Podcast appearances and mentions of Peter Lombard

Patrick addresses questions about Church teaching, like the filioque clause and the difference between Catholic and Orthodox beliefs, while also offering guidance on topics from gambling to the reality of the afterlife. Patrick provides practical advice for spiritual growth, such as ways to enrich your prayer life and the importance of holding onto hope in challenging times. Through real listener stories and thoughtful answers, Patrick brings clarity and encouragement, helping each person grow stronger in both faith and understanding. Patrick explains the Filioque clause (01:09) Bruce - I want to be an advocate for Relevant Radio. It’s amazing what comes through the radio. (04:25) Jim – Filioque, according to Peter Lombard, makes a lot of sense. (08:06) Robert (email) - Is money received from gambling considered ill-gotten? (16:30) Erin - Are people in the netherworld able to have interactions? (20:14) Yvette - If you are in sin, God doesn't hear our prayers. Is this true? (29:06) Adam (email) – Was the Real Presence of Jesus there at the Last Supper? (39:48) Rovella - I am not a Catholic. I have a lot of questions about the Catholic faith. Where is the best place to start? (41:59) Angelica - How can I help people understand that there is life after death? (44:02)

The standard textbook of theology in medieval universities was the Sentences by Peter Lombard, bishop of Paris from 1095-1160. This collection systematically arranged the theological judgments of Scripture and the Church Fathers on various topics. For almost four centuries, those seeking higher credentials in theology had to study, teach, and comment on Lombard's Sentences. It was formative for the likes of St. Thomas Aquinas and St. Bonaventure. Over time, the genre of commentaries on the Sentences became its own vehicle for new developments in theology. The Sentences was not replaced by Aquinas's Summa as a standard textbook until the 16th century. Philosopher Philipp Rosemann has written two books on the Sentences and its significance for the development of theology. The first, Peter Lombard (2004), is about Lombard and his book. The second, The Story of a Great Medieval Book: Peter Lombard's “Sentences” (2007), is about the commentary tradition on the Sentences. Rosemann gives fascinating insights into the development as theology as a systematic science, which had profound ramifications for Catholic spiritual life and the history of the West. DONATE to make this show possible! http://catholicculture.org/donate/audio SIGN UP for Catholic Culture's newsletter: https://www.catholicculture.org/newsletters

A lecture with Q&A given by Professor Ryan Hurd entitled "Introducing Lombard's Sentences: The Nature and Method(s) of Scholastic Theology." Professionalization is the word which best describes the advance from patristic to medieval theology (as the medievalist Philip Rosemann has claimed). But as a consequence, contemporary students stand hopeless until they have been inducted into scholastic theology, and they remain barred even from profitably reading the texts of scholastic theologians. Perhaps no more so has this been the case than for the very textbook of medieval theology itself: Peter Lombard's Sententiae. In this all-important text, which trained professional theologians for centuries, Lombard gifted all budding theologians sententiae patrum, the sentences of the Fathers. These were the patristic verdicts regarding various theological questions or contradictions. This bequeathed all future theologians with an initial and largely adequate set of truths about theology's various subjects (such as God himself). Nonetheless, Lombard expected much from his students, and did not issue these sententiae in a straightforward manner. Rather, he marshals authorities and arranges them so that their apparent conflicts are evident. Forced through this gauntlet and constantly pulled in both directions (yes and no), the student theologian was thereby trained to harvest from these sayings the patristic judgments, and to cement their truths in the cathedral of Christian doctrine. The success of Lombard's Sententiae is attested not only by the centuries it endured as the professional theologian's training-ground, but also in generating its own eventual replacement: the great summae, especially those of Thomas Aquinas. This lecture introduces Lombard's Sententiae, considering the nature of its content (sententiae) and method (conflicting authorities), with special and further attention to other termini technici–the many and various medieval “theologisms” which students are required to know. The lecture aims to induct the student initially into the nature and method(s) of scholastic theology, and to begin training him to read its texts as a medieval bachelor would. Ryan Hurd is a systematic theologian whose area of expertise is doctrine of God, specifically the Trinity. His primary training is in the high medieval and early modern scholastics as well as the 20th century ressourcement movement. He has written a number of articles and regularly does translations of early modern theology sources; but his primary project is writing a systematics of the Trinity.

Today, on the Christian History Almanac, we remember a giant in education and medieval theology: Peter Lombard. Show Notes: Support 1517 Podcast Network 1517 Podcasts 1517 on Youtube 1517 Podcast Network on Apple Podcasts 1517 Academy - Free Theological Education What's New from 1517: The Inklings: Apostles and Apologists of the Imagination with Sam Schuldheisz Available Now: Hitchhiking with Prophets: A Ride Through the Salvation Story of the Old Testament by Chad Bird 30 Minutes in the NT on Youtube Remembering Rod Rosenbladt Encouragement for Motherhood Edited by Katie Koplin More from the hosts: Dan van Voorhis SHOW TRANSCRIPTS are available: https://www.1517.org/podcasts/the-christian-history-almanac CONTACT: CHA@1517.org SUBSCRIBE: Apple Podcasts Spotify Stitcher Overcast Google Play FOLLOW US: Facebook Twitter Audio production by Christopher Gillespie (gillespie.media).

William of Ockham is best known today for the model of problem solving known as Ockham's (or Occam's) Razor. But the event that defined his life was an argument with Pope John XXII. Research: Lieberich, Heinz. "Louis IV". Encyclopedia Britannica, 7 Oct. 2022, https://www.britannica.com/biography/Louis-IV-Holy-Roman-emperor Kilcullen, John. “Ockham's Political Writings.” “The Cambridge Companion to Ockham. Cambridge University Press. 1999. Republished online: http://publications.thebritishacademy.ac.uk/pubs/dialogus/polth.html Britannica, The Editors of Encyclopaedia. "Peter Lombard". Encyclopedia Britannica, 20 Aug. 2020, https://www.britannica.com/biography/Peter-Lombard Gál, Gedeon, O.F.M. "William of Ockham Died "impenitent" in April 1347." Franciscan Studies, vol. 42, 1982, p. 90-95. Project MUSE, doi:10.1353/frc.1982.0011 Lambert, M. D. “THE FRANCISCAN CRISIS UNDER JOHN XXII.” Franciscan Studies, vol. 32, 1972, pp. 123–43. JSTOR, http://www.jstor.org/stable/44000287 Donovan, Stephen M. “Bonagratia of Bergamo.” Catholic Encyclopedia. https://www.catholic.com/encyclopedia/bonagratia-of-bergamo Nold, Patrick. “Pope John XXII's Annotations on the Franciscan Rule: Content and Contexts.” Franciscan Studies, vol. 65, 2007, pp. 295–324. JSTOR, http://www.jstor.org/stable/41975430 Knysh, George. “BIOGRAPHICAL RECTIFICATIONS CONCERNING OCKHAM'S AVIGNON PERIOD.” Franciscan Studies, vol. 46, 1986, pp. 61–91. JSTOR, http://www.jstor.org/stable/41975065 Spade, Paul Vincent. “William of Ockham.” Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy. March 5, 2019. https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/ockham/ Vignaux, Paul D.. "William of Ockham". Encyclopedia Britannica, 24 Aug. 2022, https://www.britannica.com/biography/William-of-Ockham See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

In this episode, Paulson discusses Peter Lombard. Paulson describes Lombard as having and presenting God as cold as ice. In contrast, Paulson asserts that Luther and scripture deliver a "hot God" who is active and working for you. Support the Show The Sermons of Gerhard Forde Lutheran Quarterly 

What do Reformed Christians mean today when they refer to limited atonement or particular redemption? Is it the same idea that has prevailed in the Reformed tradition historically and confessionally? Are there different Reformed ways of understanding and affirming the truth that God in Christ saves his people by his obedience and sacrifice?It is always difficult to discover that what we first learn about something doesn't quite fit the reality of the thing on closer inspection. The difficulty is often less theological and intellectual than emotional and psychological. This is true for many Reformed Christians who converted to the Reformed tradition of faith and worship by way of the many influential popular presentations of Reformed theology, often connected in some way with popular conferences and personalities. It can be jarring to discover, as some do eventually, that the so-called five points of Calvinism are not really a summary of the Reformed theology of anything, including salvation, and were never intended to be. It can also prove eye-opening to learn that most of the key distinctives of the Reformed theological tradition aren't unique to the Reformed at all but reach far back into the deep Christian tradition shared by other Christians and of which the Reformed fathers insisted the Reformed tradition was but one--though the most faithful--expression. But learning the real history and theology of the Reformed tradition is important, not only to represent it correctly in conversations and in preaching, but also to ensure that our quest to advance and build the Reformed theological tradition is advancing and building something that really does exist.The nature and purpose of the atonement is one doctrine that has enjoyed a close reexamination in terms of the actual texts, events, and figures of the critically important 16th and 17th century periods of rapid theological development and of confessionalization. This includes the reconsideration of the often misunderstood language of limited atonement, and the also often misunderstood or mischaracterized teaching of a remarkably capable Reformed theologian named John Davenant, the famous Bishop of Salisbury and prodigious British scholar. Dr. Michael Lynch knows Davenant's teaching on the atonement very well, and has just published a full monograph on the topic with Oxford University Press called John Davenant's Hypothetical Universalism: A Defense of Catholic and Reformed Orthodoxy. Whatever your own view of the matter, if you thought John Owen's teaching on the atonement was or is the only Reformed way of saying things, or if you thought Peter Lombard was a medieval hair-splitter with no relevance to contemporary theology on the person and work of Christ, or if you thought the diversity of the Reformed tradition was a problem remedied by the confessions, you'll appreciate what you learn in Dr. Lynch's book and also find my conversation with him in this episode quite interesting.Please remember, too, that we in the midst of a major push for support as we seek to take the next steps in our development and fund our operations for the coming days. Your gift at our website, however small or great, is a terrific help to that end.

What do the Westminster Catechisms mean by speaking of our chief end as glorifying God and enjoying him forever? What difference does it make if we read the word "enjoy" here against the background, not of modern notions of happiness or enjoyment, but of Augustine's famous and deeply influential distinction between "enjoy" and "use"? A distinction established even more firmly in the Western Christian tradition in Peter Lombard's decision to begin his widely used Sentences with that same distinction.The opening words of the Westminster Shorter and Larger catechisms are among the most well known in the history of the church's catechisms. "What is man's chief end," asks the Shorter Catechism, "Man's chief end is to glorify God and to enjoy him forever." The Larger Catechism opens almost identically yet more fully saying, "Man's chief and highest end is to glorify God and fully to enjoy him forever." But the use of "enjoy" in these catechetical statements is not likely what we as moderns assume it to be. We use the word "enjoy" to say we take delight in or pleasure in an activity, person, or occasion—and ordinary with at least a slight preference for the pleasure sense. We hear the word "enjoy" and think of our desires and of happiness. Perhaps when we hear the word "use" we think of negative misuses of people or things. But the traditional meaning of "enjoy" in Christian literature reflects a distinction between "enjoy" and "use" introduced by the great African theologian Agustine in his opening section of On Christian Doctrine. Reflecting on what Augustine meant by this distinction, which is easily misunderstood by contemporary Christians, can greatly enrich our appreciation of what the Westminster Catechisms likely intend by their famous opening words. To explore Augustine, Lombard, "enjoy" and "use," the Westminster Catechisms, and the difference all this makes to Christian faith and life, we are pleased to welcome back to the podcast, friend of Greystone Theological Insitute, Pastor Jesse Crutchley. Jesse Crutchley is pastor at Severn Run Evangelical Presbyterian Church (PCA) and member of Greystone’s Presidential Ministerial Council.

In this episode we talk with researcher Maria Sorokina about her work on the medieval theological debates on astrology. Her PhD, “Les théologiens face à la question de l’influence céleste. Science et foi dans les commentaires des Sentences (v. 1220-v. 1340)”, studies the how astrology is dealt in the commentaries to the Sentences of Peter Lombard. This is a continuation of her MA research on these type debates in the “Summa de astris” of Gérard de Feltre. Maria’s research will be published soon in Les sphères, les astres et les théologiens L’influence céleste entre science et foi dans les commentaires des Sentences (v. 1220-v. 1340) (Brepols, 2020): http://www.brepols.net/Pages/ShowProduct.aspx?prod_id=IS-9782503590868-1 For more information on her work see: https://kuleuven.academia.edu/MariaSorokina

It's the HR leadership today (and into the future) that will dictate which organizations are going to come out on TOP and which will not.We are joined by Peter Lombard, Founder of Globe Guides and he sits down with us to discuss the expectations of human resources, how they are pivoting and evolving, and why THEY are the business leaders that are shaping organizations for the future of work.A lot of things are 'dumped' onto HR when other leaders in the organization don't have a clear vision of who should be doing what...Planning leadership development... HRDisciplinary plans...HRCompany functions and events ...HRNew mission, vision, values roll-out ...HREmployee engagement activities and initiatives ...HRYou name it... it's usually HR that is asked to take care of it.Which is why HR is so important right now during the COVID crisis, work from home mandates, and the future of work.Listen in as Peter talks about what is looked like before to plan employee engagement, team building, incentive, and retreat events, and what it may look like moving forward.You can find Peter here:Website: https://globeguides.co/Virtual Summit: https://hr.heysummit.com/LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/peterlomb...You can find us here:Subscribe to our weekly newsletter: http://ed.gr/cnc9z Insider Membership Area: https://www.patreon.com/bareslateincWatch the Ask More. Get More. Show on YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/c/BareSlate~~~~~~~~FREE WEBINARS & TRAINING: https://bit.ly/2W2DqKf~~~~~~~~Be a guest on the show!: https://bit.ly/3bDr81A~~~~~~~~Listen to the Bare Slate Get More. podcast: 

On Sunday, February 9, 2020, Mr. John West taught the sixth lesson in his series on Church History. Week 6: AD 1100-1400 The Schism Crusades and Monasteries | Early Crusades | Anselm of Canterbury (1033-1109) | Peter Abelard (1079-1142) | Peter Lombard (1096-1160) | Bernard of Clairvaux (1090-1153) Straying from the Gospel | The capture of Jerusalem by Saladin Monks and Dissidents | Francis of Assisi | Thomas Aquinas (1224-1274) | John Wycliffe (1330-1384) | Jan Hus (1371-1402)

My guest is Michael Horton. His newest book Justification (https://www.amazon.com/Justification-Two-Set-Studies-Dogmatics/dp/0310597250), is a comprehensive study of the historic Christian doctrine. The doctrine of justification stands at the center of Christian theological reflection on the meaning of salvation as well as our piety, mission, and life together. In his two-volume work on the doctrine of justification, Michael Horton seeks not simply to repeat noble doctrinal formulas and traditional proof texts, but to encounter the remarkable biblical justification texts in conversation with the provocative proposals that, despite a wide range of differences, have reignited the contemporary debates around justification. Volume 1 engages in a descriptive task - an exercise in historical theology exploring the doctrine of justification from the patristic era to the Reformation. Broadening the scope, Horton explores patristic discussions of justification under the rubric of the "great exchange." He provides a map for contemporary discussions of justification, identifying and engaging his principal interlocutors: Origen, Chrysostom, Augustine, Thomas Aquinas, John Duns Scotus, William of Ockham, Gabriel Biel, and the magisterial reformers. Observing the assimilation of justification to the doctrine of penance in medieval theology, especially via Peter Lombard, the work studies the transformations of the doctrine through Aquinas, Scotus and the nominalists leading up to the era of the Reformation and the Council of Trent. He concludes his first study by examining the hermeneutical and theological significance of the Reformers’ understanding of the law and the gospel and the resultant covenantal scheme that became formative in Reformed theology. This then opens the door to the constructive task of volume 2 - to investigate the biblical doctrine of justification in light of contemporary exegesis. Here Horton takes up the topic of justification from biblical-theological, exegetical, and systematic-theological vantage points, engaging significantly with contemporary debates in biblical, especially Pauline, scholarship. Horton shows that the doctrine of justification finds its most ecumenically-significant starting point and proper habitat in union with Christ, where the greatest consensus, past and present, is to be found among Orthodox, Roman Catholic, and Protestant theologies. At the same time, he proposes that the union with Christ motif achieves its clearest and most consistent articulation in forensic justification. The final chapter locates justification within the broader framework of union with Christ. Michael Horton (PhD) is Professor of Systematic Theology and Apologetics at Westminster Seminary in California. Author of many books, including The Christian Faith: A Systematic Theology for Pilgrims on the Way, he also hosts the White Horse Inn radio program. He lives with his wife, Lisa, and four children in Escondido, California. Special Guest: Michael Horton.

This lecture was offered by Prof. Joshua Benson (Catholic University of America) at St. Charles Borromeo Catholic Church on September 26th, 2017. Description: Even cradle Catholics sometimes seem confused about who Mary is and what Catholics believe. A prime example is the doctrine of the Immaculate Conception. Sometimes Catholics think this refers to Mary's conception of Christ or some see it as an expression of Catholic guilt about the body. We can ground all our thinking about Mary, however, in a simple place: she is the Virgin Mother of God. From this vantage point, Catholic teaching about Mary can be unified and understood as deeply rooted in God's Word and the tradition of reflection upon it. Speaker Bio: Joshua Benson received his Ph.D. in Historical Theology from Saint Louis University in 2007 where he focused on medieval theology, especially the thought of Saint Bonaventure. He also holds an MA in Franciscan Studies from the Franciscan Institute (St. Bonaventure University, 2002) and a BA in Philosophy (Canisius College, 2000). Dr. Benson's current research focuses on producing editions of twelfth-century biblical commentaries (1150-1200) and early thirteenth-century commentaries on the Peter Lombard's Sentences (1225-1250). He currently lives in Maryland with his wife and four children.

On this episode of 5 Minutes in Church History, Dr. Stephen Nichols introduces us to the Medieval theologian Peter Lombard and his magnum opus, the Four Books of Sentences.

Luther was trained in the Scholastic view of God and man particularly stemming from William of Ockham (c.1287-1347). This view held that man can do everything that God commands in the Law by his own natural powers. Freedom is intrinsic to what it means to be human. With this freedom, every action is pure, unconditional choice. If original sin affected man then he would cease to be man - he would be something else. If we have the power, why do we need grace? God is also free to do what he wants. Nothing man does has value unless God gives worth and value to it. God is offended by sin. All of our acts that are good need to be qualified by grace. Peter Lombard’s, Book of Sentences (c.1150) was the main theological textbook at the time. When God gives you His grace, the nature of the act stays the same. The view also held that faith was just another act, like all other acts. There are two ways which we merit God’s grace. One is Congruent Merit: God sees that it is a good thing to bestow grace on us because he can see we have done our best. The second is Condign Merit: God has promised he will recognize and honor our obedience and we will continue to receive grace. He honors the pact he has with us.

Explore the Heidelberg Disputation on good works about objectively demolishing everything we do as a source of hope or merit or grounds for standing before God. Our affections will not feel the weight of the first 12 theses. We need to remind ourselves of that truth which is revealed to us in the Cross which comes to obliterate all of these works. We can never trust our emotions. We need to route our emotions in a distinction between Law and Gospel and what they do for people so the emotions produced are healthy. Theses 13-18 is the more subjective side of the question. Can my will advance me towards righteousness? There is the problem of force. Does God force himself on us or do we have some sliver of will that allows us to chose and want the good. Is there something within us that allows us to prepare for grace? In Thesis 13 we read, “Free will, after the fall, exists in name only, and as long as it does what it is able to do, it commits a mortal sin.” How can this claim be proved? The will is not free, it is bound. The will is free to do exactly what it wants to do which is evil. We read in Thesis 14, “Free will, after the fall, has power to do good only in a passive capacity, but it can do evil in an evil capacity.” The distinction between active and distinctive is crucial. Luther’s example of passive capacity refers to a dead body. Consider water as not having an active capacity but having a passive capacity to be boiled. We need to make right distinctions and define things appropriately. Thesis 15 brings up Adam and Eve, “Nor could the free will endure in a state of innocence, much less do good, in an active capacity, but only in a passive capacity.” Even before the Fall, free will had no ability to actively work to stay innocent by itself. For Luther, even in the garden, Adam and Eve were only held in a state of innocence by their relationship to an external power, which was God and his life-giving Word for them. For Luther, we never ever ascribe the active capacity to stay innocent to the human. Humans are always the ones to receive. Peter Lombard’s Book of Sentences (c.1150) theology textbook is referenced. We always stand in need before God and there is nothing about our human nature that can change that fact. Discuss the Lutheran view of the ability to reject the promises.

Thomas Aquinas not only shaped the Church, but influenced much of Western civilization. Who was this great saint? What are some of his important writings? And how should we begin to read his masterful Summa theologiae? Bishop Barron offers some answers in this week's episode. A bright 14-year-old listener asks about Bertrand Russell's famous criticism of Aquinas, and how to respond. Topics Discussed 0:27 - Updates from Bishop Barron's life 1:53 - How did Bishop Barron discover Thomas Aquinas? 3:23 -  Who was Thomas Aquinas? 4:45 - Surveying Aquinas' major works 7:42 - Best entry-level books on Thomas Aquinas 10:03 - Aquinas' unique disputatio style 13:07 - How Thomas Aquinas would engage the New Atheists 15:36 - Why is it worth reading Thomas Aquinas? 17:16 - How should we begin reading the Summa theologiae? 19:40 - The landscape and structure of the Summa 21:44 - Why Aquinas is a spiritual master 24:40 - Question from listener: how to respond to Bertrand Russell's crtiqiue of Aquinas? Bonus Resources Books Thomas Aquinas: Spiritual Master by Bishop Robert Barron Use THOMAS coupon code to save 10%! Summa of the Summa by Peter Kreeft Aquinas by Frederick Copleston The Christian Philosophy Of St Thomas Aquinas by Etienne Gilson  St. Thomas Aquinas: The Dumb Ox by G.K. Chesterton The Silence of St. Thomas by Josef Pieper On First Principles by Origen Websites Summa theologiae online (free) Summa contra Gentiles online (free) Commentary on the Sentences of Peter Lombard online (free)   Find bonus links and resources for this episode at http://WordOnFireShow.com and be sure to submit your questions at http://AskBishopBarron

Gratian and Peter Lombard help bring scholasticism to maturity by systematizing law and theology.

Explore that persecution of middle east Christians by Muslims started at the time of the Crusades. St. Benedict of Nursia had laid down a rule for monasteries to follow about 500 AD. Schools were established where law and theology could be studied and a method of questions and answers was used. Peter Lombard was the first systematic theologian in the Christian Church. He wrote curriculum for ministerial training and believed ministers must know the Apostle's Creed and Doctrine of the Church. Peter Lombard's training also included the Lord's Prayer as a means to get close to God.

Peter Lombard arranged topics in new ways and invented the seven sacraments which include Baptism, Confirmation, Holy Communion, Penance, Extreme Unction, Matrimony, and Holy Orders. Consider that matrimony and Holy Orders were mutually exclusive. The seven sacraments were used for memory and teaching. St. Dominic believed one should also preach on street corners. Francis of Assisi gave away his wealth and became a beggar. Consider that friars were freelance monks. Thomas Aquinas saw himself as a commentator of Peter Lombard. Calvin called Peter Lombard the master of sentences.

The building blocks of the medieval Church were the theology of Peter Lombard, Canon Law of Gratian, and the Papacy as Court of Appeal. The Church system centralized control to treat people equally. As the Church imposed its law on society, it came into conflict with the ancient tribal law of the states. Two hundred years before the Reformation there was a Reception of Roman Law. The result was that secular law was superior to the Church's Law on its own principles. The Church dealt with a perceived defective legal system while claiming infallibility. The one exception was England which did not accept Roman Law because England had a functioning bureaucracy.

Gratian was a contemporary of Peter Lombard. He wrote The Decretum or The Discordance of Discordant Canons. Explore how Canon Law developed into case law and was used by the Church for control. Canon Law was regarded as a supplement to the Bible. The Reformers argued against the Canon Law as equally authoritative to Scripture. Gratian set up a system of courts and procedures and succeeded in establishing the Papacy as an appellate court. Luther, after the Reformation, burned the Canon Law books.

This morning we're going to be looking at verses 18-23. "Nearly all the wisdom we possess, that is to say, true and sound wisdom, consists of two parts: The knowledge of God and of ourselves." I'll read that again: "Nearly all the wisdom we possess, that is to say, true and sound wisdom, consists of two parts: The knowledge of God and of ourselves." With these words, a French refugee, 27-year-old French refugee in the middle of the Protestant Reformation, began the Institutes of the Christian Religion, John Calvin. And he's right. It's amazing that a 27-year-old can get it that right, but it is possible, especially one whose mind was so saturated with the Word of God. Now, this expression that I've given you talks of true and sound wisdom; that implies there is something the opposite, which we would call foolishness. The key to it all, therefore, is understanding God properly and understanding ourselves properly. We need to know God the way He really is, not some false understanding of God, not some idol. We need to know God truly. And not only that, but we need to know ourselves properly. And what is the source of this information? Where are we going to find it? I would contend in the Scripture alone. And I would say that Romans Chapters 1, 2, and 3, gives us as clear a view of both God and of ourselves, as we need in this age. We need to hear this message. There are going to be some things in these chapters that are difficult for us to hear. It shouldn't surprise us, because it's coming from outside in. It's coming from a supernatural source down to us, and therefore, it's going to be unusual. It's going to sound different. It's going to come with power, and it's going to transform the way we think about God and ourselves. As we look at God, we have the tendency to construct God the way we like Him. What would you call it, if somebody puts God together out of the construct of their own imagination, puts God together, and then worships what they put together? What's that called? Idolatry. Idolatry. And the Book of Romans was given to sweep away idols, to give a true and right perception of God. And what is it called when we look at ourselves, and we deal very lightly with our own transgressions, lightly with our own sin, but deal in the worst possible way with the sins of others? That's pride. That's pride. Well, this Scripture sweeps both away. Now, as we go into the last half of Romans Chapter 1, and then into Chapter 2, and Chapter 3, culminating with a verse that all of you know, Romans 3:23, "For all have sinned..." And you'll understand it this way, "For all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God." I have a different translation, "For all have sinned and lack the glory of God." You know that verse, but there's an awful lot of verses that lead up to it. There's a whole discussion of who we really are, and we need to hear it, so that we understand God properly, and we understand ourselves. But as we move into this section, it's amazing. There's a danger here of self-righteousness. It really is shocking what our minds, our souls can do to Scripture. We see described here in the first half of this section, idolatry. And then, in the second half, we see described homosexuality. We say, "I'm not an idolater and I'm not a homosexual, therefore, I'm free." You have to see yourself in Romans 1 and you will, when we get done, when there's a list of 21 sins at the end of Chapter 1, and gossip and slander is right next to murder. You'll see yourself, I hope. We're all in here. We must not twist the truth that comes to us. We must not let ourselves get off the hook. We're on a hook. I want to know about it. I want to know what kind of hook it is. And I want Scripture to show me the way out. I want to understand truly. We are not to be self-righteous. You, therefore, have no excuse, you who pass judgment on someone else. For at whatever point you judge the other, you're condemning yourself, because you who pass judgment do the same things. And so it is as we begin this section, which is a diagnosis of the human heart in its natural state apart from Jesus Christ. I'm going to begin this morning at verse 16, although our discussion begins at Verse 18, "I am not ashamed of the Gospel, because it is the power of God for the salvation of everyone who believes, first for the Jew, then for the Gentile. For in the Gospel, righteousness from God is revealed, the righteousness, that is, by faith, from first to last. Just as it is written, the righteous will live by faith. For the wrath of God is being revealed from Heaven against all the Godlessness and wickedness of men, who suppressed the truth by their wickedness, since what may be known about God is plain to them. Because God has made it plain to them, for since the creation of the world, God's invisible qualities, His eternal power and divine nature, have been clearly seen, being understood from what has been made, so that men are without excuse. For, although they knew God, they neither glorified Him as God, nor gave thanks to Him, but their thinking became futile and their foolish hearts were darkened. Although they claimed to be wise, they became fools, and exchanged the glory of the immortal God for images made to look like mortal man, and birds, and animals, and reptiles." I. Review: The Gospel is the Power of God for Salvation Now, verse 16, Paul describes the Gospel of God as, "The power for the salvation of everyone who believes." We've talked about this for two weeks; the Gospel is powerful, isn't it? The hearing of this message can transform someone from being an object of wrath, under the judgment of God, to being an object of grace, seeing God face to face in Heaven. That's a powerful message. It's an incredible message and the Gospel is that message. Last week, we talked about why it is the power of God. It is the power of God, because in the Gospel, there is a righteousness from God, which He holds out to us as a garment to put on and it will shield you. It will cover you on judgment day; it is the only garment that will. There is no other righteousness which will cover us on judgment day. The beauty, the joy of the Gospel, is that the very righteousness that God will demand from us on judgment day, He provides us freely, if we will just believe the message. That's incredible. Now, verses 16-17 lead into verse 18. In some translations, there isn't the little connective words that we need, like in the NIV. They leave out the word 'for' at the beginning of verse 18, but there is a connection: "The righteous will live by faith, for the wrath of God is being revealed from Heaven against all the Godlessness and wickedness of men." There is a need for this righteousness, because the wrath of God is coming. Last week, I talked about this to some degree. I said that, "The righteousness of God is both our greatest threat and our only salvation," you remember that? The righteousness of God threatens us, because there is no one righteous, not even one. We are not righteous in ourselves, and therefore, we are threatened on judgment day. It's a great threat and it took a great salvation to save us from it, didn't it? Jesus dying on the cross, pouring out His life, His blood, so that we might avert the wrath of God, that we might survive judgment day. And so there's a direct connection between the phrases. The righteous will live by faith, for the wrath of God is being revealed. The only way you're going to survive the wrath of God is this Gospel message. It's the only salvation. It's the only way. II. The Wrath of God: God’s Passionate Response to Evil Now, as we come to this topic of the wrath of God, we come to that, which is a very unpopular topic, very unpopular, and I risk the danger of being called a "hellfire and brimstone" preacher. Frankly, I've never heard such. I've heard of them, but I've never actually heard that kind of a sermon. I think preachers have been intimidated out of it. Well, I'm not going to preach a "hellfire and brimstone" sermon, in that there's no hellfire and brimstone, actually, in these verses, but I am going to preach the wrath of God. The wrath of God is here and there is a coming wrath that we should be afraid of, we should flee from it. And it is my purpose today, that you be as afraid of it as God means for you to be. That's my desire. We trifle with the things of God. We think lightly of them. And it's a pleasure to hear a preacher that tells stories and does other things that are entertaining, but that's not my purpose today. My purpose is to bring your minds into that which is weighty, and heavy, and serious, that you may take it seriously. It may be that there's somebody in this room who will look back on this day and thank God for it on judgment day, because they dealt properly with the wrath of God. What is the wrath of God? You know, there was an ideal picture of God in the Greek world, that God was a dispassionate... That means unfeeling, unemotional, thinking machine. That's what God was to the Greeks, the purest, highest ideal of God, that He was a thinking, logical machine, no passion at all, no feeling. I don't know why they came to that conclusion, except that they saw the damage of human emotion, specifically human anger, human lust, and desire. They said, "Well, none of that can be part of God." But they never stopped to think that all of those things in us are actually twisted perversions, because of sin, but they have a reflection in the personality of God. Our God is a passionate being, is He not? Oh, He's an emotional being. He is passionate. You look at it and you see all the different ways that God reveals His passion. He rejoices. He rejoices. He is grieved. Grief is a strongly emotional state, isn't it? He is grieved at sin. He laughs at rebellion, Psalm 2. He is compassionate. Our God is a compassionate being. What does compassionate mean? It means to link your passion with somebody else's passion. It means to rejoice with those who rejoice, to mourn with those who mourn. God does that. Why do you think Jesus wept at Lazarus's tomb? Why did He cry? Because He was compassionate to those who are going to weep at many such tombs throughout all history. He feels it. He's a compassionate being. Therefore, He's a passionate being, isn't He? He's an emotional being and that includes anger. Now, this is uncomfortable for us, because human anger is so often polluted. It's an evil thing. If you were to take a survey of your own anger, just keep track of it over the next two months, and draw it back with, as best as you can, an honest assessment, and say, "Why did I get angry there?" You'll find self at the root of much of it, if not all. "This person has inconvenienced me. They have put me out. They have insulted my pride, and therefore, I'm angry." That's not God's way of being angry. God is angry, because of love. Understand this. Understand this. And God does not just love people. He loves righteousness. He loves holiness. He loves what is good and pure. We think, "Oh, God's love and His wrath are mutually exclusive." No, God's love is more than just to people. He loves holiness. He loves what is good and right. And therefore, He has a passionate response to what is evil. He hates it, absolutely. God's wrath is His passionate response to what is evil and what is unrighteous. The problem for us, is that we are evil and unrighteous. And therefore, naturally, apart from the salvation that Jesus gives, we are under the wrath of God. He is angry with us. He's angry with sin. Is that not what it's saying here? "The wrath of God is being revealed from Heaven against all the Godlessness and wickedness of men," of people, people. The wrath of God is directed toward individuals. And so, if we are not in Christ, we're under wrath, it's just that simple. John 3:36 says that whoever believes in the Son comes out from under the wrath of God. We come out from under it. Now, Romans 1:18 says that, "The wrath of God is being revealed from Heaven." It's presently being revealed. This is a very deep idea. What comes in the next number of verses, from 18-32, is a pouring out of all kinds of evil: Idolatry, homosexuality, a list of 21 evils and sins at the end of this chapter. And all of this is evidence of the wrath of God, and we'll understand that more. It's not just that which produces the wrath of God, it is actually the result of the wrath of God. He sees that we harden our hearts, He sees that we sin, and He gives us over to drown in whatever swamp we choose; that's the wrath of God. It's presently being revealed. And how is it revealed? It is revealed in the evils of this life, in sickness, in poverty, in suffering, family break-ups. It's also revealed in being given over to sin, addictions, perversions, all of this evidence of the wrath of God. It's revealed in death, for death is the righteous punishment of God for sin. More than anything, it is being revealed in this Gospel message. When you get done today, you'll understand the holy and righteous response of God to sin more clearly. Why? Because He told us about it in Romans, in the Gospel. The wrath of God is revealed in the Gospel message. Do you understand that, in the cross, the love of God for sinners and the wrath of God against sin come together? They're both there in the cross, both the love of God, the compassion of God for sinners like you and me, and the love He has for righteousness, which the flip side is the wrath of God against both, come together in the cross, revealed in the Gospel message. But the Gospel message also speaks of a future wrath, doesn't it? There is a wrath to come. The wrath of God is presently revealed and there is a wrath which will come in the future. Matthew 3:7 and John the Baptist talked about this: "When he saw many of the Pharisees and Sadducees coming to where he was baptizing, he said to them, 'You brood of vipers, who warned you to flee from the coming wrath'"? Who warned you to flee from the coming wrath? For such, you should be doing. I'm just wondering who warned you to do it? There is a coming wrath. And the only way to escape this coming wrath, the only way, is repentance, and faith in Jesus Christ; there is no other way. Suppose you were in the Middle Ages, and you were in a city, a walled city, and an enemy had surrounded the walls, and it looked like they were going to win. They were going to conquer the city. It wouldn't be long before they were running through the streets of your city. And suppose someone came to you with a sense of urgency, and said, "I have a way out, a way of escape to get out of this city, which is about to fall. Will you come or not? It's a tunnel. They haven't found it yet. It'll bring us up to those hills up there. Will you come?" Imagine a person who would stand there and say, "Well, why aren't there two escapes? Why aren't there two? I'd like to choose from one or the other. I don't want the one you're offering. I'd like another one. Why aren't there 10, as a matter of fact?" Would you do that? You would say, "Show me the door. I want to go. I want to escape." And so they run for that one door. And so it is with salvation. There is a way of escape from the wrath of God. You must flee to that way. That way is Jesus Christ. It says in Romans 5:9, "Since we have now been justified by His blood, how much more will we be saved from God's wrath through Him?" That is future tense. I don't mean to give you an English lesson, but 'will' or 'shall' leads to the future tense. There is a wrath to come. There is a judgment to come. And if you'll have faith in Christ now, are justified through faith in His blood, you will be saved on that future day. And that is a great, and an awesome day. I can't even describe it to you, when all nations will be gathered before that throne, and He will separate them, one from another, as a shepherd separates the sheep from the goats. And where will you stand on that day? What will save you on that day? The Blood of Jesus Christ alone. And will you quibble, and say, "Why weren't there two or three ways of escape?" He will say, "You heard, you knew. You knew." There is a salvation from the wrath to come. And you can say, "There is no wrath to come." You can say that. But God has said, "There is a wrath to come." And it will come. First Thessalonians 1:10, it says that, "Jesus rescues us from the coming wrath." Is that sweet for you, as a believer? It should be. "Jesus rescues us from the wrath to come." He is our salvation. III. The Cause of Wrath: Wicked Suppression of Truth Resulting in Failure to Worship Now, in this verse, what is the cause of the wrath of God? I say it is the wicked suppression of truth, resulting in a failure to worship. A wicked suppressing of truth, resulting in a failure to worship. Now, there are steps to the argument that Paul brings us through. What I'm going to do, is I'm going to go to the conclusion and I'm going to work back. The conclusion is that all people are without excuse and deserve the wrath of God. That is his conclusion. All people are without excuse and they deserve the wrath of God. Step back from that. Why? Why do they deserve the wrath of God? Because they do not glorify God, nor do they give Him thanks. That's why. Alright, then, Paul, why are they without excuse? That's why they deserve wrath. Why are they without excuse? They are without excuse, because it is not from an ignorance, an innocent ignorance of God, but in spite of sufficient knowledge about God, which is available to us. One step back from that, God has made it available to us. He has made it plain to us. Those are the steps of his reasoning. Let's work from the front then. It says, "The wrath of God is being revealed from Heaven against all the godlessness and wickedness of men, who suppress the truth by their wickedness." Suppress the truth. I get the image of one of those low budget Japanese invasion movies, and there are these hideous monsters in the subterranean parts of the city, and they want to push up through the sewer hole covers, the manhole covers, and pop up, and take over the city. And there are some people who are running around trying to push this hideous thing back down under the ground, so that it would not come up and trouble us. That's the way they look at the truth of God. That's the way they look at it. They are suppressing it, pushing it down, as though it were something horrible, which is pushing itself up into their minds. And that makes God angry, that His person, His truth, His character is dealt with that way. That's what makes Him angry. Now, We suppress the truth it says, "In unrighteousness." Do you know that no infant comes into the world with a loyalty to the truth? Think of it this way: Have you ever met an infant with loyalty to truth? What does an infant come into the world with loyalty to? Me. Right? Me! An infant comes in the world with a tremendous loyalty to me. You have to learn loyalty to truth, don't you? And so, once the truth comes in, we begin to suppress it, we begin to twist it, push it in unrighteousness. We become what's called, in the political parlance these days, spin doctors. What is a spin doctor? Have you ever watched a political debate on television, and after it's over, there are these professional people who sit down in their suits? And they sit down, and they tell you what to think. Have you noticed that? They tell you, "Well, you know, when he said this, it didn't mean what it seemed to mean. What it meant was this, and that, and therefore, it fits into his whole plan that he's been explaining now for the... " Oh, on and on. This is spin doctoring, is what it is. It's twisting the truth, rearranging it, so that we think of it a different way. We're all spin doctors, every one of us. When the truth of God comes in, we begin to twist it, rearrange it, adjust it, so it fits where we are, and that's called suppression. We're suppressing the truth in unrighteousness. Well, what truth are we suppressing? Verse 19 says, "Since what may be known about God is plain to them." It's a truth about God that's being suppressed. Well, what truth about God? Romans 11:36 says, "For from Him, and through Him, and to Him are all things. To Him, be glory forever and ever. Amen." Well, there's some truths in there that could be suppressed. God the creator, from Him are all things. God the creator: I was made by Him; He made me. God the commander. God the commander: He has authority over me and can tell me what to do. God the sustainer: Everything I need for life, and breath, and health, and everything, comes from Him. I'm on a welfare state situation here. I'm dependent on Him for everything. And then, finally, God the judge: God gives me this freedom to make decisions, and in the end, He's going to judge me for them; He's going to assess me on this thing called judgment day. I don't think I like any of that. It's very uncomfortable to me. God the creator, God the commander, God the sustainer, God the judge. Suppress. Twist. Push. I don't want it. I don't want it. Well, how is it we know about this? In Verse 19-20, it's God's self-revelation, "Since what may be known about God is plain to them, because God has made it plain to them. For since the creation of the world, God's invisible qualities, His eternal power and divine nature, have been clearly seen, being understood from what has been made, so that men are without excuse." "What has been made," the Greek word for that is 'poiema.' 'Poiema,' what English word do you hear in that? 'Poem.' What surrounds you is a poem. Think about that. A poem of creation surrounds you, a poem of the character of God. It doesn't just surround you, it surrounds stone age tribes in Irian Jaya too. It surrounds everybody. A poem about God, what He has made. Now, there is a long history of the argument of the existence of God from creation. Long history: Medieval scholars Thomas Aquinas, Peter Lombard, and others, came up with proofs of the existence of God that were very neat, and very clean, and very logical. I'm not going to bring you through them, but then came a brilliant man, Immanuel Kant, who just shredded them. Just shredded them and showed that they weren't worth their paper they were printed on. Very interesting. Well, Immanuel Kant did prove that the existence of God is not logically inescapable. There is a way out, logically. But it is morally inexcusable to take that way. Do you see what I'm saying? We know there is a God. We know it. We can do little games. We can turn little twists of the phrase. We can be Immanuel Kant, be amazed at our logic and shred arguments, but in the end, everyday, we get up, we look around, we know inside there is a God, and we suppress that truth. We don't want it, but it's there; we can't get rid of it. And no one will be able to say on judgment day, "It never entered my mind that you existed. I never even thought that you could have been here. It never occurred to me." No one will say that on judgment day. They knew. Well, how do we see it from creation? We see God's immensity in the Heavens. We see God's consistency in the regularity of the sun and the physical laws that are around us. We see God's love and His daily provision for us. We see God's power in so many ways, whether a thunder and lightning storm, or an earthquake, a hurricane; we see His power. We see God's inscrutability from the mysteries of the atom. There are things that He will never tell us about this creation. And we see God's wisdom in our own bodies, fearfully, and wonderfully made. We see these things. The invisible qualities of God, they are there. We should all of us, as I said in my series in Genesis, be scientist worshippers, not worshipers of science. No, scientist worshipers. We study things and say, "Oh, what a great God you are. What an awesome God you are." I was in the middle of writing this sermon, and I took a break, and I reached back for a magazine with lots of pictures in it. I like pictures when I need a break. So I was reading this and it was, I've talked about it before, the hundred greatest men and the hundred most significant events of the last thousand years. And one of them, the picture was of a pile, a huge pile of old tires. Old tires. And I thought, "What is this?" And the event was the discovery of vulcanized rubber by Charles Goodyear. Now, you've heard of Goodyear tires and all that. Well, this is what Charles Goodyear said. I was just taking a break from this sermon. God wouldn't let me take a break. Charles Goodyear, this is what Charles Goodyear said about rubber. This is a quote from Goodyear on rubber, "Who can examine it and not glorify God?" Isn't that amazing? I said, "Lord, that's going to be in my sermon! Who can examine it and not glorify God? It stretches, you can do things with it, it's incredible. Praise you, God. Praise you. Be a biologist or a physicist worshipper of God, because God made it. But yet, in science today, there's a great suppression going on. Did you know it? A pushing down of the truth. "We don't want it. There's no research dollars in it, no grant money in it, so we're going to suppress it, we're going to push it back." Darwin's theories, evolution, natural selection, time plus chance, billions and billions of years, that's where it all comes from. Now, listen to these quotes. And as I read these quotes, tell me if you can think of suppression of truth when I read them. Richard Dawkins, who is a leader of Darwinian thought today, says this. Listen to this, it's incredible, "Biology is the study of complicated things that give the appearance of having been designed for a purpose." That's an interesting definition of biology: "Biology is the study of complicated things that give the appearance of having been designed for a purpose." Francis Crick, Watson and Crick, the DNA double helix structure, won a Nobel Prize. Francis Crick says this, "Biologists must constantly keep in mind that what they see was not designed, but rather evolved." Why do they have to constantly keep that in mind? Because there's so much evidence to the contrary. They see it in the lab, they see it day after day, the closer they look, it's there. And they have to suppress it, they have to push it away. Michael Behe, in his book Darwin's Black Box, talks about the bacterial flagellum, of which you have a picture in your little... Do you see it? You wonder what this was? "What in the world does this have to do with Romans?" Well, I can't understand all this. All I know is that this is living. Everything you see here, this is not the structure of some kind of motor in a new boat that is being made for recreation or whatever, this is a living thing. Cells arranged looking like a motor, looking like an O-ring, looking like the stator of a motor and the rotor of a motor. This is the flagellum of a bacteria. And we must constantly keep in mind that what we see, though it gives the appearance of having been designed for a purpose, was evolved. Do you see this? Suppression. Suppression. But it's not just scientists who do it. We do it everyday in our hearts. We do it morally. We resist the truth of God. We don't want Him in our kitchen, we don't want Him at our dinner table, we don't want Him in our bedroom, we don't want Him when we're on the internet, we don't want Him in the way we live our lives. We don't want Him here. And so we push the truth out. We suppress the truth in unrighteousness. Verse 21 says... This is what we should have been doing... "Although they knew God, they neither glorified Him as God, nor gave thanks to Him." That's what we should be doing. We should be glorifying God and giving thanks to Him for what He's made, but we don't do it. "And then their thinking, they became futile, and their foolish hearts were darkened." To glorify God means to prize Him above all things. "For the Earth will be filled with the knowledge of the glory of the Lord, as the waters cover the sea." To prize Him as having created, and it's glorious, and to give thanks to Him. Giving thanks is a form of worship, "Thank you, God, for my life. Thank you for my food. Thank you for everything; it comes from you. I praise you God, by giving you thanks." That's what we should have done, but we don't like it. We're on welfare. We don't want to receive this way all the time, and so we resist. And not only that, but there is a drive inside us to worship, isn't there? There is a drive and we can't deny it, so we're going to worship something. And what is it we're going to worship, if we suppress the truth? We're going to worship an idol. We're going to make a new God, one that fits the way we like it. We're going to make the first dark exchange: Idolatry. IV. Result of Failed Worship: The First Dark Exchange… IDOLATRY The end of all this, folks, is not atheism. It isn't; it's idolatry, worshipping a created thing. We will worship something. God gave us our minds, our thinking ability for worship, for worship. That's why He gave us the ability to think. That's why we honor and glorify God more than anything else that's created around us, because we can think. And once that thinking becomes perverted, because of this dark exchange, we exchange the glory of God for something created. Oh, what a loss! Our thinking becomes twisted. We become lower in our thinking. Perfect example of this is Nebuchadnezzar. King Nebuchadnezzar, Daniel Chapter Four, a great story. Just read it with my kids the other day. One day, Nebuchadnezzar is walking, taking a tour, looking out over Babylon, and this is what he said, "Is this not the great Babylon, which I have created as my royal palace, for the display of my majesty and glory?" Don't you want to be sick as you listen to that? "Look what I've made. Isn't it great?" This is worship, folks. It is worship. Nebuchadnezzar was having a worship experience, but he was worshipping himself. And at that moment, a voice came from Heaven, "Judgment." But gracious judgment, seven years, his mind would be changed to that of an animal, and he would live outside day and night, and be drenched with the dew of Heaven, and his hair would grow long like an animal's. And his fingers would grow long like an animal's, and he would eat grass like an animal. He would be in his mind an animal, because he was not using his thinking for what it was created to do. And at the end of the seven years, his eyes looked up to Heaven, and his sanity was restored. What did that look mean? That was worship, folks. It was worship. He looked up to Heaven and gave glory to his Creator. And God restored his thinking to him. That's a picture of salvation. You look up to Heaven and you say, "You're my God. I worship you." And your thinking gets restored. It's no longer dark and feudal, the way it used to be. Now, in this dark exchange, in verse 22, it says, "Although they claim to be wise, they became fools, and exchanged the glory of the immortal God for images made to look like mortal man, and birds, and animals, and reptiles." Verse 25 says, "They worshipped and served created things more than the Creator, who is forever praised." And what's the number one thing that we worship? Me! We worship me and things like me. That's what we do. And so we'll even make a physical representation. Now, perhaps I'm not speaking to anyone who's actually taken that step, to make a physical representation of the new God you want to worship, making an idol. They used to do it. I've been to a country where they did it all the time, Japan. I've described this to you before, about the little girl, remember, at the corner of the street? There was a stone shrine there and she was putting a candy bar next to this little stone thing. And I said to the missionary who's with me, I said, "What is she doing?" And he said, "She is asking that god for help in her test, because he's on this corner and the school is in this block. This is the god of this block and she's asking for help on the test." Oh, it's grievous. Do you think she really believed in it? Probably, she did. She really believed that that god would help her. Now, we live in a modern society and culture. We don't do that kind of thing, do we? We don't do what's described here in Isaiah 44, "The blacksmith takes a tool and works at it with the coals. He shapes an idol with hammers, forges it with the might of his arm. The carpenter measures with the line and makes an outline with a marker. He roughs it out with chisels, marks it with compasses, shapes it in the form of a man, of man and all his glory," says Isaiah. "Of man and all his glory, that it may dwell in a shrine. He fashions a god and worships it. He makes an idol and bows down to it. He prays to it and says, 'Save me. You are my God. '" But you know something? The issue here is not so much the physical representation. There's a danger to that, because when you make a physical representation, it begins to shape your thinking. There's a circular effect. You pour your adoration on it and looking at it, it affects the way you think about God. But even before that, what happens is, first, there's an idea about God in the mind, isn't there? A thinking about God, and out of that, comes the creativity to make the idol. That thinking is going on in America today. It's going on, perhaps, in this room today. "I tend to think of God this way." "I'm uncomfortable with this sermon. I never think of God as a wrathful being. I like to think of Him as a loving God, who deals gently and patiently." Do you know what you're doing? When you do that, do you know what you're doing? You're making an idol. You just haven't taken the next step to go buy the materials. You haven't bought your gold, or your silver, or your wood, or your stone, but you're making an idol. You're supposed to receive by revelation what God is like and believe it, that's all. Let Him tell you what He's like. Now, people who do these things think of themselves as wise. It's a wise thing to put your God together, isn't it? Think of the benefits. And eliminate all of the things that are uncomfortable, put in some things you like, it's a good deal. And not only that, once you start getting a sensual worship around it, that feeds your natural proclivities, that's a good deal. Do you ever wonder why Israel constantly was getting dragged into idolatry? "What is the deal about idolatry? I don't understand it." Well, there's a whole system and it's described here; it's a pulling in to the sensual. But the tragic, tragic central issue, is that exchange, the exchange of the glory of God for something created. The Hebrew word for 'idol,' 'idols,' is 'nothings,' 'nothings.' That's Isaiah's word. They traded the great "I Am" for the "I am not." They exchanged it. And Paul uses strange language here. It says, "They exchanged the glory of the incorruptible God, literally, for an image of a likeness of corruptible man." Why the double language? Why the image of a likeness of corruptible man? It's the idea of distance, distance from God. Image of an idol of the image of God. Well, aren't we created in the image of God? So we're three steps removed from the true God with the idol. Now, Isaiah already told us what we are. What is our glory? All our glory? "All men are like grass, and all their glory is like the flower of the field. The grass withers and the flowers fall." That's our glory. This exchange is foolishness. And I understand Romans 3:23 that way, "For all have sinned and lack the glory of God." Do you know why we lack it? We traded it. We gave it away for nothing. We traded it for something created, and now, we don't have it anymore. I want you to crave it. I want you to want it back. I want you to go to God and say, "Give it back to me. I want the glory of God where it belongs, in the center of my being. I was created for your glory. I was created to worship you. Give me the glory back." V. Summary, Remedy, Application We began this morning by this one statement: "Nearly all the wisdom we possess, that is to say, true and sound wisdom, consists of two parts: The knowledge of God and of ourselves." Well, we've begun to find out about both, haven't we? Our God is a Holy God, and He has a great wrath against sin and evil. It is Scriptural. And if we take that, and twist it, we have done the very thing this passage says that we do. We take the truth of God, and twist it for a lie, and worship something else. And so we've learned about ourselves too. We are, naturally, truth suppressors, truth twisters, and we need to be saved from all of that. The cause of the wrath of God is that God has made himself evident in creation. Therefore, we have enough knowledge about God to glorify Him and thank Him. We know enough. We do, but we suppress this truth in unrighteousness. Therefore, we refuse to glorify Him and thank Him, rather we make idols. Whether we make a physical idol or a mental idol, we make idols and we worship them. And therefore, we will have no excuse on judgment day. That is what Paul is saying. That is what God is saying. Is there a remedy? Well, we began with a remedy, remember? "I'm not ashamed of the Gospel, because it is the power of God for the salvation of everyone who believes, first for the Jew, then for the Gentile. For in the Gospel, a righteousness from God is revealed." It's held out just as it is written, "The righteous will live by faith, for the wrath of God is being revealed." Righteousness or wrath, folks. You're going to get one or the other from the God of the Gospel. You're either going to get the righteousness of God or you're going to get the wrath of God; there is no third choice. Receive the righteousness of God and flee the wrath to come. This is a free gift, simple faith. As we apply this, I guess, I want to begin by talking about your self-knowledge. What do you know about yourself? Are you basically a good person? Basically a good person? Is that what Scripture says? All of us, myself included, we're truth twisters and evaders. We're not basically a good person. We're basically idolaters who need to be saved. Andre Agassi tells us that, "Image is everything." Is image everything? No. The glory of God is everything. The glory of God is everything. John Piper, in talking about this, said, "You know, when you go out there into the workplace, or at a college campus, and somebody says to you something like, 'Image is everything,' I would recommend that, at that moment, you say, 'No, I don't think so.' And they'll look at you. And say, 'No, I think the glory of God is everything.' What look do you think will be on their face when you say that?" And what Piper did with his congregation, I'll do with you. Go out and get a look this week. Go get a look. Go challenge this idolatrous culture we live in with the truth of God, that the glory of God is everything. Don't make an idol. Don't say, "I like to think of God this way," or, "I could never think of a God who would do that," which is revealed in Scripture. Don't be an idolater. Allow God to teach you who He is. And there's another kind of idolatry, too, isn't there? Greed. Greed. Materialism. Materialism. I got a Fortune magazine, didn't buy it, but it was loaned to me. And I looked through, and I saw some ads for Omega watches. Omega watches: "The world is not enough," is what it said. "The world is not enough." For what? "To satisfy me. It's not enough. I want it all. I want it all." Or a Cessna Citation X business jet can travel 600 miles an hour. I wonder how much that costs? An Acura RL luxury sedan, I don't need to wonder how much this costs, it's told me in the ad, starting at $42,000. Starting at $42,000! My parent's first house was $19,600. Starting at $42,000. Ashford.com, "Irresistible watches, pens, jewelry, fragrance, leather goods, just a click away." This is their quote, "All the stuff you really, really want." All the stuff you really, really want! What is that wanting? Well, let's unpack the wanting a bit. It gets close to idolatry. Maybe, in some cases, it is idolatry. Colossians 3:5, "Put to death greed, which is idolatry, and flee the wrath to come." Colossians 3:6, "Because of these, the wrath of God is coming." Flee from it, flee. Take it seriously. If you don't know whether you are under the wrath of God today or not, will you please come and talk to me after the service? Will you please make it a top, first priority? Say, "I don't know. I believe what you said, that the wrath is coming. I don't disagree with God, I just don't know where I am." Come and talk to me. Jesus provides a way of escape. He finally exchanged the darkness of sin for God's glory. "For all have sinned and lack the glory of God." Second Corinthians 4:6, "For God, who said, 'Let light shine out of darkness,' made His light shine in our hearts, to give us the light of the glory of God in the face of Christ." He can create the light inside; you can put the glory back. Jesus can. Jesus died on the cross to take away the wrath of God, and to give you a glory at the center of your being, to what you are created for, to turn you into a worshiper in Spirit, and in truth. Ask Him for it today. Please join me in prayer.

This episode of CS is titled Luther's Legacy.Long time subscribers to CS know that while the podcast isn't bias free, I do strive to treat subjects fairly. However, being a pastor of a non-denominational, evangelical Christian church in SoCal, I do have my views and opinions on the material we cover. When I share those opinions, I try to mark them as such. So >> Warning; Blatant opinion now ensues …We live in the Era of the Instant. People expect to have things quickly and relatively easily. Technology has produced an array of labor-saving devices that reduce once arduous tasks to effortless, “push a button and voila” procedures. Sadly, many assume such instantifying applies to the acquisition of knowledge as well. The internet enhances this expectation with ready access to on-line information, not just thru a desktop computer, but via smartphones where ever we are.And of course, if it's on the interwebs, it must be true.But knowledge and understanding are different things. Knowing a fact doesn't equal understanding a concept, truth or principle. And many people now want their history in condensed form. They don't really care to understand so much as to “get an A on the quiz” or, be able to answer trivia game questions. They can answer multiple choice but wouldn't have a clue how to write an essay.I say all this as we fill in some of our gaps on Martin Luther for two reasons.First – The very nature of this podcast, short snippets on Church history, can easily foster a cavalier attitude toward our subject. So I need to make a MASSIVE qualifier and say that if all someone listens to is CS, they must never, ever assume they know Church History. My entire aim is to give those who listen reference points, a broad sweep of history with just enough detail to spark your embarking on your own journey of studying this fascinating subject. Pick one era, maybe just 1st C, and one region, then study everything you can find about it. Become an expert on that one span of history. Press in past the dates and people and places, seeking to truly understand. Then use that to expand your study either backward or forward in time.Second – When we think of someone like Martin Luther, we tend to make him an index for a certain idea or movement. “Martin Luther: Father of the Reformation.” The problem with this is that we then tend to assume Luther was born with the intent of breaking away from the Roman church, as our last 2 episodes have shown was not at all the case. The evolution of Luther's thoughts was an amazing microcosm of what was happening in at least hundreds, and probably thousands of people at that time. He just happened to be positioned as the lightening rod of change.In this episode, I want to fill in some of the gaps the previous couple episodes left because of our time-limited routine here on CS. What follows is a bit of a hodge-podge meant to provide a little more context for understanding Luther and how he came to the ideas he articulated and millions ended up embracing.Martin Luther ranks as one of the most influential figures of the last thousand years. While Marco Polo and Columbus opened new lands, Shakespeare and Michelangelo produced some of the most sublime art, and Napoleon and Stalin changed the political face of their times, Luther triggered a change in the human spirit that's reached billions all around the world. The ideas announced in his sermons and written in books have affected virtually every realm and sphere of human activity, from politics to art, work to leisure. Truth be told, Luther's main body of work was a conscious part of the early American character and continued to play a central role until recently. It was Luther who played wet-nurse to the Modern world's emergence from Medievalism. We can neither credit nor blame Luther for the whole of what eventually became Protestantism, but as one who played a critical role in the emergence of a new movement and a new way of life for millions of people, the influence of his actions and beliefs on the past 500 years is beyond calculating. The modern world can barely be understood without Luther and the Reformation he sparked.Once Martin Luther was ordained a priest and settled into his ministry at Erfurt, his    superiors in the Augustinian order decided he should continue with his theological studies. Having gained a Master of Arts, he was qualified to lecture on philosophy. But he knew he needed more study to qualify as a lecturer on the Bible.The first step toward that end was to lecture on the Sentences of Peter Lombard, a standard theology textbook of the Middle Ages, which collected extracts from Scripture and the early church Fathers, arranged under topical headings to enhance discussion of theological issues. Under the guidance of Johann Nathin, a Professor of Theology and a senior member of Luther's order, Luther set to work studying texts such as Gabriel Biel's Dogmatics, a commentary on Lombard's Sentences. Luther devoured Lombard's theology.Meanwhile, Johann von Staupitz had been involved with the German Prince and Elector, Frederick the Wise, in establishing a new university in a small town called Wittenberg, 100 miles NW of Erfurt. In the Winter of 1508–9, he invited Luther to move and teach there. Staupitz was himself Lecturer in Biblical Studies in Wittenberg, so the idea was for Luther to help with the teaching of Aristotle's Ethics. At the same time, he would work towards his doctorate, the ultimate qualification to teach theology in the church and university. After a single term, he was recalled to Erfurt for a further two years to fill a gap in the teaching program, but eventually returned to Wittenberg in 1512. Luther was placed in charge of  teaching younger Augustinian friars in the order's house in town. He received his doctorate in mid-October and enrolled as a full teaching member of the university.These years also saw the growth of Luther's profile within the Augustinian Order. In 1510, he was sent with a fellow friar to Rome to try to sort out a complex internal matter connected with the order. They assumed his training as a lawyer positioned him as perfect for the job. The trip proved unsuccessful, but it was Luther's only trip outside Germany.The Modern and mostly uninformed view of the Middle Ages is that it was a time when the people of Europe assumed they knew everything, and that the everything they knew was colossally wrong. But we Moderns NOW know è WE know everything. Ha!It does not take much investigation to realize this image of medieval thought is far from true. Erfurt, like most German universities of the time, was a place of wide theological variety. For several centuries, theology in the universities of Europe had been dominated by The Scholastics.By the time Luther came on the scene, there were three main types of Scholastic theology in operation. The first two, following the teaching of Thomas Aquinas and Duns Scotus were by then known as the ‘old way' or Realists. Alongside this was emerging a new kind of theology, called the ‘modern way', o r Nominalists.One central question medieval theologians often pondered concerned the parts played by God and humans in salvation. The question of how we can come into a right relationship with God or, as the theologians called it, the doctrine of justification, was a hot topic. Contrary to what we might think, no one in late-medieval theological circles believed that a person could earn salvation purely by their own efforts. All agreed that God's grace was necessary for salvation. The point at issue was how much and what kind of help was needed, and what part people played in the process. The Church's teaching on this question was far from clear, and a number of different positions were held, not least among the Nominalist faction.One group took their cue from the great 5th C Bishop of Hippo, St Augustine.  When it came to the doctrine of justification, they held that humanity was helpless. Only God himself, by his sovereign mercy, could intervene and save people. Another group of Nominalists, the group that had an early influence on Luther, such as William of Ockham and Gabriel Biel, thought there was something which could be done to initiate the process of salvation.When Luther read Biel's textbook, he was persuaded by the idea that God has entered into a covenant, or pact, with humanity. If the sinner did what lay within him, then God would not deny him grace. Within the framework of this agreement or covenant, sinners were capable of making a small moral effort on their own, without the help of God's grace. This initial effort was required before God would respond. This might involve feeling a genuine sorrow for sin, or generating a sense of love for God. In response to this, God would give a supply (‘infusion' was the technical term) of His grace to help fan this spark into a flame. But this initial gift of grace was not enough to access salvation on its own. The Christian then had to cooperate with God's grace and, by the exercise of good works done with God's help, perfect this contrition for sin and love for God, so that salvation could truly be attained.At the same time one group of Nominalists was scratching this out, another movement with its origins a Century earlier scorned all these movements within scholastic thought. The Renaissance, which had begun in Northern Italy, spread into Germany. It captured the allegiance of many younger scholars, with its exciting promise of returning to the sources of classical Greece and Rome as a model for literature, art, architecture, law and rhetoric.‘Humanism,' as this program was known, isn't to be confused with modern humanism, that is, secular humanism, which is atheistic. While it did have a high view of human dignity, the 16th C version was religious in character, something most colleges and universities today neglect to mention. Renaissance humanism, or the study of the humanities wasn't so much a set of ideas or philosophical opinions, as a yearning for all things classical. The great motivating desire was to acquire eloquence and skill with words and language. So, everything was devoted towards a new kind of education, which involved making the study of classical texts possible—as these were thought the best models of eloquence available. These texts could be Greek literature, Roman law, classical poetry or early Christian theology. So, the humanists promoted the study of Greek and Hebrew, alongside Latin, the language of all scholarly work in the Middle Ages, so that these texts could be read in the original, avoiding what they felt was the misleading filter of medieval translations.Humanists took particular exception to the methods and products of scholastic theology, of every stripe, Nominalist or Realist. They felt that the scholastic method encouraged the asking and answering of a series of irrelevant questions. They also objected to the method of using medieval commentaries, rather than the original texts themselves. For the humanist, lengthy medieval interpretations simply got in the way of the brilliance of the original authors. Humanists wanted a direct encounter with the original text of classical authors, the Bible and the Fathers, rather than have all that muddied by an extra layer of explanations made by lesser, more recent scholars, writing in crude and verbose medieval Latin.So, using the recent invention of the printing press, humanists reproduced of a whole series of ancient Christian texts, which made a new kind of scholarship possible. Three works in particular were important.First, in 1503, Erasmus published the Enchiridion or Handbook of the Christian Soldier. It laid out a program of reform for the Church.Second, in 1506, an 11-volume edition of the Works of Augustine appeared. For the first time in centuries, it was possible to read the greatest authority in Western theology in full, in context, and without the help of medieval commentators.Third, and most important was Erasmus's greatest achievement, his Greek New Testament published in 1516. Although this edition was not as reliable as it might have been since Erasmus had a limited number of texts to work from—it became the first-ever printed edition of the Greek text, so that, for the first time, theologians all over Europe had the chance to compare the standard Latin Bible text with the original. A number of disturbing things emerged. For example, medieval theologians were unanimous in seeing marriage as a full sacrament of the church, alongside holy communion and baptism, on the basis of Jerome's translation of Ephesians 5:32, which referred to it as a sacrament. When Erasmus's edition appeared, it became clear that the original Greek word really meant ‘mystery'. The scriptural basis for regarding marriage as equal in value to baptism and Communion was shaken. So, the work of Erasmus and the other humanists played a major part in loosening the hold of the church's authority in the minds of many educated laypeople.While they didn't engage in outright warfare, scholasticism and humanism jostled in the lecture halls and universities across Germany in the early years of the 16th C. Erfurt where Luther was, was no exception. The two schools of thought were both present in the university, although relationships between them were, on the whole, fairly amiable. Luther was known for his knowledge of classical writers. He likely attended lectures by humanist teachers.This was the theological landscape at the time Luther's mind was being formed. Taught theology by nominalists, Luther believed as long as he did his best, God would give him grace to help him to become better. Humanist texts allowed him to study the great authorities of the Bible and the Fathers with fresh eyes. From 1509–10, he studied Augustine's works and Lombard's Sentences, and some of the notes he made in the margins of these works have survived to this day. They show him to be a not particularly original adherent of the theology of the Modern Way. He'd followed his teachers well, and there was little sign at this stage of departure from them.Luther was often plagued by bouts of depression. He wondered whether God really did hold good intentions towards him, sensing rather the stern stare of Christ as judge, demanding from him an impossible level of purity. He wondered whether these feelings were evidence he wasn't chosen at all, but that he was among those destined to be damned to eternal suffering.On the shelves of the library of the Augustinian friary in Erfurt were copies of several works by Bernard of Clairvaux. Bernard was something of a hero to monks like Luther, having developed a rich spiritual theology in the 12th C, and lots of advice on the spiritual life. Luther read these and heard them read over meals. He noticed Bernard's close attention to Scripture, and a piety which kept returning to the sufferings and humility of Jesus. Bernard advised his readers to meditate on the cross of Christ, especially when anxious or depressed. One of the virtues gained from such meditation was humility, a virtue greatly valued by God. Bernard said humility's abiding image was the crucified Christ, and how God used the experience of suffering, even seasons of doubt, to bring humility to the human soul. à This was a tonic to the oft-tormented Luther.This emphasis on the Scriptures and pondering the cross, passed on by earlier scholars like Bernard and Augustine plowed and planted the field of Luther's mind for the fruit it would later produce in the central doctrine of the Reformation – Justification by Faith Alone.A recent biographer called Martin Luther “A catastrophe in the history of Western civilization.” If we look only at the religious wars which were part of the Reformation, that verdict seems fair. But if we widen the criteria of our evaluation to Luther's role in calling the church to a simpler, more just and communal vision, in puncturing the conceited abuse of power and hierarchical oppression of a moribund institution which nearly all admit was grotesquely corrupt, not to mention the inspiration which his theology has been to countless people over the centuries since, that judgment isn't fair.Luther was a man of immense personal courage, fierce intelligence, and furious stubbornness. A mind steeped in the theology of his time, an ability to see quickly to the heart of an issue, and an eloquence that enabled him to express his ideas with clarity, was a powerful mixture. He inspired deep loyalty, even ardent love on the part of his supporters. He had a capacity to enjoy life in a huge way. He could be both tender and sharp, and his absence left an irreplaceable gap. As Melanchthon put it at Luther's funeral, now they were ‘entirely poor, wretched, forsaken, orphans who had lost a dear noble man as our father'. At the same time, Luther was a man with deep flaws, who made enemies as quickly as friends, and whose brilliant language could be used to hurt as much as to heal.As we end this episode, I wanted to share something I found that I thought was really good in regards to Luther's Enduring Legacy. It has to do with his doctrine of Justification by Faith. These thoughts are sparked by Graham Tomlin's Luther and His World.Our Postmodern culture isn't concerned with the same questions that dominated the 16th C. People today don't agonize, as Luther did, over where to find a gracious God. Modern men and women aren't in the least bit concerned about the demands of a whole series of religious rules. But they do experience the constant demand to live up to standards of beauty set by the glamour industry; to levels of achievement set by business targets, or to standards of talent set by entertainment and sports. How to understand the self is a persistent and difficult problem modern psychotherapy aims to ameliorate.While Luther obviously worked before the development psychology, his doctrine of justification by faith has something to say to modern man. It says that human worth lies not in any ability or quality we possess, but in the simple fact that we are loved by our Creator.At the Heidelberg Disputation of 1518, Luther claimed: “Sinners are attractive because they are loved, not loved because they are attractive.” He used to say that our value lies not inside us, but outside us; in Christ himself. The righteousness of the Christian, in which he/she stands before God, is not their own righteousness, but is Christ's own righteousness, received by faith. They can know their true value is found not in any good quality in themselves, nor any good actions they've performed, but in the fact they're loved by God. Luther's location of value entirely ‘outside ourselves', in God's love manifested in Christ, safeguards a sense that our worth is unshakeable. Whether in work or unemployed, able-bodied or disabled; red or yellow, black or white we're ALL precious in God's sight. Even if we experience doubt over our worth through despair at our own capabilities, virtue or reputation, this sense of ultimate value cannot be taken away and can become the foundation of a secure and steady self-image because it's received rather than achieved.But there's more and this is where the doctrine of justification by faith can touch and heal our shattered world. The doctrine reverses the way in which we tend to evaluate other people. If a person's value lies in a quality or feature which they possess, such as a particular skill or ability or ethnicity, it can make distinctions between people. Some people are more valuable and some are less; and we're back to Apartheid, slavery, and the Holocaust. If, however, as justification by faith insists, a person's true value lies not in anything they possess but in something ‘outside themselves'; that they are loved by God—then we can't make such distinctions. Each person has dignity and value, and deserves equal treatment, regardless of age, skills, social utility or earning capacity.The Biblical Doctrine of Justification by Faith utterly upends Critical Theory which carves people into groups and sets worth solely by their identity IN that group. For the Biblical truth of Salvation by Grace through Faith resets human identity in only two groups; the lost and saved = Both of which are loved eternally by God, a love made manifest in the Cross of Christ.There is, however, at the same time a sobering honesty about Luther's doctrine of justification. He insists that the first step to wisdom, to a rock-solid, immovable sense of self-worth, is to take a good look into the depths of one's own soul. It means to face up honestly to the self-centeredness, lack of love for one's neighbor, cowardice and indifference towards those who are suffering that lurks there. This is no easy doctrine which glosses over the reality of sin and evil in the human heart, the capacity to inflict pain and injustice which lies in everyone. For Luther, God has to help us to look into this abyss before we can go any further. This is far from that pleasant middle-class religion which assumes that everyone is good and nice, and which refuses to look beneath the surface. Luther's God insists on facing up to the dark secrets inside, the selfish motivations and hidden desires.But this is only preliminary. Some forms of religion have implied that this is the sum of religion—making us feel bad about ourselves. Luther insists this is merely a necessary first step—a means to an end, but not an end in itself. God breaks up the fragile foundations of a sense of self-worth based in our own virtues, in order to establish a much firmer rock upon which to build. Luther would have been wary of psychological techniques which try to build self-worth by positive thinking and self-talk.Justification by faith is a reminder to Christians that they approach God not on the basis of who they are, but on the basis of who Christ is. Self-worth, value and forgiveness are gifts, not rights. It's nothing to do with achieving an elusive goal of becoming the idealized person they might like to be in their most hopeful moments. It is a reminder that it is only when they stop trying to be someone else, and start being honest about who they really are, that they can begin to receive God's acceptance of them à In Christ.It doesn't get any more Biblical than that!

The title of this episode, Part 6 in the Series 500 Yrs, in commemoration of the Half-Millennial anniversary of The Reformation, is “The Way It Was;” a brief look at popular religion of the Middle and Late Middle Ages in Europe.We've spent most of our time in this series on the Reformers, many of whom were professional clergy before they broke with Rome.A fair question to ask is, “What was religion like for commoners, peasants; the vast majority of the population?”Since it was only the clergy and a handful of the nobility who could read, people didn't attend Bible studies. Their religion was something designed and promulgated by The Church. It centered on the veneration of saints, especially Mary, relics, pilgrimages, & the quest to capture the Holy Land.As the Faith spread, the Church made use of Europe's pagan heritage. The old shrines and festivals were co-opted to Christian use. While theologians understood the difference between the Trinity and saints, the distinction was lost on the peasantry. The old gods were subsumed under saints names and holidays commemorating their martyrdom. Pagan temples became churches.The 12th C saw a surge in the importance of the Virgin Mary as central to the religious devotion of the common people. Both God the Father and God the Son, as males, were cast as angry deities worked up about sin and ready to swat down the wicked. Mary was a mother who's tender mercy stood between these angry guys and helpless humans. She interceded with Her Son, because what son can say “No” to his mama?So Mary's role as an intercessor was advanced. When it was declared she was so holy she'd ascended bodily into heaven, her cult grew since she now transcended time and space. While the use of beads as a prayer device had been going on for some time among in monasteries, the rosary with its prayers to the Virgin, was added as a practice for all Christians in the early 13th C.In the popular mind of the average European peasant of the Middle Ages, It may have been Jesus' work on the Cross that atoned for sin, but it was Mary's intercession that secured that salvation to the needy soul. And that, only after each person had done their utmost to compensate for their sin through confession and penance.That's where priests came in. People believed unless they died in a state of sinlessness, they'd have to go to Purgatory, where they'd be tormented for ages. That much desired sinless state was attained by confessing your sins to a priest, then doing the penance he specified; 50 Ave Marias and 20 Pater Nosters, or whatever.But of course, no one could remember every sin they'd committed, even if they went to confession every day. So all those unconfessed sins added to one's time in Purgatory. Then some clever cleric came up with the idea that people could secure relief from these forgotten & unconfessed sins by drawing on the excess holiness of the saints. While most people had a holiness deficit, there were special people; Jesus, Mary, the Apostles, Saints, popes, etc. who'd done way more good in their lives than their own faults and foibles needed. All this extra goodness and spiritual merit went into a kind of heavenly reservoir called the Treasury of Merit. Since Jesus gave Peter the Keys of the Kingdom, and he'd passed them on to his successors, that mean the pope had the authority to transfer some of this surplus merit to the needy. He did this through his agents, priests and special representatives who'd occasionally make the rounds selling certificates called Indulgences.These either dispensed with the need to do penance, or in the late Middle Ages, were used as a way to buy a deceased loved one's way out of Purgatory.One of the ways people could do penance and score major points was by going on a pilgrimage. The goal of such journeys was some shrine or cathedral housing a religious relic. The cathedral of Cologne, for instance, had several relics, the most important of which was a reliquary, a gold covered box, said to contain the bones of the 3 Magi.The trade in relics exploded with people of every social level desiring some memento they could own that would accrue to them divine favor. The more famous the saint it belonged to, the more expensive. Clever entrepreneurs came up with all kinds of supposed relics with varying prices to satisfy the religious itch of everyone.Merchants carried splinters of the true cross as protection form highwaymen. Knights carried saints' teeth, finger bones, & hair in the hollow of sword hilts. People could buy drops of Jesus' bloody sweat, or the Virgin's milk at local faires.Every church needed a relic for its altar. When cities realized there was profit to be made from pilgrimages, they began stealing relics from other towns in the hope it would increase traffic.Martin Luther's patron, Frederick of Saxony, had amassed a huge and valuable collection of relics. When the Reformation took hold, one of the first things to go bye-bye was the trade in relics.The pilgrimages Europeans made during the Middle Ages in pursuit of penance or out of a desire to rack up some divine favor, became increasingly popular. The grand-daddy of all pilgrimages, of course, was to the Holy Land. But that was both an expensive and dangerous proposition. So Pilgrimages were designed within Europe itself. The most popular Western destinations were Rome, Canterbury & Santiago de Compostela in Northern Spain. The pilgrimage routes were carefully arranged, with hostels spaced out along the way. A pilgrimage was usually a light-hearted affair. Pilgrims were a kind of spiritual tourist who travelled in groups and stopped at frequent shrines along the way.Earlier I mentioned that the peasantry was illiterate. Their entire understanding of the Christian Faith came from the local priest told them. Those priests, while usually literate themselves, did not read the Bible. They may have read it during their first year as a monk novitiate. But after that clergy mainly read & studied Peter Lombard's 12th C work known as The Sentences. Lombard collected the marginal notes and glosses notable scholars had left in their Bibles. These notes were a kind of commentary on the scriptures. To get an idea of what The Sentences were, imagine you collect the Bibles of a dozen of your favorite Bible teachers. You then carefully cull their marginal notes in order from Genesis to Revelation. Now, remove all Bibles, so that all that's left is your collection of notes. That's what the Church used as it's authoritative text from the 12th through 15th C. People weren't being taught God's Word. They were being taught AS God's Word the commentary of religious scholars.No wonder the theology of the Late Middle Ages was messed up and desperately needed reform. And no wonder when Eastern scholars fleeing the Turks arrived as refugees, carrying ancient Greek manuscripts of the Bible, they were snapped up, European priests and scholars relearned Greek, and began pouring over the original text of Scripture like starving men given fresh bread.

This episode of CS is titled, Martin's List.In the summer of 1520, a document bearing an impressive seal circulated throughout Germany in search of a remote figure. It began, “Arise, O Lord, and judge Your cause. A wild boar has invaded Your vineyard.”The document was what's called a papal bull—named after that impressive seal, or bulla bearing the Pope's insignia.  It took 3 months to reach the wild boar it referred to, a German monk named Martin Luther who'd created quite a stir in Germany. But well before it arrived in Wittenberg where Luther taught, he knew its contents. 41 of the things he'd been announcing were condemned as à “heretical, scandalous, false, and offensive to pious ears; seducing simple minds and repugnant to Catholic truth.” The papal bull called on Luther to repent and publicly repudiate his errors or face dreadful consequences.Luther received his copy on the 10th of October. At the end of his 60-day grace period in which he was supposed to surrrender, he led a crowd of eager students outside Wittenberg and burned copies of the Canon Law and works of several medieval theologians. Included in the paper that fed the flames was a copy of the bull condemning him. That was his answer. He said, “They've burned my books. So I burn theirs.” That fire outside Wittenberg in December of 1520 was a fitting symbol of the defiance toward the Roman Church raging throughout Germany.Born in 1483 at Eisleben in Saxony to a miner, Luther attended school at Magdeburg under the Brethren of the Common Life. He then went to university at Erfurt where he learned Greek, graduating w/an MA in 1505. His plan was to become a lawyer, but the story goes that one day he was caught in a thunderstorm; a bolt of lightning knocked him to the ground. Terrified, he cried out to the patron saint of miners: “St. Anne, save me! And I'll become a monk.” To his parents' dismay, Luther kept the vow. 2 weeks later he entered the Augustinian monastery at Erfurt where he became a dedicated brother. Some years later he said about his being a monk, “I kept the rule so strictly that I may say that if ever a monk got to heaven by sheer monkery, it was I. If I had kept on any longer, I should have killed myself with vigils, prayers, reading, and other work.” Luther pushed his body to health–cracking rigors of austerity. He sometimes engaged in a total fast; no food OR water, for 3 days and slept without a blanket in winter.In the Erfurt monastery he did further theological study and was made a priest in 1507. When he transferred to Wittenberg in 1508, he began teaching moral theology, the Sentences of Peter Lombard, and the Scriptures. A visit to Rome on Augustinian business in 1510 opened Luther's eyes to the corruption so prevalent among the higher clergy there. When he returned to Wittenberg in 1512 he earned his Doctorate in Theology and was appointed to the Chair of Biblical studies which he occupied for the rest of his life.But throughout this time, Luther was consumed by guilt and the sense his sinfulness. While the majesty and glory of God inspired most, it tormented Luther because he saw himself as a wretched sinner, alienated from an unapproachably holy God.While performing his first Mass, Luther later reported, “I was utterly stupefied and terror-stricken. I thought to myself, ‘Who am I that I should lift up mine eyes or raise my hands to the divine majesty? For I am dust and ashes and full of sin, à and I am speaking to the living, eternal and true God?'” No amount of penance nor counsel from his peers could still Luther's conviction he was a miserable, doomed sinner. Although his confessor counseled him to love God, Luther one day burst out, “Love God? I do not love Him - I hate him!”Luther found the love he sought in studying the Word of God. Assigned to the chair of biblical studies at the recently opened Wittenberg University, he became fascinated with the words of Christ from the cross, “My God, my God, why have You forsaken me?”  Luther found an odd solace in the idea that that Christ was forsaken. Luther was a sinner. Christ wasn't. The answer had to lie in Christ's identification with sinful humans. Luther began to ponder the possibility that Jesus endured estrangement from God for us.A new and revolutionary picture of God began to develop in Luther's restless soul. Finally, in 1515, while pondering Paul's Epistle to the Romans, Luther came upon the words of Ch1v17 “For therein is the righteousness of God revealed from faith to faith: as it is written, The just shall live by faith.”This was the key that turned the lock and opened the door to everything else that would follow. He said, “Night and day I pondered until I saw the connection between the justice of God and the statement that ‘the just shall live by his faith.' Then I grasped that the justice of God is that righteousness by which through grace and sheer mercy God justifies us through faith. Thereupon I felt myself to be reborn and to have gone through open doors into paradise.”Luther saw it clearly now. Man is saved only by his faith in the merit of Christ's sacrifice. The cross alone removes sin and save from the grasp of the devil. Luther had come to his famous doctrine of justification by faith alone. He saw how sharply it clashed with the Roman church's doctrine of justification by faith and good works—the demonstration of faith through virtuous acts, acceptance of church dogma, and participation in the sacraments.The implications of Luther's discovery were enormous. If salvation comes through faith in Christ alone, the intercession of priests was unnecessary. Faith formed and nurtured by the Word of God, written and preached, requires neither monks, masses, nor prayers to the saints. The mediation of a Church magisterium crumbles.At first, Luther had no idea where his spiritual discovery would lead. It took a flagrant abuse of church finances to move him to the center of rebellion in Germany, and into a revolutionary position regarding papal authority.The sale of indulgences, introduced during the Crusades, remained a major source of church income, especially that destined for Rome. The theology behind indulgences is rather complex and a subject we could spend considerable time on, but the upshot is this:  Jesus and the saints have done far more good than they need for themselves and have lived lives that produce an excess of righteousness others can draw upon. The Church hierarchy, specifically the Pope and his agents, are able to open what's called the “Treasury of Merit” all this excess goodness has gone in to, and assign it to less worthy individuals. So, in exchange for a meritorious work—like, making a pilgrimage, going on a Crusade, or making a financial contribution—the Church offered the sinner exemption from acts of penance.All too often, the peddlers of indulgences made them seem a sort of magic—as though a contribution automatically earned the one seeking it a reward, regardless of the condition of their soul. Sorrow for sin was conveniently overlooked. And some even implied you could buy permission to sin before committing it. All this deeply troubled Luther.So, armed with his new understanding of faith, he began to criticize the theology of indulgences in his sermons. He ramped things up in 1517 when the Dominican John Tetzel was preaching throughout Germany on behalf of a Vatican fund–raising campaign to complete the construction of St. Peter's basilica in Rome. In exchange for a contribution, Tetzel boasted, he would provide donors with an indulgence that would even apply beyond the grave and free souls from purgatory. Tetzel was a clever sloganeer who understood the power of marketing. He came up with the catchy ditty - “As soon as the coin in the coffer rings, the soul from purgatory springs.”To Luther, Tetzel's preaching was more than bad theology, it bordered on blasphemy. Irked by Tetzel's fleecing of the common people and provoked by his studies in Scripture, Luther drew up 95 propositions for theological debate and on October 31st of 1517, following university custom, posted them on the Castle Church door at Wittenberg, the place people put public notices. Among other things, Luther's list argued that indulgences can't remove guilt, do not apply to purgatory, and are harmful because they create a false sense of security. Little did anyone know that the spark had just been lit that fired the Reformation.Within a short time, Tetzel's fellow Dominicans in Germany denounced Luther to Rome as guilty of preaching dangerous doctrines. A Vatican theologian issued a series of counter-theses to Luther's list, claiming that anyone who criticized indulgences was guilty of heresy.At first, Luther was willing to accept a final verdict from Rome. But he quickly shifted to the position that his critics show him in Scripture that he was wrong. As his appeal to the Bible grew, he began to question the doctrine of purgatory. During an 8–day debate in 1519 with Church theologian John Eck at Leipzig, Luther said, “A council may sometimes err. Neither the Church nor the Pope can establish articles of faith. These must come from Scripture.”Luther had moved from his first conviction—that salvation was by faith in Christ alone to a second. Scripture, not popes or councils, is the standard for Christian faith and behavior.John Eck didn't miss Luther's spiritual resemblance to Jan Hus. After the Leipzig debate, he asked Rome to declare Luther a heretic. Luther put his case before the German people by publishing a series of pamphlets. In his Address to the Nobility of the German Nation, Martin called on the princes to correct abuses within the Church, to strip bishops and abbots of their wealth and worldly power, and to create a national, German Church.In his work titled, The Babylonian Captivity of the Church Luther spoke not to the Papal Schism of a century and a half before but how the doctrine of justification by faith had reformed, get this, his doctrine of the Church. He argued that Rome's sacramental system held Christians “captive.” He attacked the papacy for depriving individual Christians of their freedom to approach God directly by faith, without the mediation of priests. He said that in order for a sacrament to be valid, it had to be instituted by Christ and exclusively Christian. By these tests Luther could find no justification for five of the Roman Catholic sacraments. He retained only Baptism and the Lord's Supper, and placed even these within a community of believing Christians, rather than in the hands of an exclusive priesthood.All this had sweeping ramifications for the Church.  It brushed aside the traditional view of the church as a sacred hierarchy headed by the pope and returned to the early Christian view of a community of Christian believers in which all believers are priests called to offer spiritual sacrifices to God.In his 3rd pamphlet published in 1520, The Freedom of a Christian Man, Luther set forth in a conciliatory but firm voice his views on Christian behavior and salvation. This work is probably the best introduction to his central ideas. He wrote. “Good works do not make a man good, but a good man does good works.”On the eve of his excommunication from the Roman Church, Luther removed the necessity of monasticism by stressing that the essence of Christian living lies in serving God in one's calling whether secular or religious. All useful callings, he said, are equally sacred in God's eyes.In June of 1520, Pope Leo X issued his bull condemning Luther, giving him 60 days to turn from his heretical course. The bonfire at Wittenberg made clear Luther's intent, so his excommunication followed. In January of 1521 the pope declared him a heretic.The problem now fell into the hands of the young emperor, Charles V, who was under oath to defend the Church and remove heresy from the empire. Remember that all Church hierarchy can do is examine those suspected of heresy and declare them innocent or guilty. Punishment was not the duty of priests or monks. That was for the civil magistrate to carry out. So when Luther was declared a dangerous heretic and booted from the Church, it fell to the Emperor to carry out his execution. He summoned Luther to the imperial assembly at Worms, called a Diet, to give an account of his writings. Charles V understood how highly charged the political situation around Luther was since he'd become the hero for a good part of the German nobility Charles desperately needed in his contest with France and the Turks. The emperor wanted to make sure Luther was a verifiable heretic and not just someone Rome wanted to be rid of.While the exact record of the Diet at Worm s is a little cloudy, it seems one day, as Luther was shown a table full of books purported to be his, wherein his radical ideas were expressed, when asked if they were indeed his, and if he stood by all that he had written in them, he hesitated and showed some uncertainty. Whether his hesitation was due to his concern that maybe there were books there he'd NOT authored, or that some of his earlier writings may not have been as accurate in reflection of his present views – or that with the Emperor watching him he was being faced with a potentially life-ending challenge – we don't know. In any case he was allowed to retire for the day where he reflected on what he was really being challenged by and emerged to stand before the assembly on the morrow were he once again insisted that only Biblical authority would sway him. In a famous and oft quoted line he stated, “My conscience is captive to the Word of God. I will not recant anything, for to go against conscience is neither honest nor safe. Here I stand, I cannot do otherwise. God help me. Amen.”Bold. Courageous. But Charles V was not impressed. He declared Luther an outlaw. He pronounced, “This devil in the habit of a monk has brought together ancient errors into one stinking puddle, and has invented new ones.” Luther had 21 days for safe passage to Saxony before the sentence fell. It never came. Luther was saved from arrest and death by Duke Frederick the Wise, the prince of Saxony whose domains included Wittenberg. The Duke gave Luther sanctuary at his lonely Wartburg Castle. Disguised as a minor nobleman, and given the alias Junker George, Luther stayed for a year. He used the time to translate the New Testament into German, an important first step toward reshaping public and private worship in Germany.