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We come now to the ninth lesson in our study of church history, examining the creeds and confessions of the church through the ages and why they matter. Tonight is lesson nine, the battle cries of the Reformation.
So far in our study, we have looked at an overview of history. For the past 2000 years, we have seen creeds in Scripture and we've seen those creeds, we've seen the creeds of the early church. We've seen how those creeds have founded and established doctrines within the church that the church has stood on and continues to stand on today.
We've looked at the Nicene Council. We have looked at the Council of Chalcedon. We've looked at the Athanasian Creed. We've looked at the Council of Orange and we've looked at the Middle Ages and the false teachings which arose during that period.
And today we come to a portion of the series, which I am quite excited about, because this particular portion of the series is one that is very near and dear to my heart. As I consider myself a teacher of reformed theology and tonight we get to study the blessing of the Protestant Reformation.
As we noted in our last session, the Middle Ages brought with them a tremendous flood of false teachings into the church. The pope had risen to a level of authority wherein he had basically become deified.
He was given the titles that belong only to the Trinity. He is called Holy Father. He is called Vicar of Christ. He is called Pontifex Maximus or the Great High Priest, the bridge builder between God and man.
The teaching regarding the bread and the cup of communion had been perverted to establish the priest as the one who was again performing the sacrifice of Christ. And the Church of Rome had arisen to a position of almost absolute power within the Holy Roman Empire.
And with that power came great corruption. As we noted last week, power corrupts and absolute power corrupts absolutely. There were dissident groups, as we noted last week, which had attempted to stand against Rome and against the excesses.
You have the Waldensians and the Paulicians, but these were just embers of the coming inferno, which would be the Protestant Reformation. So today in your notes, we're going to look at four major points from the Reformation.
We're going to look first at the morning star of the Reformation. Then we're going to look at a heading which you're probably wondering what it means, but I will explain it later. The goose was cooked is the second point.
Point number three will be the magisterial reformers. And finally, we will look at what we call the five solas, which are the battle cries of the Reformation. So let's begin with the morning star of the Reformation.
One hundred and fifty years before the Reformation would truly have its birth, there was a man who was opposing the excesses of Rome, whose name was John Wycliffe. Wycliffe was a brilliant student and Bible scholar.
He had entered Oxford at the age of 16 and he spent 12 years of his life studying for his doctorate in 1371. He was acknowledged as their leading theologian. Yet his knowledge of Scripture made apparent to him the failures of the Roman Church.
It could be said that he knew too much. He began teaching against the failures of the Roman Church, in particular, the false teachings of transubstantiation, the teaching about the mass, that the bread and the cup became the sacrifice of Christ, the body and blood of Christ.
And so he began to teach against them. This would eventually lead to him being forced out of his teaching position at Oxford and moving to Lutterworth. Where he would undertake the most important work of his life, he would translate the Bible into English.
A major development in the history of the church was the translating of the Bible into the common language. This was a difficult time in history. Many priests did not know their Latin, and yet the Scripture was only available to the to the people.
It was only available to the priests in Latin.
And yet many of the priests didn't even know Latin.
And so how could they relay the message of God's word to the people? Only through stories that they themselves had learned and been told from their authorities. They didn't have access to the scriptures in the way that we do.
I think we we get very, very spoiled today. There's a video online of a group of Chinese people receiving Bibles for the first time, and they are running to the boxes and they're tearing open the boxes and they're grabbing their Bibles and they're crying and they're holding them tightly and they're reading through them and they're so excited to consume this thing that you all have from birth had the opportunity to have.
Probably not only just one in your home, but several different ones of differing translations. Well, just imagine what it was like in the time of John Wycliffe when there was not even one available in your native tongue.
When the Bible was in the, quote unquote, language of learning Latin. Because it had been translated by Jerome in the 400s. And since that translation, it had become the authorized version of the Catholic Church.
In fact, next week, when we study the Council of Trent, we will see that in the Council of Trent, which was the counter reformation council of the Catholic Church. They actually codified and taught that the only true Bible is the Latin.
Much like today, the modern King James only would say there's only one Bible. It's the King James. Well, in the Reformation period, the Catholics would say there's only one Bible. It's the Latin Bible.
Neither of which, by the way, is true, but because of this lack of scripture in the modern or in the common tongue, there was widespread ignorance in the church and Wycliffe desired to see the people know the scriptures.
So he went about translating them into English. Interestingly enough, he didn't translate them from the Greek and the Hebrew, though. You know, the original writings of scripture is Greek and Hebrew, Greek for the New Testament, Hebrew for the Old Testament, and some few verses in Aramaic, which is a dialect of Hebrew.
But he didn't have access to that. He had the Latin.
And since he was a brilliant scholar of Latin, he translated from Latin into English. So Wycliffe's translation is a translation of a translation. It's a translation from Latin into English, which, of course, the Latin was from the Greek and the Hebrew.
So it wasn't a pure translation. It wasn't a perfect translation. However, years later, William Tyndale would come along and he would translate the Bible from Greek and Hebrew into English. It would be a one generation translation.
And when he translated it into English, it is told history tells us that he actually used many of the same uses of language that John Wycliffe had used because he was so accurate in his translation, even though he was translating a translation.
It was so accurate to the English that he actually used it as one of the tools for translating when he was translating his English work. Wycliffe died while in the pulpit on New Year's Eve, 1384. He died as a man who was considered a fiend by the Roman Catholic Church, but was a hero.
To God's people, years later at the Council of Constance, he would be condemned by the Roman Catholic Church as a heretic. And as a result, his bones were dug up and burned. His ashes were then cast into a river.
The river was called the River Swift. A later writer would say this, and I want to quote this. I love this quote. It's a beautiful quote to the testimony of John Wycliffe's life. Says they burnt his bones to ashes and cast them into the Swift, a neighboring brook running hard by.
Thus, the brook convened or conveyed his ashes into the Avon and the Avon into the Severn and the Severn into the narrow seas and they into the main ocean. And so the ashes of Wycliffe are symbolic of his doctrine, which is now spread throughout the world.
End quote.
I thought that was a beautiful eulogy for him. Yes, they dug up his bones, they burned him to dust, but then they put him in a river which sent him everywhere. And that was symbolic of what had happened with his teachings.
John Wycliffe is often called the morning star of the Reformation or the early light of the Reformation, because he, 150 years before Luther, would stand against the excesses of Rome and teach the doctrines which we still hold to today in many respects.
Yes, absolutely.
Absolutely. His Bibles were collected and destroyed. Yes, and they were all written by hand, by the way. This was before Gutenberg. This was before the printing press. Can you imagine if you spent it was, I think I remember correctly, took up to a year to produce one by hand.
A scribe would work for a year. Could you imagine knowing that that had gotten destroyed? Not only would it break your heart to see the word of God destroyed, but to break your heart to know that you had spent a year producing such a work and yet it was destroyed.
So that is one of the great heroes of the Reformation, John Wycliffe. We now move to our second. And again, the title of this section is The Goose Was Cooked. And you will see why in just a moment I use that phrase.
John Huss was a rector and preacher at the Church of the Holy Infants of Bethlehem in Prague. He was heavily influenced by a teacher who preceded him. Can you guess what his name was? John Wycliffe. Yes, John Wycliffe had heavily influenced John Huss, and it led to him becoming more and more desirous to see reformation in the church.
Prague itself was a center for early reformed teaching. In fact, the chapel that Huss preached at was appointed and raised in 1391 by a rich merchant as a center for reformation. It was a center for new ideas and and new concepts and ways to bring reform to the church.
So Prague was very much a place where reform was welcome, but the church did not welcome those reforms. And as a result, because of his preaching, Prague was put under the interdict of the church, which basically meant that no religious services were allowed to be held in Prague with the authority of the church.
That means no weddings, no last rites, nothing. And this is a time in history where the church had the authority to say you could or couldn't get married. And they had the authority to give the last rites, which were necessary works of grace in the life of a believer when they died to receive the entrance into the kingdom of heaven.
So by putting Prague under the interdict of the church, they were effectively condemning the citizens of Prague to a Christless existence. At least that's what the church taught and sadly what was believed.
The people considered these things necessary. We need the approval of the church. We need the approval of the pope.
So they demanded that Huss leave.
You can't stay here because as long as you're here in teaching, we will not get what we need. You must leave. And through a series of events, he was finally forced to face the Council of Constance. By the way, I've already mentioned the Council of Constance once.
The Council of Constance was the council that had condemned Wycliffe posthumously. And burned his bones and sent them into the river. Well, this same council was the one that would also condemn John Huss.
He was promised safe conduct. If he would come and state his case, the emperor Sigismund told him that he would give him his legal protection. If you come and stand and present your case, the emperor gives you his protection.
You have safe conduct if you come. However, when he came and he presented his case. The council demanded. That his safe conduct be revoked because a heretic, according to the council, did not deserve the protection of the emperor.
The name Huss means goose, by the way. And it was his nickname. It was actually a nickname that he used. And when the council condemned him, he was put to the flame. And thus, when you hear the term today, your goose is cooked.
Which typically means that your day is up or the jig is up or your goose is cooked, you don't have anywhere else to run. It comes from John Huss, who, when he was faced with the council at Constance, his safe conduct was revoked.
He was put to the flame. And to death, he died singing Christ, thou son of the living God, have mercy on me, Christ, thou son of the living God, have mercy on me. And he sang until his voice was no more.
Luther, the great Reformation leader, would later be called a Hussite, follower of Huss because of his teachings. And while Luther denied being a Hussite, he did say that there were many places where Huss was correct.
We move now to the magisterial reformers. And that is an interesting phrase to use, the magisterial reformers, the term magisterial. Refers to the movements within the Reformation which were supported by the magistrates or the rulers of certain areas.
The three magisterial reformers are Martin Luther, John Calvin, and Urich Zwingli. I think I have those on your paper. Luther was supported by Frederick the Wise and his reforms spread through Germany.
Calvin and Zwingli were supported in Switzerland. Calvin was supported by Geneva and Zwingli was supported by Zurich. So when we talk about the magisterial reformers, we're talking about those ones that actually had support.
And the ruling class, the authoritative people were supporting what they were doing. But there's also another way in which we say the term magisterial reformers. The term magister is another term for teacher.
Thus, when we talk about the magisterial reformers, we're referencing the fact that the teaching of these men was considered to be prominent as they were leaders within the Reformation itself. These men's teachings would go on to have greater influence among the people of God than many other men in history.
They are the teachers of the teachers, if you will, the magisterial reformers. And of course, most of the time when I talk about the Reformation, I mention Calvin, Luther and Zwingli. And almost every time I bring those three out because these three men had such profound influence.
They were three different men. Let me tell you, their differences were profound. But together, when you look at their works, you can see the profundity of its power. So let's look first at Martin Luther.
Most people, when they think of the Protestant Reformation, they think about Martin Luther. In fact, most people think about that scene of him holding the 95 theses up on the castle church at Wittenberg's door, nailing the 95 theses to that door.
And they say this sparked the Reformation. I have an idea of what you're going to say, but go ahead and say it.
No, please. Go ahead. Yes.
October 31st, 1517. That's right. That's that's why on October 31st, while the world celebrates Halloween, we celebrate Reformation. We celebrate the the the striking of the hammer of Luther onto the nail of the door of the church.
At Wittenberg, as we've seen, Martin Luther is certainly not the first reformer. Martin Luther is in a line of godly men who had already been creating upheavals within the church because of their teachings.
In fact, there was a 16th century Bohemian Psalter who pictured who drew a picture that had Wycliffe striking a spark. John Huss kindling it into a coal and Martin Luther blowing it into a flame. And that would be a great that's a great representation of what happened.
You had Wycliffe, who was the influence on Huss and, of course, Huss, the influence on Luther. There is no doubt that Luther was profoundly influential and responsible for the growth of the Reformation.
His conviction regarding justification by faith alone was to make a lasting impact on all of his students. Likewise, his repudiation of the sale of indulgences and the posting of his 95 theses would make him the scourge of Rome.
Even to this day, if you look up history from a Roman Catholic perspective and by the way, history always comes from the perspective of whoever you're reading. Like if you read American history, we call it the American Revolution.
If you read European history, it was the American Rebellion. We rebelled. That was the way they see it. And when you look at Martin Luther from a Protestant perspective, he is our hero. But if you look at him from the Roman Catholic perspective, he is certainly the villain.
It's interesting to note that Luther never desired to be a revolutionary. His goals early on were to live the quiet life of a monk. Yet God had other plans. It's interesting to study the life of Luther, and I really wish I had more time to dive deep.
But the thing about Luther, he he he lived in a monastery. He lived as an Augustinian monk. And one of the things about his life was this just this profound, just this profound understanding of his own sinfulness to the point that he would go and confess his sins to his superiors so much so that his superiors finally had to say, don't come back until you have something serious to confess.
And yet he understood that every sin was serious and thus every sin was worthy of confession and every sin was worthy of damnation. So to him, his sins were leading him to madness. And he found no peace in the church, but he found his peace in God and in the scriptures.
Yes. Was he considered a heretic by the Roman Catholic?
Yes. Yeah, he there there there were formal condemnations of him, in fact, multiple formal condemnations. But he received protection and he did not he was not killed as a heretic. He died safely. He was not he was not martyred as a heretic, but it was partially because of the rise in Reformation teachings in Germany that he was quite responsible for was what kept him safe from the hand of Rome.
Certainly had they been able to put their hand on his neck, they would have squeezed to to to quiet him. So Martin Luther, of course, there is you know, there's so much that can be said and there is a lot that is badly said about Luther and Luther was not a perfect man.
But Luther was used by God to do great things, to bring revival in the church. The next name after Luther that it is important to consider is a man by the name of John Calvin. Often what is now referred to as reformed theology is called by the nickname Calvinism.
Maybe you've heard that before that people will call it Calvinism. Well, the reason for that is that Calvin had a tremendous influence on Reformation thinking. He was a brilliant expositor and he was an effective pastor.
He had written his Institutes of the Christian Religion, I believe, by the age of 25, a masterful work on the foundations of Christian theology. And he would go on through his life to write massive amounts with quill and ink dipped under candlelight.
Would he write masterful works? I have his commentaries on my shelf in my office and because of the electronic age, they don't get open much because I typically could go into my computer and pull up my commentaries from Calvin.
But I still treasure that it was a gift from my mother who got me those commentaries. And I said she asked, what would you like? And it was I think it was for my graduation from seminary. And I said, I want Calvin's commentaries on my shelf.
I think they deserve a place on my shelf. Calvin's scholarship was hugely influential on the Reformation and on Christianity as a whole. He enunciated the truth of Scripture so clearly in his Institutes of Christian Religion, his sermons and his commentaries.
And I want to say this, I'm actually writing an article right now. It's going to be posted on our website in a couple of weeks once I finally edited it down. But it's about the title Calvinist, the name Calvin, because for some it has become a negative thing and there are people who use it negatively.
But I must say this, to be associated with Calvin is not a bad thing, even though his detractors often seek to defame him by accusing him of being a tyrant. But let me share with you something about Calvin that's an interesting aspect of his history.
He never desired to be the pastor of Geneva. In fact, he was passing through Geneva when William Farrell, a fellow Frenchman, told Calvin that Calvin had come to Geneva to be the pastor. And if he were to leave, he would leave under the curse of Almighty God.
And Calvin believed that that was not something he was willing to leave to chance. And so he stayed as the pastor of Geneva and he preached verse by verse through the Bible to the people of Geneva. Even to the point at once he was expelled from the city and he was gone for three years, I believe, if I remember correctly, he was expelled and they finally begged him to return.
Because in his departure, things had turned on their head and they needed him to come back to bring order. And when he came back, he started preaching at the very verse that he left off when he was expelled.
Because he believed in preaching verse by verse through the Bible and where he was when he left is where he picked up when he returned. In recent times, there have been those who have tried to repudiate Calvin and accuse him of all types of atrocities.
And one of the ones that I wanted to address tonight, because this is in my article, but I wanted to address it with you all. So I would have it on the audio and you would know this. There are those who try to repudiate Calvin by accusing him of being a murderer.
This is a false accusation. Those who bring you the accusation that Calvin was a murderer are simply demonstrating their ignorance of history. So know that Michael Servetus was a man who lived at the time of Calvin and he had been teaching heresies in regard to the Trinity.
He did not believe in the divinity of Jesus Christ, and he was trying to prove that Jesus was not divine from Scripture. And he had been formally condemned already by the Catholic Church. And he went to Geneva hoping to gain sympathy and to gain some success in converting Calvin to his thinking.
Well, he sent Calvin his notes, and if I remember correctly, Calvin said, don't come here. You will not find safety for your heresies here. But when Servetus did come, he was captured by the council of the city and he was condemned as a heretic and he was put to death.
Calvin did testify at his trial. And testified to the fact that he was, in fact, a heretic who was teaching false things and was a danger to the church. Some would say that would make Calvin a murderer.
But let me remind you that this period in history, this time in history is not like today. It is a much different time when heretics were seen as people who were worthy of death because of the danger of the heresies that they were given.
They believed your soul was immortal, which we should still believe today. And they believe that that soul was worth protecting from false teachers. As I said, what must be understood is that the time in which Calvin lived was much different than our modern day.
Heresy was serious business and heresy incurred serious consequences. There is no doubt that Michael Servetus was a heretic. Do I believe heretics should be burned at the stake? No. But do I live in the 1500s?
No. And can I look anachronistically 500 years back and say that I know exactly how I would have stood on the day of Michael Servetus's trial? No. And see, that's the issue. The people who condemn Calvin as a murderer do not understand the age and time in which Calvin lived.
Calvin never took a match to Michael Servetus. Neither did he take a knife or a sword to him either. But Calvin did testify that he was a heretic and heresy was a crime. Absolutely. He did. And there is so much there is so much that goes along with this story.
The appeals of Calvin for swift death, not that it not be prolonged, that it not be torturous. These are all things that are well documented in history. Calvin is often painted again as a tyrant, as a hard man.
But Calvin believed in holiness. He believed that the church he said the church was three things. Three things constituted the church, according to Calvin. A church must preach the gospel. A church must rightly observe the sacraments of baptism in the Lord's Supper.
And a church must practice discipline. He said if any church fails in one of those areas, whether they fail to preach the gospel or they fail to participate in the sacraments or they fail to practice discipline, then they have ceased to be a church.
And I can hold no argument against his position as to what constitutes a New Testament church. All right. Number three.
Yes, sir. John Knox.
It was John Knox who said attending Calvin's school in Geneva would say that it was the greatest school of Christ that has ever been on the face of man on the face of the earth. John Knox attending the school of Calvin.
Absolutely. Absolutely.
All right. The third, Yorick Zwingli. Zwingli began his ministry in Zurich on January the 1st, 1519, on his 35th birthday. He preached systematically through the New Testament, with the exception of Revelation, and he preached through the Psalms.
In 1520, the plague. Hey, talk about the plague earlier. The plague caused the death of approximately twenty five hundred people and Zwingli made every attempt to minister to the needs of his flock. In the midst of this, he fell ill and almost died.
It was after his recovery that he would seriously begin seeking the Reformation teachings because that time of almost dying brought him to the end of himself and had him re-evaluate what he was standing for.
And he went on to make great strides in his teaching and garnering significant influence. One of the most interesting events of the Reformation, and it included Yorick Zwingli, was an event that was called the Marburg Colloquy.
All right. I'll write that down for you so that you will, if you want to take notes, of the Marburg Colloquy. I said colloquy, I meant colloquy. The Marburg Colloquy was an attempt to unite the reformers behind a common cause.
The idea was if you could get Calvin and Luther and Zwingli together, you'd have an unstoppable force. You'd have a you would have a meeting of the minds that would lead to powerful strides in the Reformation.
Calvin did not attend the Marburg Colloquy, but Luther and Zwingli did. They met together. They met over 15 doctrines, 15 points of doctrine. They agreed on 14 of the 15. And the one that they did not agree on was the issue of whether or not the body and blood of Christ was actually present in the Eucharist.
And this is a sad thing of history. This is a sad thing of history because Luther held to what he would consider to be a literal interpretation. I would argue it's not a literal interpretation, but that's beside the point.
He argued what would be considered to him a literal interpretation of the body and blood, that they were truly present in the elements. He denied transubstantiation. He denied that it was a sacrifice.
He denied the teaching of Rome, that it was a propitiatory sacrifice, which we talked about last week. He did deny that doctrine. So yet he believed that it was present. So it became called consubstantiation.
This is Luther's position, consubstantiation. The Catholic Church teach transubstantiation, that there is a changing of the elements. Con means with, trans means change. So the Roman Catholic Church said there's a change in the substance.
Luther said the body and blood of Christ is with the bread and the wine. It's it's there, but it's not the same as what's being taught by the Catholic Church. Yorick Zwingli taught what is called the memorial view, the memorial view.
He argued that Christ is at the right hand of the Father. And to say that he is on the table would mean that he would be not at the right hand of the Father. And as such, the bread and the cup are not him, but memorialize him.
They represent him, but they're not him. Now, Calvin had a different view. You might think, how, how could there be a different view? Well, Calvin had a different view. Calvin taught what has typically been been known as the Presbyterian or the reform view, even though it's not the view I teach and I will explain why in a moment.
But Calvin taught the view that the. Of the elements are spiritual presence, that Christ is spiritually present in the bread and the cup. This is one of the areas. Well, it's not the only area, because I would disagree with Calvin on quite a few things, which is why I sometimes think that calling me a Calvinist is a little unfair to him, I think, because I wouldn't agree.
I agree with Calvin where I believe he agrees with the Bible and where he disagrees with the Bible. I disagree with him. That's that's the way it's always been with everybody who I've ever learned from.
And when it comes to the view of the Eucharist or the communion, I believe that when Christ said, do this in remembrance of me, I believe that that phrase indicated both the purpose and the scope of the elements, that the elements themselves are memorial elements.
They are not physically Christ's body and blood. That is the Zwinglian view. And that's one of the places where I would personally hold close to the Zwinglian view. However, I would not say that Calvin's view is absolutely to be repudiated because Calvin is saying that Christ is spiritually present in the bread and the cup.
I wouldn't say that that is that is heresy or false teaching. I would say that's another way of looking at the bread in the cup. I would say that that's not that's not necessarily not necessarily an evil teaching or something like that.
And it's not as strange as the the teaching of Luther, which tries to hold on to some of the Roman Catholic position. I think that I think that Calvin here tries to strike a balance. And I would be further on the Zwinglian perspective.
Huh?
All right.
Well, there's you know, there's always the argument of the spiritual presence of Christ being everywhere as with the because of the omnipresence position. So you could say his spiritual presence is everywhere.
So absolutely. But again, there were differing positions.
And this is the sad thing.
This is the history. This is where history takes such an ugly turn, because these two men, these two great reformers, these two heroes of mine, both heroes of mine could not come to. A place where they could fellowship together to the point that Luther himself would end up saying some very harsh words against your Zwingli in regard to this doctrine.
He would later say some things that were nice, but at the time he said some things that were very harsh. And it's just a sad reality that they came together on 14 points of doctrine. But it was this one that kept the reformers divided.
And it would sort of be a precursor to the modern church. You know, there's so many things that we agree with with so many churches, but yet there are one or two things that keep us divided. You know, I've always said I'm probably as close to a Presbyterian as anyone could be as far as my doctrine is concerned.
But I do not believe in the baptism of infants. So I am not able to fully connect myself within the Presbyterian church. That is one point of division wherein I could not submit myself to. And I think that that's you know, I think those those things, it's sad that there still remains so much division within the church.
Because of those things. But they are there and they are serious. They're not and be this known. They are not things to simply be swept under the rug. There are things to be considered and things to be studied.
Yes, I believe that it's a good question.
I'm going to repeat it. Does believing in the doctrine of transubstantiation make one worthy of hell? I believe that believing in the doctrine of transubstantiation means that you do not understand the gospel.
And how then could you submit to something that you have not understood? So I think that that answers the question without necessarily saying it. Yeah, I'm saying it as simple as possible. I think that as I as we talked last week after the meeting and I didn't get a chance to say this, I'll say it now.
The question that we talked about last week was, do I believe that a Roman Catholic can be saved? And my answer was that they will always be saved in spite of what they are taught, not because of what they are taught.
It will never be because, as I will show next week, and I think quite, quite clearly, I'm sorry.
I'm sorry, I didn't something that you said, I'm trying to make it work in my mind.
OK, they would be saved in spite of what they are taught, not because of what they are taught. They will be saved by Christ and faith in him. But if they are believing in transubstantiation, that Christ's sacrifice must be repeated.
If they believe that the Virgin Mary will be their mediator between them and Christ, if they believe that the pope is their holy father and their authority in this world and represents Christ to them, these things are heresies.
And I think they are demonstrative of a heart that has not been truly converted. So if a person believes in Christ and has faith in Christ and calls himself a Catholic and yet he is truly saved, he is in his heart must repudiate those things.
Though he may not do it outwardly, he must be doing it within his heart. During the Reformation, these things were not even discussed. If a person submitted to the pope, he was not a Christian. He was a papist.
I still consider today that to be basically the truth. I don't say it to be a harsh person, but I say it to this extent. That a person who has believed the gospel of Rome has believed, as the Apostle Paul says in Galatians 1, another gospel.
And Paul said, if anyone preaches another gospel that I have not preached to you, even if it were an angel from heaven, let him be accursed. Let him be accursed.
Paul, absolutely.
Yes, yes. So I do. I really encourage you to come next week on this as we look at the Council of Trent, because I'm going to show you in Galatians 1 how the Council of Trent demonstrates that Rome has another gospel.
Here's the thing. I will mention this again next week.
And I know we're running out of time.
I'll say it. If you stood with a Roman Catholic and somebody said, how am I saved? Your answer would be different than theirs. Thus, you are preaching a different gospel. Paul tells us in Romans or Galatians 1, it's another gospel.
And if it is another gospel, it is under the curse of God. It's harsh, but I don't mind saying it because here's the thing, folks, according to Trent, you all are under the curse of God because you have denied what Rome has taught.
Is it their fault that they have not been open minded and seek other information?
Couldn't the same argument be used for a Muslim? I mean, I mean, seriously, seriously, this is where the doctrine of election and predestination comes into play. It's where the doctrine of God's choice of us.
And this is why a person who has raised all their life as a Muslim or all their life as a Buddhist or all their life as a Roman Catholic will come to the true faith because God has opened their heart to do so.
No man seeketh after God. God seeketh after men. And so there is the answer to that very, very serious question.
Yes. Thank you. Yes.
There's a very important question. I'm glad you asked it because it gave me a chance to answer it. And I appreciate that.
It's serious.
I get talking about Roman Catholic and because I have some close friends or I keep trying to figure out how would I talk to them? But you're right about it's not just Roman Catholic.
No, it's anyone. And the thing is, people people often talk about that. What if a person is raised this way or what if a person is raised this way? God can break any heart and bring them to him. And some people are raised as as as as as completely atheistic sinners.
But yet God brings them to him. I think about my wife. My wife was not raised in the church. My wife was not raised by a family who taught her the Bible. But God brought her to himself by virtue of his grace.
That's powerful.
And as we all that's right. I was brought by the grace of God, too. I grew up in church, but I was not saved until after I got married.
Yes. Yes. Most people we stay with, some of those people, you know, I can't really know if you're safe. You can't know if I'm safe.
Sure.
But when you talk to those people, you have a pretty good idea. They might be a little.
Well, I think that there's a blessed ignorance. This is going to be great on the recording. There's a blessed ignorance that exists in a lot of faith. I think that there are saved people in the Roman Catholic communion.
I think there are saved people among the Mormons. I think there are saved people among the Jehovah's Witness because they're ignorant of what's being taught to them. And that's why I said it's in spite of what they're taught, not because of what they're taught.
They are saved by Christ. You are saved by faith alone, but you do not have to understand that to be saved. Now, let me let me clear that up, because somebody's going to get mad and somebody hear this recording, I'm going to get an email.
What I'm saying is the doctrine of justification by faith alone is the truth. It's biblical. And I can and I will stand firm on that. But because someone doesn't understand that doesn't mean they're not being saved by faith alone.
That's right. If you fall across and understand anything except for Lord, have mercy on me, a sinner or Lord, remember me this day when you enter into your kingdom. We believe that that right belief is is essential.
And that's why we are so strong on teaching right belief. And that's why I say there are many people out there. The way is broad, which leads to destruction.
Don't ever forget that.
The way is broad, which leads to destruction. The way is narrow, which leads to eternal life. And few there are who find it. You are blessed that God has not only saved you, but that God has put you in a position where you can learn his word with such clarity.
And I'm not lifting myself up, but I'm saying that the fact that you are in a situation where the word of God is taught to you, where the word of God is clearly enunciated to you, where you can understand it is a blessing.
It's a blessing to me that I have men like John MacArthur and R .C. Sproul and and all these men and older men that I can look to John Calvin and Euric Zwingli that I can read their works. I am blessed by that.
It's a blessing for me.
Yes. Yes.
Oh, sure. A converted Roman Catholic is usually very familiar with history and all kinds of things that a lot of people don't get taught in Protestant churches,.
Which is why I'm teaching this.
Oh, sure. Oh, yeah. Absolutely. A Messianic Jew, a converted Jew. Typically, their knowledge of the Old Testament will wipe ours out because that's all they were taught. Now they see Christ in every page and they can they really come on and are quite useful in the kingdom.
The Apostle Paul, a great example, is a converted Jew. All right, let's let me I do want to ask you just for a few more minutes so that I can finish out my notes. There were other reformers who all deserve to be mentioned, but there are a couple that I just want to bring up.
If you want to make a few notes, one would be William Tyndale. I mentioned him earlier. William Tyndale was called God's outlaw because he not only translated the Bible into English from Greek and Hebrew, but he also he smuggled it because it was illegal.
So he smuggled the Bible to where it could be brought to people. And he was burned at the stake for having done so. One of the things that he did say, very important statement when he was when he was about to be burned at the stake, when he was about to be burned at the stake, he said, Lord, open the king of England's eyes.
Open the king of England's eyes less than 100 years later, in 1611, the King James Bible came about and guess who authorized it? King James, less than 100 years after William Tyndale uttered the prayer, Lord, open the king of England's eyes.
The king's eyes were opened and the King James Version was authorized. It's interesting history there. The other group that would probably be important to mention is the radical reformers known as the Anabaptists.
They were called radicals because they were hated by everyone, even by Calvin. Calvin didn't like the Anabaptists and he believed what they were teaching was wrong. The Anabaptists were the early group, which would later become the Mennonites of today.
The Anabaptists believed in absolute pacifism. They would not lift the sword for any reason. Whether or not we believe that is irrelevant, but that was their teaching. And also they believed in the baptism of believers only.
So a person who had been baptized as an infant would be re-baptized as an adult. And that was what the term Anabaptist meant. It meant to be re-baptized and Anabaptist was a re-baptizer. And the church did condemn them and many of them died.
Michael Sattler died by burning. His wife died by drowning, if I remember correctly. They would tie stones around their neck and drown them because they said, against water, you have sinned. Against the waters of baptism, you've sinned.
So with the water, you will be condemned. Well, let me give you the last thing on your notes, because I want to make sure you leave here with knowing the battle cries. We didn't really get to get into them much.
But if you've been around this church very long, you've heard these battle cries before. Sola gratia means what? Grace alone, sola fide, faith alone, solus Christus or solo Christo is sometimes it is.
Christ alone, sola scriptura, scripture alone.
What's that?
Yeah, I'm going to I'm going to define them in just a minute. But yes, finally, soli Deo gloria, glory to God alone. Why are these five statements so repugnant to Rome? Because they are and they are still repudiated to this day.
Crushes the pope. It crushes the entire system of doctrine for by grace alone. Are you saved? You see, Rome would say we believe that we believe that grace is how we're saved. And we say, no, we said grace alone.
So that's key.
The key to these is not grace, faith, Christ, scripture and glory. The key to these is the word sola. We are saying that it is by grace alone. You have no merit. You see, in the Roman Catholic Church, there is something called the thesaurus meritorium or the treasury of merit where the saints and Christ and Mary have stored their merit for you.
And when your merit is not enough, they will draw from the treasury of merit to apply that to you so that your merit will be enough to merit heaven. Your merit will never be enough to merit heaven. It will always be by grace alone.
And that's the key.
And it's not only that grace is necessary for Rome would say grace is necessary. It is that grace is sufficient. It is all in all faith alone. Boy, do I wish I had time to break open James chapter two and show you how even James, the one book of the Bible where they would say, no, no, see here it says it is works and not faith alone.
I will tell you this, James was not denying the Protestant doctrine of justification by faith, but he was demonstrating that when we have faith, it will never be without works because faith demonstrates itself in works.
The Apostle Paul says, for by grace, if you've been saved through faith and that is not of yourself, it is the gift of God and not of works, lest anyone should boast for we are his workmanship created in Christ Jesus for good works.
We're created to do those good things. So if a person says he has faith and has not works, James says his faith is dead. So we we hold to that, but it is still by faith in Christ alone, by faith in Christ alone, that's where it is the grace of God through faith in Christ alone.
The issue of Christ alone should stand pretty firm. But here's the issue. We believe Christ, his singular sacrifice alone. It's not needing to be repeated. What he is the mediator. Absolutely. Scripture alone.
The Roman Catholic Church believes that there is a division of authority in the church, that you have church tradition and scripture which are together and they are both interpreted by who the magisterial authority, which is headed by the pope.
The magisterial authority has the authority to define scripture. It has the authority to define tradition. So that is how we know what the truth is, because the pope and the magisterium tell us what the truth is very much.
Finally, glory to God alone. That is a direct shot to the pope and to the other teachers, the magisterium and all, because it says only God deserves glory. We do not bow down and kiss the ring of any man, but we give glory to God alone.
Allow me to finish with this quick statement. It is really unfortunate. It is really unfortunate. That in our modern time, reformed theology has become so associated with the doctrine of predestination that people often forget just how all encompassing reformed theology really is reformed theology is, for lack of a better term, biblical.
Theology, it is not a one trick pony. We don't just sit around talking about the sovereignty of God and election all the time. Though some would possibly say we do, we don't. Reformed theology affects how we look at all of the Bible because reformed theology is scripture alone, but it's also scripture in full.
We believe in the whole Bible and we don't leave out the parts that we don't like because we love it all. I have loved your law, said David. So, too, should we love God's work.
Let's pray.
Father, thank you for this time of study. We pray that it has been fruitful for your people. We pray that you would encourage us as we prepare to leave this place to continue with these thoughts on our hearts and on our minds and to be encouraged to draw closer to you through them.
In Jesus name we pray.
Amen.