Derrick Trent - Do the Protestant Traditions Bear the Four Marks of Christ's Church - The Church Christ Built: Finding the Faith Once Delivered

INTRODUCTION

When we started this series,

I was not exactly sure

where it wld

take us.

I knew

we needed

to lay a foundation.

I knew we needed

to let the Scriptures

correct the way we think

abt the Scriptures.

I knew we needed

to talk abt

the Church's teachings,

apostolic succession,

& the marks of the Church.

But I did not know

how far dwn the road

we'd actually

travel together.

& here we are.

Over the past

several weeks,

we've seen frm the Scriptures

that we cannot live

by Scripture alone.

We've seen that

we must live

by the Church's teachings —

bcs the Church is

the pillar of the truth,

the pattern for worship,

& the interpreter

of the Scriptures.

We've seen that Christ

preserves His Church

thru apostolic succession —

a living chain

of faithful men

handing dwn

the faith frm generation

to generation.

& we started asking

the question every person

in this room

must eventually ask:

If Christ founded a Church,

& if that Church has preserved

the apostolic faith,

then how do we recognize it?

& we found the answer

in the Nicene Creed —

the confession

of the whole Church.

One. Holy. Catholic. Apostolic.

Those are the four marks

of Christ's Church.

Tonight,

we're gonna

test the traditions

many of us grew up in

against those four marks.

& I want to say something

bfr we go any further.

I know this is hard.

In other churches

we met Jesus.

We were loved.

We were changed.

Some of the most

important moments

of our lives

happened there.

I'm not asking you

to throw any

of that away.

What I'm asking

all of us to do

is what we've been doing

this whole series —

Let the Scriptures

& the apostolic faith

lead us wherever

they lead us.

Even if it's somewhere

we never expected

to go.

Bcs the question tonight

is not whether

ppl in those traditions

love Jesus.

The question is

whether those traditions

carry the fullness

of the faith that was

once for all delivered

to the saints.

& we’ll answer that

question as we

Test the Protestant traditions.

PRAYER

Father,

Open our eyes

to see what You've

always intended for us.

Open our

minds & hearts

to receive the truth.

Give us the will

& the ability

to put that truth

into practice.

In Jesus' name.

Amen.

[Transition:

The 1st test

we need to apply

to the Protestant traditions is…]

1. Are the Protestant Traditions ONE?

Last week

We saw the words

Jesus prayed to the Father

in John 17:21

John 17:21 NIV

…that all of them may be one, Father, just as you are in me and I am in you. May they also be in us so that the world may believe that you have sent me.

He's praying for

the apostles.

& He's praying

for the ppl

who wld come after

the apostles.

He’s praying

for His Church.

& what

is He asking for?

What

is He asking

the Father

to give His Church?

Oneness.

Unity.

A unity so real,

so visible,

that the watching world

wld look at it

& say: 

the Father sent the Son

to be the Savior

of the world.

The Church's unity

is the sign.

It's the testimony.

It's the proof offered

to a skeptical world

that Christ truly is

the Son of God.

For the 1st

thousand years

of Christian history,

that prayer was answered.

I know that may surprise

some of us.

Bcs we've been told

the early Church was a mess —

Once the apostles died

the whole Church

fell away frm the faith.

But that's not

what history shows us.

History shows us

An undivided Church

that started

with the apostles

in Jerusalem

& spread frm

the east to the west.

They were one body

Had one faith

& one baptism.

When false teaching arose,

the Church

called councils.

Like the one we see

in Acts 15.

Bishops frm east & west

gathered together

opened the Scriptures,

reasoned frm

the apostolic tradition,

& spoke w/ one voice.

The Nicene Creed

that we just confessed

came out of

that process.

One Church.

One Confession.

& the Church held

Seven great councils

in eight hundred years

that defended

the one faith

against false teaching

& preserved the faith

that had been handed dwn

frm the beginning.

Then…

things started to change

in the western part

of the One Church.

Rome started to drift

& began claiming

a kind of authority

the ancient Church

had never granted it.

Rome also added

to the Nicene Creed

w/o consulting

the rest of the Church.

& in 1054 AD,

the Eastern & Western

Churches formally separated.

We'll carefully examine

this nxt week.

But for tonight,

what matters is this:

Rome started to change.

& those changes

were a departure

frm the Apostolic Faith.

& that departure

set the stage

for everything that followed

in the western world.

Fast fwd 500 years

after the West

cut ties w/ the East.

The year is 1517.

For the East

it’s business as usual.

But in the west

a storm was brewing.

Martin Luther,

a Roman Catholic monk,

presents his grievances

to a Roman Catholic Church

that had continued

to drift further

& further frm the faith.

& Luther’s grievances

against the Roman Church

were legitimate.

But instead of calling

Rome back to the faith.

Luther introduced

another new idea abt

how to read

the Scriptures.

& he ended up

inventing his own form

of Christianity.

Eight years later,

What started w/ Martin Luther

had already split

into four dfrnt factions —

over the Lord's Supper,

over baptism,

over how the church

shld be governed.

Nineteen years in,

it was six.

& it has never stopped.

Presbyterians.

Baptists.

Methodists.

The Restoration Movement.

Pentecostals.

& many others.

All of those groups

are the product

of what Martin Luther

set in motion.

The result?

33 AD —

one Church.

Today —

10s of thousands of

distinct denominations

who all claim to be apart of

the One Church.

And the number grows every year.

Application

I don’t bring this up

to condemn

any of those groups.

I bring it up

bcs it shld grieve us

to see such division

among those who claim

to be followers of Jesus.

Bcs Jesus prayed

for a unity that

the world wld see

& that wld cause the world

to believe in Him.

& instead,

the world looks at Christianity

& sees forty-five thousand

versions of it.

Now,

We need to understand

that Christ's prayer to the Father

has never gone

unanswered.

That unity Christ prayed for

must be in a visible Church

somewhere in the world

in every generation.

But we certainly

cannot find that unity

in the Protestant Traditions.

The Protestant traditions

are not one.

[Transition:

Let’s see now

if the Protestant Traditions

do with the second question…]

2. Are Protestant Churches HOLY?

Before we answer that question.

Let’s talk abt

the goal

of the Christian life.

The churches

many of us grew up in,

taught us to view salvation

in legal terms.

Jesus came

to the earth

to live a sinless life

& to suffer & die

to take our place

to pay the debt

that our sins deserve.

& to rise frm the grave

so we cld

have eternal life

w/ Him.

So, we’ve heard that

the goal of salvation is:

The forgiveness

of our sins.

Freedom frm judgment;

escape from hell,

& eternal life

in heaven. 

But the Scriptures

give us a much more

glorious goal

for the Christian life.  

Peter gives us the goal in

2 Peter 1:4,

when he says,

God has given us

2 Peter 1:4 NIV

…his very great and precious promises, so that through them you may participate in the divine nature…

Participation

in the Divine Nature

That’s the goal

of the Christian life.

Paul adds to this

in 2 Corinthians 3:18,

when he says:

We who contemplate

the Lord’s glory are

2 Corinthians 3:18 NIV

being transformed into his image with ever-increasing glory, which comes from the Lord, who is the Spirit.

& again in Romans 8:29

Romans 8:29 NIV

…those God foreknew he also predestined to be conformed to the image of his Son…

& again in

Ephesians 4:13,

where Paul talks abt

Ephesians 4:13 NIV

…attaining to the whole measure of the fullness of Christ.

Participation

in the divine nature.

Being transformed

into His image

w/ ever increasing glory.

Being conformed

to the image

of His Son.

Attaining to

the whole measure

of the fullness of Christ.

That is not just

a debt being forgiven.

That is

a life being transformation.

That is

a human being so filled

w/ the life of God

they we begin

to radiate it.

The early Church

called this Theosis

or deification.

That means

we become by grace

what God is

by nature.

Athanasius of Alexandria —

defines theosis this way:

"God became man so that man might become God."

Now,

Athanasius

did not mean

we become God

in His essence.

He meant:

We become so united to Christ,

so filled with His life,

so transformed

by His Spirit,

thru His grace

that we fully bear

the image & likeness

of God.

We become a ppl

who are holy

as God is holy.

That's the goal!

& Christ accomplishes

this goal

In His body—

In the sacramental life

of the Church.

He uses the sacraments

to transform us—

to make us holy.

Let me give you

a few examples

of what I mean.

One of the sacraments

Christ uses in the Church

to make us holy

is baptism.

In baptism,

we're buried with Christ

& raised with Him.

As Paul says in Romans 6:4,

Romans 6:4 NIV

We were…buried with him through baptism into death in order that, just as Christ was raised from the dead through the glory of the Father, we too may live a new life.

Union w/ Christ

in His death

& resurrection.

Raised to live

a new life.

That's one thing God

does for us

to make us holy

in the waters

of Holy Baptism.

Another sacrament

Christ gave the Church

to make her holy is

the Eucharist,

Communion.

The Lord’s table.

In the Eucharist,

Christ feeds us

w/ Himself.

Listen to what Jesus

says abt this

in John 6:55–56,

He says

John 6:53–56 NIV

“Very truly I tell you, unless you eat the flesh of the Son of Man and drink his blood, you have no life in you. Whoever eats my flesh and drinks my blood has eternal life, and I will raise them up at the last day. For my flesh is real food and my blood is real drink. Whoever eats my flesh and drinks my blood remains in me, and I in them.”

Notice how serious this is:

If we do not

eat Christ’s flesh

& drink His blood

We have no life in us.

& also notice

that Jesus says

His flesh is real food

His blood is real drink.

Jesus is not using

a metaphor.

He saying we’ll be able

to eat His flesh

& drink His blood

using real food

& real drink.

We eat Christ’s flesh

& drink his blood

in the bread & wine

of the Eucharist.

Jesus said

those who do that

Have eternal life

& remain in Him.

So, thru the Eucharist

we have a real

& ongoing participation

in the life of Christ.

This is what Paul means

In 1 Corinthians 10:16,

when he says

1 Corinthians 10:16 NIV

Is not the cup of thanksgiving for which we give thanks a participation in the blood of Christ? And is not the bread that we break a participation in the body of Christ?

& this is also why:

Ignatius of Antioch —

a man who sat under

the Apostle John—

Ignatius called the Eucharist 

"the medicine of immortality." 

Not a memory.

Not a symbol.

Medicine.

Real.

Effective.

Transformational.

Another sacrament

Christ gave His Church

to make her holy

is confession.

& confession is where

the authority Christ gave

to the apostles

to forgive sin

is applied.

As we read

in John 20:22–23— 

John 20:22–23 NIV

[Jesus] breathed on them and said, “Receive the Holy Spirit. If you forgive anyone’s sins, their sins are forgiven; if you do not forgive them, they are not forgiven.”

So Christ gave the apostles

the authority

to forgive sin.

& the apostles

handed dwn that

same authority

in the Church

to the elders.

& the elders

exercise that authority

in the Church

when they forgive

the sins of those

who confess their sins.

& this is not just

legal forgiveness.

But thru confession

Christ Heals.

Christ Restores.

Christ removes

what's been

making us sick.

If that sounds off to us.

& if we don’t like

that Jesus

gave that authority

to the elders

in the Church

thru the apostles

Then we shld

go & tell Jesus

we’ve got a better way

than He established.

Christ established

the sacramental life

to produce

holy humans.

To transform human beings

into the image

& likeness of God

in Christ.

To fill human beings

with the life of God

in His fulness.

& this is why

In Ephesians 1:22-23,

Paul says

Ephesians 1:22–23 CSB

the church…is [Christ’s] body, the fullness of the one who fills all things in every way.

In Christ’s Church

can we find the fullness

of God.

& we participate

in that fulness

thru the means of grace

God gives us

in the sacraments.

Now,

here's a hard question

for us.

What happens

when the traditions

of men

strip those

means of grace away?

Many Protestant traditions

have reduced baptism

to a public declaration.

They've reduced

the Lord's Supper

to a memorial meal —

a remembrance

of something past,

w/ no real participation

in the Body & Blood

of Christ.

& confession —

the marvelous means

of healing & absolution

that Christ gives

thru the elders of the Church —

Confession has been

either quietly set aside

or

openly condemned.

Some Protestant traditions

teach that

going to a minister

for absolution is

an offense against Christ.

& Paul warned

that this would happen

in 2 Timothy 3:5,

when he talks abt

ppl in the last days

2 Timothy 3:5 NIV

…having a form of godliness but denying its power.

The churches

many of grew up in—

They baptize.

They take Communion.

The confess their sins

but only to God.

They have the form

of those things.

But they deny

the pwr.

They deny that

The supernatural

pwr of Christ

is present

in the sacraments.

Application

Christ did not die

& rise again

simply to pardon

our sins.

He died & rose

so we can participate

in His divine life.

& he gave sacraments

to His Church

to make that

participation possible.

He gave sacraments

to His church

so that we cld be—

As Paul prays in Ephesians 3:19 — 

So that we cld be…

Ephesians 3:19 NIV

…filled to the measure of all the fullness of God.

The fullness

of the life of God.

That's what God offers us

in Christ.

And the sacramental life

of the Church

is how we participate

in that life.

Protestant traditions

who have not preserved

the sacraments

Are not holy.

[Transition:

& what abt the 3rd mark

of Christ’s Church:]

3. Are the Protestant Traditions CATHOLIC?

In 1 Corinthians 4:17,

Paul tells us

the reason He sent Timothy

to Corinth.

He says

1 Corinthians 4:17 NIV

He will remind you of my way of life in Christ Jesus, which agrees with what I teach everywhere in every church.

Everywhere.

In every church.

Paul taught:

the same faith,

the same practice,

the same

way of life in Christ —

everywhere he went,

to every church

he planted.

That's the standard

for a church to be Catholic.

& in the 5th century,

Vincent of Lérins

gave us the clearest

definition of catholicity

the Church has ever produced.

He said:

"…in the Catholic Church itself, all possible care must be taken, that we hold that faith which has been believed everywhere, always, by all.

For that is truly and in the strictest sense Catholic, which…comprehends all universally.

Everywhere.

Always.

By all.

Comprehends all

universally.

That's the test of catholicity.

Not whether a tradition

is sincere.

Not whether the ppl

in those traditions

love Jesus.

But whether the faith it holds

is the faith that’s been held

by the whole Church

in every time

& every place.

So let's apply

this test honestly

to the Protestant Traditions:

Was the Lutheran faith

believed everywhere,

always,

by all?

Lutheranism began

in 1517.

For 1500 years

nobody in the Church

was Lutheran.

Was the Baptist faith

believed everywhere,

always,

by all?

The Baptist tradition emerged

in the early 1600s.

Baptist distinctives

simply did not exist

for most of

Christian history.

& the same is true

for every Protestant tradition

that came after.

Whether it's

The Presbyterians in 1560,

or the Quakers in 1647,

or the Methodists in 1738,

or the Church of Christ in 1804,

or the Pentecostals in 1906 —

every single one

of these traditions AND

every other Protestant Tradition

were started some time

in the 16th century

or later.

So Protestant Traditions

cannot hold the faith

that has been

believed everywhere,

always,

by all.

So, Protestant Traditions

are not Catholic.

[Transition:

& that brings us to

the 4th

& final mark

we need to test

the Protestant Traditions by:]

4. Are the Protestant Traditions APOSTOLIC?

For a Church

to be apostolic

it must be able

to demonstrate

both of these:

It has preserved

the Apostolic Teaching… AND

It has

Apostolic Succession.

It must have

the same faith.

The same worship.

The same prayers.

The same sacramental life.

The same pattern

handed dwn

frm the beginning.

& it must have

living ppl

who can trace their Church

thru a line of Bishops

back to the apostles.

Both of those are necessary.

Bcs being apostolic

is not just the transmission

of teaching.

It's the transmission

of authority.

The authority Christ gave

to the apostles.

The authority the apostles

passed dwn

thru the laying on

of hands.

The authority

that makes

the sacraments valid,

the teaching trustworthy,

& the Church

recognizably apostolic.

Now,

some Protestant traditions

claim they do have

apostolic succession

Thru the laying on

of hands.

The Anglicans claim it

thru the bishops

of the Church of England.

The Lutherans claim it

thru the Catholic bishops

who joined the Reformation

in Scandinavia.

The Methodists claim it

thru John Wesley,

who was an Anglican priest.

Some Pentecostal groups

claim it thru

direct divine appointment —

that God Himself

restored the apostolic authority

that had been lost.

& you can probably see

right away,

that that last one

is not gonna fly.

But here's the problem

with any Protestant group

claimin Apostolic succession:

It’s more than

the physical laying on

of hands.

It's the transmission

of the whole apostolic life —

the faith,

the sacraments,

the worship,

the teaching —

everything the apostles

handed dwn

frm the beginning.

You cannot separate

the laying on of hands

frm the faith those hands

are handing dwn.

& when the Reformers

rejected the sacraments,

rewrote the liturgy,

& broke communion

with the apostolic Church —

even where

the physical line

of succession remained,

what was being transmitted

had already been changed.

So,

the chain of Apostolic succession

was broken in all

Protestant traditions

by the changes they made

to the Apostolic Faith.

The mark of being Apostolic

is missing

frm the Protestant traditions.

& that means

the fullness of the faith

must be found

somewhere else.

CONCLUSION

So here's where we are.

We've tested

the Protestant traditions

against the four marks

of Christ's Church.

& the honest answer is:

the marks are missing.

The mark of Oneness

is missing —

bcs 45,000 denominations

is not the unity

Christ prayed for.

The mark of Holiness

is missing —

bcs when the sacraments

are reduced to memorials

& symbols,

the means Christ appointed

to make us holy

have been

removed frm the faith.

The mark of

being Catholic

is missing —

bcs a faith that began

in the 16th century

or the 17th century

or the 20th century

cannot be the faith

believed everywhere,

always,

& by all.

& the mark

of being Apostolic

is missing —

bcs a chain that begins

in 1517

or 1906

or 2026

cannot reach back

to the upper room.

Now.

I want to be very clear

abt what I'm

not saying.

I'm not saying

God has not worked

in Protestant traditions.

He has.

I'm not saying

the ppl in those churches

are not sincerely

seeking Christ.

Many of them are.

What I'm saying is this:

Christ founded one Church.

& that Church has

four marks.

& Christ promised

the gates of hell

wld not prevail

against it.

& that means

the Church Christ founded

has always been here

& it’s still here today.

Christ’s church never disappeared.

Christ’s church has never needed

to be rediscovered

or reconstructed

frm a text.

It's been right here —

baptizing,

communing,

ordaining,

confessing —

in an unbroken continuity

frm the apostles

to today.

& that brings us back to

the same questions

we’ve been asking for weeks:

Where is that Church?

We know Christ’s Church

is not the

Protestant traditions.

So where is it?

There are only two

serious candidates.

The Roman Catholic Church.

& the Eastern Church.

We're gonna examine both.

We're gonna look at

their history,

their claims,

their theology,

& their continuity

w/ the apostolic faith.

& we're gonna let

the evidence speak

for itself.

I know some of us

already feel the weight

of where this is going.

That's okay.

The truth is worth

whatever it costs us

to find it.

& Christ is faithful.

He's been preserving the faith

since the day of Pentecost.

& He will lead every one of us

who are willing to follow

into the fullness of His

divine life

in the Church.

CLOSING PRAYER

Father,

We thank You

that You are faithful —

that You’ve never

abandoned Your Church.

Lead us, Lord.

Open our eyes

to see the Church

You’ve been building

frm the beginning.

& give us the grace

to receive

what You've preserved —

w/ humility,

w/ gratitude,

& w/ joy.

In Jesus' name.

Amen.