Implication of Sola Fide

The Great Commission and Asceticism

Welcome to No Compromise Radio, a ministry coming to you from Bethlehem Bible Church in West Boylston. No Compromise Radio is a program dedicated to the ongoing proclamation of Jesus Christ based on the theme in Galatians 2, verse 5, where the Apostle Paul said, �But we did not yield in subjection to them for even an hour, so that the truth of the gospel would remain with you.

In short, if you like smooth, watered-down words to make you simply feel good, this show isn�t for you. By purpose, we are first biblical, but we can also be controversial. Stay tuned for the next 25 minutes as we�re called by the Divine Trumpet to summon the troops for the honor and glory of her King.

Here�s our host, Pastor Mike Abendroth.

Welcome to No Compromise Radio ministry, Pastor Mike Abendroth, and for the fourth time in a row, Senior Steve Cooley. Oh, thanks for having me. Tell me why you were called �Senior� again.

I forgot. It�s a rank. I think it�s just like there are, I mean, I used to supervise CUSC assistants and deputies, and then, you know, my rank is �Senior Deputy. I was essentially like a corporal. I mean, if you want to.

Okay. Did you have stripes?

Yep. Two stripes, yeah. All right. Did you ever have to rip stripes off of anybody else?

I had stripes ripped off me, but that�s a long story.

Branded. Well, this is not the topic of the show today, but since we were thinking about titles, I just wanted to give you a little quiz about monks and lifestyles of monks and their orders.

I�m probably not going to do too well on this one.

Well, I�ll give you something that�s kind of, you know, modern parlance. What�s a hermit monk?

Well, a hermit monk? I believe that would be a monk who inhabits somebody else�s shell.

Here it says, �A hermit withdraws to a solitary life, often in a cave and sometimes in a loose community with other hermits. This aramidic life was popular among devoted Christians from the third century till the Middle Ages.

You know, it�s like a religious deal. See, I think when you say popular, you know, I mean, my guess is it was popular with people who wrote books, not so much popular with real people.

Okay. Not too many more, but let me give you another one. A cenobite. C-E-N-O-B-I-T-E-S. A cenobite. Right. That�s� Well, you�re laughing, but it�s� I know, because I can see your mind working.

It's 10 gigabytes. No, 10 would be 100 cent. This term refers to monks who live in a monastic community. Cenobites live similar to hermits.

Oh, it's pi times, that's a cenobite.

Having solitary cells, but within a common building, they often observe a rule of silence.

This is why I was never into monkery.

What did Luther say, that out of all the monks, he was excelling in monkery? The monkiest monker. Okay, one last one, just because I kind of like the name. Stylites.

That was a singing group from the 70s. I knew you were going to say that.

I liked a lot of their stuff. Actually, and they had all the same suits on and they danced and stuff. Yeah, they were really good. Like the Temptations. Uh-huh. Simeon Stylites, 390 AD, lived in a solitude on top of a pillar, Greek stylos.

I think some of those things are just made up. Oh, he lived on the top of a pillar. Anybody could do that for more than a day.

What about those so-called pastors on Fox News that have been up on the rooftop for 90 days talking about moralism? Oh, boy. It goes on to say about the Stylites, though, they increased the height of this pillar to 60 feet until he died.

So in other words, they kept making it taller and taller because then he was more farther away.

Maybe he didn't have a vow of silence. You just couldn't hear him. This is just that dopey asceticism that seems like holiness, right? I'm going to isolate myself from the world. Well, here's a question.

Is the Great Commission, did Jesus say, because I have all authority, isolate yourselves?

Is that what he said? That's a good way to do evangelism because then people will come and ask you about your lifestyle. Why are you so quiet?

Why do you live up there on that tower?

Do not handle, do not taste, do not touch. According to human precepts and teaching, these have indeed an appearance of wisdom in promoting self-made religion and asceticism and severity to the body.

But they are of no value in stopping the indulgence of the flesh. Duh. Well, good. That was kind of fun, Steve. Thanks for playing along with me. Let's switch gears a little bit. Let's switch. Final Jeopardy.

Jeopardy, Feminism, and Defining Womanhood

Okay. They have Jeopardy on now? They've got a bunch of controversies with Jeopardy? What was going on with that?

You know what? I shouldn't even talk about it because I don't pay any attention to it. All I know is that some guy dressed like a woman won like 41 shows in a row or something like that and so set the new women's record even though he was a guy.

And so like the Babylon Bee said, it just shows that guys are better at everything.

Well, it is interesting when it comes to what feminism has wrought, the unintended consequences of extreme feminism.

Well, I mean when you can't even define what it means to be a woman, that Matt Walsh thing where he's on that show and he's asking these so-called trans people, what does it mean to be a woman? And they're like, I don't know.

You know, it's crickets. It's crickets. They claim to be women but they, you know, well, it's a spectrum of it's just foolishness.

Justification by Faith Alone

From Jeopardy to Justification. How do you like that lead?

Ooh. The stylites are back. Now, that could be a title of a book, From Jeopardy to Justification.

How about wasn't it the stylistics though? Yes.

Well, that's why I went with you know, stylites sounds close enough. The chylites, yeah. Chylites, yeah. Yeah. So, yeah. They had a great song called Oh Girl. I think about the Beatles I'd be in trouble if you song about girl.

I'd be in trouble if you left me now. Yeah, it's a great song. Justification. Now, let's talk generally about justification books. I think that's one of the things that I wish seminary would have taught me more about was justification.

That would have been a pretty good class, I think.

I think if I ran a seminary, there wouldn't be many people there. But if I did run one, I would have a class one class, mandatory class, kind of like, you know, you have to have a minor prophets class.

It would be a class on justification.

How many classes would you have on eschatology?

I'd have some. I probably wouldn't talk much about pre-wrath. I'd have every chapel. Eschatology. Eschatology. You know how they have the missions month, and it turns out to be the missions, like, year.

Every speaker's a missionary on furlough. It's just like, go be another missionary. No, I think we should have a class. And I would use books like I like Fesco's book on justification. I thought that was really good.

I read Buchanan's classic book on justification called That Justification. I think it's Banner of Truth now. And I like it because the paper sleeve is orange. So it stands out. Yeah, and I call him the orange man of justification.

I like that book. And Michael Horton has just come out with a two-volume just come out with, probably a year or two old now. Two volumes on justification.

And the primary thesis is just as if I never Yeah. That's right.

So going from a large scope now to getting more fine-tuned. And in front of us, I have a chapter entitled Justification and the Christian Life by Michael Horton, adapted from Chapter 11, Volume 1. Oh, copyright 2018.

So it is a little bit more dated than I thought.

It's copyrighted and you're just going to read it?

What's the fair use law for reading part of an article? I don't know. I think I've read some articles by Tim Kelby before. I'm sure that was fair use. Critique mode. Yeah. And here's something to get you going.

This will get the this will get your mill grist.

It will fire up the fiery thing. The oven.

When I was preaching on Sunday, I had my notes. I know what I was going to say. I know how I wanted to go about it. And I just stood up there and just looked at the people and I wanted to just go

That would have been not a good sermon.

And so it's the same thing. All of a sudden you go, oh, I think I can do this, and then your mind doesn't work. Have you ever read Scripture publicly and thought, I can't even hardly follow these words?

I have to stop thinking about the words.

I just have to read it? Well, yes. I've had times where I'm like, okay, I need to actually put my finger on the text, you know, because I'm not doing a good job here. So, yeah.

Okay. Here's what Albert Schweitzer said, a Roman Catholic polemic, old guy. Those who subsequently made the doctrine of justification by faith the center of Christian belief kind of like, you know, the hinge on which Christianity turns.

Yeah, yeah. So the reformers, in other words. Right. Made the doctrine of justification by faith the center of Christian belief, have had the tragic experience of finding that they were dealing with the conception of redemption from which no ethic could logically be derived.

So wait, wait, wait. No ethic. So he's saying that if you're declared righteous by God, therefore you're free to be a libertine.

Right. If you don't combine and commingle and conflate justification and sanctification, you tell people that they're declared righteous by a foreign alien righteousness. It's actually it's just legal fiction.

Action free. They're going to go crazy. Uh-huh. That's exactly what he's driving. How do you get people to obey you if they're declared righteous? If we already know on Judgment Day the verdict is not condemned.

Well, you make up rules. So, yeah.

I mean, this is so Roman Catholic. I mean, don't we tell people, by the way, if you were saved by a justification of infused righteousness, that is, you know, you have some of Christ's righteousness and you need to have some of yours, you would never say in Romans 6, 1, shall we continue in sin that grace might abound?

Because you would already know. No way, because if my standing is based on Christ's work plus my work, I know I can't sin.

And if it were based on my work, I'd probably be tempted to be one of those monks. Right? I mean, I would because I would want to make sure that I didn't sin. Therefore, you know, I would want to isolate myself because what tempts you to fall more than anything else?

It's usually being around other people. Right? So, hey, forget about all this Great Commission stuff.

I'm out for myself. Therefore, the hermit life, since you're by no one, would be better than the cenotar life where you have to have roommates and stuff. That's right. Cenobite. What's a cenotar again?

Cenotar, I think is

Some creature. Yeah, half man, half horse. That's actually a centaur, but They shoot horses, don't they? Yeah.

Let me read the passage in Romans. Paul is very concerned about sola fide. He's very concerned about what we call justification by faith alone. And I like what his response is that we talk about this on the show regularly and often after saying we're justified by faith and we have peace with God, Romans chapter 5.

But can I give the Roman Catholic side? You're actually reading sola fide into that. You know, the words sola fide don't actually you know, faith alone don't actually appear in the text. You're putting that into the text.

Well, I'm trying to go Roman Catholic on you as well because I've also heard them say, Steve, something maybe about present tense. We are justified by his grace as a gift or something like that in Romans chapter 3 versus this one-time declaration.

See, you continue, Laurie, justified because of the works that you

So maybe like it's an imperfect tense and so it's ongoing. Yeah.

Constant justification. Well, I think if someone said to me, the proverbial Roman Catholic said, you add alone for grace and for faith and other things with all your solas. I don't really need the word alone explicitly in the text where it says you're saved by faith alone to realize the doctrine is you're saved by faith alone.

And my all-time favorite verse for this because he just nails it and keeps hammering away. Galatians 2, yet we know that a person is not justified by the works of the law but through faith in Jesus Christ.

So we also have believed in Christ Jesus in order to be justified by faith in Christ and not by works of the law because by works of the law, no one will be justified.

You know, it would be fun to find out what the Catholics do to passages like that. They have to like twist themselves into pretzels to explain that away because otherwise the whole system goes down the drain, right?

Because Steve, if I looked at that and said, okay, I'm not saying as a Protestant, but through faith alone in Jesus Christ, I'm not trying to add a word into Paul's letter to the Galatian churches. By the way, it's Northern Galatian churches or Southern Galatians.

How much time did I waste in seminary on that? That seemed like a lot wasted. Have I told you my story? I mean, my story.

No, but this is why we do radio. I want to hear the story. You know, because when I was in seminary, working graveyard shift and all these other things, and so the week for that exam came up. Eight theories about the Northern Galatian churches, eight theories for Southern Galatian churches.

MacArthur had already told a bunch of students that I was going to school with it. None of that stuff mattered. Ignore it. You're never going to use it and everything. And I go, you know what? I'm studying everything except for that for the exam because I don't have time.

And honestly, I had zero motivation to study that because I knew it was pointless information. Except for radio 30 years later. Yeah. So the day of the exam comes up, and sure enough, that was the heart of the exam.

And I'm like, oh, boy, this is going to be grim, you know? And it was. I think that was probably one of my lowest exams in all of seminary.

We could have probably solved that problem just by saying, remember, men, Galatia is not a city. Right? It's not like Corinth. And so just make sure you don't say anything dumb like the book of Revelations.

Yeah, it was awful. So here's what's going on. We have been declared righteous by God based on perfect law keeping of the Lord Jesus. And then the Lord Jesus also by declaration receives our sins. Our sins are imputed to his account.

His righteousness is our account confirmed by the resurrection. But what about, as Horton calls Steve, the carrot and sticks versus gratitude? Don't you need the Roman Catholic infusion type of justification to drive people to obey?

Versus Protestants who say, if you've been so justified, don't you want to respond with a thankful heart and a life of thankfulness and fruits of obedience?

Well, I think it comes down to a couple of things. One is, you know, how do you get people to give money? You guilt them. You know, you tell them that contribution to the church is actually a contribution towards their eternal life.

Right? You're going to get out of purgatory faster. It will remove some of your sins. You also, you know, when you're talking about Galatians, you contrast that with, you know, something like James 2 where faith without works is dead.

And so you say, well, you can't really say that you're saved by faith alone because you have to have works. And it's the works with your faith that's what saves you. And so it's not you can't understand Paul in isolation.

You have to, you know, take the balance of scriptures.

Yes, but if we really look at God's law as a reflection of his holiness and righteousness and who he is by nature, how can we ever keep that law? Right? Have we ever one time really loved God with all of our heart?

What if it said, love God here's the greatest commandment. Love God with some of your heart, some of the time, some of your soul, once in a while. And with a big check.

But it's easier to write a check. Says you, you know, maybe it's not so easy. I mean, you know, some people I mean, can you imagine if you're a devoted Roman Catholic? You take a second job or something, you know, something like that.

Or you sell some family heirloom or something because you're so convinced that the only way you can get it out from underneath the debt of sin you owe is by paying cash.

I think they still do that in Massachusetts and probably around the country. They have memorial masses now, don't they? That you can have your mother's been dead for 15 years and they have a mass and you can pay for that.

I'm sure. I'm sure they do.

I mean, I really don't stay up on Maybe we should give them a call, the local Catholic church.

I think I've seen some of the newspaper Oh, I'm sure they do memorial masses. Yeah, yeah. I'm sure they do. Calvin is writing about this. By the way, that's the other person that we should have people read Justification.

Read Calvin on Justification.

It's in the Institutes. I thought you were going to say the other person we should have on the show. It's like, oh, calling in is John Calvin. You know what?

That would take too much time but that would be fun if I could interview you could play Calvin and I could just be Mike Ebendroth and we'd go back in time and interview people.

Or I could be Steve Kool and you could be John Calvin. But I don't have a French accent. You can fake it. We'll work on it. Omelette du fromage. That's all I got.

I love a cheese omelette. Oh, I know what we were saying. Work's justifying the person. I just think that's so strange because they just would have to be perfect works.

Perfect works from a perfect heart, you know, which is No original sin.

No Adam sin imputed to our account.

It's just so it's such a bizarre concept.

Here, God, I want you to accept me. I know I've got some sins. I've done some things. But, you know, 90 of the time I try to do good to you so I can get back. And I know 10 of the time I've said some bad things about you.

I've committed treason. I want to do AWOL. I want to spit in your face.

But a lot of times I've done the right thing. Yeah. Can't you just kind of bust out the balance sheet and see, you know what? Steve was good probably 75, 80 of the time. Isn't that enough?

What do you think of this, Steve? If you're not saved through faith alone, right? We're not saying because of faith. But you're trusting in the Lord and Savior, his perfect righteousness. If you're not saved by faith alone, then you're going to have to be saved by faith plus works.

Right. Or works. Right. Right. So those are the options. Faith, works are a combo. Then what are we trying to say about those works that's supposedly justified? They're going to have to be righteous works.

Jesus comes and performs all righteousness. Now what about our righteous works? Is there a need then for the Catholic priest or somehow to say, you know what? I know you were doing works. They weren't perfect.

But here's the punchline. I know you are sincere about it. That's right. That's how they get away with it. Because they know all things. Uh-huh. If you're sincerely doing things that aren't perfectly righteous, God counts your sincerity for obedience.

Here's my question. What if you're doing things sincerely that are actually sinful?

Like not relying on faith alone?

Yeah. But I mean like say, for example, Mother Teresa. You know, you're actually causing people pain and you're doing, you know, and you're actually affirming them in their Hinduism and their, you know, all these other false religions.

You know, but you're sincere about it. So, therefore, it's the sincerity that counts. I don't know what verse that's in.

Steve, what's the Latin word for what's sincere, the etymology, like without wax or something? Right. You hold up the piece of. That sounds right. Uh-huh. Yeah. Sin. Without. Without wax. Okay. I think that's what it is.

There's a lot of wax in the Roman Catholic, you know. What about a wax nose?

Is that what I want to talk about? There's a lot of wax in their chicanery.

That's for sure. This is why, dear listeners, we, Steve and I, always talk about it's Rome that takes away assurance. Because if you mix your works with Christ's works, how could you be assured of your salvation?

There's no assurance for the Roman Catholic. Listen to what Calvin said. Christ says, son, be of good cheer. Your sins are forgiven you.

Well, I mean, have you ever had anybody tell you, you know, oh, you're all right, you're a good person or something like that? And I'm like, you don't know me. I mean, I know me better than you. I don't know me perfectly, right, because I lie to myself and whatnot.

But I know me well enough to know that I am far from perfect. I'm far from good. I'm far from sinless. And even sometimes when I do the right thing, I know what my motivations are, and sometimes they're not very good.

I know. Well, Steve, you and I have talked about this many, many times. My default is I have to go to self-righteous mode because otherwise I can't live with myself and live before a God who is holy and exhibits wrath on unbelievers.

So I have to prop up the system of self-righteousness. But there's a lot of people that I know, they're just depressed. They're just downcast. They're just like, I can't do this. Why? Toss in the towel.

Absolutely. Because they're actually being truthful with themselves. Yes. I lie to myself. I'm self-righteous versus the other. Calvin said of that Christ be of good cheer passage, he said the Roman Catholics, they hate this doctrine when you are acquitted by faith alone.

Calvin said this sentence, the horned fathers abominate when anyone teaches that acquittal is completed by faith alone. Horned fathers abominate. I've never seen those three words together. The deviled fathers then.

Uh-huh. Yeah. There are so many problems with that. But I mean, ultimately, the idea that the fathers would care about anything, that's neither here nor there. But I think any of the fathers that are in heaven, if they could choose between Roman Catholicism and biblical Christianity, there's no question which they would choose.

Right. We should do a show on the fathers one day. Attributes of God, essence of God, aseity of God, simplicity, those kind of things. That'd be good. How about, as we need to wrap up the show here, we think to ourselves, we stand before God.

We know we're forgiven in Christ. Aren't you kind of being presumptuous, Steve? Aren't you kind of taking advantage of all this?

Absolutely not. What I'm doing is I'm believing what Jesus said. There you go. That's it. He said it is finished. That's right. And, you know, if I, anywhere I go in the Bible, when it talks about my sin and my need for Christ and his work, I'm not going to be presuming anything.

I'm going to be assured because Jesus said it. You know, the Holy Spirit, whether I, let's just say it's not necessarily the words of Jesus always. But the Holy Spirit inspired text tells me, which is the same as the words of Jesus, tells me that Jesus paid it all.

So I'm not being presumptuous at all. I'm just believing what God has said.

Amen. Well, Mike Abendroth here today with Pastor Steve Cooley. You can go to NoCompromiseRadio .com and download a bunch of shows and interviews. And you can just get all the Tuesday shows if you want.

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