August 10, 2017 Show with Tony Costa on “Is Sola Scriptura a Blueprint for Anarchy?”

Live from the historic parsonage of 19th century gospel minister George Norcross in downtown

Carlisle, Pennsylvania, it's Iron Sharpens Iron, a radio

platform on which pastors, Christian scholars and theologians address the burning issues

facing the church and the world today.

Proverbs 27 verse 17 tells us, Iron sharpens iron, so one

man sharpens another.

Matthew Henry said that in this passage, quote, We are cautioned to take heed whom we

converse with and directed to have in view in conversation to make one another

wiser and better.

It is our hope that this goal will be accomplished over the next hour, and we hope to hear

from you, the listener, with your own questions.

Now here's our host, Chris Arnson.

Good afternoon, Cumberland County, Pennsylvania, Lake City, Florida, and the rest of humanity living on the planet

Earth who are listening via live streaming.

This is Chris Arnson, your host of Iron Sharpens Iron Radio, wishing you all a happy Thursday

on this 10th day of August 2017.

And today we have as our guest for the two hours, hopefully he will be joining us very soon because he called in

earlier and we were having phone difficulties with him, but hopefully he will be calling back soon.

But we are having Dr. Tony Costa on the program to address, Is Sola

Scriptura a Blueprint for Anarchy?

And Tony Costa is Professor of Apologetics at Toronto Baptist Seminary, and

we are looking forward to this discussion.

He's also going to be involved in an event, an upcoming event on Long Island, New York, both

in Farmingville, Long Island, and in Medford, Long Island, that we will let you know about.

By the way, some of you may be expecting James Dolezal, who is an author and

professor at Cairn University in Langhorne, Pennsylvania.

Well, Dr. Dolezal had an unforeseen conflict in his schedule today, so

he had to postpone his interview.

We'll keep you updated on when he actually will be coming as a guest on Iron Sharpens Iron Radio

to discuss his book, All That Is in God, which was the original theme for today.

Thankfully, Dr. Costa came to the rescue, and hopefully he is going to be joining us on the program.

But before we even introduce Dr. Costa, God willing, I have

some very happy news and also some sad news, or some bittersweet news.

First of all, the very happy news is that most of you are familiar with our

sponsors, Cumberland Valley Bible Book Service, CVBBS

.com, CV for Cumberland Valley, BBS for Bible Book Service .com.

They are the ones that mail you all of the free books and Bibles that you win

on Iron Sharpens Iron Radio when you submit a question during an

interview when we have an author as a guest.

And all of our first -time questioners always win a New American Standard Bible that is shipped out to you

by Cumberland Valley Bible Book Service, and specifically by Todd and Patty Jennings, the owners

of Cumberland Valley Bible Book Service.

Well, the good news, the wonderful news, is that yesterday, Molly

Elizabeth Pfeiffer, the very first grandchild of Todd and Patty Jennings

of CVBBS, and the very first baby of Chuck and Christy Pfeiffer,

Christy being the daughter of Todd and Patty Jennings, well,

little Molly Elizabeth Pfeiffer came into the world yesterday, August 9th

at 6 .33 p .m., five weeks early, at 5 pounds, 11 ounces, and 19

inches with all fingers and toes, and both mom and baby are doing well.

Well, now for the bittersweet news.

My friend Peter Jeffrey, a Welsh pastor, author, and evangelist who preached the gospel

for over 60 of his 80 years on Earth, went home to be with the Lord today,

August 10th at the age of 80.

He was nearly 80, actually.

Exactly one week after his friend, South African -born author and evangelist Errol Hulls went home to be

with Christ at the age of 86.

Peter Jeffrey was ordained to the ministry in 1963 and served as the

minister at Ebenezer Congregational Church in Cwmbran, Wales.

And sorry to my Welsh listeners if I am mispronouncing that city in Wales, Cwmbran.

In 1972, he accepted a call to Rugby Evangelical Free Church where he ministered until

1986.

And then in 1986, Peter Jeffrey went to Bethlehem Evangelical Church in Port Talbot, Wales,

which was known as Sanfields.

That's where Dr. Martin Lloyd -Jones had previously ministered.

And Peter Jeffrey pastored there until 1994.

Since then, he had an itinerant ministry of preaching and evangelism, allowing him to preach at

churches and conferences all around the world, including Calvary Baptist Church of Amityville,

and then later Grace Reformed Baptist Church of Long Island in Merrick, New York,

which the church in Amityville later became after a merger.

And I happened to have the privilege of being in both of those congregations in Amityville

and Merrick when Peter preached there.

And Peter wrote over 40 books, which have been translated into many languages.

Many of his works focus on new Christians and

the foundations of the faith, evangelism, and salvation.

And one of the reasons why Peter Jeffrey has an enormous place in my own heart is that I know that some of you

have heard me tell this story on Iron Sharpens Iron Radio before, but when my

mother was dying of pancreatic cancer while she was on her deathbed, and she went

home to be with the Lord six weeks after being diagnosed, Peter Jeffrey providentially

was in the United States, and he was preaching at the congregation where I was a member, Grace

Reformed Baptist Church of Merrick, New York.

And I asked Peter, my mom is about to go home with the Lord.

She's about to depart from this earth.

And I asked Peter, would you mind spending some time with her

alone?

And he said, of course.

And he came to my parents' home, and he sat with my mother at her

bedside alone for at least a half hour.

It might have been longer than a half hour.

And I had some concerns about my mother's eternal state.

She was a wonderful woman.

She was a sacrificial woman.

She was, in many respects, a very, very godly woman.

In fact, there was nothing that I could even think of to complain about her.

And she put me to shame in most things regarding Christian

life, I believe.

But she was a Roman Catholic.

And I had very great concerns over her.

And even when she made clear biblical professions of faith in Christ,

although that was a mountain of relief lifted off of my shoulders, there was still some

lingering fear that I had as she lied there waiting to enter into eternity.

And when Peter emerged from my mother's sickbed, he said to me,

Chris, I don't know what you're worried about.

Your mother's going to heaven.

She's a Christian.

She's born again.

There's no doubt about it.

And that just really was a gift from God that

is beyond words of description.

I can't even express my gratefulness to God and to Peter Jeffrey for that

reassurance that I received from him.

So pray for all the surviving Jeffrey family as they mourn the loss of

Peter, who, as I said, just went home to be with the Lord this morning, nearly at 80 years of

age.

And he will be surely missed.

But as is the case with all precious saints of God who depart this earth,

our loss is heaven's gain, and heaven is now a sweeter place awaiting us.

And I think that something that I just said in regard to my mother's state of having come to a

genuine understanding and acceptance of the true biblical gospel while

on her deathbed, I think it has some kind of measure of significance to our

topic today, because we are going to be talking about Roman Catholicism.

My mother, as I said, was a Roman Catholic who eventually came to the doctrines of

salvation that are articulated in the scriptures, and she embraced them as

her only hope for salvation.

She embraced Jesus Christ and his death, burial, and resurrection, and his grace and mercy

as the only means by which she was entering heaven.

And today, as I said earlier, Dr. Tony Costa is our guest, a professor of apologetics at Toronto Baptist

Seminary.

And today we are going to be discussing, is sola scriptura a blueprint for anarchy, which is a charge that many

Roman Catholic apologists make about sola scriptura, the

Reformation principle of sola scriptura.

But it's my honor and privilege to welcome you back to Iron, Shrub, and Zion, Dr. Tony Costa.

Well, Chris, as always, it's a pleasure to be on your show.

Praise God.

And in studio with me is my co -host, the Reverend Buzz Taylor.

Hello once again.

It's good to be here.

And Tony, why don't you tell our listeners something about Toronto Baptist Seminary, especially for those of our

listeners who have never heard you before on this program.

Sure.

Toronto

Baptist

Seminary is

a

Reformed

Baptist

college

and

seminary.

Oh, great.

Well, the Reverend Buzz Taylor, my co -host, has something to say.

Yeah, this is primarily for Chris's benefit, this question here, before we get too far into anything that will get us off this subject,

which you'll want to get off right away.

But I haven't been to Toronto in a while.

I used to get there quite a bit for different functions because I lived in Buffalo, New York.

And do you still have black squirrels in Toronto?

Oh, yes.

We have a plague of black squirrels.

I've been telling my Texans back home.

But, yes, we are inundated with black squirrels, yes.

Well, I made a reference once to gray squirrels, and Chris was wondering, why do you call them gray squirrels?

I said, well, I've been to New England where they're red, and I've been to Toronto where they're black.

Yeah, I asked him that.

It's because all the squirrels around Pennsylvania and Long Island where I'm from originally were gray.

So it seemed like a redundant thing to say.

Right.

Yeah, I get squirrels even in multiculturalism as well.

Well, I'm going to give our listeners our email address right away.

It's chrisarnson at gmail .com, chrisarnson at gmail .com.

And please give us your first name, at least, your city and state, and your country of residence if you live outside of the USA.

And please only remain anonymous if it's about a personal and private matter that you are asking about.

Perhaps you are a Roman Catholic and you don't want to identify yourself.

Perhaps someone in your family, your own spouse, is Roman Catholic.

Or whatever the case is that compels you to remain anonymous, please

let us know and we will let you remain anonymous.

Other than that, please give us at least your first name, your city and state, and your country of

residence if you live outside the USA.

Well, Dr. Costa, I think that the subject that we are primarily speaking on

today, I'm not saying it's exclusively going to be the topic, but the topic that we are primarily speaking

about, is Sola Scriptura a blueprint for anarchy, which is a charge that has been made

by especially Roman Catholic apologists against Protestantism.

This is, I believe, one of the key issues that separates us

from the Church of Rome.

In fact, it is the very reason that many former Protestants

claim they converted to Roman Catholicism out from Protestantism.

They say that they found the defenses for Sola Scriptura wanting

and they found Protestant apologists incapable or inadequate

to biblically defend this topic.

And so therefore you have a lot of people who have abandoned ship and swam the Tiber River all the way to

Rome, some of them over this one issue, and then, since they became convinced

that Rome was indeed the true Church in their minds, they just really

forced themselves to acquiesce to all of the other dogmas of Rome,

some of them with different levels of fervency than others.

I have spoken with a couple of Roman Catholics where the other doctrines that

separate us, like the veneration of Mary and the saints, some of these men

don't even seem to be that keen on those things, but they believe that they are true just because Rome

tells them that they are true and that they are worthy of being practiced.

But first of all, let's obviously get into a definition of Sola Scriptura.

What is Sola Scriptura, one of the watchwords of the Reformation?

Well,

Sola

Scriptura

is

that

which

is

called

pianostas.

Now,

that

does

not

mean

canon...

And the Scripture is, according to biblically

historic Protestants and biblically faithful

Protestants, I meant to say historically accurate Protestants and biblically faithful

Protestants, we believe that Sola Scriptura does not

teach that Scripture is the only authority, but it's the only infallible, inerrant

authority that we have for the Church.

It's the final authority.

In other words, we do have other authorities outside the Bible, don't we?

Yes, and obviously one of the major texts that we who are

Protestant cling to as a defense for Sola Scriptura is found

in 2 Timothy 3, chapter 3, verses

16 through 17.

All Scripture is inspired by God, or God -breathed, and profitable for teaching,

for reproof, for correction, for training in righteousness, so that the man of God

may be adequate, equipped for every good work.

That means that everything that is a good work is in the Scriptures.

It's detailed in the Scriptures, it's mentioned in the Scriptures, it's commanded in the Scriptures.

And therefore, a Roman Catholic cannot really, logically and consistently,

hold to 2 Timothy 3, verses 16 through 17, because

the teaching of the veneration of Mary is not

in the Scriptures, and that would be a good work according to them.

The teaching of worshiping the elements of the Eucharist is not found

in the Holy Scripture, which they would believe is a good work.

And you could go on and on and on with unique teachings that are

found in the Church of Rome, that they believe that anyone, were

they to teach against those things, or

define them as false, the Church of Rome would

anathematize, and it has already anathematized, everyone for all

posterity who is against these things, which are not even mentioned in the Scripture.

So it is, I think, an interesting task that they have ahead of them to

defend those things that are outside of the Bible, when this text here in 2

Timothy 3 is not speaking of tradition at all, is it?

No, not at all.

And I think it's

important

for

our sane

mind, in

a

like

manner,

to

pronounce

it.

Now, going back to a definition of sola scriptura, this

also does not mean that we who are Protestant deny a role for

tradition in our Church either, does it?

No,

no,

and

that

was not

commanded

by

God.

Yeah, one of the dangers that Protestants have fallen into over

varying issues is when they deny that they have a tradition.

A tradition.

And they will start being involved in eisegesis, and they will start importing

things into necessary Christian belief and practice that are

foreign to the Bible.

To give you an example, you will have many evangelicals and fundamentalists who will be

absolutely appalled that typically Reformed

Christians do not have altar calls, do not have invitations where people

get up out of their pews and walk forward and have a pastor or evangelist pray

over them or pray with them in order for them to receive the gift of eternal life.

Now, there are some Reformed churches that still do that, but I think by

and large the vast majority do not.

But here you have these Arminian churches or churches that would

be outside of the Reformed faith who would say that we are either liberal or we

are unconcerned about the salvation of souls because we do not practice this

practice or this what has become a third ordinance or a third

sacrament, the altar call.

Because we say, well, first of all, we don't do it because it's not in the Bible.

And secondly, historically it didn't even arise on the scene until the 19th century.

And thirdly, you can cry out to God for salvation.

Right where you're sitting.

You don't need to make a public parade of it or a public ceremony where

you're walking forward.

In fact, the only time that we are commanded to do a public or participate in a public ceremony

revolving or involving our salvation is when we're baptized.

Right.

Absolutely.

Well, you know, that ties in with the problem that the Barna Americans

think.

Billy Graham,

Billy

Holbrook,

as you

know, a lot of this originated in the holiness movement.

With the altar call, remember, it's not just people coming to give their life to Christ.

Now you have people who've been, you know,

they had eternal life and they lost it and now they're getting it back again.

So, yes, there's a lot of tradition there.

There's some of the large controversies with the Puritans

and we shouldn't do it.

And the Anglicans argued that as long as it was, as long as it did not

violate...

Yeah, the different ways of treating silence in the Bible.

One group saying silence prohibited something, the other group saying silence gave permission.

Yeah, and we're going to go to a break right now and we already have quite a number of listeners waiting for

their questions to be asked and answered.

But if anybody would like to join them, if you'd like to get in line, our email address is chrisarnsen at gmail .com,

C -H -R -I -S -A -R -N -Z -E -N at gmail .com.

And please don't forget to at least give your first name, your city and state, and your country of residence.

If you live outside the USA, you may remain anonymous if it is involving a personal and private matter

that you are asking about.

Don't go away.

We'll be right back with Dr. Tony Costa, Professor of Apologetics and Islam at Toronto Baptist

Seminary.

On the theme, Is Sola Scriptura a Blueprint for Anarchy?

Right after these messages.

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Welcome back.

This is Chris Arns.

And if you just tuned us in, our guest today for the full two hours with a little less than 90 minutes to go is Dr. Tony Costa,

Professor of Apologetics at Toronto Baptist Seminary.

And he is also going to be speaking at an upcoming event that we want to make sure that you

are aware of.

This event is involving the 500th anniversary of the Protestant Reformation, or the

500th anniversary technically of when Martin Luther nailed

the 95 Theses, or his 95 Theses, which were a protest against

the practice of selling indulgences that the Church of Rome was known for.

He nailed those 95 Theses to the door of the castle church in Wittenberg, Germany, which was

actually just a common practice in the 16th century, at least in the academic

realm, where people would tack things to the church door to spark

debate amongst other clerics and students and scholars and

theologians.

And this happened to catch on like wildfire and eventually led to the Protestant Reformation.

People were taking Luther's 95 Theses off of the door and copying them and distributing

them.

And it really was used powerfully by God to begin the Protestant Reformation.

And this is going to be held at the Word of Truth Church in Farmingville, Long Island, New York.

And Dr. Costa is going to be joined by some local Reformed pastors there, Pastor Caleb Bunch,

Pastor Bruce Bennett, who is the pastor of Word of Truth Church, Pastor Dave Corson and others.

And this is going to be held Friday, September 29th, and Saturday, September 30th.

And for more details on that, go to wotchurch .com,

W -O -T, which stands for Word of Truth, church .com, wotchurch .com, and

also call 631 -806 -0614.

631 -806 -0614.

And then, also, the very next day, October 1st, at 11 a

.m., Dr. Costa is going to be preaching at the Hope Reformed

Baptist Church of Medford, New York.

And if you'd like more details about that, you can go to hopereformedli .net,

hopereformedli, for longisland .net, or you can call 631 -696 -5711,

631 -696 -5711, and ask for more details about that, and

directions, and so on.

And there may also be another addition to that lineup for Sunday evening that we are working

on, but we're not 100 about that yet.

We'll keep you updated on it.

But, Dr. Costa, do you know yet exactly what theme, specifically, you're going to be speaking on at either of

those events?

Well, I'll be speaking on the Friday, Saturday.

Great.

And we'll be mentioning that information later on, God willing, during the program.

When we left off, before the break, and before I go to any of our listeners, because there are a number of them, I just want

to make things clear again for our listeners.

We who are Protestant, we who are historically accurate and biblically faithful in regard to the

Reformation, we do not believe there is no such thing

as tradition in the life of Christians and in the life of the Church.

That would be absurd.

It would really reveal that you were blind to reality if you

don't recognize that.

In fact, every Church service involves some level of tradition, like the order of

worship, and so on.

There is not a liturgy that is God -breathed that is to

take place in every worship service.

These are things that people, through their own creativity and so on, have come up with that

they don't believe is in violation of the Scriptures or

unnecessarily adding things to the Scriptures.

It's just basically how things must function to be orderly and so on.

Am I right?

Yes, absolutely.

And as we said before also, it's a danger when you import your traditions

into Christian practice to distort or even eliminate the

true teachings of God, the true Gospel of Jesus Christ, and anything that would be human that would

dare to be intruding into that which is

especially salvific.

That's when you get into a very, very dangerous area.

I'm going to go to some of the listener questions now.

Let's see here.

I can't find them.

Oh, here it is.

We have Andrew in Avon Lake, Ohio.

That's interesting.

There is an Avon Lake right in Amityville, Long Island, where I was born and raised.

I used to visit that lake quite often as a child especially.

Avon Lake, Ohio is where Andrew, our listener, is from.

And he says, Would it be true to say that sola scriptura doesn't mean that the Bible is the only authority?

We already addressed that.

He asks also, How do I answer a Catholic that might say if I use

the Bible alone as my final authority, then my ultimate authority is really myself

because I am relying on my own ability to interpret the Bible?

In other words, we have Protestants made ourselves our highest authority.

Yes, I have heard that accusation by Catholic individuals and Catholic apologists who

have actually used the term that we make ourselves little Protestant popes by

using our own discernment and wisdom and mental capacities to determine what the

Bible is teaching.

But if you could comment on that.

Yes.

I mean, all we're doing is

we're simply following the steps of the fathers of the Church and

the Reformers understood the same that Romans happened.

And Reverend Buzz Taylor has something to say.

To add to that though, because of the questioner, I think we have to

admit the fact that there is a lot of anarchy out there because of people who basically

interpret the scriptures any way that they want to.

To say that there isn't a problem isn't going to make it go away.

But you know, there's an assumption there, I think, behind that kind of reasoning that there are no

rules, no guidelines to the scripture interpretation that everybody is just left to himself

like what it means to me, therefore it must mean that.

But because of that kind of reasoning, we have had, I believe Luther was warned,

wasn't he, about if you translate the scriptures into the common language, there will be no

end to abuses.

And we have seen that certainly come true.

But that's because of certain people's abuses and certain prides that step in and people who think they're

the only ones that are right and all that.

It does not negate the fact that you can discover truth from the scriptures.

It's not that elusive as some people might think it is.

Yeah, well wouldn't.

Dr. Costa, the fault, the problem that Buzz is talking about about people interpreting

the Bible any way they want to, that is not the fault of sola scritora, it's number one the fault of sinful

men, and number two, the Bible itself does not allow for people to twist

the word of God in any way he or she chooses.

In fact, there are certain requirements one has to have to be a teacher.

Am I right?

That's correct, absolutely.

And one of the reasons,

and that's why Christians also believe that there is something called context, there's something called language,

there's something called exegesis.

And isn't it a bit hypocritical, to say the least, for Catholics to make this charge

against us anyway, this charge that we are little, we make ourselves little popes because we

interpret the scriptures as we see fit.

And now, obviously, that is not even true because if a person is

behaving biblically, they are not only going to be subject to the elders of their

church, and the elders of the church would discipline them if they were coming up with all kinds of heretical

and bizarre notions.

But the Catholic Church has no

real business, if you will, or has no

legitimate ability and logically consistent ability to make

that claim anyway because you have a multitude of little popes who

are Catholics who are interpreting what their infallible interpreter says

to begin with because you don't have some kind of unanimous agreement amongst Catholics as to

what papal encyclicals mean or even dogma.

There are Catholics who I speak with regularly, even those that are very conservative,

that will say, well, the anathemas at the Council of Trent, they really don't mean that you're a curse to

hell.

That just means that you can't be a member of the Catholic Church in good standing or what have you.

You know, you don't have unanimous agreement in the Catholic Church on nearly anything.

It's not really a monolith, as some might say.

So they really, to say that we are guilty of

turning a sola scriptura into a license for anarchy is absurd, because

they themselves are not monolithic and are not in full agreement and have a host of divisions

that might even be far greater in number than those who are conservative and evangelical.

I believe that Latin

should be

used in the

Mass and they reach out to councils.

Yes, years ago, I actually invited Fr. Benedict Groeschel,

who many Roman Catholic listeners would immediately recognize that name.

He had a program on EWTN.

I'm not sure if he is still with us or not, because he was quite elderly even when I spoke to him years ago.

But Fr. Benedict Groeschel, I invited him to debate Dr. James R. White on the subject

of the Mass, and he actually said to me that he did not

think that the subject was worth debating because he has many brothers and sisters

in Christ that do not believe in transubstantiation.

And I remember thinking, in fact telling him, wait a minute, the Council of Trent anathematizes

you if you don't believe in transubstantiation.

And he didn't think that that was really applicable in a severe and hostile manner today.

And he was just really...

I was amazed that he thought that that was not one of the major issues to debate, because that seems to be the pinnacle

of the things to the Roman Catholic Church in addition to veneration of Mary and the saints.

Right.

Right,

I

mean

the

catechism

of...

Well, we'll be right back after these messages, God willing, so don't go away.

This is our longer break than normal, but we have to accommodate Grace Life Radio 90 .1 FM in late June...

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Welcome back.

This is Chris Arns and if you just tuned us in, our guest today for the full two hours with a little less than an hour to go is Dr.

Tony Costa, Professor of Apologetics at Toronto Baptist Seminary.

Our theme today is Is Sola Scriptura a Blueprint for Anarchy? which is the

charge made by many Roman Catholic apologists and Catholic individuals

against historically accurate and biblically faithful Protestants.

If you'd like to join us on the air, our email address is ChrisArnson at gmail .com ChrisArnson at gmail

.com but before I return to our discussion with Dr. Costa, I have a few important events to announce.

First of all,.

As I mentioned before, the Word of Truth Church in cooperation with Long Island Spurgeon Fellowship

present the Gospel of the Reformation, a 500th anniversary featuring our guest today,

Dr. Tony Costa, Professor of Apologetics and Islam at Toronto Baptist Seminary

and he will be joined by Pastor Caleb Bunch, Pastor Bruce Bennett, and Pastor Dave Corson.

That's at the Word of Truth Church in Farmingville, Long Island, New York.

For more details, you can go to the Word of Truth Church website

wotchurch .com wotchurch .com or you can call 631

-806 -0614 631 -806 -0614

631 -806 -0614 806 -0614.

The event will be held from Friday, September 29th through Saturday, September 30th at

the Word of Truth Church in Farmingville, Long Island.

And then the very following day, Dr. Costa will be preaching at the 11 a .m. service at

Hope Reformed Baptist Church of Medford, Long Island, New York.

And if you'd like more details about that service, go to hopereformedli

.net hopereformedli .net or

call 631 -696 -5711 631 -696 -5711 631 -696 -5711 and I hope to be at all

three of those events, God willing, on Long Island and perhaps even a fourth that Sunday night that we

are working on that we have not yet been able to verify as of yet.

Then, coming up in November, the Alliance of

Confessing Evangelicals is having their annual Quaker Town

Conference on Reformed Theology, where I plan to have an exhibitor's booth for Iron

Sharpens Iron Radio at the Grace Bible Fellowship Church in Quaker Town, Pennsylvania on

the theme for Still Our Ancient Foe, referring to Satan from Martin Luther's Reformation

hymn, Mighty Fortress.

And the speakers include Kent Hughes, Peter Jones, Tom Nettles, Dennis Cahill, and Scott

Oliphant.

That's November 17th through the 18th in Quaker Town, Pennsylvania.

If you would like to attend that conference, go to AllianceNet .org AllianceNet

.org and then click on Quaker Town Conference on Reformed Theology.

And then we have, coming up after that, in January, from

the 17th through the 20th, we have the G3 Conference,

which is returning to Atlanta, Georgia.

And the G3 Conference stands for Grace, Gospel, and Glory.

And the speakers at the G3 Conference include such men as

Dr. Stephen Lawson, Vody Baucom, Phil Johnson, Keith Getty, H .B. Charles Jr., Tim Challies,

Josh Bice, a mutual friend of my guest and mine, Dr. James R. White

of Alpha Omega Ministries, Dr. Tom Askell, Anthony Mathenia, Michael Kruger, David Miller,

Paul Tripp, Todd Friel, Derek Thomas, and Martha Peace.

The January 17th edition of the conference will be exclusively in Spanish, and from the 18th through

the 20th, the conference will be exclusively in English.

The theme will be Knowing God, a Biblical Understanding of Discipleship.

If you want more details, go to g3conference .com g3conference .com, and please, always, if you

go to any of these organizations to inquire more about their events or to register for those

events, please let them know that you heard about them from Chris Arnzen on Iron Sharpens Iron Radio.

And last but not least, I need to once again ask you, if you are able to financially donate

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air into the future.

Thank you very much.

And as I said earlier, we are talking about is Sola Scriptura a blueprint for

anarchy with Dr. Tony Costa today and the

fact that there are all different kinds of interpretations amongst Protestants

and many denominations amongst Protestants does not mean that there is full -blown

anarchy or any more anarchy than you find under the umbrella of Rome as we

mentioned before there are all kinds of Roman Catholics even who are clerics

even who are teaching in seminaries and universities without

any kind of censoring against them or discipline or what have you.

You have Catholics all the way on the liberal end of the spectrum

who are in favor of getting homosexuality

legitimized you have social Marxism embraced by many Roman

Catholics some even argue that Pope Francis is a Marxist and I think that they have

a lot of grounds to make that claim.

You have all kinds of liberals that are still remaining

under the umbrella of Roman Catholicism without being disciplined or excommunicated and then you have

also Roman Catholics on the far right there is even a disagreement amongst Catholics

as to whether or not Fenianism is a heresy the belief that

Father Feni had that a person could not enter heaven without Roman Catholic baptism and other things

it's really a fallacious claim going back to what we said before isn't it Dr. Costa to make the claim

that is a blueprint for anarchy just because they see divisions amongst Protestants

they're making a claim when they have perhaps even more divisions than conservative

evangelical Protestants have among themselves.

Absolutely.

You cannot prevent division

arising amongst fallible sinful men because it even arose amongst the

Apostles.

I mean I'm not saying that the teachings the God breathed teachings of the

Apostles in the Bible are in opposition to one another but you had obviously the famous

instances where Peter came to agree with the Judaizers and had held

on to his bigotry against Gentiles and wouldn't eat with them and had to be rebuked by his fellow

Apostle Paul.

In that regard so I mean because of the fact that the Apostles even though the word of God that came through

them is inerrant they were themselves not inerrant.

Exactly and we see

that

even

in the

Old

Testament

you

have it interpretation.

And then in

verse

21 he says prophecy came not in old time by the will of man but holy men of God

spoke.

Now

isn't

it true

that.

Rome has not even claimed an infallible interpretation for

nearly any verse in the Scripture.

Anyway.

Raymond Brown and

I'm assuming

that

you agree.

In spite of anything liberal about Raymond Brown I'm assuming that you agree with his findings.

He's absolutely correct.

And well I'm going to go to another listener question we have Chris in Runnels Iowa.

Thank you for having Dr. Costa on the program today to discuss this important Reformation doctrine.

I'm curious if Dr. Costa is aware of any Roman Catholic line of argument against sola scriptura that does

not resort to a blatant straw man representation of the Reformed position.

In light of this how much more careful must we be in avoiding the same mistakes building straw

men when defending the truth against error like those found in potpourri.

Thank you Dr. Costa for your defense of biblical truth and Chris for putting

together another very edifying episode of Iron, Sharp, and Zion.

I can tell you one time of the year that I absolutely love potpourri.

That's Christmas time.

I get that little potpourri kettle cooking and the whole.

House is smelling.

Like cranberries and apple pie and pine needles.

But anyway I didn't hear you.

Buzz what did you say?

I said you heard it here first folks.

But if you could respond to Chris in Reynolds, Iowa.

Yes I think you said

straw men

because

you

remember

me and

everything I

mean if

you remember as well.

Chris that's one of the texts of the Immaculate Conception of

Mary

Debate and

Carl was saying the

tradition that Paul delivered to them.

He uses the past tense

so he tells them

to hide the Immaculate Conception and

what he's doing is they

are committing an anachronistic fallacy.

Yeah isn't it true that at that time that verse

came into being the canon was not closed

the word of God was still being transmitted through a revelatory

miracle to his apostles and so therefore there was a lot of

the word of God being preached that had not yet been inscribed or inscripturated

and then on top of that the Roman Catholic Church doesn't even have any of these non -biblical traditions that

they claim to be speaking of.

In other words the only thing that we have today that the apostle could have been speaking about is

the word of God in the New Testament.

Yes.

And this is

what I

asked

Dr.

Scott

on the New

Testament.

I believe in Thessalonians.

I think he even called out the spout here.

Now another thing that the Roman Catholic will bring up as

something in opposition to sola scriptura is they

say that we cannot logically use the verses that we claim affirm

sola scriptura in the New Testament because they will say since the canon wasn't

closed like I just mentioned earlier these apostles.

Were referring.

To the Old Testament only they will say.

But is that true?

Were they referring to the Old Testament only even though some of what was later to

be declared scripture even by Rome even though it had not yet come to be.

Let me give you an example of what I mean.

We have a very classic text in Mark

chapter 7 and I'm going to read a portion of Mark 7.

The Pharisees and some of the scribes gathered around him, meaning Jesus when they

had come from Jerusalem and had seen that some of his disciples were

eating their bread with impure hands that is unwashed for the

Pharisees and all the Jews do not eat unless they carefully wash their hands thus

observing the tradition.

Of the elders.

And when they come from the marketplace they do not eat unless they cleanse themselves.

And there are many other things which they have received in order to observe, such as the

washing of cups and pitchers and copper pots.

The Pharisees and the scribes asked him meaning Jesus, why do your

disciples not walk according to the tradition of the elders, but eat their bread with

impure hands.

And he, Jesus, said to them rightly.

Did Isaiah prophesy of you hypocrites as it is written the people honor me

with their lips, but their heart is far away from me but in vain

do they worship me, teaching as doctrines the precepts of men,

neglecting the commands of God.

You hold to the tradition of men.

He was also saying to them you are experts at setting aside the commandments of God in order to keep your

tradition, for Moses said honor your father and your mother.

And he who speaks evil of father or mother is to be put to death.

But you say if a man says to his father or his mother whatever I have that would help.

You is Corban.

That is to say given to God.

You no longer permit him to do anything for his father or his mother thus invalidating the word

of God by your tradition which you have handed down.

And you do many things such as that.

Now the Roman Catholic when we will bring that up they will say well of course Jesus isn't talking

about the tradition of the church.

These are these are anti -biblical.

Or these are traditions that are not in accord with God's law, will, and

pleasure.

These are unique traditions of men that have nothing to do with what we are talking about.

And they will say you can't say that the Bible is the only.

Inerrant word of faith.

Because whenever you have the scriptures being mentioned in defense

by the apostles or even by Jesus himself they are only referring to the Old Testament since

the New Testament canon had not yet been established.

So how do you respond.

To that?

Right,

right.

And

again

as

I know

the

elders,

the

scriptures

of the Old Testament

treads off the

grain comes from Deuteronomy

other false letters on

Timothy as his

third

Peter.

Amen.

And we

have to.

Go to our final break.

Dr. Costa I've already forwarded you a question from Joe in Slovenia because it's rather lengthy and you

can mill it over, over our final break and we'll have you respond to it when we

return.

So if you could look for that email that I just sent you forwarded from Joe in Slovenia.

So don't go away folks we're going to be right back in a few minutes and if you have any questions

of your own before we run out of time I would send it right away to chrisarnson at gmail .com.

Chrisarnson at gmail .com.

Don't go away, we'll be right back after these messages.

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Welcome back.

This is Chris Arns.

And if you just tuned us in, our guest today for the last 90 minutes and the next half hour to come has

been and will continue to be Dr. Tony Kost, a professor of apologetics at Toronto Baptist Seminary.

We are discussing, is Sola Scriptura a blueprint for anarchy?

And before I go to Joe and Slovenia's question, Tony, I just wanted to basically

reaffirm some things that we were mentioning before the break.

It is interesting, isn't it, that Rome will even claim that their traditions, although they will

claim they are binding, they don't believe that they are God -breathed in the same way that Scripture is.

They do see a difference.

Of course, the indifference seems to have very little importance when put into practice.

But just because they can say in their minds—now, I

use that phrase very purposefully—in their minds they say they can trace

their teachings through apostolic succession all the way going back to the first

century, even if that were true, which we know is not true, because many

of the Church Fathers would have believed polar opposite

on certain issues, on many issues to what the Church of Rome in the 21st century believes.

And there are some things that the Church of Rome has declared as dogma that were totally

absent from the Fathers, from what we can prove, anyway, from their writings.

But even if they could trace all of their teachings back to the New Testament era, just as

the false teachings that the Pharisees were passing on through rabbinical tradition, it even says in the

text where Jesus is speaking in Mark 7 that these things were passed down, you know, from

generation to generation, but they were false.

So this antiquity that they attach to their teachings is not a

seal of some kind of authentic

words from God or words for his Church that God would want his Church to comply with.

Right.

I

mean,

there's

enough

of the

elders

where

Jesus

said—they're

even much older than the Gnostics and the Judaizers—they go right back to Genesis,

why that man is a god or that he can be a god in the very

beginning, in the Garden of Eden.

But that does not logically follow that because it's—.

Right, and even the authors, the human authors of the New Testament, warned

against false teachers rising up in the Church.

Yeah, Acts 20, Ephesians, Elders, I am in

the Church, Paul, I

am a

native,

and Philetus,

who have heard, he says, and if

Carter was

right, wherever God plants his church, right.

That's a good line.

Okay, Joan Slovenia says, Thank you for your labor of love to bring us great instruction

from some of the best Christian leaders like Dr. Tony Costa.

My question is about Sola Scriptura in practice.

As Reformed Baptists, we necessarily affirm the doctrine of Sola Scriptura, and we teach and preach

accordingly.

However, it is just my experience—is it just my experience, or is it all too

common that when there arises a conflict or question in the Church or among brothers, we

don't intentionally focus ourselves on Sola Scriptura in working out disagreements, misunderstandings,

and questions of preference and opinion?

It seems like when tension occurs, the Bible is often the first thing that is set aside, and we go

about our debate ignoring Sola Scriptura.

What good is an affirmation of the doctrine of Sola Scriptura if it isn't adhered to

as our sole authority of all areas of faith and practice?

Thank you for mentoring and discipling countless believers around the world.

I'm not really sure what Joe Insolvini is talking about, other than perhaps he is

thinking of when we refer to the Second London Confession, or when our Presbyterian brethren

refer to the Westminster Confession, or when our Congregationalist brethren refer to the Savoy Declaration.

I'm not really sure what he means, because when I'm having—even with my co

-host, Buzz Taylor, when we have our friendly discussions and heated debates privately,

we are usually going to the Bible and defending what we believe according to something that we're reading

in the Scriptures.

So I'm not really sure what Joe means, but maybe you do.

Well,

I'm

not

sure

either,

but maybe

he's

referring

to

the Calvinistic idea of faculism, that is the idea of the

state church, and where there

is that model, they

have any—do

not pertain.

And so as much as I'm not going to divide

fellowship with a Presbyterian brother, baptism

might be even in the church,

whether—at the end of

the day, and I think you mentioned

this earlier, Chris, at the end of the day, we have to realize that we are fallen people.

We

always

live—unfortunately,

there's a lot going

on in

the

church, and

so

we

want

a remedy for perfection.

People are going to be perfect, not yet, but we're working on it.

Yeah, and if Joe is referring to

our—referring to the great creeds and

confessions, like the three forms of unity and the 1689 London Baptist Confession and the Westminster Confession and the

Savoy Declaration and the 39 Articles, whatever branch of the Reformed faith you happen to

be from, even if he is referring to that, most people, if they're rightly

using those creeds and confessions, are not saying that these documents

have the final and inerrant answer.

What they are saying when they refer to those documents is that greater minds than ours who have wrestled through these

issues have come to believe from the scriptures that this is so

or that is not true, et cetera.

I mean, going back to using creeds and confessions, those who rightly use them are

not saying that they are on par with the Bible or above the Bible, because they are just summaries

of biblical teaching.

Yes,

in fact, the

church

at

the

same

time is

saying, we deny

that.

And going to those councils, see, that is another strong argument that—I'm not saying it's

strong in its essence, I'm saying that the Roman Catholics strongly make the argument, with

much fervor and vociferousness, that those

councils prove, even when we refer to them, even when we refer

to Nicaea and Chalcedon, that is proof that we are relying on Mother Church,

the Church of Rome, to glean truth from the

scriptures that we otherwise would never have been able to see with our own eyes or hear with our own

ears, lest Mother Church set it down for us at these councils.

Isn't one of the first mistakes being made by the Roman Catholic apologists when

making those statements is that those councils were Roman Catholic?

Isn't there a difference between a Catholic council with a small c and a Roman Catholic council?

Yes, indeed.

It's quite—.

You mean, they didn't believe in the things that are unique to Rome, they obviously believed in the virgin birth and the deity of Christ.

Oh,

yes,

yes, they didn't

believe in the

Marian dogmas, and

second,

Athanasius,

and then other bishops,

these councils, they were

most

definitely

not Roman Catholic, and can

openly agree that

these Roman

Catholic councils

are

absolutely

ludicrous, because they were Eastern in nature.

If I could just quickly quote Athanasius here,

Athanasius, that sounds

like Sola Scriptura,

Amen.

Well, you are either a prophet or a mind reader, I say that tongue -in -cheek, because I was going to bring up

Athanasius, because obviously there is a reason why there is such a phrase that

has been passed on through antiquity until our present day, Athanasius contramundum,

Athanasius against the world.

If you could explain why that phrase came into being in regard to Athanasius that has a lot of bearing

on our subject today.

Yes,

well,

not

too

long before...

The whole church, the whole church was going against him.

Yeah, including...

Amen.

And that was his real sole appeal, was it not?

I mean, especially he never appealed to any alleged infallible pope, because one was not

even existing in, even according to Rome's own dogmas at that time, there

was no...

Unlike what the Roman Catholic apologists will claim today, that that belief has always been held,

there was no infallible pope when Athanasius...

Exactly.

And Augustine, if I may just quickly quote

Augustine, I must

not test the

one and you do not the other.

Now I very recently asked my friend Robert St.

Genes, who you debated, a Roman Catholic apologist, I asked him if he would want to

debate someday on the theme, is Pope Francis a faithful shepherd?

And he could not give me a decisive answer and he said, that sounds like a trick question.

The reason I bring that up is because with all this talk about Protestants being

without a faithful shepherd, an infallible papacy, an infallible

magisterium, their popes aren't even viewed as infallible

unless they're declaring something ex cathedra.

And that hardly has ever happened in history, am I right?

Yes, absolutely.

Well, I could say one thing that I agree with Pope Francis 100 on is

when he said, who am I to judge?

I mean, he is no one to judge, and that's why you will have your conservative

and traditionalist Roman Catholics saying, at least in private, when you bring up horrific

things that Pope Francis has said, they'll say, well, we don't have to believe that.

We don't have to believe that.

That's not dogma.

That's not ex cathedra.

We don't have to believe that.

But anyway, we're actually out of time now.

I am sorry to Tyler in Mastic Beach, Long Island, and some of our other listeners that didn't have their questions asked and answered,

perhaps on our next discussion with Tony Costa, you could join us.

I also want to remind everybody, hey, why not allow my sponsors,

Todd and Patty Jennings, to be more generous to their daughter, son -in -law, and

specifically their new grandbaby by giving that little child more gifts and so

on?

Why don't you help them do that by going to CVBBS .com and purchase something from

Cumberland Valley Bible Book Service in celebration of the Jennings' new granddaughter, their very

first granddaughter that was born yesterday.

And go to CVBBS .com and tell them Chris Ornsen sent you.

And Dr. Costa, I know that the Toronto Baptist Seminary website

is tbs .edu, tbs for torontobaptistseminary .edu.

Any other contact information you care to share?

Yes, I think...

T -O -N -Y -C, as in Charlie, O -S as in Sam, T as in Thomas, A, and then what was the rest of

it?

.webs .com.

Is that webs plural, W -E -B -S, .webs?

Yes.

Okay, .webs .com.

They can go to Google apologetics.

Great.

Well, I look forward to seeing you, God willing, next month at the celebration of the

500th anniversary of the Protestant Reformation in Farmingville and in Medford, Long Island, brother.

And I really thank you so much for being able to fill in at the very last

minute for James Dolezal, who could not be with us today due to an unforeseen conflict in his schedule.

Thank you so much, brother, for being available today.

My pleasure.

And I want everybody to always remember for the rest of your lives that Jesus Christ is a far greater Savior

than you are a sinner.