All right, well, we'll get started this morning. We gotta try and make some headway here, so let's... Let's begin with a prayer. Father, we thank you so much for your love and kindness, your grace, your mercy in our lives. Thank you, Lord, for this day that you've granted to us and this beautiful place, peaceful place, Lord. Thank you so much for the gift of your Son for this time. And we ask, Lord, that all that we discuss here would be edifying for us here, for those who may hear in the future. and that above all that your name would be honored and glorified. Please grant us these things in Christ's name. Amen. Amen. So we're getting back into chapter five. Took some detours the last couple of weeks. That's okay. But we're in the section in chapter five under the heading penance or repentance. We started with the first paragraph. I'll just refresh with that. Ferguson writes, behind the Reformation conflict lay the late medieval discussions on how we receive grace, imprisoned as it was within the Latin Bible of Jerome, the Vulgate. There was a question that was asked last week, and exactly what Ferguson meant by using such a strong language as imprisoned. For the medieval church, the Vulgate Bible was the Bible, essentially. So whatever strengths or weaknesses it had, contributed greatly to the strengths or weaknesses of medieval theology. I remarked earlier to Bill that one way we see that is in the Latin's translation for justification of the Greek word for justification, which is a slightly different meaning, carries a different meaning from the Greek, which means to make righteous. Think about that and what you may know about Roman Catholic sacramentology and their understanding of justification. You can see how that influence of the Vulgate Bible played a part. The church had... I couldn't tell you how... Okay, there you go. The church had read Jesus' exhortation, Repent, as to Penitent, as interpreted as due penance, the biblical idea of repentance therefore became associated with, if not limited to, specific concrete acts that a priest could prescribe for sins, as part of the sacramental system. So, for instance, you go and, you know, I did this as a kid, you confess sins to the priest and he gives you acts of penance to do, whether it's, say, five Hail Marys or go do a good, what have you, things of that nature. For sinners, this became the prerequisite for the reception of further grace as slowly but rather than, rarely rather than surely, The first infusion of grace at baptism was worked out through the sacramental system to its consummation in full justification. And this, you know, lay at the heart of the Reformation disagreement with Rome. Not that Rome had continued to adhere to the apostles' doctrine and the doctrine of the early church fathers, but had over time veered away from it. So what the Reformers were trying to do, really, as I listened to a very interesting discussion this morning talk about, was more of a renovation. It wasn't a split. They were trying to get the church really back to the Bible in a lot of ways. And that's a really good and helpful way to think about it. Because the Reformers did not see themselves as being in any way out of accord with either the apostles or the early church fathers or anything of that nature. And I think that's an important point for us to consider as modern Protestant evangelical people, because we tend to think of 1517 and onward, those are our guys, and everybody before us is suspect, and we really should not think that way. There is only one Catholic Church, and you're either in it or you're not. And it's just simply a fabrication to think that everything before 1517, you know, was Roman Catholicism. It's just not true. We don't see it. We don't see the strong rise of papal authority until I think it's the fifth century. And then there's just this gradual, gradual changing. And I heard, I heard a very interesting comment that in many ways the Roman Catholic Church didn't become the Roman Catholic Church until the Reformation and its counter-Reformation and its response to the Reformation and the counter-Reformation. And there's a really interesting point to be made there, particularly when you think of documents like the Council of Trent, where having been confronted with the errors that the Reformers were bringing forth, they really doubled down against those corrections, which is a sad thing to see. Next paragraph, God thus justified those whom grace had already made righteous. In this sense, justification was by grace, but it was not sola gratia. It took place at the end of an extended and cooperative internal process. Yet it was insisted that it is grace that produces righteousness and does so in such a way that the righteousness of God is revealed in what we might call the justification of those made righteous by grace. Another interesting point to keep in mind, if you meet with Roman Catholics, they will say, yeah, of course we believe salvation is by grace. Of course we believe salvation is by grace through faith. And you're almost stunned by that, because a lot of people are basically told, oh, well, they believe in salvation by works. You've got to put a matter in a way that the person you're disagreeing with would say it. But you also have to understand it and what they mean and what they say. So, you know, if you hear a Roman Catholic say, of course I believe in salvation by grace, good question to ask, well, what do you mean by that? The young men who were on the cutting edge of the newly birthed Reformation movement realized, as they read Erasmus's edition of the Greek New Testament, that Jesus's message was not do penance, but repent. Repentance is not a discreet external act. It is the turning around of the whole life in faith to Christ. Luther quite literally nailed this difference when he posted his 95 theses in Wittenberg. His first theses read, When our Lord Jesus Christ said, repent, he meant that the whole of the Christian life should be repentance." Repentance then is not the punctiliar decision of a moment, but a radical heart transformation that reverses the whole direction of life. In the context of faith of the repentant sinner, the repentant sinner is immediately, fully, and finally justified at the very beginning of the Christian life. No wonder joy was released and assurance flowed. The understanding the point here that he's making is that look that Luther's making is that look yes repentance is necessary But repentance is all of life Justification happens at that moment when you repent But that it's it's a it's a it's a fruit that has worked out throughout your entire life Whereas Rome was saying as you are repenting you are being infused with justifying grace to until you reach the point of final justification It is a process. In other words, sanctification. That's what we would call sanctification, yeah. They mix those things. And you can be justified and lose your justification and you can lose it all. You can lose it all, yeah. You can lose it all. You better not die in mortal sin, though. But the question still remained, how is evangelical repentance related to faith? Against this background in medieval theology, Calvin had insisted on giving the priority to faith. Only within the context of faith taking hold of Christ in whom we find the grace of God to us can repentance be evangelical. It cannot therefore take precedence over faith either logically or chronologically. since then it would be a work prior to and apart from faith. Calvin naturally always had repentance as penance in his sight when he wrote. A century later, the Westminster Divines were at pains to emphasize the grace context for repentance under life. This is a passage we've read quite a few times, but it bears repeating. Repentance unto life is an evangelical grace. It is something that God grants to us freely because he loves us. And that's it. By it, a sinner, out of the sight and sense of the odiousness of sin, not only of its danger, but also of the filthiness and odiousness of his sins, as contrary to the holy nature and righteous law of God, and upon the apprehension of his mercy in Christ as such as are penitent, so grieves for and hates his sin as to turn from them all unto God, purposing and endeavoring to walk with him in all the ways of his commandments. So that beautiful description of repentance, all of those wonderful things that the Westminster divines put down for us, those are things that God works within us. Those are things that he gives to us freely by his grace. They're not a result of our works. You okay, Candy? You all right? Do you need tissue? Oh, some water? Okay. Thus, within the confessional tradition to which Boston belonged, repentance takes place within the context of faith's grasp of God's grace in Christ. The latter motivates the former, not vice versa. Boston was emphatic on this point. While we cannot divide faith and repentance, we do distinguish them carefully. In a word, gospel repentance does not go before, but comes after remission of sin in the order of nature. The implications of this for preaching the gospel had liberated Boston. Christ should be presented in all the fullness of his person and work. Faith then directly grasps the mercy of God in him, and as it does, so the life of repentance is inaugurated as its fruit." It's a really wonderful and concise statement right there. And I think it really helpfully explains what the whole hubbub was about over the Akhtarator Creed, and the kind of confusion that that question presents our minds with. Because we think, well, it says, what did Peter say? Repent and believe. What did Jesus say, or John the Baptist say? Repent and believe. We have to repent. We have to repent. But no one is going to repent unless they are first granted faith and the first granted life in Christ. As a matter of instance, it happens like that. Part of the same package that we get. as opposed to, I must do works of penance, I must do works of penance, whatever those works might be. However, sorry for our sins, we feel we need to be, or however much we feel we need to pray, or how much we feel we need to do works of restitution, things of that nature. That does not come before faith and acceptance with Christ. And that is never the basis of faith and acceptance in Christ. We are really cooking with gas today. Any comments or questions? Indulgences, yeah Yeah Yeah Yeah, and you know an indulgence can be more than just giving money it could be you know making pilgrimages or what have you but the whole concept of You do this and the church will take X amount of years off your time or someone else's time in purgatory. I Mean the sheer fictitiousness of that claim and trying to attribute it to the teaching of the church or the teaching of the apostles or the teachings of Christ is just outrageous. It's no wonder that Luther was outraged by it. Yeah. Well, they would point back to the... I could do that, but if you give me money... Oh, yeah. Yeah. Yeah. There was a lot of corruption. Yeah, but people from the outside would look at that and go, well, these are really holy people. Exactly. These are really amazing people. Yep. There's no way I'd be able to... I have the only choice I have is to pay them. I could never be that holy. Yeah, yeah, it's really, it's a sick and twisted heresy for sure. Yeah. To me, it's like, it just seems so much just in our nature, though, to think that, oh, I have a good idea, but it's too good. Yeah. I think of, like, Saul, when he was told to kill all those animals and kill that king, he thought, oh, I think I know something better. I'll keep them, and that way we can offer some of them to the Lord. And then, like, in modern day, we've got a lot of churches that are like, I got a great idea. Let's have a light show and on the stage. And we'll, like, it'll be, you know, your best life now. Like, we're always thinking when we, yeah, God's word is all right, but we, I know how to make it better. Yeah, it's, there's a lot of truth in that, for sure. Yeah, I listened to an episode of the white horse in this morning that came out and then they were one of the things they were talking about seemed to be in the in the context of a broader conversation about the Nicene Creed they were talking about heresy and what heresy really is and and differentiating it from those who are in error and those who are Maybe in great error, but aren't necessarily heretics and people who may actually believe heresy, but still aren't heretics and how we how we kind of suss that out. And 1 of the things that I think it was Dr Horton brought up was. that a heretic is someone who's going his own way. That's really what the word heresy means. It means going your own way. And it's this notion of being presented with the truth of scripture, which is typified for us in creedal statements, recognizing those statements and saying, no, I've got a better way, and going against those things. That is a true heretic. So it'd be someone who denies the nature of God, denies the Trinity, denies the gospel in such a way, and really understands that they are denying it. It's not someone who just got saved and, you know, is telling you like a modalistic analogy for the Trinity or something like that. Well, the Trinity is like water. It's a gas, it's a solid, and it's a liquid, which is horrible, a horrible theology. And it's actually heretical theology. That person's not a heretic. They just need discipling. Which is, you know, all of us in one degree or another. But it just goes back to your point that the whole notion of going your own way and we can decide for ourselves what is and what is not acceptable to God. Dangerous, dangerous place to be living in. All right. All right, Ferguson goes on. The implications of this for preaching the gospel had liberated Boston. Christ should be presented in all the fullness of his person and work. Faith indirectly grafts the mercy of God in him. And as it does so, the life of repentance is inaugurated. The Merrill had already put its finger on this point in the conversation between Nomista the legalist and Evangelista the minister. You guys remember Merrill of Modern Divinity and the discussions that take place within that between Nomista, Evangelista, and what's the other one? Anti-Nomista? I can't remember the other character. But so here we are again, presented with one such conversation between Nomista. So Nomista, namas, meaning law. So Nomista is the legalist, evangelista, evangelion, gospel, good news, the good guy. All right. Nomista says, but yet, sir, you see that Christ requires a thirsting before a man come unto him, but which I conceive cannot be without true repentance. Evangelista replies, in the last chapter of the Revelation, verse 17, Christ makes the same general proclamation saying, let him that is a thirst come. And as if the Holy Ghost had so long since answered the same objection that yours is, it follows in the next words, and whosoever will, let him take of the water of life freely, even without thirsting. If he will for him that cometh unto me, I will in no wise cast out. But because it seems you conceive he ought to repent before he believe, I pray, tell me, what do you conceive repentance to be, or wherein does it consist? Nomista replies, why, I conceive that repentance consists in a man's humbling himself before God, and sorrowing and grieving for offending him by his sins, and in turning from them all to the Lord. Evangelista, and would you have a man do all this truly before he come to Christ by believing? You know, if you think of that, what we just read from the Westminster Confession and what Nomista is saying, a fairly good description of what repentance is, but it's missing that whole first part that it's an evangelical grace. Nomista replies, yes, indeed, I think it is very meet, he should, evangelista. Why then, I tell you truly, you would have him do that which is impossible. For first of all, godly humiliation and true penitence proceeds from the love of God, their good father, and so from the hatred of that sin which has displeased him, and this cannot be without faith. Sorrow and grief for displeasing God by sin necessarily argue the love of God, and it is impossible we should ever love God till by faith we know ourselves loved of God. No man can turn to God except he first be turned of God. And after he has turned, he repents. So he, for him, says, after I was converted, I repented. The truth is a repentant sinner first believes that God will do that which he promises, namely pardon his sin and take away his iniquity. Then he rests in the hope of it. And from that and for that, he leaves sin and will forsake his old course because it is displeasing to God and will do that which is pleasing and acceptable to him. So that first of all, God's favor is apprehended and remission of sins believed, and upon that comes alteration of life and conversation. That's the end of that little section there on that conversation. And the language is kind of antiquated. Is it still fairly clear what the argument is? It just goes back to putting the cart before the horse, so to speak. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah indeed So it's it's just it's it's such an important concept for us to grasp That the person who repents the person who repents and believes it is one whose God has already so greatly affected by His grace, whether they apprehend all that or not, because of His love for them, His free love and His free grace for that person from all eternity. That's who comes to the Lord. So if that's who comes to the Lord, we seriously have to keep in mind what is important for us to be declaring to sinners. Christ. He is the display of God's love. He is the display of God's promise to forgive sins and to grant righteousness and to grant eternal life and to rescue from death. That's what we offer to people. And that's not only what we offer to people, but that's how we approach every single day. That's who we are as believers. We're accepted in the Beloved. We're loved from all eternity. Our sins are forgiven. God counts me as righteous. Even in our worst moments. Because to think of it the other way, and the way that the legalists would think of it, is it ever true that you've prayed enough? Or read your Bible enough? Or sorry enough for your sins? or even aware of all of your sins, much less be sorry for them and grieve them. If you start to think about God in those terms, and that's how you relate to Him, it is going to have a drastic effect on multiple aspects of you as a person, of your Christian life, and probably affect the people around you because of what he was talking about, that kind of almost a vinegar spirit. All right. Wow, we're going to get through this today. All right. And just to try and take another big picture look again, you know, the last several weeks we've talked about the Ordo Salutis and things of that nature and why that was brought into the discussion was because we tend to think, and I think we brought it up last week, we think of gospel preaching and of the Christian life in a very revivalistic sort of way, where there's these steps that we follow. And if we do these steps, then we're accepted by God. And then if we think that way, and that's how we think we came to God, we tend to think towards other Christians in such a way, well, I don't really know about this person because I don't see enough of this step in their life, or whatever it is. this level of repentance, this level of commitment. So you see how a subtle shift in thinking about how it is that we're saved really starts to affect a lot of things about ourselves and about our attitudes, one towards God, towards ourselves, and then towards others. It does tend to breed a notion of us needing to meet certain requirements in order to be accepted by Christ. However subtle those requirements are set forth, really does affect how we think about God, and how we think about others, and how we approach the Christian life. Yeah. Yeah, that's perfect. Yeah. I wish someone had read that to me when I was first converted. I wish someone would have read that to me when I was first converted. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah, he was great. Yeah, he was really good. All right. Let's continue. We're almost done with this section. Boston said is sealed to these words and indicated in lengthy notes. I remember that. The Marrow of Modern Divinity was reprinted, and Boston wrote basically commentary notes on it to help explain what was going on. You can find that. It might be the easiest version of it to find. It's very helpful. You get this section of this discussion between these characters from the Marrow of Modern Divinity, and then you get Boston's comments on it. Boston said his seal to these words and indicated in lengthy notes that this was his own understanding of the way of salvation. Repentance is suffused with faith, otherwise it is legal. But then without repentance, faith would be no more than imagination. For all that the Merrill brethren were suspected of encouraging antinomianism, no member of Boston's congregation in Ettrick would ever have imagined him to be anything but wholly innocent of the charge. Indeed, the very year the Octorotter Creed was being scrutinized and condemned at the General Assembly, Boston preached extensively on the theme he had taken up as his ordinary, the absolute necessity of repentance, the danger of delaying it, and for good measure, an additional powerful message, the extraordinary case of the thief on the cross, no argument for delaying repentance. In all this, Boston and the Merrill brethren seemed to be one with Calvin, At the end of the day, we cannot divide faith and repentance chronologically. Again, that goes to that comment right there. We cannot divide faith and repentance chronologically. It goes to what we were talking about when we were talking about the Ordo Salutis. And the Ordo Salutis being a logical order, not a chronological order, so we shouldn't look at it and think of, oh, these are the steps of salvation, that one must follow the other, or they happen instantaneously in time. The true Christian believes penitently, and he repents believingly. For this reason, in the New Testament, either term may be used when both dimensions are implied, and the order in which they are used may vary. But in the order of nature, in terms of the inner logic of the gospel and the way its grammar functions, repentance can never be said to precede faith. It cannot take place outside of the context of faith. Again, that's why I think a really good way of thinking about faith and repentance is really it's a coin, and they're two sides of the same coin. They're not the same thing. They are distinguishable. But you get one, you get the other. That's the way of it. Calvin does indeed have in mind a pre-Reformation notion that the Gospel command to repent means to do penance. But his thinking extends beyond that. This is a quote from Calvin. Both repentance and forgiveness of sins, that is, newness of life and free reconciliation, are conferred on us by Christ, and both are attained by us through faith. Now it ought to be a fact beyond controversy that repentance not only constantly follows faith, but is also born of faith. For since pardon and forgiveness are offered through the preaching of the gospel in order that the sinner, freed from the tyranny of Satan, the yoke of sin, and the miserable bondage of vices, may cross over into the kingdom of God, surely no one can embrace the grace of the gospel without betaking himself from the errors of his past life into the right way, and applying his whole effort to the practice of repentance. There are some, however, who suppose that repentance proceeds faith rather than flows from it, or is produced by it as a fruit from a tree. Such persons have never known the power of repentance and are moved to feel this way by an unduly slight argument. Yet when we refer the origin of repentance to faith, we do not imagine some space of time during which it brings to the birth, but we mean to show that a man cannot apply himself seriously to repentance without knowing himself to belong to God. But no one is truly persuaded that he belongs to God unless he has first recognized God's grace. That's a good place for us to start there and start up next week. I have a question for you. You have given us such a wonderful book, and the footnotes are, I'm so glad I got the book, are very helpful. The footnote at the bottom says... Where page are you on? I'm on page 105, and it's the conclusion of this lengthy book on Calvin. The footnote reads, further for Calvin, repentance is the reality of regeneration, which for him is the conversion of a whole life of mortification and divinification. His otherwise startling chapter title in the Institute's are Regeneration by Faith, Repentance, at least the point he missed in the later reform theological categorization of these words. Regeneration by faith would have sounded distinctly Arminian, giving faith precedent over regeneration. My question for you is just the proper use of the word regeneration. All these years, There is a sense in which we can think about and speak about all of these things in a conglomerate kind of way. But if you want to, and I think even the Apostle Paul does this in places where he kind of matches these realities all together as one thing, salvation. But I think for the terms of stopping and asking the question, what is regeneration, and then taking from that question an examination of all that the scriptures have to say to us, we do make a distinction between those things. Because it sounds to me as if he's using regeneration to be meaning something a little bit more than just the spirit's quickening of a person and raising them from spiritual death to spiritual life and giving them new birth and the gift of faith. I think he's talking as well about the entire what he mentions in the quote, that vivification that happens instantaneously, that happens by faith. So I think that's probably the distinction that's going on in the language there. If you're ever in doubt, you never want to sound like an Armenian, though. Yeah, sure. Yes. Here comes the hard question. I waited to ask this question because I didn't want to stop. But how does the Roman Catholic Church determine, like, oh, you have to marry five times That is an excellent question. I don't have my copy of the Catechism of the Catholic Faith, which has a section on this. In my experience, though, so we'll just go off of that, it would tend to have to do with the seriousness of the offense committed. So if you say, forgive me, Father, I have sinned. I had a lustful thought. And then you say, and then someone else comes in, forgive me, Father, I committed adultery on my spouse. You know, those are not the same thing. So they're not gonna require the same level of penance. So that would be the priest's decision. Yeah, sure. Yeah, I mean, it's recognizing a truth that there's gradations in sin, Um, yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Well sure and you know, there's a You know, this is your the authorities in your life, you know, you're kind of justified in accepting what they say, you know there's a Think what? Would be called a proper basicality of that kind of belief Why can't I do 29 and then 1? Yeah And there's and I'll just to be fair to the Roman Catholic Church I'm sure there's a far better answer that can be given you that I just don't have available to me right now I could I'll check the catechism and Yeah, it's but I just in from my experience that's kind of what it was kind of it weighed this in and that's what it would be determined by. I think it's probably a mixed bag. and all of that. But it was an hypocrisy. That's what an hypocrisy is, to pull off the face. How hypocritical. Pre-civilized, you know, it comes to that in itself. Yeah. I mean, that was very, I want to say, weird. And Bill Buntinger would come through, and from the boys' bathroom, and, you know, everybody's like, holy off-base, you know. All the boys were afraid to say something, you know. I'm glad I never ran into any of that. My priests, they were always nice guys. All right, any last comments or questions? All right, let's pray. Father, we again thank You for this day, for this place, and for this time. Thank You for this discussion and for the wonderful reminder of Your marvelous grace in our lives. We pray that You'd please help all of us to embrace it more fully and trust in it more truly, Lord, that we may grow thereby and walk in a way that is pleasing to You. In Christ's name, amen.