In Defense of the 5 SOLAS (Reformation Theology)

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 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 in Greco -Roman culture and Christian origins and Hellenistic Judaism and various journals.

Tony is happily married to a wonderful wife Vita Yes, okay 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 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 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. Yes, and I think There is 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

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 doctor gracia 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 Aryan ism 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 faced 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'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 Uh, and so we have some really good scholars that teach church history

Uh, 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. Well, yeah, there were some negative. 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, uh description of the crusades Uh, 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 uh, and as I said if it was not for charles martel Charles the hammer to push back the muslims, uh out of europe

We know that they took over spain and portugal during the andalusian Period, uh, was it not for the the crusades?

Um, all of europe would have been islamicized just like north africa has been islamicized the middle east which were bastions of christianity have been islamicized so um, 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 uh christian Sites and and holy sites like the church of the holy sepulchre

Uh, and these things are barely mentioned today because the media everything in the media Today predominantly the left is all about uh hatred for two things christianity and western civilization

So everything is blamed on the the west on the slave trade is the is the fault of the west the the crusades

Uh, everything is blamed on the west and so never mind that islam Colonized north africa that they islamicized the middle east never mind slavery still goes on today in islam

Whereas abraham lincoln abolished it in the us and wilbur forrest 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

Um, 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 uh demonized pastors

Um, never mind what islam says about lgbtq Uh, but but let's attack pastors for for not baking a cake

Uh 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

Enough there to have a completely separate episode Exactly, I think I think we should because i've i'm actually

Yeah, I mean i'm actually i'm actually teaching this week, uh with the african christian university.

Okay, uh conrad mbui's church Uh in zambia, okay, and so i'm doing some teaching on this very subject of social justice with them

And uh, yeah, it's it's it's 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 mentioned this because we were we didn't get we got

Kind of to a rocky start but the way we do things on on the show is towards the tail end

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

Can kind of formulate that into a question you could address it towards the end. Sure. Okay. Sure. Um, but just to let people know, uh,

Dr. Acosta will be taking uh questions. Um, you can send those questions, uh, 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

Um, and of course if you want your question read first, um, 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

Um understanding church history Along with how the five solas came about I think is a very important connection for christians to make so we'll we'll return there

But why don't you define for us? What this what the five solas are? What are they? Listing 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, uh, zwingli's uh reformation as well in switzerland

Uh, so it's not just the lutherans over here. It's the lutherans It's the reform that we've got john ox 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 uh 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

Uh, he had no intention in his mind of beginning a reformation Uh, 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

Um, he actually believed in indulgences what he didn't believe is the abuse of indulgences Which tetzel was promoting?

and so uh 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

Um, 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 it The famous 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. No, 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 Decaio decaio 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 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

Uh 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 But but then you've got to come back to confession and 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 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 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 is 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 It 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 Yeah, where when you talked about that first peter reference or 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 would 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 is 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 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 so that can never be removed 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 you lie but you know the phrase hocus pocus, uh 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, sola gratia sola fide Uh Right, so you went you went from Fee that you went to gratia

Fide and now solus christus. 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 of god Not of works verse 9. Let's say you 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, 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 So they and has always been this way

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

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 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.

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 is 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 ad fontes 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

All right. So so what about uh, what about solus christus? Yes alone what christ the reformers emphasized christ alone

Yeah, because they didn't just Emphasize it for no reason. I mean there's a context that brought about each of these points

So what was going on in the catholic church that led to the reformers emphasizing the alone aspect of christ, right?

well, one of the reasons was that rome taught that uh, you could uh, you could uh obtain grace through various intercessors

And so the the greatest intercessor was mary the mother of jesus the mother of god and uh since she was

The the most holy virgin the blessed virgin And she was due hyperdulia the roman catholic church says we we give her hyperdulia

We give dulia to the saints, but she gets hyperdulia because she's the mother of god And so what they believed was that mary there was this mary olatree that had developed in the church

Where mary had assumed a position that the new testament never gave her she became uh, the the mediatrix between christ and men

Yes, christ is the mediator first timothy 2 5 but between christ and men.

There's a mediatrix And that's mary. She becomes a co -redemptrix so that the belief arises that mary cooperated with her son

In in saving the world And she's a cold mediatrix She also mediates between us and christ and it's interesting because when

I when pope john paul ii came up to canada And he came to toronto. I became

I was just becoming a young christian at the time And uh, this was back in the 1980s. I i'm showing my age here.

Um, and uh, the best music came out at that time too, but Anyway, anyway, the pope came out to speak in one of these big airports landings

And and I remember him as if it was yesterday talking about how at the cross mary shared in the suffering

Of her son and together with her son. They offer the world salvation So the understanding was that christ was so holy.

He was so distant That the only way that we could approach this this judge with the frown on his face

Was to approach him through his mother and who can resist a mother? I mean, you know would christ resist his mother and so forth and the idea was that that there were these

Extra channels of grace so you can get it from mary You can get it from saint anthony saint joseph and saint jude and so forth and then you can get it from the pope as well

And when the reformers said christ alone what they were saying was this There is no other name given among men whereby we must be saved and there is no salvation in anyone else.

So take for example Uh the ava maria the the prayer that is given to to to mary ava maria, and it says, uh, it says plenus gratia full of grace

And she is called the one who is full of grace and the dispenser of graces

Now look through the new testament. And what do we find? John 1 14 The word became flesh and dwelt among us.

We saw his glory as the glory of the only begotten of the father Full of grace and truth who is filled with grace and truth the lord.

Jesus christ And so what we find in is the reformers said look we need to emphasize

The uniqueness of christ that he alone is the true savior of men And that it is his salvific work.

His redemptive work is the only hope of sinners So when you said christ alone, it also removed the pope because the pope claimed as he does today

That he is the cari christi That he is the vicar of christ the representative of christ on the earth

That he is the head of the visible church not the invisible church, but the head of the visible church

And so by declaring christ alone as the true head of the church what the reformers were emphasizing was

That the pope has no authority whatsoever And when they denounced him as antichrist

It's very interesting. I don't know if you know this eli, but you know the word anti in greek the preposition anti Has two meanings it means to be against or to be in the place of The word vicarious christi in latin means vicarious means to be in the place of So the roman the reformers looked at that and said by your own admission you have admitted to be antichrist

You claim to be in the place of christ, which is what antichrist does and therefore Uh, that title is still the title of the pope.

We see that in words like vicarious atonement What does vicarious atonement mean christ? Vicariously died in the place of sinners.

He died in the stead of sinners So by denouncing the papacy what the reformers were saying was it's christ plus zero christ alone

Christ does not need to add anyone else because he is the perfect mediator between god and humanity

And there is no need for any other he alone is the way the truth the life No one comes to the father but through him.

So solus christus is clearly taught in the new testament You can't read john 14 6 without thinking of solus christus

Or acts 4 12. So the uniqueness of christ the the absolute

Necessity of christ as our redeemer Was something that the reformers emphasized again and again and again and that he is the one and only head

Of the church, there is no other head but christ jesus himself And that's a great segue into the next one, which

I think is so foundational in this Yes, the next sola is what a lot of protestants deal with within the context of apologetics more specifically because it really gets to the heart of The source of authority and a lot of people, you know,

I mean i'm a teacher as well and I teach a You know apologetics biblical worldview things like that. Um people ask me all the time

What's the difference between say roman catholicism and protestantism? Yeah, and the surface level answer is typically well

Protestants don't pray to the saints catholics do you know or protestants don't uh, you know

They'll list a whole bunch of things that are kind of the external Differences that when a protestant looks at a catholic.

Well, where is that in the bible? But i've come to understand personally that the main difference between protestants and catholicism is their source of authority

Right. It's because we hold to sola scriptura Right that when we look at the catholic we say well

Where is that in the bible because we right we see the source of authority being in scripture

Uh alone the only infallible rule of faith, obviously, right other other sources of right but um

Why don't you dive into? Defining what sola scriptura is and what it is not and then

I'll take it from there Because I think that's important to keep in mind. Sure, and I like the way you you mentioned authority Because because within the word authority is the word author

Right. So the author the one who gives it the the power or the force

Of is behind the author is the one that is the one that gives or or imbues that that that power onto the scriptures so So when we talk about authority

Uh, we come back to scripture the roman church does not the roman church believes that she is the one who created the canon of scripture

And so what you have is You have in rome the an authoritative list of the canon

Notice the authority lies in the list created by the church. So the church will say we created the canon of scripture

And you'll hear roman catholic apologists say if it was not for the roman church You would not even know that matthew was canonical, but i've heard and and I and that's what

I i've heard that but i've also heard I I think uh, a catholic apologist trent horn In passing.

I don't remember the source. So I don't you know, don't quote me But um, I heard him say that the church recognizes the scripture so Would a catholic say we recognize what god inspired but only the catholic church has the ability to recognize it and so exactly

Yeah in that sense. Yeah, I mean I mean Recognizing that the authority of scripture is more of a protestant approach

But of course they recognize it because rome has defined it Rome has defined the list of the canon and so forth

But but the the protestant view is not that we have an authoritative list, but we have a list of authoritative books

And so sola scriptura, which must not be confused with solo scriptura Sola scriptura does not mean i'm not going to read anything else, but the bible it's me myself and a bible under a cherry tree the view of sola scriptura says

That scripture alone is the highest authority and the absolute authority in matters of faith and practice

Now sola scriptura does not say we can't read the church fathers. We can't read the church councils.

It doesn't say we cannot read Um books on science or we can't read newton's, you know principi mathematica.

We can't read galileo We can't read the philosophers. That's not what it means in fact all the reformers, uh

Love the fathers of the church luther said we we love the church fathers, but they're not infallible

And calvin said the same thing So the solo scriptura types are are the types where you have

I don't need anything else. It's the bible It's my only authority I don't need to study theology.

I don't need to read spurgeon. I don't need to read Wesley, I don't need to read. Uh, calvin the institutes.

I I don't need any of that So this is what you find mostly in the fundamentalist Uh, sometimes mostly kjv only churches.

Okay this type of mentality. So sola scriptura does not mean That we have everything jesus said

Because even john admits that we don't have everything he said We don't we have we don't have an exhaustive account but we have a sufficient account what is necessary for salvation

And so sola scriptura basically says this scripture rules at the end of the day

Sola scriptura does not say tradition is a bad thing Because as you know eli there's a lot of tradition in evangelical circles

Sure, all right, and some churches will split over those traditions right and so And so the view is this tradition is subservient to authority of scripture

In the roman catholic view what they do is you've got scripture And then what you do is you've got sacred tradition and these two are equal and here's the problem

They regard sacred tradition on the same Level playing field as scripture.

They're on par with each other So rome and the eastern church orthodox church has a two source authority

And so if it's not in the bible, you'll say hey, where's purgatory in the bible? Well, it's actually well

We think it's in second maccabees. Yeah, but that's apocryphal And but but the rome church the roman church will say yes

But but we have church tradition the fathers of the church have taught this and they've taught that And so when when the reformers said sola scriptura, they knew exactly what they were up against They were saying it's not scripture and tradition because sacred tradition so -called sacred tradition violates in fact has contradicted scripture

You know, jesus had nothing jesus was not opposed to tradition We know he kept hanukkah john 10 22.

He kept the feast of dedication in jerusalem We know that when he kept when he had passover, you know

The use of the cup in the passover was not mandated by god in exodus 12. There's nothing said about the the wine

This is something that developed later in judaism probably after ezra Um, but then again when when tradition violated scripture in mark 7 jesus comes right out and says you hypocrites

Well, did isaiah speak of you? You nullify god's commandments by the doctrines of men and so as long as tradition does not violate scripture

The reformed church or the reformers had no issues with tradition The puritans were a little more austere.

They the puritans would say unless it's in the bible We will not do it. And so the puritans followed the regulative principle.

We call it The anglican church the church of england follows the normative Well, if it's not condemned in scripture then, you know on on good and necessary, uh, uh, you know, uh,

Introspection we can allow for this. Um, so so again, there's a lot of misunderstandings So scripture does not say all knowledge is in the bible

It says everything pertaining to faith and practice and god's voice. It is the only text

Eli that is called theanustos. It's god -breathed. No other text is called theanustos

But the scriptures so so two things so let's put this within an apologetics context where protestants are interacting with catholics or eastern orthodox folks

You often hear two things one you've mentioned and the other one you haven't mentioned But you might as well have mentioned it if we go that far

Um, if it hadn't been for the roman catholic church if it hadn't been for the eastern orthodox church

You wouldn't have yes So, how would you in a very? Sharp well -defined way respond to that common objection very simple.

I would say How did a jew? Living before christ let's say in the time of the judges.

How would a jew know that joshua was canonical? Or how would uh, how would uh king david know?

that uh How would king david know that the book of judges was canonical? or the book of ruth in other words

There was no church in the old testament period. We had the people of israel And and for the most part of their history they had a theocracy

Where they were god ruled over them through moses and then later the davidic kings until that was destroyed in 586 bc and so what

I would say was That in the old testament period who who kept the canon of the old testament?

well I would say that god supervised the The scriptures in such a way that his people would recognize his voice, you know, jesus says my sheep know my voice and so the church

Recognized the voice of of the master And it wasn't a church council that decided to get together and say, okay

We're gonna have a vote now which books are in which books are out In fact the council of trent he had to wait until 1546 for the council of trent to not just Renounce all the reformers and all the reform doctrines

But it was really at the council of trent where they made this official statement about the apocrypha But the apocrypha was included in holy scripture

But before that we need to understand that when you look at the early church history um

And rome says well, we decided the canon Well in the early formative period of the church

There was books like the shepherd of hermes that that were being read by christians There was the epistle of barnabas that were was being read by christians

Take for example, the eastern orthodox church makes exactly the same claim But if you look at their old testament canon, they've got many more books than the roman catholic church

So they've got first second maccabees, but they also got third and fourth maccabees And they also got the prayer of manasseh and they've got the 151st psalm so The what you find here and then if you go to the ethiopian orthodox church

The ethiopian church has the book of jubilees and the book of enoch in their canon

That does not sound like a uniform canon That's that that what you find is that there are these unique churches that are claiming this authority to themselves and creating these canons to basically

Establish their own authority So I think bruce metzger got it. Right bruce metzger said that the canon was not created by the church

But that the canon formed the church. It was the canon that formed the church

It was the other way around and I think it's the leading of the holy spirit that that believers heard the word of god

There was there was basically four criteria It had to be written by an apostle or an associate of an apostle had to be written in the first century

It had to cohere with orthodox teaching that is biblical teaching about christ and and fourthly it had to have a catholicity to it

Not meaning roman catholic, but this universal reading of these books And and so by the time you get to 367 ad with athanasius

In his uh 39th festal easter letter to the churches. He actually enumerates all the 27 books of the new testament

But up to that point there was some question about you know Is second peter really part of the canon? Yeah, jude, you know jude quotes these weird sources and then you've got uh,

James and and then you've got uh hebrews and second and third john Are you still with us?

I think you went blank. Oh there you're back now. Sorry That's okay with that. That's okay. I'm not used to doing it with the ipad.

So I was trying to multitask there Yeah, yeah. Okay. So so okay So you said that that the the people of god hear his voice?

They recognize the voice of the shepherd But but then you get into the issue of say like the roman catholics and like eastern orthodox claiming certain church fathers

Who are hearing the word you see so my church father is better than your church father

Yes, so we should follow this stream of tradition as opposed to that stream of tradition. So then how do you differentiate then?

which Stream of church father tradition is hearing from the voice of god or not

It seems to me that the only way to determine is to look at scripture Yeah, well, I think part of the yes, exactly.

But part of the problem is again What I appreciate about the reform perspective is we believe in the noetic effects of the fall

So we we understand that that that yes, we can hear the voice of the master uh, but sometimes uh due to our sinful nature due to our

Fallenness we hear the message but take for example, I mean the whole debate over paedo -baptism and credo -baptism uh, there are people who who love the lord and hear his voice, but you know

The late dr. R. C. Sproul believed paedo -baptism was part of the early church uh, but then many others, uh

Spurgeon and and other credo -baptists would say no the early church was about credo -baptism believers baptism and so forth so we've got these these these

You know these two groups in in the church faithful to the voice of the master of the shepherd

But then they're coming around and they're saying well, you know, I think baptism is for children Well, well one of us is right

Uh, you know, it was either paedo -baptism was established by the first century new testament church

Or it was credo -baptism and then under the mighty influence of augustine paedo -baptism came on to the same um, so again,

I I think and the whole issue about uh calvinism and arminianism

I don't take the view that some hardline calvinists take that all arminians are are hell -bound And that they're all lost.

I think there's there's brethren in in the arminian church in the arminian churches wesleyan churches

I don't think there's any doubt john wesley was saved. I mean spurgeon said he'd be at the front by the throne

Uh, and i'd be all the way back here um, so We do hear the voice of the master.

But again, we need to take into effect into into account the effect of the noetic, uh, the noetic results of the fall

And so that's the best way that I can explain that again. The church fathers were not infallible

How did erinnaeus get the view that jesus christ was 50 years old when he died? And he claimed he got that from the apostles.

In fact the first time. Um, Apostolic tradition is used is by erinnaeus

And he claimed he got this from apostolic tradition that jesus was 50 years old I don't know any roman catholic apologist or theologian today who thinks jesus was 50 years old when he died.

Um, so These are some of the complexities I think We need to take so what about the idea?

Okay. Well sola scriptura is a recipe. It's a recipe for chaos We hear this all the time, right?

That's why you have all of the different denominations Yeah, and that number keeps on inflating keeps growing that number why don't you address that objection and um,

Kind of myth bust it because it is it is. Yeah There are some aspects. I mean it is true that you do have a lot of denominations, but um,

There's more to the story. Why don't you unpack that for us? Yeah, I mean I I mean when they say that it's the cause of all this division and and schism and so forth

Well, I mean if you look at the roman church, she's she's not very monolithic as you would like to think she's quite

She's quite fractured and broken into little pieces. I mean, I mean when you think about it, we got a marxist pope right now

Pope francis is a marxist you could tell by his liberation theology. Uh, he's very uh socialist in his leanings um

And within the roman church, I mean you've got the satyvacanists Who who think that there's been no pope on the on in peter's chair since john the

Was john the 23rd or so or just before paul the sixth I think and and then you've got these other groups that that don't agree with birth control in the roman church and And and and pro -catholic gay groups and so forth and so on but when you look at evangelicalism, uh with with the doctrines of sola scriptura um

The the so -called divisions that we hear about a lot of them are are really exaggerated They will throw in jehovah's witnesses in there.

They'll throw in cults in there and so forth What you find is that what sola scriptura has done is when you look at the reformation

The reformers did not divide over any any fundamental doctrines of the christian faith

What they divided on was issues like for example lutherans wingley had very sharp disagreements over the lord's supper you know luther holding to something like What we would call today consubstantiation of england was more of a memorial view of the lord's supper and so forth and there were different views on administration of government and so forth and then when the anabaptists came to the scene they believed in separation of church and state

But when we talk about divisions, we need to be very careful here. We must not confuse unity with uniformity

Uniformity means you know, you know those kids they used to go to catholic school They all wore the same tops the same pants.

Everything was the same. Well, I work at a christian private school So the kids oh, there you go. You know what i'm talking about or you know when you think about it, it's uh,

You know, it's basically you walk this way you talk this way you do all the readings. It's the same readings

It's it's everything is done Uh in the same way, you know, it's like that old saying walk this way talk this way, right?

and so and so Unity does not mean uniformity unity means like we have a unity of we have these creeds that unify us

Protestants hold to the apostles creed. They hold to the nicaean creed the creeds of calcedon and so forth and and so where you find these divisions is usually uh in in areas that are really secondary issues that do not pertain to the to the fundamentals of the christian faith whether it be baptism or the lord's supper or whether it's

Congregationalist or whether it's it's a plurality of elders and so we can debate this we can talk about these things but they're not enough to to to to Separate us from the bond that we have in christ.

And then again, we need to take into account There's also a lot of the liberal The liberal, uh spirit that came into the church in the 19th century with higher criticism and so forth that also led to the creation of many of these, uh,

So -called liberal churches liberal protestantism and so forth uh where you you have this pro -choice pro -lgbtq view and so A lot of the divisions that we see are not the result of sola scriptura

They're actually the result of a denial of sola scriptura a denial of god's absolute right to speak to his church

Uh, and so that's where I see a lot of these fissures taking place, but they're not unique just to Protestantism you see them also going on in the roman church

Hmm all right, very good. Um, okay. Well here here is uh, you we can go on forever.

Oh, yeah Sola scriptura is a big one. There's a couple of objections that I hear The problem with sola scriptura is it's found nowhere in scripture and uh, the bible itself teaches the authority of Tradition and so they would often appeal to second thessalonians chapter 2 verse 15, right?

Which says so then brothers and sisters stand firm and hold fast to the teachings we pass on to you whether by word or of mouth

Um, whether by word of mouth or by letter, why don't you tackle those last two questions?

And then let me summarize real quick just now so that when you finish we can just move on to the q a because I don't

Want to I want to respect your time. Yeah soli deo gloria If if if you can correct me summarizes

All of the previous solas in that once we if we hold to these this really highlights that salvation

Is completely and utterly of the lord God god provides the grace god gifts us faith

God sends christ god gives us the scriptures and this is all to the glory of god So again, that's

I don't want to undermine that last point. Obviously, that's a huge point Um, but we are running out of time So why don't we take the last two questions, uh that i'm posing to you in regards to um,

Sola scriptura, and then we'll take some of the questions in the live show. So sure number one How can you believe in sola scriptura when sola scriptura itself is not found in scripture and two

What do you do with second thesalonians chapter 2 verse 15, which seems to suggest that you know tradition is

Should be held as authoritative, right? Okay. So let's deal with uh, sola scriptura.

Uh, Uh saying that it's nowhere found in scripture. Obviously the words nowhere found in scripture Uh, just like the word trinity is not found in scripture

The question is is the concept there and I think it is I think it's clearly enunciated in second timothy 316 to 17

All scripture is god -breathed and that scripture includes not just the old testament, but but the new testament there there are uh passages in the new testament where The gospel luke is being referred to as scripture in first timothy 518

Second peter 316 peter refers to paul's letters as being among the other scriptures

They distort the letters of paul like they do the other scripture So we already see the formation of of the new testament scriptures as well

And so paul says all scripture is god -breathed It's it's the anustos god breathed it out and it's profitable for what teaching?

for equipping for instruction for rebuking that sounds like Pretty authoritative stuff here and for what purpose what's the teleology?

What's the telos for the purpose so that the man of god may be thoroughly furnished? Totally equipped.

Well, how can he be thoroughly furnished if scripture is not sufficient? If if you mean scripture and tradition, he can't be thoroughly furnished or fully furnished

He can only be fully furnished if scripture is adequate And I think the fact that jesus pointed to the scriptures against the tradition of the elders over and over again

He showed that the scriptures trumped, uh, the jewish traditions that were held by the the rabbinic teachers

And so it's very clear from the scriptures that that what god says is the final judgment jesus himself lived by that Okay, let's get to uh to second thessalonians 2 and there's another one in chapter 3

When paul talks about the teachings and the traditions that we've passed down to you Uh, if you notice that the context is is passive He doesn't say this tradition is going to be a living stream that is going to continue through the church after i'm gone

It's going to continue through timothy And then timothy's going to lay his hands on these other elders and it's going to continue through them

He says what we have taught you what the traditions we've passed on to you. What are these traditions?

Well the oral passing on of the gospel the tradition paul's referring to In in the jewish culture of his day a tradition was an oral body of information that they had received like divine inspiration for example

First corinthians 15 what I received I passed on to you. That's traditional language.

What did he receive the creed? Christ died for our sins current scriptures was buried was raised again

Um, and and I received of the lord in the night in which he was betrayed that the lord took bread Well, how did paul receive that?

Well, he could have received it by direct revelation from the lord or it could have been he met with peter in in jerusalem for 14 days

And as ch. Dodd famously said they were not talking about the weather for those 14 days They were he was being informed about the life of jesus and what he said

And so the traditions that paul's referring to here is clearly his oral instruction his oral teachings

And paul is an inspired writer and this is also the process of inscripturation.

What is inscripturation? It's the process where scripture is still being written. The canon has not yet been closed

And so paul was still writing scripture as were the other followers of jesus and so it's important to realize that What demanded the new testament to be written?

Is not that the information was unreliable that the passing on of this gospel tradition was unreliable

It's just that the eyewitnesses were dying off. They're being killed off and in order to preserve that God moved them to write it down And so I don't know any roman catholic theologian who believes that any pope is an inspired

Apostle like paul that is they don't believe the canon is open Like the mormon church thinks you could still have these extra revelations.

The roman church believes in a closed canon And and when the canon closed the church of rome did not add any books to the new testament

They did to the old but they didn't do so to the new testament So what I would say eli is that I think from the context of first and second thessalonians the traditions that paul's passing down Is the gospel it's the gospel message that he was teaching the thessalonians, right?

Okay. Very good again huge topic Yes topic very huge I think you're doing you're doing really well and we are now going to move into some of the audience questions

And so I saw this one earlier, uh, someone kind of took issue with a comment You said with regards to cooperation and salvation and so here's a question from provisionism 101

You said those who cooperate with god's grace are pelagian is not that saying arminians?

That's what he says our heretic since pelagianism is heresy. Can you please correct your error?

Yes, well, I think that uh prevening grace is is wesley taught prevening grace which

I reject obviously He believed that there was grace before grace um

If if you follow a lot of what wesley says wesley does believe in in in the human will

That that man's will is not bound and incidentally that was a huge reformation issue, wasn't it with luther debating the bondage of the will?

Against erasmus the roman catholic who taught the freedom of the will um, but I think wesley would would come back on that and say

That god's salvation is given to us purely by grace And it is on the basis of faith

And there's nothing we can do To attain that salvation that yes, we receive it

And he would see that faith as a reception of that of that gift of god's grace

But is does that mean that there are some armenians who believe in cooperation or synergism?

Yeah, there are and I think there they are verging on this pelagianism. I would not deny that But I know many wesleyans those who hold to an armenian faith who deny any concept of cooperation with god's grace

Um, they don't believe that they were saved by anything they did but uh

They would just qualify that by saying but I I believe my will was not bound that then

I I turned my life over to jesus christ, but were you saved by anything you did they would say absolutely not

So, I mean there are extremes in in armenianism to be sure there are hyper armenians just like there are hyper calvinists uh, and I think that um

I think our attitude should be that of george whitfield and john wesley. I mean whitfield and wesley were in opposite ends of soteriology, but at the end of the day wesley could say to Whitfield could say wesley was a man of god that he was a brother in the lord and and wesley could say the same about whitfield

And spurgeon again spurgeon did not think wesley was a heretic. In fact, he thought

Wesley was way beyond him in terms of proximity to the throne of god So I think we just need to be careful here, but I appreciate the questioner

We need to watch out because the pelagian head keeps wearing up and so Uh, we need to be very careful here and define our terms very very carefully.

Okay. All right I'm going to move on here um Should have started at the bottom, but let's see here.

All right. Here's a question, uh by mr. C Was the crucifixion not a work and are we not required to take up our crosses which would also be a work?

Okay, good question. Yes, the crucifixion was a work but it was a work of god. It was the work of christ

So the the cross of christ is the means by which christ makes atonement for his people

Now to take up our crosses is is not the same as jesus taking up his cross

Jesus did not die with simon simon serene did not become a co -redeemer because he helped jesus carry the cross

Uh, we take up our crosses Uh in the sense of of surrender jesus made that very clear the context was you must deny yourself

And take up your cross daily. Well, obviously, you know, jesus, uh carried the cross once and his work was once for all

But we are to carry our crosses daily. And what that means is we are called to die to ourselves every day

And the only ones who carry their crosses are those who are condemned to die We are condemned to death in this world because we follow christ

And so the idea is carry your cross and expect suffering to expect the suffering that's coming our way

The via dolorosa the sorrowful way is the way of christ as well And that at the end of the day we are to die daily

Is that what paul says to offer up your bodies as living sacrifices? That's an oxymoron.

Whoever heard of a living sacrifice? Usually sacrifices have to be killed in order to be put on the altar, right?

But the problem as one person put it is we keep rolling off the altar. We don't want to Offer up our bodies as living sacrifices.

It almost seems like it almost seems like the question is saying Well, the crucifixion was a work and we need to take up our cross.

So in a sense works contributes to the process Well, it's not that works contributes to the process of salvation, but that works are the result of the work of salvation and so works is the fruit the fruit of our faith that That the faith that god has given us and so and so Jesus says if you love me, you will keep my commandments

It's it's a given that if you are regenerate the holy spirit will produce fruit in your life

And part of that fruit is obedience to christ to follow christ and what does the sheep do the sheep of christ?

Follow the shepherd where he goes, right? And so it's not a work where we where we earn our salvation or we we cooperate with christ, but rather It's a call to surrender it's a call to die to ourselves.

It's not about my needs It's about him and his lordship. Very good. All right, let's move on to the next question here planting goes bulldog

You gotta love the in the names And there's literally a picture of a bulldog and alvin planting in the background

I know the church fathers are not infallible, but it seems like consistency in the early church is really important Is this what they taught and I guess they were saying this with regards to one of the one of the sola so perhaps this person is seeing there's a consistency in the

Early church and then of course perhaps you get kind of this innovation that is produced in the reformation.

How would you address that? Yeah, there's a lot of dynamics going on here a great book that I would uh that I would recommend is actually

By nathan busenitz, I believe it is uh before luther. It's called before luther Published by crossway.

It's an excellent book. He goes right back to the early fathers and he demonstrates how many of these early fathers were

Renunciating many of these principles that we were talking about today. So when when you look at people like, um,

The epistle of diognetius, for example, it is it is so reformed that you would think that That kelvin wrote it

Uh, if when you read for example clement, uh, the letter of clement to the corinthians clement of rome

He talks about god predestinating his people from the foundation of the world that this is a gift of god

Nothing that we could do to save ourselves and then we move along we come to augustine and augustine opposes pelagius and says

It is all of god's grace that saves us and god Predestines his people into salvation and and even in augustine.

He'll talk about the mass of them not that the masses are damned and so what you find is that Is that you do have this this stream of a biblical teaching?

But then you've got some of the fathers like clement of alexandra and he loves greek philosophy clement of alexandra

Loves plato And a lot of these fathers try to harmonize philosophical ideas and categories with christianity

Uh, and but tertullian says hey, what does athens have to do with jerusalem? We don't need it.

Just check it out And then bless pascal later in the medieval period will say the god of abraham isaac and jacob is not the god of the philosophers

But some of the fathers of the church started to bring in some let's just say some philosophical ideas

Um, I mean you get to thomas aquinas aquinas is totally aristotelian in his approaches and so what is happening is

The voice is is being heard Of christ, but remember those old records eli.

Remember those old ones that we put on the turntable? Well, i'm only 30. I'm only 38 Okay, so you're a baby in comparison to me

But I remember we used to have that turntable and you'd get the needle there, right? And then over time you'd scratch it and then all of a sudden you get these bumps and then what would happen is it?

It would it would skip So I think what happens is we've got you know, we've got the turntable We hear the voice of the master and as time progresses you start getting scratches on that turntable and and bumps along the way you get some accretions and And so and so you got some of these philosophical

Interpretations coming into the scriptures, you know when you get to origin origin brilliant brilliant theologian

Origin goes into the pre -existence of souls and then he believes in universalism and then there's this eusebius says he castrated himself

We get some really weird stuff happening but but there is still that That voice is still coming through sometimes it's muffled.

Sometimes it comes back out again but I think it's important to realize that these fathers of the church

Not a lot of them. Uh, some of them didn't know the languages like like agustin agustin did not know greek

Or hebrew. I mean he knew latin Uh, he was a great philosopher, but he wasn't too good as a grammarian

That's why jerome had the upper hand on him when it came to the languages So, you know what? Uh, you got to love them warts and all and and and recognize that the fathers of the church were

Some of them were fighting heresy, uh tooth and nail Some of them, you know at the council of nicaea

There were 318 bishops and some of them were losing limbs. They their eyes were gouged out

They did some of them didn't have arms because the the persecution had just stopped with constantine.

Sure and again um And these guys did pretty good considering The the days in which they lived and I and I want to point out to folks too

I don't think what you're doing when you're kind of quoting these historical figures Uh suggesting that hey, it looks like they were teaching something very much what the reformers were saying.

I don't think you're trying to baptize the early church fathers So as to make them look like, you know, protest

But I think what you're what you're doing I think is Is pointing to elements in their teaching that's very consistent with what the reformers were saying

And so it's an illegitimate objection to say that the reformers were just making this up. I think that's an that's right

That's right. That's right. And and they weren't and they actually admitted that they said look They quoted augustine extensively and they quoted the early father before augustine, uh, the pre the pre -nicene fathers

So the best way to figure this out is, you know, read the institutes read luther's works and what you'll find surprisingly

Is that uh a lot of what augustine said you see the issue here eli is not

Grace is not necessary. The roman church will tell you it's it's in the official catechism of the church

That no one can be saved without grace. The church will tell you that god's grace is essential for salvation.

But here's the question Is it sufficient in and of itself? All right. In other words, is it grace alone?

Or is it grace plus fill in the blank? So the roman church will not say grace alone

It will say we're saved by grace But not grace alone. That is really important Very good.

Uh plantiga has another question here church tradition can be too layered, but it does seem to have importance

Do you think protestants have abandoned too much that is worthwhile there? I think that's a good question

Yeah, that's a really good question. I think that I think that what is happening now, I think in protestant circles is

Is they're beginning to rediscover a lot of the uh, the eastern fathers? Uh people like gregory of nyssa and gregory of nensianzas and basil the great uh basil, for example was a huge defender of trinitarian theology,

I think he's underestimated because Basil took on the nomatakoi the nomatakoi were those who denied the deity and person of the holy spirit

And basil wrote some great works against them and basil is the same one who said That uh, let the scriptures be our judge and whatever is true

Uh, if it is confirmed by scripture then let truth let the scriptures be the judge. Well, wow

That sounds a lot like sola scriptura So I think basil great even this doctrine that some of these early eastern fathers taught

It's called in greek theosis Uh and theosis is sometimes Confused with an idea of deification.

That's not what it means So athanasius and erinnaeus believed in theosis theosis meant that we would be absorbed

That in the end in glory in glorification, we would be absorbed into the life of the triune god

There's nothing unbiblical about that because god will be all in all and that we will be consumed with god's presence and holiness

I mean augustine called it the beatific vision so There's a lot to be learned, uh by the early fathers

Uh, you know basil had some really interesting views that when you baptize you have to face jerusalem

And you and you got to go head first So forget about you know, the baptist way of putting the back in the water first his idea was you dunk them in head first facing jerusalem and I think it was like nine times so again

You know, there's these little things that you find in the fathers that are very interesting But in terms of orthodoxy defending the faith

Uh, these guys are giants. We are standing on their shoulders Very good. Very good. Uh, the sire asks a question

Why couldn't second timothy 3 15 through 17 be referring to material sufficiency? material sufficiency by material sufficiency are they referring to scripture or Well second timothy 3 15 through 17,

I suppose it would be that passage of all scripture being yeah god breathe Yeah, and I think

I think it is referring to Sufficiency. I think it's all sufficient. I mean if you read it, uh, paul says all scripture is theanustas

It's god breathed and that idea of god breathing out Right, you know the word inspiration is not a good translation for that because Inspiration is the opposite of theanustas inspiration in latin means to breathe in just In spirited mean to inhale, right?

But theanustas is exhalation Okay, so when we're talking right eli when we're talking we're not inhaling

We're exhaling when we speak right? We got to force the air out of our lungs Now you try to talk while you're inhaling you're going to sound like minnie mouse or mickey mouse or something like that Okay, the idea is that The idea is when jesus told satan man does not live by bread alone, but by every word that proceeds from the mouth of god the idea is this

Exhaling and this is only found in scripture None of the fathers claimed to be never did the father say my writings are theanustas ever

And if you read verse 17, I think it's pretty simple. It's that it is it is it is uh profitable for teaching for rebuke for correction, uh, so that the man of god may be

Thoroughly furnished and in verse 15, he tells timothy He says, you know the scriptures that are the holy scriptures that are able to make you wise unto salvation

Notice paul doesn't say the holy scriptures and this apostolic tradition that we've passed on He says the scriptures are able to make you wise

And because they're theanustas. All right. Very good. Very good. Uh, here's another uh question here.

Uh, jesus garcia Uh asks is original sin ever taught before augustine or did he bring this teaching into the church?

Okay, great great question. Um, augustine did definitely emphasize original sin

Just like calvin emphasized predestination and the decrees of god and so forth in the election um, there are hints of original sin in some of the early fathers, in fact uh, you could find hints of original sin in jewish writings before the time of christ and so Um in in books like fourth ezra

There's a book in the pseudepigrapha called the fourth book of ezra where it actually mentions adam as the one

Who has plummeted all of creation all of the world into into sin and rebelling against god

And so there's clearly a an idea of of adam being the originator of sin By identification with his progeny and and there is some talk about in the in the early fathers

Some of them will talk about original guilt and so forth But even in the hebrew bible, you don't even have to look to the to the testament you go in the hebrew bible and it's very clear that you know david says in psalm 51 in He says in sin was

I conceived and my my mother brought me forth in iniquity Wait a minute. So you're sinful from conception.

Yeah, that sounds very much like original sin And the scripture speaks about those who from the womb are they they they have lying tongues right from the moment

They they pop out of the womb and so so the idea here this all have sinned and come short of god's glory

And this association with sin at conception. I think these are the developments of this idea that we call original sin

Now the eastern church doesn't like this. They think augustine made this whole thing up But I think you can't read romans 5 without recognizing two federal heads christ and adam in adam

You die in christ you live. That's right. So if you're in adam one you die if you're in adam two you live

Okay. All right. Very good. We're almost we're almost done. You're doing great and I appreciate it Okay, how are you doing?

You're okay. Oh great. Yeah, I love the questions are awesome All right, good. So we got a got a couple more and then we'll wrap things up here

I'll plant because bulldog strikes again. I have many catholic friends who point out that god ordained a church not a book

What are your thoughts? Yeah, my mormon friends tell me the same thing Exactly the same thing that god ordained a a latter -day church

By a prophet that he chose and that book was the book mormon um, well, uh, what

What does the scripture say? Well, of course god ordained his church Uh guard or god ordained his people

But but when roman catholics speak of a church what they're thinking of is they're thinking of this building rome in the vatican

The vatican city they're thinking of this huge saint peter's basilica and that's the church that he started

We need to define our terms. What do we mean by church? Well the word church, you know, it comes into the english language through the through the scots

The scots refer to church as kirk kirk Yeah, you've heard of the word kirk like captain kirk in star trek

Uh, the word kirk is scottish for uh for church and then in in german it comes as well as kirch

And but the word I think your is your background spanish. You are i'm puerto rican

Okay, so spanish speaking right, okay, so, you know the word iglesia, right? Iglesia in portuguese.

It's iglesia. Uh, so iglesia in spanish is is is a takeover of the greek ecclesia

Right, and so ecclesia means an assembly. So god has ordained a people He hasn't ordained a three -dimensional building in rome somewhere

He has ordained a people and that people he has ordained by calling them to himself by predestined by Predestinating them in love from the foundation of the world ephesians 1 4 in christ and so uh

And so whenever you say he ordained a church in the roman mind It's this structure with the pope on top and the cardinals and bishops and priests

No, the church is the people of god. That's what he's ordained and to his people He's given his word to communicate his laws.

Very good. Very good. I got someone put in a puerto rican flag emoji people get excited

Like I'm puerto rican. Oh, you're the cool spanish. What does that even mean? I'll take it though.

Okay, here's a big question But you can answer it as distinctly as possible.

Okay. Here's the question. What are your thoughts on eastern orthodoxy? I mean a lot of these discussions especially because The protestant reformation is something that happened in the west and all of the historical events that led up to that point

Are really focused on the west. What are your thoughts just very succinctly on eastern?

Yes where where um within orthodoxy will I mean, do they disagree with all of the solas or what's going on there?

Yeah, uh, yes, so so you got to think of church history again 10 50 10 54. There's the great schism

So the west and the east break up and uh the orthodox church the eastern orthodox church greek russian ukrainian and so forth

The greek orthodox church rejects all the solos just like the roman catholic church, okay Uh, but they're not don't think of them as the the eastern.

Uh, Roman catholic church, even though there are some eastern churches in union with rome.

They're called uniate But the eastern orthodox church denies the solos. Okay Uh, the eastern orthodox church also denies roman catholic doctrines.

They deny the emaculate conception They also deny the assumption of mary And they also deny original sin and the eastern orthodox church, um

Believes that obviously surprise surprise. They're the true church. Where have we heard that before? And they believe that uh, they are the church that goes right back to the apostles again.

No surprise there they They don't have so much a sacramental theology.

They they hold to what's called the mysteries So the orthodox church is very steeped in tradition.

They don't like change. They're very ancient in that respect But they don't believe in salvation by grace alone in christ alone through faith alone to the glory of god alone

They believe in synergism They believe in cooperation With uh god's grace no different than rome and they both believe in sacred tradition and the bible so it's not solo scriptura

So so in many respects, it's very much like the roman church All right. Okay. Good. And if you guys are are interested in eastern orthodoxy, i'm actually going to be interviewing.

Uh, hank hanegraaff Um on tuesday, so we'll get into a little bit of that those of you who might be excited about that No, we're not debating.

Um, i'm actually Currently looking into eastern orthodoxy not to convert. I'm very convinced.

Uh, protestant, uh christian, um, but definitely, um, i'm always interested in what people believe and um,

I think that um, hank and I could have a really good discussion there So, um, if you guys are interested in that topic stay tuned for that that's on next tuesday at 4 p .m

Okay. All right. Um, I think there is one more question and then we're done uh

No, what that was the last one. Never mind. Well, okay This sounds like a throwaway question, but it's not there was a gentleman here that was having difficulty

Following your answers because people have to understand something the questions that are being asked require require background knowledge in church history theology and things like that, so Some people might be impatient with a prolonged answer

But you can't just assume that everyone else knows all that background information So I appreciate very much that you kind of break out you break down the issue.

So but here's what what I Okay, where do I have it in front of me here? Okay, so mr.

C asked can everything that was just said It's a two or three short sentences

So let's take the five solas if if we were having a cup of coffee and i'm like I have three minutes

But I heard that you're a christian and you're a protestant christian. I what's all this deal with the five solas

How would you summarize that for me? Yeah, a couple of seconds if it's possible Yeah, I would say we are saved by faith alone without works by grace alone

Through jesus christ alone and his perfect work on calvary on the authority of scripture alone

To the end that it will be for the glory of god alone And so that's how I would summarize it that it is a work of god

And that it is uniquely a work of god. There's nothing you can do about it It's not earned

And there's a perfect savior who's procured a perfect redemption And the authority for this truth that i'm telling you

Is the scriptures alone and in the end whether you become a believer or not whether you like it or not in the end

God's going to be glorified He will be glorified in the election of his people to the praise of his mercy and grace

And he will be glorified in the execution of his justice against the wicked. So either way god gets glorified

Why did you just say that at the beginning? I'm just kidding.

I like I like when you go into the details. Hey, listen, this was excellent. This was very informative Um, I tell people this all the time.

I listen to my own, uh, my own show I like to to read up and and and rehear what what people have to say when they're guests and they have really good things

To say so. Yeah, thank you so much for my pleasure sharing guys I hope you guys share this video with reformation day coming up on october 31st.

Uh, this is a very very important topic and unfortunately, um

Christians tend to be detached from their history and i'm guilty of this too i'm one of those christians who i'm very familiar with with church history when it comes to From here to the reformation and then yeah, it kind of gets cloudy when it comes to the early church and that's something that I as a

Apologist myself and as a debater I need to make sure that I am up on those areas

And so we all have our weaknesses. So I think dr Tony costa did a great job in reminding us the importance of knowing church history and the importance of the five solas of the reformation

So dr Tony costa, thank you so much for joining me and I would love to have you back to talk about Some other area of your expertise maybe the cults or um, sure even eastern orthodoxy

Maybe we could do a show too. Sure when I have hank on I think that'd be would love to would love to Thank you so much.

Will you stay on? For just a few moments here. Thank you so much guys for sending sending in your questions

Um, if you have any personal questions for me that you'd like me to address you could email me at revealed apologetics at gmail .com

And i'll respond to you there if you want to support revealed apologetics You can do that through sending super chats or private message me if you are desiring to support this ministry