Title: How to View the Flaws of the Reformers Meta: Some of the reformers had pretty severe, shortsighted flaws, but we honor them nevertheless for their faith and their faithfulness; while at the same time not justifying the mistakes that they made. Tags: martin luther,john calvin,rl dabney,flaws,Samson,faith,reformation 1 00:00:01,182 --> 00:00:05,049 Well, I'll just kick it off with the first one. 2 00:00:05,049 --> 00:00:07,066 As we celebrate 500 years 3 00:00:07,066 --> 00:00:08,614 from when Martin Luther nailed 4 00:00:08,614 --> 00:00:12,251 his 95 theses upon the Wittenburg Cathedral doors, 5 00:00:12,251 --> 00:00:14,726 we are undoubtedly speaking highly 6 00:00:14,726 --> 00:00:17,944 of men like Luther, Calvin, Bucer, Zwingli 7 00:00:17,944 --> 00:00:21,268 and the truths they heralded and established. 8 00:00:21,268 --> 00:00:24,531 However, inevitably, conversation comes up 9 00:00:24,531 --> 00:00:28,050 about, for instance, Luther's anti-Semitic writings, 10 00:00:28,050 --> 00:00:31,092 or Calvin's involvement in the death of Servetus, 11 00:00:31,092 --> 00:00:32,754 so the question is this: 12 00:00:32,754 --> 00:00:34,801 How should we consider these men 13 00:00:34,801 --> 00:00:37,097 who were so monumentally used by God 14 00:00:37,097 --> 00:00:38,220 for great good, 15 00:00:38,220 --> 00:00:40,397 and yet we see either glaring flaws 16 00:00:40,397 --> 00:00:42,420 or blind spots in their lives. 17 00:00:42,420 --> 00:00:43,915 How should be see them, 18 00:00:43,915 --> 00:00:45,502 feel about them, if we find 19 00:00:45,502 --> 00:00:46,866 genuinely troubling truths 20 00:00:46,866 --> 00:00:48,161 about their personal lives 21 00:00:48,161 --> 00:00:50,330 or even perhaps a doctrinal stance 22 00:00:50,330 --> 00:00:52,985 they may have held? 23 00:00:52,985 --> 00:00:56,700 Phil: My answer to that is the same answer 24 00:00:56,700 --> 00:00:59,614 I would give if you asked about the list 25 00:00:59,614 --> 00:01:02,906 of heroes of the faith in Hebrews 11. 26 00:01:02,906 --> 00:01:04,492 You read that list in Hebrews 11 27 00:01:04,492 --> 00:01:05,997 and it includes men like Samson 28 00:01:05,997 --> 00:01:11,794 who in so many ways was a spiritual disaster. 29 00:01:11,794 --> 00:01:14,189 He was dedicated by his parents 30 00:01:14,189 --> 00:01:15,549 at a very young age 31 00:01:15,549 --> 00:01:21,681 to live the lifelong role of a Nazarite, 32 00:01:21,681 --> 00:01:23,782 which meant that he couldn't cut his hair; 33 00:01:23,782 --> 00:01:26,822 he wasn't supposed to touch wine 34 00:01:26,822 --> 00:01:29,259 or any of the fruit of the vine, 35 00:01:29,259 --> 00:01:30,770 and he wasn't supposed to touch 36 00:01:30,770 --> 00:01:31,774 dead bodies. 37 00:01:31,774 --> 00:01:33,533 He did all those things. 38 00:01:33,533 --> 00:01:36,460 And he ate the honey out of the corpse 39 00:01:36,460 --> 00:01:40,008 of a lion and then boasted about it. 40 00:01:40,008 --> 00:01:41,892 Just lived a profligate life. 41 00:01:41,892 --> 00:01:44,545 Dishonored his parents because 42 00:01:44,545 --> 00:01:46,977 he wanted to marry a Philistine girl 43 00:01:46,977 --> 00:01:49,896 and they were appalled by that idea. 44 00:01:49,896 --> 00:01:52,485 So he married a pagan girl. 45 00:01:52,485 --> 00:01:55,756 That got him into a fight with her in-laws 46 00:01:55,756 --> 00:01:58,165 in which he had to kill a bunch of them. 47 00:01:58,165 --> 00:01:59,526 You look at his life 48 00:01:59,526 --> 00:02:03,203 in terms of 21st century moral standards 49 00:02:03,203 --> 00:02:05,465 and you say this man was a disaster. 50 00:02:05,465 --> 00:02:06,854 He was an absolute disaster. 51 00:02:06,854 --> 00:02:08,617 And yet, Scripture lists him 52 00:02:08,617 --> 00:02:10,670 as one of the heroes of the faith. 53 00:02:10,670 --> 00:02:13,056 And the answer is: we're all flawed. 54 00:02:13,056 --> 00:02:16,410 Some of us are flawed more than others, 55 00:02:16,410 --> 00:02:18,757 but all men are flawed. 56 00:02:18,757 --> 00:02:21,374 And God has always used flawed men. 57 00:02:21,374 --> 00:02:23,573 David committed adultery and murder. 58 00:02:23,573 --> 00:02:25,543 And those are sins which admittedly 59 00:02:25,543 --> 00:02:27,063 would disqualify a man 60 00:02:27,063 --> 00:02:28,807 from leading the church today. 61 00:02:28,807 --> 00:02:33,187 If I knew someone who wanted to be a pastor, 62 00:02:33,187 --> 00:02:35,555 and he had committed adultery 63 00:02:35,555 --> 00:02:37,718 and arranged for the death 64 00:02:37,718 --> 00:02:41,601 of his paramour's legitimate husband, 65 00:02:41,601 --> 00:02:43,644 I would say there's no way that man 66 00:02:43,644 --> 00:02:46,617 can ever be above reproach. 67 00:02:46,617 --> 00:02:49,514 Even if he's repented afterwards, 68 00:02:49,514 --> 00:02:52,362 I wouldn't want to see him in a pastoral role 69 00:02:52,362 --> 00:02:54,519 because he's not above reproach. 70 00:02:54,519 --> 00:02:57,250 And that's the first requirement for a pastor. 71 00:02:57,250 --> 00:03:01,738 And yet, the Lord kept him as king of Israel 72 00:03:01,738 --> 00:03:04,613 and he is the one from whom 73 00:03:04,613 --> 00:03:08,630 the Messianic line descended. 74 00:03:08,630 --> 00:03:13,541 (Incomplete thought) 75 00:03:13,541 --> 00:03:16,784 [The Lord] justifies the ungodly, right? 76 00:03:16,784 --> 00:03:19,145 It's not that He throws out justice. 77 00:03:19,145 --> 00:03:21,181 And it's not that He throws out morality. 78 00:03:21,181 --> 00:03:23,441 Be sure your sin will find you out. 79 00:03:23,441 --> 00:03:25,992 And in all those cases, it does. 80 00:03:25,992 --> 00:03:27,725 But the fact that men have flaws 81 00:03:27,725 --> 00:03:29,314 doesn't mean God can't use them. 82 00:03:29,314 --> 00:03:31,774 And it doesn't mean that we shouldn't honor them 83 00:03:31,774 --> 00:03:33,640 for their faith and their faithfulness 84 00:03:33,640 --> 00:03:34,887 where they were faithful. 85 00:03:34,887 --> 00:03:38,993 I think Calvin's flaws are often grossly exaggerated. 86 00:03:38,993 --> 00:03:42,038 He didn't personally kill Servetus. 87 00:03:42,038 --> 00:03:46,396 He simply said by the laws of the time, 88 00:03:46,396 --> 00:03:49,537 what Servetus did - teaching heresy 89 00:03:49,537 --> 00:03:53,075 and sedition and he was an anarchist - 90 00:03:53,075 --> 00:03:55,514 was worthy of the death penalty 91 00:03:55,514 --> 00:03:57,477 by the civil laws of the time. 92 00:03:57,477 --> 00:03:59,688 And Calvin actually pleaded 93 00:03:59,688 --> 00:04:02,250 for a more merciful form of execution 94 00:04:02,250 --> 00:04:04,006 than burning him at the stake. 95 00:04:04,006 --> 00:04:05,910 And it was the city council who said no, 96 00:04:05,910 --> 00:04:07,688 we're going to burn him at the stake. 97 00:04:07,688 --> 00:04:09,390 So, Calvin in that, I think, 98 00:04:09,390 --> 00:04:11,876 is often portrayed as a murderer 99 00:04:11,876 --> 00:04:13,134 and a bloodthirsty man, 100 00:04:13,134 --> 00:04:14,169 when he was not. 101 00:04:14,169 --> 00:04:15,807 If you know Calvin's character 102 00:04:15,807 --> 00:04:17,508 and read his sermons and all that, 103 00:04:17,508 --> 00:04:19,299 you find he's a much better man 104 00:04:19,299 --> 00:04:21,533 than either Catholics or Arminians 105 00:04:21,533 --> 00:04:23,500 want to admit. 106 00:04:23,500 --> 00:04:26,755 It's true that Luther became anti-Semitic. 107 00:04:26,755 --> 00:04:28,822 He didn't start out that way. 108 00:04:28,822 --> 00:04:31,305 But as time went by, 109 00:04:31,305 --> 00:04:36,874 he believed that once the Gospel was clarified, 110 00:04:36,874 --> 00:04:39,431 and he had dug out the doctrine 111 00:04:39,431 --> 00:04:40,956 of justification by faith 112 00:04:40,956 --> 00:04:44,609 from under centuries of Roman Catholic tradition, 113 00:04:44,609 --> 00:04:46,421 he believed that the Jewish people 114 00:04:46,421 --> 00:04:47,755 when they heard the Gospel, 115 00:04:47,755 --> 00:04:48,459 would respond, 116 00:04:48,459 --> 00:04:49,599 and when they didn't, 117 00:04:49,599 --> 00:04:50,615 he grew frustrated, 118 00:04:50,615 --> 00:04:52,983 and wrote some pretty harshly 119 00:04:52,983 --> 00:04:55,788 anti-Semitic material. 120 00:04:55,788 --> 00:04:57,355 And there's no excuse for that. 121 00:04:57,355 --> 00:04:58,385 There's no way to way 122 00:04:58,385 --> 00:04:59,913 well, that wasn't really so bad. 123 00:04:59,913 --> 00:05:00,872 It was bad. 124 00:05:00,872 --> 00:05:02,706 And there were other things Luther did 125 00:05:02,706 --> 00:05:03,684 that were bad. 126 00:05:03,684 --> 00:05:09,007 He had vile mouth. 127 00:05:09,007 --> 00:05:11,740 Now everything Luther said, even privately 128 00:05:11,740 --> 00:05:14,575 was taken down by students of his 129 00:05:14,575 --> 00:05:16,373 and published posthumously 130 00:05:16,373 --> 00:05:18,155 in a collection called, "Table Talk." 131 00:05:18,155 --> 00:05:21,426 And you'll find, most of the outrageous things 132 00:05:21,426 --> 00:05:25,281 Luther said you'll find in his "Table Talk," 133 00:05:25,281 --> 00:05:27,910 not in his commentaries or his thoughtful writings. 134 00:05:27,910 --> 00:05:30,854 So in a way it's not fair to Luther 135 00:05:30,854 --> 00:05:33,370 to think that things he meant to be 136 00:05:33,370 --> 00:05:34,699 in private discourse; 137 00:05:34,699 --> 00:05:37,487 things where he might have been joking even; 138 00:05:37,487 --> 00:05:39,164 things he didn't write himself - 139 00:05:39,164 --> 00:05:40,441 other people took it down. 140 00:05:40,441 --> 00:05:42,183 And if you've ever had other people 141 00:05:42,183 --> 00:05:44,708 take down your words and tweet them, 142 00:05:44,708 --> 00:05:47,171 they never get it exactly right either. 143 00:05:47,171 --> 00:05:49,542 And whatever you say that sounds bad 144 00:05:49,542 --> 00:05:50,875 is going to be exaggerated 145 00:05:50,875 --> 00:05:52,238 by the people who record it. 146 00:05:52,238 --> 00:05:54,870 So you do have to cut Luther a little slack on that, 147 00:05:54,870 --> 00:05:56,021 but there's no question, 148 00:05:56,021 --> 00:05:57,369 he was a flawed man. 149 00:05:57,369 --> 00:06:00,613 And some of the reformers had pretty severe, 150 00:06:00,613 --> 00:06:03,282 shortsighted flaws. 151 00:06:03,282 --> 00:06:05,046 But we honor them nevertheless 152 00:06:05,046 --> 00:06:06,916 for their faith and their faithfulness, 153 00:06:06,916 --> 00:06:08,756 while we recognize their flaws 154 00:06:08,756 --> 00:06:11,981 and say there's no way to justify that. 155 00:06:11,981 --> 00:06:13,849 One of my favorite theologians 156 00:06:13,849 --> 00:06:17,113 in America is R.L. Dabney. 157 00:06:17,113 --> 00:06:19,416 He was a Presbyterian theologian. 158 00:06:19,416 --> 00:06:22,524 And I firmly believe that he would be remembered 159 00:06:22,524 --> 00:06:25,545 as America's greatest theologian ever, 160 00:06:25,545 --> 00:06:28,655 except that he got embroiled in the Civil War. 161 00:06:28,655 --> 00:06:30,137 He was a southern presbyterian 162 00:06:30,137 --> 00:06:31,812 during the time of the Civil War. 163 00:06:31,812 --> 00:06:35,561 He was the chaplain to Stonewall Jackson. 164 00:06:35,561 --> 00:06:38,390 So he was actually in the military 165 00:06:38,390 --> 00:06:41,136 and fought for the South in the war, 166 00:06:41,136 --> 00:06:42,596 and when the South lost, 167 00:06:42,596 --> 00:06:43,877 he became embittered 168 00:06:43,877 --> 00:06:45,320 and never really got over it. 169 00:06:45,320 --> 00:06:47,532 And some of his later writings also 170 00:06:47,532 --> 00:06:49,727 are racist. 171 00:06:49,727 --> 00:06:52,280 Just racist. 172 00:06:52,280 --> 00:06:54,868 So much so that when the Banner of Truth 173 00:06:54,868 --> 00:06:57,932 published his collected writings 174 00:06:57,932 --> 00:06:59,459 on essays and stuff like that - 175 00:06:59,459 --> 00:07:00,806 it's called "Discussions" - 176 00:07:00,806 --> 00:07:03,112 it's actually my favorite set of books 177 00:07:03,112 --> 00:07:04,621 of all the books on my shelf. 178 00:07:04,621 --> 00:07:07,695 That's the one I would least like to lose 179 00:07:07,695 --> 00:07:09,844 because there's some brilliant material 180 00:07:09,844 --> 00:07:10,831 in there. 181 00:07:10,831 --> 00:07:12,614 It was originally four volumes. 182 00:07:12,614 --> 00:07:14,479 And when Banner of Truth picked it up 183 00:07:14,479 --> 00:07:15,381 and published it, 184 00:07:15,381 --> 00:07:16,887 they made it three volumes, 185 00:07:16,887 --> 00:07:19,615 because there was so much racist material 186 00:07:19,615 --> 00:07:22,460 at the end that they had to take out. 187 00:07:22,460 --> 00:07:24,426 So they deleted half of volume three 188 00:07:24,426 --> 00:07:26,598 and most of volume four 189 00:07:26,598 --> 00:07:28,819 and put it in three volumes. 190 00:07:28,819 --> 00:07:30,454 And I look at Dabney and I think 191 00:07:30,454 --> 00:07:31,930 what a shame! 192 00:07:31,930 --> 00:07:35,120 I mean, he was a product of his times. 193 00:07:35,120 --> 00:07:37,000 And what a shame that he couldn't 194 00:07:37,000 --> 00:07:38,741 rise above that and see beyond that 195 00:07:38,741 --> 00:07:41,634 because he understood doctrine 196 00:07:41,634 --> 00:07:43,362 and loved the Scriptures 197 00:07:43,362 --> 00:07:44,602 and loved Christ, 198 00:07:44,602 --> 00:07:47,568 and I'm sure his level of spiritual maturity 199 00:07:47,568 --> 00:07:49,068 was far beyond mine. 200 00:07:49,068 --> 00:07:51,932 So, I feel bad even criticizing him, 201 00:07:51,932 --> 00:07:53,999 but you have to step back and look at that 202 00:07:53,999 --> 00:07:57,864 and say, he, like all those reformers, 203 00:07:57,864 --> 00:07:59,071 was a flawed man. 204 00:07:59,071 --> 00:08:02,712 And sometimes our flaws outlive 205 00:08:02,712 --> 00:08:06,050 and sometimes even overshadow 206 00:08:06,050 --> 00:08:08,886 our good qualities. 207 00:08:08,886 --> 00:08:10,488 It's one of my fears, frankly, 208 00:08:10,488 --> 00:08:12,846 because I've put a lot of stuff on the Internet, 209 00:08:12,846 --> 00:08:15,209 and over the years, some of the things 210 00:08:15,209 --> 00:08:16,641 I've written on the Internet 211 00:08:16,641 --> 00:08:18,053 have made people angry. 212 00:08:18,053 --> 00:08:20,916 And I hope succeeding generations 213 00:08:20,916 --> 00:08:23,124 don't look back and say 214 00:08:23,124 --> 00:08:25,262 that the thing that stands out about me 215 00:08:25,262 --> 00:08:28,597 is that I was a sarcastic 216 00:08:28,597 --> 00:08:30,469 bad-mouther. 217 00:08:30,469 --> 00:08:31,774 I recognize, I have flaws 218 00:08:31,774 --> 00:08:34,105 just like those men. 219 00:08:34,105 --> 00:08:36,250 And it's a shame when our flaws 220 00:08:36,250 --> 00:08:37,935 overshadow our good things. 221 00:08:37,935 --> 00:08:39,769 But I don't think that's the case with 222 00:08:39,769 --> 00:08:40,716 the reformers. 223 00:08:40,716 --> 00:08:43,530 I think the benefits of their ministries 224 00:08:43,530 --> 00:08:46,198 really outshine their flaws. 225 00:08:46,198 --> 00:08:47,594 The flaws are undeniable. 226 00:08:47,594 --> 00:08:49,963 But just because you realize a man 227 00:08:49,963 --> 00:08:52,060 has a serious character flaw 228 00:08:52,060 --> 00:08:53,824 isn't necessarily a reason to 229 00:08:53,824 --> 00:08:56,350 write off his legacy entirely, 230 00:08:56,350 --> 00:08:57,990 if he's a man whom God used 231 00:08:57,990 --> 00:09:00,457 in a mighty way. 232 00:09:00,457 --> 00:09:03,502 And there are lots of biblical examples of that. 233 00:09:03,502 --> 00:09:05,612 Samson being the one I cited. 234 00:09:05,612 --> 00:09:06,882 David being another. 235 00:09:06,882 --> 00:09:10,200 There are others who did heinous sins 236 00:09:10,200 --> 00:09:12,778 and yet, Scripture commends them 237 00:09:12,778 --> 00:09:14,908 for their faith.