NICHOLS: Well, our seminar topics were on some
church history figures. We did Thomas Aquinas and Calvin and Jonathan Edwards. We could have
thrown in Augustine, we did also John Gerstner, bringing the Reformed classical tradition right
into the twentieth century. So, I'm going to throw this out to all of you – what is the value of the
Reformed classical tradition for the church today? JONES: Well, I'll begin. I think there's…at a
number of levels it's very helpful. Number one, especially in the West, and when I say in the
West, I mean the American evangelical church, the damage of the Second Great Awakening which I
believe the seeds were planted at the First Great Awakening, took us away from the confessional
standards that may have been more common. And I don't know if people have appreciated, because
if you see the trajectory from the subjectivism that was a part…that defined spirituality after
the First Great Awakening, and so the trajectory goes from these Calvinistic churches, and
everyone talks about the great Calvinistic preaching of Edwards and the Tennents, but it
was the subjectivism that was there, so that true spirituality was not determined by your faith
in the objective work of Christ, but in feelings. So, this whole emphasis on feelings, which
began a trend so that by the time we get to the Second Great Awakening, people forget that
it was actually through a Presbyterian revival, this sort of communion revival, that sparked the
Second Great Awakening. And that opened the door for a lot of unhealthy trends that came to now
redefine American Protestantism, opening the door eventually for dispensational thinking and
the whole bit, so that by the time we get into early twentieth century and…I'm going to even go
into the rise of the charismatic movement by 1960. So, there is such a shift, and by the
way, again, the charismatic revival or the charismatic movement actually has its genesis in
the Episcopal Church. My point being, in spite of the denominational labels, the trends and shifts
that were really defining American Evangelicalism or American Protestantism was far from the
confessions that they would've held to. So, the Dutch Reformed presence in the early
twentieth century, the Presbyterian standards were not the dominant voices of Protestant
Christianity here in America. And so, I think, one of the things that, and this is where R.C.
was, I think a catalyst in reconnecting not just the historically confessional denominations, but
defining Protestantism according to the Reformers. So, I think what the Reformed tradition does is
it brings us back to the standards of the faith. And it brings us back, to even
with our various denominations, it defines the faith where the gospel begins to
make sense. If we understand it in historic terms it makes sense. So, I think the resurgence
that we've seen to whatever degree of Reformational theology in American
Protestantism has not only recovered a sense of faith and reason, but also the objectivity
of the gospel itself, if that makes sense. DOLEZAL: I was waiting for John to go next,
but I think…but he didn't, so I'll go. I think one value of the classical
Reformed tradition to which Dr. Sproul adhered and for which he was such
a great articulator is the catholicity of the faith that is laid claim by that tradition,
and by that I don't mean "big C", Catholic in communion with the Pope of Rome catholicity,
but kind of bread-and-butter broad orthodoxy on doctrines like the incarnation and the Trinity
and even as we were speaking today about original sin, really laying claim to a Christian orthodox
heritage that is older than the Reformation. And I want to say the Reformation itself did that.
The question that Protestants had to answer very early on was, "Where was your church before
Luther? How do we know that this isn't some kind of novel or newfangled sectarianism that
you are introducing?" And that was a was a real crisis that the early Reformation churches had to
face, and the creedal and confessional tradition of the Reformed really were designed in part not
only to say, "Here's how we're distinct from you," but also to say, "Here's what we're not changing
at all, and here are our broad ecumenical creed credentials on which we aren't
compromising in the least." And I think that there is…I think sometimes the
tendency for us nowadays is to look at our various doctrinal statements, or confessions or creeds,
and to really camp out on those things that distinguish us into the narrowest sector possible.
Perhaps, if you held the Second London Confession, you would emphasize excessively church government
and baptism and forget that that really is, in the best sense, an ecumenical and catholic document
really designed to demonstrate not just the particular distinctives of a group, but perhaps
more overtly to emphasize the broad orthodoxy of the group. And I think that's one thing you get
in R.C. Sproul is he brings in names that aren't necessarily household names, and he for many of
us made them household names, names like Augustine or Thomas Aquinas, for which he has a fruitful
appreciation. I think that really shows the nonsectarian nature of
Reformational Christianity. FESKO: Ditto. Amen and Amen, and the only
thing I would add is I often think in pictures and I think it's because you know I tell my
wife I'm dimwitted so I have to think in just, you know, big kinds of things. And so, the way I
illustrate it to my students, as I think we often think of the Reformation as a breakaway branch
from the church, and I would say, "No, Rome is the breakaway branch; we're on the main branch.
And what we did is we reformed, we corrected certain doctrines and teachings, and so we are
catholic with a small "c," as in one holy catholic or one holy universal church. And so, you
have to make use of the wealth of the church. And you know, James joked about this, that
he said that I would provide the exegesis. We'll push him, okay, we'll make him do
this too. But you know, keep in mind when Paul says in Ephesians 4 that in the wake of
Christ's ascension, He gave gifts to the church and that some of those gifts are teachers
and pastors, and that means that teachers in every age of the church are our gifts, and that
means that Augustine, Tertullian, Aquinas, Calvin, they're all ours. And so, we can benefit from them
not blindly; critically, carefully, biblically. DOLEZAL: I had this described to me one time as
the modern penchant for maverick Christianity. Do you remember that the maverick rode alone? And
it's a kind of mentality of me, my Bible, and the Holy Spirit, and that shall be enough for life and
godliness. And it really omits the important place of the church and the cloud of witnesses,
which are those gifts given to the church. We reserve the right to test
all things by Holy Scripture, and yet we're not the first to test things by Holy
Scripture. And what I appreciate about classical Reformational Christianity is a willingness and
a humility to fruitfully enter into a theological examination and contemplation with the history
of the church in those 1500 years before it. And what I often find is that, "Hey, they were
right after all." Kind of entering into their way of thinking, though, I think gives us a
robust and muscular Christianity for today. NICHOLS: Thank you all. I want to go back and
just ask a question of each of you related to your lectures that you gave us earlier. So, for
you Reverend Jones, thank you for that on the "Sovereignty of God," I really appreciate
how you brought that doctrine before us. Many folks within the church wrestle
sometimes with this notion of suffering and sovereignty. Could you just
speak to that for a moment? JONES: Yeah, as I indicated in the message, the
big picture is this, we live in a cursed creation, and God allows us to feel, however progressively,
the fact that as good as things are or can be, it's not what it was created to be from the
beginning. So, suffering should be understood in the same category as sickness in general. The
reason there is sickness is because there is sin. And the mistake is made sometimes that
this sickness is because of this sin. No, the fact of sin is the reason
for sickness. If there is no sin, there is no sickness, and there are no natural
disturbances. So, all of human suffering is really in response to the consequences
of sin in general, not sin in particular. And I think we…I want to make that known over and
over again, because what we'll do is we'll say, we'll look at one particular situation and try to
identify a particular sin as being the cause of it. But the reason for suffering is because of the
fact of sin, and all suffering is in response to either physical or natural responses
or consequences of the curse. So therefore, under God's sovereignty,
because He did not eliminate the human race the day Adam sinned, He allows him
to exist to some degree. And when I say "him," I mean all of humanity in him and then as
we experience it individually. He allows us to experience the consequences of sin as He heads
towards that twofold eschatological purpose, the ultimate condemnation of wicked and the
ultimate redemption of those that He's called. So therefore, suffering is going
to be with us to some degree until the final act of judgment and until the
renewal and the consummation of our redemption. So, there's always going to be that
consequence. And I…we suffer and even in death, you know, we suffer…I like what Paul says to
the Thessalonians, talking about responding to the death of a believer, that we don't sorrow as
those who are without hope. But we still sorrow, you know, because death stings. There is a sting
that's attached to death, even with the knowledge of redemption, even with the knowledge of
the resurrection, death stings because it was intended to sting. And it's to the degree
that we understand the consequences of the curse and what it's leading to, that those that He calls
to salvation in time we now have a greater grasp. Jonathan Edwards says, "Before God
makes men mindful of His mercy, He makes them mindful of their
misery." And so, suffering is with us until the consummation. But in that unfolding
of redemption and that progressive unfolding of the coming condemnation, we will suffer.
But the good news for those who are in Christ is that our suffering, the end of our suffering
is the consummation of God's grace in Christ. The end of the suffering for those who are not
in Christ is a greater degree of condemnation. NICHOLS: Dr. Dolezal, is there a genuine conviction of
"sin is cosmic treason" in the church today? DOLEZAL: In some places, yes. Perhaps in
some places, not. I think one concern that we could raise about that is a tendency
to portray sin primarily in terms of how it affects and hurts us and in our
relationships. And that's undoubtedly true, the reason that that is preached and makes sense
is because we all experience that. Adam and Eve were the first to experience the effects of
sin on human relations, even among themselves. And so, I don't discount that, but I think
the concern I have is that there is almost a predominant horizontal perspective with regard to
sin is primarily that which hurts me and hinders my relationships. And I think sometimes you hear
this, and I need to be very careful saying this, but sometimes you hear this in the language of
sin as brokenness, which is undoubtedly true, but needs qualification, because if brokenness
is kind of isolated as the main thing that's bad about sin it can, perhaps, it doesn't have to,
convey the idea that we are these kind of passive victims of sin. And I think that's the concern I
have sometimes is that we still talk about sin, but we talk about sin as if it's something
outside of us, for which we're not guilty, and it does a lot of bad things to us. And
there's this kind of "we're the victims of something else," when in reality it's our sin
and it's our culpability and high handedness. I think the cosmic dimension is also somewhat
eclipsed, concurrent with the eclipse of a rich understanding of the holiness and the attributes
of God. When we lose sight of the transcendence of God, of the absoluteness of His character,
some of the attributes that were mentioned even earlier this morning and in some of the seminars,
things like God's self-sufficiency or aseity, His simplicity, a strange doctrine
but one that needs a second wind, big-time. Doctrines like divine impassibility,
which sound really odd to modern evangelical ears. These are all doctrines that are designed to
spotlight the otherness and the transcendence and the grandeur of the Divine Being, of the
Creator-creature distinction. As we have sort of eroded the Creator-creature distinction, sin
as cosmic treason starts to get muted and perhaps lost to view. So, I think there's an aspect of
this that isn't about how hamartiology proper, which is the doctrine of sin, it's really a
loosening up in our doctrine of God that has a concurrent effect in our doctrine of sin. And
so we begin to think more horizontally about sin that we do vertically. I think a return
to a classical doctrine of God would bring a return to a strong emphasis upon sin
as cosmic treason sort of in its wake. NICHOLS: Dr. Fesko, you said that you like to
think in pictures, and I now have a picture in my mind of a car going down the road with
an evangelical and a Catholic and kumbaya, and justification gagged in the trunk. I will
never, I will never forget that image so long as I live. You talked about…thank you…you talked
about evangelicals, that's not my question, here's my question, you talked about Evangelicals
and Catholics together, and Dr. Sproul's courageous stand, cost him friendships, that
moment. Since then, many evangelicals have embraced the so-called "New Perspective on
Paul," and just to give you a quick moment here, what is the New Perspective on Paul? FESKO: It goes back to the late seventies when
a scholar by the name of James Dunn wrote an article, and then shortly thereafter another
scholar that you may or may not have heard of, his name is N.T. Wright, he wrote an article,
and the article is called The Paul of Faith vs. The Paul of History. And large in
part he says that the Paul that we have, that we understand, for example in the Reformed
tradition and Reformed confessions is one of faith. In other words, we've kind of created
him, that's not the real Paul. The real Paul, the Paul of history is one that doesn't talk about
the doctrine of justification by faith alone. And in fact, he says that while he does mention
imputation, he says it's a sidelight in Paul's argument in Romans 4 and it's not the main
point that Protestants have overexaggerated and have, you know, taken to extremes. And
what ultimately they say is that we have mischaracterized first-century Judaism
by saying that they're all legalists, and that in first-century Judaism, the Pharisees,
the faith of the Jews, they were about grace. And he has at least historically
claimed that, you know, they were no Pelagians in first century Judaism.
But in all of that, and so that's why he says that it's not about…they're not about works
righteousness, they of course believe in grace, but the way that it goes about is "in by grace,
stay in by works" is the overall argument. Now I'm simplifying a lot, there's
a lot of details to the puzzle, but what my problem with all of this and there
are many, many scholars on the record on this, and there's, you know, a lot of books and
articles that have been written, is that nobody has ever really been worried too much
about Pelagius. It was Charles Hodge who said, "The ghost that haunts the church is the
ghost of semi-Pelagius." In other words, you have to be a pretty, you know, pretty crazy
person to say, "Yeah, Jesus is necessary, maybe. He's kind of optional, you don't really need
Him. You can get by on your own." You've really got to go out on a limb to say that. That's
why there are so few heretics like Pelagius. The bigger problem in the church is
semi-Pelagianism, saying that it's you and Jesus or, as the historic teaching of
the Scriptures as we've codified it in our confessions, and you know, saints throughout the
ages have heralded, is that, "No, it's all Jesus." You know, we're saved by grace alone through faith
alone in Christ alone. And so, long story short, when you look at the way he describes the
first-century Judaism, it looks an awful lot like medieval Roman Catholicism. And so, did Luther
and the Reformers get every single detail about first-century Judaism correct? No, they could use
some improvements here and there. Did they get the gospel right? I think, absolutely. And so that's
in a nutshell what the New Perspective on Paul is. JONES: Let me just add one thing, when
you mentioned semi-Pelagianism, remember R.C. always said "that's Pelagius's first cousin." NICHOLS: And I want to thank you too for taking us to
Zechariah chapter 3, that was very Sproul-esque, and loved the drama of the text.
And there is truly drama there illustrating for us
imputation, thank you for that. We have a few moments here to close, and I'd
like all of you to just maybe think about a particular book of Dr. Sproul's that you would
like to commend and that you found influential and helpful in your own walk. I'm going to take
the classics off the table, so I'm going to take Classical Apologetics off the table. I know that
might be hard for both of you and three of you. I'm going to take Holiness of God off the table,
that's hard for everyone. I'll take Chosen by God off the table for you Reverend Jones, since that
was part of your talk. So, let's take those three off the table, there's still about ninety-eight
left for you to choose from. Which one? JONES: I'm going to say two. NICHOLS: That's okay, you
can do that. We'll let you. JONES: The Priest with Dirty Clothes, which
is based on the Zechariah passage and it's for children, and that to me is very helpful, because
so much of evangelical writing for children, it's childish and it's not Christ-centered.
So, this is doctrine at a child's level, and I love that. But the other one is Now, That's
a Good Question, because it's a book of questions and answers that R.C. has had over the years, and
it's helpful to usually…if you read through it and you deal with unbelievers or people
who are wrestling with different issues in the church, probably a question or one related
to is covered in that book. And R.C. just kind of, in his own way, answers these different
questions about the faith or to the faith, and I think it's good to have on hand to reference
some of the questions that people deal with. NICHOLS: I think it's great you mentioned
that book. I remember Vesta saying when they founded the study center,
they wanted it to be a place where people could come with questions and get
real answers. That's great, thank you. Dr. Fesko? FESKO: There's a lot to choose from obviously, but
I guess one of the ones that sticks out most in my mind is Justification by Faith Alone, which was
kind of right on the heels of ECT. And not only does it bear Dr. Sproul's characteristic clarity,
and if I can use an old word "perspicacity," you know, just the clearness with which he would
teach and speak and write, but he also introduced me to one of my all-time favorites in that book,
Francis Turretin, and just with the razor-sharp distinctions that Turretin makes, that he had a
little chart in there in that book talking about the instrumental cause, the material cause, the
final cause, the formal cause of justification. It just brought so much clarity. And when I teach
the doctrine of justification to my students, I always use that same, you know, that same
heuristic device of material, formal, final, and instrumental cause just to help them see
where exactly Rome and we Protestants differ on the doctrine of justification. And so that, to
me, I think is perhaps one of my favorites if not maybe the favorite, but I know there are so many
others to compete, so I'll put mine on that book. NICHOLS: Great. Thank you. DOLEZAL: I'm going to say two as well. The first
one, The Essential Truths of The Christian Faith. And what I liked about that book
is just the brevity of it. Almost every chapter of the book is two pages in
length, maybe three on a rare occasion. And it's not just my short attention span,
but it's that the space constraints force him to use crisp and tight language on a
wide range of theological topics. And if you were introducing the faith to a high school
or college student who really needed to be brought in on a broad range of Christian doctrines with
real luminosity and Scripture to back it up, The Essential Truths of the Christian
Faith is one that is very helpful. I think in addition to that, because Reverend
Jones picked two so I'll pick two, The Invisible Hand which is his book on divine providence. And
Reverend Jones talked about divine concurrence this morning. A very important aspect of
divine providence is how God works in the work of creatures so that it's not a question
of "Is it God or is it the creature?" but it really is a both-and working in distinct ways
and in non-equal ways in every action. I can admit that I've wrestled with that myself over
the years and found that book very clear on the historic doctrine of concurrence. How
does God work in the work of creatures while still respecting the genuineness of their
activity? The Invisible Hand on divine providence. NICHOLS: You know, we've been talking about the
books here of Dr. Sproul, and for many folks this is how they've come to know Dr. Sproul,
through Renewing Your Mind, through the books. And when you read his books you
feel like you know him. For one, he had so many personal stories, Invisible Hand has so many stories within it. But you folks also
had the opportunity to spend time with Dr. Sproul. So as our final question here, just if
you have a memory of, or an anecdote of, just a time that you spent with Dr. Sproul
that you'd like to share with everyone. JONES: Well, I guess I can start again. It would be just his role as a bridge. I
went to my first Ligonier conference in 1990. And the following year, prior to going to
the conference I was invited by someone on the Ligonier staff to a luncheon. And this was,
the conference was held down in San Diego and I was invited to a conference or a luncheon in
preparation for the conference. And the person that invited me wanted me to meet someone, and the
person they wanted me to meet was Michael Horton. And so, I went to the luncheon, this is in May of
like 1990 or '91, and so I met Mike and the next week I get a phone call from Mike to come and
spend some time with him. He was filling in for a guy named Greg Koukl who had a radio program
in Southern California. So, we spent four hours on the air together after having met to just
change phone numbers, and we became friends. And then one thing that happened with Horton is he was
teaching a theology class in Lynwood, California which is right next to Compton, and so I went
to go hear him teach theology in this area. And I'm like, "Okay, this guy is for real." And so,
we just bonded, and from there R.C. took us on. And I remember the first year, I mean, he embraced
us as a patron. The first year that I spoke at a Ligonier conference, I did a breakout session. But
the opening night, I was asked to introduce R.C., and this is '96, I think. And so, this span from
being just an attendant at a conference to now introducing R.C., I was just overwhelmed. So,
I introduced him and I'm about to walk off the platform after I presented him, and he calls
me back and he puts his arm around my shoulder and he says, "How many of you guys listen
to Renewing Your Mind?" And all the hands went up. "How many of you listen to White Horse
Inn?" Only a few hands went up. "Shame on you." And then he says, "And how many of you read
Tabletalk?" All the hands went up. "How many read Modern Reformation?" Only a few hands went
up. "Shame on you." And then he goes on to plug the White Horse Inn, Modern Reformation. And the next day, they said, "Ken, what happened?"
You know, the next week we're getting all of these calls, at the CUR office, Christians United for
Reformation, and R.C. really stood as our patron. Michael Horton, who I think is one of the foremost
Reformed theologians of this generation. I know James Boyce was significant with him
personally, but with me personally it was R.C. for me, and then what he also did in opening the
door for the younger guys that were coming on, he gave room to us, he gave acceptance to
us even as we went in our own ways. So, I was never…once I met him, I
was never a stranger to him, and I appreciate that. So, there was a bond.
Sometimes people just have public relationships, but he had a commitment to what we were
connected to and he demonstrated that publicly. FESKO: My one story, I guess, spans a couple of decades
and, you know, I can summarize it as succinctly as possible is that, I felt like when I was
going through seminary, I didn't have a mentor. And in fact, most of my professors
were hostile to the Reformed faith. And so, I considered Dr. Sproul a mentor to
me. I would listen to his tapes, you know, audio cassettes. If you don't
know what that is, Google it, and these weren't just the conference tapes
or the popular stuff or the well-known stuff. These were like the history of theology, the
history of philosophy, these were, you know, the old ones I think back from Ligonier Valley.
And so, I felt like I just knew him so well. I would be in the library as a janitor in seminary
listening to Dr. Sproul three to four hours a night, five days a week, and then I'd run out, you
know, call home, "Need more money, send tapes," and you know, and they'd send them in. And
so, but it wasn't just through the tapes, you know. I would write to him and I'd say, "I
know you're going to be in town. Any chance that you can meet for a meal?" And he took the time
to meet with me and my friends. I didn't eat that morning because I didn't have the money for
the buffet because it was too expensive. But my friends ate and then didn't pay, and I was like,
"You guys, I think you just stiffed Dr. Sproul. I hope that he didn't have to pay for that." I was
like, "I'm clean because I didn't eat anything." But then I was getting ready to go to
grad school, I wrote to him, I said, "Is there any possibility I could talk to you
on the phone and ask you some advice?" He took the time out of his busy schedule to talk to
me on the phone for like forty-five minutes, and that's where again, you know, I can't
do as good a voice as Ken did but, you know, his gruff voice, you know, he's like, you know,
"Pack Turretin. Make sure you pack Turretin." And I was like, "Oh, it's already packed,"
you know, it's going be in there. You know, but so I just…over the years he wasn't
just at a distance, but, you know, from time to time he would take that time to,
you know, to reach out personally and to connect. Even when I did a DMin seminar for, I guess,
it was for Ligonier when they had their DMin, he and his wife took me out to dinner and,
you know, they treated me so kindly and were so encouraging. But in all of that, not
only does it always teach me to try to, in a sense, fly as high as I can, to learn as much
as I can, but stay on the ground too and to try to connect with everybody and anybody
and to laugh along the way. One last anecdote. I was at a conference, and I
said, "Hey, Dr. Sproul, have you ever thought of maybe, you know, starting a school
where you would have a degree, and you would call it a defensor fidei," or
something like that, and in his unique way he said, "Young man, did God or Satan
encourage you to ask that question?" And I was terrified. I was like, "Well,
I mean, God, I hope…I don't know!" So that collection of stories, it was just, you
know, it was just, he was always that way and so it encourages me to learn, to pass on the
truth to others and to laugh along the way. DOLEZAL: Maybe to that note, my own personal
interaction, briefly, twenty years ago at a conference, where he gave me some encouraging
words. And then a few years ago, just before he passed away, he invited me down and he and Vesta,
Mrs. Sproul, took me out to dinner. And I was told that I needed to be there at 5 PM sharp. Dr.
Tweeddale ensured that I was there 5 PM sharp, and that this might not be a terribly long meal given
that he needed to rest and his physical condition at the time. We did sit down at 5 PM sharp and
I was, I'll admit that I was a bit intimidated. You cut your teeth on his cassette tapes, and I
cut mine on his VHS tapes. You know, Wednesday night at the church in the summertime when R.C.
was the Wednesday night Bible teacher on VHS, and somebody had to adjust
the tracking. Do you remember? Some of you will never know what tracking is,
but getting the tracking right on the R.C. VHS and being taught the great truths of
the faith, the history of the faith, the biblical foundations of the faith. As
a college student watching the newly minted Dust to Glory lectures which are really, if
you don't know Dust to Glory, a high altitude walk through the entirety of the Scriptures.
During COVID I've been watching that on DVD with our family. During the lockdown, we were locked
down with R.C., which was a real blessing to us. I sat down for 5 PM and thought this was going
to be a short meal, don't overburden him. There was no hope of it that night, we did not walk
out of the restaurant until after 8 PM. It was a full three hours and maybe to echo Reverend
Jones and Dr. Fesko, there was just a great generosity of spirit. I had written some things,
we both had a mutual love for classical theism. During vast sections of Dr. Sproul's public
career, there were times when he stood relatively alone in his adherence to classical theism, and
particularly his penchant for Thomas Aquinas. It was one that eventually I came to appreciate
as well. And it was really encouraging to see his enthusiasm, even to the very end, for these great
truths of the faith and particularly for the transcendence and the majesty of God which were
enshrined in those doctrines and in that teaching. It was also a time of just
free discourse. We found we had several mutual sources that we learned from
in common and to really find the camaraderie of spirit on that. But this is what really was
exhibited for a person who touched so many lives, there was quite evidently not a jealousy
for pride of place, but a real willingness to welcome and encourage the work of others who
had no name and no pedigree, who were trying to faithfully speak the truth as God had given
it to us, to be a real encourager of that was a legacy I think that probably many could stand
and attest to. I'm glad to attest to it myself. NICHOLS: I've heard that dinner
described by others as two guys high-fiving each other for three hours, so that's
what happened there. And it all does arc back to the doctrine of God, doesn't it,
when we're talking about R.C. Sproul. Well, could you join with me in
thanking our speakers for today?
