|
Why I Am a Presbyterian Introduction & OverviewWeek 1 Introduction
Overview
Survey 1.
I am familiar with the Reformation and its impact on
Christianity throughout the world. 2.
I understand the basic differences between Covenant
and Dispensational theology. 3.
If I had to choose between a theologically weak
church with killer family ministries and a theologically strong church
with lackluster family ministries, I would choose the lackluster family
ministries. 4.
I believe that Infant Baptism as practiced in the
PCA has a weak Biblical foundation. 5.
I believe that Elder rule of a church, where the
Pastor is one of a group of decision-making Elders, is the Biblical
model. 6.
I believe that the Bible in its original writing is
both infallible and inerrant. 7.
I believe that God chose me for salvation before the
foundation of the world solely in accordance with his good pleasure. His
choice was in no way influenced by knowing ahead of time any of my
future actions. 8.
Before Regeneration it is impossible for a person to
perform an action of spiritual worth that is pleasing to God. 9.
I believe that a person can lose or give up their
position in God’s Grace and return to a life that results in eternal
condemnation. 10.
I believe that it is unbiblical for a woman to be a
church Elder. 11.
I believe that the typical person (i.e., mentally
aware) has the ability to choose Christ and receive his gift of
salvation. 12.
I believe that Christ died for the sins of every
person who ever lived. 13.
The choice to trust in his cross-work is the
responsibility of every person. Those who hear the message and choose to
respond will be saved whereas those who choose to reject the message
will be lost for all eternity. 14.
I believe that the Biblical mode of baptism is by
immersion. 15.
I believe that the mode of baptism is irrelevant. 16.
I believe that if God has chosen a person to be
saved, that person will inevitably accept Christ. 17.
I believe that the sacraments impart God’s grace
and provide salvation to me. 18.
I believe that God has two very distinct plans at
work: one plan revolves around the Church and the other around the
physical nation of Israel. 19.
I believe the eschatology of the Left Behind
series is fundamentally true. 20.
If the Scripture doesn’t forbid an activity, I am
free to participate. Why
I Am a Presbyterian History
of the Presbyterian Church: Reformation Roots Impacting the USA Week
2 I.
The Corruption of the Church · Began
in 313 with Constantine’s Vision and the Elevation of the Church as
the State Religion of the Roman Empire in 381. · The
Rise of the Papacy
i. Acknowledgement
of Roman Bishop as “Pope” 450-650
ii. Expansion of
Political Power (1000-1250) under Hildebrand (Gregory VII) and Innocent
III
iii. Roman Church
answered to God alone
iv. The Pope had
power over all Bishops
v. His feet
should be kissed by “all princes”
vi. Pope could
enthrone and depose Emperors and Kings
vii. Best
demonstrated by “Hey my feet are really, really cold” Henry IV of
the Holy Roman Empire (1076), “Marrying a woman named Ingeborg should
have been my first clue” King Philip of France and “What’s the big
deal about an Interdict?” King John of England · The
Unintended Consequences of Monasticism II.
The Seeds of Dissent (1300-1517) · Clerical
immorality & Greed · “Babylonian
Captivity” and the “Great Schism” · Papal
Taxation & Church Possessions · Renaissance
& Biblical Humanist · Explorers
and Empires · Printing
Press · Forerunners
of the Reformation
i. John Wycliffe
(1328-1384) 1.
Christ
is the head of the Church, not the Pope 2.
Bible
is sole authority, not the Church 3.
Church
should follow Biblical model of government w/ equality of all believers 4.
Denied
Transubstantiation 5.
Translated
the Bible into the English vernacular 6.
Organized
the Lollards and is called the Morningstar of the Reformation 7.
Body
was exhumed and burned at the stake by RCC 44 years after his death
ii. John Hus
(1373-1415) 1.
Influenced
by John Wycliffe’s teaching 2.
Emphasized
authority of Scripture 3.
Opposed
indulgences, icons and religious relics 4.
His
followers, Moravians, were very evangelistic 5.
Burned
at stake as a heretic by RCC 6.
Influenced
Martin Luther
iii. Desiderius
Erasmus 1.
The
Praise of Folly satirized the hypocrisy of the
RCC 2.
Greek
translation of the New Testament 3.
Would
ultimately oppose Luther with Free Will III.
The Accidental Revolutionary--- Martin Luther
(1483-1546) · Historical
Context
i. Born to a
prosperous German businessman
ii. “Doubt makes
the Monk”--- entered Augustinian monastery in 1505
iii. 1508 became a
Bible teacher at University of Wittenberg
iv. Great burden
over his sense of sin led to continual penance and anguish of soul.
v. Came to
realize that “Reason is a whore”. He traded in Aristotle for
Augustine and determined the only way to find the truth is through
divine revelation.
vi. The abuse in
the selling of indulgences provoked the 95 theses, nailed to the
Wittenberg Door on October 31, 1517. John Tetzel was raising money for
the completion of St. Peter’s Basilica in Rome.
vii. The sale of
indulgences were linked to the “sacrament” of penance, which
required three actions from the Christian: 1.
An
act of contrition/sorrow 2.
An
act of oral confession to a priest 3.
An
act of satisfaction to show his sorrow and pay for the temporal penalty
of his sin. Since Christ’s death only paid the “eternal” penalty,
this act had to be
fulfilled in this life or in purgatory.
viii. An indulgence
was a document that a person could buy that would free him from the
temporal penalty of sin. The purchaser was buying some of Christ or the
Saint’s “extra” acts of merit.
ix. It was taught
that you could free friends and relatives from Purgatory. “As soon as
the coin in the coffer clings, another soul from purgatory springs”
was Tetzel’s jingle.
x. Luther’s 95
Theses and subsequent debates ignited Germany · Theological
Foundation & Contributions
i. The final
authority is Scripture (sola scriptura) 1.
In
his early debates, he couldn’t answer the historical and philosophical
arguments of Johannes Eck and others, so he quoted scripture. 2.
Having
memorized the New Testament and most of the Old, he was on comfortable
ground. Theologians and the citizens of the land rallied to this appeal
to Scriptural authority in defiance of the RCC. 3.
In
1520 he wrote three pamphlets that got him excommunicated: a.
Address
to the German Nobility attacked the RCC hierarchy &
authority b.
Babylonian
Captivity attacked the RCC sacramental system c.
The
Freedom of the Christian Man attacked the
theology of the RCC and advocated the priesthood of all believers
ii. Justification
comes through faith in Christ (sola fide) 1.
Works
salvation was the teaching of the church And
since the way of Christ is arduous, and the method of leading a life
conformable to his laws and precepts very difficult (because we are
enjoined to withdraw our minds from the contamination of earthly
pleasures and to fix them upon this one object- to despise the present
good which we have in our hands, and aspire to the future, which we see
not), still of such value to each one of us is the salvation of himself
and of his soul, that we must bring our minds to decline nothing,
however harsh and endure everything, however laborious, that, setting
before ourselves the one hope of our salvation, we may at length,
through many toils and anxieties… attain to that stable and
ever-during salvation. (Cardinal
Sardoleto’s letter encouraging the citizens of Geneva to return to the
RCC) 2.
Before
conversion Luther’s sentiments were Though
I lived as a monk without reproach, I felt that I was a sinner before
God with an extremely disturbed conscience. I could not believe that he
was placated by my satisfaction. I did not love, yes, I hated the
righteous God who punishes sinners, and secretly, if not blasphemously,
certainly murmuring greatly, I was angry with God, and said, “As if,
indeed, it is not enough, that miserable sinners, eternally lost through
original sin, are crushed by every kind of calamity by the law of the
Decalogue, without having God add pain to pain by the gospel and so by
the gospel threatening us with his righteousness and wrath!” Thus I
raged with a fierce and troubled conscience. 3.
After
conversion, he would write Here
I felt that I was altogether born again and had entered paradise itself
through open gates. (On realizing the righteousness
of the gospel was not a demand of God but a righteousness that He gives
in Christ.) It
is indeed impossible for me to grasp and attain to this one and only
Redeemer from sin, Jesus, except through faith. He is and remains beyond
the grasp of works. He
who has had even a faint taste of it (faith) can never write, speak,
meditate, or hear enough concerning it. It is a living spring of water
welling up to eternal life… I
myself have now been preaching and cultivating justification by faith
alone for almost twenty years and I still feel the old clinging dirt of
wanting to deal so with God that I may contribute something and He will
have to give me his grace in exchange for my holiness. 4.
In
his final sermon, we find applicability for today In
times past we would have run to the ends of the world if we had known of
a place where we could have heard God speak. But now that we hear this
every day in sermons, indeed, now that all books are full of it, we do
not see this happening…After all there is preaching every day, often
many times every day so that we soon grow weary of it. All right, go
ahead, dear brother,… be wise and look for something else; in Trier is
our Lord God’s
coat,
in Aachen are Joseph’s pants and our blessed Lady’s chemise; go
there and squander your money, buy indulgence and the pope’s
secondhand junk; these are valuable things! You have to go far for these
things and spend a lot of money; leave house and home standing idle! But
aren’t we stupid and crazy, yes, blinded and possessed by the devil?
There sits the decoy duck in Rome with his bag of tricks, luring to
himself the whole world with his money and goods, and all the while
anybody can go to baptism, the sacrament, and the pulpit! How highly
honored and richly blessed we are to know that God speaks with us and
feeds us with his Word… But these barbarous, godless people say: What,
baptism, sacrament, God’s Word?---- Joseph’s pants, that’s what
does it! It is the devil in the world who makes the high personages, the
emperor and the kings oblivious
to
such things and causes them to allow themselves to be so grossly duped
and fooled and bespattered with filth by these first-class rascals and
liars, the pope and his tonsured shavelings. But we should listen to
God’s Word, which tells us that he is our schoolmaster, and have
nothing to do with Joseph’s pants or the pope’s juggling tricks. (From
Luther’s final sermon, 3 days before his
death) IV.
The Heart, Soul & Mind of the Reformation---
John Calvin (1509-1564) · Early
Years (1509-1540)
i. Born in France
where his father was on the staff of the Bishop of Noyon.
ii. Entered the
University of Paris at the age of 14 where he studied Latin, logic and
philosophy so diligently, he permanently impaired his health. While
there his cousin, introduced him to Protestant principles.
iii. He studied law
at the Universities of Orleans and Bourges until his father’s death at
which time he changed his studies to classical literature.
iv. In 1533/1534,
he converted to Protestantism and was soon fleeing for his life due to
an address he authored for his friend, the new rector of the University
of Paris, which advocated the need for a Luther-like Reformation.
v. In 1536, he
wrote the first edition of The Institutes of the Christian Religion
to encourage the king of France to be sympathetic to the new movement.
The book caught the attention of the theologians of Protestantism and he
became a major spokesman for the movement.
vi. In August
1536, he stops in Geneva on his way to set up a home in Strassburg.
William Farel, the hot-tempered reformer of Geneva, asked Calvin to stay
in Geneva and help him establish the Reformation in the region. Calvin
declined, expressing his wishes for a quiet life of study and
academia. Calvin’s account of what happened next
is famous in Church history: Then Farel, finding he gained nothing by
entreaties, besought God to curse my retirement and the tranquility of
my studies if I should withdraw and refuse to give assistance when the
necessity was so urgent. By this imprecation I was so struck with terror
that I desisted from the journey I had undertaken.
vii. Calvin and
Farel drafted a Confession of Faith, a Book of Discipline, adult and
children’s catechisms. Changes to the Lord Supper’s liturgy and
other changes produced resistance from prominent citizens to the changes
in the city’s constitution. The uproar forced Farel and Calvin into
exile.
viii. Calvin settles
in Strassburg and pastors a church of French refugees. While there he
marries, establishes a liturgical pattern still in use today and refines
the Institutes. · Ministry
in Geneva (1540-1564)
i. Called back to
Geneva by the City Council to address the political and spiritual
decline of the city.
ii. Establishes a
written religious constitution, a uniform program for religious
instruction and the form of church government, organization and
discipline that would be in place and rule the city for 300 years.
iii. Church
attendance was compulsory
iv. Preached
several times a week, taught classes wrote commentaries on 49 books of
the Bible, composed thousands of letters and pamphlets and superintended
a system of schools that educated thousands.
v. He died in
1564 a worn-out, old “young” man · Impact
on the Reformation
i. Institutes of
the Christian Religion was the textbook of the
Reformation and acknowledged as one of the greatest Christian books in
history.
ii. Created an
educational system that fed the Reformation for generations. His
emphasis on the scholarly, systematic study of God’s Word is a
trademark of Reformed churches and theologians to this day.
iii. From
1549-1559, 5000 refugees came to Geneva (pop.13,000) for training,
instruction and sustenance.
iv. Geneva,
according to John Knox, was “the most perfect school of Christ that
ever was in the earth since the days of the Apostles”.
v. Geneva &
Calvin was the springboard for the spread of the Reformation throughout
Europe. Missionaries flooded Western Europe and Calvin’s influence was
at the core of the greatest revivals and missionary movements of the
next 300 years.
vi. The French
graduates of the Geneva Academy joked that their diploma was their death
certificate due to the great number who died as martyrs. The
executioners began tearing their tongues out due to their singing while
in prison and on the way to the stake.
vii. The government
of the Geneva churches became the model for Reformed churches.
viii. Defended
Reformation doctrine against the counterattacks of the Roman Catholic
Church
ix. The influence
of this emaciated, temperate scholar and able preacher on the spiritual
development of modern society has been out of proportion to his frail
physique. Only the grace of God operative in his life is an adequate
explanation of the work that he accomplished that has gone on since his
death. He was indeed an international reformer whose work influenced
Presbyterians, Reformed and Puritans. · Impact
on America
i. Emphasizing
divine calls to a vocation and encouragement to work and be thrifty
established capitalism as the ruling economic principle of our country. ii. Calvin’s support of the representative form of Democracy established it in the Presbyterian and Reformed churches and had a direct impact on the forming of our country’s form of government. |