ANNOUNCER: Are we being arrogant if we reject the teachings of the early church fathers? How could we, in the 21st century, have more theological knowledge than these men who were closer to the time of Jesus? Hello, welcome to Grace in Focus. Let’s talk about this topic today, and we’re delighted that you’re joining us. Grace in Focus is a radio broadcast and podcast ministry of the Grace Evangelical Society. We come to you weekdays, and our web address is faithalone.org. There you can get information about our online free seminary, our imprint, free magazine, also called Grace in Focus, and about our national annual conference coming up May 18th through the 21st. Make plans to join us. Get all the information you need at faithalone.org. It’s going to be a great time. There are great accommodations. We meet at Camp Copass, beautiful place in Denton, Texas. There’s VBS for the kids, so right now is a great time to get registered. All the information you need at faithalone.org. 

Now with today’s question and answer discussion, here are Bob Wilkin and Ken Yates. 

KEN: Bob, we have a question from John, and this is a question that comes up every now and then. People wonder about it. I guess more than anything, even if they don’t ask the question, but he refers to what he calls early church fathers. You and I talked about that technically, I think, among scholars, they make a distinction between the apostolic fathers and then the church fathers. 

BOB: Yeah, now the word apostolic fathers, apostolic means related to the apostles, so that the apostolic fathers, I believe the definition is, people who either knew the apostles, were discipled by the apostles, or they had a close connection to the apostles. Like for example, they may not have been personally discipled by an apostle or even someone who was trained by the apostles, but they may be discipled by a second-generation person who was in turn trained by one of the apostles. So maybe the apostles taught Clement of Rome and then Clement of Rome taught them, so they might say, okay, that’s still an apostolic father. 

I think the apostolic fathers go from the late first century to the mid- to late second century. And then I think church fathers includes that group, but goes all the way, tell about the late fourth or early fifth century. I think some people would call Augustine or Augustine, depending on how you pronounce it, a church father, even though he was 430, I think, when he was the bishop of Carthage, I think. 

KEN: Probably the one that I hear most often as an apostolic father was Polycarp. You often hear Polycarp was a disciple of John’s and John, the questioner, also puts Clement in there. He says that they were students and co-workers, and that’s the first time I’ve heard that, with John and the apostle Paul. 

BOB: But doesn’t he say something about arrogance, that it would be arrogant? 

KEN: Well, here’s what he says. All right, these guys who lived so long ago and maybe even knew the apostles, a few of them, or even if they knew someone who knew them, he says every single one of of them. All the way through the fourth century, like you said, or fifth century, denied the doctrine of once saved always saved. And they also rejected predestination. Okay, none of them believed in predestination of the Calvinists. And so none of them believed in one saved always saved. They all believed you could lose your salvation. And even they believed in baptismal regeneration. When you read the writings, you had to be baptized to go to heaven. I would say they also taught from my limited reading that you had to take the Lord’s Supper. You had to take the Lord’s Supper to make it into the kingdom. Or if you didn’t take the Lord’s Supper on a regular basis, you would lose your salvation. 

Okay, here’s his question. Are we really, really arrogant to presume that we who’ve come all these years later have more theological knowledge than these guys did? That’s the question. And wouldn’t it be more rational to question what we believe if we don’t agree with what these guys taught? 

BOB: Yeah, so good question. And so here would be my answer. Would it have been arrogant for someone to question what the first century Judaizers were saying to the churches in Galatia? These were first century people. They weren’t second century, third century, fourth century. These were around 50 AD. So within 17 years of Jesus’ resurrection and they’re teaching what Paul calls a false gospel. Would it be arrogant to reject what they said or stupid to accept what they said? 

KEN: I think it’d be biblical to reject it. 

BOB: Right. Right. The same thing would be true of any people who contradict Scripture. So the question is not when how early the apostolic fathers or church fathers wrote, the question is what they wrote accurate. The very fact that they denied the security of the believer shows they lost the concept of John 3:16. Thomas F. Torrance is a church historian and he wrote a book called The Doctrine of Grace and the Apostolic Fathers. And he said to a man they lost the concept of grace. 

Let me tell you, I did my dissertation on repentance as a condition for salvation in the New Testament. And part of that was a study of repentance and church history. And here’s what I found. Did you know, Ken, that at the very beginning after the apostles left the scene, that the proto-Catholic Church, because there really wasn’t a Catholic Church until around the fifth century, but the early versions of the Catholic Church,

KEN: Where they develop bishops and things. 

BOB: Right. So they said there’s no repentance after you’ve been baptized. Your baptism covers all your pre-baptismal sins. And if you commit a mortal sin after your baptism, you’re going to hell. 

KEN: Right. So one time, right. 

BOB: So what do you think people did? 

KEN: Well, I know exactly what they did. They do what I would do. I would wait till I got old and okay, I’m on my deathbed now, then I’m going to repent.

BOB: And now baptize me. So they weren’t baptized until their deathbed, right? Okay. So what did the apostolic fathers do? Well, they said, this isn’t a good idea. 

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BOB: So then what they did is they said you can have one repentance. So you get initial forgiveness of all your pre-baptismal sins. And now you start the Christian life with a clean slate. But if you commit a mortal sin after that, you’re going to hell unless you repent. But you only get one time to repent. So guess what they did. They waited till their deathbeds to repent. So then guess what the apostolic fathers did. They said, this doesn’t make sense. So we’re going to allow multiple repentance. There’s no limit on it. But the priests are going to give them very strict guidelines on what they need to do before they can come back to communion, because according to Catholicism, if you can’t take last rites, if you can’t have communion, you’re going to hell, right? 

KEN: Think of the power they had. And that’s what the issue is. 

BOB: So guess what? That’s where they developed the mourners bench. People would come to church, they would come to mass and they weren’t allowed to partake of the elements. And so they had to sit there and mourn and typically it was six months to a year or a year and a half. And then after that, the priest would say, okay, you’ve done enough penance. Well, eventually guess what happened. Eventually it got to the point where penances, say so many Hail Mary’s and you’re good to go. In fact, during the time of Luther, they were selling indulgences. By around the early 1500s, you could pay money in advance to have an affair. You could say, okay, I’ll pay this much money and I get forgiveness in advance, right? And that drove Luther nuts and led Luther to ultimately question what the Catholic Church was saying. 

So my point in all this is this, the fact that the church fathers were early doesn’t mean they were accurate. I spoke at a brown bag at Dallas Seminary around 20 years ago. I think it was 2005 or 2006. And I was talking about the fact that if we simply believe we have eternal life apart from perseverance, apart from us proving anything. This young man came up afterwards and said, you know what you said today, contradicts 500 years of Christian scholarship. And you know my response to him. I said, why do you say that? Are you talking about Calvinism? And he said, yeah, the Reformation, Calvinism. And I said, but isn’t there 2000 years of Christian scholarship? Shouldn’t you be Roman Catholic? If you want to follow the majority of Christian scholarship, you’re in some little minor tributary, if you’re a Calvinist. You should be a Roman Catholic or Eastern Orthodox, one of the other because they’re the ones that go back 2000 years. So if it’s arrogant to question what the church fathers and the apostolic fathers said, well, then John should be Roman Catholic or Eastern Orthodox. 

KEN: And he might be saying that. And there’s an implied message in this question here. I’m not saying John is doing it. But when people ask the question, let’s take Polycarp. And let’s assume that Polycarp heard, because you hear this. Polycarp heard John the Apostle speak. Okay, let’s assume that’s true. The implied message is, well, then what he says is true, or what Polycarp says is the same thing, John said. But that’s not true. How many examples do we know of people who were a student of someone who doesn’t teach what they taught? 

BOB: Didn’t John even say that in 1 John 2:19, they went out from us because they were not of us. He’s talking about people who came into the Jerusalem church, supposedly believers. And yet they left because they didn’t agree with the doctrine of the Jerusalem church. And the issue is not whether they were born again or not, although I think it’s likely they were not born again. The issue was their doctrine didn’t match up with the doctrine of the Jerusalem church. And this was in the first century.

KEN: Right. And so if Polycarp heard the Apostle John teach— 

BOB: That doesn’t prove anything. 

KEN: Thirty years later he could be teaching something different. 

BOB: When I was in the doctoral program at Dallas, we had to read some of the writings of the church fathers, did you have to do that?

KEN: Yes, I did. 

BOB: I don’t know about you, but I found them appalling. 

KEN: Oh, I did too. Man, you had to jump through so many hoops. You had to do this if you sinned before you could take communion on and on and they had so many requirements. 

BOB: So if you’re concerned about what John’s talking about, try reading some of these people. 

KEN: They’re in English. You can get them in English. 

BOB: Right. And they don’t read it all like Scripture. They read like something which is heresy. And even the Orthodox and Catholic Churches have abandoned some of the teachings. For example, the council of Trent anathematized to anyone who taught justification by faith alone. Well, the Catholic Church doesn’t do that anymore. They want to call Protestants their brethren. 

KEN: How old something is does not determine the truth of it. The truth of it is, does it agree with Scripture? 

BOB: If it did, John, then I’d be telling the truth because I’m old. 

KEN: Well, thanks for the question, John. And until next time, keep grace in focus. 

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On our next episode: what about Ray Comfort’s example evangelism? Come back and join us and until then, let’s keep grace in focus.