Irreconcilable Differences: Catholics and Evangelicals.

      The following was transcribed from a television broadcast of a "roundtable discussion," titled "Irreconcilable Differences: Catholics, Evangelicals, and the New Quest for Unity" that took place in Ft Lauderdale, Florida between Dr. James Kennedy, Dr. John MacArthur, Dr. R. C. Sproul, and John Ankerberg.

      Part 1

      JOHN ANKERBERG: We are here in Ft Lauderdale, Florida in the beautiful Coral Ridge Presbyterian Church. My guests are Dr. D. James Kennedy, who is the pastor of this wonderful church. And the well known, popular, Dr. John MacArthur, and Dr. R. C. Sproul.

      Our program today is about a document that is called the Evangelicals and Catholics Together - The Christian Mission in the Third Millennium. We are also going to be talking about a new clarifying doctrinal statement that was just written by the Evangelical signees of this document. The ECT, The Evangelicals and Catholics Together document, as we call it, was written by twenty well-know Evangelical leaders and twenty well-known Roman Catholic leaders.

      The purpose of this document was stated to be:

      1. To provide a statement that would advance Christian fellowship, cooperation, and mutual trust, between Evangelical Protestants and Roman Catholics.

      2. It was to provide a world-view for Protestants and Catholics to unite on, in defense of the truth, here in the North American culture wars. That is, these men saw the benefit of Catholics and Protestants standing and fighting together on the critical moral issues of our day.

      3. The document was written to establish some basis for servility and mutual respect between Roman Catholics and Protestants in Latin America, and some other countries, who because of rivalry were in conflict over evangelism.

      Now, I want to make it clear that those who wrote this document said, "It is not an official document binding Roman Catholics and Protestants together. It is not meant to be precise or theologically comprehensive, and the only authority it has stems from the personal creditability of those who signed it." At the same time the signatories of this document said they "Hoped it would make waves and change established patterns of behavior in this country and overseas." If it did, they thought its strategic importance would be far-reaching, and apparently its impact has been wide, and powerful. For example, its been reported to have circulated inside the Vatican and been received there with great enthusiasm. One Christian publication said "It was a landmark document." Christianity Today and the Christian Coalition have both referred to it as a "Historic Document." The Wall Street Journal, of all places, said, "This document was the wave of the future." Now, the very fact, that many people feel this document is uniting Catholics and Protestants in North America to stand together on social issues, and it is helping stop the conflict in Latin America and other countries--it shows how important and influential this document is.

      Now, Chuck Colson, who helped draft this document, has acknowledged that it has created a lot of controversy and it has raised genuine concern over whether it clearly represents what Evangelical Christians believe. Just a few weeks ago, Chuck requested a private meeting with ten Evangelical leaders, including the four of us that are here. He expressed his concern over the document in the confusion that it has caused as well as its lack of clarity concerning what Evangelicals believe, and he said that 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 Protestants signees stood." To this end, together, we all composed a statement that clarifies and clearly defines our Evangelical beliefs--not all of them, but some primary ones.

      To begin, I would like to come to you, Dr. R. C. Sproul. When we all got together, we were concerned about the statements and the Evangelicals and Catholics Together document, that seemed to give an unwarranted stamp of legitimacy to Roman Catholic doctrine. For example, the ECT document implies that Evangelicals and Roman Catholics should and can be united on the basis of their being able to affirm this statement:

      "That we are justified by grace, through faith, because of Christ"

      Now, we all agreed this statement still needed to be clarified. Some may wonder, "What in the world is wrong with that phrase?" All Roman Catholics will say that they accept and believe these words, but we know that if you add the word "alone" to this sentence, so that it reads this way:

      "That we are justified by grace alone, through faith alone, because of Christ alone"

      The Roman Catholic friend that you are saying this to will back away from it, and he won't accept it. R. C., why is that one little word, "sola" the Latin word "sola" (alone), that's missing in the ECT document--why is this so important to us? And then please explain why we did place it in the new clarifying doctrinal statement.

      R. C. SPROUL: Well, John as you will certainly remember when we had our private discussions behind closed doors, with Chuck, and Jim Packer, and Bill Bright, and the other signatories there, I made the comment at the time that, that word "alone" which is so conspicuously absent from ECT, has emerged as something of a "shibboleth" in Church history, not in the pejorative sense (in the negative sense), but in the positive sense of the "shibboleth" that this is a watershed statement that separates people on what they really believe. Now to get to the heart of that let me jump down the funnel to the bottom line of the controversy, historically, between the Roman Catholic Church and Evangelicals that provoked the Reformation.

      I will try to say this in a way, that my mother, God bless her if she were still alive, would be able to understand it, and I hope that she understands it now far more clearly than I do, in her felicity in heaven. In any case, if my mother were here I would say, "Mom, here's my problem" "God is just, God is righteous, and I'm not! How can I possibly survive a tribunal before a just and holy God? Since I know that that God requires and demands perfect righteousness for Him to justify anyone." And so the issue in the 16th century was, not whether God demands righteousness in order for Him to declare somebody just, but the issue is: "Where do we get that righteousness?"

      The Protestant view was this: that the only righteousness that has the merit necessary to meet the requirements of the holiness of God, is that righteousness that was achieved and performed by Jesus Christ--and by Jesus Christ "alone!"

      There is where the word "alone" comes in John, because all Protestants have acknowledged, historically, that the phrase, "justification by faith alone," really means, it's shorthand for, "Justification by the righteousness of Christ alone--that only His righteousness is sufficient to save us." The Roman Catholic Church said that the only way God will ever declare me righteous, or you righteous, or anybody else righteous, is if they have a righteousness that inheres within them, an intrinsic righteousness, a righteousness that really belongs to John Ankerberg. They would say that you can't be righteous, John, apart from the help of Christ, and the grace of Christ, and the infusion of His power and so on, with which you must assent and cooperate (assentari (sp.), cooperari (sp.), is the (L.) language they use). And so you can't be saved without the help of Christ, or without grace, or without faith. But, added to that faith, added to that grace, added to that Christ--must be the contribution of John Ankerberg, without which God will not declare you just.

      Now, that is all the difference in the world! The word "alone" is trying to draw a line in the sand and say that the Gospel of Jesus Christ says that, "The only way that a person can be saved is by the righteousness of Christ imputed to us by faith."

      JOHN ANKERBERG: Amen, how do we clarify that in our doctrinal statement?

      R. C. SPROUL: In the doctrinal statement, we spent most of our discussion time that day focusing on this question, "What is the gospel?" "And is the doctrine of "sola fide (L.)" (Justification by faith alone) essential to the gospel, and essential to Christianity and to salvation?" Because the problem that I had and others had with ECT is with the statement that "we are justified by grace through faith because of Christ." I have been saying for ten months, that every delegate to the Roman Catholic Council of Trent in the 16th century would have happily signed that. That the ECT nowhere explicitly mentions the Protestant and reformation doctrine of "sola fide (L.)" (Justification by faith alone). It doesn't affirm it; it doesn't deny it, but what I have been concerned to say is that implicitly and inferentially, and I think the necessary inference of the document is that "sola fide (L.)" is not necessary to believe, in order for one to be a brother or sister in Christ. Because the Roman Catholic Church certainly does not affirm "solo fide (L.)."

      JOHN MACARTHUR: I think that, if I may jump in, I think that more than implicit in the document, I think that it's explicit.

      JOHN ANKERBERG: Yes, let me come to a question for you John, that will help us out on that, and that is one of the things that we told Chuck, and Jim Packer, and Bill Bright, and that was this statement [from the ECT]:

      "We together, Evangelicals and Catholics, confess our sins against the unity, that Christ intends for all His disciples" (ECT).

      Now the assumption in that statement is that Evangelicals and Catholics are all Christ's disciples. What do you think of that assumption?

      JOHN MACARTHUR: Well, I think that is in grave error! And just going back, if I can make the point solidly, to borrow the language of the Apostle Paul, "Any attempt at self-righteousness, no matter how noble the effort, no matter how frequently the "God" vocabulary is used and the divine is brought into it--any attempt at self-righteousness, Paul classifies as "skubalon" (Greek), in Philippians 3. That word is about as vivid a word as he could possibly use. It could be translated "rubbish"--the most accurate translation is "dung."

      When you talk about a work-righteousness system, of any kind, it is so far from saving that it is rubbish, it's garbage. That's why Paul said, "All my life" he said, "I tried to achieve this stuff, and I had all this stuff in my gain column," remember that in Philippians 3? "And then I saw Christ, and a righteousness which came not by the law, but a righteousness was given to me by faith--the righteousness of God and immediately all what was gained was "skubalon."

      What you have got is a whole system built on "skubalon" and you can't throw your arms around that system. You can't embrace it, and simply say, "Well, they talk about Jesus, and they talk about God, and they talk about faith, and they talk about grace, and we have got to embrace them. And if we don't embrace them then we are violating the unity of the Body, and we are being ungracious to other disciples." That is a frightening misrepresentation of the distinctiveness of "Justification by faith, and faith alone."

      JOHN ANKERBERG: Dr. Kennedy, Catholicism believes that Evangelical Protestants do not emphasized, or put enough significance on the changed life. O.K., they hear us talk about "Justification by faith alone," and they think that nothing has to happen in terms of the life. But they get mixed up: Justification with Sanctification. Would you define those, and talk about the relationship?"

      JAMES KENNEDY: They state very clearly, both in Trent [Council of Trent] and also in their modern catechism, that just came out, that Justification encompasses Sanctification--so they confound the two. Justification and Sanctification must always be distinguished, but they can never be separated. Justification is an act, once and forever, instantaneous, whereby God declares a sinner, an ungodly, unrighteous sinful man, declares him righteous for the sake of Christ. Having imputed to him the righteousness, or the perfect obedience of Jesus Christ, and that is "once and for all done." No Christian is more or less justified than another, we are all justified instantaneously; all justified totally and completely.

      Sanctification is a process, which begins at that moment of regeneration, the moment of salvation, and grows all through our lives. It is different in every believer. Sometimes you hear people say that they don't like people that are "holier than thou"--holier than me! But the fact of the matter is, there are Christians that are holier than I am, holier than you are, and holier than everyone here is. Everyone sitting in this room is at some different degree of cleansing in growth, in the Christian faith--that is completed by glorification, which again is an act, which takes place after death, immediately after death, where all the vestigial remains of sin are removed and we are made absolutely perfect. It is as if the perfect white robe of Christ's righteousness were placed upon us once and for all--but they make Sanctification a part of Justification, so that a person must work long and labor hard.

      I was just reading some of the things, which they tell a person they must "do" in order to receive the grace of justification. Consider these things, they must:

      -- Love and worship God      -- Pray      -- Fast      -- Love one's neighbor      -- Practice self-renunciation      -- Obey the commandments of God      -- Bear witness to the Catholic faith      -- Follow supernatural inspiration in deeds      -- Confess the major doctrines of the Church

      And if they do all of these things, they may become worthy of Justification. But the Bible says that God Justifies the ungodly and that we are justified apart from works. In the third chapter of Romans, where Paul gives the fullest statement of the Gospel, he concludes with this concluding statement:

      "Therefore we conclude that a man is justified by faith apart from the works of the law."

      Now that is nothing other than "sola fide (L.)" if stated in other words--"faith alone." "A man is justified by faith apart from the works of the law." But they are saying, "A man is justified by faith based upon his completion of a whole series of years of efforts to keep the law, and finally he is justified by his own merit," in effect.

      JOHN MACARTHUR: I was just going to add, the process of justification, and it is a process in the Catholic faith; starts with infant baptism. They say that justification is initiated as a process at infant baptism, and it progresses through life, based upon what you "do" with infused grace. Grace is infused into you supernaturally; it's infused into you through the Mass; it's infused into you through the sacraments, and as it is infused and you cooperate with it--you keep the justifying process going. Now, you can stop that process at any point in time with a mortal sin, but you keep it going even when you get to the end of your life. The odds are that you haven't kept it going good enough and you are going to Purgatory. Nothing could be a more convoluted view of what is an instantaneous act in the Word of God, as he said exactly, by which God places the righteousness of Christ on you. The truth is, I am no more righteous to the satisfaction of God now, than I was before I was declared righteous.

      R. C. SPROUL: That's not true! That's not the truth! The truth is John MacArthur is a changed man. And the truth is John MacArthur has had some degree of sanctification in his life.

      JOHN MACARTHUR: This is true, this is true, but what I said was (you got to get my qualifier), I said that I am no more righteous, in the sense of satisfying a just God, in other words, I cannot achieve a righteousness that satisfies His requirement. Yes, I believe in regeneration--that's a different issue, and that there is a work of God in my life that is a sanctifying work.

      R. C. SPROUL: That's why I was joshing him there, because we don't want to give the impression that people think that just because we believe that we are justified by faith that nothing happens, that we remain unchanged.

      JOHN ANKERBERG: Take 45 seconds, for the person that tuned into, just to this program, that would like to have his sins forgiven, and have Christ's righteousness imputed to him--R. C., How does he do it?

      R. C. SPROUL: Forty-five seconds, I would say that His only hope of being forgiven and restored to a relationship with God is to confess his sins, acknowledge his sin, and repent of his sins, and look to Christ and to Christ alone, who is the only person who is sufficient to give him what he desperately needs to be reconciled to God. That Christ will cover your nakedness; that Christ will supply the righteousness from himself and grant you all of His righteousness as a robe to put upon your nakedness. If you would receive Him by faith and trust in His righteousness, then you will be received by the Father, into the Father's house and adopted into his family.

      Part 2

      JOHN ANKERBERG: 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: Dr. MacArthur, there might be some people that are listening in that are saying, "That's all fine and dandy in terms of what you guys are debating," but they picked up on some good things in terms of the relationship they might have with God. Take 45 seconds and close this with the Good News" that we think is so important, and how can the people that are watching get into it themselves?

      JOHN MACARTHUR: I think the simplest way that I can say that is, "God has commanded all men everywhere to repent, because He has ordained a day in which He will judge the world by that Man whom He raised from the dead--even Jesus Christ." There is forgiveness for sin to those who repent, and it is as simple as a beggar coming and crying out for something. It is as simple as hungering and thirsting for a righteousness you desperately need, don't have, and can't earn. It's pleading with a gracious God to give you the forgiveness of your sins, purely and simply because He wants to do it. It's a beggar's position, and if a person is overwrought with sin, and feels the burden and the weight of sin, and the heart anguish of sin; comes to God and cries for mercy, and God in His grace will reach out and by virtue of the sacrifice of Jesus Christ, which satisfied His justice with regard to your sin, will grant you saving grace.

      Part 3

      JOHN ANKERBERG: I have told Chuck [Colson] that we would talk about some of the things in the ECT document that we have felt, since we wrote a clear doctrinal statement to clarify some of the things that were in there, that there would be no way that we could without sounding a little bit critical of that document, simply because we felt there were things that did need to be clarified. One of those things has to do with "sheep-stealing, " proselytization, that comes into the Great Commission. Jesus commanded every Christian to go into all the world and preach the gospel. The ECT document, though, in talking about this area says, "The one Christ and one mission includes many other Christians, notably the Eastern Orthodox, and those Protestants not commonly identified as Evangelical," (and we assume that means liberal Protestants), "all Christians are encompassed in the prayer, 'May they all be one.'"

      Now, before we get on to the "sheep-stealing" and proselytization, I think that we wanted to stop right there Dr. Kennedy, and we took exception to the assumption that, "all of these folks under these church titles were automatically Christians." Now Chuck says, "That's not what he intended!" He never intended to say that they were all Christians, but that's the way a lot of people have interpreted it, including Dr. Carl Henry, who said, "That as he looked at the mass media--that's how they interpreted it." Now we clarified that, but let's start at the beginning, "Do you assume that everyone that a member of Coral Ridge Presbyterian Church, an Evangelical Church, or everybody that's in a Roman Catholic Church, just because they are a member of a Catholic Church, or a Liberal Protestant Church--that all of these, under these titles--that they are automatically true Christians?"

      JAMES KENNEDY: I certainly don't make any such assumption, John. In fact, I have said from this pulpit, right here, "That there are a number of members of my church that I would not want to be handcuffed to when they die!" The ECT document says, "That all active Roman Catholics are brothers and sisters in Christ and therefore should not be evangelized." Well, I am certainly not ready to give up evangelizing active Presbyterians, much less active Roman Catholics, or anybody else.

      My wife, to use a very personal example, went to the Presbyterian Church six times a week--all of her life! She was a soloist, she was a choir member, she played the piano, she taught Sunday School, her father was an elder--she was as active a Presbyterian as Paul was a Jew, and yet she was not saved!

      I witnessed to her and someone else witnessed to her and finally she accepted Christ. I can tell you this, my wife would be very happy to stand up here and tell this audience that she is very happy that I did not assume that all Presbyterians, active Presbyterians, were Christians. I don't assume anything about anyone, and when we evangelize we use diagnostic questions.

      Wouldn't it be foolish of a doctor to assume that all blondes are healthy, and therefore they don't have to be checked--they have good hearts, so they don't have to check their hearts. That would be very foolish. And we would be foolish to make such assumptions, so we ask diagnostic questions. We as evangelists, which every Christian is to be, should be spiritual physicians. We should ask diagnostic questions: "Do you know that you have eternal life? What are you basing your hope [on]? Why should God let you into heaven, if you were to die tonight?" So we find out. I don't care what the label on the person's back says, whether it says Presbyterian, Baptist, Catholic or Muslim, if that person is not trusting in Jesus Christ alone for his salvation--that person, in my opinion and I believe certainly in the historic opinion of all Protestant churches, is not really a Christian and is desperately in need of hearing the gospel and being saved. We have among the thousands of members of this church, thousands of them who have been active members of all kinds of churches, including Roman Catholics, who discovered years into their maturity, after 30, 40, 50, 60 years of active service in this church or some other church, that they really never really understood the gospel, they had never put their trust in Christ alone, and they had never experienced the saving power of the grace of God, which can not only declare us righteous in the sight of God, but it can change and transform our lives and make us new creatures and turn us around and start us off in a new direction, and give us a joy and a purpose and a meaning in our life that we never had before. That's what I believe every Christian ought to be doing--not checking to see the label in the coat before you decide to share the gospel with them, but finding out, diagnostically, in whom are they trusting for their salvation. And that is what I believe that the Great Commission commands everyone to do.

      JOHN ANKERBERG: Dr. Kennedy, I think that you would be great at instructing Christians on how to witness, do you know that?

      JAMES KENNEDY: I have thought about starting that!

      JOHN ANKERBERG: John MacArthur, let me come to you, because I want to get to this thing of "sheep-stealing." I have heard you preach on this and you have got some neat illustrations here. Carl Henry, so it's not us saying this, and it is not other folks that are close by, but he quotes the media and he says, "The ECT document deplores proselytizing or 'sheep-stealing,'" saying, "that the energies might be better deployed in reaching the unchurched." Whatever may have been the intention of the ECT writers, this was interpreted by the media and by many Evangelicals as an annulment of the Great Commission.

      Now, let me read the statement, and we told Chuck this, and we have also written a clarifying statement on this, "There is a necessary distinction," ECT said, "between evangelizing and what is today commonly called proselytizing or 'sheep-stealing.' We condemn the practice of recruiting people from another community (Protestants from Catholics or Catholics from Protestants) for purposes of denominational or institutional aggrandizement, and we call upon Christians to refrain from such activities." One more statement, it says, "In this country and elsewhere, Evangelicals and Catholics attempt to win converts from one another's folds. Such efforts at recruitment," ECT says, "undermine the Christian mission, by which we are bound." Talk to me.

      JOHN MACARTHUR: That's a frightening statement. That little sort of caveat in there about, "for institutional aggrandizement" is meaningless, because they come right back and used the words "convert people" which is a distinctively spiritual term--not an organizational term.

      Look, I could start as a pastor of a church, like Jim [James Kennedy] has seen, and my church has particularly filled with ex-Roman Catholics because of the large Hispanic community in Southern California. The most conservative figure that I could give you, would be that 50%, the upper end would be 70% of the entire membership of our church, and we probably have 10,000 people on a Sunday--50 to 70 percent of those people are converted Roman Catholics. Now you are talking about a massive amount of people who have had Roman Catholic influence.

      Every Sunday night in our Church, every Sunday night of the year we have Baptism. When we have baptism, people stand there who are confessing Christ publicly, and they give their testimony. There is not a Sunday night that goes by, in my memory, when there hasn't been, one, two, three, and there will be anywhere from five to ten people on a Sunday night, who say that, "I was in the Catholic Church. I went through Catholic School. I grew up in that whole system--I never knew Christ--I never knew God. I was in a system. The Church [Catholic Church] is a surrogate Christ; the Church has all the authority; I sucked my life from the Church, from the system, but as far as the knowledge of Christ, or the reality of the forgiveness of sin, or of the power of the Holy Spirit in my life--absolutely didn't have any idea about that."

      I am talking from a pastoral standpoint, the Catholic Church, from my vantage point is the single most fertile ground for evangelism that exists in this community in which I minister. These people know about Christ, they know about the Bible, they believe all that, what they don't know about is how to become a Christian--how to be genuinely converted and saved--they don't know that! For somebody to try to back me off of that, would to bring me under the judgment of God, because I am commanded to be faithful to the discharge of the Gospel--to the ends of the earth and to every creature that I can reach. I think what that document did, immediately with one sweep, just sanctify, or justify (whatever you want to say) all the Roman Catholics and say, "Hands Off!" You know, all the Protestants unloaded all their guns and said, 'Oh, well that's good news. We don't have to bother with those folks, we will just relabel them.'" I mean, that's the way the thing reads and that's what frighten me.

      People, actually in my church, came to me in tears, saying that they had read that thing [ECT], and saying that if somebody hadn't given the gospel to them--they would have never come to know the Lord Jesus Christ at that point. So, I think it's a tragic thing. As far as this unity thing goes, I need to add a footnote. I am really kind of weary of this misinterpretation of John 17, that Jesus praying, "That they may be one, that they may be one," like "Oh, please, You know I just really want you to do this. And I really hope that it works out this way."

      Listen, when Jesus prayed "that they may be one"--that prayer is fulfilled in the baptizing work of the Holy Spirit, that takes every single believer and baptizes them into the one body--that is a fact--that is not a wish! And they are one, but the ones that are one are "He that is joined to the Lord, is one spirit." So we can't just say, "Well, the Catholics, he wants them to be one with us, and he wants the Orthodox to be one, and the Liberals to be one, and he's hoping that we will all get together in an organizational way--that's not it, that prayer is fulfilled in the baptism of the Spirit.

      JAMES KENNEDY: John, just let me add an illustration to that. Just a few weeks ago, I was out on visitation, and I ended up in a home where there were seventeen people present. There was a family that were in our new member class. There was a visiting family that were a part of our sponsors that happened to be there. There were a bunch of kids, and there was a mother of one of the adults there, an elderly woman from Brooklyn and she was a Roman Catholic. Now there were some other relatives there--they came from five or six, maybe different churches and backgrounds. I went around and asked them these questions: I asked each of them, one by one, "In what were they trusting for their hope of eternal life. Why should God admit them into heaven?" This woman, before, had said, with a little bit of hostility, that she thought it was terrible that there was all these different religions. Everybody had their own religion, there own views, they are all different, and she didn't like this idea that everybody had a different religion--they all ought to be one. It was fascinating to see that one, after another, after another--the person said the reason God should let me into heaven is:

      "Christ died for my sins."

      "Jesus paid for my sins."

      "I have no hope but Christ."

      "By the grace of God, through faith in Christ alone"

      "It was through Christ who died for me."

      "I put my trust in Jesus Christ."

      "Christ paid for my sins."

      "I am trusting in Jesus Christ."

      "Christ is my Savior."

      "I have no hope but Jesus."

      And on and on it went, and this woman said, "Because I'm good!" But she was stunned by the fact that what she thought were all of these different churches, in disunity, were all in perfect unity when it came to the essence of the gospel. I think as John has said, there is a unity of Christians, of true believers. You can go anywhere in the world, as many of you have, and you will find a person is a true Christian and you have discovered a brother or a sister in Christ, regardless of what denomination he's in--if he really trusts in Christ. You have been joined together in one, and you are one in Him.

      R. C. SPROUL: I think what Dr. Kennedy has just said gets to the heart of the concern of those who did sign ECT, as well as getting to the heart of the concern of those who would never sign ECT, and let me explain what I mean by that. Chuck Colson, Jim Packer, Bill Bright, they say, "We don't embrace the system of doctrine of the Roman Catholic Church. We acknowledge that there are long standing things that divide us and that these matters are serious, but we want to affirm, as the document did, that everyone who accepts Christ as Lord and Savior is a brother and sister in Christ, and that Catholics and Evangelicals are brothers and sisters in Christ." What is behind that, I believe, is a conviction that those there are serious divisions historically, between Roman Catholicism and Evangelicalism, there is an agreement at the essential level of historic Christianity.

      For example, both communions affirm the Apostle's Creed. All evangelical confessions, historically have reaffirmed the so-called ecumenical councils of Nicaea, Chalcedon, etc., and we share a common Catholicity, in terms of essential things to the Christian faith, like the Trinity, the deity of Christ, the atonement of Christ, the resurrection of Christ--all of these doctrines have been attacked by modern liberalism. At least the Roman Catholic communion has been heroic in defending the deity of Christ, the resurrection of Christ, the supernatural elements that the Protestant liberals have jettisoned. And so they say, "Hey, the Catholic Church has been heroic and faithful in holding to these essential truths." And I say, "That's right, those are essential truths. But tragically, what breaks my heart, John, is that I believe is that "Justification by faith alone" is an essential truth. Oh, if Rome would repent of her rejection of "sola fide (L.)" and be as heroic and consistent in reaffirming the gospel of Jesus Christ as well as the person of Jesus Christ, we wouldn't have this problem.

      But what is the dispute here is the essential aspect of the "work of Jesus Christ." So I cannot sign ECT because I cannot recognize that we have a common faith, and a common witness, and a common ecclesiastical vision, for the simple fact that we don't agree on the gospel--and that's essential.

      JOHN ANKERBERG: I think that we need to say that this area of "sheep-stealing" and proselytization and evangelism, we have two points in the new doctrinal statement that Chuck, and J. I., and the Protestant signees have agreed to. But, Dr. Kennedy, with a minute left, for people that again, are listening--the gospel is always good news. When you start to grasp it, it really grabs your soul. And the fact is, in this one minute that we have got left, for the person that's listening and saying, "Hey, don't leave me hanging now. How do I get into this relationship with Jesus? Tell me more!"

      JAMES KENNEDY: Delighted to do it! The great joy of my life! God is Holy and we are sinful--that's the problem. If that were all there were to the problem--God would solve it very simply--He would send us all to Hell! But God is also loving, infinitely so, and because he loved us, He sent His own Son into the world. And He imputed, or laid upon Jesus Christ all of our guilt and sin. And then, something which astounded me when I first learned it, as a Father, God poured out all of His wrath for sin, upon His own Son. And Jesus Christ in body and soul suffered infinitely in our behalf and paid for the penalty for our sins. As I have told many, the problem for you is simple--your sins are going to be punished by God. The question is, are they going to be punished on you, in Hell forever, or on Jesus Christ on the Cross? If you would prefer the latter--you need to abandon all trust in yourself, repent of your sins, and receive Him into your heart as Savior and Lord, trusting in His atoning death and perfect life as your only hope of salvation. And His promise is, "He that trusts in Me, already has everlasting life."

      Part 4

      JOHN ANKERBERG: Dr. R. C. Sproul, I am going to come to you with a very controversial area, and that is, that when you sit down with two groups that are basically holding to different views: you had twenty Protestants signees, twenty Catholic signees of the Evangelicals and Catholics Together document (ECT), and they said that when they sat down, and basically were writing this thing, that they were seeking for common ground of our core beliefs--common ground of our core beliefs. What's the bottom line that we can unite on? They said, "They found it!" And it consisted of the following:

      -- To accept Jesus Christ as Lord and Savior.

      -- Affirming the Apostle's Creed.

      -- To accept the proposition, "We are justified by grace through faith because of Christ."

      -- To affirm to seek more love, less misrepresentation and misunderstanding.

      They went on to talk about some other things as well. But those are pretty heavy little things that they have put on the table, and yet, when we met to talk together, we said, "It wasn't enough." I think a particular sticking point was--isn't it good enough to say, "All who accept Christ as Lord and Savior, are brothers and sisters in Christ?" Because right after that statement in the ECT document, you find "Evangelicals and Roman Catholics are brothers and sisters in Christ," that is, anybody that can affirm the first one--fits the second one--if you are a Protestant or a Roman Catholic. We said "No, it needs to be clarified," and did clarify it, but some of the people in our television audience might say, "What in the world was wrong with that? If you can't agree on that--if that doesn't bring unity--what's the problem?"

      R. C. SPROUL: Well, John, you've just quoted the portion of this document, and the document is some twenty-five pages long, and most of it does not get into theological matters like that. You have just quoted exactly, the portion of that document that most distressed me personally. I have to say, before I try to answer your question, that in my career as a teacher of theology, and in my life as a Christian, I cannot think of anything that has come remotely close to distressing me to the depths of my soul, as much as this document has distressed me. What distressed me the most about it is that segment that you just mentioned.

      In last week's discussion, we discussed this business about, "Do we assumed that everybody in an Evangelical Church is a Christian?" Of course not! That's not the issue. Nor do these people ever intend to say that everybody in the Roman Catholic Church is a Christian. The statement, "Evangelicals and Catholics are brothers and sisters in Christ," does not mean that everybody in the Roman Catholic Church is a Christian, or every Evangelical is a Christian. Any sober reading of the document would illustrate that.

      At the same time, those who have resisted this document have for the most part agreed that yes, there are believers, true believers, here and there in the Roman Catholic Church, and Liberal Churches and so on. They are mavericks to their community, and I personally believe that those people who truly accept Jesus Christ as their Lord and Savior in the Biblical sense, who live in the Roman Catholic Church, have a moral and spiritual duty to leave that communion immediately! They are living in sin by continuing to be a visible member of an institution that anathematizes the Gospel of Jesus Christ! That is what I would say to that point. But then you say, "But wait a minute R.C., are you one of these theologians that's insisting on dotting every I, and you are in a witch-hunt, and all of that kind of stuff?"

      Chuck, for example, Colson, is very jealous to say, "R. C., you just can't read that statement in the naked way, 'That Catholics and Evangelicals are brothers and sisters in Christ,'--there's a context." And that is right--there is, because right before that, as you read, it says, "That all who accept Jesus as Savior and Lord are brothers and sisters in Christ," and "Evangelicals and Catholics are brothers and sisters in Christ," and the elliptical sense of this is that those two statements are connected--meaning that only those Catholics, and only those Evangelicals who truly accept Jesus as Savior and Lord are brothers and sisters in Christ, and what Evangelical would quibble over that? Me! For this reason. Precisely at the heart of the debate in the 16th century was not the question "Is Jesus Lord or is Jesus Savior?" Beloved, the issue that tore apart Christendom in the 16th century was this, "What does it mean that Jesus is Savior?" "How is Jesus the Savior?" Is he a Savior in the liberal sense, where he is an existential Hebrew, a hero, a symbol of liberation? Do I believe that Jesus is my Savior in the sense that He reveals to me authentic existential existence? Do I mean that Jesus is my Savior when I say, "That Jesus on the cross revealed the seriousness of sin and demonstrated the love of God and so restored a moral influence to the universe, and saved me in that way?" Or, as the Roman Catholic Church has said repeatedly, "Yes, Jesus is my Savior in that He infuses the necessary grace into my soul, by which, with my cooperation I can be saved and justified before Almighty God."

      When my Roman Catholic friends tell me they believe in Jesus as Savior, do they mean by that statement that they are trusting in the imputation of the righteousness of Jesus Christ to their account, forensically by God, through faith alone? Or, do they mean, that Jesus is their Savior in the sense that He helps them, have the ability to gain the merit necessary for God, to declare them just? Do you see that, that is a world of difference in understanding Jesus as Savior?

      Now when Chuck Colson says, "All who believe in Christ as Savior," he is filling that with the content of his own evangelical heritage, because if you ask Chuck Colson what he means by "accepting Jesus as his Savior;" if you ask J. I. Packer what he means by "accepting Jesus as Savior," they will give you the unvarnished orthodox Protestant faith. But the question is, "Is that true for the Roman Catholic Church?" Now, they will be quick to say, "But, we are just talking about those forty guys; these are just a group of individuals talking from their communion, to their communion, and they have insisted on that over and over again-- that this is not an official document, and it isn't an official document. But I have said to Chuck and to J. I., I said, "Look, Jim, that may be true, but you are speaking 'about' these communions, and as soon as you speak 'about' the two communions--you have gone way beyond forty people. You are making a blanket statement about Evangelicals and Catholics, who profess to accept Jesus Christ as Lord and Savior, that they are brothers and sisters in Christ. Now, if they do accept Jesus as Lord and Savior, in the biblical sense--they are brothers and sisters in Christ and I have no dispute. But the doctrine of Justification, upon which we are united is far more than that statement that we have looked at already, "That we are justified by grace through faith because of Christ."

      JOHN ANKERBERG: People that are listening might say, "But, boy are you narrow-minded."

      R. C. SPROUL: I hope so! John, let me explain that comment. I don't mean to be flip about that, because I think one of the most difficult things in the Christian life is to know when to be tolerant, and when to be narrow.

      The same Apostle Paul who tells us that we are not to be contentious, and divisive, and argumentative, and belligerent--that the same Apostle who teaches us that the "fruit of the Spirit, of the Holy Spirit," is the fruit of "gentleness, and kindness, and long-suffering, and meekness, and goodness," and so on--that same Apostle who tells us that we are to judge each other always with the judgment of charity and not harshly, with a love that covers a multitude of sins--that's the same Apostle who said, "When it comes to the gospel, you can't negotiate it! Ever! For any reason!" That's why when Luther said, "That this was the article upon which the Church stands or falls"--and I agree with Luther's assessment there. I mean, I don't think that we should fight over every doctrine and over every pedantic point of theology. But, John, this isn't a pedantic point--this is not the "small print." This is the article upon which the Church stands or falls--the Gospel itself!

      JOHN ANKERBERG: John, do you think that the gospel is at stake in what we are talking about?

      JOHN MACARTHUR: Oh, absolutely--that is what is at stake. I was just going to mention a parallel. The Apostle Paul in Romans 10, obviously we know his heart and his passion for Israel, he actually said he, "could almost wish himself accursed for their salvation." Nobody would question that Israel was devoted to God, that they had a zeal for God, that they tried their best to follow the Law and all of the prescriptions. I mean, that it is a very close parallel to the same kind of situation, and he says in Romans 10, "Brethren, my heart's desire and prayer to God for them is for their salvation." I mean, it was clear that they had missed the whole point of a gracious salvation. A salvation that came from God and God alone--apart from any works.

      He said, "I bear them witness, this I'll grant them: they have a zeal for God, but it is not according to knowledge. Because they do not understand God's righteousness and they seek to establish their own." That is exactly what you have going on in the Roman Catholic Church. And, "so they did not subject themselves to the righteousness of God," in other words, they did not understand the righteousness of God--they went to seek their own righteousness, therefore they missed the righteousness of God, and he says in the next verse, "Christ is the end of the Law for righteousness to everyone who believes." Christ is the righteousness, and Israel missed it and Paul confronted it, Jesus confronted it, I mean He blistered the Jewish leaders for their defection.

      I hate to say that if I had been in the meeting with twenty Roman Catholics, I think I would have been a troubled person. I don't think we would have come out with any document which we all agreed on, because I would have had to confront the fact that they have a zeal for God, but it is apart from understanding the righteousness of God, which is the only means by which salvation can occur. Yes, it's absolutely the definitive issue.

      JOHN ANKERBERG: Dr Kennedy, all through the years that I have known you, you have had the reputation among evangelical leaders of being the statesman--the one that constantly wants to bring us together--you don't want any splits, and even in this situation we met in your office. But what is at stake is that the cry for tolerance today and love between Roman Catholics and Evangelical Protestants is very, very strong. And when we make some of these statements, people say, "Don't you have any love for Roman Catholics? Are you guys so harsh?" Talk about love and tolerance and the priority that truth has over that, and that when we stand for the truth that does not necessarily mean that we don't love people, in fact, when we stand for the truth it means that we actually love them more.

      JAMES KENNEDY: Absolutely John, if we believe, as Christians, the truth of the Scripture. If we believe what Christ said, that He, "Is the way, the truth, and the life." If we believe as Peter said, "There is no other name under heaven given to men by which we must be saved." If there is no other way than through justification by faith in Christ alone. If we are willing for sake of some temporal, earthly peace and tolerance to ignore proclaiming that truth to people, then we are not demonstrating to them love--we are actually demonstrating hate, because we are allowing those people to go to the judgment of God without ever telling them the one way by which they can be justified in the eyes of a just and holy God, and that is a false love--true love confronts, and it should do it with grace and with kindness, but never the less firmly.

      I have always felt that we need to have a velvet glove, but as I was saying to R. C., in my office this afternoon, that I have always felt that there should be a velvet glove, but inside that velvet glove there is to be a steel fist. We can never become "wishy-washy" and spongy when it comes to the essential truth, upon which the eternal wheel or woe of human beings rest and that is the gospel. We can't compromise on this truth. We can agree to disagree on a lot of the nonessentials, as Pascal said, but when it comes to the heart of the gospel we have to insist that there is only one way, and Christ is that way, and to ignore that is a false love. It is a personal apostatizing on our own part from what Christ called us to be.

      I commend these men as I commended R. C., in that meeting that I mentioned, that he made it very clear to these men what was at stake here, and what was at stake, ultimately, was whether or not we could maintain fellowship if they were going to leave a confused idea as to whether or not they accepted the distinctives of the Reformational Theology, and happily they made it clear that they do not reject those, they do clearly accept them, and in that we do rejoice, although we would of all been happier if they would have taken their names off of the document altogether.

      JOHN ANKERBERG: R. C., summarize where we are at. I think that it is very important for the people that are listening, they want to know, "well, where are we at here with Chuck [Colson] and our own fellows--where do we stand?"

      R. C. SPROUL: I am not sure. I received a wonderful letter from Chuck just this week. John, this is so hard, because like Chuck writes in a scroll in the bottom, "I am so glad that we had this meeting because this has been torturing my soul." He has been in tears, I have been in tears--it tears of