Church History - the Early Church Part 3 (100-312) — David Guzik

We're going into our third period of church history here the first period we called the Apostolic period and that was basically 33 AD to what was the round number we threw out? 100 the next period we talked about was the period of the early church and that was 100 to about 313 312 you could say.

Okay, so we talked about those now third. We're going to consider. This is a big chunk. I know we're going to consider what I'm going to call the Christian Empire and we're going to take that from 312 to 1500 believe it or not, which is a pretty big chunk of time right about 1 ,200 years and.

The Christian Empire: A New Era in Church History

Of course how? Christianity was in 1500 was very different than how it was in 312. We're not talking about one period of time where it was uniform not by any means. But there are some very important themes that take place during this time and things we want to investigate together.

And so we're calling this period the Christian Empire. I suppose we'll spend two or three weeks. Talking about the period of the Christian Empire, then it's on to the time period of the Reformation now.

One of the great things that we want to talk about during this time. One of the most important trends or characteristics takes place at the beginning part of this period. At the end of the third century.

By the way when I say third century. Raise your hand if this is true when I say third century, how many of you think of the 300s? Am I just funny on that? I usually think of that. Okay, it's not. The third century is the 200s.

I have to always struggle to keep this clear in my mind. The third century is the 200s. Okay, the fourth century is the 300s. So at the end of the third century and the beginning of the fourth century.

Diocletian's Persecution and the Threat to Christianity

It looked like Christianity might be doomed. I mean you had had basically 300 years of Christian growth and expansion. During the end of this period there were starting to be Christian churches built and buildings built after about 250 in the in the early 200s, 250 or so Christians started being able to build their own churches, build their own places of worship.

The gospel was spreading. What was it that happened at the end of the 200s and the beginning of the 300s that made this difference and sort of? Imperiled Christianity altogether. Well, basically it was a new outbreak of vicious persecution.

Vicious persecution. This is a name that should live in infamy among Christians. Diocletian conducted some of the worst persecutions against the church ever. Now in fact, I've got something from an edict he made from the edicts of Diocletian from Eusebius's history.

Basically what they did was they divided the Roman Empire between East and West and so they would have two different emperors, a Western Emperor and an Eastern Emperor. So when it says here at the beginning Diocletian and Maximum, that's talking about East and West.

They declared that the meetings of the Christians should be abolished. What does that mean? You can't go to church, right? Christians can't meet. It was in the 19th year of the reign of Diocletian that imperial edicts were published everywhere commanding that the churches be leveled to the ground and that the scriptures be destroyed by fire and ordering that those who held places of honor be degraded and that they that they of Caesar's household, if they persisted in the profession of Christianity, be deprived of freedom.

Then it goes on to say such was the first edict against us, but not long after other decrees were issued commanding that all the rulers of the churches in every place be thrown into prison and afterwards by every means be compelled to sacrifice to the pagan gods.

This was a severe persecution. I'll tell you what else really began in this. One of the great things that they did in this was they took everybody, every Christian who had a government job. Again, the Roman government was huge.

I mean think about it on the scale today of the United States government. Let's say they pass the law tomorrow that said if you're a Christian you got to get out of the army and you got to get out of the civil service.

That's what this was like. I mean a huge blow against Christians everywhere and it looked like not that Christianity would be stamped out, but that Christianity would just be made irrelevant. At this time you had a very steady progression of Christian growth and influence.

There was a substantial number of Christians. Now, it looked like Christianity might be put into this place, but then two very remarkable things happened in the early part of the 4th century. The second thing a lot of you probably know about.

How many of you have ever heard the name of Constantine? The first one is almost more important, but hardly anybody knows about it. The first one happened, I can give you the exact date, April 30th, 311.

Galerius and the Edict of Toleration

This was the Edict of Toleration. This had to do with the Roman Emperor Galerius. Now, Galerius had been a great persecutor of the church and what he very, I mean, this was this was one of the guys who implemented and carried out the Diocletian Edicts.

This guy was a dedicated, aggressive persecutor of the church. Surprisingly, he issued the Edict of Toleration on his deathbed. Now, he never admitted that he had been wrong before, but he declared that he admired the determination and the tenacity of Christians in the face of persecution and he decided that for the good of the Empire, he would allow them to meet as long as they were orderly about it.

He also asked Christians to pray to their God for the good of the Empire. Now, this established the significant official toleration of Christianity in the Roman Empire. It's called the Edict of Toleration.

Now, there were times, many seasons in the first 300 years of the church, when Christians were tolerated, but not officially. They were tolerated just because the officials decided that they weren't going to persecute them, right?

So, it was one of these things where the officials could say, well, we decide we're not going to persecute you, but we could always change our mind. Now, they passed a law that said Christians can practice their religion.

Let's take a look at this Edict of Toleration. It's on this thing. It's very interesting. This is a rough translation of what Galerius wrote. It said, among our other regulations for the permanent advantage of the public good, we have so far attempted to bring all things into conformity with the ancient laws and the public discipline of the Romans.

Now, ancient law and public discipline, you know what that means? That means, give me that old-time religion. But when Galerius speaks of that old-time religion, what's he talking about? Zeus, Apollos, you know, all the ancient Roman gods.

He says at the end of that paragraph, it has especially been our goal that the Christians who had abandoned the religion of their forefathers should return to right opinions. You see, isn't it interesting to hear a pagan emperor speak about this in this way?

You know, those Christians, they're abandoning that old-time religion, the faith of their forefathers. They need to get back to the basics here. And so we did the best we could, is what he's saying. Then he goes on.

We don't know why such stubbornness and foolishness took hold of the Christians, so that instead of honoring these ancient institutions, which perhaps their own ancestors established. You see, this is what Galerius is saying.

Man, your great-great-great-grandpa probably established these religions, and now you're abandoning them. Romans, in their pagan religions, were very big on ancestor worship. So this is an important point to him.

We don't know why such stubbornness and foolishness took hold of the Christians, so that instead of honoring those ancient institutions, which perhaps their own ancestors had established, they, through Caprice, made laws to themselves and drew together into different societies, many men from wildly, widely different backgrounds.

Can somebody translate for me? What is offensive to Galerius there? It's the whole principle in Galatians, that in the church, there's neither Jew, nor Greek, nor slave, nor free, nor barbarian, or civil, or whatever.

It just doesn't matter. He goes, you know what they're doing among those Christians? They get together all these different people from all these different backgrounds, and they bring them together in one society, in one club.

Why, it's an outrage. It's a scandal. Okay, he goes on. Paragraph three. After the publication of our edict, now he means edicts of persecution, commanding Christians to observe the ancient institutions.

Many of them were persuaded through the fear of danger, and many were exposed to punishment. You know what he's saying? He's saying, some abandoned Christianity and came our way, some didn't, and were punished.

Now he says, apparently not very many of them did, otherwise paragraph four would be unnecessary. Nevertheless, because great numbers still persist in their opinions, and because we have understood that at the present day, they neither pay reverence, and do adoration to the gods, nor yet worship their own God, therefore we, from our desired generosity in giving pardon to all, have judged fit to extend our generosity to those men, and to permit them again to be Christians, and to establish the places of their religious assemblies, so that they, yet so as they offend not against good order.

Now, isn't it interesting how he says, we haven't been able to, basically what he's saying is, we haven't been able to make them pagans, and we haven't allowed them to be Christians. So now, because we're so generous, because we're so nice, we're gonna allow them to be Christians, just so as long as they don't get out of hand in their orders, in their assemblies.

And of course, that was a big problem, right? There was always a riot breaking out whenever a church service got together, right? No, I'm being sarcastic. It's almost funny that he says, against the public order, but you know, Christians were the best friends the Empire ever had.

And then, he mentions that kind of here at the end, he goes, wherefore, it will be the duty of Christians, in return for our toleration, in other words, because we're being so nice to you, to pray to God for our benefit, and for the public good, and for their own good, that the public good may continue safe in every place, and that they may, they themselves, may live securely in their homes.

Did this guy become a Christian? No, an absolute shock and surprise that this guy, on his deathbed, issues that this man, who had been a lifelong, aggressive persecutor of the church, now changes his mind.

And you know what basically changed his mind? The Christians wouldn't quit. He couldn't change him. I mean, he tried the best he could, but when they kept being thrown to the lions, when they kept being burned at the stake, when they kept being beheaded at the chopping block, and more and more people became Christians, and the Christians weren't being scared away, and they were strong in their faith, you know what?

He said, I can't win. Most of these Roman emperors, Galerius is probably a good example. The reason he persecuted Christians was he thought it was politically important for him to do it. Now, this is what's kind of interesting about this.

Is that at the end of his life, when he saw that Christians weren't backing down, he realized this is doing more harm than good. So it was politically smart for him to issue this edict of toleration. So that's the first very big thing that happened.

I mean, now Christians are officially tolerated to practice their faith in the Roman Empire. A huge change, huge change. Let's say you're a Christian in those days, and you have never been thrown in jail for being a Christian.

No one in your family ever has, but you know some people who have had, and your pastor has served some jail time. And so there's this climate of fear around everything, all the time. You have to meet secretly.

You are very, very careful about who you share the gospel with, right? You know, I mean, that could get you into a lot of trouble. And so here you are doing your thing, and all of a sudden you read this edict where this emperor who has been persecuting you, issues this edict of toleration.

What are you thinking? God has answered our prayers? God has, I mean, is there anything that any Christian would think would be negative in that edict of toleration? No, not a thing. All right, well, what's the next thing?

Constantine's Conversion and the Edict of Milan

Number two, the conversion of Constantine. Now, the whole dynamic of political structure in the ancient Roman Empire is really complex. I mean, really complex. Let me just kind of make it too simple. I mean, I'm sacrificing some accuracy for the sake of simplicity.

But in October of 312, so what are we talking about? We're talking about a year and a half after the edict of toleration. In October of 312, the imperial throne of Rome was up for grabs, and a young Roman general named Constantine commanded all the armies of Britain and Gaul.

What do we call Gaul today? France. There were substantial Roman armies in Britain and in France. Constantine was the commander, was the general over all those armies. His armies supported him to be the next emperor of Rome.

You know how in these Latin American countries where, you know, a ruler dies, and it's basically the army that decides who's going to be the next president or whatever? That's how it was in the Roman Empire, right?

You had the army, you had the power, you had the right to be the next emperor of Rome. Whenever it wasn't clear already who was going to be. So it was up for grabs, Constantine's armies said, this is our man, he's going to be the next guy.

Now, obviously, this was contested. There was another guy named Maxentius, who was another claimant to the throne, and Constantine marched with his armies from the north, and really right outside of Rome, he met up with the armies of his opponent.

A couple days before the battle, he's there meeting up with his opponent, and he saw a cross of light in the sky. And he either read it written in the sky, or he heard it, but he heard this in Latin, in hoc signus vincis, which means, in this sign conquer.

He was already beginning to reject the Roman idea of multiple gods in favor of one God, and when he saw this in the sky, he regarded it as a very important sign. Now, a little bit later, seemingly still, yeah, still before he was going to meet this other army in battle, he had a dream, and in his dream, Jesus appeared to him and showed him the cross sign again.

Except this time, the cross looked a little different. The cross is bent over like that. Now, what this kind of looks like, is it kind of looks like the Greek letters Chi and Rho, which are the first two letters of Christos.

Those are the first two letters of the name for Christ, and so he regarded this as a sign. By the way, does that look familiar? That is a very prominent Roman Catholic symbol. In a real sense, this is the beginning of the Roman Catholic Church.

This is Constantine's cross. He felt Jesus was telling him to put this sign on his soldier's shield, and to go out and fight the battle. Well, he did that. He went out, they fought the battle, and he won, and so Constantine came into power.

When he came into power, he moved to grant freedom and official status to Christians, and in the year 313, he granted the Edict of Milan. That granted official religious freedom in the Roman Empire. The Edict declared, our purpose is to grant both to the Christians and to all others full authority to follow whatever worship each man has desired.

As a matter of fact, let's take a look at that. We'll read that now. What's interesting about this is religious toleration is different than religious freedom, right? And this is what this was granting, religious freedom.

It's just interesting to read these old documents. Again, this is from the Edict of Milan. This isn't the entire thing, but it's from it. It says, it seemed to us that among those things that are good for mankind in general, the reverence paid to the divinity deserved our first and chief attention, and that it was proper that the Christians and all others should have liberty to follow that mode of religion, which to each of them appeared best, so that that God who is seated in heaven might be kind and helpful to us and to everyone under our government.

And therefore, we judged it a good measure, and one consistent with good judgment, that no man should be denied the right to practice the rights of the Christians, or whatever other religion his mind has directed him, that thus the supreme divinity to whose worship we freely devote ourselves, might continue to extend his favor and goodness to us.

And accordingly, we give you to know that, without regard to any provisos, in our former order concerning the Christians, what was the former order? To persecute. Now, when he says our, he's not talking about himself personally, he's talking about the Roman emperors.

All who chose that religion are to be permitted freely and absolutely to remain in it, and not to be disturbed in any way or molested. And we thought it fit to be thus special in the things committed to your charge, that you might understand that the indulgence which you've granted in matters of religion to the Christians is ample and unconditional.

And perceive at the same time that the open and free exercise of their respective religions is granted to all others, as well as to the Christians, for it befits the well-ordered state and tranquility of our times, that each individual be allowed, according to his own choice, to worship the divinity, and we mean not to take away from the honor due to any religion or those it honors.

Moreover, with respect to the Christians, we formerly gave certain orders concerning the place appropriated for the religious assemblies. In other words, burn them down. That was the former order. But now we declare that all persons who have purchased some places, either from our treasury or from any other else, must restore them to the Christians without demanding repayment of kind, and that this be performed immediately and without dispute.

And that the spirit of our gracious order may be known unto you all, we declare that you cause it by your authority to be published everywhere. Pretty impressive, right? This isn't just saying we're going to tolerate the Christians.

What this says is, hey, whatever we've done in persecution, we're going to try to make it right. That's right. We're going to restore it. We're going to give it back. And so this was very, very big. Constantine did what he could do to help the church.

He sought to restore... Well, first of all, I would say the idea of religious liberty did not begin in America. This is a very modern idea that Constantine brings forth. The idea that, hey, every man should be able to practice his own religion according to his own conscience.

Go ahead, he says. That's a very modern idea. Now, what's sad is that after Constantine, it fell back pretty quickly from there. The idea of religious liberty, religious freedom. But Constantine declared this.

Hey, let every man worship his own God according to the dictates of his own conscience. That's fine, he says. Because now we realize we did a wrong thing against the Christians. We're going to restore that the best we can.

Constantine's Support for Bishops and Church Leadership

The next thing that he did was he goes out and he says that we're going to start paying government salaries to bishops and to preachers. Pastors, basically. Now again, remember how this worked. Here's a city.

Let's say this is the city of Rome. Rome is a big, big city, isn't it? How many Christian congregations are there in Rome? A bunch. Where do they meet? Well, by this time there are some churches. But they also meet in houses, right?

So there's a lot of Christian congregations. Every congregation has a pastor or a leader or a preacher who leads it. But then there's one bishop who has oversight over the whole enchilada. Now, what Constantine said is, we're going to start paying the salary for some of these bishops and some of these preachers.

The government was. And then he says also that we're going to recognize Sunday as a governmental day of rest. And then finally, what he said was, Constantine said, look, whenever there's a problem in the church and I can help out, let me help.

You've got a controversy, you've got a problem, you've got something that's going to divide the church, let me help out. I'll do what I can to help. Good thing or bad thing? Put yourself in the place of a Christian.

You've been persecuted. People you know have died for their faith. You have seen people die for their faith in Jesus Christ. Your own family, nobody ever was killed or hurt, but your dad lost his job and your whole family was thrown into poverty.

You wanted to get into a good school, but they wouldn't let you because you were a Christian. I mean, all this kind of persecution. And then now, first, you're ecstatic when the edict of toleration came out.

Yes. Now, the emperor himself is a Christian. Thank you, Lord. If you put yourself in the shoes of somebody back then, it is impossible to see this as anything other than just, thank you, Jesus. This is the best.

Lord, you are so good. I can't believe how you did this, Lord. All of this is the best. Now, you see how they're picturing that? Was Constantine a true Christian? This is one of the real controversies of church history.

Was Constantine a Genuine Christian?

It's warmly debated. The effect of the official recognition and the support of the church by the Roman Empire, it ended up being a negative influence. This is what one writer says, a guy named Houghton.

He says, It is very doubtful whether Constantine was ever a true convert. His predecessors had persecuted the Christians for political reasons. He favored them on similar grounds and showed himself willing to continue the policy of toleration, which had, in fact, been introduced about a year before he won his victory.

This guy says, look, he's just a politician playing the Christian card. He's just carrying on what Galerius started on his deathbed, right? But you know what? I don't agree with that. I have to say, I believe that Constantine was a genuine Christian.

I don't think he would have done many of the things that he did unless he was a genuine Christian. Especially getting involved in church controversies. Now, let me point out a couple of this. There were two pretty important church controversies that Constantine got involved in.

The Donatist Controversy and the Authority of Ordination

One of them was the Donatus Controversy. The Donatus Controversy started in North Africa, where there was a big population of Romans and Christians, of course. The Donatus were a strict group of Christians in North Africa who refused to recognize a man as a bishop.

A man was appointed as bishop. They refused to recognize the man as bishop because he was ordained by somebody who faltered under persecution. Now, remember I talked about it last week, the laid hands on, who laid hands on, who laid hands on, who laid hands on whole theory?

Well, what the Donatus said was, no, there's a break in that chain. And this man, who ordained this man, fell away, so we don't recognize this guy's ordination. And this was a big split in the church.

Constantine said, let's call a conference, let's get together, let's do this. I'll call together a great big convention where we'll get together and decide this issue, and we'll go through it that way.

Constantine did that. Constantine said, let me help. I don't think Constantine would have done that unless he was a real Christian. I mean, he really wanted to help. The other big thing that he got involved in was the Arian Controversy.

The Arian Controversy and Christ's Deity

This was interesting, and we're going to get into that a little bit more. The Arian Controversy started in the silly city of Alexandria. In Alexandria, there was a bishop known as Alexander. Alexander was fine.

He believed biblical doctrine, no problem. But he had an elder in his church whose name was Arius. And Arius had a problem. Arius believed that Jesus was not equal to God the Father. That Jesus himself was a created being, and therefore he was inferior to God the Father.

That's what Arius believed. Well, what do you think Alexander did with him? He booted him. You can't have a guy like that. I mean, this was a guy who was an influential guy. I mean, it would be like in our church if one of the elders in our church started teaching something like this.

I mean, obviously he didn't boot him at the first thing. He sat down, tried to persuade him, work with him, all this stuff. But when all of a sudden, at the end of the thing, this elder says, no, Jesus Christ is not God, then we say, mister, there's the door.

You're no longer part of this church. We're not having anybody in leadership, or who's going to be vocal and going around and promoting this false doctrine. Period. You're gone. The problem was Arius started a movement and got a lot of people to follow him.

Constantine dealt with this issue that was really spreading around the empire. And he said, let's have a convention. Let's get a convention together and discuss this issue. I don't think Constantine would have done those things if he wasn't a Christian.

Now, let me tell you why else I think Constantine was a Christian. One, he said he was. Number two, other Christians in his day thought he was. Now, you know one of the big reasons people think that he probably wasn't a Christian?

It was because he died in the year 337. He did not receive baptism until he was on his deathbed. A lot of people would say, that shows a man who's an insincere convert, right? If he was really sold out to Jesus Christ, he would have received baptism a long time before.

You know what? No, not necessarily. You've got to understand the way people thought in that day. Remember I was talking about last week or the week before, how they had this thinking where once you were saved, if you sinned significantly after that, you're out.

Forget it. There's no possibility to repent. I mean, a lot of people believe this. Well, for a lot of people, the whole idea was, after you were baptized, if you committed a mortal sin, after baptism, there was no hope for salvation.

None at all. None. You're going to hell, straight to hell, forget it. There's no point in even asking for forgiveness. Little sins, fine. A mortal sin, forget it, after you're baptized. So, if you believe that, wouldn't it make sense for you to be baptized on your deathbed?

Right? I mean, and that's how people thought. A lot of people were baptized on their deathbed. So, I believe that Constantine was a Christian. I believe that all in all, Constantine was a, here's our word, all in all, Constantine was a good man.

Constantine's Good Intentions and the Danger of Power

But I talked about this last week, didn't I? Some of the greatest damage in the church has been done by good men. Not because they did good things, but because when a good man goes off on a wrong course, it's all the more dangerous.

All the more dangerous. Because people will follow him and respect him because he's a good man. That's what happened with Constantine. I believe that every intention of Constantine's heart was good. But the guy was misguided.

And he set in motion something in the church that lasted, not until 1500, beyond 1500, it lasted. But Constantine forever, forever changed the church. And it's important to understand that for the Christians who saw this rapid change, it seemed to be nothing but positive.

Nothing but positive. Are you trying to say that it's a negative thing, that the Roman emperor is now a Christian? And that he wants to help Christians? And that they're not killing us anymore? And that they want to help us instead?

How can anybody say that that's a bad thing? You know, it's easy for us now. We stand back, well, you know, they shouldn't have gone off on that way. You need to understand that if you were living in the times, this would have been a very difficult thing to see the dangers of this.

So, they would have seen it as nothing but positive. They would have believed that God had changed the hearts of not one, but two Roman emperors. One to grant the issue of the Edict of Toleration, and the other one to grant the Edict of Milan.

From Persecuted to Privileged Christianity

But, in an amazingly short time, the Church was in a completely different environment. From persecuted, to privileged. Persecuted to privileged. Now look, let's get the idea here. Who took care of the persecution?

This was Galerius, right? The Edict of Toleration wiped out persecution. But it was Constantine who made the Church privileged. So, man, this is really something. To go in such a short time, from terribly persecuted to privileged, made all the difference.

For centuries, the Church had been a counter-culture movement. Now it had to deal with the problems of power in a completely different way. The people who wanted to get along with society, to go along with the flow, to go along with how things were, to get ahead in this world, the people who wanted to do that before, they didn't want anything to do with Christianity, right?

Now, they did. Because now Christianity is privileged. Now, when Constantine is looking to promote a man in the army, who does he look for? A Christian. When Constantine is looking for a new governor, or sub-governor, or prelate, or some kind of magistrate, who does he look for?

He looks for a Christian. Doesn't take people very long to figure that stuff out, do they? So, how do you think people talk around Constantine? They use all their foul language outside. As soon as they walk in, it's, Oh, blessed Constantine, praise Jesus, isn't God good?

And so, many people became Christians just because that was the way to get along. But also, something else changed. When you go from persecuted to privileged, all of a sudden now, you have a lot of prestige, and pomp, and money, and status that you didn't have before.

Now, you start seeing the elaborate costumes for the church people. The elaborate churches. The elaborate crosses and processions, and the gold, and the silver, and all this stuff. Because now they can do it.

Does a persecuted church do things like that? No way! That's the last thing on their mind. Oh, we have to have a gold mantelpiece for the altar. You know what? A persecuted church thinking about that?

That's just another thing for the soldiers to rip off when they come here and case the joint. But now, everything changes. Now, Constantine's help in doctrinal matters also complicated things tremendously.

Because I talked about these things, the Donatists and the Arians. Probably, some of you have heard of the Arian controversy before. In some ways, the Donatist controversy is a lot more interesting in its fundamental principle with what it deals with.

Governmental Control of Doctrine and the Church as a Corporation

I mean, what makes ordination and the things of God powerful? Is it the person doing it, or is it the spirit of God behind it? And it's a very interesting controversy. You ever turn on the television and see these guys who are just wackos, and yet, in some way, it seems God uses them?

You say, what's going on with that? Well, you know what? That deals with issues all around the Donatist controversy. Constantine comes in and says, let me help you settle these issues, okay? Let me help out.

I want to help. I want to help. Great. Thank you, Constantine. You want to help. You know what the problem is, then? An official government position on the Donatist controversy. An official government position on the Arian controversy.

And you know what? For the most part, Constantine had the right opinions on these things. Praise God. But it's not long until you don't have the right opinion on those things, is it? The church started to become much more like a corporation.

And the emperor of Rome was the CEO of the corporation. Suddenly, who is the most notable Christian? Constantine. An emperor. Not the bishop of your city. Not the Billy Graham of that day. Not whatever you want to say.

Suddenly it's Constantine. Tricky, tricky issues. One other thing here. The Roman emperors were always recognized as religious leaders. And they were given a title in the pagan days. This was a title relating to their religious leadership.

The Roman emperors. Pontifex Maximus. Anybody know what that means? Maximus, you can figure out what it means, right? Great, great, big, right? Pontifex is literally a bridge builder. You know how it was used in thinking?

Priest. Basically, it's a way of saying great priest or high priest. By the way, this is a title that the Roman popes carry to this day. You ever hear the pope referred to as the pontiff? That comes from Pontifex Maximus.

The Council of Nicaea and Imperial Involvement in Heresy

Let me just go on the Arian controversy for a minute here. In the Arian controversy, Constantine seemed to go on the right side. He called together a very important church council that we'll talk about in a week or two.

The Council of Nicaea. Constantine did the right things. But when Constantine died, his empire was divided among his sons. And one of his sons turned out basically to be an Arian. And he supported the Arians in the next controversy.

So now, suddenly, the official government position is unbiblical. And he forced an unbiblical creed upon many of the bishops. And when the bishops appealed to the long-standing teachings of the church, which are known as canons, basically, when the bishops said, listen, dude, Mr. Emperor, that's not what the Bible teaches.

I'm sorry, we can't teach. You know what he said? He said, whatever I want shall be regarded as the canons. Either obey or go into exile. Now, just one generation after Constantine, his sons are now promoting heresy as the official government position.

And you know what's interesting about this? Even in this whole business with Constantine's son, church leaders at first did not challenge the right of the Roman Emperor to weigh in on this doctrinally.

You know how annoying it is today when movie stars come up and declare political positions? Who cares? I can't think of a more worthless piece of information in the world. That's how it should be when politicians start talking about religion, in that sense, right?

When they start giving their decisions. When they want to take sides in a controversy. It's like, dude, who cares? You're free to have your opinion. Great, God bless you. Let's leave this up to the people to whom this is their business, right?

You do your thing and leave this up to the people who have a business doing it. Well, that's how it should have been with the Emperor, right? Shouldn't somebody have been standing up to Constantine's son and saying, look, not only are you wrong, but far more than being wrong, we don't care.

You have no right to even speak on this matter. So just get out of here. Even if you were right, you don't have a right to speak on this matter. Now, this is the problem. When the governmental power was right, when it was correct, they gave it the right to speak on these matters.

Now, when it's incorrect, they still have the right to speak on it. Dangerous, dangerous thing. Well, one guy that we'll probably talk about next week named Athanasius, he sort of woke up and smelled the coffee and said, wait a minute, we've got to let these Emperors know, they don't even have a place speaking to us about this.