In understanding the Roman Catholic doctrine of Mary, you must understand that
the Mary of Biblical theology is not the Mary of Catholic theology.
The Mary of Biblical theology is the handmaiden of the Lord.
Luke chapter 1.
The Mary of Biblical theology says, My soul doth magnify the Lord,
and my spirit rejoices in God my Savior.
Mary of Biblical theology submits to the word of the angel Gabriel, as from God
himself.
And when she's told that she will bear the Christ child, Mary says, Let it be to me
in accordance with your word.
In other words, I'm willing.
I am the handmaiden, the servant of the Lord.
She was a simple peasant girl engaged to a carpenter.
Yet she was the greatest woman that ever lived, because she was chosen to be the
mother of the Son of God.
She was an extraordinary person.
She was not common, she was extraordinary.
You'll find a full description of Mary, or a pretty good description of Mary,
in Proverbs chapter 31.
She was a virtuous woman.
You want to know the character of Mary, read the pastoral epistles in the New
Testament, where Paul and Peter tell a man what kind of a woman he ought to have,
and a woman what kind of a woman and wife she ought to be.
If you put those together, you will have a character outline of the person of Mary.
She was a sober, dedicated, hard-working, eager, zealous, spiritual, godly person.
And she set an example, because Christ would have nothing less for his mother
than the personality that could set that kind of an example.
So when we get further into this, I will quote some of these verses to
indicate to you what I'm talking about.
But for a little homework on your own, why don't you read the pastoral epistles
of Timothy, 1st and 2nd Timothy, and also 1st Peter particularly,
where you will find how husbands and wives are supposed to treat each other.
And every portion that deals with how a wife ought to be, you can mark next to it
an M, because that would be Mary.
She would be that kind of woman.
So a great deal can be learned about her by what is told us in Scripture,
though she only appears a few times in the Word of God.
She appears in Luke chapter 1, of course, and then in the Gospel of John,
at the wedding feast at Cana of Galilee, where she comes to the Lord Jesus and
says, they don't have any more wine.
Jesus' response to her is, woman, which was a common form of address at that
time, what has this got to do with me?
In other words, this isn't my time, I'm not here for this purpose.
But still in deference to her, because she must have told him what she
wanted.
He ordered the pots to be put out and he created wine from water.
That was the first miracle that was done by the Lord Jesus in Cana of Galilee.
It was done at the request of his mother.
So he fulfilled the commandment of Exodus 20, honor thy father and thy mother.
And though that was not his function at that time to do what he did, he honored
her request and did it.
You find Mary appearing again in the Gospel according to Matthew, chapter 12,
where Christ's brothers and sisters appear with Mary and they are trying to get in to
reach Christ.
This is the Mary of the Bible, Matthew 12.
While he was still speaking to the crowds, his mother and his brothers were standing
outside seeking to speak to him.
And someone said to him, behold, thy mother and thy brothers are standing
outside seeking thee.
But Jesus answered and said to him, who is my mother and who are my brothers?
Stretching forth his hand towards his disciples, us, he said, behold,
my mother, my brothers, for whoever does the will of my father which is in heaven,
he is my brother, my sister, and my mother.
That's a fantastic statement because you know what it's saying?
It's saying that my mother, as much as I love her after the flesh, cannot get
anything from me from the perspective of closeness that you can't.
That's marvelous because by turning to us he says, these are my mother, my brother,
and my sisters.
You want to get close to me?
Do the will of my father which is in heaven and you will be as my mother,
my brother, and my sisters.
Hallelujah.
But that is not the Mary of Catholic theology.
Mary of Catholic theology is underscored in the prayer of Pope Pius XII who
proclaimed in the feast of the Assumption at the Basilica of Santa Maria Maggiore in
Rome that Mary ascended bodily into heaven and that she was preserved from the
disintegration of the grave.
This is the Mary of Catholic theology.
Listen.
Enraptured by the splendor of your heavenly beauty and impelled by the
anxieties of the world, we cast ourselves into your arms, O Immaculate Mother of
Jesus and our Mother Mary.
Scripture says, casting all thy cares upon Him, He cares for you.
O Immaculate Mother of Jesus and our Mother Mary, confident of finding in you,
our most loving heart, in your most loving heart, the appeasement of our ardent
desire and a safe harbor from the tempest which beset us in every side.
Though degraded by our fault and overwhelmed by infinite misery,
we adore and praise the peerless richness of the sublime gifts with which God has
filled you above every other mere creature.
Notice the elevation?
Above every other mere creature.
From the moment of your conception until the day in which after your assumption
into heaven, He crowned you Queen of the Universe.
This is the Mary of Catholic theology now.
Queen of the Universe.
Quote, crystal fountain of faith, bathe our minds with eternal truths.
Fragrant lily of all holiness, captivate our hearts with your heavenly
perfume.
O conqueress of evil and death, inspire in us a deep horror of sin which
makes the soul detestable to God and a slave of hell.
O well-beloved of God, hear the ardent cries which rise up from every heart in
this year dedicated to you.
Bend tenderly, O Mary, over our aching wounds.
Convert the wicked, dry the tears of the afflicted and the oppressed.
Comfort the poor and the humble.
Quench hatred, sweeten harshness, safeguard the flower of purity and protect
the Holy Church.
In your name, resounding harmoniously in heaven, may they recognize they are all
brothers.
Receive, O most sweet Mother, our humble supplications above all obtained for us
that on that day, happy with you, we may repeat before your throne that hymn
which is sung today around your altars.
You are all beautiful, O Mary.
You are the glory.
You are the joy.
You are the honor of our people.
Close quote.
Cardinal Spellman described her in the following terms.
O Mary, gate of heaven, none shall enter in but through thee.
Close quote.
Now that bothers you.
Just remember it's because you're Protestants.
We were protesting against this.
That's why we are here today.
And this is one of the differences which separates us very forcefully from Rome.
First of all, Mary is not the fountain of faith.
The scripture says Jesus Christ is the author and finisher of faith, not Mary.
Mary is not the conqueress of evil and death.
She was conquered by it.
She died because all have sinned and come short of the glory of God.
Jesus Christ is the conqueror of sin and death because he rose in an immortal body.
Mary does not dry the tears, heal the wounds, comfort the poor and humble,
quench hatred, sweeten harshness, and guard the purity of the church.
Christ does.
And notice the shift in emphasis in the prayer.
Our humble supplications and your throne, the hymn that is sung around your altars.
You are all beautiful, Mary.
You are the glory, the joy, and the honor of our people.
Pius is right.
She is the glory, the joy, and the honor of Roman Catholic.
Because more prayers, more novenas, more attention is focused upon the person
of, quote, our lady, close quote, or the Virgin Mary than anyone in the
entire concept of Christian theology.
That is why we protest because only Jesus Christ receives this kind of language.
Only Jesus Christ is entitled to this kind of adoration and praise.
The altars are Christ's.
The throne is Christ's.
Nowhere does the Bible say Mary sits on any throne or is the conqueress of evil
and death.
The adoration of the Virgin Mary in Roman Catholicism approaches the true standard
of biblical idolatry.
And Christ himself dealt with it forcefully.
I draw your attention to Luke chapter 11 verses 27 and 28.
It came to pass as Jesus spoke these things, a certain woman of the company
lifted up her voice.
She was the first devotee of Mary, the first worshiper of Mary on record.
Quote, blessed is the womb that bore you and the breast upon which you nursed.
Jesus, however, turned around and directed her attention to where it properly
belonged.
Yes, but rather blessed are they who hear the word of God and keep it.
More important than the breasts that bore him, the womb that bore him and the breast
upon which he nursed were those who heard God's word and obeyed him.
So at the very beginning of our study of Mary, please notice the difference between
the Mary of biblical theology and the Mary of Catholic theology.
One is the handmaiden and servant of the Lord who recognizes she is a sinner in
need of a redeemer, a savior, who submits to God and directs our attention to his
son.
The wedding feast at Cana of Galilee, she said, whatsoever he says to you,
do it.
We put those two contrasts, we see immediately that there is the difference
between Romanism and between Protestantism.
The difference is the exaltation, the adoration, and the worship of the
Virgin Mary.
Vatican II, summoned by the Catholic pontiff John XXIII, describes the cult of
Mary as creating problems in Catholicism because in Latin America, Spain,
Italy, Central America, and Ireland, a cult has developed, the cult of the
Virgin, which adores, praises, and magnifies Mary at the expense of
historic Catholic theology.
They're concerned about it.
And yet this Pope is leading us right back with Pius XII in 1950, and he gives Mary
the credit for sparing his life when he was shot in Rome.
Nothing.
His life was spared by the grace of the Lord Jesus Christ.
The honor and the praise and the glory belongs to Christ, not to Mary.
And Mary, to her credit, would never have received it.
So let's begin our series by pointing out the contrast between Mary of the Bible and
the Mary of Catholicism.
John 1926, Mary appears again.
This time, the Lord Jesus Christ looks at her and says, Woman, behold thy son.
Then he looks at John, the apostle, and says, Son, behold thy mother.
From that day, John took Mary into his house and cared for her.
Why?
Why not send her to her own children?
Because many of his own family did not believe.
But Jesus sent her to believers.
Spirit is thicker than blood.
Know the expression that says blood is thicker than water?
It is, but spirit is thicker than blood.
The Spirit of God draws us closer than human blood does.
So Jesus sent Mary to John.
Why?
Because Jesus knew John was going to outlive everybody else.
And John outlived everybody.
He died between 94 and 100 AD.
Everybody else was cold by that time, including Mary.
Surely, since John wrote his gospel very late in his life, he would have mentioned
the fact that Mary was assumed into heaven, if that were the case.
But he didn't.
He didn't mention her in his gospel.
He didn't mention her in his epistles.
Certainly not in the book of Revelation.
So, Mary of the Bible died.
Mary of the Bible will be raised to physical immortality at the resurrection.
This corruption will put on incorruption, and this mortal will put on immortality,
and death that claimed Mary and mankind will be swallowed up by life.
She appears only one other time.
In the book of the Acts, chapter 1, they met in the upper room, the disciples
and the apostles, with Mary, the mother of Jesus.
So we know something else about Mary.
She was faithful in devotion to her Son, and she was also filled with the Holy
Spirit, because everybody in the upper room was filled with the Holy Spirit.
So Mary was a spirit-filled, charismatic Christian.
On that note, the Mary of the Bible, in contrast to the Mary of Roman Catholic
theology.
And I pointed out that in Catholicism, there are what I call the seven steps to
deity.
I'd like to discuss those seven steps, because they show how a woman can evolve
into the role of a goddess when people forget the authority of the Scripture,
rely upon their emotions, and upon what other men tell them God has said.
No matter what men tell you God has said, test it by the Word of God.
Then you know what God has said.
And if what they say is in accordance with Scripture, you accept it.
If it is not, you reject it.
Now, we saw the person of Mary in Scripture in a number of places,
and we concluded last week by pointing out that she did not ascend into heaven,
or was not assumed into heaven, because she was given to John.
And John outlived all of the apostles, and John obviously took care of Mary.
He would have recorded somewhere in his epistles, somewhere in his gospel,
surely someplace in Revelation, the last book, this stupendous event that
the mother of Jesus was spared death, or was assumed bodily into heaven.
John makes no mention of this whatsoever.
The early church makes no mention of this whatsoever.
It is an unknown doctrine until it evolves through Roman Catholic theology.
So, the first thing that we discussed concerning the person of Mary is the
concept of Mary as the mother of God.
We pointed out that Mary is called mother of God, Theotokos.
This doctrine did not come forth into the Christian church until the fourth century
of the Christian era, per se.
Scripture nowhere calls her mother of God, and the argument for her being called
mother of God does not rest upon biblical principles.
In Catholic theology, they have a little syllogism which they teach you in school.
Jesus is God.
Mary is the mother of Jesus.
Therefore, Mary is the mother of God.
That is a fallacious form of reasoning, because Jesus is not God only.
Jesus is the God man.
Mary is the mother of the God man.
So, you cannot say Jesus is God, Mary is the mother of God.
Therefore, Mary is the mother of Jesus, because you can create another syllogism
right out of their own conclusion, which is illogical and contradictory to
the scriptures.
For instance, God is a Trinity.
Mary is the mother of God.
Therefore, Mary is the mother of the Trinity.
Of course not.
She is the mother of the physical body of Jesus of Nazareth.
Mary is not the mother of God.
But, the virgin birth of Christ gave impetus to the Roman Catholic church's
emphasis upon the doctrine of the Immaculate Conception.
The Immaculate Conception was held in 1854 to be a dogma of the Roman Catholic
church.
Up until that time, it had been challenged throughout the history of Catholic
theology.
Let me point out just how seriously it was challenged.
Clement of Alexandria, one of the most prominent of the church fathers,
wrote, the word Jesus Christ alone was born without sin.
Saint Augustine, the Bishop of Hippo, author of the City of God, said,
whatever flesh of sin Jesus took, he took of the flesh of the sin of his
mother.
Jesus Christ did not partake in any sense of sin, but he partook of the flesh of his
mother, which came under the judgment of sin.
Augustine never taught that Christ in any way could possibly be equated with Mary,
virgin birth, and Immaculate Conception.
Instead, Augustine said, ye Christ alone, being made a man, but remaining God,
never had any sin, nor did he take on him flesh of sin, though he took flesh of the
sin of his mother.
It's very clear Saint Augustine's viewpoint.
Saint Ambrose, who was canonized by the Catholic church, said, of all that are
born of women, the holy Lord Jesus was the only one who experienced not the contagion
of earthly corruption, by reason of the novelty of his Immaculate birth.
So, the Lord Jesus Christ was conceived without the stain of sin, and Mary entered
the world under the curse of sin.
Christ was holy, harmless, undefiled, separate from sinners.
Mary was under the law, and therefore judged by the law.
Very clear from Romans 3, 23, all have sinned and come short of the glory of God.
There is none righteous, no, not one.
So, the church fathers followed the apostles in exalting and holding up the
Lord Jesus Christ.
Mary is not only not the mother of God, the first step on the staircase to deity,
but she is not conceived without the stain of original sin, nor was she sinless.
The third step, which was taught by the Roman Catholic Church, is the doctrine of
Mary's perpetual virginity, which is designed to parallel Mary to the
sinlessness of the Lord Jesus Christ.
Mother of God, immaculately conceived, and now perpetually virgin.
You know, one of the things that must be brought out forcefully is that the fact
that Mary had sexual relations with Joseph doesn't demean her in the eyes of God or
man.
She was fulfilling the role of a mother, and of a wife, and of a lover.
She was fulfilling the role that she was designed to fulfill.
You want to know what kind of a woman she was?
I urged you to read Proverbs chapter 31, which gives you an in-depth analysis of
the Virgin Mary in terms of what kind of a woman God looks favorably upon.
You read the pastoral epistles, you'll also find out that Paul and Peter
described how a Christian woman should live before God.
That is what Mary was like.
She was faithful, sober, righteous, industrious, holy, prayerful, not given to
gossip.
You can say, well how do you know that?
Because that's God's ideal of how a woman should be.
And he chose Mary as the ideal for womankind because, as the angel said to
her, you have found grace in the sight of God.
She was a godly woman living under the law, and she found acceptance with God by
her faithfulness.
But the idea that she was immaculately conceived and perpetually virgin has
nothing to do with biblical theology at all.
It is simply inference and deduction, and whether conscious or unconscious,
a step toward elevating her, paralleling her with the Lord Jesus Christ.
I think some of the statements made by great saints and church fathers tell us a
great deal about how the early Christians and progressively Christian theologians
thought about the Virgin Mary.
Saint Bernard of Clairvaux, who wrote the great hymn, Jesus the Very Thought of
Thee, a great servant of the Lord, they called him the light of the 13th
century.
There was so much darkness, he was considered to be a light in the midst of
this darkness.
Listen to Bernard, quote, for this reason our astonishment is not small in seeing
that some of you have believed to be able to introduce a new feast that is unknown
to the right of the church, that cannot be approved by reason, that it is condemned
by the ancient traditions, the feast of the immaculate conception.
What honor should we believe of attributing to Mary that honor may be had,
you say, for her conception which was anterior to her birth?
Because without this conception, neither her birth should be honored.
Then what would you say if others, according to your own reasoning,
were to maintain that it is necessary to hold feasts in honor of her parents?
That's logical.
Then it would be necessary to honor her grandparents and her great-grandparents.
Bernard, following a beautiful form of Aristotelian logic, reductio ad absurdum,
reduces the immaculate conception of Mary to an absurdity by pointing out,
if Mary has to be sinless to have Jesus, then her mother has to be sinless to have
Mary, and her mother has to be sinless to have Mary's mother, ad infinitum ad
nauseam.
That's Bernard of Clairvaux, great saint of the age, Peter Lombard.
But this is asked, on what account and whence is it that Mary was conceived
without original sin?
We say that this was impossible.
On what basis?
Holy Scripture.
I could go on quoting Melchior Canas, Saint Antonius, but this one ought to
really ring a bell.
Leo I, Pope of Rome, quote, The Lord Jesus Christ alone among the sons of men was
born without sin.
Close quote.
Amen.
Pope Galatius, it belongs alone to the Immaculate Lamb to have no sin at all.
And Gregory I, for Christ alone was truly born holy, who in order that he might
overcome this condition, of corruptible nature, was not conceived after the manner
of men.
Innocent III, put the icing on the cake.
Quote, Eve was produced without sin, but she brought forth in sin.
Mary was brought forth in sin, but she brought forth without sin.
Close quote.
I like concise statements like that.
I like them because it happened to a state with a Roman pontiff and backed up by
three other Roman Catholic popes.
Then what was it in 1854 that possessed these people to turn around and controvert
all church history and all their basic theological teachings and proclaim that
the Virgin Mary is immaculately conceived?
Because there is a steady movement through the ages towards Mariolatry, the elevation
of the Virgin, the worship of the Virgin, which Vatican Council II tells us has
evolved into what they called the cult of the Virgin.
Stroessmeier, whom I read to you originally on the papacy in 1870,
pleaded with them not to make a god out of Pius IX by elevating him to the rank of
universal sovereign bishop, supreme pontiff.
And these are his own words, quote, as we have made a goddess of the Virgin
Mary, close quote, 1870.
So you are seeing progressive development of a doctrine which is not in any way
supported by Holy Scripture.
Pope Pius XII summed this up, the position of Mary in the Catholic Church in his
great prayer at the feast of the Immaculate, excuse me, at the feast of the
Assumption of Mary in 1950 in Rome, quote, the glory, the honor, the joy of
our people, close quote.
That is not Christianity.
Jesus Christ is the glory, Jesus Christ is the honor, Jesus Christ is the joy of the
Church.
Christ is the crystal fountain of faith, not Mary.
Christ is son of God with power by resurrection from the dead, eternal word
made flesh.
Mary is not the mother of his eternity, but of his earthly form.
Jesus Christ was conceived by the Holy Spirit, Matthew chapter 1, born of the
Virgin Mary.
Mary was conceived by normal means, coming under the Adamic judgment.
She was a sinner who recognized it herself, Luke chapter 1.
My soul doth magnify the Lord, my spirit hath rejoiced in God my Savior.
Mary is proclaimed mother of God, first step.
Mary is proclaimed immaculately conceived, second step.
Mary is proclaimed perpetually virgin, but she isn't perpetually virgin,
because the scripture says in Matthew chapter 1 that Joseph did not have sexual
relations with her until she brought forth her firstborn son and laid him in a
manger.
Joseph, honoring the law of Moses, honoring the divine command, took Mary to
be his wife.
He did not have normal sexual relations with his wife until a purification period
of Mosaic law and the sacrifice of the turtle doves.
Then, according to the Greek text, Joseph had a normal sex life with his
wife.
He produced other children.
They are listed for us in scripture.
Matthew chapter 12 refers to his other brothers and sisters.
And Mary does not occupy any position of uniqueness over the body of Christ.
Because when they said to the Lord Jesus, your mother and your brothers and sisters
are waiting for you outside, Jesus said, who is my mother, my brother, or my
sister?
I tell you, whoever does the will of my Father which is in heaven, the same is
mother, brother, sister to me.
There's an old Catholic argument I learned when I was in parochial school.
If you wanted to get something from someone and you knew they wouldn't give it
to you, but yet you knew their mother or father well, you'd go talk to the mother
and father, wouldn't you?
To try and get them to talk to that person for you.
Sure, that's normal human protocol.
Well then, the argument goes, Mary is Jesus's mother.
Nobody can be closer than that.
God the Father.
So go to Mary.
And I learned in parochial school, to Jesus, through Mary.
Cardinal Spellman's prayer, O Mary gate of heaven, none shall enter except through
thee, is the backbone of Mariolatry.
And the present pope is leading us back into the tradition of Pius XII,
who was a confirmed Mariist and who took the sixth or fifth step to deity.
The elevation of Mary as bodily assumed into heaven.
Now, the fourth step, the assumption of Mary into heaven, is controverted by the
gospel of John.
I'd like you to look at that if you will, John chapter 3, because Roman Catholics
always will tell you that the Blessed Virgin, our Lady, was assumed bodily into
heaven and that she is now queen of heaven as Christ is its king.
John wrote the gospel of John, the latest of the gospels.
John was fully aware of Mary's condition because she was living with him.
And these are John's words, so I think that they have a great bearing on the
case.
John says, no one has ascended into heaven but he that came down from heaven,
even the Son of Man, which is in heaven.
John 3, 13.
No one has ascended into heaven.
That's a direct reference to bodily form.
You ascend bodily.
Clear.
No one has gone up to heaven but he that came down from heaven.
The Son of Man was in heaven.
Jesus Christ alone entered heaven in an immortal glorified body.
Nowhere does it say in biblical theology or in early church history that anybody
accorded Mary this position.
So Mother of God is the first step.
Fallacious logically, contradicted by scripture.
Immaculately conceived?
No, because all have sinned and fallen short of the glory of God.
Perfectually virgin?
Since when does that bestow upon you any special rank?
Is there something wrong with being married?
Something wrong with having children?
Something wrong with having sex with your husband?
Making love?
Something wrong with that?
Of course not.
God gave it as a blessing to mankind and for the purpose of reproduction.
He would hardly discriminate against a woman calling her impure or sinful because
she exercised the normal bodily function of sexual relations with her own husband.
Yet the Catholic Church has raised Mary to such a pinnacle that the talk of her
having sex even with her husband is an affront to them.
Well, it's not an affront to God.
Joseph did not have sex with her, Matthew 1, until she brought forth her
firstborn son and laid him in the manger.
So, Joseph obviously had other children by Mary.
Notice the parallel.
Mother of God, Son of God.
Virgin birth?
Immaculate conception.
Sinless life?
Perpetual virginity.
And resurrection of Christ?
Assumption of Mary.
These are four of the seven steps, anti-biblical steps, paralleling Christ
with Mary, raising her to the rank of divinity.
Why is this so important for us as Christians to understand?
Because there's a great movement on today in apostate Protestantism to reunite with
Rome.
The threat of communism is pushing Orthodoxy, Eastern Orthodoxy, the Greeks,
the Coptics, the Egyptians, and the Roman Catholics together.
The Anglican Church has been in dialogue with the Roman Catholic Church for a
decade on possible reunion.
Recently, the Pope gave the olive branch to the Lutheran Church.
In Germany, by visiting there, and called Protestants separated brothers.
And that Rome urges our return to the fold.
Return to the fold?
Return to the divinity of Mary?
Return to an assumption of the heaven?
Return for her as crystal fountain of faith?
Return to her as the source of salvation?
This is in biblical theology.
And before disoriented charismatics, apostate Protestants, and unwary
evangelicals, listen to the siren song of Rome.
Let them well remember what they're being asked to return to.
They're not being asked to return to the gospel of Jesus Christ in its purity.
They're being asked to return to a system of theology corrupted through the
centuries, and opposed to the foundations of biblical theology.
A system which cannot govern itself now, and wishes to govern us.
I would return to one universal church, and to one supreme bishop, if the theology
of that church were consistent with the theology of the word of God.
Tomorrow morning, I would be there saying, glory to God, he has effected a miraculous
conversion of the church.
And I think we all would be.
But return to this?
Never.
To our Catholic charismatic brothers and sisters we say, we love you.
We pray for you.
We welcome your fellowship.
But we test everything, including the churches, by the authority of scripture.
And whatever does not measure to scripture, is not worthy of our
allegiance.
Our allegiance is to Christ.
And in the words of Martin Luther, that I proudly echo, though I am a Baptist
by persuasion, he was asked, what shall we give our people?
Father Luther, they are so used to relics, prayers to the saints, and all the things
that the church has sanctified through the ages.
What shall we give them if we accept what you say?
Luther responded, Jesus Christ, reverend father, Jesus Christ alone,
he is sufficient for the church throughout all ages.
Christ only.
Here I stand, God help me, I can do no other.
Amen.
Our father, we thank thee for thy word.
Sanctify us through that truth, for thy word is truth.
Touch us with thy spirit, help us to see the issues of the day clearly in the light
of the word of God, and then go forth to exalt the Lord Jesus Christ, who loved us
and gave himself on the cross for our sins.
In Jesus' name, with praise and thanksgiving, we ask it.
Amen.
This is the end of side one.
Please fast forward the tape and turn the cassette over.
We have your Bible.
We are dealing with the Roman Catholic Church in history.
We were discussing the seven steps to deity, discussing the person of the Virgin
Mary, and to sum that up, Mary is called mother of God, paralleling her with Jesus
Christ as son of God.
Mary is called immaculately conceived, 1854, paralleling the virgin birth of
Christ.
Mary is designated perpetual virgin, paralleling the perfection of Christ.
Mary was assumed bodily into heaven, paralleling the resurrection of Christ.
Mary was crowned queen of heaven in Catholic theology, number five,
paralleling Jesus Christ as king of kings and Lord of lords.
Mary was proclaimed mediatrix of all graces, which means that she participates
in the redemption that her son gave by virtue of the fact that she bore him and
brought him into the world.
And she is the mediator because she mediates between us and Christ.
Partly necessary to draw to our attention 1 Timothy chapter 2, which says there is
one God and one intercessor between God and man.
The man, Christ Jesus.
End of argument.
Mary is not mediatrix of all graces.
And of course, the seventh one, co-redemptrix of the universe.
Mary participates in the redemption of mankind as the mother of God.
You need only look at Hebrews 1 verse 3 to know that this cannot be because the
scripture says Jesus Christ himself atoned for all our sins.
Hebrews chapters 8, 9, and 10 reiterate over and over and over again that he
offered one sacrifice for sin forever and sat down at the right hand of God.
That he entered into the holiest of all with his own blood, having obtained
eternal redemption for us.
So it's fairly clear that these seven steps have been designed to elevate the
Virgin Mary into what is known today in Catholic theology as the cult of Mary.
I didn't designate that name.
That name was chosen by Catholic theologians at Vatican II, called by the
Pope.
And they openly described and some of them deplored the adoration and worship of the
Virgin Mary over the person of the Lord Jesus Christ, particularly as it had taken
place in Latin America, Spain, and Italy.
So this is the seven step deity structure of Roman Catholic theology.
Mary, the mother of Jesus, becomes Mary, the mother of God.
But as we saw in our opening lecture on this subject, the Mary of the Bible is
quite different from the deity created by Roman Catholic theology.
Mary of the Bible is the handmaiden or servant of the Lord.
The Mary of the Bible says, whatever my son says to you, do it.
The Mary of the Bible is given into the hands of John to care for.
The Mary of the Bible, we are told, has no greater position in relationship to
Christ than any member of the body of Christ.
Who is my mother, my brother, or my sister, said Jesus, whoever does the will
of my father, which is in heaven, the same as mother, brother, or sister to
me.
Mary of the Bible died.
The Mary of the Bible was buried.
The Mary of the Bible, spiritually now, is in heaven as a saint of God.
But she knew that she was a sinner because in her great adoration of God at the
angelic message, she said, my soul does magnify the Lord and my spirit rejoices in
God, my savior.
So this is the Mary of the Bible, who is found finally in the book of Acts,
in the upper room, participating in the promise of the coming of the Holy Spirit.
And she too was filled with the Holy Spirit.
Mary of the Bible was a charismatic Christian who loved Jesus Christ,
her son and her savior.
She is not the goddess that has evolved in Roman Catholic theology.
Now, I pointed out last week, and I want to reiterate this.
It would take too long to go into it in detail, but I would suggest that you read
carefully the references to Christian women in the New Testament, cited by the
Apostle Paul and Peter, and that you read carefully the 31st chapter of the book of
Proverbs.
You will find there an outline of the character of the Virgin Mary.
She was that kind of a person, because God would choose nothing less than
his ideal to be the Savior's mother.
And Mary was chosen because she was a unique woman, the greatest woman who ever
lived, the mother of our Savior, our sister in Christ.
But we may not say she is our life, our sweetness, and our hope.
That is Christ.
We may not say that she should pray for us at the hour of our death, because Christ
is our intercessor, and it is he that will lead us through the valley of the shadow
of death.
It was not Mary that Stephen looked to as he was dying under the rocks of the
Pharisees, and the scribes, and the Sadducees.
It was the Lord Jesus, and it was to him that Stephen repaired the first martyr.
Lord Jesus, receive my spirit.
He didn't call on Mary to pray for him, he called on Christ to receive him.
So though we honor Mary, and though we recognize her as the greatest woman that
ever lived, on the basis of who she was, and what she did, she is not to be
worshipped.
She is not to usurp the position of the Creator.
She is instead to be considered our sister, and highly loved.
Period.
And we look forward to that day when we shall see her, and have fellowship with
her in the kingdom of God.
But that is a long way from calling her queen of heaven, co-redemptrix of the
universe, mediatrix of all graces, and implying in some way that she is a
parallel to Jesus of Nazareth.
No way is there a parallel, and the Christian is well advised to remember that
this is what separates us very drastically from Roman Catholic theology.
Today's lecture begins a study of the subject of penance, and confession.
Because this is one of the cornerstones of Roman Catholic theology, and you must
understand what it is.
First of all, what is confession?
When a Catholic commits a grave sin, called in theology a mortal sin,
to distinguish it from lesser offenses which are termed venial sins, he is under
obligation to confess that sin to a priest.
I'm quoting now a Catholic theology book.
Before his confession is held by the church to be of any value, however,
he must be truly sorry that he committed the sin.
He must resolve not to repeat it.
He must agree to make restitution to any person whom his sin may have injured,
and he must be willing to accept the penance imposed by the priest.
They go on to say, when these conditions prevail, and he shall make his confession,
the priest gives him absolution.
It means the priest acting as God's representative forgives him, in God's
name, for the offenses against God.
That is confession and penance, in a nutshell.
Let's look at it for a moment in the light of scripture.
First, you must be truly sorry.
Secondly, you must resolve not to repeat it.
Third, you must agree to make restitution to the person whom you have injured,
or you must be willing to accept penance imposed by the priest.
Protestants can agree you must be truly sorry when you confess your sins.
Protestants will agree you must resolve not to repeat it, and of course ask God
for grace not to sin anymore.
Third, you must agree to make restitution to the person whom you've injured.
That's common sense and good biblical procedure.
The last one is quite unique.
It says, you must be willing to accept penance imposed by the priest.
What is penance?
It involves a repetition of prayers, rosary, the making of contributions,
or doing works of one kind or another assigned by the priest acting in the name
of Christ and the church.
Then that penance makes up for or helps atone for the evil which you have done
through your sins.
Roman Catholic Douay version of the Bible, instead of translating the gospel command
repent and believe the gospel, translates it to penance, which is the
total perversion of the word repent.
The word repent is metanoia, which means change course, change your mind.
It's a military command.
You're marching down a dress field, all in your military regalia, and the
sergeant says to the rear march.
You spin on your heel being careful not to get hit in the mouth by the gun marching
in front of you, and you go in the opposite direction.
That's a graphic definition of what metanoia is.
It means reverse course.
It is a change of mind and direction.
No way can it mean pile up good works to make up for what you did.
And there is the fundamental error which in a large degree made possible the
Protestant Reformation.
Because at the time of the Reformation, the Pope of that era was attempting to
build the Basilica of Saint Peter's in Rome.
And in order to do that, he had to raise millions and millions of dollars,
because it's the largest cathedral in the world.
So he designated the granting of indulgences.
What was an indulgence?
An indulgence was a decree by the authority of the vicar of Christ acting in
the name of the Lord Jesus to remove your time in purgatory proportionate to the
amount of money you gave.
Indulgences were sold.
Today you will find in the front of the Catholic Bible a preface which tells you
that there is an indulgence of a certain number of days from your time in purgatory
if you read the Bible 15 minutes a day.
On that basis I've got 700,000 years of credit in purgatory now.
And I know there are people that have got an awful lot more than I have.
And that's exactly what Luther ran into.
He was a professor of theology.
He was no dumb or ignorant uninformed little monk.
He taught theology at Erfurt and he was a brilliant theologian.
And Luther said, this can't be right, because the Bible says we are saved by
grace through faith and we're justified by faith, not by works.
Therefore, how can you take time off purgatory for money?
Well, the Pope sent out a man to collect these funds.
He was the local representative of the IRS today.
His name was Bishop Tetzel.
And he carried with him all over Germany, where Luther lived, a casket, a chest,
we would call it today.
And he would come into a town, go to the church, put it before the altar,
raise the lid, and then preach that the Holy Father had decreed that anybody who
would make a contribution of would receive a written indulgence for so much time in
purgatory.
It was a fantastic business idea.
There was no overhead.
There was no upkeep on anything.
There was no purgatory.
And people were paying for time off a place that wasn't there.
That's a fantastic sales approach.
And it worked.
And they collected millions.
When they got to Luther, he became upset with Bishop Tetzel, and said, you have no
right to do this.
It's contrary to Holy Scripture, no matter who says it.
Tetzel said, the Holy Father says it.
Luther said, there's only one Holy Father, that's God.
And God didn't say this.
Naturally, they reported this to Rome as fast as carrier pigeon could get it there.
There was a little couplet, which was sung in Germany during the time of the
collection of indulgences, a form of penance.
As the Goshen, which is the little coin, in the casket rings.
The soul from purgatory rings.
I didn't invent that incidentally, that was what they were singing at the
time.
And they were Catholics singing at the time, not Protestants.
This is a thumbnail sketch of the background of indulgences and how they
were developed.
And penance was something that came late in the history of the church, not until
the 12th century was it actually affirmed as an absolute decree as one of the seven
sacraments of the church.
So that was the concept of penance.
Make up for what you have done, which is wrong.
Now, in the confessional, after you have witnessed your confession, the priest
dialogues with you, and you repent and say that you're sorry, and you submit to
penance.
The priest says, I absolve you in the name of the Father, and of the Son,
and of the Holy Spirit.
Amen.
Now, if you leave there, and you go out, and you repeat the same sin in Catholic
theology, that is indicative of a bad confession.
And the absolution granted by the priest in the name of Christ is not abiding.
So you are not forgiven.
When I was attending Roman Catholic school for years, I can remember my Catholic
friends going to confession on Saturday morning.
And they would widely come out Saturday morning after confession, and then get
stoned out of their minds with booze, fornicate, do everything that they would
in the confession to get rid of.
And they were thoroughly convinced that by getting in there to confession,
that was going to make it possible to take the Eucharist on Sunday.
They didn't even know their own theology, which says that everything they were doing
was unforgiven, because they were not truly repentant, and they were not
forsaking their sins.
So the confessional was ordained for the purpose of carrying through a specific
interpretation of one biblical passage.
All confession is based upon one biblical passage.
I'd like you to look at that passage right now.
Very famous in Catholic theology.
They've written a great deal on it.
We're going to look at it and try and understand it.
John chapter 20.
The Lord Jesus Christ appeared to his disciples, and he breathed on them,
and said, Receive the Holy Spirit.
Receive the Holy Spirit, whose sins you remit, they are remitted, whose sins you
retain, they are retained.
John chapter 20, 23.
Actually, I should have begun in verse 21, you would have picked up immediately.
Verse 21, Peace I leave with you, as my Father has sent me, I send you.
He breathed on them and said, Receive the Holy Spirit, whosoever's sins you remit,
they are remitted unto them, whosoever's sins you retain, they are retained.
Now, Roman Catholic theology teaches at this point that Jesus Christ gave the
power to forgive sins to his disciples, just as he had that power himself.
Let's make the assumption that that's true, just for the sake of argument.
Jesus transmitted to his apostles that capacity.
There isn't a single verse of scripture, nor biblical theology from the church
fathers, in the first two centuries of the church, that indicates that the apostles
ever gave that power to anybody.
Never transmitted it to anybody, never taught that anybody got it.
That's one.
So even if you made the assumption that the apostles had the authority,
there's no evidence that the apostles transmitted that authority, because they
didn't transmit authority in other areas.
For instance, when they laid hands on people, the Holy Spirit came upon them.
Yet, the apostles never gave indication that this authority went to the local
church or pastor.
So, even if you made the assumption they were correct, it never went any further
than the apostles.
But is that indeed what the Lord Jesus said?
He said, as my father sent me, I send you.
The father sent him into the world to heal the sick, cleanse the leper, cast out the
demons, bind up the wounds of men, but first and foremost always to save
them.
The redemption of the soul.
He said to his disciples, go out into all the world, preach the gospel to all
creatures.
Teach them to observe all things whatsoever I have commanded you.
Baptize them in the name of the father and of the son of the Holy Spirit.
I'm with you always.
Even to the end of the world.
In the great commission, it's significant he does not say, heal the sick,
cleanse the lepers, cast out the demons, and raise the dead.
Yet, the apostles were capable of exercising that power as the Lord Jesus
chose to give it to them.
The early church could do this.
But that power was not something given to the church to go on forever as it had been
in the apostles.
That's obvious, because as church history moved on, the apostles and the power they
had disappeared from the church, and the continuing gifts of the spirit
were the perpetuity, if we can call it that, of or the residual of that power.
To me, it's very significant.
That Jesus said, as my father sent me, I sent you.
What did the father send him to do?
To save mankind by the preaching of the gospel.
And that's what he did.
He preached to them, and when the people believed Jesus, he told them their sins
were forgiven.
And when they rejected him, he told them, you will die in your sins.
Where I'm coming, going, you cannot come.
We have the same power today.
We can preach the gospel, and if people believe it, we can say to them in the name
of Jesus Christ, your sins are forgiven you.
They are remitted by the blood of the cross.
If the person says, I don't buy it, I'm not going to accept it, I don't
believe that Jesus Christ is my savior, then you may say to them, then your sins
remain with you.
You are lost in your transgressions and your sins.
As my father sent me, I send you.
There's an indication that we, in Christ's name, do the works of Christ.
We are not Christ.
We are not apostles.
We are members of the body, and God has set in the church, the order of the
church, for the glorification of the Lord Jesus Christ.
Let us understand very clearly that penance has nothing to do with biblical
confession.
1 John 1, 7 and 9 says, if we confess our sins, he, Christ, is faithful and just to
forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness.
And then, if we walk in the light as he is in the light, we have fellowship one with
another, and the blood of Jesus Christ, his son, keeps on cleansing us of all
sins.
Biblical penance and Roman Catholic theological penance are totally different.
In the Bible, if you are going to find penance at all, it would be to try and
redress the wrongs that your sins have created.
If you've hurt somebody, stolen from somebody, abused somebody, been dishonest,
stealing time from the boss or money, if you've been an unfaithful person to
your family and your marriage, then you are to redress that by correcting
it after you have repented by the grace of God.
And then people will see that you are sincere.
One of my dearest old friends was the worst boozer and womanizer that Time
Magazine ever had on its staff.
He was an absolute rake, a degenerate.
And that guy made every girl in Time Magazine's office building in New York
City that he could get near for 22 years.
And he went through two marriages and just made a mockery of everything.
Wealthy, powerful, influential, you name it.
He had it.
He staggered drunk into one of my Bible classes one night and made a pass at my
wife.
My wife told him to please contain himself that she would be happy to chat with him
afterwards.
Why didn't he listen to what I was saying?
And so he listened.
That night I was preaching on Errol Flynn's book, My Wicked, Wicked Ways.
And he thought I was preaching about him.
I was.
When I got finished, he told me afterward, I sweated through my shirt and my tie and
my jacket and I was cold sober.
And when I came through that door, I was smashed, Walter.
Believe me, I was smashed.
And he said, I got sober because God started talking to me and I suddenly
realized what was going on.
I said, what happened then?
He said, I went home and my wife and I had a talk.
And my wife said to me, you ought to read the Bible.
I said, I haven't got one.
She said, here, try this one.
She had come to Christ a few days before.
He didn't know it.
And he's reading the Bible and she leads him to Christ.
And he gets born again, sitting on their bed, reading the Bible after this Bible
class.
He turned to her, and I'm talking biblical theology now.
And he said, dear, I know you're getting ready to divorce me.
And I know that I deserve it more richly than any man around.
I have lied to you.
I have cheated on you.
I have stolen your time and your life.
I have been, and he started to confess his sin to her.
He said, if you just give me a chance.
He said, I know with God's help, I can make this up to you.
That's biblical penance.
He wasn't going to do it to get saved.
He was going to do it because he wanted her to see that he had come to know Jesus
Christ.
She threw her arms around him and gave him a hug and a kiss.
And she said, I came to Jesus just a few days ago.
And she said, let's go together.
And they became faithful members of my Bible class.
The guy then carried true biblical penance to its final justification.
He went back to Time Magazine and went through the building floor by floor and
told the girls that he was an adulterous wretch who had done terrible things,
exploited them and everything else.
Please could they forgive him because he had come to know Jesus Christ as his
Savior.
I gave him a tie clasp I had on that night when I heard his testimony, a little Ixos
fish.
He still has it.
I saw him last year.
He's still witnessing.
In fact, I was a guest in his home.
There was that Ixos that he wears all over the place to remind him Jesus Christ
saved.
And you know what happened?
He led some of the girls in the building to cry.
He shook up the management of Time Magazine and he finally ended up in Henry
Luce's office.
Henry said, because he's a relative, Henry said, I understand that something's
happened to you.
Pete said, you better have.
He said, I found Jesus Christ, Henry, and you need Jesus too.
And he went after Henry Luce for 15 minutes.
Luce just sat there and listened to him.
He got all finished.
He said, a long time ago, Pete, I accepted Jesus Christ as my Savior in
China.
My parents were missionaries.
I've been a miserable example of Christianity, but I believe and he said,
he's the son of God and the Savior, and he rose from the dead, and I trust him
for my salvation just the way you do.
He said, you find the strangest people that God has in the strangest places.
Here was the editor saying, I blew it, but I know Jesus.
That's biblical penance, not Roman Catholic penance.
For further information on this subject, remember that the Christian Research
Institute offers a wide selection of books, fact sheets, statements,
CRI perspective transcripts, and other user-friendly resources that will help you
to become better equipped.
Just write CRI, Box 500, San Juan Capistrano, California, 92693.
Or you may call 714-855-9926.