Truth Unites - "A Question Protestants Can't Answer?" My Response to Brian Holdsworth

Episode Date: July 18, 2023

In this video I respond to Brian Holdsworth on "A Question Protestants Can't Answer." At the core of the gospel is the glorious truth that Jesus' death on the cross is a substitutionary atonement that enables God to be both just and forgiving. See Brian's video: https://youtu.be/0I05643Pbxo See Sean Luke's response: https://youtu.be/9Ks-2HwuHwQ My video on purgatory: https://youtu.be/YPnNldd9K8c Matthew Barrett's book, The Reformation as Renewal: https://zondervanacademic.com/products/the-reformation-as-renewal Truth Unites exists to promote gospel assurance through theological depth. Gavin Ortlund (PhD, Fuller Theological Seminary) serves as senior pastor of First Baptist Church of Ojai. SUPPORT: Become a patron: https://www.patreon.com/truthunites One time donation: https://www.paypal.com/paypalme/truthunites FOLLOW: Twitter: https://twitter.com/gavinortlund Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/TruthUnitesPage/ Website: https://gavinortlund.com/

Brian Holdsworth put out a video called A Question Protestants Can't Answer. And one of the goals of my YouTube channel is to commend historic Protestantism. So I wanted to share how Protestants can and do answer this question. When any one of our traditions is misrepresented, we all lose. Because even if we are critiquing something or rejecting something, we want to critique it or reject it for what it actually is and not something that it isn't. So I'm going to try to defend Protestantism and clarify Protestantism a little bit in this video. Here's how Brian starts off his video.

The question that I don't think Protestant theology can answer as described by Luther and the Augsburg Confession is, can God commit injustice or be unjust in his dealing with us? And if you say yes to that, then I'm afraid you depart company with the vast majority of apostolic and creedal Christianity. Now this is an easy one. God is just. God always acts justly. That is not where Protestants and Roman Catholics disagree. Brian goes on a bit talking about whether this concern of God being incoherent or divided against himself. He discusses radical views of divine sovereignty that he claims are found among Muslims, where God can decide that idolatry is good one day and bad the next day and this kind of thing.

And I'm watching this something. Where is all this going? None of that is representative of where the Protestant Roman Catholic divide lies. But ultimately, Brian does argue that Protestantism cannot maintain God's justice. justice, and this is how he concludes the whole video. Only Catholicism accounts for how God's justice and his mercy can coincide as expressions of his goodness. Protestant theology leaves us with a God who cannot be both just and merciful at the same time. So how does he get to that conclusion?

Essentially, as I understand it, Brian's video is an account of how forgiveness of sins works. To give his own answer, he starts off with an analogy. But what then are we to make of God's mercy and mercy and forgiveness for our sins. Let me use a bit of a ghastly analogy to make this point clear. Imagine a man abducts someone you love and does unspeakable things to them before murdering them. He's eventually caught and brought to a criminal trial where he is found guilty beyond a reasonable doubt. But then during the sentencing, that same criminal pleads to the judge for mercy and the judge says, well, normally you'd get life in prison or the death penalty or something like that,

for such a heinous crime. But because I'm a merciful judge, it's okay. You're free to go. Now, as a family member of the victim, what would you say to that? Would you think this was a good judge? Or would you accuse him of injustice? I hope you'd say the latter. And you would be right.

Now, we can all agree that a judge who lets a guilty person go free like this is doing something terribly wrong. Proverbs 1715 even says that he who justifies the wicked is an abomination. It's as bad as condemning the righteous. But this raises a question that all of our traditions have to answer, and that takes us right into the heart of the gospel itself. How does God, who is the ultimate divine judge, forgive? And when I was listening to Brian address that question, I resolved in my heart that I wanted

to make this response video, not to attack him, but I am so burdened. I'm going to criticize his ideas, but God bless him as a person. But I'm just so burdened. The reason I'm doing this, I'm so burdened that people understand the gospel message. We need to know how forgiveness of sins has. happens, and I think there's a lot of just failure to understand the basic gospel message in all our traditions, actually. So let me show how Brian answers this question of how God forgive sins, and then I give

my own response as a Protestant. But this is the problem with Protestant theology, because Luther taught that we are justified and therefore saved by a mere declaration of God that has nothing to do with anything that we do, that we are set free from the consequences of sin. by a decree from God and nothing else. It even goes so far as to say that as far as salvation goes, we have no free will in the matter. We contribute nothing of our own will to that outcome.

Everything from the act of faith, to repentance, to justification is a mere sovereign act of God that we do nothing to cooperate in. God, according to this conception, is that judge who arbitrarily decides to set the murderer free with no apparent rhyme or reason, and no repercussions for his actions. And in fact, he's worse than that because sometimes he sets the murderer free and then other times he arbitrarily decides not to.

In the case of eternal salvation, he just casts people into eternal punishment when he could have saved them. Now, there are so many problems in the way Protestantism was just represented that it's difficult to untangle them all. And that's very unfortunate. I'm not trying to put the spotlight on Brian

because there's misunderstandings all over. Actually, Protestantism is portrayed terribly online and on YouTube. I mean, people just don't understand Protestantism at all in many cases. It's really unfortunate. To understand how this feels, imagine if somebody said to you, I'm not, let's say you're a Roman Catholic Christian. And someone says to you, I'm not Roman Catholic because I don't believe in the papacy or the immaculate conception. Now, you will disagree with them, and you may be saddened or even annoyed and may be concerned, but you will at least understand what they're saying, right?

But if someone says, well, I'm not a Roman Catholic because I believe the Pope, or I don't believe that the Pope was immaculately conceived. You're going to say, come again, you know? Did I catch, did I hear you right? You know, because now you're going to realize, okay, they don't even understand what they're rejecting. And there are lots of problems like, it's actually hard to untangle all these things. There's so many misrepresentations of Protestantism in what was said there.

Yes, we believe in free will. Yes, we believe our. actions matter. We have to respond to the gospel with faith and repentance, through which we are united to Christ. No, God's declaration of our righteous status is not an arbitrary thing based upon a sovereign decree only. Yes, our lives must change. Easy believism is not the gospel. If you do not take up your cross and follow Jesus, you are not a Christian. You may profess Christianity. You're not a true Christian. You're not truly united to Christ if you're not following Jesus and changing. I've addressed some of these other points in other issues.

If you want to get a good understanding of what was really at stake in the 16th century with issues of justification, a great thing to read actually. And I've recommended this book a lot lately, Matthew Barrett's book, but on page, give me a moment, 260, 21, around there. He talks about Gabriel Beale's account of justification, and that leads you right up to the dawn of the Reformation. That's one good way of getting into what's really actually going on in the Protestant versus Roman Catholic dialogue. But for the sake of this video, let me address just one of the core issues. I won't address everything going on here. Just one basic issue. And that's this concern that we've identified, how does God forgive sins without becoming unjust? Now, here's what's so interesting about this.

Both Roman Catholics and Protestants have more agreement about that than is visible from Brian's video. My friend Sean Luke demonstrated that in a video. He put out, I'll link to his video. Basically, he's saying, even in Roman Catholic theology, you know, at one point, Brian was saying you go into a probationary status through the work of Christ and then you're slowly, you know, saved. It's like, no, you can be a terribly sinful person, repent and get baptized, and now you're fully saved. You know, you could fall out of a state of salvation in Roman Catholic theology through a mortal sin or something like that, but no, you can be a terrible person and get saved. And so we actually have some agreement there on a core basic idea. But let me address how I'd answer this question from a

Protestant standpoint, since that was his challenge in the title of his video. How is a terrible evil person immediately forgiven without a compromise of God's justice? The answer is substitutionary atonement. The reason God is not unjust to forgive sins is because Jesus bore the penalty of those sins for all who repent and with a sincere contrition, forsake those sins and trust in Jesus. That's the gospel. Forgiveness of sins through Christ. Let me just explain this because I'm kind of grieved that it's not sort of, you know, you'd hope this stuff is just out there and then we talk. But sometimes it helps to go back to the basics here. This idea of substitutionary atonement is all over the New Testament, but you can get it even from the Old Testament. I think one of

the best passages is Isaiah 53. But let me give an expression of it from the book of Romans from a phrase that was so important to Martin Luther himself, the righteousness of God, or you could translate it, the justice of God. Paul writes in Romans 321, but now the righteousness or justice of God has been manifested apart from the law, although the law and the prophets bear witness to it, the righteousness of God through faith in Jesus Christ for all who believe, for there is no distinction, for all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God, and are justified or made righteous by His grace as a gift through the redemption that is in Christ Jesus, whom God put forward as a propitiation by his blood to be received by faith. This was to show God's righteousness because in his divine forbearance he had passed over former sins.

It was to show his righteousness at the present time so that he might be just and the justifier of the one who is faith in Jesus. Two quick notes. Really quick. The key to this passage is the word propitiation. So first thing to say, two points. Number one, the ground of our justification is the death of Jesus on the cross. By the way, justification being made righteous or declared righteous, same Greek verb can be translated either way. So the word justification is a cultic term drawn from the sacrificial system, just as the word

redemption is a commercial term drawn from the marketplace. And that's in verse 24. And in verse 24, the word justification is a legal term drawn from the courtroom, meaning declare righteous. The opposite of justification is condemnation. Think of a judge banging down the gavel and pronouncing innocent. That's justification. Propitiation simply means the appeasement or averting of wrath.

It means that on the cross, Jesus paid the penalty for our sins so that the law has been fulfilled, so that God is just, and yet just a fire. So the cross is the greatest expression of both God's love and justice. Forgiveness is given. Justice is maintained because God's subject. substitutes himself into our place to fulfill the debt. We've all heard this great illustration from Josh McDowell. The judge gets off, you know, it's their own son who's, oh, do I want to go into this? You've heard this before, right?

Well, maybe I shouldn't assume. Someone is caught doing a crime. I remember when I first heard this illustration from Josh Mcnawell. It's like just basic gospel stuff, you know. It was, the price was only like $80. I live in California. believe me, traffic tickets are way more than that now. But anyway, they're caught, they have to pay the fine, they can't pay it, so they have to go to jail.

The judge doesn't want to sentence them to jail, but he also doesn't want to punish them because the person is there, the judge's child. So he pays the fine for them. That way justice is honored, the fine is paid, but mercy is dispensed. This is a basic illustration of the substitutionary atonement of Christ. One of the great phrases in Carl Bart's Church Dogmatics is his section on the atonement, the judge judged in our place. Wonderful little phrase. Here's how it's put in one of the great Protestant hymns. Oh, love, incomprehensible, that made thee bleed for me. The judge of all has

suffered death to set his prisoner free. The spotless savior lived for me and died upon the mount. The obedience of his life and death is placed to my account. So, how is God just when he forgives the death of Jesus? Does that mean that just now everyone is forgiven? No. Second point, the terms of justification are faith. Paul describes justification as a gift of grace to be appropriated on terms of faith. Verse 24, justification is by his grace as a gift. Then three times after that, he specifies that faith is the way we appropriate that gift. A few verses later in Romans 4, Paul says, now to the one who works, his wages are not counted as a gift, but as his due. and to the one who does not work but believes in him who justifies the ungodly, his faith is counted as righteousness.

Does this mean you don't have to do any good works? When you become a Christian, you can live any way you want? No. Protestants follow Paul's language in distinguishing our legal status before God, which we call justification and the ongoing process of change, which we call sanctification. You could use a different term for that. But the basic idea that there's a distinction between your innings,

initial status and your ongoing process of change is implicit in the whole idea of forgiveness. You can read about that in some of the medieval theologians, like even John Duns-Codas, for example. Now someone's going to say, but Gavin, isn't this idea of justification as the front end of that? Justification is the legal status you get put into at the beginning of the Christian life, and then you're changing and growing and moral renovation is going on inside you as the Holy Spirit works and as you're following Jesus and you're doing more and more good works and so forth. all that flows out of justification, but justification is that first initial declaration. Isn't that idea just something that Martin Luther pulled out of his hat in the 16th century,

just completely deviating from the universal consensus of the early and medieval church? Absolutely not. Let me just give one example from John Chrysostom's homilies on Romans on this very phrase, the declaring of righteousness in Romans 324 and 25. John says the declaring of his righteousness is not only that he is him, himself righteous, but that he does also make them that are filled with the putrefying sores of sin suddenly righteous. And it is to explain this, that is what is declaring that he has added that he might be just and the justifier of him who believes in Jesus. Doubt not then, for it is not

of works, but of faith, and shun not the righteousness of God, for it is a blessing in two ways, because it is easy and also open to all men. in four points. What John just said is that the declaring of righteousness, justification is sudden by faith rather than works, easy, and available to all men. Moving forward, you just see this all throughout his homilies on Romans, these adverbs to describe the immediacy of this. On Romans 331, he says, for when a man is once a believer, he is straightway justified. But since after this grace whereby we are justified, there is need also of a life suited to it. Let us show an earnestness worthy of the gift. Justification is a gift. A gift is something God gives you. And so this is similar

to the Protestant schema here. Justification first, now live in light of it. You're straightway justified, but after that, now live a life suited to it. Romans 4, 5, John Chrysostom says, God is able, on a sudden, not to free a man who has lived in impiety from punishment only, but even to make him just and to count him worthy of those immortal honors. Once again, the on a sudden adverb seems to suggest an initial immediate declaration of status before God. So to sum it up, God forgives sins without becoming unjust because of Christ and it is received on terms of faith. That's the gospel. I want people to know the gospel message. I want people to know the gospel message. I want people know the basics. It's so important because actually the gospel is relevant to every single moment of

our lives, including our ecclesial debates. I have discovered so many people don't really believe in the forgiveness of sins. They think that God is like at the end of a dark tunnel. And it's like, how does he feel about me? I want people to know they are embraced like the prodigal son if they've trusted in Jesus. C.S. Lewis gave testimony that he said, I'd been a Christian for many years before I really believed in the forgiveness of sins. And he describes the exact moment. And he describes the exact moment when he had a spiritual experience when his heart fully accepted that. We tend to often lapse back into legalism. Jerry Bridges said, we tend to give an unbeliever just enough of the gospel to get him or her to pray a prayer to receive Christ. Then we immediately put the gospel on

the shelf, so to speak, and go on to the duties of discipleship. He's saying, he's not saying we shouldn't have the duties of discipleship, but the gospel should be fueling those. I've discovered this in my own ministry. About 10 years ago, oh boy, boy, the years go by fast. 13. years ago now. I wrote a blog post about this how basically I was noticing my emotional status would go up and down depending on how ministry was going. I was a youth pastor. An event goes great. I feel great. An event goes badly. I feel badly. And I realized this is justification by works. I'm looking to my performance to feel okay about myself and I needed to go back to the gospel and remember my status before God is on terms of grace and that's where my fundamental identity is found.

people have the same struggle in these ecclesial debates, I think. I think a lot of people on all sides just don't have a fundamental heart assurance of their loved status in the gospel. And let me just say that. I mean, you know, just to pastor people to say, anybody, to use John Chrysostom's term straightway, anybody can experience full and complete forgiveness and be assured of that through the power of the Holy Spirit, by faith and repentance. If you truly in your heart with all of your heart, forsake your sins, run to Christ for salvation, cleave upon him with your whole heart, your status as righteous, fully righteous in God's sight

is utterly certain. It's more certain than the rising of the sun. The rising of the sun tomorrow morning is probable but not certain. Your salvation through Jesus Christ, if you trust in him, is certain. The thief on the cross is a paradigm, not an exception. If you come with true penitence to Christ, you are assured to receive his mercy. You're not in a probationary status. You're not kind of slowly eking your way along to get there one day. You are wrapped in the arms of God, like the prodigal son.

Oh, I'll get emotional if I keep going, so I'll stop there, but just think of the father running to the prodigal son. Dare to believe that that's true. That's how much God loves you. Now, there were other points I wanted to address in this film. I'll just be one other point. The video, unfortunately, did not display an awareness of the idea of glorification, as it is understood by Protestants. I was pretty shocked when I heard this. Take Luther's formulation where those who are saved are just declared justified and righteous in spite of the fact that they don't keep God's commandments.

So imagine that the final judgment occurred right now, and everyone who is justified through faith, according to Protestantism, just goes straight to heaven. But they're still themselves. They haven't changed in any way. They still lie, they still gossip, they fornicate, they're still proud, lazy, and greedy. And these are the souls that will stand next to you in heaven? How is that going to be a peaceful paradisal kingdom? It sounds exactly like what we have here, just transported somewhere else. Unless, unless those souls are perfected first.

That's what Catholicism and the Bible teaches. We don't enter into God's kingdom until we are made perfect first. Christians do believe that Christians are perfected when they die, and they enter into God's gracious presence in heaven in a morally spotless, perfect state. The difference is only how that happens. So we don't believe it's going to be a longer process for most Christians of punishment and cleansing. We think every Christian will have the experience that those who are alive at the Second Coming will have will happen in the words of 1st Corinthians 1552 in the twinkling of an eye. I have a whole video on purgatory if you're interested in that.

My point here is even more basic than that, though. Even if you think the Protestants are wrong about purgatory, then say that. But don't act like Protestants think sinful people are going to heaven or something. This is bizarre. And again, when our traditions are misrepresented, we all lose. So, look, I've made mistakes. I don't always represent others accurately. I try to repent of it when I realize that and do better and so forth.

So I want to defend Protestantism. We've got to do better. We got to do better at defending. Protestantism is just, in the YouTube world especially, people just, I get the feeling. People kind of feel like it's okay to just chuck rocks at it, you know? It's like, hey, we shouldn't do that. We should actually try to read some of the good Protestant books and represent it accurately. All right, here's summing up to finish.

Two things to sum up. Number one, when we critique a tradition, we should critique it for what it is, not for what it isn't. And number two, if you repent and please your trust in Jesus, you will be saved, and that is the gospel. Let me leave you with an image of substitutionary atonement. Paul Zaw writes, I am like a duck hunter who was hunting with his friend in a wide open baron of land in southeastern Georgia. far away on the horizon he noticed a cloud of smoke. Soon he could hear the sound of crackling. A wind came up and he realized the terrible truth. A brush fire was advancing his way.

It was moving so fast that he and his friend could not outrun it. The hunter began to rifle through his pockets. Then he emptied all the contents of his knapsack. He soon found what he was looking for, a book of matches. To his friend's amazement, he pulled out a match and struck it. He lit a small fire around the two of them. Soon they were standing in a circle of blackened earth, waiting for the brush fire to come. They did not have to wait long. They covered their mouths with their

handkerchiefs and embraced themselves. The fire came near and swept over them, but they were completely unhurt. They weren't even touched. Fire would not burn the place where fire had already burned. The law is like the brush fire. I cannot escape it. But if I stand in the burned over place, where the law has already burned its way through, then I will not get hurt. Not a hair of my head will be singed. The death of Christ is the burned over place. There I huddle. Hardly believing yet relieved.