Would The Church Fathers Oppose Reformation Teachings?

Recently, I began to read through Calvin's Institutes of the Christian Religion. In the Prefatory Address to King Francis, there is a section where Calvin addresses the charge that the Ancient Church Fathers would oppose Reformation teachings.

As I read this section, I found much of what Calvin stated to be quite interesting. Calvin apparently had a good command of Patristic literature and was able counter the slanderous claims made against the Reformation. Below I want to share some of Calvin's response to those who opposed the Reformation on the basis that the Church Father's would have opposed its teaching:

"[T]hey unjustly set the ancient fathers against us (I mean the ancient writers of a better age of the church) as if in them they had supporters of their own impiety. If the contest were to be determined by patristic authority, the tide of victory -to put it very modestly- would turn to our side. Now these fathers have written many wise and excellent things. Still, what commonly happens to men has befallen them too, in some instances. For these so-called pious children of theirs, with all their sharpness of wit and judgment and spirit, worship only the faults and errors of the fathers. The good things that these fathers have written they either do not notice, or misrepresent or pervert. You might say that their only care is to gather dung amid gold. Then, with a frightful to-do, they overwhelm us as despisers and adversaries of the fathers! But we do not despise them; in fact, if it were to our present purpose, I could with no trouble at all prove that the greater part of what we are saying today meets their approval.

Yet we are so versed in their writings as to remember always that all things are ours [I Cor. 3:21-22], to serve us, not to lord it over us [Luke 22:24-25], and that we all belong to Christ [I Cor. 3:23], whom we obey in all things without exception [cf. Col. 3:20]. He who does not observe this distinction will have nothing certain in religion, inasmuch as these holy men were ignorant of many things, often disagreed among themselves, and sometimes even contradicted themselves.

It is not without cause, they say, that Solomon bids us not to transgress the limits set by our fathers [Prov. 22:28]. But the same rule does not apply to boundaries of fields and to obedience of faith, which must be so disposed that "it forgets its people and its father's house" [Ps. 45:10 p.]. But if they love to allegorize so much, why do they not accept the apostles (rather than anyone else) as the "fathers" who have set the landmarks that it is unlawful to remove?"

From here Calvin makes many interesting points on how certain Catholic traditions were not in keeping with the early Fathers whom the Catholics profess to follow. While I would love to point out some of those now, I will refrain from doing so because I want to quote a section here that is more relevant to some of the dialog that has taken place here on the Mafia blog in recent weeks.

Calvin continues:

"It was a father who deemed that one must listen to Christ alone, for Scripture says, "Hear Him" [Matt. 17:5]; and that we need not be concerned about what others before us either said or did, but only about what Christ, who is the first of all, commanded. When they set over themselves and others any masters but Christ, they neither abode by this boundary nor permitted others to keep it. It was a father who contended that the church ought not set itself above Christ, for he always judges truthfully, but ecclesiastical judges, like other men, are often mistaken. When this boundary is broken through, they do not hesitate to declare that the whole authority of Scripture depends entirely upon the judgment of the church.

All the fathers with one heart would have abhorred and with one voice have detested the fact that God's Holy Word has been contaminated by the subtleties of sophists and involved in the squabbles of dialecticians. When they attempt nothing in life but to enshroud and obscure the simplicity of Scripture with endless contentions and worse than sophistic brawls, do they keep themselves within these borders? Why, if the fathers were now brought back to life,and heard such brawling art as these persons call speculative theology, there is nothing they would less suppose than that these folk were disputing about God!"

Soli Deo Gloria!

Wilson on Irresistible Grace

This is one of those articles, where after I read it I said, "Dang! I wish I had written that."

Speaking of the irresistability of grace, Douglas Wilson compares the new birth in Christ to the first birth in the flesh:

"For some reason, no one wants to admit that the grace of the new birth is irresistible. But for all of us, our first birth was just as irresistible. Moreover, virtually no one complains about this. I was born in 1953, and I do not recall ever being consulted in 1952 about whether I wanted to be born or not. Life was simply thrust upon me, somewhat violently they tell me, and first thing I knew I was playing with toys trucks on the floor of this family’s living room. The name was Wilson, they said, and the prison door clanged shut. No escape now, they said. That whole business was irresistible – makes your skin crawl to think of it. I was now someone’s brother, not someone’s sister, and I hadn’t been asked about my preferences there either. I was an American, not an Englishman, and not a Chinese. I was a Wilson, and not a Williams or Smith. In short, there was good bit of tyranny all round."

John Piper on Postmodern Error

Error is probably too soft a description...

God the Judge

If you have not read Fred's post below, I suggest you read it before reading this. Upon recent conversations, it is quite apparent that men do not like to think of God as a judge, exercising punishment and retributive justice for violating his holy law. Listen to this excerpt from J.I. Packer's book knowing God.

Do you believe in divine judgement? By which I mean, do you believe in a God who acts as our Judge? Many, it seems, do not. Speak to them of God as Father, a friend, a helper, one who loves us despite all our weakness and folly and sin, and their faces light up; you are on their wavelength at once. But speak to them of God as Judge and they frown and shake their heads. Their minds recoil from such an idea. They find it repellent and unworthy.

The idea of God as Judge may be repellent and unworthy to natural minds, but what do the Scriptures have to say?

Psalm 75

1We give thanks to you, O God;
we give thanks, for your name is near.
We recount your wondrous deeds.
2"At the set time that I appoint
I will judge with equity.
3When the earth totters, and all its inhabitants,
it is I who keep steady its pillars.
Selah
4I say to the boastful, 'Do not boast,'
and to the wicked, 'Do not lift up your horn;
5do not lift up your horn on high,
or speak with haughty neck.'"
6For not from the east or from the west
and not from the wilderness comes lifting up,
7but it is God who executes judgment,
putting down one and lifting up another.
8For in the hand of the LORD there is a cup
with foaming wine, well mixed,
and he pours out from it,
and all the wicked of the earth
shall drain it down to the dregs
9But I will declare it forever;
I will sing praises to the God of Jacob.
10All the horns of the wicked I will cut off,
but the horns of the righteous shall be lifted up.

Hebrews 12:21-24

21Indeed, so terrifying was the sight that Moses said, "I tremble with fear." 22But you have come to Mount Zion and to the city of the living God, the heavenly Jerusalem, and to innumerable angels in festal gathering, 23and to the assembly of the firstborn who are enrolled in heaven, and to God, the judge of all, and to the spirits of the righteous made perfect, 24and to Jesus, the mediator of a new covenant, and to the sprinkled blood that speaks a better word than the blood of Abel.

The Scriptures are clear that God acts as judge upon humanity. See also Genesis 18:25, Judges 11:27, Psalm 82:8.

God judged Adam and Eve for eating the forbidden fruit and expelled them from the Garden of Ede. God judged wicked humanity in Noah's day and sent the flood as punishment. God Judged those who worshipped the golden calf, using the Levites as his executioners. God judged Nadab and Abihu for offering him strange fire. The judgement of God fell upon Ananias and Sapphira for lying to the Holy Spirit. Judgement fell upon the church at Corinth for their abuse of the Lord's Supper.

Friend, if you see God just merely as your friend and helper, and do not believe God to be Judge over all the earth, I pray that today you will not be ignorant of the truth of Scripture. All of humanity has transgressed the law of God, and unless we are found righteous, we will be judged and justly condemned to an eternity in hell. The only way we can be found righteous is to be found in Christ (See Romans 3). It is my prayer that you recognize that your sin is an offence to the character and the law of God and that you repent from your sinful ways and trust in the efficacious work of Christ on the cross in your behalf. For our sake He made Him to be sin who knew no sin, so that in Him we might become the righteousness of God. ~2 Corinthians 5:21

Boyce on the Truth of God

Considering the recent discussion the Mafia has engaged in on the topic of truth, I thought it would be fitting, and perhaps helpful, to allow the pen of Dr. J. P. Boyce to weigh in on the matter. Below is another excerpt from his Abstract of Systematic Theology. (Chapter X. pp. 98 & 99.)

THE TRUTH OF GOD.

The expression, "truth of God," is ambiguous, and must be considered under the specific terms which set forth its various meanings.

I. His Verity. He is True God. By this is meant, the exact correspondence of the nature of God with the ideal of absolute perfection. The foundation of that ideal may be indeterminable. But, whether it is in the nature of God himself, or in his will proceeding from his nature, or in eternal principles of the fit and the necessary and the right, which exactly coincide with that nature, God and that ideal must be perfect counterparts. That ideal can only be partially comprehended by any of his creatures, because of their imperfections; but it is known by God in all its supreme excellence, and his nature must fully correspond to it as thus known. Otherwise he would not be God.

It is in this aspect of God's truth, that the Scriptures call him the true God. See 2 Chron. 15:3; Jer. 10:10; John 17:3; 1 Thess. 1:9; 1 John 5:20; Rev. 3:7.

II. His Veracity. By this is meant, God's truthfulness or incapacity to deceive. It is an attribute of his nature, which, like his power, exists, and makes him what he is, even though there be no outward relation to it. By virtue of it, he is the source of all truth, not moral only, but even mathematical.

In its relation to God's creatures, it is the foundation of their confidence in the knowledge obtained through the use of their own faculties, whether by intuition, observation or reason. Whatever imperfection there is in such knowledge, is perceived to be due to the creature, and not to God the creator. Upon it is also based belief in the revelations God makes to man of facts beyond the attainment of merely human power.

The Scriptures affirm the veracity of God in the strongest terms. In addition to its assertion in numerous passages, we are told, Ps. 108:4, that his "truth reacheth unto the skies." In Titus 1:2, he is called "God, who cannot lie."

III. His faithfulness. This consists in the truth of God viewed in its relation to his purposes whether secret, or revealed. When revealed, these become either promises, or threats. But as promises, the ground upon which these purposes must be fulfilled is, not any obligation to the creature, for God can come under none, but simply because of his own faithfulness to his purposes. Hence his faithfulness demands equally the performance of his threatenings, as of his promises.

This faithfulness is based upon the veracity of his nature considered above. It is by virtue of that veracity, that God must be faithful; yet the faithfulness is a new aspect, in which God's truthfulness appears.

This faithfulness is the ground both of hope and of fear. In the Scriptures it is more frequently presented as a reason for hope and trust. But it is also the foundation of belief in future judgement and punishment. The faithful God has been true to his threatenings, as well as his promises. His faithfulness assures us that he will so continue.

A Greek Word You Should Know

sarx
(flesh)

Throughout the Bible, “sarx” is used as a way of describing humanity. We are flesh, as in “flesh and blood.” As beings of flesh (sarx) we are to be distinguished from God, who is spirit (pneuma). However, especially in the writings of Paul, sarx/flesh takes on a new meaning: it becomes a shorthand way of referring to fallen man’s natural rebellion against God, of which we are all guilty.

Here’s a little quiz for you. It’s multiple choice, and only one question. If you get it wrong, no one’s going to fail you or throw rocks at you or anything:

Out of the four following statements, three are paraphrases of Scripture, and one is a line from a stupid song that is sung in a stupid little cartoon movie that kids love. Can you pick out the line that is not Biblical at all?

1. Men cannot follow their natural tendencies and manage to please God.

2. The imagination of your heart is only evil continually.

3. No good thing dwells in me naturally.

4. Your dreams will fly on magical wings, if you follow your heart.

Okay, let’s see how you did. Number 1 is a paraphrase of Romans 8:8, which says, “So then they that are in the flesh cannot please God.” Number 2 is an application of God’s own assessment of fallen humanity, from Genesis 6:5: “every imagination of the thoughts of his heart was only evil continually.” As for Number 3, it comes from this verse, Paul’s confession of his own spiritual state without the indwelling presence of Christ: “I know that in me (that is, in my flesh) dwelleth no good thing...” (Romans 7:18). The answer is #4. That line is from the movie Thumbelina.

I don’t mean to pick on Thumbelina. It’s no more stupid than any other cartoon that’s ever urged the same advice on kids. That advice is very warm and fuzzy sounding, but it is utter foolishness. “Just follow your heart.”

Okay, just to prove I’m not picking on Thumbelina, I’ll give you a quote that is just as stupid from my favorite movie of all time, Braveheart. At the beginning of the show, young William Wallace has a dream in which his dead father says to him, “You’re heart is free. Have the courage to follow it.” Gag me.

We hear this stuff all the time in our culture. And we hear other wonderful sounding stuff that is just as ignorant of the Truth of the Word of God. How many times for this one: “There’s good in everybody,” or this one, “People are basically good.”

Now, if it shocks you that I list those things as stupid, untruthful lies (which I do) then here is my bet: I bet you’ve never put much effort into reading the Bible. Hey, nothing to get offended about. But if you had, none of this would shock you.

The Bible simply does not teach that all people are basically good. It doesn’t: I’m sorry. Wouldn’t it be nice if it did, and we could all put on our rose-colored glasses and think nice thoughts about each other? But we can’t, because the truth is

God looked down from heaven upon the children of men, to see if there were any that did understand, that did seek God.

Every one of them is gone back: they are altogether become filthy; there is none that doeth good, no, not one.
- Psalm 53:2-3

Ever since the fall of Adam and Eve into sin, the human race has been a race of sinful people. Including me. And including you. Again: I’m sorry. I’m not thrilled about being the one to have to tell you this. But that’s the truth.

Hear again God’s own pronouncement about the natural state of mankind, from Genesis 6:5.

And God saw that the wickedness of man was great in the earth, and that every imagination of the thoughts of his heart was only evil continually.

Right there is the reason why Thumbelina and Braveheart are dead wrong. They’d tell you, follow your heart and your dreams will come true. Follow your heart, for it is free! But God tells you that the heart is “only evil continually.” I wonder what you’ll wind up with after a lifetime of following something that is only evil continually?

Okay, okay, someone will say. That verse you’re quoting is from right before the Flood of Noah, when the earth had grown especially wicked and God wiped it out. That was then, this is now.

Well, that was then, and this is now, but the human heart has ever remained the same. The prophet Jeremiah wrote (thousands of years after the Flood) that, “The heart is deceitful above all things, and desperately wicked: who can know it?” (Jer 17:9) The implied answer is, only God can know it.

Wow. That’s amazing isn’t it? “Deceitful above all things.” “Only evil continually.” “Desperately wicked.” At least we can’t accuse the Word of God of beating around the bush!

Let me ask you something. If you were going to try and communicate to someone that something was as bad as bad can be, could you use any stronger language than Scripture has used to describe your own heart?

So, you might ask, what does all of this have to do with the Greek word, “sarx?” Just this: Paul uses sarx, or “flesh,” as a shorthand way of referring to everything we’ve just looked at. Especially in Romans, chapters 7 and 8 (a couple of enormously important chapters as touching the central truths of the Gospel of Jesus Christ) when Paul uses “flesh,” the stuff in this chapter is what he’s talking about. Flesh means the corrupt, natural human way of doing things, of talking, and of acting, both toward God and one another.

[We need to make an important pit-stop here to clarify something. The Bible does not teach that there is anything inherently evil or sinful about the physical material out of which our bodies our made. Our physical, flesh and blood bodies are not what’s being talked about when the Scripture uses “flesh” this way. In fact, on the day that God gave Adam and Eve physical bodies made of bones and blood and tissues and sinews... “flesh”....He pronounced the work of that day to be “very good.” Some ancient false teachers of the first century plagued the true church severely with their false doctrine, called “Gnosticism.” One of the tenets of Gnosticism is to believe that physical matter is evil, while all things “spiritual” or immaterial are good. To this way of thinking, then, the only way a human could be good was to be liberated from his physical body. Okay, that is not Christianity. Evil does not live in your physical tissues. It lives in your thoughts, your desires, your motivations, your words and deeds, etc.]

We’ve said all of this in order to get to the point of asking a few questions. You don’t need to tell anyone your answers...but God knows.

1) Have you ever figured that you would go to heaven because, “I’m basically a good person.” ?

- If so, you need to ask yourself who is right in their judgment of you. Is it you, or is it God? God has already called you “flesh.”

2) Have you ever figured that you would go to heaven because, “I’m a better person than most other people, even religious people.” ?

- You may in fact be better than most people, even the religious ones. Thing is, both you and they are “flesh.” Both you and they have hearts that are “desperately wicked.” To say you’re a better person than them is like saying you’ve got the best seat on the crowded bus...and the whole bus is headed off the cliff.

3) Have you ever figured that you would go to heaven because, “God knows I’m doing my best.” ?

-> Is “doing your best” anything similar to “trying with all your heart?” And would that be your “deceitful” heart, that is “only evil continually?”

4) Have you ever figured that you would go to heaven if you could do more good deeds than evil deeds?

- > If, as a person of “flesh,” your heart is continually evil, let me ask you, when in that continuous evil do you think you might manage to do enough good to tip the scales?


I think the apostle Paul must have asked himself these same questions, or some similar, and very honestly realized that his answers didn’t hold any water. He realized that he had no reason to put any “confidence in the flesh” for his going to heaven. (Philippians 3:2-7) He realized that as a man of “flesh” he simply couldn’t do enough good things to make himself right with God (Galatians 2:16).

Finally, he realized that what he couldn’t do, as a fleshly man, God did for Him, by sending His own Son in the likeness of sinful flesh. Jesus lived as a human being the perfect, good, and holy life that none of us can, due to the weakness of our “flesh.” (Romans 8:3)

Friend, this is the truth. If your life up until the point was the service that you were performing for God as an employee, the only thing you’d deserve to be paid is destruction. When you looked at your pay stub, in the box where it says, “Net pay due this period,” instead of a dollar amount, it would simply say, “Death.” As flesh, that’s all you can earn.

But right now, even as you read these words, God is making you an offer. Trade in what you have earned, in exchange for what Jesus alone has earned, eternal life with God in heaven. Christ died to pay for your sins, and rose from the dead to offer you everlasting life in Him.

God has “made him to be sin for us, who knew no sin; that we might be made the righteousness of God in him.” 2 Corinthians 5:21

Right now, you can make the first step toward real freedom, freedom from the continuously evil desires of your heart and mind. Your sins, the works of your flesh, can be cleansed through the blood of Jesus Christ, and the Spirit of God can come to dwell within you, so that from now on, you will have a new power with which to overcome your sinful nature.

Just stop right now. Right where you are, just bow your head and let God know that’s what you want. There are no “right words” that you need to say. However you express it will work, as long as you do so believing that what you’ve seen here is right and that God can and will make a change in you through Christ. Just let God know.

A Place for Truth

In an age where uncertainty is disguised as "epistemological humility" and any claim to certainty and objective truth is considered absurd and arrogant, can today's Christian's make any claim to know the truth?

Many people, callling themselves Christian would say no but I answer with an emphatic YES! and this is why.

Knowing the Truth for Certain is a result of Salvation

"If you abide in my word, you are truly my disciples, and you will know the truth, and the truth will set you free." John 8:31-32

This verse follows the logical form of the if, then statement.
If you abide in my word....If you study it, live by it, love it, obey it, conform to it, submit to it...continually.

• You are truly my disciples...True believers are discerned from false believers in their relationship to the word of Christ, indeed, the word of God.
• You will know the truth...surprisingly, those who have an ongoing relationship with Jesus Christ, Jesus, the Son of God who is truth incarnate (John 14:6), who cannot lie, says they will know the truth. This very fact flies in the face of post modernism. Certainty of truth is a result of salvation by the Spirit of God through the Word of God.
• The truth will set you free...Free from all lies, free from sinful living, free from worldly philosophies and false ideologies.

Knowing the Truth is a means of Sanctification

Sanctify them in the truth, your word is truth. John 17:17

Truth is the means by which we are sanctified. If truth is ambiguous, uncertain, and unclear, then sanctification seems impossible. Yet Jesus prays for the sanctification for those that the Father had given him, and goes on to say, "your word is truth." God's Word does not just contain truth, but it IS truth. Everything against it is against truth. The Scriptures are clear, the Scriptures are truth, the Scriptures are the means by which we are sanctified.

Rejection of Truth is a strong indicator of Unbelief

The coming of the lawless one is by the activity of Satan with all power and false signs and wonders, and with all wicked deception for those who are perishing, because they refused to love the truth and so be saved." 2 Thessalonians 2:9-10

Notice the last portion of this text. These people mentioned, those who are perishing will not be saved why? Because the refused to love the truth. Rejection of the truth prevented them from being saved. Notice the first part. The lawless one performs false signs..signs that are not authentic or true. A rejection of truth leads to being deceived by that which is opposed to the truth. If you despise truth, if you do not "know the truth" then the warning light should be flashing, for that is an indicator that you have not been born again of the Spirit of truth (John 13:17, John 16:13). If you have been born again of the Spirit, and are abiding in the Word of God, then the Spirit of truth will guide you in the truth as Jesus has infallibly promised. Can we know the truth for certain? Yes we can, because the Spirit of truth WILL guide us into all the truth.

Those who try to blend postmodern ideas of uncertainty and ambiguity with Christianity are attempting to blend to things that are antithetical. Uncertainty is antithetical to the certainty of the Scriptures. Subjectivity is antithetical to the objectivity of the Word of God. Rejecting certainty is not "epistemological humility," it is rebellion against the truth, rebellion against the Scriptures, and ultimately rebellion against the one TRUE God.

As John MacArthur states in The Truth War,

Speaking Plainly: If you are one of those who questions whether truth is really important, please don't call your belief system Christianity," because that is not what it is."