Apprising Ministries will show you
in this piece that the subtitle would be: Nor can she; not without
admitting her popes are but fallible men, not vicars of Christ, and that
her dogma asseverated at the
Council of Trent was wrong.
I have already covered this further in
Has The Roman Catholic Church Really Changed? Here
I’m going to point out a rather huge fallacy that’s being perptrated by
Roman Catholics and spiritually obtuse evangelicals right now.
Take for example this lunacy in the Lord’s name,
Southern Baptists Assist The Roman Catholic Church To Infiltrate Evangelicalism. The fallacy is that the Church of Rome has somehow actually become orthodox.
However, it can’t; not without destroying itself as an institution. Let’s take a moment to consider the following from the
Second Vatican Council, which was held by the Roman Catholic Church (RCC) in the early 1960’s.
Please look very carefully at the following quote from
Lumen Gentium – “Solemnly Promulgated By Holiness Pope Paul VI On November 21, 1964.” I have added emphasis:
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*) (source).
Click the source and you’ll see I quote this right from the online
Vatican Library itself. Note: “the office granted individually to Peter, the first among the apostles is
permanent and is to be transmitted to his successors.”
We must ask ourselves an important question here: In all its ecumenical dialogues, do we
really think that the RCC ever had any actual intention of changing that dogma, which is the very reason the Church of Rome exists?
No, it can’t and still remain the RCC. It doesn’t matter what
individual Roman Catholics or RCC theologians believe; it matters what
the RCC itself set in stone. Here is her official position concerning
herself and her pope.
From the
Code of Canon Law, again my emphasis:
Art. 1. THE ROMAN PONTIFF Can. 331 The bishop of the Roman Church, in whom continues the office given by the Lord uniquely to Peter, the first of the Apostles, and to be transmitted to his successors, is the head of the college of bishops, the Vicar of Christ, and the pastor of the universal Church on earth. (source)
Again, individual Romans Catholics might disagree; but it doesn’t change the fact that the RCC sees its pope as
the head of the Body of Christ on earth. Next let me show you a critical part of the document
Unam Sanctum.
This was “a Bull of Pope Boniface VIII promulgated November 18,
1302.” And it’s never been rescinded even to this day; nor can it ever
be. 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. (source)
Certainly, this is 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 is
an RCC term which refers to 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.
It’s important at this point to consider the following from the
First Vatican Council of the RCC:
we teach and define as a divinely revealed dogma that
- when the Roman pontiff speaks EX CATHEDRA,
- that is, when,
- 1. in the exercise of his office as shepherd and teacher of all Christians,
- 2. in virtue of his supreme apostolic authority,
- 3. he defines a doctrine concerning faith or morals to be held by the whole church,
- he possesses,
- by the divine assistance promised to him in blessed Peter,
- that infallibility which the divine Redeemer willed his church to enjoy in defining doctrine concerning faith or morals.
- Therefore, such definitions of the Roman pontiff are of themselves, and not by the consent of the church, irreformable. (source)
The meaning is crystal clear: When the pope makes a decree on faith and morals, this statement would therefore be considered an
infallible decree. And as such then,
Unam Sanctum also has to be considered as
irreformable.
So also the Canons from the Council of Trent; they cannot be changed[2], so leading RCC apologist Jimmy Akin of
Catholic Answers is correct when he tells us:
An infallible definition, by its very nature, can never be “undone.” The [Roman Catholic] Church still believes and teaches all the definitions Trent issued…
Many of Trent’s definitions concern articles of faith, and for a Catholic to doubt them culpably or to deny them constitutes heresy (CIC 751), which in turn incurs excommunication (CIC 1364 §1) (source)
This now properly positions you upon the battlefield to better
understand what’s being discussed by John Ankerberg, R.C. Sproul, John
MacArthur, and the late D. James Kennedy in the video to follow below.
You’re about to see the second of six programs by
The John Ankerberg Show entitled
Protestants and Catholics: Do They Now Agree? on
Evangelicals & Catholics Together: The Christian Mission in the Third Millennium.
Even though that ecumenical document came out in 1994, what they talk
about on this edition of Ankerberg’s show is crucial for people to
understand as the spread of
Contemplative Spirituality/Mysticism continues.
With it has come a romanticizing of apostate Roman Catholic mystics
and a sappy sentimentality that somehow the RCC is now to be considered
part of the Body of Christ. However, our difference involves the very
Gospel itself.
And as you’ll hear Dr. R.C. Sproul say below:
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!
JOHN ANKERBERG: Welcome. We’re here in Fort
Lauderdale, Florida at the beautiful Coral Ridge Presbyterian Church
with this wonderful audience tonight. And my guests are Dr. D. James
Kennedy, who is the pastor of this beautiful church. The well known and
popular Dr. John MacArthur and Dr. R.C. Sproul. Now our program is about
a document called
Evangelicals & Catholics Together: The Christian Mission in the Third Millennium. We’re
also going to be talking about a new clarifying statement that was just
written by the evangelical signees of this document. You may not know,
but the
Evangelicals & Catholics Together document was
written by evangelicals and Protestants and signed by twenty well known
leaders in the evangelical world and twenty well known Roman Catholic
leaders. Now Chuck Colson, who helped to draft this document, has
acknowledged that it has caused a lot of controversy.
And he has admitted that it raised genuine concerns over whether this
document clearly represents what evangelical Christians believe. So
just a few weeks ago we met with Chuck, at his request; we had ten
evangelical leaders there—the for of us were there. And Chuck expressed
his concern over the confusion the document has caused—the lack of
clarity concerning what evangelicals believe. And he wanted to resolve
and remove any contentious issues, so that there would no longer be any
doubt as to where he and the other Protestant signees stood. To this
end—together—we all composed a statement that clarifies, and clearly
defines, our evangelical distinctives. Not all of them, but some of the
primary ones.
Now, Dr. John MacArthur, when we met together, we agreed that the ECT
document, the “Evangelicals and Catholics Together” document was
attempting to join Roman Catholics and Evangelical Protestants together
as “cobelligerents,” the word the Francis Schaeffer coined “working at
the grass-roots level” in terms of social issues. And we were going to
work together against the many social evils, including secular humanism,
the riding tide of Islam, pornography, abortion, and things like that.
But we also agreed that this work [ECT] has been perceived as going too
far in proclaiming the kind of unity that exists. I would like you to
define the kind of unity that can exist between Evangelicals and Roman
Catholics, and the kind of unity that cannot exist until the doctrine of
“Justification by faith alone” has been dealt with clearly.
JOHN MACARTHUR: Well, I might be a little bit
radical on this, but I will go ahead. I think the way we can work
together on it is for the Catholics to work against those things, like
they want to work against them, and we will work against those things,
like we want to work against them, but we can’t really throw our arms
around each other in a common effort because that confounds the issue of
spiritual truth.
Look, if the Catholic Church is already a cobelligerent, if they are
already anti-abortion, and pornography, and homosexuality; they are
going to use all of their energies within the framework of their system
to go after that. We are committed to that, and we are going after that.
There is already a collective movement. Once you then sort of try to
define that as “common spiritual mission” built on “common spiritual
unity” you just take doctrine and throw it out the window, and
perception is violated, particularly because the Catholic Church claims
to be true Christianity, and when we reverse 450 years of history, and
just throw our arms around the Roman system, which I think we have to
say, John, in all honesty, is not a group of wayward brothers but is an
apostate form of Christianity.
It is a false religion, it is another religion. When
you throw your arms around that you literally have to undo any
doctrinal distinction. In fact, ECT doesn’t just do that implicitly,
they do that explicitly. In the document, in effect, they say, “we have
to accept all baptized Roman Catholics as brothers and sisters in
Christ. In an article that followed that up in Christianity Today, J. I.
Packer said, “We should acknowledge as brothers and sisters in Christ,
anyone who lives to the highest ideals of their communion.” My response
to that is the opposite. I maybe could fellowship with a bad Roman
Catholic, that is, one who has rejected the system, but was still in the
church and came to know Christ. But one who holds the highest ideals of
Roman Catholicism—on what grounds do I have spiritual unity? And when
you get spiritual leaders from both churches, coming together to sign a
common effort—you may say that it is to fight a cultural war, but people
are going to see it as confusion over doctrine.
R. C. SPROUL: John, can I say something?
JOHN ANKERBERG: Yes, let me just throw in here, that
is why we put in here, paragraph one in this new doctrinal statement,
which, let me read it:
“Our parachurch cooperation with evangelically committed Roman
Catholics, for the pursuit of agreed objectives, does not imply
acceptance of Roman Catholic doctrinal distinctives, or endorsement of
the Roman Catholic Church system.”
R. C. SPROUL: That is important, John, that Chuck
and Dr. Packer, and Bill Bright wanted to make that point clear. I just
wanted to comment on John’s statement that he prefaced by saying he was
“a little bit radical,” you know, like being a “little bit pregnant” I
think. Because when somebody, representing evangelicalism makes the
comment, “that in their opinion or their judgment, the Roman Catholic
Church is apostate—it is not a true Christian community.” In this day
and age of tolerance and pluralism and relativism, and the milieu or
irenic peaceful, gentle coexistence. . . .we live in a world that is fed
up with theological controversy and disputes, and divisions and all of
that. You see we don’t live back in the 16th century where people burned
each other at the stake over that.
For John MacArthur to make a statement like that, about the Roman
Catholic Church, which is the largest professing body in the world, that
claims a Christian position—it’s just flame inflammatory, incinderary
(sp.), and will provoke a howling outcry of people—you’re going to get
an enormous amount of mail for saying that John, you know that! [Great
Applause].
The one thing that the spirit of tolerance of our day cannot tolerate
is intolerance, because relationships have become more important than
truth. Now what’s at stake here, if I understand the New Testament where
the Apostle Paul writes the Galatians and says, “If anybody, anybody,
if it’s Peter, if it’s Barnabus, if it’s an angel from heaven teaches
any other gospel—let him be anathema.” That’s not Sproul, that’s not
MacArthur, that’s not Kennedy, that’s not Ankerberg—that is the
Apostolic position, and Paul wanted to make sure that he made himself
clear so he repeated that.
And then he goes on to say that he had to resist Peter himself, as
Peter started to crack and compromise and negotiate the gospel. Now
think about the people in the first century who got that letter—they
were horrified. They said the last thing we can have happen is a
break-up of fellowship and unity between Peter and Paul! All I have
listened to for ten months is “Oh, my goodness, what would happen if we
saw a split among people like Colson, Packer, and Sproul, and
MacArthur—we cannot have that happen! Well, I am the last person in the
world to want to have that happen—I can’t stand that either, these
people are my friends, my comrades and everything. But John, what he
[John MacArthur] is saying here, 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!
JOHN MACARTHUR: I don’t want to leave Jim [James
Kennedy] out of this, but I think that it is so important to know this.
In a time like this of tolerance, listen, false teaching will always cry
intolerance. It will always say you are being divisive, you are being
unloving, you are being ungracious, because it can only survive when it
doesn’t get scrutinized. So it cries against any intolerance. It cries
against any examination, any scrutiny—just let’s embrace each other;
let’s love each other; let’s put all that behind us. False doctrine
cries the loudest about unity. Listen carefully when you hear the cry
for unity, because it may be the cover of false doctrine encroaching. If
ever we should follow 1 Thessalonians 5, and examine everything carefully, it’s when somebody is crying unity, love, and acceptance.
JOHN ANKERBERG: Dr. Kennedy, not Chuck, and not J.
I. Packer, and some of our Evangelical buddies that came out with the
ECT document, but others have gone one step further, and have said, “You
know, Evangelicals and Catholics should overlook doctrinal differences
and distinctives and unite to survive today here in America. If we don’t
stand together; if we don’t fight together; we are all going down. How
does that come into your theology of the sovereignty of God? Should we
give up doctrinal distinctives just to survive? What do you think about
that?
JAMES KENNEDY: John, first of all, let me if I could
just add one little thing to this discussion that went on here, and
then I will get back to that. For those lay people here that are not
familiar—the Council of Trent, eighteen years that they spent examining
the doctrines of the Protestant Reformation, and at the end of that time
they came out with many Canons of the Council of Trent, and this is the
particular one that R. C. was referring to, and I just like to have you
hear the words. This has never been altered or denied by the Catholic
Church, “If anyone says that the faith which justifies is nothing else
but trust in the Divine mercy, which pardons sins because of Christ, or
that it is trust alone by which we are justified” Which is what every
Evangelical Christian would say. And they end with, “let him be
anathema,” which means “let him be accursed.”
Every Evangelical Christian in the world stands under the official,
never changed curse of the Roman Church, and we need to be aware of that
fact. Now, the Bible says that we are to hold to the truth—in love.
Now, that is difficult to do. Only Christ did that perfectly. We always
tend either to slip into a rigidity or a legalism or to slide on the
other side into some sort of “wishy-washy” compromise of the gospel.
But, getting to your question, and that was one of the reasons for
ECT, that we live (as Chuck told me on the phone when he called me). We
live in a time when the concept of truth is under attack. When the
values and morals that Christians hold in common are under enormous
assault, that we must stand together, or we are going to fall together.
But, the problem with this document is that it gives the appearance of
compromising the basic doctrine of the gospel of the Bible, which is the
gospel, and this is the heart of all Christianity. This is why we had
this meeting, right here in my office, to try to work these things out
so there would not be a schism among Evangelicals, and happily got all
of these gentlemen to sign a statement that they do affirm the basic
Reformational truths. I still would have difficulty having my name on
that document [ECT], which it is not, because I think of the ambiguity
of it; the lack of clarity, and the way it opens a door for people to
think that there is no difference of any significance, pertaining to the
Gospel of Salvation between Protestants and Catholics.
JOHN ANKERBERG: It is very important right now, that
we, for the people who are tuning in, because they want to know, “Where
do we stand right now?” “What does this doctrinal statement mean in
terms of where we are at?”
R. C. SPROUL: That’s what I was going to address,
John, so that we have an understanding of this. The purpose of this
meeting for the clarification, was as Chuck Colson had a compassionate
concern to communicate. He said, can’t we come together and agree to
disagree as brothers in Christ, because the controversy had escalated to
such a point that the issue became now: not what is the relationship
between Catholics and Evangelicals, but what will the relationship now
be between evangelicals who endorse this position and those who didn’t.
Are we facing a serious and permanent breach within Evangelical ranks? I
mean, are we going to break fellowship over our disagreement over ECT,
and that is what provoked this. At that meeting everybody expressed
their concerns in a candid way, and Chuck, of course, said, “The whole
thing was provoked in the first place because of their deep concern of
what was happening in Latin America, and they didn’t want to see another
Belfast erupt, and trying to come to a united front to an increasing
hostile secularism.” And we all said, “Hey, we share that concern. We
don’t want to see Latin America become a Belfast, and we recognize the
hostility of secularism.”
Our concern was, as I stated it in that meeting, as clearly as I knew
how, “that as far as I could see ECT, in my judgment, betrayed the
gospel of Jesus Christ.” I also went on to say, and I have said this as
loudly as I can every time that I discuss this, “I don’t for one minute
think that Bill Bright, Jim Packer, Charles Colson, et all, ever in
their wildest dreams, ever intended any such thing. But by the same
token, neither did the signers of the Council of Trent.” This is not a
personal thing with me. I was saying the document, in what it says and
proclaims because it goes beyond this standing together as
cobelligerents—it declares a unity of faith, John, where there is not a
unity of faith. That’s what deeply, deeply, concerns me. So what the
concern of the men was, at this meeting was to say, “Hey, look, let’s
say to the world, `We do believe in `sola fide (L.)’ and Chuck Colson
says, `I believe in Justification by faith alone’ and he wanted to put
his print on paper his statement that this is central to the gospel of
Jesus Christ, because he realized that people were interpreting the
document the way that I was interpreting it, and he believed that that
was a misinterpretation. Packer thinks that it is a misinterpretation. I
think that it is the one that the document screams, but we still
disagree on that, and Chuck is still committed to ECT—my fondest hope
was that these men would remove their names from it—”A.” And if they
couldn’t do that, if they couldn’t formally recant of it, “B” that they
would at least revise the document itself, and if we couldn’t get them
to do that—at least, please give a clarification that we can print
separately of what you meant.
JOHN ANKERBERG: Next week we’re gonna continue our
conversation. And we’re going to look at: Are there any people that are
off limits in terms of evangelism? Sheep-stealing, prostelization
between Catholics and Protestants. And we’re going to look at this very
controversial area newt week. And I hope that you’ll join us. (
source)
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