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R.C. Sproul: The Christological Crisis | Reformation Bible College | YouTubeToText
YouTube Transcript: R.C. Sproul: The Christological Crisis
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Summary
Core Theme
The central theme is the ongoing crisis in Christology, specifically concerning the church's understanding of Jesus' person and work, with a particular focus on the doctrine of imputation and Christ's active and passive obedience as foundational to salvation.
I look at the theme of this conference
and if there's ever a time in
Ministry that I'm overwhelmed with a
sense of
inadequacy it's when I have the
responsibility of
lecturing on the person and work of Christ
Christ
there is no higher
topic for any of us to
address we can never reduce his person
and his work merely to academic
scrutiny putting him as it were under our
our intellectual
intellectual
microscope because he's not only our
savior but he is our
Lord and he is our
all and so when we do
theology in the area of
christology what we're about is
doxology because it can be nothing other than
than
that my topic this evening is to speak
on the current crisis in christology
that the church
faces and I'd like to begin by reading a
short passage from The Gospel According
to St
Matthew from Chapter 3 of that
book beginning at verse
13 and reading through verse
17 if you're from St Andrews you're
allowed to stay in your seats because
this isn't a Sunday morning worship ship
God then Jesus Came From Galilee to John
at the
Jordan to be baptized by
him and John tried to prevent
him saying I need to be baptized by
you and are you coming to
me but Jesus answered and said said to
him permit it to be so
now for thus it is fitting for
righteousness then he allowed
him when he had been baptized Jesus came
up immediately from the
water and behold the heavens were open to
to
him and he saw the spirit of God
descending like a dve love and a
lighting upon
him and suddenly a voice Came From
Heaven saying this is
my beloved
Son in whom I am well
pleased shall we
pray our father and our
God when we
consider the signific begin of this
moment recorded for us by Matthew in the
history of the
world we stumble before it because we
know it is beyond our
Ken beyond the reach of our
understanding and so we plead with you
this afternoon that you would send Among
Us your Holy Spirit this Spirit of
truth that he may illumin this text for
us break through the
artificial Shields that we place over
our heart and our
understanding that we may see the
truth the
Excellence and the
sweetness of what is to be found in this text
text
for we ask it in our lord Jesus name
amen when we read the various aspects of
the Gospel account of the baptism of
Jesus that signaled the beginning of his Earthly
Earthly
Ministry we encounter some elements in
it that to say the least are mystifying
there are some things in this
abbreviated version that Matthew gives
here that leave us in no small degree of
consternation and with great Wonder at the
the Unspeakable
Unspeakable
audacity of this man who had been
commissioned by God to be the harbinger
and the herald of the coming kingdom of God
God
though he was given the epith of saying
there is none greater than John the
Baptist here this great prophet recorded
in the New Testament belonging but
belonging to the period of the Old
Testament we
find seeks to rebuke
Jesus to admonish
Jesus and to instruct Jesus
Jesus which would qualify him instantly
theologian but we see that Jesus came to
John at the Jordan in order to be
baptized and we read and John tried to
prevent him
what you're trying to
prevent Jesus
you just sang the AGN day you said
Behold the Lamb of God who comes to take
away the sin in the world and you said
that you weren't worthy to unloose the
ties of his sandals and
that you must decrease and he must
increase and
still you want to instruct him and
prevent him from doing what he came
to have
done well why in the world would such a
Godly Man as John the Baptist be so
audacious as to seek
to instruct Jesus well the answer is
very clear here in the
text why he tried to prevent him because
he said to
him I need to be baptized by
you and you're coming to me don't you
get it Jesus don't you understand what's
going on here I'm baptizing people for
repentance of their
sin and I know you don't have
any you're without
blemish so you're being baptized would
contradict the whole purpose of my Earthly
Earthly
Ministry Jesus I don't know what you've
been drinking or smoking this morning
but you've got it wrong
you should be baptizing me look at me
there blemishes all over me I'm not the
God and I can't baptize
you because that would
mean you had
sins of which to repent
repent
so like Peter who would
say things like no
Lord John persists in trying to persuade
Jesus not to do it and then you would
think the text would go on to say that
Jesus then pulled John aside away from
the crowd away from the multitude and
said look let's have a short little
seminar here on theology let me explain
to you why this uh strange phenomenon uh
should take place and that really
there's sound reason for me to have you
baptize me and then go into a discussion
with him about the Covenant of works the
Covenant of Grace and the need of the
mediator to so represent his people as
to do everything that is required of
Israel to pray he could have done that
that
instead he used the sort of G damac
Clays to cut the gordian
knot and a little bit of aams Razor to
simplify the matter by just simply
saying hey
alone suffer with me a little
to
righteousness I know you don't
understand just do
it because I told
you to do
it and the rest is Biblical
history John said yes sir and proceeded
proceeded
to B baptize
baptize
Jesus but we note in this text a
point that I believe is at the very
core of one of the most
significant issues about the person and
work of
Christ that the church faces
today and I think will continue to
face through the 21st century
I'm asked frequently by interlocutors
what I believe to be the most serious
issues that the church WIll face in
future decades and I plead not the fifth
but the response of the Prophet Amos I'm
not a prophet nor the son of a prophet
and so I don't know what's going to
happen tomorrow in the church let alone
10 years from now but my best guess and
that's all it is is a
guess is that the great issues that we will
will
face in the near decades to
come will be
concerning the church's understanding of
Jesus who he
is and what he
did during his Earthly
Ministry now that the church should face
a crisis with respect to the person and
work of Jesus is nothing
new if we know anything about church
history we know that there have been four
four
centuries since the Advent of Jesus
where the church's understanding of the
person and work of Christ reached a
point of critical
mass those centuries were the fourth
Century the fifth century the 19th
century and the 20th century
in the 4th Century we had the Aryan
controversy that challenged the church's
understanding of the deity of Christ
that consequently led to the Council of
NAA and the nyine
Creed in the fifth century the attack
from the monophysites and then
historians again on the church's
understanding of the Dual nature of
Jesus in The Mystery of the
Incarnation which culminated in the
Council of ch Al on in
451 then in the 19th century with the
Advent of European
European
liberalism or so-called 19th century
liberalism which denied the supernatural
virtually alt together as it is found
with respect to Jesus his virgin birth
his satisfactory atonement his Ascension
his return at the end of the age and
every miracle that he performed on this planet
planet
Planet which critical
skepticism and naturalism spilled over
and spread through the whole world in
the 20th century and held in a vice grip
virtually every major
denomination certainly in this
country now we're just at the beginning
of the 21st
century and so this crisis of skepticism
that is now endured over 200
years is not
over it
continues but what I find most alarming
about it is that the crisis in
christology today is not confined to
Liberal institutions or the so-called Mainline
Mainline
churches but has raised its head in the
circles now in the decade of the
90s we had an initiative from leading professing
professing
Evangelical Scholars and
preachers with uh Scholars from the
Roman Catholic
communion in which a declaration was made
made
jointly titled evangelicals
and Catholics
together for the most part an initiative
to stand shoulder toosh shoulder to
address what we call common Grace issues
in our culture with abortion
relativism and the like in the midst of
this statement was the Declaration that
the signator said that they had a
gospel which raised a human cry among
the Evangelical World which said since
when did Rome repudiate her anathema of
the Gospel as we understand it how can
we say that we have a union of faith in
the gospel when there's such a radical
different understanding of what the
gospel is
a lot of theological blood was spiled
over that
controversy because the article of
justification by faith alone which was
what Luther called the article upon
which the church stands or Falls was now
being brought into question within
evangelicalism and so ECT
framers gave us volume
two much longer trying to answer the
critics that saw a threat to the
doctrine of justification by faith alone
and in this one they said that we are
both sides agree on the fundamental
elements of the doctrine of
justification by faith alone
alone
however the language of imputation
imputation
table Michael Horton from
Southern California responded to that by
saying that if all of the ingredients of
justification by faith alone are agreed
upon here is like saying that you can
have chocolate chick cookies by putting
sugar and flour and making cookies and
just leave out the one little element of
chocolate chips and think that you still
have chocolate chip
cookies well dear friends you can't have
chocolate chip
cookies without chocolate chips it might
look like a chocolate chip cookie it
might quack like a chocolate chip cookie
but it's not a chocolate chip
cookie but you see the crisis there was
on one
word that one word
imputation and
ironically that in the 16th
century after the largest and most
significan sism occurred in the history
of Christendom with the Protestant
Reformation there were very serious
attempts by very serious Scholars and
leaders to heal that Rift and bring the
parties of the Protestants and the Roman
Catholics back together to reunify the
church lengthy discussions took place
and at
Regensburg the parties came that
close to making
up but what was the sticking
point what was the point that Rome choked
choked on
imputation now is this simply an academic
academic
exercise and technia that has no real
significance for the average person what
make the difference is
simply heaven or
hell that's what difference it
makes the Bible tells us that if the
Lord should Mark iniquity it ask
rhetorically who would
stand I I know I would not
stand if I am judged in the final
analysis at the Gates of
Heaven on the basis of my
righteousness even if that righteousness
Grace I could not
stand at the Council of Trent in the
16th century at the six
session Rome declared that for a person
to be justified they have to have
faith they have to have
Grace and they have to have
Jesus they categorically repudiated pure
pelagianism not then or since has Rome
ever said that a
person can be saved by his own
righteousness without the help of
Grace or without the help of
Faith so we often misunderstand the
dispute but the issue was
this at the Judgment seat when God
declares a person just or
unjust what's the
basis or the
grounds by which God will
declare a person just
and the difference is
this let me back up just a second and say
that when we articulate the difference
between the Roman view of
justification and the reform view of
justification we use a couple of words
they're a little bit
technical the two words are
analytical and
synthetic let me just take a second to
unpack those
terms when we speak of
analytical justification as Rome
does the term
analytical refers to a statement
statement
where when something is predicated of a
subject there is nothing new in the
predicate that wasn't already present in
the subject
for example if I
defined a
bachelor as an unmarried
man what I've predicated of the bachelor
gives you no new information that wasn't
already there in the definition of the word
word
Bachelor if I said that a triangle has three
three
sides what I've predicated of the
triangle has has not given you any new
information has
it if I say 2 and two equals
4 the sum of the matter is identical on
both sides of the equal
sign an analytical statement is a
tautology it's true by
definition nothing new in the
predicate that's not all already there
in the
subject now how does that apply to the
Theology of justification well in the
Roman view which is
analytical it said God will only ever
declare a person
just if and when he subjects that person
to his omniscient
omniscient
examination he
sees that that person really is
just that that person actually is
righteous if he finds one
impurity in that person according as the
most recent uh statements of the Catholic
Catholic
catechism that person must first go to
Purgatory before he can go to
heaven the place of
purging where the impurities and the
draw will be
separated from the gold
and even worse if the person is found at
his death to be guilty of mortal sin he
won't even have the advantage of going to
to
Purgatory that will be bypassed for a
direct trip to
hell if our
salvation and justification is
dependent upon God's final
analysis of the state of our
righteousness at our death let me
declare to you something this
afternoon with absolute
certainty no one in this
room can possibly go to
Heaven There is no gospel
all reformed theology
which means that when God looks at you
on the Judgment
Day he doesn't just see
you but he sees something added to
you now if I say The
Bachelor is a rich
man I've told you something about the
bachelor that's not analytically
contained in the term Bachelor
because not all
Bachelors are rich men they're all
unmarried men but they're not all rich
men do you see now the difference
between the analytical and the
synthetic and again this is not just an
exercise in abstract
theology but our life and death depend on
on
it because the only way I get to
heaven is when God looks at
me he sees something added to
me and that which is added to
me is the perfect
righteousness of Jesus
Christ you see when we say that
justification is by faith alone that's just
just
shorthand theological shorthand for
is by Christ
Alone by a
righteousness that is not found in
me but is reckoned for
me assigned to
me by the forensic Judgment of God when
all who come before him putting their
trust in Christ are covered and
clothed by the imputation ation the
transfer of his
us so how
important is
imputation without it we
perish with
it we enter into the family of
God and live in
well where does this righteousness come
from that becomes our
possession that we bring with us to the
Judgment seat of God again it's not our own
own
righteousness it's nothing that we've
achieved it's what Luke Luther called an
alienum eum an alien righteousness a foreign
foreign
righteousness a righteousness he said
that is
extros apart from us again the
righteousness of Jesus one of Luther's
most famous slogans you've all heard it I'm
I'm
sure is the slogan simus at
pator at the same time just and
sinner this is the gospel in a nutshell
at the very same time right now as I
stand before you I am just in the sight
of God by the imputed righteousness of
my Lord and Savior My mediator Jesus
Christ yet at the same time considered
analytically in and of myself I am still
a sinner
do you get
it the only way Sinners can get past the
gates of
Heaven Is by wearing the
Robes of somebody else's
righteousness that's the good
news the good news
is I'm not going to be
judged on the righteousness of oury
Sproul let them be judged on the
righteousness of Jes Jesus
Christ you take away
imputation you take away justification
by faith
alone you take away justification by faith
faith
alone you take away the
gospel you take away the
gospel you take away all hope for your future
survival now
this imputed
righteousness where does it come
from what is
it how did it
happen well since the ECT
debate and the debate over
imputation we have seen within
historically Evangelical
Christ which really is an attack on the
gospel we make a distinction between the
active and passive Obedience of Christ
during his Earthly
life what does that distinction mean
well me keep in mind it's a woman's
prerogative to change her mind that's a
moral absolute isn't
it and it's the
theologians right to make
distinctions that's what we're about and
so we distinguish between the active and
passive Obedience of
Jesus if you ask a six-year-old
child what did Jesus do for you
you they will often respond in Sunday
school Jesus died on the cross for my
sins and indeed he
imputation that God
transferred my
sin and my
he didn't die for
himself he died for
us as he bore our
sin on the
tree that
transfer is an act of imputation and we
call that Jesus passive
obedience now it's a this distinction
between active and passive is a little
bit fine and uh
and it can be more of a distinction it
needs to be but in any case what is
meant by the
distinction is that in his
suffering and in his
death Jesus
passively allowed
himself to be a
sacrifice the sacrificial
lamb for you
and for
me he
acquiesced into his father's will only
hours after he sweat droplets of blood in
in
Gethsemane asking to have that cup pass from
from him
him
nevertheless he accepted it
it
passively let it
when we speak about the active Obedience of
of
Jesus we are
looking at the
activity of his whole Earthly life not
just a few hours on the cross at golgatha
golgatha
but over his whole
life where his meat and his drink was to
do the will of the
father where he SP spent his entire
life with Zeal for his father's house actively
actively
obeying every jot and tit of the
law that God had given to the human race
in this
regard he served as the second or the new
new
Adam who accomplished that which Adam
failed to
do by Adam's Disobedience the world was
plunged into
ruin but by the son of God's
obedience we are brought safely
home so it is Jesus entire
life of perfect
perfect
obedience to the law of God we don't
like historians tell the story of
Luther's torment as a monk in
erfort where they would have daily confessional
confessional
time the rest of the monks would go in
and say father I've sinned I coveted
some of brother Jonathan's chicken at
dinner last
night and I'm hardly sorry and the
Confessor would say say so many Hill
mares and our fathers and Grant
absolution send them back to
work Luther would go on into the
confessional spend 15 minutes 30
minutes an
hour sometimes two
hours confessing the sins that he had
committed in the last 24
hours he would get his
Absolution and on the way back back to his
his
cell would fall into despair because he
would think of a
sin he failed to
confess oh Luther was trained in
law some people say he was insane and
just simply neurotic and overcome with
these guilt
complexes but here's how Martin Luther would
would
think he would say now let's see the
great commandment is Thou shalt love the
Lord your God with all your mind with
on he said that's the great
commandment wow if that's the great
commandment then it would seem to Luther
that the great
transgression would be to violate the great
commandment and then he would think and he
he
said I have some affection in my heart
for God for my
Lord but all of my
heart I haven't loved God with all of my
heart for a single second in my life not
to mention in the last 24
hours with all of my
mind have I given my entire mind to the
service of
God well Luther would say I've been a
serious scholar I study hard I read a
but often when I'm reading my mind is
gathering wool it's wandering to and
fro I haven't devouted
devoted the entire intellectual
abilities that God has given to me to his
his glory
glory
no now how many days did Jesus live in this
this
world without loving the father with all of
heart how many afternoons did Jesus take
off from loving the father with all of his
mind with all of his
strength you see if he would have failed
to keep the great commandment for one
second in his entire
lifetime he could not have been our savior
savior
because God required a lamb without
blemish not just
righteousness but perfect
perfect active
required there are those who call
themselves evangelicals who
deny the
passive obedience by saying that Jesus
being a substitute to satisfy the
demands of God's justice and
righteousness by
being suffering at the presence of the
hands of the
father that that view
involves God in
I've heard a lot of heresy in my life
but nothing worse than
that or
those who dispute imputation and the
perfect ACT of righteousness of Jesus
because they don't like the distinction
between the Covenant of works in the
Covenant of great which re foreign
people teach that initially the Covenant
that God made with
Adam was a covenant of
works that the promises of benefits that
were given to them were conditioned upon
their fulfilling the proh pro
probationary period by rendering
obedience to the
father and after they
failed if there was to be any
salvation from the first moment that
Adam and Eve sinned and God continue to
fellowship with them and stoop down to
clothe their nakedness
he instituted a Covenant of Grace by
Said by my
grace the seed of the woman will crush
head and since that moment anybody
that's ever been
saved he been saved by
grace and because of that some say well
listen God didn't even have to enter
into a covenant at all with Adam and Eve
and the Very fact that he stooped to
enter a covenant with his creatures was
a gracious thing so why have this
concept of the Covenant of works well in
that sense that's true but again you ask
why these distinctions are made
answer in the final
analysis we are not justified by
faith in the final analysis we're
The Works of
Christ who by fulfilling the Covenant of
Grace through his perfect ACT of
obedience fulfilled the terms of the
people so this theological
dispute that is Raging even as I speak this
afternoon
again is not an abstract issue of
theology I hear it all the time from
people saying I'm not interested in
Doctrine I'm interested in relationships
I'm interested in
Jesus Doctrine divides of course Doctrine
Doctrine
divides when didn't it divide
I'll tell you the first division that Doctrine
Doctrine
produced was when this fellow came into
the Garden of Eden and I'm guessing I
have to help me with her mic I don't
think he was slithering on the ground
yet I think he was probably standing
up and he came to Eve and he
said did God
say that if you eat of the
tree you will surely die
what kind of Doctrine is
that you won't
die what difference does it
make do you realize that the fall of the
human race was a profoundly theological doctrinal
doctrinal
issue who's telling the truth
truth
God or the
serpent so I beg you don't don't never be
be
Cavalier about the truth of
God the truth of God didn't matter
there'd be no reason for us to be here this
this
afternoon there'd be no reason to have a
Reformation Bible
college but it does
matter because Christ
matters and because God
matters and because we
matter to
him let's
pray Our
Father eternity is not long
enough for us to praise you and thank
you for the gift of the perfect ACT of
Jesus for the imputation of his
us and in your
presence thank
you not only for an adequate
one we pray in his
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