What is a Reformed Baptist..

Welcome to Cornerstone Reformed Baptist Church. Thank you for using and sharing our resources. What you're about to hear is God's Word from one of our teaching elders. We trust that God's Word will inspire, instruct, and bless you. For further teachings or information on our ministry, please visit us on our website at cornerstonerbc.

com. That's cornerstonerbc.com. Last week Nelson explained to us what our Bible studies, what our Wednesday night Bible studies moving forward are going to be, on what topic they're going to be on. And really the purpose and the objective that we have moving forward for the next weeks and months is for us to collectively to get a greater understanding of our identity as a reformed Baptist church.

So that's the objective. And Nelson last week explained that we'll do this with four levels of churches. We're not raiding churches by any means, but we're saying out there at the moment, you'll find that there's four levels of churches. The first level is the evangelical church. The second level is a Calvinistic church.

The third level is a Reformed church, and the fourth level is a Reformed Baptist church. So what we're gonna do is we're gonna go through level by level, and we're gonna have a look at the distinctives in those churches. For example, in the Evangelical church, we know it's a church that at the very least believes in the five solas. And we're gonna look at the five solas later on this evening. The Calvinistic church is a church that believes at least one and teaches the doctrines of grace.

And that is total depravity, unconditional election, limited atonement, atonement, irresistible grace, and the perseverance of the saints known as the acronym Tulip. T-U-L-I-P. It helps you remember. And then we go on to the Reformed Church. And we're going to look at the distinctives of the Reformed Church.

And there are many. And as we get to the Reformed Church, we will look into those. Some of those are, for example, the Reformed Church needs to have the regulative principle. The Reformed Church is to be confessional. And of course there's one that the reformed church we believe needs to be also a cessationist church.

And then the final stage of that, and this is where it really hits the road for us, is that we look at the distinctives of a reformed Baptist church. So that we would know why we are a reformed Baptist church. What are the tenets that we hold to? One thing I need to make you all aware of is that as we go back, that these levels build upon one another. As an example, level two is a Calvinistic church.

Now, Calvinistic church needs to hold to her teachings, but as well as to the evangelical church. So to be a Calvinistic church, you need to be evangelical and hold to the Calvinistic teaching. So to be a reformed church, because it's like we're building on a pyramid, to be a reformed church, you need to be evangelical, Calvinistic, and hold to reformed tenets. So you know what I'm getting to. A reformed Baptist church needs to be evangelical, Calvinistic, reformed, and have its own distinctives that make it a reformed Baptist church.

Now, I don't want to sound arrogant, but according to our understanding of the word of God, we believe that the church that is closest to what a biblical church looks like is a reformed Baptist church. And that's not to say that the churches out there obviously are not true churches of Jesus Christ. They are, but there's a reason why we're not Presbyterian. And there's a reason why we're not Anglican, for example. We love those brothers and sisters dearly, but we hold to different distinctives.

For the most part, we hold to a lot of the similarities, but we have some differences, and we just wanna make sure that we're aware of those as we move forward. Now, throughout the study, there's gonna be terms that we use that might go over your head a little, some titles and so forth. Don't worry, we just want you to get aware and familiar with those titles, and as we get to them during the studies, we'll explain them in further detail. So if there's titles that I bring up and don't explain, please don't worry about them. I just really want you to get familiar with these terms that we use.

And as we get them, I can assure you as the studies go on next weeks and months, you'll get a really good grasp and understanding. God willing, we'll have a good understanding of what a reformed Baptist church looks like and why we believe what we believe. Amen? Okay, so today, so now we'll explain in further details The category for our, my apologies, I've lost the point I'm up to. Here we go.

All right. All this to say that we believe, we believe that we are reformed Baptist for a reason. And moving on, we're going to explain why that is. Okay, today our topic for discussion is Sola Scriptura. So, Sola Scriptura is one of the five solas in the level one church, the evangelical church.

So, the word evangelical has been applied since the 16th century Reformation from the Protestant churches. So, the Protestant churches are the churches that broke away from the Catholic church back in the 16th century. We know the story of the Reformation. Now, although the word evangelical these days can be used quite loosely, it really came to mean a church that believes in the superior authority of the Bible as God's word, with the only means for salvation found in the gospel of Jesus Christ. Now, evangelical churches teach that salvation is by grace alone, through faith alone, in Christ alone, and all this is done for the glory of God alone.

And this is the five solas really, isn't it? In other words, it believes in the five solas, which are the sola scriptura, that's it, scripture alone, sola fide, by faith alone, sola gratia, by in grace alone, sola Christos, which is in Christ alone, sola Deo gloria, all for the glory of God alone. Again, we'll explain these terms as we get to them in our further studies. So you might be asking, why are the five solas written or in Latin? And that is because when these five solas came about, when the teaching of the five solas came about, it was in the time of the Reformation.

And most of the writings in the time of the Reformation was in Latin. Even the Bible that was the common Bible that was used by the Catholic Church was known as the Latin Vulgate in Latin. And we all remember Martin Luther and the 95 theses that he wrote against the Catholic Church. They were written in Latin and then later translated into German. So to understand Sola Scriptura, we need to understand the doctrines that refer to both, or this doctrine refers to both revelation and authority.

So revelation and authority. We'll start with revelation briefly and then we'll spend the bulk of our evening in authority. The Bible teaches us that God in his goodness has been pleased to reveal himself in two ways. General revelation and special revelation. These are two quite big topics and we'll just basically touch on them today to give us a bit of an understanding and a basis for Sola Scripturum.

The general revelation in essence is God's revealing truth about himself through the natural order. That is in the world that we see and also in our conscience. In Psalm 19, the Bible tells us the heavens declare the glory of God. This passage goes on to inform us that God, of God's existence, His wisdom and His order are made known in the things that have been made. He has created these things and His glory is shown through them.

So you might say that God's stamp is on everything He's created. We look upon creation and know that God has made it all, and he's made it all for a purpose. Romans 1 also teaches that God's internal power and his divine nature are clearly seen in the things that he has made. The general revelation is enough only to render mankind without excuse before a holy God. And it's because, in other words, no one can surely say there is no God apart from suppressing the knowledge of God in unrighteousness.

Although General Revelation does evidence the existence and greatness of God, it is insufficient to lead people to salvation. This is because General Revelation doesn't reveal Jesus Christ and his redemptive work for sinners. Special revelation is required for this. So what's special revelation? It's clearly explained in Hebrews chapter one, verse one.

Long ago, at many times, and in many ways, God spoke to our fathers by the prophets, but in the last days, he has spoken to us by his son. You see, please God to reveal himself and his word through the prophets in pastimes, and finally, and fully in his son. This means God stooped down to man's understanding, to make himself known. So in Christ, we can be forgiven of our sins, and we are able to have an intimate relationship with God himself. This revelation is contained in his word, the Old and New Testaments.

It must not be added to The Old and New Testament, it must not be added to or taken away from. God is clear on this point. In Deuteronomy, it says, you shall not add to the word I have commanded you, nor take from it, that you may keep the commandments of the Lord your God that I have commanded you. And also, everything that I command you, you shall be careful to do. You shall not add to it or take from it.

This principle is also seen in the last book, or in the last book of the Bible, and in the last chapter in the book of Revelation as well. It carries, being God's word, because it's God's word, it carries with it the authority of God himself. Sola Scriptura speaks of the special revelation of God in his Bible. That's a brief explanation of revelation. A topic we'll spend much more time on, God willing, as we move forward and get to that topic, maybe in a few months.

But for now, we're gonna spend the rest of our study on authority. The whole 16th century Reformation and the division between the Protestant and the Catholic Church, I believe, boils down to the question of authority. Authority was the central concern for the Reformers. The question that was asked by the Reformers, and indeed the reason for the doctrine of sola scriptura, was codified in this. Who is the head of the church?

Is it Jesus Christ or is it the Pope? Paul tells us clearly that Jesus is the head of the church, his body. If you remember on the Lord's day, this is the one of the topics that we brought up. There are consequences to this. If Jesus is the head of the church, then his word alone is the authority in the church.

Sola Scriptura. His word carries with it eternal authority. You see, this is why Jesus can say that heaven and earth will pass away, but my words will not pass away. The Reformation brought back to light the truth that Scripture is to be understood as the sole source of divine revelation and the only inspired, infallible, final and authoritative word of faith and practice. This is not to say that Scripture is the only authority.

Why, even Scripture tells us that there are human authorities. For example, governments. parents are an authority to their children. And in fact, in the church, there's authority, the Bible speaks about elders. The reformers are indeed the reformers.

And indeed, we today acknowledge these authorities, but sola scriptura stands for it for stands for, I'm sorry, stands for all authorities are to submit to scripture and scripture is to be subject to nothing and no one. Scripture is the highest authority and the only infallible rule for faith and practice. This is why we are able in good conscience, read and learn from commentaries, church history, creeds and confessions, because these do not assert the authority of scripture. They just confirm the authority of scripture. But it is the duty of every Christian to bring all these to subjection to God's word.

If the principles or teachings of scripture are violated in any of these, they must be dropped and God's word is to be obeyed. A question may come to your mind and you might be thinking, didn't men write scripture? How can we claim that scripture is infallible? That is not to have any error and cannot err. If men were the authors and by definition, men are fallible.

That's a good question, but it does have a biblical answer. The Bible teaches us that all scripture is God breathed It has its origin in God alone and not in man. The writers of scripture were the human agents by which God revealed his words that we have in the 66 books of the Bible. Second Peter expands on this. It reads, for no prophecy was ever produced by the will of men, that men spoke from God as they were carried along by the Holy Spirit.

And this is why Jesus can say in John 10, Scripture cannot be broken. Jesus is saying that Scripture, in its written form, is indestructible, no matter how people view it. God Himself superintended the whole process of Revelation, from beginning to end. Despite human agents, we can confidently say that it is inspired, infallible, and supremely authoritative. As Christians, we know that if revelation is from God from start to finish, scripture alone carries with it the truth, the purity, the infallibility, and the authority of God himself.

John Calvin rightly notes, we owe the scripture the same reverence as we owe to God, since it has its only source in him, and has nothing of human origin mixed with it. Hear that word? Nothing of human origin mixed with it. We don't deny that human authors wrote scripture, but it did not originate with them. And the final product is exactly what God intended.

The human authors of scripture wrote in their own style, but the final product is 100% God's word. In His sovereignty, Jesus is able to say of the final product, it cannot be broken and will never pass away. No other entity, no other writing, no other tradition carries the same authority as the Word of God. No one and nothing else can claim infallibility. This was not the belief or the practice of the medieval Catholic church.

And indeed, it's not the practice of the Catholic church today. Medieval just means from the period from around 500 AD to about 1500 AD. Men like Martin Luther understood the abuse of the church and could see the clear overstepping of these boundaries by the papacy of the day. You see, the Catholic church held the scripture was Not in hell that the scripture was not sufficient alone and required the teaching authority of the church and tradition. Can you imagine the deception of the common people of the day?

It was estimated that less than 12% almost one in 10 of the people in the 16th century were able to read or write. So the clergy would conduct the church services in Latin, even worse. No one, most people could not understand Latin. With the only approved Bible, also in Latin, and with no accessibility of it to any common folk, well-intended pious Christians would have to be totally dependent upon the clergy, that is the priests and the bishops, to receive religious teaching for doctrine and daily practice. It doesn't take much reading to quickly realize that the Pope and the Catholic Church took great advantage of the simple people who just did not know better.

This was not God's intention to hold back his word from the common folk. Martin Luther, the Augustinian monk and priest in Wittenberg, Germany, could see this deception all too clearly. But the breaking point for Luther came when a gentleman by the name of John Tetzel, also a monk in the Catholic Church, by approval of the Pope, began to sell what we call, or what they call, indulgences in the surrounding suburbs to Luther. poor people who could barely get by were taken advantage of in order to fund the construction of the St. Peter's Basilica in the Vatican City.

Luther, upon hearing this, on October 31, 1517, wrote the 95 Theses against the Catholic Church teaching in order to open discussion with the Church in hope of them returning back to the truth. of biblical teaching. The 95 statements Luther wrote, and it's actually debated whether he nailed them to the castle, the Wittenberg castle door, but we know he definitely wrote them. They mainly emphasized the authority and the sufficiency of scripture. And salvation, he wrote in the theses, is by faith alone without works.

Unlike the Catholic Church, which preached a works based salvation in her sacramental system, Luther and the other reformers protested against this. And they said, if it cannot be found in scripture, or at least deduced from scripture, then whatever teaching cannot be binding on the conscience of the people. This means, according to the Bible, that salvation is not by works, but by grace alone, through faith alone, in Christ alone. Because that's what the Scripture says. You see, the Pope and the Catholic Church had made tradition binding upon the conscience of the people.

Many doctrines were taught as authoritative, yet they found their origin nowhere to be found in Scripture. But the papacy was okay with that. That's the popes were okay with this because the church had the power to do so. And it funded the construction of the world's most expensive home, the Vatican. The Catholic church took it upon herself to teach many doctrines that are not found in the Bible.

Let's take, for example, indulgences. I mentioned them before, but let me, let me explain them. They were sold by the man by the name of John Tetzel. And there was indulgences sold in many places, but this is the guy that came into the vicinity of Luther. And these indulgences were sold so that people would spend less time in purgatory.

So for us to understand what indulgences are, we need to understand two things. One is purgatory. And this is all new language to us because the Bible doesn't speak about purgatory. And we need to understand what the treasury of merit is. And again, nothing of that is in the Bible.

And then we'll get an understanding of how solar scripture was abused in the 16th century onwards. Purgatory. Purgatory is a place where Christians go to after death in order to suffer temporarily in order to purify themselves and make themselves fitting for heaven's glory. It's only for Christians, and it provides the necessary suffering in order to cleanse a person from their sins that they have committed. It's like a temporary hell getting you prepared for heaven.

The Treasury of Merit It's a treasury that can contains the righteousness of Jesus, Mary and the saints that they didn't use when they went to heaven. It's essentially left over righteousness that had been stored up from by Christians for Christians to access in order to supplement their own righteousness to reduce the time they spend in purgatory in order to get to heaven quicker. What are indulgences? Indulgences can be purchased by a Christian in order to reduce or even eliminate his time or her time in purgatory. By purchasing indulgences from the Catholic Church, and these indulgences must be sold by a Catholic leader, one accesses the righteousness from the treasury of merit, this is the leftover righteousness of the saints, Jesus and Mary, so that the suffering time in purgatory is reduced.

Now hear this. These indulgences can be purchased for yourself or on behalf of another. If you had a dead relative, dead husband or a dead wife, a dead son or a daughter who was spending time, let's say a thousand years in purgatory. And by the way, in this time, according to the writings, the average Christian would spend between one and two thousand years in purgatory. So you just imagine that for a moment.

that you have a loved one has died and you are convinced beyond any shadow of a doubt that your loved one is now in a place called purgatory, like hell, suffering for a thousand years and you can do something about it. If you pay someone some money, they'll give you a certificate and this reduces or even eliminates complete the time that your loved one spends in this horrible, horrible place. You would probably give your last dollar to see that happen. You see how this sort of teaching binds the conscience of a person? All the money was to complete the building of the Vatican City.

This is evil. It's in this era and under these circumstances that the reformers protested against the Catholic Church. Under very heavy opposition and persecution, they sought to see the church turn from her error and return to biblical teaching only, believing the scripture is sufficient for the church. We don't need to add anything to scripture. They came up with the five solas starting with the foundational sola scriptura.

Sola scriptura has many elements, but basically the reformers believe that scripture alone is the supreme authority of faith and practice for the church. Their logic was if Jesus is the head of the church, then only his word ought to be authoritative over the church. Jesus is Lord, not the Pope. Only Jesus' Word has the authority to bind the consciences of His people. There is no higher core by which one can appeal.

Being God's Word, no one has the liberty to edit it, to take away from it, or to add to it. And absolutely no one is to assume authority over it. The Pope In this time, in the time of the Reformation, he even now assumes the authority of Christ. He's called the Vicar of Christ. This means he sees himself as the earthly representative of Jesus Christ.

With this position, he yields supreme universal power over the church. And he taught that only the church is infallible in its interpretation of the Bible. You see, not only was the authority and the sufficiency of Scripture assaulted, but also this is an assault to the clarity of Scripture. Can you imagine how the people who were under, they were under the mercy of the church, how oppressed they were? They were being taught that the only way to understand the Bible was to have the church interpret it for them.

And in any case, they had no access to Bibles. What a low view of God. Think about the logic. The creator God of all the universe condescends to a level to reveal himself to mankind. But according to the Catholic Church, this revelation requires an interpreter.

They say the common people are not in and of themselves able to understand God's word. So let me explain this to you. God is a great communicator. He is the best communicator. If he chooses, and he has, to communicate, he communicates in a way that is crystal clear to his people.

This is called the doctrine of the perspicuity of Scripture. That word perspicuity is only a big word to say. It's the clarity of Scripture. It's not to say that there are no hard to understand passages in the Bible. There are.

But rather, as section seven of the Second London Baptist Confession of Faith, chapter one, it defends any lay person who reads scripture is able to understand the way of salvation in Jesus Christ. God has communicated in a way that is simple, clear and plain in order to make his will known. Through diligent study, even the hard to understand scripture will be made clear when we allow the more clear passages of scripture interpret the hard ones. You see, scripture also interprets scripture, and this comes into the sufficiency of scripture. Reverend Mark Thompson illuminates this point beautifully.

Listen to what he says. He says, in short, a confession of the clarity of scripture is an aspect of faith in a generous God who is willing and able to make himself and his purpose known. God has something to say, and he is very good at saying it. We don't need a Pope to tell us how to read and understand scripture. We have the Spirit of God who resides in us, and we have the Scripture as its own interpreter.

The authority, the sufficiency, and the clarity of Scripture is what led the reformers to put their lives on the line and to encourage and support the translation of the Bible into other languages, languages of the common people. Luther translated the Bible into German in 1522. A little later, Tyndale, William Tyndale translated the Bible. His first edition came in 1525. And after that in 1530, the French and then other translations in a stream of translations from that point on.

In fact, before William Tyndale was betrayed and killed, He told a priest who obviously was not sympathetic to him translating the Bible into the language of the commoner. Listen to what he said to the priest. He said, if God spare my life before very long, I will cause a plow boy to know the scriptures better than you. This is what he said to the priest. Needless to say, the priest wasn't very happy with these words.

It's so amazing that reading through history books, one thing stands clear. When the scripture is translated and placed in the hands of commoners, people are saved and revivals happen. The gospel is indeed the power of God unto salvation. God intended to make himself known to his people and no mere man has the right to withhold that privilege. One of the main arguments of the Catholic Church in the 16th century Reformation, in opposition to sola scriptura, was the Bible, this is what they said, the Bible does not specifically prove against the authority of the church.

And it doesn't prove against tradition. Therefore, that said, that the Bible alone is not, they said the Bible alone is not sufficient, and the church tradition could have equal authority with Scripture. So tradition has equal footing with Scripture. So what does the Bible say about this? So let's open up our Bibles.

Let's open up our Bibles to Matthew 15, 1 verses 1 through 9. Matthew 15 verses one through nine. The Pharisees and scribes came to Jesus from Jerusalem and said, why do your disciples break the tradition of the elders? For they do not wash their hands when they eat. He answered them.

And why? Why do you break the commandments of God for the sake of your tradition? For God commanded, honor your father and mother, and whoever reviles father or mother must surely die. But you say, if anyone tells his father or his mother, what you would have gained from me is given to God, he need not honor his father. So for the sake, this is the point, for the sake of your tradition, you have made void the word of God.

You hypocrites, well did Isaiah prophesy of you when he said, this people honors me with their lips, but their hearts are far from me. In vain they do worship me, teaching doctrines, the commandments of men. This is a passage where Christ and disciples were confronted by the Pharisees and the scribes. And they came to Christ and disciples and they said, why is it that you don't observe the traditions of the elders by washing your hands before you eat? Okay, fair enough question.

It's not law, but it's tradition. But what were they doing? So in the explanation to this, the Jews at this point in time had instituted something called Korban. Korban was basically, in the fifth commandment, we are to honor our father and our mother. So as the parents grow older, it was the responsibility of the children to look after their parents, to care for the parents, physically provide for their parents.

They put in something in place called Korban. What that was is the child can go to the temple and say, I pledge to give you X amount of money. And then he can go back to his parents and say, what was yours? I've now pledged to the temple. That's a pretty noble thing, right?

I'm giving it to God, therefore I can't help you. But the thing is, that pledge to the temple can be revoked. And so when the parents die, they can actually revoke And the other thing is the pledge doesn't necessarily mean they have to give that amount of money to the temple then and there. You can hold back and only pledge and therefore deny your parents the care that they deserve. And Jesus is saying, how dare you?

You're coming and telling us that we're not washing our hands, which is according to human tradition and God's law, the fifth commandment you break. because of your own selfish desires. So let me ask you this question here. Is Jesus more concerned with the word of God, the command of God, or is he more concerned with tradition? I think it's obvious.

Jesus is concerned with the word of God. Listen, traditions aren't bad. They're actually a good thing. Traditions help us as we live in a community and we have different cultures, they enrich our experience of life itself. But when the tradition assaults the word of God, then you have another thing coming.

The Catholic Church had built traditions that were in stark contrast to the Word of God, holding the people's conscience and binding them according to the words of men, violating the Word of God, just like we saw here in Matthew 15. This is a violation of God's Word. Jesus said to the Pharisees, This is in Matthew 23. They tie up heavy burdens, hard to bear, and lay them on the people's shoulders, but they themselves are not willing to move them with their finger. They do all their deeds to be seen by others.

You see, only the words of God, only what's contained in scripture, can be binding to the conscience of men and women. Any other burden is unnecessary, and it's an evil attempt to take away what we call Christian liberty. And we'll finish with this. 2 Timothy 3, 16 and 17 reads, all scripture is breathed out by God and profitable for teaching, for reproof, for correction and for training in righteousness, that the man of God may be complete, equipped for every good work." Listen to these words.

all scripture. Now it is a given that this that this passage is most likely speaking about the Old Testament, but the principle applies in the New Testament because the New Testament books in the New Testament are also called scripture. All scripture is God breathed. Every one of the 66 books that you have in your Bible originates from God. It's from the being of God.

And he goes on to say it's profitable for teaching for reproof, for correcting, and for training in righteousness. The goal is for God to make us more and more like Christ, that is to make us more righteous like Christ. And then he goes to say that the man of God may be complete, that is lacking nothing. So he's saying here that scripture is sufficient to make us complete, lacking nothing. In other words, you ought not look anywhere else because it's all found.

in God's Word. Equipped for, hear this, every good work. If you remind yourself back to Ephesians chapter two, where it's written a passage that clearly explains that we've been saved by grace, through faith, not by works. It goes on to say that we were saved to do good works that have been preordained for us to do, right? So it says here, equipped for every good work.

That which you've been saved to do, the good works that God has for you to do, can be done if you dedicate your lives and your understanding to Scripture alone. Nothing else is required. How can I please God? Go to the Scripture. How can I live in obedience to God?

Go to the Scripture. How do I become more and more conformed to Jesus Christ? Go to the Scripture. It's complete, it's sufficient, it's authoritative, it's infallible. London Baptist Confession of Faith on the section of scripture and we'll end with this quotation.

It reads this, the Holy Scripture is the only sufficient, certain and infallible rule of all saving knowledge, faith and obedience for the church of Jesus Christ. Sola Scriptura. Amen.