Saint Augustine

Moore's Corner Church

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So this is lesson number six. The lesson is called Grace and Truth and we're going to be looking at a few different men who lived after the

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Council of Nicaea, sort of the big men in church history after that time, fourth, fifth century.

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So Augustine is one of them and then Chrysostom or John Chrysostom depending on how you translate it or pronounce it.

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So let's look at the key passage. This is John 1, 14 through 17.

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The Apostle John says, and the Word became flesh and dwelt among us and we beheld his glory, the glory as of the only begotten of the

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Father, full of grace and truth. John bore witness of him and cried out saying, this was he of whom

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I said, he who comes after me is preferred before me for he was before me and of his fullness we have all received and grace and truth for the law was given through Moses but grace and truth came through Jesus Christ.

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Okay so the introduction says this lesson will focus on two key tenets of the

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Christian faith, the grace of the gospel and the truth of God's Word.

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As the passage above demonstrates, both grace and truth were fully realized in the

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Lord Jesus Christ. In order to highlight these themes we will consider the impact of two influential

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Christian leaders who lived in the late fourth and early fifth centuries. And of course who are these men?

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You see that yeah Augustine or Augustine, I might go back and forth saying it because people say it both ways.

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Augustine, Saint Augustine as some people call him and John Chrysostom.

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So you can see in the chart here Augustine was born in 354, he was made the Bishop of Hippo in 395 and then he died in the year 430.

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Chrysostom was born in 347, he was made the Archbishop of Constantinople in 397 and then he died in the year 407.

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Who's heard of Saint Augustine? Raise your hand if you've heard. I think I think almost everybody has heard of Saint Augustine.

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And then John Chrysostom? Not as much, a couple of people.

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Yeah that's a different, Saint Christopher someone else yeah. Did you have something?

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I have a question, why do they have that tilde in front of 347 there? I'm not really sure.

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No I don't know. So continuing on it says within the

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Roman Empire one was from the west and the other from the east. One is known primarily as a theologian, though he was also a preacher.

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Of course this would be Augustine, Augustine was the theologian. The other is known primarily as a preacher,

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Chrysostom. So though he also engaged in doctrinal and discussion and debate, in doctrinal discussion and debate.

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So theologian, one's a theologian mainly, the other's a preacher. What's the difference between a preacher and a theologian?

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Does anyone, does anyone know? Yeah typically theologians tend to be professors and seminaries, you know, and they write books.

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And the preacher tends to be either a traveling evangelist or a pastor of a local church.

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But there's no reason why someone couldn't be both. And obviously both engaged in these disciplines, if you want to put it that way.

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So the impact of their legacy reverberated in the centuries after them and is still felt today.

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For Protestant reformers like John Calvin, who lived in 1509 to 1564, these two church fathers held a unique place of influence.

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Calvin especially appreciated the theology of Augustine, his emphasis on man's sinful depravity in God's undeserved grace.

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I mean those are sort of the the linchpin maybe of the Reformation. Man's depravity in God's undeserved grace.

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Calvin also greatly valued the way Chrysostom approached the Bible, interpreting it in a straightforward way that explained the literal meaning of the text and emphasized its practical implications.

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So Chrysostom would interpret the Bible literally and that's opposed to the other way men dealt with the scriptures in the early days of Christianity and still today.

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What's the other way people deal with the scripture? Instead of taking it literally, they take it figuratively, allegorically.

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You know there's some hidden meaning that it doesn't mean what it says. There's some deeper meaning that you have to sort of figure out and dig out of the text.

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So let's look at Augustine. This is in your book here. We looked at number one,

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Introduction. Just read that. And then now number two, Augustine, 354 to 430.

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So Aurelius Augustine was born in North Africa, not far from the

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Mediterranean coast in modern -day Algeria. It says he is one of the most influential theologians in church history.

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And that's why, like I said, most people have at least heard of him. And if you haven't heard of the man, you've again heard of the city that's named after him.

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So I always say Augustine is the man and Augustine is St. Augustine is the city.

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But you know, maybe not. His father was an unbeliever, but his mother, Monica, was a

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Christian. She taught her son about the Bible and the Christian faith.

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She also prayed diligently for her son's conversion. Now do you think that matters when somebody prays diligently for a child or a grandchild that they will be converted?

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Do you think it matters? Yeah, it matters. She prayed diligently and of course her son was converted later on.

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In his confessions, Augustine explains how God saved him. In chapter 1, he famously prays, our hearts are restless until they find rest in you.

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Some variation of that, but isn't that true? I mean, people's hearts are restless.

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They're searching for something. And most people, whatever they're searching for, whatever they think they're searching for, pleasure, happiness, contentment, peace, they end up searching for it in the wrong places.

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But Augustine really lived kind of a wild, licentious lifestyle early on.

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It says at age 16, Augustine left home to study rhetoric in Carthage.

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A year later, he began a nearly 15 -year romantic relationship with a woman whom he never married.

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Together, they had a son. Augustine's search for satisfaction led him on a quest for truth.

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At this time, he rejected the Bible because he did not find it to be eloquent or philosophically sophisticated.

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Instead, he was attracted to the false teachings of Manichaeism, a heresy that attempted to combine

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Christianity with the false religion of Zoroastrianism. Now, is anyone familiar with these two false systems of religion,

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Zoroastrianism? Have you heard of it, maybe? Now, I'm not an expert by any means.

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What I understand about this is that they believed in an eternal struggle between good and evil, as opposed to Christianity, where we believe in a struggle between good and evil, but we believe there is going to be an end, and we believe that God overcomes.

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You know, God's going to win, and eventually the devil will be dealt with once and for all. But in Zoroastrianism, they think this struggle just continues on forever, and they don't believe in the

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Christian God and Satan. They have positive thinking and negative thinking, and it's really a totally different system.

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But during this time, Augustine was teaching in Carthage, but in 384, after a short stint in Rome, he acquired a teaching position in Milan.

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By the time he came to Milan, he had a abandoned Manichaeism and began to explore

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Neo -Platonism, but the longing he felt in his soul was still not satisfied.

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In Milan, he went to hear the famous preacher Ambrose, who lived from 340 to 397, a teacher of rhetoric.

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Augustine went to listen to great oratory, but the content of Ambrose's sermons began to penetrate his heart.

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So God used the preaching of Ambrose, along with the testimony of some of Augustine's friends, to draw

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Augustine's heart to himself. So God used a preacher to at least plant those seeds to get

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Augustine really thinking seriously about his own sin and about Christ.

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Can any one of you relate to that? That maybe when you came to faith, it was a particular preacher or a particular message, maybe, that really got you from one place, just unbelief, you're disinterested.

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It really got you to a place where now you're seriously considering Christ. I've heard this testimony about Augustine before.

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He's already heard this preaching. He's already thinking a little different. This is the way it goes.

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People may be converted in a moment of time, but usually there are things leading up to that.

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Usually it's not someone who, they don't believe the Bible, they're against Christianity, and they just turn on a dime.

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Usually there's a little bit of process where God is working. So here's

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Augustine's testimony. One day, while sitting outside under a tree, he heard a child from a nearby house saying, pick it up and read.

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Apparently this was some game kids would play back then. They would toe a little eggy, and they would repeat this refrain again and again, and it meant pick up and read.

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Of course, this was part of their game, but Augustine is overhearing this, and he felt, he sensed that this was sort of God speaking to him in a sense, and there happened to be a

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Bible there. So he hears these children pick up and read, pick up and read, and there's a Bible, and this is a sign, right?

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So he picked up the Bible, and he just randomly opened the Bible, and his eyes immediately fell on Romans 13, verse 13 and 14, which say, let us behave properly as in the day, not in carousing and drunkenness, not in sexual promiscuity and sensuality, not in strife and jealousy, but put on the

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Lord Jesus Christ and make no provision for the flesh in regard to its lusts.

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And based on how he was living up until that point, you can just figure this is like an arrow through the heart.

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And it says when he read that passage, the blinders were removed from his eyes, and he understood the gospel and believed.

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So that's one of those testimonies that you would remember. You know,

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I think it's important to point out that people really need to be confronted with the whole issue they're dealing with, and that is their sin.

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Whatever it was that a person might be dealing with, whatever, well, we know what

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Augustine was involved in. The person really has to recognize that's the problem.

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That's what you have to turn away from and turn to Christ. Might not be some immoral living with some people.

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It might be a false religious system they're leaving in, but you have to identify that thing that's really keeping you from the

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Lord to turn. And it's just so much preaching these days. It kind of leaves that part out because confronting people with their issue is gonna make people mad, and it offends people, and instead it turns into a message of, well, just, you know,

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God's grace is wonderful. Follow Jesus and he'll make your life better. But I think oftentimes that gets left out.

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But the Lord used a preacher initially, but then Augustine read it straight from God's Word that his lifestyle in carousing, drunkenness, sexual immorality, he knew he had to put that off and put on the

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Lord Jesus Christ. So it says, after his conversion, Augustine initially desired a life of monastic contemplation and devotion to Christ.

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So he wanted to join a monastery initially. That's probably not most people's thoughts today who get converted in the 21st century, but that was what

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Augustine initially wanted to do. He was ordained, though, a priest in the year 391 by the church in Hippo, and that's modern -day

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Algeria. In 395, the elderly bishop of Hippo appointed Augustine to serve as co -bishop.

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He would serve as the bishop there until his death in 430.

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Now, I don't know about you, but to me this kind of jumps off the page that he was ordained as what initially?

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Bishop. Well, but before he was made bishop, he was a priest.

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So you can sort of already see the wrong way of approaching the

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New Testament with the priesthood. So the Roman Catholic Church is already starting to develop, is my point.

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So once you have the Council of Nicaea in 325, you know, Constantine allowing

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Christianity as the official religion as the Roman Empire. Once that started to happen, the

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Roman Catholic Church is well on its way. It's been an evolution.

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The Catholic Church didn't exist from the beginning. They didn't just pop up in a day. It was an evolution, but it's already starting to form because you see that he was ordained as a priest.

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There's no New Testament office of priest. So you can already see that Augustine, in a sense, you might say he's part

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Catholic. And I say that because in this whole study, it talks about the

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Protestant Reformers really kind of latching on to Augustine, appreciating his theology.

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So not only do Protestants and Reformed Christians lay hold of Augustine, he's viewed as a saint in the

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Catholic Church as well. So Protestants and Catholics kind of look back to him, which is kind of a unique thing.

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Yeah. Is it in Peter where it says you are a chosen generation, a royal priesthood?

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Right. Aren't we priests, in a sense? I mean, the idea is, or the

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Protestant idea, non -Catholic view, would be that every true believer is a priest.

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There's no special priesthood where we're offering, because a priest is there to offer sacrifices.

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And the one and only sacrifice has already been made. So there's really no need for a special priesthood today.

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But anyways, just thought I'd throw that in there. So the Catholic Church is already sort of developing at this point.

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But in addition to preaching, let's see, I skipped a line.

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In 395, the elderly Bishop of Hippo appointed Augustine to serve as co -bishop.

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He would serve as the bishop there until his death in 430.

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In addition to preaching, Augustine wrote numerous treatises, including important theological works, such as On the

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Trinity and The City of God, and important polemical work such as Against Heretical Movements, like Manichaeism and Pelagianism.

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And I like that the religion he was once part of, now he's fighting against it.

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So he recognizes that he was caught up in a false system, and he knew it. He knows it well, and he is using his position of Bishop of Hippo to write these works to warn people about this.

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His book City of God is a pretty well -known book. I mean, it's big. It's like this thick.

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But it's still in print today. For Christians wanting to learn more about Augustine's life, his confessions recount the testimony of God's grace in saving him from a life of unrestrained sin.

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Importantly, Augustine would become one of the most influential theologians in all of church history, especially in the

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West. As noted above, his writings made a significant impact on the

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Reformers during the 16th century Protestant Reformation. So again, both

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Protestants and Catholics will take from Augustine. Here's the thing. If you ever hear some more about Augustine and his beliefs, there's a lot of things we would agree with and a lot of things we would disagree with.

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Now that's going to be the case throughout the Middle Ages, and then once we get to the

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Reformation. There's plenty of things Augustine, plenty of things he taught that we'd be like, whoa, no, that's not, that's not right.

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But he was right on, we believe, the main thing.

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Any questions about his life? Does anyone, maybe you've had a negative impression about Augustine?

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Positive? Anyone? Indifferent? You're not sure? Stacey? I guess just really brief.

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It seems like once he started diving into something and started embracing it, he went to extreme.

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Yeah, no, that's true. You know, his living was extreme, and once he got serious about God, I mean, it was his whole life.

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I mean, the fact that he's willing to join a monastery. Right, even that was extreme. He started to embrace

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God, but then he went to complete extreme and decided initially to join the monastery.

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Right. You know, which, as long as you're focused on the right thing, that can be very good, but sometimes it's not so great.

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So the discussion question is this. Augustine's conversion story is admittedly dramatic.

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The reality is that every testimony of God's grace is amazing.

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With that in mind, how would you explain the way God rescued you from sin and drew you to himself?

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Well, we looked at number one, the introduction, number two, Augustine, and now we're going to be looking at Augustine and grace.

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So it says Augustine has been called the doctor of grace because of his emphasis on God's grace in salvation.

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And by the way, the Catholic Church has certain men throughout history that, you know, they view as contributing so much.

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Their contribution was so important, they're considered a doctor of the church. So that's one reason why he's called that.

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But the doctor of grace. This theme was especially prominent in his response to a false teacher named

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Pelagius. And this is how a lot of people know Augustine, because he was battling this

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Augustine, the Augustinian -Pelagian controversy, the debate between these two men.

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Pelagius taught that people are born morally neutral and they are therefore capable of pursuing

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God and obtaining salvation through their own volition and effort.

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In response, Augustine insisted that people entered this world with a sinful nature.

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Psalm 51 verse five, and they are spiritually dead in their sins. Ephesians 2, 1 and 3.

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They are therefore, according to Augustine, unable to earn God's favor through their own efforts.

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Rather, he must draw them to himself and save them by his grace.

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God's saving grace is something that cannot be earned through personal merit or good works.

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And that's Ephesians 2, 4 through 9. So you basically have three systems.

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You have what is called Pelagianism, which has been considered a heresy, an early heresy of the church.

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This is the idea you don't need the grace of God, because you're not that bad.

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You're not really dead in trespasses and sins. You're born morally neutral. So, you know, as long as you do the right thing and you have the power to do the right thing,

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God will accept you. I mean, God said in their argument is, be holy for I am holy.

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And he wouldn't tell you to be holy if you didn't have the ability. So you can live a sinless life.

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You have the power. You don't even need the grace of God. I mean, that was Pelagian. That was the

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Pelagian heresy. Augustinianism sometimes is wrapped up in, you know, the reformers,

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John Calvin, the idea that, no, it's all the grace of God. So you can't do anything.

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It's God who kind of reaches down and saves you almost despite yourself. And then most

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Christians are somewhere in between where they think it's a cooperative effort between you and God, where, you know,

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God does his part. You respond with faith and that's, that's you responding your free will, your choice.

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And between that cooperative effort, you're safe. So that's where most people are. And then there's the heresy of Pelagianism and then

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Augustinianism on the other side. Just to let you know about that. So consider the following excerpts from Augustine's writings that highlight the theme of God's grace and mercy.

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So you had to fill these in. It says sinners are not justified on the basis of their own, what?

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Your own merit. They are saved by grace. Okay. Here's what

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Augustine said. We conclude that a man is not justified by the precepts of a holy life, but by faith in Jesus Christ in a word, not by the law of works, but by the law of faith, not by the letter, but by the spirit, not by the merits of deeds, but by free grace.

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Augustine also said no one merits justification by his good works since unless he has been justified, he cannot do good works.

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Nevertheless, God justifies the Gentiles by faith. Okay. So any, you understand what's being said there?

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So your good works do not save you. It's solely by grace and it's through faith.

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And of course, that's, you know, that sounds like he's just paraphrasing Romans two or something, or excuse me,

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Ephesians two. In the Old Testament, the next section says that the

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Old Testament saints likewise were not saved on the basis of their good works, but rather through what?

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How are the Old Testament saints saved faith? Well, yeah, faith.

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Now the book here, you know, like I said, I have the teacher's guide, so I get the answers. It says faith in Christ, which does raise a question.

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How were the Old Testament saints saved by faith in Christ? Okay, that there would be right.

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So that they knew something that obviously they didn't know the name Jesus Christ.

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They didn't have all the details, but they knew enough. They had the promises of God. They knew of the man, you know, that Moses spoke of, you know, the prophet, the one who would come.

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So they did know enough. Larry. So here's what

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Augustine said about that. He said Abraham was justified not by his own merit as if by works, but by the grace of God through faith.

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Of course, this is Paul's whole argument in Romans chapter four. Augustine also said, speaking of the

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Old Testament saints of whatever virtue you may declare that the ancient righteous people were possessed.

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Nothing saved them, but the belief in the mediator who shed his blood for the remission of their sins.

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Because salvation is by grace and not by works. Even the worst of sinners can be saved.

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Well, except like really bad sinners. They can't be saved. I mean, do we really believe that anybody can be saved?

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Well, that's the idea. It's not really about you and you're good. I mean, there's some people that's probably who have been saved.

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They don't deserve to be saved. Look how terrible they are. Well, but if you understand God's grace and you understand your own wretchedness, then that type of thinking isn't a problem.

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But this is the problem that most people don't recognize their own wretchedness.

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They think they're pretty good. So that's how they view it. Well, that's not fair that this guy goes to heaven or I just I sort of deserve to go.

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Maybe they wouldn't put it that way, but that's kind of how they approach it. All right.

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Yeah, you compare yourself with other people. And that's that's the name of the game. So, Augustine, more comments, he said.

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But what about the person who does no work? Think here of some godless sinner who has no good works to show.

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What of him or her? What if such a person comes to believe in the God who justifies the impious, namely the ungodly?

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When someone believes in him who justifies the impious, that faith is reckoned as justice to the believer.

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As David to declares that person blessed whom God has accepted and endowed with righteousness independently of any righteous action.

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What righteousness is this? It is the righteousness of faith preceded by no good works, but with good works as its consequence.

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Which is very important because you see that good works do play a role. They're the consequence.

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They're the results of somebody truly has faith in Christ. They're going to display a change.

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They're going to have good works. So this would later be an issue between the

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Catholics and Protestants. And I'll have more to say on that during the sermon later.

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But yes, Stacy. I was just going to say, if you were going to take a snippet out of that whole long paragraph, the piece that really says it all is that person blessed whom

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God has accepted. Yeah. Period. Yep. Period. Mm -hmm.

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Yeah. You know, it's God. It's not our own understanding or our own judgment or, you know, we see what happens here, but it has nothing to do with what we think or how we judge.

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Yep. Who God has accepted. Yes. Amen. And the next quote, there is another sense in this verse.

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For nothing, for nothing, you will save them. With none of their merits going before you will save them.

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All in them is rough, all foul, all to be detested. And though they bring nothing to you, whereby they may be saved.

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For nothing, you will save them. That is with the free gift of your grace.

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So this sounds like a prayer and it's all about God's grace.

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And you notice he says the free gift or somewhere else. He said free grace. Now, today, the term free grace has different connotations, but of course, grace is free.

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It's totally undeserved, which really, if you look at it as a cooperative effort,

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I mean, that's why we tend to think it is all salvation is all of the

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Lord. That we don't play a role in it.

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Our goodness, nothing. The gospel of grace precludes anyone from boasting about their salvation.

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Augustine said, the people who boast, imagine they are justified by their own efforts. And therefore, they glory in themselves and not in the

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Lord. Has anyone ever met a Christian who glories in themselves? You don't have to say who it is.

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I mean, how? Yeah, I don't know. I guess I don't run into it too often, but there's a lot of people that would identify as Christian.

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And you ask them, why? You know, why would you go to heaven? And you know what they say?

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I'm a good person. I mean, that is glorying in yourself. It's not because of God.

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I've heard a few celebrity testimonies. Some famous singer, whoever, talks about their conversion to Christ.

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And they don't even mention Jesus. He's not even part of it. It's all this vague stuff about God leading me.

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And it does sound like they're glorying in themselves. Jesus doesn't even get mentioned.

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But, if you understand free grace, you understand the gospel, that's impossible.

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Augustine said, no man can say that. That is by the merit of his own works.

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Or by the merit of his own prayers. Or by the merit of his own faith. That God's grace has been conferred upon him.

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Nor suppose that the doctrine is true, which those heretics hold. That the grace of God is given us in proportion to our own merit.

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So, of course, he uses that term, heretics. And who is he talking about?

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Who's the guy that Augustine was fighting against? Begins with a P. Pelagius.

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Augustine did not always speak about justification with the kind of consistency or clarity of the 16th century

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Protestant reformers. Nonetheless, as the above examples demonstrate, he clearly affirmed the truth of Ephesians 2, 8 -10.

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For by grace are you saved through faith, that not of yourselves. It is the gift of God, not of works, lest any man should boast.

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And what are they saying? That he didn't always speak with this clarity. To me, it's saying that, okay, if you look at Augustine's writings, sometimes he seemed, what?

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Maybe inconsistent. But, you know, that might be true with anybody.

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But Augustine, again, that's why both Catholics and Protestants can kind of look to certain things he said.

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And both groups kind of embrace him as their own. He doesn't really fit into either category, though, really.

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The discussion question, just a couple minutes left. The word mercy refers to the withholding of a deserved punishment.

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Grace refers to the reception of a undeserved blessing.

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In salvation, God extends both mercy and grace to us. What do

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Christians deserve that they will not receive? Let's start with that question. So what do

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Christians deserve that they will not receive? Okay, so this is mercy that you don't get what you deserve, which

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Mark says is eternal damnation. Do you deserve that?

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Again, this is what the maybe the Pelagians or other people would say. Well, yeah, but come on.

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Like, I'm not that bad. I don't deserve that. Nobody deserves that. It's an easy thing to start thinking that way.

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That, well, that's so, so extreme. Nobody deserves it. But again, you don't recognize your own wretchedness in comparison with God's righteousness.

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But yeah, that's mercy that you don't get what you deserve, which is the penalty of sin.

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Now, what about grace, though? Here's the other question. What will they or what will we as true believers?

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What will they receive that they do not deserve? So, yeah, forgiveness, eternal life.

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So nobody deserves that. Because again, if you understand, if you understand sin and God's grace, this is obvious.

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That's obviously what the scripture teaches. So you don't get the damnation. You do get salvation.

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You do get forgiveness of sin and everlasting life. And that's the wonderful message of the gospel that God, because of his love and grace, he gives us that which we do not deserve.