Adventist Myths About Church History Debunked: Reformation vs. Restoration

Here’s the basic shape of church history. Just to wrap our minds around the big picture, getting the aerial view of what took place. If you really want to contemplate what unfolded in the history of the church, something like this. First of all, there was the formation period. This is what we call apostolic Christianity. This is where Jesus has initiated or set in motion a beautiful picture of God that gives rise to a particular kind of church called the New Testament church. New Testament Christianity, the apostolic church. These are those people in Acts chapter 2

Who have all things common and there’s nobody who is in want among them. These are people whose hearts are overflowing with other centered self-giving love for one another because they have gotten a picture of the other centered self-giving love of Jesus giving his life at Calvary. But then what happened? There was what the prophets foretold to be a deformationation period in church history. This was warned about in scripture as we’re going to see in a moment. But the deformationation wasn’t merely, listen, it wasn’t merely a deformationation of practice or ceremony.

What was taking place about the 3rd and fourth century after the apostolic period? What was taking place is that a deformed a distorted picture of God was being palmed off on the people on the masses as though it were the truth. And gradually as the decades went by, people began to believe dark things about God that were foreign to the love that was manifested in Christ. And then down through long dark ages, there came a point at which reformation was necessary and inevitable. People were beginning to stand up in their liberty and pay attention to what was going on inside

Their hearts and minds. They were beginning to push back on the ugliness that was being palmed off on the people in the name of Jesus. And if it wasn’t Luther, it would have been somebody else. What I’m going to suggest to you is that the reformation is a process and it continues to this very day. and that you and I have the privilege, the awesome privilege of continuing the reformation started by Luther. And that’s why in the shape of church history, what is depicted here is that reformation is going to continue until it produces a complete restoration

Of the apostolic faith. And you and I have the privilege by God’s grace of being part of that continuing reformation. Well, hey there. Thank you for being here, especially if this is your first time with us, Adventist or otherwise. This is our first folks first live stream after hitting 10,000 subscribers. Awesome. Even those of you who are uh Adventists but quietly watch, Adventists that are loud and watch, never been an Adventist, whatever it may be, thank you, thank you, thank you, thank you. Um, some of you have reached out to us, some of you

Have never reached out to us, wherever you may be on the spectrum, thank you, thank you, thank you, and God bless you in your journey tonight. My question to you, the viewer, is your understanding of church history the same as what we just heard from Tai Gibson? If so, I hope you’ll stick around because myself and my guest tonight are going to be diving into this subject further as we explore some of the common claims that are made by restorationist groups across the board with regards to the preservation of the church in history. With me to discuss

Are a couple of friends of mine, Pastor Jeremiah. He has been in ministry since 2016 and he is one of the pastors at 125 Church in Jonesboro, Arkansas. His love for God, theology, apologetics, and people are evident as he teaches the saints and his labor in apologetics can be found at the apologetic dog YouTube channel and website where you will find lots of engagement with the Church of Christ in particular. and Dr. Steven Boyce. He is the pastor at Harvest Anglican Church, I believe. I should have probably checked that with him. Dr. Boyce is the founder of the Fax

Podcast that primarily focuses on the church fathers, the apocryphal works, the canon and text of scripture, and scriptural exit Jesus. He holds a PhD in the area of canon and text from Louisiana Baptist Theological Seminary, and his main study was on the Gnostic text and the canonical gospel. His dissertation covered textual analysis of CEX H which includes the early petristic writings that cont uh contained readings from the Septuagent and the New Testament. He is currently a contributing scholar at RTB and an Anglican apologist. He has pastored in

Two churches and helped three church plants across the country. With that said, gentlemen, thank you so much both of you for being here. I am particularly excited to have the both of you because uh on this discussion in particular we have a Baptist in Anglican and a Presbyterian which is fitting for the discussion. How are you guys doing Miles? Thanks for having me. Yeah, thanks. Yeah, thanks for having us on. This will be a good discussion. Yes. So, first we are going to start by establishing what the Bible teaches about the church, what it is, followed

By looking at some classically Protestant sources with regards to the Reformation since we heard some interesting comments there in the intro. Then we will transition into looking at the restorationist claims which in the general are the same across the board for all of the restorationist groups such as the SDAs, Mormons, Church of Christ, etc. But to kick things off, brothers, what did you think about what Tai Gibson said in that opening clip? All right, Stephen, let me let me first let me have first at bats and you come and clean up. I thought it was

Interesting. He said there’s a deformationation right right out of the gate. Right out of the the first century in my understanding, I know you’re you’re the historian, but the church is being sanctified over time. And so I think it’s it’s not proper to say right out of the gate there’s a deformationation. Like to me I see the church waring against history. I see the Holy Spirit at work uh sifting out the heresies. And sure that takes a little bit of time but I I don’t think it’s proper to to set up the trajectory of church history in terms of deformationation right after the first

Century. Yeah. And one of the things that I think that stood out to me was the lack of evidence in many of his claims. Uh to me that’s the biggest issue. I’m sure he would argue from certain points, but he goes through this trajectory of history, but he doesn’t pose any kind of evidential ideas as to why this third and fourth century became a problem. I’m sure he would go through the edict of Milan and then he would take that into Constantine and so forth, but there is no evidence for the claims that he makes. Um, the one thing that we have to lose sight of that we don’t want to lose

Sight of and that we need to lose our mindsets in is that the early church was undeveloped in their in their actual doctrine. Uh, they were not undeveloped in doctrine. There were things in their orthopraxy that were working themselves out and there were different traditions within that. For example, the apostles themselves uh had different traditions. That’s why we find different practices and liturgies say between Peter’s churches and John’s churches. So we should expect some differences. We we shouldn’t expect the orthopraxy to be identical in every way because some of

It fit the personality of the apostle that actually started their church or in the culture that went and started a church. We wouldn’t expect the churches of Thomas in India to be anything like the churches of Rome. Uh so when we say things what he just said in his video uh there there’s this idea that we have left the truth so far and then we’re now developing and making it better than what it’s ever been when actually that’s not what it means to reform. Uh that’s not even what it means to actually go in and do restoration. Restoration isn’t uh

Taking something away and replacing it because a lot of the way he was speaking was more replacement than it was restoration. Voice come back. Stephen, you cut out in that last sentence or two. No, I was just uh sorry about that. Yeah, I was just saying that he was defining things more as replacement than reformation or restoration. If you ask me, there’s a huge difference between restoration and reformation by themselves. But to me, he was speaking more of replacement than either of those two. Yeah. And so he gave you insight, which we’re going to look at some of these

Sources um on this sort of stuff and where he’s getting this from ultimately. Um but he gives you good insight into how the SDA church thinks they’re restoring apostolic Christianity and then the the unique spin that they take, which is different from uh some of the other restorationist groups, if you will. Um there is a strain here of what you could call uh like a moral influence theology going on. Um so the SDA church thinks that and he hinted at this that they are restoring the true character of God which was warped immediately following the apostles. So that’s what

The deformationation is is talking about there Jeremiah it deformed after the apostles because the understanding of God’s character immediately became tarnished. Then on the rebound, you had the reformation which led to the ultimate restoration of apostolic Christianity which is supposed to be the SDA church. So they are uh allegedly restoring the true character of God. So it’s interesting. Got something else? Yeah. Well, I’ll just say it’s just ironic that the way that Luther because he seems to have not too big of an issue with Luther, just that he didn’t do

Enough. He started something but didn’t finish it. But it’s it’s ir it’s ironic to me that Luther went to a fifth century fourth and fifth century monk and later bishop to be the very person that he saw as inspiration to doing the reformation which was not first or second century church’s father. He was an Augustinian monk and Luther studying Augustine of Hippo in North Africa created in him the spark of reformation thinking which did not come from before the time frame that he gave. So reformation idea began in Luther’s mind with Augustine. So it’s just ironic that he would land

That way. So, I I’d like to get y’all’s thoughts on this, too, because when you think about restoration and replacement, I that seems like an absolute contradiction of what Jesus promised in Matthew 16 about building his church personally and the gates of hell will not prevail. And he promised the disciples that he would send them the Holy Spirit guiding the church ultimately into truth. And so to lose the truth, the the gospel itself, u it doesn’t make sense when you have a full-blown restoration like like my understanding. Church history can be

Sanctified over time, but you can’t lose that gospel light in toto. So that that’s what I have maybe my biggest problem with these restorationist movements. When they claim to be the one true church that was lost, I’m like, Jesus didn’t lose his brown. Are you telling me that the Holy Spir spirit somehow failed in guiding the bride into all truth? Which we’re going to get into a lot of this tonight, which is exciting because we’re going to talk about um some of the foundational issues, which is exactly what I want to talk about now. Because before we get too far into it, terms and

Definitions are vital in this discussion. We heard him use terms and phrases like church and church history. Sure. Church of Christ does this. Mormons do this. They all use these words. So, let’s establish a couple of foundational things up front. So, I have an ecclesiological question for both of you. In what ways does scripture use the word church? And what does that look like in history? All right, you gota let the Baptist go first, Stephen. Uh, the first shall be last. Go ahead. There you go. So, Ecclesia. Now, this is how I look at the church, the bride of

The Christ. I would say the church, the term itself, are the called out ones by grace through faith apart from our own works. Now works are not a bad term, but I just want people to know you got to believe in the right Jesus in order to have your sins forgiven. You got to believe in the gospel of grace. You can’t conflate law and gospel. And as we’ve talked about, I’ve seen your episodes, true biblical eklesas that are called out by God. You got to have the sacraments. You got to have uh the right understanding of um you you got to have a good like you said there may be some

Practical differences with baptism and the Lord’s supper but you got to have those intact and so I get that there’s some healthy discussion what that looks like. I think church polity is crucial when we’re asking about the church because uh a structure has to be of authority of now we we talk about bishops, we talk about pastors, overseers, deacons like I said there there’s maybe functional differences that those maybe differ but the core has to be set in play there. Yeah, I just added so eklesia is a called assembly. It’s it’s a people that are called out from something into

Something else. And Jesus said that he would build that. Uh and he specifically in Matthew’s gospel said that he would build that on St. Peter. And so the apostles themselves collectively are the very thing that Jesus built with. Uh he is the chief cornerstone, but the church is built on the apostles and the prophets. And so they are laying that foundation for us that was going to be passed on, deposited if you would to the account of others and faithful men that were trained to do so. The church is a structure, not a building. It is a structure in the sense of that it is a

Entity that has organization and spirit reaction in it. Uh he gave the apostles authority. He gave them authority in the church. He gave them authority to give his words. He gave him authority to actually go into the nations and begin churches out of one church. And that church being the church Jesus Christ. We see examples of this in Acts. We see that the church is something where they’re breaking bread. They were taking Eucharist. So you have the sacraments. They were baptizing new converts. Uh we see them instituting uh different aspects of prayers. They learned creed

Very early on. We find this by Acts 4. What is the prayer that they were doing? We find that they had a recited prayer collectively in Acts 4. So I mean we see the church already beginning in liturgy. There’s lurggical practice already at the time of Acts 4. Uh the way they’re doing public reading of scripture. They’re surrounding themselves with the explanation of the apostles doctrine. They’re breaking bread together. Uh they’re singing. We find them uh bringing uh congregations and people in. I mean this this was what the church was initially meant to be from day one in

Its conception is that it is an organized group of people called out by from God from every tribe, tongue and nation coming under the banner of Jesus Christ under the authority of Christ and those that he gave authority in the churches being the apostles and those men that they trained and also passed on that authority. Stephen, I have to ask you to drill in a little bit further just for those in the audience who may have uh felt something tickle their ears a little bit interesting there. You said you said the church is built upon Peter. Now, a lot of people in the audience um

We have a big mixed bag here, brother. And so, you never know whose ears that’s going to hit. Uh a lot of classical Protestants have no problem hearing something like that um because we know exactly what you’re talking about. But a lot of people are not and they’re going to think to themselves, well that’s Roman Catholic. Can you dig into that a little bit further and what you mean by that statement? Sure. Yeah. So, uh I don’t mean it the way the Catholics mean it, but I also don’t mean it the way a lot of Baptists mean it. So, um there is a balance here

In the construct of Matthew 16. And I did a whole episode on this and we’ve got way more things to cover. So, if people want to hear my explanation, I did a whole episode on the life and ministry of Peter and I actually get into that. It’s on my podcast or I don’t think it’s on YouTube because I don’t think we were youtubing at that time. So, you’d have to go on Spotify or Apple. Uh, and I discuss what that means grammatically. Jesus was saying on this rock I’ll build my church was a play on connective words referring to Peter. But as I stated as well, Paul goes on to say

That the foundation of the church is on the apostles plural. So, I don’t think Peter is the only one, but Peter was going to be the foundation which that plays out. We see evidence of this in multiple ways. Just a simple one that we see in scripture in Acts two. Who is it that’s preaching on Pentecost when many come to faith and repentance and are baptized? It’s Peter. Uh who is leading the apostles group? Who is the leader of that group that we see in Acts chapter 1? It is Peter. Uh that doesn’t mean Peter uh was what has been made of him unfortunately in some of the Roman

Catholicism twists, but it also doesn’t downplay his role either. uh there was in the early church from day one a respect for the sea of Peter in Rome. Even though there was not the view of papacy uh that is being held today uh that is held by many of the Roman Catholics. Anytime there was an ecumenical council, anytime there was an opinion that came from Rome, either in or North Africa or back over into the Eastern churches, anytime the Sea of Peter had a perspective or an idea, every other church around the world would hear him because the Sea of Peter

Was seen and respected as the very place that Peter was. So with that being said, um it does not mean uh what Roman Catholicism would take it to mean, but it also is not a downplay of Peter’s role in which Christ would institute and begin and initiate the very one leadership of the apostles group was Peter. Two, his sermon on Pentecost. We see the evidence of that played out in Acts one and Acts two alone. Good. Thank you. Um folks, definitely go check out his podcast, Facts. You will find a link to that in the description box down below. So, if you want to hear

A more in-depth discussion on that, an important subject, I think, um, go and check that out. I want to look at an excerpt now from Dr. Greg Allison’s uh, excerpts of systematic theology from uh, the section on the church. Something I think can be beneficial for many in our audience to help make things even clearer. Notice what he says here. quote by combining these various presentations so this is after he has given a bunch of scriptural explanations for what he now says this is the conclusion we have a minimal concept of the church it is Christ’s followers who

One on a local level worship mature and evangelize together as a particular church two on a global level constitute the universal or catholic church of all who embrace the Gospel three, when deceased become part of the heavenly church, enjoying rest from their earthly labors and worshiping the Lord face to face. And four, long for Christ’s return and their participation in their wedding of the lamb. Close quote. So in his book, Dr. Alison first establishes that the church is the people of God, the body of Christ, which means ecclesiology is actually rooted in

God himself. So he explains how really the church is rooted in God himself. God established his church both in the creation of all things of which humans are a part. And then he regenerates, transforms and makes one a living stone in the spiritual temple, the mystical body of Christ, the new creation. But then he explains that the church is also those in heaven who have departed and worship amongst the host of heaven where he does a small exog Jesus on Hebrews 12 and the heavenly mount Zion. So the church also includes all of the believers that have come before us and

Have joined the heavenly church. Brothers, I don’t know about you all, but we recite the Apostles Creed in the liturgy every Lord’s Day at my local church. And we not only mention the one holy Catholic Church, but also that it is both visible and invisible. And this is partly why because we affirm the body in heaven just as much as the body on earth. And the two join together in worship and unite together to have a little foretaste of what eternity what is coming every Lord’s day. So any thoughts to add to that before moving forward? Like I said, I think that will

Be beneficial for the people in our audience, especially former Adventists who often times struggle to really understand ecclesiology. And um the Adventist church, as you as you heard in the intro, has this very just like the restorationist churches do, this very like, well, every other group out there thinks they’re the one true church like we do. And it’s kind of like a needle in a hay stack, and you just have to make sure you have the right one, and we can prove to you that we’re the right one. Um that sort of thing going on. not understanding that uh all three of us

Tonight for example are completely united in the faith. We are not sectarians um even though we have tertiary differences but any thoughts to add to that either of you? Yeah, because you brought out a good distinction between the universal church and the local church, the visible and invisible. And so I can speak a little bit to the restorationist movement, Church of Christ, because there’s no invisible church with them. It it’s just one visible institution. And virtually all the even Church of Christ, there’s a few different kind of sects within

There. They all affirm you have to be added to the Lord’s church upon your baptism, but it’s the visible eklesia. So there’s not this universality that binds all believers together um in the gospel of grace. And what I love about where we’re coming from is even in some of these groups, God can save people in spite of bad theology. Uh the true gospel. And now that’s not to promote people to, you know, go flying into these these uh restorationist groups. But God’s grace saves people in spite of that. And that’s why we’re doing episodes like this and so they can hear

That there are true biblical churches and they can come out of them. Yeah. I kind of echoing what Miles said. We we do the Nine Creed every week except on baptism and confirmation Sunday we do the apostles and on Trinity Sunday we do the Athanation Creed. But in it states we believe in one holy Catholic and apostolic church. And so when you look at the gospel narrative, for example, Jesus sending his disciples out in Matthew 28 to go into all nations, um, instantly you would imagine that a true church would not just be in a visible form. Uh, because one, they’re

Going to be spreading out all over the world. Two, that message was to be spread out to the end of the age. Lo, I am with you to the end of the age. So there’s going to be a major culmination of different um peoples across the world at different times until he returns. All of which would be his church. We see an example of this in the vision that was given in the apocalypse of John. Uh we see a people coming before the throne of every tribe, tongue and nation saying worthy is the lamb. You have a a visible apocalyptic visionary form of what that

Actually looks like. people from all over the world, different language, different background coming to the lamb and saying worthy is the lamb. So just the great commission alone sending them into a dispersed part of the world. Just the idea of I am with you to the end of the age eliminates a only view that sees a local body, a local visible church only to be the church. Even the great commission eliminates that possibility just in the dispersion and in the end of the age presence of Christ. Yeah. And just well I don’t want to sidetrack us but with all that in mind

Next question because this is also important in all of this which was mentioned earlier. What was the reformation about specifically with regards to the church? Yeah. Now you probably can give better insight to this cuz immediately I start thinking about the five solas of the reformation. Um with solid and solar scriptura um I do see those relating cuz me and you’ve even talked about how scripture being the ultimate you know judge of all things. Uh that doesn’t divorce how God has been sanctifying his bride over time. So me and you probably really

Close in that. But you know, I had you on my channel to talk about justification by faith alone because that is the instrumentation in which we have um our sin uh paid for in full, the penalty of sin, uh double imputation, all that. And so this is what I see the heart of the reformation is there is a distortion of the gospel and doesn’t mean that there weren’t true saints. Martin Luther wasn’t trying to just restore the one true church. he was trying to bring legitimate issues to Rome to try to reform um not make something brand new. What do you think?

Well, I mean, Luther clearly believed the church of Rome was the church of Peter and that it was a good church that needed to be changed back to what it was. His view of reformation was to undo something that developed in it that was not in its original state. uh and and I think most of us on here would agree with them that during the middle ages a lot of corruption came and a lot of tradition came and this is why he held to what he called soul scriptor Torah although that term has been greatly abused by people that they call solo scriptorra today

Uh but what what he meant by that because he defended his position of the church from the fathers Augustine for example even Calvin went back he didn’t go back uh to the first and second century only he quoted Summ he looked at Sirill of Alexandria. He made multiple arguments through these eastern and north African fathers and also these western fathers to say what we are proposing to the modern at his time modern church is an old church that was taught by these men before us. So what they would do is they would begin to design the idea that the church has left

These main tenants. the church was a good church up to this point. Even when you look at um the idea of the papacy for example, uh you have guys like Gregory, Pope Gregory, even Calvin had no problem saying one of the last great popes uh was looking at that time into the sixth century, into the sixth century, into the seventh century. He saw that as a legitimate pope that rightly understood the church universally and its practices and its unity around the gospel, not around him. Even Calvin had no problem giving props out to men that were called popes uh

That were used in a mighty way in the universal church, not just the church of Rome. So, they saw the church of Rome as a good thing that it was Peter’s church, but that it had left. It had abandoned major tenants for other traditions that gave rise to what became the Roman Catholic Church of the Middle Ages. And they were seeking to not find a church, discover or invent or reproduce, but rather to go back to where did we lose the true church from its fall. and that church that that was in the right form, let’s bring it back into the 16th century. That’s what they were seeking

To do. Again, I the way I listened to the video at the very beginning of this, we’re speaking about restoration and reformation and terms like this. They’re speaking of replacement. They’re speaking of a gap period where the church went missing and now we’re having to do some sort of investigation and discovery mode. That’s not what Luther and Calvin and these other reformers were doing. They weren’t looking for something that went missing. They were they knew where it left. And that’s why I said they use fourth and fifth and sixth century church fathers and popes

To argue their point. So the man cannot use the reformers as a template for this restoration uh and call it that because they were using men after the third 2 century into the six to defend the position of where the true church was. Clearly reformers believe the true church was still around even at least in the sixth century. I’d like for you to speak to this too because in my study of church history, something that was really big for Martin Luther was kind of Romans 1:16 and 17. Uh, for I’m not ashamed of the gospel, for it is the power of God for

Salvation. For everyone who believes has faith to the Jew first and to the Greek, for in it the righteousness of God is revealed from faith for faith, as it is written, the just shall live by faith. My understanding of what Luther was putting forth is we are declared righteous by faith. But that faith will always entail and produce good works to the glory of God. And that seemed to fundamentally undo the sacramental system. Maybe at that time, maybe you can speak to that of what Rome was trying to do with penance. Remember the 95 thesis, purgatory, all of those

Things. And Luther is saying indulgences. No, it’s faith in the savior and his finished work. And so a beautiful phrase that we see come out of uh the Protestant Reformation is post tenderbust lux out of the darkness light. And I would argue even in the darkness of Rome there was still that gospel light and it and it shine forth with this. Yeah. Solid was the major swing of the hammer for Luther. Everything seemed to hinge on that. But again uh Jeremiah the the key thing to remember is is that Luther was not making that argument simply just from

Romans and Galatians. He was making the army the argument from Romans Galatians and church fathers like Augustine and others. And what he was showing is that there is a chain of custody where faith alone if you would and and by the way he did not define that the way that it’s being defined in many of the solid crowd today in your five solo people. Uh he he clearly believes sacraments were important. He clearly believed there was a mode of works that did a justifying effect. Um he’s speaking about the person’s position before God uh and what justifies a man in that

Sense. And one of the things that he did and and I’m sure you’ve read Luther, all of you have probably read Luther is he used a chain of custody that solid so to speak was being practiced by the church at these points and the evidence of it is through the way so and so said this, so and so said this. So he would use Augustine very often. Of course he’s an Augustinian monk. He’s going to use Augustine for a lot of things. He believed Augustine was teaching a form of solopid. Uh, so again, this isn’t something that went missing and he’s like, “Oh no, the church has been

Without the true faith for all these years and now I’m going to come in and fix this mess.” There were plenty of other people that tried to rise up against Rome before Luther. The thing that has to be remembered about Luther, I think this is an important point for both Miles and Jeremiah and myself, when you look at it, he was very, very close in proximity to a printing press. remember when this is a new invention. Uh he had something at his I guess he had something right down the road from him is the proper way to say that that others before him who also

Challenged the Roman Catholic Church did not have and that was a printing press and he was went viral. He went viral. He I mean he he hit the algorithms in the 16th century. say um Luther’s uh access to the printing press is really what made him popular. In fact, I would say there’s far more qualified men before him who stood up to Rome. And this might be some Anglican bias, but there was a lot of individuals on the British Isles who spoke up and distanced themselves from Rome said, “You’ve gone into error here. You have no say so over us. You have no

Jurisdiction over us.” There was many protests against the overstep of Rome long before Luther. He just happened to be at the right place in my opinion at the right time which was by by divine sovereignty. Uh but his access to the printing press is what began the process more than anything. So let’s not give Luther like he’s the first guy that rediscovered oh these are the teachings that have been going on this whole time. There were plenty of people in the world already doing that. He was just in a good place at a good time to do it. I saw a really

Good documentary that um was kind of pointing to Luther as a good representation of James 3 cannot contain you know cannot tame the tongue because we see a Luther that is bold preaching the gospel standing up to the the the corrupt authorities in many ways and yet this man had many things in his life that we would not want to emulate today of course and a resource I would like to recommend people because with the restorationist groups some of these These bold claims are that immediate deformation, you know, let’s just look at uh Acts chapter, you know, the book of Acts, the

First century, and then the restorationist movement when they began, everything else doesn’t matter. U there’s a book that I really appreciate long before Lu Luther tracing the heart of the gospel from Christ to the reformation. meaning everything that you’ve been saying that Luther Calvary and a lot of these early reformers were going back to what the church had already been talking about in terms of the distinctions with with faith and works and it’s faith it’s that inward trust in the finished work of Christ um and how we look to scripture as our

Ultimate authority and that’s not a bad thing to recognize that the voice of God that is what informs us of life and godliness and then yes the church has been sanctified over time in order to rightly understand exactly you know those interpretive um challenges. Yeah. But but again the we we have to keep emphasizing this. Luther was not interested in replacing the church. He was wanting to reform the church. In order to reform something you have to see that thing as once being true and it still contain truth in it. You have to remove elements that have distorted,

Blinded, or eliminated elements of truth. And that’s what he’s seeking to do. He was willing to compromise on the the bishop of Rome being the sea of the churches and its pope being a leader amongst them. There were areas where Luther was fine uh with aspects of Rome. So much as if the pope had the proper uh if you would he had the proper accountability that he was not having at that time. He was not seeking to replace the church of Rome but to reform it because he believed it was a true church and within it it contained truth and there were things that distorted and

Blinded it that needed to go away. That’s reformation. That’s not replacement. No, go ahead Jeremiah. Yeah, I was I was wanting your thoughts on this, Stephen. I think we’re we find strong unity with this, but something I see a problem at certain places in church history is a conflation of law and gospel. And to me, that that is what nullifies the gospel of grace altogether is when we confuse how we are to receive the biblical Christ with faith with a list of commands aiding in our justification before God. And I think when we have a right understanding of Christ’s finished

Work, God is building his church in real time. He is the one regenerating hearts and it is by faith. And it’s not to downplay uh works in the category properly understood, but do you see that being kind of a a big thing of how the gospel gets distorted when it gets conflated with law? Oh, absolutely. I mean, everything has its proper place. I think you would agree with that. Uh I think you also have probably read some of the cannons of Trent, the council of Trent that came after in response to Luther. They established that salvation uh and righteousness can only become a

Part of a person’s nature by faith. But again, these were things that the church was working out at that time. And the relationship between law and grace and the relationship between works and faith was something that became a debate because of something that happened in the Middle Ages, not because of something that happened early on. And so I do think when we’re talking about the sanctifying process, it’s something that had to happen much much later than the gentleman in the in the video at the very beginning of this. It’s something that happened almost by the thou in the

800 900,000 into that range. And so I do think that what Luther was posing was important because the church had gotten it. They had they had backward. They had it all backward. Uh there was a high emphasis on one things and I know that modern apologists obviously I debated uh Trent Horn and Jimmy Aken on this just less than a month ago. Um I know they try to downplay that. Oh no, no. I mean Trent says it’s the Council of Trent says that it is that. Well, yes, the Council of Trent did because it needed clarifying because that’s actually not what they were practicing for quite a

Few years. There was a high emphasis on indulgences. There was a high emphasis on um particularly when you’re dealing with purgatory and giving to the dead, praying to the dead. These things were major implications uh that were that were being placed on the people and b and he saw it Luther saw it as a major burden of placing a workspace on the whole thing. So again, uh I when I look at Luther, Luther saw those things as later developments that added to what the true faith had always been that Rome had held to and said, “No, no, we need to go backward in time.” So again, I

Agree with you. I’m not saying it’s wrong that to say that these are important discussion. I’m saying there’s more to the story than that. Even the Catholic Church was having to iron this out. I couldn’t have said it any better myself, Stephen. Well, that’s why you brought me on. No, I’m just kidding. You guys said so much there that I was like, “Oh my goodness, there’s so much I could say, but we also have a lot to get to.” But I really appreciate Stephen, uh, particularly the clarification around Luther and what was really going on there. Because I think regardless of

The pocket we’re talking about, the restorationists have their own folklore about Luther. Roman Catholics have their own folklore about Luther. Um, various people out there have their own folklore about what was going on with Luther. And it’s interesting some of the things you’ll hear today, it’s just kind of ironic that in the age of information, people seem to have the most misinformation um about things in history like this. Um, and so I think that was something really important to bring out there is that like you mentioned, and we’re going to look at some quotes here, folks, from

Some classical Protestants to help establish um that the Reformation was not about reviving a dead church or starting a new one. I don’t care how many people out there say that that charge is often made by again various parties out there that Luther was starting a new he was like this revolutionary. No, that’s not at all what was going on. Not at all. I’m reading uh Martin Breck’s uh biography of Luther, which is right there, that yellow book behind me. Um and he’s talking about um well, a number of these issues. And so these are kind of fresh on my mind right now. Um

But he wasn’t a revolutionary, if you will. Um, and like we heard in that intro clip, um, the idea that he was involved or even had any sort of understanding around launching a movement that led to a restoration, which is rather ironic because in that biography again, right in the I meant the Muner controversy with the Anabaptists. Yes. Right. Yes. And so to to understand Luther’s actual history and to know what was going on in Muner with the Anabaptist to think that Luther had any sort of thing in mind of what these restorationists oftentimes try to label and saddle Luther with

Shows uh either grave ignorance or historical revisionism. But I want to start by looking at a statement from church historian Philip Schoff from his book the principles of Protestantism. Notice he writes quote in the first place we contemplate the reformation in its strictly historical condition its Catholic union with the past. This is a vastly important point which thousands in our day appear to overlook entirely. They see in the 31st of October 1517 which is when Martin Luther nailed the 95 uh thesis. It is true the birthday of the evangelical church and find her

Certificate of baptism in the 95 thesis of Luther but at the same time cast a deep stain upon the legitimacy of this birth itself by separating it from all right relation to the time that went before. In this way, all interest is renounced in the spiritual wealth of the Middle Ages, which however belongs to us of right, as fully at least it does to the church of Rome. And what is worse still, the lie is given practically to the Lord’s promise itself. Lo, I am with you always, even to the end of the world. Close quote. So Dr. Sha’s words are just

As true today as they were in the 19th century. Many modern evangelicals are not tethered to the past and simply surrender history when they do that, which is made manifest when you hear questions like, “Was no one saved before Martin Luther?” Um, this isn’t the classical Protestant teaching or belief that that no one was saved prior to Martin Luther or that the gospel wasn’t here or something like that. The three of us would consider ourselves classical Protestants, but I would go so far as to use the term some of the reformers did, such as William Perkins, reformed

Catholics. Notice what Perkins writes in his treatis with the self-same name. Quote, “By a reformed Catholic, I understand anyone that holds by the same necessary heads of religion with the Roman church. Yet so as he par uh pairs off and rejects all errors in doctrine whereby the said religion is corrupted. How this may be done, I’ve begun to make some little declaration in this small treatise. The intent whereof is to show how near we may come to the present church of Rome in sunundry points of religion and wherein we must descent. Close quote. So, for those that do not

Know, William Perkins was an English reformer, but he didn’t speak of the entire root or trunk of the church being rotten, but that pairing off needed to take place. Basically, like a pruning of branches, a a cleanup, not an entire overhaul or a revival of something that was entirely lost. And so, for those that might be wondering as well, um, what did he mean by heads of religion? He means the substance of the Christian faith, that root, the trunk. And a reformed Catholic is one who holds to that same substance but seeks to pair off doctrinal additions. The key word on

That being additions. You’ll see why in a moment. Now notice in the Augsburg confession we were just talking about Luther. quote, “In as much then as our churches, Lutheran churches, descent in no article of the faith from the church Catholic, but only omit some abuses which are new and which have been erroneously accepted by the corruption of the times contrary to the intent of the cannons. We pray that your imperial majesty would graciously hear both what has been changed and what were the reasons why the people were not compelled to observe those abuses against their conscience.”

Close quote. No restorationist concept here. Again, we see the view of doctrinal accretions, additions that crept in, needed cleaned up, and the substance of the faith, the trunk of the tree was not rotten, but certain branches were. In the Adventist context, like I’ve mentioned, many of them love to point to Martin Luther to say, “Look what he said about the papacy being the antichrist.” They love that because they teach that the pope is the antichrist. So they love pointing to Luther on that. Yet this is the same Luther that said the current Christendom of his

Day that was under the papacy was truly the body of Christ with valid members of the body of Christ in it which is in Luther’s works volume 40 which is of the church which speaks to the distinguishing between the corrupt office which Stevens kind of alluded to this a little bit um the corruption of an office over and against the individuals within that communion in Dr. Boyce will appreciate this next one. John Juel, the uh famed Anglican and defender of Anglicanism, early uh Anglican apologist, in part of his defense of the Church of England, notice

What he says. quote, “If we do show it plainly that God’s holy gospel, the ancient bishops, and the primitive church do make on our side, and that we have not without just cause uh left these men, and rather have returned to the apostles and old Catholic fathers, and if we shall be found to do the same, not colorably or craftily, but in good faith with God, truly, honestly, clearly, and plainly, and if they themselves, which fly our doctrine, and would be called Catholics, shall manifestly see how all these titles of antiquity, whereof they boast

So much, are quite shaken out of their hands, and that there is more pith in this, our cause, than they thought for. We then hope and trust that none of them will be so negligent and careless of his own salvation. But he will at length study and bethink himself to whether part uh he were best to join him. close quote. No mentality here again folks of the church having been entirely lost, dead or corrupted and then needing to be restored, but rather doctrinal accretions crept in that needed corrected. He then goes on to defend that uh essentially the ancient

Substance of the faith has remained intact. And he also argues the same thing that John Calvin did, which Stephven’s kind of alluded to a little bit of this earlier, but um he essentially claimed, you know, I if if we’re schismatics, the reformers, then why aren’t they Rome schismatics for leaving the church in the east? Even saying how the church in the east didn’t have as many doctrinal accretions. But Luther said that or or Calvin said that same thing. He said they the the the Western Roman church has anatized the church in the east. on what grounds because they up and just

Said that well this office isn’t valid. So now they’re deemed schismatics. So he John essentially makes that same appeal in the apology. Now obviously our Roman Catholic friends would disagree with this but the point being um is that the history of what the mindset was is very important. Reformation is not the same as restoration or or revolution. Last one here this is from Calvin’s institutes. Quote, “By the unity of the church, we must understand a unity into which we feel persuaded that we are truly engrafted. For unless we are united with all the other members of

Christ under uh uh under Christ our head, no hope of the future inheritance awaits us. Hence the church is called Catholic or universal.” Then he’s talking about he refers back to like Steven said, Augustine for two or three cannot be invented without dividing Christ and this is impossible. What’s he talking about? Two or three what? Churches. If you have multiple churches, you have a divided body. All the elect of God are so joined together in Christ that they depend on one head. So they are as it is compacted into one body, being knit together like

Its different members, made truly one by living together under the same spirit of God in one faith, hope, and charity, called not only to the same inheritance of eternal life, but to participation in one God and Christ. For although the sad devastation which everywhere meets our view may proclaim that no church remains, let us know that the death of Christ produces fruit and that God wonderfully preserves his church while placing it as it were in concealment. Thus it was said of Elijah, “Yet I have left me 7,000 in Israel.” Close quote. Same idea as the others that we’ve

Looked at. God has always preserved his church. The root and trunk of the tree has always remained intact. To invent um or or create a different church would be to have two bodies of Christ which would be divided and cannot be so. And this is also why definitions are so important because sometimes we do talk about multiple churches but we’re not talking about that body of Christ universal. We’re talking about the building sometimes like I’m going to church. Um these words have a semantic range but there is a difference. The key being there is a difference between corrupting

Theological accidents or accretions within the faith and the substance of the faith being poisoned. Restorationist groups don’t tend to make this foundational distinction. There is a difference between a group like the seventh day adventists who have subtracted and taken away from the substance of the faith and say the church in the 1300s which still possessed the substance but it had additional errors. It had additions not subtractions from the foundation. The substance was still possessed and the errors were additive not subtract. Adventism, Mormonism, Church of Christ,

They have doctrinal subtractions to the substance of the Christian faith. But that is a small sampling for the audience to see what the classical Protestant view is of church uh history. Well, the church in history. Brothers, any thoughts on that before we transition to restorationist claims and ideas? some when when you talk about subtractions. What I’ve noticed with cult groups, those those restorationists that are replacing the church, Stephen, what I notice is usually they capitulate on the nature of Christ in some way. And I think they conflate law with grace.

And so what I mean is Jesus said, “Unless you believe that ego that I am the eternally creator God, you will die in your sins.” So you can’t mess up the right Jesus. Paul warned of false Jesuses that don’t say save to the believers at Corinth. And what I really press is the biblical Jesus, the sovereign Lord Jesus overall is the second person of the triune God who took on flesh and dwelt among us, lived that perfect sinless life, died at Calvary, was buried, rose again the third day, ascended on high, and sits at the right hand of the father. That’s the

Biblical Jesus. So you got to believe in that Jesus. And you have to receive that Jesus by faith apart from works. And what I’ve noticed with all the different, you know, sectarian groups, they capitulate on the nature of Christ or the gospel of grace. Yeah, they do. And I would think that the personhood of Christ was the major debate from day one. uh whether it was nnosticism, senthianism as the early form of nnosticism, teditism all the way down to when you’re dealing with aranism, um moilism. I mean, there’s so many areas where the person of Christ became

The subject of debate. Uh his personhood, like you said, the incarnation, whether you’re talking about he being God himself, uh the triune God became a major point of debate. Serial of Alexandria fought to the death on such a a doctrine. I mean, we see this in Athanasius’s writings, but the the keys, I think, to a lot of what was happening here that we have to not lose sight of again. And John Juel, Bishop Juel, mentions in that writing that was shown on the screen, but it needs to be stated in a broader sense. We have to we have to lose the mindset

That the Catholics have that everything was hinging on Rome getting it right. As if they were the only church. This is the part that drives me nuts. Um, we like, oh, the the Catholics think they were the only, they think they’re the only one true church, but then we give them that every time we argue that Christianity is contingent and the true church was contingent on whether or not Rome got it right, as if there was no other church. There were churches around the world that just don’t get the credit. And there’s a reason, two reasons for that in my opinion. Number

One, the Sea of Peter is that significant. Rome was a insignificant church in the first 300 years because it was heavily persecuted. The Eastern churches, John and Andrew’s churches were far more significant than Peter’s in the first 300 years of the church. It wasn’t until yes, Constantine and it wasn’t until the legalization of the edict of Milan that yes, we find the rise of Rome becoming significant and politicized in a sense. But the Eastern churches were the most significant churches for the first really two to 30 hund years of the church. But what John

Jules is pointing to as well and then in part of his argument that there was always a true church not just in Rome but outside of Rome. We talk about all these other churches that were formed in the African continent, the Ethiopic churches, the Gothic churches as well. And then you got the Alexandrian churches, you have the Antiocan churches, you got the churches of Jerusalem, you got the churches of Bzantium, you got the churches of Inindia. You have churches that are constantly uh being formed while Rome is even in its error. And you can go to a

Lot of these churches and find that they were not practicing the same error as Rome. Uh on the British Isles, you have for example King Alfred in the 9th century. King Alfred was opposing the Roman Catholic Church’s oversteps in the British Isles. One of the major ones, just for a quick example, is Latin mass. He didn’t want Latin mass on the British Isles. He wanted the early what would be considered early English. He wanted mass to be done in English. He wanted the universities and he did. They changed it to the universities to use English. We

Say, “Oh, well, the first guy that really wanted the common language to be in the form of it’s was William Tinddale, Wickliffe, guys like that.” Sure. If you’re talking about men who actually got it done when it comes to publicizing translations like Wikliff from the Vulgate or or Tindale from the original languages, yes, they began a major uh if you would reformation of the word of God. But King Alfred in the 9th century wanted Latin masses to be out of the churches because most people around that area were not speaking Latin and he wanted the university language to be

That of English because that’s what they spoke on the British Isles. And he resisted the pope. He called out the pope. He re he retracted things that were done in England as a result of tradition. He reformed areas of the churches because the Anglican tradition did not start with King Henry VII despite what some people think. Uh there was always a church on the continent. You had the Celtic churches which were John’s churches. Yes, Augustine of Canterbury came later in the sixth century from Rome. But the purpose of him is different than what Rome thinks

Today. But that’s another discussion. But my point is is that if you read John Juel and you read these others, what they’re trying to tell you is there was always a true church in Rome and outside of Rome. We have to make sure we’re not stating that Rome getting the doctrine right defines where Christianity was at the time of the Middle Ages. There was always true churches that were started by the apostles on the continent of Africa, Asia, and even in the eastern parts going over to modern-day Turkey that were still practicing proper doctrine. Yes, they had some issues as

Well. The truth of the gospel and a true church is not contingent upon Rome. There were other true churches of the apostles actively practicing proper doctrine. Go ahead. Yeah. Well, I love the point that you’re driving home that there were true churches in Rome and maybe in some Baptist circles and just Protestant circles at large, you know, everything Rome bad. You know, sometimes people can kind of wrongly think of and when you when we look to the opening chapter in the book of Romans, verse 7 says to all those in Rome who are loved by God and

Called to be saints. These are the called out ones. God is already redeeming a people, calling out a people by his amazing grace. And so I want to I want to share with you an absurdity I deal with with one of the restorationist movements out the Alex the Campbellites that call themselves the church of Christ today towards the end of uh the epistle to the Romans. So, Romans 16:16 says this, “Greet one another with a holy kiss. All the churches of Christ greet you.” So, this is the kind of argumentation I deal with all the time, Stephen, is, “Oh, you’re a

Denominational church. We’re the church of Christ the way that Romans 16:16 says, show me where it says the Baptist church.” And so, for one, what I try to do is just say, “Well, do you greet one another with the holy kiss if we’re going to be this legalistic with our reading?” Of course not. And then um I try to say look all the churches this is talking about the nature of the eklesia the called out ones by grace through faith uh greet you. This is not saying this is what has to be outside the church building uh primarily here in the south. You know

What I’m talking about. But this is the kind of interaction that I get with a restorationist group. So it’s interesting the next bishop of Rome after Peter uh well there’s a debate about the order in which this took place. He’s either second or fourth which would be uh Clement of Rome who’s mentioned in Philippians. Clement writes a letter to the churches of Corenth. Uh and in that letter it’s is called the first epistle of Clement. um which in it he opens the letter with these words, the church of God which sojourns at Rome to the church of God sojouring in

Corinth to them that are called and sanctified by the will of God through our Lord Jesus Christ. Grace and you and peace from God Almighty through Jesus Christ. So he opens a letter. He’s a church. He’s the leader. is the bishop of Rome writing to the church at Corinth. But notice how he calls them all the church of God. The church of God at Rome that sojourns, he calls them sojourers or pilgrims. And then he calls the church of Corinth sojourners and pilgrims. To me, that doesn’t sound like um they had this competition of denominationalism today. for example,

Uh they were all seen as a church of God. And to go to what maybe give me some more feedback if I’m kind of buying into what you’re saying here, Jeremiah. He states, “What makes them a church of God?” Well, they were called. He said they were called to they were sanctified by the will of God through the person of Jesus Christ. And God had brought them to a unifying peace also through Christ where God almighty called them to that universal peace. Then he goes into instructing them. But you have the church of Corinth which is the church of God, the church of Rome

Which is the church of God. And they’re all being unified because they’re all being called to the same Jesus who is sanctifying them the same way and offering his grace and unity to all the churches throughout not just a single location. This debunks the idea of denominations. What do what do you think about Clement of Rome’s letter opening to the church of Corinth in the end of the first century? Well, like you’re saying, there’s one ecclesia. Now, when you have a church of Christ that just begs the question and says, “See, it says churches of Christ.

We’re the church of Christ.” Well, there’s they’re assuming so much of of who the biblical Jesus is and what the ekles is called out by grace. And so, it begs the question, it gets back into the fundamental issues of who is the right Jesus and how do you receive that Jesus on the terms that he prescribed. But yeah, like you’re talking about as you go back into church history, we should see that strong continuity of the gospel of grace and Christ sanctifying his bride over time. Well, and that’s the thing. If if I’m going to go back and say Jesus said,

This is one of the things that led me to Anglicanism and finding a church in succession. Jesus said, “I I will build my church and the gates of Hades will not prevail.” Is that an idea or an entity? Because if that’s an idea, that idea can be lost in somebody’s mind. If it’s an actual tangible entity that has traceable roots where Jesus says or where God has built the church through Jesus is the chief cornerstone with the prophets and the apostles being laid on it. Is that structure able to be traced? They’re saying no. I can show you the succession line of

Multiple churches. Whether you’re talking about ones that go back to Peter in Rome or Andrew and John in the east or particularly in the British Isles, you have a mixture of John and you also have a mixture there of Peter or whether you’re talking about the Antiocan churches going back to Peter or whether you’re talking about the Jerusalem churches going back to St. James or whether you’re talking about Matthew’s churches in the uh northern parts of Africa or John Mark going down to Alexandria or Thomas into India. Every single one of these churches has the

Succession line of the bishops who are entrusted by the laying on of hands down through the ages to this day. That’s what Tertullian was arguing in North Africa when he was arguing for the fact that we have a chain of custody. We have the shore documents and deeds to the property, the church. How do you know what a church was when Tertullian was alive? when he was defending the churches in North Africa, he had deeds. What were the deeds? The deeds were the apostles text. The churches that had the apostles text were the churches that were started by the apostles. They had

The text. They also had the succession leaders that were given to the churches to guard the text, the deposit. So when you find the documents, which by the way, if you were to go through first clement, you will find this argument being made where he reminds them of the letters that Paul had already instructed them about gospel unity. He’s reminding them of something they already have. Polycarp, a disciple of John, when he writes his letter to the Philippians, for example, he actually appeals to Paul’s authority over his as a bishop. He says, “Paul wrote to you these

Things. go seek or search them in his letter to you and in doing so you will increase your faith. Two things. Number one, Polycarp assumed that the church of Philippi, which he was writing to around the 130s, still had the original letter of Paul, or at least a very near copy of the letter of Paul just under 100 years before that they still had the letter. Two, that letter of Paul had spiritual, sanctifying, faithbuing qualities in the letter. and Polycarp writing to the bishops. So whether you’re talking about Ignatius to its bishops, all these

Churches had traceable lineages through documents, the New Testament, and bishops who are entrusted to those documents. To this day, I can pull out to you the succession line of my church and the priests that I go to and how they go back to St. Peter and John. The Catholics can do it with Peter. Antiocans can do it all the way back to Peter. The churches of Alexandria, the Coptic churches can do it all the way back to Mark. Ethiopic churches can do it to Matthew. We can go on and on in here. We have succession lines that show where the church has always been through

Every year. We don’t have to put our hands on our eyes and grasp at something. We have a tangible tradition that goes back from Jesus and his apostles and his great commission to them. We know where they went. We know what churches they started. We know the names of the men’s they put the men they put their hands on their heads and the men they put their hand on heads and hand on head all the way to today. The problem is is within those churches, what you’re seeing in these these statements that are being made that were just read to us by Miles is that some of

Those churches and a big big church out of all of those was Peter’s th those churches adopted traditions that were not in its original form. And so they have to be removed to go back to its pure form. That is what the reformation was all about. not to build new churches, not to start new churches, not to create or discover new churches, but they already knew where the churches were. Now, the reason the reformation is significant is because the Roman Catholic Church had taken over the West. You don’t see a lot what’s going on in India, do you? You don’t see a lot about

This going on in Africa. They were very insignificant as it related to the western church because the headquarters of not only power and then the headquarters of rule had already established itself in the west. The west became the predominant church but they were not the only church. The silent churches in Africa the silent churches particularly over in in East Asia uh they were not without practice. They were not without liturgy. They were not without direction. They were not without faith. Those churches have their tradition and history. They’re just in a

Minor, softer, quieter voice because the west made the influence in the world at that time. And the only ones we seeing push back from that for particularly in the reformation are these men that we find in places like Geneva and in uh places of Rome uh places also outside of that into Great Britain and in France. We find this happening during this time and the printing press made this universal. We have to keep in mind our history. What gave rise to what the printing press was able to create a ripple effect across the universal globe that no one else could do before that

Point. Not to the level that we saw in the reformation. There were oppositions to this already happening. There were pre-reformationations all over the place. That’s what these men are saying. The true church was always there saying, “Uh, Rome, you’re out of hand.” We have North African churches writing saying, “Hey, you need to remove the bishop here. The bishop of Rome is bullying people out of the church. That’s not his call.” We see this even in again Alfred and others in the 9th century in the British Isles opposing the Roman Catholic Church for overststepping its

Authority and they were being called to go back and be put an accountable check. This happened all through the ages. The difference at the time of the reformation is I believe the printing press. It made the major universal chain reaction. Wow. There’s just like so much good information here. And again, it just makes me want to like we talked to folks before we started this and Stephen was like, I don’t know how we’re going to get through like the first few questions. And this is exactly why because if I were to piggyback on a lot of that stuff, um, we would end up going into a

Lot of other interesting things. Sorry for rambling, gentlemen. No, no, no. This is that’s great. Thank you for real. Thank you. Um, because it’s just again there’s there’s a lot of folklore. There’s a lot of folklore, not just from restorationist groups, but from all sorts of people out there. And so, I think information like that is um valuable. And again, folks, you can check out his podcast. He talks a lot about these sorts of things. Um, the link to that is in the description box down below. Now, we’re going to make a transition point here. It’s been about

An hour and 15 minutes. And what’s that? I was just breathing. That’s all right. We’re good. No, you’re we’re good. Okay. I didn’t know if that was like a subtle hand raise, you know, the the the slight exhale. But, brothers, part of our mission at Answering Adventism is to educate the body of Christ on the theological dangers of Adventism. That would include you both as well as leaders within the body of Christ, but also the audience. First, I want to establish that the SDA movement is indeed a restorationist sect. They are sectarians in this regard. You may

Encounter some Adventists that will deny this for v uh various reasons. But first, notice a short quote from SDA historian George Knight. This is from his book, Search for Identity. Notice what he says. Quote, “The restorationists rejected the view that the Reformation was something that happened only in the 16th century. Rather, the Reformation began in the 16th century, but would not be completed until the last vestigages of tradition were gone and the teachings of the Bible, especially the New Testament, were firmly in place in the church. the

Task of the restorationist movement was to complete the unfinished reformation. He then goes on to say, “It is important to recognize the impact of the Anabaptist mentality, restorationism, and Wesleyanism on the understandings and development of Adventism.” Close quote. So the SDA movement is far more in line with the radical reformers, the Anabaptists, and they were heavily influenced not just by that mentality, but also the restorationist mentality of the church being apostate and needing restored. Those of you in the audience that know about Millerism will know that

Restorationism, specifically a great apostasy, deformationation, like Ty Gibson said, that was foundational to Millerism. And so these seventh day Adventists inherited that mindset out of that. But as you see, Dr. Knight alludes to the idea that their movement is a restoration of the pure teachings of the Bible just like every restorationist sect uh sect thinks that they are despite contradicting one another. Gentlemen, before moving forward, why is that inherent claim that the restorationist movement finished what the reformation started? Okay, your mic definitely is not working

Now.

Uh,

He even asked us on the side, is my mic working? And I said it was. Hey, I put it in past tense. I said it was. I didn’t say it is. So, God silence another Baptist today, folks. Uh, I I’ll go ahead. I will go ahead and start answering this while he gets his mic situated. Um, no, they did. How could they? And I don’t want to be repetitive here. Again, um, I do think that the Anabaptists in that mindset did give rise to bad thought. Th this is the extremism uh mentality because what what extremists do in church history is they throw out the baby with the bathwater.

Uh they take everything and throw it out. They throw everything. And so when you’re talking about the revisions or the restorationists here, they did not complete something because completing something uh would insinuate that the reformers uh l lacked the ability to accomplish. There you go. They lacked the ability to accomplish something they were set out to do. I think if you were to investigate Luther, I don’t think he believed that he didn’t do what was needed or at least put out there. And these restorationists are not completing what he started anyway. In fact, they’re

Opposing a lot of things that he started and they gone to a extreme. He was seeing this in his own day. I mean, you guys do probably realize as well that, you know, there were times where Luther’s friends faked his death and uh there were times where they thought he was dead and then Lutheran were going out and hanging Catholic priests and killing them and he found out about it and he was furious. He was furious that Lutheran were killing Catholic Catholic anointed uh succession priests. It bothered him. He was angry about it. There were extremists when he was still

Alive. He didn’t believe that he was starting something that the next generation need to pick up and finish for him. He believed what needed to be said was said. He believed he was thorough. uh most of the reformers believed what they had begun was not something that needed some sort of completing that that they’re referring to and the what they’re completing is not in keeping with what the Protestant reformers were trying to do anyway because the Protestant reformers go back to the early church church writers and petristics like Chris Austin like serial

Like Augustine like Basil they go back and quote these men I don’t see the restorationists doing that They’re calling these men apostates. So, how could they be completing what they started when they’re going back to the fourth, fifth, and sixth century Petristics when this group’s calling them apostates? You can’t be doing the same work. So, can you hear me? Okay. Now, you’re back. Yes. This Baptist is no longer silenced. Um, something you were talking about earlier going back to the the early church, the documents, the documents. We can prove it. we can show, you know, who

The true church is that comes from the apostles teaching. Now, I like this because even even though I would be on the the solo scripturous side, to me, this is a encouragement to say, “Hey, Christ has been building his church for 2,000 years.” Not that uh Christ failed somewhere along the way or the Holy Spirit failed somewhere along the way to guide the true church into all truth. But I was wanting to bring something up, Stephen, because you’re talking about the documents. Oh, yeah. Well, no creed but Christ, Jeremiah, Stephen. And this is and but this to me is goes

Back to Miles’s original question. Are they continuing what you know, Luther began like they say from the re reformation or um um into the uh restoration? It can’t be the the thing you this the thing you’ve been drumming all night is Luther and them were going back to the early church. Not just Luther, right? Calvin, Augustine, all these people, they’re going to the early church. But a dead giveaway of the restorationist mindset is a self-defeating claim of no creed but Christ. When I had you on my channel, I’m out of the church of Christ births

Hyper predtoism. And it’s all built on this assumption. No creed but Christ. Of course, the church has been wrong for 2,000 years. It don’t matter. And unfortunately, a lot of times it gets under the umbrella of solo scriptura, but like you said, that gets distorted into a solo um no creed but Christ. It’s just me, my Bible under a tree, no creed but Christ. And I think that’s a dead giveaway of a restorationist sectarian cultlike mindset that’s going to capitulate once again on the nature of the true Jesus and the gospel of grace that is to be

Received by faith apart from works. I I think another thing is as well that is the true church Jeremiah as a repenting church not a perfect one. Uh when we look at the the Anglican church is a very repentive church. We have an ugly history at times. Rome has an ugly history at times. Uh the the true church is not a perfect church. I think about the prayer that we pray uh quite often in the Anglican church for the universal church. It reads this way. Gracious Father, we pray that the hol that thy holy Catholic Church fill it with all truth and all truth with all

Peace. Where it is corrupt, purify it. Where it is in error, direct it. Where in anything it is a miss, reform it. Where it is right, strengthen it. Where it is in want, provide for it. For where it is divided, reunite it. For the sake of Jesus Christ, thy son, our savior. Amen. And these are prayers that we pray regularly in the Anglican church that God would unify his one holy Catholic and apostolic church. But that where it is failing in truth, in unity, in corruption, it’s inviting God to work in his church. Uh he is washing his church. We see this

Illustration in Ephesians 5 with the water. He’s washing it. He’s purifying it like like a bride adorns herself. The church is being washed and adorned. Uh we are a repentive people. The sign of a true church is not just a church of faith. It’s a church of faith and repentance where faith failed. And that’s what we’re looking for here too. And and we see evidence of this throughout the churches in their history as well. Stephen, you mentioned something there that I think is just so important too that I think is a stark contrast. Um, especially obviously I’m thinking about

Adventism a lot, but even just in the context of restorationist groups period is this sort of hyper aversion to that unity. That unity is actually seen as fearful. Um, I can’t tell you how often I get called an ecumenist. Um, or like whatever term it may be. Um, because I don’t have this hyper sectarian understanding that, believe it or not, I actually pray for for the church to be united. I pray for the schisms to be mended. I pray for there to be unity um on on the fundamentals and and liberty and freedom in the uh non-essentials um and that we

Can overcome these sorts of things. Yet a lot of these groups will say that’s evidence of our group being correct because what insert whatever figure in the Adventist context Ellen White said that there was going to be a time where Protestants are going to unite with Catholics and that’s going to prove that we’re correct because prophecy foretold this and these sorts of things. And so it’s just interesting that you know you just prayed for for unity um whereas a lot of these groups are actually um saying that sectarianism is noble. See, and this is an interesting point. Uh,

You know, no offense to my Baptist brother down there. When the Baptist first came on the scene originally, this was something that they were writing about. And when you look at John Smith, uh, you look at others who are participating in this view of ecumenical, if you would. Their view was that they were fulfilling the prophecy of the book of Revelation. I I’ve said it multiple times. Uh, you see this in these sectarian churches. You see this even in Baptist churches that if if the eastern church and the western church ever uh united uh when you look at their major fallway

With the filioquay in the 11th century, they had many other issues brewing before that. But if the church of the west, the church of the east ever came together along with the Anglican church and the British Isles, I think what people would start saying is this is the end times. This this is the one world religion. This this is it. This is the antichrist. And um it’s sad that if we think about the the apostles churches who have been divided for many many years and recently the Coptic church, Mark’s churches for the first time broke communion with uh Rome.

Just this calendar year, the first time since Peter and Mark were alive together, they broke communion. Um when you think about some people don’t care but that that’s a that is a major thing. Uh you know even the Anglican Communion had a break with its mother church in in England over homosexual and gay marriages and things like that. That’s the first time since the 600 601 that we haven’t had mother church uh watch over us even though the majority of the Anglicans are the conservative ones. I mean you look at these things are heartbreaking but to see repentance

And reconciliation as like fulfilling prophecies like oh this is it the one world religion this is it. It’s like did that what Jesus prayed for in the garden? I mean is that not John 17? Make them one as you and I are one. I mean good grief. God forbid that we would come back to unity. Yeah. Go ahead. Defend yourself. Baptist. No, no, I’m going to let that stand. I I hope we’re showing how truth unites and we’re saying truth also will divide where it needs to happen and we trust God and his sovereignty in that. I was going to say, you know, I kind of bring

A little bit of perspective with the church Christ and they divide within themselves because they have this restorationist mindset that okay, um, when we’re doing the Lord’s supper, my interpretation, which you got to think in their minds, is you have to obey Christ according to my interpretation. We just speak what the Bible speaks. And, oh, your church thinks it’s many cups during the Lord’s supper. Oh, you’re anathema. And so I’m just wanting to shine a little light on some of these restorationist groups. Obviously the Adventist are going to be different for

So many things with the Church of Christ, but the church of Christ divides against themselves. And so I think this goes handinhand with what we’ve been talking about how we we should be seeking unity on the gospel and unity on tertiary things that we can continue to sharpen one another. Every time I listen to Dr. boy speak, I learned something new, especially with church history um and how Christ has been building his bride. And I loved how he alluded to Ephesians chapter 5 because Christ has been sanctifying, washing his bride. So, I think it’s fundamentally wrong to look

At church history as an immediate just jumped off the cliff. Uh because the reformation wasn’t to restore what was lost. No, Christ has been sanctifying his bride over time. So I just Miles I I just wanted to highlight that the Church of Christ they’re so legalism they’ve lost the the the grace law distinction where it’s all law and it’s all under the banner obey obey the gospel and obviously we affirm that but what does that mean you know what I mean but um but yeah when when obedience is the bar then to have any disagreement on any meaningful interpretation there’s going

To be schism anathema no unity Well, that’s the problem with sectarianism and schism, it bruise more. And that’s why so many organizations have no traceable lineage. And when you look at these churches, and this is, this sounds harsh, but I’m going to say it. They don’t have a traceable, tangible church. So, what do they have to do? Throw it all out. We’re the true church because you have nothing to trace. We do. See, this is the problem with sectarianism. Sectarianism bruts more sectarians. As I always say, sectarians going to sect. That’s what they do. They’re going to

Create more sect and then more sect. And the thing is is that you’ve got hundreds of breaks and splinters and breaks and splinters and breaks and splinters that you can’t trace the truth, much less your church. And this is why that you this is why you have to absolutely throw all of history out. Claim you are what was in the first century, but can’t show it. You can’t prove it. you don’t have any tangible evidence to demonstrate it. Whereas the apostles churches, this is why there’s a major resurgence in our generation men that are going back to the Roman

Catholic Church. And I think they’re making a hasty move because there is a reformation happening in Roman Catholicism today in a good way. I have friends that are in it. Uh I I I join them from the Anglican viewpoint and cheer them on. But there’s a massive growth in Roman Catholicism, Eastern Orthodoxy, Anglicanism, and forms of Lutheranism in the world today going back to ancient practices. And it’s our generation that’s going back to it. I just read recently where the Roman Catholic Church in the United States had its highest attendance on Eastern Sunday

And its I highest baptisms since the 1980s. There has been a massive resurgence. I mean, you’ve seen it on the news. How many Hollywood actors and actresses, how many major uh world leaders and major uh people who are influential in apologetics or their wives are all going into an ancient practice of the church because what people are waking up to see is that sectarianism does not work. It has no tangible traceable significance in the historic church. And what they do is they see the appeal of Roman Catholicism. Oh, this goes back to St. Peter and all of its great traditions

And magnificence and glory and and it does. Of course, they have to adopt some things in my opinion that are unhealthy. But what that’s what drew me into Anglicanism. It’s like, well, the church goes back to the very beginning. We go back to John. We go back to the Celtic churches and we go back to Peter’s churches. We have a significant history that has a tangible traceable lineage. And they can’t have that. They don’t have that. So the only move they have is to throw it away and say, “No, no, no. We’ve lost the definition of truth. We’ve rediscovered it.” No, no, no.

We’ve lost the definition of the church. We’re it because we say so. You can’t prove it. You don’t have evidence. You don’t have lineage. You don’t have documents. As Tertullian said, speak where the Bible speaks, Stephen. Where are your where are your shore documents to prove? This is the argument with Tertullan. Almost anybody that’s listening this probably has a vehicle. You have a you have a title that goes with your car. To have the title with the same VIN number as your vehicle is to say that that is the proof the evidence that that vehicle

Belongs in the name on the title, your name. you to to to remove the car and the title and to separate that or to have a title with a different VIN number than the vehicle is a confusion and it’s illegal. You don’t have e evidence to prove that that vehicle belongs to you because the title does not match the VIN number as that is on the vehicle. You have no proof that you belong to the church. You have no proof. You have no documents to show that church its title and my church and the biblical church are all matched. We have the same VIN number. You don’t have that. See, we can

Do that. We can do it. We can do it by succession. We can do it by our document of faith. We can do it by our lineage. That’s the difference between an apostles church and these sectarian churches. They have no traceable lineage. And that’s what Tertullian said. Any church that was seen outside of having those proofs of the tangible documents of succession and the documents of the the apostles themselves is a church under skepticism. And these churches are not just skeptical. They are beyond skeptical. They they’re sectarianism off of sectarianism. They’re not even sectarian

By themselves, right? They’re a branch of sectarianism. And forgive me, but I’m just going to speak the truth. You have no history. You have no tangible facts. You are wishful thinking and you have to redefine history to be who you are. And by that definition, you are a false church by the apostolic lineage. Not saying that you have all faults in the sense that you’re damnable. Some of you may be, but in the sense of you have no attachment to the apostles. You cannot claim them. You don’t know them. They don’t know you. You’re not in their lineage. Sorry,

I bring this up all the time about how um you know, a big thing that and some of this comes from having grown up in Adventism and and knowing the script and the talking points and all that sort of stuff and having said them over and over and over and over and over again and then realizing what I do now. Um uh I’m always big on the Adventist leadership needs to own that they are their own thing. You’re not Protestant. You’re not you don’t have a history and a lineage. this this sort of myth about like, well, we’re apostolic truth restored. But then

You read in their articles where they’re saying stuff like, well, we have a present truth gospel. No one before us preached this. It’s a special end times gospel that started in 1844 and only we have it, but it’s apostolic in origin. Um, but it’s only for the end times, okay? And the end times started in post 1844. You get this sort of thing going on. It’s like, no, you need to just own that you’re your own thing. The early Adventists, which we’re about to see a quote from here, had no no issue owning this. They That’s what their whole thing was is no, no, we are the one true

Thing, were completely distinct and separate from all of that. But now, as time has gone on, all of these sects have to find a way to remain relevant, to keep the machine fueled, to keep things going on. So, they’ve all pivoted now to this sort of like, well, at least in the Adventist case, you know, we’re just like you, brother. You know, we’re we’re we’re Protestants. We believe in the Trinity. We believe in the gospel. And it’s like, no, we justification by faith. Well, you have your own dictionary. And that’s been part of the outflow and product and result of time

Going on because time is the restorationist group’s biggest enemy. This is a quote from James White, husband to the Adventist prophetus, Ellen White. He wrote this in the Adventist church’s paper, The Review and Herald, in 1856. Notice not to be confused with James White modern day. Go ahead. No, not at all. Not James R. White. This is James S. White. Quote, “The mystery of iniquity began to work in the church in Paul’s day. It finally crowded out the simplicity of the gospel and corrupted the doctrine of Christ, and the church went into the wilderness.”

Martin Luther and other reformers arose in the strength of God and with the word and spirit made mighty strides in the reformation. The greatest fault we find in the reformation is the reformers stopped reforming. Had they gone on and onward till they’d left the last vestage of papacy behind, such as natural immortality, sprinkling the Trinity, and Sunday keeping, the church would now be free from her unscriptural errors. Close quote. So, a little glimpse of the Anabaptist mentality that George Knight mentioned with the claim that the reformers didn’t go far enough.

That’s also what Ty Gibson at the beginning was getting at. And he uses one of the restorationists favorite arguments. He appeals to Luther to say he was the first domino in leading the church out of the Babylonian captivity and being restored. Which when you don’t view the church the same way as Martin Luther did appealing to him on the Babylonian captivity of the church is merely superficial. Yep. But we see his utilization of a very common scriptural proof text that is often cited by restorationists and that is second uh Thessalonians specifically

2 verse three. Notice what it says. Now I beseech you brethren by the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ. I’m also citing it in the King James Stephen because often times these groups also tend to love the King James. Maybe they say we’re going to need to use the King James to get the exact wording that our restorationist friends like to use. Anglican translation. Just saying. That is correct. Anglican translation. Don’t get me started. Go ahead, folks. His background was in textual work. So, um, we could spin off into that. And I’ve talked about having him

Come back to uh do some stuff regarding the the Adventist church’s claims um regarding uh inspiration and inherency, etc. But it’s uh the apostle writes, “Now we beseech you, brethren, by the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ, and by our gathering together unto him, that ye be not soon shaken in mind or be troubled, neither by spirit, nor by word, nor by letter, as from us, as that the day of Christ is at hand. Let no man deceive you by any means, for that day shall not come, except there come a falling away first, and that man of sin be revealed, the son of

Predition, who opposeth and exaltth himself above all that is called God, or that is worshiped, so that he as God siteth in the temple of God, showing himself that he is God. Now the claim usually goes that this is referring to a great apostasy which took place immediately after the apostles. So my question for both of you is that what 2 Thessalonians 2 is referring to that the church would go entirely apostate after the apostles and need restored or is something else going on here? Well, is my mic work? I I’ll try to get first crack. you’re good.

Um, no, that’s a great question, Stephen, because this kind of goes back to our last podcast that we did. Um, and I wanted to also sprinkle in, um, I love the depth of church history, how we can talk on that level. What I’ve noticed with interacting with restorationists is they don’t care about church history. So, how do we continue that apologetic? I mean, we can point to the, you know, uh, Matthew 16:18 about saying, well, history matters because Christ um, has been building his church and so forth, but what I’ve found to be really, um, imperative, especially with the church

Of Christ, full predtoist, is those stellar biblical arguments that the church has always held on to. So I want to give people the impression um church history invaluable how Christ has been sanctifying his bride and we we we build on the shoulders of giants to point people back to the living voice of God. That’s why I always talk about the gospel of grace. We can demonstrate our case. You know what I mean? And so second Thessalonians chapter 2 I think has a lot to do with esquetology. And man, you we we talked about how because uh I can’t remember which verse, but

It’s talking about God will send a spirit of stuper. God has on one hand always been sovereign over the bride, allowing people to continue in rebellion, handing them over uh to a repbate mind. And then then there’s the man of lawlessness. Many have interpreted to always be the spirit of the age. And many have also said, but it seems like right before Christ returns, there’s going to be, you know, this kind of battle of Armageddon that’s been typified throughout church history. And to me, this is talking about um it’s it’s very esqueological um and pointing maybe to that final day

When Jesus Christ will return to restore all things. But it doesn’t get you some vague restorationist, you know, you know, so many couple hundred years ago. You know, this the idea that there was going to be apostasy. We see evidence of this. We see evidence of apostasy very early on while the apostles were living. Yes. Um, one of the things that John said is that people left them. They were of us, but they were not. They were with us, but they were not really of us. If they had been of us, they would have continued with us. But I want to point out what John also says in

First John to the elect lady, excuse me, second John to the elect lady. He makes the statement, “For the true sake which dwells in us and shall be with us forever.” Um, one of the things he was encouraged at that though there were people coming into houses and distorting the truth that the truth remains in God’s people and God’s people contain the Holy Spirit because he’s just talking about the spirit of truth. This was prayed back in the time of John’s gospel. um when the spirit of truth comes uh and he will sanctify the sanctification of the word

Of God through the spirit will sanctify them through truth. John didn’t believe the truth was going to disappear that it would remain in the body of believers and that is the church. He says it’ll remain with us forever. Apostasy was alive when the apostles were around. Apostasy was alive after they left. But so was the truth. As long as the spirit was in the world, the truth remained in the world. Where? In the body of God’s chosen people. John said it. So yes, there was a falling away. We see evidence of it innosticism. We see evidence of it in

Various forms of destruction. Um people destructive heresies. There’s entire writings the early church fathers wrote books called against heresies. Or you think that well that’s in within a hundred years of the church being formed. They’re writing documents against these heresies and it wasn’t one or two or three. There’s men that we’ve never even heard of coming up with heresies that have been debunked and the church took care of it. The big ones are the ones that took it to ecumenical councils like Aryanism and historianism and others. But when it comes to this

Area, we cannot forget what the apostles also said that the truth abides and remains in us forever. That’s what Jesus meant when he said until the end of the age. If the spirit is in the world, because what you have to conclude is if the truth went disappearing and apostles took over, then the spirit of God that Jesus promised would come in John 14 and remain with them not only came but left and did not reappear again until these churches formed. Because when the spirit is here, truth is here and the truth remains. And the spirit remains. If you want to use

Paul, Paul also said that you are the temple of the Holy Spirit and the spirit of God remains in his people. That means there’s a true saint somewhere in the world that has the Holy Spirit and the truth abides with that person. But in that context that Paul was speaking of is of a temple of a group of people being made up of the body of Christ. If you read the whole context, we don’t have time to go through that. But let’s just let’s not just cherrypick Paul here. Let’s talk about Paul’s view of the Holy Spirit in light of what Jesus promised in John 14. The spirit would

Come and remain and abide. So if apostasy took over the church and there was no more truth, then you have to conclude that the spirit of God left for a long time and abandon his people. That’s a problem. Something else I want to mention is Jesus talked about the kingdom of God is at hand. It’s here. It’s near. It’s upon them. That Jesus is the king and he brings his rule and his kingdom and it’s an everlasting kingdom. This once again gets back into esquetology. Jesus if if the if the kingdom of God came and left, it’s not an eternal kingdom. And so that’s why we we hold to

An already not yet. We we have an inaugurated kingdom that cannot fail. That John or Romans chapter 14 Paul says u that the kingdom of God is not eating and drinking and being married but it’s joy and peace in the Holy Spirit that indwells saints. Now we are awaiting a consummation of Christ to return and to restore all things. You have a problem if the kingdom was totally lost because you would not have an everlasting kingdom. Yeah. The thing that’s interesting about that text, and again there’s a couple others that they point to, but that’s just a very big one that I often hear.

Um the text nowhere states or indicates that there would be a universal apostasy. Right. Right. Right. Right. Exactly. Which is is what is being read into this that if there’s an apostasy, it must mean that there was this great apostasy which the church went completely silent. And then when I what I found in my experience at least is then when you start to press them on this, you then get some sort of like, well, the church was here, but we don’t really know where it was. There was just this big gap from the apostles to Martin Luther, and we don’t really know where the the

Church was. And like I’ll get Adventists, for example, that have asked me this, and I say it was universal. Like they’ll say, “Where was the church?” I’ll say, “It was universal. It was Catholic. universal, not Roman Catholic, which is what they tend to often lump under that, but it was universal. Um, and then I have to remember that for people that are in that mindset, that’s a very hard thing for them to grasp because they have this very like, well, they just have that restorationist sort of lens on. It’s just kind of like, well, that’s just what it is. They don’t

Really have an understanding of anything prior to Martin Luther other than well somewhere back with the apostles and then it kind of just went dark. But that’s been my experience anyways. It’s like well the church was here but um not really. It wasn’t really here you know it’s just kind of who knows somewhere out there someone and then really there was this big rumbling that started in the 16th century. I can tell you where I can tell you where they were. I can show you their their evidence and I can show you their liturgy and I can show you their

Writings, but you got to take time to study it. And Luther, if you just read him, he’ll tell you where they were, too. They clearly don’t read him close enough. Well, the thing that’s interesting, too, at least in the Adventist context, is you’ll often times start to uh talk about the individuals. Now, I don’t know exactly who you’re talking about. I don’t know up to what period you’re talking about, but um you you’ll appeal to some of those people and you’ll get this uh sort of catch 22 of either that person was a heretic and an apostate. I mean, I’ve had them tell me things like

Erynaeus was a heretic. Oh, yeah. Athanasius was a heretic, but they’re trinitarians, but they’re trinitarians, they’ll tell you. So, um, there’s a lot of of, um, well, a catch22 of like having to anathematize these individuals at the behest of upholding the the restorationism, but at the same time having to then deal with the problem of like, well, then you’re just a novel thing from the 19th century. Because I like to talk about that stuff too, Stephen, and maybe we could talk about that some off air. Um, I don’t know how familiar you are with

Like Presbyterian history, but people oftentimes confuse Presbyterianism with the Presbyterian movement. Um, and that Presbyterianism has a history. We’re going back, I mean, Church of Scotland time long before even the Protestant Reformation. Um, and so it’s interesting to get into those sorts of things with them because a lot of them have never had this sort of stuff presented to them. So, I’m thinking about how they’re hearing some of the things that you’re saying right now. And uh but a lot of them are probably thinking, well, it sounds Roman Catholic or um these types

Of things. Um and really it just shows there’s a richer history out there that except I’m talking about India and I’m talking about Africa. I’m talking about the British Isles and I’m talking about other and I mean I’ve hardly talked about Rome in this. I’m talking beyond Rome. Well, and see this gets back to something else that you said earlier though about how there is sort of this mindset of like um almost like a false dichotomy. Um and that’s the sort of thing the restorationist works in. it was Rome and then our group. Everyone else was really just kind of like

Nestled under that sort of umbrella if you will. And then our group is now really breaking away from that which the Adventist paradigm um if you read Ellen White etc. Uh there is no understanding of Eastern Christianity of course not at all. There there’s no mention of anything. It’s it’s a strictly western paradigm. Um and that’s sort of that insight that you get from a lot of these individuals. Joseph Smith was that same way. um he had a very western mindset, American centric mindset going on. But continuing our theme of examining these groups, notice what the Jehovah’s

Witnesses claim in this regard. This is from an article on their website where they say uh or the title was who was the founder of Jehovah’s Witnesses. They say quote the modern-day organization of Jehovah’s Witnesses began at the end of the 19th century. Notice they say modern-day organization. At that time, a small group of Bible students who lived near Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania in the United States began a systematic analysis of the Bible. They compared the doctrines taught by the churches with what the Bible really teaches. They began publishing what they

Learned in books, newspapers, and the journal that is now called the Watchtower Announcing Jehovah’s Kingdom. Among that group of sincere Bible students was a man named Charles Tae Russell. While Russell took the lead in the Bible education work at that time and was the first editor of the Watchtower, he was not the founder of a new religion. The goal of Russell and other Bible students, as the group was then known, was to promote the teachings of Jesus Christ and to follow the practices of the first century Christian congregation. Since Jesus is the founder of

Christianity, we view him as the founder of our organization. Colossians 1 18-20. Same sort of thing. The local churches of the day were corrupted to the core. And when the early millennial Donist, which was their early name, started reading the Bible, they saw what it really teaches and it wasn’t being followed by the other churches. They weren’t starting a new religion supposedly, but they were apostolic Christianity restored, the Mormon sect. From a historical page on their website where they are telling the story of Joseph Smith, notice, quote, Joseph was

Told that all the churches were wrong. They had corrupted the doctrine, had changed the ordinances, and had lost the authority of the priesthood. And that he, unlearned, but humble, was to be the instrument through whom the Almighty would re-establish his work. Close quote. Speaking on the churches of Christ and Alexander Campbell, this is in truth magazine, which is published by the churches of Christ, Bill Humble writes, quote, Franklin H. Little began by speaking of the fact that restitution often used by scholars instead of restoration as a concept has gained

Ground recently outside the so-called restoration movement. Tracing the roots of the concept of the reformation, Little cited what he called a fault line of geographical proportions between the magisterial reformation stressing continuity sometimes through apostolic succession with New Testament times and the radical reformation stressing discontinuity and therefore a need for drastic measures to restore apostolic Christianity. These latter stressed restitution or restoration of the primitive church rather than reform of the existing structures of corrupted Christianity.

Close quote. So very clear distinction between reformation and restoration. Brothers my question for you guys. What are some paricopies of scripture that show why this is an error? Well, um, we’ve been kind of hitting on this all night, um, in my opinion, but you can’t divorce the bride from Christ at any point in history. You can’t say this eternal kingdom somehow failed. You can’t say that the Holy Spirit checked out at some point in history. And so, um, help me list off some of those passages. I always like to go back to what we’ve been talking about. Um,

Matthew 16 verse 18. Now, it’s funny cuz me me being Baptist, you got to forgive me a little bit, Stephen. But, um, I do see, you know, Peter hearkening the confession that that Christ is the son of the living God. And this is the the cornerstone, the chief cornerstone which Christ is building his church. but not to neglect how foundational those apostles are to that confession, always pointing back uh to Christ. Just like John the Baptist, behold the lamb of God that takes away the sins of the world. So, um Matthew 16 is kind of always my go-to uh John 14:15 and 16, but the

Spirit of truth guiding uh the apostles and therefore by extension the church into all truth. And I love the passage that you quoted from um second John saying like like the truth will always be with God’s people. I I I kind of wonder. So I I guess you should answer the question first. The the main point that I was making. I think we’ve already answered it multiple times actually throughout this. Uh whether you’re talking about 2 John 1 or John 14 being a big one. Even just the great commission itself in Matthew 28. Such a good point. Uh I think is good. Acts one. Also, what

Did what did Paul mean when he took a guy named Timothy who was not an eyewitness to Jesus and gave him a deposit? He gave him the truth and he told him to commit it only to faithful men, not to lay hands suddenly on anyone. He’s talking about a guarding and a protecting. The apostles knew that when they died, error would come into the church because it was happening while they were alive. So when these individuals say they have, well, we’re seeking to uh bring back first century Christianity. Uh well, first century Christianity, what about other documents? We have

Documents for the first century. I just read from one first clement. We have a writing called the dedicay which the full the only full copy we have it is in codeex H the one I did my dissertation on. None of those churches are practicing what the dedicay taught. That’s first century Christianity. They were doing Eucharist every gathering. Um they had bishops. They had priests. See the thing that one of those quotes was at the very end there is that there there was a loss from Jose Joseph Smith there. there’s a loss to the priesthood. Which priesthood

You referring to? If you’re referring to the priesthood of Christ, uh we don’t need a priesthood of the Levitical line because Christ fulfilled that. If you’re talking about priests in the sense of the priesthood of the presbyeteers, uh then no, we actually can trace that line. It’s not been lost. Uh you just refuse to read it. uh when you’re dealing with these these things about the first century, we find the apostles students continuing their doctrine. That is what Paul was saying to Timothy. That’s Clement was under Peter and Paul. Ignatius knew John himself, wrote

Letters to the churches. Polycarp was with John who trained Irenaeus who’s called a heretic. Um he had the doctrines of John. He had the teachings of John. He had the traditions of John because he was under the succession of John. They’re saying there’s this major disconnect, but yet history tells us there’s a major connect. And who was it that the first century writers and second century writers were appealing to for their doctrine? The scripture. Yeah. The New Testament scripture. They they appealed to it over their own authority. They didn’t take over the church.

Ignatius said that multiple times. He said, “I I I could command this stuff to you, but I don’t have the authority of Peter and Paul.” That’s what Ignatius said to the church. I have authority, but I can’t command you the way Peter and Paul commanded you. Why? Because he knew the apostles authority was supreme to his authority. Uh Polycarp, as I stated, appealed to the writings of Paul to the Philippians over against his own writing. Clement did the same thing to the Corinthians over his own writing. Why? because they knew that the authority was given to the apostles.

They were only guardians of that truth, reminding the church of what they always had. So, there’s another passage of scripture that um ties in with what you’re saying from Paul to Timothy that I want to encourage people, especially if they go check out the apologetic dog. Shameless plug. Um embedded in my logo is 1 Timothy 6 verse 20 into 21. But it ti Stephen, I I want to talk about this for just a moment because it ties into the the living voice of God is ultimately what is being preserved sovereignly over time by God. But Paul tells Timothy,

“Oh, Timothy, guard the deposit entrusted to you.” What’s that deposit? It’s that gospel of grace. It’s what Jude refers to as the faith that has been once delivered to God’s people, right? And so he says, “Avoid.” two things to avoid, two two metrics by which we can judge what is of God, his truth, um, inspired by the Holy Spirit and how to avoid that. He goes, “Avoid irreverent babble.” Now, my deep dive into this is essentially pagan philosophy, those heresies that are creeping in unawares, as we’ve been talking about, and avoid, Timothy, contradictions of what is falsely called

Knowledge. And so in my pursuits of apologetics and really trying to do those internal critiques, the that which is cloaking itself within the truth is going to possess internal contradictions. Meaning on its own terms, it’s going to shoot itself in the foot. And so fine, brain your rival pagan doctrine and let me show you how it cannot stand the test of time on its own terms. And so we vindicate the truth. In verse 21 says, “For by professing it, some have swerved from the faith.” This has been happening even since the first century. This isn’t just

Some new apostasy that happened thousands years later. No. There’s a strong continuity that you’ve been emphasizing with the deposit of faith. Yes. And that faith could be found where well, you say, “Well, those are the apostles.” That’s not what Paul was saying. He said he gave it to Timothy. He deposited it to a man who was in one of Paul’s churches who had Paul’s teachings, Paul’s letters, and that is the line of succession. That dep that that deposit was given to him, and he told that man to commit it to faithful men. It’s what he was told to do. I at

Least appreciate that that Church of Christ article from Truth magazine was actually correct in the distinction between the magisterial reformation. Um, and you see Stephen here, folks using language that um, that individual mentioned, things like apostolic succession, etc. And it shows the stark contrast between reformation and restoration. Not the same thing. And like the clip we saw in the beginning, that’s not at all what was going on with the reformation. Now, in light of all of that, I want to transition to the final thing here, which is looking at a statement from the

Adventist church’s prophetus. Her words with regards to the great apostasy. Now, these are the words that carry the most weight in this organization, more than James White, more than just the Review and Herald, more than any scholars, etc. For those that might be new here, the SDA organization claims this woman’s writings are divinely inspired, no differently than the Bible is. Without getting into all the word play that they try to use on that, a bit of a long quote here, but I want us to examine this. So, let me get this brought up here. Okay,

Notice it’s a claim to be given a vision from God on the matter. She asserts this. I was carried forward to the time when he idoltors cruy persecuted and killed the Christians. Blood flowed in torrancets. The noble, the learned, and the common man were alike slain without mercy. Wealthy families were reduced to poverty because they would not yield their religion. Notwithstanding the persecution and sufferings which these Christians endured, they would not lower the standard. They kept their religion pure. I saw that Satan exalted and triumphed over their sufferings. But God looked

Upon his faithful martyrs with great approbation. The Christians who lived in that fearful time were greatly beloved of him because they were willing to suffer for his sake. Every suffering endured by them increased their reward in heaven. Although Satan rejoiced because of the sufferings of the saints, yet he was not satisfied. He wanted control of the mind as well as the body. The sufferings that they endured only drove them closer to the Lord, leading them to love one another and causing them to fear more than ever to offend him. Satan wished to leave them to

Displease God, then they would lose their strength, fortitude, and firmness. Although thousands were slain, yet others were springing up to supply their places. Satan saw that he was losing his subjects. For although they suffered persecution and death, they were secured to Jesus Christ to be the subjects of his kingdom. Satan therefore laid his plans to fight more su successfully against the government of God and overthrow the church. He led the heathen idoltors to embrace a part of the Christian faith. Catch that. He led the heathen idoltors to embrace a part of the Christian

Faith. They profess to believe in the crucifixion and resurrection of Christ and proposed to unite with the followers of Jesus without a change of heart. Oh, the fearful danger of the church. It was a time of mental anguish. Some thought that if they should come down and unite with those idolattors who had embraced a portion of the Christian faith, it would be the means of their full conversion. Satan was seeking to corrupt the doctrines of the Bible. I saw that at last the standard was lowered and that the heathen were uniting with the Christians. Although these worshippers

Of idols professed to be converted, they brought their idolatry with them into the church, only changing the objects of their worship to images of saints and even of Christ and of Mary his mother. As the followers of Christ gradually united with them, the Christian religion became corrupted and the church lost its purity and power. Some refused to unite with them such preserved their purity and worshiped God alone. They would not bow down to an image of anything in the heavens above or in the earth beneath. Satan exalted over the fall of so many.

And then he stirred up the fallen church to force those who would preserve the purity of their religion either to yield to their ceremonies and image worship or be put to death. The fires of persecution were again kindled against the true church of Christ and millions were slain without mercy. close quote. So, claiming to be given a vision from God on the matter, she asserts that the church established by the apostles became overrun with what became Roman Catholicism such that people were professing to be Christians, but they were actually idolattors.

She was then supposedly shown that Satan stirred up this false church to persecute the true church which they then claimed went into hiding in the wilderness which is where you’ll get them appealing to Martin Luther and the Babylonian captivity of the church. But again, Martin Luther did not have the same view and definition of the church as these sectarians do. She then goes on in the next chapter to say that the man of sin and mystery of iniquity, which James White, her husband, referred to back in that previous statement, is the pope. And that true Christianity had

Become totally corrupted at this point when popes and priests presumed to take an exalted position and taught the people to look to them for their pardon of their sins instead of looking to Christ. So my final question to you both of you, how accurate is this retelling of church history? And any final thoughts that you have? It’s conspiratorial at best. Um, and it is nearsighted. Again, you’re ba she’s basing the entirety of the true church or what was a church on Rome and Rome only. Number two, she’s created a grand universal conspiracy. For something like this to be pulled

Off, you would expect schism. You’d expect outcry. If one of the churches of the apostles started doing something idolatrous and adding in this massive horrendous evil, the other churches in the world should have been in schism against them and rising up in debate. That’s not what we find. We actually find these churches coming together for ecumenical councils. We find them coming together to make major decisions amongst their bishops and what they had always been taught. We find letters like the church in Carthage and the council of Hippo writing to the

Church of Rome making sure that the documents they were getting in the church with apostles names on them were also faulty because they had the correct doctrine and the correct documents from the true apostles that were passed down. You see, if there truly was something like this that happened in Rome, there would have been major global schisms. The biggest falling ways we actually seen between churches like the east and the west particularly was oversteps of Rome and silly things like the filioquay whether or not the spirit proceeded from the father and the sun. The nyian creed

Being adapted and changed by Rome. It wasn’t major doctrinal issues. Both eastern and western churches believe that the son according to John 14 was also sending the holy spirit. But it was canon law being broken that caused the schism. Schism was happening but not over this kind of stuff. what she would what she said of history has to be a grand global conspiracy without phones, without email, without YouTube, without any kind of group chats or v or or any kind of idea that we have in the modern age where all these churches across the world come together without any way of doing

It and agree to fall into the same heresy. leaving no survivors. Do you realize the statistical chance of something like that happening when we have evidence or coming around the truth? She’s proposing that Rome pulled off the greatest world conspiracy that has ever happened and all other churches in the world were duped into it without counsel, without schism and just fell in line. But again, it’s a narrowminded view and narrow and nearsided view because she demonstrated that once again she believes all history of truth and church goes through one city.

Well, this is your wheelhouse speaking to the history and I I like your appeal to this grand conspiracy and thinking about the percentage of that happening. That’s that’s maybe your evidentialism coming out there a little bit. Uh, but that’s good. It’s just reminding people of church history, like this is bonkers. And the only thing I want to add is when you have a gospel of grace and you can clearly demonstrate that in the scripture, it’s not hard to point at heretics in church history to say, “Look, conflation, law, grace. This is no different than any other religion in

The world that’s saying, hey, obey this list of commands. Remember to keep the Sabbath holy. You you Protestants are forgetting, right? You got to remember it. It’s like no uh you know the who the sun sets free is free indeed and it’s by faith apart from your own accomplishments the things that you do. It’s looking to the one who accomplished them perfectly. And we’re not saying that um works don’t have their their great place. But if th those are the things you’re pointing to for your justification before God. Stephen, I I want to upplay and remind Baptists, hey,

Church history, amazing. Christ has been building his church, but it’s so easy to just point them to the living voice of God. Uh the sheep hear the voice of the good shepherd. Let’s let’s point them to the finished work of Christ. And yes, we can kind of look through church history to see how Christ has been sanctifying the bride, but it to me, it’s just not hard to see the damaged goods of LG White. Um, it’s so easy to show the damaged goods of Alexander Campbell that once again is is showing us a faulty gospel, not one that we can clearly show

With the the deposit that’s been entrusted to us. And so that’s obviously where I lean in some of these things. And I think maybe you can speak to this a little bit, but people get swept away into these restorationist movements that do not have a good grounding in the word of God. And um a lot of these people are are prime candidates um the harvest field of of just sharing the gospel with them, right? They’re gonna they’re going to say they believe in the Bible. Well, if we can just show them to clear passages of how one is made right with God, I think that’s going to do

Essentially the heavy lifting for us. But I don’t want that to be misheard of saying we should just strip out church history altogether. Yeah. No, we don’t need to strip it out. And and again uh the grand global conspiracy that she is proposing. The one time we see a massive sweep of something was aranism. Aranism started in Alexandria made itself heavy into the east and what happened? A whole council had to meet to solve it. We don’t see that happening prior to that where a grand global conspiracy leaves the faith to take on pagan idolatrous practices.

And everybody just stood by and said, “Oh, sure. Yeah, we’ll start doing that, too. That sounds like a great idea.” anything that opposed the original teachings of the churches that made that kind of move via aranism. It caused such a stir or Marcian corrupting and doing his thing in the second century. It created such a stir that the churches had to respond universally to it. So again, u my invite to anybody is come back to Mama Church. There’s plenty of apostles churches still around. They’re not perfect. They need to be cleansed, repenting, and

Things like that. They’re out there. Um I I’m I’m not uh I’m not a pastor at Harvest Anglican. I am a curate. Uh that’s in the candidacy for ordination. So that’s that’s what I’m doing there to kind of clarify from earlier miles. um uh doing a curacy uh at the church and uh but definitely looking forward to uh the path that’s going to be. We invite anybody back to the truth. Uh if if you have fallen into error scripturally uh historically, just the truth is easy to find today. It’s available, but there’s a lot of lies out there. continue to listen to

Programs like this one or like Jeremiah’s or a little plug to mine facts. Um, what we argue for is from evidence. We’re not giving you a hypothetical world or a hypothetical history. We can point you down the trail of truth and it starts in scripture and it’s prevailed to today. Yeah. And you pointed out a a a number of good things there regarding her historical bankruptcy, but you also get a glimpse there into this sort of like, well, there was this great apostasy and you know, Irenaeus, Athanasius, uh they’re all lumped in with these like they adopted these pagan practices. They

Were these these fake faux Christians that were actually idoltors. the true church was this persecuted group, but we don’t really know where they were or who they were. That’s kind of you getting it. Yeah, that’s you kind of getting an insight into that. Like all the ones that are known, well, they were heretics. And this typically for them gets into like, well, they they didn’t keep the seventh day Sabbath because Ellen White in the same book also claimed that all true Christians back to the apostles from the apostles have kept the seventh day

Sabbath, which is a whole another discussion that maybe we will save for another day. I did a whole episode on that. I did a whole episode on that if you want to go on Spotify or whatever. I did uh Sabbath or Sunday. Um when did the church church meet? And I demonstrate multiple evidence of church fathers talking about their gathering on Sundays even in the first century. So yeah, and when you do that with them, you’ll tend to get well that’s not the Bible. And it’s oftentimes like, well, I’m citing this as a historical source because your history is off here. You’re

Climbing historically. At least she is. And she’s a higher authority than you are, Joe Mo Adventist. Um The Adventist Church is telling us this is divinely inspired. And she’s claiming that all true Christians back from the apostles to the present day were seventh day sabotarians, which is just an insane statement. So that’s why you’ll get these claims where it’s like, well, what about Ignatius’s epistles? Oh, all seven of them were forgeries. No. Oh. Oh, true. They they were. I’ve heard him say things like, “Well, in his epistle when he talks about the Lord’s day, he’s

Actually talking about the seventh day Sabbath.” Oh. Even though in the context he’s arguing against seventh day sabotarianism. There are there are pseudo letters but most scholars Yeah. But those are the other seven. Okay. Yeah. There’s 14 total and then seven of them are are pretty unanimously understood to be forgeries. But not the other seven. Not the letter to the Magnesians for example. Not you know this idea that um that’s why they get caught in this catch22. They have to say, well, he was a heretic then according to Ellen White because Ellen

White said the true Christians were the ones that were keeping the seventh day Sabbath and he wasn’t. So is Ignatius, one of the the disciples of the apostles, he was a heretic, but a woman in the 19th century that claimed that she was given the theological God particle, the theory of everything, the the antidote to theological division, more revelation given through her than anyone else that’s ever lived. We just looked at that quote, what was that last week, folks? I don’t know. We’ve looked at it I don’t know how many times. It’s on the website. They can try and twist and bend

Your arm all you out of context. Yeah. Okay. No. She claimed that more revelation was given in these days through her because it’s ultimately Jesus. It’s not her. It’s Jesus. But he’s given more revelation in this day in this period for this people. And it’s the most solemn warning message ever given to the world. The 7th Adventist Church’s unique message. So, all of that to say, they have to get caught in this catch22 when you start talking about history. And again, this kind of circles us right back to the whole idea of of restorationism and its sort of

Historical bankruptcy that it produces, not just scriptural bankruptcy, but the fact that you basically have to, like you said, say that all of history is just this massive conspiracy. And this is why I’m constantly telling you Adventists, you need to put down the Ellen White books and read actual church history. The Great Controversy is not real history. I say this a lot here. It’s not real history, folks. It is an adaptation. It is the equivalent of based on a true story that you find at the beginning of a film that uses real events, but what you see on screen is an

Adaptation. They add stuff in for interest to spice up the storyline etc. That is what you are getting in the great controversy. It is not history. It’s not real history. It uses real figures, etc. So, I’m not saying it’s fake figures because I know I’ll get Adventists that will be like, “Are you saying Martin Luther wasn’t real?” No, it’s not real history. It’s using these figures and it is adapting those things, but twists them to fit with the extra-biblical great controversy worldview. Brothers, thank you so much for being here. I think this was very

Beneficial for a number of people across the board. Maybe we can do something like this again in the future for another topic or on another topic. And thank you the viewer for being here as well. May Christ richly bless you in the grace and peace won by him and his vicarious death on the cross for your sins. Hallelujah. And marinatha.