In Defense of the 5 SOLAS (Reformation Theology)

Introduction and the Importance of Defending Christian Doctrine

All right, welcome back to another episode of Revealed Apologetics. I'm your host Eli Ayala and Revealed Apologetics is an apologetics YouTube channel where we emphasize the importance of apologetics typically from a presuppositional Perspective, but we have quite a variety typically going on with regards to interviews and folks that we have on throughout the show and so today I'm very excited to have our guest on today because we're gonna be covering a very very important topic.

Okay, and this is going to be very much centered around Reformation theology Protestant theology and it's a very important vital topic that hopefully dr. Tony Costa can kind of unpack for us and hopefully in the midst of Unpacking if you guys have noticed the the title here in defense of the five solas of the Reformation.

Perhaps we can try and make some apologetic application. I would be very careful that when we think in terms of apologetics where we typically think in terms of like Christian versus atheist. Right, but that's not necessarily the case.

We are called to defend the faith against all forms of error in whatever shape and form it manifests and that includes being able to defend Christian doctrine which includes some of the things that we're going to be talking about today.

So hopefully we can make some of that some Application with regards to to that. Okay. Well, I do apologize. We had some technical difficulties. We had some audio difficulties. So I had to switch from my super nice camera to my my iPad, but we'll make it work.

And so that was why we were just running a little bit late. But um, let me introduce our guest. I'm gonna read his his bio if he doesn't mind so people can kind of know who you are. Tony Costa Is is a.

Church History Before the Reformation

Well, he's a Reformed Christian. Am I correct in saying? Yes. I've actually seen you speak in when you were out in Long Island. Yeah, we have a common acquaintance and Chris Arnson who is the the host of iron sharpens iron radio show, but Tony Costa is the real deal.

I've enjoyed greatly hearing his talks and His books that he's written which we're gonna go through some of those as well. But a Tony Costa a little background has earned his BA and his MA in the study of religion Biblical studies and philosophy from the University of Toronto.

Tony received his PhD in the area of theology and New Testament studies from Radboud, is that how I say? Yeah, Radboud Radboud University in the Netherlands. He's a member of the Society of Biblical Literature the Evangelical Theological Society and the Evangelical Philosophical Society.

His area of expertise is biblical and systematic theology Cults the New Age movement and comparative world religions with a specialization in Islam. Tony is also an ordained minister of the gospel as a Christian apologist.

Dr. Costa gives reasons for the valid belief in Christianity and also advocates the unique claims of Jesus Christ. He is also he also lectures and debates at various universities and colleges on the existence of God as well as the credibility of the Christian Faith.

Tony is a professor of apologetics with the Toronto Baptist Seminary. He also teaches as an instructor with the School of Continuing Studies at the University of Toronto in the area of New Testament studies.

He serves as an adjunct professor with Heritage College and Seminary in Cambridge, Ontario and Providence Theological Seminary in Franklin, Tennessee. He has lectured and ministered throughout Canada the United States and overseas.

He's the author of Worship and the Risen Jesus and the Pauline Letters and the forthcoming book earliest Christian creeds and hymns What the earliest Christians believed in word and song with H &E publishing.

He's also a contributor of scholarly essays and Christian origin and Greco-Roman culture and Christian origins and Hellenistic Judaism and various journals. Tony is happily married to a wonderful wife Vita.

Yes, Vita has three children and a grandson and resides in Toronto Canada so a lot of stuff there to unpack. You are quite a seasoned Theologian apologist with a lot of experience under your belt and I think that's very important.

So that when we go through our topic today folks know that We're getting some reliable information from someone who's actually been in the thick of defending the gospel and I think that's very important so why don't you say hi to folks for a few moments there and we'll kind of Begin our line of questioning as you know as we start for some Some knowledge on the five solos sure sure.

Well, first of all, thank you again Eli for having me on your program and notwithstanding the technical difficulties that we had. We serve a sovereign God and we know nothing happens without a purpose so even in this God has his purposes and.

So I'm just glad to be on and I appreciate the fact that you want to address The five souls of the Reformation as we head towards the end of October as you know. While the world is thinking about Halloween and scary cats and ghosts and witches and so forth.

We tend to forget that October 31st of 1517 is believed to be the date when Martin Luther Nailed the 95 theses to the to the church in Wittenberg in Germany and thereby eventually Starting off what we call historically the Protestant Reformation.

Now again, that's not to say we need to be careful that Church history doesn't begin with Luther. A lot of evangelicals think that say it's Luther onwards. Well, there was a we stand on the shoulder of Giants and there was a Reformation prior to Luther not as large.

We have people like Jan Hoss in Bohemia in the 15th century and of course John Wycliffe in in England. In the 14th century, and of course William Tyndale Who's actually his anniversary of his martyrdom was just last week?

Who died. Translating the Bible into the language of the common people and so we must not forget that God has been there's a saying amongst the Protestants as you probably know we lie and that is Semper Reformanda.

The church is always reforming and so the Reformation has been ongoing and it is still ongoing.

Why Christians Need Church History and Apologetics

Hmm, very good now. I'm glad you mentioned that church history doesn't begin with Martin Luther, right? I think within an apologetics context and I've also I often heard dr James White often say in various contexts that one of the weakest areas for the average Christian is especially with regards to apologetics and their ability to defend the faith is Knowledge of the original languages which is understandably so not every you know.

Not the average Christian doesn't you know run off the seminary and learn ancient languages, right? But church history. Yeah, and I think There's a danger there. Why don't you actually before we get into so the the five solas and explain that.

Why don't you explain for us? Why is it so important for Christians today to understand church history prior to the Reformation?

Right. Well because church history right from the beginning of the Christian Church in about 33 AD AD 33 with the resurrection the Pentecost we need to know that that Christ has led his church and that Following the the death of the last Apostle which we believe was John there were what's called the apostolic fathers.

And so we had people like Ignatius of Antioch. We had Polycarp and we had Papias very important figures and what we see is a testament to the the sovereignty of God how God has kept his church. And how he has preserved the truth of the gospel now.

That's not to say that there aren't. The church fathers are not infallible. And this is where we part ways with Rome with the Roman Catholic Church and the Orthodox Eastern Church. And that is that the the fathers of the church a great men that they were were not infallible.

They never claimed to be infallible. In fact, they always spoke of the scriptures as God inspired. And so we need to understand that and again our good friend James White has made this claim many many times.

We need to stop making the church fathers Reform Baptists or turn them into Presbyterians or the Roman Church does the same thing? They claim they're all Roman Catholic the Orthodox Church claims. They're all Greek Orthodox.

Let the church fathers be the church fathers. Did they have some weird ideas? Well, yeah, they did. I mean Aaron a has thought Jesus was 50 years old when he died. But again, these are not inspired writers, but they are Theological giants that we can learn from.

They defended Biblical doctrines against heretics like the Gnostics who denied the real humanity of Jesus. They fought against the Aryans in the 4th century. Athanasius the great defender of Orthodoxy Stood up against Contramundum.

Athanasius Contramundum. Against the world as the whole world was going towards Aryan doctrine that Christ was a creature that he was not truly God truly man. Athanasius took a stand and then of course after Athanasius we we see the great Augustine in the West.

Augustine the great doctor of called the dr. Garcia the doctor of grace. Who became very pivotal and a very influential the Reformers claimed him as their own. Luther and and Calvin both Said Augustine was all theirs.

And and so we need to understand that with the development of the church. We learn from heresies that the modern-day cults we see today are really Recycling of these ancient heresies. So Jehovah's Witnesses Mormons teach Aryanism.

Gnosticism has been resurrected through the cult known as Christian science unity school of Christianity new age movement. So a lot of the heresies that the early church face is what we see today. We see also the the blunders of church history.

We see the the rise of the Bishop of Rome claiming supremacy over all the other bishops and then this leads to the papacy the rise of the papacy and then you have the The rise of the the the Roman Catholic Church claiming absolute inerrance infallibility and that and that the Bishop of Rome is the true father of all Christians and so forth and so We we look at church history and to understand how we got where we are today.

We need to understand the past. So so they take for example the Islamic invasions that as Islam began to spread across the West and was threatening Western Europe. Was it were it not for the Crusades?

There would not have been a Reformation. Germany would have been Islamicized. France would have been Islamicized. England would have been Islamicized. And so it's really important to understand that a lot of the struggles we're having today in terms of church politics or theology.

They're not new they've been they've been debated in the past. And we also see that the ugly head of for example Plagianism the idea that we cooperate with God's grace To be saved and we need to go back to Augustine who opposed that vehemently opposed that.

So church history is so important and that's why I I'm really proud of the fact that my seminary Toronto Baptist Seminary. We we make it a part of the curriculum to teach church history. And so we have some really good scholars that teach church history.

And it is really really a must so church history apologetics languages. Yeah, they those are the three chords that we really need to strengthen ourselves with very good.

You said something about the Crusades there. You said that if it hadn't been for the Crusades and Germany would have been Islamicized. Yes, because the Crusades is almost always referred to as something completely negative in every way.

It's like well look at the Crusades.

Yeah but but what they never tell you though is this and classical historians have Have already come out with their complaints on this and you may have watched the kingdom of heaven that Hollywood production.

Yes kingdom of heaven, which was a terrible description of the Crusades. The Crusades are seen as marauding Christians who just care about pillaging and raping and so forth. When as a matter of fact, the Crusades were not called until 400 years after the Islamic expansions.

And what prompted the Crusades was a defensive move? To basically protect Western Europe from the the Islamic hordes and. And as I said, it was not for Charles Martel Charles the Hammer. To push back the Muslims out of Europe.

We know that they took over Spain and Portugal during the Andalusian period. Was it not for the Crusades? All of Europe would have been Islam a size just like North Africa has been Islam a size. The Middle East which were bastions of Christianity have been Islam a size.

So the Crusades was not a was not this idea of the Western Church to just Take over the Holy Land. They were going to the Holy Land because Muslims were destroying Christian sites and and holy sites like the Church of the Holy Sepulchre.

And these things are barely mentioned today because the media everything in the media today predominantly the left is all about hatred for two things Christianity and Western civilization so everything is blamed on the the West on the slave trade is this is the fault of the West the Crusades.

Everything is blamed on the West and so never mind that Islam colonized North Africa that the Islamist eyes the Middle East. Never mind slavery still goes on today in Islam. Whereas Abraham Lincoln abolished it in the u .s.

And Wilberforce abolished it in England so. So what you find Eli is that and you see it right now being in the United States? There's there's this leftist agenda to basically demonize The Founding Fathers to demonize the Constitution to demonize and self-loathe American history and we have the same thing here in Canada with a leftist prime minister that we have.

And yet it was the West that abolished slavery and it still continues today in West Africa. It still continues in Islam Islamic countries and the West doesn't say boo about it because they don't care all they care about is dismantling Western civilization and.

What has kept Western civilization going is Christianity and that's why they tear down Christianity attack churches demonized pastors. Never mind what Islam says about LGBTQ but but let's attack pastors for for not baking a cake.

For our gay wedding and so forth. So so what we have here Eli is that there's there's a lot of revisionist history going on and. And the whole the whole idea is to destabilize the West. Hmm.

Enough there to have a completely separate episode. Yeah, exactly. I think I think we said because I've Actually.

Yeah, I mean, I'm actually I'm actually teaching this week with the African Christian University. Okay, Conrad Mbui's Church In Zambia. Okay, and so I'm doing some teaching on this very subject of social justice with them and yeah.

It's it's it's that the students are really excited about this because it's mainly a Western phenomenon. Okay.

Now I'm gonna put you on the spot for two seconds because I sure mention this because we were we didn't get we got. Come to a rocky start. But the way we do things on the show is towards the tail end.

The guest usually takes live questions if they're okay. Sure. Absolutely. Okay, absolutely. So there are some comments that some people are already kind of taking issue with maybe a thing or two that you said and maybe.

They can kind of formulate them to a question. You can address it towards the end. Sure. Okay, sure, but just to let people know Dr. Costa will be taking questions. You could send those questions. Maybe put like question in parentheses so that I can differentiate them from a bunch of the comments that usually go on in the comment section.

And of course if you want your question read first. You can send in a super chat and I'll be sure to take note of that and ask your question first. All right. So without further ado, let's jump right into our topic and I'm glad we talked a little bit about church history.

Because I want to return there because I think. Understanding church history along with how the five solas came about I think is a very important connection for Christians to make so well. We'll return there.

The Five Solas and the Reformation’s Battle Cry

But why don't you define for us? What this what the five solas are? What are they listening them and kind of go into an explanation as to what each each one of them means? And then we'll come from there.

Sure.

So the five solas is basically the the the battle cry of the Reformation. So when we talk about the Reformation remember, we're thinking of Lutherans we're thinking of the Reformed Church. We're thinking of for example Zwingli's Reformation as well in Switzerland.

So it's not just the Lutherans over here. It's the Lutherans. It's the Reformed and we've got John Knox in there in Scotland and of course the rise of Presbyterianism. So so out of the Reformation we have basically there's a consensus on these five solas.

Now what makes them very unique is the common denominator is the word sola and the word sola means alone. Now this is very very important. Sola means alone. So the five are basically sola fide, faith alone, sola gratia, grace alone.

Solus Christus, Christ alone. Sola scriptura, scripture alone, and then soli deo gloria, to God alone be the glory. Notice the alone there. So let's begin with faith alone. Now in order to understand the Reformation solas you need to understand that the the Reformation was trying to reform the church.

Luther did not have on in October 31st 1517 when he nailed the 95 theses. He had no intention in his mind of beginning a reformation. He was believed himself to be a son of the church of the Roman Catholic Church.

He became a priest in the Roman church and he believed in the sacraments. He actually believed in indulgences. What he didn't believe is the abuse of indulgences. Which Tetzel was promoting and so What began as a 95 theses to to debate which is what they did they posted Articles and they would debate the issues.

He had no intention of of just leaving the church. Until a number of things started to happen. His 95 theses, of course went like wildfire across Germany. One of the reasons for that was that God providentially Uh brought about the printing press which happened in the the latter half of the 15th century.

With Gutenberg. Gutenberg's press and so that allowed materials to be quickly copied and distributed. So long story short. Um, one thing leads to another as that old 80s song used to say one thing leads to another and uh Luther ends up under trial.

And he is asked to recant. And The famous uh trial was the diet of worms. It doesn't mean that they ate worms or anything. The name of the place was verms. It's it's it's wrm. But the Germans pronounce it as a v verms.

And there he was basically challenged to to recant and he refused to do so. He says unless I am convinced by scripture, uh and by conscience, uh, I will not change my mind and and Some scholars debate whether or not he said this but he basically says counts councils and popes have heard.

Uh, but unless i'm convinced by scripture and reason I will not recant so help me god. Anyway, he's he they know they're going to kill him his friends know he's done for. And so they take him out in the night.

They race him off. They they basically kidnap him, uh, and and and take him off and put him in in the tower, uh in germany. They put him out in the tower there. And what does he do? Well, he's bored silly there.

So what does he do? He gets a copy of surprise surprise. He gets a copy of Erasmus's greek new testament. The first edition was printed in 1516. And when he begins to read the greek new testament and he compares it with the latin vulgate now, this is really important.

When he begins to look at the latin vulgate that goes back to jerome in the 5th century uh, he begins to notice something in the latin that Does not seem to match up with the greek. Okay, so he looks at for example, uh john the baptist in matthew 3 2.

He says do penance. For the kingdom of heaven is at hand and then he looks over to the greek and he says. But here it says metanoia. And metanoia means to change the mind to change direction. And that has nothing to do with doing penance.

It has to do with a change of mind. And then he looked at the word for justification in in romans 5 and romans 1 like the word, uh, the word Uh dikaio dikaio and then he looked at the latin vulgate. It says justificare.

And and the way justificare was defined was it's something that you did to justify yourself. But then he looked at the greek and he realized that it was a forensic term that it was a it was a term. That was used in in the courts and that it was a term that basically said, uh, you are you are not guilty.

You are declared not guilty. Well that that caused him to do a a translation of the whole bible in into german.

Yeah, he sees these little problems. He's like, all right, i'm gonna translate the whole book. Yeah.

Yeah, and so he takes that well. Anyway, this is what really sparks the reformation is he's reading romans. And he's struggling with this idea of being really right with god and the whole idea of justification.

See the roman church teaches that that what happens is justification is not forensic in the roman church in the roman church. Justification is what happens at the end when you finish and you cross the finish line.

So you are you are a child is baptized and the sacrament of baptism infuses grace into the person. Now this is important in reformation theology. It's not about infusion. God does not infuse This this justification into us it is it is imputed to us.

It's an imputation. It's a legal pronouncement where god says not guilty. Right, but the roman church says is no god actually infuses this grace into you and you could maintain it or you can lose it. Mortal sin will destroy that sure, but but then you got to come back to confession.

You need to get that grace again. And and so and so luther's reading romans 1 and he comes to verse 17. And it says and the just shall live by faith. And that just blows him away. And and that's his born again moment.

He actually says it's as if the portals of paradise were open to me and I walked right through okay. Well, okay. So he sparks this whole reformation and then and then calvin gets wind of it in in france.

And then and then you've got uh, you've got william tyndale in england. Uh, and then of course later on you've got uh, john knox. And so what ends up happening is they they they read the scriptures afresh.

And and their their model was ad fontes. Ad fontes in latin means back to the fountains back to the sources. And then there's this other, uh model that the reformers used. Uh, and that is post tenebrous looks.

And post tenebrous looks means after darkness light. Okay, so what do they find out sola fide? We are saved by faith alone not by any works. Not by any sacraments not by anything we can do. There's no Contribution that the human adds to god's Work finished work in christ's death on the cross and resurrection that could supplement Anything you do towards towards salvation.

In other words faith means to trust in to cling to to hold on to and Your only hope is christ jesus. And so you need to understand that when they say it is faith alone. What they were saying was works has nothing to do with this saving act of god.

It is purely of god. It is a work of god alone. And therefore what the roman church was saying was it is faith plus your meritorious works and that means you're not just doing good works, but Rome believes that there is a treasure of merit called the thesaurus meritorium and what that teaches is basically Rome said look when christ died.

All you have to do is just one drop of this was enough was sufficient to save the world. But because he he bled copiously. He bled more than he had to there was a a surplus if you will of this of this grace.

And so this extra grace was added to this treasure. Think of it as a treasure box and not just jesus's sufferings. But the sufferings of mary and and of the saints it's all added to this treasure box.

Well, there's so much supplemental grace there that well, how do I avail myself? How do I get some of this grace? Well in order to get to the treasure box. Well, you need a key. Well, who's the only one who has the keys?

It's the pope. Right christ granted the keys to peter. So the pope can open the treasure the thesaurus meritorium. And he could grant you indulgences a papal indulgence. It could be a plenary indulgence a full indulgence or a partial indulgence so you can understand why the roman church was so threatened by the reformation because.

What the reformation said was there is no need for a priesthood. All believers are priests before god the priesthood of all believers first peter to nine. And therefore if all believers are priests. Why do we need a special priesthood that is able to confer god's grace through the means of the sacraments which are channels of grace?

Sure. So, okay, let's go to grace. You will have quite a follow-up.

Grace Alone and the Gift of Salvation

Yeah, where. When you talked about that first peter reference of the priesthood of all believers. I mean surely Catholics knew that that verse existed. I mean sure. How do they go about looking at a verse like that and saying no.

The way we're teaching it that's the way it is and every person is not a every believer is not a priest.

Right. Well, they will well roman catholic apologists will say oh no. No, we believe that all believers are priests. Okay uh, but what they will say is that A priest is someone who has a special ordainment.

In other words the priesthood is an ordainment. That is which is also a sacrament which also is channel of grace, but here's the problem. It's that the word priest did develop. Probably around the third century a .d in the church's history and again, that's why churches is so important in the bible there's three titles for uh, uh a minister the three titles are pastor elder and bishop.

So an overseer is an elder. And an elder is a pastor. These are all synonymous terms. And so in the early church, you only had a two you had two two offices. You had the elder and the deacons. That's what you find in the pastoral epistles so what ends up happening is with the emergence of the the the bishop the the episcopacy.

Especially the idea of a mono episcopacy one bishop over a city what ends up happening is the elders the presbyters. Uh are called priests so they started using the word priest to refer to the presbyters the elders.

Okay, and then what's what ends up happening is that as the authority of the church begins to grow the roman church. And the eastern church they begin to claim that only these presbyters Have this special authority from god.

Okay that the lay the lay people don't have so what the roman church would say is that uh, Is that the apostles ordained? These elders who who were actually priests. But that is not the language the new testament uses for elders and pastors and and overseers and so forth um, so um Rome will acknowledge that but rome still acknowledges that there's this priesthood and the priest has this special power.

Uh eli that. This is what brings a lot of fear into the roman church is that when they defrock a priest. When a priest is excommunicated. There's there's there's only one problem. You cannot remove the mark of his ordainment.

That's right. Once he receives that mark of christ, you cannot erase it, which means technically That a priest can take regular bread and regular wine and he can Transubstantiate that bread and wine into the body and blood of christ.

And so the fear is that some of these priests might do this for blasphemous reasons. But they still have that authority that authority is irrevocable even if they become unbelievers. Correct. Okay, because you can't remove that mark.

That that that mark that stamp is an indelible stamp. It's a mark on the soul rome teaches.

That can never be removed. A catholic priest apostatized and became an atheist. He can still have this ability if he wanted to quote mess around. Yes. Yes.

Okay, well, you know the word you know the whole hocus pocus, I don't know if you're familiar uli, but you know the phrase hocus pocus comes out of this whole idea of transubstantiation because In latin when when the priest would would say the mass, uh prior to vatican ii the mass was in latin.

Uh, he would quote the words of jesus in the vulgate in the latin vulgate where jesus says, uh, uh hoke Hocus corpus meum. This is my body and so hoke hocus corpus meum to the average person. It sounds like hocus pocus.

And so it's from that that you get this the slang this model that refers to all this magical stuff. Transubstantiation says this bread is no longer bread after consecration. It's actually the body and blood of christ.

Yeah. All right. So we have uh. Yeah, right, so you went you went from.

Feed that you went to gratia. Fide and now solus clistus. Yeah. Well, I mentioned fee I mentioned. So let me quickly just mention. Sola gratia means grace alone and again word grace chorus in greek uh.

Chorus means unmerited favor. It's something that you did not merit. And so in ephesians 2 8, you know the famous passage by grace. By chorus you have been saved and this is not of yourselves. It is the gift god.

Not of works verse 9. Let's stand up should boast and so paul says it is by or through grace. It is by grace through faith that you have been saved and notice these words. These are not of yourselves the word these there.

It's it's a neuter plural. Uh pronoun it's referring to both grace and faith. Because a lot of people think oh it's my faith that saved me. But but even paul says it has been given unto you to believe so that even faith itself is a gift of god.

These are not of yourselves. What is not grace and peace? And and then he says it is a gift of god. And so if if it's grace. And it is a gift of god and it's not of works then no one can boast. I can't say hey, you know, why do you lie?

I got more brownie points than you because you know, I I became a little more righteous this week. I can't do that because before god Salvation has always been this way uh. You know our dispensationalist friends some of the classical like c .i scofield thought that The old testament people were saved by the law by works.

No, no one has ever been saved by the works. Uh, there's only one person who uh, you know salvation is by works. But it's been only worked by one person the lord. Jesus christ who perfectly kept the law for us.

He never broke god's law. And so his work is the perfect work. And that grace says to us. That salvation is not given to you by a priest or a bishop or a pope or a church council. Salvation is given by unmerited favor.

It is a gift of god. And and that grace cannot be manipulated. You can't have a church that says well if you want grace. You know, you have to come to us because we can dispense grace through the sacraments.

Uh or mary mary the mother of jesus is the dispenser of all graces and so you can get grace from her and so forth sola gratia says absolutely not it is grace. Alone all the way from start to finish. And therefore if it's by grace alone.

Then the roman catholic teaching that you need the sacraments and you need to go to the mass every sunday. You need uh, you need this penance and so forth all of that goes out the window.

It seems it seems it seems interesting to me though when you see all of the pomp and circumstance and all of the details that are Put forth by the roman catholic church the eastern orthodox church and then you read the new testament there there seems to be like A simplicity to the new testament.

Yeah, it seems to get bogged down when the church is quote established. And all of these things are coming together it's kind of like I get why you're doing that but when you read the gospels It seems like there's just so much of this added on clumped on.

Yeah, which actually yeah yours. Really? That's right the central important things in the gospels themselves. There's all these different that's right things that that need to be thrown into the mix.

Well, well what the roman church has basically done and the earth and the orthodox churches they've gone back. I I explained it this way. They have gone back into the shadows. But what I mean by that is remember the bible says that the law was a shadow of good things to come.

You know the the sabbath and and the and the the holidays the the old testament feast days the new moon festivals. All of these paul says were a shadow, but the reality is christ, but look at the roman church.

They've got a priest and they've got a barrier there. You can't cross that barrier. They've got the the blessed tap the the sacrament in the tabernacle. Where they believe christ is is there in flesh and divinity and his body and blood and so you've got vestments.

You've got priestly vestments. That doesn't sound new testament ish. That is old testament. Is it not the whole concept of the censors using incense in the church? Uh, that is old testament and and what you find is that the roman church Very much has almost gone back into the shadows of the old covenant.

And you have the church is is a building. And it's a sacred ground. Whereas the new testament says ecclesia is an assembly. It's a gathering of people. It's not a building of brick and stone and stained glass windows.

It's just keep the elements out but isn't it interesting that. One one person put it this way and it's very interesting is that the new testament the new covenant basically Replaces the altar the altar is gone because christ has finished his work.

And we have the lord's table where we come together to remember the finished work of christ. And what the roman church seems to have done is it's brought the altar back. And that's exactly what you find you go into a roman church and they'll say well, there's the altar it was right there.

But where in the new testament does paul talk about the church having an altar? Incense and priestly vestments that is totally foreign. So now you can see why the reformers said at font is back to the fountains back to the sources.

And now you can see like you said it's like think of it like an onion with all the the extra layers. And what the reformers said was hey, let's peel those layers and let's get back to the root. And that's exactly what they did and all that accretion of church tradition and papal decrees and all of that.

Just had to it really if you will muffled the voice of the gospel.