The Roman Catholic Controversy Part 12

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Topic: The Roman Catholic Controversy Part 12 Date: July 30, 2023 Teacher: Pastor Josh Sheldon

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The Roman Catholic Controversy Part 13

The Roman Catholic Controversy Part 13

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Chapter four of Romans, even while summarizing what's going on in chapter four of Romans, don't top your head, this isn't like a quiz you can start with.
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Anyway, remember where chapter, where Paul is in his argumentation when you get to chapter four of Romans?
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No. It's Abraham, and it's justified by faith, and it's justified by faith before the law was given.
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Therefore, our, excuse me, Abraham believed God, Genesis 15, 6, and it was counted to him for righteousness, and that's quoted all throughout the
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New Testament. It is like the paradigm of our faith. Romans four is that argument. Just him, him.
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He's talking about Abraham justified by faith, not by his works. So, starting at 422, this is why his faith was counted him as righteousness, but the words it was counted to him were not written for his sake alone, but for ours also.
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It will be counted to us who believe in him, who raised him to the dead, Jesus our Lord, who was delivered up for our trespasses and raised for our justification.
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Now, the next verse, beginning verse of the next chapter, which is the one that Martin Luther understood and God used to set the world on fire.
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Therefore, since we have been justified by faith, we have peace with God through our
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Lord Jesus Christ. So, this morning, we're going to be going through chapter nine of the
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Roman Catholic controversy, justified before God, Romans four.
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But we will start with song hymn number 584 by Grace, I Am an Heir of Heaven.
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When you have that, let's stand. At one.
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I grace these precious words.
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Remember when sorely by sin.
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When Satan comes to that spirit, when troubled conscience sighs for rest.
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What reason cannot comprehend? God doth to thee by grace extend.
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I grace this in death my comfort.
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Despite my fears, it is well with me. I know my sin in all its greatness.
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But also him who sets me free. My heart to not but joy gives way.
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Since I am saved by grace, by grace.
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We thank you for the gift of the Lord. Thank you for Jesus Christ and redemption that we have. We thank you for this time together in this beautiful facility.
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To comfort we have as we'll join together and look to your word to understand what you would have for us this day.
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Be with us at Sunday school, be with us at Sunday school as we go on for youth and children. And bless this entire day of worship that Jesus Christ will receive all the glory in all of us.
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Amen. You know, like I said, everything
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I have is on Google Slides. Just couldn't get it going on time. Dunderhead forgot his briefcase.
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He just got here. Can't get this thing to boot up a recognized thing. So I said, we're done.
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And all the notes are here. You can see that. You don't have to be advised.
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Instead of they were advised that he could see a phonograph or a record player. The little ones that they used to have back in his day going to 78 feet and you could read everything on the label while it was going down.
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Justification by faith, by works or by both. Now this is the question.
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We're going through the Roman Catholic controversy, what controversy there is. We kind of come to the nub of the question here today.
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How are we justified? How do we come before God? What is it that we present to God? What is it that we need to do?
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Now, in this class, we're informed, we're well taught, we have a standard, we have a confession.
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When we would ask that question amongst ourselves, we would say nothing. We add how much to the salvation, the justification that we inherited?
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Nothing. We know that. But this is really the question. And this is one of the things that Father Martin Luther, back in the 16th century, more than any other, that he was against the indulgences, he was against the practices, but it was justification of faith.
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And faith alone didn't really ignite the whole Reformation. So as we've been going through, as Brian's debating this through, the
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Roman Catholic controversy, here's a way I get Chapter 9, justification by faith, by works, or by both.
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A really nice picture here of Dr. James White, he's the first to meet our author. I just have a picture here of him.
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Has anybody ever met him or seen him live? Fierce debater, very excellent theologist.
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So justification, again, what I have here, it's kind of a cartoon picture of the judge, not silly or anything like that.
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He's bringing down the gavel and staring over his bench at you and the question is, are you ready to meet this judge?
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Because he has a lot to uphold, he's going to uphold the law, he has no choice. No matter what his opinion is, a good judge doesn't judge by opinion, not by his politics, or anything else, but by what the law says.
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One of the questions of justification is, are you ready to meet this judge? And on what basis will you meet him?
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And what do you think the result of this is going to be? Where's your defense? Where's your advocacy?
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And how are we going to escape that courtroom? We can see that the big problem with the
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Roman view of justification is that for them, justification is what?
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How does Rome view justification? Can anybody give it to me in a word or two? It's works, right?
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Sorry? Works? It's works. Yeah? Ongoing. Ongoing. That's kind of what
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I was looking for. Works. Ongoing. It's a process. The big problem with the
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Roman view is that for them, justification is a process that we engage upon salvation.
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You begin to be justified. You're justified, and we'll see, I'm kind of jumping ahead again, but your justification is, we would say, in what they're saying, we would say what they're saying is that your justification is not made possible.
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That Jesus made justification potential for you. That is really the big problem.
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This is the nub of the question, so this is going to be on my laptop.
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This is all really well prepared. Justification has to do with the nature of salvation.
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The work of Christ and the cross in Rome. So, justification, we've heard it said before, many of us have heard this expression, was it mean?
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Just as if I had never sinned. Would somebody have a different way they want to define justification for us, your understanding of it?
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Maybe have something? How do you understand justification? What do you think it is? Being right before God.
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Being right before God. That's right. Are we not guilty before God? Are we guilty of sin?
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Are we guilty of having broken the law? So, where does justification come from? Christ.
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Christ. And how much of our justification comes from Christ? All of it. All of it, 100%.
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This is really the dividing line. The indulgences, and the money raising, all that stuff back in the
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Reformation, those were terribly, terribly important, and they were awful practices back in the day.
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So, really the position of the church was justification, where we really are going to divide.
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This is the sword we're willing to follow, the knockout. We're willing to fight the knockout.
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So, justification, quote, that action in the law court, whereby a judge upholds the case of the party in dispute before him.
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One is justified. You think of the civil pattern, you have a plaintiff defending.
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Okay, one's suing the other. The judge is going to decide who's right, who filed the contract, who didn't file the contract, who needs to pay.
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In a legal matter, in a criminal matter, it goes to a jury, etc.
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The judge is the final arbiter that things were done properly, that the law was upheld, and that he gives sense according to the law.
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So, justification, that action in the law court, whereby a judge upholds the case of the party in dispute before him.
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Now, if we think in terms of courtroom scene, we know that in scripture, that's one of the most common motifs that we have, right, that God assembles a courtroom before him.
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We went through this in Micah, chapter 6, 1 through 8, a few weeks ago, when we were out there preaching. It's courtroom scene.
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God calls witnesses, and God is the judge. He takes all those parts on himself, but courtroom scene is very common, justification has much to do with the law, because it'll justify me, it'll justify the importance of the law.
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So, in theological terms, the judge is God, and the party in dispute with him is who?
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Us, yeah, mankind. So, in Roman Catholic theology, as we see in chapter 9 of the book, the judge has said, essentially, you can now become not guilty.
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We'll see how you've done when you stand before me. The idea in Roman Catholic theology, with your doctrinal justification, is, again,
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Christ made it possible, he accomplished justification, now you go and earn it.
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Now, if you read chapter 9, I want to ask, very objectively, for those who read chapter 9, am
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I being fair to how White presents Roman Catholic theology? That idea of a cross, that idea of a judge saying, you're declared not guilty, now go out and earn it.
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Is that a fair way to, do you think so? Yeah, because they explained it like, you know, that Christ had made possible this reservoir of, like, you know, righteousness, and that we can't attain it, we have to, like, by words, or by, you know, there's sacraments, and baptism, all that stuff, and...
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Right, good, thank you. So, this is really the Roman Catholic view.
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When I was in seminary, and I took the comparative religions, we had an imam, you know,
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Islamic, Islamic, I guess you'd just call them imams, like a pastor, one who runs a temple, or a mosque, and as we discussed salvation, he said something really interesting, many of you have heard this from me before, and I never forgot it.
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He talked about salvation, and said, how do you know? If you won't do right, and you're earning something, and it doesn't have the standards, it's like, okay, when you get to this level, now you've got it.
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Like in school, you know, you need to do on a test to get the A, the B, and C, and so forth. Nothing like that, it's just, you find out when you get there.
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So, a lot of other questions, his answer was really interesting, I never forgot this, he said, it is presumption to assume that all will save you.
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It's wickedness to believe you will not, compared to our security in Christ, that's just, that's been a lot.
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It's very similar to what the Roman Catholics have with this idea of a process, whereby
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Christ did it, and he said, there's a reservoir, there's a reservoir he made available, and as we drink from it, we become more and more justified, and eventually, we're going to die, one out of one dies, see
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God, and it's as if God's going to take this goblet, or whatever we're filling it with, and say, uh, that's enough, okay, we'll take you, or not enough, and you're going to go to purgatory for the entire time, subject even on its own.
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So, justification has to do with a lot of different aspects of theology, our doctrines, the things that we believe in, the nature of sin, this is
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Blight on page 125, the basic concept of sin, the rebellion against God, and God's law, is not disputed in Roman Catholic teaching, neither is, neither is it contested that sin separates man from God, though the extent of the separation, and the results for the quote -unquote natural or lost, is an issue of disagreement, the important issue here, and I'm quoting
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Dr. White here, however, revolves around the kinds of sin, and the penalties of sin, along with how sin is forgiven, and here we're going to get into the whole venial and mortal sin identity, anyone familiar with that, or learned about it when you read the book?
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Venial versus mortal sin, it's really interesting, because it's very consistent with their idea that you're going to earn your justification as you go, and in order to say you're going to earn it as you go, what
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Christ made possible, now you drink from that reservoir of perpetual alchemy, in order to have that, it seems logical,
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I don't agree with it, but it's a logical step to say we need not need to sort out the sins, what are these types of sins that we have, so venial, venial, on offense again, this is quote, this is taken from the
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Roman Catholic teaching, what's that word,
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Roman Catholicism, quote, on offense against God, which does not deprive the sinner of sanctifying grace, it is called venial, because the soul still has the vital principle that allows a cure from within, similar to the healing of a sick or diseased body, whose source of animation, the soul, is still present to restore the ailing body to health, what do you think of that, convoluted, convoluted, whoa,
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I think that's generous, what's interesting, this is something that Brian complained about in a previous chapter, but he complained, he showed how when
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Roman Catholic doctrine is explained in something like this, rather than going to scripture, which was
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John's complaint just a second ago, rather than going to scripture, they go very quickly to illustrations, they did it here, and this was a quote from their own
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Catholicism, they say, okay, so this won't kill you, you still have spiritual animation, and rather than showing us a scripture, which
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I don't know which one they would possibly twist to justify that, but rather than going to a scripture, they go to the illustration, which is, as a quick aside for you, as you study other books, and you're looking to edify yourself by reading new materials, watch out for those that make a statement like that, and rather than analyzing the scripture for you, jump to examples and illustrations, not always wrong, but it's a bit of a warning sign, be a little circumspect when you see exactly that kind of thing, okay, so that's a venial sin, a mortal sin, this is way smaller, let me just take this out for a laptop in there, no,
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I've got it here, thank you, okay, so mortal sin, an actual sin that destroys sanctifying grace and causes the supernatural death of the soul, mortal sin is a turning away from God because of a seriously inordinate adherence to creature that causes grave injury to a person's rational nature and to the social order and deprives the sinner of the right to heaven, this will be a lot easier, now, what's wrong with that definition you just heard?
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where did it come from? that's one really good question, let's think in terms of logic, what's wrong with that?
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grace like it's some thing that's living inside of you that can get killed, which is not, grace is, you know, unmerited favor, it's a kindness,
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I cannot kill a work of God by my own human work, okay, but it's treating it like there's like a bunny rabbit or whatever, we're going to have to eat it up, okay, so mortal, okay, so, it sounds almost as if there's a sin against God, a venial sin, that can we say without being silly and then there's moral sin, and that's in, well, you've taken yourself out, you've apologized, this is the end, you did the mortal sin, and we don't have enough illness for you, something like that, they're quite explained, if you can recover from mortal sin, okay, so think it's scriptural, we answer that, all this,
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Romans 3, 23, thank you very much, when does it come, 623, now, thank you, does it say, if you broke the law in one heart, you're guilty of all of it, and that's from James, right, yeah, okay, so, those are all true, obviously, because you guys go to scripture correctly, but the wages of sin is death, but the gift of God's eternal life in Christ Jesus our
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Lord, you memorize that when you're really young in faith, that does not say the wages of some sin, and if you break the really big ones, then you've broken the whole law, but here's some smaller ones, yeah, you know, you're okay, you still have that vital printer, but, it doesn't say, millions and millions of people believe this, but, so these are, it, obviously, the subject is huge, we spent a lot of time, but this is just the thumbnail sketch of the problem, the breaking off point between reform or biblical theology, and what the
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Roman Catholics have done with this idea of justification, and you see how justification, not justification on its own, it's not just that poor woman's sin, it has to do with the nature of sin in their doctrine, he goes on, he being
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James White, to show how the role of sacraments in Roman Catholic theology over that church, on page 128, quote,
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Roman Catholic church is inherently sacramental, they teach that salvation is mediated through the sacraments of the church,
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Roman Catholic theologian, excuse me, defines a sacrament as, that's on page 129, sacraments then are channels of grace, the means by which the grace of God is applied to individuals, according to modern
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Roman Catholic teaching, the sacraments number seven, we have baptism, confession, holy Eucharist, confirmation of holy orders, matrimony, and extreme function.
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Now, John O 'Brien, who's a Roman Catholic theologian, he says, a sacrament is an outward sign of inward grace.
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A sacrament, outward sign of inward grace, and I just read there's seven sacraments, we hold the two, we have baptism, we have the
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Lord's table. Can we say that baptism, obeying
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Jesus Christ, and being baptized, is an outward sign of inward grace? Can we say that?
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Yes. When we take the Lord's table, as a means of grace in the church as we understand it, our faithful taking of the bread and the wine, is that the, would that fit this definition of an outward sign of the inward grace?
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Yeah, it would. So we don't disagree with that. We disagree with what part of their definition of a sacrament.
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That it increases the grace, that it merits. It increases grace, it's part of your growing in the justification, and when they say that grace is mediated, they're talking about the grace of salvation itself.
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Now, we believe that grace is mediated to us, through us, through Jesus Christ, but to us, through us, when we obey
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Jesus in baptism and in the Lord's supper at the church. We believe that those are means of grace.
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We don't believe that we're saved by it. We don't believe that if somebody takes the
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Lord's table wrong, that's a moral sin, and they're out of the church. Something to repent of is a serious matter, but this idea of how grace is mediated through it is another big divide.
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Any questions on that? Does it make sense the way I've explained that? Yeah. Now, obviously
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I'm relying a lot on Dr. White, who's a very credible scholar, so if he's fair to what the
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Roman Catholic tractors are saying, then I'm being fair. If he's not, then Ray will help their skelter, but I believe he has been.
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He has a lot of quotes. I'm thinking of them in their own words. The Council of Trent.
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Trent was in 1645 to 1663. It was an 18 -year council, if you will, in that time, in the city of Trent in Italy, to answer the
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Reformation. The Council of Trent says, quote, faith is the beginning of human salvation, the foundation and root of all justification.
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Do we believe that faith is the beginning of human salvation? How so?
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So by grace we can save a few faith. Faith is the beginning, in a sense.
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We could say that, if we're allowed to nuance it. Because faith is the beginning of salvation.
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Salvation puts us into that process of sanctification, which we believe to be a process.
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But faith is a once -for -all act of God given to us. And when we exercise faith, it's something foreign to us.
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He gave it to us. By grace we can save that in the Greek is in the Aristotelian.
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A definite act that took place. By grace you have been saved, through faith.
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And this is not your own doing. It is the gift of God. Some people believe grace is the gift of God.
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It's not. Grace is God's nature. The faith he gives us because of his nature of grace.
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The faith is the gift. Okay? Quote again, it goes on with the
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Roman Catholic scholar John O 'Brien. After he says that faith is the beginning, and again if we're allowed to nuance it, we can say, uh, kind of guardedly, okay.
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He says, quote, we are therefore said to be justified gratuitously, because none of those things that precede justification, whether faith or works, merit the grace of justification.
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Did anybody read that before you came here? Did you study chapter 9 so carefully? I'd love some help with this.
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Okay. I'll take John's word before I conclude. So what's he saying? We're said to be justified gratuitously, because none of those things that precede justification, whether faith or works, merit the grace of justification.
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So he's saying, in Roman Catholicism, we don't merit justification. We agree with that.
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Okay? I thought that was very clever.
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He says, what's wrong with that? And then there's an arrow pointing to the guy you met earlier?
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He might know. That's James White. So we're going to go on in his book and try and unravel that, um, that statement.
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On page 133 he says, quote, Notice what is said here.
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According to Trent, still official Roman Catholic doctrine, according to Trent, we can say we're justified by grace, or gratuitously, solely because those things that precede justification, which are faith and works, are prompted and aided by God's grace.
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The process of justification is based on God's grace. But it is not completely of God's grace, in Roman Catholicism.
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Not completely of God's grace. And it cannot be said that God's grace alone is sufficient without human works to bring about full and complete justification.
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All those emphases that I gave that were original. Did you understand that statement a little better than the previous one?
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Did that make more sense? So they're saying explicitly, and unabashedly, and embarrassedly, that it's a process.
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It's something that Christ begins. Now, there's a lot of others who believe stuff like that.
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I have a dear brother, who actually goes to church most of the time, a whole group, that believes something like that.
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This idea of a process, this idea of us exercising our faith. That you choose God. We can't choose
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God. We don't have it in us. We have to be touched by the Holy Spirit first. And we're dead.
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We're dead. And dead people don't reach out of the grave. Arminianism.
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Arminianism is really demonstrated in the church at the
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Nazarene. Beliefs that you can go in and out of salvation without having any of the immortal sins. That you can step in and out.
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You can be saved one day and then repent. Or do something wrong and you're not saved. And you exercise your faith.
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And so you go through this process that is growing in, though they wouldn't admit it, salvation.
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Very much like the Roman Catholic. So I would argue that Arminianism has a lot to do with this idea of anything having to do with our efforts, our works, we add something to it.
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Any questions about the statement from the
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Catholic Catechism and how White explains it? We're all on the same page here.
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Yeah, we're doing good. One thing I don't understand. And if I was much more scholarly
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I probably would have a better idea of this. But I do not understand how Roman Catholic theology would look at something like Romans 5.
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Which is where we started in the scripture. It says, therefore having been justified by faith.
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Having been justified. That word group in the
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Greek speaks again of a definite act. Something that happened. One time act.
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That has continuing effect. But it's not something you ignore.
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It's something that happened. We were justified. Past tense. And it continues.
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I don't understand. Maybe I've read more about it or understand Roman Catholic doctrine better than me. I'd love to have a quick discussion about how could they do that?
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How could they turn that word that any first year student in Greek would know that that is that definitive act.
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That one time act. And turn it into a process. It seems to me like the struggle between sovereign grace or reform theology.
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It's like walking a razor's edge. One side you tend to gravitate toward all the scriptures that say this is what you are supposed to do.
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And this is how you will get it. And the other side says this is what God has done. This is how.
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There is this dichotomy. A lot of it in some scriptures. Some people would call them enemies.
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The idea that God says come unto me all you who labor. And then you read later in the gospel.
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Jesus says no man can come unto me. So you have a responsibility but you can't.
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So reconciling that is the problem. We've talked about antinomies before.
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Antinomies is two equally true statements that seem to be in conflict with each other. And John's spot on that all men everywhere are commanded to repent without this.
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Said the apostle Paul at the Europolis. That's an example of what John was speaking of there.
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And yet Paul knew better than anybody. That unless Jesus whacks you in the head and knocks you off course on the way to Damascus.
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And shows himself to you. You can't repent. It's impossible. Ezekiel 36 -24.
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The new heart. You have a heart of stone and you cannot repent. It's impossible. But what does
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Jesus say about things that are impossible? He says nothing shall be impossible for this person.
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But again, it's always interesting. I wish I had a better grip on history. Real simple to understand
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Greek phrase. Which has a very distinct meaning. James.
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I think the Roman Catholics believed from the time that we were baptized.
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If you're an infant being baptized. Then that means that's conversion.
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Now if you are baptized just because you got converted from another religion.
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It's the same thing. So if you're not part of the Roman Catholic. And not baptized by the
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Roman Catholic. Then you're not clean. But baptism for them is being cleansed.
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So now if you are baptized at any age. Then you are should we say perfect.
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Now if you lied. That's being seen. Now if you disobey your parents.
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That mortals. So those are the things that are basic to Roman Catholicism.
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Right. We're going to get to that in a minute. But I'm glad you brought it up now. They do believe that baptism saves from membership in the church.
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And baptism are coincidences. If you're baptized you're a member of the church. And you're saved. If you're not a member of the church.
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Even if you're baptized. You're not saved. Salvation is mediated. So the
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Armenian is going through that. And so that's why they have carnal
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Christianity. Interesting example you gave there James. You said it's a venial sin to lie.
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And a mortal sin to disobey your parents. Yeah. What does it mean?
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If I command my children not to lie. Yeah. I was trying to put it together like that. Thank you
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Sarah. Ultimately it just seems to fall apart. Let's move on.
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Any questions? Any thoughts? Discussion? Jump in any time.
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Just that they had great power. So it was in Latin. And it was kept from the
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Han people. And the people in power were off. There was just a lot of power going on.
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So I'm not talking about the declaration in the 1600s. But just within the
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Catholic tradition. They kept it from the Han people. It could just be man's desire to rule over man.
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I can do all things through a verse that's taken out of context. That's good. I've said that a whole bunch of times.
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That's right. Oh, we're talking about control. I'm sorry. I'm reading a book.
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It's written by an investigative reporter who's really quite good. It's for mature audiences.
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It's not about salacious or anything like that. But it's tracing the doctrines of Latter -day
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Saints. And how it led to certain notorious crimes back in the 80s.
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And it's very likely we just talked about. That once you convince somebody that I have word.
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And I tell you what it means. And as my wife just said. In medieval times, they had that control.
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Because it was in Latin. And you could be burned at the stake for trying to translate it. With Tyndale and people like that.
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Suffered horribly for trying to put the Bible into language that people would understand themselves.
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It gives you a tremendous amount of control. It's one of the things that defines a cult.
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And why can we, not with pride, it's all by God's grace. But why can we say we are definitely not a cult?
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Because we teach in our language. The pastors don't have the word of God themselves exclusively.
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We have a confession that we provide to everybody as well. Those sorts of things. And so, yeah, it's kind of an aside from the role of justification.
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Just the control. What a sinful man can do with that. I like what Albert said. How did you say that?
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I can do all things in reverse. Take it out of context. All things in reverse. Take it out of context. So, what would he say?
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And I have this nice picture of Martin Luther. What would Martin Luther say about all this? I don't want to make this historical review.
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But Martin Luther obviously had a lot to say about the Roman view of justification. Martin Luther would say, by grace you have been saved through faith.
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Therefore, have you been justified by faith. We have peace with God through the Lord Jesus Christ. Staked out the difference.
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Again, by grace we have been saved. Not a process. A definitive act of God.
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So, moving on with James White's book. In chapter 9, page 135.
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He goes to this sub -chapter. Grace, is it necessary or sufficient? Is grace necessary for salvation or justification?
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Or is it sufficient? Now, what's the difference between those two words? In the context we've been talking about.
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That it is enough. Necessary. It's just one part of it.
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That's it. Does everybody hear what he said? It's a little bit louder because you've got to get it right.
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Sufficient means that it's enough and nothing else is required. However, necessary means that it's one ingredient.
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Right. That's exactly it. Is it necessary?
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You've got to have it. If there's other things you might have, sufficient means that's it. That's all you need. So, on page 135,
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Dr. White says, The issue never has been and probably never would be the necessity of grace.
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Roman Catholicism and all Baptists believe grace is necessary. Unless Rome changes its views, the matter will always be the sufficiency of grace.
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Exactly what Emmanuel was saying. Both sides agree on the necessity. The issue is whether grace is sufficient in and of itself to accomplish the salvation of God's people or if something else must be added to complete that salvation.
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There's a very succinct statement. And as I said, this is the nub of the whole issue.
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Justification. How do we see it? How do they see it? What's the problem with the way they see it? This idea of a process.
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In a process, you're adding to it. In a process, you're finding out if, you know, did you consider
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Allah wicked? And I can use that in Roman Catholic theology because it's so similar.
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When you see God, He saves Christ. So if you believe in Christ, you're justified.
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Not quite enough off to purgatory. I hope your family has enough money for indulgences to pray you out of it.
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All that terrible stuff happens after that. Or, sufficient.
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What Christ did on the cross is all we need. Because Christ has crossed His salvation.
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He has finished 100%. I don't like to say 1 ,000%. 100 % means everything.
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It's all there. And this is the issue. I don't want to be a sinful man who just wants to maintain the traditions of men.
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Those sorts of things. And also, it's hard not to know ourselves. Go to the foot of the cross and say,
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I absolutely need to be saved. And I can do absolutely nothing to save myself.
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It's all I've got to promise. And God, when He does this, does it completely.
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He does it fully. We can open up to the limitation of the particularity of atonement and everything.
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The Roman Catholic New Catechism says it this way. Our justification comes from the grace of God.
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Grace is favor. The free and undeserved, get this word, the free and undeserved help that God gives us to respond to His call to become children of God.
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Adopt His sons, partake of them by nature, and return alive. Now that last part of it sounds wonderful.
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Boy, you know, there's a lot we can grab onto there. And most of us can already think of the verses that say, we become children of God.
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Right? We know that by Christ, by His salvation, by His bringing us to Himself, we become children of God.
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He's not ashamed to call us children. That's good. Adopt His sons.
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We all know that from the book of Galatians. Adopted by faith. Isaac, the children of promise.
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We can find all kinds of things like that. Partakers of the divine nature. Where's that from? Is that 1st or 2nd
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Peter? Which one's 1st Peter? We're partakers of the divine nature by faith. Eternal life, obviously, salvation.
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That's all great. What was the problem with the New Catechism as I just read it? Help? The word help?
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Help. Yeah. God needs help. We need to add. And help sounds
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Armenian, again. And the
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Catholics would never agree that they are Armenian in any way. But it is the same idea.
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That we cooperate with God. You know, we often talk about let God. We use that here sometimes.
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We need it in a total way. Kezik was the brothers were a big part of this back in the 17th century.
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I believe it was. But they still have Kezik conventions. And their motto is still the same as it was way back then when it started.
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Kezik is just the name of the place where it started. And anybody know what their motto is? Just a couple of minutes.
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What's their motto? To this day. I'm just guessing from what you just said.
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Let go and let God. She knew. Let go and let God. Allow God.
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They had this word. I'm going through the slides real fast so I can give you a quick anecdote.
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When the church that I got saved in, I believe it was Saved Church, They had something that started on a particular
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Sunday. And it was called Holy Spirit Flex Day. I'm not going to talk to you about it.
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But it was announced this way. The pastor got up and said, today is a special day. Today is
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Holy Spirit Flex Day. Today we're going to let the Holy Spirit have his way with us. And he's going to be in charge of the service.
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Who was it last week? I wasn't in seminary.
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I didn't have theological categories. I just knew. We're going to let God in. This is the idea here where we help
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God along in bringing about that which Christ his beloved son died. So this is really the dividing line that we have between the
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Reformed view, Reformed Baptist view, and the Catholic view. Justification to them is a process.
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Something that Christ made possible. Very similar in idea to, and we have just a moment to take an excursion on it, the limitation of atonement.
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Do you know what I refer to it? The L stands for limited atonement. And what do we mean by that?
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That God is stingy and doesn't want to pass out salvation? No. It means that Christ, or that God knew, or knows, and through all time has known who he put in Christ to be saved by his death.
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We're just saying God knew what he was doing. Jesus knew who he died for. He knew all through time who his people are.
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That's what we mean by that. The other way to see this as Arminian and as rather Catholic is put your faith in him.
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Okay, so I'm looking at this by myself, and I'll find my faith. And when I find that faith, I'll put it on Christ.
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It's all of God. It's all of grace. The faith that we have that he gave us. This is the dividing line.
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This is the big deal of justification. Is justification a definitive act of God?
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Where because Christ paid the penalty, God being just must be paid, must have satisfaction for our sins.
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Because his law demands it, his justice demands it, his holiness demands it. All the nature of God demands it.
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Or do we come to him on our basis to present our sins and our works?
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And then distinctions would appear. Were you trying to jump in here? Yeah, it's kind of like one sentence, that idea is kind of like the end of the book.
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Then there's the book and all the chapters in between. And you can almost see how, well you can see how people would gravitate from chapters or others to the idea of the process being involved with it.
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They don't go straight to the end of the book. They see other scriptures that say, that have qualifications. And I'll give you one instance.
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In Colossians chapter 11, it says that you who once were alienated and hostile in mind doing evil deeds, he has now reconciled in his body a flesh by his death.
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In order to present you for the blameless and the perfect guilty before him, if indeed you continue in the faith, stable and steadfast, not shifting from the hell of creation under heaven, etc.
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So there seems to be a qualification. If we were gay, so what does that continue to mean?
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It's in a sense a process. And it's not the wrong thing to derive from that.
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No, it is a process. I believe the process that's spoken of is growing
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Christ in sanctification. We're growing holiness, we're growing knowledge of the Lord.
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And that's a process, we can agree, that begins upon salvation and doesn't end.
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I've come to the word, it could also be translated as sense.
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Or sense, believe it or not. Sense in particular. And that's a better sense of it too.
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But that's not the only one, and I can't think of others right off the bat. There are other scriptures that seem to have some.
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And basically I think there's the idea that it's true that you read in the scriptures about sovereignty and the tension between the two.
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We have responsibility, but it doesn't cause God to do or not to do anything.
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But it is our responsibility to obey Him. And it's clear.
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And it's not always something that's easy to see that it has no effect in a sense.
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I mean, I'm a little confused with it. Depending on where you're coming from, presupposition is prior to reading.
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You take a step toward God, but God takes a step toward you. Yeah, I think the idea of what
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Emmanuel was getting at, I think you sense
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Christ has done this for you. You reach out to Him more often. In Philippians, he speaks about reaching out to the goal of the every call of God in Christ Jesus.
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This constant process of sense. You can say, or from another scripture, because God has done this for you.
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Because of the beauty of Jesus Christ that has been presented to you, we're going to reach out to Him by God who works for you to work for His pleasure.
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So, as John says, we do have responsibility. We do work towards sanctification.
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But it's God who's doing that work in us. We have a responsibility to do the work that God gave us.
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He is causing us to do it, to put it another way. For justification, though, back to the topic at hand.
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Remember, justification is an act of God. That because of the full sufficiency of Christ's suffering, has declared those whose faith is in Him, faith that He gives us, to be not guilty before the
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Lord. So God is just. It's very important we know that God is just. And God did receive full satisfaction for sin.
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For your sin. He didn't just wave it away. That satisfaction, though, was not poured out upon me, or you, but upon Christ.
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That wraps up what I wanted to say. Tim, sorry I waved past you. I didn't forget that you had a hand up.
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Yeah, I think, you know, we're talking about Colossians chapter 2. I think it comes down to how we understand our obedience, our continuing, our steadfastness.
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I think the error comes when we take that verse to mean that somehow
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God is looking at our performance, or our faith, or our obedience. And then therefore,
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I think you're saying the same thing, right? But, I think a different way to look at it, a proper way to look at it, is to say, this is proof that you're sinning.
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Like, even like Revelation. He who overcomes. We're not saying, oh, it's your job to overcome and therefore you will receive the reward.
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We're saying, if you overcome, it shows that God has chosen you. And therefore you overcome. Very like in James, where Abraham was justified by his books when he offered the pies to come to the altar.
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Did that save Abraham? No. It justified, proved, if you will, that his faith was real.
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That he didn't hesitate to offer up. Let me close with Titus chapter 3.
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I'll read this and I'll pray and then we can carry on to service. To the rest of today's worship,
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I should say. Chapter 3, verse 4. When the goodness and loving kindness of God our
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Savior appeared, he saved us. Not because of works done by us in righteousness, but according to his own mercy.
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By the washing of regeneration and renewal of the Holy Spirit, whom he poured out on us richly through Jesus Christ our
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Savior. So that being justified by his grace, we might become heirs according to hope.
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With that we stand and with that we close.
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Our Heavenly Father, thank you for this day. Thank you for this study. Thank you for the discussions we've been able to have.
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Knowing, Father, that your scriptures clearly teaches us great comfort to our souls. That we have indeed been saved.
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And you, Father, have justified us because of Christ Jesus. And we added nothing to that at all.
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And we can never add to that. We were freed from the shackles of the law. From the dread of the punishments of Christ Jesus.
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Took it upon himself. And for that I give you thanks. And I pray we go forth in the strength of that truth.