All right, we come today to the last class on the law of God. We will meet again next Sunday for Sunday school, but it'll be a special Sunday school since this is the 1700th anniversary of the Nicene Creed. Next Sunday I'd like to do a Sunday school on the Nicene Creed and just share with you actually some of the things I learned at the conference I was at in November that was just really encouraging to me about how God worked in that and how it clarified who is Christ. Scarcely possible to think of a more important question than that. So that's what we'll do next week. But this week, we're gonna bring it home. And as you can see from the handout that hopefully you picked up on the way in, we're gonna talk about liberty of conscience and legalism. This is sort of like the opposite, I guess you could say, of God's law. There's legitimately what is required of us. namely required by God. And that's what we've been talking about this entire class. But then there's counterfeit laws. Counterfeit laws that pose as being the law of God. And we need to talk about this because it's a serious danger in all times. And definitely in our time we are beset with all manner of legalistic standards. And so we need to learn how to fight this. And I'll just warn you that at the end of this class there will be a quiz. Oh yes, it will be an oral quiz, which I know is your favorite kind. But I am going to review all the stuff I taught you and see if I actually got through to you this whole class. So get ready and pay attention. But yeah, let's just look at this marvelous statement from the Westminster Confession of Faith. I'll just remind you if you're kind of new here, Like our denomination, the beliefs of our denomination are basically captured by these documents, the Westminster Confession of Faith, and then the larger and shorter catechisms, which were written in the 1640s in England. And they're basically just a really wonderful, elaborate summary of the Bible. So they're not the Bible, they're not of that authority, but they're summarizing the Bible and so they're really useful to us. In fact, if you just want to be encouraged in your faith, I just encourage you just to read through it. It's deeply edifying stuff. But whenever I quote from the Westminster Confession or the catechisms, it's my duty not just to do that, but to show you how it's biblical. And that is actually at the very heart of what we're going to talk about today, is that whole idea. Like, I can't just tell you stuff and say, you need to believe this. I can't even tell you stuff that's really like old, like almost 400 years old, that people have taught and believed as Christians for a long time and say, you need to believe this stuff. I need to tell you these things on the authority of the scriptures. I need to show it to you from the scriptures. So we're gonna look at this statement and then show how it's biblical, I hope. So section 20, number two, God alone is Lord of the conscience. and has left it free from the doctrines and commandments of men which are in anything contrary to his word or beside it in matters of faith or worship. So that to believe such doctrines or to obey such commands out of conscience is to betray true liberty of conscience. And the requiring of an implicit faith and an absolute and blind obedience is to destroy liberty of conscience and reason also. So I imagine for many of us, we're like, I think I caught some of this, but what does this mean? So we're gonna take it line by line. So the first is God alone is Lord of the conscience. So what does that say to you when we say God alone is Lord of the conscience? And do we have a runner for, oh sweet, thanks Ben. Yeah, so God alone is Lord of the conscience. What's that claiming? My first thought is that he has authority over everything that we think, feel, or do. That he has, the conscience is even his, that we're not, there's nothing separated from his authority over us. Okay. That's how, I don't know how to put it any better than that. Yeah, that's good. I think I'll keep one of these up front and save you the running for the up front ones. Good, yeah, other thoughts, like what else? Yeah, Ryan, go for it. he alone has the authority to bind our conscience to what he requires. Yeah, that's right. Yeah, and so that direct link of authority that Gabriel's talking about, that's, I think, one of the key ideas here is that when it comes to having the authority to say, you must do this or you must not do that, the only one who has the authority to bind our conscience in that kind of absolute way, where, you know, in other words, to define what is sin, the only one who has the authority to do that is God. He alone is the Lord of our conscience. When we talk about our conscience, you know, it's that sense of right and wrong. And do you remember how from, in Romans 2, it says the law of God is written on everybody's heart? God, when He causes us to be born, He causes us to have a natural sense of right and wrong. So that when something unfair happens, a little kid who is never told about fairness and unfairness just knows, like, hey, how come that kid got this and I didn't? That just naturally is in there. But we all know that conscience is not a perfect thing. It often misreports, and especially on the basis of cultural influence. So lots of people's consciences in this time misreports. They're not doing anything wrong when they're living with their boyfriend or girlfriend, or when they're indulging in same-sex attraction or something like that. They think, there's something wrong with this. So who's to say who's right and who's wrong? Answer, the Lord alone. And here's just a few texts that bring this out. James 4, verse 12, there's only one lawgiver and judge. So this is bringing out that it's not just there's one lawgiver, but there's also one judge. And how is that slightly different from just saying there's one lawgiver? Yeah. Well, you can have the law, but you need a judge to determine whether it's been broken or kept. Yeah. It's sort of like the, there's the beginning where you have the, You have the statement, this is what you must now need to do. That's the lawgiver. But then the judge is the one who one day will hold us accountable. So there's like the origins of our ethics, where does it all come from? God alone, and that's really what 20, section 2a here is saying. But then also it's rooted in the fact that there's really ultimately one that we will have to answer to on the last day, and it is God. You don't have to answer to your neighbor who's telling you you should do this or that. You don't have to answer to, ultimately, any authority except for God. Now, of course, there are still authorities that we need to honor in this life, but we honor them for God's sake. We'll talk about this in a moment. There are other authorities that can create rules. parents, the state, whatever. But ultimately, who do we all stand or fall before? So even when those judges fail, or when they make bad laws, ultimately we answer to one God, our own Lord Jesus Christ. Ephesians 4.5, there's one Lord. Matthew 20-10, you have one instructor, the Christ. And then Paul applies it, Romans 14.4. Who are you to pass judgment on the servant of another? Excuse me, it's before his own master that he stands or falls. So God alone is the Lord of the conscience. And then it says, and he's left it free from the doctrines and commandments of men. And then it qualifies that statement in very detailed way. So this is super important stuff. He's left it free from the doctrines and commandments of men, which are in anything contrary to his word, or beside it in matters of faith or worship. So there's sort of two categories it's making here. Let me see if I can try to explain the two categories. So the two categories, if you look down on your handout, when it says beside it in matters of faith and worship, actually no, I'm sorry, I want to do the first part where it says if in anything contrary to his word. So what that's saying is, look, you're totally free from commandments that go against God's word. So your boss says, hey, could you just fudge these numbers that we're about to submit to this IRS tax audit? We don't want them to know about this or that. You have to say, no, I can't lie. I'm not going to do that. So when you're given a command, you know, when the state says, you shall not worship God, it's like, sorry, we must obey God rather than men, right? So you are totally free from all commands that are contrary to the word of God. You do not have to keep them. You are set free from any of those commands. You don't have to do anything that would disobey God. In fact, you must not do those things. And so, that's one piece. You're free of those. But then he says, you're also free, or the confession says, you're also free from the commandments and doctrines of men which are beside the word in matters of faith and worship. And so what this is talking about is you can't add new commands to those areas. So faith and worship in scripture, we realize these are two areas where God does not want us to add anything at all. And here's how we know. Revelation 22 verse 18. This is now like basically one of the last verses of the Bible. If anyone adds to the words of this book, and in the narrow context, it's obviously talking about the book of Revelation. But we understand, because this command keeps coming up, and I give you several of them there, Deuteronomy, a couple times, and Proverbs as well, that it's not just talking about Revelation, the book of Revelation. It says, if anyone adds to the words of this book, God will add to him the plagues described in this book. And in Deuteronomy, the same kind of thing. Cursed is anyone who adds words to this book. What's God doing there? He's claiming the authority to teach us what we should believe and what we should do. And he's claiming exclusive authority to that. So no one can bind our conscience with absolute commands where we say everybody must do this or they are sinning. No one can like say, yeah, in addition to the 10 commandments, there's also this 11th command, or 12th, or 13th, where you need to, and we'll give examples of this, where you need to do these things or you're disobeying God. And I neglected to fill out the one for worship, but this is just the regulative principle of worship. The idea that like when Nadab and Abihu in Leviticus 9, they say, oh, I've got a good idea. Let's add this special offering that God hasn't commanded. And it's called strange fire, could mean foreign fire. In other words, it's an offering that the nations did, that they were copying. Either way, the fact is, what it says immediately after that says, strange fire, which the Lord had not commanded. And what happened to those guys? They were roasted themselves by God, justly so. Why? They added to God's worship something that he had not commanded. So like, you know, we've talked about this before, but like, why is it not just a bad idea to do a puppet show in worship or skit time in worship? Why is that not just a bad idea? It's an unlawful idea. It's because God alone claims the right to tell us how he wants to be worshipped. So we only do and worship what God has actually commanded us to do. So we're free from the doctrines and commandments of men, which are contrary to God's word. We absolutely must not do those. And when it's matters of faith or worship, if somebody's trying to add to that stuff, like they say in the Roman Catholic Church, there's this place, it's not heaven, it's not hell, it's purgatory where everybody gets their sins burned off before they go up to heaven. You need to believe this. Well, hold on a second, that place is not described in the Bible. On what authority do you say this thing? It's clearly a teaching beside the word of God. And so we must not believe that, we're free from that. However, this is really important to add, we are allowed to add commands that are in areas of God-given authority that are not matters of faith or worship. Because God has commanded, honor your father and your mother, honor the civil authorities, you know, Romans 13, 1 Peter 2, honor your masters, slaves honors your masters. So he says that, you know, we saw that in Colossians chapter three. Because he says those things, then when those people make commands that are not about worship or beside, you know, they're not about worship or about you must believe this or that, matters of faith, then we need to honor those because we're honoring the God-given command to honor those people. So like we need to do the dishes when we're told to by our parents. We need to obey traffic laws. We need to do the work our master has assigned to us. They are beside God's law, like there's no one in God's law where it says, do the dishes tonight. But because they are not matters of faith or worship, And because they're made by an authority figure that God has appointed, and it's in the sphere of authority assigned to that person, then we must obey. And we shouldn't call it a legalistic thing when our parents say, hey, that article of clothing doesn't meet my standard of modesty. You can't wear that today. Like, why are you so legalistic? Well, I'm not being legalistic, I'm trying to apply God's command here. And I do have authority over you in this matter, and I'm asking you to honor me in this. So, any questions about this? There's a lot of nuance and sophistication to the confession statement here. Is this making sense? So when is a command not legitimate? This is sort of one of your first quiz questions, I guess. Did you understand it? When is a command not legitimate? Ryan. So a command is not legitimate if it goes directly against what is revealed in scripture or trying to think of the word by, uh, or, uh, if it can't be, uh, cyphered, um, from scripture logically, um, right. Good. Then we wouldn't follow it. Yeah, so if it's a matter of faith or worship, and it doesn't directly flow from Scripture, it may not be like, here's the command, but it's a direct outflow of the Scriptures. For example, what we confess in the Nicene Creed is all that kind of stuff, that Jesus is God the Son, fully God, fully man. We need to believe that. And it's right to bind people's conscience. You need to believe this because it's something that derives from scripture. But what about other areas of authority? When does a command become illegitimate, say, from an employer or a parent? Yeah, Kelsey? When it's reaching outside of their scope. Yeah, when it's not under their authority, good. Yeah, and so this requires an understanding of what has God entrusted, what's the sphere of authority that God has entrusted to the state, to the church, to the family, to the school. Good. Yeah, and then also, if it were to be something that falls under these categories of adding articles of faith or how we should worship God. Okay, let's go on to line C. So then it says, okay, so if you get this, what liberty of conscience means, it doesn't mean now you're free to do whatever you want. What it does mean is that people can't bind your conscience about things that are outside of the word when it comes to matters of faith and life. Then it says this, so that to believe such doctrines or to obey such commands out of conscience is to betray true liberty of conscience. So like if you embrace this thing, like Paul was dealing with this in Galatians, right? Where people were saying, yeah, in order for you to be truly a good Christian, you have to be circumcised and keep the entire old covenant law. And Here's a good review question. Are we required to keep the old covenant law? I'll give you a hint, it's not gonna be a simple yes, no. Are we required to keep the entire old covenant law? How would you answer that question? Yeah. Yes, the moral law that God gives us in the Old Testament is for all time for old and new covenant believers. But there are certain civil or ceremonial laws that applied to Israel. But those principles that are revealed are still revealed the Lord's will for us. Good, yeah, there's still, it's not like we sweep those aside when we say the Passover is a thing of the past. We actually look to the true Passover, Jesus Christ, and Paul says, let us keep the feast, remembering the Passover command, but now we're keeping the truly joyous feast of the Lord's Supper as we remember what Christ did for us. Yeah, so the whole old covenant as a covenant order is not something that we're under, but it continues to inform us as those in the new covenant about how we should obey. I just think that one of the things that Paul was so riled up about in Galatians was his, like what you had said, but the Jews were trying to say that you had to keep the law in order to be saved or to be holy. And so either one of those things, like we don't keep God's law in order to be holy because Jesus has given us His holiness. So we keep it out of love. And to live according to who we actually are now, but not because it's going to make us holier, because we can't get any holier than having Jesus' blood and righteousness on us. And then our salvation is completely given to us as a free gift, so it's not like we're earning it. So I think those two things are the crux of the matter of where they went wrong and why we still keep the law, but we keep it with a free conscience and we keep it as already declared holy people. Yeah, yeah, the there's sort of two issues, like one is, are we still required just to keep the old covenant as as it stood as old covenant standards? But then there's also this other issue of are we required to keep it in order to be just before God and righteous? And in both cases, in Galatians, Paul is teaching against both of those things. Yeah, right. Yeah, one of the major themes of the Book of Romans, especially chapter three, is the fact that Paul over and over and over says we're justified by faith apart from works of the law. And then at the end of chapter three, he says, do we then nullify the law? By no means, we uphold it. Yeah. Thank you for that. That's a great, that's a great line. It really enforces, I think what Trina is bringing out too, that like, um, by, by, um, saying that we're not justified by works of the law, we're not saying, well, get rid of that thing. We're saying, look, we're not looking to this to make us righteous, right? And this is a huge problem in our time, where you ask people, why will God accept you when you come to heaven, to the gates of heaven? Oh, because I was so good. And we need to teach people, like, no, it's by the blood of Christ. But that doesn't then mean that, well, now we don't care about keeping God's law. And that's what the Roman Catholic polemicists, the people who are arguing against the Reformation, one of the things they were saying about the reformers, it's like, you guys are throwing out, by saying that we're justified by faith alone, not by works, now nobody's gonna obey. And of course, that's a red herring. That's not actually what the Bible teaches or what Protestants teach. But the key idea here, Galatians 5.1, is for freedom, Christ has set us free. So stand firm and do not submit again to a yoke of slavery. What's the yoke of slavery? These extra commands. This command, in this case, of being circumcised, even though that's something that's passed away now. I just want to make a comment. I thought, I think maybe the word holy can be used in two different ways. Okay. So we're made holy in Christ. But first Peter says, because God is holy, you be holy in your conduct. So you can have unholy conduct and call it that. Yeah, that's right. It's not fitting for you as a Christian. Yeah, we should strive to grow in holiness and holy living. And yet we know sanctification ultimately is the work of the Spirit. He's the one who makes us more holy. But that doesn't mean that we suddenly stop aspiring to holiness. Yeah. Yeah, so I think the burden of the writers of the Confession here is just to say, look, if we obey human commands as a matter of religious duty, if we say, yeah, I'm gonna, you know, completely abstain from alcohol or, you know, all these other things that God has, like, said, like, He's not forbidding these things. And we're doing it as a matter of religious duty. In other words, we're saying I'm doing this because I believe to do otherwise would be inherently to sin against God. Then we have compromised and lost the freedom that God has given us in Christ. Freedom from obeying man-made commands. We're going to talk hopefully in a few minutes about what tempts us to go down this route? Why would we ask for extra commands? We'll talk about that in a second, but I really want to make sure we understand line D. So it says, look, if you believe these extra doctrines or you obey these extra commands out of conscience, in other words, as your religious duty, you must obey this or you're sinning, you're betraying true liberty of conscience, and there's this, that whole idea of requiring extra stuff, the requiring of an implicit faith, And an absolute and blind obedience is to destroy liberty of conscience and reason also. So what is implicit faith? Implicit faith is the opposite of explicit faith. Implicit faith is saying, just trust me. I don't have to explain the reasons for why I'm commanding this of you. You just need to take me. at my word. And so, like when God commands in, you know, the Ten Commandments, you shall have no other gods before me, you shall not murder, you shall not commit adultery, all those things, the response is not, okay, God, prove that I have to do this. The response is, yes, Lord, because of who's saying it, God. We implicitly trust him and we implicitly do whatever he says simply because he said it. And what the confession is saying is, don't forget God alone is Lord of the conscience. If you do this, this kind of implicit trust, oh, he said it, so therefore it must be true. If you do this for anybody else except God, you are undermining the liberty of your conscience. And yet that's exactly what Roman Catholic and Eastern Orthodox Church authorities say. They'll say, do these extra things that God doesn't command. For example, pray to Mary. Like, binding the conscience. You must say the Hail Mary prayer. Or, you must believe in purgatory. I already gave that example. There are plenty of other doctrines we could come up with here. Like if you go through the Roman Catholic Catechism, which is this long document of all the things that is official Catholic teaching, you'll find many things in there that are Biblical, they're good, true, I mean they believe Nicene Christology just like us, but then there's all kinds of extra stuff in there, like the things I'm listing here. And they're saying you need to believe this on our authority. Don't ask why, just simply because the church teaches it should be enough for you. And this is a claim to magisterial authority, their ability to declare commands and teachings that are extra, outside of the Bible. So when the Pope speaks ex cathedra, as he did in mid 20th century, forbidding all forms of birth control, Okay, now we're adding something else. And he's claiming an authority to be able to bind your conscience in something. And of course, they would always say like, well, we're doing this based on the sacred tradition that goes back way early, early on. But the point is, if you're trying to root this teaching in anything other than the word, and God himself speaking in the word, then you're You're requiring an implicit faith. Trust us. And in contrast, if you just flip it over, the reformed understand all church power to be ministerial. So the opposite of magisterial church authority is ministerial church authority. We can only bind people's consciences based on scripture. So I am a minister of the gospel. I minister God's word to you. I am not here to tell you my own personal standards. In fact, if I do that, and I try to bind your conscience and say, you're sinning if you don't do this or that personal thing that I think you should do, then I am disobeying God. I am dishonoring Him, right? And Romans 10 shows us this pattern. How are they to believe in Him of whom they have never heard? So where does faith come from? Hearing. And how are they to hear without someone Preaching, so what are they to hear? Someone preaching the word. And then the underlying logic of this is that people can understand the Bible. And so it's on the basis of God's word that we know what to believe. And so minister, this is the idea of sola scriptura. Ministers can only bind people's consciences by proving their teaching from the Bible. So I hope you hear this every time I'm doing Sunday School or any time I'm preaching. I'm always not just telling you, here's what you should know and believe. I have to show it to you from the Bible. I have to prove it to you from Scripture. And if I'm not proving it to you from Scripture, if you're not walking away convinced what the pastor just told me to do emerges from this text, or from this text in light of the larger whole of Scripture, I'm not doing my job. You know, the Bereans, what made them so noble? They went back and compared the teaching with the word to see if it was true. So I see a hand over here, yeah. I had a couple of questions. A couple of things, because I've just been starting to understand. As far as Eastern Orthodox Church, I know that they don't believe in purgatory, nor do they pray to Mary. So what would that, what would, obviously Roman Catholics, in Roman Catholicism they would say that they ask Mary to pray for them, pray for us sinners. Yeah, they try to make a distinction. Yeah. Yeah, and actually the Eastern Orthodox would actually urge the same. So they would urge you to pray to Mary and to the saints. And they would actually say you should do that through icons, these visible representations of them. And yeah, they would try to qualify and say, well, we're not saying it in the same sense as praying to Jesus. We're just venerating these people, we're not worshiping them and stuff. But if you look at the text of the actual prayers that they did, So for example, the Hail Mary. Hail Mary full of grace, the Lord is with thee. Blessed art thou among women and blessed is the fruit of thy womb, Jesus. Mary, pray for us sinners now and at the hour of our death. What is that doing? You're asking her something. You're asking her to do something. My burden is not just the fact that this is deeply confusing people, like, why are you turning to Mary instead of to the one mediator, Jesus Christ, 1 Timothy 1, right? But it's also the fact that they're commanding you to do this. So like, you know, I was a Catholic, and they would, after confession, you would be instructed, you'd be commanded by a priest, this is what you need to do as your penitence. You need to pray, you know, five Our Fathers and ten Hail Marys, right? And so, like, What's going on there? There's a binding of the conscience to this thing, which is an egregious compromise of this principle. Am I getting your question? Well, I think there should be a separation between Orthodox faith and Roman Catholicism, because there's things I do find at fault there. But as far as Eastern Orthodox, as I looked into it, they would say, we're following the tradition from the very early church. And they would say, we ask for prayers just like we would ask other saints on earth, we ask. We're not seeking, we're not praying to them, and they reject purgatory and all these different things. And I guess when you hear different arguments, I'm wrestling with this, I'll be honest. Some of the fruits of Protestantism, breaking away from the Catholic Church, which they had wrong doctrine, like I'm not We have endless factions. It's constant division, and now people are just starting their own non-denominational churches, and it's just constant divide, divide, divide. And now, I'm... I don't want to, I'm just wrestling with all this different stuff, like, you know, Sola Scripture, then everyone's left to determine, well, I read the scripture here, and I can go, everyone would say, I'm reading it in context, and I interpret it. There's so much variation now within Protestants that it's like, how is Christ's church not, For me, it seems like, on the little minor things, but how is not Christ's church so divided? I struggle with that a lot. And so when I look at the Reformation and stuff, and I even look at different reformers, and they were kind of almost at war with each other in the early. Zigley and Luther and all that they were you know and then we got people like no longer baptizing infants and and some of the things the Reformers believe the Protestants now would be like in horror what you know they would believe that they would say oh that's like Roman Catholicism I really wrestle with this and I hear a lot of arguments coming from the other side especially from the Eastern Orthodox side as I look into it and they make a lot of valid arguments on where they can critique, whereas we can critique them. They make a lot of good critiques for Protestantism, I guess. Yeah, no, thank you for that. I think what you're bringing out is a serious problem in Protestantism. One person said, Martin Luther got rid of one pope and made a million popes, right? Where you have this fragmentation of everybody claiming, I have the right authoritative interpretation of the Bible. And so you have this utterly fractured landscape now of factionalism. And so like, what's the answer to that? and like there's a lot that can be said to your problem. I think that like at the root, one thing that's at the root is that between our tradition and Eastern Orthodoxy is, is the Bible understandable by everyday believers? Eastern Orthodoxy would say, no, you need us, the church, to interpret the Bible for you. Whereas we would say that the Bible is understandable by everyday believers, and there are parts of it that are obscure, that are harder to understand, and so we have divisions over things like infant baptism and such, right? And yet, we believe that the Bible does speak clearly enough for believers to be able to make an accurate and good choice about these different doctrinal questions. And so, Just to, I'm trying to, there's so many things that your question raises, I'm trying to like kind of bring it home, but just real quick, I really wanted to make sure I said this too, that I think it's a false statement to say that Eastern Orthodoxy is different from Catholicism and that it doesn't bind your conscience on extra stuff. That's actually deeply false because there are many ways in which Eastern Orthodoxy is telling us things that actually go directly against God's word. One of them just being the second commandment, not to make graven images, not to worship God with images. They actually bind your conscience to say like, yeah, there needs to be icons. And in fact, not to have these in the church would be a heinous sin against God. So lots more to be said on this front. I think I saw Danielle's hand first though. Yeah, I was just going to say, I don't know anything about Eastern Orthodoxy, but I almost became Catholic, so I studied it in great detail. And one of the things that I found, and I was attracted for many reasons, but one of them was that I saw them as more united than Protestants. Right. But number one, I don't think they're as united as it seems like that they try to say. And also, if you look at church history, there's so many doctrines that they've added. And they claim that they've existed since the beginning, but transubstantiation wasn't even a doctor until, what was it, 1250, something like that. Yeah, relatively recent. I mean, just so many things. So, it's, they try to make it look one way on the surface, but when you really look at it, and then there's the great schism, I mean, between Eastern Orthodox and Roman Catholics, that Roman Catholics claim that they're the one true church, but then the Eastern Orthodox thinks they're heretics, and like, you know. It's the same. Yeah, mutual. So, you know, that's just one of the things that I... Yeah, the specter of like, oh, if I look at this tradition, look how unified they are. Well, actually, when you get into it, you realize Catholicism is as broad as anything, and there's obviously tremendous theological diversity. And there is, I noticed right now going on, a dispute between the Latin mass, you know, whether... Yeah, that's a great example. I don't know what the other one's called. So they have fights amongst themselves, too. Yeah, that's right. Yeah, did I see your hand? In the Westminster Catechism, the first chapter, 9 and 10, we've gone over that multiple times, and scripture is the final authority. It's fine to have debates, and we should have open discussion and debates. That's fine. But the final authority is scripture, and this is what drew me to here, is that the final authority has always been scripture. Growing up in the Orthodox Church, Just having buried my mother a month or a few months ago, you do not bury a Greek Orthodox individual without shoes because they have a 40-day journey. to reach heaven, which is not there, not called purgatory, they won't call it that, but it is purgatory in every word, every other sense, I should say. And so they state things, but they do not, as you well put, they don't worship Mary, they venerate her. But why do they kiss her icon? Chant incense and right and to her image and sadly in this Dayton church growing up in front of the altar is a huge image and I always thought that image was Jesus in Byzantine It was Mary. Oh, wow. With a baby, but you couldn't see the baby below the altar. Oh, OK. Wow. Interesting. So it's really quite legalistic. And the freedom is in the gospel. The freedom is in the word of God. And think about it. You know, Luther, Tyndale. Going back to your comment in the last paragraph that we just went over, the Orthodox and Catholics priests would say if there's anything important in this book, the Bible, we'll let you know. And that was the faith my parents exercised until I started reading the Bible and questioning. They really didn't study very much. And after that, they did, thankfully. That's the outflow of the implicit faith thing, right? It's on a need-to-know basis, right? We'll tell you what you need to know from the Bible. But think about the time of Luther, Tyndale, the Lollards, trying to get Word of God into the farmer, the plow boy. Right. That was that was liberty. That was truth. Yeah. And it's a great heritage that we have, that we have the word in our own language and that we can understand it. And yeah, I mean, there's a lot of theological diversity and Protestantism, but I think that like when you actually look down at the word and try to understand what it's saying, that it does lead you in a certain direction. And that direction is clearly understood when we ask the Spirit for his help. I'd love to get your question, but I really have to say a few more things here if I'm gonna land the plane. Yeah, legalism is the opposite of liberty of conscience. And it's something I just really need to warn you about. Because it's everywhere, like I gave some examples. If you're not homeschooling, you're not doing things right. Skirts have to be this long to be modest. A divorced person can never remarry. Alcohol is inherently evil. All these things and many others. I'm giving real examples. These are things that are actually taught by people, in some cases, who are very, very close to our theological tradition, or even in our theological tradition. This is forbidden by God to add these extra commands. In vain do they worship me, teaching as doctrines, in other words doctrines of God, the commandments of men. Or we saw this in Colossians, why do you submit to regulations according to human precepts and teachings? They have the appearance of wisdom, but they're of no value in stopping the indulgence of the flesh. You were bought with a price, 1 Corinthians 7. Do you not become slaves of men? And I just really want to make sure I talk about why are we so prone to throw away the liberty that God's given us in Christ? It's an incredible gift that we have been given the word. and the Word is in language we can understand. Koine Greek, Greek in the New Testament is common Greek, everyday Greek. It's not some elevated special Greek that's hard to understand. Are we so prone to elevate the teaching of people over God's Word? Well, I think a few things. One is Galatians 1.10, it says, if I were obeying Men, I would no longer be obeying God. I would be seeking man's approval, not God's. And so I think people all around us are much more tangible to us than God. And so one reason why we obey the teachings of human beings is it's very compelling, especially when you have a charismatic teacher, to say, I really want to do what would please this guy. And we need to be really careful not to please people, but God. And so that's an element. I think also just we're always looking for strong authority and instruction. Lots of people would love it if someone just boomed from on high, you should not take that job, you should take that job. Like all these decisions that fill us with anguish, right? Should I do this or should I do that? Wouldn't it be so wonderful if someone just told you exactly what to do? Should I wear this or should I wear that? You don't have to worry about those things anymore if you have legalism. And so I think there's a cop-out element to this, like a laziness element, that we don't want to have to think and pray and act with wisdom. God wants us to think. And legalism offers us a way out. And then, yeah, like, we can, this is, I think, a powerful idea, that we have the wrong view of God. This can be another reason why we opt for legalism. Viewing him as the stingy killjoy who says we should abstain from certain lawful pleasures, like forbidding marriage or certain foods. This is the example from 1 Timothy 4, when God actually created these things for our good. And I love this insight from Ferguson that, Legalism, in other words, adding laws. Antinomianism, in other words, rejecting God's laws. They actually have the same bad view of God deep down. They both see God as holding back good things from us. They just respond differently to that. So legalism says, well, okay, God's forbidden me from eating this particular food. But then it fumes against God. And you think of the older son in the Prodigal Son parable who says, you never gave me this, you know, a feast for me and my friends, right? What's his view of God? God is the killjoy. But the antinomianism one, in other words, the prodigal, what's he saying? He's saying, oh man, life is to be found outside, under this father's control, and I'm gonna just seize what I want and blow him off. We'll both have the wrong view of the father. They both are missing the fact that he is good and seeking their good. Any other thoughts about why we're prone to legalism? My thought in your discussion in coming to this is it's our self-righteousness that we think we can continue to add to make ourselves good. Yeah, no, that's a great one. And that we can be more approved by God if we're so good. Yeah, legalism, often what it does is it makes the very difficult law of God much more doable. And so we can have this feeling that we are obeying God. See, I pray five times a day. I fast, you know, multiple times a week, you know, what the Pharisees were saying. Okay, it appears that you're very pious, but what are you doing? You're just sort of going through these motions, doing these things, checking these very checkable boxes, and missing the real command, which is to seek God with all your heart. What Gabrielle is saying too is pride. We can one up other people. I'm more holy than you are because I do this or whatever. But I was thinking too, kind of maybe wrapping up, is we have unity in the church not because we all think the same or do the same or act the same or look the same. We have unity because we're all in Christ. And we believe in a trinity, which is one in three and has perfect harmony in himself, in God. And so when we partake of the Lord's Supper as one body, one bread, that's the true unity, is all those who have faith in Jesus. And because we're all sinners, none of us is going to believe and understand everything perfectly. So we really can't expect to achieve that in this world. The perfect unity. The perfect unity of the perfect thought of everybody believing what God believes perfectly. That's not going to happen until glory. Yeah, thank you for that. Well, as always happens to me, I have more to share with you than I have time to share. But I encourage you just to read the last part there about what we should do when a Christian falls prey to legalism in our midst. The instruction from Romans 14 and 1 Corinthians 8, very important to us. And I just ask you to consider for your own part, to what extent are you engaged in legalism? To what extent are you imposing on others standards in the sense of like, you have to do this or you're not a good Christian? To what extent are you receiving, for your own part, instruction that really is beyond what is written, that goes beyond the actual teaching of scripture? To what extent are you exposing yourself to that and actually believing that? And just recognize that you're losing something. You may feel like, oh, I've got this really great, amazing teacher who tells me everything I should believe and do. Like, that's not the answer. It's going back to the word. And just even for my part, as I'm teaching you, I hope that you know, even if I've been here for a while, like, you still have to compare everything I say with scripture. Just because Pastor Patton says it doesn't mean it's right. So hold me to this standard too. I want to be held to this because I'm under the word myself. And yeah, I promised a quiz, so you guys just got out of it. Lucky you. Or maybe not. Maybe next week. All right. Well, let's pray. Lord, thank you so much for giving us liberty of conscience through Christ. Thank you that you really do crystallize for us that there's one Lord, one faith, and therefore, really, we have one that we must answer to on the last day, and it is you. We pray that as we honor your authority, that we would also honor the authorities you've established. and that we would obey and honor our parents, that we would honor others like the state and the church and the school that we may be under in different capacities. And that Lord, even as we honor those, we would honor them as under you, as in Christ. And we pray you protect us from legalism that we would reject and hate when people go beyond what you have spoken. That Lord, we would be aware of this and always comparing what we're hearing with the word of God. And we thank you for the word and for how clear it is. And we pray that you would help us to be faithful in all these things, we pray in Jesus' name, amen.