Fifth-Century Heresies
Renewing Your Mind
Ligonier Ministries
4.8 • 5.3K Ratings
🗓️ 4 August 2025
⏱️ 26 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
How can Jesus be God incarnate, having both a divine and a human nature? Today, R.C. Sproul explains how the ancient church sought to convey these truths with biblical clarity in response to heretical ideas about the person of Christ.
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Meet Today’s Teacher:
R.C. Sproul (1939–2017) was founder of Ligonier Ministries, first minister of preaching and teaching at Saint Andrew’s Chapel, first president of Reformation Bible College, and executive editor of Tabletalk magazine.
Meet the Host:
Nathan W. Bingham is vice president of media for Ligonier Ministries, executive producer and host of Renewing Your Mind, and host of the Ask Ligonier podcast.
Renewing Your Mind is a donor-supported outreach of Ligonier Ministries. Explore all of our podcasts: https://www.ligonier.org/podcasts
Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | The function that heresy has in church history is that it forces the church to be precise. |
| 0:07.3 | It forces the church to define her doctrines and to differentiate her truth from the |
| 0:14.9 | attending falsehoods and corruptions of that truth. |
| 0:25.7 | What do you believe? |
| 0:29.7 | One of the ways that you can be certain what it is that you believe to add clarity to your convictions is to know what you don't believe. |
| 0:34.9 | And that's what will help you consider today on renewing your mind. |
| 0:39.2 | Welcome to this Monday edition of Renewing Your Mind as we begin a three-day study in |
| 0:44.4 | R.C. Sproles series, The Mystery of the Trinity. This is an important series that helps each of us |
| 0:50.6 | better answer the question, who is God? You can own the complete six-part series, plus we'll send you Dr. Sproul's short book |
| 0:59.0 | What is the Trinity when you give a donation at renewingyourmind.org? |
| 1:03.6 | Or when you call us at 800-435-4343. |
| 1:08.1 | Thank you for your support and for using these resources to help you grow deeper in your |
| 1:13.0 | understanding of God and His Word. At the start of this series, Arcees were all considered |
| 1:19.4 | some early heresies in the church, but today we are in the 5th century and a council of the church |
| 1:25.4 | that to this day provides the best God rails when it comes |
| 1:29.6 | to describing the person of Christ. God rails, but if we cross, lead us into heresy. |
| 1:37.0 | Here's Dr. Sprole. |
| 1:40.8 | We're looking at a historical overview of those crucial developments in church history where |
| 1:47.6 | the doctrine of Trinity was at stake. |
| 1:51.3 | For the first 300 years of Christian history, the focal point was on John's concept of the |
| 1:56.3 | Logos or the Word who becomes flesh and dwells among us. |
| 2:00.5 | And we saw the crisis that was provoked in the third century |
... |
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