Honoring Dr. R.C. Sproul: Legacy of Faith and Courage

"This is for laypeople." The Symbol is on the Apostles' Creed, his first book, 1973. And he says, "This book is for laity and it's not going to get into theological obfuscation," and then there's a footnote. And you go down to the footnote and the footnote is a Latin expression, and it says sub ubi semper ubi, which in Latin means "under where," the preposition, "under where," and then "always" the preposition "where." But in English it comes out as "always where under where." And so, it just shows his humor that he would that in his very first book on theology. [00:32:44]

"My conscience is captive to the Word of God. To go against conscience is neither safe for us nor open to us. Here I stand. I can do no other. God help me. Amen." For that, Luther is condemned as a heretic, but that is the plank, the Reformation plank of solo Scriptura, that our consciences are captive to the Word of God. It really is, I would even say, maybe more significant in terms of what actually is happening there, probably more significant even than the posting of the Ninety-Five Theses. [00:52:15]

Yeah, theology is for everyone. I believe R.C. said that and in fact he wrote a book, Everyone's a Theologian. It comes back to what theology is, and, sort of, shame on academic theologians for making it a purely academic thing and even having such a language that sort of scares people off and talking to themselves. That was never the intent of theology. You go back to the Reformers and certainly they were capable academics, but they were populists. They took the message to the people. They were writing heavy-duty theologically robust catechisms for children. Luther was teaching children every day in his home. They were about teaching the church theology because ultimately theology belongs to the church. [00:06:56]

One of them came at a cost of some friendships, and it was the challenge he faced in the mid-nineties with Evangelicals and Catholics Together. And you know these were longtime friends. These were folks he had been associated with for over twenty years and had spent a lot of time with and had been foxhole buddies with on other issues. And then we come to Evangelicals and Catholics Together and there's this latitude granted on the role that justification, the doctrine of justification, plays in the gospel, let alone discussing the importance of imputation in the role of justification and the role of the gospel. Well, R.C. is very clear on this that this is essential to the gospel. [00:10:48]

Yeah, you know, I think there's something about Dr. Sproul, and it's theological. He thought every single person deserves respect and dignity. And how much we need this right now! I mean, we really need this. Every single person needs respect and dignity because every single person is made in the image of God. There's a theological reason for this, and we need to stress that. I think from that it propelled him to have a genuine compassion and kindness for people. Not that he would ever want to, you know, massage the truth in order to maintain a friendship. We have examples where he was willing to take a stand for the truth, but there was not a mean-spiritedness to him. [00:12:42]

Oh, it is our foundation. So, you know, we can talk about the primacy of the doctrine of God, and certainly that's true. But in one sense, the authority question is really where we need to start because it's from that authority that we construct all of our doctrines. And so, the doctrine of Scripture, if that, think of a domino chain. So, if the doctrine of Scripture falls in the wrong direction, every single one of your dominoes is going to fall in the wrong direction. So, yeah, it's so important. [00:18:28]

So, I think this is probably ricocheting all through culture right now because of the lockdown, and it's very easy for bad habits to settle in and take root. And I think we're going to see this in these next months, and some pastors report on this that people just aren't coming back to church. This I think is an extreme weakness for the American church especially. We've always had a weak ecclesiology, especially American evangelicalism. But to lose sight of the importance of the means of grace, the preaching of the Word, and the offering of the sacraments, or as our Baptist friends like to say, "the ordinances," and just praying together and singing together, what we call genuine fellowship, you know, the importance of that. [00:19:43]

Oh yeah. So, this is a cultural revolution. We've got to go back, so 1968 to 1972, and you know this is interesting. I mean, Kent State, this is not far from the study center just across the border. So, you think of all the political unrest that's happening on campuses. You think of the war protests. Now, we also throw into the mix in the seventies the sexual revolution. This is the Woodstock era. This is the hippie era. This is the LSD era. I mean, this is a significant moment of cultural upheaval and cultural revolution. So, that's what's happening culturally. [00:24:11]

Without hesitation, this is what he says, without hesitation the aseity, some say "as-ai-ty" of God. It actually goes back to Thomas' five ways, and one of those ways is that God is a necessary being. God is the only being that exists in Himself without anything else, a-se, without anything else. That is what "aseity" means. He exists in Himself as a necessary being, not a being that is needing something else or what we would say a "contingent" being. You and I, we are contingent beings. We need prior being to come into being. God is outside of the chain of being. He is a necessary being. [00:36:00]

So, two things about faith. This is a very important idea that is a distinction of Reformed theology. Regeneration precedes faith. That probably is the central pivotal notion if you're going to understand Reformed theology and Reformed doctrines of grace. So, regeneration is the Spirit's work of bringing us to life. It was the Spirit of God that was uniquely involved in creation as the breath of God, the ruach of God in Hebrew, the Spirit of God. You see it in Ezekiel's dry bones. So, once again, the breath of God goes out over the dry bones and the dry bones take on sinew and muscles and tendons and come to life. [00:38:14]

I think one is by example, by showing that you do, by showing that you find it to prove itself, and I think that's what we see that as we live the Christian life we see God's Word does not in fact return void but it always accomplishes the purpose that He set it to accomplish. You know, I was thinking about this. In 2 Timothy 3, Paul says to Timothy, he's talking about that, "You have been acquainted with the sacred writings from the time of your youth." And it's as if Paul is saying, "They've never let you down and they never will let you down." But in that same context, Paul says, "And remember from whom you've been taught." [00:44:57]

"So I pray with all my heart that God will awaken each one of us to the sweetness, the loveliness, the glory of the gospel declared by Christ." What did Dr. Sproul mean by that prayer? NICHOLS: First of all, two thoughts: sad, this is the final question. I am enjoying this. Second thought: That's his final sentence. So, "sweetness" is a word he got from Jonathan Edwards. Jonathan Edwards got that word from the psalmist. Calvin said this: The knowledge of God that is saving is the sensus suavitatis, "a sense of sweetness," a sense of the sweetness of God. This is the psalmist who wants to relish God, the triune God. [00:49:35]