Roman Catholic Theology 03

Sovereign Grace Family Church iconSovereign Grace Family Church

2 views

0 comments

00:00
Let's have a word of prayer.
00:04
Our Father and our God, we come to you in Jesus' name, and we thank you for the opportunity to again come around the Word and to consider the claims of Roman Catholicism in our larger study of theology and systematic theology as a whole.
00:21
We pray, O Lord, that you would enlighten our hearts to the truth, that you would keep us from error, and me especially, as I seek to be the mouthpiece, I pray that your Holy Spirit would be the teacher.
00:33
Father, I've really learned a lot this week, and I thank you for giving me the opportunity to learn and the opportunity to expand my understanding of Roman Catholicism, and I pray, O Lord, that I'll be able to just use some of that knowledge to instruct this class and be used of you to bring an encouragement that we are, in fact, doing what your Word tells us to do, and that's standing on the Word of God and not on the traditions of men.
01:01
In Christ's name we pray, amen.
01:05
This week, I have had the opportunity to listen to two three-hour-long debates.
01:12
I have found the repository of all knowledge.
01:18
I found all of Dr.
01:21
White's debates, including the Great Debates, the Great Debates series, which was in the early 90s, which he did with Roman Catholic apologists, Tim Staples, Mitch Pacwa, and others, are all available for free.
01:35
And when I found that, I had bought some in the past, back whenever you had to purchase the MP3s, and there was never much, $5, $10.
01:44
But now, Sermon Audio, Dr.
01:48
White has put all of those on for free, so I was able to listen to a three-hour debate on the subject of justification by faith alone, Sola Fide, and I was able to listen to a three-hour debate on Sola Scriptura, that the Bible alone is our sole and fallible rule of faith and practice.
02:08
So that was the two debates I got a chance to listen to.
02:11
And I have to tell you, I obviously have issues with Roman Catholic Church, and I do believe that these men were presenting the very best cases.
02:21
And I will say that some of what they said did make you stop and go, hmm, never thought of that.
02:27
These were not unintelligent men who were making the arguments for Roman Catholicism.
02:33
But at the end of the day, and of course, obviously I would say this because I am a Protestant, but even if I weren't, it seems at the end of the day, both of the men who are arguing opposing Sola Fide and opposing Sola Scriptura, both of their arguments came up wanting.
02:49
Because ultimately what happened in both debates is you had Mitch Pacwa arguing against Sola Fide, having to declare that we are, in fact, justified by works.
03:03
And that was his claim, and it's so, it's not as if I'm misquoting him.
03:08
That was his, I can play for you the closing statement.
03:12
To say that we are justified by faith alone is false.
03:15
You are justified by works.
03:19
Faith plus works.
03:21
Which is all a result of grace, he would say, I don't want to misrepresent him, but he certainly did say.
03:26
Works.
03:28
Justify.
03:29
And of course he uses James to make his argument there.
03:31
I am starting this Wednesday night a study through the Epistle of James.
03:36
I'm going to teach, I don't know how, for how long, but we're going to go all the way through it.
03:42
So I don't know how long it's going to take.
03:44
But I am, the title of it is Walking, or what do I call it, Walking, Wisdom for Our Walk is the title of the series.
03:53
Because James is wisdom literature for the believer.
03:57
And James does address justification, but he addresses justification in a different way than does the Apostle Paul.
04:03
And so we're going to be able to understand that as we go through and study James.
04:08
So I hope if you don't come on Wednesday nights, maybe this week you would maybe begin to come on Wednesday nights, because it will be hopefully a very fruitful study.
04:17
But that was the argument that Mitch Pacwa put forth, was that we are justified by works.
04:23
And I just remember thinking, wow, this is something that needs to be heard, at least people need to hear that this is what is being taught.
04:32
And then Staples, who argued against Sola Scriptura, that the Bible is not our sole infallible rule of faith.
04:40
What is the infallible rule of faith that goes along with Scripture? He wouldn't say that Scripture is not infallible.
04:46
But what did he say? The church is also infallible.
04:50
And what is the church, according to Tim Staples, and according to Roman Catholicism? The church is not the body of believers.
04:59
The church is the mother of the believer.
05:05
In fact, that's the way he defined the church is the mother.
05:09
You are the children.
05:10
So the church is defined not by the believers, but by the magisterial authorities.
05:15
They are the church.
05:16
Go tell the girls they're walking in.
05:17
Go let them know to come in here with us.
05:22
So and he kept saying, your mother, your mother, your mother, you know, you have a father.
05:28
You also have a mother.
05:29
Your father has authority, but your mother also has authority.
05:31
What family would it be if there wasn't a mother with authority? Who is the mother that he's talking about? Mother church.
05:39
And I mean, I encourage you go to Sermon Audio.
05:43
If you drive a lot for your particular job, if you spend time in your car two or three hours a week, I don't come on.
05:51
Mr.
05:51
Nathan's out of town.
05:52
So come on in with me.
05:53
We're learning about Roman Catholicism.
05:55
Yeah, fun, fun.
05:57
Come have a seat.
06:00
If you drive a lot for your job, you can go to Sermon Audio's website.
06:05
You can download these debates and you can listen to them.
06:08
I will tell you, you will be challenged on certain things.
06:12
You will be challenged on things that you may not have ever thought about before.
06:17
But as I've said, I believe at the end of the day, the Roman Catholic argument comes short of the scripture.
06:25
In fact, one of the arguments that Staples made, and it really was one, it was a novel argument I never heard before, but that God has always had a physical authority over his people.
06:35
And he used the priesthood of the Old Testament as the authority and how they were supposed to be.
06:39
They were supposed to be obedient to the authority and that this authority has always been there.
06:43
And so the the bishop of Rome just continues the priestly authority of the high priest, such as Caiaphas in the in the time of Jesus and the priest of the Old Testament.
06:51
And he said, look here, even Caiaphas prophesied.
06:55
And I don't know if you remember that text where Caiaphas said it is better that one man should die for the whole nation than the whole nation perish.
07:04
And he was referring to Jesus.
07:05
And what does the scripture say? It says Caiaphas actually prophesied that he was speaking God's word to the people because that was truth, even though he didn't even himself understand it.
07:14
And so Tim Staples used that argument to say, see, we believe that this authoritative position is authoritative because God has made it authoritative.
07:24
Well, what's the problem with that? They don't only believe that they have an authoritative position.
07:29
We believe there's an authoritative position in the church, don't we? Don't we believe that the elders have a certain authority in the church to to understand the scriptures, to teach the scriptures? That's my position as a pastor.
07:41
I preach.
07:41
I teach.
07:42
That's my job.
07:43
But I'm always subservient to what? The scripture.
07:46
I'm always as the apostle Paul was.
07:48
It said the Bereans did what? They accepted everything he had to say because they had apostolic authority.
07:52
No, they searched the scriptures to see if what he was saying was true.
07:56
Here's a chair for you, brother.
07:57
You can sit right there.
07:58
We have the teenagers with us this morning.
08:00
Nathan is out of town.
08:02
So you can go over there and sit there, whichever you like.
08:05
So here again, the issue, they claim not that the pope has authority, but they claim an infallible authority.
08:12
Would anybody claim that Caiaphas had an infallible authority? The Magisterium Church has an infallible authority.
08:23
The church, the hierarchy of the church has the church is infallible.
08:26
Tim Staples said that over and over and over.
08:28
It is the church which is infallible, not just the pope.
08:30
The church in her magisterial pronouncements has the ability to bind or loose the conscience on doctrine.
08:37
So it's not just the pope.
08:42
They would argue that they are equal authorities.
08:45
I want to sound like I'm going to talk about.
08:47
No, and it never works out that way practically because the scripture is always subservient to whoever is interpreting it in one sense, because the person interpreting it, if they're interpreting it wrong, they're exercising, as Martin Luther said, they're creating a wax nose that they can simply shape into whatever form they want and make the face look whatever the way it wants to just just move the nose around.
09:09
So in a sense, I again, I implore you get these debates, listen to them.
09:14
Mitch Pacwa, and I don't want to say this for sure, one of the men he debated, and I'm 90 percent sure it was Mitch Pacwa, isn't even a Roman Catholic anymore.
09:23
He is now a sedevacantist, a sedevacantist is a person who believes that the person who is the pope is not the right pope, that there is supposed to be a pope, but he's not the proper pope.
09:33
So he has divided from Rome because he's divided from the leadership of the pope.
09:40
Sedevacantist means the empty seat, the seat is vacant.
09:46
And this is interesting because 20 years ago he was arguing, he was debating for that, but he has moved away from that.
09:52
That is that's anecdotal evidence, has no proof value, but it is interesting.
09:56
You know, it's interesting to think about the fact, in fact, people like and again, I can't I can't say this for absolute certainty, but I believe that Mel Gibson, you know, he made the passion movie.
10:07
Mel Gibson is a sedevacantist.
10:09
I don't think that he believes in the authority of the pope, but he still considers himself a Catholic.
10:14
Does he consider the current guy until he died? Oh, no, no, it's not that because this because this actually preceded Benedict.
10:32
This position of Gibson has been a position that's been long held by a whole group of people who consider themselves Catholic, but not under the authority of the pope.
10:40
It's a very it's a different position.
10:43
But that kind of that's taken us sort of away from what I wanted to deal with, because today we're going to finish our study of Roman Catholicism with hopefully a better understanding of how they view the church, which we talked about that a little bit, but also how they view Mary, because that is going to help us understand some of what we would say is the development of Roman Catholic theology, because Mariology is not ancient.
11:05
It is not something that goes back all the way to the apostles.
11:10
There there is not an unbroken chain of Mariology.
11:15
These things are things that are developed over time.
11:18
And as a result, we see now things that are believed about Mary that are just seeming seem to me to be very outlandish.
11:28
But let's talk first about the church.
11:30
When it comes to the church in Roman Catholic theology, the four essential qualities of the true church are unity, holiness, catholicity.
11:41
It's a long catholic, catholicity, catholicity simply means universality.
11:49
And I can't even say these words apostolicity, apostolicity is that they bear the authority of the apostles.
11:59
So you have those four things, unity, holiness, catholicity, apostolicity.
12:04
I guess apostolicity.
12:09
Fundamentally, the church is the ordained hierarchy reaching its apex in the pope.
12:14
Again, what is the church in Roman Catholicism? It is the hierarchy.
12:18
The people are children of the church, not the church.
12:23
Organization is built around a centralized priestly authority, beginning with Peter, according to them.
12:29
The authority of the priesthood is derived through apostolic succession in the church.
12:33
Bishops in Rome have power to evaluate findings of schools and make pronouncements and consicular definitions.
12:42
The church is the mediator of Christ's presence in the world.
12:45
God uses the church as his agent to move the world towards his kingdom.
12:51
So again, what do they keep saying about the church? There are things that are true in that statement regarding the church, but not the church as it is defined by Rome.
13:03
I will say this and this is going to sound funny.
13:06
I will say there's no salvation outside the church.
13:11
Now, that sounds very Roman Catholic.
13:16
But what do I mean? To be in Christ is to be in his body.
13:21
To be in his body is to be a part of the universal church.
13:23
If you're not in the church, universal, then you are not saved.
13:27
So there's no salvation outside the church.
13:29
Everybody agree? Now, you know that I've explained what I'm saying.
13:32
And it's not that weird.
13:33
But when the Roman Catholic says it, there's no salvation outside the church.
13:37
It is because it is through the magisterial authority and through this priestly authority, they receive the sacraments.
13:43
And it is through the sacraments that you receive your salvation.
13:48
So it's not being a part of something, it's being the recipient of something from that thing.
13:56
That's a huge problem, and it is a major difference.
13:58
In fact, at the end of Tim Staples' debate that I listened to just as I was pulling in the parking lot this morning, because I just finished six hours of long time listening.
14:06
He said, I hope that you all come back to Rome, those of you who have departed, and return to the Holy Eucharist wherein you find salvation.
14:17
What's the Eucharist? It's the mass.
14:19
It's the cup and the bread.
14:22
It's the transubstantiation that they believe happens in the bread and the cup.
14:27
Come back to that because that's where salvation is.
14:30
And if you've left, you've departed the vehicle whereby salvation comes and through where salvation comes.
14:40
So, how do Protestants understand the Church versus how Roman Catholics understand the Church? Well, this is something that's very important.
14:55
I'm going to write the phrase up here, true church.
15:01
True, I'll put in quotation marks.
15:04
Because oftentimes you will hear in speaking with Roman Catholics the phrase, the true church or mother church as the true church.
15:13
And they use the definite article, the true church.
15:20
What is it, when someone uses a definite article, what does that indicate in the sentence? Exclusion, right? If I said, Brian, you're a man.
15:32
Well, I'm not saying you're not, you're one of many, right? You're a man.
15:36
But if I said, Roy, you are the man, right? Either I'm identifying he did something wrong, you're the man.
15:43
Or I'm saying, giving him props, he's the man, right? But if I use the definite article, the, I'm using it to exclude others.
15:53
And we know this because what is the greatest exclusionary statement Jesus ever made about his own salvation? I am the way, the truth, the life.
16:07
No one comes to the Father except by me.
16:09
He used three statements which included the definite article.
16:14
And he didn't say, I'm a way, one of many.
16:17
I'm a truth, one of many.
16:20
A life, one of many.
16:21
He said, I'm the way.
16:22
Come on in, Leandra.
16:24
Jason, would you go grab another chair out of one of the rooms? Look at us, filling up the classroom.
16:29
Everybody give an amen.
16:30
That's awesome.
16:31
That's right.
16:31
Filling up the class.
16:34
All right.
16:35
A, a, a truth, a life.
16:38
That's not what he said.
16:39
Jesus said, I'm the way, the truth, the life.
16:41
Well, in Roman Catholicism, they say we are the true church.
16:45
What does the article then identify? That, that it's the only one.
16:53
It's the only one that is a true church, is the true church, right? John Calvin, obviously I'll refer to him.
17:04
He's a pretty smart guy.
17:06
Referenced the fact that rather than attempting to prove that a church, local, is the true church, we ought rather to identify ourselves as a true church.
17:30
Meaning that we are one church, local, that is a true church.
17:37
And how did Calvin define a true church? It's very simple.
17:42
He said a true church will have three things.
17:45
One, it will have a proper proclamation of the gospel.
17:50
It will truly proclaim the gospel.
17:52
Number two, a true church will properly administer the sacraments or ordinances, which are the table and the labor, the baptistery.
18:03
Those two things will be properly administered.
18:07
The third thing is, and this is where Calvin would maybe differ with some modern churches, he said a true church will practice discipline.
18:17
He said because a church that doesn't preach the gospel preaches something else, which is heresy, and thus could not rightly be called a true church.
18:29
A church that does not practice the ordinances or the sacraments are denying the obedience to the command of Christ, one, to be baptized, and two, to receive the bread and the cup regularly as a part of worship, because he said, do this in remembrance of me.
18:46
So we would be in disobedience if we did not do those things.
18:49
And thirdly, if we allowed wanton, rampant, unrepentant sin to continue in the church, then we have, as so many times we see, we have destroyed our witness and destroyed the sanctity of the assembly.
19:05
So those are the three things.
19:06
Now you could argue, well, Calvin's just a man, who is he to define what the church is? I think that's a pretty solid definition of what is a true church.
19:13
And that's why we make a distinction between the Catholic Church, and I'm using a little C there, because Catholic means what? Universal.
19:28
The Catholic Church and the local church.
19:35
I'm going to this morning in my sermon be really addressing the concept of the importance of the local church.
19:43
Because it was the local church at Antioch that sent out the first missionaries that went abroad preaching.
19:51
Now you might say, well, there were missionaries who had already sort of gone out, and that's why the church at Antioch was there.
19:55
But really it was the first time we see the gathering around men, ordaining them to a position of service, laying hands on them, and sending them out into the world for the sole purpose of going out and establishing churches throughout different lands we see happening there.
20:14
And where did it come from? The local church.
20:18
Antioch is a local church.
20:21
Antioch becomes the model for every local church to follow it.
20:25
That we are to be a going and sending people.
20:29
And that's what the title of today's sermon is.
20:31
I don't want to get too much into today's sermon.
20:33
But we are to be going, and we are to be sending.
20:36
Because not everybody is called to be an international missionary.
20:40
But if you don't go, you send.
20:42
You gather together your resources, you put them in the pockets of a missionary, and you say go! And you go having had hands laid on you, having been prayed over, and we continue to pray for you while you go.
20:56
We hold the ropes for you as you go.
20:59
Some go, some send.
21:00
But we are to be a going and sending church.
21:03
That's what a local church is supposed to be.
21:04
So when we talk about a true church, we're identifying a local body.
21:09
There are several places in our community where there's a title, church, and there ain't no church there.
21:14
There's a group of people that meet, they have fellowship, they may even have good relationships with one another, they may even treat each other well, but they're not preaching the gospel.
21:25
I would say it's not a church.
21:29
It's not a church.
21:31
So the identification that Luther and Calvin and others, the importance for them, was not that we concern ourselves with the true church, because that was the concern of Roman Catholicism, and you'll also notice that's the concern of Mormonism.
21:44
They're the true church.
21:45
That's the concern of Jehovah's Witnesses.
21:47
They're the true church.
21:48
And what is the churches that always identify themselves as the true church always have? A centralized authority figure on earth.
21:56
With Roman Catholicism, it's the Pope.
21:58
With the Mormons, it's their leadership, the hierarchy in the Mormon church.
22:02
And with the Jehovah's Witnesses, it's the guys up in Brooklyn who are the prophets of the Jehovah's Witness movement.
22:08
They always have that centralized authority.
22:09
Why? Because we're the true church.
22:12
We have God's representative on earth.
22:15
Rather than the Holy Spirit indwelling the believer, and thus indwelling every church that's a true church of the living God, it has to come through that physical authority, that man, whether it be Joseph Smith, or the Watchtower track in Bible Society, or the Pope.
22:32
People say, well, it's not fair to compare Roman Catholicism with Mormonism because Mormonism is less than, what, 200 years old, and Roman Catholicism is, they'll say it goes back to the first century church, which I would argue is false.
22:48
Especially the idea of Roman Catholic, which is an oxymoron, isn't it, Richard? Yeah, it is.
22:53
Because Catholic means universal.
22:57
Roman references a place in Italy.
23:01
So if you're a Roman Catholic, you're an oxymoron.
23:08
Sorry, that hurts anybody's feelings, especially anybody listening to this on the recording.
23:14
Alright, so there is a difference in understanding of the church, what the church is, what constitutes a church, and the purpose of the church in the world.
23:22
Moving on now to the final, because I do want to do this, where's my time, what's my time? You're right at 10 o'clock.
23:28
Oh, great, I got all kinds of time.
23:30
Yeah, right.
23:33
Now we're going to talk about Mary.
23:37
Identified by the church as the Blessed Mother, the Blessed Virgin, and often venerated.
23:45
And I have met folks who venerate her seemingly higher, or with more affection, maybe not higher than Jesus, but certainly with more affection than Jesus.
23:56
Because what is Mary? She's the mediator between us and Jesus, because He's the judge, you know, and there's that whole misunderstanding of who Mary is.
24:04
But let's read here what it says.
24:07
In the Council of Ephesus, that is AD 431, 100 years after Nicaea, Mary was declared to be the mother of God as well as the mother of Jesus Christ in the sense that the son she bore was both God and man.
24:24
Look, I don't have a problem with that in one sense.
24:28
If you are simply saying that because Jesus Christ is God in the flesh, Mary is the mother of God, if that's all you're saying, fine.
24:44
But the idea that she is queen of heaven and that she, you know, that there's a divinity within her, that's far reaching and far past what even this council was trying to push.
24:58
What this council was trying to push was against a heresy which was seeking to divide the person of Jesus Christ.
25:05
Now, we realize there is a distinction between the divine and human nature of Christ.
25:09
We do realize that.
25:10
But we don't divide those natures.
25:12
We simply make a distinction between that which is human and that which is divine.
25:16
And we say that.
25:17
In fact, I don't like this phrase where people say Jesus is 100% God, 100% man.
25:21
I don't like using percentage points because to me it's not...
25:26
It doesn't ring to me very reasonable.
25:30
What I always say, Christ is fully God and fully man because that's the language of Scripture.
25:37
In Colossians it says, all the fullness of the Godhead dwelt in him bodily.
25:43
So there's fullness of the Godhead is in Christ.
25:45
So I use fully rather than 100%.
25:47
I'm not telling you you're wrong or heretic if you ever use the phrase 100%.
25:50
I'm saying for me, using percentage points with God has never really...
25:54
It's never really gotten me in a logical sense because God doesn't have percentage points.
26:00
We have the fullness of God in the Holy Spirit within us but we also understand when we talk about Jesus, the fullness of God that was in him was actually his nature.
26:10
We are given the gift of the Holy Spirit fully within us but Christ's nature was fully divine.
26:16
There is a difference there.
26:17
So we have to make distinctions when we talk about these things.
26:20
We don't get 50% of the Holy Spirit.
26:23
We have the Holy Spirit.
26:24
I have the same Holy Spirit within me that was in Charles Spurgeon.
26:27
Charles Spurgeon had the same Holy Spirit that was in the Apostle Paul.
26:30
Now has the Holy Spirit chosen to use us three differently? Absolutely.
26:34
Has he chosen to use all of us differently? Absolutely.
26:36
But it's the same Holy Spirit because he's a person, not a product or a force like the Jehovah Witnesses teach is like electricity.
26:42
It's not like electricity.
26:43
He's a person.
26:44
We either have him or we don't.
26:46
So having said all that, when we talk about Mary as mother of God, I don't necessarily have an issue with that until you start pushing it to illogical extremes as Mary.
26:58
And that's where it goes on.
26:59
For Mary in feasts, they actually have feasts in the Mary, the Annunciation, the Purification, the Assumption, and the Nativity of Mary are observed.
27:05
So there's feasts, divine, feasts, divine, what was I trying to say? Feasts that are observed to celebrate Mary.
27:17
Now here's the third one on your list.
27:19
Mary was without original sin or personal sin due to the intervention of God.
27:29
That is called the Immaculate Conception.
27:32
I know every Christmas I will hear some pastor talk about the blessing of the Immaculate Conception.
27:38
And I say, hold on, slow down.
27:40
The Immaculate Conception is not the virgin conception of Jesus.
27:45
It's not.
27:47
The Immaculate Conception is the sinless conception of Mary.
27:53
That is what is meant by Immaculate Conception, the belief that Mary was conceived without sin because how could a sinful woman bear the Son of God? That's the argument of Rome.
28:07
And so Mary must be without sin because Jesus came from her womb.
28:15
Yes? Doesn't that invalidate Romans? Oh, it invalidates a lot.
28:19
And it is certainly not taught anywhere in Scripture.
28:21
But it is a tradition in the church.
28:24
And of course, when your traditions have the same value as Scripture, it doesn't matter where it comes from, it's believed.
28:31
So there it is.
28:32
The belief in the Immaculate Conception is not the belief in the virgin conception of Jesus, but in the miraculous conception of Mary whereby she was kept from the taint of original sin.
28:42
So Mary is sinless.
28:46
And it doesn't say it on your sheet here, but she's also a perpetual virgin.
28:52
It is believed in Roman Catholicism that Mary is a virgin prior to Jesus' birth.
28:58
She is a virgin while he is being born, and she is a virgin after he is born, and she never is sullied by any intercourse, ever.
29:12
I know what some of you are thinking.
29:15
Why even go there? Because she's the blessed virgin.
29:19
This is, again, part of church tradition.
29:22
She cannot have such a stain upon her.
29:24
She can't have such a thing.
29:26
She must remain a virgin before, during, and after his birth.
29:31
Is there a Scripture that...
29:37
Yes, yes, yes.
29:38
The Scripture would be Matthew chapter 1.
29:40
I'll have to look at the exact verse.
29:42
But where Mary says...
29:44
Wait, no, it might be in Luke.
29:45
Where Mary says...
29:47
Where the angel visits Mary, and he says, Grace be upon you.
29:52
Somebody look it up.
29:53
Where the angel visits Mary, and they call her most blessed among women.
30:00
Blessed are you among women.
30:01
And they twist that to say that you couldn't say that about a sinful woman.
30:07
Oh, yeah, I know.
30:08
The look you just gave is the right answer.
30:13
Yes.
30:14
Why did she need a Savior? Exactly.
30:16
Because she calls him, my God and my Savior.
30:18
Right? She says that.
30:21
But, again, the argument, of course, is simply that titleistic of God, not necessarily her Savior.
30:27
But...
30:28
Somebody got it? You got it, Ms.
30:30
Sybil? You look like...
30:31
Oh, okay.
30:32
No, but that was...
30:36
No, the angel visits Mary, and I'm trying to get the words in my head.
30:42
I can't get them right now.
30:42
Whoever finds it first, just start speaking.
30:53
Is that Luke or Matthew? Luke 1, 42.
31:01
That's John's mom saying that, isn't it? John's mom saying that when...
31:07
No, I'm thinking of the angelic visit.
31:12
Okay, you got it? There it is.
31:17
Favored one.
31:18
They twist the word favored one into being a statement of her being without sin.
31:26
That's it.
31:26
Can you read it again? I didn't mean to cut you off.
31:42
He'll be great and be called the Son of the Most High, and the Lord God will give to him the throne of his father David, and he will reign over the house of Jacob forever, and his kingdom will be...
31:51
There will be no end.
31:52
What verse is that? Starting with 28.
31:55
Is that Luke? Luke 1, yeah.
31:56
Luke 1, 28.
32:02
So...
32:03
Oh, yeah, yeah, absolutely.
32:04
That's the verse.
32:05
They often argue that Protestants...
32:08
You guys only use one verse to support, you know, sola scriptura, which is 2 Timothy 3, 16, all scriptures inspired by God, you know, and profitable for teaching and reproof.
32:17
They'll say, you only use one verse for defending sola scriptura.
32:20
Well, first of all, it is a pretty serious verse.
32:23
It ain't the only one we use, but that's a pretty serious verse when it says, Pascha afei theonoustas, all scripture is God-breathed.
32:30
That's pretty important.
32:32
But we could also go to Psalm 119.
32:34
We could go to a lot of other places and talk about the value of the word of God.
32:36
So, ultimately, that is the one verse that they're using to claim the perfection of Mary.
32:44
In fact, one Catholic priest made a terrible joke during a debate.
32:48
He wasn't one of the ones I listened to this week, but I've heard in the past.
32:51
He said, when Jesus was standing before the woman who was thrown at His feet...
32:55
Remember the story of the woman who was thrown at His feet and Jesus said, He who is without sin throw the first stone.
33:00
He said, a rock flew over His head and landed beside her and Jesus said, Oh, Mom, not you, because she was the one who was without sin.
33:13
That's sick.
33:20
Yeah.
33:20
Christ and Mary.
33:22
To me, it's like the argument they make for Mary.
33:25
Why can't you just make that for Jesus? They make Mary die to be without sin.
33:30
Well, what about her mom? Exactly.
33:32
It's a regressing problem because Mary's mother carried a sinless person.
33:37
But they wouldn't argue.
33:38
I guess the difference is they wouldn't argue that she is part of the Trinity.
33:43
Well, at least not yet.
33:44
There are arguments within the Roman Catholic Church even going on even till today that Mary is co-mediatrix and co-redemptrix with Christ thus making her part of the Holy Godhead.
34:00
Let me just read here Mary's role in salvation.
34:06
Another element of Roman Catholic Mariology is the belief that at the conception of Jesus Mary entered into a special union with Him.
34:13
Pope John Paul II discussed Mary Mary's place in the plan of salvation in the encyclical Redemptoris Mater emphasizing the special presence of the Mother of God in the mystery of Christ and His Church for this is a fundamental dimension emerging from the Mariology of the Council.
34:29
Pope Benedict XVI stated that Christology and Mariology are inseparably woven.
34:37
The Catholic Encyclopedia says in Mary's fiat of faith when she said what she said what you just read She received salvation for all.
34:46
Mary's mediatorship is to be understood on the level of the solidarity of all mankind which is in need of redemption.
34:52
The function of Mary in salvation determines her relationship to the Church.
34:56
Mary is Mother of the Church under this more individualistic aspect since she is effectively concerned for the salvation of each individual.
35:05
Again the idea she becomes co-mediatrix and co-redemptrix with Christ.
35:13
Very serious, very serious danger.
35:16
Mary is seen as the merciful mediator between us and Jesus.
35:19
We don't have one mediator between God and men.
35:22
We have one mediator between us and Jesus who is the mediator between us and God.
35:27
It really becomes a very convoluted and serious erroneous system.
35:32
There is also not on your sheet but I want to add and finish with this since I assume my time is up.
35:37
And that is that Mary did not die but rather was assumed into heaven.
35:41
That is believed in Roman Catholic theology.
35:43
The assumption of Mary teaches that Mary when she died, I'm sorry, not that she didn't die but rather that she was taken up into heaven at death body and soul into heavenly glory.
35:52
And guess how long that particular piece of theology has been bound to the hearts of Catholics since the 50s.
36:02
It was not until 1950 that Pope Pius XII defined the doctrine of Mary's bodily assumption into heaven.
36:08
I'm not saying it wasn't believed before that but it wasn't defined as dogma until Pope Pius XII.
36:15
One of the infallible ones.
36:16
Yes.
36:17
You know, this commonality is with a lot of stuff in the last 200 years that they're trying to take parts of Scripture and make it to provide answers for them.
36:26
Yeah, they have to they know now that people have the Scripture.
36:29
You see, prior to the Reformation and prior to the Renaissance and the advent of people having the opportunity to read the Scripture for themselves, they didn't have to make any defense for this.
36:39
They were the only ones who knew what the Scripture said.
36:41
They could twist it however they wanted to.
36:43
The Bibles were chained to the pulpits.
36:48
But now everybody has a Bible so they have to go back and they have to retrofit their false teachings.
36:55
And so...
36:55
One of the practices of many things in the Church over the years is that there's something we can't explain in our wisdom.
37:00
You feel like you've got to put a human answer on it when sometimes we're mistreating God.
37:05
Were Jesus' brothers adopted children? Yes, and that's the argument.
37:09
Not that they were adopted but that they were of Joseph's second wife.
37:14
Because poly...
37:15
You should have known that.
37:17
No, I know.
37:19
But what is it? Poly...
37:21
Marriage? Polygamy.
37:22
Polygamy.
37:23
Yes, thank you.
37:24
I just got polymarried.
37:26
My brain.
37:28
Polygamy being something that would have been accepted according to them, he would have had a second wife and thus would have had children.
37:33
Or children from another wife prior to marriage who may have died.
37:36
There's all kinds of speculation.
37:38
Yes, sir? Can I throw something in? I know a hardcore Catholic and this Bible does say Jesus had a brother.
37:43
Who was the brother? James.
37:45
I said, you know, why does it say that? And he says, well, that's mistranslated.
37:48
That word means cousin but it was mistranslated to brother.
37:51
Okay, I haven't heard that argument.
37:53
But there it is.
37:55
Brother in Christ.
37:56
Yes, or some type of religious brother.
37:59
So it's not the adopted way.
38:01
It does make a question though.
38:02
It does make a question if Jesus did have other brothers.
38:06
And I'm not defending the Catholic position but we always have to be honest.
38:10
If Jesus had other brothers why did he bequeath Mary to John and not to one of his brothers? Because when he was on the cross he said to John, behold your mother, mother, behold your son.
38:22
Again, not defending Roman Catholicism.
38:24
Don't ever think that I am.
38:25
But I make you think, right? What would be the answer? They were apostles though.
38:29
Huh? The apostles were rejected.
38:30
I agree.
38:32
That's what I'm saying.
38:33
We think through the answer.
38:35
The answer, who is John? He's the beloved.
38:37
John had a relationship with Jesus.
38:39
These other men did not.
38:40
His brothers, some of them not even believers and even James, the one who believed later and would become the writer of the epistle of James that we're going to be studying, didn't believe in Jesus early in his career.
38:49
Thought he was nuts.
38:51
But John, the beloved disciple, had a relationship with Jesus.
38:55
They did not.
38:56
So yeah, that would be my argument.
38:57
But certainly it does beg the question or at least raise the question of why would he do that? And we need to be able to answer that.
39:04
We need to at least be able to have a reasonable defense.
39:08
Well, next week we're going to move on out of Roman Catholic theology.
39:12
I hope this three weeks has been helpful for you.
39:15
One last quick thing.
39:16
What time is it? I know we're out of time.
39:18
Okay, I don't have time.
39:19
Let me say one thing.
39:21
One of the arguments that I heard this week, 23,000 denominations is proof that sola scriptura does not work.
39:28
That's one of the arguments.
39:29
23,000 denominations is proof that sola scriptura doesn't work.
39:33
I want to respond with Martin Luther's response.
39:35
Not that Tim Staples is ever going to hear what I have to say.
39:38
Martin Luther said this.
39:39
He said, yes, giving the scriptures to the people will create division and anarchy.
39:45
He said, but keeping the scriptures bound in the church has not kept her from grave error.
39:55
I mean...
39:55
The denominations are a good thing.
39:57
They can be.
39:58
They can have a value.
39:59
Absolutely.
40:00
I think that I think that there can still be unity in the gospel between two men who see things differently that are peripherals just like myself and Dr.
40:08
R.C.
40:08
Sproul.
40:09
And there still can be unity in the gospel.
40:11
Where we see division is often not over sola scriptura.
40:13
These churches that are teaching crazy unbiblical things not because they're finding it in scripture.
40:18
It's because they're finding it in special revelations that God has given to them, special speaking voices and things like that.
40:23
It's not because of scripture alone.
40:25
It's because of the absence.
40:26
There would only be one church and it would be an error.
40:30
Yeah.
40:32
Let's pray, guys.
40:33
Father, thank you for this opportunity to study.
40:35
I pray that you would bless us with a better understanding and in the future as we go on to different theologies that you would help us understand them as well.
40:42
In Christ's name, amen.