On the Journey with Matt and Ken - Episode 31: A Damning System of Works Righteousness, Part XV

these things might be easier if it wasn't william shakespeare writing him down you know the language is just not modern language he was able to make him stand who stands that he may stand i don't know you know what he's saying he's saying the gift of perseverance can only come from god but only god can make us stand yeah i went through the department of redundancy department before it got to us [Applause] [Music] well hello and welcome to another root and tootin episode of on the journey i'm matt swaim along with my colleague ken hensley he's a former baptist pastor i used to play in bands and open for your favorite youth group coffee house check us out at chnetwork.org subscribe to our channel and let us know if you have any questions or interest in things that we're discussing we would love to hear from you as it pertains to our conversations particularly the one we've been on for about 15 weeks now concerning justification and solafidae so ken last time around we talked about conversion as an event justification as an event and today we're talking about it as a process yeah and i want to encourage those listening those viewing uh to go back and check out the entire series you know like i think you mentioned we're like 15 deep into this series on sola fide now and so there's a lot of background we have no ability to summarize each time where we've come and and all of that and what we're doing last week and this week is we're walking through the decree concerning justification from the sixth session of the council of trent in 1547 we already spent many many weeks critiquing the reformed doctrine of justification by faith alone and now we're in the process of presenting the catholic view now trent as most of us probably know was the counter reformation council that met in northern italy between 1545 and 1563 to deal with the issues that were raised by the protestant movement there were important moral and clerical reforms that needed to be made and that were made at the council of trent but the church also wanted to clarify and state clearly its own doctrinal teaching in response to the teaching of luther and calvin melanthon buser and the other protestant leaders and for context ken this takes place about 30 years after martin luther posts his 95 theses in 1517 and it goes on for some 17 years and in the course of all that europe is at war there are a bajillion wars breaking out all over europe there are new uh reformers popping up all the time starting new movements and so you might say to yourself why is this a council that lasts 17 years well the church is dealing with a lot and responding to a hundred things at once yeah and it wasn't meeting continually for 17 years it was meeting in sessions and its discussion of justification came from the sixth session which is 1547 which is what we're looking at but you're entirely right i mean christendom is coming unglued at the time when this council is meeting to try and deal with all the issues that were being raised now last week we worked through the first eight chapters of trent's decree concerning justification and we focused on justification as an event this week we're going to focus on the remaining chapters of this decree and on justification as a process and to kind of use the typology of the exodus you and i have been talking about the fact that the exodus story functions as a type in the old testament of the new testament teaching on salvation and i'll put it like this if the event of justification that we covered last week beginning with god's reaching out to us with his predisposing quickening helping grace and leading us to baptism where we are regenerated if we want to view this as the event of justification where a decisive break paul tells us in romans 6 was made with our past if this can be likened to the events leading up to the israelites crossing of the red sea where the decisive break with their past was made well then the process of justification should be likened to the israelites journey through the desert to their inheritance in the land of promise which is where we're at today and in their case god gave them everything they needed to make this journey is an important point because it's all of grace god gave them everything they needed what the israelites were called to do was simply trust god and avail themselves of the grace that he gave them and persevere in this to the end and as we're going to see it's the same for you and me it is and ken i've referred a number of times through the course of this series back to paul thigpen's article that's available on chnetwork.org it's called are you saved a catholic response to a common protestant question and he uses the analogy of a lifeboat say your ship is sinking somebody picks you up in a lifeboat at that moment you are saved but in a sense you're not completely saved until that lifeboat gets you to the shore so the same thing happens with the israelites they're saved in that moment when yeah after the passover they come through the red sea but there's a process by which they have to get to the promised land yeah you can say they're saved at that point because you know pharaoh and his horses and his chariots are all drowned in the water there there's this decisive break that has occurred between the life they have now free men and women under god led by the spirit of god and the life they had before as slaves and that's the same with us yeah when you get in the lifeboat you could say you're saved and then as you're heading toward the shore or you're being saved and when you get to the land you are saved unless you look back and there's a tsunami chasing you in which case you're not saved until you climb up the hill and get above the water but yeah an event and a process okay now looking at trend in chapters 9 and 12 of the decree concerning justification trent issues a warning and i'm quoting now against the vain confidence of heretics and you know who they're who they're referring to there anyway this is what it says for as no pious person ought to doubt the mercy of god the merit of christ and the virtue and efficacy of the sacraments so each one when he considers himself and his own weakness may have fear and apprehension concerning his own grace since no one can know with a certainty of faith which cannot be subject to error that he has obtained that he has obtained the grace of god now this is written in response to the reformers who were teaching who had been teaching the justification is by faith alone matt and that from the moment of faith you should have perfect certainty that you are saved and in fact if you don't have perfect certainty that you're saved effectively you are doubting the mercy of god effectively you're denying that christ's redemption is efficacious in a sense you are slapping god in the face you're saying it's nice that you died for my sins but there's some things that i'm going to do to get my name in the ring so when the credits roll my name is in them yeah and that's the distinction that needs to be made the council's response really is to make a distinction and to say while we should certainly have no doubt about the mercy of christ and no doubt about the efficacy of christ's redemption it's another matter it's another issue to know with certainty that we have become partakers of this redemption and and of course you know there are a number of new testament passages to support what the council is saying here i well i'll read a couple i think immediately of first john chapter 2 verse 3 where we read by this we may be sure that we know him if we keep his commandments i mean what is that saying except if we don't keep his commandments we can't be sure or 2 28 quoting and now little children abide in him so that when he appears we may have confidence and not shrink back in shame at his coming or chapter 3 verses 18 and 19 where john writes little children let us not live in word or let us not love in word or speech but in deed and in truth by this we shall know that we are of the truth and reassure our hearts before him there are so many passages just one more paul in first corinthians 10 i'm reminded of this one where paul writes i want you to know brethren he's writing to the christians in corinth our fathers were all under the cloud they all passed through the sea they were all baptized into moses and the cloud and the sea they all had supernatural food they all had supernatural drink remember this these are the israelites on the road to the promised land nevertheless with most of them god was not pleased for they were overthrown in the wilderness now these things paul says happened to them as a warning and they were written down for our instruction therefore let anyone who has the vain confidence that trent's talking about but anyone who thinks he stands take heed lest he fall i don't know how anybody reads that verse let anyone who thinks that he stands take heed lest he fall and how anybody can read that verse and and still hold to once saved always saved because paul is very clearly saying don't just ride on your don't be like pabst blue ribbon riding on that one award that you got 125 years ago right you got to stick with it yeah and once they've always saved this is an issue that we're going to come to in a few minutes but just looking at the assurance side i don't know how anybody can read this and say as a christian i should have perfect certainty that i will never fall i mean clearly assurance that christ is merciful assurance that his redemption is efficacious this is different than assurance that i will be saved by it but the only assurance you can have is that jesus is telling the truth about what we need to do you can have complete and total assurance than that and here's the curious thing okay you know i come from the reformed tradition the curious thing is even the most committed calvinist knows that he has no absolute assurance of his own salvation after all and i mean i can repeat this as though i still know it inside and out while the calvinist believes that those who have been justified by faith alone will certainly be saved the calvinist also believes that those whom god justifies by faith alone he also regenerates and that the evidence of having been born again the evidence of being regenerated is that we will live a life of obedience to christ and because of this if you find yourself as a calvinist if you find yourself over time not living a life of obedience to christ you begin to wonder not whether your salvation could be lost again that's a subject we're going to come to but you begin to wonder whether you have it yeah what are you doing in the first place right yeah if you were just fooling yourself the whole time yeah if if you had what considered counterfeit faith here's how luther put it i'm quoting luther now as we have seen however righteousness and certainty of salvation once experienced lead with inner necessity to works to new obedience and to joyfully serving god by serving the neighbor these works are born of faith if faith is the actual basis of the work then the work becomes the basis for knowing that we have faith there there's the issue of assurance such a basis is needed luther continues because not everyone that claims to be to be in the faith or that claims to have faith is genuine faith there is an imagined and counterfeit faith okay and i can't tell you i've read a lot of puritan sermons and i can't tell you how many puritan sermons and they were totally calvinist calvinist to the bone how many puritan sermons i have read where the preacher began quoting second corinthians 13 5 and challenging pounding on his hearers quoting paul examine yourselves to see whether you are in the faith test yourselves do you not realize that jesus christ is in you unless indeed you fail the test so this is where calvinism becomes a horrible horrible just brain game because think about it let's say you're a teenage boy who committed to christ at age seven in bible school and then the teenage hormones hit and you start you know going down all kinds of roads and you know you struggle with sin of any kind you know as you're trying to figure out what it's like to live in this adult body that you're in are you starting to think to yourself this whole time oh my gosh i've been fooling myself from age 7 to 17 thinking i was saved when it's clear from the way that i'm living my life and the things that i'm tempted to do that i am not saved and i was never meant to be saved yeah yeah yeah and if i'm a calvinist teenager then i'm thinking to myself well i know that salvation can't be lost i know that those who have been justified by faith alone will certainly be saved and therefore maybe all this time i thought i have faith i had faith i haven't had it and then it leads to the further mind game well then if i repent now and i come back to faith how do i know this faith will be the real faith you know it it yeah it's a it's a tangled web and in fact matt i remember saying to my congregation one time as i was preaching through this issue of assurance i remember saying to them okay i look like i'm living a christian life now but imagine that i fall into some serious sin over time and imagine that i turn away and imagine that the time comes when i don't even want to call myself a christian anymore okay imagine that some of you are going to say some of you that are more more calvinistic are gonna say see ken never really had faith it was counterfeit and those of you that are more like a methodist known arminian are gonna say see salvation can be lost yeah and that's obviously the the road that i would go down is saying yes you can lose your salvation as a good wesley in armenian especially a holiness movement one that's that's the line i would have taken yeah but the point is whether you're a calvinist or an armenian there there's no assurance there's no certainty that any particular person has faith and will persevere to the end okay so let's move on to chapter 10 though in in chapter 10 of the uh the decree concerning justification the council makes the point that our justification or our righteousness need to understand these words are interchangeable our justification our righteousness is something that can increase and i'm quoting again from the council of trent now having therefore thus been justified and made friends of god advancing from virtue to virtue they are renewed as the apostle says day by day that is mortifying the members of their flesh putting to death sin in their lives and presenting them as instruments of righteousness unto sanctification they through the observance of the commandments of god and of the church faith cooperating with good works increase in that justification received through the grace of christ and are further justified there's the lifeboat there's the process kind of issue now i got to tell you too i mean i still remember it so clearly this idea of increasing and justification matt i mean this was an idea that just sounded positively weird to my protestant ears and the reason it sounded weird is because i was so used to thinking of justification in purely forensic courtroom kinds of terms you know i thought of justification as the legal crediting of christ's righteousness to my account a courtroom situation and so how can one increase in justification when justification is understood in forensic terms but as soon as i understood and this is an important point as soon as i understood that catholicism often uses the term justification as i used the term sanctification then this was no longer an issue because of course i believed that in christ we are renewed day by day as we grow in grace as we put sin to death in our lives as we walk according to spirit of course i believed that in this process of being transformed see which i put under the umbrella of sanctification i believe that in this process of being transformed into the image of christ of course i believe that we receive more grace as we respond to what we've been given and that we increase in holiness or increase in righteousness but i just thought that had nothing to do with justification and so the language sounded weird to me well that idea of an increase in justification might have sound weird sounded weird to your calvinist forensic minded theological perspective but did it sound weird to you as a married man the idea that you know yes you have that bond but you increase in that bond as you grow together it's it's this this thing that just continues to happen and grow and and and for deeper and more meaningful reasons than you ever thought imaginable as it continues and what is the analogy that is used so often especially in the new testament but all even in the old testament is it the forensic example that we're given for god's relationship with his people or is it the marital example that we're given for god's relationship with this movie no yeah the marital relationship that is always put forth as the model when the israelites disobey they're not he's not like your bad kids or you're unlawful citizens he says you're an unfaithful spouse yeah that's a great that's a great point to make and a great analogy um because when we were looking in the old testament we saw that you know legal imputation was never referenced it was always i will change your heart so that you will love me and you will you know be awake in accordance with my commandments it was always a real thing and yeah what i'm saying here though is that yeah when i thought of sanctification as a as a protestant i believed all these things that trent is saying i believe that we increase in holiness that we grow as we tre as we learn to trust christ and walk in obedience and put sin to death i believed all that but i put that all under the umbrella of sanctification and so the language sounded weird when trent was saying we increase in justification until i understood that justification and sanctification are words that are used almost interchangeably at times within catholic theology okay a great illustration okay now um in chapter 11 and we're going to tie all this together at the end if it sounds like a bunch of disparate ideas we're just following trend in chapter 11 we learned that christians are obligated to keep the commandments of god and that because of god's grace working within us we have the ability to keep the commandments of god quoting now from trent again but no one should consider himself exempt from the observance of the commandments no one should use that rash statement that the observance of the commandments of god is impossible for one that is justified for god does not command impossibilities but by commanding god it admonishes thee to do what thou canst and to pray for what thou canst not and aids thee that thou mayest be able and if i could paraphrase this old language he's simply saying that when god commands us to obey his commandments he's admonishing us to do what we can he's admonishing us to pray for what we can't do or we have a hard time doing and he's reminding us that he will aid us along the way so that we will be able to do it there's a great quote from saint elizabeth ann seton that kind of illustrates uh her a prayer of hers in this regard she says uh oh lord forgive what i have been correct what i am and direct what i shall be and that's kind of it right that's the idea that why would you even ask if you didn't think god was capable of transforming you and giving you the grace to do the things that he's actually asking of you yes and and when the reading between the lines and you don't even need to read it between the lines but but the council is responding to the protestant teachers right and one of the things the protestant teachers were saying is that when god commands us to keep his commandments he's he's he's commanding us to perfectly keep them and we can't do that so forget that route we can't do it perfectly so forget that route and it's making the point that the council and that god isn't talking about perfection the council's not talking about perfection when it says that we are obligated as christians to keep the commandments of god and that god gives us the ability in fact the council is not saying anything other than what you and i saw the old testament prophets to be saying when they looked forward to the new covenant deuteronomy 30 verse 6 the lord your god will circumcise your heart and the heart of your offspring so that you will love the lord your god with all your heart and with all your soul that you may live when moses said this moses wasn't saying hey god's going to circumcise your heart and you will be perfectly holy and and thought word indeed from that moment on he's not saying that he's speaking about something else and ezekiel said the same thing when he said i will give you a new heart and i'll put a new spirit within you i'll remove your heart of stone i'll put my spirit within you and lead you cause you to follow in my decrees he's not saying perfection although we will have perfection when it's all through when we reach the shore he's not saying that and that's not what the council is saying the council is saying though that god commands us to keep his commandments sounds repetitive and that god gives us the ability to keep them yeah it's a great a great little line you know to do what you can pray for what you can't and uh you know ask for god to do what his he needs to do to get you from point a to point b and you do what you can in the process this is a cooperation again this is not forensic justification is maybe one way of looking at it but i see relationship i see fatherhood as such a better analogy i see a spousal understanding it's such a better way of explaining what this looks like yeah and you know it's the i'm so tempted so often to go off on long tangents and i'll make it a short tangent but but the whole forensic thing the whole legal thing the whole courtroom thing it it gets you tangled up in this way of thinking where where it it just goes like this man it says look god is perfectly holy so if you're going to obey the commandments in order to please god you have to obey them perfectly you can't obey them perfectly so it's as though you obey them not at all and that's why you need perfect righteousness legally credited to your account now see catholicism just doesn't look at it that way at all you know god is god it is true that god is perfectly holy and it's true that god is commanding holiness and it's true that we will be perfectly holy when we're in heaven but that doesn't mean that god isn't working with us here to forgive our failures to give us his grace to give us his aid to walk in obedience to him and help and help us to person it's a whole different thing it's a relationship as you're saying and um and in fact next week what we're going to talk about is justification as adoption justification as sonship as divine sonship and we'll be focused entirely on that okay let's move to chapter 13 because i realize that we're going to go long if we don't in chapter 13 the council expands on this idea affirming that our ability as christians to br to persevere in faith and obedience to the end is as well a gift of god's grace so god gives us the grace to obey him now we're reading god gives us the grace to persevere in faith and obedience to the end quoting from trent with regard to the gift of perseverance notice they call it a gift it cannot be obtained from anyone except from him who is able to make him stand who stands that he may stand perseveringly and to raise him who falls okay it might be you know these things might be easier if it wasn't william shakespeare writing him down you know the language is just not modern language who is able to make him stand who stands that he may stand i don't know you know what he's saying he's saying the gift of perseverance can only come from god but only god can make a stand yeah i went through the department of redundancy department before it got to us so yes and it's only god that can raise us up when we fall so god gives us the grace to trust and obey and now we read that god gives us the grace to persevere to the end it's all god's grace okay now moving forward in chapters 14 and 15 the council steps aside to deal with the issue of those who fall from grace and how they are restored to grace and this is the issue that you brought up a little while ago and i said okay let me state it here we're going to devote an entire episode two weeks from now to this question of can someone can salvation be lost but we're giving it just a touch here to to bring out the context of trent within protestantism i must say there are those that believe that a christian can fall from grace like me that's what i grew up believing as a methodist armenian holiness tradition nazarene all of it okay and there are those who believe that a christian cannot lose one salvation and many of those who believe that a christian cannot lose salvation are not even aware that luther himself the very prince the very king of justification by faith alone luther taught that salvation could be lost through unbelief through the rejection of faith okay but since we do not have enough time today to explore this issue this hotly debated issue an issue that really separates christians very deeply we don't have the time to explore it and to make the case biblical historical case for the church's teaching on it and so what i want to do here is simply describe what trent says that's really all we're going to do and then we're going to come back to it like i said two weeks from now on this subject and and what trent teaches us is that grace that the grace of justification can be lost through what it refers to as mortal sin and that when mortal sin has been committed the grace of justification can be regained through the sacrament of penance quoting from chapter 14 those who through sin have forfeited the received grace of justification can again be justified when moved by god they exert themselves to obtain the sacrament of penance to obtain in the sacrament of penance the recovery by the merits of christ of the grace lost for on behalf of those who fall into sins after baptism christ jesus instituted the sacrament of penance when he said receive ye the holy ghost whose sins you receive they are forgiven them and whose sins you retain they are retained and again i didn't want to attempt to go into a full defense of this very important issue and so we're just hearing trent today and two weeks from now we'll go into more depth okay we're gonna come back and do a full episode but let me just say this though just a touch of an answer many protestants believe that for catholics confession is something mechanical many protestants believe this you know as long as matt swain goes to confession on friday or saturday you know he can sin like a sailor all week long and this is no big deal and so i want our catholic listeners viewers readers as well as protestants to hear what trent goes on to say on this matter because it's very clear quoting now again from trent hence it must be taught that the repentance of a christian after his fall includes not only a determination to avoid sins and a hatred of them or a contrite and humble heart but also the sacramental confession of those sins at least in its desire to be made in its season and sacral absolution as well as satisfaction by fast alms prayers and other devout exercises of the spiritual life in other words according to the church itself a confession that is merely mechanical is a confession in which sins are not forgiven is that clear it's very clear as a matter of fact our lord says you know not everyone who says lord lord to me you know right it's not just a matter of just saying the words and going through the hoops i mean you got to do it for real yeah and there's so many people who think that what the catholic church teaches on this is that it's made that it's mechanical it's like i'm thirsty i just go to the you know drinking fountain and you know fill up my glass and just drink it but what it's saying here is that for it to be real there has to be a firm commitment to not commit the sin again there has to be a full intention to stop sinning and more okay for for it to be real so but we'll come back to the issue of salvation being lost salvation being regained mortal sin venial sin confession we'll we'll come back to that finally in chapter 16 the council teaches us that for those who do persevere eternal life will be their reward a reward of grace quoting to those who work well unto the end and trust in god eternal life is to be offered both as a grace mercifully promised to the sons of god through christ jesus and as a reward promised by god himself to be faithfully given to their good works and merits that word merit i'll tell you what you're going to make some heads explode when you're bringing that one in yeah yeah if you want to watch that that's a good that's a good illustration if you want to watch heads explode you know talk to a protestant and bring up the word merit the immediate response is going to be something like this is exactly why we refer to your system as a damning system of works righteousness this is why how can a christian who knows the grace of god possibly talk about anyone meriting grace or of eternal life being a reward for faithful obedience surely what you're teaching here is a damning system of works righteousness and although i'm giving little previews here three weeks from now we're going to devote an entire episode to this it'll be our final episode on the subject here in in short is how i answer this objection for myself how i answered it to myself and how i answer it to others because this is a big one and this is one that as you said makes heads explode first it's simply a fact that the bible has no problem using the word reward to describe the blessings that god gives to those who trust him and obey him this is important because this is at the heart of it the bible has no problem using the word reward in hebrews chapter 11 verse 16 we read about moses who quote considered abuse suffered for the christ greater wealth than all the treasures of egypt for he was looking to the reward i i find that such an interesting passage it just says flat out the reason moses was willing to leave the family of pharaoh and assad associate himself with these ragtags leaving egypt and crossing the red sea into the desert for 40 years is because he was looking forward to the reward that would come okay jesus constantly used the word reward he spoke of the rewards that god would give to those who were faithful quotation when you give alms jesus said do not let your let do not let your left hand know what your right hand is doing so they are all maybe in secret and your father who sees in secret will what reward you openly and when you pray don't pray out on the streets so that everybody knows go into your closet and pray and the god who sees in secret will reward you in secrecy remember when jesus said i'm quoting again whoever gives to one of these little ones a cup of cold water because he is a disciple truly i say to you he shall not lose his reward it all seems pretty cut and dry and again bear in mind that when jesus is saying uh especially matthew 6 which we always hear on ash wednesday about prayer and fasting and all almsgiving he's not saying don't pray don't fast don't give alms he's saying don't do it for the attention right this goes back to our whole question of like why are you obedient are you obedient so that you can uh you know check a box or get some kind of attention for yourself or are you obedient because this really means something to you and if you are obedient for that reason because it means something because your heart is right if you are then you will be rewarded okay the bible doesn't run from the word reward in fact in colossians 3 23 and 24 paul is talking about how husbands wives mothers fathers slaves masters should relate to one another and he concludes by saying this i'm quoting now from colossians whatever your task in life work heartily as serving the lord and not men knowing that from the lord you will receive the inheritance as your reward and we could go on with other passages but the point i'm making is is this it's simply a fact that jesus and the apostles had no problem using the word reward and here's the key this is all that is meant in catholic theology by the word merit that is what is the quality of an act that merits a reward that that's all it's talking about and why isn't this an abomination to to speak this way why doesn't this open the door to a damning system because it's all of grace as the ability to trust and obey is a gift of god's grace as the ability to persevere is a gift of god's grace so the reward received is a reward of grace saint augustine famously put it like this in his prayer to god putting augustine in crowning their merits that is the merits of his people you crown your own gifts god in crowning their merits you crown your own gifts and that actually that line from augustine is used in the preface for mass on all saints day uh you know that's such a great line right we were talking about all the saints and celebrating them all together and we are talking in the in the mass the eucharistic preface that even their merits are a gift yeah and if we weren't clear on this i mean if this wasn't crystal clear trent puts it like this far be it that a christian should either trust or glory in himself far be it and not in the lord whose bounty toward all men is so great that he wishes the things that are his gifts to be their merits i think about christmas coming up now when i pull money out of my pocket and i give my money to my grandchildren so that they can go to the store if someone takes them and buy me a gift for christmas and then i'll turn around and i will praise them for their generosity and i may even reward them for giving me such a wonderful gift this is what it's like with god and this is what the catholic church teaches on this issue of reward merit and so forth this is how c.s lewis talked about it as well you know if a father gives six pence to his son and the son uses the six pence to go out and buy a present and gives the son or gives the father the present then the father is sixpence none the richer which is of course where the band also got their name from that particular analogy by lewis which is exactly what you're saying as a grandpa it's exactly the same it's not even hard to understand it's not hard to understand okay let's tie this together then in conclusion in our reading of the council of trent's teaching on justification what have we learned about this damning system of works righteousness that we call catholicism well we've learned that it's god's grace that draws us to christ we've learned that it's god's grace that awakens in us faith love the desire to repent hatred of sin we've learned that it's god's grace that washes us clean in the sacrament of baptism that gives us new hearts gives us the holy spirit to cause us to work to walk in god's ways we've learned so far from trent that it's god's grace that enables us to obey the commandments that it's god's grace that restores us when we fall that it's god's grace that gives us the ability to persevere in faith and the obedience of faith to the end and now finally we've learned that it's god's grace that rewards us with eternal life and treats our obedience brought about by grace as though it were our merit and this is such a richer picture of grace than i had understood even as a wesleyan uh doesn't mean that there weren't people who believed this about the nature of grace but the way that i always heard grace talked about practically speaking was it's grace the thing that gets you to heaven instead of hell like it's this operative thing that washes away your sins i didn't see it the way that the church sees it which is the grace is like coming through everything everywhere you look everything is god speaking to you and calling you to you and drawing you and telling him something about himself telling you something about himself and so that all you have to do is just pay like the tiniest bit of intention and you see god in his beauty reaching out to you drawing you to himself yeah and i as you say that i'm i'm remembering that as a protestant not just me but protestants in general would speak of the means of grace and but they would say you know the means of grace are like prayer the means of grace are listening to sermons you know the means of grace are you know various things but but we did speak about means of grace um well in the in the catholic view we're going to see this next week grace is nothing less than god's own divine life being charged into us making us his sons but but i don't want to go forward on that but the point here is this i just summarized everything we talked about last week when we looked at justification as event in trent and this week where we've looked at justification as a process and we've seen that from the beginning to the end it's all grace received through faith and so i just want to conclude by saying some damning system of works i'm sincerely asking the question what makes this a damning system of work so far from what we've seen i mean is it because we're called to respond to god's grace i mean is it because we have to do anything at all um if so was jesus illustrating works righteousness when he commanded the blind man to go and wash in the pool of siloam in order to come up seeing well was peter illustrating a damning system of works righteousness when he said to the crowds on that pentecost on that first pentecost repent and be baptized i mean i'm i'm wondering now as i look back in order for salvation to be by grace alone in the protestants at estimation must we be literally as passive as someone who is thrown off a cliff and finds himself falling at 32 feet per second per second is reading the bible a work ken because apparently you have to read the bible to figure this stuff out is that constitute a work right you know i mean this you can get some serious head games with this you're asking a good question you're asking a good question but that seems to be the implication really on the bottom line is that it's a damning system of works righteousness unless you are utterly and completely passive and there is no there's no assenting with your will to the grace of god there's no cooperation with the grace of god there's nothing you have to do including read your bible i guess or or pray but that's a word to make it that's an act right i mean yeah and so let me just conclude by simply saying that as i read trent justification as an event justification as a process is just one illustration after another of god's grace reaching out to us and our being called as the israelites were to respond to that grace and make our way to the promised land and we're going to continue and ken you've already hinted at at least three work weeks worth of episodes in the course of this conversation we're not done yet um and i always like to point that out when we get to the end of one of these because i know there are people out there who are saying but you didn't talk about this or you didn't talk about that and it's just impossible to talk about all of it in the course of like 40 minutes so go back and watch some of the old episodes hold tight we will get some new episodes that explore this even further but in the meantime if you like what you're hearing or if you're confused or curious or at any have any kind of range of emotions about this discussion then let us know let us hear from you subscribe share this with your friends and visit us at chnetwork.org and join our online community and uh yeah we'd love to love to connect with you even further ken hensley thank you so much always a pleasure we'll talk to you soon [Music] thanks [Music] [Applause] [Music] you

Channel: The Coming Home Network International

Views: 1,817

Rating: 4.9622641 out of 5

Keywords: God, Jesus, Holy Spirit, Prayer, Faith, Religion, Spirituality, Bible Study, Council of Trent, Salvation, Justification, Are you saved, Theology, Philosophy, St. Paul, Corinthians, Reformation, Baptism, Martin Luther, John Calvin, Sacraments, Eucharist, Israelites, Moses, Red Sea, Promised Land, Covenant theology, Sola fide, Faith alone, Once saved always saved, lose your salvation, Baptist, Free Methodist, Wesleyan, Arminian, Calvinist, Fuller Seminary, Asbury College, Asbury University, Nazarene

Id: -PdybMlRrmc

Length: 44min 19sec (2659 seconds)

Published: Wed Dec 02 2020