What the reformers forgot

I just listen to this and i thought it was very good one.

[b][url=http://www.radiofreechurch.com/audio/prasch/Prasch_What_The_Reformers_Forgot.mp3]What the reformers forgot[/url][/b] [i]by Jacob Prasch[/i]

I thought this was worth the listen too.

i think its good to remember that we dont listen to teachings as this just to slander the reformers or criticise them, but to learn from their mistakes, they did much good and much we should be thankful fore, but i think is the most important thing for us to learn from the reformers, is it is so easy to replace one heresy with another, I agree on most of what the reformers believed, and much i dont share their beliefs on, but the freed themselves from the catholics, but then they themselves fell into the trap, we so often today still does this, someone see a very "charismatic" church gone to far in signs and wonders and as a counter part they go way over on the other side and in doing so totally reject signs and wonders. Just one example, I think the reformers started very good, but then they made same mistake as catholics did. Even tho they had a more correct doctrine they still did much things alike the chatolics.

Now i think the anabaptist was not perfect, and there where several groups, some was just out of their mind, but others i believe was very close to the truth, much more then the other reformers where. Even as i dont agree on everything the anabaptist said or did, still I believe they where the closest to the reformations goal, to go back to the first Christianity so to say, and as the sermon points out, the reformers Luther Zwingli only made it back to 300, to Constantine.

Its a good and very informative teaching that is very recommended, and its good for keeping in mind for our self, in trying to stand up for truth and correct doctrines, we do not fall into the "holes" as some throughout history has done and in doing so we ourselves become the very thing we started out to be free from.

This audio message was bittersweet. Jacob says many good things but he also says many things that aren't true.

The Reformers gave the world an invaluable gift to which we are greatly indebted. It is true that the Reformers failed: I would strongly say that the Reformers primarily failed to reform Roman Catholic (Augustinian) ESCHATOLOGY, which Jacob Prasch rightly explains. Because they failed at this, they brought over with them all sorts of error: Dominion theology, Replacement theology, amillennialism, etc... all with a Protestant flavor. This alone explains the continued practices of religious wars, executions, state-churches, anti-semetism, and the spiritualization of Scripture. This was the greatest error of the Reformation which thankfully is nearly past in our own day.

The Reformation, however, gave us back the gospel of grace, justification by faith, Scripture alone, and election. None of these were false, even if their eschatology was not consistent with it.

We need to appreciate the Reformers for who they were, where they lived, what they understood, and what they gave us. It was difficult for them to break away from the Augustinian way of thinking that so predominated life in those days. It was just naturally accepted that religion and state had to be one, and coupled with the fact that Augustine also preached the gospel of grace, it was a whole other category that needed revelation and reformation that they didn't grasp at that time. When I read about Protestant executions in those days, I am saddened and grieved, yet I understand that those who did these things did so in what they thought was obedience to the Word of God, based upon a Replacement, Dominion interpretation of the Old Testament. A great shame. Nonetheless, these men were our brothers in Christ, for their eternal hope was founded upon the shed blood of Jesus Christ, as is ours. Do we believe that their trust in the salvation of God through Christ forgave them of their sins?

Jacob is wrong to lump all "Calvinists" in the same boat. Let it be known that one can be a "Calvinist" (I will use the term for the sake of this message) and a Premillennialist. You don't have to be Replacement, Dominion or Amillennial while believing in the doctrines of grace. If you would like examples of men who contradict Jacob's conclusions, who were both Calvinist and Premillennial, I point you to Charles Spurgeon, Horatius and Andrew Bonar, J.C. Ryle, Martyn Lloyd-Jones, John Piper, Art Katz, David Pawson, for starters. Ought we to consider the witness of these men of faith?

So glean the good out of this message, but please consider an alternate standpoint.

Thank you brother Eli for your post, you mention much important things, id also like to mention that I do not think it would be "right" to say Art Katz was a calvinist. other then that i agree on the debt we own to the reformers, but the good they did should not make us close our eyes to their wrongs, not for accusation against them, but for our learning in our own private walk.

everybody learn from their own mistakes, a fool dont learn from his own mistakes, a wise man learns from others mistakes.

so in this i think we all can learn from the mistakes the reformers did

Thank you for your post.

I do not think it would be "right" to say Art Katz was a calvinist.

He may not have called himself a Calvinist (and neither do I), but Art was a believer in sovereign election. Apparently, near the end of his life almost all he read and talked about (besides the Bible, of course) was Spurgeon!

God bless,
-Eli

Brother Eli wrote:

The Reformation, however, gave us back the gospel of grace, justification by faith, Scripture alone, and election. None of these were false, even if their eschatology was not consistent with it.

And

We need to appreciate the Reformers for who they were, where they lived, what they understood, and what they gave us. It was difficult for them to break away from the Augustinian way of thinking that so predominated life in those days.

There was one man during that time that overcame the teachings of Augustine. His name was Conrad Grebel.

I have taken some thoughts from one of his letters in which he sought to correct a man named Muntzer.

"Just as our forefathers had fallen away from the true God and knowledge of Jesus Christ and true faith in him, from the one true common divine Word and from the godly practices of the Christian love and way, and lived without God's law and gospel in human, useless, unchristian practices and ceremonies and supposed they would find salvation in them but fell far short of it, as the evangelical preachers have shown and are still in part showing, so even today everyone wants to be saved by hypocritical faith, without fruits of faith, without the baptism of trial and testing, without hope and love, without true Christian practices, and wants to remain in all the old ways of personal vices and common antichristian ceremonial rites of baptism and the Lord's Supper, dishonoring the divine Word, but honoring the papal word and the antipapal preachers, which is not like or in accord with the divine Word. In respect of persons and all manner of seduction they are in more serious and harmful error than has ever been the case since the foundation of the world. We were also in the same aberration because we were only hearers and readers of the evangelical preachers who are responsible for all this error as our sins deserved. But after we took the Scripture in hand and consulted it on all kinds of issues, we gained some insight and became aware of the great and harmful shortcomings of the shepherds as well as our own in that we do not daily cry earnestly to God with constant sighs to be led out of the destruction of all godly living and out of human abominations and enter into true faith and practices of God...."

Also

"There is more than enough wisdom and counsel in the Scripture on how to teach, govern, direct, and make devout all classes and all men. Anyone who will not reform or believe and strives against the Word and acts of God and persists therein, after Christ and his Word and rule have been preached to him, and he has been admonished with the three witnesses before the church, such a man we say on the basis of God's Word shall not be put to death but regarded as a heathen and publican and left alone...."
Also...

"The Scriptures describe baptism for us, that it signifies the washing away of sins by faith and the blood of Christ (that the nature of the baptized and believing one is changing before and after), that it signifies one has died and shall (die) to sin and walks in newness of life and Spirit and one will surely be saved if one through the inward baptism lives the faith according to this meaning, so that the water does not strengthen and increase faith and give a very great comfort and last resort on the deathbed, as the scholars at Wittenberg say. Also that it does not save, as Augustine, Tertullian, Theophylact, and Cyprian taught, thus dishonoring faith and the suffering of Christ for mature adults and dishonoring the suffering of Christ for unbaptized infants. On the basis of the following Scriptures ? Genesis 8, Deuteronomy 1, 30?31; 1 Corinthians 14; Wisdom 12; also 1 Peter 2; Romans 1, 2, 7, 10; Matthew 18?19; Mark 9? 10; Luke 18, etc......"

In the last section Grebel identifies Augustine, Tertullian,Theophylact, and Cyprian as men who taught error according to the Scripture. The reformers at Wittenburg are identified as men who share in these errors.

Both the Catholic church and the Protestant church killed men who found the Scriptures to be the foundation on which they stood. The Scriptures were powerful enough to enable Grebel to overcome the influences that men like Luther and other reformers did not.

just a thought.

In Christ
Jeff

This audio message was bittersweet. Jacob says many good things but he also says many things that aren't true.

So glean the good out of this message, but please consider an alternate standpoint.

Well said.

Eli_Barnabas wrote:

I do not think it would be "right" to say Art Katz was a calvinist.

He may not have called himself a Calvinist (and neither do I), but Art was a believer in sovereign election. Apparently, near the end of his life almost all he read and talked about (besides the Bible, of course) was Spurgeon!

God bless,
-Eli

yes he mentions Spurgeon alot, and Spurgeon is Good reading, but he also mentions Chambers as much as Spurgeon, and the understanding i have from Chambers is not in agreement to spurgeons understanding of elction, I think Katz was able to eat from all sort of food from the christian table and draw out that which is good and upbuilding in our most holy faith, and i know he believed in sovereign elction but not in the hyper calvinistic way, i have heard him preach "against" this sort of understanding of Gods election, cant remember which sermon i heard it but just wanted to clarify a bit. one need not be calvinist to be a strong believer in gods sovereignty , for my self i have no issue with mans free choice and gods sovereignty to be opposites or contradictory to eash others. i guess it boils down to how you define the words and terms. One example would be Tozer, he wrote and preach much on gods sovereignty and yet he was not a calvinist. A true preacher preaches all of the word, i think that is what we should do and practice.

god bless you brother

Both the Catholic church and the Protestant church killed men who found the Scriptures to be the foundation on which they stood. The Scriptures were powerful enough to enable Grebel to overcome the influences that men like Luther and other reformers did not.

Very true, the Scripture is completely sufficient and therefore it IS not excusable that the Reformers failed overcome Augustinian eschatology, but it IS understandable. It's true in our own day that the Scriptures are sufficient, but we do not slander those who don't see everything as they ought. Who does? It's no excuse, but it is understandable.

It would be interesting to see how many of us, who talk much about the problems of the Reformation, would have broken away from Roman Catholic ecclesiology and eschatology had we lived in those days. Remember, we didn't have the restored nation of Israel in 1948 as a handicap. Luther, for example, was a Roman Catholic and believed in the state-church system as taught and observed from his childhood. Revelation poured in concerning justification by faith as he was struggling with his own salvation. The Reformation ultimately did not start as a turning over of the whole structure of ecclesiology as the world knew it, but as a turning over of the false view of justification by works. One thing led to another, and well, the rest is history.

The Reformation's motto was reformed and reforming. They triumphed over the false gospel of works. They unfortunately failed to grasp the ecclesiology and eschatology as it is in truth (isn't this lamentable fact still true today for many?) but thankfully God has rescued His people from these erroneous views and is bringing the Church into greater maturity and understanding in these last days. Let me say this for our consideration: EVERYTHING IS HAPPENING ACCORDING TO SCHEDULE.

but not in the hyper calvinistic way

God forbid that any of us believe it in a hyper-calvinistic way!

God bless you, brother.
-Eli

WOW.....THIS SERMON NEEDS TO BE REFUTED BY CALVINISTS, if possible

repentcanada wrote:
WOW.....THIS SERMON NEEDS TO BE REFUTED BY CALVINISTS, if possible

there are many out there if you search

Its a good and very informative teaching that is very recommended...

The problem with this teaching is not that it points out problems with certain aspects of the reformers and the reformation, but that so much of the other information it imparts is simply...wrong.

He severely over generalizes and misrepresents historic Calvinism. Thus He shows himself to be like so many other Calvinism criticizers.

Its one thing to disagree with a doctrine, its another to completely misrepresent it.

Sad.

I would definitely not recommend it.

There are other teachings that point out the errors of the reformers without all the inaccuracies.

Nothing personal. I simply think there are much better and safer teachings on this subject.

You may be right brother TJ, my intention is not to criticize calvinism or reformed theology even as i disagree in some areas, and your right maybe this man do generalize all calvinism and in so doing misrepresent much of its history and many who hold the views of it, and that is i must say not good at all, what i do find to be good, is what i can draw from this for myself, wheter i am calvinist or not, i can learn from history, not to accuse them, and as eli pointed out, what would we have done in their place and to a degree i can understand them even as they where dead wrong on some things they did and believed. I can understand how they came to such a belief and understand why they held it.

But what i can apply from this to my life is to try not make the same mistakes, i may not lead a reformation or even a church, but still there are lessons to learn from their mistakes, surly we can find the much warning lessons from all kinds of christian history and doctrines.

If we do this we can draw much good, if we use their faults to judge them and so on we are wrong even if we are right.

Did not intend to make it a "your beam in the eye is bigger then mine" thing, but i hope you understand what i meen, even the most wholehearted reformed calvinist must to some degree see there was sserius mistakes and errors taking place in this reformation , now we can not change or fully understand, and we are not to judge them as persons, test what they taught by scripture and learn from the mistakes they made, and perhaps we need not do the same.

then there is some good in this message i would say.

A good word brother, I agree with you. There truly is much to be learned from past mistakes and the reformers had their share. I simply wanted to let others know of the errors in this teaching…not deny that there is truth in it…just make people aware of the presence of several falsities.

Like you, a theological difference does not stop me from learning from others. I still read and listen to preachers and teachers of differing persuasions.

I also learned from this teaching. It’s like the saying goes, ‘Eat the meat and spit out the bones’, only sometimes, for me, the fish is simply too bony to be recommend…even if there is some good meat.

God bless you brother

all i was saying was this is a must hear sermon

Brother Eli wrote:

Luther, for example, was a Roman Catholic and believed in the state-church system as taught and observed from his childhood.

Conrad Grebel was raised in the same way, in the same generation, but he chose the Scripture as his foundation. Do you see the difference between this man and those who chose to remain under the influence of Augustine?

In Christ
Jeff

Brother TJ wrote:

Its one thing to disagree with a doctrine, its another to completely misrepresent it.

Sad.

I would definitely not recommend it.

Jacob Prasch teaches in depth concerning the different types of Calvinism that have evolved over the centuries. There are two sermons, here at SI in which Prasch gives a more detailed view of Calvinism.

The titles are...Once Saved Always Saved Part 1, and Part 2.

The bottom line is; there are two kinds of christianity in this world today. One is called Patristic Christianity which bases it doctrines on the foundations of the Early Church fathers. And then there is the Apostolic Christianity whose base is founded on the Holy Scriptures.

Calvin and Luther are men who fall into the Patristic Christianity. Conrad Grebel is a man who found the Apostolic way.

In Christ
Jeff

Sis wrote:

When being critical of 'the reformers', let's remember that the RCC did not take their resistance lightly.

This sentiment is appealing to the masses. This reminds me of this example given to us in Scripture so that we might not commit the same transgression...

1Sa 15:10 Now the word of the LORD came to Samuel, saying,

1Sa 15:11 "I greatly regret that I have set up Saul [as] king, for he has turned back from following Me, and has not performed My commandments." And it grieved Samuel, and he cried out to the LORD all night.

1Sa 15:12 So when Samuel rose early in the morning to meet Saul, it was told Samuel, saying, "Saul went to Carmel, and indeed, he set up a monument for himself; and he has gone on around, passed by, and gone down to Gilgal."

1Sa 15:13 Then Samuel went to Saul, and Saul said to him, "Blessed [are] you of the LORD! I have performed the commandment of the LORD."

1Sa 15:14 But Samuel said, "What then [is] this bleating of the sheep in my ears, and the lowing of the oxen which I hear?"

1Sa 15:15 And Saul said, "They have brought them from the Amalekites; for the people spared the best of the sheep and the oxen, to sacrifice to the LORD your God; and the rest we have utterly destroyed."

1Sa 15:16 Then Samuel said to Saul, "Be quiet! And I will tell you what the LORD said to me last night." And he said to him, "Speak on."

1Sa 15:17 So Samuel said, "When you [were] little in your own eyes, [were] you not head of the tribes of Israel? And did not the LORD anoint you king over Israel?

1Sa 15:18 Now the LORD sent you on a mission, and said, 'Go, and utterly destroy the sinners, the Amalekites, and fight against them until they are consumed.'

1Sa 15:19 Why then did you not obey the voice of the LORD? Why did you swoop down on the spoil, and do evil in the sight of the LORD?"

1Sa 15:20 And Saul said to Samuel, "But I have obeyed the voice of the LORD, and gone on the mission on which the LORD sent me, and brought back Agag king of Amalek; I have utterly destroyed the Amalekites.

1Sa 15:21 But the people took of the plunder, sheep and oxen, the best of the things which should have been utterly destroyed, to sacrifice to the LORD your God in Gilgal."

1Sa 15:22 So Samuel said: "Has the LORD [as great] delight in burnt offerings and sacrifices, As in obeying the voice of the LORD? Behold, to obey is better than sacrifice, [And] to heed than the fat of rams.

1Sa 15:23 For rebellion [is as] the sin of witchcraft, And stubbornness [is as] iniquity and idolatry. Because you have rejected the word of the LORD, He also has rejected you from [being] king."
...............................................

Saul did not go far enough. He chose to not obey the word of God in favor of the world's ways.

There were faithful men in the reformation. Conrad Grebel was one of those who chose to allow Scripture to be the means by which one discerns between good and evil.

In Christ
Jeff

Brother Walter wrote:

What did the Reformers bring to us, that we should all be proud of? The very living, Spirit Breathed Word of God. They rejected the Catholic Bible, and instead used the text found in the believing Church since the beginning, the Received Text, the Textus Receptus.

1Pe 1:24 because "All flesh [is] as grass, And all the glory of man [fn] as the flower of the grass. The grass withers, And its flower falls away,

1Pe 1:25 But the word of the LORD endures forever." [fn] Now this is the word which by the gospel was preached to you.

The Gutenberg printing press and William Tyndale were used well by God to sow the seeds of His word.

In Christ
Jeff

The bottom line is; there are two kinds of christianity in this world today. One is called Patristic Christianity which bases it doctrines on the foundations of the Early Church fathers. And then there is the Apostolic Christianity whose base is founded on the Holy Scriptures. Calvin and Luther are men who fall into the Patristic Christianity.

The following is an excerpt from one of the multitudes of sites, sermons, teachings and histories that believe otherwise:

According to Calvin, the Bible specified the nature of theology and of any human institutions. Thus, his statements on doctrine began and ended in Scripture, although he frequently cited the church fathers and important medieval Catholic thinkers. He sought to minimize speculation on divine matters and instead to draw on the Word of God. He also urged the church to recover its original vitality and purity. [url=http://www.island-of-freedom.com/CALVIN.HTM]Source[/url]