Hank Hanegraaff Unplugged—Part One of a Refutation of His Attack on Sola Scriptura

Alpha & Omega Ministries

Subscribe

Download

Share

00

Comments are disabled.

00:30

And greetings welcome to the dividing line, my name is James white we're coming to you today live and direct from beautiful Phoenix, Arizona where it's uh, it's it's warming up.

00:40

Yeah, not as warm as it's been in the past, but it's supposed to be I think 87 tomorrow something like that.

00:47

Yeah, it's supposed to supposed to get out there We haven't hit 90. So if we haven't 990 by by March We're doing good.

00:54

We're doing good Some of the rest you're going what? Dude that's good. Yeah, trust me

01:01

It I had a race once the beginning of April. It was the old tour de phoenix and it was 103 that day

01:07

So that was the first weekend April. Anyways, it happens. Um, I Was going to be doing more on the foundation of Augustinian Calvinism by Ken Wilson And then somebody sent me

01:24

Somebody sent me a a video and so despite the

01:33

Nature of the video and how sad it really is to have to Respond to it.

01:39

I think it is necessary to do so It is interesting to me that we have been we have been responding to an

01:45

Eastern Orthodox fellow a former reformed individual According to him.

01:51

I didn't know him at that time And we've been doing that for a number of months just doing a little bit here a little bit there this text that text

02:00

So when I was sent this video that I think was posted yesterday or the day before just very recently from equip .org

02:11

The former CRI, I guess it's still CRI in some senses The Bible answer man, but only in the past not really any longer in any in any meaningful sense

02:24

Hank Hanegraaff is Interviewing an individual a

02:32

Orthodox individual and they're just they're going for the big subjects. So there's gonna be a follow -up

02:39

Obviously, it's already been recorded. This was one recording session But the follow -up video probably posted tomorrow with something will be on the subject of The Eucharist and in fact interestingly enough at the end of this

02:52

Hank says that that's why he converted Was the exact in fact he used the exact same words the exact same words

03:02

That Francis Chan used that we responded to a month or so ago month and a half or so ago in regards to this alleged

03:11

Unanimity of belief 1 ,500 years whenever you hear anybody Talking about a unanimity everybody for 1 ,500 years before the

03:22

Reformation believe this, you know, you're not talking to anyone who is even semi serious about church history not in the slightest if you can't tell the difference between differing

03:35

Perspectives in the early church if you can't tell them the early church there were all sorts of different viewpoints on Almost everything if you can't tell how many of the early church fathers didn't even address certain subjects or did not explain

03:49

What they meant when they did address certain things Then you have not been doing any reading in the early church and you're just going with What you've been told to say

04:01

That's just all there is to it. I'm sorry That's that's just it So That that's good to be at the end of what we're gonna look at here.

04:13

It's less than 20 minutes I forget it's about 27 minutes and say I'll take that back and It's half an hour.

04:22

So yeah, all right we I Think it is important to respond to these types of things and let me just mention

04:31

I I Debated Jimmy Akin well engaged

04:38

Jimmy Akin and Tim Staples both on the Bible has been broadcast in years past and Those each one of them.

04:47

I think were minimally to I think three hours Encounters with Jimmy Akin there was a lunch beforehand

04:57

That we that we had together with Jimmy Akin. I don't think we did that with Tim Staples but So obviously

05:07

I have engaged the issue of solo scriptura in Hank's presence.

05:12

Did I get the feeling at? that time that this was something of a

05:20

Passion for Hank I did not I think he agreed with me sort of on on a default basis.

05:26

Not so much a Knowledgeable basis I did not get the feeling that he was really following what some of the key questions were regarding tradition and Especially the concept of tradition being in multiple forms

05:47

The idea of solo scriptura being a question of the nature of scripture Versus the nature of tradition that it focuses upon the real question today

05:57

What is in the possession of the church? That is the Anustos? Maybe he just simply heard me talking about these things assumed.

06:06

Yeah, that's that's the right side and didn't really engage it I don't know but to to hear him

06:13

Himself Enunciating and utilizing the standard oft refuted and when

06:18

I say oft refuted I don't simply mean since I was in the studios. I mean this goes back to Luther and Calvin and Zwingli it goes back to The letter of Calvin in response to satellito

06:38

To the Church of Geneva in response to his letter to the Church of Geneva There's nothing new here

06:45

There is a tremendous amount of written information on this that I have no reason to believe

06:52

I I'm I may have once recommended these sources But I have no reason to believe that Hank has actually

06:59

Availed himself of them Because his his rhetoric and his argumentation does not show any knowledge of them

07:05

So he's not if he has he doesn't have an answer for these things and he's not even bothering to try And that's not unusual in listening to converts

07:14

Converts have their you know converts or converts. They do their thing they Yeah, anyway, so Anyway hearing this this video

07:26

Watching this video a couple of times. It's just sort of sad to me it

07:33

You want to see? Someone You know move away from this and and and see the see the truth of it of You'd like to see

07:47

Hank recovered in some fashion That would be that would be a wonderful thing, but I'm not doing this because of of him

07:58

I I recognize that he is in a What we should we would call a honeymoon?

08:06

state right now and He's not really gonna be listening

08:11

I think to what is is said oops Don't want that if you have the volume up already

08:19

I just wanted to mention the the fellow that he is with is named Nathan Jacobs Described rather In a flowery fashion shall we say as a renaissance man artist author philosopher professor and filmmaker

08:41

Inspirational informative and interesting well, I think the interesting part was overkill of them

08:48

And so they are going to be doing a series And explain away many of the most common misconceptions people have about Eastern Orthodoxy and so That's what you have here and as I said the next one is going to be looking at the subject of the

09:10

Eucharist and so we will definitely be interested in looking at that too. So there's the introduction.

09:16

That's why we're dealing with it These are this is one of the instances where the arguments of the

09:23

Orthodox and the arguments the Roman Catholics are almost identical That's why in some ways

09:30

The Orthodox are forced into this in America because the context that they're not necessarily forced into Defining things quite this tightly in a in Ukraine or Russia or places like that But that's what you have here.

09:46

So let's let's listen and respond. You know, I want to talk about sola scriptura

09:52

I've mentioned in previous videos a particular article look article that came out by evangelicals who are

10:00

Ferocious for the faith once for all delivered to the Saints. That's an article that appeared on pulpit and pen and It's an article it didn't even spell the solas correctly to be perfectly honest with you

10:15

There have been responses to Hank's conversion that were written by people who know next to nothing about orthodoxy and As such they just they just assume that Orthodoxy is just popeless

10:32

Catholicism. They do not understand they wouldn't know what energia meant if their life depended on it and As such a lot of those those articles have not been overly useful

10:46

Have been fairly easy to rebut Because there's weren't art days weren't they're not well researched

10:55

But the point is I would think Hank should know that You know if you're gonna respond to some articles

11:01

Why don't you respond to some of the things that have been said from people actually know something about orthodoxy something? Maybe read

11:08

You know something from Maximus the Confessor or something, you know, no at least who's who? Know something about the traditions that prevail between the seven of the ninth centuries that have been

11:21

Fossilized in essence within the liturgy of the Eastern Orthodox Church someone has some idea of what's going on But that's not what you have here.

11:29

He's gonna read from a paragraph from it here are concerned that I left that faith

11:37

One of the things they write is that Hanegraaff has joined a cult That cult not only prays to objects and believes all kinds of superstitious doctrines

11:47

But they deny the infallible authority and sufficiency of God's Word instead believing that the

11:55

Bible is of equal authority to their Perverse traditions now, that's quite a mouthful with yeah, it's quite it's quite a mouthful and it also illustrates

12:08

Why you almost never hear me using the term cult Um Obviously when

12:14

I was younger I did much more often but I'll just be honest with you. It's it's not the most useful term Because it can't have a meaningfully objective

12:23

Definition attached to it if you can attach cult to a 12 member group and a 12 million member group and 120 million member group

12:34

One that's 12 weeks old one. That's 12 years old and one that's 12 centuries old

12:40

Well, what are you accomplishing I mean you're talking about Religions I disagree with and that's that's not the best.

12:48

Yeah, I mean and that doesn't accomplish a whole lot So that's why I don't use that type of terminology but I Really think that Hank in essence here was using this

13:01

You know, let's pick the worst we can get and then contrast that with with the smooth

13:09

Presentations of Of my guests here, you know, maybe that's what's going on. I don't know That's some of the things mentioned by these well -known

13:20

And well known there Simon Simon a name attached to it I mean, it's just pulpit and pen news division and I don't think it was

13:27

JD because JD knows how to spell the solos. I mean, I mean JD I think would be embarrassed and I'm sure it'll be fixed now, too

13:36

But this is last year. Sometimes this is November last year But I would

13:41

I would think that the JD would be embarrassed if something went out under his name That didn't even get the solos spelled correctly very zealous Evangelicals but I want to focus in on this whole notion, which is inculcated in the words of sola scriptura the

14:00

Bible alone I've oftentimes said over the course of my ministry that the

14:07

Bible's is the infallible repository of redemptive revelation Okay now right there now right there at that point if Hank had a solid foundation in the past He would realize that what he just said is a fundamental refutation of the position he's now adopting

14:29

Why do I say that? Because and I know

14:34

I said this in his presence The issue of solo scriptura is what does the church possess today?

14:42

That is the honest knows God breathed and What he just said was scripture only if it is the repository of all divine revelation if it is if everything that is the honest

14:59

Oz is In scripture then nothing else is the honest

15:04

Oz and nothing else can therefore have the authority of scripture Now you can say well, okay.

15:11

It's all we have that's the honest Oz but we have to interpret it that Accomplishes nothing that has nothing to do with solo scriptura because once you interpret it

15:21

Your interpretation must be interpreted as well so there are

15:27

You know like right now amongst I Won't go into the details right now.

15:34

I think I may have mentioned this earlier, but since this is the context amongst The Orthodox there is a big big battle going on You want to know what their doctrinal fights look like?

15:49

the doctrinal catfight amongst the Orthodox today Has to do with the calendar

15:58

What calendar to use and why is that important because that determines the days of Not just the days, but the periods of feasts and they're big on their feasts

16:12

I Mean the quarter -decimant controversy in the second century that almost split the church was all about what's what day do you celebrate?

16:21

Easter the resurrection of Jesus and the East and the West came up with different ways of doing it and Victor almost

16:29

Pretended he could excommunicate The East over that until someone came along told him to cool his jets.

16:36

But anyway That was that was been a big big big big thing and today it's ongoing big huge battle over what calendar to use and it basically is breaking down along liberal conservative lines

16:55

But the point is once you interpret Your interpretation has to become interpreted itself.

17:03

And so all these these authoritarian groups That will say well, but there's just and and Hank's gonna get to this.

17:09

He's gonna get to it later on He's gonna he's gonna make the same arguments that Tim Staples and Jimmy Akin made that he disagreed with 20 years ago

17:17

But he agrees with now but for different reasons He's gonna make the argument that well you get all these differing perspectives the misuse of a sufficient source is not an arguing against its sufficiency and So scripture can be

17:37

Mormons can look at scripture and come up with the plurality of gods That ain't what scripture taught.

17:43

That's not what the authors taught you bring in an external authority to override their authority That's not the problem of scripture and so What he just said that it's the sole repository of that divine revelation that's solo scriptura when you recognize that what that is admitting is there's only one thing that we possess today that is the

18:08

Agnus Nos and Eastern Orthodoxy cannot through its liturgy and tradition Define a single word that Jesus said or the

18:17

Apostles ever said That is not found in Holy Scripture they can say that it is

18:23

Necessary for us to believe in certain traditions, but they can't trace that back to the

18:28

Apostles. They can't trace that back to Jesus It's not the honest us and if they do make that argument then their entire liturgy and all of their tradition

18:40

Becomes the honest us and scripture is therefore done away as being the sole repository of divine revelation

18:46

So he can't see this is where You know, I said this when

18:52

Hank first converted I said Hank is using our language to try to Express beliefs that are fundamentally contradictory

19:04

To the new position he's adopted and he just doesn't realize it yet. He does not realize he's going to have to abandon

19:12

The terminology he has become accustomed to using He's not gonna be able to keep this up it's just not possible and that's exactly what's happening

19:22

It's and I said it's gonna take time. Yeah It's it's been what three years something like that.

19:28

I think it's 2017. I think is when he converted So, yeah, that's that's exactly what is what is taking place, but he still has the echoes of the old stuff

19:37

Hey, he didn't get that from Orthodoxy These are things he's not want to let go of and so he's either having to modify them or hasn't quite come to Understanding yet that he's gonna have to abandon these things but anyway,

19:54

I Love the Bible. I've mined the Bible For all its substantial worth.

20:01

I've taught people how to read the Bible rightly. I've given them a Template to understand the art and science of biblical interpretation.

20:11

I spend got none of those things from the tradition of the Eastern Orthodox Church and when those traditions

20:18

Contradict what comes from the consistent application of hermeneutics.

20:24

What do you do them? What do you do with the the wildly imbalanced anthropology of?

20:31

Of the Eastern Orthodox Church now now, let me just mention Um again, I I come to this with some

20:39

Inside information. I mean, I I've lost track I don't remember how many times I was on Bible Ants man, but it was a lot it was a lot

20:46

I spent I spent a fair amount of time over there and That means

20:52

I had conversations with people and I can tell you something right now There was a time when

21:00

Hank was flirting with Reformed theology. He talked about how he was raised in the, you know in a reformed tradition, but he had

21:09

Moved away from that and had not found it to be you know, because it was more a formalized form of Dutch Calvinism But You know,

21:21

I Was an influence on him at that point Toward reformed theology and there was a

21:27

I remember I don't remember what year it was Um, but I remember that there was supposed to be a big get -together

21:35

At the headquarters to talk about Where Hank was going to take a stand in regards to issues like because he's constantly being asked

21:42

This was back when CRI was big I mean the first times I went there first time I went there and did the King James only program remember that it was

21:48

It it melted all the records they had ever had for phone calls It was it was the most listened to most popular program

21:56

They had had at that point in time and when I went there man place is huge this big huge two -story building and there's all these guys and gals downstairs answering phones and talking to people and and all this stuff and I I met with those people and and they were excited and I mean it was it was something

22:20

There but a shadow of their former selves today, so this was back when he still had a national audience

22:27

Because he was on all all of Salem all across the the u .s And then they had a falling out

22:34

I forget what year that was but that's that started things going and then of course the conversion Sort of finished those things things off.

22:40

But anyways During those years His primary research assistant and I crossed swords more than once Because he was way to the left of me way to the left of me.

22:58

We're talking NT right new perspectivism left of me and That always concerned me because he had the inside track he had

23:08

Hank's ear all the time and I knew that as far as reform theology is concerned.

23:15

He was anything but and So there was supposed to be a get -together. It got canceled.

23:20

I was actually gonna you know There have been discussion of my coming over that didn't end up happening and then you end up having the

23:27

Bryson event and obviously The decision had been made

23:33

That CRI was not going to go from the reform perspective. Now. Why do I even point this out real simple the

23:40

Unquestionably most consistent strongest defense of sola scriptura is always mounted by reform theologians period end of discussion

23:49

Period end of discussion if you want the most solid stuff on Canon Sufficiency sola scriptura, they're gonna be reformed authors.

23:59

You're gonna be reformed authors. It's all there is to it. And so There was a time when

24:06

Hank could have had that foundation and hence would have at least been very very familiar with why these arguments are

24:13

Vacuous and empty the very ones he's now presenting but it was the rejection of reform theology that then in a matter of less than a decade,

24:25

I think led to Well where he is now So something something to keep in mind a great amount of time meditating on the

24:37

Word of God So the mining the meditating the memorization of scripture is very very precious to me.

24:44

So I hold scripture In a very very elevated position in my life.

24:52

There are a lot of people that talk about scripture but I Don't want to set myself up on a platform

24:59

But I would dare say there are not a lot of people in the evangelical world

25:04

That have spent the time memorizing scripture that I have Again, I don't say that to boast.

25:11

I only say that because I place a tremendous Weight I give a tremendous amount of precedence to the

25:22

Word of God In my personal life, I've done that before I Continue to do that in the present.

25:31

Yeah, but Hank You can you can study it. You can memorize it

25:37

You can repeat Your slogans and your sayings and your pre memorized stuff about how to do exegesis

25:45

And then turn around and you're going to torture and twist the scriptures even in this discussion

25:51

So what good did all of that do for you? You're not you're not finishing. Well and so if I Do all my debates and write all my books and say all the right things

26:08

Until the last five years of my life and then I turn my back on all of it and say I was wrong all

26:13

Those years what what good have I done? No, don't get me wrong God God writes

26:20

God God draws straight lines crooked stick so he can use You know, I can think of people who've now died and gone on to their reward.

26:28

Whatever that reward was Who gave to the

26:35

Christian Church Resources that helped people Well at the same time they did great damage to the

26:43

Christian Church I'll leave it up to God to do the judging as to where they are or will be

26:50

For the rest of eternity but The reality is as far as their individual situation goes they they experienced a

27:03

Meltdown at the end of their life and it's a it's a crying shame to see and So it's one thing for you to say.

27:09

Well, you know, I love the Bible. I love the Word of God But you are now regularly engaging in Inactivities that are not only not commanded by the

27:22

Word of God, but are in opposition to What the Word of God teaches in regards to the very nature of the gospel itself and the authority of Scripture And that's a that's a tragic reality

27:37

So Sola Scriptura is the Bible the infallible repository of redemptive revelation

27:47

Is it Is it something that we ought to set over against tradition

27:56

Can we adhere to the Bible and tradition? Depends on what the tradition is, isn't it

28:02

Hank? Because as you well know Jesus in encountering traditions

28:10

That men claimed came from God Specifically the Korban rule Matthew and Mark both record for us what

28:21

Jesus said in criticizing the Jews in Holding to the

28:26

Korban rule the Korban rule according to tractate of both in the Mishnah Was divine in origin came down from Moses through the rabbis and Therefore it interestingly enough just like your concept of tradition unwritten

28:43

Passed down orally in the faith community and that according to ancient

28:51

Jewish sources Tractate of both in the Mishnah look it up He Says to us that we are to test even those allegedly divine traditions by what by the written

29:08

Word of God and he calls These very erudite well read memorized a whole lot more the

29:16

Bible than you ever have Hank Jews Hypocrites Because they did not test

29:24

Their traditions which they claim came from God by the scriptures, that's

29:29

Jesus's example for us and So are there? Traditions that are good traditions in the sense of that which is passed down.

29:39

Of course What makes it good its consistency with Scripture How do we know what these traditions are by reference to Scripture?

29:48

so and again what we're gonna see and we've been emphasizing this in our responses to Jay Dyer is what

29:58

The other speaker is going to be doing is going to be looking at the once again the issue of When is sola scriptura a valid principle and What Rome does what the

30:13

Eastern Orthodox do is they look at periods of inscription and Say well, you can't have sola scriptura there because you're getting the scriptura at that point

30:23

And so it can't be valid today Which would only be a valid argument If you're continuing to receive revelation today

30:33

Which again if you have a meaningful doctrine of the canon of Scripture and Hank's gonna make a statement during this period that is

30:42

Amazing in regards to the 39th festival letter of Athanasius in 367 He's literally gonna say that Athanasius codified the

30:50

New Testament canon that would have stunned Athanasius I can assure you and it would have stunned the entire church that any one bishop

30:59

Let alone a powerful bishop like Athanasius Would have had the temerity or the gall

31:07

To think that for the entire church. I'm going to codify the New Testament canon. That's not what happened

31:13

That's not what he was doing. That is a horrifically a historical mishandling of that particular event

31:21

But if you have a meaningful doctrine of the canon of Scripture, you understand where it comes from Combine that together with an understanding of what's happening historically

31:32

And then answer one simple question What do we have today that is theatrist us?

31:38

They don't want to go there They don't want to go there because if if they're really gonna be honest,

31:44

I mean the Roman Catholic It's gonna be honest is gonna have to admit That when you look at things like the bodily assumption of Mary that has to be revelation outside the

31:54

Apostles It has to be revelatory it just must be and So there are a lot of Roman Catholics who behind closed doors over a beer

32:09

Or glass of wine if that sounds better for the Roman Catholic That's uh, yeah, there's there's there's still revelation

32:18

It's not just scriptures. They honest us. But once you go there at least at least that helps draw the lines

32:25

Because Then you then you're really now you get start arguing with them with the

32:31

Mormons because you've got latter -day revelation That's that's that's where you are. Or if we do that.

32:36

Are we riding two separate horses? And what about the interpretation of Scripture?

32:42

How easily can sola scriptura become solo? Scriptura, let's talk about all that more.

32:50

Yeah. Okay solo scriptura Is Terminology that it's it's fairly fairly new terminology

33:00

I am unfamiliar with it being used Prior to the late 90s,

33:10

I could be wrong about that. But I Think that it developed to appropriately make a contrast between The idea of Scripture in isolation

33:29

Outside of God's intentions in building the church outside of the body of Christ outside of Redemptive history basically just you know, in other words, it's you and your

33:43

Bible in the woods Without any reference to What the

33:49

Holy Spirit has done anybody else's life no growth no, no nothing. It's just Scripture solo isolated alone

33:58

Versus sola Which simply would refer us to the unique nature of Scripture, which is interesting enough doesn't almost ever come up Pastor Jeff and I started a response to Catholic answers and Trent Horne a couple weeks ago, we're gonna probably my assumption is maybe next week

34:27

Record the rest of that because we didn't didn't get as far as we wanted to but we started in the response and that's part and parcel of what that is all about Trent didn't have any understanding of The centrality in Reformed theology to the nature of Scripture in regards to its sufficiency

34:48

Because a lot of these guys whether Orthodox and see that Hank wouldn't have this not having been raised Orthodox but someone who was would we'd be more likely to get this but within Roman Catholicism, especially this this idea of from their perspective the

35:04

Scripture is the product of the church and the church cannot therefore

35:10

Transfer some kind of Supernatural nature to the text of Scripture.

35:16

They'll say that it's God breathed Yes, but it's just not a part of the regular discussion of Roman Catholics and Orthodox to talk about what that means in a unique sense as a that it's as the result of God's intention in eternity past to give to his people this divine repository and That in fact it was part of his purpose that it would have the form that was in To fulfill his purpose

35:43

That's not a part of the of the thinking that comes from them at all really so I think that's that's important well

35:52

Hank maybe here I can kick the ball back to you and draw on your expertise. So if you were to say

35:59

You know, okay now I With all due respect

36:06

He's about to Ask Hank To demonstrate his expertise

36:14

In Regards to the early textual history of the

36:21

New Testament and I am unaware of Where Hank would have derived an expertise in this particular subject?

36:37

So I was left a little bit confused here as to Why this is going on but here's here's what said

36:45

New Testament manuscripts Tell me a bit about what you would say in terms of you know

36:51

How soon after the ascension of Christ do we do we have a New Testament?

36:58

Yeah, so we've talked about this a little bit in in previous videos But it's it's interesting because I think your question in essence

37:09

Uncovers a lapse in our own learning. Mm -hmm a lot of people know about history going back to the

37:18

Reformation but those same people and I'll raise my hand. I was in that camp for a long time had very limited

37:26

Understanding of the history that preceded the Reformation. Okay. I want you to hear that at least there was a self confession on Hank's part that he knew very little of pre -reformation history,

37:43

I've said that for a very long time I Recommended I know

37:50

I recommended to Hank works on church history and Not just Reformation church history, but early church history

37:59

I know I said to him that one of the weaknesses that most evangelical apologists have

38:09

Identified the two evangelical apologists don't know the original languages Evangelical apologists don't know church history.

38:18

These are their greatest weaknesses and so Nothing new here

38:26

But I wasn't listened to and now I've been what I was saying has been heard in a very very very different context and here

38:36

You're going to end up with less than accurate history from Hank Hanegraaff On this subject and he gets away with it

38:46

Because he's right and I'm right That is an area that you know

38:56

You Can go online listen my church history series people get tired of How often

39:03

I've point out the same thing So what classes did you take in your education that were most important to you in apologetics?

39:10

And what's been my answer for 30 years? New Testament Greek church history

39:17

Yeah So there's a long period of time in which people did not have the

39:25

Bible, okay There's a long period of time

39:31

In which people did not have the Bible. I cannot believe I do not have How can

39:38

I have allowed this tragedy to take place? It is a tragedy it will be one that I will need to fix especially because Huh?

39:49

Yeah, I did Look at that I must confess right here now a horrific failure on my part.

39:57

I do not have In the studio with me right now the Greek Septuagint. That's terrible.

40:04

Oh well, oh You you you know where you got yours hide in some place, huh? Either Rich really needs to go the restroom right now

40:16

Or Or he knows exactly where in his old office because I know where it is There is a copy of What that looks weird?

40:25

Oh You haven't sent it yet. Oh gosh Well, this is only half of it

40:34

This is only half of it that's fine You know that I left the other with him so but we do need to ship this by the way

40:40

I thought it it had been anyway this is half of the

40:46

Greek Septuagint right here and It's not that it has 187 books in it or something.

40:51

That's so big. This is the readers edition Which which means you've got space at the bottom of the page for unusual words and stuff and in the

41:01

Septuagint There are plenty of those but this is actually the Hendrickson One that's really nicely done, but I'm sending mine off to Jeffrey.

41:09

So it's gonna be really nicely done He just said the church didn't have the

41:15

Bible. I really feel sorry for the Greek Septuagint. I feel sorry for the

41:22

Hebrew Old Testament Because once these folks start talking like this, it's like this stuff didn't exist and Now, you know why

41:33

I emphasize Over and over and over again The fact that You need to be cognizant of aware of look very carefully at The citations from the

41:53

Old Testament that are found in the New Testament because It demonstrates that the church has never been scripture less the

42:05

Bible of the early church That which was Thean Eustace when Paul wrote to Timothy Greek Septuagint That's what he's referring to that's what that's what

42:14

Paul that's what Timothy would have thought of That's what Timothy was familiar with was the

42:20

Greek Septuagint They had scripture Which is why they would have expected

42:27

To have scripture that testified to Jesus even though from their perspective. I mean

42:33

What the early church did? Was demonstrated that Jesus was the

42:38

Messiah on the basis of the Greek Septuagint That's they had the capacity to do that That's how they did evangelism in the synagogues

42:49

So To say that didn't have the Bible is to say that there wasn't a completed

42:56

Canon that that much is true Now when was the canon completed? Theologically as soon as the last book is written

43:05

Experientially and theologically two different things just as there was a a Difference between when

43:11

Malachi finished his last prophecy and the laying up of the books in the temple of approximately 200 years

43:20

Prior to the time of Christ you have the same time period basically before you have fairly complete

43:29

Recognition by the end of the second century You have certainly functioning that way

43:37

In the third century in the early church, and then you have the recognition in patristic sources such as Athanasius 39th festival letter in 367 and then further recognition by conciliar action local councils not would ever be identified as a

44:04

Ecumenical council and Hippo and Carthage But you have a functional

44:10

New Testament canon at the Council of Nicaea The council doesn't even do anything about it, but there had to be to have the discussions that were had

44:18

You could not have had a meaningful discussion With the Aryans as to what the

44:24

Apostles taught without having Substantial agreement as to what record still existed of the apostolic teaching

44:34

So that's why Nicaea didn't have to say anything about that. It was already there and So What what's the what's the point here?

44:45

The point is the church was never without Scripture always had Scripture Even during periods of inscription she had

44:53

Scripture She was never left in a situation where her authority

45:03

Without the bulwark of Scripture was all she had No now is there a period of time prior to the writing

45:10

New Testament where the apostolic message? Can be identified as the Word of God and it was an oral form.

45:15

Yes. What do we have that today the New Testament? Nothing else nothing else and as soon as you say that You've completed the argument because what the other side is saying they loathe to have to come out and say this but if they're going to say that the oral preaching of the

45:39

Apostles is Needed today what they're saying is the New Testament's not enough. We need something more

45:44

We need further revelation and that revelation we are claiming Goes back to the Apostles and was passed on orally and they don't want to do this for one simple reason

45:53

History does not give them the basis for that identification We're gonna see this because one of the first people they're gonna mention is

46:03

Irenaeus and everybody in this audience. Well, everybody in this audience who has listened for a period of time

46:09

Everybody in this audience knows is well aware of the fact that Irenaeus is the first one.

46:17

Irenaeus Flourishes around let's let's give him a nice central number of 180 AD. So the end of the second century

46:26

Irenaeus Important he fights against the Gnostics We know much about the early forms of Gnosticism because of his books writing against Gnosticism doesn't mean he's perfectly accurate and all those things but Irenaeus Important we can be thankful for him.

46:44

I don't know that he'd passed almost any meaningful hermeneutics class today To be very honest with you

46:51

But he's important and One of his most important Elements is that we have so much of what he wrote and there's so many other people live back then

47:01

We don't have much of what they wrote at all So your importance increases as to how many of your books survived a modern modern period but Irenaeus is the first man that we have

47:12

Who will claim to know something on the basis of apostolic authority apostolic tradition specific a tradition passed on Orally from the

47:24

Apostles. The problem is that what he said we know from the

47:29

Apostles no one today actually believes including the Easter Orthodox Because Irenaeus is the one who told us that Jesus was more than 50 years old when he died and that was because Irenaeus had

47:40

Something called the recapitulation theory he had a very sub biblical view of the atonement most people back then did at least as far as their writings are concerned and as a result he had this idea that Jesus had to live through the various ages that man experiences so as to redeem them and So he said that he had from the

48:02

Apostles that Jesus was more than 50 years old when he died Now if we've gone over this in the past look up Irenaeus And in the search engine,

48:10

I'm sure it'll pull up or I've read the whole passage and we're supposed to be doing this Not doing about church history.

48:16

The point is this Even by the end of only the second century you're only talking a hundred years since John was written or 130 years since the earlier

48:32

Pauline epistles written You have someone well -meaning seeking to defend truth comes up the wrong idea and Finds some way of attaching apostolic authority to his wrong idea and if the first guy that claims to have

48:55

Apostolic tradition got it wrong What's the chance that someone 500 years later is gonna get it right this nebulous?

49:07

We can't really trace it to anything but a reference here reference there. Da da da da da da concept of a

49:14

Inspired tradition that continues on after the time of the Apostles Simply cannot survive any meaningful examination and that's why they don't want to examine it.

49:29

They just want to assert it as The answer to difficult questions.

49:35

Well, why do we have so many different interpretations of the Bible? We need somebody to tell us what the Bible actually means It doesn't actually accomplish anything because all of those interpretations that have to be interpreted themselves

49:47

But they don't want to have to do the hard work of saying well, okay. Yeah Paul said he delivered all this to the

49:55

Thessalonians and here's where the Thessalonians passed it on to this group and that group You can't do it But that's what you have to be able to do to make this kind of an argument stick

50:04

So there you go. You got your heart rate down from running in there. Did a little little workout type thing

50:09

Yeah, you did fine. Good. You're all fine in there. Got you As we talked about that period of time

50:16

Might have been decades It might have been longer than that but what we can say with certainty is that it wasn't until 367 when

50:27

Athanasius the Great actually Codified the Canon as the 27 books in an official capacity.

50:36

Did you catch that? I'm I'm really surprised by this I've read a lot of books on Canon and Maybe they really think that Athanasius had this type of authority but You would think that if the great

50:56

Bishop of Alexandria was actually Exercising a charism of Ecclesiastical authority in defining for the first time

51:11

Infallibly the New Testament Canon. What are you counting? How many times Athanasius is quoted? Huh?

51:19

Andy Arnaz? Yeah. Yeah. Well, you know I had this is

51:27

Yeah, well, but is the new is I could look like this yeah, but this is the tract we passed out in 1993 in in Denver, Colorado I don't know what our

51:43

PO box is today So, oh, okay.

51:49

All right, if you say so But yeah, the entire entire back page is nothing but patristic citations on the sufficiency of Scripture from Irenaeus and from from others and Yeah here in fact from the same letter his 39th

52:10

Festal Epistle These canonical books are the fountains of salvation So that he who thirsts may be satisfied with the oracles contained in them in These alone the school of piety preaches the gospel.

52:21

Let no man add or take away from them He had also said the Holy Inspired Scriptures is sufficient of themselves the preaching of the truth

52:28

For the tokens of truth are more exact as drawn from the scripture than from other sources Irenaeus is quoted twice actually

52:37

In this the Apostle at that time first preached the gospel later by the will of God that delivered it to us in the scriptures

52:43

That it might be the foundation and pillar of our faith hmm

52:49

Hmm, that's interesting In fact, that's why

52:54

Holy Scripture the the three volumes set over there by Webster and King one of the things that Bill and David have had to do ever since they put those books out is that Roman Catholics and I assume

53:06

Orthodox as well will constantly go the Don't you get it the

53:14

Paul said that the church is the pillar and foundation of our of the truth. They said we're not quoting

53:20

Paul we're quoting Irenaeus where he said scripture is and different context

53:28

And of course the Pauline quotation is the local church not some nebulous

53:35

Pie -in -the -sky universal church. He's telling he's talking to Timothy about the local church and how a person should behave in the local church

53:43

Which is the pillar and foundation that which holds up something else It's not the definer of It is the one that holds up and demonstrates to others the truth which

53:56

Irenaeus said was found in the scriptures Yeah, so there's we're gonna we're are reprinting this So we're gonna have the pillar and foundation of truth is going to be reprinted and we'll be making it available to you this one, like I said was literally this thing is 27 years old.

54:13

Can you believe? 27 years ago.

54:23

I Don't you remember the line we came up? I think I I came up with that line You got to give me a credit for this one.

54:29

Remember we were on the Cherry Creek Trail the Cherry Creek State Park in Denver This is when

54:35

I debated Jerry Matitick seven hours over two nights on the subject of papacy we've been we've been doing this for a long time now and So as a pilgrimage route, so all these

54:49

Roman Catholic kids are on this trail Walking to where the Pope John Paul the second was gonna be doing mass

54:56

And so we stationed ourselves along the trail and we were sort of down in a little wash type thing

55:02

Yeah, it's Cherry Creek wash type thing. I don't remember how we picked the spot. But so we got backpacks these things and what we noticed was it was pretty warm and So a lot of the kids it wasn't that they were mad or they might not have been interested they just didn't want anything else to carry and So I came up with the line that these are special lightweight tracks and The very fact that we made the effort meant a lot of more people went ahead and took these and So yeah, it's it's an entire argument on the subject of you know

55:41

The Bible also speaks of the church itself as a foundation Paul wrote young Timothy concerning matters of the church and described her as the church living

55:48

God the pillar and foundation of truth This passage is very important for many today teach that the church is in fact the truth itself

55:54

Others go so far as identifying their own particular church Tradition or denomination as the pillar and foundation of truth to the exclusion of all others all others

56:02

Some teach the church defines the truth as the authority to bind the conscience of men So that they must believe doctrines that are not plainly taught in God's Word the scriptures does this passage support such an idea?

56:13

We must first ask what is the function of a pillar and a foundation? Obviously pillars stand upon a foundation both together function to hold up something else

56:22

Normally the roof and hence the rest of the structure in the same way the church supports and holds up something else So what is that?

56:28

The text is plain the truth the church proclaims God's truth not because she owns that truth or has authority over that truth

56:35

But because she is faithful to Christ's Word and is herself obedient to that truth She proclaims the truth out of love for the

56:42

Savior and she is careful to be conformed and if necessary Reformed by that truth

56:47

This is so much the church's mission that Christendom could say in speaking of the church For it is this that maintains the faith and the preaching of the word

56:57

Now what's interesting to me is I'm looking at this and I can tell that a couple of the graphics my dad

57:08

Used clipart to put in and then the other ones are clearly dot matrix printouts That we just made different colors

57:15

But this was yeah, this is 93. This was this may have been pre was this pre laser printer?

57:22

Oh, yes, very very much. So it might have been and just for your information Those are soon to be available not here, but through 1 million tracks, you know, they are in the pipe trying to get

57:35

Marv to get him to the print shop and all the editing and the graphics have been done, so Good good.

57:42

If you want one call Marv Ha ha ha sorry about that Marv, but hey you you were warned

57:51

Yeah, so 27 years ago folks. We've been talking about this stuff for a very very long time and there's a reason for it

57:59

And none of this none of this is new Every generation has to struggle with these things and There's always gonna be someone who's gonna come along and they're gonna try to convince you that you need their authority

58:11

You need their revelation. You need their traditions. You need their history. You need their something and as you saw

58:20

We honor the church. I'm a churchman. I have a high view I had This is important I'm gonna get back to Athanasius this is important I Had a much higher view of the church than Hank did when

58:35

I knew him I was an elder in the church And I emphasized to him the importance of the church and so If you don't have a high view of the church

58:49

You may end up with something that looks like you have a high view of the church, but isn't really the church

58:56

Something to keep in mind back to Athanasius real quickly because We're only four minutes of 49 seconds in this would be a very long program at this particular speed

59:08

Athanasius The festal letter is there something wrong rich?

59:15

Okay, nevermind Okay. Oh look like you that was rich was making his everything just crashed and died look on his face

59:26

That makes me a little bit worried the Bishop of Alexandria had the tradition of Writing a festal letter that would make sure again

59:43

Folks in the East have been really calendar oriented for a long long time. And so he would send out every year a festal letter

59:53

Which would define for all the churches under his authority? When Easter was to be celebrated now, this is relevant to the whole idea of papal primacy in Rome Didn't exist

01:00:08

And it's also therefore directly relevant to the idea that can you imagine?

01:00:14

This is the letter I send out every year. So I'm gonna use it to define the New Testament for the first time

01:00:21

No, that's not what he was claiming to do undoubtedly there had been

01:00:28

Discussions concerning some of the Gnostic Gospels or whatever else it might be and so he would address numerous issues of theology

01:00:35

And practice and things like that in these festal letters each year because they'd be sent out to everybody it was it was like having a newsletter that you knew everybody was gonna read and So that's when he addresses this particular issue in 367 it's not like in 366.

01:00:53

Everybody's going. Oh, no idea. I There's Matthew scripture, I don't know is Romans good.

01:00:58

No, that's absurd that's absolutely absurd and Nowhere in that letter.

01:01:06

Do you find Athanasius saying by my great authority as the bishop of Alexandria I hereby canonize

01:01:14

That was looking at that's not what you're looking at How much would it have helped

01:01:22

I don't know for Hank to have been aware of these things

01:01:30

And it wasn't until Quite a period of time after that that that canon became available to all of the churches now in a wide -flung area of Geographical space that's just not true.

01:01:46

I think the vast majority of canon scholars would say that the church had been functioning with 98 % of the

01:01:55

New Testament revelation was always the one big issue so Tim LaHaye would have been would have had some problems in the first few centuries, no two ways about it, but The idea that in in the 500s, you know, there was still a bunch of people running around going

01:02:11

I don't know Romans never heard of it Filippians. Not sure almost all of the discussion of canon issues

01:02:21

Especially after pretty much starting in the 3rd century have to do with Hebrews Revelation and the super small books that You know are only a few paragraphs long literally, you know, second third

01:02:35

John or something along those lines the fourfold gospel from the start

01:02:41

Pauline corpus from the start Second Peter some questions

01:02:49

Not really much of first Peter But you're talking the vast joy of the New Testament and it's functional and it's the church is not sitting there going

01:02:57

Yeah, well, you know just wait till someone comes along and tell us what the scriptures know That's simply not what was what was going on at all.

01:03:05

And it's not that They were then saying well, we don't have to worry about the canon because we have apostolic tradition.

01:03:12

And so we're just functioning on that Good luck finding that Hank you want to Hank you want you want to show me or in in in Athanasius his work against Arius Where he argues like that the way you're arguing because he didn't his argumentations are from Scripture Show me where he's arguing from something that you would identify as They are new sauce tradition.

01:03:38

That was orally passed down from the apostle. Come on Hank. Just one thing Show me sorry

01:03:45

So there are many people that did not have the Bible so how did those people

01:03:53

How did they understand what Jesus taught? How did they understand what the

01:03:58

Apostles taught? How did they understand what the Apostles taught to the

01:04:03

Holy Fathers to Polycarp and Ignatius of Antioch and Irenaeus? And so forth as we talked about before they had

01:04:12

The teaching of Christ through the Apostles not only in a written format

01:04:21

Which wasn't widely available And in often time even though cited over and over and over again in the earliest post -apostolic writings

01:04:35

Hank have you not read Clements epistle to the church? At Corinth what's

01:04:40

I'm Clement said Church at Rome right in Church Court. Have you read that? Have you read Ignatius? Have you noticed how many citations there are not just for the

01:04:50

Old Testament, but even of the New Testament books in the first generation after the time of the

01:04:56

Apostles Have you read Tertullian? Justin Martyr Justin Martyr did not have an entire canon.

01:05:02

He didn't there's no question. I mean Amazing that he did as well as he did with as little as he had but he's still quoting from it

01:05:12

Where are they quoting now? I can if you want to get into Clement of Alexandria Clement quotes from all sorts of wacky stuff

01:05:18

Which is why I came up to all came to all sorts of wacky conclusions Is that what you're gonna say is actually inspired revelation that no one no one knows where it came from where it went

01:05:28

Can't trace it and almost nobody today believes. I mean, you know something There's two guys both are gonna be mentioned by you guys.

01:05:35

There's two guys That were really weird along those lines origin and Clement of Alexandria, they're obviously directly related to one another

01:05:45

You're gonna go with them you don't go with them, but are you going to see it it's easy

01:05:56

When you have your conclusions already derived to pick what you're gonna pick out of history

01:06:04

It's easy to abuse history I hate when I see my friends abuse history and I've seen reform folks abuse history

01:06:15

And I hate even more when those who are promoting a false gospel abuse history Respect history.

01:06:23

Let the people the past be the people the past let them teach the things they taught If you're gonna look at Ignatius and go wow, he taught some great stuff

01:06:32

I think I got to find two places where he disagreed with him and You're gonna have to recognize that Contemporaneously within the first number of decades you've got things like the

01:06:44

Epistle Barnabas the Shepherd of Hermas That has all sorts of weird stuff in it Let history be history

01:06:52

That's where orthodoxy suffers because orthodoxy pretends that there is a

01:07:02

Tradition that has now become all -encompassing for orthodoxy ology

01:07:10

But the problem is it creates a lens so don't you only see in history what the lens allows you to see

01:07:17

Just as the Roman Catholic is told by Rome. This is the universal teaching of the church So when you see something that isn't the universal teaching of the church in the writings of your church fathers

01:07:26

What do you do? You do what Jerry Matitox did in our debate. What was that? May have been the may have been the very first debate we did on Long Island of Mary.

01:07:35

I think it was You just dismiss it. You're gonna hear hear this. This other fellow is gonna say I'm sorry

01:07:41

Nathan Jacobs. He's gonna he's gonna mention Origin and say he wasn't an early church father.

01:07:49

Yes, he was He was just a heretic So so let's just just I'm not sure what definition he's using

01:07:59

But nobody back then would have understood it that way. It hadn't been completed but they also

01:08:08

Communicated that By epistle by word of mouth as they went through the churches

01:08:14

Epistle was not word of mouth. Those are two different things The word of mouth was the preaching.

01:08:20

He's he's used to utilize the second Thessalonians 2 15 That which was preached to you orally in other words when

01:08:26

Paul was in Thessalonica and that we've written to you first Thessalonians That's all he's talking about This is a period of revelation.

01:08:32

So the question is was there anything different? revelatory in the oral

01:08:39

That they are supposed to hold on to that is not a part of what's written and remember in the context Second Thessalonians 2 what he's talking about is simply the gospel

01:08:48

So if you want to say yep, you know what the written scriptures are not sufficient to define the gospel

01:08:53

Rome has said that in functionally By defining dogmas that no one in the first period of the church at any idea

01:09:01

They have said you know what scriptures not enough You need our further revelations that the Mormons have done.

01:09:06

It's Roman Catholics have done. Is that what you're doing Hank? That's the question. This is something that was taught everywhere always and by all and therefore has tremendous weight and had

01:09:19

Particular significance for those that did not have The Bible that we can so easily

01:09:26

You know handle and hold and memorize and mine and meditate upon. Yeah Yeah, and this is where I find somebody like Aaron a s to be very helpful

01:09:37

So Aaron a s who I it's wonderful church father and for those who don't know

01:09:44

He he has a very interesting sort of spiritual genealogy right because Aaron a s

01:09:50

Is the disciple of polycarp who was the disciple of John, right? So you're talking a very

01:09:56

Close connection between the Apostles and Aaron and then Ignatius of Antioch and polycarp were contemporaries.

01:10:03

That's right, right These are the apostolic fathers known as apostolic fathers because they actually knew the

01:10:09

Apostle. Okay, Aaron a s was not an apostolic father Ignatius is But Aaron a s is not there's there's 80 years 70 years

01:10:19

Between them here. Oh, so we're trained and taught by the Apostles So you have this faithful disciple of John who's then discipling

01:10:27

Aaron a s and one of the things that Aaron a s Tells us is he points out a couple of things that I think are relevant to this question

01:10:35

The one is that he points out that Christianity in the church was established and practiced before if they had a

01:10:44

Completed New Testament, right? There was not it was not as if they waited around for you know, so is the

01:10:51

New Testament done yet? Can we start practicing Christianity? Okay strawman? Irrelevant not not something that anyone's arguing

01:11:00

The question is not did Christianity start and There were were there living

01:11:06

Apostles. Was there a living delivery of the Word of God? No question. There are no Apostles today

01:11:11

What do we have to stay honest us? That's the issue. That's where we are today Trying to transport us back.

01:11:17

There is a red herring It's it's it's unworthy and They get away with it because our side sits there going

01:11:27

I've never thought about that before and we've got to stop doing that. Well, okay, it's got to stop doing that We've got to stop doing that popularly.

01:11:36

I mean anyone who's read Whitaker or Salmon or or any of of the meaningful?

01:11:46

Scholastic works on these subjects since time the Reformation knows Knows that I am repeating myself ad nauseum they point these things out but You don't hear a lot of sermons about these type of things and I'll be honest with you you don't hear a whole lot about in seminaries either which is unfortunate

01:12:07

Instead Christianity was something they already knew because Christ had instructed the

01:12:12

Apostles and the Apostles had instructed them it was something that was already in practice a faith that was active and lived as these

01:12:22

Sacred scriptures came into the hands of the church. And so Aaron a now remember that church already has sacred scriptures

01:12:29

Okay, that church has sacred scriptures reading sacred scriptures

01:12:36

Paul says that in The meetings of the Christians they are to read from the sacred scriptures.

01:12:42

What were they reading from? Okay Will that be expanded upon by the

01:12:50

New Covenant revelations? Yes, of course it will but it's still not a scripture less church

01:12:57

It's not a scripture less church. And so you're proving what happens is they're proving things that are not actually a dispute

01:13:04

We would agree. Yes there was a time when the book of Hebrews did not exist and then there's a time when it came into existence and then because God chose to inspire scripture when he did there is a period of time when it existed in some places but was unknown in other places and Yes, Christianity could exist and it did exist

01:13:29

But we're not there anymore and so what you're doing is you are trying to transfer the situation we're in today

01:13:41

Into another period of time so that you can then put forward your sources of revelation and authority that cannot be traced to the

01:13:51

Apostles on the basis that well at one point in time There was a preached

01:13:59

Authority from the Apostles. Yeah, you claiming to have the Apostles today? Who's who's your

01:14:05

Apostle? See the the only options here are continuing revelation

01:14:12

Get rid of the Canon you think 27 books not it needs to be huge ever seen the even even the

01:14:18

The shaft set, you know 38 volumes needs to get bigger At least we have at least we have

01:14:24

Phones now that could hold all that data quite easily and you could have a you know the entire

01:14:29

New Testament which should now be at least you know, 40 50 volumes long and I guess it keeps getting bigger and bigger from there.

01:14:37

That's the only option you've got this idea that well Yeah, we're gonna limit revelation to the

01:14:45

Apostles but at the same time we want to Have this other authority that we can never trace to the

01:14:54

Apostles That historically doesn't go to the Apostles no one really seriously thinks that it does

01:15:01

But we're gonna make it up the idea that you have to believe that it is The only way to do that's continuing a relation points out that there's this logical priority the church

01:15:10

Precedes the biblical texts, right? the church chronologically precedes the writing of the

01:15:19

New Testament texts and That church here is the voice of the

01:15:25

Shepherd Always had this Always had this

01:15:30

Don't tell me they didn't If the church had this view How is it that the

01:15:36

New Testament is filled with citation after citation after citation of this?

01:15:42

How come why not just we don't need that authority? let's We're just gonna use our own authority.

01:15:49

No, they didn't clear dependence fulfillment themes

01:15:57

Everything is found there. So it's not a scripturalist body. This is why the biblical texts is

01:16:06

The text of the church there's a there's a story that you know one of One of my former students ended up becoming

01:16:16

Orthodox. He was marrying this gal. They're still dear friends of mine and And I was gonna stand in their wedding and they were undergoing an

01:16:27

Orthodox a wedding and the the gal right the bride

01:16:33

Her parents were I think they were Pentecostal and so they didn't understand anything about Orthodoxy and they went to the

01:16:41

Orthodox priest And they said so do you do you believe the Bible? And his response was believe it we wrote it

01:16:52

Which I found to be hilarious Well, and of course, that's exactly what Rome says to That's Rome's claim as well.

01:16:59

And if you're going to Really if you're going to have any meaningful claim of apostolic authority

01:17:09

You're you're going to say that in some sense so The the

01:17:15

Living Church today is the same church is founded by Christ And so if you're part of the Living Church today, you're a part of the same church that was a part of the

01:17:23

Apostles but This is none of this is really understanding

01:17:29

The nature of Scripture and even Peter's understanding of it when when Peter said men spoke from God as they were carried along by the

01:17:36

Holy Spirit the respectful response is to recognize that While God used men and we still have that connection to those men in that we were part of the one body of Christ he established

01:17:51

They were unique in that what was delivered through them was delivered

01:17:57

Through the inspired work of the Holy Spirit of God. It's supernatural revelation So anybody who says well, we wrote it

01:18:04

I think just has a rather pitiful view of the authority of Scripture It it does speak to that perspective that the

01:18:13

Bible is the book of the church, right? that the church is Christianity the church and how it was lived out and practiced and understood was there before you had a completed

01:18:24

New Testament And that's one of the things that Aaron is points out The other thing that I think is very important to understand is this issue of interpretation?

01:18:35

Because it's one thing to have the New Testament. It's another thing to understand it And it's important to understand that one of the things

01:18:44

That is pervasive in the ancient world and it continues to be pervasive today And it's is the problem that Aaron is points out that you can manipulate text

01:18:53

So now remember we talked about this at the beginning But there is no question that If you're going to communicate in Any form of human language what is said must be interpreted so the interpretation of The Roman Magisterium Itself has to be interpreted and today is interpreted in a massively wide variety of ways

01:19:22

The it's much more of a problem for orthodoxy because orthodoxy eschews the idea of the

01:19:32

Simplistically dogmatic definition and instead has the concept of The the liturgy of the church and the prayers of the church is the ultimate form of revelation the ultimate embodiment of revelation and that scripture is

01:19:56

A is a living energy and principle within the tradition of liturgy prayers of the church

01:20:06

This all gets tied together with inner Gaia the the concept of energies and again

01:20:15

You're get tired of hearing this but Historical orthodoxy does not think like you and I think in the

01:20:24

Western world the idea of logic and Dogmatic Coherence and consistency and and that guy it's just no it's not there.

01:20:39

So Orthodoxy is ill -equipped to make the criticism within Western culture that it can provide a

01:20:53

Clear dogmatic interpretation of a text of scripture Really In a difficult position at that point

01:21:04

Because if you want to get down into dealing with Romans 5 1 and therefore having been justified by faith and the syntactical relationship

01:21:15

To the participles and the verbs and and Demonstrating the justification as a past tense action in comparison to having peace with God ecumen versus It's a guy sent us and all the rest that types of that's in liturgy and prayers is

01:21:31

Not going to give you some type of certainty on that What they're gonna be able to say is but but the concepts that the overarching principles that we experience when you experience the energies of God in this

01:21:43

It yeah, it doesn't communicate. Well, one of the things is it's one thing to have the biblical text

01:21:49

It's another thing to interpret it rightly And Aaron a has points out that the agnostics for example

01:21:56

Who Aaron a has dealt with all the time? He points out he uses this fabulous analogy

01:22:03

Where he says, you know, it's the you have this mosaic of Christ. I mean oops, sorry,

01:22:09

I Hit the wrong button I was trying to do

01:22:14

I think this yes He points out he uses this fabulous analogy Where he says, you know, you have this mosaic of Christ And then we look at it and those of us who have been taught about Christ by the apostle

01:22:29

Practicing the faith handed down to us by the Apostles when we look at that mosaic. We recognize Christ.

01:22:34

Yes, I Recognize him, but then the Gnostics come along and they say ah

01:22:40

Now did you catch that? So you've got this mosaic. This is important. You've got this mosaic and If you've been taught correctly

01:22:47

The traditions of the church then you see Christ What is that fundamentally communicating?

01:22:56

that the picture of Christ's scripture is unclear and that scripture itself

01:23:02

Cannot communicate with clarity who Christ is. This is fundamental. This is this is foundational To why they believe what they believe about the necessity

01:23:11

Well, why they deny solo scriptura because that's what they're doing here is denying solo scriptura Fundamental to understand this that's so fast.

01:23:21

Watch this Move around the tiles as they shuffle around the tiles. They go voila It's a dog

01:23:27

Christ is a dog And Aaron a is points out. Well, that's very interesting that you can do that with the text, but we already know that Christ's not a dog you can't

01:23:39

Do that with the text consistently this used to be how Hank argued Hank would have understood 20 years ago

01:23:48

That the if someone had called in and given this illustration his response would have been but that doesn't make any sense because the consistency of scripture itself

01:23:59

Would require you to distort meanings to ignore passages to import external authorities

01:24:06

Whatever else it might have taken to do to distort the picture of Christ in the scriptures now He's sitting there going.

01:24:12

Oh, yeah, you can make the scriptures make Jesus look like a dog and You need to have our external traditions

01:24:19

To be able to see Jesus rightly in the scriptures if you want to see

01:24:27

Three years ago. I sat in this chair right this very chair knows that chair anyway, and I said

01:24:35

I'm listening to Hank. Hank's become Eastern Orthodox Hank's still an evangelical

01:24:42

He's trying to meld the two together. It ain't gonna work. Just give it time. Just give it time

01:24:50

In other words what Aaron a is has is this what we might call a synthetic understanding

01:24:57

There was a Christianity handed down practice and lived That met the biblical text and that's why they knew that Christ is not a dog

01:25:06

That's why they recognized Christ in the text because they came to the text with the faith already handed down and practiced

01:25:13

They didn't go into the text as a blank slate saying hmm Tell me about Christianity Christianity was a lived and embodied faith already already handed down by word -of -mouth and by epistle

01:25:23

So there you have again Constant reference 2nd Thessalonians 2 15 which is specifically about the gospel alone

01:25:33

Which Paul delivered to the Church of Thessalonians at Thessalonica in two ways oral preaching when he visited

01:25:40

Written epistle when he wrote that's all it's about but it is now but that has now been Extrapolated out to a general principle that establishes this oral tradition, which they cannot identify historically

01:25:51

But just simply assumed to exist and assumed to be identical with the tradition as they understand it today

01:25:57

It's not the case that that has remained absolutely static down to the centuries, but from their perspective

01:26:04

It's close enough. But do you hear you need to hear this folks? I have all sorts of people telling me you need to deal with orthodoxy.

01:26:11

Do you need orthodoxy? Well, one of the reasons it's hard to do is because this is what you're dealing with You need to be hearing the presuppositions in these words.

01:26:19

The presupposition is the red the biblical presentation of the image of Christ is

01:26:26

Not consistent enough in the pages of Scripture by utilizing the normal methods of human communication

01:26:34

To be safeguarded and to be clear you need something else

01:26:39

Scripture is not enough Now was it ever God's intention that Scripture was to exist outside of the church and separate therefrom no

01:26:49

But that does not mean that what that means is that there is an added revelatory necessity

01:26:56

To the traditions of the church the church is the bride the bride listens from the bridegroom

01:27:03

She learns from the bridegroom. And where does she find the voice of the bridegroom in his word?

01:27:10

Once you submit that revelation to her authority, it becomes a monologue

01:27:17

She's talking with herself and that's what Rome is stuck in. That's what Eastern Orthodoxy is stuck in There can be no

01:27:25

Reformation because it is a monologue. It is someone talking to themselves

01:27:30

Because they have inverted changed and perverted this relationship really important stuff

01:27:36

Yeah, and and I think Something that we have to hammer home here in the discussion is that a lot of people will say if it's in the if it's

01:27:46

Not in the Bible. We can't do it. In other words When we prayed this morning you crossed yourself

01:27:56

United three fingers Trinity You took your ring finger your pinky finger and you you took them and pressed them into your palm

01:28:05

An indication of the two natures of Christ in his incarnation coming down in incarnation

01:28:10

And you crossed yourself and people say well you can't do it. That's funny Let's see,

01:28:16

I think the Roman Catholic controversy came out right around the same time we did that first program on the

01:28:22

Bible Answer Man on the King James only stuff and one of the examples that I used in the

01:28:29

Roman Catholic controversy of Things that are adiaphora things that are indifferent Was crossing yourself.

01:28:36

I I told the story about having Gone to San Antonio and spent some time with a brother there.

01:28:43

Who's an Anglican and he crossed himself at dinner and then we talked about justification and I talked about stuff that you're unfamiliar with but don't define the faith.

01:28:54

There's something wrong with having three fingers Trinity Two fingers the two nations to remind you of Divine truths.

01:29:03

I've said I said three years ago when Hank converted one things

01:29:09

I said in that program you can go back and listen is I said one of the positive things about Orthodoxy is

01:29:18

They are Trinitarian Knowledgeably, so your average active

01:29:25

Orthodox Knows more about the doctrine of Trinity than your average active evangelical. No question about it none

01:29:34

Now I'm talking about averages here The the

01:29:40

Russian babushka Probably knows more about the technical aspects of the

01:29:47

Trinity than some of our seminary graduates do Doesn't mean that it converts into anything, but that's that's the reality now what that should mean is all of us should be seeking to correct that imbalance and You can ask anybody

01:30:08

At Apology Church over the past number of months What happened is we do catechisms and I sort of took that over.

01:30:17

I didn't try to but Jeff was like It's sort of how I get a mini sermon in every

01:30:23

Sunday because we do a catechism question And so I've been the section of the catechism we're in is on the nature of Christ.

01:30:31

So the last catechism question Absolutely lent itself to teaching about Nestorianism, Eutychianism, Apollinarianism, the hypostatic union and Since we're family integrated our kids have heard all that stuff

01:30:48

I've got I've got 10 and 11 year olds coming up to me at church. They're talking about the hypostatic

01:30:53

Union. So We're trying to Make sure that they're that that balance is indeed found and I would hope that would encourage other people to do the exact same thing so I Said these things are there but what is the foundation of that?

01:31:11

Where did you get that from? When when you when you put three fingers together

01:31:17

The three persons two per two two fingers down the two natures of Christ Hopefully you understand the relationship and understand how to avoid and a lot of them do

01:31:29

Avoid the various errors. Hey William Lane Craig doesn't believe that part does he?

01:31:38

No Doesn't really He's much more on the Apollinarian side of things

01:31:46

Is there something wrong with that no, I don't think there is Elevating it to where it is a

01:31:54

Binding revelation of apostolic practice Is where you get into the problem because once you do it with something that is an

01:32:02

Adi Afra. It's something on the side Once you do that then other things end up getting elevated specifically in regards to the gospel

01:32:15

Anthropology nature of man the Hawaiian Yards. That's that's where you get the problem. That's superstitious.

01:32:21

I mean, this is what this The it's by the evangelical writer is is is saying this is superstitious nonsense.

01:32:28

You can't do it You don't find in the Bible there for you can't do it But it seems to me by the same token.

01:32:33

You don't find sola scriptura in the Bible what you do find in the

01:32:38

Bible is You find and you alluded to this you find the church as the ground and the pillar of truth and therefore the church

01:32:47

Is passing on the faith once for all delivered to the Saints and it's doing it through word and epistle.

01:32:54

That's right Okay to catch that. Okay. So what you've done is you've taken What we talked about ground pillar of the truth and now you've you

01:33:06

You've taken two different texts of Scripture About two different topics when Paul's writing to Timothy's talking about how people are debate to behave in the local church

01:33:15

Which is the ground and pillar of truth and then you've taken Paul writing to Thessalonians About their need to be faithful to the gospel, which he had delivered to them in two different ways.

01:33:25

You've conflated them Into an entire overarching concept that allows you to say the soul scriptura is not true 20 years ago would would that have flown with Hank?

01:33:39

No, don't think so. No, I think so. Yeah, and this goes to a Important question of you know is sola scriptura biblical, right?

01:33:47

So it's a sort of ironic question, but it's an important one because as you pointed out Paul Does identify he doesn't say scripture is the you know, the ground pillar of the truth

01:33:58

He says the church is right and that's again to Aaron a is his point that the church is there is

01:34:03

I wonder why they don't quote Irenaeus saying that the scripture is the pillar and foundation of Of the truth.

01:34:09

I'm not sure maybe they're not aware that he said it I'm not you know,

01:34:14

I suppose that's possible But Yeah, many of the early fathers of the

01:34:22

Christian faith taught that it was Peter's confession of faith in Jesus that formed the foundation Of the church and so it is as John Christendom said the church is built in the faith of his

01:34:29

Peter's confession So also Hillary said this faith it is which is the foundation of the church through this faith the gates of hell

01:34:35

Cannot prevail against her. This is a faith that has keys King of Heaven It was this confession of faith in Jesus Lord that formed the foundation upon which

01:34:42

Christ Church was laid all members of the church agree on the central truth of Jesus the Christ Son of God this faith being the gift of God provides

01:34:48

Christ Church with a lasting and just indescribable foundation, but then it goes into the section about what

01:34:53

Paul teaches about the subject of the foundation as well and the quotations there from and I just had somebody in Facebook send hey

01:35:05

Who does artwork? Hey, let me know if you need any work help with tracks since you're talking about that track

01:35:10

Someone that I'll tell you about because we've used his artwork in the past So I'll fill in it. You have your microphone up.

01:35:17

Go ahead Just I got a message back from Marv Tell people to stop calling me and Marv says that that track should be ready in about a week so Let's see ready to be proofread week

01:35:32

Friday No, that tracks been done. So that's going to the printer. I didn't see it.

01:35:38

So yes, you did Anyway, you did Actually, you've seen a few iterations of it, but anyway, so folks don't call

01:35:49

Marv for a week But so next Friday start calling Marv So he said thanks for that.

01:35:56

My phone will not stop ringing now About a week and we should be able to see them.

01:36:04

Hmm. Okay. All right. Okay, I have no idea what I was talking about So I'll just continue on here the receptacle of the biblical text.

01:36:12

Oh I was talking I was talking about the church building. I don't know why they're not talking about Irenaeus doing that But once again, a lot of us don't think about what the relationship is between Scripture in the church we assume we assume because we think the

01:36:30

Bible's already existed has always existed as a You know in in leather covers with with gilded a pages

01:36:39

We assume that that's just it just flowed down out of heaven. So we don't know its history So we're liable to the misrepresentations of well, let's go back during the apostolic period rather than let's talk about where we are today

01:36:52

What is the source of authority for the church today because there are a lot of people who want to Establish their own authority and they don't want anything to control their authority.

01:37:06

And so what Orthodoxy does is Emphasize the church and then let you fill in the rest

01:37:15

Which one of the Orthodox groups is it? Well, we're all unified. Well, no, not really but hey, even if you were

01:37:22

So you get to you get to you know Were the originals and Rome split off from us and the process split off in the

01:37:29

Roman Catholics and blah blah blah So you you get to assume these things So when you ask the question, well, what do

01:37:36

I really need because evidently my Bible is is not enough So what else are you going to be offering me at least

01:37:45

Rome? Yeah Rome's straight up as to what they're offering

01:37:51

Rome's pretty clear You really You really can't answer that question overly clearly

01:38:00

When it when it comes to Orthodoxy Because what you're invited to do is to start participating and and it's it's life in the fellowship

01:38:11

But see what you and I think of as fellowship what they think of fellowship of different things and I'm going on here and we're only 13 minutes in we've still got we're not even halfway there and We're well over halfway through the program and I'm not doing very well, so I apologize and Similarly one things that Paul does is he elevates his oral instruction to the same point as epistle?

01:38:32

So his okay, but I gotta address that his oral instruction the same levels of pistol. Yes, he did.

01:38:39

So where is that today? The claim is being made.

01:38:44

There's two claims being made there Rome makes it they're making it Those oral instructions

01:38:50

Differed in content from what is in the New Testament today prove it and we continue to have them prove it

01:38:59

Can't do either one Can't do either one The only advantage that Orthodoxy has over Roman Catholicism is that Orthodoxy has not defined nearly as many dogmas on the basis of this alleged tradition

01:39:15

Rome has defined dogmas within the past couple hundred years that plainly we're not a part of The apostolic teaching by any stretch of the imagination.

01:39:26

We're not part of the absolute Church Church of the Fathers first 500 years and So it's easier to deal with Rome at this point because she has been more open but Antioch's making the same claims when he he's talking to the

01:39:45

Polonians he says, you know abide by whatever I told you whether by word of mouth or by epistle and puts them on the same Level and that was important to the

01:39:52

Church Fathers The early Christians looked at that and said the oral traditions that were handed down to us It's something that we need to continue to practice.

01:40:00

That's part of the faithfulness to the faith and This is where I think I mentioned this perhaps in previous segment

01:40:07

But when we encounter that verse right whether by word of mouth or by epistle We look at that in the context of a completed biblical canon

01:40:14

But you have to understand that for them when you look at that in the context of completed biblical canon

01:40:19

Paul is talking about the gospel to a church where he had ministered them both in Person by preaching and by written epistle called first Thessalonians That's the historical context

01:40:34

To expand that out to some overarching principle that could not have been true

01:40:39

I mean Paul could not have said that to the Colossians. He was never at the church Colossae So you you can't do this expansive this means this thing which which they're attempting to do which you saw before Hank then tied that together with something that Paul wrote to Timothy on a

01:40:58

Different topic and voila, you've got voila. Actually, you've got this strange weird

01:41:05

Way of interpreting scripture that if it was on any other subject Even 20 years ago

01:41:11

Hank would have said no no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no authority of people who saw that the early early church

01:41:18

Most of what they did was not written down Had they said if it's not written down we can't do it boy The Apostles would it need to get to work writing a lot of stuff really fast because most of what they did was not written down And so this is one of the reasons why the church fathers were so reliant on Being faithful to what was passed down being faithful to the practices that were handed down basil of Caesarea writing third century

01:41:41

Points this out He says heaven forbid that we only do that We only do the things that were you know occasioned for writing an epistle right basil accessory is fourth century not third century

01:41:53

Apostles happen to mention an epistle or something like that And then he goes on and names a bunch of things that he says if we did that Well, we wouldn't do and then he proceeds to give a catalog of things that Protestants don't do anymore like crossing themselves praying facing east and so on and and one of the things that you find is that the

01:42:13

Apostles are that the church fathers have a Consistent understanding of this is what we've always done they also have a consistent understanding of why they've always done it and Yet, you know, they can't point to a verse where it says and Paul says here pray facing east

01:42:30

Right. Now one of the things though that this also intersects with is the question of what one means by the word biblical, right?

01:42:38

Because there's bit this is interesting. I'm go ahead and let it play. We're probably not we're gonna have to wrap up in 18 minutes anyway but I Do want you to hear this?

01:42:50

because most of us that are I'm going What what does it matter which direction we pray toward?

01:42:57

I mean that Yeah, the Muslims are into that because they're praying toward well initially Jerusalem and then

01:43:02

Mecca but How does that even relevant but you're gonna get an idea here and When you hear it you end up going

01:43:15

But That's not what Jesus was talking about. He's talking about the fact that his coming is going to be seen by everyone

01:43:20

East it's the runs. It's the Sun rises and he sets in West socials coming the son of man be

01:43:26

And that's a mean he's coming from the east because there is no East West is just basis on this globe.

01:43:34

He's just simply saying that every I will see him Everyone's gonna no one's gonna be surprised by this

01:43:39

Doesn't that's not the what direction he's coming from But that's what it becomes and so I think it's important to hear it well in the strong heart sense of It is explicitly stated in Scripture do this or don't do this

01:43:54

But one of the questions would be the status of something that is in keeping with Scripture or has a biblical rationale

01:44:00

I would just use the example of praying facing east when the church fathers explained why that practice was instituted in in the

01:44:07

Christian Church the reason was because Christ says You know just you know as as the

01:44:14

Sun rises in the east and it's seen in the West So it will be at the coming of the Son of Man and they took that to be Well when

01:44:19

Christ returns he'll return in the east and so you should pray facing east in case he shows up Well, you're praying you don't want your back facing him.

01:44:26

So is that biblical? Well, the underlying rationale is biblical, right? It's rooted in the teachings of Christ. That's what justifies it so so they have something that had

01:44:37

Absolutely positively nothing to do With the intention and meaning of what

01:44:44

Jesus was communicating to his author to his audience is Not biblical in its intention or nature

01:44:51

That is a that's an abuse We see it all the time on TBN Now we see it

01:45:00

Underlying something like this and just because someone in the early church said it It doesn't make it true

01:45:07

You have to you have to they have to stand on the same level of examination as anybody else.

01:45:14

I want you to hear that That's that's that's the thinking and you're like really?

01:45:20

Yeah, they have a sense of Local does not necessarily mean it needs to be in keeping with scripture, right?

01:45:27

It needs to be rooted in the biblical worldview Their thinking is biblical But they don't have a rigid sense that it has to be that the

01:45:33

Apostle said and therefore pray facing east Yeah, it's something else. I think that warrants discussion

01:45:40

Is interpretation of the Bible? Certainly we can learn to read the

01:45:47

Bible for all it's worth there's an art and science to biblical interpretation But the problem with Biblical interpretation is we're so far removed from the autographs

01:46:00

Now at this point we have Hank presenting something that is 180 degrees opposite of what

01:46:08

I've presented in the past so what he's gonna say is People who live closer to the

01:46:15

Apostles Spoke Greek. He's really into the into the Greek stuff now. I Tried to encourage him in those directions in years past, but oh well

01:46:27

He's Really into Greek now, so the people who spoke Greek and Live that culture They're the ones who are going to have a better idea of what

01:46:36

Jesus really meant This is completely wrong It's completely wrong

01:46:42

I'll tell you why First of all simply speaking Greek doesn't make any difference because the

01:46:48

Apostles all of them Were not native Greek speakers they spoke

01:46:55

Aramaic or Hebrew and Paul clearly has great facility in the

01:47:03

Greek language and it's second nature to him Which is probably why he was chosen to do what he did, but he's the only one like that if you wanted to have the cultural

01:47:17

Understanding so as to for example understand when when

01:47:23

Mark says as it said in Isaiah the prophet then he quotes from more than Isaiah The Jewish person that understands that because they've been dealing with scrolls and they understand how that works

01:47:32

Greek speaking Scribes in the early centuries after that introduced a textual variant because they didn't understand it okay,

01:47:43

I Mentioned Justin Martyr before Justin's Greek speaking, but he is a

01:47:49

Greek philosopher and So he imports into his interpretation of everything

01:47:56

Greek philosophy over against the original intention of the authors and Makes many errors as a result and he doesn't have a completed canon

01:48:06

So he doesn't have things that would provide him with balance in so many different places What would your theology look like if you didn't have

01:48:13

Romans and Hebrews? hmm so Having all that God has given and Knowing the original languages, but recognizing that the original context is a

01:48:28

Jewish context All these things are vitally important and Many in the early church did not have this information at all.

01:48:39

Look at look at Augustine Now, of course, this is an example that the

01:48:44

Orthodox aren't gonna like but I think it's illustrative look at Augustine Augustine has a little bit of Greek no

01:48:51

Hebrew doesn't know what the Jewish canon was and So there's a bunch of issues that result from that.

01:48:59

He's he would have what we would call today a sub orthodox view of the meaning of justification because it's primarily using

01:49:07

Latin and Extrapolating from Latin verbs rather than the Greek verbs So but he's a whole lot closer than we are.

01:49:17

So doesn't that mean we can't correct him? No, we can't no we can and so this is

01:49:25

This is where Hank is just wrong 1 ,000 % wrong

01:49:31

This is not modern hubris, by the way, this is not well because we've got technology and they didn't we're smarter.

01:49:37

No The question is how much of the biblical revelation do we have full access to and How successfully can we filter?

01:49:47

the lenses that our distance places upon us This is important in many many areas and Hank is simply wrong in what he's saying

01:50:00

You would imagine just by common sense that a Greek speaking person in the first century a

01:50:08

Close to the Apostles who are close to Christ would have a better grasp on some of the difficult sayings of the

01:50:15

Apostle Paul than someone removed from the language and removed from the geographical location

01:50:24

So the earlier you go the more you would have a precise

01:50:30

Interpretation of Scripture to pass on Which is exactly what you don't have in patristic writings

01:50:39

There's an entire commentary. I have it in Accordance Really enjoying

01:50:44

Accordance recently. I've got some great resources in it and There is the the ancient

01:50:50

Christian commentary on scriptures. I think it's a I think it's ACC. I think it's ACC.

01:50:56

I Appreciate it. I enjoy reading it But I'll be perfect honest with you when it comes to accurately handling the text of Scripture The majority of the time what

01:51:10

I read in the ACC Makes me very thankful to live in the day. I live in and not in the ancient past Because Many of these of my fellow believers did not have access

01:51:24

To the information that would allow them to filter the traditions which led them to see things in text that simply weren't there

01:51:32

Simply weren't there There is not nearly as high a level of consistency of exegesis in that material.

01:51:40

That's Just a fact. That's it. Look up yourself. It's called the ACC Beyond that now there are so many people that say

01:51:50

The Bible alone sola scriptura, I believe in only the Bible and That is the source the infallible repository repository of redemptive revelation

01:52:03

But the problem is is everybody's got a different kind of an interpretation of the Bible So you have the

01:52:08

Pope he comes along and he speaks today ex cathedra from the chair of Peter what he says is considered to be on par with Scripture and So you have limbo and you have purgatory and you have the the

01:52:23

Immaculate Conception You you have the faith once for all delivered to the

01:52:28

Saints with additions So let me I point something out. First of all limbo is not a dogma of the Roman Catholic Church It's very common, but it's not a dogma

01:52:36

Secondly the the Pope has to define a dogma in a very particular way

01:52:44

Purgatory was conciliar not papal Immaculate conception was does fit into that category.

01:52:51

No question about it But the The idea of differing interpretations and then you point the

01:52:59

Pope the Pope doesn't believe in sola scriptura The Pope's the very essence of the antithesis of sola scriptura.

01:53:05

So what is actually being promoted here is the idea That scripture is so vague in of itself that if you actually apply consistent rules of hermeneutics and exegesis

01:53:17

Interpretation you won't have a clue You won't even be able to tell who Jesus is from scripture. That's what they're saying

01:53:23

If you hear what they're saying, oh, look at this. It's a dog If unless then you have to bring our traditions in that's what he's saying here

01:53:33

It's astonishing but you need to hear this you need to recognize where this goes

01:53:39

And of course, there's also the other side that I thought of when I watch this and it's like well What happens if we do the same thing with your traditions?

01:53:46

What happens if we do the same thing with your teachings next thing, you know your dogs well, yeah, you have to you want to play those games, but the

01:53:57

This is comes back to the the Roman Catholic complaint Same thing about sola scriptura.

01:54:02

You don't like the conclusions that are being drawn Therefore you blame sola scriptura and that's never been it.

01:54:09

Has there been him? No, that's that's never been it you have Protestants come along and they have subtractions

01:54:16

So for example for 1 ,500 years the church taught that when you partook of the

01:54:22

Eucharist You were partaking of the real body and blood of Jesus Christ. The East never tried to explain how that could be

01:54:27

It's a mystery. It's a mystery the use a Latin phrase the mysterium tremenda met

01:54:32

Fiskina the mystery that Causes us to tremble and yet attracts us now all of a sudden you have people that come to the same biblical text and they

01:54:41

Say, you know what that biblical text does not mean that this is truly the body and blood of Jesus Christ But rather it's a memorial.

01:54:50

It's a Does anyone else notice that the actual biblical text uses the term memoriam

01:55:02

It's the it's since Hanks really in the Greek these days anamnesis Do this as an anamnesis of me

01:55:12

That's what the biblical that's what the first century apostolic teaching is and It is a once -for -all sacrifice

01:55:21

Hop pox or F a pox if you want one degree. Okay, finally I tried

01:55:27

But now we can do it because you're into it now. Great. Let's do it. It's a one -time sacrifice

01:55:35

It is not a Repetition It is not a representation and and again, you'll notice right here the

01:55:44

Orthodox want to say well, you know We don't define exactly how that means That's what makes it so difficult to deal with orthodoxy is

01:55:52

Because they don't want you know, at least Rome will come out and say transubstantiation. Well, we all know that's not apostolic

01:55:58

No one no one pretends that's apostolic but they've defined it and The Orthodox and Lutherans Are happy to go mystery so it's hard to take that teaching and Bring it into the light and say, okay, let's let's compare that but if what

01:56:22

Hank is saying is That for 1 ,500 years now, that's always wrong

01:56:28

That's that's never an accurate number But that's what they use to say.

01:56:33

Well up until the point of the Reformation. Well, wait a minute Hank Rome defined transubstantiation at the fourth

01:56:42

Lateran Council in the 13th century So are you saying that they were right because you're saying 1 ,500 years?

01:56:52

Because aren't you saying they went beyond what could actually be defined. I Don't know but the reality is the development of Eucharistic theology there are volumes on the subject and it was a development and just because you've decided to latch on to the development as it existed in The seventh through the ninth centuries and then that tradition becomes fossilized doesn't make that the apostolic tradition and once again

01:57:27

You Have to see that what is being said here is the scripture is

01:57:32

Insufficient to actually define what the nature of the atoning work of Christ is

01:57:40

That's that's that's the essence of what you're what you're getting here Can't obviously can't get this can't put nine minutes and 19 seconds worth of of this into Two Minutes in the program, so I'm going to make a notation of where we are and Yeah, I know

01:58:07

I'm supposed to be doing this thing is supposed to doing that thing Well, we'll do the best we can

01:58:12

I just point out that basically over the next month

01:58:20

I'm Gonna be traveling up to Moscow, Idaho. I'm gonna be debating Doug Wilson on Pato communion and Pato baptism

01:58:26

I'm gonna be doing a man -rampant program on the issue of the text of scripture. I'm gonna be preaching at Christ Church downtown

01:58:34

Can be doing cross politic You'll be coming back and just over a week later heading for Salt Lake City.

01:58:42

I need to get those flights booked by the way Get up Salt Lake City, we've got

01:58:48

Jeff and I are gonna be debating two Philosophers basically on the subject of our morals possible without the

01:58:56

Christian God We've got the I've got my dialogue with Alma Allred specifically looking at Nicaea or Nauvoo nice title from from Jason up there

01:59:14

We have the conference and I'm I have to stay there because the following Thursday We have the dialogue on the campus of Brigham Young University Which could be even more interesting that would have been before in light of what's going on at BYU on the subject of the

01:59:31

Translation New Testament text and the bait the basis upon which we do that, etc, etc and so That's just over the next month so Please try to understand when when people send me stuff and say please cover this cover that cover there

01:59:49

This is all I've done today. I Got nothing done on the David Allen response today

01:59:57

Rich did help me by finding one of the quotes. I sent him a thing But rich will tell you

02:00:03

I do my own research when it comes to this stuff and there's just only so many hours in a day so I Appreciate when people

02:00:12

I'd love to hear what you have to say about this I'm glad that you want to hear what I have to say about that. But sometimes there's just You could you there's only so much you can do.

02:00:19

There's only so much you can do. So we'll try we'll do our best Interesting enough so much this stuff is in church history right now, and that's great.

02:00:27

I love doing that that that's that's great, but I Do need to be focusing upon what's coming up?

02:00:37

because Doug Wilson is a formidable opponent of I'm sure that the the

02:00:43

Mormons will be formidable opponents as well on a completely different level And it's gonna be a completely different context, obviously

02:00:52

But I need to be prepared Some people think I just wake up prepared.

02:00:58

Sorry doesn't work that way Doesn't work that way for anybody anybody. So what that means is we need your support

02:01:05

Need your support for the travel fund because I'm gonna be starting my traveling is coming up And we're looking at South Africa coming up not too long in distance got to work on that We're trying to do a lot of stuff and we appreciate that there's a lot of stuff going on in the world but we're trying to deal with some very foundational issues that are hopefully helpful in dealing with with everything else as as the world continues

02:01:33

To turn as God has intended it to toward his intended purpose Even if we can't figure out what in the world that is other than the

02:01:42

God's gonna be glorified how he's gonna get there right now is Is something else but thanks for listening to the past two hours of this discussion.

02:01:52

We've covered a lot. We'll continue on Tuesday I guess yes, because I have a doctor point of Monday's Tuesday continue on Tuesday.