What is a Reformed Baptist..

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com. That's cornerstonerbc.com. So if you remember last week, actually last two weeks, we've been... giving the layout of the Bible studies moving forward in the next few months, and maybe even next 12 months.

And the objective is for us to come to a collective understanding of what a Reformed Baptist Church is. And we spoke about it this last week that we're going to go through the four levels of what we would say are common to churches these days. And we said the first level is going to be the Evangelical Church, and then the Calvinistic Church, and then the Reformed Church and then finally the Reformed Baptist Church. They're the levels. And last week I said that what we're going to do is these levels actually build upon one another.

And so what we're trying to communicate is the higher we go, The more we believe about these, like the evangelical church believes in the five solas, and then the Calvinistic church believes and teaches and practices the doctrines of grace, the higher we go, what we see is that the church becomes more and more biblical. And so, of course, we say this according to our understanding of Scripture, and our consciences are held entirely to the Word of God. And so, we are saying, according to our understanding of Scripture, to be a Reformed Baptist church is to hold to biblical doctrine, and it's the closest to what we believe a biblical church ought to be. So, now there's something I was thinking about through the week, and there may be some of us here in this room that feel uncomfortable when we call ourselves by a particular term. Some people may be uncomfortable if we say we're Calvinists, for example.

You might say, why do we call ourselves Calvinist? Aren't we Christian? Can't we just call ourselves by the name of Jesus Christ? Isn't He the head of the church? Isn't He the one that we call ourselves by?

Yes, I agree with you completely and understand that view. But unfortunately, in the day and age that we live in now, calling ourselves Christian doesn't communicate accurately what we believe. So we are Christian, definitely, and we're proud of that. And that's a label we'll never, never take away. We're proud of being Christian, absolutely.

But the problem is that when you say Christian in the world today, in the contemporary world we live in, it's such a broad term that people don't know what we believe. And we could cause misunderstanding amongst ourselves, or we could mislead others. So you might say, let's call ourselves the Church of Jesus Christ. The Mormons called themselves by that name. And we don't believe what the Mormons believe, surely.

You might say, okay, so what else can we do? How can we fix this problem? And so the thing is, yes, we are Christian, we love the Lord, but when we use these labels, we just believe that these labels summarize doctrines and belief systems and principles that we believe are good summaries and are faithful to God's word. And remember last week we spoke about Sola Scriptura, And we said God's Word is the supreme authority over our lives. Right?

That's what we said. Scripture alone is our infallible rule of faith and practice. So, we believe that when we say that we are Calvinistic, and we are Reformed, and indeed we are Reformed Baptists. Yes, these are labels. But these labels speak to doctrines and principles that we believe are grounded securely in the Word of God, and only we submit to the Word of God.

The second thing I want to make us aware of is this. When we use those terms, we don't mean to give unnecessary... we don't want to idolize or give unnecessary honor to the names that they carry. For example, Calvinist. We're not saying that so that we can honor the man Calvin, but he's a Christian.

We believe that Jesus Christ is the head of the church. He's the one who builds the church, and he builds the church by raising up men who have become teachers. who have been able to teach God's Word so that they can be edified by the teaching in God's Word. So, we believe that Christ raised these men up, and they were faithful to the teaching of God's Word, and therefore we can learn from them as long as we submit to Scripture alone. And we believe in sole deo gloria, which is to the glory of God alone.

Not for Calvin, not Luther, not anyone else. to God alone. Amen? Okay. Now that we've cleared that up, and it's very possible that none of you had a concern with that, but I just felt that I wanted to bring that out today just for the sake of clarity.

I think the exercise was worthwhile. Last week we began to study the five solas. Anyone remember what they are? Scripture? Christos?

Fide? Two more? To your Gloria? And last one is? Sola Gratia.

And that's the one we'll be talking about today. So we said the five principles, and these five principles are necessary to be believed, taught, and practiced in order for the church to be called an evangelical church. Now if you do a Google search on the five solas, you will find them in different orders. Okay, so no particular order. They're all there.

All the five are there, but they may come up in different orders. And for those of us who are quite curious or just want to know how these studies are going to pan out for the future, I will tell you today on what order we're going to be teaching on these. So last week was Sola Scriptura. Scripture alone. Last week we did that.

This week we're going to look at Sola Gratia. Grace alone. Next week we'll look into Sola Fidei. The week after we'll be looking at Solus Christus, that's in Christ alone. And the last week will be, or the fifth week, not the last, but the fifth week will be Solae Deo Gloria.

to the glory of God alone. Okay. A few moments ago, I said that the five solas are found and taught, and they are found in different orders. But it's essential also to recognize that there is one of these solas that is foundational, and that is Sola Scriptura. Because apart from Scripture, we don't know God.

We don't know Christ. We don't know about how one is to be saved. We don't know what sin is. We don't know what practices the Christian should live by. We don't know anything of the Christian faith apart from Scripture.

Any true church must have its authority and foundation built upon the Bible alone. We believe the Bible is God's Word, and He has given us in His Word all that is required for life and godliness. This is found in 2 Peter. Last week we ended our study in the 1689 London Baptist Confession of Faith that gave a really nice summary of Sola Scriptura, and I'll read that today by way of recapping what we did last week, and then we'll get into Sola Gratia. It reads, the Holy Scripture is the only sufficient, certain, infallible rule of all saving knowledge, faith, and obedience for the Church of Jesus Christ.

Now we're on to sola gratia. I'll start with the definition of grace. Charis in Greek. The Oxford Dictionary gives a fairly accurate meaning of what the Bible connotes when he speaks of grace. And this is the definition in the Oxford Dictionary.

The free and unmerited favor or kindness of God as manifested in salvation of sinners and the bestowal of blessings. It's probably something that you guys will probably all had in mind when you think about Grace, remember it's free. Remember it's unmerited. It's not that you've earned it. Because if you earn it, it's a wage.

It's unmerited, it's free. And you contribute nothing towards the grace of God. And it's favor from God and blessing from God. Just remember that. You'll recall from last week's Bible study that the five psalters and the five phrases of Christian principles articulated in the 16th century by the Protestant Church in reaction to the heretical teaching and abuses of the authority and teaching in the Roman Catholic Church.

Men like Martin Luther, all rich, zwingly, and John Calvin, they found clear violations to the foundational biblical doctrines that were taught by the Roman Catholic Church. An example of this foundational error was in regards to God's grace in salvation. To better understand this though, we need to go back further than the 16th century Reformation. We actually got to go back to the late 4th century and early 5th century, where we find a debate between two theologians. One's an African and one's an Irish theologian.

And these theologians had a debate. And this debate, unfortunately, has not been resolved throughout church history. And we find churches that find themselves on both sides of this debate. The theologians were Augustine and Pelagius. Now, I don't want this Bible study to be a history lesson, so I'll get straight to the point.

The debate was very much focused on original sin. the fact that every human being is born in sin as a result of Adam's sin, and the place of God's salvation, sorry, my apologies, and the place of God's grace in salvation. That's what the debate was about. More specifically, it was about the role and responsibility of God, and what is the role and responsibility of man in salvation. You see, the debate began when Pelagius opposed a prayer of Augustine.

And the prayer went like this, grant what thou commandest and command what thou doest desire. That's old English and it's hard to understand. But in essence, this prayer is saying we are unable to please God unless He grants us divine grace. In and of ourselves, according to Augustine, we are unable to please God in any form of obedience. Pelagius would not accept this, for Pelagius is not convinced that if God was to give a man a command, he believes that that man had also the ability to obey perfectly that command.

Since God has given his moral commandments to be followed, Pelagius believed by man's own free will, he was able to obey these commands without any intervention of God. No grace is necessary. This erroneous teaching is rooted in the fact that Pelagius did not believe or hold to original sin. Why do I say this? Well, original sin is the fact that all people are corrupted before God because Adam sinned against God in the garden.

As the federal head of all humanity, Adam plunged all humanity into sin when he fell. In Pelagius's mind, Adam's sin only affected Adam. For him, human beings are not born in sin. This means we are not born with a sinful nature, thereby making us basically good. Being basically good, man is able to produce a true obedience and please God in and of himself.

This is what Pelagius believed. And of course, the debate was against Augustine because Augustine held strongly to original sin and total depravity of man. Although not stated implicitly, Pelagius' teaching inferred that no grace of God is necessary in salvation. Although his writings are quite confusing, because at one point he says it is necessary, but a due consequence of how he teaches and what he says, one has to deduce that it's not necessary. Beloved, this nullifies the sacrifice of Jesus Christ.

You cannot hold to this view You cannot hold to this view and be an orthodox Christian. There's devastating consequences to this view. Naturally, this position also denies predestination. Think about it. Why would God have to predestine the elect in Christ before the foundation of the world as we see in Ephesians chapter 1 when it's completely up to man to make his own decision for his salvation?

God would have to wait for man to decide whether or not he accepts or rejects Christ. Or possibly, God would look through the corridor of time, and you've heard this analogy probably over and over, to see who would accept Him and who would not. Do you see what happens when you deny grace alone in salvation? You deny God's sovereignty. And man, at least to some degree, gets some credit for his salvation.

This is not what the Bible teaches about God or about man. This view of Pelagius later became known as Pelagianism. Now, I hope as I was explaining Pelagian, your minds were being flooded with so many Bible passages that would just completely refute that sort of teaching. And we will go and dive into the Bible and we will look at some of those passages and see what the Bible speaks. But bear with me for now because I really want to paint a picture of what he was like in the 16th century when these reformers came out with the five solas and the context of sola gratia.

So I think this would be a good exercise. Now Pelagius was condemned by the church in the Council of Carthage two years prior to his death in 418 AD. The doctrine of original sin was upheld by the church in this council and it was affirmed that God's grace is necessary in order for anyone to be saved and to live a life of obedience, pleasing unto God. But unfortunately, Even though Pelagius was dead, his teaching caught wind and many churches throughout the world and throughout the ages have adopted his thinking up until the 16th century. Even now, they adopted his teaching.

Churches were convinced that the Bible teaches original sin. But they weren't convinced that the corruption of Adam's fall was a total corruption as taught by Augustine. So they had a little bit of a mixed view. In other words, they did not believe man is born totally depraved. They could not accept that sin has affected man in every part of his being.

In other words, his soul, his mind, his will. And it rendered man incapable of pleasing God in any way. They settled on what you might call a middle ground. Teaching Adam's fall affected all mankind to some degree, but there remains some good, just enough good in a man or a woman to choose his or her own free will to respond obediently to God's call to faith and repentance. In other words, God's grace is still necessary for salvation.

But in essence, salvation is man's cooperation with God. They would say that one is saved by grace alone. This is the official teaching of the church. But they would contradict this statement when they say that man is to make a decision in and of his own free will to be saved. Beloved, this may seem like a reasonable middle ground, but it's not.

It's a dangerous teaching because any which way you look at it, it gives man some credit towards his own salvation. Even if you say that God does 99% and man only does 1%, You are giving man way too much credit. This is wrong. As we'll see in a few moments, it goes directly against the teaching of the Bible. The Reformers were only affirming what the Bible said.

And they said this, it's either all of grace or no grace at all. Salvation is either 100% grace or it's no grace at all. Because the moment man places his fingers into the pie, the moment man actually contributes towards his salvation, then it's not grace. Now by the time of the Reformation, this compromised understanding, which is a little bit of a mix between some of Augustine's teaching and some of Pelagian teaching, became known as semi-Pelagianism. So Pelagianism was the view that man was not corrupted by original sin because it didn't hold to original sin.

Semi-Pelagianism brought original sin into the peace, but man still has enough free will, enough goodness to choose God because he's not completely and totally corrupted by sin. This is affirmed in the Council of Trent from 1545 through to 1563. The Catholic Church had convened at the Council of Trent, and Trent is just a place in northern Italy, and the council comprised of many people, archbishops, bishops, legates, these are representatives of the Pope, and they assembled in an official way to counter the Reformation movement. Because the Reformation, the Protestant Reformation, were standing up, and they were gaining traction, and they were opposing the Catholic Church in many areas. So the Counter-Reformation was when the Catholic Church got together and said, hey, look, the Reformers have some points.

We don't agree on everything they're doing. Definitely. But they do have some points. And they actually recognized, through the Counter-Reformation, they actually recognized some of the abuses of the Catholic Church. For example, they started to take far more seriously the teaching of the priests and the clergy.

Just to give an indication of how bad things were in the 16th century, many priests and monks who were responsible to teach the common people the scripture, many didn't even know how to read or write. They were illiterate. A whole bunch of them didn't even... a lot of them hadn't even held the Latin Vulgate in their hands, and that was the official Bible of their day. So, how can they teach the Scripture?

How can they teach the people about God, and salvation, and grace, and faith, and obedience, when they themselves hadn't had the chance to study? They were relying on what they have heard, rather than what they have read, and studied, and have come to convictions on their own. How are they seen to be fit to teach the Word of God if they themselves didn't know the Word of God? The Council of Trent identified these weaknesses and many more abuses. Now, credit to them, they did resolve many of these and they actually resolved to train the clergy and clean up their act in many areas.

But, unfortunately, this cleanup did not change the Roman Catholic view of salvation. You see, no bishop or priest of the Catholic Church would ever deny that all Christians are saved by the grace of God. That's not the problem. They even taught this to their people. But the real point of difference is not the fact that they don't acknowledge that grace is necessary for salvation, because they do.

But the point of difference is that grace alone. See, they believe it's grace and. Or as the reformers said, hey, no, these are the solas. It's by God's grace alone, without human effort, without human work, without human merit. This is why the five solas and these phrases were penned in the 16th century.

Because Rome is in stark disagreement with the Protestant churches on grace alone. This is made clear in the Council of Trent, in the Canon of Justification, Canon Nine, and I'm gonna give you a quote here. Quote, if anyone saith that by faith alone the impious is justified, in such wise as to mean that nothing else is required to cooperate in order to obtain the grace of justification, and that it is not in any way necessary that he be prepared and disposed by the movement of his own will, Let him be anathema." End quote. Well, this is a complete denial of sola gratia and sola fidei.

So this means if someone holds to grace alone and faith alone, in Christ alone, according to the Catholic Church, that person is accursed and needs to be excommunicated from the church. That means, brothers and sisters, that that person, according to their doctrine, is eternally condemned. Because apart from the church, there is no salvation. And this statement has never been retracted. Another more recent example, in the official teachings of the Catholic Church, called the Catechism of the Catholic Church, and this was written, it's a beautiful work, it's probably one of, it's like our London, the Second London Baptist Confession of Faith, that teaches about a broad spectrum of our belief in the Word of God.

This does the same, it was written in 1992, so it's a fairly recent work. On the passage of baptism, in passage 1257, listen to this, quote, the Lord himself affirms that baptism is necessary for salvation. And then it goes on to the end of the paragraph and says these words, the church does not know of any means other than baptism that assures entry into eternal beatitudes. What are they saying here? They're saying that baptism is not just an evidence of your salvation, it's not the first work of obedience when someone's saved, but rather baptism is required for your salvation.

Baptism, in the Catholic Church, tells them they believe in something called Regenerational Baptism. And so what they believe is that upon baptism, the person being baptized is infused by sanctifying grace. This means that any sins committed before one's baptized, including original sin, because remember, by now they believe in semi-Pelagianism, and semi-Pelagianism acknowledges original sin, That's all been forgiven. Upon baptism, spiritual rebirth takes place. And the Holy Spirit is given, and with the Holy Spirit, He's given grace to do good works pleasing unto God.

See, this all depends on that person being baptized. This is not the teaching of the Bible. Now, to be fair, nowhere is it explicitly taught by the Catholic Church that it's by works that one's saved. That's nowhere taught, and they will deny that doctrine. But as we read earlier, baptism is necessary for salvation, and baptism is a work.

It's something you do, you engage your will to do, or the parents engage their will for the child, the baby, the infant. Baptism, according to Catholicism, brings that infusion of grace to the Christian. And it enables him and empowers him, hear this, to do meritorious work that are not only accepted by God, but now God is obliged to reward. And that work is what gets them to heaven. In a sense, Jesus forgives your sins, but you need to get yourself into heaven by the things you do.

And that's why they believe in the doctrine of purgatory. This is a joint effort between God and man. Even if you commit a mortal sin, they say, if you commit a mortal sin, you can lose your salvation. Beloved, in this system, God is not honored as He should, and no one can have assurance of their salvation. The Bible teaches us that we can have assurance of our salvation because our great God gives us by grace, because our great God saves us by grace, and He sustains us by grace.

It's a work of grace from beginning to end. Our corrupted hands have no part to play. Now that we've examined the background for the solas, in the 16th century, it would be far more edifying for us and for ourselves to turn to our Bibles and see what the Bible says about grace. So if you have your Bibles, can you open them with me please to Romans chapter 3? And we'll be reading from verses 9 through 20.

This passage beautifully tells us why actually why grace is needed and why grace alone is needed. So Romans chapter 3 verses 9 through 20. What then? Are we Jews any better off? No, not at all.

We have already charged that all, both Jews and Greeks, are under sin. And it is written, none is righteous. No, not one. No one understands. No one seeks for God.

All have turned aside. Together they have become worthless. No one does good. Not even one. Their throat is an open grave.

They use their tongue to deceive. The venom of asps is under their lips. Their mouth is full of curses and bitterness. Their feet are swift to shed blood, in their paths are ruin and misery, and the way of peace they have not known. There is no fear of God before their eyes.

Now we know that whatever the law says, it speaks to those who are under the law, so that every mouth may be stopped, and the whole world, hear this, the whole world may be held accountable to God. For by works of the law no human being will be justified in his sight, since through the law comes the knowledge of sin. Paul clearly shows in this chapter, not a single person is able to produce a righteous act. No one seeks after God. Not a single person is capable of doing anything good in God's eyes.

Now, sure, we as people, even unregenerate people, are able to do works of benevolence, works that look good in the eyes of other men. But brothers and sisters, there's a difference between doing an act that is perceived good with your fellow human being and an act that is deemed good in the eyes of God. Remember, it's written that without faith, it's impossible to please God. If a person has genuine faith, It's because this person has been justified by God. The heart of stone has been removed and a heart of flesh has been placed, a heart that desires God and seeks to live according to God's law because now he loves God's law.

You see, in and of himself, man is completely and totally depraved. So even when we think about the semi-Pelagian view, When we think about man in his depraved mind and what Paul is saying, can that man have enough goodness in himself to say, yes, I choose God? Can that man in and of himself say, yes, I wanna be righteous, I wanna walk with God? Paul says, otherwise. Paul says, no, no one seeks after God.

No one does good. Only through faith are we able to please God. To consider only these two passages, one needs to realise that apart from divine grace, we have no hope of pleasing God. In other words, to think it's possible in and of ourselves to produce any work that's meritorious before God, It's antithetical to the Bible. It goes against what the Bible speaks, and it gives mankind way too much credit.

Left to ourselves, we would never seek after God. Verses 23 and 24 give perspective into our justification. Actually, I want to read that now. So the same passage, Romans 3, 23-24. This is what it says.

For all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God, hear this, and are justified by his grace as a gift through the redemption that is in Christ Jesus, whom God put forward as a propitiation by his blood to be received by faith. We've been justified by grace, and this is a gift from God. You don't earn a gift, otherwise it's not a gift. It becomes a wage or a payment for what you have done, and now you deserve that. No, grace according to Paul is a gift that is unearned, it's undeserved, and it's unmerited.

So in other words, it's not because You or I were good or because we sought after God or because we had something good in us that we've been saved. It's not as though God looked upon us and found something favorable in any of us. depraved. We could never ever seek after God. We could never please God.

We could never glorify God as he ought to be glorified in our sinful unregenerated state. God didn't look upon us and see something that he liked and said, I like you, I'll save you, you're not tall enough, you're not smart enough, you're not good enough, you're not good enough with your family, you're not a good enough father. None of these things. He's elected those before the foundation of the world and it's because of his goodness and his goodness alone. Ephesians 2 is one of the clearest passages in the New Testament that speaks to this point.

Let's open up our Bibles once more and we'll read Ephesians chapter 2 verses 1 through 10. You cannot speak about grace without referencing Ephesians chapter two. So Ephesians chapter two, and we'll read from verses one through 10. And you were dead in the trespass trespasses and sins in which you once walked, following the course of this world, following the prince of the power of the air, and the spirit that is now at work in the sons of disobedience, among whom we all once lived in the passions of our flesh, carrying out the desires of the body and the mind, and were by nature children of wrath, like the rest of mankind." But God, hear those words, But God, being rich in mercy because of his great love with which he loved us, even when we were dead in our trespasses, made us alive together with Christ.

By grace, you have been saved. and raised us up with him and seated us with him in the heavenly places in Christ Jesus, so that in the coming ages he might show the immeasurable riches of his grace in kindness towards us in Christ Jesus." Now pay attention to these words. For by grace you have been saved through faith, and this is not your own doing. It is the gift of God, not a result of works, so that no one may boast.

For we are his workmanship, created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God prepared beforehand that we should walk in them. What's Paul saying here? Well, we know in the Garden of Eden, Adam disobeyed God by eating from the forbidden fruit. And God said that if you do this, die, you shall die. Our translations in English say, surely on that day, you shall die.

The death that Adam died was a spiritual death and he died the very moment he committed that sin. This means that he was alienated from God and no longer in the sweet communion with God that he once enjoyed. The corruption of sin affects all of mankind in the same way. Apart from being regenerated by the Holy Spirit, one does not long to please God or even to be with God. The natural man has no spiritual desire because he is spiritually dead.

Galatians 5.15-17 clearly tells us that the spirit desires contrary that of the flesh and the flesh contrary that of the spirit. So no one who is dead spiritually is able to desire the things of the spirit. This is why the semi-Pelagian view is so wrong. Man will never desire the things of God on his own.

Man can never desire to please God. Man can never desire to be with God, because these things can only be desired through the Spirit. And if that person is spiritually dead, then in and of himself, he cannot conjure up those desires, as this passage just showed us. That natural man is completely given over to his natural sinful lusts. The lust of the flesh, the lust of the eyes, and the pride of life.

He's more concerned with the passions of his flesh. In other words, without spiritual regeneration, being born again, man is only able to be disobedient to God. in obeying his own desires. Original sin destroys any chance of being saved apart from the grace of God. Paul continues to affirm that the natural man is given over to the prince of the power of the air, Satan, he's carried by the desires of the body, and he's under the wrath of God.

being under the wrath of God. He is in no way able to save himself and he doesn't even seek God. Jesus is so clearly, he's so clearly taught this point when he said in John, remember the words, no one can come to me unless the Father draw him unto me. Unlike the Pelagian or the Semi-Pelagian view, salvation is not a cooperative effort, but a sole act of grace on God's behalf where He quickens a man or a woman unto life and gifts them with faith and repentance to be justified by the finished work of Jesus Christ. But verses 10, 8 through 10, are the clearest evidence of this.

You remember those verses. For it's by grace through faith that you've been saved, not of works. Not because you were good. Not because I was good. Not because you or I sought after God.

Not because we read our Bibles. Not because we have given to the church. Not because of anything we've done. We've given money to the poor. We've helped orphans.

Not even if we laid down our life for Christ. Salvation is by grace alone, through faith alone, not of works. There is nothing in you or me that compelled God to save us. Only because of His goodness are we saved. Beloved, it's because of the finished work of Jesus Christ that He has applied to us, that has been applied to us by the grace of God alone that we have been saved.

God gets all the glory and all the praise and guess what? You and I get none. but a proper understanding of grace would leave us horrified at the suggestion that we even contribute an iota towards our salvation. But rather, hearing these things and learning of the grace of God and acknowledging that it is by His grace that we've been saved, this ought to bring us to our knees in worship of our great God. And yes, this passage does speak of good works, but not unto salvation, lest no man should boast.

When a person is saved by grace of God, the salvation that he enjoys is always accompanied with good works. The Spirit of God empowers us to do these things. That's what the passage in Ephesians chapter 2 tells us. These works are not means to our salvation, but evidence of our salvation and they're received by grace. We'll end with a quote from the Second London Baptist Confession of Faith that speaks to being justified by grace.

And chapter 11, section 3 articulates it beautifully. Listen to this. Quote, Christ, by his obedience and death, did fully discharge the debt of all those that are justified, and did, by the sacrifice of himself in the blood of his cross, undergoing in their real stead the penalty due unto them, He made a proper, real, and full satisfaction to God's justice in their behalf. Yet, inasmuch as he was given by the Father for them, and his obedience and satisfaction accepted in their stead, listen now, this is the point, and both freely, not for anything in them, he's talking about us the Christians, their justification is only of free grace. That both the exact justice and rich grace of God might be glorified in the justification of sinners.

We thank our great God for saving us by grace alone. Amen.