“My dearly beloved, flee from idolatry!” 1 Corinthians 10:14

Romanism is a gigantic system of sacrament-worship, Mary-worship, saint-worship, image-worship, relic-worship, and priest-worship! In one word, Romanism is a huge organized idolatry!

I know how painful these things sound to many ears. To me it is no pleasure to dwell on the shortcomings of any who profess and call themselves Christians. I can say truly that I have said what I have said with pain and sorrow.

I believe that many a poor Catholic at this day is worshiping with an idolatrous worship, simply because he knows no better. He has no Bible to instruct him. He has no faithful minister to teach him. I remember all this; and I say that the Catholic eminently deserves our sympathy and compassion.

But all this must not prevent my saying that the Church of Rome is an idolatrous Church. I would not be faithful if I said less.

My own conscience would rebuke me if I did not warn men plainly that the Church of Rome is an idolatrous Church, and that if they will join her, they are “joining themselves to idols!”

That heart can hardly be right with God, which can think of the millions who are sunk in heathenism, or honor the false prophet Mahomet, or daily offer up prayers to the Virgin Mary — and not cry, “O my God, what shall the end of these things be? How long, O Lord, how long?”

Christ rightly known, Christ truly believed, and Christ heartily loved — is the true preservative against ritualism, Romanism and every form of idolatry! (Online source)

Rick Warren:

(Online source)

See also:

RICK WARREN AND TEACHINGS OF DEMONS

JAMES ROBISON AND RICK WARREN WORKING TO REVERSE THE PROTESTANT REFORMATION

BETH MOORE AND HER VISION OF A ROMAN CATHOLIC DENOMINATION

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THE GOSPEL ACCORDING TO JESUS

Let’s return to the Roman Catholic priest’s challenge. Certainly if justification by faith alone is so crucial a doctrine, we would expect to find it clearly taught by our Lord. Indeed, that is precisely what we discover.

Although Christ made no formal explication of the doctrine of justification (such as Paul did in his epistle to the Romans), justification by faith underlay and permeated all His gospel preaching. While Jesus never gave a discourse on the subject, it is easy to demonstrate from Jesus’ evangelistic ministry that He taught sola fide.

For example, it was Jesus Himself who stated, “he who hears My word, and believes . . . has passed out of death into life” (Jn. 5:24)–without undergoing any sacrament or ritual, and without any waiting period or purgatory. The thief on the cross is the classic example. On the most meager evidence of his faith, Jesus told him, “Truly I say to you, today you shall be with Me in Paradise” (Lk. 23:43). No sacrament or work was required for him to procure salvation.

Furthermore, the many healings Jesus accomplished were physical evidence of His power to forgive sins (Matt. 9:5-6). When He healed, He frequently said, “Your faith has made you well” (Matt. 9:22; Mk. 5:34; 10:52; Lk. 8:48; 17:19; 18:42). All those healings were object lessons on the doctrine of justification by faith alone.

But the one occasion where Jesus actually declared someone “justified” provides the best insight into the doctrine as He taught it:

He also told this parable to certain ones who trusted in themselves that they were righteous, and viewed others with contempt: “Two men went up into the temple to pray, one a Pharisee, and the other a tax-gatherer. The Pharisee stood and was praying thus to himself, ‘God, I thank Thee that I am not like other people: swindlers, unjust, adulterers, or even like this tax-gatherer. I fast twice a week; I pay tithes of all that I get. ‘But the tax-gatherer, standing some distance away, was even unwilling to lift up his eyes to heaven, but was beating his breast, saying, ‘God, be merciful to me, the sinner!’ I tell you, this man went down to his house justified rather than the other; for everyone who exalts himself shall be humbled, but he who humbles himself shall be exalted” (Luke 18:9-14, emphasis added).

That parable surely shocked Jesus’ listeners! They “trusted in themselves that they were righteous” (v. 9)–the very definition of self-righteousness. Their theological heroes were the Pharisees, who held to the most rigid legalistic standards. They fasted, made a great show of praying and giving alms, and even went further in applying the ceremonial laws than Moses had actually prescribed.” As to the righteousness which is in the Law,” they considered themselves “blameless” (cf. Phil. 3:5-6).

Yet Jesus had stunned multitudes by saying, “Unless your righteousness surpasses that of the scribes and Pharisees, you shall not enter the kingdom of heaven” (Matt. 5:20)–followed by, “You are to be perfect, as your heavenly Father is perfect” (v. 48). Clearly, He set a standard that was humanly impossible, for no one could surpass the rigorous living of the scribes and Pharisees. Now He further astounds His listeners with a parable that seems to place a detestable tax-gatherer in a better position spiritually than a praying Pharisee.

Jesus’ point is clear. He was teaching that justification is by faith alone. All the theology of justification is there. But without delving into abstract theology, Jesus clearly painted the picture for us with a parable.

a judicial act of God

This tax-gatherer’s justification was an instantaneous reality. There was no process, no time lapse, no fear of purgatory.He “went down to his house justified” (v. 14)–not because of anything he had done, but because of what had been done on his behalf.

Notice that the tax-collector understood his own helplessness. He owed an impossible debt he knew he could not pay. All he could do was repent and plead for mercy. Contrast his prayer with that of the arrogant Pharisee. He did not recite what he had done. He knew that even his best works were sin. He did not offer to do anything for God. He simply pleaded for divine mercy.He was looking for God to do for him what he could not do for himself. That is the very nature of the penitence Jesus called for.

by faith alone

Furthermore, this man went away justified without performing any works of penance, without doing any sacrament or ritual, without any meritorious works whatsoever. His justification was complete without any of those things, because it was solely on the basis of faith. Everything necessary to atone for his sin and provide forgiveness had already been done on his behalf. He was justified by faith on the spot.

Again, he makes a stark contrast with the smug Pharisee, who was so certain that all his fasting and tithing and other works made him acceptable to God. But while the working Pharisee remained unjustified, the believing tax-gatherer received full justification by faith alone.

an imputed righteousness

Remember Jesus’ statement from the Sermon on the Mount, “Unless your righteousness surpasses that of the scribes and Pharisees, you shall not enter the kingdom of heaven” (Matt. 5:20)? Yet now He states that this tax-gatherer–the most wicked of men–was justified!How did such a sinner obtain a righteousness that exceeded that of the Pharisee? If the standard is divine perfection (v. 48), how could a traitorous tax-collector ever become just in God’s eyes?

The only possible answer is that he received a righteousness that was not his own (cf. Phil. 3:9). Righteousness was imputed to him by faith (Rom. 4:9-11).

Whose righteousness was reckoned to him?It could only be the perfect righteousness of a flawless Substitute, who in turn must bear the tax-gatherer’s sins and suffer the penalty of God’s wrath in his place.And the gospel tells us that is precisely what Jesus did.

The tax-gatherer was justified. God declared him righteous, imputing to him the full and perfect righteousness of Christ, forgiving him of all unrighteousness, and delivering him from all condemnation. Forever thereafter he stood before God on the ground of a perfect righteousness that had been reckoned to his account.

That is what justification means. It is the only true gospel. All other points of theology emanate from it. As Packer wrote, “The doctrine of justification by faith is like Atlas: it bears a world on its shoulders, the entire evangelical knowledge of saving grace. “The difference between Rome and the Reformers is not theological hair-splitting .A right understanding of justification by faith is the very foundation of the gospel.You cannot go wrong on this point without corrupting every other doctrine as well. And that is why every “different gospel” is under the eternal curse of God.

You cannot say that Luther invented the idea of justification by faith alone.Long before Luther it was taught by Augustine and Paul and Jesus and Moses. Even back in the Garden of Eden, Adam and Eve realized soon after their sin that the fig leaves with which they tried to cover their shame were woefully inadequate. The gospel is given in Genesis 3:21 when Moses tells us that God clothed them. They needed something they couldn’t provide for themselves; and God giving man what man needs to stand in His favorable presence is the essence of the gospel. Luther merely restated what true Christians have understood for centuries, that justification is by faith alone.

John MacArthur

Copyright 2009, Grace to You. All rights reserved.  Used by permission. The original appears right here.

See also:

THE ROMAN CATHOLIC CHURCH NOW A CHRISTIAN DENOMINATION?

SBC’S BETH MOORE MERELY PRETENDING TO BE PROTESTANT

THE PUSH FOR A ROMAN CATHOLIC DENOMINATION AND THE SBC’S RUSSELL MOORE

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Having been an SBC pastor since 1994, this illness is particularly evident concerning my ongoing look at the growing influence of decidedly anti-Reformation Contemplative Spirituality/Mysticism (CSM) within the Southern Baptist Convention, which is the largest so-called “Protestant” evangelical denomination in the United States.

I recently showed you in The Roman Catholic Church Now A Christian Denomination? and The Push For A Roman Catholic Denomination And The SBC’s Russell Moore that the sickening syncretism going on in spiritually spineless evanjellyfish is really that bad.

Actually, in the latter piece you’ll even see that Moore, Dean of the School of Theology and Senior Vice-President for Academic Administration at The Southern Baptist Theological Seminary, includes Mother Teresa among good Christian role models.

He’s hardly the only one in the SBC who holds it. For example back in May of this year Kay Warren, whose husband Purpose Driven Pope Rick Warren captains the Southern Baptist flagship Saddleback Church, tweeted the following quote from the mystic Roman Catholic nun:

(Online source)

As I already showed you in Rick Warren, Mother Teresa, And “All You Need Is Love”, Rick Warren himself is a Protholic who speaks of Mother Teresa in saintly terms. Consider the below tweet from a year ago:

(Online source)

Ever the promoter, the link takes us to Time magazine’s Special Commemorative hardcover book Mother Teresa: The Life and Works of a Modern Saint, with introduction by Rick Warren. If you’ve read it, as I have, you’ll quickly see from his introduction that Rick Warren does indeed hold up Mother Teresa as an ultimate Christian example.

However Mother Teresa, who even took her name after the emotionally troubled Roman Catholic mystic Teresa of Avila, was a slave to a false gospel as you’ll clearly see in The Myth of Mother Teresa by well-respected Reformed Christian blogger Tim Challies. Now there appears to be more bad news as evidenced in Tainted Saint: Mother Teresa Defended Pedophile Priest:

The death of journalist and polemicist Christopher Hitchens last month gave those familiar with his work a chance to revisit one of his more controversial subjects: the Albanian nun Agnes Gonxha Bojaxhiu, better known to the world as Mother Teresa. In his 1997 book, The Missionary Position: Mother Teresa in Theory and Practice, Hitchens argued that the “Saint of Calcutta,” who founded and headed the international Missionaries of Charity order, enjoyed undeserved esteem.

Despite her humanitarian reputation and 1979 Nobel Peace Prize, Mother Teresa had set up a worldwide system of “homes for the dying” that routinely failed to provide adequate care to patients, Hitchens argued — an appraisal shared by The Lancet, a respected medical journal. Mother Teresa also associated with, and took large sums of money from, disreputable figures such as American savings-and-loan swindler Charles Keating and the dictatorial Duvalier family of Haiti.

Notwithstanding these black marks on an otherwise sterling reputation, Mother Teresa — who died in 1997 and is now on the fast track to a formal proclamation of sainthood by the Vatican — was never known to have been touched by the scandal that would rock the Roman Catholic Church in the decade after her death: the systematic protection of child-molesting priests by church officials.

Yet documents obtained by SF Weekly suggest that Mother Teresa knew one of her favorite priests was removed from ministry for sexually abusing a Bay Area boy in 1993, and that she nevertheless urged his bosses to return him to work as soon as possible. The priest resumed active ministry, as well as his predatory habits. Eight additional complaints were lodged against him in the coming years by various families, leading to his eventual arrest on sex-abuse charges in 2005.

The priest was Donald McGuire, a former Jesuit who has been convicted of molesting boys in federal and state courts and is serving a 25-year federal prison sentence. McGuire, now 81 years old, taught at the University of San Francisco in the late 1970s, and held frequent spiritual retreats for families in San Francisco and Walnut Creek throughout the 1980s and 1990s. He also ministered extensively to the Missionaries of Charity during that time.

In a 1994 letter to McGuire’s Jesuit superior in Chicago, it appears that Mother Teresa acknowledged she had learned of the “sad events which took [McGuire] from his priestly ministry these past seven months,” and that McGuire “admitted imprudence in his behavior,” but she wished to see him put back on the job. The letter was written after McGuire had been sent to a psychiatric hospital following an abuse complaint to the Jesuits by a family in Walnut Creek.

“I understand how grave is the scandal touching the priesthood in the U.S.A. and how careful we must be to guard the purity and reputation of that priesthood,” the letter states. “I must say, however, that I have confidence and trust in Fr. McGuire and wish to see his vital ministry resume as soon as possible.”

The one-page letter comes from thousands of pages of church records that have been shared with plaintiffs’ attorneys in ongoing litigation against the Jesuits involving McGuire. (The documents were also shared with prosecutors who worked on his criminal cases.) It is printed on Missionaries of Charity letterhead but is unsigned, and thus cannot be verified absolutely as having been written by Mother Teresa. Officials in the Missionaries of Charity and the Jesuits did not respond to requests for comment on its provenance.

Yet statements throughout the letter point to Mother Teresa as the author. The writer speaks of “my communities throughout the world” and refers by name to Mother Teresa’s four top deputies, calling them “my four assistants.” Rev. Joseph Fessio, a Jesuit and former University of San Francisco professor who knew Mother Teresa, said the reference to her assistants is an “authentic” aspect of the letter.

The letter could have an impact on the near-complete process of canonizing Mother Teresa… (Online source)

See also:

JAMES ROBISON AND RICK WARREN WORKING TO REVERSE THE PROTESTANT REFORMATION

SBC’S BETH MOORE MERELY PRETENDING TO BE PROTESTANT

BETH MOORE AND JOHN PIPER LEAD LECTIO DIVINA-LITE AT PASSION 2012

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Do you seriously think that God merely winks at that? Do you seriously think He sees the brutal murders of His children during the Protestant Reformation as only oopsies on the part of Rome?

Sadly, the Christian community is awash right now with spiritual sissies who seem to have some new Missional Bible translation called Anything Goes Evangelicalism: How To Make The World Love You where Acts 15:1-2 has been reimagined:

Some inovative church planters came down from Judea and started teaching the Lord’s followers that they could not be saved, unless they were circumcised as Moses had taught. This caused lead apostle Paul and his missiologist bro Barnabas to include them in the next Extreme Passion conference so they could share how they had contextualized the gospel.

So it was decided to send Paul and Barnabas and a few others to Jerusalem to have a missions conference with the apostles and the church leaders there to teach them how the missional church planters were engaging the Jewish culture and bringing the church back to her Jewishness.

Well, Apprising Ministries believes you should know that for an alarming number of high profile evangelicals, e.g. Southern Baptists like Rick Warren and Beth Moore, the Roman Catholic Church has now become just another Christian denomination. The documentation of Warren’s sinful ecumenicism is clear here in Rick Warren And Teachings Of Demons.

Beth Moore goes even further as you’ll see in SBC’S Beth Moore Merely Pretending To Be Protestant, which contains the video clip below and the transcription to follow:

Transcription: “… to beg to differ with people that are ten times smarter than I am. But I want to say to you I see something different than that. I see God doing something huge in the body of Christ. I do not know why I have had the privilege to get to travel around, see one church after another…one group of believers after another, interdenominationally, all over this country, but I have gotten to see something that I think is huge.

And I’ll also suggest to you I am not the only one. And tonight I’m going to do my absolute best to illustrate to you something that God showed me out on that back porch. He put a picture…I’ve explained to you before I am a very visual person…so He speaks to me very often of putting a picture in my head.

And it was as if I was raised up looking down on a community, as I saw the church in that particular dimension- certainly not all dimensions, not even in many, but in what we will discuss tonight, the church, as Jesus sees it, in a particular dimension.” (Online source)

As I said before, I happen to have the series this is taken from. It comes from her 2002 series Believing God (BG), which as you can see below is still promoted by Lifeway, the publishing arm for the Southern baptist Convention:

(Online source)

Being that this LifeWay-sponsored BG Online Bible Study is from 10 years ago, we are safe to assume that the SBC doesn’t feel that what you hear from Beth Moore is out of line with this evangelical Protestant denomination. O yes we know, Moore is virtually hyper-charismatic while claiming that she’s receiving direct personal revelations from God and considers the apostate Roman Catholic Church merely a Christian denomination; but at least she’s not a Calvinist. The SBC can’t have that don’t you know…

The main point being, I know for a fact this wasn’t taken out of context. To anyone but the Moore-ites blinded by devotion to Beth the following is crystal clear: 1) Moore is speaking of the universal Church, i.e. the Body of Christ; 2) she’s claiming extra-biblical revelation via a literal vision God showed her, and 3) it enabled her to see the Church “as Jesus sees it.” There’s simply no way around this, period.

Here I draw to your attention that we’re experiencing much postmoden revisionist history going on today. This is then compounded by the evil impact of the neo-liberal cult within the Emerging Church aka the Emergent Church, as well as with largely pretending to be “Protestant” evangelicalism beginning its sordid lust affair with Roman Catholic mystics and their Contemplative Spirituality/Mysticism (CSM).

CSM is producing a sappy sentimentalism trying to pass for the genuine and robust Christian faith. This article is designed to bring you some historical fact to cut through this postmodern fog. For example, following is the position of Church Reformer John Calvin who said of the Roman Catholic Church:

[F]alsehood prevails under the Papacy. Hence the Papacy is not a Church… There, instead of the ministry of the word, prevails a perverted government, compounded of lies, a government which partly extinguishes, partly suppresses, the pure light. In place of the Lord’s Supper, the foulest sacrilege has entered, the worship of God is deformed by a varied mass of intolerable superstitions; doctrine (without which Christianity exists not) is wholly buried and exploded, the public assemblies are schools of idolatry and impiety…

Therefore while we are unwilling simply to concede the name of Church to the Papists we do not deny that there are churches among them. The question we raise only relates to the true and legitimate constitution of the Church, implying communion in sacred rites, which are the signs of profession, and especially in doctrine. Daniel and Paul foretold that Antichrist would sit in the temple of God, (Dan. 9: 27; 2Th 2: 4); we regard the Roman Pontiff as the leader and standard-bearer of that wicked and abominable kingdom.

By placing his seat in the temple of God, it is intimated that his kingdom would not be such as to destroy the name either of Christ or of his Church. Hence, then, it is obvious, that we do not at all deny that churches remain under his tyranny; churches, however, by sacrilegious impiety he has profaned, by cruel domination has oppressed, by evil and deadly doctrines like poisoned potions has corrupted and almost slain; churches where Christ lies half-buried, the gospel is suppressed, piety is put to flight, and the worship of God almost abolished; where, in short, all things are in such disorder as to present the appearance of Babylon rather than the holy city of God.

In one word, I call them churches, inasmuch as the Lord there wondrously preserves some remains of his people, though miserably torn and scattered, and inasmuch as some symbols of the Church still remain – symbols especially whose efficacy neither the craft of the devil nor human depravity can destroy. But as, on the other hand, those marks to which we ought especially to have respect in this discussion are effaced, I say that the whole body, as well as every single assembly, want the form of a legitimate Church.[1]

It’s also beyond question that Martin Luther himself considered Roman Catholicism apostate. And…um, I’m actually being quite kind to put it that way. Here’s a small sample of what Luther said about the Church of Rome:

Since the papal church not only neglects the command of Christ but even compels the people to ignore it and to act against it, it is certain that it is not Christ’s church but the synagogue of Satan which prescribes sin and prohibits righteousness. It clearly and indisputably follows that it must be the abomination of Antichrist and the furious harlot of the devil.[2]

What kind of a church is the pope’s church? It is an uncertain, vacillating and tottering church. Indeed, it is a deceitful, lying church, doubting and unbelieving, without God’s Word. For the pope with his wrong keys teaches his church to doubt and to be uncertain. If it is a vacillating church, then it is not the church of faith, for the latter is founded upon a rock, and the gates of hell cannot prevail against it (Matt.16:18). If it is not the church of faith, then it is not the Christian church, but it must be an unchristian, anti-Christian, and faithless church which destroys and ruins the real, holy, Christian church.[3]

You can read more of what Martin Luther had to say about the Church of Rome in Martin Luther With The Reformation View Of The Roman Catholic Church. And in contradistinction to the nauseatingly narcissistic preaching in too much of the Christian Church today consider the following from John MacArthur:

It is interesting to speculate what the church would be like today if Martin Luther had been prone to compromise. The pressure was heavy on him to tone down his teaching, soften his message, stop poking his finger in the eye of the papacy. Even many of his friends and supporters urged Luther to come to terms with Rome for the sake of harmony in the church. Luther himself prayed earnestly that the effect of his teaching would not be divisive.

When he nailed his 95 Theses to the door, the last thing he wanted to do was split the church.

Yet sometimes division is fitting, even healthy, for the church. Especially in times like Luther’s—and like ours—when the visible church seems full of counterfeit Christians, it is right for the true people of God to declare themselves. Compromise is sometimes a worse evil than division… (Online source)

Allow me to remind you of something Rick Warren, arguably the King of Compromise, said not too long ago in an article at Pastors.com, which has since vanished from there. However, I give it to you via Warren’s Christian Post piece The Five Stages of Renewal in the Local Church. Prophet Warren proclaimed:

A great spiritual awakening is on the horizon… Exciting days are ahead of us!…

I believe God is preparing the church for another reformation. The first reformation focused on what the church believed; this one will focus on what it does.

For too long we’ve separated the Word of God from the work of God. As the church, we’re called to be the body of Christ – the whole body. (Online source)

Then in Rick Warren Reversing the Reformation (RWRR) I showed you that he has also made his own personal position quite clear concerning the apostate Roman Catholic Church, “The small group structure is the structure of renewal in every facet of Christianity — including Catholicism.”[4] But in RWRR you’ll also read that at the same time out of the other side of his mouth Warren is telling us, “the First Reformation, begun by Martin Luther, was about the creeds (doctrine). Our doctrines were established by the First Reformation.”

Now, the question we need to ask here is: Which Rick Warren are we to believe? The one who says the Church of Rome with their false gospel is part of the Body of Christ; or should we instead listen to the Rick Warren who tells us, “Our doctrines were established by the First Reformation.” These statements are actually diametrically opposed; because as you’ve just seen, Reformers like Calvin and Luther most clearly called the Roman Catholic Church apostate (and worse). So Biblically we would really have to refer to Warren as being double-minded when it comes to the Church of Rome.

We cannot forget that the heart of the Protestant Reformation involves the very Gospel of Jesus Christ itself, which Warren—as a pastor who would be sent by the Lord—is supposed to preach publicly, not just privately affirm while meeting with his critics. The doctrine of salvation is no minor issue; and Warren also happens to be a pastor within the Southern Baptist Convention, which is still—at least for now—reputed to be a Protestant denomination. Further Warren has also even claimed he is a “Kuyper-Calvinist.”

With this in mind then, in his article History of the Doctrine of Justification Dr. John Gerstner begins by reminding us:

“The doctrine by which the church stands or falls.” So said Martin Luther about justification by faith alone. John Calvin agreed, calling justification by faith the “hinge” of the Reformation.

Dr. Gerstner then correctly informs us:

It was not until the Council of Trent (1545-1563) that justification was officially confirmed as a process based on human merit derived through divine grace. This was the article in Session VI, Canon 7 of the Council of Trent which led the Roman Catholic Church away from the orthodox teaching on justification. (Online source)

The doctrine of justification speaks to what happens because Christ Jesus rescues all sinners who will believe from death and hell. Let me give you a little working knowledge as we get set to wrap up this message. Here is a good brief definition for what the historic orthodox Christian Church means by justification. Dr. Charles Hodge (1797-1878), esteemed professor of theology at Princeton Theological Seminary before the Cult of Liberal Theology swallowed it whole, writes:

Justification is defined in the Westminster Catechism, “An act of God’s free grace, wherein He pardoned all our sins, and accepteth us as righteous in His sight, only for the righteousness of Christ imputed to us, and received by faith alone.”[2]

As simply as it can be stated—the Bible teaches that justification happens the nanosecond a human being by God’s grace alone, through faith alone, truly places his complete trust in the finished work on the Cross of Christ alone. And it is the act whereby God, as the righteous Judge, declares a guilty sinner instantaneously absolved of his sins by crediting the merit of perfect life of Jesus Christ of Nazareth to the believer.

But this proper Biblical Gospel preached by Christ’s Apostles is quite literally cursed by the Roman Catholic Church. As our expert witness, here I’ll call in Dr. Ron Rhodes; he even praises Warren’s The Purpose Driven Life, and therefore could hardly be considered a hostile one. In his book Reasoning from the Scriptures with Catholics Dr. Rhodes tells us, “One of the greater challenges in engaging in discussions with Roman Catholics involves the issue of salvation.”

He then goes on to explain, “Certainly Catholics deny that their Church teaches a works salvation.” Now, leaving aside whatever diifferences we may have with Rhodes, it should now be clear that he believes the Roman Catholic Church preaches another gospel, just the same as did Luther and Calvin of the Protestant Reformation. And that would be the very same Reformation where Warren told us earlier our “doctrines were established.”

We now point out that even though he is supposedly a “Protestant” pastor, by embracing apostate Roman Catholicism as a viable Christian expression, Rick Warren is thereby saying that Calvin and Luther were in fact wrong. This is the critical issue that people don’t seem to understand: If the Roman Catholic Church is now to be considered as merely another Christian denomination then the Protestant Reformation was not of God; it was wrong, and should never have happened.

Rhodes continues:

[Roman Catholics] will talk about how their salvation is impossible apart from the grace of God. But though things start out by grace in the Roman Catholic system of salvation,…works do indeed get mixed into the picture. By virtue of the fact that a life of meritorious works is necessary to gain final salvation, it is clear that in reality the Roman Catholic view of salvation is works-oriented.[6]

And this is exactly what Reformers like Calvin and Luther correctly rejected as a false gospel by appealing to the Bible as their final authority when their “doctrines were established” through the leading of God the Holy Spirit; because He inspired our Scriptures. Dr. R. C. Sproul now puts all of this into perspective for us on The John Ankerberg Show, which concerned the Evangelicals And Catholics Together document:

the Catholic Church understood in the 16th century, and Trent and Rome placed its unambiguous anathema on the Protestant doctrine of “Justification by faith alone” and has never, in any magisterial sense removed that anathema. The Roman Catholic Church condemns “sola fide! (L.)” Now if, please understand this, if “sola fide (L.)” is the gospel, then the Roman Catholic Church has condemned the gospel of Jesus Christ. Now, nobody who went to the Council of Trent, as a delegate, went there with the intention of condemning the gospel.

The theologians of Rome really believed that they were defending the gospel and that the Protestants had in fact committed apostasy. And I admire the Church, the Roman communion of the 16th century for at least understanding what apparently people don’t understand today, and that is what is at stake here. That they understood that somebody is under the anathema of God! And we can be as nice, and as pleasant, and as gentle, and as loving, and as charitable, and tolerant as we can possibly be, but it’s not going to change that folks. Somebody is preaching a different gospel!

And when Rome condemned the Protestant declaration of “Justification by faith alone” I believe, Rome, when placing the anathema on “sola fide (L.),” placed the anathema of God upon themselves. I agree with his [John MacArthur] assessment, that the institution [Roman Catholic Church] is apostate! (Online source)

So now I will ask the key question yet again: How is it that some of the most powerful and prominent teachers in the Southern Baptist Convention—ostensibly the largest Protestant denomination in America—flatly contradict the doctrine of the Reformation, which they also say they believe in, and no SBC leader has stepped forward to call them to account for their sinful ecumenicism?

__________________________________________________________________________
End notes:

[1] John Calvin (2010-06-21T04:00:00+00:00). Institutes of the Christian Religion (Kindle Location 19919, 19922-19925, 20106-20118). Kindle Edition.

[2] Ewald M. Plass, What Luther Says [St. Louis: Concordia Publishing, 2006], 1019)

[3] Martin Luther, Conrad Bergendoff, ed., Luther’s Works [Philadelphia: Muhlenberg Press, 1958], Vol. 40, Church and Ministry II, The Keys, 348.

[4] http://thinkexist.com/quotes/rick_warren/3.html, accessed 1/05/2012.

[5] Charles Hodge, Systematic Theology, Vol. III [Peabody: Hendrickson Publishers, 2008], 114.

[6] Ron Rhodes, Reasoning from the Scriptures with Catholics [Eugene: Harvest House Publishers, 2000] , 121.

See also:

THE PUSH FOR A ROMAN CATHOLIC DENOMINATION AND THE SBC’S RUSSELL MOORE

CHARLES SPURGEON: THE ROMAN CATHOLIC CHURCH IS THE MASTERPIECE OF SATAN AND THE QUEEN OF INIQUITY

LET’S LOOK AT THE GOSPEL

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HT: Reformation Theology

See also:

THE PUSH FOR A ROMAN CATHOLIC DENOMINATION AND THE SBC’S RUSSELL MOORE

SBC’S BETH MOORE MERELY PRETENDING TO BE PROTESTANT

JAMES ROBISON AND RICK WARREN WORKING TO REVERSE THE PROTESTANT REFORMATION

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What is the whole papacy but a beautiful false front and a deceptively glittering holiness under which the wretched devil lies in hiding? The devil always desires to imitate God in this way. He cannot bear to observe God speaking.

If he cannot prevent it or hinder God’s Word by force, he opposes it with a semblance of piety, takes the very words God had spoken and so twist them as to peddle his lies and poison under their name. (What Luther Says, II: 10007)

Since the papal church not only neglects the command of Christ but even compels the people to ignore it and to act against it, it is certain that it is not Christ’s church but the synagogue of Satan which prescribes sin and prohibits righteousness. It clearly and indisputably follows that it must be the abomination of Antichrist and the furious harlot of the devil. (What Luther Says, II: 1019)

Let him who does not want to be lost and go to the devil be on his guard with all diligence and earnestness against the papacy and its doctrine, and let him never again accept even the most insignificant and smallest part of the papacy’s teaching, no matter what it may cost him. Let him flee from the papacy and its following as from the devil incarnate himself, and let him by no means be silenced by the sweet, slippery words of hypocrites or be persuaded that yielding and conceding something for the sake of peace is a matter of little consequence and that the bond of love should not be disrupted for the sake of something trifling (as they represent and rationalize this to be). Come now, there is assuredly no joking in this matter; eternal salvation and eternal damnation are involved. (What Luther Says, II:1019-1020)

Can anything more horrible be said than that the kingdom of the papists is the kingdom of those who spit at Christ, the Son of God, and crucify Him anew? For they do crucify Christ…in themselves, in the church…and in the hearts of the faithful…Therefore let everyone who is honestly given to piety flee out of this Babylon as quickly as possible…. For so great are its impurity and its abomination that no one can express them in words; they can be discerned only by eyes that are spiritual. (What Luther Says, II: 1020)

My dear pope, I will kiss your feet and acknowledge you as supreme bishop if you will worship my Christ and grant that through His death and resurrection, not through keeping your traditions, we have forgiveness of sins and life eternal. If you will yield on this point, I shall not take away your crown and power; if not, I shall constantly cry out that you are the Antichrist, and I shall testify that your whole cult and religion are only a denial of God, but also the height of blasphemy against God and idolatry. (What Luther Says, II: 1069)

What kind of a church is the pope’s church? It is an uncertain, vacillating and tottering church. Indeed, it is a deceitful, lying church, doubting and unbelieving, without God’s Word. For the pope with his wrong keys teaches his church to doubt and to be uncertain. If it is a vacillating church, then it is not the church of faith, for the latter is founded upon a rock, and the gates of hell cannot prevail against it (Matt.16:18). If it is not the church of faith, then it is not the Christian church, but it must be an unchristian, anti-Christian, and faithless church which destroys and ruins the real, holy, Christian church. (Luther’s Works, vol. 40, Church and Ministry II, The Keys, p.348)

All this is to be noted carefully, so that we can treat with contempt the filthy, foolish twaddle that the popes present in their decrees about their Roman church, that is, about their devil’s synagogue (Rev.2:9), which separates itself from common Christendom and the spiritual edifice built up on this stone, and instead invents for itself a fleshly worldly, worthless, lying, blasphemous, idolatrous authority over all of Christendom. One of these two things must be true: if the Roman church is not built on this rock along with the other churches, then it is the devil’s church; but if it is built, along with all the other churches, on this roc, then it cannot be lord or head over the other churches. For Christ the cornerstone knows nothing of two unequal churches, but only of one church alone, just as the Children’s Faith, that is, the faith of all of Christendom, says, “I believe in one holy, Christian church,” and does not say, “I believe in one holy Roman church.” The Roman church is and should be one portion or member of the holy Christian church, not the head, which befits solely Christ the cornerstone. If not, it is not a Christian but an UN-Christian and anti-Christian church, that is, a papal school of scoundrels. (Luther’s Works, Volume 41, Church and Ministry III, Against The Roman Papacy, An Institution Of The Devil, p.311)

These arrogant and unlearned papists can’t govern the church because they write nothing, they read nothing, but, firmly saddled in the pride of possession, they cry out that the decrees of the fathers are not to be questioned and decisions made are not to be disputed, otherwise one would have to dance to the tune of every little brother. For this reason the pope, possessed by demons, defends his tyranny with the canon “Si papa.” This canon states clearly: if the pope should lead the whole world into the control of hell, he is nevertheless not to be contradicted. It’s a terrible thing that on account of the authority of this man we must lose our souls, which Christ redeemed with his precious blood. Christ says, “I will not cast out anybody who comes to me” (John 6:37). On the other hand, the pope says, “As I will it, so I command it; you must perish rather than resist me.” Therefore the pope, whom our princes adore, is full of devils. He must be exterminated by the Word and by prayer. (Luther’s Works, vol.54, Table Talk, No.441, p.330) (Online source)

Martin Luther

See also:

CHARLES SPURGEON: THE ROMAN CATHOLIC CHURCH IS THE MASTERPIECE OF SATAN AND THE QUEEN OF INIQUITY

SBC’S BETH MOORE MERELY PRETENDING TO BE PROTESTANT

YOU DISAGREE WITH THE POPE AND THINK YOU’RE A ROMAN CATHOLIC; BETTER THINK AGAIN

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Moreover, remember that in those early days the Church, in her building, had to encounter mountains of “much rubbish” of the various philosophies of mankind.

There was a kind of “feeling after God” in the heathen mind, but this feeling after God was misdirected and proudly self-confident—and therefore it missed its way—and in the process of thought the more spiritual-minded among men (if I may venture to call men spiritual at all who were not renewed byDivine Grace) invented theories and superstitions which they thought to be exceedingly wise, but which, in fact, were folly, itself, dressed out in the robes of vainglory!

These philosophies had a great following and exercised so powerful an influence that they were felt even in the Church itself. In the writings of the Apostles Paul and John you continually meet with allusions to the great Gnostic philosophy which perverted so many Christians.

Ever since that day human wisdom has been a greater curse to the Church than anything else! The ignorance of Christians has never been so evil a thing, bad as it is, as the vain knowledge, the false wisdom with which men have been puffed up in their fleshly minds. It is an ill day when men know too much to know Christ!

It is a great misfortune when men are too manly to be converted and to become as little children, and sit at the feet of the great Teacher! Yet there are many professors of religion who talk as if this was their condition and as if they were proud of it.

Even at this present time the outside philosophies of unchristian men infect the Church, spoil her, injure her, dilute the wine of the kingdom, overturn the children’s milk and, to a great extent, poison the Bread of Life. Sad that it should be so, but the rubbish of philosophy has always been in the way of the building up of the wall of the Church of God.

The story of the Apostolic age may serve as a great comfort to us in these evil times. As they were hindered, so are we, but as they persevered and overcame even so will we, by our great Master’s aid. After that lot of rubbish had been cleared away, the task was only begun, for soon after Apostolic times and the first zeal of Christians had gone, there came the old Roman rubbish, which in the end proved a worse hindrance than all which had preceded it.

This Popish rubbish was found in layers—first one doctrinal error and then another and then another, and then another, and then another—till at this time the errors of the Church of Rome are as countless as the stars, as black as midnight and as foul as Hell! Her abominations reek in the nostrils of all good men.

Her idolatries are the scorn of reason and the abhorrence of faith! The iniquities of her practice and the enormities of her doctrine almost surpass belief! Popery is as much the masterpiece of Satan as the Gospel is the masterpiece of God! There can scarcely be imagined anything of devilish craftiness or Satanic wickedness which could be compared with her—she is unparalleled as the queen of iniquity.

Behold upon her forehead the name, MYSTERY, BABYLON THE GREAT, THE MOTHER OF HARLOTS AND ABOMINATIONS OF THE EARTH. The Church of Rome and her teachings are a vast mountain of rubbish covering the Truth of God! For weary years good men could not get at the Foundation because of this very much rubbish.

Here and there a Wycliffe spied out the precious Cornerstone and leaped for joy because he could get his foot upon it, and say, “Jesus Christ Himself, elect and precious, is the Stone on which I build my hope.” Here and there a John Huss, or a Jerome of Prague, or a Savonarola in the thick midnight, yet, nevertheless, found the Foundation and wept their very hearts out because of the much rubbish which threatened to bury even them while they were seeking Him!

A master excavator was Martin Luther—how grandly he laid bare the glorious foundation of Justification by faith Alone! An equally grand worker at this great enterprise was Master John Calvin who laid open long stretches of the ancient foundations of the Covenant of Grace. Well was he supported by his brother of Zurich, Zwingle, and John Knox in Scotland, and others in this land.

They cleared away, for a while, some of the rubbish. But there was such a mass of it that they had to throw it up in heaps on either side—and it is beginning to come crumbling down again onto the foundation and to cover it up once more.

A perfect reformation they could not work, and the remnant of the rubbish is now our plague and hindrance. Everywhere the much rubbish is being diligently cast upon the pile by the emissaries of the Evil One, and we can scarcely get to the foundations to build again the gold and silver and precious stones which God commits to us with which to build up His own house. Alas, there is very, very much rubbish!

I saw in Rome that the waggoner which took away the earth from the Forum were marked, “Regia Scava.” They belonged to the royal excavations and I long to see royal excavators, employed by the King of Kings, get to work to excavate, again, the foundations of the wall of Jerusalem and cart away some of the tremendous heaps of rubbish that still lie upon the walls. God grant we may see good and great work done in this direction before long.

But, beloved Friends, if this rabbinical, pagan, philosophical and Romish rubbish were all gone, still the work would scarcely have begun, for there is yet very much rubbish of other kinds lying hereabout. There is so much rubbish arising from the world, the flesh and the devil, that we are not able to build the wall. Look at human sin. How that impedes us!

Oh, if there were no false systems of religion. If priest and scribe were silent. If false prophets and Antichrist were both out of the way, yet the sins of men are a vast and hideous mass of rotten rubbish—and our labors of love are hindered by them. How hard it is to get at human ears—for the world has the first word—and often the last word, with the most of men.

Eargate is choked with rubbish! How harder, still, it is to get at human hearts—for there Satan reigns as in his own palace—and takes care to erect Huge barricades and earthworks of the rubbish of carnal lust and pride and unbelief![1]

Charles Spurgeon

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End notes:

[1] Charles Spurgeon, Rubbish No. 1156, sermon on Nehemiah 4:10.

See also:

SBC’S BETH MOORE MERELY PRETENDING TO BE PROTESTANT

JAMES ROBISON AND RICK WARREN WORKING TO REVERSE THE PROTESTANT REFORMATION

YOU DISAGREE WITH THE POPE AND THINK YOU’RE A ROMAN CATHOLIC; BETTER THINK AGAIN

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See to it that no one takes you captive by philosophy and empty deceit, according to human tradition, according to the elemental spirits of the world, and not according to Christ.

CSM And The Rise Of Ecumenicism

Based upon what I’ve been receiving lately at Apprising Ministries my coverage of the alarming increase of Contemplative Spirituality/Mysticism (CSM) and sinful ecumenicism in the SBC has hit a nerve.

No worries here; the documentation I’m presenting at this online apologetics and discernment labor in the Lord clearly show the spurious Spiritual Formation aka CSM of  Living Spiritual Teacher and Quaker mystic Richard Foster and his spiritual twin SBC minister Dallas Willard has reached cult status. You think I’m kidding; consider that squishy evanjellyfish in lust for the world has become quite superstitious and pietistic.

As such, if Foster and Willard were to tell them that, to really experience God, the Lord now wanted people to practice rapidly hopping up and down on one foot during their time of Contemplative/Centering Prayer (CCP), there’d be more of these neo-Gnostics than you’d believe being treated for shin splints after doing so in their meditation in an altered state of consciousness.

The absolute truth is, this Foster-Willardism is merely a reworked romanticized version of Roman Catholic mysticism. Well, here’s something to contemplate while we’re in meditation: The spiritual disciplines in this evangelical fad of the CSM of Foster-Willardism led every one of those mystics to stay with the anti-gospel of Roman Catholic Church, which then anathematized God’s Gospel.

What we’re now witnessing is the rise of pathetic Protholics—not really Protestant, not really Roman Catholic—such as SBC’S Beth Moore Merely Pretending To Be Protestant or James Robison And Rick Warren Working To Reverse The Protestant Reformation. The sad thing is, theirs is fast becoming the prevailing view concerning apostate Roman Catholicism within mainstream evangelicalism.

Do you think this is merely an intellectual decision on their part to now consider the Roman Catholic Church as a Christian denomination? Well, it’s not solely. This also happens to be one of the doctrines of demons advanced by demonic deceitful spirits. So is it really any wonder that we see those who dabble with, and endorse, these practices of CSM end up with a perverted view of the Church of Rome?

The sinfully ecumenical neo-liberal cult of the Emergent Church aka the Emerging Church spent years bombarding evangelical Young Adult and Youth ministries with pro-Roman Catholic propaganda softening up the younger sectors of the mainstream. It’s my contention that now the EC and the seeker driven attractional camps will all be pushing this ecumenicism within evangelicalism to make it an issue.

In fact, it may explain things like Contemplative Spirituality/Mysticism Invades Evangelicalism With Rick Warren And Kay Warren Leading The Charge and Southern Baptist Kay Warren Promoting Devout Roman Catholic Jean Vanier. Just the other day in Setting Kay Warren Straight About Roman Catholic Mystic Henri Nouwen I reminded you again that Kay Warren’s especially fond of that deceased apostate.

So Now We’ll Let The Roman Catholic Church Speak For Itself

You may know that Roman Catholic mystic Henri Nouwen (1932-1996) was a leading guru of CSM, with its form of transcendental meditation commonly referred to by these spiritual adulters as Contemplative/Centering Prayer (CCP). We begin by looking at what the Church of Rome herself has to say about her “infallible definitions” of her dogma i.e. essential doctrines.

First we’ll examine the document Unam Sanctum — “a Bull of Pope Boniface VIII promulgated November 18, 1302.” And this has never been changed, nor has the Roman Catholic Church ever denied it as written—even to this day. Pope Boniface the VIII said:

Urged by faith, we are obliged to believe and to maintain that the Church is one, holy, catholic, and also apostolic. We believe in her firmly and we confess with simplicity that outside of her there is neither salvation nor the remission of sins,… she represents one sole mystical body whose Head is Christ and the head of Christ is God [1 Cor 11:3]. In her then is one Lord, one faith, one baptism [Eph 4:5].

We venerate this Church [of Rome] as one,… Therefore, of the one and only Church there is one body and one head, not two heads like a monster; that is, Christ and the Vicar of Christ, Peter and the successor of Peter, [the Pope]… For since the Apostle said: “There is no power except from God and the things that are, are ordained of God” [Rom 13:1-2],…

Hence we must recognize the more clearly that spiritual power surpasses in dignity and in nobility any temporal power whatever, as spiritual things surpass the temporal…This authority, however, (though it has been given to man and is exercised by man), is not human but rather divine, granted to Peter by a divine word and reaffirmed to him (Peter) and his successors by the One Whom Peter confessed, the Lord saying to Peter himself, ‘Whatsoever you shall bind on earth, shall be bound also in Heaven’ etc., [Mt 16:19].

Therefore whoever resists this power thus ordained by God, resists the ordinance of God [Rom 13:2],…Furthermore, we declare, we proclaim, we define that it is absolutely necessary for salvation that every human creature be subject to the Roman Pontiff. (Online source, emphasis added).

This is certainly a Roman Catholic Pope speaking concerning faith and morals. The late Dr. Walter Martin who founded the Christian Research Institute was a recognized authority in the field of Comparative Religion. He informs us that this papal decree Unam Sanctam was declared by Cardinal Henry Edward Manning—himself “an authority on papal bulls and decrees”—to be “infallible and beyond all doubt an act ex cathedra.”[1]

Ex cathedra means that when the Roman Pontiff—the Pope—speaks “from the Chair of Peter,” with his alleged supreme apostolic authority as the supposed Vicar of Christ—Head of the universal Church—and makes a decree on faith and morals, this statement would then therefore be considered an infallible decree. And as such, Unam Sanctum has to be considered as irreformable. This is the inescapable problem for Rome.

The fact is that this Bull from Pope Boniface the VIII has to be considered official dogma by the Church of Rome even to this day. Which, of course, would be understandable from the point of view of Roman Catholic theology. After-all, how could one ever change an infallible doctrine by the supreme representative of Jesus Christ on earth! So, the Church of Rome cannot change her doctrine without admitting her Popes erred.

Now this would seem clear enough; but most people you are going to run into, whether they are active Roman Catholics or just “cultural” ones, will simply tell you that they personally don’t believe all of that. And we would have no reason to doubt that this indeed may be so. However, what they don’t know is that what you’re looking at here is the official position of the Church of Rome; and the individual Roman Catholic does not have the freedom to deny this. Well, not if they wish to actually be Roman Catholics.

First we need to make sure you understand that James Akin writing for Catholic Answers, which is actually a leading a pro-Roman Catholic apologetic organization, informs us:

The anathemas do not apply today, since the 1983 Code of Canon Law (CIC) abolished the canonical penalty of anathema, which was a form of excommunication. This does not mean that the Church no longer rejects the beliefs that had been anathematized.

The formula “let him be anathema” is a traditional expression that ecumenical councils used when making infallible definitions. Therefore, the dropping of the canonical penalty of anathema does not “undo” the infallible definitions expressed in Trent’s canons. An infallible definition, by its very nature, can never be “undone.”

The Church still believes and teaches all the definitions Trent issued.
(Online source, emphasis added)

So the late Dr. Carl F.H. Henry a leading evangelical theologian, is actually proved right when he says, “evangelical–Catholic dialogue must now begin with [the Council of] Trent.” The aforementioned Council of  Trent was held by the Roman Catholic Church in response to Luther and the Reformers and ran from 1545–1563; a span of some 18 years. This would appear to be more than enough time to make sure that you have fully formulated the doctrine of your church.

In addition, it would also give one ample opportunity to be quite certain that you have then articulated it in such a way as to let people know exactly where your organization stands. Wouldn’t you agree? Dr. Henry then goes on to say:

The Reformers affirmed the full authority of the Bible. They were prepared to accept in Catholic tradition only what Scripture authorizes. The [Roman] Catholic church rejected the Reformation emphasis on both the Bible alone (”sola scriptura”) and on faith alone (”sola fide”). It excommunicated Luther, who sought to remain in its ranks in the interest of reform, while it accommodated critics who deplored the Roman church’s very existence.

The church defended its institutional vices, many of which it later rectified or moderated. Yet the basic issue was not moral and institutional corruption alone, but the legitimacy of established and inherited church doctrine as well. In the doctrinal decrees of the Council of Trent (1545–1563) the Roman church officially approved and canonized the doctrine of justification by faith-and-works, and thus condemned what had earlier been one strand in its own message, justification by faith.

The opportunity that the Reformers offered of a reformed church that would remain unified and universal was therefore rejected. A historic moment for theological dialogue and a major opportunity for doctrinal understanding were squandered. In consequence, evangelical-Catholic dialogue must now begin with Trent. Trent cannot be bypassed as merely the time-bound echo of one spectrum of influential Catholic dogmatics, since it expresses church doctrine that Rome identified as authoritative and irreformable. (Online source, emphasis added).

The Fact Is The True Roman Catholic Must Obey The Church

In closing this, for now, it’s important we return briefly to the subject of the individual Roman Catholic who would tell you that they do not agree with some of these so-called infallible teachings. We consider the following from the Second Vatican Council of the Church of Rome, which many are under the mistaken impression somehow changed the the RCC’s views on the primacy of the Roman Pontiff and his supposed authority over all churches as well as individuals within who would be considered Christian.

This is Pope Paul VI  from November 21, 1964 in his Dogmatic Constitution Of The Church—Lumen Gentium:

just as the office granted individually to Peter, the first among the apostles, is permanent and is to be transmitted to his successors, so also the apostles’ office of nurturing the Church is permanent, and is to be exercised without interruption by the sacred order of bishops. (14*)

Therefore, the Sacred Council teaches that bishops by divine institution have succeeded to the place of the apostles, (15*) as shepherds of the Church, and he who hears them, hears Christ, and he who rejects them, rejects Christ and Him who sent Christ. (149)(16*) (Online source, emphasis added).

Since the Pope is the head bishop, by this logic, if you reject his teachings then you reject Christ. No way around it; and this is from Vatican II. Further, in the current edition of New Advent—The Catholic Encyclopedia we are informed:

The title pope, once used with far greater latitude…is at present employed solely to denote the Bishop of Rome, who, in virtue of his position as successor of St. Peter, is the chief pastor of the whole Church, the Vicar of Christ upon earth… The primacy of St. Peter and the perpetuity of that primacy in the Roman See are dogmatically defined in the canons attached to the first two chapters of the Constitution “Pastor Aeternus”:…

[the Pope] is “the supreme teacher of the [universal] Church, whose it is to prescribe what is to be believed by all the faithful,… [and he] can legislate for the whole Church, with or without the assistance of a general council;… (Online source, emphasis added).

And then finally in the Code Of Canon Law from the official Vatican Website itself we read:

Can. 212 §1. Conscious of their own responsibility, the Christian faithful are bound to follow with Christian obedience those things which the sacred pastors [obviously this includes the Pope] inasmuch as they represent Christ, declare as teachers of the faith or establish as rulers of the Church (Online source, emphasis added).

Can. 333 §1. By virtue of his office, the Roman Pontiff not only possesses power offer (sic) the universal Church but also obtains the primacy of ordinary power offer (sic) all particular churches and groups of them.

§3. No appeal or recourse is permitted against a sentence or decree of the Roman Pontiff. (Online source, emphasis added)

Now these citations above are, beyond any reasonable doubt, the official declarations of the Roman Catholic Church herself. And as you can very plainly see, according to the above authoritative Church of Rome resources, no individual Roman Catholic can disagree with these dogmas and remain in good standing with this communion—well, at least on paper. So let’s stop playing the word games shall we?

The time has now arrived for evangelical Protestant leaders to make a firm public stand and to bring this issue to a head. Either the Church of Rome formally repents of these teachings; or, she should stand firmly by them. Don’t you agree? And the question we should ask someone who tells us that they don’t believe these teachings of the Roman Catholic Church is this:

If you don’t agree with these things, then why would you even want to be a Roman Catholic and waste your time and money trusting your soul to this godless organization? 

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End notes:

[1] Walter Martin, Roman Catholicism, CD Rom, available at Walter Martin’s Religious InfoNet.

See also:

THE DECEIVERS OF ROMAN CATHOLICISM

BETH MOORE: GOD’S VISION FOR THE CHURCH INCLUDES THE ROMAN CATHOLIC CHURCH “DENOMINATION”

RICK WARREN AND TEACHINGS OF DEMONS

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See also:

SBC’S BETH MOORE MERELY PRETENDING TO BE PROTESTANT

JAMES ROBISON AND RICK WARREN WORKING TO REVERSE THE PROTESTANT REFORMATION

RICK WARREN AND TEACHINGS OF DEMONS

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Now I would remind you, brothers, of the gospel I preached to you, which you received, in which you stand, and by which you are being saved, if you hold fast to the word I preached to you—unless you believed in vain.

For I delivered to you as of first importance what I also received: that Christ died for our sins in accordance with the Scriptures, that he was buried, that he was raised on the third day in accordance with the Scriptures. (1 Corinthians 15:1-4)

Summary: Verses One And Two

Living Spiritual Teacher and leading guru of the Emerging Church, author, speaker, activist[1] Brian McLaren tells us in his recent book A New Kind of Christianity that “about fifteen years ago” he was having lunch with “a well-known Evangelical theologian.”

Somewhere during the lunch with his friend Rod Washington—whom I’ve never heard of—Washington apparently said to McLaren, “Most Evangelicals haven’t got the foggiest notion of what the gospel really is,” and asked McLaren to define it.

O please. No, of course not, nobody knew the Gospel for 2,000 years, blah, blah, blah…so that’s why we needed the neo-liberal cult of the Emergent Church to come along.[1] Right. McLaren continues:

I answered as any good Romans Protestant would, quoting Romans. He followed up with this simple but annoying rhetorical question: “You’re quoting Paul. Shouldn’t you let Jesus define the gospel?” When I gave him a quizzical look, he asked, “What was the gospel according to Jesus?”

A little humiliated, I mumbled something akin to “You tell me,” and he replied, “For Jesus, the gospel was very clear. The Kingdom of God is at hand. That’s the gospel according to Jesus, right?”[2]

“What was the gospel according to Jesus?” Translation: What is gospel according to what I dreams said it was?” Next McLaren tells us that, “The kingdom of God is at hand [means] God’s new benevolent society is already among us.” No, the Gospel has always been repentance and the forgiveness of sins in Jesus Name.

Jesus even tells us this Himself during His Bible study with two of His disciples He’d met up with on the road to Emmaus after His resurrection from the dead:

Then he said to them, “These are my words that I spoke to you while I was still with you, that everything written about me in the Law of Moses and the Prophets and the Psalms must be fulfilled.”

Then he opened their minds to understand the Scriptures, and said to them, “Thus it is written, that the Christ should suffer and on the third day rise from the dead, and that repentance and forgiveness of sins should be proclaimed in his name to all nations, beginning from Jerusalem. You are witnesses of these things. (Luke 24:44-48)

However, apostates like Brian McLaren and Rob Bell, once an icon of the Emerging Church, don’t like that because it contradicts their teaching that all men are already saved[3] You see, for many in the Emerging Church, and more and more of mainstream squishy attractional evanjellyfish, “the gospel” has been redefined into a new postmodern form of the spiritually bankrupt social gospel; the Fatherhood of God and the Brotherhood of Man.

But, even the first two verses of our opening text above Paul tells the church in Corinth that he will remind them of the gospel I preached to you. The Greek here gives the picture — “I would have you know.” As in “this is a very important matter this” gospel I preached to you. In other words, it’s not just a little friendly reminder; but rather, a short exposition of the Gospel preached by the Apostles of Jesus Christ.

Under the inspiratio of God the holy Spirit, Paul was telling them that this Gospel was absolutely not to be taken lightly, for it is the very heart of the Christian faith. The Apostle wanted to make sure they understood that it’s only by which [i.e. this gospel] you are being saved; as it is possible—no matter how strongly or sincerely—for one to believe in vain. Paul clearly elaborated further on this in Galatians 1:6-9.

Summary: Verses Three And Four

In the next two verses Paul will pass on what I also received. The words he uses here in the Greek are technical terms; ones which are also used in rabbinical writings. This is why there are many apologists and commentators who will correctly use this passage to link the Apostle Paul with very early Christian tradition concerning the fact of Christ’s literal bodily resurrection from the dead.

However, Paul is actually doing more than merely passing on an early creed of the ancient Church. Look now at Galatians 1:11-12 —For I would have you know, brothers, that the gospel that was preached by me is not man’s gospel. For I did not receive it from any man, nor was I taught it, but I received it through a revelation of Jesus Christ (emphasis added).

A careful examination of these verses shows that Paul is actually telling us that no man made up the gospel that was preached by me, and while he was most likely aware of these early creeds that were circulating among the early believers, the Apostle is also informing us that he received the Gospel personally through a revelation of Jesus Christ Himself.

That’s a pretty solid Source, and it also answers the postmodern deconstructing question mused to McLaren by “evangelical” theologian Rod Washington earlier. For you see, it’s because of his seeing the risen Christ in person that Paul can even be a genuine Apostle (see—1 Corinthians 9:1). So what he’s doing here, in actuality, is verifying the truth of this early Christian creed.

In verse 3 the Apostle begins to tell us what the Apostolic Gospel was/is — that Christ died for our sins in accordance with the Scriptures. And that’s why it is so important to know Who Jesus Christ of Nazareth is. Not just that He died for our sins, but also that Christ is God Himself in the person of the unique (Greek: monogenes) God-Man Jesus of Nazareth (see—Isaiah 9:6; John 1:1, 14, 18).

Then in verse 4 Paul tells us Christ was buried and that He was raised on the third day in accordance with the Scriptures. And therein, we have the Gospel. If there was more to it e.g. some “principles” (as in Mormonism); or, some “sacraments” (as in apostae Roman Catholicism), or, “works” of any kind—here is where Paul would have included them.

You will notice however, that he did not. That’s because there are none attached to what God “finished/paid in full” (see—John 19:30). And Paul specifically tells the church at Ephesus that there are no works involved in salvation — For by grace you have been saved through faith. And this is not your own doing; it is the gift of God, not a result of works, so that no one may boast (Ephesians 2:8-9).

So this is the extra Good News for the regenerated Christian, it is by grace you have been saved — it’s past tense; an event which has already happened. And now we can look at 2 Corinthians 5:17 with a fuller understanding of what the Holy Spirit through Paul is actually telling us — Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation. The old has passed away; behold, the new has come.

Can you see there; this common phrase that we often use — “born again” — is not merely some kind of a figurative statement at all. O no, it is a quite literal and glorious fact. Soli Deo gloria!

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End Notes:

[1] This is how he’s billed at his personal webiste: http://www.brianmclaren.net/, accessed 12/26/11.

[2] The sinfully ecumenical neo-liberal cult of the Emergent Church aka the Emerging Church has now been upgraded to the Emerging Church 2.0—with its newer, more clearly delineated, postmodern Progressive Christian theology, which these rebels against the final authority of the Word of God will often refer to under their circus “big tent” as Emergence Christianity, and is about to launch an offensive against marriage and proper Christian sexuality.

[3] See Rob Bell Defending Love Wins Mythology.

[4] Brian McLaren, A New Kind of Christianity [ New York: HarperOne, 2010], 138, 139.

See also:

BETH MOORE: GOD’S VISION FOR THE CHURCH INCLUDES THE ROMAN CATHOLIC CHURCH “DENOMINATION”

JAMES ROBISON AND RICK WARREN WORKING TO REVERSE THE PROTESTANT REFORMATION

RICK WARREN AND TEACHINGS OF DEMONS

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