Our gracious God and Father, we thank you for bringing us safely to the middle of this week. We thank you for preserving our lives, for blessing us these days, for giving us work to do, for blessing us in family and with family. Father, and we thank you for this time that we have now to gather as your people to sing your praises, to reflect and to think upon your great works in history, in the history of your church. But Father, we come now, and in the name of your Son, we adore and we magnify your most holy name. We praise you, for you are God alone, there is no other. In heaven and on earth and under the earth, you created all things. by the word of your power, and by that same word you sustain and govern all things. We thank you, Father, that you are not only our maker, but you, through the Lord Jesus Christ, are our Father in heaven, who have made us children to yourself. Through the grace of adoption, we thank you for the forgiveness of our sins that we have, through the one sacrifice of Jesus Christ, upon the cross for his resurrection from the dead and ascension into heaven, where he sits even now, far above all rule and authority, governing all things to the good of his church, for the glory of your name. Lord, we come now and we pray that you, Father, would continue to have your hand upon us for good, that you would continue to sanctify us by your word, which is truth. Lord, we pray that we would grow in grace and in the knowledge of our Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ. We ask your blessing upon the work that you have given us to do. We pray that we would do it diligently as unto you for your glory and not as unto men. We pray, Father, that you would bless our marriages, that we would grow in love to one another, and that more and more, our marriages would reflect the beauty and the holiness and the love with which Christ loves us. Lord, we pray for our children. We thank you for them. They are a blessing, a heritage from Jehovah. and we give you thanks for them. We pray that you would cause them to grow in faith, in hope, and in love. Keep them, we pray, from the love of the world and the things that are in the world. We pray that you would, Father, perfect your love in them, and that by the Holy Spirit they, Father, would grow to love and to serve you for as many days as you give them on the earth. We pray Lord, for our nation, Lord, we ask that you would give wisdom to those in authority over us. We pray, Lord, that you would grant repentance and better minds to those who are deceived and held captive by Satan, and who have power and are using it not for righteousness' sake, But Father, to serve him, the enemy, we pray that you, Father, would frustrate the plans of the wicked and that you would grant us, Father, godly men who lead and in the fear of the Lord, and Lord, lead for the good of your church. Lord, we pray for your church in all places. We pray in particular for our own denomination, for the Orthodox Presbyterian Church. We pray for like-minded denominations, Lord, of like faith and practice. We pray, Father, for the body of the Lord Jesus Christ wherever she is found in the earth. We pray that you would sustain us, that you would grow us, you would purify us by your word, Lord, and that more and more our thoughts and our words and our deeds would reflect the holiness, the truth, and the love of our Savior. We pray for the growth of your kingdom, the kingdom of grace in all the world, and that, Father, the kingdom of Satan would be more and more destroyed and put down, and the kingdom of the Lord Jesus Christ more and more in every place grow and take root and bear fruit for your glory, Holy Father. Lord, we thank you for this time again that you have given us to sing and to pray, to join our hearts together, and to consider, Father, your great acts in the history of your church. We pray, Lord, that we would not merely fill our minds with information, Lord, we ask that this time would not only be instructive, but we would marvel and wonder at your great mercy and grace, which you have revealed and which is at work in your church, in the lives of your servants, as we consider one of them this evening. And we pray, Father, that we would imitate what is good, imitate what is true and holy, that we would learn where there is error and mistakes, Lord, that we might grow in faithfulness to you in our present time and place. Lord, we thank you and we commit this time. We do also thank you for bringing Pastor Joel back to us. And we, Father, pray your blessing upon the remainder of this week as we look ahead to the Lord's day, as we gather together with your people to give you thanks and praise and to glory in your holy name. We thank you and we pray all of this in Jesus's name. Amen. Amen. Well, we, this evening, God willing, are going to consider, as you should have a handout. They're back there on the black stand. If you don't have one, you can go back and get one. We are going to consider this evening a man named Tertullian of Carthage. Tertullian of Carthage. And as we heard last week, Dane opened this series of church history, figures from church history, and gave us helpful seven major benefits that there are to studying church history, why we should do this at all. And he went through some of them. And as we go through and as we learn about one of the Lord's servants who lived hundreds of years ago, over a thousand years ago, in a very different culture, very different time, very different place, As we learn about this faithful servant of Christ, let's have those seven benefits in mind. And as I remember, I'll allude to them, point to them, because this really isn't about us. It's ultimately not about Tertullian himself. It's ultimately about Christ and his work by his Holy Spirit in the church to grow his kingdom. and to glorify God, his father. So before we jump into the history, please, if you have your Bibles with you, please turn to the book of Acts. The book of Acts chapter two, and we're going to read beginning in verse seven. I will actually pick up reading in verse five, and we'll read down to verse 11. beginning in verse five, Acts chapter two, verse five. Hear the word of God. And there were dwelling in Jerusalem Jews, devout men from every nation under heaven. And when this sound occurred, the sound of the rush of wind, the Holy Spirit descending upon the church, when this sound occurred, the multitude came together and were confused because everyone heard them speak in his own language. Then they were all amazed and marveled, saying to one another, Look, are not all these who speak Galileans? And how is it that we hear each in our own language? in which we were born, Parthians and Medes and Elamites, those dwelling in Mesopotamia, Judea and Cappadocia, Pontus and Asia, Phrygia and Pamphylia, Egypt and the parts of Libya adjoining Cyrene, visitors from Rome, both Jews and Proselytes, Cretans and Arabs. We hear them speaking in our own tongues the wonderful works of God. Amen. Amen. So we don't know, under introduction here, we don't know exactly how the church in North Africa was planted or was started. There is no biblical text or church tradition connecting the church in Latin North Africa to an apostle. There are places in the Mediterranean world, for example, that can say, you know, we have John or we have Mark or something like this, but there really is none of this in the case of North Africa. Even though Carthage was one of the major cities of the Roman Empire, one of the most important regions of the empire, it's not connected to an apostle or an associate of an apostle. However, the book of Acts gives us a good idea of where, of how the gospel eventually made its way there. If you look in verse 10, you notice that some of those in Jerusalem who had come were from Egypt and the parts of Libya adjoining Cyrene. Well, that is, of course, in Africa, Egypt and Libya. So we know that these men, these devout, God-fearing Jews, they went back after hearing the fulfillment of all of God's promises in his Messiah, in his Son, the Lord Jesus, they went back, as they all did, to all over the known world, the inhabited world, and they told their people, right? And so we have a pretty good idea of how the gospel made its way there. Well, Tertullian, his dates are 160 to 220, is one of the pillars of the old Catholic Church. And I think that's a helpful term to describe a period of time as the old Catholic Church from the mid-second to the mid-third century. So mid-100s to mid-200s, mid-second to mid-third century. He is the progenitor, you could think of him as the father of Latin Christianity. Now, what do I mean by Latin Christianity? Well, before this time, you think of the New Testament, what language was the New Testament written in? Greek, and most of the theological writing prior to this time, almost all of it, was done in Greek. He really is the first Latin author to begin writing in Latin, and he's really considered the father of Latin Christianity, or theological works and writings in the Latin language. his work will lead right to Augustine, okay? So if you're thinking of a timeline here, Tertullian is living, he's before Augustine. He's also before the Council of Nicaea, 325. So this is before Nicaea. He's an early figure. whose work will be picked up and will influence Augustine, and thus, in that way, his work will come to influence Western medieval and Reformation thought. So you can trace a line from Tertullian through his pupil, Cyprian. I didn't put him in there, but if you know who Cyprian is, you can fill him in between Tertullian and Augustine. But then you have Augustine, who's also from where? North Africa. So we're dealing with the same region. And then, of course, Augustine through the medieval period to the Reformation. I looked at one source who said that he's the sixth most quoted patristic or medieval author by Calvin. So the sixth most frequently quoted author by Calvin. So it gives you an idea that his work is important. We are the inheritors of this faithful servant's work by the power of God in him. So while getting involved in the Montanist error later in his life, we will look at that briefly, he did fall into some error towards the end of his life. Tertullian remains, and I think we need to lay the stress on this, he remains a testimony of Christ's ongoing work of raising up and supplying to the church faithful leaders. His most important contribution is in the area of Trinitarian theology. And we are going to read a quotation later. And I think you will just be amazed how early, not only how early, about how well he captures scriptural teaching on the triune nature of God. And so we will look at that together. But before we look at his life under Roman numeral I, kind of get a sense for the background of where Tertullian is working, something of the cultural background, the political background to his work. We're now in the second to third century after the Lord after the coming of Christ, and the beginning of the planting of the gospel in the world. Under Roman, under A, capital A, the political and social background, of course, were dealing in the period of the Roman Empire. The world is largely, parentheses, at peace, okay? So there is, you know, you can cross the Mediterranean without worrying about pirates. You don't need to worry so much as long as you're not on the fringes of the empire. You don't need to worry so much about armies marching through, marauding through and destroying everything. The world is largely at peace. This is a stable world politically. Well-built and maintained Roman roads enable rapid, wide, and safe transportation. You can travel very quickly across the world. I mean, from northern Europe all the way to the border with Persia, right? There's a road system. enabling rapid, wide, and safe transportation. We see that in the New Testament, how Paul is able to zip and go all across the Roman world thanks to Roman roads, right? And we see, of course, God's providence in that, orchestrating that whole thing. We also, though, see, and again, we see this in the New Testament, idolatry permeating social, personal, social, and political life. We've been going through 1 Corinthians, Paul's letter of 1 Corinthians, and we see the problems that arise because of this mixture of idolatry with everything, right? You can't go to the market without some connection to idolatry. And this is something that Tertullian is right in the middle of. Everything is connected in some way to a false god and to false worship. And he is working and dealing with that. The second kind of background to have in your mind is, of course, the Greek language and culture. The Romans are in charge, it's their empire, but the Greeks have left their mark quite much as well. Of course, Alexander the Great, his conquests had brought Greek to the entire Mediterranean world. again, reflected in the New Testament, the language of the Bible of the New Testament. The major Greek philosophical influences were largely Neoplatonic and Stoic. And in Q&A, don't ask me to give a detailed explanation of those two. You can ask Pastor Joel, and I wish Jacob Alley was here as well. That would have been better than me. But Neoplatonic and Stoic were the major philosophical influences. But there were also a variety of spiritual and religious influences coming from the East, known as the mystery religions or mystery cults. It was an extremely syncretistic environment, people picking and choosing basically whatever suits their fancy and such. The third sort of factor to consider in this is Judaism. Of course, we're talking about post-AD70 Judaism. And we remember in the New Testament how early on Christianity is what? It's born within Judaism. We are true Jews, right? We have come by grace to accept Jesus for who he is, the Messiah, right? And as we see as unbelieving Israel rejects their Messiah, this separation begins to take place. And post-AD 70, more and more, it is recognized that Christianity and Judaism, these are different. and the Roman Empire is recognizing that these are not the same thing, that they are different. Another thing that we're dealing with, and this is when you read anything written prior to Constantine, you're dealing with the reality of persecution. I think this is probably, for most people, the thing that's most obvious about the early church. We all know that the first Christians were persecuted. Now, what were some of the causes of this? Why did the Romans, persecute Christians. They did have a category for legal or permitted religions. Judaism was a legally permitted religion in the empire. They had an exemption. And as long as Christianity was in the pale of Judaism, it benefited from that protection. But once those were separated, well, there's no longer that legal protection, that legal shielding. So that's one factor. Another factor is the Christian personal and public ethic clashed with that of their pagan neighbors. Remember, everything is connected, every social and political. You can't buy meat, as we saw, without engaging in some relationship with a false deity, okay? And so everything is connected, and so not only on a personal level, for example, you know, I'm sorry, you know, Joe Neighbor, I'm not going to participate in this because I'm a Christian, right? But on a public level as well. No, I'm not going to attend that parade. Because why? It's connected to idolatry. So the personal and public ethic clashes with that of the pagan world. But I think, and I got this from my history professor this year, I think this is right, the most basic reason is what the Christians were saying. It's what they were proclaiming. And what were they proclaiming? Jesus is Lord, not Caesar. He is not God. He is not the son of a God. He is a man under God. There is a true God, and there is a son of a God. of the true God, and his name is Jesus, and he is Lord, not Caesar. And so, I think this is the most basic reason for why the Christians were persecuted. is the spiritual reason. Well, violent persecution was not always, it was not continuous or universal in extent, so sometimes we think that it was for 300 years just constant slaughter, right, of Christians. And it really was not like that. It was not universal and it was not continuous. However, It was, when it did break out, it was often sudden and very fierce. And as we get into the third century, one of the big problems is that you'll have a space of maybe a decade or two where there is no widespread persecution. Christians are going to church, they're getting catechized, they are serving, the gospel is going out, and then all of a sudden, you get maybe a bad emperor, or you get the emperor decides to change, and you all of a sudden, fierce persecution falls, and many Christians are not prepared. And many fall, and deny Christ, or in some other way, compromise their faith, and now the church has to deal with this problem. Well, what do we do with those who have fallen? Do we admit them? How do we deal with this situation? It was often sudden and fierce. However, persecution was a powerful means by which the faith grew. And there's some evidence that Tertullian himself was converted as a result of seeing Christians suffer. some of the things that he says makes some scholars think that that was one of the factors that the Lord used to bring about his conversion. He began to wonder, why were they so tenacious? Why were they so stubborn? I mean, why would you suffer these extremely painful torments for but for a lie, for something you didn't actually believe to be true? What gave these people such fortitude in the face of wickedness? And they were often used as a means to grow the church. Well, another thing we're dealing with at this time is, of course, there's not just persecution. You have the chattering class. We know about them today. Well, there was a chattering class back then, you know, smart people saying what they think are smart things. And you had an educated class that, you know, loved to laugh and, oh, you know, those Christians, what do they believe? And so part of, at this time, the church was also responding to the cultured and the educated attacks on Christianity. not just persecution, but intellectual and cultural critiques of Christianity. And these men who defended the faith, who gave an answer for the hope that was in them, as we read about in Peter's epistle, were called the apologists. And they were mainly educated men who sought to answer the erroneous and slanderous charges against the church and offer a positive defense of the truth. Their apologetics and polemics were directed both, though, against unbelieving Jews on the one hand, and then pagans on the other. And part of their work was showing the pagans, no, no, this is how we are different than the Jews. Right? And then, of course, also engaging with unbelieving Israel and giving a defense for Jesus as the Messiah. One major name to have is Justin Martyr, is probably one of the best or most well-known of these early apologists. Another thing, and then we'll get into Tertullian here very quickly, we're also dealing in a context of heresy and error. And there were two major, at this time, as we're thinking about the life of Tertullian, There are two major teachings, one of them we would say heretical, and then others, the other one, has been termed heretical. I think maybe it's more appropriate to call it an error. It's a serious error. I don't know if I would call it a heresy. I'll let Pastor Joel answer that. if that's a question. But Gnosticism was a heresy. Gnosticism was a heresy. And we talked about this on the last Lord's Day. It's a syncretistic heresy combining biblical and Christian ideas. with Greek, mostly Neoplatonic philosophy, and it's this merge that seeks secret saving knowledge outside of the scriptures, outside of God's revelation in Christ, through these secret channels of communication. Irenaeus of Lyon is one of the first and most well-known of the early church fathers, again, this same period of time, old Catholic church, a little bit before Tertullian, but he's one of the most well-known for writing against the Gnostics. He devoted his life and work to exposing and refuting their errors. Marcion is a name that we should know in connection with Tertullian. He died in 160, and he was probably the most effective and the most dangerous of the early Gnostics. And one of the things that made his approach a little bit different is many of the Gnostics were quite intellectual, right? It was more of a school of thought than anything else. Marcion takes that theology, that heretical teaching, and he basically puts legs on it. So he creates a false church with false deacons and bishops and everything, kind of a false administration. And he really turns it more into a religion than just a kind of a series of teachings, which make him more dangerous. Montanism is something that we will encounter with Tertullian. This was started by a man named Montanus. That's where the name comes from. And then two women, Priscilla and Maximilla, and they claimed to the ongoing prophetic work of the Holy Spirit. They claimed that the Holy Spirit was giving them revelations. They claimed that they were living in the age of the Spirit. And in some ways they are, and scholars have looked at their teachings and seen in them kind of an early proto-charismatic movement, almost. Now, it's important to note the Montanists did not proclaim new doctrines so much as new practices. So they would be orthodox in their Christology, and yet they really laid stress more on the practices of the Christian life and what was needed at that time. And we'll see a little bit more from them. Now, there were mixed responses to the movement. Tertullian ended up joining them. And we will see that part of that is because he was dissatisfied with the moral state of the visible church. And perhaps he saw in them a solution to that problem. Just make the rules tighter. If we just tighten the rules, people will get their act together and things will be all right. Irenaeus, interestingly, took somewhat of a softer tone to them. And I read one thing that said many in the early church did not know kind of what to do with the Montanists, because they were Orthodox in their Christology and such, and yet were saying these things that were not true. Okay, so let's look now at Tertullian himself. So Roman numeral two, his life and thought. If you'll excuse me here. So Roman numeral two, Tertullian, his life and thought. Early life and conversion. Tertullian was born around the year 160, and he was the son of a centurion in Carthage, North Africa. So he's born in elite, you could say, elite Roman society. He's the son of the centurion or a centurion of the proconsul of Carthage. Carthage, of course, has a long and rich history in the classical world, traditionally founded in 814 BC by the Phoenicians. Maybe it was a little bit later, but that's sort of the traditional date. And of course, we know the Phoenicians were expert seamen and expert traders all over the Mediterranean world. It was a wealthy city. It was an important city. It was a very immoral city at the same time. And so a very prominent city in the classical world. If you remember from your history classes from high school, hopefully, or maybe before, Carthage is, of course, famous in the Punic Wars, and it was destroyed by the Romans in 146 BC. And the Carthaginians have a reputation for being somewhat, you know, we're not gonna take it, you know, we're gonna fight back. And you definitely see that in Tertullian himself, in his writings. He has that fiery spirit about him. Well, he was given a superb classical education in which he excelled in the areas of law and advocacy. He probably worked in Rome for a time. as well as Carthage. He was converted later in life, maybe in his late 30s or 40s, and he became a presbyter in the North African church. So he became a presbyter in the North African church, where he began to write after his conversion. I did not put this here, but I'll mention this now. He lived a full life. He lived a long life. The Lord granted him that. And even though he spoke very highly of martyrdom, as many of the early church fathers did, they really esteemed it as something to be in some cases sought after and others not. Don't seek after it, but glory in it if you are given that opportunity. But he was not given that opportunity, and he lived a full life. The Lord granted him a full life, and he died peacefully as an old man. Coming to his thought and significance, and this is where we're going to slow down a bit, and I have given you a sheet of quotes. And what I'm going to follow here for this section, and I put this on one of the sheets, the one with the pictures on it, you have a map of Carthage there in the Mediterranean Sea. You can see how close it is to Italy, to Sicily. Then the second picture, just by way of comment, is modern day Carthage, which is Tunis, Tunisia. And so you have that. But what I'm following here is there is available a lecture series by a professor. I don't know if he's still at RTS, but Dr. Douglas F. Kelly has a patristic series, which is actually available on Sermon Audio. And I found that to be very helpful. And I'm gonna follow basically his outline for this section for Tertullian's thought and significance. Apologetic work, one of the things that Tertullian had to deal with. was the Roman state. The Roman state is what was persecuting Christians. And one of the things that Tertullian did was to write in defense of the church, write to the state in defense of the church. And he's directly addressing magistrates, those in authority, giving a defense, and also absolutely destroying the hypocrisy and the ignorance of the ruling class. It's so funny to read his writing. I have not read all of Tertullian. I was reading mostly Irenaeus, and then I started in Tertullian early this year, and the difference, I mean, it feels like, you know, when you're on a roller coaster, And you get to that point that, woo, and then it picks up. It was very much like that. Irenaeus is methodical, and he's just slicing and dicing the Gnostics left and right. But it's kind of slow, and it's kind of, you know. And then you come to Tertullian, and he's just left and right. I mean, he is very enjoyable to read. But he's speaking to the state. in defense of the church. And he argues, one of the things that he argues is that the emperor is under God and knows it, and that Christians are the best citizens that any empire could wish for. They pray weekly for the peace and safety of the empire. They're good, they're upright, they're honest, they keep their word, they don't murder, they don't commit adultery. They pray for the emperor every week, that the God of heaven would bless him and would bless the empire with peace and security and prosperity. I think there's a lot that we can learn just from that right there. In the face of a hostile state, in the face of a hostile government, we remind the government that the government is not God. The government is under God, the government knows it's under God, and yet nevertheless, we are the best citizens that this government could wish for. They don't want any other citizens. And if you think about that for a moment, he's writing this publicly. If the Christians, if this were not true, the government could very easily say, Churchillian, you're blowing smoke. Look at your lives. So it does give you a sense that by God's grace, we see this, you will know them by their fruit. The Christians did look different. They spoke different, they talked differently. and they acted differently, and it made an impression in their society. I'm going to read just briefly from one of his works. You have it here on your paper, Apology, Chapter 33. He says this. For we offer prayer for the safety of our princes to the Eternal, the True, the Living God, whose favor beyond all others they must themselves desire. They know from whom they have obtained their power. They know, as they are men, from whom they have received life itself. and then going down a bit. They reflect upon the extent of their power and so they come to understand the highest. They acknowledge that they have all their might from him against whom their might is not. Let the emperor make war on heaven. Let him lead heaven captain in his triumph. Let him put guards on heaven. Let him impose taxes on heaven. He cannot. Just because he is less than heaven, he is great. For he himself is his to whom heaven and every creature appertains." And what just a masterful sentence how he both honors the emperor with the power that God has given him. But he's only great because he's less. He's under God. And so a very, I think, a good model for how we should speak to those whom God has granted civil power. He also warns the ruling authorities, though, that unjust persecution will only bring God's judgment down upon them and cause the church to grow and prevail. Listen to what he says in, this is the third quotation, to Scrapula. And Scrapula is actually, I believe, the proconsul of Carthage. So he is writing directly to the mayor, right? Or to the guy in charge, okay, of that region. And he says, we have no master but God. He is before you and cannot be hidden from you. But to him, you can do no injury. But those whom you regard as masters are only men, and one day they themselves must die. Yet still this community, and he's speaking there of the church, yet still this community will be undying. For be assured that just in the time of its seeming overthrow, it is built up into greater power. For all who witness the noble patience of its martyrs, as struck with misgivings, are inflamed with desire to examine into the matter in question. And as soon as they come to know the truth, they straight away enroll themselves, its disciples." So what he's saying is, you're going to die one day. The church isn't. It's going to continue. And everything that you do to try to stop us is only going to make us grow more in number and stronger. So just I think a very, we already see the implication. I think the model that we have in Tertullian for not being afraid, not cowering before civil powers, but when it is appropriate for speaking directly to them. Tertullian also engages in theological and philosophical apologetic work. Now, this is something that Tertullian is probably most known for. If you read any introduction to church history, it will certainly talk about his antithetical posture toward non-Christian thought. And this is in some distinction to Alexandria, the city, the major city of Egypt at the time, which if you remember Philo of Alexandria, a long tradition of intellectual work there, which took up a bit of a more continuationist view towards Greek traditions, Greek culture, Greek philosophy, that the theologians that were coming out of Alexandria, they wanted to stress the continuity of the Christian faith with pagan philosophy. See, look what we are getting right. We are saying the same things that your people are saying. It's just true. We're just saying them better and more fully, etc. go to North Africa, go to Carthage, it's a little bit of a different tact, a little bit of a different approach. Tertullian takes a more antithetical posture toward classical, pagan classical tradition and philosophy. He argued that man does not need formal argumentation to come to know God. That is, man does not need a syllogism, a formal argument, to come to know God. He instead emphasizes that God is naturally, artlessly known by man through the witness of nature and the soul. In other words, I don't need to prove to you that God exists. You know God exists because you're made in His image. You're surrounded by His world. It's speaking to you 24-7. I don't need to provide it. Maybe I could provide an argument, sure, but I don't need to. You already know. Nature has already persuaded you. Your soul has already persuaded you. that you are a creature of God and that he exists, that he is good and that you will stand before him to give an account. So, Tertullian wants to emphasize that. Now, let me just read one quotation from him. This is, again, classic. You'll probably hear this again. And this is why he has this reputation. He writes in the Prescription Against Heretics, what indeed has Athens to do with Jerusalem? What concord is there between the academy and the church? What between heretics and Christians? Our instruction comes from the porch of Solomon, who had himself taught that the Lord should be sought in simplicity of heart. Away with all attempts to produce a modeled Christianity of stoic, platonic, or dialectic composition. Dialectic referring to Aristotle. We want no curious disputation after possessing Christ Jesus. No inquisition. After enjoying the Gospel with our faith, we desire no further belief. For this is our palmyry faith, that there is nothing which we ought to believe besides. In other words, we have everything we need in the gospel of Christ. I don't need anything that some guy in Greece a couple hundred years ago said, I have it all in Christ. Why? Because he is him in whom all the treasures of wisdom and knowledge dwell. I don't need anything else. I have it all in Christ. Now, despite this negative posture, however, Tertullian does show some influence from pagan notions. He's a man of his time. And this is something that Dane touched on last week. It's very easy to note the failures and the weaknesses and the compromises of people that lived 500, 1,000, 1,500 years ago. Easy. Bad. and not realizing how much we ourselves are products of our own time, are influenced by the assumptions of the Enlightenment, the assumptions of secularism, things that perhaps our brothers and sisters living a thousand years ago would look and go, what are you thinking, you know? Of course that's not right, or of course that doesn't make sense, or of course you're being inconsistent. It's like plain as day. right? But being in your time is a very dangerous thing, isn't it? I mean, we just don't always see what we are giving ourselves into. And so, Tertullian does evince some of that. He does embody some of that. His notion of the soul, for example, is somewhat stoic, believing that the soul is basically like a very refined form of matter, that it's corporeal, it's material, although very, very, very refined, right? Something like the atmosphere. Okay, so he does show some influence, and he does acknowledge that the Greek philosophers did get some things right. However, he, and this is true of almost all, I mean, most, perhaps, of the early apologists and the early church fathers, they all believed that the Greek philosophers got what they got, the things that they got right, because they had been influenced by the Old Testament. So he says, yeah, they did get some things right, but because they got it from the Old Testament. You know, that's a whole other discussion. But I only point that out to say that A, he was influenced by his time to some degree. We can see that. And two, he does acknowledge that the pagans did get some things right. And he does, if you simply read his writing, you can tell that he is a product of his own culture, of his own education. How did he learn to read? It was in a pagan school, right? How did he learn to employ these forms of argumentation? It was in a pagan school. And so you can see that he's not absolutely antithetical. to the pagan world and everything that it offers, but he does emphasize the antithetical source and end of these two, you know, we could use Augustine's, the two cities, right, that they really are antithetical. On faith and practice, number three, the Holy Scripture is not philosophy, is the source and spring of all true theology. And there's a quotation, one-sentence quotation. He says, we are taught God by the prophets and by Christ, not by the philosophers nor by Epicurus. So again, hitting on that. And like many church fathers, Tertullian stresses what is known as the rule of faith as the test of orthodoxy. And this was simply the fact that at this time, as we have today, heretical groups will come to you and will say, well, I'm just believing the Bible, right? Look, I have a Bible. I believe the Bible. And the rule of faith was a way to determine those who actually believed the Bible, who actually understood what it was teaching from those who merely said they did, and used that as a means to deceive people. Now, let's, number four, Trinitarian and Christological work. And this is probably where, this is where Tertullian shines most brightly, and this is where his work has had the most important, the longest-lasting influence, even to today. The language of the Westminster Confession, in part, depends upon his work. which is amazing. I mean, we are standing on the shoulders of giants. They really depended upon his work. He was the first Christian theologian to use the word trinitas, and I gave the place where that can be found. interestingly, in a work on modesty. And I think this is one of the curious things about Tertullian, is he was not, I would say, he was not first a theologian. Irenaeus, first a theologian, right? But Tertullian was not firstly a theologian. I think he was firstly, on one side, a kind of Greg Bonson type, you know, just go out into the world and defend the faith and show the hypocrisy and the ignorance of unbelief. He was a fierce polemicist and apologist. That's one side. But also, Tertullian was deeply concerned about moral, spiritual, and moral purity, rooting out idolatry in the Church, as well as promoting and advancing the godliness and the purity of Christian living. And it's this, one of these, you know, how God does this in history. A man like Tertullian writing in a work on modesty, he's discussing modesty, Christian modesty, how should we dress? And he's the first one to use what becomes our word, Trinity, right? Really, you can't make up a better story, right? I mean, it really is amazing. The first one to use the word Trinitas, where we get, of course, Trinity. He was also the first to make the distinction between the persons and the substance of the Godhead. And I remember the first time this dawned upon me, I think it was R.C. Sproul, right? Maybe for some of you it's similar. And you're just like, whoa. I get it. This is amazing. It makes sense. It's not a contradiction. This makes sense. Well, Tertullian is the first to really make this distinction, and this is in Against Praxeus in chapter 12, and I have the quotation here. We're going to read it in full because it's just so beautiful and I think so important to see how God is at work in history, in the lives of individuals. He's a presbyter. He's an elder. It's like, you know, Bruce. He's a presbyter in the Church of Carthage and he is laying the groundwork for the church's understanding of God's triune essence. So listen to this from Against Praxeus. Now, if he too is God, according to John, who says the word was God, then you have two beings, one that commands that the thing be made, and the other that executes the order and creates. In what sense, however, you ought to understand him to be another? I have already explained. On the ground of personality, not of substance. In the way of distinction, not of division. You know, amazing, wonderful. But although I must everywhere hold only one substance in three coherent and inseparable persons, yet I am bound to acknowledge from the necessity of the case that he who issues a command is different from him who executes it. So he is, again, one of the first, he is the first, to really articulate this distinction for the Church. And this will be picked up in the Council of Chalcedon and then of course later at the Reformation in the Westminster Confession of Faith, this understanding. Now this does not mean his Trinitarian theology was perfect. There were ways in which he fell short, we could say, of later developments, not questioning his orthodoxy or anything like that. But he was not perfect. However, the Lord used him in this way to advance the church's understanding of God, of the triune nature of God. Let's look briefly at some of his writings on the Christian life. Tertullian was an excellent and articulate voice speaking against abortion. Of course, abortion was common in the Graeco-Roman world, in the ancient world, especially in the Roman Empire. It was not something that you blinked at. It was considered run-of-the-mill. It was considered ordinary. If the father did not want a child, he would simply have it exposed or thrown off a cliff or whatever it may be. And the Church, even from the very earliest, it's interesting, even in Justin Martyr, who's one of the first apologists, picks up and notes this, and is speaking against it, and notes that the Church was taking an active role in saving children. It's a marvelous testimony to the relevance, to the part that we play as the Church in this particular ministry. He writes against it, and he taught that life begins at conception. I don't have the quotation for you. If you listen to the series that I mentioned, you can get the quotation from there. He taught that life begins at conception, and therefore abortion is murder of an image-bearer. Tertullian also taught that Christians should not attend the theater or the games. So he was very opposed to Christians taking part in these public recreations, going to the theater, going to the games, not necessarily gladiatorial games. These would be chariot races or these sorts of things. Now, from what we've said so far, why do you think That may be the case. Why would Tertullian be against ordinary Christians going to these things, participating in these public events? Just, yeah, Aidan. Right, exactly. Remember, all of life is permeated with idolatry. So when you go to a game, what's going to happen? Well, they're going to make a sacrifice to a false god. There's going to be all this pageantry that's involved. And of course, at these events, there would be lots of sexual temptations to sexual immorality as well. So Tertullian is opposed to that. He also, I didn't put this here, he also writes beautifully of marriage and the nobleness of the married state. Now in his later years, due to his influence with Montanism and being influenced by that, he did propound some things that would be extreme, would be unbiblical, but that doesn't detract from what he writes on marriage as being a gift from God, his description of how husband and wife have everything in common. They have one hope, they have one worship. It's just a beautiful commendation of marriage to the church. Strengths and weaknesses, as we kind of draw to a close here, Tertullian put the Western Latin Church on a better course in terms of understanding key biblical Pauline concepts of guilt, sacrifice, pardon, and forgiveness. And this is something that, in the ancient church, you will notice that different regions, the Greek-speaking part of the empire, the Latin-speaking part, and then different regions, will have different emphases or things that they consider to be very important. And sadly, as you study the ancient church, I find myself wishing, oh, you know, if they could only understand that they're emphasizing two phrases of the same sentence, you know what I'm saying? We're saying the same thing, okay? Now, in not all cases it's like that, but in some cases it's a matter of emphasis. They're not saying different things. They're trying to stress certain things. So for example, the Alexandrian school, they want to talk about the divinity of Christ, that he is the word, that he is the true word of God, eternal, unchangeable. Another school of theology up in the north, in Antioch, wants to emphasize the humanity of Christ. And again, I'm not saying that they were all saying the same things, and if they just got together more, that everything would have been fine. But, to some extent, this was the case. Tertullian, perhaps due to his legal training, perhaps due to his legal work, he understood concepts, legal concepts, such as guilt and debt, sacrifice and payment, and he really turned the dial in a sense, he set the Western Church in a more biblical direction in that way. Now, that doesn't mean the Western Church obviously got everything right, but in this respect, he was used of God. It's very helpful to compare Tertullian to men like Clement of Alexandria or Athanasius. And when you read Athanasius, you can see he's not saying something different than Tertullian. They're not saying different things. But what is Athanasius' fascination. What is he enthralled by? It's the incarnation, right? And so as we read church history, we can learn to take these different men, right, and to not put one above the other, but to let them speak and to hear the emphasis, the stress with which they understood the gospel. He did share, of course, in some of the errors of his age at this time. And later, it was common to delay baptism because they believed that sins committed after baptism, there was discussion about whether those could be forgiven. That would be a question for someone else, though I'd like to hear more on that, exactly what was going on there. I just want to put that asterisk there. But it was a common practice to delay baptism, and you do see that as we come closer to Augustine and the other church fathers. Towards the end of his life, as we said, Tertullian does move in an excessively strict, sometimes legalistic direction. and this is in connection with Montanism, disallowing second marriages. And when I say disallowing second marriages, this would be in a case where there was a lawful divorce, and Tertullian would say, no, you can't get remarried, even in the case of a lawful divorce. And then teaching that certain sins were unforgivable, that there would be no re-entry into the church. If a Christian committed, for example, murder, sorry, you're out of the church, no salvation. And so there were aspects later in his life. However, I think it bears repeating that we should not let these errors tip the balance in how we think of Tertullian. He was struggling, he was fighting against worldliness and compromise in the visible church. We have to remember what he's trying to solve. And unfortunately, this is the direction that he took to try to resolve that. But we should not let this affect the entirety of his life and work. Concluding lessons for the church, I think we should give thanks to God for raising up such a powerful advocate for the church against an unbelieving and hostile world. And you can think what a joy it would have been to the ordinary believers, the shopkeepers or the slaves who did not have the ability to speak like a Tertullian, right? But to hear him speak and write with such forcefulness with such beauty, with such effectiveness to those in authority, those people who are actively persecuting the Church. What a joy that would have been to see that and to hear that, and how they would have given thanks to God for raising up someone like that to expose the ignorance and the hypocrisy of unbelief, of pagan thought. give thanks to God for this. Also give thanks for raising up such an articulate defender of orthodoxy in a time of Gnostic heresy, of confusion outside and inside the church. I mean, we look back at these things and we say, you know, if you read some of what the Gnostics believe, you think, how in the world could they believe that? And they're probably looking and say, how in the world can we believe that white privilege? What in the world? That doesn't make any sense. We look back, how could anyone be deceived by this? And yet it was a threat. And we give thanks to God for raising up someone like a Tertullian to expose it and to keep the church from these errors also. And as we touched on, his theological labors serving to crystallize for all subsequent centuries scriptural teaching on the triune nature of God. I think that if you forget everything else, just remember what Tertullian did in terms of dogmatically formalizing the church's understanding. The church has always worshipped the triune God, right? He didn't invent the doctrine, okay? You see it in the earliest Christian writings after the New Testament. They are worshipping the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit, the one God. He didn't invent the doctrine, but in terms of dogmatic precision, he was used by God to crystallize that for the church. Tertullian offers a good example of how the Church is to speak personally, prophetically, and appropriately to the civil authorities whom God has instituted. And I think, as you read his writings, and I encourage you, I put some resources here Under the pictures, many of these are free. I encourage you just to go and start reading him yourself. That's the best way, as C.S. Lewis said, to understand an author. If you want to read Plato, don't read books about Plato, just read Plato. In the same way, just pick up Tertullian. Start reading him. But one of the things that you will see is that whereas he spoke prophetically, he told the governing power the truth. He did it in such a way that did not undermine their God-given authority. Do you see the difference, the distinction? And so he really is a model, I think, for speaking personally. He's addressing Scrapula, right? He's not dressing like Jenner. It's like, no, you, you're in charge. This is what you need to know. prophetically, and by that I mean he's simply using Scripture. He's simply using Scripture and applying God's Word to God's world, and then appropriately. Well, not all, third, well, not all the Christians, well, not all Christians agree with Tertullian's stance towards non-Christian philosophy. His insistence on the necessity and sufficiency of scripture Christ is right and needed. So even if you say, you know, even if you kind of, well, push back a little against his entire stance, his insistence on the necessity and the sufficiency, you know, You don't need to read Aristotle to understand what Christ has spoken by His Holy Spirit in His Word, right? We have a sufficient word in the word of God, in Christ, and that is appreciated. I think his apologetical methodology, stressing, emphasizing the natural knowledge that is inherent in the person you're speaking to, right? You already know God exists, Romans 1. Why? Through the things that have been made, right? I don't need to persuade you. I don't need to give you a formal argument. I could, perhaps, There's not necessarily anything wrong with that, but you already know through the testimony of your own soul as being made in the image of God. His later lapse into the Montanist error does warn us against the danger of seeking non-biblical solutions to worldliness and compromise in the visible church, So when we see worldliness, when we see sin in the visible church, and as parents, when you see disobedience or when you see sin in your children, there's an instinct to say, I just gotta make the rules tighter, right? Just gotta tighten up. And maybe that's needed, but in many cases, that's not the best solution. And so there is a warning there. However, we should nevertheless give thanks to God for his faithfulness and his service to the church, even as we, as Protestant, as Reformed Christians, stand upon his shoulders, particularly in the doctrine of the Trinity. Also, I put here, and I think this is important, I hope as we are learning church history, that we realize that we live in the same world, right? That this is not a different planet. We're on the same planet, and North Africa's still there. Tertullian's Carthage is still there. It's called Tunis, Tunisia. And as we learn these figures, let's remember to pray that the Lord would revive his work in these parts of the world. Modern day Tunisia has a population of 12 million people, roughly 12 million. There are between 2,000 and 7,000 Protestants of that number, so you can do the math as to the percentage of Christians. You also have Roman Catholics, mostly expatriate Roman Catholics living in Tunisia, But we should pray that the Lord would revive his work in that land. And it's very sad, after the Arab conquests of the 7th century, that really the light goes out in North Africa. And you really don't see it until our century. I mean, it is amazing how many Muslims have come to faith, but pray that the Lord would blow by His Holy Spirit upon those Christians, upon the church in that place, and that it would grow, and that that nation, that part of the world that once flourished in the gospel, right? One of the fastest growing churches in the Roman Empire was the North African church. And would that the Lord do that again, right? That we look and we see North Africa blossoming in the joy of Christ and of his salvation once again. And so pray for gospel laborers and gospel success in Tunisia, in North Africa, and in these regions where Tertullian served. With that, that concludes our study. I will say a prayer. Let's pray together, and then if there's any questions, we can do that. Let's pray. Our Father in heaven, we thank you for your word, which is truth, which is a lamp to our feet and a light to our path. We thank you for giving us this opportunity to consider one of your servants, to consider your mighty acts in history. And we pray, Father, that you would inspire us, would cause us to emulate that which is true and good and noble in this brother. We pray that you would help us to learn what to avoid. And Lord, we do pray that you would revive your work in North Africa, in particular in the country of Tunisia, We pray for your church in that land, that you would protect her from error and heresy. We pray that you would protect her from physical enemies who seek to do her harm. We pray that you would grow her numbers and that you would grow her in godliness and that the whole region, the whole country would be filled with the praises of your redeemed people. Lord, we pray, establish your kingdom in that land. We ask that you would go with us now as we return to our homes, that you would bless us the remainder of this week, keep us from sin, and we pray that you would prepare our hearts to gather once again this coming Lord's Day and to worship you in spirit and in truth. And we thank you and we pray this in Jesus's name, amen.