1 00:00:00,458 --> 00:00:04,004 Imagine Paul is your guide and he's taking you 2 00:00:04,004 --> 00:00:07,507 through this magnificent palace of, you know, the emperor. 3 00:00:07,507 --> 00:00:08,341 Okay? 4 00:00:08,341 --> 00:00:12,512 And he leads you through the door of, of a bedroom, let's say. 5 00:00:12,512 --> 00:00:16,016 And you go into this parlor and it's, all these amazing things, 6 00:00:16,141 --> 00:00:18,018 but you don't get to stay there very long 7 00:00:18,018 --> 00:00:20,103 and he takes you out through another door, 8 00:00:20,103 --> 00:00:22,480 and then you're in some little hidden passageway, 9 00:00:22,480 --> 00:00:25,650 and then he opens another door, and now you're in another room and it's like, 10 00:00:25,942 --> 00:00:29,487 wow, this room is amazing to, you know, and you start looking around. 11 00:00:29,696 --> 00:00:32,657 But then in a few minutes, he takes you out another door 12 00:00:32,657 --> 00:00:35,493 and, and then you're in another room, you know. 13 00:00:35,493 --> 00:00:36,286 And so what he's trying to say is, you know, Paul 14 00:00:36,286 --> 00:00:38,371 And so what he's trying to say is, you know, Paul 15 00:00:38,496 --> 00:00:41,750 instead of going, you know, this, this kind of order, he's 16 00:00:42,500 --> 00:00:45,962 he gives you a little bit of a taste of something, and then he immediately goes to 17 00:00:46,004 --> 00:00:48,673 another point, you know, which is a brilliant point. 18 00:00:48,673 --> 00:00:50,175 And, oh, that's wonderful. 19 00:00:50,175 --> 00:00:52,052 But then he doesn't just stay there. 20 00:00:52,052 --> 00:00:53,136 He, he, he goes to another. 21 00:00:53,136 --> 00:00:53,636 He, he, he goes to another. 22 00:00:53,636 --> 00:00:55,513 So you're going through this palace 23 00:00:55,513 --> 00:00:58,349 and by the time you're done, you've gone through the whole palace. 24 00:00:58,349 --> 00:01:00,560 But it's been in this door, out this door. 25 00:01:00,560 --> 00:01:02,145 Kind of like Alice in Wonderland. 26 00:01:07,609 --> 00:01:08,068 All right, 27 00:01:08,068 --> 00:01:11,321 well, David Bercot, it is fantastic to have you back on the podcast. 28 00:01:11,321 --> 00:01:13,239 It's been a minute since we've done this. 29 00:01:13,239 --> 00:01:14,657 Yeah. 30 00:01:14,657 --> 00:01:18,912 So you have launched probably the biggest project 31 00:01:18,912 --> 00:01:21,915 I think you've done, and that's the commentary series. 32 00:01:21,956 --> 00:01:25,210 So New Testament commentary series based on the Ante-Nicene fathers, 33 00:01:25,210 --> 00:01:28,922 the early Church fathers, and a new volume just came out pretty recently. 34 00:01:28,922 --> 00:01:31,174 As of this recording, it's the one on Romans. 35 00:01:31,174 --> 00:01:34,594 And I have to say, Romans is a pretty confusing book for me. 36 00:01:34,928 --> 00:01:36,888 Hey, I really struggle with it, and I feel there’s 37 00:01:36,888 --> 00:01:38,890 probably a lot of other people in that same boat. 38 00:01:38,890 --> 00:01:41,434 So we want to dive into some of the things you found 39 00:01:41,434 --> 00:01:44,938 and what are lessons for us today, and maybe glean some pieces that 40 00:01:44,979 --> 00:01:45,522 that you've pulled. 41 00:01:45,522 --> 00:01:46,189 And obviously there's 42 00:01:46,189 --> 00:01:49,192 this massive commentary that you've pulled from from all of this. 43 00:01:49,776 --> 00:01:52,904 And so people can go get there if they want more information, but 44 00:01:53,113 --> 00:01:54,364 I feel like that'd be a good place to start. 45 00:01:54,364 --> 00:01:57,367 So, without further ado, let's just launch right into it. 46 00:01:57,492 --> 00:01:58,743 Let me go to the first question here. 47 00:02:00,078 --> 00:02:02,122 You credit what you consider the misinterpretation 48 00:02:02,122 --> 00:02:05,250 of Romans to be the writings of Augustine and Luther? 49 00:02:06,000 --> 00:02:09,379 And then you say this in, I think, the introduction, Augustine 50 00:02:09,379 --> 00:02:12,757 presented his radically new interpretation of Romans in the fifth century. 51 00:02:13,299 --> 00:02:14,717 Why do you think that was the case? 52 00:02:14,717 --> 00:02:16,845 Why did why did Augustine do that? 53 00:02:16,845 --> 00:02:19,264 And what was that interpretation? 54 00:02:19,264 --> 00:02:21,683 Okay, so 55 00:02:21,683 --> 00:02:23,810 yeah, the whys are a little bit harder. 56 00:02:23,810 --> 00:02:27,814 But how it happened I can explain, you know, as far as whys, I mean, you know, 57 00:02:27,814 --> 00:02:32,235 I can't read somebody's heart or mind, but how how it all happened, 58 00:02:33,278 --> 00:02:36,281 it was reacting so much of Christianity, 59 00:02:36,406 --> 00:02:40,368 the changes have come about because of overreacting to 60 00:02:40,869 --> 00:02:44,247 an out and out heretic, or just someone, maybe, who's gone a little bit too far 61 00:02:44,289 --> 00:02:50,044 this way, and then somebody I'm going to say with a good motive swings 62 00:02:50,128 --> 00:02:54,340 way too far the other way, and they end up pulling the church with them. 63 00:02:54,632 --> 00:02:58,553 And that's happened over and over and over throughout church history. 64 00:02:58,720 --> 00:03:00,930 And it's how doctrine has 65 00:03:00,930 --> 00:03:05,059 one of the big reasons why doctrine has changed as you go through through history. 66 00:03:05,059 --> 00:03:08,062 It's not the only reason, but but I'd say is maybe the biggest factor. 67 00:03:08,354 --> 00:03:09,898 So in the fifth century, 68 00:03:11,107 --> 00:03:12,817 up until the beginning of the fifth century. 69 00:03:12,817 --> 00:03:14,944 So we're talking about the year 400. 70 00:03:14,944 --> 00:03:16,321 It's fairly uniform. 71 00:03:16,321 --> 00:03:21,618 I mean, whoever you read, whether it's people say in the year 96 A.D. 72 00:03:21,618 --> 00:03:26,539 still in the first century or it's Chrysostom in the late, 73 00:03:27,373 --> 00:03:30,960 three hundreds, I mean, they're all saying basically 74 00:03:30,960 --> 00:03:34,631 the same thing, that they all understand Romans the same way. 75 00:03:34,631 --> 00:03:37,383 Now, I don't mean every single verse. They have the same explanation. 76 00:03:37,383 --> 00:03:39,677 But but the book as a whole. 77 00:03:39,677 --> 00:03:40,011 Okay. 78 00:03:40,011 --> 00:03:41,721 So then 79 00:03:41,721 --> 00:03:44,474 you get into the, 80 00:03:44,474 --> 00:03:47,227 fifth century and Augustine 81 00:03:47,227 --> 00:03:50,855 has become this figure in the West. 82 00:03:52,232 --> 00:03:53,733 He's up on this pedestal. 83 00:03:53,733 --> 00:03:59,572 He is the theologian, which is always dangerous when that happens in the church. 84 00:03:59,572 --> 00:04:02,575 And one man gets that much power. 85 00:04:02,909 --> 00:04:04,494 And Augustine was that man. 86 00:04:04,494 --> 00:04:05,912 He's he's brilliant. 87 00:04:05,912 --> 00:04:09,290 I mean, he is very good with his argumentation. 88 00:04:09,958 --> 00:04:14,754 I mean, his writings are still read today by people other than scholars. 89 00:04:14,754 --> 00:04:19,175 You know, someone like Chrysostom, you know, no one reads him except somebody 90 00:04:19,175 --> 00:04:20,093 who's, you know, 91 00:04:20,093 --> 00:04:23,721 really into the early church or is, you know, some scholarly thing. 92 00:04:23,930 --> 00:04:27,684 But I mean, laypeople read Augustine and he is very clear 93 00:04:27,684 --> 00:04:30,687 with his logic and how he lays things out. 94 00:04:30,812 --> 00:04:33,398 And yeah, when you get that exalted 95 00:04:33,398 --> 00:04:36,401 where everybody looks up to you as the guy. 96 00:04:37,277 --> 00:04:40,571 And what had happened was the East and West, 97 00:04:41,364 --> 00:04:44,367 the Roman Empire was divided into East and West, 98 00:04:44,367 --> 00:04:48,121 and now the barbarians were overrunning the west. 99 00:04:48,121 --> 00:04:49,163 Okay. 100 00:04:49,163 --> 00:04:52,709 And you see a divide between east and west, the west. 101 00:04:52,959 --> 00:04:57,088 There are few people who speak Greek in the, in the west. 102 00:04:57,088 --> 00:04:59,924 Now, in the days of Paul, he could write to the Romans. 103 00:04:59,924 --> 00:05:02,093 When he wrote the book of Romans, he wrote in Greek. 104 00:05:02,093 --> 00:05:06,222 Okay, so we're saying at this point, Latin is starting to be much more prominent. 105 00:05:06,222 --> 00:05:08,725 Greek, which is the language of the New Testament. Right? 106 00:05:08,725 --> 00:05:09,058 Okay. 107 00:05:09,058 --> 00:05:11,769 Because we're a few hundred years after the time of Jesus. 108 00:05:11,769 --> 00:05:14,105 You know, Augustine is writing, you said around 400. 109 00:05:14,105 --> 00:05:14,772 Yeah. Is that right? 110 00:05:14,772 --> 00:05:17,108 Yeah. He he he wrote things before 400. 111 00:05:17,108 --> 00:05:19,068 But he changed his view on Romans 112 00:05:20,069 --> 00:05:20,945 in the fifth century. 113 00:05:20,945 --> 00:05:22,071 Yeah, his early writings. 114 00:05:22,071 --> 00:05:24,490 He's pretty much in harmony with everyone else. 115 00:05:24,490 --> 00:05:25,992 But then in the fifth century, 116 00:05:25,992 --> 00:05:29,579 and it was because of a dispute with a man named Pelagius. 117 00:05:29,579 --> 00:05:30,747 Okay. 118 00:05:30,747 --> 00:05:33,750 A divide is beginning to happen between East and West 119 00:05:33,750 --> 00:05:36,085 on the understanding of the fall. 120 00:05:36,085 --> 00:05:40,214 Because the West is reading from Latin. 121 00:05:41,341 --> 00:05:43,968 By the time you get into the three hundreds 122 00:05:43,968 --> 00:05:47,847 and certainly by the year 400, very, very few 123 00:05:48,389 --> 00:05:53,728 laypeople in the West can read Greek, even educated people like Augustine. 124 00:05:53,936 --> 00:05:56,856 He has some familiarity, but he's not fluent in Greek. 125 00:05:56,856 --> 00:06:02,362 Okay, so they're reading a translation that has an error in it 126 00:06:02,695 --> 00:06:07,742 that states that, we all sin in Adam. 127 00:06:07,742 --> 00:06:09,535 Okay? Which is not what the Greek says. 128 00:06:09,535 --> 00:06:13,498 This is Romans five were it talks about the fall through one man sin 129 00:06:13,498 --> 00:06:18,336 entered into the world and death through sin, because in him all sinned. 130 00:06:18,336 --> 00:06:19,837 That's how the Latin reads. 131 00:06:19,837 --> 00:06:22,715 So we all sinned somehow in Adam. 132 00:06:22,715 --> 00:06:27,929 So this view begins to develop in the West that we are guilty for Adam's sin. 133 00:06:28,096 --> 00:06:30,181 The guilt comes down to us. 134 00:06:30,181 --> 00:06:32,350 Okay, interesting now is 135 00:06:32,350 --> 00:06:36,229 which Latin translation is being used that had that error then? 136 00:06:36,312 --> 00:06:38,898 Well, it's called the old Latin. 137 00:06:38,898 --> 00:06:42,610 It's something that would have been translated maybe in the first century 138 00:06:42,902 --> 00:06:44,153 and there wasn't an official 139 00:06:44,153 --> 00:06:47,740 there's different versions, but they're all saying that, okay. 140 00:06:48,366 --> 00:06:51,953 Now Jerome is beginning to work on the Latin Vulgate. 141 00:06:52,161 --> 00:06:55,665 It had not yet become the main translation, and he follows that too. 142 00:06:55,665 --> 00:07:00,294 It was so ingrained in the West, he follows that in his translation, 143 00:07:00,294 --> 00:07:04,465 even though he's translating from the Greek, he is, you know, 144 00:07:04,465 --> 00:07:08,511 aware of how Latin speaking Christians are understanding the scriptures. 145 00:07:08,761 --> 00:07:12,098 Okay, so so you have one view of the fall 146 00:07:12,098 --> 00:07:15,518 in the West that we inherit sin from Adam. 147 00:07:15,685 --> 00:07:19,605 We inherited his guilt getting close maybe to total depravity, 148 00:07:19,605 --> 00:07:22,900 not quite that far yet, but getting more. 149 00:07:22,900 --> 00:07:24,694 The fall is a big thing in the West. 150 00:07:24,694 --> 00:07:28,364 In the East you have a bunch of views and it's still that way today. 151 00:07:28,698 --> 00:07:33,578 Okay, so they recognize the fall, but some say we inherit 152 00:07:34,245 --> 00:07:38,166 Adam's mortality, not his sin, but his mortality. 153 00:07:38,374 --> 00:07:41,377 That would be a prominent view among the Eastern Orthodox today. 154 00:07:41,711 --> 00:07:43,421 Others said this and that, 155 00:07:44,505 --> 00:07:48,259 Pelagius, he would be well in the East. 156 00:07:48,259 --> 00:07:51,304 He would be considered Orthodox in his lifetime. 157 00:07:51,637 --> 00:07:55,683 But his view of the fall is more we've been influenced 158 00:07:55,683 --> 00:08:00,396 and affected by Adam's sin because of his example and the teaching 159 00:08:00,396 --> 00:08:03,900 that would have been handed down from a sinful parent to his children. 160 00:08:04,192 --> 00:08:07,403 And we're raised now in a world where sin is all around us, 161 00:08:07,653 --> 00:08:11,407 but we don't inherit necessarily a sin nature from from. 162 00:08:12,909 --> 00:08:13,659 Adam. 163 00:08:13,659 --> 00:08:15,620 Now, that was perfectly orthodox in the East. 164 00:08:15,620 --> 00:08:18,623 But by now, because of the language barrier 165 00:08:18,748 --> 00:08:20,708 to Augustine, that's like, wow, what? 166 00:08:20,708 --> 00:08:22,376 What are you saying? That's heretical. Okay. 167 00:08:22,376 --> 00:08:22,710 What are you saying? That's heretical. Okay. 168 00:08:22,710 --> 00:08:24,837 Wow. Okay, okay, I'm starting to see it. 169 00:08:24,837 --> 00:08:26,380 This is this is very interesting. 170 00:08:26,380 --> 00:08:31,677 So Augustine comes into this situation and then that's where we're picking up 171 00:08:31,677 --> 00:08:34,180 with what you were saying with these interpretations 172 00:08:34,180 --> 00:08:37,141 that Augustine is presenting, that were pretty different. 173 00:08:37,141 --> 00:08:38,476 changes everything. Okay. 174 00:08:38,476 --> 00:08:41,771 So now play Pelagius, he's actually from Britain. 175 00:08:42,313 --> 00:08:43,606 He is a Westerner. 176 00:08:43,606 --> 00:08:46,150 He's much more educated than Augustine. 177 00:08:46,150 --> 00:08:49,153 He is fluent in Greek. He reads Greek. 178 00:08:49,237 --> 00:08:52,740 He's familiar with this wide range of views of the fall. 179 00:08:53,074 --> 00:08:56,536 And he leans, like you say, to the eastern view, to the far 180 00:08:56,536 --> 00:09:00,331 edge of the eastern view of, you know, the fall is mainly 181 00:09:00,331 --> 00:09:04,252 the environment we're born into, being kicked out of Paradise, etc. 182 00:09:04,877 --> 00:09:08,047 so he's preaching, boy, 183 00:09:08,047 --> 00:09:11,342 I mean, you have you've had a state church now for nearly 100 years. 184 00:09:12,468 --> 00:09:14,345 The word Christian means almost nothing. 185 00:09:14,345 --> 00:09:18,641 It's I mean, everyone born into the Roman Empire is a Christian, 186 00:09:18,641 --> 00:09:21,644 you know, pretty much unless you're Jew, pagan, 187 00:09:22,061 --> 00:09:24,647 it's forbidden the pagan religions, etc.. 188 00:09:24,647 --> 00:09:26,107 So you have a church. 189 00:09:26,107 --> 00:09:30,820 It's just made up of largely people who are nominal Christians. 190 00:09:30,903 --> 00:09:35,116 You have some really great sold out Christians, but you mainly have 191 00:09:35,116 --> 00:09:38,202 the nominal Christians that you still see today in the Roman Catholic Church. 192 00:09:38,661 --> 00:09:41,205 Okay, so Pelagius, he's preaching 193 00:09:41,205 --> 00:09:45,084 against this lax discipline, this lack of godliness, 194 00:09:45,293 --> 00:09:48,879 and really emphasizing our need to obey the scriptures 195 00:09:49,130 --> 00:09:53,926 because we can obey them and we are held accountable to God. 196 00:09:54,468 --> 00:09:55,636 And he criticizes. 197 00:09:55,636 --> 00:09:58,931 He's traveling now throughout the Roman Empire, 198 00:09:59,348 --> 00:10:02,852 preaching this no nonsense of gospel of holiness. 199 00:10:03,519 --> 00:10:06,772 And he foolishly, 200 00:10:06,772 --> 00:10:11,027 although you should be able to do this, he criticizes Augustine because in his, 201 00:10:12,778 --> 00:10:15,239 I guess it's called his Confessions in English. 202 00:10:15,239 --> 00:10:17,992 It's his autobiography. 203 00:10:17,992 --> 00:10:22,121 In there he makes a statement, he's looking at becoming a monk, maybe. 204 00:10:22,538 --> 00:10:23,497 And so he. 205 00:10:23,497 --> 00:10:26,542 Augustine makes a statement, command whatever 206 00:10:26,542 --> 00:10:29,712 you will God, and do what you command. 207 00:10:29,837 --> 00:10:30,463 Meaning. 208 00:10:30,463 --> 00:10:33,466 In other words, if you want me to be celibate, 209 00:10:33,633 --> 00:10:36,469 tell me to to be it, and then give me the power to do it. 210 00:10:36,469 --> 00:10:38,596 You do it, you know you do it. 211 00:10:38,596 --> 00:10:41,849 And Pelagius says, well, it doesn't work that way. 212 00:10:41,891 --> 00:10:44,560 You know, God gives commands. 213 00:10:44,560 --> 00:10:47,188 He assists us, but he doesn't just do it for us. 214 00:10:47,188 --> 00:10:48,397 And so he criticized. 215 00:10:48,397 --> 00:10:51,067 Well, Augustine I mean, he's up here on a pedestal. 216 00:10:51,067 --> 00:10:53,736 I mean, you don't criticize Augustine, you know? 217 00:10:53,736 --> 00:10:59,158 So right away, he and his friend Jerome, boy, they they jump on Pelagius. 218 00:10:59,158 --> 00:11:02,578 Well, now, Jerome at that time, he's from the West, 219 00:11:02,578 --> 00:11:04,246 but he's living in Bethlehem. 220 00:11:04,246 --> 00:11:06,457 He's studying, Hebrew. 221 00:11:06,457 --> 00:11:11,087 So he, they convene a council against Pelagius. 222 00:11:11,087 --> 00:11:13,047 Okay. They're in the East. 223 00:11:13,047 --> 00:11:15,549 And, you know, the Eastern Christians listen, 224 00:11:15,549 --> 00:11:17,677 it's like you're not saying anything heretical. 225 00:11:17,677 --> 00:11:20,221 He's fine. And then he convenes another council. 226 00:11:20,221 --> 00:11:21,180 They listen. Yeah. 227 00:11:21,180 --> 00:11:24,141 What Pelagius says is fine is maybe not what they all think, but it's. 228 00:11:24,141 --> 00:11:26,477 It's within the realm of Orthodoxy. 229 00:11:26,477 --> 00:11:28,187 Okay? Augustine is not happy with that. 230 00:11:28,187 --> 00:11:32,233 So he convenes a council in Carthage, which is close to where he lives 231 00:11:32,233 --> 00:11:34,568 way in the West. Okay. These are Latin speakers. 232 00:11:34,568 --> 00:11:35,736 Don't know anything about Greek. 233 00:11:35,736 --> 00:11:36,987 They don't even realize there's 234 00:11:36,987 --> 00:11:40,491 this difference of view between the East and West on the fall. 235 00:11:40,783 --> 00:11:42,576 And so these are Augustine's buddies. 236 00:11:42,576 --> 00:11:48,040 So they declare him a heretic, you know, so he's, you know, banned, excommunicated 237 00:11:48,040 --> 00:11:51,836 and all of this in the, in the West, which is where he is from. 238 00:11:52,461 --> 00:11:56,632 So he then appeals to the Pope, and he goes to Rome 239 00:11:57,133 --> 00:12:00,761 and explains to the Pope his views, what his views 240 00:12:00,761 --> 00:12:04,515 are of the fall and our ability as fallen humans. 241 00:12:04,515 --> 00:12:06,851 And you know how that all works. 242 00:12:06,851 --> 00:12:09,854 And the Pope says, well, yeah, there's nothing wrong with this. 243 00:12:09,854 --> 00:12:12,273 This is within the realm of Orthodoxy. 244 00:12:12,273 --> 00:12:15,818 And he tells the ones that the bishops are in Carthage. 245 00:12:15,818 --> 00:12:16,986 You guys overreacted. 246 00:12:16,986 --> 00:12:19,321 You were too hasty in excommunicating him. 247 00:12:19,321 --> 00:12:21,449 He restores him. Okay. 248 00:12:21,449 --> 00:12:24,702 Now, if that had been just a normal situation, it would have ended there. 249 00:12:24,910 --> 00:12:27,037 But again, he's working against Augustine. 250 00:12:27,037 --> 00:12:30,040 Augustine is the most powerful man 251 00:12:30,541 --> 00:12:33,043 in the West, probably more than even the Emperor. 252 00:12:33,043 --> 00:12:36,088 Okay, so he and the Emperor are friends. 253 00:12:36,088 --> 00:12:40,176 So he goes over the pope’s head to the emperor and says, 254 00:12:41,302 --> 00:12:41,969 you know, 255 00:12:41,969 --> 00:12:44,930 I don't like what the Pope did, 256 00:12:44,930 --> 00:12:47,975 Pelagius, I say he's wrong. 257 00:12:48,225 --> 00:12:49,894 I need you to back me up. 258 00:12:49,894 --> 00:12:52,480 So the emperor, you know, it's a state church now. 259 00:12:52,480 --> 00:12:54,732 He puts pressure on the pope. 260 00:12:54,732 --> 00:12:56,150 Okay, great. 261 00:12:56,150 --> 00:12:58,360 Reinstate the excommunication. 262 00:12:58,360 --> 00:13:01,489 So Pelagius is excommunicated. And, 263 00:13:02,782 --> 00:13:05,618 maybe that would have ended. But 264 00:13:05,618 --> 00:13:06,577 Augustine feels like. 265 00:13:06,577 --> 00:13:09,789 Okay, there's all these people who were following Pelagius. 266 00:13:10,206 --> 00:13:12,082 All right, we've got to put a stop. 267 00:13:12,082 --> 00:13:17,213 So he does all these writings against the quote Pelagians, but he moves their view, 268 00:13:18,130 --> 00:13:20,466 he misrepresents their view, is saying 269 00:13:20,466 --> 00:13:23,803 that we humans don't need the help of the Holy Spirit. 270 00:13:23,969 --> 00:13:26,597 Okay. So you see, we're looking at we're starting it. 271 00:13:26,597 --> 00:13:28,307 This is so interesting in human nature, right? 272 00:13:28,307 --> 00:13:32,311 Because you you start with something that may have been fairly mild initially, 273 00:13:32,311 --> 00:13:35,856 but over time it becomes a us versus them scenario. 274 00:13:35,856 --> 00:13:37,191 And you almost get more entrenched. 275 00:13:37,191 --> 00:13:41,070 And it sounds like this is where Augustine starts taking some steps, 276 00:13:41,195 --> 00:13:42,738 putting down some lines on some things. 277 00:13:42,738 --> 00:13:44,031 and he starts moving. 278 00:13:44,031 --> 00:13:48,118 So what he used to teach, you know, he maybe, you know, had crossed the line 279 00:13:48,118 --> 00:13:49,453 a little bit on that statement. 280 00:13:49,453 --> 00:13:53,123 You know, command what you will and, you know, do what you command. 281 00:13:53,457 --> 00:13:55,125 Okay. That was just one statement. 282 00:13:55,125 --> 00:13:58,712 Pledges probably should have left it alone with if Augustine had been a humble 283 00:13:58,712 --> 00:14:00,714 Christian, you know, no big deal, you know, 284 00:14:01,715 --> 00:14:03,133 well, all the people who 285 00:14:03,133 --> 00:14:06,929 criticized me, if I responded that way, man, I'm going to go to the Emperor. 286 00:14:06,929 --> 00:14:11,016 And you know, you're if anybody doubts, just look at the comments 287 00:14:11,016 --> 00:14:12,893 from other episodes we've done with you. 288 00:14:12,893 --> 00:14:16,272 Yeah, yeah, I mean, so you should be able to do that, you know, man. 289 00:14:16,397 --> 00:14:17,982 And it was a mild criticism. 290 00:14:17,982 --> 00:14:19,817 But like I say you don't do that to Augustine. 291 00:14:19,817 --> 00:14:24,530 So he he does all these writings pulling from Romans. 292 00:14:24,530 --> 00:14:26,031 Okay. 293 00:14:26,031 --> 00:14:28,868 Like Romans that we'll be talking about Romans 294 00:14:28,868 --> 00:14:32,413 chapter nine and all these statements that you can proof text 295 00:14:33,038 --> 00:14:36,041 trying to argue we and he moves. 296 00:14:36,125 --> 00:14:39,879 His position was here and he ends up moving all the way here. 297 00:14:40,004 --> 00:14:41,005 He misrepresents 298 00:14:41,005 --> 00:14:44,717 Pelagius is saying that we don't need God's grace in his power at all. 299 00:14:44,717 --> 00:14:47,928 We can do it all, which is not what Pelagius was saying. 300 00:14:48,137 --> 00:14:52,308 But that's what people still think because they know Pelagius through Augustine. 301 00:14:52,433 --> 00:14:53,559 Okay? 302 00:14:53,559 --> 00:14:55,603 Meanwhile, Augustine keeps moving. 303 00:14:55,603 --> 00:14:56,562 It's not just that. 304 00:14:57,855 --> 00:15:00,816 No. You know, 305 00:15:00,816 --> 00:15:02,985 we're not as strong as you think Pelagius. 306 00:15:02,985 --> 00:15:03,611 It's. 307 00:15:03,611 --> 00:15:07,698 He he finally moves to the point of we can do nothing. 308 00:15:07,698 --> 00:15:11,785 We humans have no role in our salvation. 309 00:15:11,785 --> 00:15:13,120 We cannot believe. 310 00:15:13,120 --> 00:15:14,538 We can't have faith. 311 00:15:14,538 --> 00:15:16,123 We cannot obey. 312 00:15:16,123 --> 00:15:18,417 We are absolutely. 313 00:15:18,417 --> 00:15:20,210 We have no role. It's all God. 314 00:15:20,210 --> 00:15:21,712 God does every bit of it. 315 00:15:21,712 --> 00:15:24,006 100% of our salvation is God. 316 00:15:24,006 --> 00:15:25,799 0% is human. 317 00:15:25,799 --> 00:15:26,800 Now that is heresy. 318 00:15:26,800 --> 00:15:30,763 I mean, the church had never taught that, and if it had been anyone else saying it, 319 00:15:30,763 --> 00:15:34,475 it would have been like, what on earth are you saying this is heresy? 320 00:15:34,600 --> 00:15:36,435 But it's Agustine. 321 00:15:36,435 --> 00:15:39,563 And I mean, he was like way up on a pedestal 322 00:15:39,563 --> 00:15:43,108 because he had defended the church against the Arians and against different, 323 00:15:43,484 --> 00:15:45,486 you know, real heretics. 324 00:15:45,486 --> 00:15:45,736 Yeah. 325 00:15:45,736 --> 00:15:48,197 But now he's the one who becomes the heretic. 326 00:15:48,197 --> 00:15:50,699 But yeah, he's so powerful. 327 00:15:50,699 --> 00:15:52,368 I mean, he's so looked up to number one. 328 00:15:52,368 --> 00:15:55,913 Number two, he has so many influential friends 329 00:15:55,913 --> 00:15:58,916 in high places, including the emperor himself, you know, 330 00:15:59,124 --> 00:16:02,294 so he moves the whole Western church, 331 00:16:02,628 --> 00:16:07,841 where they end up adopting this view that, yeah, we can do nothing on our own. 332 00:16:07,841 --> 00:16:09,426 It's 100% God. 333 00:16:09,426 --> 00:16:12,012 Not only that, it's all predestined. 334 00:16:12,012 --> 00:16:16,266 So not only do we not have any power, but God decided before we were created 335 00:16:16,684 --> 00:16:20,187 whether you're going to be saved and I'm not going to be saved. 336 00:16:20,854 --> 00:16:22,815 You know, we have no say on that. 337 00:16:22,815 --> 00:16:24,692 That's already been decided. 338 00:16:24,692 --> 00:16:27,695 Yes. So this is where we're starting to see the origins of 339 00:16:28,070 --> 00:16:30,114 what would now be like Calvinism today. 340 00:16:30,114 --> 00:16:34,660 And, you know, things like that essentially is just purely it. 341 00:16:34,660 --> 00:16:36,704 Calvin took Augustine. 342 00:16:36,704 --> 00:16:38,580 He organized it maybe a little better. 343 00:16:38,580 --> 00:16:40,624 Came up with a brilliant system. 344 00:16:41,792 --> 00:16:44,253 And but yeah, it's almost pure Augustinian. 345 00:16:44,253 --> 00:16:44,586 okay. 346 00:16:44,586 --> 00:16:48,382 So I'm going to I'm going to look here in your introduction and, and pull a chunk 347 00:16:48,382 --> 00:16:50,884 because this gives context then for some of these things. 348 00:16:50,884 --> 00:16:54,054 So like for example on on the first page, you're saying, you know how 349 00:16:54,471 --> 00:16:57,683 Augustine's presenting this radically new interpretation of Romans 350 00:16:57,891 --> 00:16:58,851 in your early fifth century. 351 00:16:58,851 --> 00:17:02,062 So this is you're basically giving us the backdrop of how we even got there. 352 00:17:02,354 --> 00:17:02,521 right. 353 00:17:02,521 --> 00:17:05,024 So you do have a section here on, on page seven, 354 00:17:05,024 --> 00:17:07,568 and then you're going into how that influences Luther, 355 00:17:07,568 --> 00:17:10,946 which is another huge chunk right of our understanding. 356 00:17:11,238 --> 00:17:13,574 Right. Yeah. And then, 357 00:17:13,574 --> 00:17:16,577 but this is a point that I want to pull back to. 358 00:17:17,536 --> 00:17:18,370 A little bit later on. 359 00:17:18,370 --> 00:17:21,373 You said the church has had a uniform understanding of the key points of Romans 360 00:17:21,582 --> 00:17:22,833 up to this point. 361 00:17:22,833 --> 00:17:26,170 But then this is where we start seeing some of these new things splintering out. 362 00:17:26,170 --> 00:17:30,883 And really, a lot of this is just my perspective. 363 00:17:30,883 --> 00:17:31,091 Right? 364 00:17:31,091 --> 00:17:33,594 But I try to read Romans now, and I feel like I have 365 00:17:33,594 --> 00:17:36,972 so many different things that I've heard, I just can't even untangle it anymore. 366 00:17:37,973 --> 00:17:39,391 So maybe walk us through 367 00:17:39,391 --> 00:17:43,270 that a bit where there was you're saying there was a uniform understanding 368 00:17:43,270 --> 00:17:46,690 or at least somewhat uniform understanding of Romans up to this point. 369 00:17:47,274 --> 00:17:50,152 So if you were to summarize what is Romans about? 370 00:17:50,152 --> 00:17:53,781 What did especially the Nicene fathers, the early church fathers 371 00:17:54,198 --> 00:17:55,908 previous to Augustine? 372 00:17:55,908 --> 00:17:56,992 What what would you say? 373 00:17:56,992 --> 00:18:01,038 What would be the answer to or what would have they said is Romans all that? 374 00:18:01,121 --> 00:18:01,455 okay. 375 00:18:01,455 --> 00:18:04,541 So yeah, one so why 376 00:18:04,541 --> 00:18:07,544 it was written, what the issue is 377 00:18:07,753 --> 00:18:12,049 that if you just read the book of acts, it's, you know, people who weren't 378 00:18:12,049 --> 00:18:16,053 influenced by Augustine and then later by Luther, I mean, they all read it 379 00:18:16,053 --> 00:18:20,307 and it was obvious what the context is, that the Jews, 380 00:18:20,390 --> 00:18:23,894 the Christian Jews, are telling the Gentiles, look, 381 00:18:24,436 --> 00:18:27,231 you have got to be circumcised and live 382 00:18:27,231 --> 00:18:30,776 by the law of Moses to be saved. 383 00:18:30,776 --> 00:18:32,194 You know, it's fine. 384 00:18:32,194 --> 00:18:35,948 Okay, we baptize you, but at some point you've got to be circumcised. 385 00:18:35,948 --> 00:18:39,368 You've got to live by the by the law to be a Christian. 386 00:18:39,368 --> 00:18:39,868 It's not. 387 00:18:39,868 --> 00:18:40,828 You can't just come in. 388 00:18:40,828 --> 00:18:45,124 You can maybe come in as a Gentile, but you're going to have to become a Jew 389 00:18:45,124 --> 00:18:46,083 at some point, okay? 390 00:18:46,083 --> 00:18:48,460 There's no salvation outside the law of Moses. 391 00:18:48,460 --> 00:18:50,671 And that's why they had the Jerusalem Council. 392 00:18:50,671 --> 00:18:52,047 Acts 15. 393 00:18:52,047 --> 00:18:55,551 You know, the Jews are saying, you know, we've got to circumcise them 394 00:18:55,551 --> 00:18:59,805 and make them live by the law of Moses and all the apostles were there, 395 00:19:00,264 --> 00:19:03,809 plus Paul and Barnabas, plus James. 396 00:19:04,226 --> 00:19:06,812 And they say, no, the Jews, you know, 397 00:19:06,812 --> 00:19:11,358 the Gentiles are saved, just like we by grace through faith in Christ. 398 00:19:11,525 --> 00:19:13,610 You know, they don't have to live by the law. 399 00:19:13,610 --> 00:19:17,156 They even send out a a letter to go to all the churches. 400 00:19:17,781 --> 00:19:19,616 And you'd think that would end it. 401 00:19:19,616 --> 00:19:22,995 But, I mean, the Jews were so adamant on this. 402 00:19:23,287 --> 00:19:27,749 Now, to be fair to the Jews, I mean, think about it for 1500 years 403 00:19:28,750 --> 00:19:30,043 God gave them the law. 404 00:19:30,043 --> 00:19:31,253 They didn't make up this law. 405 00:19:31,253 --> 00:19:33,005 God gave it to them. 406 00:19:33,005 --> 00:19:35,382 And the promises. 407 00:19:35,382 --> 00:19:40,345 You could easily read the Old Testament and think, this is going to go on forever. 408 00:19:41,013 --> 00:19:43,348 This law, and in their minds 409 00:19:43,348 --> 00:19:47,644 even the law became so important, the rabbi started teaching it, 410 00:19:47,686 --> 00:19:50,689 you know, it was in heaven first it came down from heaven. 411 00:19:50,814 --> 00:19:55,611 And like, you know, the Torah existed before man was even created. 412 00:19:55,611 --> 00:19:58,780 I mean, they really put it on a ridiculous pedestal. 413 00:19:58,780 --> 00:20:01,283 But the point is, it was from God. 414 00:20:01,283 --> 00:20:03,660 Jews had always lived this way. They were punished. 415 00:20:03,660 --> 00:20:07,164 They were sent into exile because they weren't obeying the law. 416 00:20:07,372 --> 00:20:09,124 So when they got back from exile, it was like, 417 00:20:09,124 --> 00:20:10,751 man, we're going to obey this from now on. 418 00:20:10,751 --> 00:20:12,753 And you know, no more idols, no more. 419 00:20:12,753 --> 00:20:15,422 You know, we're going to keep the Sabbath, all of this stuff, you know? 420 00:20:15,422 --> 00:20:17,966 So, yeah, this is all from God. 421 00:20:17,966 --> 00:20:22,721 And it's suddenly like, whoa, whoa, you're saying now we don't have to live 422 00:20:22,721 --> 00:20:26,141 this way, that you're the one who brought the Sabbath law? 423 00:20:26,308 --> 00:20:27,267 We didn't make it up. 424 00:20:27,267 --> 00:20:28,894 You're the one who said, 425 00:20:28,894 --> 00:20:32,272 you know, you can't eat this kind of meat and that kind of meat. 426 00:20:32,606 --> 00:20:34,650 You're the one who gave us the law of circumcision. 427 00:20:34,650 --> 00:20:36,360 We didn't make any of this up. 428 00:20:36,360 --> 00:20:38,862 And now you're just pulling the rug out from underneath us. 429 00:20:40,030 --> 00:20:43,200 So you can understand why the Jews are like, this isn't fair. 430 00:20:43,200 --> 00:20:44,826 That you mean these Gentiles? 431 00:20:44,826 --> 00:20:46,495 They've been worshiping idols. 432 00:20:46,495 --> 00:20:49,873 They've been living in immorality, and all they have to do 433 00:20:49,873 --> 00:20:53,335 is just come have faith in Jesus, repent. 434 00:20:53,335 --> 00:20:56,129 They're baptized. They're part of the church. 435 00:20:56,129 --> 00:20:58,340 They don't have to live by the law. They can eat pork. 436 00:20:58,340 --> 00:21:00,259 No circumcision, the Sabbath. 437 00:21:00,259 --> 00:21:01,051 I mean, all of this. 438 00:21:01,051 --> 00:21:03,762 It's like, well, this isn't fair, God. 439 00:21:03,762 --> 00:21:08,267 You know, so they just I mean, Paul, everywhere 440 00:21:08,267 --> 00:21:11,311 he goes, he's pushing against this, the Jewish Christians 441 00:21:11,311 --> 00:21:14,731 trying to force the Gentiles to come under the law. 442 00:21:15,107 --> 00:21:16,149 You see it in acts. 443 00:21:16,149 --> 00:21:20,696 If you when you read Galatians, which was written before Romans, you see it there. 444 00:21:20,696 --> 00:21:23,782 It was so strong that even Peter and Barnabas, it was like, 445 00:21:24,449 --> 00:21:26,868 whoa, we better just back off. 446 00:21:26,868 --> 00:21:29,162 These Jews are so adamant on this. 447 00:21:29,162 --> 00:21:33,917 It's just better not to make an issue here at this point in time, you know? 448 00:21:33,917 --> 00:21:37,254 And then Paul got real upset with him for for doing that. 449 00:21:37,546 --> 00:21:42,384 But yeah, Peter's like I'm with the Jewish church in Jerusalem. 450 00:21:42,676 --> 00:21:45,345 I've got to worry about their reaction. 451 00:21:45,345 --> 00:21:48,432 And is it worth is this the, the the time 452 00:21:48,432 --> 00:21:51,977 and place to say, okay, no, this is how it is. 453 00:21:51,977 --> 00:21:57,399 Well, that led to then, okay, we need to have a, a, a conference 454 00:21:57,399 --> 00:22:02,112 of all the, apostles, everybody, we need to make a definitive ruling. 455 00:22:02,279 --> 00:22:05,449 But like you say, even though they did that, the Jews wouldn't accept it. 456 00:22:05,449 --> 00:22:06,742 They keep pushing. 457 00:22:06,742 --> 00:22:11,288 So Paul in Galatians, he addressed it nicely. 458 00:22:11,496 --> 00:22:15,334 But, in Romans he decides, okay, I'm going to take everything I said 459 00:22:15,334 --> 00:22:20,589 in Galatians, and I'm going to expand it and really go into even more detail. 460 00:22:20,756 --> 00:22:24,468 So Romans is, I don't know, maybe twice as long as Galatians. 461 00:22:24,468 --> 00:22:26,178 I'm just guessing, I don't know, 462 00:22:27,220 --> 00:22:29,097 but yeah, he really goes into detail, 463 00:22:29,097 --> 00:22:33,769 but that is what he is trying to once and for all, 464 00:22:34,394 --> 00:22:38,523 you know, destroy this idea that Gentiles have to live by the law, 465 00:22:38,565 --> 00:22:41,568 or that even Jewish Christians have to live by the law. 466 00:22:41,860 --> 00:22:45,364 So there's six key points, and I don't know him by memory, 467 00:22:45,364 --> 00:22:51,745 so I'm going to just read them from here that if you I call it his great argument. 468 00:22:51,745 --> 00:22:56,041 So it's like in English it's 8000 words long. 469 00:22:56,041 --> 00:22:59,836 I mean, it's the longest sustained theological argument in the whole Bible. 470 00:23:00,128 --> 00:23:04,466 See that that I did this just shows the ignorance right on my part, 471 00:23:04,716 --> 00:23:07,719 because I never even realized that, like I'm reading through 472 00:23:07,969 --> 00:23:10,013 through your introduction here and you're just saying, you know, that. 473 00:23:10,013 --> 00:23:12,516 Yeah, this this chunk text is like the longest 474 00:23:12,516 --> 00:23:15,644 theological argument in the Bible or in the New Testament. 475 00:23:16,103 --> 00:23:19,773 I just never thought of that as as a chunk to, to, to untangle, 476 00:23:19,773 --> 00:23:20,607 if that makes sense. 477 00:23:20,607 --> 00:23:23,193 And it's not presented as a chunk and that was, 478 00:23:23,193 --> 00:23:26,321 Well, I'll go into the history of this commentary in a little bit, but okay, 479 00:23:26,863 --> 00:23:31,576 so his six points, you know, his thesis is neither Jews 480 00:23:31,576 --> 00:23:35,580 nor Gentiles any longer have to live under the law of Moses. 481 00:23:35,580 --> 00:23:38,792 You know, we're saved by faith, by grace, 482 00:23:38,792 --> 00:23:41,795 you know, through faith in Jesus Christ, through his blood. 483 00:23:42,212 --> 00:23:44,589 It is no longer from the law of Moses. 484 00:23:44,589 --> 00:23:47,509 So here's his six points that he develops. 485 00:23:47,509 --> 00:23:52,180 All mankind lies guilty before God and needs salvation. 486 00:23:52,556 --> 00:23:54,057 And by the way, I don't think 487 00:23:54,057 --> 00:23:57,477 there's only one of these six points that that is even controversial 488 00:23:57,477 --> 00:24:00,772 today among Protestants, I mean, or even Catholics. 489 00:24:00,772 --> 00:24:01,940 Okay. 490 00:24:01,940 --> 00:24:04,901 Number two, the Law of Moses is unable 491 00:24:04,901 --> 00:24:09,156 to save or justified Jews, let alone Gentiles. 492 00:24:09,573 --> 00:24:15,454 Neither circumcision nor obedience to the law of Moses are necessary any longer. 493 00:24:15,704 --> 00:24:16,621 Okay. 494 00:24:16,621 --> 00:24:20,125 Number three all humans, Jews and Gentiles alike 495 00:24:20,333 --> 00:24:26,173 are saved and justified only by God's grace through faith in Jesus Christ. 496 00:24:26,173 --> 00:24:29,342 Okay, the law plays no part in salvation. 497 00:24:29,676 --> 00:24:33,180 Number four, there is no partiality with God. 498 00:24:33,180 --> 00:24:36,933 Jews and Gentiles stand as equals before him. 499 00:24:37,309 --> 00:24:41,480 See the Jews were having trouble, we’ll accept the Gentiles, but not as equals. 500 00:24:41,938 --> 00:24:47,611 And Paul is really hammering no, a Gentile who is uncircumcised, who does not keep 501 00:24:47,819 --> 00:24:51,781 the regulations of the law, but keeps the moral teaching of the law. 502 00:24:52,282 --> 00:24:55,911 He is a real Jew, the Jew who is outwardly 503 00:24:56,119 --> 00:24:59,873 a Jew and has, you know, the tassels and is circumcised 504 00:24:59,998 --> 00:25:04,503 and does all these regulations, but doesn't have faith in Christ, 505 00:25:05,003 --> 00:25:06,796 which means he is not really keeping the law, 506 00:25:06,796 --> 00:25:09,508 because here's the Messiah, and you've rejected him. He's not a Jew. 507 00:25:09,508 --> 00:25:11,218 Paul is saying he is not a Jew. 508 00:25:11,218 --> 00:25:13,470 Okay, so this is really radical. 509 00:25:13,470 --> 00:25:16,097 Believing Jews and believing Gentiles 510 00:25:16,097 --> 00:25:19,100 together make up the new Israel of God. 511 00:25:19,434 --> 00:25:22,479 So God is now looking not at fleshly Israel, 512 00:25:22,854 --> 00:25:25,732 but at an Israel that is made up 513 00:25:25,732 --> 00:25:30,028 of Jews and Gentiles who are grafted in to the Jews, 514 00:25:30,570 --> 00:25:33,532 which he's always allowed Gentiles to join the Jews. 515 00:25:33,532 --> 00:25:38,537 But now the Jews who reject Christ are being lopped off. 516 00:25:38,537 --> 00:25:41,748 He goes into that in chapter ten and 11. 517 00:25:41,748 --> 00:25:42,999 Okay. 518 00:25:42,999 --> 00:25:46,795 Now, this is something that I had never caught in Romans. 519 00:25:47,003 --> 00:25:49,089 That is all throughout it. 520 00:25:49,089 --> 00:25:52,592 God has not been unfair to the Jews 521 00:25:52,801 --> 00:25:55,804 in bestowing grace and salvation on the Gentiles. 522 00:25:56,638 --> 00:26:00,976 So you would ask, you know, you mentioned how complicated Romans is. 523 00:26:00,976 --> 00:26:01,643 Okay. 524 00:26:01,643 --> 00:26:06,106 One of the things that complicates is Paul starts developing these points 525 00:26:06,356 --> 00:26:10,402 and he's realizing his Jewish brother, man, they're getting really, really mad. 526 00:26:10,652 --> 00:26:13,071 So he has to keep coming back over and over again. 527 00:26:13,071 --> 00:26:16,366 Number one, saying, hey, I'm a Jew myself 528 00:26:16,825 --> 00:26:20,161 and I love I love the Jews so much I would die for them. 529 00:26:20,161 --> 00:26:25,000 I would be, you know, let Christ, you know, be cut off from Christ 530 00:26:25,000 --> 00:26:26,876 if it would save the Jews, that’s how much. 531 00:26:26,876 --> 00:26:31,673 I so don't think I'm anti-Jewish and God hasn't been unfair. 532 00:26:31,673 --> 00:26:34,342 You're saying God is unfair to let these Gentiles come in? 533 00:26:34,342 --> 00:26:35,677 He is not unfair. 534 00:26:35,677 --> 00:26:38,555 And he develops that argument. His last one. 535 00:26:38,555 --> 00:26:43,018 This is the one where Protestants, many Protestants today, would reject. 536 00:26:43,643 --> 00:26:48,440 But it's just as much a point as these other five, whether we are Jews 537 00:26:48,440 --> 00:26:53,570 or Gentiles, after our initial salvation by grace through faith, 538 00:26:54,237 --> 00:26:57,782 God requires us to walk faithfully with Christ, 539 00:26:58,283 --> 00:27:02,579 producing godly fruit for the remainder of our lives. 540 00:27:03,079 --> 00:27:06,333 However, we do not do this solely on our own strength, 541 00:27:06,750 --> 00:27:09,252 for we have the empowerment of the Holy Spirit. 542 00:27:10,587 --> 00:27:13,590 So there's one phase of salvation. 543 00:27:14,090 --> 00:27:16,885 You know, when you come in, you don't have to have any works. 544 00:27:16,885 --> 00:27:19,971 I mean, these Gentiles, I mean, think of the day of Pentecost. 545 00:27:20,180 --> 00:27:22,057 Well, those were Jews, okay? 546 00:27:22,057 --> 00:27:24,142 Think of the Philippian jailer. Okay? 547 00:27:24,142 --> 00:27:28,938 I mean, this guy and he's just a pagan, you know, and a jailer at that, 548 00:27:28,938 --> 00:27:32,776 I mean, he probably beat several people up that day, was probably cursing. 549 00:27:32,776 --> 00:27:35,779 He may have worshiped some false god that morning. 550 00:27:35,987 --> 00:27:38,782 And then at midnight, you know, this earthquake happens 551 00:27:38,782 --> 00:27:41,660 and, you know, he's quaking before Paul himself. 552 00:27:41,660 --> 00:27:44,079 And what must I do in order to be saved? 553 00:27:44,079 --> 00:27:45,705 Paul witnesses to him. 554 00:27:45,705 --> 00:27:47,874 He believes he's baptized that night. 555 00:27:47,874 --> 00:27:48,625 No works. 556 00:27:48,625 --> 00:27:52,128 I mean, this guy is just filth right out of the Gentile world. 557 00:27:52,420 --> 00:27:53,004 And boom! 558 00:27:53,004 --> 00:27:55,757 Because he believes and repents. 559 00:27:55,757 --> 00:27:57,050 He's baptized. 560 00:27:57,050 --> 00:28:00,053 He is now accepted and he's justified by by faith. 561 00:28:00,136 --> 00:28:03,682 But now he has to live by Christ teachings. 562 00:28:03,682 --> 00:28:06,226 He can't go back to living the way he was. 563 00:28:06,226 --> 00:28:09,938 So he saved by faith and grace. 564 00:28:10,021 --> 00:28:13,817 But yeah, now he's a branch on the vine of Christ. 565 00:28:13,900 --> 00:28:18,196 He has to produce godly fruit, and yet God will give him the power. 566 00:28:18,196 --> 00:28:20,198 He's not on his own to do this. 567 00:28:20,198 --> 00:28:23,326 But yeah, he doesn't go back to the sow 568 00:28:23,326 --> 00:28:27,497 returning to the mud, or the dog to its vomit, you know, whatever. 569 00:28:27,497 --> 00:28:30,083 So that's a big part of Paul's argument. 570 00:28:30,083 --> 00:28:33,086 That is just as much a part of Romans as these other teachings. 571 00:28:34,254 --> 00:28:34,546 Yeah. 572 00:28:34,546 --> 00:28:36,631 That's interesting. I hadn't thought of that. 573 00:28:36,631 --> 00:28:38,883 That last point, 574 00:28:38,883 --> 00:28:40,218 before like so. 575 00:28:40,218 --> 00:28:41,803 So I think what what we're seeing here, 576 00:28:41,803 --> 00:28:44,931 there's a lot of context that Paul is writing out of that 577 00:28:44,931 --> 00:28:47,684 that's pretty easy to miss if we're not paying attention. 578 00:28:47,684 --> 00:28:50,061 Is that is that because that's one of the questions 579 00:28:50,061 --> 00:28:53,732 I had is like, why does Romans feel so complicated to us today? 580 00:28:53,732 --> 00:28:57,569 Is that because we've heard so many different ideas tossed around 581 00:28:57,569 --> 00:28:59,112 and so many different theological frameworks, 582 00:28:59,112 --> 00:29:02,449 or is it the way Paul is writing this, or is it the context of the times? 583 00:29:02,449 --> 00:29:04,784 Like what? What's leading to all the confusion? 584 00:29:04,784 --> 00:29:05,660 So it is both. 585 00:29:05,660 --> 00:29:08,788 So we've heard these other interpretations that we've heard him 586 00:29:08,788 --> 00:29:11,791 so many times when you start reading Romans, man, you hear Luther. 587 00:29:11,791 --> 00:29:17,422 Whether you've ever read one of his writings or his teachings is everywhere. 588 00:29:17,422 --> 00:29:20,675 And it's infiltrated the Anabaptists, you know, big time. 589 00:29:20,675 --> 00:29:26,264 So it is really hard to to get the, you know, free of, of your mind is part of it. 590 00:29:26,639 --> 00:29:29,267 Now, I said, there's the six points. 591 00:29:29,267 --> 00:29:32,687 It'd be so nice if Paul wrote like a Augustine. 592 00:29:32,687 --> 00:29:34,355 See, Augustine is a Westerner. 593 00:29:34,355 --> 00:29:35,482 He writes in Latin. 594 00:29:35,482 --> 00:29:38,568 He thinks like a Westerner, and that's why he's so popular in the West. 595 00:29:38,568 --> 00:29:40,153 He's easy to follow. 596 00:29:40,153 --> 00:29:42,197 Paul is an Easterner. 597 00:29:42,197 --> 00:29:43,698 He writes in Greek. 598 00:29:43,698 --> 00:29:46,034 He does not think like a Westerner. 599 00:29:46,034 --> 00:29:49,287 So the Greek writers, you know, in reading the early church, 600 00:29:49,287 --> 00:29:53,208 I always loved the Western writers like Tertullian, Lactantius and them. 601 00:29:53,458 --> 00:29:55,001 Yeah, I can follow them. 602 00:29:55,001 --> 00:29:58,004 You get into Origen, Clement of Alexandria, 603 00:29:58,046 --> 00:30:03,176 I love them as people, you know, but, well, the way they attack a problem, 604 00:30:03,593 --> 00:30:06,179 the Greek way was just different than the Western way. 605 00:30:06,179 --> 00:30:08,723 There's, there's just you know, there's a difference there. 606 00:30:08,723 --> 00:30:12,227 So Paul doesn't do one, two, three, four, five, six. 607 00:30:12,644 --> 00:30:16,272 He does 1352, one four. 608 00:30:16,731 --> 00:30:18,525 I mean he just keeps going. 609 00:30:18,525 --> 00:30:21,486 He gets he starts with one, he ends with six. 610 00:30:21,486 --> 00:30:24,239 But yeah I mean he's jumping all around. 611 00:30:24,239 --> 00:30:27,909 So it's 16I mean like I say it's it's all these different ones. 612 00:30:28,493 --> 00:30:30,119 And he keeps repeating them. 613 00:30:30,119 --> 00:30:35,375 So it's maybe 55344I mean it sounds like a musical thing, you know. 614 00:30:36,334 --> 00:30:38,461 So that's where it is so confusing. 615 00:30:38,461 --> 00:30:43,967 And we're I got so mentally fatigued, you know, I started this thing. 616 00:30:44,175 --> 00:30:46,427 Well, now it's been like, 617 00:30:46,427 --> 00:30:47,762 almost three years ago. Okay. 618 00:30:47,762 --> 00:30:50,974 So I worked on it nearly a full year, 619 00:30:51,182 --> 00:30:55,144 and I just reached a point where mentally, I just couldn't take it anymore. 620 00:30:55,144 --> 00:30:58,147 It's like, I, I can understand 621 00:30:58,147 --> 00:31:01,276 the early Christians, but I've got to put this back into Paul 622 00:31:01,943 --> 00:31:05,905 and they're able to work through this because they're Easterners 623 00:31:05,905 --> 00:31:09,242 and they're writing in Greek and that sort of thing. 624 00:31:09,242 --> 00:31:13,329 But I felt like I maybe understood it, but how how can I present this 625 00:31:13,329 --> 00:31:13,955 to other people? 626 00:31:13,955 --> 00:31:16,708 Because, I mean, it's it's got me so mixed up. 627 00:31:16,708 --> 00:31:19,836 So I just I had to take a break because I was about to go insane. 628 00:31:19,836 --> 00:31:22,130 I thought I was going to pick it back up in six weeks, 629 00:31:22,130 --> 00:31:25,341 and then it was so nice to not have to wrestle with Romans. 630 00:31:26,384 --> 00:31:27,302 It went on 631 00:31:27,302 --> 00:31:31,139 for actually a year and a half, and I just, stayed away from it. 632 00:31:31,139 --> 00:31:33,641 And then it was, 633 00:31:33,641 --> 00:31:36,853 a year ago at Kingdom Fellowship Weekend that at our book 634 00:31:36,895 --> 00:31:38,479 table people, people kept saying, 635 00:31:38,479 --> 00:31:40,481 whens the Romans commentary going to come out, David, 636 00:31:40,481 --> 00:31:42,233 whens the Romans commentary and 637 00:31:42,233 --> 00:31:45,737 and oh, well, I'm not sure, you know, because I knew in my mind I had decided 638 00:31:45,737 --> 00:31:48,865 I'm just not going to finish it, you know, and, you know, put so much work. 639 00:31:48,865 --> 00:31:51,868 And so then, you know, I talked with Deborah, my wife, you know, and it's like, 640 00:31:52,368 --> 00:31:56,539 wow, maybe I should finish that thing, you know, how how long could it be? 641 00:31:56,581 --> 00:31:59,584 You know, how long would it take, you know, to finish. 642 00:31:59,959 --> 00:32:02,962 So having left it alone, when I got back in it, 643 00:32:03,171 --> 00:32:05,924 it was a little bit more clear. 644 00:32:05,924 --> 00:32:07,675 It was just good to to step away. 645 00:32:07,675 --> 00:32:10,595 And then you come back to a problem, you know, after you've just left it, 646 00:32:10,595 --> 00:32:13,389 left it alone a while and it's as it becomes more clear. 647 00:32:13,389 --> 00:32:17,018 And so I reread what I had written and it's like, okay, this is the 648 00:32:17,018 --> 00:32:21,189 I had written like already eight versions of this commentary by then. 649 00:32:22,065 --> 00:32:26,736 You know, it's now this what you're reading now is version something like 17. 650 00:32:26,736 --> 00:32:27,362 Okay. 651 00:32:27,362 --> 00:32:30,239 But I had already done like eight versions of it. 652 00:32:30,239 --> 00:32:30,865 Okay. 653 00:32:30,865 --> 00:32:33,868 When I say eight versions, I don't mean that each one is a totally new one. 654 00:32:34,035 --> 00:32:34,827 Eight revisions. 655 00:32:34,827 --> 00:32:37,413 So, you You know, wow, that is a lot to untangle here. 656 00:32:37,413 --> 00:32:38,331 Okay. Yeah. 657 00:32:38,331 --> 00:32:41,459 So so then I, I read it 658 00:32:42,627 --> 00:32:43,920 and I okay, I kind of 659 00:32:43,920 --> 00:32:47,840 see this, but now this will not make sense to anyone else. 660 00:32:47,840 --> 00:32:50,259 I mean, if it's been this hard for me, 661 00:32:50,259 --> 00:32:52,887 then anyone else reading this is going to be okay. 662 00:32:52,887 --> 00:32:54,514 We still don't get it. Okay. 663 00:32:54,514 --> 00:32:57,809 So I, I went through, I don't know how many times I read Romans 664 00:32:57,809 --> 00:33:00,812 during this process and after each, 665 00:33:00,979 --> 00:33:04,732 let's say, section heading whatever, which are of course, man made. 666 00:33:04,732 --> 00:33:06,818 He didn't write in chapters and all of that. 667 00:33:06,818 --> 00:33:08,027 Okay. 668 00:33:08,027 --> 00:33:11,197 And sometimes the chapters help and sometimes they confuse us because this 669 00:33:11,197 --> 00:33:15,451 is man putting these chapter divisions and he's not writing in any division. 670 00:33:15,451 --> 00:33:18,913 It's one long argument, you know, and you got to think of it as one argument. 671 00:33:18,913 --> 00:33:22,834 And you start in your mind, dividing it up is, oh, now we're in chapter nine. 672 00:33:22,834 --> 00:33:24,210 Like we're in a new thing. 673 00:33:24,210 --> 00:33:25,920 No, Paul didn't make that chapter. 674 00:33:25,920 --> 00:33:27,630 That's something, you know, a human did. 675 00:33:27,630 --> 00:33:29,298 Okay. Robert Stephanos okay. 676 00:33:29,298 --> 00:33:31,551 So, we are 677 00:33:33,261 --> 00:33:33,553 what I'm 678 00:33:33,553 --> 00:33:36,681 doing is reading through and after each section, 679 00:33:36,681 --> 00:33:40,518 the way it's divided into sections in the new King James. 680 00:33:40,935 --> 00:33:42,979 But I'm not paying complete attention. 681 00:33:42,979 --> 00:33:45,940 I'm following Paul's argument. Okay? 682 00:33:45,940 --> 00:33:47,692 As as informed by the early Christians. 683 00:33:47,692 --> 00:33:48,943 I've read them a bunch of times. 684 00:33:48,943 --> 00:33:51,320 Okay, I see they're understanding Paul. 685 00:33:51,320 --> 00:33:54,240 Okay. So okay, this is what they're saying. 686 00:33:54,240 --> 00:33:57,118 And then I'm reading and then I write down, okay, 687 00:33:57,118 --> 00:34:00,163 verses chapter two, verses one through ten. 688 00:34:00,621 --> 00:34:03,875 He's talking about, you know, we all need salvation. 689 00:34:03,875 --> 00:34:05,084 Okay. 690 00:34:05,084 --> 00:34:07,003 Chapter two verses. 691 00:34:07,003 --> 00:34:09,881 Whatever he's saying, Jews and Gentiles are equal. 692 00:34:09,881 --> 00:34:11,257 So I'm making this long list. 693 00:34:11,257 --> 00:34:13,092 I don't know, it's going to be six points. 694 00:34:13,092 --> 00:34:15,136 I'm just making a list. 695 00:34:15,136 --> 00:34:15,887 What's he saying? 696 00:34:15,887 --> 00:34:19,474 So when I get done and I don't know how long I spent on that a couple of weeks. 697 00:34:20,475 --> 00:34:22,101 Then I look at my list 698 00:34:22,101 --> 00:34:27,273 and I start realizing, okay, this one basically is the same here. 699 00:34:27,273 --> 00:34:31,152 It's just a nuance of this and I'm finally able to reduce it. 700 00:34:31,152 --> 00:34:34,155 Okay, he really covers six main points. 701 00:34:34,572 --> 00:34:35,907 Each one is a little nuance. 702 00:34:35,907 --> 00:34:37,575 He says it a little different. 703 00:34:37,575 --> 00:34:40,578 And like I say, they're not in any kind of perfect order. 704 00:34:40,870 --> 00:34:43,289 But the yeah, I'm finally grasping. 705 00:34:43,289 --> 00:34:48,377 Okay, I see Paul really, he knows where he's going with this. 706 00:34:48,377 --> 00:34:52,173 He's arguing the Greek way, which is the Greek way, is 707 00:34:52,715 --> 00:34:56,511 if we're talking about, like we're talking about Romans. 708 00:34:56,761 --> 00:34:57,720 Okay. 709 00:34:57,720 --> 00:35:01,265 And I say something about, 710 00:35:02,141 --> 00:35:05,561 you know, okay, Paul wrote this, you know, Paul was from Tarsus, by the way. 711 00:35:05,561 --> 00:35:08,106 You know, about Tarsus. It's it's this city, blah, blah, blah. 712 00:35:08,106 --> 00:35:10,650 And then I go into this big thing about Tarsus. 713 00:35:10,650 --> 00:35:12,026 That's how Greeks did something. 714 00:35:12,026 --> 00:35:16,114 If if something is related in some way to what they're talking about, 715 00:35:16,781 --> 00:35:20,243 they feel like, oh, I better explain that a little bit. 716 00:35:20,409 --> 00:35:24,747 So it's almost think of it almost like weaving all these things in together. 717 00:35:24,747 --> 00:35:25,206 Yeah. 718 00:35:25,206 --> 00:35:26,165 Whereas maybe 719 00:35:26,165 --> 00:35:29,252 a more Western Latin style would be like, hey, here's a checklist Yes. 720 00:35:29,544 --> 00:35:30,962 And you go down logically. 721 00:35:30,962 --> 00:35:34,298 The Greek is if there's a nexus you follow that nexus. 722 00:35:34,298 --> 00:35:36,425 So the way Origin describes it. 723 00:35:36,425 --> 00:35:39,345 And he's not saying this in criticism. He loves Romans. 724 00:35:39,345 --> 00:35:42,473 I mean to him, man, this is marvelous book because of course 725 00:35:43,141 --> 00:35:46,811 Origin thinks, you know, in this he loves complicated arguments. 726 00:35:47,228 --> 00:35:49,021 So here's the way he describes it. 727 00:35:49,021 --> 00:35:53,025 He says, Imagine Paul is your guide and he's taking you 728 00:35:53,025 --> 00:35:56,529 through this magnificent palace of, you know, the emperor. 729 00:35:56,529 --> 00:35:57,363 Okay? 730 00:35:57,363 --> 00:36:01,534 And he leads you through the door of, of a bedroom, let's say. 731 00:36:01,534 --> 00:36:05,037 And you go into this parlor and it's, all these amazing things, 732 00:36:05,163 --> 00:36:07,039 but you don't get to stay there very long 733 00:36:07,039 --> 00:36:09,125 and he takes you out through another door, 734 00:36:09,125 --> 00:36:11,502 and then you're in some little hidden passageway, 735 00:36:11,502 --> 00:36:14,672 and then he opens another door, and now you're in another room and it's like, 736 00:36:14,922 --> 00:36:18,509 wow, this room is amazing to, you know, and you start looking around. 737 00:36:18,718 --> 00:36:21,679 But then in a few minutes, he takes you out another door 738 00:36:21,679 --> 00:36:24,515 and, and then you're in another room, you know. 739 00:36:24,515 --> 00:36:27,810 And so what he's trying to say is, you know, Paul 740 00:36:27,935 --> 00:36:31,189 instead of going, you know, this, this kind of order, he's 741 00:36:31,939 --> 00:36:35,401 he gives you a little bit of a taste of something, and then he immediately goes to 742 00:36:36,068 --> 00:36:38,821 another point, you know, which is a brilliant point. 743 00:36:38,821 --> 00:36:40,323 And, oh, that's wonderful. 744 00:36:40,323 --> 00:36:42,200 But then he doesn't just stay there. 745 00:36:42,200 --> 00:36:43,784 He, he, he goes to another. 746 00:36:43,784 --> 00:36:45,661 So you're going through this palace 747 00:36:45,661 --> 00:36:48,497 and by the time you're done, you've gone through the whole palace. 748 00:36:48,497 --> 00:36:50,708 But it's been in this door, out this door. 749 00:36:50,708 --> 00:36:52,418 Kind of like Alice in Wonderland. 750 00:36:52,460 --> 00:36:53,461 Oh, wow. Okay. 751 00:36:53,461 --> 00:36:56,589 And and then it leaves people like myself feeling a little confused 752 00:36:56,589 --> 00:36:59,425 because it's like, I'm not even sure what to do with all of this. Yeah. 753 00:36:59,425 --> 00:37:00,384 And this is Augustine’s problem. 754 00:37:00,384 --> 00:37:03,221 He's a Westerner. He doesn't understand the Greek way of thinking. 755 00:37:03,221 --> 00:37:04,931 He can't read Greek. 756 00:37:04,931 --> 00:37:07,850 He's trying to make sense as a Westerner. 757 00:37:07,850 --> 00:37:10,770 And so, yeah, we can't do that. 758 00:37:10,770 --> 00:37:13,773 I mean, we can't get away from the fact we think as Westerners. 759 00:37:14,190 --> 00:37:18,236 But yeah, we have to realize Paul isn't writing as a Westerner, 760 00:37:18,236 --> 00:37:20,363 and he's he thinks the way a Greek, 761 00:37:21,405 --> 00:37:24,200 thinker, approaches things. 762 00:37:24,200 --> 00:37:26,494 And we've got to give credit to that. 763 00:37:26,494 --> 00:37:28,663 We have to get back into that world. 764 00:37:28,663 --> 00:37:31,582 We can't try to bring him into the 21st century. 765 00:37:31,582 --> 00:37:35,836 We have to get back into Paul's world and not some imaginary world. 766 00:37:36,212 --> 00:37:40,007 Look at how the Christians who lived right after Paul. 767 00:37:40,591 --> 00:37:42,718 How did they understand this book? 768 00:37:42,718 --> 00:37:46,472 I mean, the most amazing thing we have is in the year 769 00:37:46,931 --> 00:37:49,558 it's either 96 or 97. 770 00:37:49,558 --> 00:37:53,604 We have the letter, it's usually called First Clement 771 00:37:53,813 --> 00:37:57,900 because apparently the one who penned it was Clement. 772 00:37:57,900 --> 00:37:59,944 He was an elder in the Church of Rome. 773 00:37:59,944 --> 00:38:02,863 But the letter is from all the elders in Rome. 774 00:38:02,863 --> 00:38:04,865 Now you remember this is Romans. 775 00:38:04,865 --> 00:38:08,369 The letter from Paul was to the church in Rome 776 00:38:09,620 --> 00:38:11,664 before the first century is over. 777 00:38:11,664 --> 00:38:14,625 We have a letter from those elders in Rome. 778 00:38:15,293 --> 00:38:17,295 They're writing to the church in Corinth. 779 00:38:17,295 --> 00:38:17,712 Okay. 780 00:38:17,712 --> 00:38:20,339 Unfortunately, they're not discussing Romans. 781 00:38:20,339 --> 00:38:22,675 It would solve everything. 782 00:38:22,675 --> 00:38:23,634 They're dealing with. 783 00:38:23,634 --> 00:38:25,344 They're having dissension in Corinth. 784 00:38:25,344 --> 00:38:29,098 And so that's why they're writing the Corinthians, to encourage them to. 785 00:38:29,098 --> 00:38:32,143 Hey, look, we got to get our act together. 786 00:38:32,351 --> 00:38:36,981 It's better to give way, gelassenheit would be the Anabaptist 787 00:38:36,981 --> 00:38:40,818 word, you know, instead of insisting on having your own way and all that. 788 00:38:41,360 --> 00:38:45,781 But in there, they touch on subjects that are covered in Romans. 789 00:38:45,781 --> 00:38:49,035 So you can see how the elders were understanding some of these 790 00:38:49,035 --> 00:38:50,619 basic concepts. 791 00:38:50,619 --> 00:38:55,041 And they are not understanding it the way Luther or Augustine, either one, 792 00:38:55,041 --> 00:38:59,462 the things they say, you know, you can see that they're being informed by Romans 793 00:38:59,462 --> 00:39:02,340 because they state some of the same things. You know, we're saved by, 794 00:39:03,299 --> 00:39:05,426 grace, you know, through faith in Jesus Christ. 795 00:39:05,426 --> 00:39:08,429 But then the next paragraph, you know, 796 00:39:09,180 --> 00:39:12,058 we have to walk worthily if we're going to be saved in the end. 797 00:39:12,058 --> 00:39:13,267 That's in Romans two. 798 00:39:13,267 --> 00:39:15,227 And, you know, in chapter two of Romans 799 00:39:15,227 --> 00:39:18,230 and you can see, okay, this is how they're understanding it. 800 00:39:18,272 --> 00:39:19,982 And then you just go from there. 801 00:39:19,982 --> 00:39:23,069 I mean, you've got other writings, you know, Justin Martyr 802 00:39:23,110 --> 00:39:26,739 and other ones, Ignatius, all the way up and like, say, 803 00:39:26,739 --> 00:39:30,743 all the way till you get to the fifth century, even Augustine, 804 00:39:30,826 --> 00:39:34,038 they're all saying basically the same thing. 805 00:39:34,330 --> 00:39:38,125 And then because of this overreaction, everything changes. 806 00:39:38,459 --> 00:39:41,087 And because you have a state church, if you didn't have a state church. 807 00:39:41,087 --> 00:39:43,923 You would have been like, okay, well, we don't agree with you, Augustine. 808 00:39:43,923 --> 00:39:46,884 You know, you can do what you want, but we don't agree with you. 809 00:39:46,884 --> 00:39:49,637 But when you got to say church with an army, yeah, 810 00:39:49,637 --> 00:39:52,264 they can not only excommunicate you, they banished you. 811 00:39:52,264 --> 00:39:55,226 I mean, Pelagius didn't just get communicated. 812 00:39:55,393 --> 00:39:55,768 Yeah. 813 00:39:55,768 --> 00:39:59,355 The soldiers took him and he got banished to the edge of the empire, you know? 814 00:39:59,605 --> 00:40:00,773 And you better be. 815 00:40:00,773 --> 00:40:03,818 Stay here and be quiet, or that's the end, you know? 816 00:40:04,068 --> 00:40:04,652 So, yeah. 817 00:40:04,652 --> 00:40:07,655 Augustine wins through the force of, of arms. 818 00:40:07,780 --> 00:40:08,406 So it's. 819 00:40:08,406 --> 00:40:12,660 But it's so amazing we can go back, actually, to the first century 820 00:40:12,660 --> 00:40:18,416 and get their thought processes from the elders in Rome itself. Wow. 821 00:40:18,541 --> 00:40:19,834 Yeah that's really interesting. 822 00:40:19,834 --> 00:40:25,131 Like I, so as you were working on this commentary, this is not 823 00:40:26,757 --> 00:40:29,802 you wouldn't really say this is a commentary you wrote. 824 00:40:29,802 --> 00:40:32,805 It's more going through what the early church was saying 825 00:40:32,805 --> 00:40:35,975 and pulling those pieces into a single place, essentially. 826 00:40:35,975 --> 00:40:39,687 Like you're not engaging with a lot of the more recent scholarship, Not at all. 827 00:40:40,146 --> 00:40:44,733 No, no, I didn't in fact, I didn't even read those guys. 828 00:40:44,733 --> 00:40:46,944 I did not want to be influenced by them. 829 00:40:46,944 --> 00:40:50,614 I, I wanted to just what did they say back then? 830 00:40:51,073 --> 00:40:57,496 And so I just looked at, like you say, the early Christian writings, of course. 831 00:40:57,496 --> 00:41:00,207 Then I looked at Augustine, okay, 832 00:41:00,207 --> 00:41:04,503 I had done this before because, you know, it's like, why did things change? 833 00:41:04,628 --> 00:41:06,964 And I'd read Augustine, you know, 834 00:41:06,964 --> 00:41:09,925 these writings against the Pelagians you know, 40 years ago 835 00:41:10,968 --> 00:41:12,970 and of course, had read Luther as well. 836 00:41:12,970 --> 00:41:16,390 So I was I was aware of, of those changes, but I thought, 837 00:41:17,224 --> 00:41:20,686 I knew there were modern, scholars who, 838 00:41:21,854 --> 00:41:23,022 is called like, 839 00:41:23,022 --> 00:41:27,860 what is it, the new Paul, the new, there's a number of different ones, Yeah, 840 00:41:27,860 --> 00:41:31,614 yeah, of how they put it, the, new understanding of Paul. 841 00:41:32,031 --> 00:41:35,576 And so when I was through, when I finish this, 842 00:41:35,993 --> 00:41:39,246 I thought, I want to read these guys to see what they're saying. 843 00:41:39,246 --> 00:41:39,914 And in case. 844 00:41:39,914 --> 00:41:41,332 Yeah, I need to relook at some, but I don't 845 00:41:41,332 --> 00:41:45,419 really want to be influenced by them because, yeah, this is what they believed 846 00:41:45,419 --> 00:41:50,257 back then, you know, now I put it in easy for a Westerner to understand. 847 00:41:50,257 --> 00:41:53,511 You know, I don't just have a bunch of early Christian quotes. 848 00:41:53,511 --> 00:41:57,264 I do try to, you know, put their arguments in a way that, 849 00:41:57,681 --> 00:42:00,267 you know, you and I can understand it, you know, because I saw 850 00:42:00,267 --> 00:42:03,270 how hard it was even for me, like, say, wrestling with this. 851 00:42:03,479 --> 00:42:04,897 But it is interesting. Yeah. 852 00:42:04,897 --> 00:42:09,735 The new perspective on Paul, is a whole lot closer to the early church. 853 00:42:09,735 --> 00:42:12,780 It's not exactly the same, but it's a whole lot closer. 854 00:42:12,780 --> 00:42:13,739 It's a welcome. 855 00:42:15,032 --> 00:42:17,493 Wow. I'm glad some people are. 856 00:42:17,493 --> 00:42:17,826 Yeah. 857 00:42:17,826 --> 00:42:22,790 Finally standing up to Luther and saying, hey, you know, maybe Luther, 858 00:42:23,165 --> 00:42:27,419 overreacted, misread Paul misrepresented what Paul is saying. 859 00:42:27,419 --> 00:42:28,504 So that's. 860 00:42:28,504 --> 00:42:30,673 Yeah, that's very encouraging to me that. 861 00:42:30,673 --> 00:42:33,008 Yeah, some people are doing that now. 862 00:42:33,008 --> 00:42:36,512 The new perspective doesn't rely as much on the early Christians. 863 00:42:36,512 --> 00:42:37,054 Unfortunately. 864 00:42:37,054 --> 00:42:41,850 What they did was let's see what the Jews were saying in the first century. 865 00:42:42,434 --> 00:42:42,768 Yeah. 866 00:42:42,768 --> 00:42:46,814 And and we're reading Paul as a response to the Jews. 867 00:42:47,106 --> 00:42:52,528 And, Luther was misrepresenting the Jews in their mind anyway. 868 00:42:52,778 --> 00:42:58,325 And so he's, he's he's misreading Paul because he's misrepresenting the Jews. 869 00:42:58,325 --> 00:42:58,867 Okay. 870 00:42:58,867 --> 00:43:01,870 So they're saying this is what the Jews really believed in the first century. 871 00:43:02,037 --> 00:43:06,000 And Paul is countering that which in the end, 872 00:43:06,000 --> 00:43:09,003 it gets back to very similar to what the early Christians were saying. 873 00:43:09,211 --> 00:43:10,379 But I'm very disappointed. 874 00:43:10,379 --> 00:43:13,257 It's like, why do you go to the Jews and not go to the early Christians? 875 00:43:13,257 --> 00:43:17,136 I mean, to me, that's the elephant in the room is like, wow, you've got, the 876 00:43:17,136 --> 00:43:21,807 elders in Rome in the first century who, you know, touch on many of these topics. 877 00:43:21,807 --> 00:43:22,683 You don't go to them. 878 00:43:22,683 --> 00:43:25,436 You go to see what the Jews were, were believing. 879 00:43:25,436 --> 00:43:29,815 But nevertheless, it's still it brings scholarship 880 00:43:29,815 --> 00:43:33,193 a lot closer to what the early Christians were, were saying. 881 00:43:33,569 --> 00:43:35,821 And yeah, once you see it, 882 00:43:36,780 --> 00:43:38,949 like you say, just finding the light bulb, I mean, 883 00:43:38,949 --> 00:43:42,077 but it did take like to say it was it was a lot of work. 884 00:43:43,287 --> 00:43:45,706 But what then when the light bulb came on, it's like, hey, 885 00:43:45,706 --> 00:43:48,709 this book isn't so terribly difficult. 886 00:43:48,834 --> 00:43:50,544 And that's why I hope 887 00:43:50,544 --> 00:43:54,214 I know it will take a lot of reading because, you know, now it's clear to me. 888 00:43:54,214 --> 00:43:57,635 But, I mean, it was a, you know, like, say a year. 889 00:43:57,635 --> 00:44:01,138 And then it took another six months of intense work 890 00:44:01,138 --> 00:44:05,726 and I would start right after breakfast and I would work till ten at night, 891 00:44:05,726 --> 00:44:08,854 six days a week, you know, breaking for supper, 892 00:44:08,854 --> 00:44:12,941 you know, and a little devotional time relaxation at 10:00 at night, you know. 893 00:44:13,484 --> 00:44:17,071 But yeah, it was really intense to, to get through this. So, 894 00:44:19,198 --> 00:44:20,532 it is 895 00:44:20,532 --> 00:44:24,161 without a doubt the hardest book of the New Testament to understand outside 896 00:44:24,161 --> 00:44:28,165 of the apocalyptic part of revelation in which everyone is going to have their own. 897 00:44:28,374 --> 00:44:30,334 But it's it is the hardest book. 898 00:44:30,334 --> 00:44:32,711 And yeah, I'll let you talk. 899 00:44:32,711 --> 00:44:34,380 I'm going, I'm going. 900 00:44:34,380 --> 00:44:36,924 Not giving you a chance to say anything That's great. 901 00:44:36,924 --> 00:44:39,843 So I think what you're, 902 00:44:39,843 --> 00:44:42,596 maybe advocating for or whatever you want to call it 903 00:44:42,596 --> 00:44:47,434 is that historic snapshot of what was what was the church saying at the time. 904 00:44:47,685 --> 00:44:48,894 Let's let's look at them. 905 00:44:48,894 --> 00:44:51,230 Let's pull a slice of, of that. 906 00:44:51,230 --> 00:44:53,774 And, and how does that help us understand what Paul. 907 00:44:53,774 --> 00:44:57,903 And so if you're talking, Clement of Alexandria or, you know, first Clement 908 00:44:57,903 --> 00:45:02,866 being written in 96 or 97 and, you know, Romans was written, what year was that? 909 00:45:02,950 --> 00:45:05,369 About 50, 55. 910 00:45:05,369 --> 00:45:06,912 Some might put it later. 911 00:45:06,912 --> 00:45:10,874 60. Probably not as late, but but yeah, within 30 to 40 years of Romans itself 912 00:45:10,874 --> 00:45:11,333 being written. 913 00:45:11,333 --> 00:45:14,002 So you're saying, you know, like that proximity to Paul. 914 00:45:14,002 --> 00:45:16,797 There's a lot of value there. We should be paying attention to it. 915 00:45:16,797 --> 00:45:20,092 And that's why you just put a lot of work into compiling that. 916 00:45:20,551 --> 00:45:21,510 And that's pretty neat. 917 00:45:21,510 --> 00:45:23,429 You know, I think I think you're on to something there. 918 00:45:23,429 --> 00:45:25,973 Yeah, Yeah. It's terrible that it's been ignored. 919 00:45:25,973 --> 00:45:29,101 I mean, that people and they praise Augustine, Oh, yeah, Augustine. 920 00:45:29,101 --> 00:45:32,104 And yeah, finally someone with insight and it's like, 921 00:45:32,396 --> 00:45:35,441 what's you think all of these, these people who were personally 922 00:45:35,441 --> 00:45:39,611 taught by the apostles, who were part of that generation, that, 923 00:45:39,903 --> 00:45:43,741 oh, they don't understand that, but, a Westerner who doesn't even read 924 00:45:44,032 --> 00:45:48,203 Greek, who's, you know, counteracting, who changes 925 00:45:48,203 --> 00:45:51,915 his own view to counteract somebody because he's in this personal feud. 926 00:45:52,291 --> 00:45:55,502 That's absurd, you know, and you come up with this doctrine 927 00:45:55,794 --> 00:45:59,381 that it's all predestined, that we do nothing in our salvation. 928 00:45:59,381 --> 00:46:02,843 So why does Jesus even bother to preach the sermon on the Mount? 929 00:46:02,968 --> 00:46:06,472 We can't live that, you know, if we do it because God does it. 930 00:46:06,722 --> 00:46:10,434 And it's like the I mean, it's a terrible overreaction, 931 00:46:10,684 --> 00:46:14,354 but and people think today people associate Augustine, you know, 932 00:46:14,646 --> 00:46:18,484 with Calvin and with Protestantism, they don't get it in their hands. 933 00:46:18,484 --> 00:46:20,819 This was Roman Catholic theology. 934 00:46:20,819 --> 00:46:24,948 This was the Roman Catholic Church who promoted Augustine, 935 00:46:24,948 --> 00:46:28,368 who made him the father of the Roman Catholic Church. 936 00:46:28,368 --> 00:46:32,956 It was Roman Catholic councils that, you know, condemned 937 00:46:32,956 --> 00:46:36,919 Pelagius and made Augustine's view, you know, become the official view 938 00:46:36,919 --> 00:46:39,838 of the Roman Catholic Church. That's the irony. 939 00:46:39,838 --> 00:46:43,717 This is Roman Catholic doctrine that, you know, then worked its way 940 00:46:43,717 --> 00:46:47,888 into the Reformation and and all of that which would have been 941 00:46:47,888 --> 00:46:49,306 through Luther, Calvin. 942 00:46:49,306 --> 00:46:50,724 And so I've. 943 00:46:50,724 --> 00:46:52,559 Yeah, I guess I never thought of that before. 944 00:46:52,559 --> 00:46:52,976 Yeah. 945 00:46:52,976 --> 00:46:55,979 well, Luther was an Augustinian monk, so. 946 00:46:56,146 --> 00:46:59,775 Yeah, his whole basis was built on Augustine. 947 00:46:59,775 --> 00:47:01,360 He goes just a little further. 948 00:47:01,360 --> 00:47:04,363 Now, Augustine's big point is we don't do anything, 949 00:47:04,488 --> 00:47:08,575 and God's going to be mad at us if we said that we obeyed. 950 00:47:08,575 --> 00:47:11,453 And it's like, you know, he doesn't want you to take credit. 951 00:47:11,453 --> 00:47:13,580 He wants all the credit because you didn't do anything. 952 00:47:13,580 --> 00:47:15,749 You know, to Augustine, that's the big thing. 953 00:47:15,749 --> 00:47:18,710 You take credit for nothing. To Luther. 954 00:47:18,877 --> 00:47:19,920 Yeah, that's true. 955 00:47:19,920 --> 00:47:23,006 But more importantly, that it's faith alone. 956 00:47:23,340 --> 00:47:28,554 And if you think works play any role in this, then that's works righteousness. 957 00:47:28,554 --> 00:47:32,015 And wow, you're outside of Christianity now, see, Augustine 958 00:47:32,015 --> 00:47:35,394 had no issue with works, His point was God does the works. 959 00:47:35,602 --> 00:47:37,980 Yeah. You just need to recognize you didn't do those. 960 00:47:37,980 --> 00:47:40,983 You might think you did, but it was really God working through you. 961 00:47:41,066 --> 00:47:44,027 But yeah, I mean, he didn't have any negativity on works. 962 00:47:44,027 --> 00:47:47,614 It was Luther who made works a negative, you know, term. 963 00:47:47,614 --> 00:47:50,158 And that has influenced so many people. 964 00:47:51,326 --> 00:47:54,329 So, yeah, it, 965 00:47:54,621 --> 00:47:56,790 to me it was just exciting when the light bulb, you know, 966 00:47:56,790 --> 00:47:57,749 finally came on, it's like, 967 00:47:57,749 --> 00:48:01,420 okay, I've got to be able to put this where other people. 968 00:48:01,670 --> 00:48:06,425 Yeah, can can get the same benefit that that I did without having to spend, 969 00:48:06,425 --> 00:48:08,510 you know, a year and a half, two years, 970 00:48:08,510 --> 00:48:12,306 you know, working through all of these, these writings and that sort of thing. 971 00:48:12,306 --> 00:48:15,893 So yeah, hopefully that's what I've been able to, to do to. 972 00:48:15,934 --> 00:48:18,520 Yeah, some degree anyway. 973 00:48:18,520 --> 00:48:22,566 So, so as we tie all the pieces together 974 00:48:22,816 --> 00:48:25,569 Romans is an intimidating book right. 975 00:48:25,569 --> 00:48:28,196 We've been saying how it's, it's complicated. 976 00:48:28,196 --> 00:48:30,240 It's hard to get our minds around. 977 00:48:30,240 --> 00:48:33,452 What would you say as an encouragement to leave with our listeners to 978 00:48:33,994 --> 00:48:36,830 dig into that book, to dig back into into God's 979 00:48:36,830 --> 00:48:39,917 word, into the book of Romans and, and read it for themselves. 980 00:48:39,917 --> 00:48:41,668 What would you say to encourage them? Okay. 981 00:48:41,668 --> 00:48:45,297 so I just a way that'll make it easier to understand it 982 00:48:45,505 --> 00:48:48,550 correctly if I had to give someone a recommendation, 983 00:48:48,800 --> 00:48:50,969 it would be start with the sermon on the Mount. 984 00:48:50,969 --> 00:48:52,721 Read the sermon on the Mount. 985 00:48:52,721 --> 00:48:54,556 I mean, just clear your mind of everything else 986 00:48:54,556 --> 00:48:56,808 you've heard about salvation and everything else. 987 00:48:56,808 --> 00:48:59,645 Just read the sermon on the Mount. What did Jesus say? Okay, 988 00:49:00,687 --> 00:49:02,189 read the book of acts. 989 00:49:02,189 --> 00:49:05,150 What was happening in acts when Paul preached? 990 00:49:05,150 --> 00:49:07,736 We have some of his sermons to people. 991 00:49:07,736 --> 00:49:09,696 I mean, where he's presenting the gospel. 992 00:49:09,696 --> 00:49:13,533 How did Paul present the gospel to people when he was preaching? 993 00:49:13,659 --> 00:49:16,453 What were the things he was working against in the book of acts? 994 00:49:16,453 --> 00:49:18,789 Okay, then. 995 00:49:18,789 --> 00:49:19,039 Okay. 996 00:49:19,039 --> 00:49:23,168 You ready to to go into Paul, read, I would probably say read 997 00:49:23,168 --> 00:49:26,380 James first because James is very clear. 998 00:49:26,380 --> 00:49:28,507 He he's still a Greek writer, 999 00:49:28,507 --> 00:49:32,678 but he reasons more like a Westerner and he's very easy to understand. 1000 00:49:33,011 --> 00:49:36,723 Read James to make sure you're getting, you know, the whole perspective. 1001 00:49:37,391 --> 00:49:43,188 But then read Galatians as a shortened version of Romans. 1002 00:49:43,188 --> 00:49:45,482 Now don't read Galatians through Luther's eyes. 1003 00:49:45,482 --> 00:49:46,274 Just read the book. 1004 00:49:46,274 --> 00:49:48,568 It's what, five chapters or whatever it is. 1005 00:49:48,568 --> 00:49:50,320 He makes the same points. 1006 00:49:50,320 --> 00:49:52,406 But Galatians to me is a pretty easy book. 1007 00:49:52,406 --> 00:49:54,783 I mean, the context is really clear. 1008 00:49:54,783 --> 00:49:57,869 He's talking about the mosaic law that the Jews were trying 1009 00:49:57,869 --> 00:50:00,247 to force the Gentiles, you know, to live by the law. 1010 00:50:00,247 --> 00:50:02,165 They wouldn't eat with them, etc. 1011 00:50:02,165 --> 00:50:06,128 he shows that there's a, these things in the Old Testament 1012 00:50:06,128 --> 00:50:10,173 prefigured the, the church and, and the unbelieving Jews. 1013 00:50:10,382 --> 00:50:13,385 And then he goes into how we must live as Christians. 1014 00:50:13,844 --> 00:50:15,721 It's the same thing he does in Romans. 1015 00:50:15,721 --> 00:50:17,764 But Romans is is a lot more complicated. 1016 00:50:17,764 --> 00:50:21,935 So if you've got Galatians down, then, then yeah, go through Romans, 1017 00:50:22,477 --> 00:50:26,773 use the commentary as, as an aid, you know, let the people who spoke 1018 00:50:27,399 --> 00:50:30,485 the same Greek as Paul, who lived in that culture, 1019 00:50:30,485 --> 00:50:34,740 who thought like him, yeah, take advantage of their of their insights. 1020 00:50:34,740 --> 00:50:36,116 They're not inspired. 1021 00:50:36,116 --> 00:50:39,578 But yeah, they at least like, say, thought like him. 1022 00:50:39,578 --> 00:50:40,746 And it's amazing 1023 00:50:40,746 --> 00:50:43,915 because these are just a scattered group of people, some speaking Latin, 1024 00:50:43,915 --> 00:50:47,377 some speaking Greek, some living in Egypt, some living in Europe, 1025 00:50:47,836 --> 00:50:49,880 and they're all saying the same thing, you know? 1026 00:50:49,880 --> 00:50:52,090 So that's what's really reassuring. 1027 00:50:52,090 --> 00:50:54,426 And it was a United church. 1028 00:50:54,426 --> 00:50:57,179 I mean, before it was a state church, you had one church. 1029 00:50:57,179 --> 00:51:00,557 So they were all able to agree, which today nobody can. 1030 00:51:00,891 --> 00:51:04,561 But you had a period there of nearly 300 years without a state church 1031 00:51:04,895 --> 00:51:08,231 when you had one church that all Christians just about 1032 00:51:08,440 --> 00:51:12,694 were able to agree on what the scriptures mean, which to me shows 1033 00:51:12,694 --> 00:51:13,779 they had the Holy Spirit. 1034 00:51:13,779 --> 00:51:16,865 You don't have that kind of unity without the Holy Spirit, you know, 1035 00:51:16,865 --> 00:51:19,493 unless you have the sword, which is a totally different thing. 1036 00:51:20,660 --> 00:51:21,036 Yeah. 1037 00:51:21,036 --> 00:51:23,163 So thanks for thanks for sharing all of this. 1038 00:51:23,163 --> 00:51:27,042 I'm really hoping this episode will encourage people to give Romans 1039 00:51:27,084 --> 00:51:28,001 another read. 1040 00:51:28,001 --> 00:51:30,504 And I think what you were outlining there of other context 1041 00:51:30,504 --> 00:51:32,255 to read, like reading Galatians, first things like that. 1042 00:51:32,255 --> 00:51:34,216 I think that's that's really helpful 1043 00:51:34,216 --> 00:51:36,760 because it's a big chunk to take all at once. 1044 00:51:36,760 --> 00:51:38,595 it is it help me. 1045 00:51:38,595 --> 00:51:41,389 I don't know how many times I read Galatians when I was working on Romans, 1046 00:51:41,389 --> 00:51:45,268 because there's so many parallels and I realize, man, Galatians, I can, 1047 00:51:45,352 --> 00:51:48,605 I can, I can grasp it, you know, and he's saying the same things. 1048 00:51:48,605 --> 00:51:52,567 But yeah, he's just saying it in a much more detailed, complicated way in Romans. 1049 00:51:52,567 --> 00:51:53,527 Yeah. Hmhmm. 1050 00:51:53,527 --> 00:51:56,321 Wow. Well, thank you so much for coming on the podcast, David. 1051 00:51:56,321 --> 00:52:00,742 This is this is there's a lot we there's a lot, a lot to unpack here. 1052 00:52:01,326 --> 00:52:03,829 So yeah, I really hope this inspires people to to dig 1053 00:52:03,829 --> 00:52:06,832 back into God's word and, and give it another shot. So. 1054 00:52:07,207 --> 00:52:08,250 All right. Thank you for sharing. 1055 00:52:09,376 --> 00:52:12,212 Thanks for listening to this episode with David Bercot. 1056 00:52:12,212 --> 00:52:15,423 We've had him on the podcast several other times, and you might find 1057 00:52:15,423 --> 00:52:18,552 the episode we did with him about how he was an Anglican priest. 1058 00:52:18,552 --> 00:52:19,177 Interesting. 1059 00:52:19,177 --> 00:52:22,180 And you can find that linked in the description below. 1060 00:52:22,806 --> 00:52:25,517 If you like this podcast, leave us a rating and review. 1061 00:52:25,517 --> 00:52:28,311 It really does help more people find this content. 1062 00:52:28,311 --> 00:52:29,771 And of course you can find everything 1063 00:52:29,771 --> 00:52:34,025 we've made over on our website at anabaptistperspectives.org. 1064 00:52:34,317 --> 00:52:36,820 Thanks again and we'll see you in the next episode.