R.C. Sproul's Blog, page 119

What Has Authority to Bind the Conscience?

No written document of men has the authority to bind the conscience absolutely. In this brief clip, R.C. Sproul explains that only Scripture has that power.

This Reformation Month, watch a short video every day on the history and insights of the Protestant Reformation. And don't forget that for this month only, you can request your free digital download of R.C. Sproul’s video teaching series Luther and the Reformation plus the ebook edition of The Legacy of Luther, edited by R.C. Sproul and Stephen Nichols at ligm.in/Reformation. Offer ends October 31, 2019.

Transcript

Something is by the Scripture alone, but what is by the Scripture alone? Luther was saying, that the only written source in this world that has the level of authority to actually bind the conscience of a person is the Bible. He said we could certainly be instructed by church tradition, we can be led by church councils. The creeds and the confessions of our faith are not to be despised. No written document of men, no confession of faith, no creedal statement, no conciliar expression can bind the conscience absolutely.

How Did the Reformers and Puritans View Christian Piety?

No area of our lives falls outside the realm of worshiping God. From one of our Ask Ligonier events, Stephen Nichols explores what we can learn from the piety of the Reformers and Puritans.

To get real-time answers to your biblical and theological questions, just Ask.Ligonier.org.

Read the Transcript

Reformed and Always Reforming

The year 2017 was the Martin Luther year. We remembered the Reformation and we celebrated it. But we must also continue the Reformation. The Reformation is not a museum to be visited occasionally on a tour bus. It was and is a vital movement for truth and life in the church of Jesus. How should we maintain and advance the cause of reform? Some believe that the answer to that question can be found in the slogan reformed and always reforming. We continue the Reformation by always reforming. That slogan is indeed useful if we understand it correctly. The problem is that sometimes the slogan is used to justify the opposite of what it originally intended.

Those who misuse the slogan end up saying something like this: The Reformation had to change things that were wrong in the church, and we have to continue changing things that are wrong with the church. We have to make Christianity more understandable and relevant today. We have to strip away formalism and legalism so that we can get on with the great work of evangelism. We must be always reforming.

At first glance, this use of the slogan may seem good. All of us want Christianity to be vital, understandable, and evangelistic. But too often, those who are always reforming are in fact moving away from the Reformation and its great concerns about the Bible and justification, about worship, preaching, and the sacraments. They are simplifying or minimizing Christianity in ways that leave out many of the great concerns of biblical truth. Always reforming comes to mean increasingly conforming to the demands and standards of the world.

Such an approach to the slogan is not at all what it originally meant—or what it should mean for us today. The exact origins of the slogan are obscure, but its meaning is not. It was designed to make two critical points about who we are as Reformed Christians.

Reformed

The first point is that we are Reformed. We must remember that calling ourselves Reformed is in fact an abbreviation. The full statement is: We are Christians who have been reformed by the Word of God. Reformed means that the Word of God has changed and purified us. We still are small-c catholic Christians, which means that we accept the canon of the New Testament as did the ancient church and accept the ancient definitions of the Trinity and Christology. We are Augustinian in our soteriology. But we also agree with the Reformers that various traditions of the church, from ancient and medieval times, drifted away from the Word of God and therefore had to be reformed or corrected by the Bible.

When we say we are Reformed, then, we mean that the Reformation, and particularly the Calvinistic wing of the Reformation, rightly understood and applied the Bible to help purify Christian doctrine, the church, and individual Christians. The great insights of the Reformers into the Word of God were summarized and preserved in the confessions and catechisms of the Reformed churches. Those teachings were true and are still true. They are a great, settled accomplishment of the Reformation. We still hold to them and in that sense we are Reformed. Reformed is something defined by the confessions of the Reformed churches, which are still rightly subscribed to by Reformed Christians.

Always Reforming

We recognize, however, that every generation not only needs to learn again what it means to be Reformed, but every generation also needs to be about the business of always reforming. We need to be always reforming because we are sinners. We fail to understand and follow God’s truth as we ought. We recognize that the Reformers were sinners, too, and did not understand everything perfectly. So we want always to reform ourselves and the lives of our churches by turning again and again to the Word of God to allow it to reform us. Always reforming does not mean allowing our clever insights into the needs of our present world to change the biblical inheritance we have received from the Reformation. It means turning as the Reformers did to the Word of God to allow it to change us.

One way in which we can see the need to reform ourselves is in the arena of Christianity and culture. John Calvin was convinced that the church should influence culture by being legally established by the state and by having the state outlaw false religion. Today, most Reformed Christians believe that the Bible teaches something very different about church and state, about Christ and culture. Many American Christians are understandably concerned about the great moral and intellectual changes taking place in our culture. Decades of secular education, liberal media, and immoral entertainment have combined with other forces to lead many Americans into a post-Christian way of thinking and living. As citizens, American Christians are right to recognize the dangers in these developments and to seek cultural alternatives.

We must be careful, however, not to confuse these cultural concerns with the gospel. The gospel is itself not a cultural program. The gospel certainly has cultural significance and implications. But the Christian gospel can flourish in any culture, from pagan Rome to Islamic theocracy to Communist tyranny. The gospel is the good news that Jesus has fulfilled all righteousness, has conquered sin and death for His people, and is building a new humanity of those who repent and believe.

We learn about that gospel and the life of that new humanity produced by that gospel in the Bible. Always reforming means always returning to the Scriptures to be changed and improved. It is a passion to know, love, and live out the Word of God.

A careful examination of the Great Commission in Matthew 28:16–20 illustrates this point for us. This important passage has often been claimed by those who misuse the slogan always reforming to justify their innovative and reductionistic approaches to modern church life. But when we really look at the words of Jesus there, we see clearly that He did not say, “Do whatever will advance the cause of evangelism.” What, then, did He say?

First, we see that Jesus in the Great Commission is instructing those who were His disciples and His Apostles, those who worshiped Him even if they had some doubts. He intends to prepare them for the work to which He is calling them. He truly is giving them the program for the church that He wants them to pursue.
Second, He makes a clear statement about Himself. The disciples will serve Jesus correctly and faithfully only when they know who He is. He is not just their teacher who died and rose again from the dead. He is supremely the Lord. His resurrection does not just mean that He is alive again but that He is glorified as “ruler of kings on earth” (Rev. 1:5). All authority is given to Him so that He can indeed build His church, and no forces, temporal or spiritual, can stand against Him (Matt. 16:18). His authority guarantees the success He intends for His church.
Third, the disciples are charged to make disciples. Their commission to make disciples is for all nations. They are not limited to Israel or the Jews but are commissioned to take the good news to the nations. But what does it mean to make disciples, which is another way of asking, what does it mean to preach the gospel correctly? Jesus’ commission has two parts, namely, teaching and baptizing. The Apostles must teach the truth about Jesus to make disciples. The preaching and teaching work of the church and especially its official leaders is necessary for making disciples, according to Jesus. The commissioned disciples must also baptize. The Great Commission requires the sacramental ministry of the church as well as its teaching ministry. Baptism is the sign and seal of the disciple’s new life and new identity in Christ.
Fourth, Jesus specifies what the disciples are to teach. This point is particularly important. Jesus authorizes no minimal summary of His ministry. New disciples are not made by selected parts of His teaching. Real disciples want, deserve, and must have all of His teaching. Real disciples are eager for the fullness of the revelation of Jesus.
Fifth, Jesus assures His disciples that as they carry out His commission, He will always be with them. His authority and lordship will not forsake them. Success does not need to be manipulated because it is assured by the presence and blessing of Jesus.

The Great Commission is indeed the program by which the church must operate. But we must not use the Great Commission as a slogan to justify any approach to evangelism. Jesus did not commission His church to evangelize according to its wisdom, but according to His teaching. The Great Commission is part of His Word, and it must always reform us.

Sometimes in history, the church goes into very serious decline in doctrine or life and must be reformed thoroughly. At other times, Christians may be frustrated with the rate of growth of the church and assume that some drastic reform is needed. Only a close examination of the Word can help us determine which is true. Where reform according to the Word of God—the whole Word—is needed, we must pursue it vigorously. On the other hand, where the church is faithful, she must persevere patiently and wait for seasons of richer grace from the Lord. Luther said of his reform, “The Word did it.” So, of all good continuing reformation we must say, “The Word must do it.”

This post is adapted from an article originally published in Tabletalk magazine.

$5 Friday: Assurance, Grace, & Heaven

It’s time for our weekly $5 Friday sale. This week’s resources include such topics as assurance, the atonement, heaven, eternal security, John Calvin, preaching, and Martin Luther.

Sale runs through 12:01 a.m. — 11:59 p.m. Friday ET.

View today’s $5 Friday sale items.

Jesus Is Our Righteousness

Jesus not only had to die for our sins, but He had to live for our righteousness. In this brief clip, R.C. Sproul explains what Jesus’ active obedience means for His people.

This Reformation Month, watch a short video every day on the history and insights of the Protestant Reformation. And don't forget that for this month only, you can request your free digital download of R.C. Sproul’s video teaching series Luther and the Reformation plus the ebook edition of The Legacy of Luther, edited by R.C. Sproul and Stephen Nichols at ligm.in/Reformation. Offer ends October 31, 2019.

Transcript

I don't think there's any more important text in all the New Testament that defines the work of Jesus than this one. That Jesus was sent to fulfill all righteousness. And what that meant to the Jew was to obey every jot and tittle of the Law. Because now Jesus is not acting in His baptism for Himself, but for His people. And if His people are required to keep the Ten Commandments, He keeps the Ten Commandments. If His people are now required to submit to this baptismal ritual, He submits to it in their behalf. Because the redemption that is brought by Christ is not restricted to His death on the cross.

We've seen that in the work of redemption God didn't send Jesus to earth on Good Friday and say, "Die for the sins of your people and that will take care of it." No. Jesus not only had to die for our sins, but He had to live for our righteousness. If all Jesus did was die for your sins, that would remove all of your guilt, and that would leave you sinless in the sight of God, but not righteous. You would be innocent, but not righteous because you haven't done anything to obey the Law of God which is what righteousness requires.

So we have a doctrine in theology that refers to the active obedience of Jesus, as distinguished from the passive obedience of Jesus. And this doctrine is in great dispute right now particularly among dispensational thinkers, which I find extremely, extremely unsettling. The passive obedience of Christ refers to His willingness to submit to the pain that is inflicted upon Him by the Father on the cross in the atonement. He passively receives the curse of God there. The active obedience refers to His whole life of obeying the Law of God whereby He qualifies to be the Savior. He qualifies to be the Lamb without blemish. He qualifies for the song, "Worthy is the Lamb who was slain," through His total righteousness. He fulfills the Law's demands, and if you remember the covenant with Moses, everybody who fulfills the Law receives the blessing, those who disobey the Law receive the curse.

What does Jesus do? He obeys the Law perfectly, receives the blessing, and not the curse. But there's a double imputation that we will look at later at the cross, where my sin is transferred to His account, my sin is carried over and laid upon Him in the cross. But in our redemption, His righteousness is imputed to us—which righteousness He wouldn't have if He didn't live this life of perfect obedience. So what I'm saying to you is that His life of perfect obedience is just as necessary for our salvation as His perfect atonement on the cross. Because there's double imputation. My sin to Him, His righteousness to me. So that, that is what the Scripture is getting at when it says Jesus is our righteousness.

Reformation Truths, A New Teaching Series from Michael Reeves

Many people dismiss the Reformation as a peculiar chapter of history with little relevance to contemporary life. But nothing could be further from the truth.

In this new video teaching series, Dr. Michael Reeves explains that the Reformation still matters because the gospel still matters. As he surveys the beliefs of Roman Catholics and Protestants, we see that these two traditions hold two very different views on salvation. One relies on our performance; the other rests on Jesus’ righteousness alone. Only one is the true gospel, and like the Reformers, we must proclaim it with clarity, boldness, and joy.

This teaching series is available now for purchase on DVD or CD, as a digital download, or as a Ligonier Connect course. A corresponding study guide is also available.

Dr. Michael Reeves is president and professor of theology at Union School of Theology in Oxford, England. He is author of several books, including Rejoicing in Christ. He is the featured teacher for the Ligonier teaching series The English Reformation and the Puritans.

Be Patient and Pray

Here’s an excerpt from Be Patient and Pray, Don Bailey's contribution to the October issue of Tabletalk:

I called our seventy-something-year-old handyman Joe recently to see if he could fit us into his busy schedule. He answered his phone in the middle of fixing a refrigerator and said that he would have to call back later that day. “But don’t worry,” he continued, “I have your number in my book at home.” “But Joe,” I replied with irritation, “can’t you just simply save the number I am calling from and return my call sooner?” “Not with my flip phone,” he said. I wanted to instruct him on his need for a smartphone. But then I remembered that I was calling him because ol’ Joe knows how to hang doors, install ceiling fans, and repair windows, and he has mastered other useful tasks that intimidate me before I even try.

Growing in patience requires vigilance over the course of our lives. The young believer can be greatly encouraged, however, at progress in patience, knowing that patience is evidence of the Holy Spirit at work: “But the fruit of the Spirit is . . . patience” (Gal. 5:22). God will not quit the work He has begun (Phil. 1:6). Yet, we mustn’t delay the effort on our part to grow in patience, for as James reminds us: “You do not know what tomorrow will bring. What is your life? For you are a mist that appears for a little time and then vanishes” (James 4:14).

Continue reading Be Patient and Pray, or begin receiving Tabletalk magazine by signing up for a free 3-month trial.

For a limited time, the new TabletalkMagazine.com allows everyone to browse and read the growing library of back issues, including this month’s issue.

Regeneration Precedes Faith

Where does faith come from? In this brief clip, R.C. Sproul gives the answer that captures the essence of Reformed theology.

This Reformation Month, watch a short video every day on the history and insights of the Protestant Reformation. And don't forget that for this month only, you can request your free digital download of R.C. Sproul’s video teaching series Luther and the Reformation plus the ebook edition of The Legacy of Luther, edited by R.C. Sproul and Stephen Nichols at ligm.in/Reformation. Offer ends October 31, 2019.

Transcript:

Luther said, “justification is by faith alone, but not by faith that is alone,” and then he went on to say, “the faith that justifies,” Luther said, “is a fides viva;” a living faith, a faith that is alive. Where does that faith come from? And this question probably more than any other is what defines the essence of reformed theology. If there’s one phrase that captures the essence of reformed theology, it is the little phrase, regeneration precedes faith. That is the power of faith, the power of believing, is a result not of an act of our will independently, but it is the fruit of God’s sovereign act of changing the disposition of our hearts and giving to us the gift of faith.

Be Careful How You Worship

In this brief clip from his teaching series Discovering Deuteronomy, W. Robert Godfrey examines the connection between New Testament and Old Testament worship.

Transcript

Now we all know, don't we, that the idea that God is a consuming fire is just an Old Testament idea. This is a trick question, this is to see if you're paying attention. Is it true that it's just an Old Testament idea that God is a consuming fire? No, because this very verse, Deuteronomy 4:25, is quoted in Hebrews 12:29, when the author of the letter to the Hebrews is talking about the importance of worship and the seriousness of worship, and how we're to worship God with reverence and awe. That's a New Testament command, not an Old Testament command, and it's also an Old Testament command.

"Worship God with reverence and with awe," why? Because "our God is a consuming fire," quotes this verse from the Old Testament. There are a lot of people today who want to say in churches, "Well, it's a very different attitude in the New Testament from the Old Testament about worship. God was very serious and particular about worship in the Old Testament but in the New Testament, you can pretty much do what you want." That's not true. Be careful how you worship. That's the message of the Scripture all the way through. Worship is a lot simpler in the new covenant than it was in the old, but it's no less serious. God is no less serious, and the relationship He wants with His people is no less serious and profound. And so, here is one of the many places in Deuteronomy where we hear an echo in the New Testament that really deepens our understanding of that New Testament teaching itself.

Why the Reformation Still Matters

On October 31, 2016, Pope Francis announced that after five hundred years, Protestants and Catholics now “have the opportunity to mend a critical moment of our history by moving beyond the controversies and disagreements that have often prevented us from understanding one another.” From that, it sounds as if the Reformation was an unfortunate and unnecessary squabble over trifles, a childish outburst that we can all put behind us now that we have grown up.

But tell that to Martin Luther, who felt such liberation and joy at his rediscovery of justification by faith alone that he wrote, “I felt that I was altogether born again and had entered paradise itself through open gates.” Tell that to William Tyndale, who found it such “merry, glad and joyful tidings” that it made him “sing, dance, and leap for joy.” Tell it to Thomas Bilney, who found it gave him “a marvellous comfort and quietness, insomuch that my bruised bones leaped for joy.” Clearly, those first Reformers didn’t think they were picking a juvenile fight; as they saw it, they had discovered glad tidings of great joy.

GOOD NEWS IN 1517

At the beginning of the sixteenth century, Europe had been without a Bible the people could read for something like a thousand years. Thomas Bilney had thus never encountered the words “Christ Jesus came into the world to save sinners” (1 Tim. 1:15). Instead of the Word of God, they were left to the understanding that God is a God who enables people to earn their own salvation. As one of the teachers of the day liked to put it, “God will not deny grace to those who do their best.” Yet what were meant as cheering words left a very sour taste for everyone who took them seriously. How could you be sure you really had done your best? How could you tell if you had become the sort of just person who merited salvation?

Martin Luther certainly tried. “I was a good monk,” he wrote, “and kept my order so strictly that I could say that if ever a monk could get to heaven through monastic discipline, I should have entered in.” And yet, he found:

My conscience would not give me certainty, but I always doubted and said, “You didn’t do that right. You weren’t contrite enough. You left that out of your confession.” The more I tried to remedy an uncertain, weak and troubled conscience with human traditions, the more daily I found it more uncertain, weaker and more troubled.

According to Roman Catholicism, Luther was quite right to be unsure of heaven. Confidence of a place in heaven was considered errant presumption and was one of the charges made against Joan of Arc at her trial in 1431. There, the judges proclaimed,

This woman sins when she says she is as certain of being received into Paradise as if she were already a partaker of . . . glory, seeing that on this earthly journey no pilgrim knows if he is worthy of glory or of punishment, which the sovereign judge alone can tell.

That judgment made complete sense within the logic of the system: if we can only enter heaven because we have (by God’s enabling grace) become personally worthy of it, then of course no one can be sure. By that line of reasoning, I can only have as much confidence in heaven as I have confidence in my own sinlessness.

That was exactly why the young Martin Luther screamed with fear when as a student he was nearly struck by lightning in a thunderstorm. He was terrified of death, for without knowledge of Christ’s sufficient and gracious salvation—without knowledge of justification by faith alone—he had no hope of heaven.

And that was why his rediscovery in Scripture of justification by faith alone felt like entering paradise through open gates. It meant that, instead of all his angst and terror, he could now write:

When the devil throws our sins up to us and declares that we deserve death and hell, we ought to speak thus: “I admit that I deserve death and hell. What of it? Does this mean that I shall be sentenced to eternal damnation? By no means. For I know One who suffered and made satisfaction in my behalf. His name is Jesus Christ, the Son of God. Where he is, there I shall be also.”

And that was why the Reformation gave people such a taste for sermons and Bible reading. For, to be able to read God’s words and to see in them such good news that God saves sinners, not on the basis of how well they repent but entirely by His own grace, was like a burst of Mediterranean sunshine into the gray world of religious guilt.

GOOD NEWS IN 2017

None of the goodness or relevance of the Reformation’s insights have faded over the last five hundred years. The answers to the same key questions still make all the difference between human hopelessness and happiness. What will happen to me when I die? How can I know? Is justification the gift of a righteous status (as the Reformers argued), or a process of becoming more holy (as Rome asserts)? Can I confidently rely for my salvation on Christ alone, or does my salvation also rest on my own efforts toward and success in achieving holiness?

Almost certainly, what confuses people into thinking that the Reformation is a bit of history we can move beyond is the idea that it was just a reaction to some problem of the day. But the closer one looks, the clearer it becomes: the Reformation was not principally a negative movement about moving away from Rome and its corruption; it was a positive movement, about moving toward the gospel. And that is precisely what preserves the validity of the Reformation for today. If the Reformation had been a mere reaction to a historical situation five hundred years ago, one would expect it to be over. But as a program to move ever closer to the gospel, it cannot be over.

Another objection is that today’s culture of positive thinking and self-esteem has wiped away all perceived need for the sinner to be justified. Not many today find themselves wearing hair-shirts and enduring all-night prayer vigils in the freezing cold to earn God’s favor. All in all, then, Luther’s problem of being tortured by guilt before the divine Judge is dismissed as a sixteenth-century problem, and his solution of justification by faith alone is therefore dismissed as unnecessary for us today.

But it is in fact precisely into this context that Luther’s solution rings out as such happy and relevant news. For, having jettisoned the idea that we might ever be guilty before God and therefore in need of His justification, our culture has succumbed to the old problem of guilt in subtler ways and with no means to answer. Today, we are all bombarded with the message that we will be more loved when we make ourselves more attractive. It may not be God-related, and yet it is still a religion of works, and one that is deeply embedded. For that, the Reformation has the most sparkling good news. Luther speaks words that cut through the gloom like a glorious and utterly unexpected sunbeam:

The love of God does not find, but creates, that which is pleasing to it. . . . Rather than seeking its own good, the love of God flows forth and bestows good. Therefore sinners are attractive because they are loved; they are not loved because they are attractive.

ONCE AGAIN, THE TIME IS RIPE

Five hundred years later, the Roman Catholic Church has still not been reformed. For all the warm ecumenical language used by so many Protestants and Roman Catholics, Rome still repudiates justification by faith alone. It feels it can do so because Scripture is not regarded as the supreme authority to which popes, councils, and doctrine must conform. And because Scripture is so relegated, biblical literacy is not encouraged, and thus millions of poor Roman Catholics are still kept from the light of God’s Word.

Outside Roman Catholicism, the doctrine of justification by faith alone is routinely shied away from as insignificant, wrongheaded, or perplexing. Some new perspectives on what the Apostle Paul meant by justification, especially when they have tended to shift the emphasis away from any need for personal conversion, have, as much as anything, confused people, leaving the article that Luther said cannot be given up or compromised as just that—given up or compromised.

Now is not a time to be shy about justification or the supreme authority of the Scriptures that proclaim it. Justification by faith alone is no relic of the history books; it remains today as the only message of ultimate liberation, the message with the deepest power to make humans unfurl and flourish. It gives assurance before our holy God and turns sinners who attempt to buy God off into saints who love and fear Him.

And oh what opportunities we have today for spreading this good news! Five hundred years ago, Gutenberg’s recent invention of the printing press meant that the light of the gospel could spread at a speed never before witnessed. Tyndale’s Bibles and Luther’s tracts could go out by the thousands. Today, digital technology has given us another Gutenberg moment, and the same message can now be spread at speeds Luther could never have imagined.

Both the needs and the opportunities are as great as they were five hundred years ago—in fact, they are greater. Let us then take courage from the faithfulness of the Reformers and hold the same wonderful gospel high, for it has lost none of its glory or its power to dispel our darkness.

This post was originally published in Tabletalk magazine.