God Uses Luther’s Flawed Pen to Reform the Church | 1 Timothy 3:15

Oh, and I did also want to apologize for another thing, if my preaching may have been a little loud last Sunday, I think I got a little excitable, and so I do apologize if it was too loud, if it was ringing in anybody's ears, my apologies for that.

At least I don't need a mic, right, at least we don't have to use any fancy technology, but I was talking to my wife and she had mentioned that, yeah, it kind of, she really heard the message last Sunday.

Broadening the Historical Lens Beyond the 95 Theses

So this Lord's Day, I do want to broaden our historical horizons a little bit in this sermon because I'm going to tap into other elements of Luther's life and writings outside of just the 95 Theses, okay, so we're going to take a bigger picture here a little bit more as we start to close out this series.

Rome, the Church, and the Marks of a True Church

And I want to reiterate, I want to kind of draw something out here regarding the Church of Rome, and, you know, part of this is the Scripture that for today is 1st Timothy 3 .15 Pastor David read, is the fact that the Church is the pillar and buttress of the truth, but Rome obviously takes that and twists that to mean that she is the true Church, the one true Church, and that outside of her, there is no salvation, and I'm going to read some direct quotes to you today from their official documents stating that very thing.

But of course, how do we judge the true Church? How do we know what a true Church is? And this is why we need to be very familiar with God's system of checks and balances because anybody can claim whatever they want.

Anybody can claim to be Christ's vicar on earth or his representative or the one true Church, but how do you know, right? That's the big question. How do you know? And that's what we're going to seek to draw out a little bit further.

So do not be deceived, beloved. That's the moral of the story right now. Do not be deceived. We must learn and appreciate church history in light of God's word, in light of God's word, in light of the historical claims that others, that churches may make or that institutions may make.

We need to examine those things and the history of the church in light of the word of God to see what was good, what was bad, what was sin, what was right and wrong. And there is another reason why many are confused about the Church of Rome that I didn't mention last time about what the Church of Rome actually teaches, including, and this includes Roman Catholics and Protestants again that are very confused often about this.

And it's not just because of Rome's apologists or the people that represent Rome and the Roman Catholic faith, and they do debates and things like that, but it's also because of the official magisterium of Rome as well.

That's the official authorities of Rome, such as the popes and those who have declared official, published official documents on behalf of the entire church authoritatively. And so, centuries after the Council of Trent was written, between 1545 and 1563, some popes began to refer to Protestants as separated brethren, okay?

Some of y 'all may have heard this before, separated brethren. And this was initially done by Pope Leo XIII in 1894, okay? So there's a kind of a misunderstanding about when this actually began to be used more heavily by the Roman Catholic Church.

Many mistakenly claim that it was in Vatican II, which was in around 1963 to 65. But some popes had already began to use the term before that. And it was perhaps in Vatican II, it was a little bit more formally pronounced and established.

But that's the reality of the situation here. It's still centuries later. And this is important because the Roman Catholic Church has never retracted the Council of Trent. They never corrected it. They never retracted any of the anathemas, the condemnations that they put on us Protestants and on the biblical gospel of the five solas, the five alones, of justification by grace alone, through faith alone, in Christ alone.

And so this is a big problem. And it highlights once again, the duplicity of Rome, the deliberate deception of Rome. Because again, we see from section six of the Council of Trent, which is on justification, canon nine, says very plainly, if anyone sayeth that by faith alone, the impious is justified, the impious is justified, in such wise as to mean that nothing else is required to cooperate in order to the obtaining the grace of justification, let him be anathema, condemned.

So they condemn the biblical gospel of, we are justified, we are made right before God by faith apart from works of the law, like Ephesians 2 says, like countless other passages in Romans, the New Testament says, how Abraham was justified by faith and not by works.

And we understand that James 2 is talking about justification before men and not before God. So there is no contradiction there. And Rome fails to teach the biblical gospel and instead teaches a false gospel and in turn condemns herself.

Because again, in canon 20 of the same council here, if anyone says that the man who is justified and how perfect so ever, is not bound to observe the commandments of God and of the church, but only to believe in other words, faith alone, as if indeed the gospel were a bare and absolute promise of eternal life without the condition of observing the commandments, let him be anathema, condemned.

So here, once again, they clarify even more that they expect that you must observe the commandments in order to be justified. There you see the same problem, the same false gospel being explained. And this is not to mention that the Roman Catholic church state still continues to quote and appeal to the council of Trent to this very day.

Okay. So you have an institution that's speaking out of both sides of its mouth on the one hand, and it condemns us Protestants, evangelicals, anybody who believes the biblical gospel. And then it calls, it starts calling a separated brethren.

Okay. So that, how do you reconcile that blatant contradiction? Well, we'll see how they do this or try to do this, but let's see what Pope Pius XI says or said in 1923 of November. He says, let us therefore pray to her, our most loving mother, referring to Mary, the mother of Jesus, and especially, especially under this same title, referring to the title of queen of the pasture.

Okay. That she may guide the steps of our schismatic brethren. Okay. That's referring to us Protestants. If we are still toward the pastors, listen to this toward the pastors of salvation, of salvation toward those pastors where Peter living always in his, in his successors, the vicar or the Pope, in other words of the eternal pastor feeds and rules the lambs and sheep of the fold of Christ.

This is from a people, an official people in cyclical called Ecclesium day. Okay. There's so much wrong with this one section just right here. I mean, praying to Mary idolizing Mary on the one hand saying schismatic, excuse me, schismatic brethren.

And then, but they need to be led toward the pastors of salvation. Okay. So how do you reconcile that? Now you're just accentuating the contradiction. You're making it worse. How are we still brothers?

If we need to be led to the pastors of salvation, if we still need to be saved and so ask yourselves that question, why are we being called brothers brethren? Because according to scripture, that term is supposed to mean that God has saved us and adopted saved us already and adopted us into his family as sons and daughters.

So why then do we still need to be led to the pastors of salvation? Right? This is the duplicity of Rome. This is why it's so dangerous and confusing and all the confusion that she causes because of this speaking of both sides of her mouth and contradicting herself in the, in this very encyclical, in this very sentence, there's already a blatant contradiction.

So then according to Rome, Protestants who are, who are being referred to as the separated brethren are not saved after all, unless we return to the church of Rome, unless we, in their words, return to, according to Rome, specifically Pope Pius XI, the one true church of Christ of those who are separated from it.

Okay. So here you see again, that because again, in their own words, if any man enter not here, or if any man go forth from it, or in other words, leaves the church of Rome, he is a stranger to the hope and life of salvation.

Okay. This once again is Rome's duplicity. It is a blatant contradiction from the same Pope, and they have countless other documents that contradict doctrines that they teach on the one hand, and then try to assert something else on the other and blatantly contradict themselves.

So they violate the precept of Christ that says, let your yes be yes. And your no, no, say what you mean and mean what you say. Do not speak out of both sides of your mouth and be duplicitous. So this is the issue, one of the main issues, and this is precisely why Luther was so frustrated with Rome, with Rome and her traditions, because it is well known that popes and councils often err and contradict themselves.

Amen. This is his famous speech before the Diet of Worms when he faced the emperor, and he was oppressed to recant all his writings. And now we know why we see, hopefully have a better picture, a clear picture of why he said that, because Rome continues to contradict herself to this day and compounding her sin and furthering her false gospel and slandering true brothers.

So Luther nails the point here, pun intended, he nails the point here three years later after the thesis he wrote in 1520. Since then, works justify no man, no one, in direct contradiction to what Rome teaches in the Council of Trent.

But a man must be justified before he can do any good work. We must be justified already in order to do good works. And Luther made a big deal about this when he said, that quoted the words of Jesus and saying, a good tree bears good fruit, a bad tree bears bad fruit, and a bad tree cannot bear good fruit, just like a good tree cannot bear bad fruit.

That's the issue there. The issue, the difference lies in regeneration and in the justification of God to make us good by his grace alone, apart from our works. So Luther continues, it is most evident that it is faith alone, which by the mere mercy of God through Christ and by means of his word can worthily and sufficiently, without any other help from us, or from the prayers of the saints, or from the good works of any other saints who went above and beyond what God supposedly required of them, according to Rome once again, and her false teaching of the treasury of merit and of purgatory, and of the supererogation of the saints.

So it's sufficient to justify and save the person, and that a Christian man needs no work, no law for his salvation, for by faith he is free from all law in the sense of condemning him, and imperfect freedom does gratuitously out of gratitude all that he does, seeking nothing either of profit or of salvation, since by the grace of God he is already saved and rich in all things through his faith, but solely that which is well pleasing to God, and to that God's people can say a hearty amen.

This is where we must stand with Luther, because he is faithfully teaching the counsel of God with respect to salvation, and how we are made right before God. It is by faith alone. We are neither justified, nor gain merit, nor saved by works, because God gives us, in Luther's words, all the riches of both justification and salvation in Christ, so that I, we, no longer am in want of anything except of the faith to believe that this is so.

It is to simply receive it by faith alone. Amen? So, we must understand these things, beloved. This is at the heart of the gospel, of the first and most important thing, of first importance, like Paul says in 1 Corinthians 15, and this is the very core of what divides us and the Church of Rome.

Was this why that we cannot have fellowship with Roman Catholics and with the Church of Rome? Now, I want to reiterate from last week and draw this out a little bit more, that the Protestant reformers and confessions completely renounce Rome's treasury of merit, and instead assert that the true church is fundamentally defined by its adherence to the gospel.

So, that, beloved, is how we know whether a church is true or false. Like the Belgic Confession beautifully summarizes, once again, it is by the faithful preaching of God's Word and the gospel. It is by administering the sacraments faithfully of baptism in the Lord's Supper and by administering church discipline properly.

These are the marks of a true church, and so, similarly, in the Articles of Religion of the Anglican Church, which, at this point, has become very much a compromise and apostate. Sadly, it is not really a church according to the Word of God anymore, but in Article 14 of this document is on works of supererogation, of doing more than God required of us, supposedly.

Voluntary works besides, it says, over and above God's commandments, which they, the Church of Rome, calls works of supererogation cannot be taught without arrogance and impiety. For by them men do declare that they do not only render unto God as much as they are bound to do, but that they do more for his sake than what they are bound by duty is required.

Whereas Christ saith plainly, when you have done all that are commanded to you, all we can say is we are but unworthy and unprofitable servants, right, according to the parable in Luke 17 of the unprofitable servant.

It's almost like they read the Bible and decided to directly go against it in Rome's official teaching. It's astounding how blatantly contrary they are to the Scripture, and this also is very much in line with what the Dutch Reformed Belgian Confession teaches in Article 22, which I read last week.

Luther’s True Treasure of the Church and the Prophetic Role of Reformers

So, now back to Luther's thesis, number 62. This is where all of this starts coming together now. He says the true treasure of the Church is what is the most holy gospel of the glory and grace of God, and to that we may say amen, right?

This is where Luther really grasps the main issue. This is the true treasure of the Church. This is what defines a true Church. It is its faithfulness to the most holy gospel. Does it proclaim? Does it believe, teach, and confess the true gospel?

And this is how God used Luther's flawed pen to reform the Church, to correct the Church, to submit it to the Word of God and not to a false head of the Pope who contradicted and still contradicts the Word of God.

We must submit ourselves to the Word of God. Everybody is obligated and required to do that. Everyone, pastors and teachers and believers who are not called to a special office in the Church, we are all subject to the Word of God, rightly understood according to the simple consistent laws of logic and the context in which it was written and the audience to whom it was written for, the basic principles of sound hermeneutics.

Now, the this brings me to a larger issue now of how the reformers in many ways were and even now are still are very much like the prophets of old because not in the sense of foretelling the future necessarily, even though there were men who you could say prophetically predicted what would happen.

When Hus was burned at the stake, he said you may cook my goose because his name means goose. But in 100 years, there will come a swan that you will not be able to silence. Excuse me. And that swan was Luther.

He came almost exactly 100 years after John Hus did, after he was burned at the stake for heresy and which Luther came to wholeheartedly embrace later on. But these reformers were in a in a in an amazing way, not in a foretelling way necessarily so much, but in the sense of foretelling the present, they foretell the present.

They they speak things as they are and they say they take a stand against for or against what is happening and they draw the lines. They draw lines to bring out the issues of our day to light, to bring it to the forefront and to admonish us and press us as a church to say or to decide what side are we on.

Are you on the Lord's side, on the side of truth, or are you on the wrong side, the side of the world, the flesh, the devil of the ministers of Satan, of the synagogue of the devil? What side are you on?

This is what Luther did as in a prophetic type of way. He showed the church her errors and he said, what side do you stand on? And Luther said, here I stand on the word of God, which my conscience is bound to, not by popes, not to popes and traditions of men which contradict themselves and which Christ himself condemned in the Pharisees because they replaced the word of God with their own traditions.

But what side are we on beloved? What side do we stand on? Do we stand on the biblical gospel that we are saved by grace alone, through faith alone, but in Christ alone or something else? And recall that anything else is a false gospel and damns the individual who believes it.

What side are we on beloved? We must be on the side of truth always. Luther continues in thesis 63, but this treasure of the gospel is naturally most odious, most hateful, for it makes the first to be last according to Matthew 20 verse 16.

This is the concept that Luther expounds on in his later writings of this upside down kingdom where God humbles the proud and exalts the humble and in which the poor, the wretched sinner, the poor wretched sinner who simply, like the parable of the tax collector and the Pharisee, the wretched tax collector who humbled himself before God recognizes utter wretchedness and helplessness and recognition that by grace alone he can be saved where he tells God be propitious to me.

Satisfy your wrath on the substitute on my behalf a sinner because I can't do anything for myself. Only another perfect savior can. That's what Luther was expressing here. And this gives us a sneak peek into one of Martin Luther's major breakthroughs.

This is so big. And until he came to understand this breakthrough, this distinction, he continued to struggle with his sin guilt and to have true peace before God. What is this? What is this? This extinction that he discovered?

It is one of the most important distinctions in all of scripture and that is the law and gospel distinction. It is the law and gospel distinction, the two words that sum up the entire Bible because those two words are a sum of how God relates to man, because as sinners, we face the condemnation of the law.

But as believers, we face the forgiveness of the gospel by believing in the gospel of God, of Christ. So this expresses the whole counsel of God in a powerful way because it expresses what the biblical teaching of salvation of God's word is.

It is what the Protestant church and Luther himself championed, that it is by grace alone through faith alone in Christ alone. And it also reveals the true nature of man and of God, that God is perfect, that he is holy, that he is a just judge, like Psalm 55 says, and that he will by no means clear the wicked because in order for God to forgive sin, he must first satisfy the punishment of that sin on behalf, on our behalf, on another.

That is why Christ came and died for us and that is, it also illustrates the utter helplessness and wretchedness and sinfulness of man, that we are fallen, that we are wretched, depraved sinners, and that we can do nothing for ourselves but simply to receive the blessing of regeneration and faith that is a gift of God to believe and thereby be saved.

It is all of grace. All of it is by grace alone, like Romans 11, 6 says, and the whole counsel of God teaches. This is what Luther discovered and this is what it truly does summarize the whole counsel of God.

God, man, salvation, and the authority by which we declare these things, the Word of God, the Bible, the 39 books of the Old Testament and 27 of the New Testament. This is truly what it means to understand in a very real sense the big picture of God, of like the catechism says, what we are to believe concerning God and what duty God requires of man, of us.

It is the law and gospel distinction. Now, this is the breakthrough that finally gave Luther peace with God because it is, in essence, understanding the true gospel. Because in Luther's words, Christ did not command the preaching of indulgences but of the gospel, says he.

Amen. Amen. Not of legalism, not of man-made devices that don't actually forgive or pardon sin, but in fact blaspheme God because Christ alone forgives sin. And this is the main thing that Luther was recovering.

What is the true treasure of the gospel, of the church? It is not indulgences. It is not fancy buildings that the pope was trying to fleece his sheep with by charging for forgiveness so that he could build fancy buildings in Rome.

The true treasure of the church is the gospel. And what a horror it is, Luther continues, to a bishop if he never gives the gospel to his people except along with a racket of indulgences. All that does is make you a peddler, a peddler of the word of God.

You're using God's word. You're abusing the word of God for money. And the Bible, God condemns that man who does those wicked things. And that is what Rome continues to do even to this day. Again, these are not mere points of academic debate.

This lies at the very heart of the things that are most important. The most important things to God and therefore by extension to man is to understand these things rightly. And Luther therefore in these theses and further on in his later writings, these are scathing fierce rebukes of indulgence preachers and those who support them.

And they are indirect rebukes of the pope himself but spoken through the voice of the people as well in order to maintain perhaps plausible deniability. Even though there's an interesting historical aside here that Roland Bainton in his biography of Luther, here I stand, he reveals that Luther was not even all that active when he was awaiting Rome's response after publishing the theses.

And so this took time as I've said, this took time to unfold. But it also brings me to another interesting point here as I was meditating on this episode of church history and on how it relates to scripture into our time today.

Because indulgences in many ways are like welfare today. And I was having a conversation with pastor David about this as well and it made me kind of realize indulgences in many ways have similar consequences that welfare that government welfare has on individuals.

I want us to chew on that for a little bit. Think about why that's the case. Why is that? How is that the case? And I'll remind us what the church of Rome defines as an indulgence according to the catholic encyclopedia that it is the extra sacramental remission of the temporal punishment due in God's justice to sin that has been forgiven which remission is granted by the church in the exercise of the power of the keys through the application of the super abundant merits of Christ and of the saints who went above and beyond what was required of them according to the church of Rome and for some just and reasonable motive.

So think about that definition. In like manner welfare is granted by the government in the exercise of the power of its keys to the kingdom through the application of the wealth of others just like Rome with the good works of others and redistributes it to the poor for some just and reasonable motive right which is really socialism.

It is stealing one man's goods and giving it redistribute him to another. There are some striking parallels here and how this is a parallel to what the church of Rome teaches in its treasury of merit.

It's sort of like the government's treasury of welfare. So that's because that's what it is. It's taking other people's money, other people's goods just like Rome's good works and redistributing them to the poor.

And that's something else that's interesting because if you're taking away you know that's how Rome tries to justify herself is that well these were works that were above and beyond. But how do you know that you already used up the ones that were extra?

How do you know that you didn't start taking out the works that actually justified that believer that saint and now you're you're taking away from their justification? What happens then? Are they going to lose their house in Rome in the heaven?

Do they lose their heavenly salvation? Again there's no way to know and that's why Luther in his thesis was explaining these things. You don't know. You don't know these things. You're making them up and you're using them to abuse the people of God.

So in the same way that the government takes from the ones who have more money and gives redistributes it to those who do not. Now the reason here that we need to consider and it's again it's so fascinating how many of Luther's theses can equally apply to welfare.

Like thesis 40 where Luther says true contrition seeks and loves penalties. In other words it acknowledges that true contrition acknowledges that sin, laziness, idleness has consequences and that we that we may need to account for it.

But liberal welfare or pardons only relax penalties and cause them to be hated or at least to furnish an occasion for hating them. So what this is expressing is also what thesis 28 expresses that it is certain that when welfare or when money clinks in the money chest greed and avarice and vice increases.

But when the church intercedes as opposed to the government as in charity and goodwill without government compulsion the result in the is in the hands of God alone. So we should not in other words compel or force goodwill on anybody and both indulgences therefore and welfare incentivize bad behavior.

They promote bad behavior and discourage good behavior virtue virtuous behavior. You know you know I'll share with you a funny story uh when we were younger when my wife and I were were younger and recently married we we had applied for low housing low income housing which uh is otherwise known as the projects right.

We had applied for low income housing low income housing. I would I was not a I was not uh my job didn't pay me that much. We were so we struggled uh in the first few years of our marriage because while I did I was paid adequately but we still struggled because we had to make ends meet and because I refused to receive government welfare and food stamps.

And so um but yeah but we we decided that we need to rely on God for those things for him to provide through his means and not through the means of the government which are illegitimate. And so this is when we applied they said we barely didn't qualify.

We were just above their the poverty their their level of income so that we weren't qualified. And that made me you know and this kind of this kind of uh welfare is very is very destructive to to to to virtue because it almost got me thinking like man maybe I should just get a a worse job a job that pays less so that I can qualify.

Would it maybe I could just do that and you see how it it it makes it strives it encourages individuals to instead of strive to do better and to to be virtuous it makes them want to do worse so that they can become dependent and rely on the nanny state.

And that's not what God wants for us. That is not what God wants God uh commands us to do in fact and it's very harmful to individual you know it's it the the motive is to help people but in reality you're hurting them and this is where it's dangerous and that's not to say that there's no room for charity or for goodwill but there are conditions that need to be attached to charity and goodwill biblical ones and this is also how by way of application you can make a good case for not allowing people who are on welfare to vote okay and people when you say things like this people will they will attack you for being a racist and all of this stuff and oh you're just being racist and look at you and they're so you know because of uh you know black people are disproportionately poor or whatever the case may be the reality is this this is not helping welfare does not truly help those who it's claiming to help and the other problem is who do you think that people who are on welfare will tend to vote for they will they will vote for the politicians who will seek to provide for them more welfare which is essentially the democratic party so it is destructive to a nation and this has destroyed nations historically.

It has led to the downfall of nations like rome because of things like welfare which is historically referred to as bread and circus free bread and circus and that's the issue with things. This is exactly what luther was dealing with because when you give indulgences you pay for an indulgence and you say oh well i can do whatever i want then i can sin like a wretched hellion a devil and all i have to do is give my money to rome with an indulgence.

And it can all be magically wiped away. And that's that is to despise penalties. That is that's what luther was explaining in his thesis theses. And it's like what ted nugent says. This is very well stated that let's also stop the insanity of suspending by suspending the right to vote of any american who is on welfare.

Once they get off welfare and are self-sustaining they get their right to vote restored. No american on welfare should have the right to vote for tax increases on those americans who are working and paying taxes to support them.

Okay. That's insanity. And this is again this is very much a biblical principle and it also motivates the individual to get out of welfare. If you want to vote you can vote but first get out of welfare strive to work so that you can provide for yourself and you can get out of welfare and vote.

This promotes virtue. This promotes virtue as opposed of laziness and idleness and dependence on a nanny state which again is sinful according to the word of god. And really the real solution is that government should not provide any welfare.

What they should not provide welfare. This is because again it also deters individuals from exercising their own goodwill and charity towards others because they say oh well the government will take care of the poor.

The government will just take care of the homeless with shelters or whatever. So i don't need to do anything after all. Again this is totally contrary to what the bible teaches because the bible says that we are called to be good samaritans.

Right. We should give out of our own resources to those who are less uh able than we are to help them to get back on their own feet. Right. This is what the again the government should not be a good samaritan.

They are not called to do that. Individuals are called to do that outside of with their own resources like the good samaritan who uses his own money to help the individual. And it's again it's similar to what the person who gives to the poor is better off than the one who instead of helping the poor with his money uses it to pay for an indulgence and who instead earns the indignation of god the wrath of god.

Same. It's the same consequence the same result just a different slightly different context. One is indulgences and the other is welfare. So um this is incredibly relevant to what we deal with today on an everyday basis in our society.

Like second corinthians 3 10 says if anyone is not willing to work neither let him eat neither let him eat. We need to encourage individuals to take care of themselves and to seek to provide for themselves and for their own.

Women of course should seek to get married biblically speaking instead of the feminist agenda. So there are things to account for here as well. But um that's we need to do things god's way as opposed to man's way.

And i encourage you all to check out an article by john robbins called the ethics and economics of health care for more on this. It's so important to understand and it helps us to guides us to who we as to who we should vote for as well locally statewide and nationally.

Um this because this government inter this type of government intervention this nanny state feeds the same kind of corruption in politics that luther was dealing with in the roman catholic church. It's the same problem that we deal with to this very day.

And it's also that led what led to the downfall of the anglican church. Because the anglican church's bishops are on the state's payroll they are on state welfare. The state pays for their salary. And now you see corruption ensuing they no longer hold to a biblical gospel.

You have heretics who are archbishops of canterbury now and and uh uh who are in the anglican church they don't hold to the biblical gospel anymore. That's what happens when compromise ensues now. This brings me to the next major point of what luther was getting at in these theses and highlighting the true gospel because it it illustrates the very thing that we've been seeing um that one of the major conflicts with the roman catholic church is that she was pushing a different gospel and still continues to do so today.

According to galatians 1 6 through 10 there is no other gospel but by the one that was delivered unto us through the apostles through the word of god through christ and the new testament and the old testament.

It's all the same gospel because the church of rome's view of justification is analytic or subjective in which according to the council of trent we are not only reputed or declared but are truly called and are actually just or righteous receiving justice within us each according to his own measure and requires inherent righteousness and our own so-called good works at the last judgment in order to be truly considered righteous before god.

Because again in the roman system you must be righteous by definition righteousness must in here within you. You must actually have it and practice it for you to be considered righteous. Which is again um contrary to the biblical gospel and to the nature of man now um the righteousness according to rome may be rooted in the grace of god but it must become a personal inherent reality through the cooperation of good works like i just read from the canons of trent that's pretty.

That's the very thing that they teach. This is the material principle of the reformation. It is one of the most important conflicts that came out of the reformation. It is justification by faith alone apart from any works of any kind.

This is the very heart of the protestant doctrine of justification that it is only by a forensic declaratory legal faith alone. It is called synthetic faith because god does not declare us righteous by our own righteousness.