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So stay hydrated, stay healthy, and without further ado, let's start the show. You're listening to Clearview Today with Dr. Abadan Shah, the daily show that engages mind and heart for the gospel of Jesus Christ. I'm Ryan Hill. I'm John Galantis.
We are getting closer and closer to Christmas. I know you're feeling good, man. Does the month of November even exist for you? Yeah, of course the month of November exists, but it's also Christmas. That's Christmas Christmas.
That's Christmas. Yeah. Here's the deal: like, we're in the Burma.
So I've never heard October, November. All those are Christmas. They'll prelude up to Christmas.
Well, happy Christmas, guys. It's so good to see you. Thank you for joining us here on the Clearview Today Show. We're here with our host, Dr. Abadan Shah, who's a PhD in New Testament textual criticism, professor at Carolina University, author, full-time pastor, and the host of today's show.
Dr. Shah, starting the week off right here in the studio. Absolutely.
So good to see everybody here today. And Merry Christmas. Merry Christmas. Merry here. You're going to confuse our listeners, man.
That's why we put look, that's why we put the dates in the title so you can know it's not actually.
Well, I guess it's Christmas. It's Christmas in my heart. All right, man. Give us our update. Just a quick reminder before we get started, guys.
Clearview Today is going to be available very soon on TBN. That's true. That's true. That's true. Very excited about this opportunity to join another.
streaming platform when there's a lot of people who are listening a lot of people who rely on tbn plus and we're excited to be one of those voices to have dr shaws a trusted voice on tbn plus so recommend that to your friends and family make sure you download the app so you can follow along that's right we also have some original music well i shouldn't say original music it's worship sessions it's new music from clear view worship it's called cafe sessions volume one and guess what it is out right now it's on iTunes it's on spotify it's on amazon music it's on apple music anywhere digital music is streamed or sold guess what you can find clear view worship We're getting great reviews and we want you who's listening to the Clearview Today show right now. If you love good worship music, go and leave us a good review. That really, really helps us more than you know. Guys, I've got a game for y'all called the Bible Guess It Game. This is one of my favorite things.
This was referenced, recommended to us by one of our church members and it has stuck around for a couple of years.
Now, the point of this game is this. I'm going to give these two gentlemen 15 clues. And the clues start off very, very vague and they get more and more obvious as they go down. But we're trying to see how quickly they can guess this biblical person, place, or thing. Guys, I'm gonna start off with a person, okay?
This is a person. in the Bible. My father in law. Yeah. My father-in-law was salmon.
Boaz? Close. Ruth. Yeah, yeah, it was Ruth. In one.
So I always say this: when you play with Bible experts, when you play with like scholars, they get it in like one. The first one is supposed to be impossible, but they always get it. This is a thing, this is an object, a physical object you could touch. I was on the far side of the desert.
Some sheep were near me. Burning Bush? Yes. Golly. How on earth?
The point of this game is like you're supposed to get. It's crazy. It's crazy. All right. This is another thing.
Okay, okay. This is the thing. God sends me on my way. People can be salted with me. Like salted or assaulted?
Salted. Like like salt, like table salt. Hmm. I appeared. On Mount Carmel.
I can alter? Uh s not not quite, yes, sort of. People followed me around. Oh, fire? Fire.
Fire. Yeah, it's fire. Yeah. Salted? What do you salted?
So the reference for salted is people can be salted with me. That's Mark 949. Oh, okay.
Okay.
Okay, this is a location. It's a place. Let me make sure we. Oh, okay.
A war takes place here. Armageddon? The Valley of Megidda. It like in that in that Uh line. Mazreel Valley?
My floodgates opened. Think about uh, what's that guy's name? Eddie James that's saying that. Jesus mentioned me quite often. Hell?
The opposite. Hey, heaven. Oh, heaven. Heaven. Oh, no, you're right, though.
You're right. I saw Armageddon, I was like, I don't know if Armageddon means on earth or in heaven, but yes. All right, this is a person. No one knows my name. I'm in the New Testament.
I went to to a family feast. My father hugged and kissed me. Oh, like a prodigal son? Prodigal son. Yes, sir.
Yes, sir. I don't think I've ever gotten past the first, like the first little line. All right, last thing. This is a thing. Really, I would say this is a place, but You could tend to.
All four Gospels mention me. The uh Is it a place? I would consider it, it says it's a thing, but I would consider it a place, like a location. All four gospels. All four gospels mention me.
My owner was very rich. Oh, uh, it's a grave. Jesus' tomb. Unbelievable. I mean, yeah, it was the empty tomb.
I don't know why that's a thing. I would consider that a place.
Well, I guess a tomb would be a thing that you own. Yeah. So a place is more like a city or like a location on a map. Both locations we've actually been to. We went to Mount Carmel twice.
Yes. And we went to. What is considered to be the the site of the empty tomb. You know, you really want it to be the garden tomb. If you've ever been to Israel, you know that there's the site of the empty tomb in the um church of the sepulchre.
Right. And then there's the garden tomb. You really want it to be the garden tomb 'cause it's so beautiful. It is, it's gorgeous. It just looks just like it, but unfortunately Probably not.
Yeah. Things aren't always what they appear to be. That's right. That's right. And speaking of that, we, you know, Dr.
Shaw, someone, this really doesn't have anything to do with that at all, but I wanted to segue. Speaking of that, here's a segue that doesn't make any sense. It doesn't make any sense at all. Dr. Shell, we had someone write in yesterday, on Friday.
Well, they actually wrote in weeks ago, but we saved it for Friday's episode on Reformation Day. You know, we talk about the Reformation and we had a great conversation about it, but we wouldn't say that we are reformed. In the sense that Pretty much every other reformed Christian means it. And he wanted to know why that is. And hopefully, in today's show, we can cover that part.
So I want to go back because last show we talked more about the precursors to the Reformation. We talked about what was happening in the monasteries or in the monastic orders, the reform that was coming there. We talked about how, among the lay people with Wycliffe in England and with the Waldensians in the Swiss Alps, or with the Hussites in Bohemia, that people knew something more was needed. I talked about the history of England. People knew something was missing.
They're going to church, doing the things, but there's a priest over there doing his Latin Mass, and who knows what he's saying? Hocus corpus mem. Right? Hocus. This is my body.
But to people in the very back, it's like he's doing his hocus pocus. Yeah. Who knows what he does? Is that where that comes from? That's where it comes from.
For real? Yeah. Oh, that was clever. That was really cool. Hocus corpus mem.
It reminds me a lot of the wizard from the Wizard of Oz. Yes, it is. He's just sort of like this prestigitation: man behind the curtain, don't peek, just pay attention to the smoke and mirrors. Yeah, no one knows actually what's going on. And that's what that's led to that.
sense of uh disenchantment and just uh frustration with The church, and there were people struggling with even giving to the church, right? How should we support it? Why are we supporting this? All the money goes down to Rome. Why are we doing this?
So, that was happening in England, at least we know for sure, and I'm sure was happening in other parts in Germany and other places as well.
So Martin Luther comes along, this is in 1517. He is the name of that Protestant Reformation. I mean, he is the one who. nailed a 95 thesis on the door of the church in Wittenberg, but other things were also happening. But now let's let's shift our focus and talk more about The theology behind it and the emphases that came about.
Through the Reformation rather than just the history or the order, or which thing led to which.
So, what was the big deal of The Reformation.
Well Centrality of God That God is the focus. Not church. Not tradition. God. Also God's glory in his sovereignty, or the glory of God's sovereignty.
I don't want to derail you as soon as, like, I don't, because I know you're getting into it, but would the Catholic Church have disagreed? Like, Like, uh, would they have uh like Explicitly disagreed with that? No, I mean, not if you brought back people like Augustine and others, they would definitely say, But yeah, of course. But just keep in mind, this is a late medieval Catholicism that had degenerated into this stuff. When when it was all about the church, when it was all about the ritual, the tradition.
Right. And also the cult of the saints. Also the cult of Virgin Mary Of course we believe that Mary was God's servant, and wow What a woman of impeccable character and spiritual sensitivity and submission and obedience. I mean, imagine how much she had to give. Taking on the shame and the ridicule and the hurt that she must have suffered from family and friends, and she did what she did.
So, Nobody would ever discount that. But to think that sh think that she comes between you and God That is a problem.
So, Martin Luther's seeing all this other stuff, and he's saying, Hey, this is a distraction. At best, at worst, it's very harmful. We need to get back. Right, and not just him, others have, as was mentioned. in the past show.
Also, Penance. The whole idea of penance, that you can do penance to work your way out of. Sin. Purgatory.
Something that is not biblical but extra-biblical, coming from apocryphal stuff that can. Help you on the other side means this. This life is not final, for you to receive Jesus Christ, you have another chance. And that other chance. Is in the hands of your loved ones as they do things and pay money and burn candles and all that stuff so that you can be sprung out of hell or purgatory on the other side.
All this stuff. was Was getting in the way of the centrality of God, God's glory. God's sovereignty, grace in salvation. That's no, we take it for granted. How are you saved by grace through faith?
Mm-hmm. But for them, it was works. It had become salvation by works. Position because you grow up hearing that it's not works and like it, uh, it it it. It's hard to think that People thought that because you've been told that it's not that your entire Christian life.
Yeah, growing up the way that we've grown up, I mean, it's difficult to put yourself in these shoes, but this was the reality for most people.
So, Martin Luther saying the things and other people saying the things that they said was a huge departure from the status quo. Yeah, because. And it worked for the church because if I can keep you on the hook, if I can. Keep you on this chain where you better do more, or else I will send you to hell. We said, well, they were not saying that.
Well, Not with words necessarily, but With this man-made doctrines? The implications spoke for themselves. People could draw their own conclusions, and that was the conclusion they were ending up at. Of course. That if you don't do this, then you're going to hell.
What did they want people to do? Give money, I guess, to the church. It comes back to money and power and authority. Yeah. Land.
Now, you know, uh again, I'm digressing here, but in England there was a problem with uh the church owning too much land. Yeah. I mean, between there was a A fight between the church and the king over land ownership. And this is going back to the 13th, 14th century. Like how much land does the does and and and even the court system is a priest subjected to the The laws of the land?
Who judges them? No, we do our own judging. You have no jurisdiction over us. I mean, so it became like. uh not just to the common people, but also to the rulers that What do we do with this church?
So it's safe to say that all these things that you're laying out that the church was doing, the reformed theology wanted to go the exact opposite direction. I wouldn't say reformed theology, the reformers. Let's just go with that for right now.
Okay, okay. Uh this is what they were fighting against. Uh yeah. Uh was how are we justified?
Well, but justified. By grace to faith. It's forensic in nature. You are under the wrath of God. Jesus paid the penalty of God's wrath.
Upon himself. He took the penalty of God's wrath upon himself. And now His righteousness, which is God's righteousness, is given to you, is put into your account. That's a core doctrine. of the Reformation.
Don't say reform theology, we can come to that in a moment. Reform tradition, we'll come to that in a moment. But this is the core doctrine of the Reformation. the forens forensic view of justification. Do you see this as a return to the text, return to the absolute?
Absolutely.
As someone said, and it has been said for centuries, this is the doctrine on which the church stands or falls. That's why we give it the title. Reformation, reforming to get back to what it was originally intended to be. That's right, justification.
So, I believe, yes, there are merits and other understanding of the benefits of salvation, like participation, which is that I am now one with Christ. I appreciate the apocalyptic view that the powers of sin, these cosmic powers of sin and flesh and death, are assaulting this world since Adam sinned, but then Jesus came to fight off these powers. And man, we have victory.
Okay, great. I love that too. But at the core of it Justification is forensic, that now I have been set free by the Judge of the universe because his Son has paid the penalty of my sins. That is the heart of the Reformation. Not man.
Not works. But it's the grace of God He's done the whole thing for us. Then there is also the authority of Scripture. Because Previously saw tradition. Or had become all tradition.
So now scripture is once again central: the preaching of the word, the obedience to the word. Was also central. Not the person up there, not the priest who's preaching it, but the but what's being preached has the authority. Right. So, yes, the reformers rejected.
the mass they rejected Purgatory, they rejected the cult of the saints, Virgin Mary, all that kind of stuff. But then there were doctrines that they held on to. Declarations that they held on to, like the Apostles' Creed, the Nicene Creed, the Declaration of the Council of Chalcedon, they held on to those things. They didn't say, Oh, that's all for the Catholic Church, get it out of here.
Now, some of those things in the Apostles' Creed I disagree with, like Jesus went to hell. cannot go along with that. But overall I'm fine with it. Right. Right.
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Now, let's get started. Is there ever a place for? I mean, I know the Reformation kind of broke away from this monolithic church entity and had, you know, smaller, what we have now, denominations. We have different kind of almost like not splintered cells, but, but. Smaller institutions that are the church.
Is there a place for a Sort of centralized authority in the church, or is it better to have smaller local bodies? I I like what the Southern Baptist Convention Has Been and done over the past, I would say, century and a half. Where we are part of the Southern Baptist Convention, we are under the umbrella, we are bound together. but were bound together by a rope of sand. Mm.
So yes, we are accountable. The conventions should be accountable to the churches. Individual churches should be accountable to the convention, but not to the level of, say, the United Methodist Church, where when The churches were not going to go liberal. What did the denomination do?
Well, they made the churches pay for their own Buildings. That's a problem. The Methodist Church did not build those buildings as a people hard-earned money over generations. Grandparents, great-grandparents, parents paid money to buy the land, to buy the church, to keep it up, all this, pay the clergy. And if the church grew, then there were other staff members.
It took care of all those things. But when they said, hey, we're going to pull out because we don't agree with the direction. of the United Methodist Church. And especially be with regards to all the sexual controversy. Regarding male and female, or regarding homosexuality, or all the other stuff.
And The condition was, yeah, sure, you can go. But now here's the amount you have to pay us. Even though the Methodist, the overall United Methodist Church did not front the bill to begin with. Right. It was almost like buy your way out.
But it's like Yeah. is like uh this is your car. But the car is in my name, but you're making the payments. You bought the car, you made the payments. Yes.
But now you want the car to be in your name. She would have paid me the amount of it. Even though you paid for it to begin with. Yes. So that's why I like the Southern Baptist Convention.
Right. We are a Southern Baptist church and I love it because we are bound together with a rope of sand.
So there is accountability. And it's by choice too, right? Like at any moment, if we didn't want to be for whatever reason, if we didn't want to be part of the convention, there's no penalty for that. Right. Right.
I mean, we can pull out. I mean, it's not a good thing. Right, right. I hope it never comes to that point. But if they doctrinally go astray or if they are morally or ethically going astray away from the word of God and the gospel of Jesus Christ, then of course, bye.
Bye. Right. So um Those are some of the key doctrines.
Now, keep in mind that there were other areas where the reformers struggled and they disagreed with each other.
So, like, for example, Luther, you know, he focuses more on God being this powerful God who reveals himself and conceals himself in humility and in suffering. You know, he's this For Calvin it was a little different: God is very real and very powerful and very. Easily seen in history and what he's doing. Not as much mystery. Yeah.
It's an obvious God. That's right. So there's Calvin. I mean, there's Luther and then there's Calvin regarding the nature of God. Then there's Luther more focused on the oneness of God.
Christ Fully God, fully man, but the oneness. Zwingli and Calvin were more focused on the distinction of the two natures. Calvin was very focused on The divinity of Of Christ, or deity of Christ, almost to the sacrifice of his humanity. And that's a problem in Calvin's theology. very much on the deity and not on the humanity.
So Yes, they're reformers, and yet they're disagreeing. Then there was the whole disagreement over law, law and gospel. Where does. How do you What do you do with the law? You know, I did the whole series on the book of Romans and talked about the law.
For Luther, the law was only there to accuse you. You do away with it entirely? Yeah, you cannot keep the law. It's not possible. Law was only there to accuse you, to tell you that you are not able to save yourself.
So That's Luther. Right. Do you think if he was sitting here today and we asked him, so did God give us a bad thing?
So, I disagree with Luther. You're right, right, right.
So, Calvin, on the other hand, he said, the law was given for us to reach moral perfection.
Now, even though we don't keep the law as in sacrificing animals or bringing the grain offering or the peace offering, but we still keep the law.
So if you ask me, you're asking me that question, I say both. I think there's a place where the law accuses you and says, You cannot, you cannot, you cannot keep God's standards. But once you are s saved, You do keep the law in principle even if you don't keep it in the minutia.
Okay.
In the details. Keep the law in the sense that you are following and being obedient to God, but not to the end of salvation. Like, I'm not keeping the law so that I can be saved. I am saved, therefore, I want to keep the law. That's right.
That's what I'm saying where, like, Luther would have just said, no, God gave them the law, and it was not good. Right. Because it it can't do anything good. Right. And he struggled with that.
You know, that this law, I cannot keep it. I cannot keep it. As an Augustinian priest, I cannot keep this law.
So, even though we would call ourselves a product, children of the Reformation. We don't hold with everything that Luther Or Calvin. Or Calvin. Or the other. I mean, the reformers were not infallible.
Right. There are certain things that they held on to that are worth hanging on to, which is justification. As a forensic doctrine, scripture as being the infallible, inerrant, authoritative, sufficient, necessary, clear word of God. We need to hang on to that.
So tell me if it's too early right now in the conversation to jump to today, 2025. But. Would a Reformed Christian today have trouble criticizing Luther's beliefs? Oh So let's come to that. Because reform today in the Western world, when we're talking about America or maybe even England, we lean more towards Calvin than we lean towards Luther.
Okay.
So we will come to that in the last minute or so.
Okay.
So then there's also the whole issue of the church. What makes the church? Augsburg Confession will tell you the preaching of the word properly, correctly, and the administration of the sacraments correctly is what a church is supposed to be.
So to Luther it was As long as you're willing to be in the church, then That's what it is. You're part of the church. You may make mistakes, but that's where God's grace comes in. Big on grace. Calvin would say Oh, hypocrites will creep into the church.
We understand that. That's why. Church discipline is so much more important. Luther was not that big on church discipline, Calvin was. We have to Have accountability, accountability for the priests or the pastors, accountability for the people and put them under discipline under the elders.
Calvin was for that. Luther was not. Luther did not focus on that part. Gotcha. Which is why you see that ideology a lot more today in people who would identify themselves with the Reformed theology.
Right, because reformed theology. In the Western world, especially America, England, America is more Calvinistic rather than Lutheran. That makes sense.
So they focus more on the discipline side of things. I don't because and neither do I go as far as Luther in saying like whatever, you know, hey, God's grace covers you. I would say there is a place for accountability, small group accountability, help people. What do you do when people are doing things belligerently?
Well, hopefully, you can stop them. If not, let them be to you like an unbeliever. But to get into all this discipline I get it, we need it.
Sometimes man's discipline is not always As good as we think it is. Yeah, and it only works in the context of like the local church, right? Like, I mean, you can't outside of the church, you can probably maybe you could kick them out of the church, I guess, but beyond that, you can't discipline grown adults in America, right? How much can you do that? Yeah.
So, what is the distinction? And we may not have time to answer this. What is the distinction between the Reformers and Reformed theology today?
So, okay, great. In the last minute and a half, we can cover this.
So now you have. the situation with the sacraments. There were different views on that. Of course, transubstantiation that the The bread and the juice or wine become the actual physical. Body and blood of Christ.
Of course, that's Roman Catholic, so we walked away from that. Luther would say It's Moor Con which is in with by. The presence of Christ is in with by those elements. Kind of a physical Spiritual presence is happening there. Right?
It doesn't become that, but there is something.
Someone like Zwingli would say more of a spiritual Calvin would say more of a spiritual presence. And Zwingli would would say it's m more of a sign. You know, it's like a symbol, charging. Yeah, and has some some element of um God Christ's presence there. You know, Calvin.
would say that too, spiritual presence there. Then then there is the issue of baptism. But Luther and Calvin were okay with infant baptism. That's why the Presbyterians Church or the Lutheran church, there's infant baptism, Methodist Church. Infant baptism.
Because they're hoping that the covenant made with the parents will sort of extend to the children, that somehow the internal working of the Holy Spirit would also be in them. I feel like that needs its own episode because there's zero. Biblical evidence that that's even appropriate.
So someone had to invent that, right? Right. Yeah. Right, so uh that's where you have there and so So many things, and then came the radical reformers. Radical reformers said no.
You know, we disagree with these things. The baptism should be only for those who actually receive Jesus as their Savior and Lord.
Now tied to the hole God's sovereignty, God's centrality, God's grace and salvation. came the doctrine of election. That's what we've been really focusing on these past few weeks. That's where some of the magisterial reformers were very much for the doctrine of election, magisterial as in Luther, Zwingli, Calvin, Knox, Cranmer type people. Uh we're okay with um collection did he But then the radical reformers were more on the free will, like Baltazar, Hubmeier, and others.
Said, no, we're okay with. people. receiving Jesus as our Saviour.
So for me, I support the Protestant Reformation. I'm a child of the Reformation. Justification, a forensic doctrine. Um Word of God. is central, inerrant, infallible.
But on the other things where even the reformers disagreed. then we are free. to pick what we feel is more biblical. Guys, make sure you join us next time, same time, same place. We're going to be diving into another great topic here on the Clearview Today Show.
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slash give. John, what do you want to close with today? Just definitely want to say go download TBN Plus. We're going to be on there very, very soon. Probably at the start of the year, but maybe even sooner.
So we're going to keep you posted as to when we officially launch on TBN Plus. But go ahead and download the app right now. It's 100% free. Why wouldn't you? That's right.
We love you guys. We'll see you tomorrow. Hopefully you read today.
