Unashamed with the Robertson Family - Ep 1409 | I Never Questioned What I Believed Until It Started Falling Apart

Episode Date: August 28, 2026

Christian reflects on inherited ideas about salvation and the questions that arose when his beliefs didn’t match his life. The guys explore justification, sanctification, and glorification, and why salvation is more than simply getting into heaven. They also challenge caricatures of opposing traditions and consider how Catholics and Protestants can find common ground despite theological differences. In this episode: Philippians 2:1–5; Colossians 2:13–15; 1 Corinthians 15:1–2; 1 Peter 2:5, 9; John 6:51; Genesis 1:28; 1 Thessalonians 4:3, 7; Romans 6:19; 2 Thessalonians 2:13; 1 Peter 1:2; Hebrews 10:26–29; John 16; Philippians 2:10–11 Today’s conversation is about Lesson 8 of Theology 101: The Western Theological Tradition taught by various Hillsdale Professors. Take the course with us at no cost to you!  More about Theology 101: Examine the great questions of Western theology from the ancient Hebrews through today. The gift of speech, or reason, given by God to man, enables us to think about God and to worship Him.  This free online course pursues this purpose by examining the nature of God as revealed in the Bible, exploring the great theological questions and controversies of the early Christian church, studying the history of the Reformation and Counter-Reformation, and much more.  We invite you to join us and explore the nature of the relationship between God and man, and how a proper understanding of this relationship can lead to a free and happy life. Sign up at ⁠http://unashamedforhillsdale.com/ Check out At Home with Phil Robertson, nearly 800 episodes of Phil's unfiltered wisdom, humor, and biblical truth, available for free for the first time! Get it on Apple, Spotify, Amazon, and anywhere you listen to podcasts! https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/at-home-with-phil-robertson/id1835224621 Listen to Not Yet Now with Zach Dasher on Apple, Spotify, iHeart, or anywhere you get podcasts. Chapters 00:00 Martin Luther’s Three Powers of Faith 07:36 How Indulgences Became an Economy of Sin 12:03 Why the Reformation Finally Boiled Over 15:32 Justification vs. Sanctification 19:04 Al’s Works-Based View of Salvation 24:28 The Three Ps of Salvation 29:11 Can You Be Saved Without Changing? 34:26 Why Sin Changes the Way You See Truth 38:54 What Glorification Will Actually Be Like 43:20 Catholics, Protestants & Common Ground 47:08 The Council of Unashamed - Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

I am unashamed. What about you? Well, welcome back to the Unashamed podcast Friday with our good friends at Hillsdale College. You know what, guys, one day I'm going to release all of the in-between episodes. By in-between, I mean, we have the discussions that happen in-between are like so good. That's where the girl meets at, by the way. That's exactly right. One day. It's like the outtakes of a movie, you know.

There's a lot of good stuff in there. Well, see, see everybody come alive. Well, look, here's the deal. We're taking the Theology 101 course right now, and we are going to pick one listener to come down to Westman Road to watch a live recording of an ashamed. So if you're just joining us and you have been taking this course with us, you want to get in on this because we're going to pay for travel and lodging for you and the guest, up to $1,000 each.

All you have to do is take the Theology 101 course with us, finish all the quizzes, and send us your certificate of completion. You can sign up and take the course for free at Unashamed for Hillsdale.com. And then, once you get your certificate of completion, you can upload it at watchunashamed.com, and you'll be entered in for the drawing, the one now sat in the next few weeks, and you guys come down and hang out with us. And you'll be in the room right there with those two guys.

You might get to hear the in-between episodes a little bit. That's a little taste of it. And on the quiz is you have to make above a 70 to qualify. Is that true? No. No, just joking. But you should make about the 70. But you should.

I've made plenty well below 70. Well, I'm going to tell you what. I'm just happy that it doesn't give you a different quiz the second time. It just gives you the same quiz. Yeah, but how brutal, Christian, how brutal is this final going to be? Because it's a lot of information. And I do pretty well when I take it right after I ingest the lecture. But we've been doing this spread out over a few weeks here.

When I go back and take that final, we're going to be going back to the first couple of lessons here. I'm going to, this is going to be Elstinko. Al, I was going to make a quizlet for his Hillsdale final. I've just been taking all the questions and putting them in chat, GPT, and that's all. I forget you have a robot there with you. I'm kidding. I'm not doing that.

You know what's funny is one time I, well, I probably should say this out loud. Never mind. Scratch that. I was going to say something. better. I was like, I don't know if the statute of limitations are up yet, so I'm not going to say that. But anyways, welcome back. Al, we left off and you were kind of like starting to hum in that last one there.

I was like, man, I hate it when it ends like that. And you're like, man, we got so much more to say. Well, and because these two are so linked, because obviously the last podcast we were talking about Luther, there's so much good stuff in there. We kind of got into like the scriptural part of it. But even some of the stuff that he brought forward, and I thought you did a great job of pointing that early in the podcast last time about how grateful we are. And one of the things that John Luke had gotten into a little bit was the powers of faith that Luther brought forward in. There were three things, and they're very, very good.

The third one that John Luke dealt with was Unites the Soul with Christ. That's this idea of a bride and a bridegroom. and I wanted to read Philippians too because I do this a lot in marriage conferences, because obviously we're using our relationship as the bride and the bridegroom as then us as a husband and a wife. And this text was written to the church about our relationship with one another, but it works so well with marriage out of the same context. If you have any encouragement, Philippians 2, any encouragement from being united with Christ, any comfort from his love, any fellowship with his spirit.

So here's this idea of being united with him and being one with him. Any tenderness and compassion, then, and now he's going to point it outward, make my joy complete by being light-minded, having the same love, being one in spirit and purpose. Now he's talking about with one another. Do nothing out of selfish ambition or vain conceit, but in humility, consider others better than yourselves. And I always say in a marriage context,

That's the other is the first person you wake up with every morning. Each one of you should look not only to your own interests, but also to the interest of the other, whether that's in a marriage or in the church. And then he sums it up by saying your attitude should be the same as that of Christ Jesus. And then he describes what he did for us. So I love that idea and the concept of oneness. The second one, and you dealt with this one in the last podcast, Zach, is that you honor God properly.

In other words, God is a good. giver and we're the receiver as you as you laid out. And then the first one, which we didn't deal with at all, which is so important, though, is that faith makes law unnecessary for a relationship with Christ. It doesn't make it unnecessary in the sense that there's something wrong with the law, but we don't have to have law to have a relationship with Christ, which immediately made me think of Colossians 2. 13, when he said, when you were dead in your sins in the circumcision of your flesh, God made you alive with Christ. Wasn't a about law. He forgave us all our sins, having canceled the written code and its regulations. In other

words, what law did to us because we couldn't keep it, that was against us and that stood opposed to us. He took it away by nailing it to a cross and disarmed the powers and authorities who were using that against us. So I just thought that was so powerful a picture of faith. And again, Luther was dead on. There's a lot I don't agree with him on, but he was dead on with this. for sure. And for his time and day, I mean, that had to be important to have those tenants to look to. When you think about this concept of union with Christ and then also when you talked about the law, not being needed, there's a quote, one of my favorite quotes by Dallas Willard is he says that in Christ, so there's the union part, in Christ, you can do whatever you want. Like there's no law, there's freedom.

You can do whatever you want. You can murder all you want, which will be none at all. That's the picture because it's not, I'm in Christ now, so now I'm not going to murder because I want to honor God and please Him. But I really want to. I want to murder. But I'm not going to do it because I want to honor God. That's not the picture of salvation as what Luther was presenting.

The picture of salvation here is that when I'm unified with Christ, when I'm in union with Christ, then my desires and what my wants, they change. And I can do what I want, which is to honor and to be with Christ. I want to do, I want what he wants because our,

our wills are becoming aligned and intertwined. I can murder all I want, which will be none at all. That's the picture. It's much more about transformation of the heart and the will and transformation of our desires. than anything else. And so this episode, when we're getting into with the Council of Trent, kind of not juxtaposing Luther, because I think it was, some of it was great. Some of it was

maybe not, but we're going to get into this idea. What actually is salvation? But, John, like, you wanted to say something about the indulgences. Yeah, I thought just a little brief history lesson. I thought we'd give some context to this whole lecture. Christian asked about that, like what was indulgence? What was your question about? how yeah it was like after he had the thesis is like did did those indulgeness continue and those kind of things right so if you're catholic you know what i'm about to say if you're not you probably have no idea but in we all christians believe in confession of sins right like that's one of the things confess your sins to one another and you'll be healed and uh who you confess your sins to uh is kind of different for catholics and protestant so

Martin Luther introduced this idea here of all Christians are saints, all Christians are priests, and which the idea is like we have direct access to God and all Christians have that same direct access. So when we confess, we either, you know, confess to God when we, you know, repent or apologize for something or ask for forgiveness or whatever in our prayers, or we'll confess to each other and pray for one another. For a Catholic, you go to a confession, which is to a priest specifically, and it's very formalized. During this time period in the 1500s, this whole idea of confession to the priest was kind of like developing. So there was no argument about it.

And some churches, but not all, started, everyone was Catholic, but some individual Catholic churches, started having this kind of confession to the priests. And part of confession is you go in, you know, you say what you do, and then the priest will give you what's called like an act of penance, penance, which is like something that you do to kind of like reconcile, which might be like, okay, you pray this prayer of forgiveness or, you know, go and apologize to that person or forgive that person, or it could be like give an amount of money to charity or do a certain thing.

so you can kind of see how this act of penance can you can can get corrupt quickly so these priests are doing this the congregation would confess and then they would give them an act of penance and then at some point some priest thought

oh that act of penance can be you know give $10 to the church give $20 for a church. And then you started, that just started developing to this whole kind of like economy of sin, which is of the indulgences, of like how much money,

or how much act of penance, how much money does like one equal one sin cost? And they would like cost different more. So you could kind of like anticipate that act of penance by saying, okay, I'm going to give $100 and then I can, you know, get drunk this weekend. or whatever, which totally like out of control.

And then that's what we were talking about the last episode, is people would go over to the next parish to the X county to like pay because Martin Luther's parish wasn't doing that. And then you would kind of like be looking at all the different churches, like, all right, who's got the best rate?

Rate for sin. You know, it was like this like whole economy thing and they were going different places. I thought this was funny. I had such a clear picture of this. like in high school. So my wife's church, she grew up Presbyterian, and they would have Martin Luther Day, which is like a festival kind of thing. My church didn't do this. I've never heard of this. And they would like read quotes from Martin Luther and they would like do all these like different things.

So it's really just like a Halloween, I guess, or like fall festival, whatever you want to call it. It was like Martin Luther Day. Well, it just so happens that the Catholic Church is on the same street as the Presbyrian church, they, like, nearly share a parking lot. Like, you can see their door from. So every Martin Luther day, I would be like, oh, we should go nail something to their door. It was, like, such a good thing. And I, it's, like, doing this lecture, I just brought me back to that time because I can so visualize Martin Luther, like, sitting in his church, looking at the church, like, across the road and be, like, those heathens doing those things. And, like, every year, just, like, seeing all the congregation, Like every Sunday, you pull into the Presbyrian church, you see the Catholics pull into their church.

And like, Martha Luther was sitting there being like, I cannot believe, until he just drove him crazy. He just walked over and nailed the thing to the door. So would y'all say this was why Luther was so against that idea of good works? Because, like, was he just so jaded by that cultural context of how to obtain, you know, what they thought was salvation through these actions that were perceived as good works? but they really weren't. I wonder if he would have been as hardcore against that idea of the good works if that wasn't happening

in the time of his culture. Yeah, I think it was a reaction to that. But then what we're about talking about at the Council of Trent was also a reaction to that. And you really saw the Catholic Church develop a lot of their more formal doctrines or practices after this in like the 7th century

to like the 10th century because of all this like reformation thing when the church started splitting and churches started individual parishes started kind of doing their own thing like Martin Luther did then you saw the Catholic church start having all these councils to determine like okay what do we actually believe how do we kind of keep this from happening again

yeah well I would say it's not just that though because I think there was a movement in Metaxus's book on Luther he talks about that there was already a movement before like Wycliffe and us, I think that's how you pronounce with them, HUS, and a few others that were kind of preceded Luther in pushing back against, you know, the papal infallibility and things like that, authority of scripture. The movement had already started, and to be clear, I mean, I mean, this is, yeah, I mean, the Bible is the Word of God.

And, I mean, I do think that I don't see the case for, having the church with fallible men superseding the authority of scripture. So I think that had always kind of been there. I think what happening with the indulgence is that it just pushed it pushed it over the edge for Luther. He probably was already dealing with a lot of this. And so the church is evolving and things, the history is moving along and everything. And so by the time you get to the Council of Trent,

it's more of a, because the Protestant church now has emerged and growing rapidly. And so the Council of Trent is a response to that while at the same time kind of acknowledging Luther was right. Yeah, I think at least about the indulgences, at least about the abuse church. So there was like kind of a nod to like, yeah, this got corrupt, but at the same time,

still trying to hold on to the core of the teachings. And so you had mentioned the confession. I think that's probably the core of the issue that came out of the Reformation movement is that what is the primary focus? And so we get into this concept of salvation, a term used in different theological circles or seminaries is the word satirology, which is the doctrine of salvation, justification, sanctification, glorification. This is salvation, right? How are we, how are we saved? And the justification piece, I think, is the problem with what's happening between Trent and then Luther is they're having a real disagreement on what does justification actually mean and when does it take place. I would push against probably Trent and say that, I don't think justification

is the end all be all for us as Christians. I think the end all be all, what we're actually after is communion with Christ. We're actually after communion. And so our justification as a means into the end, the end itself is being in the presence of Christ and being in communion with them. And I think that frames it up differently. But when they meet, one of the big distinctions between what Trent does versus what the reformers believed is the reformers believed that sanctification, this was in the lecture, if you guys remember, sanctification and justification are not the same thing. Whereas, you know, whereas as Trent was basically saying, no, your justification. is a process. You know, it's a process of unfolding, which ironically, I kind of grew up really more with that view than I did probably the reform view. I don't know. How did you view, how did

you all think about salvation as you're growing up? Did you think it was something that you're growing into? And then if you do it right and you hold faithful to the end, then you'll be justified? Or did you think that it was something that happened that was already given to you from the finished work of Christ in the past. How did y'all, which view did y'all kind of grow up thinking? I think mine was like yours, the idea of, yeah, it's over, over a period of time. And I felt like, I think I felt like that for me, and I'll even necessarily know if it was because of biblical teaching.

I kind of just viewed it as like the seeds, you know, it was like immediately you receive it with joy, then immediately they fall away. and I had these, all these moments of like spiritual highs and moments of, okay, now I'm going to stop doing this. I'm going to really start living. Then I would go back to doing what I was doing. So I never fully felt like I was justified in a moment because I would always resort back to what I was doing. So, yeah, I still don't even now today fully know where I land on it because, you know, yes, I do believe that you're justified. in a moment because of what Christ did. But, you know, like we talked about First

Corinthians 15, you know, last time, there is an obedience that happens from that. So I don't know, I don't know if my upbringing was more biblical teaching or more so just my interpretation of I never felt justified because like, yes, I said I believed it, but there was never any action that followed behind that. So I'm not really sure. Yeah. Well, and remember to take the course with us. It's free. And you're going to get so much out of it. You go to unashamed for Hillsdale.com to do that. For me, Zai, I think I definitely grew up with a kind of a, you know, works-based mentality, not the Holy Spirit. I don't ever be mentioned much in my young life. And then, of course, I was a prodigal for a while, and so it didn't really matter anymore. But I definitely did

not have an understanding and thought you had to somehow live up to something and hope you got in. You know, if you repented of the last thing you did wrong right before, you know, something happened to you. And then I almost died. And then it was like, okay, I would have been lost. So out of that moment, that kind of brought me into then this choosing of God in relationship. But I didn't really understand about justification and sanctification and then ultimately glorification until I went into school and studied the word and spent a lot of time at the feet of Bill Smith. who was the guy who led dad to Christ and was my mentor. And then in the book of Romans, which we talked about in the last podcast,

which really brought it all to light for me. And now I felt like I totally get it. And I totally understand that we are justified. Sanification, I believe, is a post work. It's not, you know, as Trent laid out in his view, that it's going on up until even post-death, which is purgatory and all that. I think it happens here in the renewal of our lives and the Holy Spirit is the game changer,

which I never understood exactly his role until I started studying the scripture, and especially the book of Romans, to understand what his role is in my life, to have this divine walk. Now it's his fruit. It's coming forth through me. And really, the only weight, in my opinion, I think, biblically, is the glorification of our resurrected body. I mean, that's the last thing we're waiting on. but it's not like we're sitting around twiddling our thumbs.

We're living kingdom lives now because the kingdom is here. And so I think that I grew to that understanding, but not until I was in my 20s and really did a deeper dive into scripture. So I understand the debate here and can see some of both sides. I do want to mention go back a little bit about the priesthood because John Luke brought that up earlier. And, you know, you don't really, it's interesting to me that it's, you know, we was kind of still debated about the priesthood. But Peter's really the only one who called it that in terms of this new life. And he did it in First Peter, too, in verse five and verse nine, when he talked about that we are this spiritual house, a holy priesthood.

And then he said in verse now, you are a chosen people, a royal priesthood. The idea that now this has changed. But it's interesting because he was making the point of priesthood of believers to the old Jewish priests, like because of what had been done before. these offices of the Jewish priesthood and that now we're not that anymore because our high priest is Christ who has now, you know, and we are his temple that's being built. And so we don't need a temple to go through. We don't have to make sacrifices because he sacrificed himself. So the idea is he flattened it because of Judaism. And so I think it's interesting that in the Catholic Church, he's the first pope. And yet he flattened the priesthood to the people, clearly, in my opinion,

1st Peter 2, and yet you still kind of see that debate going on. Should we have a priest? Should we go to a priest? Is he different than the guy on the other side of the booth in terms of confession of sins and those type things? So I just thought it was interesting that it really was about priest. Who is the first priest in the Bible? Adam.

Yeah, Adam was the first priest in the Bible. And his commission was to basically guard and keep. I think we talked about this in the Hills episode, but to guard and keep. but to guard and keep the garden and expand it. And so when you think about, this is why I think the, when you read the Bible primarily through the lens of satirology, I think you're kind of missing the point. Soterology matters, but it's not, it is, it is a salvation as a means to an end. So Jesus gave his life, he gave his flesh for the life of the world, John 6.

And so I think that that's, you have to understand the way, what is the, What do we, what's this whole thing moving toward? Why did Jesus die to pay for my sin? For what? Why did he have to pay for my sin so that we could be in communion together? That's the ultimate goal is that in the garden, there was this communion. Between God and man, the Garden of Eden was the first temple. You mentioned that we are now growing into a holy temple.

The Garden of Eden was the first temple. And so what's happening as we're coming full circle in Revelation at the end, where we are the temple of God, you're right? And so it's expanding across the entire globe. When God said, I want you to take the garden and expand it, I want you to be fruitful, multiple by Genesis 128. That's what we're doing. And so I think it helps because a lot of times the discussion,

I think Trent was guilty of this. It's reducing salvation to justification. And the way that the reformers, and I would agree, is that the justification, a good way of understanding that is not the same thing as sanctification and it's not the same thing as glorification, but they all are related. And here's a little kind of the three P's of salvation that if you ever get a seminary, this is what they'll teach you in any systematic theology course in a reformed or Protestant church is that the three P's of that the three P's of. salvation are associated with the three justification, sanctification, glorification. So if you're writing it down, here's I would write it down. Justification is being freed from the penalty of sin. That's the first Pete, the penalty of sin. So I'm in a court of law, and the judge looks at me and he says, guilty or not guilty? And I'm like, not guilty, Your Honor, on what basis? This guy right here,

and I point to Jesus, and I'm covered by his blood. as Jesus says, not guilty. So in Christ, you are freed from the penalty of sin. You're justified before God. There is no guilt associated with you. And that is a product of the finished work of Christ, according to the reforms. I agree with it. When Christ died on the cross, he said, it is finished.

It is finished, right? Christ died for our sins once and for all. Like, we are not, there's no, like, content. That's the whole book of Hebrews. We're not going back in on Yom Kippur and offer it up sins, every single year. No, it's one and done. Christ died. I am not guilty. Done. Not guilty. Now, the next one is our sanctification in verses like first that's only is four, three. For this is the will of God, your sanctification that you abstain from sexual immorality or our chapter or verse 7.

For God has not called us for impurity, but in holiness. Or again, he says, Christ became to us the wisdom from God, righteousness and sanctification. and redemption or Romans 6. This is the whole one on baptism. Present your members as slaves of righteousness leading to sanctification. So what does the word sanctification mean? Well, it's also being saved, but it's not being saved from the penalty of sin. Sanctification is being saved from the power of sin. So when I became a Christian and I submitted my life to Christ, I said, Christ, you are my king, you, and you are my Lord, I repent of my sins. I am powerless to overcome these.

Please save me, O God. Christ says, you're justified. You're not guilty. Problem is, guess what? I still have my sin in me. And this is what, like, the whole point of kind of the rub in this discussion between the Council of Trent and the Protestants, we believe, like, I'm still in my sin. Like, I still got issues going on. Like, I'm not like, this because I've repented, like, I'm still dealing with stuff. I smoked weed with your brother, Al. I think it was your brother. I can't remember. It was six months after I became a Christian.

Jace? No, not Jace. Not Jays. Not really. Not really. And I think about like my life in that first, you know, like I still like had issues. Why? Because those things had a power over me still.

That sin had a power over me. But progressively, here's another P, as I've walked in the spirit for 25 years, I'm not tempted that that has no, that particular sin has no power over me anymore. because I've progressively been saved and freed from the grip, the power that it had over me. Before you go, the next one, I want to read two verses that back up exactly what you just said. Then I have a question after you read these first. Second Thessalon is 213 says, because God shows you as first fruits to be saved through the sanctifying work of the spirit

and through belief in the truth, just to your point. The difference is when you have the Holy Spirit, he's the game changer. and then 1 Peter 1, 2, that says the four knowledge of God, the Father, through the sanctifying work of the Spirit to be obedient to Jesus Christ and sprinkle with his blood. So it's both of those texts, Peter and Paul, are backing up exactly what you said. All right, go. Well, I was going to say, I think my struggle, and I kind of shared it at the beginning, I think the thing that I do wrestle with, and it's just me being transparent, I do wrestle with the, and I think it's because kind of, of how I was raised out. I kind of like what you talked about

with good works and all those different things, but it's like if there's no sanctification, then it's like at, at what point, and I don't even, this is wrong to say, but at what point does that nullify

the justification that you claim you have if nothing about your life ever changes? Because it's like, I agree that yes, it begins with justification. It's not, it's,

it's, you've been saved by grace through faith, you know, not by any of your own doing. But if you don't believe the justification, and if it never leads to a sanctification process at the Holy Spirit's inside of you doing something, then at what point would you say

that you might never have been justified if you don't act out of that? I mean, if that makes sense. I think that's the struggle that I have. That's a good question. I mean, the first verse that pops up in my mind is Hebrews 10, 27.

because he talks about, the Hebrew writer talks about sanctification in that purse. And he says, essentially, let me pull it up here, so I don't butcher it. Well, because for me, you talked about first Corinthians 15 last time. And it's that by this gospel, you are saved if you hold firmly to it, otherwise you have believed in vain. So that Paul is saying that there isn't if and otherwise. It's, it saves you if you obey it. Otherwise, you've believed it in vain. So I think that's my holdup that I struggle with. It's like, how can you convince yourself that you've been justified? How can you convince yourself that you've been saved? But nothing about your life ever changes. That's a scary question because I think that you actually can convince yourself that you are saved and you're not.

But the way the Hebrew writer says it is he says that if we deliberately keep on sinning, this is 1026, If we deliberately keep on sinning, after we have received the knowledge of truth, there's no longer remains a sacrifice for sin, but a fearful expectation of judgment. And a fury of fire that will consume the adversaries. Anyone who has set aside the law of Moses dies without mercy on the evidence of two or three witnesses. So you go back and look at the story of Moses, and they're like, if they, if they, if they, if they, if they, if they, if they, if they, if they, if they, if they, if they, if they, if they, if they, if they, if they, if they, if they, if they. They set the law aside, they get a couple of witnesses, they're going to put you to death. And so he says, if that's what the penalty was for that, how much more or how much worse punishment do you think will be deserved by the one who is trampled under God, the son of

foot? Listen to this. And has profaned the blood of the covenant by which he was sanctified and has outraged the spirit of grace. So I think the answer to the question is that the problem with sin, as we defined it in the last episode, is sin is calling God a liar. If I continue to call God a liar, like I'm rejecting the Holy Spirit. This is what, this is why Jesus said to blaspheme the Holy Spirit is a unforgivable sin. It's not that, oh, I blasphemed the Spirit one time and God's like, oh, that's the one you can't do.

you're out no matter what you do even if you repent you're out that's not what he's saying that what's happening is jesus is performing miracles in the face of these Pharisees he's like and there and he's like you want proof boom water into wine you want proof boom raise the dead you want like i'm like look at look at the evidence around you and they were so belligerent in their opposition to christ they didn't care about the truth they didn't care about that the holy spirit was revealing truth to them john chapter 16 that's what he does right he convicts the world of sin guilt, all that. They're sticking their fingers in their ears and they're saying, I don't care what you say or what you do. We are not going to submit to the revelation of God. We're not submitting

the truth. And Jesus is like, well, the spirit is the one who brings truth to you. So to reject the spirit, to blaspheme the spirit is to reject, is to ultimately reject in the revelation of God of the good life. So what I think is the danger of sin is that it changes who we are. So I don't think it's a matter of, like, I don't, I'm not going to parse that out and at what point. I don't know what point that is. I do know this, though, that I'm scared of sin because it changes the way that I receive God's revelation. If I don't repent for that, I don't fall on my face before him. It's a cancer that will just rip you to shreds.

And what it does is it, it circumvents the sanctification process. If you never experience any sanctification at all in your life, then I would say, yeah, you don't have the Holy Spirit. So when I would say, you never were justified. So I think you could say that. If you've never experienced sanctification, then, yeah, then you've never been justified. But the obsession with the justification, though,

I think we're missing the boat. Because an obsession with justification is just saying, what's the bare minimum for me to get into heaven as opposed to saying, God, can you bring heaven into me and get the hell out of me. I mean, that's, salvation is getting the hell out of us and getting heaven to end us. It's not us, the bare minimum, what do I got to do to make sure that I'm right? That's a very, you know, that's not the view here.

The view is that we're called to participate with God. Remember to take the course with us for free, hills, unashamed for Hillsdale.com. I want to say, Christian, it is a great question. In fact, I was just reading for in our James study, some M.T. Wright stuff. was addressing what you described in another context. But one of the things he said that I thought was good, because you were saying, you know, how you question that. And he said, if you question your motives and who you are on a consistent basis, you're probably in the right camp, just by the fact of your awareness of humility that you want to please God. And I think that's what happens. And it's, we don't know

from the outside. I love the way Luther talked about the inner man. It has a free will to choose. and the outer man shows what that choice looks like. I think we can only look at it from a human perspective. And it's like Zach was describing, we can't judge motives and hearts and who really did make the faith step to justification because we're not God. But he knows. He knows.

And Zach is exactly right about the blasphemy of the Holy Spirit. The idea is that when you deny that, the pathway, that's why it's unforgivable, because you have no path. There's nothing else. There's nothing left. Yeah, exactly. It's like you receive the truth of gospel.

Like, okay, is there any more payment? You're like, any more payment? What are you talking about? Like, that's it. That's all there is. The third part of salvation, though, that wasn't really mentioned in the episode, but I think it helps put a bow on us understanding how these are three parts of salvation is the last P, which is presence.

That's our glorification. one day we'll be freed from the presence of sin. So when you think of how in the world am I going to be freed from, like, how are we going to live in heaven, right, when the new heavens and the new earth come, like, how are we going to, will we be able to sin? You ever asked that question? We'll be able to be, like, how can there be no sin in heaven if there's sin now? And I thought about that a lot.

The only reason why there's sin right now, think about this, the only reason why we have sin, particularly if we understand sin, as I framed it up in the last episode, sin is calling God a liar. The only way that I can call God a liar is if God is hidden himself in some degree from me. There's a level, Philippians 2 says this, by the way. There's a level to which God can basically pull the veil back of his glory. It's almost like he can just pull the curtain back a little bit. And there's a point to which you're going to see how glorious King's.

Jesus is and you're going to be like all of us we're going to be like Saul on the road to Damascus it's going to be like hit the deck we're going to be like John on the aisle of Patmos I fell at his feet as though I was dead why because the image that he saw of the risen Christ was a picture of glory and sovereignty and so when you see that when you surpass that threshold of his revelation, it's not going to be possible to believe in a lie anymore. And if sin, the definition of sin really is that we're calling God a liar in his revelation, when we're glorified and we're in the glorified state, it's going to be impossible to believe in any lies from anybody, including the devil. One, he's going to be cast into the lake of fire,

but you're not going to, you're going to see God in such a way that every, knee, the Bible says, every knee will, well, is going to end up bowing. Every tongue, including Satan's tongue, Satan himself will look at Jesus and he was like, you are Lord. Every tongue will confess that he's Lord. Every demon, every evil person, everybody's going to hit the deck at the revelation of the king of glory. And we are going to submit to him because we are going to see for the first time in a way that cannot be denied. And so that's why glorification is us being freed from the presence of sin. And so that's the trajectory that we're on. Justification, I'm freed from the penalty of sin. Sanctification is I'm progressively being

freed from the power and the grip of sin. And then the hope is that one day I'll be freed from the very presence of sin. It will not be possible for me to believe that God's not good and that he's not all powerful because I'll be looking at him face to face. That's good. That made me think of this quote. It's from Jen Johnson. This is this quote, me so much. I think it's so cool. She says, in heaven, there will not be any pain, confusion, or loss. So I embrace my moment of pain and give him praise in the midst of it because that is an offering I will never get again. Talking about how whenever we get to heaven, we won't have to worship God through suffering and pain because there's no suffering or pain in heaven. But I thought that

perspective was so interesting of, you know, there's only on this side of heaven to, we get to actually worship God in the suffering and in the pain. And then when we get to heaven, we will still worship him, but it won't be us having to worship him through the suffering. So I've always thought that quote was so cool. What I love about you, the three points that you made, Zach, is also the power of the Trinity as well. Because look at the role of God, the Father, God, the Son,

God, the Spirit, in those three things, justified because of Christ, sanctified because the Holy Spirit, glorified by the Father who will raise up our bodies to be glorified forever. And you see the idea of the importance of the relationship of the Godhead, the giver, of all things for us. And now we get to participate in the divine nature is the way Peter described it. So, I mean, what a beautiful picture for us to see as we live our life now, eager, as Jason likes to say, and he's right, be sure and take the course with us for free. You're going to love it.

Hills, Unashamed for Hillsdale.com. Yeah. When you said that, it made me think of like when Jill and I went to Italy for our 25th wedding anniversary, we stayed at this really cool place and it was like everything was super curated. It was very romantic.

The food was incredible, like absolutely incredible. And everything was grown on the property. I mean, it was, and even like we did like a little cooking class and the guys like, hey, if anybody tells you they got fresh tomato,

If it's not in the month of, you name, like, July and August, they're lying. He said it with a, you know, Italian accent. And we were there in July. So, I mean, tomato sauce, it was just, everything was so good. And I imagine that, like, what our glorification is going to be like is it's going to be like where you're in a setting like that. And you're all this incredible cuisine is coming out with the best waiters in the world. everything's been curated, everything's been thought of,

everything is excellent, done with excellence. It's the best environment you could ever possibly imagine and having a meal with the people that you love, okay? And then imagine somebody

walks in with a bag of old stale McDonald's chicken nuggets with fries. And you're just like, I don't want that. I don't want that crap. I don't even want it. Like,

that's crap. It's that story on stairway. you're in communion, you're in participation with God. This is what the hope is. And so the hope is that the union with Christ in the eternal state, that everything else that we're trying now that we call sin, it's just impostures, it's empty, it's hollow. So to your point about that quotes you read, a Christian,

that's the same point C.S. Lewis is going to make it in the Great Divorce. It's like, we're going to look back. when we're in glory, we're going to look back at all the moments on earth that we thought we were in hell, the moments of pain, and we're going to, oh, we were actually participating in heaven the entire time. And then conversely, the reprobate are going to look back at all the moments of ecstasy and all the moments that they thought they were in heaven and they're going to realize, oh my gosh, I was in hell the entire time. That is the profundity of the kingdom of God is that. And so I think that understanding salvation in a broader sense in this way, it's what it does is, and I think the reformers gave us this, is it opens up salvation to way more than just going into a confession booth and confessing and getting the check, then I'm okay. Like that's, that is not a relational, it has to move beyond that. It has to move beyond a participatory life in the spirit. And I think that's, in my opinion, I think that's one of the.

major benefits of what the Reformation in guys like Martin Luther, they paved the way for us in that, at least that's, I mean, I don't know you could push back on that sum, but I believe that. I was just going to say, just to, you know, because we only got a few minutes left, the, I thought it was interesting the lecture to learn about the differences and learn more about the Reformation itself. I definitely learned some things I didn't know. He had a list in the lecture of kind of what they agreed on and what they didn't. We're always on the same page. Is that where you were going? I was just going to give kudos to Hillsdale because we started the lecture and I was like, man, I really wish I could see

what they agreed on, what they disagreed on because I just had so much information about Luther. We started talking about the Council of Trent and I was like, I kind of was losing train of what was different. And then they provided this amazing list about what they agreed on And then what they differed on.

So I was just going to give a shout at the Hillsdale because I thought that was super helpful. Do you have them in front of you? There's so many of them. But there's a lot of them, probably more than we have time. But I will say this about the list that I thought was interesting. There were quite a few they both agreed on that I disagree with what they believe, original sin and some others. And then even his final thought, which I never thought about this, but he's probably right. because we talked about this with James, Zach, some,

is that Trent viewed through the lens, you know, Paul through the lens of James, whereas Luther and the Protestants, look at James through the lens of Paul, which I don't necessarily agree with that, because I look at the lens through, I think they're both right. They go together.

Yeah. You know, it's not just a faith only or works only, sort of look at justification. But I did think it was gray. I'm like Christian. I really appreciated him, it out clearly. And it helped me understand a lot more about even modern Catholicism and the different now splinterings of different Protestant movements as well. But it was rich. It was good.

And anytime you study things like this, it forces you to look back in the things you've always believed and why you believe them. So it sent me right back into the scriptures, you know, studying, even just after I watched the lectures, you know, think, okay, why would they believe this? Where did this come from? Why do I think they thought this from Scripture? And so I think any time you're challenged, it's a good thing, which is one of the reasons why I'm taking course.

Yeah, I think too. I think people do. I've been guilty of listening to caricatures. I've been guilty of listening to like a caricature of Catholicism over the years. I think that's, like, we need to be careful of that because there's a lot of very rich writings that I've read over the years. I mean, I'm part of, I used to be part of a group. I went to their conference called the Acton Institute. And some of the stuff that I learned there has been very fundamental in shaping how I understand conservative economics, a lot of other things.

I mean, like, I don't think these discussions are, I don't think it's, I don't think it's healthy to just, right off an entire group of people. I'm not going to do that. I mean, I want to hold a generous orthodoxy. I want to be orthodoxy my faith. I don't want to, you know, I'm not going to drift into theological liberalism. But I'm going to be open to having a discussion with a lot of different groups. I think that's one of the things I really do appreciate about Hillsdale.

Because you can tell, like, there's, yeah, there's, we've taken courses with Eastern Orthodox, with an Eastern Orthodox priest who we're friends with and we text with, me and you outtakes with him all the time. We've taken courses from Anglican, Anglicans, reformed Calvinists. I think it's, I think the, what the lesson I want to learn is, is let's start having the discussions together. We can have disagreement. That's fine.

We don't have to throw lobs like, I'm not going to say his name, but some people do, you know, in the comment section, but we don't have to do that. You know, we can actually have real discussions. Well, and I like what you said. I think you said in the last podcast. these are fun for us to do because we love the Bible and we love the study of it. But at the end of the day, we all groups should be pointing people to Christ, helping people in tough situations, which we do.

And I've said this many times before. That's one of the reasons why I'm so engaged and involved in the pro-life movement. One is because Lisa and I were personally affected by a decision, an abortion decision. But beyond that, I see so much of the battle out there. who's all together every time we go speak someplace. The Catholics, the Lutherans, the Baptists, the Methodists, you know, us. Because why? Because we're wanting to save babies. We're wanting to help young women who are in tough situations and young men. And we want to point them to Jesus. And so, I mean, you can work together in spite of differences of how we do theology or different

things. As long as we're focused on that idea of God, we receive from him something that we want to then give on this earth and that's kingdom work. So the kingdom is pretty large, you know, and so I want to keep, I want to stay focused there, you know, as we're doing our work. We're out of time, again, seemed like it went by fast, which is good. We want you to take the courses with us. Unashamed for Hillsdale.com is where you do that. And we'll be back next time to talk a little bit more about theology. Do you all know what I think we should do? What? After learning about the Council of Nicaa and the Council of Trent, I think we should form the council of unashamed.

Oh, that's what this is. That's too much right there. Then they'll be debating over the will be labeled hair ticks. That's exactly right. I'd rather let's just play the dumb card. I don't know. I don't know.

Yeah. We could be the hairy ticks. Yeah. I didn't know. Next lecture is going to be the council of something else. I had no idea how many councils met over these different things. There's a lot of them. What was this one?

18 years, they said? Yeah, 18 years. They didn't have podcasts, so they had to have something. That's exactly right. That was their podcast. She should have said that, John Luke. That's good. Join us every Friday for Unashamed Academy powered by Hillsdale College.

Make sure to go to Unashamed for Hillsdale.com and sign up. It's no calls to you. That's Unashamed for Hillsdale.com. And don't miss an episode of the Unashamed podcast by subscribing on YouTube. And be sure to click the little bell and choose all notifications to watch every episode.