A Protestant View of Church History
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- Опубліковано 25 лют 2021
- Sometimes Protestantism is caricatured as the view that the church died, went apostate, or skated off the rails in some way until Martin Luther came along to set things right. Here I outline the actual historic Protestant view, and then give two reasons why it's plausible to think that longstanding errors may have existed throughout church history.
Truth Unites is a mixture of apologetics and theology, with an irenic focus.
Gavin Ortlund (PhD, Fuller Theological Seminary) serves as senior pastor of First Baptist Church of Ojai.
Website: gavinortlund.com/
Twitter: / gavinortlund
Facebook: / truthunitespage
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My books:
--Retrieving Augustine’s Doctrine of Creation: Ancient Wisdom for Current Controversy: www.amazon.com/Retrieving-Aug...
--Anselm’s Pursuit of Joy: A Commentary on the Proslogion: www.amazon.com/Anselms-Pursui...
--Finding the Right Hills to Die On: The Case for Theological Triage: www.amazon.com/Finding-Right-...
--Theological Retrieval for Evangelicals: Why We Need Our Past to Have a Future: www.amazon.com/Theological-Re...
And for anyone curious why I'm a Baptist: www.thegospelcoalition.org/themelios/article/why-not-grandchildren-an-argument-against-reformed-paedobaptism/
@JD Apologetics Thanks a lot! So glad you enjoyed it!
Is it because of John the Baptist?
Dr. Ortlund, just wondering why my comment was deleted. I responded to a commenter who was on the fence about the Catholic church and I gave him a response encouraging him to stay and his comment, your reply to him and my reply to him are gone. I know you welcome dissent and I appreciate that. If it was deleted because you didn't like my pro Catholic stance, I would be surprised and disappointed.
@@immaculateheart1267 not sure, I haven’t deleted anything.
@@TruthUnites that's what I thought. Ok, thx!
Wow im Catholic but I have NEVER heard this opinion before, and I am an absolute maniac when it comes to devouring theological information. Thanks a lot, makes me reconsider Protestentism. Something I would have NEVER said before I saw this.
But you have to just look at the fruits of the reformation of these people trying to criticize and reform the Church, all the countries that are the core of the protestant reformation (Sweden, Denmark, Dutch, Parts of England and France.) are the most atheist countries today. The only thing these reformers actually managed to do was destroy the Church and usher in an era of debauchery.
I grew up in non-denominational circles where church history wasn't discussed much. The implication was that Jesus ascended, Paul and Peter and the lot did their thing, then nothing of value happened for over 1400 years until Luther saved us again XD. Thankfully, my high school homeschool curriculum included a basic church history course, so I went into my adult life having an understanding that important stuff happened between AD 100 and 1500. My interest in church history has only deepened over time. I am on the verge of going over to the Anglican tradition, which, while it has many problems, had avoided throwing the baby out with the bathwater moreso than any other Protestant tradition IMO.
I would invite you to please investigate/study the Protestant Reformation for the reasons for the same. So interesting. Most of the Reformers were sincere devout Catholics who only protested against legitimate abuses within the Roman Church of their day. They never intended to leave. They were expelled. And may God bless you in the Name above all names.
@@rolandovelasquez135 the Protestant reformation was a looting operation and abuse scandal of the mother church is no where incomprehensible than the genocide that Protestants committed world wide.
Don’t. Protestantism flies in the face of John 17:21 and Ephesians 4:4-6.
I agree brother. It's pretty simple really. The Lord Jesus said, " I will build My church, and the gates of hell shall not prevail against it." He's still building His church, and the gates of hell up to this time have not prevailed against it and it never will.
Which church?
@@hildegardnessie8438 the body of Christ, the one universal church that worships and follows Jesus Christ as Lord and Savior of the world, be it Roman Catholic or non Catholic, Orthodox or Evangelical
@@liljade53hmmm I think the Bible actually demonstrates the growth of one structured church with apostolic authority though.
@@thegoatofyoutube1787 yes, but is it not possible that that church grew into a body in which some of it's leaders began to wander from the teachings of Christ? and when some members, priests, tried to get it back on it's mission, they were ignored, then attacked, and later imprisoned and burned at the stake for daring to question those leaders? were those leaders at that point being Christ like? I hate to go there, but it did happen.
The body of Christ. Those who are born of Spirit of God are in Christ. People are busy with their ideas of what the church is but it is HIS Kingdom and only God can build his Kingdom. @@hildegardnessie8438
I have to say Gavin that i found this in a time of some distress over church tradition. I am Protestant and I have respect for the other traditions but they seem to say that I’m out of the body if I don’t join them. This leads me to discover what really was the true church of the olden days and everyone tries to gatekeep that. This video to me struck through those gates and allows me to continue this journey to finding the historical church but also living in the freedom of Gods grace to embrace my brother and sister from various Christian traditions.
God bless you my friend, I am the exact same! It attacks my mind quite alot but at the end of the day Christ is the true focus and once He begins a good work he must finish it. Don't let men scare you
God bless you for the love you’ve showed In this comment, Christ is king
@@r.o.bamen.
I am a Roman Catholic, and I love your thoughtful, studious, respectful and educational videos.
I am eastern orthodox bit this is what i have been thinking about me as well. There is actually very reasonable reasons to be protestant.
@@O2N_ it really is confusing. It almost seems like there is no such thing as only "true" church. Biggest confusion is eastern orthodox and oriental orthodox for me. And protestants are doing lot of good works in missionary work. But still i like orthodox churches. Sometimes it seems one just needs to pick one church and stick with it but they cannot be all right
@@gabrielgabriel5177agreed. Personally I’ve concluded that the true church can be found in every denomination, it’s not about a name, since Jesus said not everyone who calls me Lord will enter.
@@hycynth82828 but this also is problematic. It means that God does not care about doctrine. Churches have so different doctrines that they even seem different religions. Why God leads someone to pentecostal church and there they teach about languages, gifts of spirits, adult babtism, sola scripture etc, and then God leads someone to orthodox church and that is totally opposite in many things
There are no reasonable reasons to be Protestant; not one.
@@gabrielgabriel5177i'm so confused about what is the "real" church i mean i lean toward protestantism but i most recognize that theres some errors in there too ..
Dr. Ortland, I’m so grateful to have found your channel. Your work has helped me wrestle with church history, and work through some Baptist distinctives. May God continue to bless your ministry!
Thank you! So glad to hear that!
I'm very grateful for your voice on these matters as I try come to terms with what appears to be a scattered flock after being led back out of the wilderness myself.
Man, that was really really good!!! Love your videos. Keep it up!👍🏻
Thanks, glad you enjoyed!
Great quote from Calvin who sums it up. Great information here as well. Thanks for sharing.
Glad you enjoyed it!
More content like this please 🙏🏼🙏🏼🙏🏼
Glad you enjoyed it!
Greetings Gavin from the north of England, and thank you so much for your channel. I'm not entirely sure whether it's for theological or romantic reasons, but I have been seriously contemplating becoming Catholic. I am so grateful for your reasoned and gracious arguments for remaining Protestant, all of which have contributed to my own thinking. May I wish you and your loved ones well. Keep up the good work, Richard.
Thanks Richard, glad they have been helpful! May the Lord bless you.
If you keep going honestly, you will none the less become Catholic. God calls us for all reasons , be they spiritual, psychological, material, romantic or otherwise. God bless you
@@afieds6845 Protestants love Jesus Christ and have been called by God as well, minus the papacy and the new dogmas not found in the early church.
@@afieds6845 Only if you lose sight of Jesus will you become catholic.
Thank you, loved it so much !
ua-cam.com/video/l2tCJFA_gpQ/v-deo.html
Thank you for this video
Thank you so much for this teaching! There truely is unity in truth!
The simple reality is that THE FAITH was ONCE delivered...and did NOT need to be developed/distorted as Catholicism has obviously done
Which Faith is it - the Baptist or the Lutheran? Or the Anglican, or this or that or the other thing? You guys don't even know what you believe much less what is the authentic Faith delivered to the Apostles. Spare me.
Brilliant thanks for this.
Much appreciated Pastor Ortlund. I would obviously disagree about the sacraments but I really appreciate your careful review of church history in order to defend the classical Protestant position. I would love to see you engage more with the slavery question, which you mentioned. I am a student of American and Civil War history and I have thought a great deal about the Bible and slavery. Blessings
Thanks Will! Will consider that feedback, too!
There is a difference between errors getting into the Church and errors overwhelming the Church to the point that breaking off from the main body is necessary. The Church could have gotten a few things wrong, or maybe more than a few things wrong, but saying they got as many things wrong as the Protestants claim for as long as they claim is a stretch. There is a difference between getting moral issues , ideas regarding the philosophy of gender, or the corollaries of various dogmas wrong (without even dogmatizing those corollaries) and having a fundamentally incorrect church polity, a fundamentally incorrect view of the Sacraments, and a fundamentally incorrect view of soteriology. If the Church got all those things wrong, what is to say that it didn't get the Trinity wrong as well, or the hypostatic union, or the status of Saint Mary as the Mother of God (which most Protestants accept, as far as I am concerned)?
You made a reasonable point about the Israelites falling into error and getting called back from it. However, God did that repeatedly and regularly, not every three hundred years. From my own calculations, the Book of the Law could not have gone missing (only to be found during the reign of King Josiah) for more than ninety or so years. God seems to be pretty consistent about nipping stuff in the bud early on, or at least condemning errors without letting a lot of time pass. This is quite different from letting the Church slide into error after error, into serious error from a very early stage, only to revive the true doctrine after over one thousand years had passed. There is a big difference in scale.
Also, I was an Orthodox Presbyterian for a number of years, and they are to my knowledge far more in line with historical Presbyterianism rather than contemporary Evangelical Protestantism. What I learned from them was that the Roman Catholic and Eastern Orthodox teachings on salvation (and perhaps other things, such as the Eucharist and the veneration of saints and images) were damnable heresies, and that most Roman Catholics and Eastern Orthodox people were going to Hell. Such an extreme view does not permit much continuity with Church history.
To sum it up, there is a vast difference in scale. For example, saying that good parents occasionally make mistakes and yell at kids when they should not, discipline them unfairly, or are perhaps at times too permissive makes a lot of sense. It does not make much sense to say that good parents make mistakes such as routinely physically abusing their kids throughout their childhood. The principle is the same, that good parents make mistakes, but clearly the second scenario takes the principle way further than it ought to be taken.
By reading early church documents, you can see that from very early on, it would not fit the Protestant mold, at least not by most standards. In the Didache, which is an extremely early text, you can see the use of liturgies, or at least their beginning, which some, but not a lot of Protestants use. Even if Protestants are right about the letters of Saint Ignatius being inauthentic (which I don't agree with), the Shepherd of Hermas (second century) still describes a distinction between bishop, priest (or teacher, in the words of that text), and deacon. Saint Irenaeus (second century), Saint Hippolytus (second and third), Clement of Alexandria (second and third), Origen (second and third), and Tertullian (second and third) affirm its existence, and it was very wide-spread, if not universal at their time. Saint Irenaeus and Saint Hippolytus said the institution was apostolic in origin. As for the terms bishop and presbyter being used interchangeably in the New Testament, Saint Chrysostom has a response to that in his commentary on Philippians. There are Protestants that have the episcopal polity, but there are far more who do not. Tertullian (among others, such as Augustine) also says that prayers for the dead were a practice in his day, and from what he writes, they seem to be a liturgical practice, not a merely private one. There is even a section in the New Testament where Saint Paul prays for Onesiphorus, who was probably deceased at the time. Very few Protestants pray for the dead, and even fewer ask for the intercession of the saints. The earliest prayer to Saint Mary that we know of is called the Sub tuum praesidium. However, Saint Methodius of Olympus, Saint Cyril of Jerusalem, and Saint Augustine all mention the practice as something done in liturgy or include prayers to the saints in their works. Perhaps, one day, conclusive evidence will turn up to show that such things were practiced well before these saints lived.
Note that I did not include all the saints I could find who supported the practices I mentioned. I could ave listed more sources and more topics if I wanted to, but I only have so much time. I included who I did to show how early these practices, which were standard in the Church as early in the early Middle Ages had an early origin. The claim that these things were medieval innovations is easily refutable. Low-church Protestants have to reckon with the fact that they are far off from the practice of the Church on a great many things for a great many years, and from a very early point too. Anglicans and Lutherans might have more of a leg to stand on, but there are still a lot of points of contention. I did not include what the Fathers thought about schism. From what I have read of them, I don't think they would have looked kindly on the idea of different church bodies being in prolonged and determined (important words) schisms while still being part of the One True Church despite that. I am aware there were several schisms that popped up throughout Church history. I think the fact that such an effort was made to reunite on an institutional level is evidence in my favor. Had the Acacian Schism not ended unity, I do not think the Bishop of Rome would have regarded those separated from communion as still part of the One True Church despite that. I could probably find some quotes to back up my position if I wanted to, but it is late, and I do enjoy getting up early.
I've said this in response to one of your other videos, and again, I do not mean to be condescending, but I really do think you would be far more intellectually honest with yourself if you were an Anglican or a Lutheran.
I'll sum up your 13 paragraphs:
IF the Orthodox church does it, it's ok. Any mistake made is ok, as long as it's in the context of the Orthodox church.
I cannot help you if you are that gullible and arrogant.
We are humans. We mess things up. All of our systems are flawed. Jesus destroyed the partition. Why do your fathers still keep it up? If Jesus didn't change things, it's all for nothing and we're all dead in our sins.
@@78LedHead lol you destroyed that wall of text with a simple summary. Well done. You're doing God's work
@@xuniepyro7399 I probably fail miserably doing that most times, but if I can say one thing to defend the gospel and it resonates with someone, I'll take it. God bless you mightily, friend.
Protestants love Jesus Christ and have been called by God as well, minus the papacy and the new dogmas not found in the early church.
@@wojo9732 Not an argument.
Well said!
Amen and amen. Thanks for this.
Sooooo awesome. Great explanation
Your channel is quickly becoming one of my all-time favorites! Keep up the good work! I love your blog too, btw.
Thanks so much, glad you enjoy it!
My rule of thumb is: if the Reformers believed it, and the Holy Fathers believed it, and the Church Councils are compatible with it, and it isn’t contrary to scripture either explicitly or implicitly, then I need a DARN good reason to disbelieve it.
Paedobaptism flows naturally from this. It can be inferred from scripture, it was taught universally and practiced universally as far as we can tell in the ancient church. All the majesterial reformers taught and affirmed it, and those who first diverged from this view (anabaptists) were heretics. Therefore, I affirmed the baptism of infants as biblical, historic, apostolic, and pleasing to God.
Thank you for your video! As an Anglican, can I just say that not ALL affirm baptismal regeneration and apostolic succession through the laying of hands, although it is a popular high church view.
I second this! The liturgy for this, like many things in the prayer book, are hopefully written rather than concretely written (for example, when the BCP said "seeing now that his child is regenerate").
Dr Gavin, would we possibly be able to use this rationale with the majority of Protestant’s acceptance of birth control since 1930 now knowing that the Pill can be abortifacient which is in contradiction to Biblical views and admit that in hindsight the majority view missed it on this issue?
@Rogelio Caballero True
We definitely need to go back to Scripture on this. Abortifacients are not ok. I think many Protestants didn't realize how bad they were. There is more talk about this now, and we are starting to address it.
Dr. Ortlund - I greatly appreciate your voice in these ecumenical discussions. You seem to truly aim at truth and try to present all sides in a such an accurate and fair manner. I pray that you will continue on this ecumenical path and that it will bear great fruit for you, your Christian tradition, and Catholics alike.
I was drawn to how you framed Protestant thought as a return to the orthodox views of the early church and only casting away errors that crept into the Church.
As a former Lutheran and now Catholic, I was taught the same thing too. However, it now seems to me that the problem with this view of history is the Protestant reformers inserted their own novel ideas as their guiding principles, they were not returning to orthodox principles from the early Church. This seems especially true for sola fide and sola scriputra (although there are many others).
1) Imputed righteousness with sola fide
The point at issue is a little difficult to explain. It centers on the question of the location of justifying righteousness. Both Augustine and Luther are agreed that God graciously gives sinful humans a righteousness which justifies them. But where is that righteousness located? Augustine argued that it was to be found within believers; Luther insisted that it remained outside believers. That is, for Augustine, the righteousness in question is internal; for Luther, it is external.
In Augustine’s view, God bestows justifying righteousness upon the sinner in such a way that it becomes part of his or her person. As a result, this righteousness, although originating outside the sinner, becomes part of him or her. In Luther’s view, by contrast, the righteousness in question remains outside the sinner: it is an “alien righteousness” (iustitia aliena). God treats, or “reckons,” this righteousness as if it is part of the sinner’s person. In his lectures on Romans of 1515-16, Luther developed the idea of the “alien righteousness of Christ,” imputed - not imparted - to the believer by faith, as the grounds of justification....
In brief, then, Trent maintained the medieval tradition, stretching back to Augustine, which saw justification as comprising both an event and a process - the event of being declared to be righteous through the work of Christ and the process of being made righteous through the internal work of the Holy Spirit. Reformers such as Melanchthon and Calvin distinguished these two matters, treating the word “justification” as referring only to the event of being declared to be righteous; the accompanying process of internal renewal, which they termed “sanctification” or “regeneration,” they regarded as theologically distinct.
**McGrath, Alister. Reformation Thought: An Introduction, 4th ed. p 125-126**
2) Sola scriptura
Commonitorium (Vincent of Lerins) c. 434
Chapter 2: A General Rule for distinguishing the Truth of the Catholic Faith from the Falsehood of Heretical Pravity.
[4.] I have often then inquired earnestly and attentively of very many men eminent for sanctity and learning, how and by what sure and so to speak universal rule I may be able to distinguish the truth of Catholic faith from the falsehood of heretical pravity; and I have always, and in almost every instance, received an answer to this effect: That whether I or any one else should wish to detect the frauds and avoid the snares of heretics as they rise, and to continue sound and complete in the Catholic faith, we must, the Lord helping, fortify our own belief in two ways; first, by the authority of the Divine Law, and then, by the Tradition of the Catholic Church.
[5.] But here some one perhaps will ask, Since the canon of Scripture is complete, and sufficient of itself for everything, and more than sufficient, what need is there to join with it the authority of the Church's interpretation? For this reason - because, owing to the depth of Holy Scripture, all do not accept it in one and the same sense, but one understands its words in one way, another in another; so that it seems to be capable of as many interpretations as there are interpreters. For Novatian expounds it one way, Sabellius another, Donatus another, Arius, Eunomius, Macedonius, another, Photinus, Apollinaris, Priscillian, another, Iovinian, Pelagius, Celestius, another, lastly, Nestorius another. Therefore, it is very necessary, on account of so great intricacies of such various error, that the rule for the right understanding of the prophets and apostles should be framed in accordance with the standard of Ecclesiastical and Catholic interpretation.
www.newadvent.org/fathers/3506.htm
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Also, you mentioned the Protestant view is that the Church is always reforming. I am sure you are well aware, but this is a statement that Catholics would whole-heartedly agree with too. It seems to me that the Catholic Church has been a visible institution that has stood the test of time because God has guided, protected, and reformed the Church when needed (e.g. Council of Trent). On the other hand, it seems the fruits of the Protestant Reformers is endless division.; empirically, there seems to be no way for an average Christian to know which Church has true doctrine in the Protestant world as they disagree on so many things, many of which seem they may be essential doctrine (e.g. baptismal regeneration).
Again, I greatly appreciate your voice in these discussions. God bless!
That the Church died is also a theological issue as much as an historical one. Meaning, at least for the Lutheran Confessions, Matthew 16:18 was taken to be a promise that there must be and remain one Holy Christian Church that remains throughout all ages. If the Church died, it would have to mean that Christ's promise "The gates of hell will not prevail against it" would be false.
Eastern Orthodox Catechumen here: I think you're right that this idea comes from that Saint.
As to my reading: God's justice isn't just beyond us and unlike human justice, as some would suggest. Rather, God's justice is perfect and superior to human justice but generally of a like kind. That is, our own sense of justice is imperfect, but not completely contrary to God's.
All that being said - if the idea of tormenting infants forever because they have ancestral corruption seems unjust to us, that's because it is. Therefore on that basis alone, infants who die before baptism are not damned to eternal torment.
Whatever it is that may happen to them, we can trust in God.
So hyped for this.
Hope it was useful!
Thank you, thank you, thank you for making this video. I’m an Anglican here struggling with what it means to be a part of the one, true, catholic, and apostolic Church. I often wrestle with whether or not my views should be aligned as close as possible with what has been taught throughout tradition-especially in the early church. Sometimes it seems like we should believe what was taught in the earliest of times in church history because those folks were closest to Christ in terms of our timeline and surely they were passing along what we would need to know today.
But you have helped me think about the possible errors that the early church had and that it’s possible that there could have been long lasting errors. Therefore, Protestants can have much as a claim to being part of the one true church just as Roman Catholics, Orthodox, and Anglicans (viewed from a more Anglo-Catholic perspective) can.
Again, I appreciate you making this. I’m gonna chew on this for a bit.
Just read your Bible, be led by God and read your old history, dig deep. The R" Church is Mystery Babylon, mother of harlots and abominations of the earth as taught by all the Reformers.
The Roman Catholic Church is the one true church.
@@hildegardnessie8438 The Orthodox Church is the one true church.
As a former Anglo-Catholic, I'm afraid the above comment is right
My high school in the Philippines was San Agustin. They lived him.
Thank you! Very refreshing look at Church history.
Thanks Ruben! Glad you enjoyed it.
I really like your videos, as a SSPX-attending Roman Catholic, because I like to appreciate different views and understand where different people are coming from.
@Truth Unites, thank you for expressing your views both here and in other ecumenical settings. There are some problems though. While the Church can certainly learn from Israel and the examples in the OT, the Church is an ontologically different group than Israel under Moses. She is seated with Christ in the New Covenant of Jesus’ blood. The Church is United to Her Head and Lord, she is the pillar and buttress of Truth, filled with the Spirit of Truth, led into all Truth, she binds and loosens, the Church is a City on a hill, etc. The point is that while individuals can err, the Church as the Bride and Body of Christ cannot teach error/heresy universally and dogmatically. You said that some groups have greater continuity to the Church, but Christ has only one body. The Church has one Lord, one faith, one baptism. Where is Christ’s Church that is one, holy, Catholic and Apostolic? Also, Michael Lofton has a good book about infants and their eternal destination. God bless you!
Here is something with regard to the Baptism of infants. If it is the case that Baptizing infants is not valid, we have a massive problem with Christian history. As you note the practice of Baptizing infants became universal after 300AD (it was earlier, but lets just go with it). If that is the case, then the Holy Spirit allowed the Church to persist in a state in which it doesn't even know how to properly Baptize people until a small segment of the Christian world rediscovers it in after 1200 years.
But consider the intervening years. For 1200 years pretty much every person who purports to be a Christ has been baptized as a baby - and thus has not been validly baptized at all. That means the vast bulk of people who would have regarded themselves as Christians were, in fact, unbaptized. And that error continues in the majority of Christian communities today. That result makes me very sympathetic to people who say the Church died during the interval before it was resurrected by Protestantism. At the very least, it invites some very important questions about what the Holy Spirit was doing during that time period.
Because that's one important difference between the Old Testament and New Testament people of God which you did not mention - we are living in the period of time when the Holy Spirit is supposed to be guiding the people of God.
Fair and thoughtful points, as usual, ActsApologist!
When you write, “thus has not been validly baptized at all” - you are assuming I don’t think infant baptism counts at all. That is not the universal Baptist view, or mine. I’d say infant baptism is improper, but not invalid. See here for more: mereorthodoxy.com/baptism-church-membership/
I don’t think you are engaging the main point, though, which is to say that it seems the Holy Spirit *also* allowed the church to have erroneous views for the majority of her history of slavery, women, and the fate of unbaptized babies who die (just to pick those examples).
You are correct that there are differences between the old covenant and the new in that the Spirit is given more copiously now. I see this as a difference of degree, not an absolute difference. Even in the apostolic age itself, conflicts and errors abound! And the Spirit was at work in the Old Testament. Still, this is a valid push back.
@@TruthUnites : Well, I try to be fair anyway.
There's no doubt that there are beliefs held by the vast majority of early Christians which are not held today. The first place my mind goes is early Genesis. A more literalistic view was certainly almost universal prior to the 19th century.
What I was trying to motion to was a principle that I take in understanding these things: Namely, consider the consequences of a given teaching being wrong. In the case I cited, believing that infant Baptism is invalid (as many do) would make it almost unavoidable to conclude that the Church died. And it would seem like that would be an intolerable conclusion for a person who thinks the Holy Spirit guides the Church in any meaningful way.
Similarly, if the Eucharist does not undergo a change suchwise that it becomes in essence God (whether one calls it transubstantiation or not), then generations of Christians - both East and West - became pagan idolaters because we regard the Eucharist as substantially divine. In my mind, another intolerable conclusion.
But what if most Christians were wrong about how literal Genesis 1-3 is? Not much follows from that. What happens if Christians have a more dim view of the fate of unbaptized infants than today? Not much.
So even if I were approaching this issue with the mindset of a Protestant who doesn't put much stock in the Catholic magisterium, that would be one of my limiting principles for how much error I'd be willing to say the Church fell into. If it means the Church essentially died because everyone had invalid baptisms or everyone engaged in the pagan worship of bread... then that's too much for the Holy Spirit to allow. But if the result of the false belief is nothing in particular, then I'm not bothered at seeing most Christians being wrong about it.... with a caveat. If there was an ecumenical council defining the thing, that'd up the stakes considerably.
To that end, I would push back on what you said regarding infant baptism specifically. The Council of Florence, Session 6 said that Baptism should be done as soon as convenient because it is the "only remedy available to them". Well... that is as true today as it was then. Baptism is the only remedy that we are aware of. One finds basically this exact same warning in the current code of Canon Law, section 864-867. What the council did not say, at least as far as my reading goes, was that it was defining the fate of unbaptized babies was damnation. Saying Baptism is the only remedy does not rule out that God might also do something extraordinary which we have no knowledge of. And that is the current teaching today.
@@actsapologist1991 This is somewhat incidental to the larger issue, but I wouldn't agree that a literal reading of Gen 1-3 was "almost universal." I wrote a whole book on this, so forgive me but I have to point that out! www.ivpress.com/retrieving-augustine-s-doctrine-of-creation
You write, "believing that infant Baptism is invalid (as many do) would make it almost unavoidable to conclude that the Church died."
Since I don't believe that infant baptism is invalid, its hard for me to evaluate how those who do would construe this - but I still don't actually think it's necessary to conclude the church died because people got baptism wrong, whether the error is invalid or merely improper. And as I've said elsewhere, my views on the Eucharist are in broad continuity with the early church -- I believe in real presence, and the *nature* of real presence was debate until the medieval era. So I just don't think these examples in any way suggest the church died. I think there are serious errors at times in the church's practices on these things, but then again, believing that men and women reflect the imago Dei differently, or that slavery is acceptable -- these seem to me to be serious errors too. Just my take!
@@TruthUnites : Yeah, I'm not trying to propose you believe all those Church-killing propositions. I'm just trying to think through their consequences as I propose a criteria for looking at the past.
That said, here is a question: As you look back in history, what is your limit for how much error you're willing to say the Holy Spirit allowed. If I'm reading the thumbnail for this video correctly, you profess that the Church never died. So I'm surmising that's one limit for you. If a given error would mean the Church died, then the Holy Spirit wouldn't permit it. What else would you say is a limit?
@@actsapologist1991 hmmm that is an interesting question. It's difficult to give an exhaustive answer, but I would include at teh very least that (1) the church will never be finally extinguished or prevailed against (Mt. 16:18); (2) the God will never withdraw from or abandon his church (Mt. 28:20); (3) even in times of darkest corruption, such as in my view some times in the late medieval era, God will always preserve a remnant by grace (Rom. 11:1-6); (4) God will ultimately use even the unfaithfulness of his people for his ultimate good purposes (Rom. 11:29, cf. all of chapters 9-11). That's a start, I'm sure there could be more. But to be frank, I leave room for a lot of error. I see nothing in Scripture that indicates that God's people will not wander into great darkness, at various times and various places.
Very interesting. Among the Anabaptist materials I've read, they seem (now) to at least sometimes hold to belief that there was always a "remnant" church that was persecuted by the "mainstream" (i.e. Roman Catholic) Church. The Mennonites still publish a book titled "Paula the Waldensian." This overall view is similar, or perhaps the same, as the "Baptist Trail of Blood" idea that I heard when young: that some of the "heretical" sects (Albigensians, Waldensians, etc) were actually proto-Protestants unjustly persecuted and maligned by Rome. This view might have been tenable in the late 19th-mid 20th centuries, but I'm not sure it's held by many Protestants with any knowledge of church history. As for the church having completely died, didn't the Campbellites (Church of Christ and others) teach that as part of the Restoration Movement?
You have answered some questions that I have been pondering lately. The church existed without ceasing since its inception and also in the Old Testament times even with errors. God works with His people through their errors. In the Book of Revelation, Christ speaks to 7 different types of Churches all of which have errors, but they are still His Church and His people. As you pointed out, the Old Testament church continued to spiral downward even with periods of reform. This is because some errors become so entrenched that they cannot be removed. The end product was the carrying away of God's people into captivity. I see the same problems in today's church. Some errors are so entrenched I don't ever see them being removed. The Old Testament prophets painted the Messianic Kingdom in rosy terms such as lions laying down beside lambs, and beating swords into plowshares, etc. However, the actual Messianic Kingdom, which is the Church Age, is filled with errors. To the point that the error of Zionism has taken over many evangelical mainstream churches today. They are teaching that the Messianic Kingdom of Christ lies yet in the future with Christ ruling out of the modern state of Israel in flesh and blood. This of course, is contrary to scripture, and contrary to the historic teachings of the church. How do we make reality and prophecy mesh? Christ said that His kingdom is not of this world. His kingdom exists in the dimension of spirit which we cannot perceive with our senses. The Church in the physical realm that we can perceive with our senses is a shadow or shade of the true Church which exists in spirit. People who claim to be Christians, live in the spiritual dimension of the Church to different degrees depending on their spiritual growth. My question is, if the New Heaven and New Earth have no sin, then how can people continue to grow in their spiritual life there? Obviously, people enter into it at different stages of development. Christ said unless we have faith like little children, we cannot enter into the Kingdom of Heaven. This means to me that people who die in infancy or early childhood, do go to heaven. You actually said, they continue to grow in their knowledge of God there. Do you affirm then, that people can continue to change after physical death? Does that mean we can pray effectual prayers for the dead? Hebrews 12 states that the church is worshipping in the temple in heaven along with angels and the spirits of just men made perfect. Does this then imply that we continue to live in a conscious state after physical death of the body? The Book of Revelation states that the Church flies away into hiding into the wilderness for the duration of the Church Age. The wilderness here, I have come to believe, is Apostate Christianity which is filled with errors of all kinds. The true Church is hidden within Apostate Christianity, and is the gold, and pearls, and precious stones, which encrust the outward physical church. Therefore, Christ's Church has never ceased to exist in the physical realm or the spiritual realm regardless of the state of it's errors.
I appreciate your thorough and learned approach to issues. It is critical and to an extent a skeptical approach to Christianity.
I must say I learned quite a bit from your research into issues. However, I might be wrong on this (correct me please if I get this wrong), your basic premise is one should remain Protestant so that you retain the right to be skeptical about the things Catholics adhere to, without submission to a Magestrium. And in doing so also allow yourself the leeway to explore and pick and choose what you think are geniuine teachings of Christ.
I've been playing a video game (who says they can't be educational?) recently that is set in Bohemia in 1403. So pretty much everyone in the game is at least nominally Catholic, but they do introduce the Waldensians and Jan Hus (including one of his sermons). That started me onto a deep dive into the proto-Reformation. Fascinating stuff. And some pretty amazing "coincidences" that happened to preserve the church through the ages. For instance, Anne of Bohemia, daughter of Charles IV and sister of Wenceslaus the Idle, was married off to Richard II of England. She became very interested in the works and teachings of John Wycliffe, and when Wycliffe was condemned and his writings ordered burned, she had some of them smuggled back to Charles University in Prague... where they ended up influencing a young Jan Hus.
This a well balance apology, congrats for doing it with irenic and cordial spirit. Can you address how Protestants view Akathist to Theotokos at the closing of the Third Ecumenical Council of Ephesus and Visitation to St Euphemia's shrine during the sessions at the Fourth Ecumenical Council of Chalcedon? Are these simply a blip or there is more fundamental errors that have substantially crept in that alter the Ancient Church whereby Reformation is a necessity. As a former Dutch Calvinist I find many caricatures of Protestantism that weren't true so I can understand why we need to address it correctly. As an Eastern Catholic I find that we can address one another with love while not abandoning truth. As St Paul said as long as Christ is preached everything is well. If I can recommend we may need to agree that limbo, slavery, lesser view on woman, etc are non dogmatic theological opinions. This is why we can find saints disagree with one another, example St Aquinas on immaculate conception. God bless your ministry.
Excellent video, I think you capture a balanced and reasonable view of the Protestant position of church history.
A couple thoughts that occur to me regarding the OT and error. I’m not Catholic or Orthodox, but I want to present a couple arguments in their favor. First, the New Covenant is different than the Mosaic Covenant, particularly in the fact that God helps us to be obedient. (Ezekiel 36.27) So it may be an unfair comparison in that sense, since the Mosaic Covenant reveals sin (Romans 7) whereas the New Covenant is the means to obedience. Second, there was the reference to Judges and the spiral of error and apostasy. However, Israel doesn’t apostatize while the judge is alive. And that’s the point of Christ, he lives and reigns forever. So I think the reference to Judges is actually in favor of the Catholic or Orthodox position, since Christ the true Judge forever reigns, and, if the type holds true, the people therefore don’t fall into error, since they did so at the death of the judges.
These are very fair points. I think you’re right that the new covenant era will be better than the old. However, I’d see this as a difference of degree, not a total difference. Until heaven, God’s people are still “prone to wander!”
@@TruthUnites Christ changed everything, God became a man, idk how you can say that we are better guided only by degree if mankind was sanctified by divine incarnation.
This same incarnation claimed by Rome in its institution, clearly something doesn't fit here.
> However, Israel doesn’t apostatize while the judge is alive. And that’s the point of Christ, he lives and reigns forever.
Considering the fact that there are a wider variety of heresies in the NT Church age than there were in the book of Judges, I'd be of the opinion that your theory doesn't hold up. And many of those heresies started in the first couple of centuries AD.
@@timffoster Yes. The theory doesn't hold up even under the OT context, Jesus (God - Jude 1:5) was the Ultimate Judge of Israel in the OT (just as He's in the NT, He's never changed), people still voluntarily sinned against Him there.
That's a good point. However, what do you think about Christ's letter to the seven churches in Revelation? Surely that's an example of Christ rebuking his Church for serious and longlasting errors even though they are in Him and under the new Covenant? Revelation appears to prophesy great apostacy in the Church in many places.
Secondly, just like we could make a distinction between the unfaithfulness of the people of Israel and the faithfulness of the Jewish Remnant that persisted even through times of great apostacy, can't we also distinguish between errors in the public expression of the Church and the faithfulness of those who are truly in Christ and guided by the Spirit? Just because the Catholic Church or the Baptist Church etc. claims something does not mean it is from God and is an expression of the True Church.
Lastly, from your own experience, I'm sure you know that even though Christ lives in us and is always available to us as individual believers, that does not mean we always enter into that union the way we should. All of us still sin. If individual believers sin, why can't larger groups of believers also sin?
Protestantism in large part has gone far beyond the reformers in rejecting more than simply “novel abuses”. In fact I’d say the scales have tipped completely in the opposite direction.
It becomes more complicated when the 'novel abuses' are still alive and kicking. Gavin is right, the Church of God needs continuous reformation ~ pressing brakes when things are getting wild. In our generation, the Church is facing great assault from the devil on issue of homosexuality, transgender, transhumansim, woke disobedient generation and politicians who worship the god Mammona. Yet, even in the midst of this, it's God's elect who will remain floating ~ in every tradition and remain uncompromising. Of course God will bring judgement upon the Church that abandons Him and dance with the world. That is His character throughout the Old Testament.
Agreed. Protestantism has actually caused even more grave abuses now, especially misusing the "prophetic" and the tithes and "seed offering" theology, women pastors, LGBTQ "marriage" etc.
Turning the Pre-Tribulation rapture into an article of salvific faith etc etc
@@livingweaponnightmareYou are addressing many of the radical theological opinions that the majority of the Reformers rejected even in the 16th Century against all Protestants. Guilt by association is a logical fallacy, not an argument. This is like one judging the Roman church based upon the Positive Christian ideology espoused by some pro-Nazi German Catholics, despite Pius XI’s condemnation.
@stephenkneller6435 the difference is positive Christianity in the 3rd Reich is unique to them, it wasn't what THE Catholic Church teaches. The difference is that we have One Church with one body of teaching. The madness of modern day protestantism is completely fair game because the abovementioned are held by a large demographic of Protestants. I cannot argue against what the Protestant "Church" teaches because there's no structure or authority. So if a huge percentage of evangelicals, who affect world politics by their votes, have bizarre positions like pre-trib raptures and militant zionism and the "prophetic" ministry (which seems to contradict a lot); I'd say its a fair critique. Protestants made that mess.
“There you have it” thumbnail expression
The God I worship would not create a person, only to damn him/her to hell for all eternity, simply because his/her parents failed to pour water over their head fast enough. Any God who would is not worthy of worship. That would be a cruel, unjust and downright sadistic God. And I don’t see how anyone in their right mind could have ever confused that God with God the father, Christ the son, or the holy spirit.
One people got ahold of the Bible, many left Catholicism. That’s not a coincidence.
The printing press allowed the mass spread of literature. It didn't create a mass spread of reading comprehension. And it shows
@@Krehfish534 yes, but demanding that lay people were not to own their own copies of the holy scripture did not benefit the church at large, and allowed for many errors to persist.
It showed that the church was using the Word as a power play against people. Once the words got out, and people could read it for themselves , the RCC membership was almost cut in half. That us how abusing they were. And to thus day they are impotent compared to the days of when they ruled everything.
This was really helpful! As a Reformed Baptist this gave me a really helpful lens through which to view the history of the church. Thanks you!
so glad it was helpful!
Reformed Baptist unite 🤪
Many thanks. I can never remember who said it - possibly Nevin or Schaff - but I resonate with the verdict that the Reformation should be seen as "all that was best in the medieval Catholic Church correcting all that was worst". Protestantism grew from the warm, rich soil of the Middle Ages. Again, thanks, especially for the Turretin section.
Glad it was helpful!
On salvation of babies ....Jesus Said Bring the children to me for as LIKE THESE will inherit the Kingdom of God
So too Origen said: _“For this reason, moreover, the Church received from the apostles the tradition of baptizing infants too.”_ Homily on Romans, V:9 (A.D. 244)_
Where are all those early Christians who taught baptism of infants should be delayed to the age of reason??
Jésus Said .....few will find the NARROW & DIFFICULT path ......i believe there have always been true believers in all the centuries ....few as Jesus taught ...as today .....always
Outstanding!
Thanks, glad you enjoyed it!
@@TruthUnites I was the one that offered a suggestion about topic in the future regarding Vatican 2 and claims to be the one true church as it relates/conflicts with RCC view of the Eucharist. To be consistent if they really believe Christ meant you must eat my flesh and drink my blood to mean transubstantiation then how can we be separated Brethren?
@@Adam-ue2ig Great question! I’m also planning on doing a video on the Eucharist at some point if I can ever find the time
Very interesting and helpful, Gavin. Thanks.
Thank you Dave!
If the conclusive teaching of the chruch presents a false yet core doctrine unanimously for 1000+ years... Then the gates of hell prevailed.
St. Pope Pius X, pray for us.
M - Hayek
It depends on how you understand the "gates of hell." The Greek word translated "hell" is actually "hades," which refers to realm of the dead. Jesus, therefore, is likely not speaking about this life but rather about the resurrection at which time all will be raised. The "gates of hades" will not prevail because Jesus has the keys to "death and hades" (Rev. 1:17-18) and will one day raise all the faithful to receive immortal bodies.
Wrong, sir. Jesus already won on the cross. His elect will be gathered from the 4 winds. Did you honestly think we wouldn't mess things up? Were you gullible enough to think there wouldn't be mistakes? I can't help it you guys put such an emphasis on the physical church, the spiritual goes out the window.
@@rolandmeyer7309 Indeed, and also, the literal place where he was standing there at Mt Hermon was known as the Gates of Hell in the ancient world. It was a place is Caesaria Philippi that really freaked everyone out. There was a temple to Ba'al there, Pan, and Zeus at different times. Dr. Michael Heiser does the best work I've ever seen on this topic and what Christ really meant when he said "upon this rock I build my church." WE ALL GET IT WRONG. False doctrines have been built off that passage to an unbelievable extent.
@@78LedHead your missing my point. Protestantism does not work
The Equalizer 3 is a good but violent film (the mafia are undone by a leader and a town uniting.) If you watch whichever parts you feel able to, I'd be interested to hear what you say about, their caring community and carrying of icons? during special days and nights?
Liked the video! There's a few points I feel should be clarified from the Catholic perspective. While the Church father's Thomas and Augustan are part of our tradition and made huge contributions to theology they also made mistakes that are both acknowledged and clarified by the Church. You may have made that point and I missed it but when you were pointing out their errors you seemed to suggest that Catholics rely on tradition in a way that would include the errors made by them. We sort of look at it more as having both "big T" Tradition and "little t" tradition where the former Tradition is dogma and the latter is more left to the individual in so much as it helps them draw closer to God. The difference being official teaching of the Church vs the private publications of individuals which might influence official teaching but are not adopted in whole
You’re right. It’s called the one holy & apostolic Catholic Church that’s been here for 2000 years!
The interpretation of Augustine that men are in the image of God in themselves and in relation to a woman is spot on. That has biblical support in Genesis and 1 Corinthians 11. It may not sound favorable in our culture but the Bible does teach it
But didn't Luther change his views on the Catholic church later on? Didn't he believe the pope was the Antichrist? And the Catholic church was a false church later on? Did John Huss believe the Catholic church was Falls church? Didn't the reformers views on the Catholic Church change over time? Really liking your channel thanks for all your teaching.
True, some of them expressed those extreme views. But being Protestant, we don't have to affirm those views just because our founders did! Which is pretty much the point of this video :) . But to your specific point, regardless of how much they later condemned the institution of the Catholic church, I'm pretty sure the reformers would never have claimed that the Church itself, being the mystical body of Christ, was ever entirely corrupted or absent from the world. That means Protestants can claim continuity with the historical church while still rejecting specific institutions or doctrines.
I attend a nondenominational church that is attempting to get back to the original meaning of the Gospels and bring us closer to what Christ originally intended.
Our pastor does this because he has found errors in protestant practices and is intent on routing them out. I am glad to find this video because I don't see Catholics as not Christians. I see them as Christians with errors.
The difference with the Israelite example is that God never misled them or gave them false doctrine, their shortcoming was failing to adhere to known doctrine. The protestant claim is that the false Catholic theology reigned for 1,000 years, and God just allowed humanity to believe false doctrine the entire time. Which is ridiculous
I think it's hard for orthodox and catholics to go to protestant churches if they get a wiff of inferences that they ate not actually Christians! It's happened too often to my wife and I. Rarely do pastors zealous for the Gospel have your sense of history and nuance. Your ministry is brilliantly dissolving the strawmen on all sides of the debate.
We are all Christians right? Be it catholic, orthodox, protestant or all the other numerous groups. We share the common core beliefs.
Yes but it effets tremendously in the way you gona live and how will you understand Gods will in your life
Many of us don’t though. What about Mormons? Jehovah Witnesses? Oneness Pentecostals?
How important do you think it is for your church to look like the early century church? What I’m getting at is that the earth church had a strong emphasis upon ecclesial hierarchy, the real presence of the Eucharist, worship in the form of liturgy, etc...and it would seem strange to look at this and conclude that one should join a baptist church. Even if in your view the early church wasn’t “exactly” RC or EO, isn’t there still enough evidence that they weren’t sola scriptura Baptists?
The early church was sola scriptura
@@Convexhull210 how? Weren't the scriptures written 300 years after Christ?
@@MOGO8907 no the gospels were written within a few decades of jesus life
Could you explain or give me a link that proves this?
@@Convexhull210 any proof?
Sense underlying Roman Catholic sympathies in this presentation.
You sense wrong. This ministry's goal is to prevent Protestants from going Roman Catholic.
5:00 Where can I read Calvins statements?
Thank you for the video. With regard to baptism, I would add two additional points.
1. The practice of baptizing converts upon profession of faith is practiced by all branches of the church and has never been controversial. That is, baptists are in a historical minority in terms of what they reject, but they have universal agreement as to the legitimacy of what they positively practice.
2. After the debates of the early centuries, those who rejected infant baptism were actively persecuted. It seems that the weight of universal consensus is somewhat lessened if it turns out you've been enforcing it with violence.
Who was persecuted in the early centuries for rejecting infant baptism?
@@Mygoalwogel I wasn't claiming that credobaptists were persecuted in the early church, but that the issue was being debated in the early church, and that credobaptists were persecuted afterward. Sorry if my grammar was unclear.
Interesting view point and I can really believe it if the “minority tradition” can also be open to the possibility that they may be in error.
Your comment about Jesus not ever saying that the church would never be able to be in error got me thinking. I find that that statement can be true, but I would add that he is always with the Church, moving his people toward truth. With that being said, I don’t think he would approve of the schism that created division in the one true and Apostolic Church.
God bless
thanks for the thoughtful comment!
I guess I (off the hip) see Zwingli exchanging one high place for another... among other "reforms"
He couldn’t keep Cameron from joining the Catholic Church.
Gavin is definitely very intelligent and I’m just a laymen but I’ve heard enough experts speak both both Catholic and Protestant to see that the view he is proposing of how Tradition works and it’s nature compared to the Bible is off. For instance he just caricatured Tradition to be some “majority opinion rules” vs scripture as “fallen directly to earth from Heaven”. Both are false. Tradition is tied to the magisterium which is tied to the teachings of Jesus and the first apostles. The New Testament is the Tradition of Jesus and the first apostles in written form. So as you can see it’s not like he described it.
What if Martin Luther was a fulfilment of the Vineyard keeper in the parable of the the barren fig tree? it could be said he weeded and fertilised the church tree (paraphrasing). The time scales in that parable extrapolate to a decision on the fruit of the church being imminent.
Here is my Catholic perspective. I think this video fails to differentiate between types of errors, such as sin (idolatry of the old testament, corruption of clergy and the papacy spoken against by reformers), speculative error (perhaps damnation of unbaptized infants. I agree we don't know for sure but we have good reason to hope for their salvation), and dogmatic error. Catholics believe the Church will never fall into dogmatic error, which would be if God isn't really a trinity or Christ isn't fully man and fully God (dogmas defined infallibly at Church Councils using the Authority given to the Church by Christ, developed on Apostolic Tradition). Many bishops were in error with the Aryan heresy which was speculation at the time. Then the nature of Christ was dogmatically defined and they had to submit to the authority of the true Church or be outside the Church. Based on the quotes from the reformers, it seems they rightly spoke against sins of the people in the Church and voiced their theological speculation on baptism and justification, but when the Church came together to define these matters in a time of crisis, the reformers and their followers were unwilling to submit to authority to the Church they themselves are quoted as saying was the true Church. They were more committed to their fallible human speculation.
Hey Adam
Brother Shane!
Yes, on the topic of unbaptised babies, the general Orthodox consensus is that they will go to heaven. The kontakion on the Feast of the Holy Innocents says: When the King was born in Bethlehem, the Magi came from the East.
Having been led by a star from on High, they brought Him gifts.
But in exceeding wrath, Herod harvested the infants as sorrowing wheat;
The rule of his kingdom has come to an end.” But damnation of unbaptised infants is not as ubiquitous in the West. In his Hexaemeron, Bonaventure fleshes out a very Orthodox Christology in that the Incarnation and Resurrection have already had effect on all human nature, therefore allowing for infants to be joined to God.
Unfortunately, yes.
Lord Jesus Christ said explicity: "Most assuredly, I say to you, unless one is born of water and the Spirit, he cannot enter the kingdom of God." (John 3:5)
And "He who believes and is baptized will be saved; but he who does not believe will be condemned. " (Mark 16:16)
Orthodox Church understands those words literally. I.e. Council of Carthage pronounced an anathema upon those who rejected the necessity of baptizing infants and newly-born children.
So, yes, unbaptized babies cannot enter the kingdom of God. Though they won't be condemned either, because they didnt commit any voluntarily sins.
According to Saint Gregory of Nazianzus:
"And so also in those who fail to receive the gift [of baptism]…perhaps on account of infancy, or some perfectly involuntary circumstance through which they are prevented from receiving it, even if they wish…will be neither glorified nor punished by the righteous Judge, as unsealed [by baptism] and yet not wicked, but persons who have suffered rather than done wrong. For not every one who is not bad enough to be punished is good enough to be honored; just as not every one who is not good enough to be honored is bad enough to be punished. "
Thank you for this video. The problem always is who can address the errors that arise. You as an individual with your own interpratation, or the collective Church that you are challenging? I cannot see a fallen individual being able to correct that which apostles started with their power to bind and lose.
It only ever can fracture the body of Christ. Which is in fact exactly what happened. First the Rome split of and then Protestants split from it. Fast forward to modern times and there are countless various denominations all thinking that they are teaching the proper truth. Even the progressive Christians think this, while I imagine we would both agree that they are wildly of mark.
As a Catholic, I think that this is a misunderstanding of what we mean by Magisterium, but it is a well thought out position
Agree very much…but this line of reasoning can be simplified by sola scriptura.
Gavin, I love you. I devour your content religiously-pun intended. Can you tell me any church in the 1st-15th centuries that resembled your church? In each of those centuries continuously? That had a Baptist ecclesiology? Had a Baptist view of all the sacraments/mysteries? I don’t think that’s possible. And, if I am correct, I think your rhetorical gifts are obfuscations that your theology DEMANDS that the gates of Hell did indeed prevail against the Church, at least for some discrete period of history. I understand your discomfort with that view because it paints you into a corner. But I am unconvinced from your videos that you can avoid the necessity of that position in support of the Baptist churches. Where am I wrong?
I would add: the Protestant defense of a church wide apostasy did not arise as a theory because it was attractive to anyone. Rather it is NECESSARY to defend especially later Protestant denominations. No one would postulate such an extreme theory except out of necessity. And it’s frustratingly side-stepping to call criticisms of that view a caricature.
Maybe more critically: IF someone is convinced (as you are not) that to be a Baptist depends inexorably on a church-wide early apostasy, where should they go?
Thanks for commenting, and watching! :)
Here are a few thoughts, does this help at all?
1) I don't *claim* that the early church looks continually Baptist. I don't think it looks continually Catholic, either. I think the church has evolved and developed greatly over the centuries, and the beliefs of the early church don't completely support any contemporary expression of the church.
Yes, many early Christians followed the view of baptism to which I hold--look at the fourth century. Augustine, Rufinus, John Chrysostom, Ambrose, Jerome, Gregory of Nazianzus, and many others, were all baptized as adults despite being born into Christian homes. That practice was very common (though not universal). The idea that everyone was on the Catholic side of every issue is false. It's complicated. Neither of us can claim our church looks exactly like the early church. There are lots of other examples, too (Marian dogmas, indulgences, papacy, etc.).
2) I make a distinction between the church falling into particular errors and falling into wholesale apostasy. I don't think it's crazy to believe that the true church continued to exist, but fell into various errors. I don't see why one has to take an "all or nothing" approach to the continuity of the church. Protestantism is an effort at removing the errors. Why does this require a widespread apostasy?
It is certainly a caricature to say Protestants believe the church died. It is the opposite of the consistent position among mainstream Reformers. I cover this at length in my video "The 4 Biggest Caricatures of Protestantism" where I supply some examples. It's the first caricature I cover.
Does this help at all? Am I hitting on your concerns? Forgive me if I am missing your point.
@@TruthUnites thank you, Dr Orlandt! A very generous response indeed. I will have to read it tomorrow when I can pay it the attention it deserves.
Gavin is belong to First Baptist Church. My question is. Is there a Second Baptist Church? Whats the difference?
I think your video was very clear and reasonable (I think most of your videos are).
But I do have to say, for the limited amount of research I've done so far I can't see how Lutheran, Calvin and
others held to the "one true catholic (lowercase) church".
On the Eucharist alone when I read Justin Martyr, Ignatius I see a very literal interpretation it doesn't look to me a reasonable
conclusion that they were talking about "truly present" or other more-than "only symbolic" views of the Eucharist.
Baptismal regeneration, a visible Church I see so many things so early on, that Protestantism seems very, very far away from (of course some more, some less).
I don't see how the "always reforming" church has really brought us something in the form of the true unity I'd expect Sola Scriptura, and the
ability to "reform from errors" has brought.
If anything, the thing I see it has brought more and more disunity.
Also, the ability to "reform from errors" really seems to be lacking a way to resolve what an error is.
All denominations use scripture, yet I don't see after all these years Lutherans being any more Calvinistic, I do still see
differences and debates which have been going on for 100+ years that have still not been settled.
I'm saying these things in charity, just to convene some thoughts.
I'm far from an authority and export on these matters, and have just dipped my toe into Church History.
Also, I understand that the body of Christ does allow for diversity (romans 14 attests to this I believe),
but I also read today in Ephesians 4 : 4 There is one body and one Spirit, just as you were called to one hope when you were called;
5 one Lord, one faith, one baptism; 6 one God and Father of all, who is over all and through all and in all.
I'm really missing the ONE faith part, the one baptism part throughout Christianity.
To me it seems, that what is being confessed in the apostolic creed: The One, Holy, Catholic and Apostolic Church is only able to be fully matched in the Catholic Church.
A lot of churches seem to be able to tick some of the boxes, but the Catholic Church seems to be the only Church to actually be able to tick ALL of the boxes.
It is one (everywhere there are the same dogma's), it is Catholic (there is diversity for cultures, liturgy), Holy (it has an incredible amount of saints) and Apostolic (it is going back to the apostles).
Then there is a glaring issue for me concerning binding and loosing, and an actual church authority.
Erick Ybarra excellently describes the problem I have experienced with it.
ua-cam.com/video/OzmQsT3RfL4/v-deo.html
ua-cam.com/video/HcgnjHoV3qU/v-deo.html
How can we at all say that in church discipline (Matthew 18) the Church's choice is also bound in heaven if the Church doesn't have the ability
to do so infallibly?
I mean heaven won't bind error right?
I was on basis of Matthew 18 "expelled" from my previous Church, am I now in sin? Are they wrong? Is it bound? Isn't it bound? Are they actually a Church?
With all of the above, I'm very it very hard to reconcile Protestantism still is part of that one true Church.
For clarification, I'm not saying Protestants aren't Christian, because I don't doubt they are, you are, there are lots of devout Christ-loving Christians out
there Catholics could learn a great deal about, I'm just saying that they are invisibly bound and not visibly bound (within the hierarchical structure) of the Church.
Anyway, lots of text, sorry for the lengthy comment I realise it is a lot, and I do know these things aren't simple and clear cut.
I'm sure if you'd respond you have lots to say, and a lengthy post won't do honour to the complexity of these matters.
God bless!
Seems impossible to define "what entered the church" as far as a teaching. So, for example, if something is being debated and talked about and disagreed, but there still has not yet been an ecumenical council on it, then Rome is still functioning like a protestant church. You simply can't "put into text" enough of how to think of certain things. That's why the Spirit's work is necessary and will continue reforming the church through the Word.
Excellent point!
A Protestant View of the Birth of the Reformation:
Toilet where Luther strained to produce the Reformation
October 23, 2004
Telegraph, London
Wittenberg: German archaeologists have discovered the lavatory on which Martin Luther wrote the 95 theses that started the Protestant Reformation.
Luther frequently alluded to the fact that he suffered from chronic constipation and spent much of his time in contemplation on the lavatory.Experts say they have been certain for years that the 16th-century religious leader wrote the groundbreaking theses while on das Klo, as the Germans call it.
But they did not know where the object was, until they discovered the stone construction after recently stumbling across the remains of an annex of his house in Wittenberg, south-west of Berlin, during plans to plant a garden.
"This is a great find," said Stefan Rhein, the director of the Luther Memorial Foundation.
"This is where the birth of the Reformation took place."
He said that until now little attention had been paid to anything "three-dimensional and human" in the writing of the theses.
"Luther said himself that he made his reformatory discovery in cloaca [Latin for "in the sewer"]. We just had no idea where this sewer was. Now it's clear what the reformer meant."
What makes the find even more fitting is that at the time faecal language was often used to denigrate the devil, such as "I shit on the devil" or "I break wind on the devil". Professor Rhein said: "It was not a very polite time. And in keeping with this, neither was Luther very polite."
The 450-year-old toilet, which was very advanced for its time, is made out of stone blocks and, unusually, has a 30-square-centimetre seat with a hole. Underneath is a cesspit attached to a primitive drain.Other interesting parts of the house remains include a vaulted ceiling, late Gothic sandstone door frames and what is left of a floor-heating system, which presumably gave Luther an added bit of comfort during the hours he spent in contemplation.
Luther, who was professor of biblical theology at Wittenberg University, nailed his 95 theses to the church door at Wittenberg, attacking the corrupt trade in indulgences. The act led to his excommunication but he was protected by Frederick II of Saxony and was able to develop and spread his ideas.
Professor Rhein said the foundation would stop at letting the annual 80,000 visitors to Wittenberg, who come in search of the spirit of Luther, from sitting on the toilet. "I would not sit on it. There's a point where you have to draw the line."
My push back. In 1 Timothy 3:15 it states the church is the pillar and foundation of truth. We also know that’s the church is called the Bride of Christ, and that Christ is the perfect Adam. Now if the church is the pillar of truth how does error or lies come from it? Does truth bring forth lies? If the bride of Christ (as a whole) fell into error and started preaching and teaching error then did Jesus fail to Guard his wife? Was this not the first error of Adam? And if error entered into the church to be accepted and taught as a whole how does that not show that the gates of hell prevailed against the church for a long period of time since the church preached a different gospel?
So very True, the early Church that Jesus Christ our Great and Kind God and Savior built on Peter the rock, has never died. The early Church never practiced Scripture alone, nor taught faith alone! Even the blameless before God Elizabeth felt unworthy as the Mother of the Lord approached her, she saluted by the Archangel Gabriel as being full of grace, even before baptism which removes sin! Peace always in Jesus Christ our Great and Kind God and Savior, He whose Flesh is true food and Blood true
Wait....... so, the Church existed before the Pilgrims landed? Thank you. It always seemed strange that as Protestants we largely ignored the history of the church before the reformation.
Protestants love Jesus Christ and have been called by God as well, minus the papacy and the new dogmas not found in the early church.
@@wojo9732 The Protestant Church IS the original Church come out of the Dark Ages and papal dominion and persecution.
@@rosemerrynmcmillan1611 Im a protestant, the papacy is the little horn and the beast
@@rosemerrynmcmillan1611 It is far from the Church that Christ established.
Dr Ortlund, I don't know if you've addressed this elsewhere, but all of those alleged errors, even if held by the majority of the faithful, consisted of theological opinions, not official teachings of the magisterium 🤔
all protestants cite the word "Truth" ad infinitum, but when confronted with "truth" they go completely nuts cite sordid opines & judgments which they say "feel" like truth.
what they are really saying is that their judgment is "true" for them & in their situation.
which is in fact relativism.
take the label "Protestant"
this they feel is their right, to protest
you won't find that in the Bible. anywhere. What they protest is authority;
citing individual liberty, believing in vane that heaven is a democracy & they them selves have a vote.
welcome to hell.
All the prophets and christ and his apostoles all of them were protesting the maimstream ancient beliefs and rituals of jews
The gates of hell did come against the original church many times……but today there 2 billion believers in many branches of the God’s beautiful tree of life!
Corrections were made along the way!
Don't think you realise what that phrase means
I'm curious about your stance on, "always keeping respect for the tradition." What about the countless events where communities of reformers and protestants where being tortured and murdered for their faith by the powers within the Roman Catholic Church? Many of these martyrs and protestants would call the pope a type of anti-christ, and were they wrong (the anti-christ makes war on the saints)? Some examples of such atrocities would be the Waldenses, Saint Bartholomew’s Day Massacre, and countless protestants tortured and murdered in secret trials by the Inquisition in France, Spain, and Italy. Having protestant beliefs or literature was enough of a crime to be tortured and killed for your faith.
If a history was written today and read many hundred years into the future, what errors would we say exist today?
That's a good point, the church needs to always be reforming when there are errors.
A Confessing Lutheran would say that the Church of the 16th Century was cleaned by the Gospel thereby continuing the Ancient Church.
I'm very new to all this hence being on this page learning so most likely my comments will be naive. I've been reading the comments below and there are clever points being made and clever arguments being presented, including this excellent video. In my naivety I am questioning why it is actually important? Jesus left us with a very simple guide - do good - love God. Do not surround yourself with evil or sinful people and let God JUDGE us. Therefore, having theological debates become irrelevant (I mean no disrespect). God knows your heart and your intentions. He will judge us. So if we do something that is not theologically correct but in our hearts we are doing it with good intention and for the glory of God then it surely doesn't matter. God knows. And in the end that is all that matters.
That’s a nice way of thinking but couldn’t that lead to sort of a slippery slope? I mean what if I’m a Jew and I’m a great person and help feed the poor, run an orphanage, love my neighbor, love God with all my heart and worship Him every day. Surely God will have mercy on me right? Then what’s the point of being Christian at all?
A correction was needed, but division happened. And that's an inescapable fact. Church erred when it separated from Jewish foundation and adopted polytheistic greek thought. Without law, there is no sin. Without sin, there is no atonement.
We are saved by grace not of works lest any man would boast. We are not saved by baptism.
For sure there is human tradition intermingled in the Church amidst Holy Tradition and those articles I guess you could call errors; they can be done away with hypothetically but we should always do away with these articles in good faith.
I don’t understand how an unbaptized infant would not go to heaven?
The problem with a lot of his pieces of evidence is that he’s conflating doctrines of the Church with things members of the Church wrote. For example, with regards to imago Dei, Augustine may have wrote men are more intelligent than women, but at no time did the Church affirm this. So in fact, Church teaching never changed. Problem is that he’s applying a Protestant epistemology back in time to a non-Protestant Church. The Church is greater than the sum of its parts. Thomas Aquinas also said there are no pets in Heaven - according to Dr. Ortlund, he will say, “hey, you and I might find that hard to believe that today, so possible the Church erred.” When in fact, it would be Thomas Aquinas’s error, not the Church’s, since the Church never affirmed that.
The ultimate problem here is that Dr Ortlund is applying an epistemological deconstructionism that makes it impossible to know where the true church is. “The Catholic Church is not the true church, but is has many true churches within it.” - what does that even mean?
The church condemned so many hersies in the early church and the first thousand years. Why didnt they condemn saints or icons or all of these other so called "accretions"
Hello Dr. Gavin, thanks for yet another thoughtful video. Here's my response:
In the main, I would say we Catholics simply do not view the Church as you seem to, viz. as a fallible but great institution that can contain errors even while God works within it. It is rather perfect as its Divine Founder, Jesus, is - being His Mystical Body. where it teaches, He does; where it acts, so He does also. Of course, its full of fall individuals who are *capable* of sin, but it's important to note that insofar as they do, they cannot be acting *as* members of the Church; any more than Christians who sin truly act after the pattern of their Lord. The same reasoning applies to the Old Testament - God's chosen people were as such faithful to him, no matter how many times they fell into idolatry and other sins. There were always Godly individuals that kept His Law and were obedient to Him, as were Moses, Joshua, David, Ruth and a host of others. It is these individuals who truly count as the people Israel. It makes no sense to say that the people of God were also people of Baal or some other deity. They either were or weren't.
Regarding salvation for unbaptised infants, it is a dogma (from Florence) that these do not attain the beatific vision, and so got to limbo (a place of perfect natural happiness.) That it has been popular in modern times to ignore this teaching is simply a case of many in the Church being poor members of the Church, not a case of the Church formally changing its views. The other examples you mention are not teachings of the Church proper, but rather views held by Church members, which are not infallible. The crux of the issue comes is ecclesiology, and how we respectively differ in its details.
I also think you haven't actually met the substance of the Catholic critique that Protestantism holds the Church disappeared until Luther rediscovered it. For where are the Protestant doctrines in the early Church, particularly among the Fathers? Even Protestant scholars such as Alister Mcgrath admit that the Lutheran teaching of justification by faith alone is not found anywhere in the Christian tradition until Luther himself. If Protestants are about returning to the purity of the original Church, there is a curious absence of any their views to be found there.
Thanks for the thoughtful comment! I’ve addressed your third concern in other videos. On infant salvation, it’s not just isolated individuals who have changed on this: www.vatican.va/roman_curia/congregations/cfaith/cti_documents/rc_con_cfaith_doc_20070419_un-baptised-infants_en.html
Regarding the fallibility of the church: I think the idea that the church can err is truer to scripture and common sense. I’m not sure how to assess the kind of perfection you are ascribing to the church.
@@TruthUnites People in the church can der, but the church itself cannot err.
I would say the images of Mary and even the crucifix being in front of the congregation at Mass both are cut and dry idolatry.
I watched cousins offer a rose to a statue of Mary at their Catholic wedding.
That's not a godly behavior and is most certainly an error in the church.
So much so it reeks of Ashteroth (queen of heaven), and the sin of Jeroboam (the calves are called "Yahweh"), which I see the crucifix as another form of.
It's hard to be a student of the OT and not immediately seen issues with how the RCC handles icons.
There are a couple of encouraging things here:
1: The title: A Protestant View of Church History (not THE protestant view...)
2: A pastor who believes something but doesn’t teach it dogmatically. Wow! Now that IS unusual!
Please consider whether this discussion is essentially an exercise in futility until there is agreement of what constitutes “the church”. Does the question hinge on whether a) the church is viewed as consisting of believers? Or b) the church is viewed as institutional?
If the first view is adopted, the protestant reformation DID reform at least part of the church. If the second view is adopted, the reforms urged by the protestants were of little value except to encourage the papists to undertake some (limited?) reforms of their own.
Beginning at 14:30, there is a reference to “always reforming”.
I once met a congregationalist pastor whose business card displayed the slogan “ Don’t put a period where God has placed a comma.”
I believe that slogan was a paraphrase of something Pastor John Robinson said in his farewell address to the pilgrims who were about to embark on the Mayflower. “For my part, I cannot sufficiently bewail the condition of the reformed churches, who are come to a period in religion, and will go at present no farther than the instruments of their reformation. The Lutherans cannot be drawn to go beyond what Luther saw;...and the Calvinists, you see, stick fast where they were left by that great man of God, who yet saw not all things. This is a misery much to be lamented; for though they were burning and shining lights in their time, yet they penetrated not into the whole counsel of God, but were they now living, would be as willing to embrace further light as that which they first received.” - D. Neal, History of the Puritans, vol. I, p. 269
The puritans - even those who immigrated to North America - did not entirely live up to their goal of accepting as matters of faith and practice only those things that were biblical. Instead of interpreting the golden rule as giving other people what they deserve and want, the puritans adopted the version that says “Give other people what you want, whether they like it or not.”
The puritans were right to discontinue observance of several ostensibly Christian traditions for which they could find no biblical basis but they were wrong to require others to follow the puritans example on pain of fines, corporal punishment or, in some cases, banishment from their colonies.
Scriptura sola is one of the five solae but I prefer the slogan “The primacy of scripture”. I am content to let people decide for themselves how many ostensibly Christian traditions are biblical and abandon those for which they find no biblical basis IF they are willing to afford others the same freedom.