The Five Solas: Sola Fide (Timeless) - Part 3 of a 6 Part Series

We continue our series on the Five Solas with Sola Fide (Faith Alone).  We look at faith, how various traditions have impacted our view of faith, and how we define faith.  Why are people so tempted to add to the simplest of doctrines?

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Transcript

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Greg [00:00:02]:
Romans is being the justified being justified by faith. In Galatians, it's living by faith, justified living by faith. So Romans is written by Paul. Galatians is written by Paul. Mhmm. So Hebrews has the same phrase. Hebrews is written by probably Paul. So I knew American

Chad [00:00:22]:
with you. Oh, now you're gonna argue. Here we go. Here we go. Dave's taking his shirt off. Anyway, I

Dave [00:00:26]:
ain't gonna

Chad [00:00:31]:
fight.

Greg [00:00:51]:
So any exciting things happen this week? Let's think about

Dave [00:00:56]:
the week. The week. Are we thinking news, current events here,

Chad [00:01:00]:
or just

Dave [00:01:01]:
personal life?

Greg [00:01:01]:
Personal life,

Dave [00:01:04]:
personal milestones.

Chad [00:01:07]:
Oh, yeah. Somebody joined the club. The club. The club. Oh. The over the hill club.

Dave [00:01:15]:
Yes. Well, I thought that was 40.

Greg [00:01:17]:
Yeah. That's they forgot that's 40. Oh.

Chad [00:01:20]:
I just never thought of 40 as being old.

Dave [00:01:22]:
So Okay. Well, I'm 50 now.

Chad [00:01:25]:
So Yeah. There it is. So we had a birthday party and Yeah. And welcomed him to the Over the Hill Club. 40 isn't 40 is the new 20.

Greg [00:01:36]:
So, Dave, you're in the store looking for a birthday card. And what was the one thing you were looking for

Chad [00:01:43]:
for a card? Gojira. Yeah. Yeah.

Greg [00:01:46]:
Yeah. And I was in the store looking for a

Chad [00:01:49]:
card, and I'm like, I gotta find a catfish. I gotta find a catfish. I gotta find a catfish. And you did. And I did. I found one with a big giant fish

Dave [00:01:58]:
on the front of

Chad [00:01:58]:
the card. I found a T Rex, though,

Dave [00:02:00]:
so that was close. That's very close. Yes. And Gojira. We love you, Toho. Please give us the rights to Godzilla.

Chad [00:02:07]:
Can we have him for an interview? I would love that. I mean, Gojira, not Toho. Of course.

Dave [00:02:14]:
That's what I thought you meant.

Chad [00:02:15]:
What's the answer? Every answer.

Dave [00:02:19]:
Yeah. Exactly. I think Godzilla should probably run for president. Godzilla 2024. Because if you think about it, no one's gonna mess with him. His first visit to the Capitol that takes care of all the senators and representatives that are problems, and we don't need a military. If someone starts a war, Godzilla goes and fights it.

Chad [00:02:39]:
That's true. He's impervious to nuclear weapons because he was formed by nuclear weapons. Right. He eats them for breakfast. Yeah. So Crunch. Crunch.

Dave [00:02:47]:
It's a good idea.

Chad [00:02:48]:
I know. Yeah.

Dave [00:02:49]:
It's quite foolproof, really. Yeah. Godzilla 2024. Yeah. 2028. And then repeal the 24th amendment so he can keep running again and again and again.

Greg [00:03:00]:
Interesting.

Chad [00:03:01]:
Yeah. In perpetuity. Yes. You could be like Augustus. Yes. There's a Rome reference. Yes.

Dave [00:03:08]:
I was just thinking about that.

Chad [00:03:10]:
I thought about it several times already today. Yeah.

Greg [00:03:14]:
I don't know when I wasn't thinking about it.

Chad [00:03:16]:
There you go. So fun story about faith. Okay. So we we believe very firmly in talking to our kids a lot about worldview, and we I think we annoyed our kids' friends sometimes or annoyed our kids in front of their friends because we would you know, they'd be over. We'd be watching a movie, and I would pause it. I would go, what do you think the message of this movie is? And they would be like, dad, please. But now they, like, look at the world through worldview eyes. Right? So one summer, we go down to SeaWorld down in Florida, and we go to the the Shamu exhibit.

Chad [00:03:56]:
And the theme of that year Shamu was believe. And it ended up being this really creepy, weird, postmodern, near worship service, and the theme was believe. And the, you know, you had to believe. Right. And I believed when I was young that I could be a Shamu trainer. And so I just kept believing, and I believed hard, And I became a Shamu trainer. What do you need to believe in? And then they had this really weird to call Shamu out, everybody had to put both hands above their heads, palms open, and they would go shit. Like, they would imitate you were supposed to imitate the tail of Shamu.

Chad [00:04:38]:
Okay. So you would throw your hands down in front, sha, and then you bring it back up for moo. Okay. So they were like, Shamu Shamu. And the whole crowd, minus our family, is doing this, what looks like a bowing motion, right, to Shamu. And 2 of those Shamu Shamus into it, both of my children looked up and over at me with this creeped out look on their face. And I said, don't worry. We'll talk about this later.

Chad [00:05:10]:
Just enjoy the Shamu Show. Yeah. Right? And it was really funny because it gave us this great opportunity to talk about the nature of faith. What is faith, and do we actually have something that we actually believe in? And it was just this really cool experience that congealed in our family what faith was, what's the nature of it, what's the object of our faith, and things like that. So Right. Yeah.

Dave [00:05:37]:
That's pretty cool. Yeah. Yeah. What do

Greg [00:05:39]:
you call a pod of singing killer whales?

Chad [00:05:43]:
An or capella group. That is awesome. That's just bad. No. That was actually pretty good. I'll give you props on that. You have to say they don't have music in the background if you can call them an a capella group though. Don't you think? No? Okay.

Dave [00:06:00]:
Yeah. A capella means unaccompanied.

Chad [00:06:02]:
Right. So or capella should they shouldn't have any music behind them. So That's what you said, isn't it? No. He said a singing group of a singing pod of orcas. Right. He didn't say there was no backup music.

Dave [00:06:17]:
Yeah. Yeah.

Chad [00:06:20]:
I don't know. Just just just asking questions.

Dave [00:06:23]:
Yeah. Well

Greg [00:06:24]:
I didn't say singing band. I said pod, which is a group

Chad [00:06:28]:
of I know what a pod is.

Dave [00:06:29]:
Okay. Did you picture a band?

Chad [00:06:30]:
A murder of crows is?

Dave [00:06:32]:
It's a flock. Right?

Chad [00:06:33]:
Or a group. It's a group of crows. It's called a glider.

Greg [00:06:36]:
Could you just change the subject for me?

Chad [00:06:38]:
Mhmm. Oh, it's a capella. Singing an archapella.

Dave [00:06:41]:
I'm trying to picture a group, like, of sharks and dolphins with guitars and drums swimming along with the or capella groups to make a band.

Greg [00:06:50]:
So all of these jokes

Chad [00:06:51]:
be or capella. It can't have a band because it's or capella. Right.

Greg [00:06:54]:
I didn't say it was a band.

Chad [00:06:56]:
I understand that, but Chad just did.

Greg [00:06:59]:
Oh my goodness. You know what? I was with Dave and all of these jokes about his age and his memory and everything. He's getting really concerned. So he was like, I'm gonna check. He he googles Alzheimer's. Right? Uh-huh. And all the links were

Chad [00:07:15]:
already purple. Oh, no. False. Just for the record. False. Did not.

Dave [00:07:21]:
Wait. You don't remember this? Yes.

Chad [00:07:27]:
Pathetic. That's the only thing I'm gonna say. It's pathetic. That was definitely better than the Orcapella reference, though.

Dave [00:07:38]:
We love you, Dave.

Chad [00:07:39]:
Do you, though? We do. Do you? We do. Not sure you do. We tell you what you're saying. I'm just not feeling. I just don't remember you saying it.

Greg [00:07:47]:
It's right.

Chad [00:07:51]:
I walked into that buzz saw just for you, Craig. I know.

Greg [00:07:54]:
I know.

Dave [00:07:55]:
You always take one for the team, and

Chad [00:07:56]:
we always appreciate it. I'm a team taker. Yeah. That's whatever. Yeah. Just cut that one out. Yep. Just cut that one out.

Greg [00:08:03]:
I'll try and put it in the file with the other.

Chad [00:08:07]:
Save it for later. Save it for the bribery.

Dave [00:08:09]:
Like I say, people, it's usually a 4 and a half hour session to get you a 55 minute episode out of this. That's true.

Chad [00:08:17]:
So what number of of the 6 episodes are we on for the 5 solas?

Dave [00:08:25]:
Okay.

Chad [00:08:25]:
That's pretty cumbersome, but I got it.

Dave [00:08:27]:
That was. We are on sola fide, which would be number 3. First, we did scripture, then we did grace, and now we're on to faith.

Chad [00:08:36]:
Sola fide. Mhmm. Latin for faith. Sola fide.

Dave [00:08:40]:
Where we where do we wanna start? I've got some show notes here. I thought we might start with, the history of Sola fide, which is pretty atrocious.

Chad [00:08:50]:
When you say atrocious, what do you mean?

Dave [00:08:52]:
I mean, it was like the first thing to come under attack as soon as a 100 AD. People were starting to say you had to be baptized to be to be saved. So this was a this was a of the 5 solas, this one has, I think, the most tortured history of any of them from early church history on. Interesting.

Chad [00:09:15]:
Yeah. And I would even say even before because grace salvation has always been by grace through faith. And so even under Judaism before Jesus' time. That is interesting. I I hadn't thought through the your question that way. But yeah. So what else you got?

Dave [00:09:31]:
So, so as early as a 100 AD, baptism was taught as a co centerpiece of faith in salvation. By 250 AD, Cyprian was teaching it was faith and confession. So here we see some of these things emerging from from the church that's that's kinda getting on its feet. And also faith plus apostolic succession, church office. Right? So church position. This is, you know, this is the, we talked earlier about papal authority and papal infallibility. It's starting to rear its head here. You know, if your church leader blesses you, you're you're oh, you're golden, you know, that kind of thing.

Dave [00:10:13]:
And then from there, it keeps going downhill. By 400 AD, our old friend, Augustine, is out there, and in in some of his teachings, he's saying that you have to partake in the Lord's supper as part of your salvation.

Chad [00:10:33]:
And that if you miss giving.

Greg [00:10:34]:
Yeah. If if you According to him.

Dave [00:10:36]:
Yeah. If you miss out, you're you're you're up to creek. So this this is kind of a tortured history. Faith is such a squirrelly thing to define. It's almost it was almost easier for me when I was looking into this and researching it to show what it isn't and where it was missed than it was to try to define it, which, Dave, I know you've got some strong ideas here, and, Greg, you too. It wasn't until 1050 that Anselm of Canterbury started to have teachings that really emphasize the importance of faith. And this is almost like a this is like almost an inspiration for Luther in in creating the 95 Theses because he clarifies that there's nothing we have to give to God that he doesn't already have or can already do better or, you know, it's whatever we bring to him is filthy rags, basically. So and then Scubalon, Philippines is

Chad [00:11:36]:
Really? Excrement. Sweet. All the righteousness that I can produce, I count as excrement.

Dave [00:11:41]:
Who said that? Paul. Oh.

Chad [00:11:43]:
Yeah. As rubbish is what the King James translated it. So most of the leave it to me to bring up this kind of topic. Right? No. No. That's good. But it actually Paul says all those things that I would have been able to bring to God Uh-huh. I counted as rubbish, I e, excrement.

Chad [00:11:58]:
Oful, if you look old, old terminology. Wow. Yeah. Just a real quick reference, though, because I don't think we'll get a chance to get it in. Mhmm. Maybe we will, but, the I think the easiest way to separate baptism from salvation Sure. Is first Corinthians. Because first Corinthians Paul talks about there's this divisions among you, and he says, you know, I was baptized by this one.

Chad [00:12:22]:
You were baptized by that one. And he says, I'm glad I only baptized that small number of you, because God separates just very clearly. Just by saying that, he separates baptism from the gospel. That's the first place I would go Yeah. If I were talking to someone like a church Christ person or or somebody wants to add baptism to the list of things that have to happen Yeah. To get grace. Yeah.

Dave [00:12:51]:
Because I always go to the thief on the cross, and there's Mhmm. Lots of answers for that. So

Chad [00:12:54]:
Yeah. The sad one is, like, they just say, well, that was old testament. Yeah. It's like, wow. Salvation was different in the old testament? It's always been the same according to Paul.

Dave [00:13:04]:
By the time we get 500 years past Anselm of Canterbury and we're on to Martin Luther, preparing to nail his 95 thesis, the church has undergone some pretty dramatic changes. And the biggest one of which is the sale of indulgences. Yeah. Right? So much to my shock, when I was researching this, I found a series of videos on YouTube by at least 1 Catholic priest and maybe another one. I I gotta go back and rewatch it. They're flat out saying the church never sold indulgences. Phooey.

Greg [00:13:40]:
How'd they get so rich?

Chad [00:13:44]:
Great question. Alright. That's just an antihistorical gaslighting.

Dave [00:13:49]:
Yeah.

Chad [00:13:51]:
And, well, let me give you one example. My wife's an English teacher, and we were talking about this episode the other day, actually, at your birthday party. Okay. And she was like, wait. How can they say that? The Canterbury Tales has a whole section called the partner's tale, and the partner is someone who is selling indulgences. And not only does he get introduced as a person who's selling indulgences for way more than he should and profiting by it. In his tale, he talks about selling indulgences. So, yeah, that's just not true.

Dave [00:14:23]:
Yeah. And by the way, it's happening today. Indulgences did not go away. Now they're very different now, and some would say very far removed from what was happening 500 plus years ago. And I would agree, Like, you can buy a mask for somebody or you can you can buy certain ceremonies for people.

Chad [00:14:47]:
Burn it. You can burn up candle for somebody.

Dave [00:14:49]:
Yep. Stuff like that. And and some would some would say that that that qualifies as buying an indulgence. The church did clarify. And when I say church at this point in the podcast, church, capital c, Catholic church, the church did clarify in Vatican 2 that indulgences cannot be monetary. So that was clarified. And if they never sold them, why would they need to clarify that? What a proper indulgence should look like today, to my understanding from the research and from couple conversations, it should look more like community service.

Chad [00:15:22]:
Like a penance almost. Yeah. Like an act of repentance.

Dave [00:15:25]:
Right. So Interesting. But even back in, 1500, there was the rule of simony, which is a church ruling that says and that dates way back to, like, the 400 that says you cannot buy spiritual favor with God, with money.

Chad [00:15:47]:
And yet

Dave [00:15:48]:
And yet we know what happened.

Chad [00:15:51]:
So I e the partner's tale, Canterbury Tales.

Dave [00:15:55]:
Yeah. Right. So that kinda historically takes us up to the threshold of Martin Luther and the big day, which we now call Halloween. But okay. Oh, jeez.

Chad [00:16:09]:
I was like, well,

Greg [00:16:10]:
I think you should leave it in. I maybe I will. Reformation day. Yay. October 31st.

Dave [00:16:17]:
Yes.

Greg [00:16:18]:
America calls it Halloween.

Dave [00:16:20]:
Yep. There you go. But that that does a decent job. Probably, hopefully, good enough. We can fill in details later if we need to, but that that kind of takes us up to the threshold of the reformation and the 95 theses. So sola fide, here we are, by grace alone through faith alone. By Christ alone as revealed in scripture alone, we receive salvation to the glory of God alone. Yeah.

Dave [00:16:45]:
Right? So here we are on faith alone. Good summary. Where do we wanna go next? Sola fide in the Bible. Okay. What's the scripture say about sola fide? Yeah. So I've got a few verses here, but I wanna see what you guys came up with too. Okay. You wanna start?

Greg [00:17:01]:
Yeah. Go ahead, Dave.

Chad [00:17:02]:
I'm gonna go way back to the Old Testament. Oh, boy. And this is something that Paul uses in his full argument on salvation by grace through faith in Romans. Mhmm. He talks about the need for salvation in early Romans, then he goes into justification by faith, demonstrate that in chapter 3. And then in 4, he uses 2 really big old testament characters to prove salvation by faith. Right. He uses David as a very, very small little middle section of the chapter.

Chad [00:17:39]:
It says David understood what it's like to be forgiven and uses a psalm, but Abraham, he develops, and he goes right back to Genesis 156. Genesis 156 says this, and Abraham believed God and was counted to him as righteousness or credited to him. Credited would be another word for that or reckoned to him is what King James says, I believe. Yep. And that is what Dave excuse me, Paul points to as the point of Abraham's salvation is it was reckoned to him as righteousness, and that demonstrates very clearly that salvation has always been by grace through faith. I remember growing up thinking salvation was by works in the Old Testament, and you failed, and you couldn't do it without going to the priest and getting forgiveness. But Abraham before the Mosaic covenant, way before Sinai is saved by grace through faith. Yeah.

Chad [00:18:37]:
Yeah. And that we'll we'll we can even look at that. We'll look at that a little bit later when we define what faith looks like, but that's Romans chapter 4.

Greg [00:18:46]:
We're gonna look at?

Chad [00:18:47]:
Romans chapter 4.

Greg [00:18:49]:
So what what did Abraham do? Are we gonna look

Chad [00:18:51]:
at that? He believed God. He was reckoned to him

Greg [00:18:55]:
as righteousness. But what what what was going on?

Chad [00:18:57]:
Oh, okay. So in chapter 12, we have the promise of the Abrahamic covenant where he says, I'm gonna give you 3 things, land, seed, and blessing. And then chapter 15, he reiterates that promise because Abraham's faith at that point is not complete. It's wavering, and he's given his nephew, I believe it is, named his nephew as his heir, and God says, nope. You're going to look at the look at the sky, and you're going to have as many descendants as the stars you see in the sky. And it says Abraham believed God and was reckoned to him as righteousness. It was counted to him as righteousness or credited to him as righteousness. So you get this a term that comes big later, alien righteousness, a righteousness outside of himself.

Chad [00:19:46]:
So yeah. So, and at that point then the Abrahamic covenant gets ratified. You get a promise in chapter 12, but you don't see the Abrahamic covenant ratified until after Abraham comes to faith, and then you have the ratification of the Abrahamic covenant. So that's the earliest direct faith passage when it comes to salvation. And Abraham's a kind of a big deal to Israel. Right? He's him and Moses are the 2 top probably characters to Judaism, and then David is probably 3rd.

Greg [00:20:18]:
I think we should just keep building on that.

Chad [00:20:20]:
Yeah. Yeah. Okay. So if we fast forward, John is the gospel that probably deals with faith using that term the most. You have repent and believe in in the other three gospels, but probably more than the other gospel writers, John uses the term believe, and he develops it. John really plays around with that word faith or believe, and it's a little bit strange because what I think I'll just kind of give you a preview. I think what he's doing is he's trying to demonstrate. Remember in the past episodes, we've talked about narrative shows.

Chad [00:21:00]:
It doesn't tell you directly. Right. So I think what John is trying to demonstrate is that there's saving kinds of faith, and there's a kind of faith that does not save. It's accompanied by repentance. It's accompanied by a change of life. Mhmm. Right? And so one of the ways he does that is at the end of chapter 2, you have the statement that all these people believe in Jesus. And then at that point, you would expect, oh, and Jesus rejoiced, and there's angels in heaven having a party because a sinner repented.

Chad [00:21:34]:
Right? Mhmm. But it says, no. As for Jesus, he didn't put his trust in them because he knew what was in their hearts. Yeah. You're like, wait. That that's counterintuitive. Right? That that can't be. He his people believed.

Chad [00:21:47]:
Then in 3, you have what? Salvation is through belief. Right? All who believe. Right? John 316. And then at least one more time in chapter 8, Jesus has some people who have just been said they believed in him, and he calls them children of the devil. And then then he has this whole diatribe in chapter 6 about what a true disciple is. Right? And so you you find out that there is this concept in the Bible that there is a kind of faith that is superficial, that's temporary, but it's not a saving kind of faith. In James chapter 2, we've talked about this in past episodes. There's that kind of faith that does not work.

Chad [00:22:31]:
The demonic kind of faith where it sends to the facts about Jesus. Right? The demons believe in Jesus, James chapter 2, but they don't have the kind of faith that would be satisfactory to save. So there's a there's a quality to the faith that or there's a kind of faith that you can have that is a temporary faith. And I think the way the writers like Matthew deal with that is this, the various, where the seed the sower and the seed Mhmm. Where there's various kind of responses to the gospel Right. And not various hearts because the the different soils represent the human hearts. The quality of faith is is the kind of soil or the kind of person who receives that word and takes it, and that word multiplies in their life. So there's that quality of faith, a saving kind of faith.

Chad [00:23:21]:
Yeah. So there's there's 2 for me. Where do you wanna go?

Greg [00:23:24]:
So you what did you just do? The content?

Chad [00:23:27]:
Well, I would say that would be the quality of the faith. Okay. The reformers use 3 Latin words. I'm not sure I I like their categories, but they have one which is fiducia, which is the Latin word for trust. There's an element of trust that faith is. Right? True faith is a trust. There's a trusting element. True faith also has they call it notitia, which is the the notion or the idea of affirming the facts about, and then essentia is to is to actually ascent and believe in those facts.

Chad [00:23:59]:
So there's a kind of factual content about the faith, and then you have the fiducia, which I I think that's the clearest one in scripture, which we can talk about that from Romans.

Greg [00:24:08]:
So if you broke it down, got rid of the Latin words, what would you break it down to to

Chad [00:24:12]:
for today, simply? So me, personally, I don't know if I would use those categories anyway, but I would say you have the the saving kind of faith or the quality of the faith that you have. There's a content to the faith, and that's a little different than the object. It's close. It's related. Then you have the object of the faith. So the content is what you need to believe. Is it right? The the object is Jesus. Right? If you if you're trusting in God generically to save you, but you don't know that Jesus is the one, and you think it's it might be another foreign God, don't think that's saving faith biblically because there's one name under heaven by which man must be saved.

Chad [00:24:51]:
Yeah. It's Jesus. And then there are certain facts that you can't deny and and still be considered a believer. So if you deny the resurrection, Jesus right? You're, yeah, you're not a believer. The tension there is you have little children, and do you say if you don't understand all the facts, can you be saved? Right? That that's a tough one, but I think it's fair to say if you deny certain things, then you can't be saved. Right? Right. So because there's a childlike faith element to it too. So I would say content, quality, and object would be the the three words that I would personally use, which is a little different than those 3.

Chad [00:25:27]:
So and there's the there is the trust or belief element that that we can define.

Dave [00:25:34]:
Leave it to Dave

Chad [00:25:36]:
to make sure. Things. Right?

Greg [00:25:37]:
Confusingly clear.

Dave [00:25:39]:
No. Well, I mean, it would make sense that we've got a 4th element of the 3 elements of faith when

Greg [00:25:44]:
part 7 series and

Dave [00:25:46]:
the 5 souls.

Greg [00:25:48]:
Yeah. Everyone will understand by part 7.

Dave [00:25:51]:
Yes. They will. For sure. Yes.

Chad [00:25:54]:
Yeah. Alright. What passage would you go to?

Greg [00:25:56]:
Well, there's several to look at. Do you want

Dave [00:26:03]:
me to rack off my 2 or 3 quick hit

Greg [00:26:06]:
ones real quick and do your Yeah. 2 or 3?

Dave [00:26:09]:
I went to Romans 117. For in the righteousness of God, it is revealed from faith to faith just as as it is written, the righteous will live by faith. And, I mean, this is pretty clear to me. Romans 328, for we conclude that a person is justified by faith apart from the works of the law. Mhmm. Again, crystal clear. Yep. There's there's no works to be apart from the works of law.

Dave [00:26:40]:
Ephesians 28 through 9, for you are saved by grace through faith, and this is not from yourselves. It is God's gift, not from works so that no one can boast. Yeah. Those all seem to be pretty cut and dried to me. I mean and they're not taken out of context. They're not misquoted or anything. It's a legit translation. It's a CSP.

Dave [00:27:04]:
It doesn't get any better than that. So We

Chad [00:27:07]:
can argue about that one.

Greg [00:27:08]:
The Chad Standard Bible.

Dave [00:27:09]:
Yes. Yes. Yes. Okay. So, yeah. Those those are the 3 that I came

Chad [00:27:14]:
up with Mhmm.

Dave [00:27:15]:
That, again Those

Chad [00:27:16]:
are kind of the timeless ones. Right?

Dave [00:27:18]:
Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. The go to's.

Chad [00:27:21]:
Yep.

Greg [00:27:21]:
Yeah. Well, I I like so through history, man just wants to add to God's work. Because man wants to be at the center of everything. Man wants to insert himself and, and wants to have his part. It's like, God doesn't know best. I know better than God, and, and so I have to contribute something. Like, there's no way God can do this on his own, and that's how we end up in this mess in the first place. And it is by faith alone in what God has done, and so this is the pattern that you see from the Old Testament.

Greg [00:27:58]:
Right from the very beginning, when when Adam sins, God promises in the in in the garden that he's going to put enmity between Eve and the serpent. There's going to be someone. Mhmm. There is a promise given that someone is coming, and this is the first glimpse that that there's going to be provision made. And over and over again, you see that God is going to provide, and and you hear Job say, I know my redeemer lives. He hasn't yet heard the name Jesus.

Dave [00:28:33]:
Mhmm. Right.

Greg [00:28:33]:
But he knows that God is going to provide a redeemer. When Abraham takes Isaac up the up the mountain for the offering, he's, like, face faced with this impossible situation where he's supposed to offer his son, and he's going in obedience to God, and he just simply believes that God will provide. And and faith is believing that God is going to provide, and on the other side of the cross, we know what God has provided. God provided Jesus, and we know the content of what what God provided. Jesus provided a perfect sacrifice, one without blemish, that satisfies the wrath of God because he was fully God and fully man. He was fully man able to to pay for the sins, to take to pay the penalty that that we should be paying. Mhmm. He was fully God able to take all of that wrath that God had to pour out, and that's what we believe.

Greg [00:29:33]:
And man wants to step in the way and say, yeah, but that's not enough. So we have to we have to add something to it.

Chad [00:29:40]:
Mhmm.

Greg [00:29:41]:
And and I like something just as simple as as in the beatitudes. And a lot of people get this mixed up a little bit, but when Jesus says, blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven. And people think that poor in spirit a lot of people think that poor in spirit means just, like, humble. Like, I'm just gonna lower myself and just, oh, poor me. And but poor in spirit was was the helpless, wretched beggar.

Dave [00:30:08]:
And if

Greg [00:30:09]:
you understand anything about the culture that time, when somebody had a deformity, when somebody had leprosy, when somebody was born blind, deaf, lame, whatever. They were absolute outcasts, and they had no way. They had zero way to provide for themselves. Mhmm. They were utterly, absolutely, wholly, fully, completely dependent on the benevolence wretched beggar would sit in a corner and not even look up and hold his hand out, hoping that somebody would give him something. And Jesus says, blessed are the poor in spirit. That's the poor in spirit. That's that's the way we come with faith, believing that God we bring nothing, and that's why the hymn writer in in Rock of Ages says, nothing in my hand I bring, only to the cross I cling.

Greg [00:31:02]:
I have nothing. I have absolutely nothing. None of my works, none of my righteousness, none of my efforts. No matter what I do, if I could live a 1000 lives trying to get this right, I couldn't do it. It's only what Jesus did. It's only what He accomplished. That's what I believe, and we can go back to our Paul Washer quote from last week. Mhmm.

Greg [00:31:27]:
Like, it it God doing 99.99 percent of it, and me doing 0.01% of it messes the whole thing up. It is it is solely him. But then I would add to that that you said, Romans 17 for in the right 17. Or 117. Yeah. The righteousness of God is revealed from faith to faith for just as it is written, the righteous will live by faith. That phrase is interesting because that's used three times in the New Testament. It's used in Romans there,

Chad [00:32:01]:
and

Greg [00:32:01]:
it's used in Galatians 3:1. It says the righteous will live by faith, and it's used again. And so I'm gonna go to the King James fixing me. Yeah. You know? Just because I'm gonna pick and choose a Bible translation to say what I want it

Dave [00:32:17]:
to say. Okay, mister Olsteen.

Greg [00:32:20]:
No. Just so so what's really like, one of the themes of Romans is being justified by faith. That's a big theme of Romans. Right, Dave? Yeah. Absolutely. Being justified by faith. And and for this verse in 117 to say the just shall live by faith because we're justified by faith. And then in Galatians 311, it says then no one is justified by the law in the sight of God as it is evident, for the just shall live by faith.

Greg [00:32:52]:
The just shall live by faith. A big theme in in, Galatians is living by faith. Romans is being the justified being justified by faith. In Galatians, it's living by faith, justified living by faith. So Romans is written by Paul. Galatians is written by Paul. Mhmm. So Hebrews has the same phrase.

Greg [00:33:16]:
Hebrews is written by probably Paul. So

Chad [00:33:19]:
I knew a man who used this as

Greg [00:33:26]:
an argument for Paul writing Okay. Hebrews because he because he he would say that that Romans was about the just living by faith, and Galatians was about the just living by faith, and Hebrews was about the just living by faith, and that was Paul's emphasis, but Gotcha. Hebrews 1038 says, Now the just shall live by faith, and Hebrews is, you know, faith. That's the big theme of Hebrews, but the just shall live by faith, and it is only by faith in what he has done and what he has accomplished, that we get this salvation because there is nothing that we can do, nothing that we can bring, only to the to the cross we cling.

Chad [00:34:11]:
So let me let me You're

Greg [00:34:12]:
gonna argue about Paul writing Hebrews now?

Dave [00:34:15]:
For the record, Dave did not take his shirt off.

Greg [00:34:17]:
Okay.

Chad [00:34:19]:
I just broke it open. That's just flexed. That's right. No. So I wanna go back and look at Philippians as a way of bolstering your argument about this poor in spirit. Right? Yeah. So Paul in chapter 4 I mean, sorry, in chapter 3, basically makes the argument that if there's anybody that had the right to be confident in himself, that he, from a human perspective, should should be the kind of person because in chapter 3, he describes himself. First of all, he's warning against what he calls the dogs, the false circumcision.

Chad [00:34:52]:
Sure. Right? And so Paul says this in chapter 3 verse 2, beware of the dogs, beware of the evil workers, beware of the false circumcision. For we are the true circumcision who worship in the spirit of God and glory in Christ Jesus and put no confidence in the flesh. So rather than saying poor in spirit, he gives it almost the flip side by saying, look. If you are not poor in spirit, you're putting confidence in your own flesh. So now verse 4. Although I myself might have confidence even in the flesh, if anyone else has a mind to put confidence in the flesh, I far more circumcised on the 8th day of the nation of Israel, of the tribe of Benjamin, a Hebrew of Hebrews as to the law of Pharisee, as to zeal, a persecutor of the church as to righteousness which is in the law found blameless. But whatever things were gained to me, those things I have counted as loss for the sake of Christ.

Chad [00:35:49]:
More than that, I count all things to be lost in view of the surpassing value of knowing Christ Jesus, my lord, for whom I have suffered the loss of all things, and count them but rubbish so that I may gain Christ. And this is that term Yeah. That I was mentioned before. He basically says, look. I pick up a a little dung apple from the ground, and that's that's all I can give to Christ. All those things that qualify me to think I'm special before God, I look up them in my hands, and I realize, oh, that's just a bunch of offal. That's just a bunch of excrement, and it's nothing that I can bring. So there's another good passage to take people to as well.

Greg [00:36:28]:
Yeah. Yeah.

Dave [00:36:31]:
Good stuff. It is good stuff.

Chad [00:36:33]:
It is. Thanks. Good stuff. Made me feel good. You can you can let me down later. I will. I will. Yeah.

Chad [00:36:41]:
I'm actually surprised. I'm actually surprised, and I'm in a positive way, that we haven't yet gone to Hebrews' description of faith as the definition of faith. Faith is the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not

Dave [00:36:58]:
seen. Yes. Yes.

Chad [00:36:59]:
Almost everywhere you go, if you say what is faith, they'll go right to that verse. Yeah. And I'll be honest. I don't think it's a definition. I think it's just a description. I don't think it's a really good definition. I think Romans 4 actually offers see what I did there? I wanted to get to Romans chapter 4 Mhmm.

Dave [00:37:16]:
From Hebrews, another writing from Paul.

Greg [00:37:18]:
Did you just set yourself up? I did.

Chad [00:37:21]:
Oh, jeez. Like, I couldn't count on you. He can bump it. He can bump myself, spike it.

Greg [00:37:28]:
That's the way we like it.

Chad [00:37:31]:
So Romans chapter 4, I think this is a really crucial passage in terms of defining what biblical faith is. If someone goes, okay. Tell me what faith is. This is a good passage to take him because it's actually using the transitive principle from math, a is equal to b, b is equal to c, so therefore, a is equal to c, we can define clearly using other words what faith means. So this is that passage that we already talked about. Both of us have mentioned all 3 have actually mentioned Romans chapter 1 verse 17. Right? The just shall live by faith. The righteousness of God is revealed from faith to faith.

Chad [00:38:10]:
Chapter 1 and 2, he did describes the need for faith. Chapter 3, he describes salvation by faith. And then although we mentioned it already, chapter 4, he's proving from the Old Testament. Now this would be important because he's got Jewish people in his audience. So he goes, look. I'm not teaching you anything new. Go right to your Old Testament, and I will show you that salvation has always been by faith. So look at the beginning of chapter 4.

Chad [00:38:32]:
He says this, chapter 4 verse 1 in Romans. What then shall we say that Abraham, our forefather, according to the flesh, has found? For if Abraham was justified by works, he has something to boast about, but not before God. For what does the scripture say? Abraham believed God, and it was credited to him as righteousness. So that's chapter 15 verse 6. Now to the one who works, his wage is not credited as a favor, but as what is due. But the one who does not work, but believes in him who justifies the ungodly has his faith is credited to him as righteousness. So then he's gonna take a little pause and go through David for a little bit there. So he talks about David understanding what it's like to be forgiven.

Chad [00:39:15]:
Mhmm. Then he jumps back in, and he goes, okay. So if salvation was by works or works of righteousness like circumcision, let's look at the case study of Abraham. Was Abraham circumcised or uncircumcised when he had faith, I e, in Genesis 15:6, was he uncircumcised, or was he circumcised? And the answer is he was uncircumcised. So Paul's gonna riff on that. Verse 9, he says this, is this blessing then on the circumcised or on the uncircumcised also? For we say faith was credited to Abraham as righteousness. Verse 10. How then was it credited? While he was circumcised or uncircumcised? Not while circumcised, but while uncircumcised.

Chad [00:39:59]:
And so he just goes right to the book of Genesis and goes, look. He was saved by faith. Guess what? Before he was circumcised, you can't say circumcision has anything to do with his salvation because his salvation was in Genesis 15:6. Now in terms of defining what faith is more clearly, jump down to verse. Alright. So then we wanna use the transitive property and figure out, the definition, if you want, of faith. So faith is Abraham had faith in God's promises. God's made some promises to him, the land seed and blessing, and it says, Abraham believed God, I e the promises.

Chad [00:40:40]:
So this is what it says in verse 18. In hope against hope, he believed so that he might become a father of many nations according to that which had which had been spoken, so shall your descendants be. It's one of those elements of the promise. Verse 19, without becoming weak in faith, he contemplated his own body, now as good as dead since he was about a 100 years old, in the deadness of Sarah's womb. Yet with the respect to the promises of God, he did not waver in unbelief, but grew strong in faith, giving glory to God. And this is the next verse is where I think it's really clear. And being fully assured that what God had promised, he was also able to perform. Therefore, it was credited to him as righteousness.

Chad [00:41:23]:
So to me, that is probably the single most clear definition, biblical definition of faith. It's he's somebody who is fully assured as to what God promised he will accomplish. Mhmm. And that's the quality of saving faith, if you will, is full assurance and full trust in God. Yeah. The fiducia of what the what the reformers talked about. And fiducia maps to which modern term? Trust. Trust.

Chad [00:41:50]:
Yeah. It's a confident trust in what God promises. K.

Dave [00:41:55]:
Okay. So I will tell you one thing that you, reminded me of, Greg. My wife was raised Catholic, and she she was thoroughly Catholic when she was growing up. By the way, we're not bashing Catholics here. Just so you know, we've read what history says. We've read what the past was. We're not after anybody in particular here. I think I can safely say.

Dave [00:42:19]:
I remember I found one

Chad [00:42:21]:
of her books. She kept a lot

Dave [00:42:22]:
of artifacts from her upbringing, and I found a little book, and I cannot remember the name of it. I'm sure she still has it upstairs someplace, but it was some book of I don't even know. I'm trying to remember what it was, but it was for kids. And it was small print. It was pretty thorough, and I remember reading through it. And there's all these things, prayers to pray when this happens, things to do when that happens, how many our fathers and rosaries you need to do for x, y, and z, what to say when the priest says this. What to do when the priest does this. What I read through, like, 7 or 8 pages of this just fascinated.

Dave [00:43:00]:
And at some point, I was like, it must be really comforting to be able to take this much control over your your life and and to put it in your own hands and not have to rely on faith Mhmm. Really, essentially. Yeah. I just remember having that thought at one point and being like, wow, this is next level stuff to Yeah.

Chad [00:43:28]:
For to for for confidence in the human flesh. Yeah. That's why I think in the book of Hebrews, those who had become believers who were Jewish Mhmm. Were tempted to go back into Judaism of the day. And I don't mean modern Judaism,

Greg [00:43:44]:
of course. Sure.

Chad [00:43:45]:
They were used to going to a temple, smelling the blood of the sacrifice. They were used to having all the trappings around it, and then Christianity is by comparison. It's very, very bare bones. Not a lot of ritual, not a lot of trappings that go alongside. And I think as humans, when when we don't have faith in Christ, our hearts long to have something to latch onto. And I think that's one of the reasons why there was such a temptation to go back. That's why there's such a temptation for for non believers who are in in, like, evangelical churches to convert back to something like Judaism because there's great comfort in those ritualistic things that that make you feel like, hey. There's something I'm doing.

Chad [00:44:39]:
Let me share a real quick story. There's a really popular football player. Well, I don't know if he's anyway, there's a football famous football player, for for one of the really good teams in the NFL, and he's a strong Catholic. And he's they're trying to cancel him today. But I was listening to his speech, and it was a wonderful speech from a pure family perspective, but it was sad in another in another way because he's talking about the role of his family and his wife, and how wonderful it is. But he made this one little side comment, and it was about how he was so glad that he had his wife that supporting him, and together, they were trying to and basically said in our hopes to get to heaven, that they were these partners in their hopes to get to heaven. And because they were relying on the fact that they need to continually cooperate with God in order to eventually achieve that salvation. And as much as I really appreciated his pro family message, it just really saddened me because it was like, here's a really conservative person who sees the need for a, quote, Christian family, but doesn't have any assurance because he's relying on something more than just faith to he's looking to basically earn his salvation and the role that his wife and him together play in that.

Chad [00:46:02]:
And I just my heart was really saddened for for that individual. Solafide, baby. Solafide.

Dave [00:46:11]:
Mhmm. How

Chad [00:46:12]:
can you crack a joke after that? I don't know.

Dave [00:46:14]:
I don't know. Do you

Greg [00:46:15]:
wanna see me do it?

Chad [00:46:16]:
Yep. For it.

Dave [00:46:17]:
Yep. Let's see it.

Greg [00:46:19]:
Yeah. Got nothing.

Chad [00:46:20]:
Got nothing.

Dave [00:46:21]:
Well, it can't be done then.

Chad [00:46:22]:
That's it. Be done.

Dave [00:46:24]:
Alright. So that's sola fide. So that is one of our shorter episodes, but that's okay. We do have a couple of announcements to make. Mhmm.

Chad [00:46:33]:
So Do we wanna put this at the beginning or at the end?

Dave [00:46:36]:
We'll we'll leave this right where it's at.

Chad [00:46:38]:
Okay. I can't wait to hear how you talk

Dave [00:46:41]:
through this. Yeah. So throughout the history of this podcast, we've we've always said, look us up and buy me a coffee. You know, feel free to give Buy an episode. Yes. So

Chad [00:46:57]:
Sorry. There's

Dave [00:46:59]:
a yeah. No. Buy an indulgence from us, not the church.

Chad [00:47:05]:
Greg's rolling his eyes. Okay.

Dave [00:47:06]:
They're gonna fall right out of the back of his head.

Chad [00:47:10]:
So If Greg ever quits this podcast, it's gonna be good to me.

Dave [00:47:14]:
Yeah.

Chad [00:47:15]:
There we go. You. Maybe the whole night.

Dave [00:47:17]:
We haven't had one all night long. We needed a deep Greg sigh of

Greg [00:47:20]:
of Okay.

Dave [00:47:21]:
You got it. Exactly.

Chad [00:47:22]:
Perfect. Yeah.

Dave [00:47:23]:
So we we've kinda jokingly said, hey. You know, when we got our first donor thank you, Bubba. We we shot that to the top of the to the list that that subject.

Chad [00:47:33]:
The exact subject. Yeah.

Dave [00:47:34]:
Because it was kinda timely. Right? I mean, it's very popular out on, the YouTube and everywhere else right now. A lot of people are talking about it. We wanna clarify something. We are not in this for the money.

Chad [00:47:46]:
Thank you.

Greg [00:47:47]:
I'm I

Dave [00:47:48]:
agree. Yep. I Greg?

Chad [00:47:53]:
K. God, barely Greg is. I'm not

Greg [00:47:57]:
in this for the money.

Chad [00:47:58]:
Thank you. We don't get we don't earn anything from those. That's for sure.

Dave [00:48:01]:
So, I've jokingly said I want my jet skis and all this is That is all just joking. That's part of the that's part of the lighthearted.

Greg [00:48:07]:
Wait. Yeah. How how many people need to go buy a coffee to, to,

Dave [00:48:12]:
to We already went over the transitive property of scripture. I'm not doing more

Chad [00:48:17]:
math tonight. Okay? Okay. Alright. It's not

Dave [00:48:19]:
happening. We we joke about that sort of thing. 2 things. One, we do this because we love it. And this is, for me at least, the best way I know how to share the gospel with my talents. And Greg and Dave, I think probably the same or similar for you guys right now.

Chad [00:48:37]:
Yeah. I just to be honest, if nobody listened to this, I would still do it because I love sitting around talking about the word.

Dave [00:48:43]:
That I will cut. You need to listen. That's another joke, people. So I want to clarify. Somebody did pony up for Genesis 38.

Chad [00:48:56]:
I just want to thank Ellie from Western New York Yes. Because you made my dream come true.

Dave [00:49:03]:
And and

Chad [00:49:05]:
What I don't understand is why you guys don't wanna talk about an inspired chapter in

Dave [00:49:09]:
the bible. You'll find out when we do the episode.

Greg [00:49:12]:
When you when you guys hear this episode, you're gonna go, oh my gosh, Dave. Yeah.

Dave [00:49:16]:
You will I

Chad [00:49:17]:
think you're gonna be pleasantly surprised at how cool that chapter is,

Dave [00:49:21]:
especially when the next revision of the CSB goes right from chapter 37 to 39.

Chad [00:49:27]:
That's when the CSB will be out.

Dave [00:49:29]:
I know. Agreed. That's okay. Yeah. Not gonna happen. So Genesis 38 is gonna happen, but just so everyone knows, we appreciate your support, whether it's by listening or donating or or whatever. Buying an episode. Gotcha.

Dave [00:49:46]:
Indulgence. Gosh. Darn it, Dave.

Greg [00:49:48]:
We we're not buying episodes.

Chad [00:49:50]:
We are

Greg [00:49:50]:
not anymore. We cannot buy an episode. Right.

Chad [00:49:52]:
I want you guys to know something, though. Because if you read the note that Allie sent when she Yes. Did the she said, I'm really interested because I recently read Genesis 38 Yes. And I thought it was strange and interesting as to why God would include this in the canon. So Yes. So that's one other good reason for us to talk.

Dave [00:50:12]:
Yes. And all scripture is profitable for teaching, reproof, blah blah blah blah blah.

Greg [00:50:18]:
So Not blah blah blah blah. Okay. Teaching, rebuking, correcting, and training in righteousness. You know the thing?

Chad [00:50:25]:
Holier than

Greg [00:50:26]:
The thing. You know the thank you that you

Chad [00:50:28]:
just went there. I did. Made my whole night. Thanks. Thanks, Joe. One thing we're missing. Thanks, Joe. Canada reference.

Greg [00:50:34]:
Oh. Oh, Canada reference. Yeah. Made one.

Dave [00:50:37]:
I actually had lunch with a gentleman from Canada earlier this week.

Greg [00:50:41]:
I'm wasn't you? It wasn't me. No.

Dave [00:50:43]:
No. No. So at one point, we got to talking about, shooting.

Greg [00:50:48]:
Wait. You got to talk in a boot? A boot shooting.

Dave [00:50:51]:
Okay. And, he he started to look a little you know, everyone else at the table was telling you about shooting. He started to kind of look a little uncomfortable, and I just leaned over and said, it's America. We can do that here. And he was like,

Greg [00:51:04]:
oh, yeah. Which is really

Chad [00:51:06]:
ironic because that just shows you how much of our image of Canada is the city Canadians.

Greg [00:51:11]:
Well, he said Justin Trudeau is snatching up the guns like crazy.

Dave [00:51:15]:
Yeah. He is.

Chad [00:51:16]:
Oh, no. I I agree with you. Yeah. But But,

Dave [00:51:18]:
yeah, this guy said

Chad [00:51:19]:
that Means there's guns to be snatched.

Dave [00:51:21]:
Yeah. This guy said that he, he has thought about it, and there is a way to get to legally purchase the firearm in Canada. You need to fill out, like, umpteen forms, go through a process, get a couple background checks, blah blah blah. And then you can get your gun, which you can keep in your home, drive straight to the range, and then drive straight back. There's no concealed carry. There's no open carry. There's none of that anywhere. Yeah.

Dave [00:51:43]:
So it's just you can have your gun in 2 locations. Yeah. So

Greg [00:51:48]:
Not at the same time.

Dave [00:51:49]:
Right. No quantum weapons allowed. So I don't know how I tangent that hard after that, but we appreciate you listening. We appreciate you telling your friends. We appreciate, if you're able to give, but not necessarily not required because we just love doing this. So thank you for your support, and we're no we're no longer selling indulgences.

Chad [00:52:13]:
And I'm just really proud of the fact that I'm the cause for this change in policy.

Dave [00:52:18]:
It's not a change. We never were. We just jokingly

Chad [00:52:20]:
said it and then Did actually. You did actually say those things, though.

Greg [00:52:24]:
Just remember, pride comes before the fall.

Chad [00:52:26]:
Well, how is that oh, proud. I don't mean that way. Like, proud like a parent's proud qualifying now. I don't

Greg [00:52:32]:
think I

Dave [00:52:32]:
said you could buy an episode. Did I? You you I'll check the channel.

Chad [00:52:37]:
Implied it a couple times.

Dave [00:52:38]:
But I didn't say it.

Chad [00:52:39]:
Yeah. You did. You said, if you buy me a coffee, it'll go right to the top of the list. You become a premium listener. Yeah. Yeah. You did say it. Confess.

Chad [00:52:48]:
Confess is good for the soul.

Dave [00:52:50]:
To go to the top of the list for consideration. That's what

Chad [00:52:53]:
I was that's what you meant. So okay.

Dave [00:52:55]:
But That's fair. Ali made some very good comments and very good case.

Chad [00:53:00]:
I think it's a good case for us.

Greg [00:53:02]:
Because we don't want somebody buying a coffee and then wanting us to debate, like, whether the Earth is flat. Right.

Chad [00:53:09]:
Is it? It's not a hard debate.

Dave [00:53:11]:
It's not? What? Mhmm. More on that next time. Thanks for joining us at Catfish Ministries. We hope you learned something with us and maybe had a laugh or 2 while you're at it. Please subscribe and leave a 5 star review. If you really like what you heard and wanna help us make more of these, look us up on buy me a coffee dot com. We can't wait to talk to you again next time. This is Chad for Greg and Dave signing off and saying remember America, it's always a great day to get catfished.