When Protestants protested, reconsidering the historic, reformed repudiation of
Romanism.
Brethren, let me share with you a summary of what will be found in a few moments in
the body of this entire paper.
A major change has occurred in the spirit and relationship of evangelicals with the
Roman Catholic Church.
Its dramatic nature appears more readily from a review of the historic Protestant
antipathy against Romanism and modern Protestant appreciation for the Roman
Catholic Church.
This old antipathy crystallizes in a provocative statement generally held by
earlier Protestants, which is that the Pope is the Antichrist.
This is a statement with nuances and a rich exegetical and historical defense
rarely understood or appreciated today.
The fact that so many Protestant leaders have affirmed this for so long challenges
us to re-examine our own position.
A recent modern poll shows that the spirit of historic Protestants has not become
altogether extinct.
One's attitude toward the Roman Catholic Church may well be an accurate measure of
how well the label Protestant really applies to him.
As long as the Roman Catholic Church continues to oppose the distinctive
Protestant and biblical doctrines of sola scriptura and sola fide, a fundamentally
positive Protestant-Romanist relationship is ill-advised and quite impossible.
Will the Protestant reader stand boldly against the Roman Catholic Church?
And now, I'm pleased to present to you the body of this paper.
The times, they are a-changing.
So sang Bob Dylan amidst the 60s social revolution, and so may we say of recent
trends within evangelicalism and its general attitude toward the Roman Catholic
Church.
Admittedly, when it comes to fallen human nature, nothing really changes.
The preacher observed in the book of Ecclesiastes, that which has been is what
will be.
That which is done is what will be done.
And there is nothing new under the sun.
Is there anything of which it may be said, See, this is new.
It has already been in ancient times before us.
And another passage...
Do not say, why were the former days better than these?
For you do not inquire wisely concerning this.
Ecclesiastes 1, 9 and 10 and Ecclesiastes 7, 10.
Well, not just hippies have advocated licentiousness, nor just modern
Protestants' friendliness toward the Roman Catholic Church.
Still, there are seasons when the number and publicity of advocates increase.
We are living in days when the spirit of ecumenical cooperation between the Roman
Catholic Church and self-professed evangelicals, some even of a reformed
identity, is growing.
Obvious examples include the several Evangelicals and Catholics Together
documents.
There are now five of those as of this year.
And these began to be produced in 1994 with the participation of Evangelical
luminaries Chuck Colson and J.I.
Packer.
Another evidence of a warmness of Evangelicals toward the Roman Catholic
Church in our day is prevalent praise for the late Pope John Paul II.
Also, I've noticed quite a warm welcome given by some Evangelicals to Cardinal
Joseph Ratzinger on his accession to the office of Pope, gaining the title Pope
Benedict XVI.
I'll give you one example of this positive attitude toward the Pope and the papacy.
Billy Graham, for example, practically a Pope of Evangelicalism himself,
has a long track record of strong support for the Roman Catholic Church and its
Popes.
He was interviewed by Larry King on April 2nd this year, just after John Paul II had
died.
And Graham responded to the question from Larry King.
There is no question in your mind that he is with God now?
And Billy Graham replied in these words.
Oh, no.
There may be a question about my own, but I don't think Carol Wodawa or the
Pope.
I think he's with the Lord because he believed.
He believed in the cross.
That was his focus throughout his ministry.
The cross, no matter if you were talking to him from a personal issue or an ethical
problem.
He felt that there was the answer to all of our problems.
The cross and the resurrection.
And he was a strong believer.
Unquote.
Now, this represents nothing less than a seismic shift of the prevalent attitude in
Evangelical and Reformed Christians over a period of centuries.
And even quite a shift over the period of the last 50 years.
It becomes more readily apparent when the former consensus of Protestant Reformers
and their immediate successors, including the Puritans, is considered.
And some of us find it alarming.
The contrast between their views and today's apparent consensus is stark and
startling upon first discovery.
The almost universal judgment of our Protestant forefathers toward the Roman
Catholic Church was that it was a false and apostate church.
And their characteristic attitude toward the Roman Catholic Church was intense
antipathy or hatred.
Their Confessions of Faith and other writings clearly, explicitly, and
forcefully repudiated leading Romanist doctrines and the institution propagating
them.
Romanism was such a great concern that one could deduce a fairly comprehensive
summary of Rome's error from an inductive study of the Westminster Confession of
Faith, the Thavoid Declaration, and the 1689 London Baptist Confession.
Just look at what those confessions affirm and look at what they deny.
And you can infer what the Roman Catholic Church affirms and denies because it's
mostly the opposite of what those Protestant confessions say.
Not everything in them is a swipe at Rome, but a substantial part is, maybe even a
preponderance.
Claiming adherence to such a Protestant confession while nurturing a fundamentally
positive attitude toward the Roman Catholic Church would seem to be a great
and obvious inconsistency.
Friendliness toward the Roman Catholic Church could be warranted, theoretically,
but if so, it must necessarily part with the Protestant confessional ethos.
The concept of truth in advertising is an application of the ninth commandment,
thou shalt not bear false witness.
And nowhere is it more important than in the religious realm.
A man may be a friend of Rome or a Protestant, but not both at the same time
in the historic sense.
It's helpful to consider the origin of the term Protestant.
Ironically, a good, succinct explanation is from a Roman Catholic source.
The reader must appreciate that this following quote is expressed from a Roman
Catholic Church point of view, but the basic facts appear to be
undisputed by Protestants.
And I would quote then the Roman Catholic explanation of the origin of the term
Protestant.
The Diet of the Holy Roman Empire assembled its spire in April 1529,
resolved that, according to a decree promulgated at the Diet of Worms 1524,
communities in which the new religion... and you realize, of course, when they say
the new religion, they're talking about the faith of these Protestants.
And it's not a new religion at all, that's a pejorative label they use to
describe it.
It's just the old biblical gospel.
The communities in which the new, so-called new religion was so far
established that it could not, without great trouble, be altered,
should be free to maintain it.
But until the meeting of the council, they should introduce no further
innovations in religion.
Now, of course, what they're really referring to is reformations of apostate
Christianity, but they call them innovations from a Catholic point of view.
And should not forbid the mass or hinder Catholics from assisting thereat.
Against this decree, and especially against the last article, the adherence of
the new evangel, which was not, of course, really new, but the old one and
only true gospel.
The Elector Frederick of Saxony, the Landgrave of Hesse, the Margrave
Albert of Brandenburg, the Duce of Lüneburg, the Prince of Annals,
together with the deputies of fourteen of the Free and Imperial Cities, entered a
solemn protest as unjust and impious.
The meaning of the protest was that the dissenters did not intend to tolerate
Catholicism within their borders.
On that account, they were called Protestants.
In the course of time, the original connotation of no toleration for Catholics
was lost sight of, and the term is now applied to and accepted by members of
those Western churches and sects which, in the sixteenth century, were set up by
the Reformers in direct opposition to the Catholic Church.
The same man may call himself Protestant or Reformed.
The term Protestant lays more stress on antagonism to Rome.
The term Reformed emphasizes adherence to any of the Reformers.
Unquote from a Roman Catholic source.
Now, the proposition they make here, that Protestant and Reformed are
interchangeable terms, is interesting, but historically, the term Reformed may
have become narrower than Protestant.
In other words, there is a sense in which we could say not all Protestants today are
Reformed.
The term Reformed is generally associated with Calvinists in particular,
and not all Protestants are necessarily Calvinists.
And the term Reformed may be considered generally to exclude Lutheran,
Anglican, and Episcopal denominations, generally rejecting, as they do,
the regulative principle of worship, and having somewhat more in common with
Romanism in their, at least in their liturgy.
The term Evangelical, without qualification, has become so diluted now
that it's almost useless as a badge of conservative and biblical Christianity.
This paper is especially intended for those who consider themselves Protestant,
Reformed, and conservative Evangelicals.
Now, historian James A.
Wiley, himself a Protestant, presents a sympathetic account for the origin of the
term Protestants, and I quote from his noteworthy church history books.
At Worms, Luther stood alone.
At Spires, the one man has grown into a host.
The no, so courageously uttered by the monk in 1521, is now, in 1529,
taken up and repeated by princes, cities, and nations.
Its echoes travel onwards, till at last their murmurs are heard in the palaces of
Barcelona and the basilicas of Rome.
Eight years ago, the Reformation was simply a doctrine.
Now, it is an organization, a church.
This little seed, which on its first germination appeared the smallest of all
seeds, and which popes, doctors, and princes beheld with contempt,
is a tree whose vows, stretched wide in air, cover nations with their shadows.
The princes renewed their protest at the last sitting of the Diet, Saturday 24th of
April.
It was subscribed by John, Elector of Saxony, Philip Landgrave of Hesse,
George Margrave of Brandenburg, Curtis and Francis, Dukes of Lunenburg,
and the Count of Arnold.
Some of the chief cities joined the princes in their protestation,
as Strasbourg, Nuremberg, Ulm, Constance, Rutlingen, Winshine,
Lindau, Kempsen, Memmington, Norlingen, Heilbronn, Ischne, St. Gaul, and
Weissenburg.
From that day, the Reformers were called Protestants.
On the following Sabbath, 25th of April, the chancellors of the princes and of the
Protestant cities, with two notaries and several witnesses, met in a small house in
St. John's Lane, belonging to Peter Mutterstadt, Deacon of St. John's,
to draw up an appeal.
In that document, they recite all that had passed at the Diet, and they protest
against its decree for themselves, their subjects, and all who receive or
shall hereafter receive the gospel, and appeal to the Emperor and to a free
and general Council of Christendom.
On the morning after their appeal, the 26th, the princes left spires.
This sudden departure was significant.
It proclaimed to all men the firmness of their resolve.
Ferdinand had spoken his last word and was gone.
They, too, had spoken theirs and were gone also.
Rome hoisted her flag over and over against hers, the Protestants displayed
theirs.
Henceforward, there are two camps in Christendom." J.
H.
Merle d'Aubigné relates essentially the same account in his excellent book,
History of the Reformation of the Sixteenth Century.
The famous church historian, Philip Shaw, confirms it further and makes these
helpful remarks about the event.
He says, From this protest and appeal, the Lutherans were called Protestants,
with good reason, if we look at their attitude to Rome, which remains the same
to this day.
And Shaw wrote this sometime before 1910.
Unfortunately, that statement is really not true today, with the Catholic-Lutheran
Accords recently signed in ecumenical dialogue.
It is the duty of the church at all times to protest against sin, error,
corruption, tyranny, and every kind of iniquity.
But the designation which has since become a general term for evangelical Christians
is negative and admits of an indiscriminate application to all who
descent from Popery, no matter on what grounds and to what extent.
It must be supplemented by the more important positive designation,
evangelical.
The gospel of Christ, as laid down in the New Testament and proclaimed again in its
primitive purity and power by the Reformation, is the basis of historical
Protestantism and gives it vitality and permanency.
The protest of Spire was based objectively upon the word of God, subjectively upon
the right of private judgment and conscience, and historically upon the
liberal decision of the Diet of 1526.
Now brethren, hearing all this about what the word Protestant means in its historic
sense, is it possible that so-called Protestants in our generation have lost so
much of their historical character, the label is no longer warranted?
Where is the protest against Romanism?
Any vigorous protest today seems a lonely relic, a blast from the past, if you will.
Out of step with modern sensibilities and discretion, even terribly fanatical,
antiquated and downright uncharitable.
A few influential evangelical leaders have sounded the alarm concerning trendy
ecumenism with Rome, including R.C.
Sproul, Dr. D.
James Kennedy and John MacArthur.
MacArthur, in particular, does not leave us wondering about his stance on the Roman
Catholic Church and even his judgment about the late Pope's eternal destiny.
That is Pope John Paul II.
I quote to you from an interview with John MacArthur, where he said, One question
that has been raised or alluded to repeatedly is this, is the Pope in heaven?
Numerous people have asked me that question.
I'm always tempted to reply, is the Pope Catholic?
After all, the Pope was the number one purveyor of Roman Catholic doctrine.
The gospel he believed was no more sound than the gospel Rome has always taught.
It is not the gospel of Scripture.
Another outspoken advocate of old Protestantism is Richard Bennett,
a former Roman Catholic priest who served for 21 years as a Roman Catholic priest.
And now he has been for some time converted to Christ and a reformed
evangelist.
His expertise on Romanism is conspicuous at his website, the Berean Beacon.
He has helpfully summarized some Roman Catholic errors in a chart comparing
quotes from Scripture and from the 1994 Catechism of the Catholic Church on topics
including the basis of truth, salvation, and the salvation by grace alone,
the nature of faith, Christ's atonement, and his place as the sole mediator between
God and man, God's unique holiness, idolatry, and communion with the dead.
And that is included in the appendix to this paper.
Now, I ask you this question.
Can you think of anything worse to say to a Catholic today than this?
The Pope is the Antichrist.
Now, we can hardly imagine any more strident statement of opposition to the
Pope and the Roman Catholic Church than this.
And further, is there anything, anything you can think of that would be
harder for a Roman Catholic to hear and accept than that proposition?
And yet, if it is true, silence is not golden.
The old Protestants widely held to some sense of the provocative proposition.
Probably not what we would initially suspect today.
Consider a smattering of old quotes from respected Protestant leaders of the past.
Martin Luther, for example, who lived from 1483 to 1546.
He said this.
If there were nothing else to show that the Pope is the Antichrist, this would be
enough.
Dost thou hear this, O Pope?
Not the most holy, but the most sinful?
Would that God would hurl thy chair headlong from heaven and cast it down into
the abyss of hell.
Who gave you the power to exalt yourself above your God?
God has commanded to keep faith and observe oaths, even with enemies.
You dare to cancel this command, laying it down in your heretical
anti-Christian decretals that you have power to do so.
And through your mouth and your pen, Satan lies as he never lied before.
Teaching you to twist and pervert the scriptures according to your own arbitrary
will.
O Lord Christ, look down upon this.
Let thy day of judgment come and destroy the devil's lair at Rome.
Behold him of whom St. Paul speaks in 2 Thessalonians 2, 3 and 4.
That he should exalt himself above thee and sit in thy church, showing himself as
God, the man of sin and the child of damnation.
What else does the Pope's power do but teach and strengthen sin and wickedness,
leading souls to damnation in thy name?
Whereof, it followeth Rome to be the seat of Antichrist, and the Pope to be the very
Antichrist himself.
I could prove the same by many other scriptures, old writers and strong
reasons.
John Knox, a reformer associated with Scotland, 1505-1572.
He wrote to abolish, quote, that tyranny which the Pope himself has for so many
ages exercised over the church, unquote.
And he also wrote that the Pope should be recognized as, quote, the very Antichrist
and son of perdition of whom Paul speaks, unquote.
John Calvin lived from 1509-1564, and he said this, and this is a direct
quote.
To some we seem slanderers and railers when we call the Roman Pontiff Antichrist,
but those who think so do not realize that they are accusing Paul of intemperate
language.
When he speaks in 2 Thessalonians 2.
After whom we speak, indeed, so speak from his very lips.
Unless anyone object that we wickedly twist Paul's words, which apply to
another, against the Roman Pontiff, I shall briefly show that these cannot be
understood otherwise than of the papacy.
And you can follow that up with finding this in Calvin's Institute for the
Christian Religion, where he presents his case.
Roger Williams, a Baptist in New England, living from 1603-1683, spoke of the Pope
as, quote, The pretended vicar of Christ on earth, who sits as God over the temple
of God, exalting himself not only above all that is called God, but over the souls
and consciences of all his vassals, yea, over the Spirit of Christ,
over the Holy Spirit, yea, and God himself, speaking against the God of
Heaven, seeking to change times and laws.
But he is the son of perdition, 2 Thessalonians 2.
The Westminster Confession of Faith, the original wording in 1646, has this
statement.
There is no other head of the church but the Lord Jesus Christ, nor can the Pope of
Rome in any sense be head thereof.
But is that Antichrist, that man of sin and son of perdition, that exalts himself
in the church against Christ and all that is called God?
Chapter 25, paragraph 6.
I would note that the American revised Westminster Confession omits part of this
statement, starting with the word, but is that Antichrist?
The Savoy Declaration, written in 1658, says this.
There is no other head of the church but the Lord Jesus Christ, nor can the Pope of
Rome in any sense be head thereof.
But is that Antichrist, that man of sin and son of perdition, that exalts himself
in the church against Christ and all that is called God?
Chapter 26, paragraph 6.
Corresponding language of the 1689 London Baptist Confession of Faith is identical
to this language.
Cotton Mater, New England Puritan, 1663-1728, said this.
The oracles of God foretold the rising of an Antichrist in the Christian Church and
in the Pope of Rome.
All the characteristics of that Antichrist are so marvelously answered that if any
who read the scriptures do not see it, there is a marvelous blindness upon them.
John Wesley, early advocate of what now is known as Methodism, who lived from
1703-1791, on 2 Thessalonians 2-3, in his notes on the Bible, he wrote this.
In many respects, the Pope has an indisputable claim to those titles,
man of sin, son of perdition.
He is, in an emphatical sense, the man of sin, as he increases all manner
of sin above measure.
And he is, too, properly styled, the son of perdition, as he has caused the
death of numberless multitudes, both of his opposers and followers,
destroyed innumerable souls, and will himself perish everlastingly.
He it is that opposes himself to the Emperor, once his rightful sovereign,
and that exalts himself above all that is called God or that is worshipped,
commanding angels and putting kings under his feet, both of whom are called Gods in
Scripture, claiming the highest power, the highest honor, allowing himself,
not once only, to be styled God or vice-God.
Indeed, no less is implied in his ordinary title, Most Holy Lord or Most Holy Father,
so that he sitteth, it says in Scripture, enthroned in the temple of God.
Charles Hodge was a very important Presbyterian theologian who lived from
1797 to 1878, and his three-volume systematic theology is still in print and
found to be useful today.
The common opinion, however, among Protestants is that the prophecies
concerning Antichrist have special reference to the papacy.
This conviction is founded principally on the remarkable prediction contained in
Paul's second epistle to the Thessalonians.
And following this, Hodge defends the opinion that the Pope is the Antichrist in
great and strongly argued detail, suggesting it was his own judgment.
Then he describes the Roman Catholic doctrine of Antichrist and concludes that
modern Protestant teaching in this area is more similar to the Roman Catholic Church
view than it is to the early Protestants.
C.
H.
Spurgeon, Baptist pastor and evangelist of London, who lived from 1834 to 1892,
wrote this.
It is the bounden duty of every Christian to pray against Antichrist, and as to what
Antichrist is, no sane man ought to raise a question.
If it be not potpourri in the Church of Rome, there is nothing in the world that
can be called by that name.
If there were to be issued a human cry for Antichrist, we should certainly take up
this church on suspicion, and it would certainly not be let loose again,
for it so exactly answers the description.
R.
L.
Dabney was a Presbyterian chaplain in the Civil War for the southern states.
He lived from 1820 to 1898.
He was a Presbyterian, and here is what he wrote about this.
For Presbyterians, of all others, to discount the perpetual danger from
Romanism is thoroughly thoughtless and rash.
We believe that the Christianity left by the Apostles to the primitive Church was
essentially what we now call Presbyterian and Protestant.
Trelacy and potpourri feebly began to work in the bosom of that community,
and steadily wrought its corruption and almost its total extirpation.
Why should not the same cause tend to work the same result again?
Are we truer or wiser Presbyterians than those trained by the Apostles?
Have the enemies of truth become less skillful and dangerous by gaining the
experience of centuries?
The Popish system of ritual and doctrine was a gradual growth which, modifying true
Christianity, first perverted and then extinguished it.
Its destructive power has resulted from this.
It has not been the invention of any one cunning and hostile mind, but a gradual
growth modified by hundreds or thousands of its cultivators who were the most
acute, learned, selfish, and anti-Christian spirits of their
generation.
Perpetually retouched and adapted to every weakness and every attribute of depraved
human nature until it became the most skillful and pernicious system of error
which the world has ever known.
As it has adjusted itself to every superstition, every sense of guilt,
every foible and craving of the depraved human heart, so it has travestied with
consummate skill every active principle of the gospel.
It is doubtless the knee-pluck ultra of religious delusion.
That's a Latin phrase that means the most extreme example of its kind.
It is the final and highest result of perverted human faculty guided by the
sagacity of the great enemy.
This system has nearly conquered Christendom once.
He who does not see that it is capable of conquering it again is blind to the
simplest laws of thought.
One may ask, does it not retain sundry the cardinal doctrines of the gospel?
Monotheism, the Trinity, the hypostatic union, Christ's sacrifice, the sacraments,
the resurrection, the judgment, immortality?
Yes, in form it retains them.
And this, because of its supreme cunning, it retains them while so resting and
innervating as to rob them mainly of their sanctifying power.
Because its designs spread its snares for all sorts of minds of every grade of
opinion.
The grand architect was too cunning to make it like his earlier essays.
Mere atheism or mere fetishism or mere polytheism or mere pagan idolatry.
For in these forms, the trap only ensnared the coarser and more ignorant nature.
He has now perfected it and baited it for all types of humanity.
The most refined as well as the most imbruted.
Unquote from R.L.
Dadman.
I would also cite a more modern preacher in the true church.
This man is named Dr. D.
Martin Lloyd Jones.
He lived from 1899 to 1981.
Some have described him as the greatest preacher of the 20th century.
That may not be far off the mark.
Dr. Lloyd Jones was a great preacher of the word of God.
He ministered for many years at Westminster Chapel in London, England.
And D.
Martin Lloyd Jones wrote this.
This system, known as Roman Catholicism, is the devil's greatest masterpiece.
It is such a departure from the Christian faith and the New Testament teaching that
I would not hesitate with the reformers of the 16th century to describe it as
apostrophe.
There is no difficulty about this.
This is a counterfeit, a sham.
This is a prostitution of the worst and most diabolical kind.
It is indeed a form of the Antichrist.
And it is to be rejected.
It is to be denounced.
But above all, it is to be countered.
Now, you've heard this evidence.
There's no question that these are the things that these respected Protestant
leaders have said and written.
And I ask you this question.
Do you still respect your forefathers?
Now, obviously, these are not men and confessions on the fringe, but at the
center of historic Protestantism.
Men upon whose broad shoulders we stand and subordinate standards we still affirm
today.
Now, how do we respond to their statements?
When we read of this old Protestant belief that the Pope is the Antichrist,
do we dismiss it out of hand?
Do we smugly disregard the historic reformed repudiation of Romanism because
of self-assured confidence in our greater charity and our superior discernment?
Before indulging such feelings, we really ought to consider carefully the
nature and basis for this formerly widespread Protestant belief.
The Bible says, he who answers the matter before he hears it, it is folly and shame
to him.
Proverbs 18, 13.
While we would not be guilty of Protestant traditionalism, an ironic counterpart of
the Roman Catholic era, where precedence in previous ecclesiastical judgments are
accepted by an implicit faith in the spiritual ancestors, yet we must also be
exceedingly cautious about jettisoning important ideas that held such great sway
among so many theological giants.
We should withhold our consent only if they lack solid scriptural support and
disagree only if they are against scripture.
Even if the evidence fails to hold one's conscience about all the particulars,
surely if one is truly Protestant, he will judge their overall concern about
Romanism to remain valid.
So let us reconsider then, with all sincerity, sobriety and earnestness,
our predecessors intense antipathy to Rome and judge each one for himself whether to
embrace it in our own day.
What exactly is the Antichrist, anyway?
What did the Protestants mean when they said the Pope is the Antichrist?
We must not think of this eschatological figure in terms like those popularized by
Hal Lindsey, Jack VanIppy, Tim LaHaye and other modern purveyors of sensationalistic
prophecy.
Whatever one may think of the year 1948, UPC codes as a mark of the beast and the
Trilateral Commission, these were far from the minds of the Westminster divines and
their associates.
Standard theological dictionaries present helpful summaries of what they meant when
they said the Pope is the Antichrist.
First of all, I cite the Evangelical Dictionary of Theology edited by Walter
Elwell.
And then the New Dictionary of Theology edited by Sinclair Ferguson says this.
16th century Protestants developed the idea that the major biblical accounts of
Antichrist refer to a specific historical entity, but not to an individual man.
Instead, they identified Antichrist with an institutional succession of men over
several centuries.
The Roman Papacy.
This remained the dominant view until the 19th century.
It is not too difficult to find historic explanations and defenses of the old
Protestant view.
Some are long and elaborate.
For example, Francis Turretin, well-known because of his magisterial
institutes of the linguistic theology, a three-volume work representing
Protestant scholasticism, had also written a substantial essay in Latin, only
recently translated into English and entitled Seventh Disputation, whether it
can be proved the Pope of Rome is the Antichrist.
Turretin answers in the affirmative with fifty sections, four appendices,
and extensive footnotes documenting all this.
It makes a fascinating study of the topic and demonstrates convincingly that this
doctrine was their strong conviction after extensive study and debate, even if one
were to dissent from the conclusion.
A more accessible case is made by Reverend Henry Wilkinson, a sometime canon of
Christ Church and Margaret Professor of Divinity in the University of Oxford,
in a sermon entitled The Pope of Rome is Antichrist.
One of the Puritan sermons preached from 1659 to 1689 during the famed morning
exercises at Cripple Gate by seventy-five ministers of the gospel in or near London.
Even this one sermon on the topic is twenty-five pages of small print,
but a modern paraphrase and abridgment is planned for the near future for educating
today's Christians about this topic.
And this is something I hope to do, God willing, and present to you.
Perhaps most valuable among Reverend Wilkinson's remarks, The Pope is
Antichrist, for this essay, is his explanation of what his contemporary
fellow Protestants intended in their infernal identification of the Pope.
And I quote from Wilkinson's three paragraphs.
The enemy, mentioned in 2 Thessalonians 2, is set forth as if he were a single
person.
But it is not so to be taken in this place, for it is frequent in Scripture to
set forth a body politic or a kingdom or state by a particular person or
individual.
In Daniel 7, 1-13, there be four kingdoms or monarchies, which were in a succession,
one after another in the world, deciphered by four great beasts,
which are interpreted to be four kingdoms or four kings.
And the fourth beast is called the fourth kingdom, verse 23.
And the Vulgar translation renders, verse 17, four kingdoms, so that each
beast signifies a multitude of men in a succession under one government for
several ages.
And so, consequently, the head and horns signify the power and sovereignty of such
a kingdom for a long time in succession.
So we find the state of the primitive apostolical church set forth by a woman in
travail, Revelation 12, 1 and 2.
And by a woman in the wilderness, verses 6 and 14.
So the two-horned beast, Revelation 13, 11, which is the same with the false
prophet, Revelation 14, 13, 19, 20, 20, 10, does not signify a single
person or succession of single persons, suppose the Pope, but a body of deceivers
under one head or government.
The inference he's making is that this is the papacy.
I continue the quote.
It is generally agreed by Protestant writers that the Pope, in this sense,
as head of that anti-Christian state, which is here described, is pointed at in
this place.
Or that the papacy, head and members in a succession, making up one body politic,
is that monster which they call anti-Christ.
It is on all hands agreed on that wherever we find all these characters together with
the circumstances set down in the text to consent her, that must be the anti-Christ
who was to be brought forth into the world before the second coming of Christ.
He tells us of one to come, a strange one, a monstrous one, tooken one as never was
before.
And that you may not be mistaken in this prodigious one, he gives us the lively
portraiture of him.
Would you be interested in a modern poll?
In a recent poll I created on a website called Permanadia, almost two-thirds of
respondents affirmed their belief that the Pope of Rome is either the anti-Christ or
an anti-Christ.
23% out of 354 total votes said he was the anti-Christ, and 41% out of 354 total
votes said he was an anti-Christ.
The remainder either voted that he is a false teacher but not an anti-Christ,
16%, that comparing him to the anti-Christ is not warranted by scripture or history,
8%, that he is the head of the church, 5%, or did not care to vote on this topic,
7% of those polled.
Admittedly, those participating in this survey were probably not a typical
cross-section of evangelicals today.
Full members of this sermon audio service, that is, those allowed to broadcast
sermons, must affirm sermon audios, articles of faith, which includes,
and I'm paraphrasing them, a high view of scripture, the Trinity, high Christology,
necessity of regeneration by the Holy Spirit, Christ as the only Savior,
two ordinances of baptism in the Lord's Supper, rejection of the World Council of
Churches and evangelicals and Catholics together, which is most germane to this
survey, Christ's visible and personal return, and finally salvation by grace
alone through faith alone in Christ alone.
And that accounts for the 5% answer above, that not everybody who took the survey
subscribed to all those points.
5% thought the Pope of Rome is the head of the Christian Church.
They apparently were Catholics listening to sermons on sermon audio.
Nevertheless, most participants were likely to appreciate the ministries of
sermon audio full members.
Survey participants were also allowed to post messages on this topic, and they
finally amounted to 82 printed pages before the editor stopped accepting posts.
The very first message posted was prophetic.
Put on your asbestos suit, it's going to get very hot in here soon.
That was what John from San Jose, California had to say.
My overall impression of the posted comments are that most participants did
not seem to realize what the old Protestants meant by the controversial
proposition.
They tended to interpret it as a statement about Pope John Paul II, while he was
still living, or about a specific future Pope as an individual yet to come.
And that's a misunderstanding of what the old Protestants meant by that statement.
Now, when is a Protestant really a Protestant?
It seems today that we only have a limited number of possible responses to these
things.
What follows is an attempt at a comprehensive list in order of decreasing
Roman Catholic Church antipathy.
Opinion A.
Historic Protestants were exactly right.
The Pope of Rome is the Antichrist, and the Roman Catholic Church is a false
apostate church.
Opinion B.
Historic Protestants were essentially right.
The Pope is an Antichrist, and strong antipathy for the institution of the Roman
Catholic Church is warranted.
Opinion C.
Historic Protestants were only temporarily right.
Today, their views and spirit are no longer valid because modern Protestants
and the Roman Catholic Church now share so much on essential doctrines.
Opinion D.
Historic Protestants were flat wrong in point of fact and spirit.
We should repudiate their sinful divisiveness.
Recognize the Roman Catholic Church as a true church and embrace our Roman Catholic
friends as Christian brethren.
Now, with sincere respect for every man's prerogative to judge for himself,
I believe only options A or B are biblically, historically, and
theologically tenable.
It seems mainstream evangelicals today would probably feel more comfortable with
option C or D.
The position taken by evangelicals and Catholics together definitely embodies
option D, the most friendly to the Roman Catholic Church.
The historic walls separating these so-called Protestants from the Roman
Catholic Church have almost completely fallen down.
They seem to identify more readily with the Roman Catholic Church than with
historic Protestantism.
I ask you this question.
Could the true church lack both a solid foundation and a saving message?
The basis for my own judgment in favor of A or B is complex, but I keep coming back
in my own mind to two great truths that were at the heart of the Protestant
Reformation.
Sola Scriptura, or the formal principle of the Reformation, and Sola Fide,
the material principle of the Protestant Reformation.
We assume your intimate familiarity with both, but if you don't know what those
Latin terms mean, and you're unfamiliar with their nuance in church history,
I suggest you get two books that I would recommend.
The first one is Sola Scriptura, the Protestant position on the Bible.
And the second is Justification by Faith Alone, Affirming the Doctrine by Which the
Church and the Individual Stand or Fall.
Both of these are published by Soli Deo Gloria Publications, and now you can buy
them, I'm sure, from Ligonier Ministries, Dr. R.C.
Sproul's work.
Sola Scriptura is a foundation upon which all other doctrine rests.
Without a firm commitment to this principle, all manner of doctrinal
apostasy is possible and virtually inevitable.
The Roman Catholic Church itself may be the greatest illustration of disastrous
consequences when a people look elsewhere for a standard of truth and Scripture.
Sola Fide is an important part of the substance of Scripture's saving message
about Jesus Christ.
Luther famously called this the doctrine upon which the church stands or falls.
There is no true gospel without Sola Fide.
And any opposing it set themselves against Christ himself, incurring the terrible
anathema of Galatians 1, 8 and 9.
When he was 80 years old, the late Dr. John Gerstner wrote a booklet entitled,
A Primer on Roman Catholicism, in which he distilled, in simple terms,
the essence of the Protestant Romanist contention on justification's relation to
faith and works.
In which he said, quote, Romanists believe that faith is essential to justification,
just as Protestants believe that faith is essential.
They do not think it is sufficient for justification, but they do not believe
that justification can come about apart from faith.
The Council of Trent stressed the fact that faith is necessary as the root of the
good works which we do for justification.
Roman Catholicism teaches justification by works alone, but not by works that are
alone.
The Reformation insisted that justification is by faith alone,
but not by faith that is alone.
Justifying faith is working faith.
As we know, Protestants in general, and the Reformed in particular,
say that the Roman Catholic position on justification is not the true doctrine.
It is not a saving justification of Holy Scripture.
Dr. Gerstner mentions the nuance in his booklet that Rome formally attributes all
merit for a believer's justification to Christ, but he dismisses this as not
materially affecting a fair charge against the Roman Catholic Church of teaching a
heretical view of justification.
Modern official Roman Catholic doctrines, most notably the Catechism of the Catholic
Church, reveal that she remains unequivocal and firm in her opposition to
both faith commitments which have been so basic to all of Protestant thinking,
recent ecumenical dialogue notwithstanding.
Specifically, the Catechism of the Catholic Church in 1994 maintains a stand
against sola scriptura, when it says, and I quote, both scripture and tradition
must be accepted and honored with equal sentiments of devotion and reverence.
The Catholic Catechism also contradicts sola fide.
This comes out most clearly in a section on merit, where it says, Since the
initiative belongs to God in the order of grace, no one can merit the initial grace
of forgiveness and justification at the beginning of conversion.
Moved by the Holy Spirit and by charity, we can learn merit for ourselves and for
others.
The grace is needed for our sanctification, for the increase of grace
and charity, and for the attainment of eternal life.
Even temporal goods like health and friendship can be merited in accordance
with God's wisdom.
Such errors hardly concern evangelicals anymore, it seems.
Michael Horton makes a devastating remark about evangelicals and Catholics together
in the latest issue of Modern Reformation magazine, called Can We Be Confessional
and Catholic?
And here's what Michael Horton had to say.
Michael Horton, a modern Protestant.
My own criticism of the impressive initiative known as Evangelicals and
Catholics Together, ECT, some years ago, was not that such dialogue should not
exist or that real consensus on many issues was impossible from the outset,
but that the consensus reached affirmed agreement in the gospel while
acknowledging disagreement on justification, merit, purgatory,
indulgences, and the redemptive intercession of anyone other than Christ.
Yes, in step with other recent agreements, here it is only the evangelicals who have
moved, accepting the view that justification by grace alone through faith
alone because of Christ alone is not essential to the gospel.
Now I ask you, will you hoist your defiant flag?
My beloved Protestant brothers, if we do not recognize the above Roman
Catholic statement as serious corruption of the fundamentals of our biblical faith
and the only true gospel, how we have fallen.
If we hold essentially the same doctrine as our Protestant forefathers,
because we believe it is biblical, and since the Roman Catholic Church still
holds to the Council of Trent written in the 1500s to foster the
Counter-Reformation, how could a dramatic shift in the relationship of Protestants
to the Roman Catholic Church, plainly visible in many of our fellow
evangelicals, possibly be warranted?
Alas, unwarranted or not, it has happened.
The times, they are changing.
And this ecumenical earthquake ought to shake us out of our lethargy.
Will we stand firm against this measure of apostasy or collapse with our unstable
fellows?
Are we still willing to identify with Luther, Knox, Calvin, the historic
Reformed Confessions, and more recently with Hodge, Spurgeon, Dabney, and
Lloyd-Jones in their intense and principled opposition to the Roman
Catholic Church and its dangerous apostasy?
Consider Lloyd-Jones charged with all.
And I close with this.
This is the last paragraph or so from his excellent sermon on Roman Catholicism,
which is included as an appendix to this paper.
I recommend highly you read the whole sermon.
But listen to this.
Lloyd-Jones says, There are innocent people who are being deluded by this kind
of falsity, and it is your business and mine to open their eyes and to instruct
them.
Not only that, it is as we stand foursquare for the truth of God that we
shall be entitled to pray with fervor and with confidence for the blessing of the
Holy Ghost upon us.
It is as we stand on the Scripture and its truth that the Spirit of God, I believe,
will descend upon us in a mighty revival.
And nothing less than such a revival can shake that horrible institution,
the great whore which calls herself the Church of Rome.
May God give us enlightenment and understanding of the times in which we are
living and awaken us, ere it be too late.