Is Protestantism Heresy? Pt. 1 - The Virgin Mary | Collision w/ Jeff Durbin

The Meaning of Heresy and the Need for Historical Integrity

As we start the discussion and talk about this question of, is Protestantism heresy? It's important for us to talk about like, what do you mean by heresy? And generally this has been defined in, I mean, people use this, I think they abuse the term heresy today.

Like we call everything a heresy. You know, your favorite coffee shop, you're a heretic for going there. You know, you get my point. Is we tend to sort of even go for like low hanging fruit as that's heresy.

We need to be careful with the word because it's actually a very important word, but it's been defined in different ways. You could talk about the category of like, biblically that's heresy. That's against biblical orthodoxy in terms of what the Bible teaches.

That's heretical. But then you could talk about heresy in terms of the history of the Christian church. Something is heresy in terms of, you know, you've got a pretty consistent thread throughout church history on say the Trinity.

And you could say, you know, that's a unified standard Christian belief from the Bible that's been defended by Christians from the Bible throughout, you know, the duration of church history. That's heretical.

And another example, I've been talking a lot about this lately, is that you see from the very earliest stages of the Christian church, the Christian church would give creed and confession even on the issue of abortion, abortifacients and infanticide.

And so you have a clear indication of what Christians have taught and believed consistently, like unanimously until, you know, much of this generation on the issue of abortion, where you have even in the Didache, one of the earliest writings we have of the Christian church, the Christian church defining abortion as murder.

You've got Basil of Caesarea. You've got him calling abortion murder and anybody involved is guilty of murder than he Jesus. And so when today you have organizations that profess to be pro-life saying that the woman is not guilty of murder, that she is in fact a victim herself and that she's not to be seen as guilty at all, you could say, of course, that's against what the Bible teaches, right?

That's against like biblical orthodoxy, what's in the text. And that you could say in one sense, that's heretical, but you can also say in terms of the history of the Christian church, this is heretical.

Church History as a Glorious Mess

And as we start this discussion in terms of the whole history of Christianity, it's very important to have integrity at this point. Roman Catholics and Protestants alike need to have integrity with what has happened in church history.

You've got what I often call a glorious mess. Church history is a glorious mess. You have moments of great glory where the spirit of God has been indwelling his people in his church throughout history, sanctifying them, and growing them.

You see great moments of glory where the church gets together and defeats, say, Arianism, or the church defeats modalism and those sorts of things. Or when the church fights against injustices and wherever it goes, whether that's like the slavery or whether it is abortion, you've got glorious moments.

God has been working in his church from the beginning and he continues to do so. Christ built his church, the gates of hell will not prevail against it. The church has never disappeared from the earth.

However, in church history, it's still rather messy. From the Protestant perspective and the Roman Catholic perspective, both have to have integrity here to say that, yeah, it's messy. You've got giants of the faith in the patristics, the fathers.

You've got early church history where they're saying some amazing things. Now, how do we know they're amazing? Well, you know they're amazing because you have the word of God as the foundation, as the reference point, where you have Augustine or Augustine, however scholarly you are and you wanna say that, saying things that sound exactly like Paul or exactly like Jesus.

He's essentially borrowing the words and putting them into his own. And so because he sounds just like Jesus, it's glorious. And then on the next page, you'll see him do a face plant. And how do you know he's face planting?

Because he's contradicting the clear teaching of scripture in many other places. Athanasius, praise God for Athanasius, contramundum, Athanasius against the world, defending the Trinity against the whole world turning Arian.

And Athanasius saying some incredible things, incredible things about Sola Fide. He doesn't call it Sola Fide, but faith in Christ alone. You see amazing things said about Sola Scriptura, the scriptures being the ultimate standard for the church.

And yet Athanasius also does some face plants. I mean, all the heroes of the faith in the past say some mighty and amazing things, but also do face plants. So you'll see moments where from the Protestant perspective, you're gonna have some of the giants of the faith, including Augustine clearly teaching what is referred to as Sola Scriptura, that the scriptures are the ultimate standard, not the voices of infallible men throughout church history and even church councils, that the scriptures are the guide and the reference points.

You have Augustine teaching that. He's clearly teaching Sola Fide, but you also have Augustine in baptizing babies. And my Presbyterian brothers and sisters were like, yay, Augustine. But you get the point.

Augustine says things that would even make Presbyterians uncomfortable. And so this whole question of like it's heresy, I would say when and where, because you have some of the giants of the faith clearly teaching, clearly teaching Protestant particulars and Protestant doctrine that contradicts clearly what Rome teaches today.

And so this question of heresy, we need to ask it by what standard? By what standard are you calling something a heresy? And so when you say, you know, Sola Fide, we're not saved by faith alone, I would say, well, you're gonna contend with a ton of Christians in history who teach that very thing.

Mary’s Exaltation, Mediation, and Prayer to the Dead

I mean, whole discourses and commentaries on it. And so we need to be very careful with the word heresy, but also use it when it's appropriate. Protestants generally would have a problem with what the Bible has a problem with in terms of the exaltation of Mary, the essentially the deification of Mary.

You know, when you have movements of Roman Catholics today that wanna call Mary a co-mediatrix or co-redemptrix with Christ, that she's a co-mediator with Jesus, where scripture teaches there's one God and one mediator between God and men, the man Christ Jesus, that Christ is that mediator.

And you have Roman Catholics wanting to essentially bring Mary to that place of deity. I mean, if you think about the stories of Mary that Rome teaches in terms of her immaculate conception, Mary, you know, is born without sin, like Jesus.

When you have Mary, her perpetual virginity, you know, as though her having sex with her husband in marriage would somehow taint her. It's just a very strange way of even looking at it biblically. The, you know, Mary, there's a ton of things that Roman Catholics will essentially deify her, prayers to Mary.

Now, I know Roman Catholics wanna say, we're not praying to her like God, we're praying, you know, through Mary like we do other Christians, but I think Christians can clearly see that these are really prayers to Mary.

It's the same thing you're doing to God. It's essentially prayer that you're giving to God, you're also giving to Mary, a creature. And, you know, Mary's not omniscient, Mary's not omnipresent, God only is, and we essentially deify Mary and put her in the same kind of category as God in terms of prayer, like she can hear the prayers of all the saints and things like that.

There's some real difficulties, and I know Roman Catholic apologists would wanna have the debate, and we've done those debates. Pastor James, again, has even debated the Marian issues, but Protestants don't want to deify Mary.

I respect Mary. Mary was Jesus's mother, and Mary is called blessed. She is favored by God, that's clear, but because she's called blessed and she's given favor by God doesn't mean that she's in an exalted position like Jesus to mediate between us and God.

Scripture teaches that nowhere. The practice that Roman Catholics engage in today with Mary is not something you will find in Holy Scripture. It is not something you will see talked about by the apostles.

Mary essentially fades from the story after the resurrection and ascension of Jesus. She sort of disappears from the life of the church, the spiritual life of the church, and Roman Catholics have essentially put her into that place of the spiritual life of the church today, even as some have suggested, co-mediator or co-redemptrix with Jesus.

We would say that's blasphemous. I mean, to put Mary into that position. Also, of course, you get into the question about whether we should pray to people who are in a category of dead. Yes, we are all alive in Christ, and yes, when we die, we're alive with God.

We are present with the Lord, no question about that, but the Bible does have the category of somebody who is really dead, really dead, and somebody who is actually alive among us, and you never see the practice promoted in Scripture of praying to somebody who is actually officially in the category of dead.

We're actually called in Scripture not to try to communicate with the dead, and of course, the story that Jesus gives of the rich man and Lazarus teaches that there's a gulf fixed between us and the realm of the dead, where there's no communication going back and forth between dead people and living people, and so this whole idea of the Bible tells us to call Mary blessed, but Protestants don't.

I call her blessed. Scripture says she is. She was blessed by God. She was favored by God. She was called to be the mother of Jesus. She was an amazing woman, but that doesn't mean she's in a place of co-mediator.

That doesn't mean that Mary is receiving my prayers, and I have a mediator who is Jesus Christ, and I'm able to go directly to the Father through Jesus because he mediates forever for me, and I won't go through a mere creature to do that.

Jesus is the God-man, and he is the one mediator between God and men, and so Protestants don't want to worship Mary or do what is worship to God and give that same thing to Mary as a creature. She is blessed.

She's the mother of Jesus. The text says she was blessed. I'll say Mary was blessed. I'll say that she was given favor by God, but I won't pray to Mary. Mary's not hearing your prayers, and Mary is not a good mediator, period, and there's ways that Roman Catholics will try to get around the practice that they're engaging in to make it not look like worship, but let's be honest, it's the same thing you're doing with God to somebody who is actually technically dead in the category of dead and alive, of course, with the Lord, but the practice of praying to dead, deceased, or departed Christians is not something you will find anywhere in inspired scripture.

Closing Appeal and Show Outro

You will not find the practice anywhere. That is clear doctrinal development over time that eventually became a formal dogma by the Roman Catholic communion. Hey, what's up, guys? This is Pastor Jeff Durbin.

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