Ben Brinkerhoff - Who Do You Say That I Am? - Class 5

Automatically transcribed. Accuracy is good but not perfect, and words are sometimes wrong. Trust the audio over the text.

1. 0:01

   Good morning, brothers, sisters. Well, the Lord Jesus Christ tastes his disciples to Caesarea Philippi. Why? Why is he taking the Caesarea Philippi? It is completely out of the way. It’s all the way up here at the base of Mount Hermon, probably as far away as tired and siding. As far as we know, we hadn’t gone there before, and it never went there afterwards.

2. 0:32

   Clearly this is a significant moment for the Lord Jesus Christ. Why take them to Caesarea Philippi? I suppose if you’re just trying to escape Judaism, there’s lots of places you could go, right? Why all the way up there? Why not stop halfway in between?

3. 0:58

   Caesarea Philippi is located about, as you can see on the map, about 25 miles north of the Sea of Galilee. It was in the territory of the tetrarchy of Herod Philip, close to the border of Syria, as we now understand Syria according to our modern maps. So the city had a very large spring, and from it, this spring was one of the main sources of the Jordan River. So it was a it was a fertile, it was a beautiful area. And because it was so fertile and so beautiful that it became a place for cultish religious practice. In fact, Caesarea Philippi became known and renown for Pagan worship.

4. 1:55

   And as you can see on this map behind us we have here the Temple of Zeus. And over here we have the Temple of Augustus, the Imperial cult. And in between we have the court of Pan. You’ll you’ll notice about Pan Pan is 1/2 goat, half man figure and he was the God of nature, the God of shepherds, the God of the wild.

5. 2:26

   He’s often depicted with a flute, which are now known as the Pan pipes. He was not a God that you would worship in temples like you might worship Augustus or or Zeus. You notice that there’s no temple there. He’s he’s worshipped in wild open places, especially caves or grottos. There’s one on the northern face of the Acropolis in Athens.

6. 2:55

   There’s a cave and there is a shrine to Pan there. And of course, when they saw this cave, they thought of Pan and they devoted an area to his worship there.

7. 3:10

   So as we mentioned in Caesarea Philipa, you have this large spring and a spring flowing from it and you have a cave, and that is considered, or was considered the gate of Hades. That cave, it was very difficult to know the bottom of it. In fact, probably in those days, if you ever saw the bottom of it, you’d never get out right. So it is A and the bottom of it was hidden because it was totally dark.

8. 3:38

   So for them it was as if it was bottomless and therefore going down into the endless abyss and something that that the Pagan worshippers would consider to be a gate into Hades. Now Caesarea Philippi was renamed by Herod Philip. Before it was called Caesarea Philippi, it was given a different name. It was given the name Panius after this God Pan, but he renamed it in 80.

9. 4:13

   No, excuse me, BC 19 to reflect the city’s political loyalty to Rome. He didn’t do it, but Herod the Great renamed it. So emperor worship was something that was practiced very widely in the Roman Empire. Citizens were required to venerate the Roman Emperor as a divine figure, as a savior, as it were.

10. 4:39

    Subjects would offer sacrifices and they would proclaim allegiance to the Caesar at these temples. They would call him Lord, they would call him savior. It it almost wasn’t as much of an act of worship as it was an act of political loyalty. It was maybe the most truly Roman thing you could do right is is go to the, the the shrine or the temple of the, of the, of the Caesar and to offer a sacrifice. And of course, beyond this, we have the the temple of Zeus, the the king of the Pagan gods as a focal point of the Pagan religion in the place.

11. 5:22

    So, So what I’m really getting at is Caesarea Philippi interestingly brings together three things. Have you noticed the three things? Maybe I’d just point out to you the three things of this city seems to be almost uniquely capable of pulling together in one place. See, firstly you have Roman tradition. Secondly you have the worship of men. Now why would I say the worship of men to worship Pan is the worship animal instinct?

12. 5:58

    Now maybe I haven’t painted the picture clearly enough to you to understand that, but if you want to do some research on your own about the God Pan, you would understand He’s almost always portrayed sexually. If you didn’t know. That’s why his legs are always spread open all the statues, right? It’s not an accident just to the God Pan is is a God of sexuality, but not sexuality.

13. 6:23

    Like Aphrodite may be the God of love and sexuality. Sexuality in terms of it’s a natural instinct and and of course you can see it. He’s half man, half animal. He’s a beast. And there’s something about that that men thought they ought to worship. And so they create a man, or God, I should say, half man, half beast, and to worship it so.

14. 6:53

    So what you have here is you have worshiping the Caesar, and then you have worship of men. And then of course you have Pagan religion. You have all three of those things brought together in one place, and interestingly, the Lord Jesus Christ brings his disciples here.

15. 7:20

    It was in the shadow of of these institutions that Peter’s going to say that you are the Messiah, the Son of the living God. That is a deeply unroman thing to say.

16. 7:41

    And he made that declaration in Caesarea Philippi. It was in that place that Jesus said that the gates of Hades will not prevail against his ecclesia. What he’s saying is that the true ecclesia, the true ecclesia, the true ecclesia of called out ones, would not succumb to Roman tradition, would not succumb to the worship of men, would not succumb to paganism if it was his ecclesia, that this ecclesia was going to go out into the Gentile world in which there are many lost and many hungry.

17. 8:29

    But for that ecclesia to survive, it would not succumb to Roman tradition, it would not succumb to the worship of men, it would not succumb to Pagan religion, or else if it did, it would be destroyed in Hades. So it’s not without some irony. Then I, I, I want you to see the irony to, to me, the irony just jumps off the page. It’s not without some irony that based on the reinterpretation of Matthew 16, men have built a religion that is almost the perfect combination of Roman tradition, the worship of men, and Pagan ritual.

18. 9:33

    I wonder if that’s a coincidence, or maybe Jesus knew. What do you think? The implication of the words of Jesus is that any religion that bases itself on anything but an accurate and true understanding of who he is will descend into Hades. Now I want to give you a couple of examples in the scripture of religious systems that descended into Hades.

19. 10:16

    And funny, they all have to do with stones, isn’t that It’s a little interesting thing. I don’t know if there’s something to that or not, Right. But but examples of religious systems that descended into Hades. Let’s, let’s start with this one.

20. 10:32

    So here is Caesarea Philippi. Now, what city is Caesarea Philippi? Very close to Dan. What was it? What happened to Dan? There’s a golden calf and Dan wasn’t wasn’t there right. It’s it’s basically a short walk. I mean, I, it’s not that far. That’s maybe 2 kilometers. So 2 kilometers away for where the word Jesus Christ was, you know, almost seeing distance was the ruins of where Jeroboam had set up a golden calf. Now the other where’s the other places to have the golden calf? Bethel.

21. 11:12

    OK, so now why did he set up the why did he think to set up that Cath in Bethel? Well, you can say, well, it’s kind of in between Samaria and Jerusalem. But there might be another reason he chose Bethel.

22. 11:27

    I don’t know if he’s this clever, but if he was this clever, this might have been his reason for setting it up in Bethel was because in Bethel Jacob had a vision and interesting what he says in this vision in Genesis chapter 28 and verse 15, God says to him, this is the Lord speaking through an Angel, says I am with thee Jacob, and will keep thee Jacob, in all places where thou goest. Now what do you think?

23. 12:01

    What do you think? God’s saying? He’s saying, Jacob, wherever you go, I’m with you. If if you’re about to flee up to the 10s of Laban, I’m with you there. If if you’re fleeing away from Esau, I’m with you there. If you come back to your father Isaac, I’m with you there. I’m with you.

24. 12:19

    With all places you go, I’m with you. But what, how does Jacob interpret this, this vision and sign from God? Well, interestingly, he says this. How awesome is this place, Bethel? This is none other than the House of God, which is what Bethel means by the way. House of God, this is the gate of heaven.

25. 12:48

    Bethel, the gate of heaven. This is the place where heaven and earth meet. And there’s a gate there. There’s a ladder as it were, or staircase, right? This is this is the gate of heaven. OK, but was Bethel the gate of heaven? Brothers and sisters, what did God say that Bethel was the gate of heaven? Because what would happen there?

26. 13:16

    Well, we know in Second Kings what Josiah did to that place. Because of the abominations set up by Jeroboam, Josiah broke in pieces its stones, crushing them to dust. Also he burned the asherah he sent and took the bones of the tombs, and he burned them on the altar, and he defiled it.

27. 13:44

    So what Josiah did is he took something that was erroneously called the Gate of Heaven, and he made it into the gate of Hades. He broke its stones, he ground them to dust. See, Jeroboam used God’s name and proclaimed that this golden calf had delivered his people from Egypt, and he called it Yahweh.

28. 14:09

    And it sounded right. He’d have some truth to it, didn’t it? Like God had Yahweh had delivered them from Egypt. There’s some truth to that, but he mixed it with air. But did Jeroboam build a religious system over which the gates of Hades would have no power? Well, let’s look at another example in Matthew 24 verse 2, they’re looking at all the impressive buildings of the temple from the Mount of Olives

29. 14:50

    and looking at all of that. Jesus says, you see all these, do you not? I say to you, there will not be left here 1 stone upon another that will not be thrown down.

30. 15:08

    You see, brothers and sisters, the gates of Hades will prevail over any building or institution that is founded on men, that is founded on their wisdom. There’s no system, it seems, that men can’t corrupt, no building that they create that cannot be burned down. The stones of Bethel are ground to dust, the stones of the Second Temple abandoned by God because it was a den of thieves. Not one stone was left upon another. And we can build the foundations of our faith on the wrong stones.

31. 15:55

    What happens when one of our prominent brethren is caught in some heinous sin? Happens. What happens when one of our brethren launders money? It’s happened. What happens when there’s some in the faith that betray us? What have we been building on?

32. 16:23

    If we build on men, if we build on emperors, if we build on fleshly ideas, ideas, the sorts of things that men savor, the gates of Hades is going to prevail over the ecclesia because it’s no longer Christ ecclesia.

33. 16:48

    And do you know what the gates of Hades have to prevail over those systems? Do you know why? Because God created death to house those systems. That’s why you created death. Death has to house them because that’s where they belong. So the question we’re being asked is what sort of stones are we building on, Brothers, sisters? Because if the stones are man made, they’re not going to last. But what will last, what the gates of Hades will not prevail against, is faith that the Lord Jesus Christ is the Messiah, the Son of the living God.

34. 17:41

    And the reason that Hades will never prevail against that is because it’s truth. An ecclesia of believers with that faith will live because they are found in the Book of Life. In fact, they are a pillar and not the temple of Herod and not the buildings of Jeroboam. They are a pillar in the temple of Jesus’s God.

35. 18:11

    And Hades will never prevail against that. To such the second death has no power. But we asked a question, How did the Catholic Church so corrupt these words, these words in Matthew 16? How did they corrupt them? And to find out how the Catholic Church has so corrupted the words of Matthew 16, I got to tell you a story. It’s a story from history.

36. 18:48

    Does anyone like history? Oh, hey, more than just two of us, really. Who? Who doesn’t like history? Oh, you’re all shy now, Right? Right. So, so we, we all. So it’s OK if I tell you a story from history, right? You know, when I, when I was younger, I wanted to be history teacher. So I’m just going to pretend I’m a history teacher now. So the story begins in 1870.

37. 19:15

    Can anyone think on the top of their mind anything interesting happened in 1870? Oh, yeah. Well, you know where the story’s going. Wow. You. You are smart One. You’re going to get an A+ in my class. Right.

38. 19:29

    All right, So the story begins in 1870. And you have to understand, in 1870, the world outside the Vatican is totally in upheaval. That is, that is probably understating the case. So. So of course, by 1870, the Catholic Church for over 1000 years, going back to the time of Charlemagne around the year 800, had had such extreme power over nations and over tribes and influence over the kings and consciences that it could hardly understand what was happening to it.

39. 20:06

    It looked around and it had no defenders. There’s no one to help it. The the the Italian unification movement under Mazzini Garibaldi and Count Cavour was was taking the the the the city states of Italy 1 by 1 and uniting them in a combined government. But that’s the only one part of the story, because it, of course, the Enlightenment had been eating away at the Catholic Church’s grip on the hearts and minds of the people. There’s a rise of liberalism and of rationalism. And they were, they were, they were debating and rejecting the idea that the Catholic Church was an institution that spoke for God.

40. 21:03

    The Church had thrived on being able for time, time and a half a time to suppress dissent with violence because that’s what it had always done. Anytime anyone had had tried to put the church in its place, where the the church would simply raise using its political power and its political connections. It would create armies and it would create Gestapo’s that would go out and it would just suppress dissent and suppress the people.

41. 21:43

    But it could no longer do that because it didn’t have political allies willing to come to its aid for the first time in many years. Now, the man at the, oh, by the way, this is the Papal States after the Treaty of Vienna in 1815. So kind of like the Treaty of Vienna was how Europe figured out how to organize itself post Napoleon. OK.

42. 22:12

    And obviously a vast area and this much was annexed in 1860 and that was annexed in 1870. In fact, by the time you get to 1870, the Italian armies are sitting right outside Rome. So they’ve taken, they’ve taken everything else. Now, the man at the middle of the crisis, who’s that? Well, that man is Pius the 9th. Now, Pius the 9th was determined to hold on to power at all costs.

43. 22:50

    So as he’s seeing his political dominion crumble, he will not admit defeat. He has no army to come to his aid. There are no politicians or kings or emperors in Europe willing to help him.

44. 23:11

    So what is he going to do? Well, he has a couple options, right? This Pius the 9th, he could reform or he could centralized power. So what he does is he calls for a ecumenical council. Now, there hadn’t been an ecumenical council in the Catholic Church up to this point for over 300 years.

45. 23:43

    So these things weren’t maybe not as common as they were previously. So he calls the bishops and archbishops and Cardinals from all over the Catholic world. He calls them to Rome while the armies are sitting outside the Vatican. He figures if I lose political dominion then I’m going to claim my spiritual dominion is absolute. That’s the thinking of the man.

46. 24:20

    If I lose one, I’m going to double down on the other one. So at this Vatican Council, he seeks to consolidate power, power in the hands of the papacy. Now, to pull this off, he needs a passage that appears to come directly from Christ. So giving coming from Christ kind of gives it a bit of divine legitimacy.

47. 24:51

    However, it needs to be based on tradition rather than scholarship. I mean, how have we traditionally understood this passage? That way, whenever scholarship about the passage exists, I can just sweep it away because of course, we’ve been interpreting it this way for many, many years. So scholarship has no place in this discussion.

48. 25:13

    So he needs that too. Thirdly, he needed something that couldn’t be overridden by other church authorities or councils. Like, it’s something that was absolute. And lastly, he needs something that definitely couldn’t be negotiated or contested politically. It’s not something that a politician could say or do anything about.

49. 25:34

    So with these four requirements, the Council would declare the First Vatican Council 1870 would declare that Peter among all the apostles was the supreme apostle. According to this interpretation, Peter was given universal jurisdiction. Peter was given infallible authority and the power of perpetual succession.

50. 26:07

    And from these ideas emerge the idea of papal infallibility, which asserts that the Pope, under special conditions, is incapable of air. Now the derivative, according to the Catholics, of all these ID’s is Matthew 16.

51. 26:32

    I say unto thee, Thou art Peter. Upon this rock I will build my ecclesia or church as they would translate it right, and the gates of hell should not prevail against it. And I will give unto thee the keys of the Kingdom of heaven. And whatsoever thou shalt bind on earth shall be bound in heaven, and whatsoever thou shalt loose on earth shall be loosed in heaven. And you see that we’ve been thinking about these symbols. What do they mean?

52. 26:58

    Well, we’re not the only ones that have done that. The Catholic Church, with its billions, have thought about these verses as well, and they’ve come to perhaps separate interpretations. Young people, you might think that Bible study isn’t important in terms of understanding symbols. You might look at a passage which has symbols like a rock. You might say, it does it really matter how we interpret this symbol?

53. 27:30

    It does. It matters because this is how the Catholic Church interprets them. Peter’s the Rock. In their view, the Catholic Church itself is founded not on Christ.

54. 27:51

    The Church is not founded on Christ. It is founded on Peter. Peter personally. And from this premise, the Church argues that Peter was appointed as the universal head of the Church and has authority over all Christians. More to say, I’m not that in a moment. Secondly, what does it mean to bind and loosen? Well, the Catholic Church further claim that Peter alone has the authority to bind and to loose. That is, Peter could make decisions that Heaven was required to ratify.

55. 28:41

    So this place is Peter at the place of supreme jurisdictional authority, with Heaven basically following earth’s lead. And the Church interprets binding and loosening as a license for the Pope as Peter’s successor, basically to declare doctrine or issue commands that heaven’s obliged to accept whether or not they have scriptural precedent. That’s their interpretation. And thirdly, it may be the most bold, because there’s nothing you can.

56. 29:20

    There’s nothing about Matthew 16 that says anything about this. The baby, the bulls claim, is that the authority was given to Peter and transferred to his successors, which they then

57. 29:33

    considered to be the bishops of Rome, creating an unbroken chain of papal authority. Now, Matthew 16 is quoted often in their official documents from Vatican 1.

58. 29:52

    You won’t be surprised here. And this is one of those quotes. The document that outlines these ideas is called Pasteur. I can’t really speak Aladdin, so excuse me, Alternis. OK. And we read there. For I I love how they I love how they begin this for none could deny. As if we’re not really interested in anyone else having an opinion here.

59. 30:23

    For none could deny. And it is known to all ages. So yeah, again, it rests on tradition, not scholarship. Renanca deny and is known to all ages, that the holy and most blessed Peter, the Prince and head of the Apostles, the pillar of the faith and the foundation of the Catholic Church, received the keys of the Kingdom from our Lord Jesus Christ, the Savior and Redeemer of the human race. And that to Him was given the power of binding and losing, which power is perpetuated in the Roman Pontiffs who are his successor.

60. 31:01

    So again, here’s a summary. Peter is the Prince and head of the Church, the Apostles and the foundation. The power of binding and loosening was given to Peter alone, proving that he has jurisdiction over all Christians. And lastly, this authority is perpetuated in the office of the Roman Pontiff, creating an unbroken chain of papal authority.

61. 31:32

    Now look at this and I think, where do I start? Where do, where do I? Where do I start? Maybe I should show that Peter never ruled over the over the church. For example, did Peter preside at the Jerusalem conference? No. Did did Peter claim to have universal authority over all decisions when Paul confronted him in Galatians chapter 2?

62. 32:01

    No, I thought maybe I could give you a quote from Peter. I mean, I don’t know, maybe you want to cross reference this quote because you wouldn’t need to cross reference this quote unless you had this Catholic ID in your head. But if you did, this would be a useful cross reference because this is how Peter refers to himself in relation to others and in relation to Christ. Now that’s useful.

63. 32:26

    How does Peter, after Christ has ascended into heaven, how does Peter refer to himself in relation to others and in relation to the Lord Jesus Christ? Well, there’s a passage for Peter does that. Do you know what passage that is?

64. 32:48

    It’s first Peter chapter 5, verses 1 and 2. He says the elders which are among you, I exhort, who am also an elder. Any does he? Is he claiming any special authority there? By the way, he’s one among many, isn’t he? Feed the flock of God, which is among you, taking the oversight thereof. And when the chief shepherd shall appear Now, who does he think is really in charge?

65. 33:21

    Shall ye shall receive a crown of glory that fadeth not away. So I thought that was helpful maybe or or maybe we need to go to some place where where where Jesus very clearly does not provide the authority to bind and loosen to be Peter’s alone authority, but is given to all the apostles because Matthew chapter 18 verse 18 says very nice saying to you what’s there.

66. 33:43

    I I can talk like a text in here whatsoever ye all shall bind on earth and shall be bound in heaven and whatsoever ye all see, you know what’s up with English? Why don’t we have y’all? It’s a very useful turn of phrase, isn’t it? Right. I mean, I mean, I might be talking to you or might be talking to you all right, like like obviously I actually, as much as we might sort of mock it, it’s very, very useful to know whether I’m talking to you or you.

67. 34:14

    Like that is that is a that most other languages do not have that problem. Greek doesn’t have that problem and Latin doesn’t have that problem. Even Hebrew doesn’t have that problem, but English, we need a y’all if you ask me, right? So I’m just going to add the y’all in here so you guys all understand what I’m talking about right? Barely.

68. 34:35

    I barely I say unto you, whatsoever ye all shall bind on earth shall be bound in heaven. Whatsoever ye all shall loose on earth shall be loosed in heaven, right so that that word is is a plural you in the Greek so so Jesus is is is giving this power to all the apostles. And in fact, perhaps if you look in the context of Matthew chapter 18, maybe giving it to ecclesial leaders in terms of dealing with problems of conflict within the ecclesia. Anyways, that aside, maybe we should simply point out the personal nature of what Jesus was saying in Matthew 16, because you’ll notice that there’s nothing in Matthew 16 about office.

69. 35:30

    In fact, Jesus seems to go out of his way to not give Peter a title in Matthew 15. He doesn’t say Blessed are you Peter, Prince of the Apostles? That’s a title. Blessed. Are you Peter, head of the ecclesia? That’d be a title. Now. Now, a title you could reasonably pass along to a successor, but what does he say?

70. 36:02

    Bless you, Peter. What is it? This means you talk, right? Bless you, Peter Barjona, Right? It’s almost as if he’s saying I’m going to make this so specifically you that no one else can claim this title. Do you see that he doesn’t give Peter a title? He doesn’t just say Peter because maybe Peter becomes a title stone. It’s Peter, son of this man, specifically you. I’m giving you these keys, but the one thing I most want to focus on is the idea of binding and loosening because that seems to have the largest implications here. So how would binding and loosening be understood in Jesus day?

71. 37:03

    So binding and loosening was a rabbinic term. You know that because Jesus uses it that way when he calls it says to the rabbis in Matthew chapter 23, you bind burdens grievous to be born. OK, so binding or or or or we read in, in Isaiah 58 yesterday where it says, what’s the, what is the Sabbath I desire? What’s the fastest I request to unloose the burdens, unbind the burdens.

72. 37:34

    You see, binding is this idea of taking an animal, maybe like a donkey that carries a lot of weight and you bind to the donkey the weight. And then after the end of the journey, you unloose the weight from the donkey. So it’s a burden. And So what happens is a rabbinic term for interpreting a passage in a way that requires obedience, or interpreting a passage in a way that relieves the requirement of obedience. OK, binding and loosening.

73. 38:09

    It’s basically saying it’s a way of interpreting Scripture. Now, what’s important about that? Well, here’s what’s important about that. Scripture is the thing you’re interpreting.

74. 38:24

    Even if you complain about the Pharisees interpretations, one thing is going to be common in all their interpretations and that is is that they are interpretations of scripture.

75. 38:44

    Do you see that Scripture is prescient and now I am interpreting it to bind or loosen? That’s how Jesus disciples would have understood it. I’m interpreting Scripture. How did the Catholic understand that? Well, Peter or his assessors can bind or loose of their own volition independent of Scripture. And heaven will ratify whatever the Pope commands, even if it’s not based on God’s Word.

76. 39:19

    That’s their interpretation. You see how that’s very different in one Scripture’s at the heart. The other is it doesn’t really matter what scripture says.

77. 39:35

    The decision is itself precedent. OK, well let’s look at the another example here in Jesus Jesus day, Scripture is the ultimate precedent. Pope decides and heaven in a sense rubber stamps.

78. 39:57

    So you see there, I just want you to understand that these are very different understandings of what binding or loosening might might mean. But we have the words in Matthew chapter 16 which almost give the idea that the Catholic idea is the right one. Because let me just let me just throw back up on screen and see if you see the trouble.

79. 40:24

    English Whatsoever thou shalt bind in earth shall be bound in heaven. Whatsoever thou shalt loose in earth shall be loosed in heaven. So it feels like there’s an order here. It feels like something’s happening on earth. And then And then what’s happening is heaven’s going. Yeah. Good. Boo. You’ve decided. I agree. You bound it here, I’m now going to bind it in heaven.

80. 40:55

    You lose it here, I’m now going to lose it in heaven. Like there’s an order. You see that now? Interestingly, the Vulgate, which is the Latin translation of the Greek text which is made by Jerome in the in the three hundreds, reads the same way. Earth, heaven, earth, heaven. Like there’s an order. Now, young people, have you ever, ever listened to a brother up here talking and he’s using like he’s he’s interpreting scripture and what he’s doing is he’s going, well, wait, we need to look at the Greek.

81. 41:36

    And even worse, ever seen a brother go like we need to look at the tenses of words in the Greek. Now that’s when your eyes really roll back into your head, isn’t it? Right. You’re like, I’m now looking at Greek tenses. Are you kidding me? How could I possibly need to look at Greek tenses to understand scripture?

82. 41:56

    Am I? Am I alone in being that sarcastic? I know that some of you are that sarcastic, especially that row and so. So I am now going to prove to you that if you do not understand Greek grammar, you’re stuffed, because that is not what the Greek says. Now, young people, raise your hand if you know what the Greek says.

83. 42:27

    Oh, would you like a lesson in Greek? Right. I’m about to go to Greece. I got to try this out here. All right, So what does it say in the Greek? Well, it says this.

84. 42:43

    Whatever you bind on earth will have been bound in heaven. Whatever you loose on earth will have been loosed in heaven. Now, of course, that’s not good English. That’s very, very awkward English, because the English doesn’t have the Greek tense that’s being used here.

85. 43:08

    So what? Neither does the Latin. So what do you do? Do you just have a really awkward translation? Well, translator’s dilemma, isn’t it? So the translators do as they choose that clean up the English in order to make it sound better. But by doing that, they destroy what the Greek’s actually getting at.

86. 43:35

    In fact, if you look at a, there’s some translations of the Greek into English that are literal. For example, not to be clever about this, but there’s Young’s literal translation. That’s one of them, right? But there’s others. So I, I pulled the other three literal translations and say, what are the literal translations of the Greek to the English?

87. 43:57

    Actually say Weymouth will have already been bound in heaven. How about Moffett will already will be already bound in heaven, or Young’s literal shall be having been bound in the heavens? You sort of see how they’re different now. What’s the implication of these literal translations relative to what you might read in the King James? This can easily be interpreted as what you’re doing on Earth will then be ratified in the heavens. This will not allow for that.

88. 44:42

    What this says is what you’re doing on earth will already have been done in heaven. Basically what it’s saying is that the heavens will have already done it and you are now going to align to the heavens. Now the, the again, we looked at this the other day, but a good example is the Jerusalem Council in circumcision. Now, when they decided that circumcision was no longer required for the Gentile believers, do you think heaven went, oh, that’s a good idea, or would we understand Colossians to have interpreted for us that Christ’s death was the putting off of the flesh?

89. 45:33

    In other words, heaven had already figured this issue out. There’s no doubt the flesh had to be put off, but the means by what it which it was put off was changed. Heaven had already done it. So what was earth doing aligning to what had already bound in heaven?

90. 45:55

    That’s the truth. But do you know what a better example is? So, so let’s just say that Peter’s giving this power that whatever he decides, heaven’s going to ratify. So what we really need then is we need a test case. The test case is Peter and Heaven disagree. And if Peter and Heaven disagree, but then Heaven has to acquiesce to Peter, then it shows for certain that Heaven is going to rubber stamp Peter’s ideas. But if Peter and Heaven disagree and Peter has to come along to Heaven’s interpretation, then we know that Peter has to align. Where?

91. 46:40

    Where will we find a test case like that? How about Matthew 16 with Matthew 16? Give us a test case. Because what happens in Matthew 16? Well, Matthew 16, Jesus is going to reveal to Peter what the work of the Messiah really ought to be. He’s going to be, he’s going to be taken by the the original authorities, he’s going to be killed and he’s going to be resurrected the third day.

92. 47:12

    And So what happens then is Peter took him and began to rebuke him, saying be it far from these. So this is our test case. Peter and Heaven disagree. Peter and Jesus disagree about what the role of the Messiah should be. They are, in a sense, interpreting those passages differently. Peter has an interpretation of a messianic scripture.

93. 47:35

    Jesus has an understanding of messianic scripture. And I wonder who’s going to win this little contest? It says there get behind me Satan, thou art an offense to me for their savourest. Not the things that be of God, but the things that be of men. Huh. When Peter and Heaven disagree, who aligns right there in Matthew 16? Why?

94. 48:18

    Because I think the Spirit knew we needed a a a good example just in case we didn’t understand this properly. So the idea is simply this. When Peter’s views clash with God’s will, it was heaven that prevailed, not Peter. The record leaves no doubt Heaven binds Peter lines, not the other way around. Clear to everyone.

95. 48:54

    Should I take it to Rome? Think they’ll listen? So the Catholic Church’s insistence that Peter’s the rock upon which the Church is built, what it does is it shifts the foundation of the ecclesia from a perfect man to a sinful man. Do you see that? So when I, when I build the ecclesia on Peter, now the whole ecclesia is built on a sinful man. Now, not that Peter was not a man that was saved and that had been cherished, but he was a Sinner. And by doing this, you allow the edifice of the ecclesia or the Church now to be in men’s hands.

96. 49:48

    And that allows a system where man, not Christ, wields the dominion. It consolidated power in the hands of men. It’s a very important shift. By the way, in our cliches. Our cliches are not built on men. Never forget that, young people, there’s going to be brothers and sisters that let you down. It will happen. We’ve all been let down by people. We don’t want to talk about it sometimes. We’ve all had people that have let us down, people that we looked up to, that made such huge mistakes, sometimes leaving the truth altogether, sometimes harming people that we love. It happens.

97. 50:41

    We do not build our faith on sinful men. We do not do it. We will never do it. It must be built on Christ. The foundation of the ecclesia is not Peter or any man that’s sinned, it’s on Christ the chief cornerstone. He’s the rock on which the ecclesia is built. The authority to bind and loose rests in faithful preaching of the Gospel that aligns to heaven, not the other way around.

98. 51:12

    In other words, Thy will be done on not as it is in. Do you see how the order goes? Or is Jesus prayer just a contradiction to Matthew 16? So that brings us back then to September 1870. The Italian army marches into Rome and the Pope’s temporal power is gone for good. Now, when the Pope and the papacy lost temporal power, Christadelphians had a lot to say about this.

99. 52:10

    And in all, and then you can go back into the and read the Christadelphian magazine in 1870, of which I haven’t read it in, in, in entirety, but I’ve read snippets of it. And there’s a lot of commentary in our community on what’s happening in 1870. I mean, it’s interesting because we look at things in history. We don’t have any commentary from our community on it, but this is one of those instances where we do and our community over and over and over again the the writers are saying, Robert Roberts especially go back to Daniel 7, go back to Daniel seven.

100. 52:48

     Look at Daniel 7. Think, well, what, what is it about Daniel Seven that they want us to pay attention to our, our, our founding pioneer brother? Well, they especially say that we ought to look at this passage. Now you think to yourself, what does this passage have to do with with what all the things that has happened about the Pope losing power, etcetera.

101. 53:10

     It says there and the little horn, Does anyone know what the little horn is? Interpretation of the little horn in Scripture. Any young people? What do you think it is? Yeah. OK, So you’re getting close. It’s it’s it’s really the papacy. And the little horn shall speak great words against the Most High, and shall wear out the Saints of the Most High, and to think to change times and laws, and they should be given into his hand until a time and times and the dividing of time. But the judgement shall sit, and they shall take away his dominion to consume and destroy it unto the end. OK, so why are the pioneer brethren in our community saying, Hey everyone, pay attention to this passage. Well, we got to figure out what time times and dividing a time is right.

102. 54:03

     Now, again, that looks obscure. What could that possibly be? I’m going to give you a suggestion that our pioneer brethren believed and I think is very well supported, OK, They would say a prophetic year is 360 days.

103. 54:23

     OK. So time, time and half a time might be considered as one year, 360 days times or two years of 720 days and half the time or half a year which is 180 days. Now if I add together 36720 and 180, I get 1260. You followed that so far, everyone get that? OK, maybe that’s an idea of what this means.

104. 54:50

     Now it just so happens that 12160 days, if I have 30 months, 30 day months, that’s 42 months. This dividing 1260 by 30, I get 42. Now there’s a couple interesting passages. One passage is Revelation 13, verse 5. It says, and there was given unto him a mouth speaking great things. Gosh, where do we hear about a mouth speaking great things by the way? Oh yeah, Daniel 7 just sang and blasphemies and power was given unto him for how long?

105. 55:26

     42 months. Interesting. 42 months. Well, Daniel said time, time and half a time, but this passage says 42 months. So maybe this this whole idea of one year, 2 years and half a year is got some merit. OK, well there’s another passage and I will give power into my 2 witnesses and they shall prophecy 1203 score days.

106. 55:53

     Where do we see that 1203 score? Oh, yeah, that was our understanding of maybe what time times in half the time is. OK, Well, so I’m just suggesting to you that maybe this time times in half the time is 1260. OK, Well, if I have a day for a year, and that’s maybe established by some of these passages you see right in front of you. 1870, the papacy loses Dominion. What do I mean by Dominion?

107. 56:26

     What’s Dominion? Dominion’s political power. So in 1870, the the papacy lost all its political power. Well, what happened about 1260 years earlier? The Byzantine impair for the first time. And he was focused and he was a lousy emperor, by the way, one of the worst they ever had. Not because of this decision.

108. 56:48

     Well, maybe because of this decision, he’s the first person that ever said the Bishop of Rome was the head of all the churches. OK so for the first time the Bishop of Rome is given by political power, authority over all the church, and 12160 years later the Papsi loses all political power. Now I would just suggest to you that that’s the time period in which the Saints were worn out.

109. 57:28

     The Catholic Church hasn’t had much power to persecute you since 1870, but you should just read up on how the Catholic Church would have persecuted you before 1870 because it is a difficult story to read. It’s in Alpes, Israel. Read about the Huguenots for example. Read the section about the two witnesses. You don’t understand what it’s like to hold your beliefs without persecution. I don’t think you wouldn’t know it naturally. And the reason you can hold your beliefs right now without persecution is because the Catholic power no longer has dominion.

110. 58:05

     Because when it did, it would have killed you. And we don’t live in that world now, but brethren have, and it started here, which happened to be 12160 years earlier. So on our community, the brethren were saying look at this. John Thomas said this 22 years before he had passed away. By the time 1870 had turned around. He died in the 1860’s.

111. 58:38

     The temporal dominion of the papacy will be consumed gradually as the kingdoms of men reject its authority and assert their independence. This is the consumption foretold in Daniel 726, which will continue until the system is entirely destroyed at the coming of the Ancient of Days. So what I’m saying is that these words proved to be pretty accurate. In 1870, the papacy faced a defining moment when it formally proclaimed the doctrine of papal infallibility. OK, now in Daniel Chapter 7, verse 25 and 26, it’s going to say this.

112. 59:26

     He, the little horn, shall speak great words against the Most High. Now, claiming that heaven has to ratify anything a sinful man says on earth because a sinful man says it, that that heaven bows the knee to earth, I’d say that’s great words against the Most High, that a man on earth is infallible and can compel heaven to act, especially the man in charge of that system. And that’s exactly what Robert Roberts said. Because he said in July 1870, the Pope has now proclaimed himself infallible, an audacious claim that none but the most superstitious minds can accept.

113. 1:00:27

     This is the great words spoken by the little horn foretold in Daniel 7. So let’s just now begin to come back to the start of the story and Caesarea Philippi, a city that we looked at, which was steeped in symbolic meaning. Caesarea Philippi was a place where Roman worship of men was mingled of Pagan religion. And it was here in Caesarea Philippi that Peter made a confession.

114. 1:01:07

     Thou art the Christ, the Son of the living God. And it was here that Jesus declared the gates of Hades shall not prevail against that. But Scripture is actually pretty vivid about what the gates of Hades prevail against and the gates of Hades will prevail against the Catholic system

115. 1:01:41

     because Revelation chapter 14 verse 8 and 11 say. And there followed another Angel saying, Babylon is fallen, is fallen, that great city, and the smoke of their torment ascendeth up forever and ever. They have no rest day or night, who worship the beast, his image, and whoever receiveth the mark of his name. Now maybe you don’t think that is vivid enough. A illustration of of this system symbolized by Babylon falling into Hades.

116. 1:02:21

     How about this? The beast was taken, and with him the false prophet that wrought miracles before him with which he deceived, them that received the mark of the beast, and them that worship this image. And these were cast into the lake of fire, burning with brimstone. You see, brothers, sisters and young people, what I’m trying to make a case in front of you is simply this. Hades is going to prevail on that system and it will not prevail on the true Aquitia, the called out ones. We share the genuine faith of Peter, those who believe that Jesus is the Jewish Messiah, the Son of the living God, descended from David, promised by the prophets. That is the foundation, that faith, that Jesus is that man on which the ecclesia is built.

117. 1:03:28

     It is unshakeable because it rests not on men, it rests on Christ. Those who are part of this true faith of called out ones and are written in the book of life will not face the lake of fire because they belong to Christ. They have no part in Babylon, the harlot or the beast, and their hope is the coming of the Kingdom of God.

118. 1:03:54

     And they’ll be no part of that abominable system, no part that enters into the Kingdom, because we’re told that there shall no wise enter into it anything that defileth neither whatsoever worketh abomination or maketh a lie. But they which are written in the Lamb’s book of life. Brothers and sisters, these ideas aren’t new.

119. 1:04:24

     These ideas were boldly proclaimed by our pioneer brethren from the very beginning. John Thomas wrote extensively on these ideas. And you’re in Elpis Israel, page 199 to 208.

120. 1:04:39

     These were the truths that were passionately upheld by the 1st generation of Christadelphians. But time as a way of eroding conviction. Have we as a community, as a question, that we have allowed some of these powerful truths to fade into the background? Are we? Because we are not under the persecution of the politically aligned Catholic Church, we begin to not understand, as our earliest brethren did, that this system is the harlot of revelation. Maybe we unwittingly begin to downplay the importance of scriptural understanding, or maybe we treat the Bible as a dry, boring subject.

121. 1:05:40

     This is not a dry and boring subject. And even though I made you look at Greek tenses kind of important, maybe even worse, we begin to adopt the idea that maybe we all just worship the same God.

122. 1:06:05

     The doctrine doesn’t matter anymore. If there’s one thing I want you to take from this study is that the truth matters. Bible study matters. Correct exposition matters. We cannot relinquish. You know, we spend so much time studying the Word. But here’s the thing. What Christopher Pians are asking of you is to study the word for yourself.

123. 1:06:33

     Do give the power of studying this to an institution of men. Don’t yield it. It is your privilege to be able to look at this and to look into it to understand what it means. You do not have to give that to a priest. You don’t have to give that to an institution.

124. 1:06:54

     They will abuse it to control you. The only way you get to be free is to find it within the word yourself. Don’t yield it.

125. 1:07:05

     There’s power in these words. The papacy has claimed infallibility. In other words, whatever they say is the truth. No need to look. Don’t believe it. Don’t give that power to a man. Do not give that power to a sinful man. Those things are going to be thrown into the lake of fire.

126. 1:07:38

     It’s the faith in Jesus Christ, the Son of the living God that’s going to endure. So I ask of you to recommit yourself to the study of the Word of God, to the pursuit of truth, to the hope of the coming Kingdom, to stand firm on the foundation of Christ, knowing that the gates of Hades will never prevail, never ever prevail against Christ’s true equation.