The Tome of Leo

Welcome to No Compromise Radio Ministry. Mike Ebendroth here. This might be the last show you ever listen to on No Compromise Radio. Not because it'll be our last show, but because of the topic today.

Huh. I don't know what he's going to talk about. You can write me, mike at nocompromiseradio .com, and you can go to our website. Trying to get a new website up and going. If you design websites and you want to help out a beggar, I could use some help.

I think one of the things that's the hardest with our current website, the search engine doesn't seem to work very well. So anyway, Mike Ebendroth, No Compromise Radio. Today I am going to talk about something that you're going to think, uh-oh, he's bought into all the Thomas Aquinas stuff.

He's not really a Protestant. He's pushing Roman Catholicism. This is the end of No Compromise Radio. And I say, say what? No, of course not. You're like, what's going on here? Now that is actually true, but I'm going to read a letter today from Pope Leo the first.

What do you think of that? That's the show. Welcome to No Compromise Radio. Leo, Pope Leo the first letter to Flavian of Constantinople. That's what I'm going to read. And it's called The Tome, T-O-M-E, of Leo.

Why would I read that? Why would I read that? Well, this letter talks about the two natures of Jesus Christ, truly human, truly divine. And this has the backdrop of the Council of Chalcedon in 451, the person of Christ.

And so what we're going to do today is I'm going to read this. And of course, not everything that Rome teaches is wrong. The Reformers were not trying to reform the Trinity or something like that, the teaching of the Trinity.

And I just want you to hear what's going on here, not because I'm promoting Roman Catholicism. You already know what I think about that. If you start mixing grace and merit and grace and works and have seven sacraments and grace is a substance or a medicine, I mean, the list can go on and on and on and on, right?

The five solas they deny, justification by faith alone, right? Your anathema, if you believe that. I'm not trying to do any of that. I'm just trying to say, if they're right on the two natures of Christ, then they're right on the two natures of Christ.

And I want you to see that in the tome of Leo. So, I'm going to skip the first paragraph and go to paragraph two concerning the twofold nativity and nature of Christ. So, what you do is you listen and you say to yourself, huh, that's true.

If it's true, it's true, right? If a Catholic can read the Nicene Creed or the Apostles' Creed and say they agree with that, well, that doesn't mean the Nicene Creed's wrong, is it? Anyway, the tome of Leo, not knowing therefore what he was bound to think concerning the incarnation of the word of God and not wishing to gain the light of knowledge by researches through the length and breadth of the holy scriptures, he might at least have listened attentively to that general and uniform confession whereby the whole body of the faithful confess they believe in God, the father almighty, and in Jesus Christ, his only son, our Lord, who was born of the Holy Spirit and the Virgin Mary.

By which three statements, the devices of almost all heretics are overthrown. For not only is God believed to be both almighty and father, but the son is shown to be co-eternal with him, differing in nothing from the father, because he is God from God, almighty from almighty, and being born from the eternal one is co-eternal with him, not later in point of time, not lower in power, not unlike in glory, not divided in essence.

But at the same time, the only begotten of the eternal father was born eternal of the Holy Spirit and of the Virgin Mary. Now, once in a while, like basic briefings, I give my little comments, and if you say father, son, father beginning, but you say eternal father, there's never a time in there that somehow the son wasn't, and the father was, and the eternal son, he's eternal.

So, when we say even things like the eternal council of redemption, this eternal covenant, they didn't sit down, father, son, and spirit, and hash something out. It's an eternal covenant. And this nativity which took place in time took nothing from and added nothing to that divine and eternal birth, but expended itself wholly on the restoration of the man who had been deceived, in order that he both might vanquish death and overthrow by his strength the devil who possessed the power of death.

For we, now it's time to turn the page, should not now be able to overcome the author of sin and death unless he took on our nature on him and made it his own, whom neither sin could pollute nor death retain.

Doubtless then, he was conceived of the Holy Spirit within the womb of his virgin mother, who brought him forth without the loss of her virginity, even as she conceived him without its loss. Like, see, I told you, I didn't say everything was perfect in that thing.

I said, I'm reading the Dome of Leo. But if he could not draw a rightful understanding of the matter from this pure source of the Christian belief, because he had darkened the brightness of the clear truth by a veil of blindness, particular to himself, he might have submitted himself to the teachings of the gospels.

So, the background is there was a guy who didn't believe this, right? Eutychius has been driven into his error by presumption and ignorance. That's the first paragraph. So, that's what the backdrop is here.

Basically, he should be reading the gospels. A lot of problems could be solved that way. It is 91 degrees outside today, and within a few hours, it's going to be 57. It's a crazy world. And when Matthew speaks of the book of the generation of Jesus Christ, the son of David, the son of Abraham, he might have also sought out the instruction afforded by the statements of the apostles.

And after reading in the epistles to the Roman, into the Romans, Paul, a servant of Jesus Christ called an apostle separated under the gospel of God, which he had promised before by his prophets in the holy scripture concerning his son, who is made unto him of the seed of David and after the flesh.

He might have bestowed a loyal carefulness upon the pages of the prophets and finding the promise of God who says to Abraham in thy seed shall all nations be blessed. To avoid all doubt as to the reference of the seed, he might have followed the apostle when he says to Abraham where the promise is made and to his seed.

He saith not unto seas as if many, but as it in one unto thy seed, which is Christ. Isaiah's prophecy also, he might have grasped by a closer attention to what he says, behold, a virgin shall conceive and bear a son and they shall call his name, Emmanuel, which has interpreted God with us.

And the same prophet's word, he might have read faithfully. I like the way they go after people. A child is born to us. A son is given to us whose power is upon his shoulder and they shall call his name, the angel of the great council, wonderful counselor and mighty God, prince of peace, father of the age to come.

And then he would not speak so erroneously as to say that the word became flesh in such a way that Christ born of the virgin's womb had the form of man, but had not the reality of his mother's body. Or is it possible that he thought our Lord Jesus Christ was not of our nature for this reason, that the angel who sent to the blessed Mary ever virgin says, ever virgin.

Well, she was a virgin until she had other children when they were conceived. The holy ghost shall come upon thee and the power of the most high shall overshadow thee. And therefore that holy thing also shall be born of these shall be called the son of God on the supposition that as the conception of the virgin was a divine act, the flesh of the conceived did not partake of the conceiver's nature, but that birth so uniquely wondrous and so wondrously unique is not to be understood in such wise that the properties of this, his kind were removed through the novelty of creation for though the holy spirit imparted fertility to the virgin, yet a real body was received from her body and wisdom building her a house.

The word became flesh and dwelt in us. That is in that flesh, what he took from man and what she quickened with the breath of a higher life. Well, how are we doing so far? It keeps going. I want this show to be better.

Yeah. Paragraph three, the faith and counsel of God in regard to the incarnation of the word are set forth without detriment. Therefore to the properties of either nature and substance, which then came together in one person, majesty took on humility, strength, weakness, eternity, mortality, and for the pain off of the debt belonging to our condition and valuable nature was united with passable nature so that as suited the needs of our case, the one and same mediator between God and men, the man, Christ Jesus could both die with the one and not die with the other.

Okay, now we're getting better. Thus in the whole and perfect nature of true man was true God born complete in what was his own complete in what was ours. And by ours, we mean what the creator formed in us from the beginning and what he undertook to repair it for what the deceiver brought in and man deceived committed had no trace in the savior nor because he partook of man's weaknesses.

He did therefore share our faults. He took the form of a slave without stain of sin, increasing the human and not diminishing the divine because that emptying of himself, whereby the invisible made himself visible and creator and Lord of all things, though he be wished to be a mortal was the bending down of pity, not the failing of power.

Accordingly, he who, while remaining in the form of God made man was also made man in the form of a slave for both natures retained their own proper character without loss. And as the form of God did not do away with the form of the slave, so the form of the slave did not impair the form of God for in as much as the devil used to boast that man had been cheated by his guile into losing the divine gifts and bereft of the boon of immortality had undergone sentence of death and that he had found some solace in his troubles from having a partner in delinquency.

And that God also at the demand of the principle of justice had changed his own purpose toward man whom he created in such honor. There was need for the issue of a secret council that the unchangeable God who cannot be robbed of its own kindness might carry out the first design of his fatherly care toward us by a more hidden mystery.

And that man who had been driven into his fault by the treacherous cunning of the devil might not perish contrary to the purpose of God. Mike Gabendroth, No Compromise Radio. I am reading the Tome of Leo.

Have you ever heard such a thing? The Tome of Leo? Here we have this controversy and the creed says, believe in God, the Father Almighty, and in Jesus Christ, his only Son, our Lord, who was born of the Holy Ghost and the Virgin Mary.

And if you believe those, the engines of almost all the heretics are shattered, as another translation would put it. Both natures of Christ maintained, both met in one person. He, Jesus, God-man, is the appropriate remedy for our ills, Leo says.

Isn't that interesting? The infancy of the babe is exhibited by the humiliation of swaddling clothes. The greatness of the highest is declared by the voice of angels. This is amazing to just sit and think and work through the text of the Tome of Leo.

You can find it in Latin if you like. And what's amazing is not the tome, right? You're going to disagree with certain things in there, minor things here or there. You know, it's written by a Pope. But the nature of Christ himself, the nature itself of Christ himself.

I'm up to number four, the properties of the twofold nativity and the nature of Christ are weighed one against the other. There enters then these lower parts of the world, the Son of God, descending from his heavenly home and not yet quitting his Father's glory, begotten in a new order by a new nativity, in a new order, not because being invisible in his own nature, he became visible in ours.

And he whom nothing could contain was content to be contained. Abiding before all time, he began to be in time, the Lord of all things. He obscured his immeasurable majesty and took on him the form of a servant, being God that cannot suffer.

He did not disdain to be man that can, man that can, and immortal as he is to subject himself to the laws of death. The Lord assumed his mother's nature without her faultiness. Really? I don't know if later Catholics believe that, but Leo the Tomer did.

Nor in the Lord Jesus Christ, born of the virgin's womb, does the wonderfulness of his birth make his nature unlike ours. That's excellent. Don't you like that? Nor does the wonderfulness of his birth make his nature unlike ours, for he who is true God is also a true man.

And in this union, there is no lie, since the humanity of manhood and the loftiness of the Godhead both met there. For as God is not changed by the showing of pity, so man is not swallowed up by the dignity.

For each form does what is proper to it with the cooperation of the other, that is, the word performing what appertains to the word, and the flesh carrying out what appertains to the flesh. One of them sparkles with miracles, the other succumbs to his injuries.

And as the word does not cease to be on an equality with his Father's glory, so the flesh does not forgo the nature of our race. For it must again and again be repeated that one and the same is truly son of God and truly son of man.

God, and that it was in the beginning was the word, and the word was with God, and the word was God. Man, and that the word became flesh and dwelt in us. God, and that all things were made by him, and without him nothing was made.

Man, and that he was made of a woman, made under law. The nativity of the flesh was manifestation of the human nature. The child bearing of the Virgin is proof of divine power. The infancy of a babe is shown in humbleness of its cradle.

The greatness of the Most High is proclaimed by the angel's voices. He whom Herod treacherously endeavors to destroy is like ourselves in our earliest stage. But he whom the magi delight to worship on their knees is Lord of all.

So too, when he came to the baptism of John, his forerunner, lest he should not be known through the veil of flesh, which covered his deity, the Father's voice thundering from the sky said, this is my beloved son in whom I am well pleased.

And thus him whom the devil's craftiness attacks as man, the ministries of angels serve as God. To be hungry and thirsty, to be weary and to sleep is clearly human. But to satisfy 5 ,000 men with five loaves and to bestow on the woman of Samaria living water, droughts of which can secure the drinker from thirsting anymore, to walk upon the surface of the sea with feet that do not sink and to quell the risings of the waves by rebuking the winds is without any doubt divine.

Just as therefore to pass over many other instances. It is not part of the same nature to be moved to tears of pity for a dead friend. And when the stone that closed the four days grave was removed, to raise that same friend to life with a voice of command or to hang on the cross and turning day to night to make all the elements tremble or to be pierced with nails and yet open the gates of paradise to the robber's faith.

So it is not part of the same nature to say, I am the father or one and to say the father is greater than I. For although in the Lord Jesus Christ, God and man is one person, yet the source of the degradation, which is shared by both is one and the source of glory, which is shared by both is another.

For his manhood, which is less than the father comes from our side. His Godhead, which is equal to the father comes from the father. I came here with no compromise radio, two natures of Jesus, human and divine.

And if you get that right, you get a lot of things right. And the Jehovah's witnesses come to you, come to the door. Well, the father is greater than I said, Jesus. So see you're, you're worshiping a lesser God.

You're worshiping a God. Who's not as great as the father. And Jesus must be some created being or a little God or a God or something like that. No, Jesus knows his human nature is less than the father's divine nature.

That's all it means. You can't have that talk without the incarnation in the eternal Godhead. No one's greater because we have one God, one will, one essence, one nature, three persons. What are we going to do?

Have one greater than the other. Now we're going to be tritheists. We're going to be monadists or something. Today is the tome of Leo. I wanted to say the poem of Teal number five, paragraph five, Christ's flesh has proven real from scripture.

I wonder what number six is going to be. Therefore in consequence of this unity of person, which is to be understood in both natures, we read of the son of man also descending from heaven. When the son of God took flesh from the virgin who bore him.

And again, the son of God is said to have been crucified and buried. Although it was not actually in his divinity whereby the only begotten is co-eternal and co-substantial with the father, but in his weak human nature that he suffered these things.

And so it is that in the creed also, we confess that the only begotten son of God was crucified and buried according to that saying of the apostles. For if they had known they would have never crucified the Lord of glory.

But when our Lord and savior himself would instruct his disciples faith by his questionings, he said, whom do men say that I am the son of man. And when they had put on record the various opinions of other people, he said, but ye whom do you say that I am me?

That is who am the son of man. That's I read that correctly. And whom he see in the form of slave and in true flesh, whom do you say that I am? Whereupon blessed Peter, whose divinely inspired confession was destined to profit all nations said, thou art the Christ, the son of the living God.

And not undeservedly was he pronounced blessed by the Lord, drawing from the chief cornerstone, the solidity of power, which his name also expresses. He who through the revelation of the father confessed him to be at once Christ and son of God, because the receiving of one of these without the other was of no avail to salvation.

And it was equally perilous to have believed the Lord Jesus Christ to be either only God without man or only man without God. But after the Lord's resurrection, which of course was of his true body because he was raised the same as he died and had been buried, what else was affected by the 40 days delaying than the cleansing of our faith's purity from all darkness?

For to that end, he talked with his disciples and dwelt and ate with them. He allowed himself to be handled with diligent and curious touch by those who were affected by doubt. He entered when the doors were shut upon the apostles and by his breathing upon them, gave them the Holy Spirit and bestowing on them, the light of understanding opened the secrets of the Holy scriptures.

So again, he showed the wound in his side, the marks of the nails and all the signs of his quite recent suffering saying, see my hands and feet that it is I handle me and see that the spirit has not flesh and bones as you see me have.

In order that the properties of his divine human nature might be acknowledged to remain still inseparable and that we might know the work, excuse me, might know the word not to be different from the flesh and such a sense also to confess that the one son of God is both word and flesh.

Of this mystery of faith, your opponent Eutychius must be reckoned to have little sense if he has recognized our nature and the only begotten of God, neither through the humiliation of having his dying, nor through the glory of his rising again, nor has he any fear of the blessed apostle and evangelist John's declaration.

When he says every spirit, which confesses Jesus Christ to have come in the flesh is of God and every spirit, which destroys Jesus is not of God and this is antichrist. But what is to destroy Jesus except to take away the human nature from him and to render void the mystery by which alone we are saved by the most bare faced fictions.

Now that's no go worthy. The truth is that being in darkness about the nature of Christ's body, he must also be be fooled by the same blindness in the matter of sufferings. For if he does not think the cross of the Lord fictitious and does not doubt that the punishment he underwent to save the world is likewise true, let him acknowledge the flesh of him whose death he already believes and let him not disbelieve him, man with a body like ours, since he acknowledges him to have been able to suffer.

Seeing the denial of his true flesh is also a denial of his bodily suffering. If therefore he receives the Christian faith and does not turn away his ears from the preaching of the gospel, let him see that what was the nature that hung pierced with nails on the wooden cross.

And when the side of the crucified was opened by the soldier's spear, let him understand whence it was blood and water flowed, that the church of God might be watered from the fount and from the cup. Let him also hear the blessed apostle Peter proclaiming that the sanctification of the spirit takes place through the sprinkling of Christ's blood and let him not cursory read the same apostles word when he says, knowing that not with corruptible things, such as silver or gold, you have been redeemed from your vain manner of life, which is part of your father's tradition, but with the precious blood of Jesus Christ as of lamb without spot and blemish.

Let him not resist to the witness of the blessed apostle John, who says, and the blood of Jesus, the son of God cleanses us from all sin. And again, this is the victory, which overcometh the world, our faith, and who is he that overcometh the world save he that believeth that Jesus is the son of God by the water and blood, not only the water, this is he that came by water and blood, Jesus Christ.

And it is the spirit that testify because the spirit is truth, because there are three that bear witness, the spirit, the water and a blood and the three are one, the spirit that is of sanctification and the blood of redemption, the water of baptism, because the three are one and remain undivided.

And none of them is separated from this connection because the Catholic church, small C lives and progresses by this faith. So that in Christ Jesus, neither the manhood without the true Godhead or the Godhead without the true manhood is believed in.

Well, my name is Mike Gabendroth. Today we were talking about the tome of Leo and with some exceptions here or there in terms of the doctrine, they had, Leo had right that there is two natures and you can't blend them together, but they're both in one person.

And that is the Christian faith. That's the Catholic faith. That's the faith we confess. Well, my name is Mike Gabendroth, no compromise right here. You can write me Mike at no compromise, radio .com.

I promise not to read any more things from Pope's for 15 more years.