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To scripture by using the phrase faith alone. Certainly not John Calvin who never did have a really good picture taken you know you gotta give poor John some credit though. By the way little known fact of his life is that he had a headache for 27 years now.
You tell me if you have a I have a headache for five minutes and I'm looking for the Advil in the league. And yeah 27 years now the reader sees how fairly the sophists today cavil against our doctrine.
When we say that man is justified by faith alone they dare not deny that man is justified by faith because it recurs so often in scripture. But since the word alone is nowhere expressed they do not allow this addition to be made.
But is it so. But what will they reply to these words of Paul where he contends that righteousness cannot be of faith unless it be free Romans 4. To how will a free gift agree with works. With what chicaneries will they allude.
What he says in another passage that God's righteousness is revealed in the gospel. If righteousness is revealed in the gospel surely no mutilated or half righteousness but a full and perfect righteousness is contained there the law not only by a false but an obviously ridiculous shift they insist upon excluding this adjective.
Does not he who takes everything from works firmly enough ascribe everything to faith alone. What I pray these expressions mean his righteousness has been manifested apart from law and man is freely justified and apart from the works of the law.
John Calvin is to book 3 chapter 11 section 19. Now I'd like to look back to the text of scripture and we look at Romans chapter 3 and please feel free to look along. But obviously since I'm projecting it that is useful as well.
Paul having proclaimed the bad news and I cannot help but stop for just a moment and remind us that it is not a gospel that does not explain to men and women and children why the wrath of God. Don't tell me you preach the gospel when you have not followed the example and explain first and foremost we all stand justly condemned before a holy God if you have not proclaimed that you have not complained to us.
When the Apostle Paul writes the church of Rome he knows he's writing a church where all roads lead to Rome and so if you can establish a sound church there just as he did in Ephesus you're going to naturally evangelize all the area around it.
And so he presents in that what might well be called the gospel. According to Paul a thought-out organized logical presentation of what the gospel is and before he ever gets to how wonderful a savior Jesus is.
He starts off by explaining why we are just under the wrath of God and he doesn't do it in two verses. He starts in Romans chapter 1 verse 18 and he finishes up in Romans chapter 3 verse 18 and he does so with that long cantina of passages drawn from the Old Testament demonstrating the universal sinfulness of man.
He says now we know that whatever the law says speaks those who are under the law so that every mouth may be closed. Jews and Gentiles he's covered them all. Romans 1 2 3 every mouth may be closed and all the world may become accountable to God.
The picture there is that the person who stands before the judge recognizing the judge's authority and recognizing their. If you watch court TV you'll see some of these people stand before the judge and their heads still up and they're still proclaiming their innocence and I'm not as bad as the other guy and you don't have any right to tell me what I can and cannot do.
That's not the picture. The picture here is of the person who stands before the judge and they acknowledge I'm guilty and the judge has the right to bring sentence against me. That's the picture here every mouth closed no more tongue wagging no more self-righteousness.
That's the person who's ready to hear the gospel. How many times simply because we fear the face of men do we allow people to bypass that and we wonder then why they view Jesus as nothing but a self-help methodology.
Paul didn't. All the world may become accountable to God because by the works of the law the law which Paul no flesh will be justified in his sight for through the law comes the knowledge of sin the law reveals to us our sinfulness but it does not contain within it the power to justify that is his point.
Apart from the law the righteousness of God has been manifested made known being witnessed by the law even the righteousness of God through faith in Jesus Christ for all those who do what? Who believe.
For there is no distinction. That is there is no distinction between Jew and Gentile. There is not a gospel for the Jew and a gospel for the Gentile. There is not a Jewish Christian church and a Gentile Christian church.
There is no distinction if you're going to experience the righteousness of God through faith in Jesus Christ you're going to believe in him whether you're a Jew or a Gentile. That is the only way that you can have this relationship with God.
There is no distinction and there can't be a distinction why? Here's a verse everybody has memorized but so often don't realize why it's even there. For all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God.
Jew and Gentile. We use it correctly but we need to recognize what it's saying. What it's saying is that there is no distinction here. All have sinned and fall short of the glory of God. And therefore if you're going to be justified you're going to be justified as a gift by his grace through the redemption which is in Christ Jesus.
Any sinner there is only one way. It is to be justified as a gift by his grace. He only does this in one way. All the pluralism of the world as popular as it might be. Everybody's saying that every path leads to God and all the rest is stuff.
All the pressure that's put upon us to adopt that attitude is pressure being placed upon us to deny our faith. And it might be time for some of us in our society especially those of you in corporate America where this is being shoved down your throat to put your hand up and say excuse me you are demanding that I deny my Lord.
It's time for us to say that offends me. Since offense seems to be the worst thing you can possibly do in our society it's time to stand up and say excuse me but I'm not doing that because that means I have to deny Christ and I'm not going to do it.
Being justified as a gift by his grace. Please notice that being justified. Who does it? We don't justify ourselves. It's not the end result of some process we do. Justification is a divine act. It's something God does.
And when justification becomes the result of some process, sacraments, whatever else it is then in essence we are now controlling divine actions by what we ourselves do. Being justified as a gift that is freely, some translations would say freely, by his grace and there is only one way he can do it and remain just and that is because the redemption which is in Christ Jesus.
Why? Why is this the only way that God can do so? Who? God displayed publicly as a propitiation in his blood through faith. A lady was asking me beforehand how can we tell decent Bible translations from bad Bible translations.
Here is a test. Bible translations like to try to avoid big words like propitiation as they come up with other ways of trying to say it. And I think if I recall correctly if anybody has an NIV does it say sacrifice of atonement?
At least the NIV is not trying to avoid saying propitiation. If you find expiation here, use it as a doorstop. Expiation is sort of the British, continental, European way of getting around what propitiation means.
Because you see while expiation is close, what expiation lacks that propitiation has is that while propitiation removes the wrath of God. Forgiveness removes the barriers, yes expiation speaks to that but propitiation refers to removing the wrath of God.
And of course ever since C .H. Dodd and those guys the wrath of God has been pretty much out of stock in European theology. Though it's not out of style in the Bible. Publicly as a propitiation, a sacrifice that removes the penalty and wrath of God in his blood through faith.
That is how it becomes propitious for me. This was to demonstrate his righteousness. Because of the forbearance of God he passed over the sins previously committed. A lot of people look at this and go I don't get that.
How can Abraham be the friend of God? Because of the certainty of the cross. Abraham is the friend of God and his sins can be forgiven because of the certainty of the cross. His faith in Yahweh becomes the model for our faith in Christ because of the certainty of the cross.
You see in his forbearance he had passed over the sins previously committed. For the demonstration I say of his righteousness at the present time so that he would be just and the justifier of the one who has faith in Jesus.
In other words God's holiness must be upheld. My Muslim friends don't understand this. They think God can just simply forgive a sin and his law can remain broken. There is no sacrifice. There is no repudiation.
There is no remedy. But the scriptures say that God demonstrates his righteousness at the present time and demonstrates that he is just even when he calls sinners his friends. Why? Because every sin will be punished.
The question is where? Every sin will be punished. Righteousness will be done. His throne is established on righteousness. Every sin will be punished either in the sinner or in the sin bearer. One or two.
So that he would be just and the justifier. Man I don't know about you but I'm awful glad God is called the justifier. I am awful glad. But who is he justifying? The one who keeps his nose clean. The one who does the right sacraments.
The one who does the right baptisms. The one who has faith in Jesus. Where then is boasting? And see that's why people don't like justification. They don't like it by grace alone through faith alone because it leaves absolutely no ground for boasting.
I have no control over God's grace. I have no control over anything that would give me a ground for saying yeah. I allowed him to succeed. Aren't I wonderful? When I was flying out here. Every time I fly out to Houston.
I end up in a long conversation on the plane. It's really weird. A few years ago I flew out here. I bought a PT Cruiser on Ebay. It was in Houston. And I was flying out to drive it back home. And guess who I sat down next to on the plane?
A Mormon elder. If you really would. If that makes you laugh. A few years ago we were up in Salt Lake City for the General Conference. My son and I. I think it was the first General Conference he had been to to pass out tracks.
And we were flying back on a Sunday morning. On America West. And a class had just graduated from the Missionary Training Center in Provo. And the first time Mormon missionaries were all going out to the place where there were going to be little Mormon missionaries on their bikes.
And they were all on that plane with us. In God's sovereignty. Some poor little Mormon missionary from up in Idaho someplace. This is the first time he had ever been on a plane. This poor kid was so greedy he shot an entire roll of film out the window before we got off the plane.
He did. He was in the window seat. Me and Josh were in the next tub. He got quite an earful. You should have seen the missionaries in front of us going like this. And they all had crimps in their neck by the time they got done with us.
What's he saying back there? Save Elder Watson. You know, something like that. But anyway. I imagine he's going to tell his grandkids. You wouldn't believe what happened to me when I went on my mission.
I ended up next to James when I got on the plane. Anyway. Where then is Moses excluded? By what kind of law? Of works? No. We can boast in no one but Christ. It is by His work that you are in Christ Jesus.
1 Corinthians chapter 1. Take a look at what it says there. For we maintain that a man is justified by faith apart from works of the law. Now remember, the law is the highest revelation of God. I just love when people say, oh, well, but you see, actually, yes, works of the Mosaic law, but we have the law of Christ.
They don't understand Paul, do they? Not in any way, shape, or form. Now. Again, the battery is still working. So, I'm under some constraint here. One of the questions I love to ask my Roman Catholic friends.
Takes us back to Romans chapter 4. Here's the background for it, and you'll see how it's relevant. Romans chapter 4. After discussing Abraham, going back to Genesis 15, 6. This is where Abraham was justified, and he was justified by faith even before he was circumcised.
That's his point. And then he gives us an apostolic interpretation of Genesis 15, 6. Now, to the one who works, his wage, his reward, his misthos in the Greek, that which you get for working, for employment, is not credited or imputed as a favor, that's literally the word grace, but as what is due or owed.
Now, what is Paul saying there? He's saying something we all understand. When you go to work, and you put in your 40 hours, or your 50 hours, or your 60 hours, or your 70 hours these days, and you get your paycheck at the end of the week, you're going to be pretty insulted, or you might be looking for a job, if your boss comes to you and hands you your paycheck and says, here's a gift for you.
If your boss says, here's a gift for you, that's not a good thing. Because you work for that. That is what is due to you. So if you do something with the expectation of receiving something back, that's work.
And what you get back is what is due to you. But to the one who does not work. But, in opposition to that, believes in him who justifies the ungodly, his faith is credited, imputed to him as righteousness.
That is Paul's understanding. Now look at this very carefully. To engage in physical labor, to engage in that which is profitable, and it means that you're the one putting out the energy. What is due is an accounting term that was used, this is what he said, if you were in debt.
It is what is owed to you. Credited, all the standard terms Paul uses here in this verse. But to the one who does not work, same word, but instead believes, is placed in such a way as to make believing the opposite of working.
Not something that's just real close, but the opposite. It has an object, it's not just, oh believe, just have faith in what? Even Abraham was given something to have faith in, it was the promises of God.
As are we. Our faith is placed in one who justifies the ungodly, not justifies the godly. You don't clean yourself up first. And that is credited, logizimai, as righteousness, justification. Now, make sure to see this, which is why I put it in the presentation.
Verse 4, the one working. Verse 5, the one not working. Do you see something there? You don't have to read Greek to notice. They are the exact same terms except for one little word right there. The negative particle.
So in other words, Paul repeats himself. He uses the exact same terminology so that you can tell that verse 4 is the opposite attitude of verse 5. Verse 4 is not going to get you righteousness. It's only going to get you the wages of your works.
It will not provide a clear and stronger contrast between the person in verse 4 who seeks reward from God by what they're doing and the person in verse 5 who does not do so but instead believes. This is the nature of saving faith.
But to the one not working provides the negative aspect of saving faith. It makes no claims upon God. It comes to God with the empty hand of faith. It is not the one who comes and pulls out the wallet and says, I know this isn't a lie, but will this be enough?
It's an empty hand of faith that fits the sovereign hand of grace. You bring anything in it, you won't experience righteousness from God. It makes no claims upon God. But on the positive side, Paul provides the complete 180-degree contrast.
But believes. Saving faith then cannot include any idea of works or merit. Saving faith always has the same object. The God who justifies. So Paul says, but believes in Him who justifies the ungodly. Now note, faith's object is the God who justifies.
God does the work of salvation. God justifies. It's a divine act, not the end result of an extended Amway presentation. Sorry about that. Someone sounds like I just punched them. God justifies the ungodly, not the self-righteous.
A person who will not say, yes, I am the ungodly, is not the person who is ready to hear this message. And yet one of the great tragedies of most modern evangelical churches is that we assure those people of eternal life without ever challenging ourselves.
We end up filling the church with people who will never hear a message of God in us because they've never been confronted with the reality of the universe. Romans 4 -5 concludes, his faith is credited with righteousness, the faith that has God the justifier as its object.
The law that brings no merit and makes no plea to self-righteousness is the faith that is credited with righteousness. And here's the key, and no other. There is no other. That's Paul's point here. Read it in his context.
That's his argument. That's his defense against the Judaizers of his day. Now, here's the question then that I have for the Roman Catholic. Who is the blessed man? I just realized and I apologize. I could have played this for you if I had thought ahead far enough.
I could have shown you this in video format, but you can go look for yourself. I have on my YouTube page a clip from one of the most useful debates I've ever done. It was a debate on the subject of purgatory.
And it was between myself and Father Peter Stravinskis. Now, Peter Stravinskis has two PhDs. He taught in two Ivy League schools. He was the long-time editor of the Catholic Answer. He had written I don't know how many Catholic Answer books.
And we debated purgatory. I came to that debate with everything he had ever published on the subject of purgatory in my handheld. He had never even read a single word I had ever said. You can tell how that debate went.
By the end of the evening, he was pulling his collar and doing everything he could to get out of that place. And you can watch it for yourself. I'm not making you. If you start dumb, the Bible is something you can go watch.
But I asked him this question. Who is the blessed man? And I read the text. Romans chapter 4 verse 6. David says the same thing when he speaks of the blessedness of the man to whom God credits righteousness apart from works.
Blessed are they whose transgressions are forgiven, whose sins are covered. Blessed is the man whose sin the Lord will never count against him. And I asked Peter Stravinskis, who is the blessed man? He'd never been asked that question before.
And so his first answer, I actually had to try to keep myself from chuckling. Because it was so bad. He said it was Jesus. Yeah, God will never hold Jesus' sin against him. Yeah, there you go. That didn't go over too well.
Even the Catholics in the audience were sort of going... And so it came back a little later. And I sort of gave him a second shot at it. And here is the saddest thing, because this is really a pretty common response.
Are you the blessed man? I hope to be. I hope to be. See, you cannot. Every single believer in Jesus Christ is the blessed man. And if you don't know, you are. Look at what he says. Here we have an example of inspired interpretation.
Where Paul interprets the meaning of Psalm 32, 1 through 2. It's Psalm 31, if you accept it. He interprets these words to communicate the blessedness of the crediting of righteousness apart from works.
Which he continues the theme he struck in Romans chapter 4, verses 4 through 5, which we just looked at rather in depth. Clearly, it is Paul's intention to apply this blessedness to every single believer who, by faith, is reckoned righteousness apart from works.
But note that the imputation of God's righteousness likewise involves the non-imputation of sin. That is, Paul says, the blessed man's sins are forgiven and they're covered. And, in verse 8, we read of the blessedness of the man whose sin the Lord will not take into account.
The Greek is, This is an aorist subjunctive of strong denial. And it precludes the possibility of a future action. In this case, the possibility of the imputation of sin to the blessed man. That's why he's blessed.
So, the blessed man is the one whose sin is not imputed to him. Remember 2 Corinthians 5, verse 21? Because it has been imputed to another. A substitute, Jesus Christ, the Lamb of God. And so, Rome cannot answer the question, who is the blessed man?
I had one Roman Catholic say, well, the blessed man is the person who's just been baptized before they leave the church. Because once you leave the church, then you can start engaging in venial sins. Not leave the church as in leave Roman Catholicism, but walk out the church after being baptized.
The blessed man is the blessed man for a matter of moments after receiving baptism. And then, now you have venial sins, and purgatory, and the possibility of mortal sins, and falling from grace, and blah, blah, blah.
It's so sad because everybody there that night saw. That Paul's whole point is, if you're a believer in Jesus Christ, you are the blessed man. You are the blessed woman. If you can't answer that, then I would invite you to Christ.
So, we go back to Paul in Galatians 2. We know that a man is not justified by observing the law, but by faith in Jesus Christ. So we too have put our faith in Christ Jesus. That we may be justified by faith in Christ, and not by observing the law.
Because by observing the law, no one will be justified. Even the apostles, good Jews that they were, recognized that there is only one means of salvation. And that is by faith in Jesus Christ. Not by observing the law, even though the law reveals to us the very holiness of God.
But when all is said and done, the question is, does it really matter? Have we wasted our time this evening? Would it have been easier for you? More meaningful for you to have been watching ESPN and catching up on Olympics preparations?
Or if you are like me, catching up on the next tour, the next stage in the Tour de France or something like that. You know, can Cadel Evans keep the yellow? Something like that. For a lot of people, the answer to that question is yes.
That would have been more useful for you. For a lot of people, what we are doing this evening is destructive because it is so divisive. I see a lot of language in the New Testament where the apostles felt it was really good to be divided from those who don't have eternal life and who do not honor God.
But does it really matter? Romans 5 .1 says, Therefore, having been justified by faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ. A number of years ago, I believe, 12 years ago now, I wrote a book called The Roman Catholic Conversion.
The focus of that book was upon that one word, peace. Part of the reason was because I recalled very clearly an encounter I had in 1991 when I went to El Cajon, California, a suburb of San Diego. I did two debates with Fr. Mitchell Packwell.
I mentioned Fr. Packwell to you a couple of evenings ago. I have a lot of respect for Mitch Packwell. I think the debates we've done, the five of them that we've done, have been some of the best that we've done because they were real debates.
They weren't about him or me. I wasn't constantly having to dodge verbal jabbings and so on and so forth. We were actually discussing the subject. And during the course of the cross-examination, I asked Mitch Packwell a question.
See, Mitch Packwell is a scholar. He's fluent in 12 languages. And he knows biblical Hebrew. And so he knows what lies behind the word peace. The Greek term for peace is Irenic. But he knows, in Paul's thinking, what is the term that's behind the word peace.
We all know it. Shalom. Shalom. And shalom in Hebrew is a rich concept. It's not just the absence of conflict. It is wellness of relationship. No one would say that today Israel is in a state of shalom, even though there may not have been a bombing today.
They may not have launched a pre-emptive strike against Iran, which they will do. And we'll be paying $10 a gallon for gas when we do. And it'll happen before the end of the year. But anyways. That's not a prophecy, by the way.
Just some stuff out of everything. But anyways. No one would say shalom exists there, because when everyone's walking around packing heat, and you have to have a fence around your country, and you have to walk through a metal detector everywhere, and you go out to a restaurant, and you can't help but think that someone could blow up in here.
That's not peace. That's not shalom. That's not shalom. Even if you happen to make it through the day, that's not shalom. And I knew that Mitch Paco knew that. And so I asked him, I said, the greatest commandment in scripture is to love the Lord your God with your heart, soul, mind, and strength.
And while Rome has presented a doctrine of mortal sin, that says, well, you have to purposely break these kinds of commandments, it's interesting that breaking the greatest commandment isn't one of them, or at least not said to be specifically one of them.
I pointed out that problem, and I said, you know, it seemed to me that breaking the greatest commandment would be a mortal sin. How could breaking lesser commandments be a mortal sin, and breaking the greatest commandment being evil?
That doesn't make any sense. So keeping that in mind, I said, your perspective, if you are in the state of grace today, you have no assurance that by the time your head touches the pillow this evening, you will still be in that state of grace.
You commit a mortal sin this day, and no longer be the friend of God, no longer be justified. And if you die in that state, you don't even go to purgatory. You're lost. Knowing what the word peace means, how can you say you truly have peace with God?
If the grounds of your relationship is based upon your faithfulness, your actions, your remaining that pile of gold, how can you say you have true shalom with the Holy God? To say that we truly have peace with God is to say something really big about the quality of the gospel, the power of the gospel, the perfection of the gospel.
When you really get a handle on the holiness of God, when you... I highly recommend to you a book I read in one sitting many, many years ago called The Holiness of God by R .C. Sproul. I highly... I just saw a bunch of heads go...
When you understand the holiness of the God is what you have to do, you will realize we need... We don't need a heathen gospel. We need a divine gospel. We need a powerful Savior. We don't need a Savior who tries to save and fails.
We need a Savior who really can save, which again brings us to the subject of tomorrow's meeting as well. Justification by faith. What the Apostle Paul says here is to have peace with God, we have to have already been, as something we look back upon, justified by faith.
If you have not been justified by faith, you do not have peace with God. And the only reason I can claim to have peace with God is not because of anything I've accomplished in and of myself, but because I realize, the blessed man, I own my sins.
I know that they are there. And I know that they are offensive to a holy God. But I know that my sins have been borne by another. They have been taken out of the way, nailed to the tree. But when I try to say that, and then also say, and then I've done this, am I not saying that all that before isn't enough?
If I try to add to it, am I not very clearly indicating that that wasn't enough? Obviously. And that's why it's solo fide. That's why it's faith alone. Not separate from everything else that God does in our lives, but alone as the means of justification.
Because when I add anything to it, then I'm saying that what Christ did was not enough. Christ died needlessly. And that's what we have in the doctrine of justification. So, I... Oh, I did have this pretty little picture, for those of you who are historic historians.
As Luther finally, before the Diet of Worms, said, Here I stand, I can do no else, help me. Now whether he actually said all that we're not 100 certain, but he said something to that effect. So, with that, we have exactly 10 minutes for questions.
So, I will try to remember to repeat the question for the sake of recording, but I am often very bad at that, so I will apologize ahead of time should that take place. So, yes ma 'am. Since you already know all the words to A Mighty Fortress, begin.
When you debate these, are they so arrogant or so ingrained in what they have the dogma and feed off each other that they really can't engrave the truth when it's presented? And will you ask the gentleman that question?
Well, let me... The question is, when you debate these high muckety mucks, well, the only two priests I have debated, and neither one of them were bishops, were Peter Stravinsky and St. Mitch Pacwa. Generally, Roman Catholic apologists, and this is interesting because I point out the inconsistencies, are not in the hierarchy of the church.
You can't get those folks to do debates. They just don't have any interest in it. So, most of the apologists are lay people. Maybe professors once in a while, Scott Hahn, though he won't debate me, but people like that.
Did Stravinsky give an answer? The only answer he gave was, I hope to be. But he wasn't able to give... Go ahead and hit my YouTube page. There's two clips I've posted up there. One where I'm asking you that question, and then another one where we go through 1 Corinthians chapter 3 in the base of Purgatory, and just demonstrate, that if you just go to the word, and you know what the word is.
Here's a guy with two PhDs, long time Catholic, and he just does not have a response. And it's very clear, the audience sees it as well. You can hear the audience going, come on, you know. And no, it just did not have a meaningful response at all.
A couple times, all he would just say is, well, you're playing games. You're playing games. And so, yeah. You can look for yourself, watch for yourself. Now, there are others who always have an answer.
But sometimes, as the brother and I were talking about today, when I was debating Roberts and Jennis on the mass in 1999, he was extremely nasty. And at one point, he was trying to make a point that I allegedly contradicted myself on my own book.
But he didn't understand what I was saying, so I just started joking. And he said, well, I think I can honestly claim to be the sole infallible interpreter of my own book. And everybody started laughing.
And he goes, that's your problem, Mr. White. You think you're infallible. And everybody's like, oh, come on. You know, so it was quite interesting. In fact, I think maybe that, all of those debates have been posted in total on YouTube.
It's not on my page. I think someone else has posted those, too. So you can watch them, see for yourself. Yes, sir.
Would you... Sorry, I think I'm trying to think of a good way to ask this. It appears on the surface that in Galatians 5, 4, we have found the only exception to the end of Romans 8, where it says that nothing can separate us from the love of God,.
Which is in Christ Jesus. No, not at all. As I pointed out when I looked at Galatians 5, there is a specific audience that is given there. And you will notice that it is those who are seeking to be justified by works.
Those are not believers, obviously, if you seek to be justified by law. You have been severed from Christ. You who are seeking to be justified by law, you have fallen from grace. But does the term fallen from grace...
From the realm of grace. It doesn't mean that you were standing... He does not say you have been saved by grace and now since you've decided to seek to be justified by law, then grace has failed to save you.
No, when it says severed from Christ and fallen from grace, if I... I used to use the illustration of Michael Jordan, but he's gotten old now. I really can't use almost anybody else these days because they're always getting in trouble.
I've stopped using sports analogies for this. So I use the path analogy. Again, there is the path of faith and grace. There is the path of law and obedience to law. And Christ and grace is only there.
And if I choose to walk down this road, even if I am claiming to be a Christian, even if I am claiming Christ, even if I'm saying that Christ's grace is causing me to do this, I am walking away from Christ.
I am walking away from the spirit of His blessing, His activity. I am going as far away from Him as I can because I'm not following after His own message. And so when someone says, well, what you have here is you have someone who is in Christ, someone who is in grace, and then they somehow do this seeking to be justified.
A believer doesn't seek to be justified. We look back upon our justifications. We've already been justified. They never started that way and then in confusion doubled back. No, no, no, no. So it's a matter of they were never justified to begin with.
Exactly. There is no third gospel. There is no partial gospel. You either, what does Paul say? There is only one kind of faith that saves. It is the faith that casts yourself completely upon Christ. That's what he said in Romans chapter 4.
Yes sir? So to reconstruct your house and then it's not a path of law but a pit of law. Yes. A pit of law. As he says, it's not a path of law, it's a pit of law because you fall into it and unfortunately many people who are in it don't realize that they are in a pit from which they cannot extract themselves.
Yes sir? Have you ever heard of a Roman Catholic apologist who says that, for example, in Scripture says we submit that and then we're not justified. Is it justified upon the Lord's law that you have to get one pit of law?
Well, you're not talking about the Mosaic Law. Yes. Yes. In fact, I made reference to that very briefly in passing. The question is is it common for Roman Catholic apologists to use the argumentation well, yes, you're not justified by the Mosaic Law but you're justified by a higher law, the Law of Christ.
Almost all of them use that. In fact, I found it fascinating when I picked up Jonathan Edwards' book On Justification by Faith. He likewise had to deal with that because they were making the same argument then, Roman Catholics were.
And so, that's why I emphasize the law of which Paul speaks, he recognizes is the holy law of God and it embodies the revelation of his holiness and it shows us our sin so when they say well, it's the ceremonial laws that are being done away with here.
What did he say in Romans Chapter 3? For by the law is the what? The knowledge of sin. What part of the law gives the knowledge of sin? The ceremonial or the moral? Obviously, it's the moral. And so, that kind of attempt to and there are Roman Catholic apologists who have sort of bought into some of the new perspective stuff as well even though it doesn't fit well with Trent but let's face it, now there's Vatican II and so, there is wiggle room in essence today amongst and certainly in the universities in the educational system of Roman Catholicism that you'll find every view under the sun especially in Western cultures you'll find every view under the sun but yes, I can name names of the people that utilize that particular organization fairly frequently.
You two look like you're arguing so I'll go with you. I was going to ask about I know like R .C. Sproul and John Gerstner believe that Thomas Aquinas believed in justification like faith and they thought he was a I mean, in May of 1993 Gerstner wrote an article you know, Aquinas was a Protestant because he believed that Aquinas believed in justification like faith.
I was wondering what you believe about that. I have always wondered what the fascination is with that personally. I have never invested a whole lot of time worrying too much about trying to interpret the massive amount of writing that Thomas Aquinas produced to try to defend the idea that he was a Protestant given that he was very clearly in subjection and vision of Rome yet many of the dogmas most pernicious dogmas have not even yet been defined at the time of his life.
Certainly most of the Marian dogmas have not been. I don't see the use in trying to turn Thomas into a Protestant personally. I think that's always a rather slippery slope that takes time away from dealing with the real issues and they are not the only ones fascinated with him.
Norman Geisser obviously at the same time is very enamored with Thomas as well. I think what you can prove is that modern Roman Catholic dogma is an evolutionary beast by demonstrating that at that point in time here is a mind that was obviously very bright and yet it did not come to the conclusions that modern Roman Catholicism has come to in these areas.
But you could at the same time dig up all sorts of things that you would have to disagree with him on. It seems very anachronistic to utilize those kinds of categories. I'm not sure what the use of it is other than getting yourself published.
Nothing against either of those gentlemen, but I just do not personally see it. Yes, sir. Dr. Michael, what would you attribute the recent infection to Roman Catholicism by religiously evangelical leaders such as the head of ETS, Scott Cahn?
Yes, Frank Beckwith was the head of ETS. In fact, I just saw this afternoon that Frank Beckwith's book is coming out. I have a pre-order from Amazon. As I have discussed, for example, we'll use that as an illustration.
There are a lot of things that are attractive to people. I know a lot of converts and convert converts. That went in and came out in that type of situation. Most of them are attracted by liturgy. Those who have never been Roman Catholics, I see of course Beckwith was raised as a Catholic, so it doesn't work for him, but many of those who were not raised as Roman Catholics are attracted to the liturgy, are attracted to the image of the eternal church, or the 2 ,000-year-old church, standing in the mists of time, unchanged, and all is not real, if you actually take the time to study these things and find out that that's not the case.
But in Beckwith's case, the real question, and I'm hoping the book will help to answer some of this, but I think he's already answered in many ways, he says that he always held the view of man and the view of natural law that Roman Catholicism held, and I never have seen anything where he gave any kind of passionate defense of the solas or anything like that, even as a quote-unquote evangelical.
And so I think the foundations he always held to were Roman Catholic epistemology to begin with, and so if you're trying to hold that together with evangelical theology to any depth, you're going to create an inconsistency, and hence when things happen in life that would cause you to want to be closer to your Roman Catholic family and things like that, it's not overly surprising then that he found that to be a rather easy transition to make.
But by his own confession on fundamental issues of the sufficiency of scripture, fundamental issues concerning epistemology, natural law, the view of man, he had always been Roman Catholic. He had never left that fold.
So I'm not sure it's even fair to call him a revert or a convert because I never saw any type of denunciation of his former faith and a positive affirmation on those particular issues. So... Well, let's be honest as we look at evangelicalism today.
The idea of really knowing why you are what you are and that's if we were doing a seminar on prophecy or making a better marriage or Christian finances, would we be able to fit in this room? Probably not.
And yet here we are talking about these things and so it doesn't surprise me at all given the fact that evangelicalism has adopted the idea, which is a fairly new idea for whatever it is called evangelicalism these days, that theology really doesn't matter and that it is really something you can put off to one side.
I am not surprised whatsoever when people embrace false systems because they've never been vetted or challenged or examined themselves to begin with. I've had you sitting now for approximately two hours and that means there are some of you that are going to have trouble standing up anyways.
So let's close our time tomorrow evening. We will spend our two hours reviewing a sermon and I hope it will be useful to you. I hope you realize I don't do this with any animosity toward the man we'll be reviewing.
In fact, I'll tell you right now that I appreciate it that at least at a number of points, for example, at one point he took the time to say, a pretty short sermon, I'm not sure how you get anything in the sermons but he took the time to say that one of the big knocks on Calvinism is that they don't do evangelism.
He says, all the Calvinists I know are very involved in evangelism so I appreciate it that there was not the abject Calvinists are demons from hell type perspective that is very common in the literature and the presentations that are out there but at the same time there was some really basic misunderstandings and I really think the overall intention was to stop conversation not start conversation and I just don't think that that's how we advance and these things do need to be aired and as all of you know I've engaged in debates on this subject and I've tried to engage in other debates on this subject that ended up not taking place such as the infamous debate at Liberty University Tom Askew and myself versus Ergon and Ymir Cannon that never happened but I would love to have that to take place so that's what we're going to be talking about tomorrow evening.
I believe that you would be free to invite people because I'm not going to be standing up here mocking people. I'm not going to be standing up here ripping and snorting but I'm going to very clearly demonstrate that what was presented really wasn't something that I think was overly helpful to however many thousands of people who were sitting in that auditorium that day.
So that's what we'll be doing tomorrow evening. I will actually be playing about 85 of the sermon. We'll watch it and then it fades out. We'll stop make my comments and move on from there. So it's not like you're going to have to be trusting me and accusing me of mis-citing somebody.
We'll watch the whole thing together. Let's close the time once again. Bob we thank you for your gospel. We thank you that you have revealed the truth of the gospel that you preserved it and that by your spirit you continue to call people of every tribe tongue people of nation to love it to live in light of it to be passionate about it.
And so father we thank you that we can know the gospel today and we can proclaim it. And your spirit continues to honor it by bringing your people to yourself under its auspices. So we thank you for the gospel.
We thank you that we find our life in it that we have peace with you this evening. And we can we can recognize that even though there is sin in our existence that the wrath of God has already fallen in its full fury upon this perfect substitute in our Christ.
And therefore we have true peace with you. We are indeed the blessed man the blessed woman the blessed child. And we have true faith in Christ and that comes from your work. We thank you for your gospel and we ask that you would make us bold in proclamation of it.
We pray in Christ's name amen real quick before you leave. I want to recommend again the God who justifies and i think it's rather apropos that a german mickey friedrich would get the book tonight. So thank you for listening and we'll see you next time.
Bye bye bye bye. Bye bye you.
