Mary the Mother of Jesus

The Myth Of Apostolic Succession

Three Angels Broadcasting Network

Program transcript

Participants: Pr. Stephen Bohr

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Series Code: MMJ

Program Code: MMJ000005


00:37 Shall we bow our heads for prayer?
00:39 Our Father and our God, we thank You so much for the awesome
00:45 privilege of being here to study Your word this day.
00:48 And we ask, Father, that as we open the holy pages
00:53 of Your book, that Your Spirit will be with us to teach us,
00:57 to guide us, and to lead us into all truth.
01:01 And we thank You for hearing our prayer, for we ask it in the
01:04 precious name of Your Son Jesus, Amen.
01:08 Perhaps some of you are wondering how the
01:13 Roman Catholic Church can teach certain doctrines, or dogmas,
01:18 which are not clearly contained in Scripture;
01:22 dogmas such as Mary the mother of God,
01:27 such as the immaculate conception,
01:31 the perpetual virginity of Mary, and the assumption of Mary
01:37 to heaven after her death.
01:39 Perhaps some of you are wondering, How can these
01:42 doctrines be taught if there is nothing in Scripture
01:46 to corroborate these teachings?
01:49 We're going to study in our lecture today the reason why
01:54 Roman Catholicism teaches these doctrines, even though they are
02:00 not contained in Scripture, not even implicitly.
02:05 We have to go back to the times of the Old Testament.
02:09 We have to go, in fact, back to the times of Moses.
02:14 When Moses went up to mount Sinai he received revelations
02:20 from God which he committed to writing.
02:24 And those writings are known as the Pentateuch,
02:28 the first five books of the Bible.
02:30 But according to the concept of the Jews of Christ's day,
02:35 we find that they taught that also God gave to Moses certain
02:41 instructions and teachings which were not committed to writing.
02:46 In other words, there was a deposit of teaching from God
02:51 to Moses which was composed of written material,
02:56 as well as on written traditions, and we could call
03:01 this the deposit of the faith.
03:04 In the second place, the Jews of Christ's day, as well as some
03:09 earlier than this, believed that there had to be a transmitting
03:15 agent to transmit reliably what God had given Moses
03:20 in writing and orally.
03:23 And so they developed the idea that there was a transmitting
03:27 mechanism to transmit the truth from generation to generation
03:34 in unbroken succession.
03:37 I would like to read some statements from scholars
03:41 of the day, as well as scholars of our day, on this idea
03:47 of transmitting the deposit of faith from generation
03:51 to generation in unbroken succession.
03:54 I'd like to begin by reading from Flavius Josephus.
03:59 Josephus was a Jew, of course.
04:02 He was a Pharisee, and he was born in the year 37 A.D.,
04:06 which means he was born only six years after the
04:10 crucifixion of Jesus Christ.
04:12 So I suppose he knew quite well the Hebrew, or the Jewish
04:16 concept of tradition in his day and age.
04:20 This is what Josephus had to say:
04:40 I want you to notice the technical terminology:
04:43 passed on, handed down, sayings that Moses had spoken orally,
04:52 which were not recorded in the written law of Moses.
04:56 It's interesting, in the Jewish Talmud, which is a collection
05:01 of the traditions of the Jews, we find these significant words:
05:08 This is found in Aboth 1:1, 2.
05:29 The men of the Great Synagogue are those of the days
05:33 of Ezra and Nehemiah.
05:35 So you'll notice that there was an unbroken succession
05:39 of transmission of what God had given Moses in this concept
05:43 of the days of Christ.
05:44 Moses had given it to Joshua, Joshua to the elders,
05:48 the elders to the prophets, the prophets to the
05:51 men of the Great Synagogue.
05:52 And then the final piece was added, which the men of the
05:55 Great Synagogue gave these messages, these traditions,
06:00 to the Rabbinical schools of the days of Christ.
06:03 Now, significantly, Marcel Simon in the book, Jewish Sects,
06:09 has this to say about the statement that I just read
06:13 from the Jewish Talmud:
06:14 It is remarkable that after these words from the Talmud
06:20 of transmission, unbroken transmission,
06:23 comes the enumeration of several pairs of teachers.
06:28 Antiginus of Soco, received the law from Simeon the Just,
06:34 etcetera, whose historical existence is
06:40 more or less certain.
06:42 This list finally ends with Hillel and Shammai,
06:48 famous leaders of schools, that is in the days of Christ.
06:53 So, basically, after the Talmud says that the message of Moses
06:59 was transmitted from Moses to Joshua,
07:03 from Joshua to the elders, from the elders to the prophets,
07:06 from the prophets to the men of the Great Synagogue,
07:08 you have a list of twosomes; in other words one leader,
07:14 transmitted to the next, and transmitted to the next.
07:16 You have a long list of individuals who lived in
07:20 succession, and passed on the information which God had given
07:25 Moses; not only the written, but supposedly also
07:28 the oral revelation which God had given to Moses.
07:32 In other words, there was a type of succession.
07:35 We wouldn't call it apostolic succession, but we would call
07:39 it a succession from one generation to another by passing
07:42 it on from one rabbi, or one scribe to another.
07:46 Now I'd like to read another statement by Marcel Simon.
07:51 He says this:
07:55 That is in the eyes of the Pharisees.
08:10 In other words, the traditions which were shared,
08:13 which supposedly Moses had received orally on Mt. Sinai,
08:17 they were not actually additions to the written Torah.
08:22 They were not actually information that had
08:24 not existed before.
08:36 Which is the written revelation.
08:51 And so you have these scholars, among them Flavius Josephus,
08:55 who say that this deposit of truth, which God had given
09:00 to Moses, both the written books of Moses, and supposedly the
09:04 oral traditions, which God had given to Moses, which had not
09:07 been committed to writing, were transmitted from generation
09:11 to generation, from one scribe, from one religious
09:14 leader to another.
09:16 Perhaps I can read one more statement.
09:19 This one is by George Foot Moore, who wrote two
09:22 volumes called, Judaism.
09:23 This is the standard in the field. He says this:
09:38 So we've noticed two things so far.
09:41 First of all we found that, according to the Jewish concept
09:46 of tradition, there were the writings of Moses,
09:49 and the unwritten revelation, which God had also given Moses
09:54 on Mt. Sinai, which formed a deposit of truth.
09:58 We also noticed secondly, that there was a process of
10:02 transmission from generation to generation, supposedly in
10:06 unbroken succession from one scholar, from one Rabbi,
10:10 or one teacher to another.
10:11 But there's a third element in this concept,
10:15 and that is that in every age there needed to be a living
10:20 interpreter of the tradition which had been passed on.
10:24 In other words, there had to be, we might call a magisterium,
10:29 which would bring forth only that which Moses
10:34 had supposedly spoken, and only what was contained
10:39 in the tradition itself, according to this concept.
10:42 Now this is what is meant in Matthew 23:1, 2 where Jesus is
10:49 indicting the scribes and the Pharisees.
10:51 He says this in Matthew 23:1, 2: Then Jesus spoke to the
10:56 multitudes, and to His disciples saying,...
11:00 Now notice this: The scribes and the Pharisees sit
11:04 sit in Moses' seat.
11:08 The word seat there is the word cathedra.
11:11 It could be translated throne, because it's translated that way
11:16 in other places in the New Testament.
11:17 In other words the scribes and Pharisees sit on Moses'
11:21 throne, or on Moses' seat.
11:23 Now what does this mean that they sat on Moses seat?
11:26 The Roman Catholic Commentary, the Jerome Bible Commentary,
11:31 explains what Moses' seat means.
11:35 Notice the statement:
12:03 And, of course, the author of this article is saying:
12:12 In other words, sitting on Moses' seat meant that the
12:16 Pharisees were the living interpreters of what Moses
12:20 had passed on from generation to generation.
12:23 They were the ones who said if a tradition was genuine or not.
12:27 They could bring forth teachings which, supposedly, Moses had
12:32 spoken of, but had not been brought forth yet from the
12:36 deposit of unwritten traditions.
12:38 In other words, they had the authority to say what was a
12:41 genuine tradition, and was not a genuine tradition.
12:46 According to Simon, and I read once again: The transmission of
12:52 oral tradition, that's the things that were not
12:55 written by Moses, made Phariseeism the living element
13:01 of official Judaism.
13:04 It was the tradition that allowed the Pharisees to justify
13:09 all the elaborations that they introduced regarding the
13:13 Scriptural precepts on the level of observances as well as
13:18 on the level of doctrine.
13:20 So whenever they brought forth a teaching that was not
13:23 contained in the writings of Moses, they would say,
13:26 We have the authority to say that this belongs to the
13:29 written tradition that was handed down by Moses.
13:31 And thus they could bring out new practices,
13:34 they could bring out things that supposedly were in the deposit,
13:37 which actually had not been there.
13:40 But they had the authority because, supposedly, they were
13:43 sitting on Moses' seat.
13:45 In other words, they had the authority and the clout
13:48 of Moses behind them.
13:50 So lets summarize the Hebrew, or the Jewish view of tradition
13:55 as it existed in the days of Christ.
13:57 First of all there was a deposit of truth composed of the
14:02 writings of Moses, and the unwritten traditions
14:05 which God had spoken orally to Moses.
14:08 Secondly there was a transmitting element.
14:10 From generation to generation these truths, both the written
14:15 and the unwritten, supposedly, were passed on in unbroken
14:19 succession all the way till the days of Christ.
14:23 And in the third place, you have the living interpreter
14:26 in the days of Christ, which are the scribes and the Pharisees
14:29 who sit on the throne of Moses, and speak ex cathedra.
14:34 In other words they speak from the throne, or they speak from
14:37 the seat of Moses.
14:39 They are the ones who can say, This is a genuine tradition,
14:42 and this is not a genuine tradition.
14:44 This is what is to be obeyed, and this is what is not
14:49 necessarily to be obeyed.
14:51 Interestingly enough, the people had to render blind obedience
14:58 to what was taught by the scribes and the Pharisees
15:02 who sat on Moses' seat.
15:03 I want to read this statement that's found in
15:06 Antiquities of the Jews.
15:08 It's written by Flavius Josephus once again, the Jewish Pharisee.
15:12 Notice what he says:
15:45 So notice there was a discrepancy between the
15:48 Sadducees and the Pharisees.
15:49 The Pharisees believed that, according to this,
15:52 the common people had to accept the tradition which was passed
15:55 on in continuous succession from the fathers.
15:59 Josephus continues saying:
16:18 In other words, their word was final.
16:22 If they said that this was found in the deposit of oral tradition
16:28 that God gave Moses, even if it wasn't in the writings of Moses,
16:31 people had to accept it on their say so, because they spoke from
16:36 Moses' seat; they spoke from the cathedra.
16:40 Now is this concept of tradition clear in your mind?
16:45 It's very important that we understand it because
16:47 we're going to come back to this when we deal with the
16:51 Roman Catholic view of tradition.
16:53 However, allow me to ask the question, What distinguished
16:58 the authority of Jesus from the authority of the scribes
17:03 and the Pharisees?
17:04 It's interesting to notice that time and again in the gospels
17:08 the Pharisees and the scribes are questioning the right
17:12 of Jesus to teach.
17:13 They're asking Him, On what authority are you doing this?
17:17 Because they were sitting on Moses' seat.
17:19 They said, we can teach the writings of Moses, and we can
17:22 say what is a genuine oral tradition and what isn't,
17:26 but this guy didn't even go to our schools.
17:28 By what authority are you teaching these things?
17:32 Allow me to give you some examples.
17:34 Matthew 7:28, 29, immediately after the parable of the man
17:41 who built his house on the rock, and the man who built his house
17:44 upon the sand, we find these words:
18:01 Jesus had never gone to the rabbinical schools,
18:04 and yet we're told that Jesus spoke with authority,
18:08 and not as the scribes.
18:10 Once again in Matthew 13:54 we find these words:
18:23 This is Jesus.
18:35 In other words, where does this man get His wisdom from?
18:38 He hasn't come to learn from us, the theological cadre of Israel;
18:43 the ones who are able to say what is a genuine
18:45 tradition and what isn't.
18:47 Also in John 7:15 we find the same issue coming forth again.
18:53 We're told there:
19:05 And if you read the gospels, you'll find that the multitudes
19:09 followed Jesus. They admired His teaching.
19:13 They were attracted to His teaching, whereas the teaching
19:17 rooms of the Pharisees and the scribes were empty.
19:21 And the gospels tell us that because of this reason,
19:23 the scribes and Pharisees were jealous of Jesus.
19:26 You see, Jesus had authority, even though He had not studied
19:30 in the theological schools.
19:32 In John 7:46 we find the officers of the temple returning
19:38 to bring back a report to the Pharisees, because they had
19:41 been sent to listen to Jesus.
19:43 And notice what these officers said:
19:52 In other words there is something powerful
19:54 in His manner of speaking.
19:56 Once again, in Mark 11:27, 28, we find the same phenomenon.
20:03 We're told there:
20:28 In other words, where do you get Your authority from?
20:31 You should have gotten it from us, because we sit on the
20:33 because we sit on the cathedra.
20:35 We say what can be taught and what can't be taught,
20:39 what is a genuine tradition, and what is not a genuine tradition.
20:42 Well, as we read the gospels, we discover the reason why
20:47 the teachings of Jesus had power and authority.
20:50 It's because Jesus Christ, whenever He spoke,
20:54 He corroborated what He said with Holy Scripture.
20:59 You will never find Jesus saying, Rabbi Shammai said
21:04 such and such a thing, or Rabbi Hillel said
21:07 such and such a thing.
21:08 You'll never find Jesus quoting the theological experts
21:13 of His day and age.
21:14 You'll never notice that Jesus quotes oral tradition
21:18 that supposedly went back to Moses.
21:21 Jesus always confronted His enemies, and always taught
21:26 from the word of God.
21:28 Allow me to give you some examples.
21:31 On the Mount of Temptation, according to Matthew 4,
21:34 three times Jesus said to the devil, It is written.
21:41 And, by the way, He quoted three times from the
21:44 book of Deuteronomy.
21:45 Deuteronomy 8:3, 6:16, and 6:13.
21:51 Jesus corroborated His mission, and defended Himself against
21:55 temptation through quoting the word.
21:58 When Jesus began His ministry we find in Luke 4:21 that He
22:05 quoted Isaiah 61:1, 2.
22:08 The Spirit of the Lord is upon Me.
22:11 He authenticated His mission through Scripture.
22:15 When the young lawyer came to Jesus and asked Him what the
22:18 great commandment was, Jesus says, Well,
22:20 you're an expert in the law.
22:22 You're a lawyer. You're a scribe.
22:24 You tell me! And then this young man, of course, quotes
22:28 Scripture, because Jesus said, What is it that the law contains
22:32 about this? We find also in Matthew 21:42, in the parable
22:38 of the vineyard workers, that Jesus quotes Scripture
22:41 by saying, the stone that the builders rejected has become
22:47 the chief cornerstone.
22:48 Also, Matthew 22:29, the seven brothers?
22:54 You remember the experience of the seven brothers?
22:56 They died one by one, and this woman was left
23:00 a widow each time, and so they asked Jesus, Whose wife is this
23:07 woman going to be in the resurrection?
23:09 And Jesus says, You ere, not knowing the Scriptures
23:13 or the power of God.
23:14 And then Jesus quotes the fact that God is the God of Abraham,
23:19 Isaac, and Jacob, and God is not a God of the dead,
23:22 but He is a God of the living.
23:24 He quotes Scripture once again.
23:26 When Jesus cleansed the temple He quoted Jeremiah saying,
23:31 You have made My house a den of thieves.
23:35 Once again He's authenticating what He's doing
23:38 from Holy Scripture.
23:39 When the Pharisees came to Jesus and said, Well, Moses said
23:43 that we could get divorced for any cause, Jesus says,
23:45 Yeah, you might say that, and you might interpret
23:48 Moses that way, but let Me tell you,
23:49 at the beginning it was not so.
23:51 He who made them at the beginning made
23:53 them male and female.
23:54 God established marriage.
23:55 Once again Jesus resolves the issue by going to Scripture.
24:00 In fact when they questioned Jesus how He can witnessing
24:05 in the things that he's talking about, Jesus says, Well,
24:10 your Scriptures say that in the mouth of two or three witnesses
24:13 every word is confirmed.
24:14 He says, Well, I have the witness of my Father,
24:16 and I have My witness, so that's two.
24:19 He's actually quoting Scripture in John 8:17, 18.
24:23 When they asked Jesus how He thought He had a right
24:27 to call Himself the Messiah, Jesus quoted Psalm 110:1, 2.
24:32 Sit at My right hand until I make Your
24:35 enemies Your footstool.
24:36 John 5, Jesus said, If you believe Moses, you would believe
24:41 Me, for he wrote about Me.
24:43 Even after the resurrection on the road to Emmaus,
24:46 we're told, And beginning with Moses, and from all of the
24:50 prophets, He told them in all of the Scriptures the things
24:53 concerning Himself.
24:55 What gave Jesus power and authority was the fact
24:59 that Jesus got His message from Scripture,
25:03 not from unwritten tradition.
25:06 Now I would like to go to an example of this concept
25:12 in the days of Jesus.
25:13 This is the passage that we find in Mark 7:1-13.
25:20 And I'm going to read this passage, and I'm going to
25:22 stop as we go along to underline certain very important points.
25:33 I want you to notice that it's the same group,
25:35 it's the same group that sit on Moses cathedral.
25:39 They are the ones who think they have authority to define
25:42 what is a true tradition handed down from Moses. So it says:
26:04 Now this is not talking about hygiene.
26:06 This is not talking about washing your dirty
26:09 hands before you eat.
26:10 This is a practice which had been established by oral
26:15 tradition that they needed to ceremonially wash their hands
26:19 several times as they were about to partake of their meal.
26:23 Notice verse 3:
26:33 And now I want you to notice:
26:36 Remember that word.
26:37 That's a technical term.
26:43 That also is a technical term.
26:49 Why did they practice the ceremonial washing?
26:52 Because Moses said so?
26:53 No, because they hold the tradition of the elders.
26:59 Now what does this expression mean;
27:01 the tradition of the elders?
27:03 Notice what the Jerome Bible Commentary has to say.
27:06 This is a Roman Catholic Bible Commentary.
27:08 The expression,...
27:15 That is a term of the rabbi's.
27:29 Did you catch that?
27:31 I'll read it again.
27:32 This expression, the tradition of the elders, is a rabbinical
27:35 term for the body of unwritten laws that the Pharisees
27:39 considered as equally binding as the written Torah.
27:44 Now notice verse 4.
27:51 And notice that this is only the tip of the iceberg.
27:54 There are many other things in which they go by tradition also.
28:02 Remember that word:
28:06 These are technical terms: received and hold.
28:15 Now what terms have we noticed so far: holding, tradition,
28:21 received, hold, passed on.
28:27 I want you to remember those terms, because we're going
28:29 to come back to them.
28:30 Notice verse 5:
28:44 In other words, why don't they go by the tradition that we say
28:46 goes all the way back to the days of Moses,
28:48 even though it's not written in the writings of Moses?
28:51 Notice verse 6:
28:58 How is Jesus going to face this issue?
29:00 He's going to quote Scripture.
29:12 And now notice this:
29:21 What happens when you follow the commandments of men,
29:24 and you follow tradition instead of the word of God?
29:26 You are practicing what kind of worship?
29:28 You are practicing vain worship, which means useless worship.
29:33 So when you follow the traditions of men instead of
29:36 the word of God, you are following, actually you are
29:40 practicing vain or meaningless worship.
29:44 We'll come back to that later.
29:45 Now lets go on to verse 8.
29:53 Let me ask you, what is the issue in this passage?
29:55 It's between tradition and the commandment of God.
29:59 It's between tradition and the word of God.
30:03 Notice once again:
30:11 And notice the tip of the iceberg again.
30:17 The issue, once again, is tradition
30:20 versus the word of God.
30:21 And those who follow the traditions of men are practicing
30:25 what kind of worship? are practicing vain worship.
30:28 Now notice verse 9:
30:38 And now He's going to quote Scripture again.
30:41 He's going to show how their tradition contradicts
30:44 the written word of God.
30:45 How their tradition contradicts a commandment of God.
30:49 Notice verse 10:
30:53 This is Exodus 20:17.
31:04 Is that the commandment of God? Yes.
31:07 Was it written in the writings of Moses? Yes, it is. Verse 11.
31:42 Now what Jesus is referring to, the tradition that He's
31:47 referring to here is the tradition of Corban.
31:51 Now, basically what Corban meant;
31:54 the word Corban means dedicated.
31:56 Children could actually dedicate all of their possessions to the
32:00 temple, but they could use all of their possessions freely
32:04 until they died, and then it passed over to the temple,
32:07 which means that their parents could be deprived while they
32:11 lived, because they could use everything, and they could say
32:14 to their parents, Sorry, I can't help you, because this has
32:17 been dedicated to the temple.
32:19 Interesting that this tradition of man contradicted
32:23 the commandment that said, Honor your
32:25 father and your mother.
32:26 In other words, they were annulling the written word of
32:30 God through this tradition.
32:32 By the way, the Pharisees and scribes were expert
32:36 at categorizing sin.
32:39 You know, some of the violations of traditions they considered
32:43 grave offenses while violations of clearly revealed duties
32:48 by God were considered trivial.
32:50 Allow me to read you this statement from
32:52 The Desire of Ages, page 616.
33:08 Dare we call them maybe venial sins?
33:20 Could we call that maybe mortal? Now notice:
33:45 And do you know what this concept of tradition led to?
33:48 It led to the rejection of Jesus Christ, and to the rejection
33:54 of the Jewish nation.
33:55 Now we need to move on to the Roman Catholic
33:59 view of tradition.
34:00 And you're going to find a striking similarity.
34:05 First of all you're going to find that instead of speaking
34:08 about Moses, they speak about Peter and the apostles.
34:12 You see those are the ones who have the deposit of the faith.
34:16 In fact the Roman Catholic Church teaches that many of
34:19 the things that the apostles spoke are not found written.
34:23 They are actually unwritten traditions.
34:26 They are oral traditions.
34:27 And so we can't go only by what the apostles wrote,
34:30 we need to go also by what the apostles spoke,
34:33 which is preserved in the deposit of tradition.
34:36 Interestingly enough, in the Roman Catholic Church there is
34:40 also a mechanism for transmitting truth in these
34:45 unwritten traditions, and the writings of Moses.
34:48 It's known as apostolic succession.
34:51 One bishop passing on the authority to the next bishop
34:55 by ordination, and successively all the way till the bishops
35:00 of our day and age; very similar to the situation of the Jews
35:04 in the days of Christ.
35:06 Also the Roman Catholic Church believes that there needs to be
35:10 a living interpreter at every age to show which traditions
35:15 are genuine and reliable, and which traditions are not.
35:19 And they call this, by the way, the magisterium of the church.
35:24 It's also called the teaching office of the church.
35:28 I don't know whether you're aware of this, but when the Pope
35:34 speaks for the bishops of the Roman Catholic Church,
35:38 he actually speaks ex-cathedra.
35:43 That is the identical word that we found in Matthew 23:2.
35:48 The scribes and Pharisees sit on Moses' cathedra.
35:52 When the Pope speaks as a spokesman for all of the
35:55 college of bishops, the living voice of the church,
35:58 the magisterium of the church, he speaks from the throne;
36:03 he speaks ex-cathedra.
36:06 Now allow me to read you some remarkable statements from
36:10 Roman Catholicism, and I want you to remember the terminology
36:14 that we read from Mark 7.
36:16 It's very, very similar, strikingly similar.
36:19 I'm going to read now from Vatican II, documents of
36:23 Vatican II, the specific decree which is called Di Verbum,
36:29 which is on Revelation, on the word of God.
36:32 By the way, this is infallible because it was proclaimed
36:35 in a Church Council by the consensus of the bishops
36:39 who were present. Listen to this:
37:24 Are you noticing the terminology? Identical!
38:04 Now notice that this document is going to speak about the
38:08 authority of the magisterium.
39:29 You know, there's a whole section in the Roman Catholic
39:32 Catechism of the Catholic Church.
39:35 I'd just like to mention it, because we don't have time to
39:38 read all of the statements, but it is article 2, paragraph 76,
39:41 to 86, and you will be amazed at the number of times that the
39:46 words received, handed on, tradition, hold; the very words
39:51 that we found in Mark 7 are used in this particular section
39:56 of the Catholic Catechism of the Roman Catholic Church.
39:59 Interestingly enough, Pope Pius XII
40:04 had these words to say:
40:28 In other words, if the deposit has something that's implicit or
40:31 obscure, the magisterium can bring it forth and say,
40:35 This was in the deposit of faith all the time.
40:38 Now allow me to read you another statement from Francis Butler.
40:43 These are all Roman Catholic theologians.
40:47 These are striking admissions.
40:58 What an admission!
41:59 We believe that there are 66.
42:00 He continues saying:
42:26 And now here comes the most critical part of this statement.
42:30 Butler says this:
42:55 The teaching office of the Catholic Church has the
42:58 same authority as the scribes and Pharisees.
43:00 Only the theological experts can tell you what tradition means,
43:05 and how it applies to life.
43:07 And people must implicitly obey it.
43:10 They cannot understand the tradition on their own,
43:13 they have to depend on the scholars.
43:16 Notice this statement from John O'Brien, who for quite a period
43:21 of time taught at Notre Dame University in Indiana.
43:24 He actually wrote a very well known book,
43:27 The Faith of Millions.
43:28 Notice what he has to say:
43:54 That's amazing! He continues saying:
44:05 Of course the Bible says that that living interpreter
44:08 is the Holy Spirit.
44:09 But notice what he says:
44:39 One more interesting statement.
44:41 This comes from the book, A Course in Religion for Catholic
44:45 High Schools and Academy's.
44:46 This is actually a Bible book for the schools of the
44:49 Roman Catholic Church.
44:50 The author is John Laux, and notice what he says:
44:58 In other words, the written Scriptures, and the oral
45:01 traditions that have been passed on are called
45:03 the remote rule of faith.
45:05 And then he explains why.
45:15 That's closer.
45:38 So just as in the days of Christ, the scribes and the
45:42 Pharisees sat on Moses' seat and said, You must obey this,
45:45 because this is part of either the written word of God,
45:49 or part of the passed on traditions.
45:51 In the same way the Roman Catholic Church says the living
45:54 interpreter of the Bible and oral tradition is the
45:58 magisterium of the church.
46:00 And therefore everyone should listen and obey what the
46:04 magisterium defines as the truth.
46:07 Now there are many traditions that are not found in Scripture
46:13 that are taught by the Roman Catholic Church.
46:15 For example, the idea that Mary is the mother of God.
46:18 You'll never find that expression in Scripture.
46:20 For example, the immaculate conception of Mary;
46:23 the Bible doesn't even address the birth of Mary.
46:26 The idea of the perpetual virginity of Mary.
46:29 We have a clear impression in Scripture by what we've studied,
46:32 that Mary most likely had other children.
46:35 The idea that Mary ascended to heaven after she died
46:40 on the third day: totally absent from Scripture.
46:43 The question is, How can these teachings be
46:46 accepted as genuine?
46:48 Simply because the magisterium says that this is part of the
46:52 deposit of the faith which has been transmitted
46:55 by oral tradition.
46:57 Now allow me to provide you one great example as we
47:03 draw this study to a close.
47:05 Jesus, when He was on this earth, had great controversies
47:11 with the religious leaders, with the scribes and Pharisees.
47:14 The greatest source of conflict between Jesus
47:18 and the scribes and the Pharisees was over
47:21 the observance of the Sabbath.
47:22 Jesus, in fact, most of His healings were done in chronic
47:28 cases, people who it was not an emergency.
47:30 You know, they weren't gravely ill.
47:32 They weren't at the point of death.
47:33 Jesus made it a point to heal these people on the Sabbath.
47:38 And the Pharisees and the scribes would say,
47:40 It is not lawful for you to heal people on the Sabbath.
47:45 And Jesus said, for example, in Matthew 12:12, It is lawful
47:50 for Me to heal people on the Sabbath.
47:52 Now on what authority did the Pharisees say that it wasn't
47:55 lawful, and on what authority did Jesus say
47:58 that it was lawful?
47:59 The fact is that after the Babylonian captivity,
48:03 where God's people had gone because they had fallen into
48:06 idolatry among the nations before this.
48:09 After the captivity the leaders of the Jewish nation said,
48:13 we're never going to fall into idolatry again.
48:16 And they decided that they would protect the Sabbath
48:20 from being broken.
48:21 And so they wrote 613 rules, or laws, which they called the
48:27 fence around the law.
48:29 None of these traditions and ideas were
48:33 contained in Scripture.
48:34 They were simply additions to Scripture, supposedly from oral
48:40 tradition which had been passed on.
48:43 And so when Jesus said, It is lawful to do good
48:47 on the Sabbath, He was going back to the Sabbath
48:49 in the Old Testament.
48:50 When the Pharisees and the scribes said, It is not lawful
48:53 to do good on the Sabbath, they were going back to this mass
48:56 of traditions which had been written after
48:59 the Babylonian captivity.
49:01 Interestingly enough, the Sabbath of the Pharisees
49:06 was actually a false Sabbath, because it was a
49:10 Sabbath created by them.
49:12 The observance of the Sabbath, as taught by the Pharisees,
49:16 was not the observance of the Sabbath that God had taught
49:19 in Holy Scripture, and therefore they had established a Sabbath
49:23 not created by God, but a Sabbath created by man
49:27 based on human tradition.
49:29 And, by the way, this was false worship,
49:34 because they were worshipping on a Sabbath which had been
49:37 created by man, and had not been created by God.
49:40 And I'm not talking about the specific day, I'm talking about
49:43 the manner in which they kept the Sabbath.
49:46 In Scripture God said how to keep the Sabbath.
49:48 They added all these traditions, and they said you're supposed
49:51 to keep it this way.
49:52 But their traditions contradicted the proper way
49:56 of observing the Sabbath as Jesus had taught.
49:59 In other words, the controversy in the days of Christ was over
50:04 the wrong way of keeping the Sabbath.
50:06 The issue was not the wrong day, the issue was the wrong way
50:11 of keeping the Sabbath.
50:12 You see, this was the Sabbath of the Pharisees,
50:14 because they had created it.
50:16 This was false worship, because when people kept that Sabbath
50:19 they were keeping the Sabbath of the Pharisees.
50:21 They were not keeping the Sabbath of the Lord.
50:23 Now let me ask you this, Is the Sabbath issue going to be
50:29 the main point of controversy in the final
50:33 conflict on Planet Earth? Yes, it is.
50:37 Is it going to be a similar issue to the issue
50:41 in the days of Christ?
50:43 Very similar; only one difference.
50:46 The conflict in the days of Christ was the right way
50:50 versus the wrong way of keeping the Sabbath.
50:54 At the end of time the controversy is going to be
50:58 the right day versus the wrong day.
51:00 And so the issue in the days of Christ is the right
51:05 way or the wrong way.
51:06 At the end of time it's going to be the right
51:08 day or the wrong day.
51:10 Now the Roman Catholic Church teaches that we're supposed
51:14 to keep Sunday in honor of the resurrection.
51:16 Where do they get that idea from?
51:18 You certainly don't find it in Scripture.
51:21 Nowhere in Scripture does it say we're supposed to
51:23 go to church on Sunday.
51:24 Nowhere does it say that we're supposed to keep Sunday
51:27 in honor of the resurrection of Jesus.
51:29 Nowhere does it say that Sunday is a holy day dedicated to God.
51:34 Scripture does not say this; Scripture uniformly says,
51:38 the seventh day is the Sabbath of the Lord your God.
51:41 Jesus went into the synagogue on Sabbath.
51:43 Paul, and Peter, and the apostles in the book of Acts,
51:47 went to the synagogue observing the Sabbath of the Lord.
51:50 Now let me ask you, when the Roman Catholic Church says
51:54 that it is Sunday and not the Sabbath, are they making of
51:57 none effect the commandment of God?
52:00 They most certainly are!
52:02 In other words, by their tradition, which they admit.
52:05 They say this came in by tradition.
52:07 It didn't come in by the word of God.
52:09 By their tradition are they actually contradicting a clearly
52:14 revealed commandment of God?
52:16 If Jesus were alive today would He say, You have made of
52:20 none effect the word of God, you have made of non effect
52:23 the commandment of God by your tradition? Absolutely!
52:27 And the controversy at the end, folks, is not going to be over
52:30 the way in which the Sabbath is kept, but it is over the day
52:35 in which the Sabbath is kept.
52:36 Are you understanding what I am saying?
52:38 But it's the same issue.
52:39 You see, Sunday is a day of worship created by man,
52:43 by the tradition of man.
52:45 And, therefore, those who observe Sunday,
52:47 knowing that the Bible teaches that we're supposed to observe
52:50 the Sabbath, they are serving God in vain.
52:53 They are worshipping in vain.
52:55 Do remember Jesus said that by keeping the tradition
53:00 of the elders, the Jews were actually serving God,
53:04 and worshipping God in vain?
53:05 You see, the reason why is because they were keeping
53:09 a Sabbath of their creation.
53:10 And at the end of time the Christian world,
53:13 will keep a Sabbath of their creation.
53:15 It wasn't a Sabbath created by God.
53:18 It was a Sabbath created by man.
53:20 And when we keep that day of worship,
53:22 we're actually practicing vain worship, because that's not
53:26 the day on which God said that we are supposed to worship.
53:29 Are you understanding what I'm saying?
53:31 That's what it means to make of none effect the word of God
53:34 by our tradition, or the commandment of
53:37 God by our tradition.
53:38 And, by the way, I find it very ironic that the same individuals
53:44 who were aggravated at Jesus because Jesus healed
53:50 people on the Sabbath, several times in the gospels we're told
53:53 that they plotted to kill Jesus on the Sabbath.
53:56 In other words, because Jesus didn't keep the Sabbath
53:59 the way they said, according to their traditions, on the Sabbath
54:03 they actually plotted to kill.
54:05 So they were not only making of no effect the Sabbath
54:08 commandment, but they were also making of none effect
54:11 the commandment that says, Thou shalt not kill.
54:14 Now let me ask you, Does Scripture say that in the last
54:18 days the Christian world is going to rise against those
54:23 who keep a different day than they keep?
54:25 Bible prophecy teaches that, folks.
54:28 In other words, there will be a double violation
54:32 of the commandment of God.
54:33 1. Because they will seek to impose the wrong day,
54:37 by tradition, and will be aggravated against those who
54:41 keep the right day.
54:42 And it will reach even to the point of giving a law
54:45 not to be able to buy or sell, or a law that those who do not
54:50 live by this law are to be what? are to be killed.
54:54 You say, This could never happen.
54:56 The fact is that it happened in the days of Christ.
54:59 What makes you think that it's not going to happen
55:01 at the end of time?
55:02 Incidentally, the Jewish view of tradition in the days of Christ
55:08 led the supposed people of God to reject Jesus Christ.
55:15 Is it just possible that at the end of time the Christian world
55:20 will also claim to serve God, but will actually reject God
55:24 by following tradition, and having the same view
55:28 of tradition as was held by the Jews in the days of Christ?
55:31 I believe the evidence shows that this is so.
55:34 Allow me to say something about John Paul II.
55:38 I'm not being critical of him individually, but he wrote a
55:44 document which we can analyze, and we can be critical of
55:47 if it's not in harmony with Scripture.
55:49 The name of the Pastoral Letter was dies Domini,
55:52 the Day of the Lord.
55:53 And in that document he quoted 212 references to scholars,
56:00 church councils, creeds, and church fathers
56:02 of the Roman Catholic Church.
56:03 And he kind of splattered the document with a text
56:08 here and there, the same texts which have traditionally been
56:11 used by Protestants to try and prove that the Sabbath has
56:14 been changed to Sunday.
56:15 But no matter how much philosophy he uses,
56:19 and how much reasoning, and how many arguments he uses,
56:22 the Bible is very clear.
56:24 It says the seventh day is the Sabbath of the Lord your God.
56:29 Do you know that in the end time the controversy is going to
56:32 be over the same issue as in the days of Jesus?
56:35 Allow me to read you this statement from that classic
56:38 prophetic book that everyone should read,
56:41 The Great Controversy, page 582.
57:10 Will we, as God's people, not live by tradition,
57:16 but live as Jesus did, by every word which proceeds
57:22 out of the mouth of God, as found in written Scripture?


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Revised 2015-03-09