{"id":18882,"date":"2017-06-11T00:00:00","date_gmt":"2017-06-11T05:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/sugar-land-bible-church.local\/sermon\/protestant-reformation-002\/"},"modified":"2017-06-11T00:00:00","modified_gmt":"2017-06-11T05:00:00","slug":"protestant-reformation-002","status":"publish","type":"sermon","link":"https:\/\/slbc.org\/es\/sermon\/protestant-reformation-002\/","title":{"rendered":"Protestant Reformation 002"},"content":{"rendered":"","protected":false},"featured_media":0,"template":"","book":[107],"series_event":[480],"sermon_service_type":[473],"speaker":[6],"class_list":["post-18882","sermon","type-sermon","status-publish","hentry","book-1-john","series_event-protestant-reformation","sermon_service_type-sunday-school","speaker-dr-andy-woods","no-post-thumbnail"],"acf":{"sermon_title":"Protestant Reformation 002","sermon_date":"20170611","sermon_month":"6","sermon_year":"2017","sermon_notes":4735,"sermon_slides":4740,"sermon_mp3":4741,"sermon_id":"61117946126","series_or_event":480,"service_type":[473],"speaker":6,"books_of_the_bible":107,"chapter_and_verse":"4:2-3","sermon_transcript":"Andy Woods\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 The Protestant Reformation 002\n\n1 John 4:2-3\n\nGood morning everybody.\u00a0\u00a0 Let\u2019s open our Bibles to the Book of Colossians, chapter 2 and verse 8.\u00a0 We started last week a study on The Protestant Reformation and the reason we\u2019re looking into this is because you\u2019re going to start hearing a lot about it this fall because October 31st<\/sup> will make the 500th<\/sup> year anniversary of the Protestant Reformation.\u00a0 Most evangelical Christians kind of look at that as some odd event in history and they kind of look back on it and they don\u2019t really understand its significance.\u00a0 So throughout these summer months we\u2019re doing a Sunday School class explaining the significance of the Protestant Reformation, because it\u2019s unlikely we would be sitting here today in the manner in which we\u2019re sitting here and studying had it not been for a move of God 500 years ago in what\u2019s called The Protestant Reformation.\n\nIt\u2019s hard to understand The Protestant Reformation unless you understand what the apostles handed off to the early church and unless we also understand what subsequent generation of Christians lost.\u00a0 Until that is understood you can\u2019t really understand the need to recover anything.\u00a0 So we are actually starting at the very beginning in our 8-part outline, systematically talking about this to get a better appreciation of the Protestant Reformation.\u00a0 So we\u2019re not actually getting into, for the first couple of lessons, the actual Reformation; what we\u2019re trying to establish is the need for the Protestant Reformation.\n\nLast time you\u2019ll recall we started with Roman numeral I in our eight part outline, entitled The Early Church.\u00a0 The apostles, as I tried to demonstrate, interpreted the Bible, Old Testament, literally, including the subject of Bible prophecy.\u00a0 And that\u2019s the baton that they handed off to the first Christians.\u00a0 The mindset of the first Christians is represented by that circle up north in a place called Antioch, a school started there.\u00a0 Last time I tried to draw attention to the fact that that\u2019s where Paul launched his first missionary journey from, Antioch.\u00a0 And it\u2019s also the place where the early church was called Christians for the first time.\u00a0 And it\u2019s also the place where the early church began to proliferate numerically, and you see that in Acts 11, around verse 25.\u00a0 [And he left for Tarsus to look for Saul; [26] and when he had found him, he brought him to Antioch. And for an entire year they met with the church and taught considerable numbers; and the disciples were first called Christians in Antioch.\u201d]\n\nAnd the School of Antioch, as we tried to explain, and I gave you many, many citations, some from scholars, some from actual church fathers; they interpreted the Bible, including Bible prophecy, literally.\u00a0 So I\u2019m going to work hard at not repeating what I said last week unless I run into something new and in my private reading this week I ran into this citation from Irenaeus.\u00a0 Irenaeus, as you can see from the screen, lived in the second century, A.D. 125 to 202, roughly, was his life span.\u00a0 And there is a direct link between Irenaeus and John the apostle.\u00a0 So here\u2019s the way the link works: John the apostle discipled a man named Polycarp; Polycarp in turn discipled a man named Irenaeus.\u00a0 So Irenaeus is one generation removed from the apostles.\u00a0 You remember the old E.F. Hutton commercials, do they still run those?\u00a0 \u201cWhen E. F. Hutton talks people listen.\u201d\u00a0 So when Irenaeus talks we should listen because there is a direct chain that can be established through Polycarp back to John.\u00a0 So the beliefs of Irenaeus largely represent the beliefs of the apostles and this was the mindset of the school of Antioch, and this is the mindset that dominated the early church for its first two centuries.\n\nAnd the quote I found in George Peter\u2019s book, The Theocratic Kingdom<\/em>, Peter\u2019s says, \u201cThe literal, grammatical interpretation of the Scriptures must\u2026be observed in order to obtain a correct understanding\u2026The primitive church\u201d that would be the\u00a0 church following the apostles, \u201cThe primitive church occupied this position, and Irenaeus...gives us the general sentiment...when he says of the Holy Scriptures:\u201d now here\u2019s the quote from Irenaeus, \u201c\u2018that what the understanding can daily make use of, what it can easily know, is that which lies before our eyes, unambiguously,<\/u>\u201d and notice this next word, \u201cliterally, and clearly in Holy Writ<\/u>.\u2019\u201d [Quoted in George N. H. Peters, The Theo\u00adcratic Kingdom<\/em>, 3 vols. (New York: Funk & Wagnalls, 1884; reprint, Grand Rapids: Kregel, 1952), 1:47.]\n\nSo Irenaeus and the school of Antioch, having a tradition handed down to them from the apostles, which is the mindset that dominated the church for its first few centuries after the apostles left the scene, was all about literal interpretation.\u00a0 You\u2019ll notice in Irenaeus\u2019 quote literally, so they interpreted the best they could the whole Bible literally, including Bible prophecy.\u00a0 And this is what made them all believe to a man that the kingdom was not something that they were in now.\u00a0 Well, how could you interpret the Bible literally and believe we\u2019re in the kingdom now?\u00a0 That makes no sense.\u00a0 The kingdom, according to Isaiah\u2019s prophecies and others is a time period when the nations will beat their swords into plowshares and it\u2019s a time period when the Dead Sea will come back to life biologically, Ezekiel 47.\u00a0 It\u2019s a time period when the city of Jerusalem is going to be the head of the nations again, etc.\n\nThere\u2019s no way you can interpret those prophecies literally and believe we\u2019re in the kingdom.\u00a0 So because these men had such a great respect for the Bible they took a literal approach to the whole Bible, including Bible prophecy, which made them, what we call premillennialists, which is basically the belief that Jesus comes back first and then the kingdom follows.\u00a0 They didn\u2019t call themselves premillennialists; they called themselves chiliasts, coming from the Greek word chiliad<\/em>, which means a thousand.\u00a0\u00a0 So you can add the Irenaeus quote to the other quotes I gave you last week concerning the general sentiment of the early church.\n\nSo things are rolling along pretty good for about two centuries and then something happens; unless you understand what happened you can\u2019t really appreciate the Protestant Reformation.\u00a0 What happened is what I like to call the Alexandrian eclipse.\u00a0 And as you look at this map again and you go down to the bottom circle down south you\u2019ll see it\u2019s circled there, Alexandria, Egypt.\u00a0 Alexandria Egypt is a rival school that was established in Christianity.\u00a0 It was a school that rivaled the school of Antioch which took the Bible, including Bible prophecy, literally.\u00a0 Here\u2019s another map, if you like this map better, you see those two circles and unless you understand those two circles you can\u2019t really understand the Protestant Reformation because the Protestant Reformation is basically trying to get back to Antioch.\u00a0 Why did they need to get back to Antioch?\u00a0 Because of everything that was lost thanks to the influence of Alexandria, Egypt in north Africa.\u00a0 And Alexandria, Egypt introduced a method of interpreting the Bible called allegorization.\u00a0 And we talked about that briefly, did we not last time.\n\nAllegorization basically says what the text says is really not what\u2019s important.\u00a0 Now that\u2019s not what they were teaching in Antioch but this is what they began to teach in Alexandria, Egypt.\u00a0\u00a0 And this didn\u2019t just start with Christianity, it actually started with early Judaism or latter Judaism I should say, just before the time of Christ through a man named Philo.\u00a0 And Philo took a look at the rivers that are described in the Garden of Eden, the Pishon and the Gihon and the Euphrates and the Tigris and he began to say things like well, those aren\u2019t actual rivers, those just represent four parts of the soul. So he\u2019s using the text to bring in a higher spiritual meaning.\n\nAnd did I not take you last time through Nehemiah 3, and I showed you how the various gates, like the fish gate, the horse gate and in Alexandrian mindset is allegorized away and some kind of spiritual significance is attached to each gate.\u00a0 So that\u2019s another example of allegorization.\u00a0 The point that the allegorist would say is not to describe a city wall with gates around it; I mean, that\u2019s boring anyway, who wants to hear that.\u00a0 What you need is the higher meaning and so they began to attach some kind of spiritual significance to each gate.\u00a0 That\u2019s a process of interpretation called allegorization.\n\nSo very quickly let me explain why allegorization is a wrong method of interpretation and why we at Sugar Land Bible Church do not embrace the allegorical method of interpretation.\u00a0 I found these four reasons sin Dr. Pentecost\u2019s classic book,\u00a0 Things to Come<\/em>, \u00a0pages 4-5, he defines allegorization and he gives four reasons why it\u2019s wrong.\u00a0 So here they are very quickly.\u00a0 Number 1, when you allegorize the test itself is not being interpreted; what\u2019s happening is you\u2019re bringing a bunch of ideas to the text that aren\u2019t found in the text.\n\nSo Milton Terry wrote a classic book on hermeneutics; hermeneutics, as you might know, is the science and art of biblical interpretation.\u00a0 And Terry rightly criticizes allegorization and he says, \u201c\u2026it will be noticed at once that its habit\u201d that\u2019s allegorization, \u201cis to disregard the common signification of words and give wing to all manner of fanciful speculation. It does not draw out the legitimate meaning of an author\u2019s language, but foists into it whatever the whim or fancy of an interpreter may desire<\/u>.\u201d\u00a0 [Biblical Hermeneutics<\/em> (NY: Philips and Hunt, 1883), 224.]\n\nSo when you get under allegorical teaching you might hear occasionally something that\u2019s spiritually true but you look at the text that this is supposedly drawn from and the ideas don\u2019t naturally come out of the text.\u00a0 And there\u2019s a big difference, and you need to learn these two words, there\u2019s a big difference between exegesis and eisegesis.\u00a0 Exegesis comes from the Greek preposition ek<\/em> which means out of, so an exegete is someone who is drawing from the text what the text says, which is what you want in a Bible study because we believe God has spoken.\u00a0 Eisegesis is the exact opposite; eisegesis comes from the Greek preposition eis<\/em>, e-i-s which means into, and an eisegesis is reading into the passage things that aren\u2019t there.\n\nSo obviously of the two which should we prefer?\u00a0 Exegesis or eisegesis?\u00a0 Well, since God has revealed himself in this book and God is the authority, right? Who do I think I am to rewrite or edit God?\u00a0 So the practice that we follow in Bible study and in sermons and so forth is not eisegesis, that\u2019s what they were doing in Alexandria Egypt, but exegesis which is what the school of Antioch represented and what the church of Jesus Christ role modeled for its first two centuries.\n\nHere\u2019s a little saying that may help you kind of internalize this: I\u2019m not sure who I got this from but I like it.\u00a0 I don\u2019t think it\u2019s original with me but it says, \u201che or she who spiritualizes\u201d now spiritualize is another way of saying allegorization, \u201che or she who spiritualizes tells spiritual lies,\u201d because they\u2019re making the Bible say a bunch of things that that particular passage is not saying.\u00a0 And you have to understand that, that when you\u2019re under an allegorist you\u2019re under a perpetual liar, someone who\u2019s making the Bible say something it\u2019s not actually saying.\u00a0 So allegorization becomes a dangerous practice.\u00a0 The text itself is not being interpreted.\n\nThe second danger of allegorization is there is a shift in authority from the text to the mind of the interpreter.\u00a0 What\u2019s important is not what the text says; what\u2019s important is what comes out of the mind of the interpreter of the text\u00a0 under allegorization.\u00a0 So Jerome, who actually practiced allegorization himself, as I\u2019ll show you a little bit later, actually made this correct statement. He says: \u201c\u2026once we start with the rule that whole passages and books of scripture say one thing when they mean another, the reader is delivered bound hand and foot to the caprice of the interpreter<\/u>.\u201d\u00a0 So if I was an allegorist the authority in this church would be me, not what the Bible says.\u00a0 And so what\u2019s happened in Bible interpretation is authority shifts from the passage to the mind of the interpreter, which is a dangerous practice because God has spoken and who is man to edit God?\n\nNumber three, there is no way to test the interpreter once you get under allegorization because allegorization is a highly subjective practice.\u00a0 You might remember last week as we were going around the walls here of the city of Jerusalem we came to the horse gate and many allegorists would say well, the horse gate represents controlling the tongue because James 3 talks about a bit placed in a horse\u2019s mouth in reference to the tongue.\u00a0 Well, I look at an interpretation like that and I say well who says, I think the horse gate could refer to the second coming of Christ because Jesus Christ is coming back on a white horse.\u00a0 So which allegorist is right?\u00a0 And the reality of the situation is there\u2019s no way to test which one is right because you can assign multiple allegories to anything you want it to mean.\u00a0 So one allegorist says one thing, another allegorist says something else and the nice thing about being an allegorist is you can never lose your job because you\u2019re the only one that knows what the allegory means.\u00a0 So it becomes a highly subjective practice.\n\nAnd then the fourth problem with allegorization is there isn\u2019t any mechanism, you lose control of interpretation because there\u2019s no mechanism for controlling the interpreters imagination.\u00a0 So a lot of Christians follow the practice of the sanctified imagination when they interpret the Bible and they come up with wild interpretations.\u00a0 And you look at the passages that they\u2019re supposedly using and it\u2019s not based on the passage, it comes from their own minds and essentially when you move into allegorization what starts to control is whatever just emanated out of the allegorist\u2019s carnal mind.\n\nSo Bernard Ramm wrote a very important book on hermeneutics called Protestant Biblical Interpretation and he makes this statement.\u00a0 He says, \u201c\u2026to state that the principal meaning of the Bible is a second-sense meaning, and that the principle method of interpretation is \u2018spiritualizing,\u2019 is to open the door to almost uncontrolled speculation and imagination<\/u>. For this reason we have insisted that the control in interpretation is the literal method.\u201d\u00a0 [Protestant Biblical Interpretation<\/em>, 3d ed. (Boston: W.A. Wilde, 1956; reprint, Grand Rapids: Baker, 1979), 65.]\n\nI would add to it the literal method consistency applied; in other words, you interpret words or phrases in the Bible according to the ordinary sense of those words and phrases.\u00a0 And that\u2019s a practice that requires a lot of discipline; that\u2019s a practice that\u2019s somewhat difficult, it requires some training to do it but you can do it, I can do it.\u00a0 And what\u2019s happening when you\u2019re following the literal approach is the speculation and imagination of the interpreter is not in control; the biblical text is in control.\n\nSo in Alexandria, Egypt, really starting with Philo and then is sort of took off as Christians migrated to Alexandria, Egypt following the first two centuries of the church, this practice took off called allegorization.\u00a0 And you might ask yourself, why in the world would the church of Jesus Christ, for about a thousand years, abandon a practice of literal interpretation that can be clearly traced back to the apostles at Antioch, why would they throw that out and why would they substitute allegorization?\u00a0 And I don\u2019t mean to over simplify things but I think there\u2019s at least five reasons why the church discarded the time and tested teaching of Antioch and embraced this more exciting practice down south in Alexandria, Egypt.\n\nSo here are the five reasons, every quickly.\u00a0 Number 1, once you move into allegorization your sermons and your teachings can be immediately relevant to the need of the listener.\u00a0 And what you have to understand is people today have very small attention spans.\u00a0 And they don\u2019t want to come to church and have a guy stand up for half an hour like I do, actually a little more than half an hour, and explain the meaning of the passage.\u00a0 Your average churchgoer today wants to treat the church kind of like Burger King: we want it our way and you\u2019d better say something fast, you\u2019d better make your point quick and it\u2019d better apply directly to my life, and if I don\u2019t get what I need I\u2019ll go down the street to another church that will do it the way I want it done.\n\nSo there is a very short attention span in people related to church. We treat church like we would \u2026 you would never treat your job that way,\u00a0 you would never treat your academic pursuits that way, but we treat church that way.\u00a0 And the preacher oftentimes succumbs to the pressure and wants to be relevant and so the fast way to be relevant is you just become allegorical.\u00a0 I mean, after all, who wants to hear a boring sermon on the gates around the walls of the city of Jerusalem, it\u2019s more exciting to learn about evangelism, the Holy Spirit, and other things like that.\n\nSo once you become allegorical you can become relevant really fast.\u00a0 And it was Howard Hendricks at Dallas Seminary who put it this way and I very much appreciate what he said.\u00a0 He said, \u201cAnybody can be relevant if they don\u2019t care about being biblical. Conversely, anybody can be biblical if they don\u2019t care about being relevant.\u201d\u00a0 The discipline of preaching and teaching is to be both; it\u2019s to establish meaning and explain it to people but then you don\u2019t just leave them there, explain why what you just developed actually relates to their lives.\u00a0 But many people would rather just go fast into relevance until they become allegorical and this was the appeal at the school of Alexandria.\n\nBernard Ramm says, \u201cBut citing verses in the Old Testament, in themselves frequently very obscure, as if superior to verses in the New, revealed no understanding of the significance of historical and progressive revelation for hermeneutics\u2026They considered the Old (especially) and the New Testaments filled with parables, enigmas, and riddles. The allegorical method alone sufficed to bring out the meaning\u201d and you could put \u201cmeaning\u201d there in quotes because they weren\u2019t really getting the meaning, \u201cof these parables, enigmas, and riddles.\u201d\u00a0 [Protestant Biblical Interpretation<\/em>, 3rd rev. ed. (Grand Rapids: Baker, 1970), 30]\n\nSo this is why verse by verse teaching through the Bible has taken such a hit because when you\u2019re going verse by verse you\u2019re going to be running into subjects, like genealogies, that God put there but your average person listens to a genealogy and they say well, how does this relate to my life?\u00a0 So the temptation is to skip the genealogy or the temptation is to make the genealogy say something that it\u2019s not saying because of the very short tension span of the listener.\n\nA second reason the church went into allegorization is they started to merge human philosophy with Bible interpretation, and that\u2019s why I had you open up to the book of Colossians, chapter 2 and verse 8, where Paul warned against this.\u00a0 Paul said to the Colossians, \u201cSee to it that no one takes you captive\u201d the word \u201ccaptive\u201d is interesting, once you move into human philosophy you\u2019re now captive to that philosophy, \u201cthrough philosophy and empty deception, according to the tradition of men,\u201d it\u2019s a manmade teaching, \u201caccording to the elementary principles of the world, rather than according to Christ.\u201d\u00a0 Once you move into human philosophy basically what happens is you move away from the full wisdom of Jesus Christ, which is limitless, into a teaching of a man and Paul says it\u2019s \u201celementary.\u201d\n\nSo you exchange the majesty and the depths of the wisdom of Christ for some sort of elementary human philosophy and Paul says it\u2019s like going back to kindergarten, you\u2019re going back and learning the ABC\u2019s all over again when you already know the alphabet, you already know how to write sentences, you know how to write paragraphs, you know how to write papers, you know how to write books, you have all of this wisdom in Christ and you\u2019re abandoning that and you\u2019re going back into the ABC\u2019s.\u00a0 That\u2019s what happens when you exchange the thinking of God for the thinking of man.\n\nAnd what happened at Alexandria, Egypt is these folks became very philosophical.\u00a0 Now there are a lot of Christians today that are very philosophical. What I mean by that is they\u2019ve bought into some kind of philosophy and they try to merge the Bible with that philosophy.\u00a0 And when you try to merge the Bible with a human philosophy what happens is the two separate at some point.\u00a0 So what do you do when your human philosophy separates from the Bible?\u00a0 Well, you just twist the Bible around, through allegorization, to make it your philosophy.\n\nAnd this is a practice that people do all of the time; they do it in Genesis 1-11, they\u2019re fallen in love with something Charles Darwin says and they to merge that philosophy with Genesis 1-11.\u00a0 And what\u2019s the end game?\u00a0 Genesis 1-11 starts saying something that it really doesn\u2019t say.\u00a0 Where this is very big today is people fall in love with psychology, human psychology, Freud, Skinner, Young, these types of beliefs, and they try to merge that with the Bible and you\u00a0 make the Bible start saying something it really was never designed to say.\n\nMany people believe in human empowerment, that you can command things into existence through\u00a0 your words and many people try to merge that with the Bible and you come up with the prosperity gospel or the prosperity movement.\u00a0 And see, that\u2019s why Paul is warning here about philosophy and to not let philosophy take over.\n\nSo Bernard Ramm says, \u201cThe outstanding Jewish allegorist was Philo\u2026He was a thoroughly convinced Jew. To him the Scriptures (primarily in the Septuagint version) were superior to Plato and Greek philosophy\u2026Yet, he had a great fondness for Greek philosophy, especially Plato and Pythagoras. By a most elaborate system of allegorizing he was able to reconcile for himself his loyalty to his Hebrew faith and\u201d at the same time \u201chis love for Greek philosophy.\u201d [Protestant Biblical Interpretation<\/em>, 3rd rev. ed. (Grand Rapids: Baker, 1970), 27.]\n\nSo what he started to do, Philo, is he started to merge human philosophy with the Scripture and doggone it, the Scripture is kind of stubborn; it\u2019s not submitting to my philosophy at certain points; I know what I\u2019ll do, I\u2019ll just allegorize that Scripture.\n\nRonald Diprose, in a book I highly recommend to you; if you get this and read it, it will explain a lot of these ideas.\u00a0 It\u2019s called\u00a0 Israel in the Development of Christian Thought<\/em>.\u00a0 Ronald Diprose said, \u201cClement of Alexandria (c. 155\u2012c. 220) was unashamedly a Christian Platonist and as such he quoted from Plato, and indeed from other philosophers, with the same ease the He quoted from the Hebrew Scriptures and the New Testament. Moreover, he interpreted the Bible in light of Platonic concepts\u2026\u201d\u00a0 So platonic concepts becomes the grid through which Clemet of Alexandria, Alexandria, Egypt, began to read the Scripture.\u00a0 \u201cHis dependence upon Plato is further evident in a speculative passage in which the Jews feature as \u2018helpers\u2019 while the Christians are considered \u2018fit to rule.\u2019\u201d\u00a0 So those Jewish people, you know, God doesn\u2019t have a future for them, the Jews are here to serve us Christians.\u00a0 And so he began to take certain teachings in the Old Testament and allegorize them and make it sound like that\u2019s what the Bible is teaching.\u00a0 And that\u2019s really the origin og what you call replacement theology.\u00a0 Diprose goes on and he talks about another well-known allegorist that I\u2019ll call your attention to in a minute, a maned Origen.\u00a0 \u201cOrigen continued the Alexandrian tradition of interpreting the Bible in a way which harmonized with Greek philosophy.\u201d\u00a0 [Israel in the Development of Christian Thought<\/em> (Rome: IBEI, 2000), 157-58\n\nSo whatever philosophy you\u2019re into you\u2019d better be very careful about that because what\u2019s going to happen at some point is the tale is going to start wagging the dog and you\u2019 re going to start being tempted to make the Bible say something it doesn\u2019t say.\n\nA third reason why the church shifted into allegorical interpretation was the influence of something called Gnostic dualism.\u00a0 Alexandria, Egypt, everything we know about it was a hotbed of Gnosticism.\u00a0 Gnostics taught a lot of different things but one of the things that they talked about a lot was dualism and they would say this:\u00a0 the physical world and the material world is bad but the spiritual world is what?\u00a0 It\u2019s good.\u00a0 By the way, is that even biblical?\u00a0 Is the physical world bad?\u00a0 Look at what God said after the six day week of creation: \u201cGod saw all that He had made\u201d now what would that be, \u201call that He had made\u201d?\u00a0 Sunlight, food, procreation, sexuality, all that\u2019s described in Genesis 1, it\u2019s all physical things, right?\u00a0 \u201cGod saw all that He had made, and behold,\u201d He doesn\u2019t just say it was good, but He says it was what? \u201cit was very good<\/u>.\u201d\u00a0 So the physical world is not bad; the physical world has been marred by sin but the physical world in and of itself is not inherently evil.\u00a0 The Gnostics taught that it was.\n\nNow once that becomes your philosophy it starts to wreak havoc on other doctrines of the Bible.\u00a0 One of the things it destroys is your Christology or your doctrine of Christ because the Gnostics would say well how could Jesus have come in a body (the incarnation) because the physical world is what?\u00a0 It\u2019s bad.\u00a0 So something developed in the early church called Cerinthianism, named after the heretic, Cerinthus, and Cerinthus basically taught that Jesus was never the Christ or the Messiah, He was just a guy born into the world.\u00a0 Well, how did He become the Christ?\u00a0 Oh, Cerinthus said, you see the spirit of Christ descended upon Him and that\u2019s how Cerinthus interpreted the Holy Spirit descending like a dove in Christ\u2019s baptism.\u00a0 And the Spirit of Christ left Jesus just before His death, but Jesus was never the Christ.\u00a0 Jesus couldn\u2019t have been the Christ because how could Christ come in a body, because the physical word is bad.\n\nOnce you understand that you start understanding what in the world 1 John is talking about.\u00a0 A lot of people try to read 1 John without this background and some of the statements John makes won\u2019t make any sense to you without the background.\u00a0 So John says, 1 John 2:22, \u201cWho is a liar but the one who denies that Jesus is the\u201d what? \u201cthe Christ.\u00a0 This is the antichrist, the one who denies the Father and the Son.\u201d\u00a0 And that statement is a statement directly aimed at who?\u00a0 Cerinthus, and Cerinthianism, which is an outworking of Gnostic dualism.\n\nGnostic dualism also took the form of what is called Docetism; Docetism comes from the Greek word doke\u014d<\/em><\/em>, which means to seem or to appear.\u00a0 And Doectists basically taught that Jesus really didn\u2019t have a body.\u00a0 It looked like He had a body, it seemed or appeared like He had a body but we all know He didn\u2019t have a body because how could God have a body because the physical world is what?\u00a0 Is bad.\u00a0 And this is why 1 John 4:2-3 says, \u201cBy this you know the Spirit of God: every spirit that confesses that Jesus Christ has come in the flesh is from God; [3] and every spirit that does not confess Jesus is not from God; this is the spirit of the\u201d who? \u201cthe antichrist, [of which you have heard that it is coming, and now it is already in the world].\u201d\n\nSo John, in his little book says Cerinthus is an antichrist, a baby antichrist, and so is the Doectists.\u00a0 The Doectists, the Doectists and Cerinthianism is an outworking of Gnostic dualism.\u00a0 And this Gnostic dualism was very prominent in the Mediterranean world and this is why when we read Paul\u2019s speech on Mars Hill to the pagan philosophers in Greece, and I\u2019ve actually been there and stood where\u2026 they didn\u2019t have an X that said Paul stood here, but the general area where Paul gave this speech.\u00a0 Paul made this speech to unbelievers and it says this at the end of the speech: \u201cNow when they heard of the resurrection of the dead\u201d because Paul concludes everything by talking about Jesus rose from the dead, it says \u201csome began to sneer,\u201d well why would they sneer?\u00a0 Because they\u2019ve already bought into Gnostic dualism which says that the physical world is evil.\u00a0 And this mindset, Greece is not very far from Corinth, they\u2019re neighbors basically, this mindset goes right into the Corinthians church in the first century and that\u2019s why these guys in Corinth, although they\u2019re saved they start to second guess resurrection.\u00a0 So Paul has to spend a whole chapter straightening these folks out.\u00a0 In \u00a01 Corinthians 15:12 Paul says, \u201cNow if Christ is preached, that He has been raised from the dead, how do some among you say that there is no resurrection<\/u> of the dead?\u201d\u00a0 How could a Christian church get to the point where they\u2019re denying resurrection?\u00a0 Because they bought into Gnostic dualism which says that the physical world is evil.\n\nAnd consequently Gnostic dualism gets a stronghold in Alexandria, Egypt, and so in Alexandria, Egypt, they start to deny something that Antioch stood for: Antioch was chiliast, or premillennial, they believed in an earthly kingdom which was yet future, and in Alexandria, Egypt, they start to deny that reality; how could there be a physical kingdom of God on the earth one day because we know that the physical world is what? Evil.\u00a0 And what starts to develop in Alexandria, Egypt, is a doctrine called amillennialism.\u00a0 The \u201ca\u201d prefix is a negation, millennium (as we explained last time) is a Latin word that means a thousand years.\u00a0 They said there is no thousand year kingdom.\u00a0 You know why?\u00a0 Because we\u2019re in the kingdom now.\u00a0 Well, what do you do then with all the prophecies that teach a future kingdom of Christ on the earth?\u00a0\u00a0 You just run through the grid of allegorization.\n\nAnd as you study the kingdom of Christ it\u2019s very clear that it\u2019s physical, and there\u2019s actually going to be eating and drinking in that kingdom.\u00a0 Did you know that?\u00a0 Matthew 8:11, Jesus says, \u201cI say to you that many will come from east and west, and recline at the table<\/em>\u201d what do you do at the table\u2026 you eat, \u201cwith Abraham, Isaac and Jacob in the kingdom of heaven.\u201d\u00a0 Luke 13:29 says the same thing, \u201cAnd they will come from east and west and from north and south, and will recline at the table<\/em> in the kingdom of God.\u201d\u00a0 And Jesus, just prior to His death said this about the kingdom, \u201cBut I say to you, I will not drink of this fruit of the vine from now on until that day when I drink\u201d that\u2019s a physical experience, isn\u2019t it, \u201cwhen I drink it with you\u201d where? \u201cin My Father\u2019s kingdom.\u201d\u00a0 Now in Alexandria, Egypt they said well, that can\u2019t be, there can\u2019t be a physical kingdom like is described here literally because we know that the physical world is evil.\n\nSo Renald Showers bring this point to our attention.\u00a0 He says, \u201c\u201cThe\u2026factor in his change of view was the influence of Greek philosophy upon his thinking. Before his conversion Augustine was deeply immersed in the study of this philosophy, much of which asserted the inherent evil of the physical or material and the inherent goodness of the totally spiritual.\u201d\u00a0 Before Augustine even got saved Augustine became influenced by Gnostic dualism.\u00a0 \u201cThis philosophy continued to leave it's mark upon him even after his conversion.\u201d\u00a0 Let me read that sentence again.\u00a0 \u201cThis philosophy continued to leave it's mark upon him even after his conversion.\u201d\n\nPeople think that once you get saved the old baggage just disappears.\u00a0 It says \u201cthe old has become new\u201d and positionally that\u2019s true but here\u2019s the reality of the situation:\u00a0 you get saved, especially later in life, you\u2019re dragging your bad way of thinking with you into your new Christian experience.\u00a0 And that\u2019s why Paul commands us in Romans 12:2 to do what with our minds?\u00a0\u00a0 Renew them.\u00a0 [Romans 12:2, \u201cAnd do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind, so that you may prove what the will of God is, that which is good and acceptable and perfect.\u201d]\u00a0 The mind thinks like this; God says no, I want it to think differently, I want to do some recalibrating.\n\nAugustine, a brilliant man, never went through that change and, \u201cIt prompted him to reject as carnal the pre-millennial idea of an earthly political kingdom of God with great material blessings.\u00a0 He believed that in order for the Kingdom of God to be good it must be\u201d what? \u201cspiritual in nature\u201d or non-physical.\u00a0 [John Ankerberg and Renald Showers, The Most Asked Prophecy Questions<\/em> (Chattanooga, TN: ATRI, 2000), 326.]\u00a0\u00a0 And thus what you see starting in Alexandria, Egypt is a terrible doctrine called amillennialism.\n\nNow this is a citation from Augustine\u2019s own book; he wrote a book called The City of God<\/em> in the fourth century which is your first formal treatment of amillennialism in church history.\u00a0 And Augustine says this, \u201c\u2018And this opinion would not be objectionable, if it were believed that the joys of the saints in that Sabbath shall be spiritual, and consequent on the presence of God; for I myself,\u201d referring to what Antioch taught and chiliasm and premillennialism, \u201cfor I myself too, once held this opinion.\u201d\u00a0 But what won in Augustine\u2019s mind?\u00a0 Not the Bible?\u00a0 His Gnostic dualism.\u00a0 Look at what I\u2019ve underlined here: \u201cBut, as they assert that those who then rise again shall enjoy the leisure of immoderate carnal banquets,\u201d<\/u> you notice anything physical he calls carnal, anything physical he calls bad, so what is he being influenced by here?\u00a0 Not the Bible, dualism, Gnostic dualism.\u00a0 \u201c\u2026 furnished with an amount of meat and drink<\/u>\u201d gosh, you can\u2019t have meat and drink and get in the kingdom, even though Jesus said they would be sitting at the table and drinking together, \u201cfurnished with an amount of meat and drink<\/u> such as not only to shock the feeling of the temperate, but even to surpass the measure of credulity itself, such assertions can be believed only by the carnal<\/u>. They who do believe them are called by the spiritual Chiliasts, which we may literally reproduce by the name Millenarians.\u201d\u00a0 [The City of God<\/em>, trans., Marcus Dods (NY: Random House, 1950), Book XX, chap. 7, p. 719.]\n\nSo what he is saying is Antioch with its chiliasm and millenarianism is wrong; there can\u2019t be an earthly kingdom because the physical world is evil.\n\nAnother major influence on the church that shifted it from Antioch to Alexandria is the decline of the Jewish population in the church.\u00a0 There are no Gentile believers in the church until the conversion of a man in Acts 10.\u00a0 Anybody know who that is?\u00a0 Cornelius.\u00a0 Once Cornelius gets saved, Acts 10, you\u2019ve got your first Gentile convert.\u00a0 And by the time Paul launches his missionary journeys outside of the land of Israel, from Antioch, you start to see a pattern.\u00a0 Everywhere Paul goes the Jews, the Hebrews, with very few exceptions are rejecting the gospel.\u00a0 The people that are embracing the gospel are the Gentiles.\u00a0 And the first place this occurs is in Paul\u2019s first missionary journey to southern Galatia and it says this in Acts 13:45, \u201c45<\/sup> \u201cBut when the Jews<\/u> saw the crowds, they were filled with jealousy and began<\/em> contradicting the things spoken by Paul, and were blaspheming.\u2026\u201d\n\nSo everywhere Paul goes he goes to the synagogue first and he almost gets thrown out of the synagogue because they reject his message and in many cases he literally gets thrown out of the synagogue.\u00a0 Then he turns to the Gentiles and the Gentiles start getting saved like crazy.\u00a0 So when I gave my test to my students on Acts and I say what happened in this and this city, in Paul\u2019s missionary journeys, just say this and you\u2019ll get the answer right: Paul went to the Jews, the message was rejected, he turned to the Gentiles and the message is received, because that happens almost everywhere Paul goes.\n\nSo in Acts 13:48 it says, \u201c When the Gentiles<\/u> heard this, they began<\/em> rejoicing\u201d what the Jews were jealous of the Gentiles were rejoicing and \u201cthey began rejoicing and glorifying the word of the Lord; and as many as had been appointed to eternal life believed.\u201d\u00a0 So what starts to happen with the first missionary journey is the ethnic population of the church changes.\u00a0 You move away from an entity that is almost all Hebrew or almost all Jewish to an entity which the Hebrews become the minority and the Gentiles become the majority.\u00a0 And here we are in 2017 in Sugarland, Texas and we see the same thing, right.\u00a0 We do have a few Hebrew Christians here at Sugar Land Bible Church but that\u2019s not the majority.\u00a0 The majority are Gentiles.\n\nAnd this get so bad in terms of a switchover that Paul, in Romans 11:17-21, has to straighten these Gentiles out because these Gentiles are becoming derisive or arrogant towards the Hebrews, who are in unbelief.\n\n[Romans 11:17-21, \u201cBut if some of the branches were broken off, and you, being a wild olive, were grafted in among them and became partaker with them of the rich root of the olive tree, [18] do not be arrogant toward the branches; but if you are arrogant, remember that<\/em> it is not you who supports the root, but the root supports<\/em> you. [19] You will say then, \u201cBranches were broken off so that I might be grafted in.\u201d [20] Quite right, they were broken off for their unbelief, but you stand by your faith. Do not be conceited, but fear; [21] for if God did not spare the natural branches, He will not spare you, either.\u201d]\n\nSo Paul uses this example of an olive tree and he talked about the natural branches being taken out of the olive tree (that would be the Hebrews or the Jews in unbelief).\u00a0 And then he talks about these wild olive branches coming\u2026 they\u2019re not even olive branches, they\u2019re unnatural branches coming into an olive tree.\u00a0 So who would those unnatural branches be?\u00a0 Gentile Christians.\u00a0 And Paul has to explain in Romans 11:18 that\u00a0 you Gentiles \u201cdo not be arrogant towards the natural branches.\u201d\u00a0 The Jews that have been cut out of the tree, for this simple reason:\u00a0 if God can bring into a tree wild branches that don\u2019t belong, which is you, how hard do you think it is for God one day to reach out His hand and take the natural branches, the Jews, and bring them back into their own tree.\n\nAnd Paul explains in Romans 11 that in fact following the rapture of the church that\u2019s exactly what God is going to do but what I want you to see is the Gentiles, because of the ethnic changeover in the church are becoming very arrogant towards the Jews.\u00a0 So my point is Augustinian, Alexandrian thinking would have never taken over the church if the composition of the church remained Jewish.\u00a0 Why is that?\u00a0 Because Jews from birth are steeped in the Old Testament.\u00a0 They love the Old Testament; they interpret the Old Testament literally.\n\nSo if you had taught there before Paul\u2019s first missionary journey the doctrine of amillennialism you would have been laughed right out of the church.\u00a0 But things are different now with Gentiles becoming predominant because Gentiles, what do they know about the Old Testament?\u00a0 Almost nothing; they had no training in the Old Testament, they had no training in Hebrew.\u00a0 So when somebody with the gift of gab sort of stands up and says all of those prophecies are just spiritual the dumb Gentiles (for lack of a better expression) say you know, that sounds good, that sounds spiritual, and I like the way he talks, and he gave me my liver quiver of the day.\u00a0\u00a0 He\u2019s got the gift of gab which is the three things you need for success in the ministry, the three \u201cg\u2019s\u201d, right: you need good looks, you need the gift of gab and you need a guitar.\u00a0 You got those three things you\u2019re going to go far in ministry.\n\nAnd so the Gentiles who don\u2019t know anything about the Old Testament just gravitate around the fine sounding orator who sounds a lot like the Greek philosophers and orators that they already knew.\u00a0 And so amillennialism, spiritualizing, all of this sounds really good.\u00a0 A Hebrew audience would have never bought into that.\u00a0 So I think the shift ethnically from Hebrew to Gentile in Christianity paved the way for amillennialism, Gnosticism, human philosophy, allegorization.\n\nAnd there\u2019s one other thing that happened that caused the shift and it was Constantine\u2019s Edict of Milan which was where this edict was formally made in A.D. 313.\n\nWhat\u2019s the deal with Constantine, a Roman Emperor in the Edict of Milan?\u00a0 Constantine came on the scene and he said you know, all this persecution of Christianity that we\u2019ve had for all these centuries, the last couple of centuries, that\u2019s all over; no more is there going to be a formal Roman persecution against Christians.\u00a0 And beyond that, we\u2019re going to make Christianity the formal religion of Rome.\u00a0 Now I want you to understand something; Christianity, going back to Nero, around A.D. 64, which is a good couple hundred years or more earlier, which is almost as long, think about this, as the United States of America has been in existence.\u00a0 It\u2019s a long time.\n\nEver since the days of Nero Christians were persecuted formally by Rome, and this is where the coliseums come from, where Christians were thrown to starving animals to the delight of the masses, and Nero basically\u2026 he would look at his garden parties and say you know, we need a little light around here, the sun\u2019s going down, here\u2019s what we\u2019re going to do, let\u2019s take a Christian over there and let\u2019s light them on fire and that\u2019ll be kind of our Christmas tree light or whatever, that will illuminate our garden party.\u00a0 And this is how Christians are treated from A.D. 64, roughly all the way to 313.\u00a0 Then all of a sudden this guy, Constantine gets on the throne of\u00a0 Rome and he says that\u2019s over, and not only is it over, this empire wide persecution, but Christianity is now going to be elevated.\n\nSo with the stroke of a pen Christianity with the edict of Milan from being persecuted to being promoted.\u00a0 Now what would you think if you were a Christian living in that change, in that transition?\u00a0 You would think the kingdom is here, wouldn\u2019t you?\u00a0 That would be a logical thought.\u00a0 All of the prophecies of Revelation 20 are being fulfilled now because Revelation 20, doesn\u2019t is say that they are going to reign and rule with Christ?\u00a0 Well, that\u2019s happening right now, so the politics of the day created the right spiritual climate for allegorization and amillennialism to just take off like a rocket.\u00a0 And this is why the church goes under an allegorical spell for over a thousand years, which is an awful long time, isn\u2019t it.\n\nRenald Showers puts it this way:\u00a0 \u201cThat new view became known as Amillennialism. Several things prompted this change in Augustine. First, the political situation of the Church in the Roman empire had changed radically around the period of his life. By his time the Roman persecution of the Church had stopped, and the state had made itself the servant of the Church.\u201d\u00a0 I mean, we can\u2019t even get the state to be the servant of the church here in the United States, can we?\u00a0 But that\u2019s what happened in Rome.\u00a0 \u201cAs the Roman empire crumbled, the Church stood fast, ready to rule in the place of the empire. It looked as if Gentile world dominion was being crushed and that the Church was becoming victorious over it. Under these circumstances Augustine concluded that Premillennialism<\/u>\u201d that\u2019s the chiliasm that was taught by Antioch, \u201cwas obsolete, and that it did not fit the current situation<\/u>. In the place of it he developed the idea that the Church is the Kingdom of the Messiah foretold in such Scriptures as Daniel 2 and 7 and Revelation 20. In his book, The<\/em> City of God<\/em>, he became the first person to teach the idea that the organized Catholic (Universal) Church is the promised Messianic Kingdom and that the Millennium began with the first coming of Christ<\/u>.\u201d\u00a0 [John Ankerberg and Renald Showers, The Most Asked Prophecy Questions<\/em> (Chattanooga, TN: ATRI, 2000), 325.]\n\nAugustine\u2019s ideas would have never really taken a foothold prior to Constantine.\u00a0 But once Constantine comes to the throne the things that Augustine and those in Alexandria, Egypt, were saying become very palatable.\n\nSo what shifted and caused the church to reject 200 years of tradition taught in Antioch, emanating from the apostles?\u00a0 Why in the world would they shift.\u00a0 There\u2019s some reasons for it:\n\nNumber 1, the Bible teachers wanted to be relevant.\n\nNumber 2, the church fell in love with human philosophy and incorporated that into its interpretation of Scripture.\u00a0 They did the very thing Paul said don\u2019t do.\n\nNumber 3, Gnostic dualism began to dominate and you can\u2019t have a physical kingdom of God on the earth because the physical world is evil and that\u2019s where the doctrine of amillennialism comes from and it\u2019s hampered other doctrines related to the incarnation.\n\nNumber 4, you have a decline of the church\u2019s Jewish population.\u00a0 A Hebrew audience would have never bought into this but a Gentile uneducated audience in the Old Testament began to buy into it and finally it fit the politics of the day because Constantine elevated Christianity and reversed the trend of persecution.\u00a0 And so consequently the whole church shifts.\n\nNow I\u2019m not going to go any further than this because I\u2019m out of time but next week I want to show you two key men who orchestrated this change; one is named Origen, I made a few references to him out of Alexandria, Egypt, and another is Augustine. Augustine is the most influential theologian in church history.\u00a0 And when I use the word \u201cinfluential\u201d I\u2019m not using the word influential for good, although he did do some good things, but influential for bad because he took the amillennial doctrine and systematized it in his book, The City of God<\/em>.\u00a0 So by the time The City of God<\/em> is written the church now has its first formal published treatise defending amillennialism and amillennialism just takes off.\u00a0 Allegorization takes off and\u00a0 you know what that led to?\u00a0 The third part in our outline, the Dark Ages which lasted over a thousand\u00a0 years.\u00a0 There\u2019s always faithful remnants throughout the Dark Ages; God always has faithful people.\u00a0 But it wasn\u2019t the majority opinion.\n\nSo by the time the Spirit of God gets His hand on Martin Luther and the Reformers, what they\u2019re doing is they\u2019re pulling us out of the Dark Ages, and a lot of them, like John Huss, were burned at the stake for trying to do it.\u00a0 The same with William Tyndale.\u00a0 And see, you can\u2019t appreciate what God did through these Protestant Reformers until you see what the devil did to destroy the doctrine of the church.\u00a0 And so that\u2019s sort of the direction we\u2019re going.\u00a0 So I\u2019ll take you into Origen and Augustine next week and I\u2019ll get into a time period called the Dark Ages.\n\nSo, 10:45, I stopped on time.\u00a0 See, I\u2019m Antiochian in my beliefs in literal interpretation: 10:45 means 10:45, right.\u00a0 I guess if anybody has a fast question we could try to answer that.","series_sermon_number":""},"aioseo_notices":[],"aioseo_head":"\n\t\t\n\t\n\t\n\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t