.
27:02: Similar to the conversation we had yesterday with the Mormon church. The Mormons would say, we believe that everyone is a child of God.
27:11: On the surface, that sounds good. Obviously, we wouldn't hold that view.
27:26: But on the surface, that sounds good. But what the Mormon actually means by that is that we are all children of God in a familiar sense.
27:35: We're God's creatures. But we're actually us, as our creatures, through sexual intercourse in heaven with our mother.
27:55: So we're going to yell and talk about man's origin. We were created in heaven through sexual intercourse by God the
28:03: Father. And it is a period of circumcision. So that's different.
28:09: Right? So if you listen to, for instance, what the prophet speaks, and I've heard the prophet numerous times, he'll say,
28:18: We believe that we are literal children of our living Lord. Because they literally believe that God the
28:26: Father has sexual intercourse. They believe that Mary, the father who had sexual intercourse with Mary, never produced the flesh of Christ.
28:34: All these things is what they actually mean in the United States of America. Similarly, the two
28:39: Roman Catholics, in their official passages and teachings, they load up these words so heavily that on the surface they sound good.
28:49: But when they get in there, you realize the meanings are totally different than we do. When we talk about these same terms, terminologies, justification, sonship, adoption, all these things.
29:00: We need to believe in this. And the problem, you're talking about man -centricism.
29:06: The problem with all these, I guess, past heresies is that they try to lift man up.
29:12: By either putting the sonship of Christ down or something with his divine nature.
29:20: Or it could be like Pelagianism or just straight up Arianism with Mormonism.
29:29: The Jehovah's Witnesses as well. Yeah. They don't try to escape it.
30:19: So generally, what most non -Communists believe in terms of election is pretty much the same.
30:26: And it's essentially that election is a group thing, not an individual thing. Right?
30:32: And in America, there's the elect people. In Israel, there's the elect church.
30:39: You know, John uses the term elect lady. I think it's a reference to the church. So they look at election as a whole group thing.
30:50: So as a people, we are elected. But as for the individual, which is hard to have a group.
31:02: Yeah, exactly. Because you have to call them individuals in order to make up a whole. And so most of the goals that most non -Communists would put similarly to the
31:15: Mormon church. If you listened to the conversation yesterday from the bishop, he took some shots at Calvinism a couple of times.
31:27: And who would want to bring the bishop? Yeah, he said some statements about Calvinism that were rude.
31:42: And he actually addressed and touched on election as being a group thing.
31:48: And as a people group, right? But that individual thing is not an individual election.
32:00: Apart from maybe some weird statements made about certain things and polls as being particularly unethical.
32:10: Anything you want to add to that? Yeah. So let's focus again on the goals of the chapter.
32:17: Chapter 3. And that's the idea of peace. Why, again, is it that the
32:23: Roman Catholics are missing this peace?
32:29: What's missing in their understanding of the gospel? For instance, in the last paragraph of page 40,
32:48: Christians preach peace through Jesus Christ, not the mere possibility of peace.
32:54: So that's an important part because Roman Catholics in every religion teaches that, A, you can have a possibility of peace.
33:02: That that's a possibility. I think of the consequences when I see them in the hall, in the little corners, in the little stands.
33:10: They usually always have a magazine that talks about family happiness and the way to have family peace.
33:17: It's the way to have peace at home and all these things, right? And they suck at this vision of peace.
33:24: But, again, it's something that they themselves do not have. I was speaking to the
33:29: Board of Bishops yesterday. One of the things they came up with was the idea of assurance, right? And, again, they said we can't say whether we're saved.
33:41: Jehovah's Witnesses say the same thing. My mother tells me the same thing every time I have a gospel conversation where she says,
33:47: I hope to have eternal life. And this hope is different from the hope that we have. And it's very similar to the hope that the
33:54: Catholics bring to us. It's, well, I hope I can grow up. I hope that I can attain heaven and not have to go to work.
34:01: I hope I can be resurrected. What is the difference between the Christian and the non -Christian?
34:11: A, we're on the spot. B, we have hope that does not disappoint. You probably mentioned this before.
34:19: In my Comparative Religions class, we had an Imam Committee, kind of similar to what you had yesterday here, or we had yesterday here.
34:26: And I'll never forget what he said about salvation. He said, it is wickedness to believe that Allah will not save you.
34:33: It is presumption to believe that he will. And I heard that. I never forgot that. It's like, that's so similar to these other things we talk about.
34:41: But, so what do you do? Well, you strive and you strive and you strive and you worry and you worry and you worry. And you never go anywhere because it's almost neurotic.
34:50: I mean, how can you go in grace if you don't believe you have grace? How can you have a hope if it's not a hope that's been established or a peace that we have?
35:01: You know, the troubles with this kind of thing, I just sort of resented it for some reason.
35:08: And I remember one day, knocking on the doors. And I remember it was a beautiful Saturday morning.
35:13: Blue skies. And I remember just looking up to heaven one day and I said, I said,
35:20: Jalal, how many more doors do I have to knock on before you call on me? Like, how many more doors will it be before I feel your grace?
35:37: If there isn't more grace, that's another kind of grace. And so I wanted to learn more about God's measure of kindness.
35:46: God's grace. And that's what began to lead me down the road of, you know, eventually getting saved.
35:53: Studying the topic of grace in the Bible. When I was saved, early on,
36:02: I remember my uncle arguing with me. Arguing about me.
36:07: Because they knew I was proselytizing with their theology. And my uncle had said, this is the statement
36:15: I'll never forget. He said, no one can ever say that they're saved. No one can say it.
36:22: And if you can't have assurance, then what are we doing?
36:29: Like, why are we doing this? What hope is that? There's no hope at all.
36:35: Now, the hope that the prophets have, and Joseph's disciples have, is they have hope in the sense that I can get through.
36:44: In the sense of saying, I hope there's a possibility. Not as a definite thing.
36:54: Where the hope that God has given us is hope for the Christian. Hope for the Bible. It is an expectation of the promises.
37:03: That's biblical. It is the expectation of the promises. Not just a mere possibility or probability that we will see the promises.
37:15: Or rather, an assurance that we will have the promises. And that's the big difference.
37:20: Is that we have hope in the truest sense of a word. An assurance of all the things that we see.
37:28: An assurance of all the things that come from the promises that God may give to him. And to us who are in Christ Jesus.
37:35: That's the big difference. Hope to God is a mere possibility, probability. Hope for the
37:40: Christian is assurance. Big difference. Not respecting what
37:50: Jesus did and what it accomplished. When you say, I hope
37:55: I will be saved by that. It's like saying, really? You are saved by that.
38:03: Because he didn't do it, but I think he did it to save you. It reminds me again of what the word of God says in Romans 5, beginning verse 1.
38:19: It says, therefore, so that you may be justified by faith and have peace with God through all the
38:24: Lord Jesus Christ. And so, what is the truth being made for justification for you?
38:31: It's peace with God. Not the probability or possibility. It's God's actual peace with God.
38:37: Your enemy. God's peace with the Son of Jesus Christ. It says, through you also will be accessed by faith and the grace of which we see in it.
38:47: And we rejoice in the hope and glory of God. Hope. Again, not the probability or possibility, but assurance.
38:56: Because it says, when I got saved, I held on to this verse so strongly. Because as a
39:02: Jehovah's Witness, you feel like you're never standing. You're always on quicksand. You're always on shaky ground.
39:13: And it always reminds me of when you were a kid. You take maybe a rose petal. Maybe you've done this and you say, if he loves me, he'll love me not.
39:22: If he loves me, he'll love me not. And that's how I felt my relationship with Jehovah was. But the difference between Christ, or the true grace of Christ, and everything else that God has offered in Christ.
39:39: It's always, he loves me, he loves me, he loves me, he loves me. Regardless of how
39:45: I feel. And that's grace. And that's the hope in which we see in it. That even should we fall, he's able to make a stand for his grace.
39:55: Pastor. I appreciate what John said, that it denigrates what Christ did on the cross. But our hope is also based upon the historical fact of Jesus' resurrection.
40:07: I mean our hope is the resurrection because we will follow in a resurrection like his. What is the Catholic view of the resurrection?
40:12: Doesn't that relate to what we're talking about here? The assurance we have, because we say we're assured for a number of reasons.
40:19: Like, you know, just taking God's language plainly. But also, the historical basis of our hope is the resurrection.
40:28: How do they look back at the historicity of that? It doesn't, it seems like they've got to denigrate that somehow.
40:36: In order to come up with this unassured salvation that they preach. Yeah, but I also think in most
40:43: Christian theology, even when you're dealing with false or with Roman Catholicism, almost everyone agrees, especially because Roman Catholicism is a free religion.
40:54: You can have, you know, at least for the first 400 years, you're essentially the same creed.
41:01: They hold the resurrection as the apex of the redemption of the body.
41:07: It is the eventual outcome of our tradition.
41:14: In terms of how they get it, then I think that's obviously where we would depart. So Roman Catholics would agree,
41:19: Protestants would agree, that the end result of the faith is the resurrection.
41:25: The Roman Catholic view would see the resurrection a little more deified than we would. Where they would see that as, they hold on to that text, that we become partakers of the divine nature.
41:37: And so they say that we become essentially deified gods of some sort through the resurrection.
41:47: And I've seen a number of Catholic booklets on this, whether through the
41:53: Scholars or the Theologians of the Catholic Church, where it seems like the phrase that I've seen used before is that we will become partakers of the triune nature.
42:02: How that happens, I have no idea. To me, that would be a very regrettable point.
42:13: So I think that's where we would break apart. Obviously, the tradition believes that when we're raised from the dead, we're resurrected in our bodies.
42:21: We will have a like nature as the resurrected Christ. In that Christ is raised within our own body.
42:29: We too will have incredible bodies. Our resurrection will be like none of his own. But we're going to have
42:37: Christ as his holy god. And in a sense, rather we partake in the divine nature as being participants in the resurrection.
42:49: And that we will have a resurrected body, like unto Christ. But the body of Christ is still a body.
42:57: And Christ is holy, and we have a holy god. Yeah, I agree.
43:25: Theologian. Anything that comes to your mind?
43:37: Sorry? I missed the question. Yeah, I don't think they'd say we become eternal or anything like that.
44:07: But they have some sense in which divinity is communicated to us in order to communicate to God. That's what
44:13: I mentioned last week about the... I always forget. The Latin phrase, but it's like, you know,
44:19: I'm super adamant. It has something to do with the definition of grace. Our justification comes from the grace of God.
44:25: Grace is favor, the freedom, the concern of God. That God begins to respond to us all. We become children of God. We become sons of God.
44:31: We become partakers of the divine nature. We're going to have eternal life. It's that idea of the divine nature. And then there's another way to put it.
44:36: It goes on to say, grace is a representation of the love of God. It introduces us into the intimacy of true and eternal life.
44:44: Okay. Yeah. So, again, it's communicating. And I've seen stronger statements in which they believe that us being partakers of the divine nature means that we are meeting in the true and eternal nature to some degree.
44:58: Which, yeah, I'm not sure. I've done some research on that. But it's certainly a biblical doctrine.
45:05: And does that help with the original question? It's something that's getting more popular.
45:12: There's this guy, Richard Rohr, who really promotes this stuff. I don't know if this book is called
45:18: The Divine Dance or what. But it's a phrase that comes up often. The Divine Dance is what's it often called?
45:25: Parichoresis, which is the idea that there's a mutual involvement between Father, Son, and Spirit. And for some reason, people like to refer to that as a dance.
45:36: I think it's some kind of false etymology with the wording. But they say that we will get wrapped up in the
45:42: Divine Dance. You know, we become part of that parichoresis. It's all very mystical.
45:48: It's not clear what it comes down to. It's not exactly a love song. But it's all, yeah, it's promoting this real mystical iosis.
46:00: Now, explain that word for us. That's an important word. Especially when you look at Eastern Orthodox and Roman Catholic.
46:09: Yeah, the process of becoming God. You know, ontologically obtaining his properties.
46:15: It's not like particular properties. It's not, oh, we become eternal. It's just there's some kind of substance infusing so that we become more and more.
46:30: Anyone have a thought or question on that? It's pretty interesting. Some of the difference between, the substantive difference between these terminologies, grace, hope, resurrection, and what we mean by these.
46:46: And so what I want to walk away with today is that when we talk in terms of the Orthodox, and we share very similar vocabulary.
46:54: Just like with the cults, we have very different definitions for these words.
47:01: And so obviously, Orthodox is repeating something that the biblical understandings and terms we use.
47:07: And I think that this is going to be very helpful for many others. As we examine the scriptures, as we examine the process.
47:14: This isn't just for us to look at how things match. This is for us to rightly understand where they're coming from.
47:20: Rightly understand what the biblical teaching is on this subject. So that we can better minister to them.
47:26: And so again, when we say on the surface, we're saved by grace.
47:33: And we have peace too. We have this peace that is conferred to us through the sacraments.
47:41: And if you talk to any good Roman Catholic, that's what they'll say. They'll say, oh we have peace. Every time
47:47: I go to Mass, I have this peace that comes over me. Why? Because they believe that grace and peace is being imparted to them through the elements of communion.
48:00: Through the Eucharist. And so through that impartation of the grace, through the elements in the body of the
48:08: Lord Christ. There's an impartation of a substance, of a power of peace.
48:18: And I think that's actually, on the surface, I think we should say the same thing with regard to our sacraments.
48:26: Our sacraments and how we look at that. There is a surge of presence.
48:32: There is a surge of communication of power when we do these things. But again, we need two very different things.
48:39: Whereas the Roman Catholics say, no, it's something that this is actually the body of Christ. And the mystical body of Christ is being communicated to us.
48:48: Therefore, we have this peace. And so we need two very different things by these things.
48:55: Anyone else have any thoughts or questions? Peace, insurance.
49:10: Who's that step outside of Galatea? Does Christ's work really make us save a bowl?
49:22: Or does it save people's stuff? It's like, yes, you know, like when you're in Arminianism, right?
49:31: If Jesus did a work that made salvation possible, you have to believe.
49:37: You have to do something. This is not just a Roman Catholic issue. Once you're outside, a lecture, you have to water down.
49:52: And that's exactly what Roman Catholicism teaches. They say
49:57: God's free initiative. Again, this is sort of their Catholicism. God's free initiative demands man's free response.
50:06: That's exactly what they're saying. For God's free initiative is by conferring on him the law and freedom of the power to know him and to love him.
50:13: But really? The power to know and love him? Apart from Christ? Apart from Satan and faith?
50:20: Scripture says no one seeks after God. No one knows God. No one is good. And so, again, the emphasis is on the man -centric doctrine, which all forms of Arminianism ultimately is.
50:37: It says the soul enters freely into the communion of love. God immediately touches and directly moves the heart of man with the heart of man.
50:46: It places a man in a longing for truth and a goodness that only he can satisfy.
50:52: The promises of eternal life respond beyond all hope to this desire. And so, again, they believe that man's free response or free will is critical for being a recipient of grace.
51:07: Crazy. Absolutely. I was talking to an
51:12: Eastern Orthodox on the street. Like a convert. He said he was a former
51:17: Calvinist. And he's kind of grilling me on Calvinism and stuff like that.
51:24: He says that he so loved the world, right? And then I said, I kind of got the limited atonement.
51:30: I'm like, so Jesus Christ died for all the sins of being every single person without exception, right?
51:39: And then they still go to hell and pay for their own sins? Yeah. So that's two payments for one set of sins.
51:50: And he couldn't comprehend it. I don't understand. I don't mind. Yeah. I've noticed that there are some
51:57: Calvinists who are going to Eastern Orthodox. Which is more of a return to more established high churches.
52:15: Which is why you're seeing people kind of going back to Catholicism, Eastern Orthodoxism. You know, high churches that have
52:21: Calvinism to Eastern Orthodox.
52:35: And that seems to have more in common. It's interesting. Anything else from anyone?
52:45: So this was a shorter chapter. But again, this is a very substantive discussion, substantive issue.
52:52: Now, the next one is going to be very interesting. It's who defines the gospel. So again, we're focusing heavily on the gospel.
52:59: This was about ten pages. So please get through reading it as we can. Let's continue having these great conversations surrounding this issue.
53:17: Any other thoughts or questions before we go any further?
54:03: Amen. Amen. Amen. Amen. Amen. Amen.