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We continue tonight in our study of church history, examining the creeds and confessions of the church through the ages and why they matter.
And tonight we are in Lesson 10, The Council of Trent.
And I have subtitled this lesson, Rome Doubles Down on Heresy.
We have already looked at many councils which took place in the early church.
And we've looked at what has happened in the Middle Ages.
And we have looked at the events which sparked and led up to what was called the Protestant Reformation.
Well, today we come to the first council that we have studied, that we will disagree with because the councils that we've looked at so far, the councils of Nicaea, Chalcedon and others, are councils that we would generally be in agreement with.
However, tonight we will be looking at a council that we would not agree with.
In fact, we would say, as I've already stated, that this is compounding the heresy that was already being promoted in Rome.
The council that we're talking about tonight is the Council of Trent.
It is described by the Catholic Church as the 19th Ecumenical Council.
I'll read to you from newadvent.org, it says this, The 19th Ecumenical Council opened at Trent on 13 December 1545 and closed there on 4 December 1563.
Its main object was the definitive determination of the doctrines of the church in answer to the heresies of the Protestants.
A further object was the execution of a thorough reform of the inner life of the church by removing the numerous abuses that had developed in it.
So you see that in the Catholic definition of Trent, it is defined as an ecumenical council.
The problem is it is not an ecumenical council.
An ecumenical council means worldwide or universal council.
However, this council did not take the worldwide church into account.
This council is at best a Roman Catholic council.
It is not a worldwide council.
It did not take into consideration the Eastern Orthodox churches, which had divided from Rome in 1054, nor did it have any representatives from the Protestant movement, which it was seeking to condemn.
It is also a good reminder to us that Rome does consider us to be heretics.
If you notice that, it said in my definition that the reason for Trent was to deal with the heresies of the Protestants.
That's us.
In case you missed it, there have been times in my ministry wherein some folks might think that I have been somewhat hard on Rome, because I do believe them to be wrong on so much of Christian doctrine.
Yet, what we mustn't forget is Rome is not the whipping boy in this situation.
They bear a large whip of their own.
Rome bears a large whip of her own, let's put it that way.
In this council, the Roman Catholic Church would condemn to eternal perdition all who teach the doctrines which we call today Protestantism or Reformed Theology.
This is a condemnation of us.
So we're going to look at first the history and the purpose of the council.
When Luther nailed the 95 Theses to the door of the castle church at Wittenberg, I do not believe that he meant to set off the firestorm that he did.
It was intended rather to spawn an intramural scholastic debate among his fellow clergymen.
But instead, it became the match that would eventually set the whole world of Christendom ablaze.
The Roman Catholic hierarchy was very aware of what had happened and what was happening in regard to the Protestants.
And as you can imagine, they were less than happy with the growing trend of Protestantism.
They had had dissenters in the past, which we talked about last week.
There were those in the weeks before.
We talked about the Waldensians and the Paulicians and those who dissented in the past.
But this dissension was different.
The Protestant movement was growing.
And entire regions were changing to Protestantism and changing away from Roman Catholicism.
So this council had as much a political purpose as it did a theological one.
They had to protect the power that was invested in Rome.
By condemning the Reformers, Rome was seeking to reaffirm her own authority over Western Christendom.
In your notes, the first blank is this.
It says, there was a desire on behalf of Emperor Charles V to see the council conveyed to bring peace in the empire.
So Charles V of the Holy Roman Empire, he desired to see peace in the empire.
So he sought this council.
And he hoped that it would address both the moral abuses of the church and the theological issues which had divided Rome and the Protestants.
And his goal, at least can be interpreted as his goal, was that if they could deal with the abuses in the church, you remember the abuse of indulgences and things like that.
If they could deal with those abuses, then maybe they could win the Protestants back.
If they could deal with the problems, they could win the Protestants and the division would be called.
Pope Paul III did not want to suppress the abuses because many of those abuses were responsible for his great wealth.
So there was a division between Pope and Emperor.
The Pope wanted to deal with the theological issues.
The Emperor wanted to deal with the moral issues, hoping that if he dealt with the moral issues, the Protestants could come back and they could deal then with the theological issues.
So the Emperor says, let's have this council and deal with the moral issues.
The Pope says, let's have this council and deal with the theological issues.
And of course, there is a divide there in reason.
As a result, rather than bringing peace, the Council of Trent would drive a wedge further between Rome and the Reformers.
The Council of Trent, and this is the next blank.
The Council of Trent was the embodiment of what became known as the Counter-Reformation.
The Counter-Reformation.
And it was actually somewhat successful because the Reformation saw many regions fall to the Reformers and much power was taken away from Rome.
Well, there was a strong pushback from Rome and this Counter-Reformation brought much back and solidified her power yet again.
The Council met in three sessions over a period of 18 years.
That may seem like a long council.
18 years.
However, in reality, if you take the fact that the vast majority of those 18 years the council was not in session, it actually amounts to a period of about four and a half years of actual meetings and discussions.
So while it was a period of 18 years, it was really only about four and a half of those years where there was actually a council going on.
The Council met on different occasions between the years 1545 and 1563.
In addition to the Council, there was also a new order, a new Catholic order established called the Society of Jesus, also known as the Jesuits.
How many of you have ever heard of the term Jesuit? Most of you have heard that at least in some way.
The Jesuits were very influential in the Counter-Reformation and encouraged people to continue their devotion to the Scripture as the Catholic Church had defined it.
That was a big thing among the Jesuits.
Yes, we want you to be obedient to Scripture, but obedient to the Scripture as the Catholic Church has made the definition of what it means.
The order was founded by a man by the name of Ignatius Loyola in 1540.
The Council of Trent didn't come along until 1545, so Ignatius Loyola started this actually five years prior to the Council.
And this is something that Loyola wrote.
This is not a debate.
This is not something up for debate.
This was written by his own hand.
But I want you to hear how dedicated Loyola was to the Roman Catholic Church, being the person who started the Jesuits.
Ignatius himself was a former soldier who had been injured and decided he wanted to become a soldier for Christ.
And thus, the Jesuit sort of was birthed out of the idea that he wanted to become a soldier for the Pope.
And there was much in the Jesuits.
It was the Jesuits who were quite responsible for much of what was called the Inquisition.
And it became known they had the power not only to arrest, but also to bring about executions of those who would not obey to the point wherein a person could even be killed simply for reading the Psalms.
So it was this was a serious time and the Jesuits were a serious group.
But this is what Ignatius Loyola wrote.
And I quote, I will believe that the white that I see is black if the hierarchical church so defines it, end quote.
I will believe that the white that I see is black if the church tells me to.
That is a level of dedication that borders on insanity.
Yes.
But yet that was the that was what gave birth to the Jesuits.
That was the man who gave birth to this movement.
Ultimately, the purpose of the Jesuits is the propagation of the Catholic Church by any means possible.
The Jesuits have not gone away.
They continue to this day to be an active body, though, of course, the Inquisition is long time gone.
But yet they continue as a body working within the Catholic Church.
Well, yeah, similar, absolutely similar.
So that sort of gives you the background of the Council of Trent and what brought it about.
Let's now look at the decisions of the council.
This is where we're going to spend most of our time this evening.
Having a little bit of an issue with my computer, so I won't have the words up on the screen for you to read.
So I will I will simply ask for your attention.
I'll read to you some of the things, the decisions of the council.
And if you would like a copy of the notes afterwards, I would be happy to give you a copy or email you a copy.
That's always in fact, I put all my notes on Sermon Central.
If you ever want to get notes from my sermons, all of the written notes are on Sermon Central.
And you can go normally a day or two after the message and get them.
So you always get those notes.
But we're going to look tonight at the decisions made by the council and I've listed them for you.
I've given to you a list here, numbered list.
And we're just going to go down the list because there were there were a lot of decisions which were handed down by the council.
Of course, over 18 years, four and a half years in session, there's a lot of decisions which were made by this council.
And we need to understand what decisions were made.
Number one, the council decided that the books of the Apocrypha, sometimes called the Deuterocanonical books, but we'll for tonight, we'll just simply call them the Apocrypha.
The books of the Apocrypha would be included in sacred scripture.
Are you guys familiar with the Apocrypha? These are additional books that basically make up the historical period between Malachi and Matthew.
They're Old Testament books.
And well, excuse me, let me back that up.
They are not Old Testament books.
They are books that were written during the Old Testament period and are considered by some to be biblical.
They are not considered by Protestants to be biblical.
They are not considered by us to be biblical.
And for all that we understand from history, they were not considered by the Jews to have been part of sacred scripture.
And that's part of, you know, when we think about why we accept the Old Testament is because Jesus told us that he believed the scripture was God, you know, was from God.
He says, have you not read what God said when he spoke to the prophet? Blah, blah, blah.
You know, he said he confirmed to us that scripture was from God.
And so when we say, well, what did the Jews accept the scripture? They had not accepted the Apocryphal books as scripture.
So we don't.
But Trent decided for their inclusion.
And let me read to you from session four, says this, and I quote.
But if anyone received not a sacred and canonical, the said books entire with all their parts as they have been used to be read in the Catholic Church and as they are contained in the old Latin Vulgate edition and knowingly and deliberately contend the traditions of foresaid, let him be anathema, end quote.
So the Council of Trent, by the way, the word anathema, you may want to write off to the side.
The word anathema means to be under the curse of God.
Now, let me let me clear that up because it's a very good question.
The Apocrypha had been included in the Latin Vulgate, but it was actually included under dispute from Jerome who had translated it because the Latin Vulgate was in the 400s.
So it had been for over a thousand years.
But this was the so I want to make sure this is clear.
Jerome had argued that it shouldn't be included.
He did not want to include it in the Vulgate.
He was pressed to do so by the church early in back in the 400s.
This is actually there's there's a good bit of reading that you can do on this in the book.
The King James only controversy and also scripture alone by James White, two good books where you can get more information on this.
But ultimately, it's obvious the Jews had not received these.
Jerome, having gone to Jerusalem and studied, came back and said they shouldn't be accepted.
But under the forcing of the church at the time had accepted them in.
So just to be clear, they were in the Vulgate.
The Vulgate was the understood was used by the church for over a thousand years.
But this is the the Roman Catholic Church coming along and saying, look, this is absolutely scripture.
And if you don't accept these as scripture, you're cursed.
OK, so, yeah, that's a very good question.
I'm glad you asked that.
All right.
Number two, the council was very concerned with the reformed doctrine of Sola Fide, Sola Fide.
And many of the canons dealt with the issue of how men are justified before God.
Now, I would say this is the part where we should spend a few moments.
Because it is important to understand that Rome does not deny the necessity of grace.
Rome does, however, deny the sufficiency of grace.
And I want to just read to you what it says in Canon one, because it does say that grace is necessary.
And I want you to hear this.
This is one of the canons of Trent that we would agree with.
At least in part, I want you to hear it.
Session six, Canon one.
If anyone sayeth that man may be justified before God by his own works, whether done through the teaching of human nature or that of the law, without grace of God through Jesus Christ, let him be anathema.
We would agree with that.
We would.
This is one of those things where I've heard people say Rome teaches salvation by works.
Slow down.
Rome teaches salvation and justification through the church, not through works.
And there is a difference because they say in their own literature, it's not by works.
It is through the church is through the merit and the source meritorium and things like that.
There you could you could make an argument of salvation by works in the end of distilling it down.
But they have stated that it's not by works and we at least must be able to say this is what they have said.
Because for Rome, it is not, as I said, that grace is not necessary.
They say grace is necessary.
The problem is that for Rome, grace is not sufficient.
It must be cooperated with and it must be added to.
So let me read to you now from Canon four.
I'm sorry, Canon nine, Canon nine.
If anyone says that by faith alone, the impious is justified in such way as to mean that nothing is required to cooperate in order to the obtaining the grace of justification and that it is not in any way necessary that he be prepared and disposed by the movement of his own will, let him be anathema.
That is an expression of curse against the doctrine of Sola Fide, because the doctrine of Sola Fide says that the impious is justified by faith alone and nothing else.
And it goes, I'll read it again.
This is why this is going to be a little difficult tonight because it's not exactly the easiest language.
If anyone says that by faith alone, the impious is justified in such way as to mean that nothing else is required to cooperate in order to the obtaining the grace of justification and that it is not in any way necessary that he be prepared and disposed by the movement of his own will, let him be anathema.
So basically what it is saying, in essence, is that he must cooperate with God's grace by an act of his own will.
And if you do not believe that, if you believe it is by grace through faith alone, then you are anathema.
Canon 10, the canon that follows that says this, if anyone saith that men are just without the justice of Christ, whereby he merited for us to be justified or that it is by that justice itself that they are formally just, let him be anathema.
So basically what it says, he said, if anyone says that a person is just without Christ, he's cursed.
But we agree.
But if anyone says he is just because of the work of Christ alone, he is also cursed.
See, that takes both sides.
You can't say that you can do it without Jesus, but you can't say it's only Jesus.
It does.
It's so opposed to Scripture.
Huh? Yeah, you can't say you can do it without him, but you can't say it's him alone.
And then this is goes again.
This is this is attacking which doctrine of the five solas, solus Christus by Christ alone.
This is absolutely, absolutely.
So, huh? Yeah.
So that is just a few of the canons.
There is an entire section of the canon of Trent on justification.
Obviously, I can't bring in every one of them and read them to you.
But those are just a couple that would fly right in the face of what the Scripture teaches and what we would believe about justification by faith alone.
Number three, the council also denied the possibility that a person can have assurance of eternal life.
The council said you cannot have assurance of eternal life in Christ.
Let me read to you.
Canon 15.
If anyone sayeth that a man who is born again and justified is bound to faith to believe that he is assuredly in the number of the predestinate, let him be anathema.
So, huh? Yeah, basically, you can't know if you say that because you have faith in Jesus, that you can be confident that you are predestined to heaven.
You are cursed.
Where is the hope indeed? Go ahead.
Is it because of the use of which word? Predestinate? No, in this sense, predestinate simply means that your destination is determined or that your destination is assured.
It's not necessarily making reference to a hard predestination, but it's saying you can't be assured of your destination just because you have faith.
Now, that's what it's saying.
You can't be assured of your destination just because of faith.
It goes on.
There's a canon 16.
If anyone sayeth that he will for certain of an absolute and infallible certainty have the great gift of perseverance until the end, unless he had learned this by special revelation, let him be anathema.
So basically saying the only way you can know is if God has opened the heavens and told you directly, Rob, that you are going to make it to heaven.
No one can say that since she found my hand.
Yeah, but I'm saying that's the only that's it.
The only real assurance you can have is special divine revelation.
I'm not sure I can answer that.
That's a good question.
How do they reconcile that with the thing about the infallibility of the pope? The message understood is the pope, though infallible in the eyes of the Roman Catholic Church, is only infallible when he speaks ex cathedra.
The pope is only infallible when he speaks from the seat.
Ex cathedra means from the seat.
When he speaks in that positional authority, he's not infallible when he says, you know, Mountain Dew is better than soda pop or what.
I mean, you know, I don't know what he would say that they don't express his infallibility as as as as expressing his whole person.
But just when he speaks from the seat, is that what? Yeah.
Yeah.
And that's that's an important point.
His his his infallibility came as a result of majority vote.
Don't you? Don't you? Don't you like that? Yes.
A subservient majority vote decided he was infallible.
Yes, sir.
Sure.
That's what I mean when he speaks on certain particular issues.
And the thing is, they will make they also make the point if he does say something that is incorrect.
Well, he just wasn't speaking infallibly at that time.
So that's an easy.
I mean, it sounds like it sounds like it's almost as if they're there.
It's almost as if comical at that point, because, well, he just wasn't being infallible then, you know.
So, yeah, yeah, he's always right unless he's not right.
When he's speaking as from the seat.
Let's look.
Let's move on to number four.
The council additionally asserts that good works add to our grace of justification.
The word there is add.
This is hugely important.
This is seriously important.
The council asserts that good works add to our grace of justification, essentially blurring the line between justification and sanctification.
Type of.
OK, I'll deal with it.
Where? What is it? Works.
It should say works.
Thank you.
Good works add to our grace of justification.
Here's here's the member where I said earlier that they don't believe in in salvation by works.
They say everything is of grace.
Well, this is where this is so important because the reality is they believe that grace must be added to a read to you.
Canon 24, Canon 24.
If anyone sayeth that the justice received by justice, there is referring to justification.
If anyone says that the justice received is not preserved and also increased before God through our good works, but that the said works are merely the fruits and signs of justification obtained, but not a cause of the increase thereof, let him be anathema.
So what did that just say? It said, if you say that good works are simply the fruit of your salvation and not the cause, you're accursed.
If you say that your good works are the are the fruit, which is what we teach, by the way, this is exactly.
And I don't mind reading something in Trent as a curse, as something that I teach, because I believe that all of Trent is erroneous.
But it is interesting because they're spot on with what I would say.
I would say your good works are not the cause of your salvation, but rather the fruit of your salvation.
And they say to believe that is anathema.
James 2, 24 is very important because James 2, 24 does use the phrase not by faith alone.
Speaking of faith and works, and I've written quite a bit on this, I've preached on this before.
But what we must understand is the relationship that James is talking about between faith and works is the idea that faith produces works and faith that doesn't produce works is not living or true faith.
And that's his only point.
He's not denying what the Apostle Paul has taught about justification by faith alone.
He is simply saying that if you say it's as a reformer said, justification is by faith alone, but faith will never be alone.
That was an important expression from the Reformation is that faith will never be devoid of good works.
But they're not saying that.
They're saying that your good works count, that your good works add to your justification.
Yeah, it is.
It's a small God.
The council also believe, number five, also affirms the belief that men pay for their own sins, that men pay for their own sins, at least in some way through their works.
Let me read this to you.
This one is as clear as day.
Hear this.
Please hear this, because this one is to me the nail in the coffin of Trent.
Canon 30.
If anyone sayeth that after the grace of justification has been received to every penitent sinner, that guilt is remitted and the debt of eternal punishment is blotted out in such wise, that there remains not any debt of temporal punishment to be discharged either in this world or in the next in purgatory before the entrance of the kingdom of heaven can be opened to him, let him be anathema.
Well, it's advanced, but it's advancing the idea that your sins have not been completely paid for.
They if you say that all of your sins have been paid for, you're accursed.
They have to be temporally punished either here or in purgatory.
But they have not been totally erased through the work of Christ.
To say such a thing is to bring a curse.
Serious.
This is to me, Canon 30 demonstrates the death nail.
Number six, there's so much that we have to get to.
Number six, the council also makes the declaration that teaching in opposition to it is an offense worthy of an anathema.
So not only are these things themselves anathema, but if you teach against them, you are worthy of an anathema simply for teaching against them.
Canon 33.
If anyone says that by the Catholic doctrine, touching justification by this Holy Synod and set forth in this present decree, the glory of God or the merits of our Lord Jesus Christ are in any way derogated from and not rather that the truth of our faith and the glory and fine of God and of Jesus Christ are rendered more illustrious.
Let him be anathema.
That's kind of a fancy way of saying if you say there's anything wrong with this, you wrong.
I mean, that's that's the that's the Callahan version.
If you say it's wrong, you wrong.
That's the and and and that's powerful.
Number seven, they've got a lot quite a bit more to get to here.
Number seven, the council also confirmed that the church would have seven sacraments, each of which would have the power to confer grace on the person receiving them.
Seven sacraments.
We do.
The Protestants declare that there are two sacraments or what we would sometimes call ordinances.
There's a little bit of debate as to why you would know why you would call one or the other sacrament.
We typically call it ordinance or a law in the church, something that Christ has established that the church would practice.
And the two ordinances are baptism, which is the single ordinance only to be done once.
And the Lord's Supper, which is the ongoing ordinance, the one that is supposed to perpetuate throughout the life of the believer.
So we have to know that is important.
Neither one of the ordinances would be vessels of grace in the sense that they would confer upon a salvation in any sense.
But this is what session seven, Canon one, this is session seven.
So it's another session.
Canon one says, if anyone shall say that the sacraments of the new law were not all instituted by Christ, our Lord, or that they are more or less than seven to it, baptism, confirmation, the Eucharist, penance, extreme unction, orders and matrimony, or even that any of these seven is not truly and properly a sacrament.
If you say that these things are not truly sacraments, you are a curse.
Canon four of that one says, Canon four of session seven.
If anyone shall say that the sacraments of the new law are not necessary unto salvation, but superfluous and that without them and without the desire thereof, men through faith alone obtain of God the grace of sanctification through all the sacraments be not necessary for every individual.
If you say that you can be saved by faith alone and you don't have to have these seven sacraments, you're a curse.
Canon six, it's not in the sense that you have to have them all in all in total.
It wouldn't be that sense because, of course, priests are not married.
Yeah, it would it would be that if you are married, it has to be married in the church.
And if you're not married in the church, then you have you have divorced yourself from that grace of God.
So that is why marriage in the Catholic Church is a very serious thing, because it's not only something it's only two people joining as one under the eyes of God.
It's two people joining as one under the sacramental power of the church.
It's they're receiving the grace of God in this sacrament.
So, yeah, Canon six, if anyone shall say that the sacraments of the new law do not contain the grace which they signify or that they do not confer that grace on those who do not practice or who do not place an obstacle in the way as though they were merely outward signs of grace or righteousness received through faith and certain marks of the Christian profession by which the believers are distinguished among men from the unbelievers, let him be anathema.
So basically, if you say that baptism is an outward expression of faith which separates the believer from the unbeliever, you are accursed.
Guess what we say about baptism? Pretty much that if you say that the Lord's Supper does not confer grace, but is simply an expression of faith, you are anathema, you are accursed.
So that is in dealing with the sacraments.
Now, number eight, there is also a confirmation of the church's teachings on transubstantiation.
I'll move over here.
Transubstantiation, long word.
You'll remember we talked about transubstantiation last week.
This is the belief in the changing of the substance from bread and wine to the physical body and blood of Jesus.
Now, if you're writing this because the sacrifice has to be repeated, listen to what it said in Session 13, if you're writing this down, it's Session 13, Chapter 3, Canon 1.
This is a lot to go through.
This is quite a bit.
This is what it says.
If anyone shall deny that in the sacrament of the most holy Eucharist, that is the Lord's Supper, a really, really and substantially contained the body and blood together with the soul and divinity of our Lord Jesus Christ and consequently the whole Christ, but shall say that he is only there as a sign or a figure or a virtue, let him be anathema.
So if you say that Jesus is only there representatively or as a sign or virtue, if you don't say that he's there, both body and spirit, both divinity and the whole Christ, you are anathema.
Canon 2 of that same chapter, if anyone shall say that in the sacred and holy sacrament of the Eucharist, the substance of the bread and wine remains conjointly with the body and blood of our Lord Jesus Christ and shall deny that wonderful and singular conversion of the whole substance of the bread into the body and the whole substance of the wine to the blood, the species only of bread and wine remaining, which conversion, indeed, the Catholic Church most aptly calls transubstantiation.
If you deny this physical change in the bread and the cup, you are accursed.
Oh, yeah, very serious business.
Yes, dear.
I don't know the answer to that question.
I know that they drink all of the wine.
All the consecrated wine is finished.
I don't know about the bread.
I've never looked into that.
I do not know.
But I do know the wine must be consumed.
A certain amount of wine is a certain amount of wine is blessed and consecrated.
And that wine is consumed after the mass by the priest.
That's OK.
Let's let's look this next phrase.
I want to I want to introduce you to an idea because in regard to the sacraments, the council affirms the teaching.
And this is a Latin phrase.
I'm a write it down the board for you.
X opera operato e x o p e r e o p e r a t o x opera operato x opera operato means essentially the thing working or from the work performed is what it literally means.
But it means that this thing that is doing the work actually does the work.
For instance, the best example would be someone who believes that baptism washes away your sin because they believe it's doing the work.
It's actually working.
It's actually doing something.
Let me read from this is from Catholic Catholic Culture dot org, and I quote a term defined by the Council of Trent to describe how the sacraments confer the grace they signify.
Trent condemned the following proposition that grace is not conferred x opera operato by the sacraments of the new law.
Literally, the expression means from the work performed, stating that grace is always conferred by a sacrament.
Hear that again.
Grace is always conferred by a sacrament.
The sacrament is what is the medium it brings the grace moving on.
It says in virtue of the right performed and not as a mere sign that grace has already been given or that the sacrament stimulates the fate of the recipient and thus occasions the obtaining of grace or that what determines the grace is the virtue of either the minister or the recipient of a sacrament provided.
No obstacle is placed in the way every sacrament properly administered, confers the grace intended by the sacrament in a true sense.
The sacraments are instrumental causes of grace, end quote.
It does the grace work.
Yes, a good thing.
It is once consecrated and conferred is when it is operable.
Yeah, well, the mass is to be is to be a repeated thing.
But yet at the same time, it is believed that a person could have a thousand mass attendances.
They could they could attend mass a thousand times and still die.
I'm sure that's another thing that a person yet to die and have to go to purgatory.
The council was declaring that the grace of God comes through the sacraments themselves, and by declaring that these sacraments could only rightly be administered by the church, they were demanding allegiance to the Roman Catholic Church by saying this is the only way you can receive the grace of God.
You see, that's the purpose behind this.
If the only way you can receive the grace of God is through the sacraments of the church and the only ones who can rightly administer the sacraments are the church.
Guess who's in charge of the grace of God? The church.
This establishes the hold that Rome had over the Western church by saying that you cannot receive the grace of God outside of the church.
Scary, it is scary.
So we see there is so much in the council, there's so much in the Council of Trent that we can examine and look at.
And I truly wish that we had more time to go into them further.
But I want to move now to the next portion on your list.
We've looked at the council, we've looked at what is taught.
But I want to look at the relationship between Trent and Galatia.
Let me make a little room here.
Trent and Galatia.
If you have your Bible, open to Galatians chapter one.
In the first chapter of Galatians, Paul sets down an anathema of his own.
By the way, that's your first blank there under the relationship is anathema.
In Galatians chapter one, verse six, the Apostle Paul is challenging the Galatians.
He's challenging them regarding the fact that they are deserting the very teachings that he had given them.
He says, I am astonished.
That you are so quickly deserting him who called you in the grace of Christ and are turning to a different gospel.
Not that there is another one.
I love Paul's clarity on that.
Not saying there's another gospel.
But there are some who trouble you and want to distort the gospel of Christ.
Verse eight, but even if we or an angel from heaven should preach to you a gospel contrary to the one we preached to you, let him be accursed.
As we have said before, so now I say again, if anyone is preaching to you a gospel contrary to the one you received, let him be accursed.
Notice the dividing line that the Apostle gives to us.
He provides to us the proper dividing line for the church, and he says that it is the gospel which is the dividing line.
The gospel is the dividing line which separates the true church from the false church.
It is the gospel that will separate the herald from the heretic, and it is the gospel that will ultimately separate the true church from the false.
And he says that if there are those who preach a different gospel or a contrary gospel, they will be under the curse of God.
This is why anytime somebody is talking to me about people of other denominations, and we get this conversation all the time.
What do you think about this denomination? What do you think about this pastor? What do you think about this preacher? What do you think about this guy or that guy or whatever? My response will often be, is this a gospel issue? Because there are a lot of things that I differ with people on that I would say are not necessarily gospel issues.
And I add this very clearly.
But the question which we have to ask are the difference between Protestants and Roman Catholics gospel issues.
And I have to say that the answer must be yes.
If I were standing next to a Roman Catholic on a street corner and a person came to me and him and said, how might I be saved? Our answers would be radically different.
If I stood next to an Orthodox Presbyterian, our answers would be the same.
If I stood next to a Southern Baptist, our answer would be the same.
If I stood next to a non-liberal Lutheran, our answers would be basically the same.
But if I stood next to a Mormon, our answers would not be the same.
If I stood next to a Jehovah Witness, our answers would not be the same.
And if I stood next to a Roman Catholic, unfortunately, our answers would not be the same.
They would not only be slightly different, they would contradict one another.
We would declare that salvation is by grace alone, through faith alone, in Christ alone, and that the works that we perform are the fruit of our salvation and not the cause of it.
And the Roman Catholic would deny every word of that sentence.
And as a result, they would be preaching another gospel.
The Council of Trent drew a line in the sand.
It really did.
As much as one might want to argue that the Protestants had drawn a line in the sand with the five solas, the Council of Trent drew a line in the sand, and that line has stood for 500 years.
Rome has reaffirmed the teachings of Trent, and Vatican and Vatican II latter councils which affirmed the teachings.
The only main difference, and I do want to address this, because I think it's a point that needs to be noted, and I believe it's Vatican II which says that the Protestants are estranged brethren.
How did we go from being under the curse of God to being estranged brethren? And how can you say one is authoritative and from God, and the other is also authoritative and from God, and you can't be under the curse of God and at the same time be brethren? Sure.
Absolutely.
Trent points out to us the sad state which the Roman Catholic Church was in during the Protestant Reformation.
It was in a reactionary mode, and as a result it doubled down on the heresy that it had been promoting.
This was a time of great revival in the Church.
It was a revival of scholarship.
It was a revival of biblical literacy.
It was a revival of truth.
Yet instead of seeing this revival as a blessing, Rome saw it as a movement which challenged its power, and as a result came back and re-challenged its own power, or re-challenged the Protestants for power and solidified, which what I would say is the death nail for their call to being a church.
Thankfully, the suppressive attempts of Rome, including the Jesuits and others, were not successful, and the revival of the Reformers went on to spawn a massive movement within Christendom which would be felt throughout the world.
In our next session, we're going to focus our attention on one particular area of the Reformation which had great significance on future generations.
We're going to look at the Synod of Dort.
And I imagine that some of you are very familiar with that and would maybe even get on to me for not calling it by its proper name, the Synod of Dorcek is the longer phrase.
Some of you may have never heard of that.
But it was the Synod of Dort which would ultimately be wherein we would have established for us what would later be called the Doctrines of Grace, or TULIP, total depravity, unconditional election, limited atonement, irresistible grace, and the perseverance of the saints.
So I tell you, if you've missed, don't miss next week, because next week will be an awesome opportunity for learning.
So let's pray.
Father, thank you for all that you have given to us in this time of study.
We pray that it has been a time wherein your people have been edified and your name has been glorified.
And we do pray for the Catholic Church.
We pray, Father, we pray for conversion for all of our friends who would claim fidelity to the Pope.
We pray for conversion for the Pope, that he would see his position for what it is, a position of absolute blasphemy, that he would step down from that horrible throne and that he would bow the knee to Jesus Christ and that those behind him would follow suit.
And as Nineveh repented from the top down, that we would see Rome repent from the bottom down.
From the top down.
That we might have this blessed unity, which comes only in true faith in the true Christ.
And it's in his name we pray.
Amen.