Calvin and Sadoleto, Reformed Biblicism

Alpha & Omega Ministries

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Greetings, welcome to The Dividing Line. My name is James White. We are on Twitch, I guess, today. Somebody told me

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I need to be playing video games. I don't know anything about it, but we got kicked off YouTube last week and for speaking the truth, which is what happens on YouTube.

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And so here we are. We'll hope that it works. And obviously we're recording and we'll post to all of our other formats as well.

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So we will press on despite big tech censorship, which is all over the place today.

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It was 1989 or 1990 when

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I drove down to Tucson, Arizona. And I think that was still back during the slow, slow speed limit days when it took you a lot longer to get place.

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And we'll be back to that before long, trust me. But I attended a doctoral seminar.

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I just graduated from Holy Theological Seminary. I was looking at the possibility of maybe going down the

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U of A and studying under Dr. Heiko Obermann, one of the best known church historians who was teaching at the

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University of Arizona in Tucson. And he had invited me down to attend this seminar in his home, in the front room of his home there in Tucson.

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I remember generally where it was in the Tucson area. I hadn't started riding

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El Tour de Tucson yet, so I don't really connect it to the route to know exactly where it was. But anyway, what was fascinating was the subject for the evening was the back and forth between Cardinal Sataletto and John Calvin.

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This took place, of course, in the mid, well, mid to actually late, which can include when all the preceding stuff that led up to it, 1530s.

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And so would be taking place after the events at Munster, things like that.

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And I remember that evening fondly. I didn't get the opportunity of continuing and doing anything down there.

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It would have been quite interesting if we had. But it was like a six -year program.

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It was quite extensive, and I just didn't know how we would survive financially at that particular point in time.

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And I was just starting to write books and things like that, so it just didn't work out. But it was very enjoyable to have the opportunity.

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And the letter that Sataletto wrote to the citizens of Geneva, and Calvin's response is one of the classic exchanges of the

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Reformation. When we think about the first written debate, you know, we think about the first debates.

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We suppose you can include Luther versus Eck, though Luther wasn't really aware of where he was yet.

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You think of the disputations that took place in Zurich and Bern and even in Geneva.

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Debate was a major mechanism that the Reformation utilized. Taking advantage, in some sense, of the decline in the literacy of the

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Roman priesthood, but also the simple fact that the Reformers were drawing people to this, and they were arguing from this.

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And when you do that, you have the Holy Spirit on your side. And so Zwingli would walk into a debate and he would plop the

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Hebrew text down here and the Latin text there and the Greek text there, and the poor guy on the other side didn't have a chance.

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And so when we think about written debates, though, you know, we think of Luther and Erasmus.

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But let's be honest. Erasmus is not your normal representative of Roman Catholicism at that time.

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Yes, he's a priest. Yes, he wrote a small book in defense of transnation. But he's a Dutch humanist.

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He writes just the most incredibly scathing mockery of the abuses of Rome at that particular point in time.

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And so though he's a advocate of, you know, synergism and free will of man, and that's why

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Luther debates him in writing, still, he's not really representative of an

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Orthodox Roman Catholicism of the day, where the

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Pope would be. And so Sadaletto, who is also a humanist, he's also well -known for his education.

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Sadaletto's letter to the Genevans, Sadaletto helped to design and organize the

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Council of Trent. So he is much more representative of a standard

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Roman Catholic perspective at that particular time. And so that exchange is exceedingly important if you have not had the opportunity.

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It does not take long. I grabbed it off of, obviously

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I had printed for him, but I grabbed it digitally for like 99 cents or something in Kindle format,

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MP3'd it, and I think the two letters together only took like 90 minutes to listen to, something like that.

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So you might want to do that. I would encourage you to do so if you are interested in church history. I want to look at a section of it, but before we do so,

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I want to look at the map on the screen up here. I looked all over for maps of Europe in 1530, and nothing really worked all that well.

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And so this is Google Maps. So this is modern, obviously, but the cities haven't moved.

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Some of them are in different countries than they were back then, obviously. But it is,

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I think, important to know where, put things in a context, always important to know where these things are.

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And so what's fascinating is this is, okay,

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Noyon is up in this area up here. One of the problems I had with this is to get everything onto the screen,

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Google decides what cities it's going to put up and what cities it's not going to put up, and things get a little bit weird at that particular point in time.

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But Calvin, at age 14, at age 14, comes to Paris to study.

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He has some benefices. A benefice was a, how would you describe them?

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It's not a scholarship. His father worked for the church, and you would get technically clerical positions that you would get money from.

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And in many instances, you would, for example, be rector of a certain church in a certain city.

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You'd never go there. You'd hire some local priest to do it, and you'd give him a smaller amount of money, and you kept the rest.

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It was a very complex financial system that existed at the time.

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And so this is how he could afford to go to Paris and receive one of the best university educations that you could get in that day.

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At age 14, that does not mean he was a child prodigy. That's when people got started doing stuff back then.

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We, American culture today, men mature, if they mature at all, far later than they did only two generations ago.

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It's amazing. Anyway, so somewhere, and there's arguments here.

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So here's Paris, and there's arguments about, and I'm not gonna bore you too much with all the background details, stuff like that, and the dates and all the rest of that stuff, just some general stuff.

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Somewhere between 1531, 1533, Calvin is converted.

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He says in some of his writings, he doesn't talk a lot about himself. We don't know where he's buried, because he didn't want anybody to know where he's buried.

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He was a self -effacing man in many, many ways. You can read some horrible stuff about Calvin online, but if you actually do serious study, you find out he was truly an amazing

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Christian man with a pastor's heart. He really did have a pastor's heart. But he was trained in the classics in Greek and Latin and knew history very, very well.

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And he comes under the influence of Reformed teaching. We know that he visits with a very, very well -known

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Catholic scholar of the time. And it's shortly after this that he resigns his benefices and seemingly is involved with Nicholas Copp's speech at graduation, which was filled with Lutheran Reformed ideas.

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He has to flee. It's during this time, by the way, when he is now being hunted, because France is very much a

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Roman Catholic nation. And there's gonna be persecution of quote -unquote

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Protestants, non -Roman Catholics for years. The St. Bartholomew's Day massacre and everything else is yet future.

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And so he at this time, it somehow encounters, we don't have all the details, but somehow is put in contact with a man by the name of Miguel Cervetis, who will become very important in his life later on.

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And what most people don't know is Calvin risked his life to sneak back into Paris to meet with Cervetis.

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To try to help this man and Cervetis never showed up. This is during this time period as well.

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Then Calvin writes within, if it's 1531, then within three years, 1533, within one year of his conversion, he writes the first edition of the institutes of the

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Christian religion. Right here, 1536 edition. He starts obviously working on it before then.

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It's obviously, if you have the institutes, you know this is not that big. It's obviously much smaller than the final edition in 1559.

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But still it has, and I just noticed the section on prayer, which by the way is the longest section in, even in the 1559

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Latin, the longest section in the institutes is on prayer. And it's there in the 1536 edition too.

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Anyway, he writes the institutes very early on in his Christian life. Exactly how long, again, there's debate as to where he is and what events he's referring to and stuff like that.

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This is all in the 1530s, and so think about that. If you put the

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Reformation at 1517, all this stuff is happening after Zwingli's dead, pretty much, so Calvin's a second generation, excuse me, second generation reformer.

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And so already there's stuff going on up here in Germany. Here's Erfurt up here, and it's very important,

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I think, to recognize right here, Munster. Munster, a lot of people ignore

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Munster. You can't ignore Munster. Munster is not only the most amazing story in all of church history, in my opinion, but it had a massive impact everywhere, everywhere.

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It was what happened in Munster is known in England and France and Germany and everywhere.

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The Anabaptist Rebellion, Jan of Leiden, everything happens there, and that explains why after Munster, middle 1530s, after Munster, the reformers will not even listen to an

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Anabaptist, it's just, we've already seen what you people are all about. We saw it at Munster, and we're just not gonna listen to you.

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If you wanna hear the story of Munster, then go to February of 2019 on the

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Sheologians, my daughter's webcast, Sheologians Archives. I did two programs in a row narrating the story of Munster, and I'm not gonna redo that on here if I've already done it there.

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And Summer's response as I tell the story of Munster is also extremely enjoyable, because like I said, you could simply do the story of Munster in movie form and never have to exaggerate anything to have one of the most amazing stories you'd ever see on the big screen.

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And they've done it in German, but it's not been done in English yet, and it needs to be. But, and of course, here's

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Frankfurt. I'll just circle Frankfurt because of my dear friends there that I used to get to visit pretty much every year and probably never will again, but dear friends there, who

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I'm teaching church history to and have been for almost two years now. So there's Frankfurt.

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But here's the important part. Let's get back to the story of Calvin. Sorry about that. Way down here is

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Geneva. There's Geneva. They're at the end of the lake. And so here you have

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Switzerland. And so back then, this was made up of cantons. So you've got the

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Genovese down here. You've got Bern, big, powerful Bern. Here's Zurich, where Zwingli is.

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Here's Basel, where eventually Erasmus is gonna go.

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Well, actually, I'm sorry, Erasmus had already been there and was very disappointed with the manuscripts that he found there in Basel.

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But where, right here is Strasbourg. And Strasbourg is a free city.

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And Martin Bucer is there in Strasbourg. And so Anabaptists, for example, were attracted to Strasbourg initially.

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There were some Anabaptists that figured that the millennium would begin in Strasbourg, and the Millennial Kingdom, and so on and so forth.

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And then when that fell apart, they decided that, nope, it's Münster. And that's when you end up having real problems in Münster.

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That would be quite a bit of traveling. But that's what happens. So Calvin is in France, and he's decided that he is going to go to Strasbourg, which is a free city.

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And he is going to live the life of a scholar, live in the library, and write papers, and lecture, and there you go.

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That's what he's gonna do. And so he wants to get here, but there's a problem.

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There's something bad going on between him and Strasbourg.

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So in this area, on the border between, at the time, the

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Holy Roman Empire, Charles V, and France, King of France, they're having themselves a little bit of a spat.

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And so he can't just go straight to Strasbourg, because the roads are clogged with armies, and horses, and wagons, and it's not safe to go this direction.

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And so he has to go a different direction, where he's gonna come down here, through Geneva, up this way to get to Strasbourg, go the southern route, and try to get up to Strasbourg that way.

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And most of the sources would say that his intention was to stay only one night in Geneva, and then continue on his way up to Strasbourg.

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But he had already published the Institutes. They had already become known. I mean, you can imagine why.

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I mean, it's not like a lot of people are publishing a bunch of stuff in defense of the

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Reformation at this point in time. It's very early on, and it's just so well done, and so well argued.

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There's disagreement. There's some sources that say that Calvin's presence was just found out and reported to Guillaume Farel, the fiery, redheaded preacher who was trying to bring

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Reformation to Geneva. Geneva had already kicked

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Rome out, basically, but it was more political than it was convictional.

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And so, other sources say that Calvin just called on Verret and Farel, and the scholars, they just talk to each other type thing.

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I don't know. I don't think we'll ever know. But the point is that this leads to the tremendous encounter between Farel and Calvin, where Farel says, you need to stay here and help me.

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You need to help bring Reformation to Geneva. Calvin's like, I'm going to Shaftesburg.

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I'm just a scholar. And Farel just strikes the fear of God in him.

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God will damn your studies if you go up there and just selfishly live the life of a scholar when there is an entire city here that needs your help.

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And Calvin's still young in the faith. You know, he's probably not countered too many people like Farel.

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Most of us have countered too many people like Farel. And so, he stays. And for the next two years or so, he and Farel work there in Geneva.

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They try to bring God's word to bear upon the city.

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The city really isn't interested in all that. And so, they are kicked out.

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And honestly, Calvin is happy to go. He finally continues his trip up to Strasbourg.

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And with Martin Bucer there, Bucer is sort of a father figure for him, an encouraging individual.

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This is where he first preaches through Romans. He meets Adelette de Bure, his wife.

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They'll be married about nine years before she dies. They have one child that dies shortly after birth.

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Most of the reformers lost children. That was an incredibly common thing in that day.

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It's hard for us to realize that. But he pastors the French congregation there in Strasbourg.

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And they are very happy years for him. They're very happy years. He's not under pressure.

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The plague strikes while he's there. He ministers to his people. He risks his own life. He demonstrates that he is a pastor during this time period.

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So, what happens is, after Farrell and Calvin are kicked out of Geneva, this is when

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Sadaletto decides to write his letter during this vacuum period, where there is really no leadership there in Geneva.

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And it's delivered to the city council. The letter is well -written.

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Sadaletto is an intelligent, well -spoken individual. It's your standard. You need to return back to the church of your fathers.

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We have the traditions going back to the apostles and so on and so forth.

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And, like I said, it's well -written. And the Genevans recognize that they don't have anyone that can respond to it.

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No one in the church in Geneva has the ability to respond in a meaningful fashion.

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And remember, this isn't modern social media. This is, you know, you have time to read things and to ponder things, and no one would expect an immediate response to a letter like that.

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They'd expect that there's gonna be a delay in the reply, but there needs to be a reply. And it doesn't take long for the folks in Geneva to realize there's only one person we know that can respond to this, and we kicked them out.

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And so they send the letter to Calvin in Strasbourg. And basically, with hat in hand, go, could you respond to this?

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And I can imagine what Calvin was probably feeling when he received this letter from Geneva, and he read

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Sadaletto's letter. But I also am not surprised in any way, shape, or form that he did respond.

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I think it took him about a week. Now, this is a couple of months down the road, but it took him about a week to respond.

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It took him about a week or so to write his response. And they had it published.

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Sadaletto had his side published. Someone eventually published both of them together, fairly quickly, actually, so that people were reading this.

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And both sides, I think, really knew that that's how it was gonna be, and that it needed to be that way.

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And so a classic of the Reformation takes place. Now, exactly what role that had, eventually,

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I think it was, just off the top of my head, I think it was 1541, when the

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Genevans come to Calvin, they say, we need you back. And Calvin doesn't wanna go back.

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Geneva was never, you know, I was just passing through. He doesn't wanna go back.

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But Martin Busser says, you need to. They need it.

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And you're the man to do it. Now, remember, Calvin was born 1509, dies in 1564.

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So 50, 59, no, no, no, 54, 54 years of age.

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That's not old. Now, back then, life expectancy wasn't nearly as long.

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But he burned himself out. When you look at the literature that Calvin produced in his lifetime, it is astonishing.

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He pretty much preached every day. He pretty much preached every day. Sermons that are so good, they're still in print.

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His commentary on the Bible is still one of the, if there are a couple of, he didn't do all the

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Old Testament, because he died. And there are just a couple of books in the New Testament he didn't do, like Revelation, because he said he didn't get it anyways.

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At least he was honest, unlike most people. But it's still one of the first commentaries

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I'll go to, because the man's exegetical insights are just incredible.

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And his volume on Deuteronomy, I've forgotten how many, how many was it on Isaiah?

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Just huge numbers of sermons, and it's just astonishing, it really, really is.

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He just burned himself out. And he had a hard time from 1541 to 1553.

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He is in constant battle. He will wake up in the morning with musket balls embedded in the wall next to his bed.

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People would stick their dogs on him. He did not have good health. He had a 27 -year headache.

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And I mean, literally, a 27 -year headache. Can you imagine? You look at some of the artist renderings of Calvin, he's almost never smiling.

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Well, if I had a 27 -year headache, I wouldn't be smiling either, I can guarantee you that. And I wouldn't be producing the volume of material that has been a blessing to Christ's church ever since, either, if I had a 27 -year headache.

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And so, but like I said, eventually he does return.

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And of course, basically, it has to be carried out of the pulpit, dying in 1564.

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He just, he burned himself out. There were no vacations and holidays, and I need to get away for a while, never crossed his mind.

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And Geneva eventually became a, just, it is hard to overestimate the impact that Geneva had on the

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Reformation in England, Scotland, and therefore, the impact that Calvin had on the

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United States. Even our laws, amazing stuff.

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It really is amazing stuff to think about, you know, the providence of God, that you're gonna have a war going on, and that means

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Calvin's gonna have to go through Geneva. And all the things that that ended up resulting in.

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So, with that said, let me, we're going to turn the notes.

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What? What? Before you get rid of that, Rich has some questions here.

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The first question is - We don't do questions. Is this a multiplayer game? Yeah, we don't do questions, so we're not gonna worry ourselves about that.

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All right, so we're just gonna tell Rich to stop, and there we go.

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Okay, there we go, good. All right, so, with that, I would like to, oh, thank you very much.

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Ha, that's not gonna do anybody any good, is it? I wanna read you a section, and it unfortunately did not expand the text out at all.

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That's nice. At least it's big enough that I can read it. But see the little itty -bitty text?

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Thought it might expand it out a little bit, but it didn't, and once I've done that, it's really hard to make it any bigger.

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I'm not gonna fight with it. I want to read a section, two sections, of Calvin's response to Sadaletto, because I think it's relevant to issues that we're facing in the reform community today, and hopefully this will be of use to you.

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Here's just one section. Before descending to particulars, however, I have already cautioned you, and would have you again and again consider with what reason you can charge it upon our people as a fault that they have studied to explain the scriptures.

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For you are aware that by this study, they have thrown such light on the word of God that in this respect, even

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Envy herself is ashamed to defraud them of all praise. You are just as uncandid when you aver that we have seduced the people by thorny and subtle questions, and so enticed them by that philosophy which

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Paul bids Christians beware. Sadaletto had quoted Colossians 2a.

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What? Do you remember what kind of time it was when our reformers appeared?

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At what kind of doctrine candidates for the ministry learned in the schools? You yourself know that it was mere sophistry, and sophistry so twisted, involved, tortuous, and puzzling that scholastic theology might well be described as a species of secret magic.

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The denser the darkness in which anyone shrouded a subject, the more he puzzled himself and others with preposterous riddles, the greater his fame for acumen and learning.

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And when those who had been formed in that forge wished to carry the fruit of their learning to the people, with what skill,

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I ask, did they edify the church? Not to go over every point.

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What sermons in Europe then exhibited, so this would be before the Reformation, then exhibited that simplicity with which

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Paul wishes a Christian people to be always occupied. Nay, what one sermon was there from which old wives might not carry off more whimsies than they could devise at their own fireside in a month?

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For as sermons were then usually divided, the first half was devoted to those misty questions of the schools that might astonish the rude populace, while the second contains sweet stories or not unamusing speculations by which the hearers might be kept on the alert.

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Only a few expressions were thrown in from the word of God that by their majesty they might procure credit for these frivolities.

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But as soon as our reformers raised the standard, all these absurdities in one moment disappeared from amongst us.

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Your preachers, again, partly profited by our books and partly compelled by shame and the general murmur conformed to our example, though they still with open throat exhale the old absurdity.

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Hence, anyone who compares our method of procedure with the old method, or with that which is still in repute among you, will perceive that you have done us no small injustice.

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But you had continued your quotation, sorry, but had you continued your quotation from Paul a little farther, any boy would easily have perceived that the charge which you bring against us is undoubtedly applicable to yourselves.

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For Paul there interprets vain philosophy, Colossians 2 .8, to mean that which preys upon pious souls by means of the constitutions of men and the elements of the world.

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And by these, you have ruined the church. So there is obviously nothing here that would lead us to believe that Calvin was overly interested in being associated with and proclaiming the propriety of the schoolmen.

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And that's not a disputable argument. Everyone is well, well aware of that.

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And we'll look at a quote that says something similar to that a little bit later on. But here, and this one might blow up, this one might get big enough.

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Yes, this is a different program. So it will actually work. After that section that I read to you, he moves into a defense of justification and the basis of justification, he makes biblical argumentation, so on and so forth.

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And then he continues in his defense. And I wanted to look at this particular paragraph here.

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What have you here, Sadaletto, to bite or carp at? Is it that we leave no room for works?

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Assuredly, we do deny that in justifying a man, they are worth one single straw.

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For scripture everywhere cries aloud that all are lost and every man's own conscience bitterly accuses him.

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The same scripture teaches that no hope is left, but in the mere goodness of God, by which sin is pardoned and righteousness imputed to us.

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It declares both to be gratuitous, that is by grace, and finally concludes that a man is justified without works,

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Romans 4, 7. But what notion, you ask, does the very term righteousness suggest to us if respect is not paid to good works?

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I answer, if you would attend to the true meaning of the term justifying in scripture, you would have no difficulty.

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Now, what have we seen? In what we've seen in just these few sentences, what do we see?

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So here you have, oh, stop that. So here you have, for scripture everywhere cries aloud that all are lost and every man's own conscience bitterly accuses him.

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The same scripture teaches that no hope is left, but in the mere goodness of God, by which sin is pardoned and righteousness imputed to us.

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It, scripture, declares both to be gratuitous and finally concludes that a man is justified without works, citation of scripture.

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But what notion, you ask, does the very term righteousness suggest to us if respect is not paid to good works?

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I answer, if you would attend to the true meaning of the term justifying in scripture, you would have no difficulty.

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Now, anyone who's spent any time in the institutes or anything else is going, yeah, that's, this is, this is how the reformers argued.

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This is why we believe in sola scriptura. But Calvin knows very, very well what the schoolmen taught about justification.

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He's read, he went to the, he went to university at age 14. He's read

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Lombard and he's read the sentences and he is fully aware, fully aware of what men today are calling the great tradition, fully aware of it.

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And he knows that the idea of a gratuitous imputed righteousness is not what the tradition has said.

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And so what is he doing? He is testing and refuting the tradition on this key issue of how man knows

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God from scripture. He is doing what

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Jesus taught us to do. When men brought up tradition to Jesus, they brought up the

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Corban rule. You break the scriptures for the sake of your tradition.

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You violate those scriptures. Any tradition is to be tested by scripture.

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No tradition therefore can become the lens that determines the meaning of scripture or that tradition cannot be tested by scripture.

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This is just one example of thousands that could be offered to the fact that in the reformation, there is a necessary recognition that yes, we have truth, all right?

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God has revealed truth. Is there truth in certain elements of tradition?

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Of course, but what defines truth for us?

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It is defined by scripture. Scripture is the foundation, the source of how we define truth.

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And when we take that truth and we systematize it and we see the consistency of truth, it's what we're actually seeing is the consistency that's found in scripture.

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There is never a time where there's something outside of scripture that gives us something that is necessary to be able to understand scripture and therefore derive truth from it.

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This is how the reformers are arguing. Now you can say they were wrong. Roman Catholic apologists say that every day.

42:30

Eastern Orthodox say it every day, but this is what they did.

42:37

There can be no question of it. Is that relevant to us today?

42:43

I think it very much is. Because here, my friends, there are people today who are using the term,

42:57

I just listened to a discussion that discussed the difference between biblical and biblicism.

43:08

Biblicism, okay? Biblical being a description of a teaching that is consistent with the actual meaning of the text of the

43:23

Bible. It's consistent with what the Bible teaches. Now, in modern liberal, not really liberal, leftist academies, the progressives, there is no such thing as anything that's biblical.

43:48

Because there is no consistency or harmony in scripture. There's no inspiration. It's contradictory perspectives of differing men at differing times.

44:00

And in fact, they contradicted themselves at times. And so it's not even a relevant thing.

44:10

And that's the way it's been for a long, long time. That's why Machen could write Christianity liberalism because they're not the same thing.

44:18

But the definition given to biblical was that which is consistent with teaching scripture. And then biblicism was defined as the idea that you can only use biblical language to express biblical teachings.

44:39

And you cannot use any foreign language to do theology.

44:50

Now, I've met rarely in my entire ministry,

44:58

I've met a few people who pretended that they were doing that kind of thing.

45:04

They were normally by themselves. They didn't actually have a church. They were just out there doing their thing.

45:12

They're not reformed. They're not in the church. They're just really odd people out there someplace.

45:21

You will see something somewhat similar to this. I have no creed but Christ.

45:31

Me and my Bible under the tree. Anyone who's been, ask

45:36

Algo. Ask Algo. We have spoken against that kind of disconnected, it makes no sense because the

45:50

Bible itself teaches that God is establishing his church, establishing his kingdom. He's accomplishing things in this world.

45:57

It is his purpose that we are to proclaim the gospel to the world. And so there's gonna be impacts from that.

46:05

No one who is self -consciously reformed believes any of that kind of stuff.

46:11

So I find it truly amazing that this term is now being used amongst reformed people.

46:21

As if the division, because we have people who are promoting the concept of the great tradition, a great tradition exegesis, reformed

46:31

Thomists, reformed Catholics, et cetera, et cetera, et cetera. And people, there are seminaries changing their entire

46:38

PhD programs to make it so that it's focused upon the great tradition and philosophical theology.

46:44

This is happening right now in our day. And there are those of us who see where this is going.

46:52

We recognize, it's like been there, done that, got the T -shirt. We know where this will lead.

46:58

And so we are trying with grace and with love, because we don't want to see

47:05

Christ's church harmed, to warn clearly and openly those who are going to be going this direction.

47:14

It's not going to end well. And so we're hearing this kind of biblicism, and that's what you guys are doing.

47:22

And it's not what we're doing in any way, shape or form. This right here is reformed biblicism, right there.

47:31

Guy named John Calvin, that biblicist, a guy who knows the early church father, a guy who can argue about this view of Augustine or that view of Augustine, and admit when

47:45

Augustine was wrong, because he was a lot, and can quote from Gregory of Nazianzus, and he can quote

47:53

Gregory of Nyssa, and he can Basil of Caesarea, and he can do the Cappadocian fathers, and he can do earlier than that, and he can go back to Tertullian, the whole nine yards.

48:03

He doesn't ignore any of that. But he is forced by the reality of dealing with Roman Catholicism in his day.

48:15

And this wasn't just some type of mental exercise. Rome wanted

48:24

Calvin dead. There was a steady stream. I remember the one time

48:30

I got to visit Italy long ago, I remember that one of my hosts had written a book, and they had put out these books and publishing books, and they're really trying there in Italy to...

48:42

They had me do a conference on election and predestination. And they said it's probably the first conference that had been done in Italy on that subject in a thousand years.

48:53

I found fascinating. But point being, they told me about the stream of martyr missionaries that went from Geneva into Italy during the days of Calvin, and how many died for their testimony.

49:15

So this argument here isn't stuff for PhD seminars.

49:23

This was relevant to people dying for the faith. And that is reformed biblicism.

49:31

And I'm a reformed biblicist. Which means I teach church history, okay?

49:41

I'm writing a book on a particular early apostolic father right now. I'm not ignoring any of that.

49:50

To say that we do, to say that we shouldn't use lexicons or church, that is all absurdity.

49:55

Stop it. It is not worth your time to move your fingers to type this foolishness.

50:01

Stop it. The issue is, what is the supreme authority and ground of anything that a

50:13

Christian is gonna tell the world, this you must believe, this will tell you the truth about God.

50:18

Where does that come from? And what history teaches us is that mankind has amazing ways of with the lips saying, this is the word of God, it is of ultimate authority, and then subjecting it to all sorts of things.

50:39

And initially, very often, they have good motivations for doings. Well, we need to. There's so many people who misinterpret the

50:45

Bible. And then you see the end result. You see the end result.

50:54

That's where you'll find it all through. Calvin's Institutes, and of course, the other 55 volumes of stuff that he produced.

51:08

You'll find it right there. All right? So, church history, and yet modern application.

51:20

I think that's an important way to do things. Okay. I have up here various tweets and stuff that I wanna respond to.

51:32

I will try to be quick. Craig Carter is one of the primary movers and shakers in the promotion of the great tradition.

51:45

I was looking at his Twitter feed, and outside of this one topic, you'd have a hard time differentiating between the two of us.

51:55

He doesn't tweet about cycling. But as far as our response to what's going on in the world,

52:03

June being pride month, I was like, we're peas in a pod. We would get along smashingly well.

52:12

But we've got serious issues right here. Right here. And he's a brilliant scholar.

52:21

I'm sure he's a wonderful brother. If his room in the heavenly mansion is close to mine,

52:28

I'll bet you dollars donuts he plays chess. We'll get together. I wonder what heavenly chess is gonna be. That'll be great.

52:39

But he is a huge promoter of Richard Muller. Richard Muller, for the great traditionists, is almost 28th book of the

52:47

New Testament. I mean, pretty much infallible. I've never seen them questioning him on anything. Not once.

52:54

And while Richard Muller is an awesome resource, once you make anyone infallible, you start missing stuff.

53:03

And so last week, this quote appeared. And the quote from Muller says, the

53:11

Reformation altered comparatively few of the major loci of theology. The doctrines of justification, the sacraments and the church received the greatest emphasis, while the doctrines of God, the

53:21

Trinity, creation, providence, procrastination, and last things were taken over by the Magistral Reformation virtually without alteration.

53:30

And Carter's comment is, this is the best historian of Reformation and post -Reformation theology of this generation. I'd welcome any arguments you might have for why you think he is wrong.

53:39

Otherwise, let's start talking as if this is true. It would allow more light and less heat in our debates.

53:48

Okay. All right. Well, let me, as I didn't write anything on that,

53:58

I think I can still, yeah, let me, this is gonna be tricky to do.

54:09

Let me try. Now everybody knows all the books that I have. Here it is.

54:20

This is the book, The Unaccommodated Calvin, and I believe it's from 2001. So this is 21 years old.

54:27

Muller's book. So here is the context. Always good to have a context, right?

54:32

Because I mean, that thing was posted by a bunch of different people and no one ever even gave a reference to it. But some of us like to look up stuff.

54:41

And so, patterns of scholarship, the name of John Calvin and the term scholasticism have seldom been stated positively in the same breath.

54:53

Yeah. The reasons for assuming a profoundly negative relationship between Calvin and the scholastic doctrine of the

54:59

Middle Ages literally abound on the pages of Calvin's Institute. In the form of his running diatribe against the schoolman.

55:08

Nonetheless, Calvin's theology, whether from the perspective of its methods or from the perspective of its contents, did not arise in a 16th century vacuum.

55:17

Well, I don't know anybody would say, suggest that it did. To be honest with you.

55:24

Not only did Calvin formulate his theology in distinct opposition to elements of late medieval and early 16th century

55:33

Roman Catholicism. Well, man, of course. He also quite subtly felt the influence of the medieval as well as the patristic past.

55:43

Well, I'll be honest with you. I would argue that if you were to put a scale out and you've got the medieval emphasis, the medieval weight and the patristic weight on Calvin.

56:07

If you know about Calvin's studies, his first published book and what his focus was on, it's gonna be in the patristic.

56:17

It's gonna be in the patristic. Now, does he know Bernard? He sure does. But his focus,

56:26

I think, is primarily on the patristic. It is worth recognizing from the outset that the

56:33

Reformation altered, here's our quote, comparatively few of the major loci of theology, the doctrines of justification, the sacraments, and the church received the greatest emphasis.

56:44

Well, we just saw that in his response to Saddletto. Did we not? Yeah, of course. While the doctrines of God, the

56:53

Trinity, creation, providence, predestination, and the last things were taken over by the

56:58

Magisterial Reformation virtually without alteration. In addition, many of the differences between the theological methods of the

57:05

Reformation and those of the Middle Ages can be attributed to the development of logic and rhetoric and to their impact in the relatively stable disputatio rather than to a vast rebellion and academic approach.

57:14

I would add, rather obviously, the rise of the Renaissance, Ad Fontes, humanism, the availability of Greek and Hebrew, and the beginning of critical studies all are plainly evident in Calvin's commentaries and therefore the foundation of his theological system.

57:39

Here's the quote. While the doctrines of God, the Trinity, creation, providence, predestination, and the last things were taken over by the

57:46

Magisterial Reformation virtually without alteration. Now, as you can see, this is at the beginning of the book, it is a general overarching statement.

57:58

Since it is a general overarching statement, it's not getting into the level of specificity that would be actually helpful in the debates that we're having.

58:10

Why do I say that? Well, obviously, these

58:17

God, Trinity, creation, what we're talking about here is simplicity, extended assertions of simplicity, all the stuff where the debate six months ago was on Thomistic metaphysics, the influence of Aristotle, and issues along those lines.

58:41

We have discovered that the foundations are a little bit different than we thought at that particular point in time.

58:51

But let me consider at least, well, we'll skip last things for right now just so that we don't get everybody throwing food at each other.

59:01

Providence and predestination just brought over.

59:10

I think if you, again, this is where having interaction with believing evangelical

59:27

Roman Catholicism, evangelical there meaning they are seeking to spread their faith.

59:37

Having interaction with believing Roman Catholics who really believe the Council of Trinity.

59:45

They really believe that what Rome is teaching is true. They really believe the sacramental system.

59:53

Even those who will self -consciously identify themselves as Augustinian, when you listen to them talk about providence and predestination, and then you read

01:00:08

Calvin on that, or you read any of the Westminster divines, or you, in our modern day, if you read a modern day

01:00:14

Roman Catholic Augustinian in comparison to a Sproul, there is no comparison, none.

01:00:25

I suggest to you that especially on the doctrine of predestination, if you do not teach that concept, fundamentally, first and foremost, primarily, in the words that the

01:00:45

Holy Spirit of God has given to us in Scripture, it becomes nothing but a flight of fancy.

01:00:54

It becomes yet another philosophical, sophistic concept to play with when you're feeling particularly smart.

01:01:11

Roman Catholic understanding of predestination never produced the

01:01:17

Puritan, and it couldn't. Because especially once the

01:01:26

Reformation takes place, these issues now become just clearly defined.

01:01:36

And that's why I've said, let me just mention this in passing, Aquinas, though it's his theology that is underlying

01:01:46

Trent, Aquinas isn't dealing with people who are opposing, that there's no

01:01:53

Reformation going on at that time. And so he has the freedom to be somewhat inconsistent on these issues.

01:02:05

Whereas once you get the Reformation going, they've now got to define their parameters, and Trent's sacramentalism and its emphasis upon the individual's ability to access the sacraments by their own free will, pretty much destroys any meaningful

01:02:28

Augustinianism in reference to grace. Remember what

01:02:34

Calvin said to Saddletto? Gratuitously, it destroys that.

01:02:42

That's why Molina had to do what Molina had to do too. And so I would definitely argue that predestination as understood in light of Sola Scriptura is completely different than predestination as understood as a philosophical concept from the schoolman.

01:03:07

And let me just mention in passing that the Trinity, how many times have we dealt over the years, over the decades now with Roman Catholic apologists who made the argument, you cannot prove the

01:03:26

Trinity without the traditions of the church. And yet when

01:03:32

I teach people the doctrine of the Trinity and make them biblical

01:03:37

Trinitarians, not traditionalist Trinitarians, but biblical Trinitarians, then they understand what

01:03:45

I mean when I say, I love the Trinity, because what I'm loving is coming to me from the words of my savior.

01:03:55

And I don't just mean the words of Jesus. As the second person of the Trinity, the one who reveals the father, what

01:04:04

I have in scripture is the voice of my shepherd. And I simply say to you, a person who believes the

01:04:11

Trinity because the word of God reveals that to them, teaches them those three basic foundational truths.

01:04:20

There's only one God, the existence of three persons, and then the equality of those persons. Once they see that and they have that foundation, then to believe in the

01:04:31

Trinity is to believe in Jesus. It's not some thing over here. That's not one of these, well,

01:04:37

I've got my eschatology over here. No, it is the testimony of a heart that believes all that God has revealed in scripture.

01:04:48

That's very different than believing it because my priest told me so, because the council told me so.

01:04:54

Very, very different. So in response to the call from Dr.

01:05:12

Carter, where it says, let's start talking as if this is true, we can accept a very basic interpretation of what

01:05:27

Moeller said, but on the key issues that are important to the debate we're having right now, we have to say, no, don't think so.

01:05:36

Too simplistic. And that's not the, Moeller isn't there even giving the conclusion of an argument.

01:05:44

It's just sort of a basic statement made from the beginning.

01:05:51

It's a little after an hour, but I think we're good. Couple other things here.

01:05:58

Actually, there's a bunch of things. Dr. Carter says the

01:06:06

Arians, okay, so he's commenting on Steve Meister. The obvious question is why the bishops gathered at Nicaea used these philosophical words in the creed to begin with.

01:06:16

Why didn't they simply use biblical language? Okay, again, this is the straw man stuff. Very common, unfortunately, for Pastor Meister these days.

01:06:24

The straw man stuff that, well, unless you just go whole hog with what we believe, then you're gonna be this biblicist and the biblicist, and in fact,

01:06:34

I have, I think I have, yeah, here's Josh Sommer doing the whole hog.

01:06:40

Oh, well, look, it's a long ways over there, and those little dots are very small, and that really bums me out there.

01:06:58

Let me see if I can, oh gosh. Oh, they all say screenshot.

01:07:08

Let's hope. Yes! Yes! Ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha.

01:07:14

That was close. Now let's go to the proper green one.

01:07:21

Hey, there we go. Here's going absolutely whole hog straw man.

01:07:32

So Richard Rosales has said it is appropriate to use words not in the word to explain, defend the word, unless you want to engage in quoting scripture back and forth.

01:07:43

I quoted on Twitter in response to this, in support of it, one of the footnotes from the

01:07:50

Forgotten Trinity where I quote B .B. Warfield on this very issue, on the propriety of utilizing language that accurately expresses what is in scripture.

01:08:00

So once again, this is the straw man. This is the, we are going to keep telling people this is what biblicism is until they get scared of being called a biblicist, so then we can just use it as a bat, but it's dishonest.

01:08:11

Okay, it's not what we're talking about. I've given you an example of what reformed biblicism is from Calvin.

01:08:19

And so what Rosales said is exactly right. It is perfectly right to do that.

01:08:25

That doesn't change the reality that the danger is that you're going to use philosophical terminology to end up determining what scripture can mean.

01:08:35

That's what the danger is. And since that has happened over and over and over throughout church history,

01:08:41

I'm not the only one who has made that warning. And that warning remains.

01:08:47

So Josh Sommer says, no technical terminology allowed. Trinity, nature, essence, person, et cetera. Blown it.

01:08:54

Why? Why? We're not told. This is just how you straw man something.

01:09:00

No expositional preaching which requires extra biblical terminology allowed. No use of commentaries allowed. No lexicons allowed.

01:09:06

Implications of dying in the state of New Brunswick. None of which is true. Pastor Sommer has just completely lost his balance.

01:09:12

He's flying off. Somebody on your side, you need to reel the man back in. Okay, because this is silly.

01:09:19

This is not helpful. This is not relevant. You got to stop this. He's not going to listen to me.

01:09:27

So one of you guys over there who realizes just how wacky this is, you need to pick up the phone, do something, and reel it back in.

01:09:37

Because this is, like I said, this is what's going on. So yeah, there's two different topics here.

01:09:49

We'll hit the right one. The Arians of the 4th century, the Sassinians of the 16th century, the

01:09:54

Hellenization thesis advocates of the 19th century, the JWs of the 20th century, all make the same accusations against the creed.

01:10:00

You shall know them by their fruit. None of them end up with the Christology that does justice to John 1. Okay, can we agree on one thing?

01:10:11

Can we, here, and this is important, is

01:10:23

John 1 knowable apart from Plato? Is what

01:10:32

John 1 says, Anarche Einhalagos. Cahalagos Einprostantheon, Citheas Einhalagos.

01:10:40

Can we know what those words mean without reading

01:10:46

Plato? Without Aristotle? Can we?

01:10:56

Did the early church know what John 1, 1 meant before Nicaea?

01:11:05

You say, these are silly questions. No, they're not. No, they're not. Because when people start telling you that you need to use the

01:11:13

Nicene dogmas, that you need to have the pro -Nicene world culture, worldview culture, whatever terminology you're using is, and yet that comes three centuries later, two and a half centuries later.

01:11:30

Do we, is there such a thing as John 1 that has meaning in and of itself that's communicable without Greek philosophy?

01:11:40

I'm not saying, can you answer Greek philosophical questions about what

01:11:45

John 1, 1 says, but what comes first?

01:11:52

And is the objective truth content of John 1 prior to anything else?

01:12:00

And if you're sitting there going, well, you can't really know what RK means without a lexicon, and so no, then you are saying that God, when

01:12:09

God spoke to Adam and Eve, they had an excuse, because they didn't have a lexicon, right?

01:12:16

Right? Think about it. If the first thought you had was about all the traditions that you allegedly, and all the philosophy you allegedly have to bring to bear to execute

01:12:29

John 1, 1, then you have already gone over to the other side. You're already there, okay?

01:12:41

Now, the next thing is, what Dr. Carter likes to say is, all the heretics were Biblicists. All the heretics are

01:12:48

Biblicists. Not a one of them was ever a Biblicist, not in any meaningful term, Biblicist, because to be a

01:12:55

Biblicist is to actually believe everything the word of God has to say, and the very definition of a heretic is to reject elements of what the word of God has to say.

01:13:03

It's definition of term. Definition of term. But I think this is, that is a key element, right there.

01:13:13

Key element. Here is the next.

01:13:23

This was interesting. Oh, by the way, hold on, hold on, hold on. I won't, before we get to that one.

01:13:33

I don't think the other quote that I have brings this up, but I just don't want to miss this.

01:13:40

One of the key arguments being made right now takes us back to something we,

01:13:49

I don't know how many programs we've done over the years on the Council of Nicaea. There's a article floating around out there, what really happened to the

01:14:01

Council of Nicaea that I wrote for the CRI Journal years and years ago. I think in the late 90s, early 2000s, somewhere around.

01:14:12

And it's like some of these young guys think they've just discovered something new. Yes, some of us were debating this stuff before they were born.

01:14:23

And the idea is, well, how come, and I did read one of them, but this wasn't what

01:14:31

I was thinking about. How come they had to use homoousius? How come they just didn't use biblical language?

01:14:40

And this is supposed to prove something. I'm not sure what it's supposed to prove, because I'd like to know. Those of you who are using this argument, you're saying, well, the

01:14:49

Bible's not sufficient to refute Arianism. That's what you're saying. But the

01:14:56

Council of Nicaea was? Have you read anything about the

01:15:01

Arian resurgence? Do you know what Sermium was? If you don't know what the

01:15:07

Sermium Creed was, you don't have any business even talking about this, I'll be perfectly honest with you. Because you are wandering into a field where you may end up saying, well, you know, the

01:15:19

Council of Nicaea has authority because it's an ecumenical council. Well, who determines that? Nobody at Nicaea thought that, because nobody at Nicaea had any idea what an ecumenical council would be.

01:15:33

And during the Arian resurgency afterwards, it was plainly not seen as having final authority on this particular subject.

01:15:44

For decades, as Jerome said, the world woke up and was amazed to find itself Arian. It's true.

01:15:53

That's where you get Athanasius' contramundum. And when you read Athanasius' defense against the

01:15:59

Arians, it is rich in what? Biblical exegesis.

01:16:05

Not the great tradition, because there wasn't one yet. But biblical exegesis of the key texts, the very same ones that we focus on today.

01:16:15

But back to the issue. Why did they use homoousius? Why not just use biblical language?

01:16:23

There is nothing in a reformed understanding of biblicism, in a reformed understanding of sola scriptura, that says that you cannot engage in a defense of the faith against any culture in any language.

01:16:40

And so when Greek philosophical questions come up, you seek to engage them.

01:16:46

The big, huge debate from the days of Justin Martyr and Tertullian on is how you maintain that balance.

01:16:55

Because the tendency is for those who are philosophically minded to place their philosophical formulations at the center of all things, including their definition and interpretation of scripture.

01:17:13

History's filled with it, filled with it. The tendency is that direction, not the other direction.

01:17:21

I'll be honest with you, historically. And so the Aryans produce a theological system that, see, and I remember, and he's probably not watching right now, but he will.

01:17:40

I remember a friend of mine years and years ago, out in the parking lot at church, asked me,

01:17:46

Jehovah's Witness brought up this text, and you know, I've been looking at it, and the Greek could be understood the way that the

01:17:53

Jehovah's Witness said. I taught him Greek. And my response sort of was, yep, could be.

01:18:03

And he's like, well, that bothers me. I said, there is nothing in a belief in the sufficiency of scripture that demands that that means in every single text there is going to be a dead -eye refutation of a heretic's twisting of those words.

01:18:20

Because the truth of scripture is found in the entire testimony of scripture, not in any one particular text.

01:18:28

And what's scary is when people start saying, and the truth of the entirety of scripture can only be known in this larger context of a great tradition or whatever else.

01:18:41

That's when Sola Scriptura has been abandoned. That's when it's been abandoned, okay?

01:18:49

So they used homoousios because it exposed the

01:18:56

Arians, and because the term is consistent with scripture. The authority of homoousios is not due to Constantine.

01:19:10

It is not due to a quote -unquote church. It is due to the consistency of homoousios with Colossians 2 .9

01:19:18

and Colossians 1 .15 -17 and John 1 .1 and John 20 .28 and Romans 9 .5 and Acts 20 .28

01:19:25

and on and on and on and on. So if the terms definition comes from scripture and that's the foundation, then you have the foundation.

01:19:38

If you say all of this can't do it without something else out here someplace, you no longer have

01:19:45

Sola Scriptura and you no longer have truly a divine foundation for your belief. Okay, I just thought this was interesting.

01:19:56

Dr. Carr says, what does it mean to be always reforming? Temple Reformanda, hmm. The ongoing reform of the church in every generation that we should long for is not the changing of our doctrine to please the world, but the increasingly close conformity of our lives to the doctrines handed down to us from our fathers in the faith.

01:20:15

Now, I don't know where the please the world thing comes from, I'm not sure why anybody would, what? But do you notice something missing there?

01:20:26

Anything missing there, Rick? I've noticed, I haven't said anything to you. Are we still live streaming?

01:20:39

Twitch wants to know what an algo is. Algo has rhythm.

01:20:48

That is one of the mysteries of this game. Oh, good,

01:20:57

Kofi's helping us out. Okay, all right, that's good. Thank you, Kofi, thank you very much. So there is an ongoing conversation going, is that?

01:21:06

Yeah. That's something you can't do anything about. You know what, though? I have to say, the

01:21:12

Twitchers, whatever it is. The Twitchers? They are very well -known.

01:21:19

Good, for this week, wait till they find out we're here. Then it's gonna go absolutely insane, you just watch.

01:21:25

I know how these things work. You know what's missing here? When I read that, the ongoing reform of the church in every generation that we should long for is not the changing of our doctrine to please the world, duh, but the increasingly close conformity of our lives to the doctrine handed down to us from our fathers in the faith.

01:21:46

Huh, how about to the doctrine revealed in divine scripture? Isn't that the primary thing being handed down?

01:21:56

The content? So Justin Opperman said, it seems like this should at least reference the norming norm of scripture, and he's right.

01:22:05

The norma nobata, the norm that norms all others, scripture, doesn't even mention it.

01:22:12

Carter's response, the inspiration authority of scripture is part of the doctrine handed down in the

01:22:21

Protestant confession. Whoa, wait a minute, Protestant confession is only past 500 years, and less than that.

01:22:30

It's not apostolic, and that's just a doctrine handed down.

01:22:35

It is not a free pass for individuals to alter those confessions when pressure from the world ramps up. Again, I don't get any of the world pressure stuff, that's not what we're talking about here.

01:22:47

Maybe he's just not engaging in the internal conversation amongst reform folks about this, but not only is it missing up here, but then when it's mentioned down here properly, it becomes part of the doctrine handed down.

01:23:07

See, handed down is the language of tradition, obviously. So the inspiration authority of scripture is just a part of a tradition?

01:23:21

I consider that dangerous. That may just be really, really, really badly expressed, but I consider that extremely dangerous.

01:23:29

One last one here from our brother Briggs up in Sacramento.

01:23:38

If you think that the so -called great tradition of the church is not the fruit and product of serious exegetical work by those who have gone before us, then you haven't read enough, or you just don't understand how the development of theological understanding works.

01:23:50

One thing that you should be clear on, however, is this. Those who have gone before are no less qualified than you in doing their exegesis and coming to their conclusions, and in fact, they might just be better.

01:24:00

Humility would be the course of wisdom. Now, that sounds very wise. It just ignores history.

01:24:06

It ignores origin. It ignores the fundamentally erroneous view of the

01:24:17

Old Testament that developed early on, origin is an example of it, that led to the

01:24:24

Old Testament being looked at allegorically, looking at all these quote -unquote deeper meanings rather than understanding what it meant in its context, in its original language, et cetera, et cetera, and the reality is that the reason the phrase post -Tenebrous

01:24:42

Lux was developed was, let me give you an example, and it's my favorite example, but I think

01:24:49

I'm just gonna have to do an entire program on it. I've already been gathering some of the materials, but I'll just mention this in passing. When we are told that the exegesis of the early period, being told here, is maybe even better than what you get from the

01:25:06

Reformation or today, I would highly recommend to anyone, you hear people say all the time that, oh,

01:25:18

I believe in the seven ecumenical councils. You'll hear people say, oh, yes, I'm Catholic with a small

01:25:24

C. I accept the seven ecumenical councils. I doubt almost anybody in this audience actually accepts the second

01:25:32

Nicene Council, and I doubt almost anybody has ever read any of the material that comes to us, this was in the late 8th century, from Nicaea too, because if you will read the argumentation, philosophical and exegetical, that is used to defend the veneration of images, first of all, most of your

01:26:03

Puritans are really not gonna buy into that one, okay? But that's what

01:26:09

Nicaea too is about, is it was on the iconoclastic controversy and was in essence, defending the veneration of images.

01:26:20

Now, veneration, worship, we can get into that, Calvin certainly did, and I think Calvin's refutation of that foolish distinction is unrefuted, but the point is this, the biblical interpretation offered in defense of that perspective is simply laughable, and I will tell you right now, any meaningful commentary by Murray or Moo, et cetera, is light years beyond what you'll find there.

01:27:05

You will also find much more consistency in the vast majority of modern commentators.

01:27:13

I'm talking about reformed, people who believe in inerrancy, et cetera, et cetera, than you will find in so many people in the past.

01:27:23

God did something great in the Reformation. It was a good thing. Now, will you find glowing individuals,

01:27:34

Fulgentius of Rusp? Yeah, you will, but you'll also find major differences between them and many others, which is why the whole idea of a quote -unquote great tradition, you have to, everybody's having to pick and choose from that.

01:27:53

You have to pick and choose. Great tradition about what? Great tradition about baptism?

01:27:59

Nope. Sacraments? Nope. Sacerdotalism? Nope. The mass? Nope. Baptism, again, purposes and intentions?

01:28:07

Nope. Function of the church? Nope. The only thing you can, as you can tell, everyone who's doing the great tradition mambo right now, they're limiting their praise of it to just the narrow area of Trinitarian theology.

01:28:33

And the people who lived in the early church and in the medieval period did not make that distinction.

01:28:40

They did not say, oh, we believe about God. We're spot on about that. But yeah, all this baptism stuff and sacraments and priests, not really part of the great tradition.

01:28:51

They'd go, what are you talking about? Stop abusing him. Stop abusing him.

01:28:59

So can't agree with Brother Briggs. Good man, but wrong on that one.

01:29:06

So there you go. I think I got through everything. Look at that. And even rescued the one.

01:29:13

We made it work today. Thank you very much for being with us on Twitch for the first time.

01:29:22

I'm not sure exactly how all that works. I'm not a gamer. But as long as Rich is happy with it, then that's.

01:29:34

He says it went very, very well. So clean feed, there you go. Until we get kicked off.

01:29:41

I'm not sure about a lot of the game questions. Oh. Apparently, they don't really know how it is to work our game.

01:29:50

Yes, yes. Working our game is probably very, very difficult for them. They're sitting there. He's not moving my avatar.

01:29:57

Like I said, they went, no, is that a multiplayer game you've got? Yeah. Can we do? Can we play too?

01:30:03

Okay. When does the Warcraft begin? We go through Eastern Europe. Yeah.