|
As the 450th anniversary of the Protestant
Reformation in Scotland approaches, the
church founded by John Knox
and other stalwarts has taken a major step toward re-union with
Rome.
Conversion Minus Christ, Evangelism Minus the
Evangel
The recently-concluded Edinburgh
2010 Conference on World Missions was a
gathering of liberal's liberals, conducted with
the full cooperation and participation of the
Roman Catholic Church, the World Council of
Churches, the National Council of Churches. This
conference commemorated the centenary of the
Edinburgh 1910 Conference on World Missions,
which was one of the early meetings of
theological liberals and their enablers that led
to the formation of the World Council of
Churches in 1948.
Part of the work of the Edinburgh
2010
"missionary" endeavor involved
continued joint work by liberal denominations and the Roman Catholic
church on the development of a
"code on conversion" detailing "ethical
standards for evangelism." But
Edinbugh-style "conversion" is conversion
without the true Christ, and "evangelism" without
the genuine evangel. Edinburgh 2010 was a
conclave of apostate church leaders who simply have no
idea what the Gospel is. Conference sessions and
documents used Biblical terms such as sin,
salvation, the
new birth, justification, and sanctification
— but with an
un-Biblical, Rome-compatible ecumenical lexicon
defining them.
A Major Step Toward Re-Union
Fittingly, just prior to the Edinburgh
2010 conference, representatives of the Church of
Scotland (Presbyterian) and the Roman Catholic church announced
that they have taken a major step toward
re-union, adopting a “joint liturgy for the
re-affirmation of baptismal vows.” A Scottish
newspaper reported that “as a result, Scotland
has the first Protestant church in the world to
form such a bond with the Catholic Church. The
two churches will also join together to mark the
450th anniversary of the Reformation later this
year.”
The article quoted the former
moderator of the Church of Scotland and
secretary of the ecumenicity committee, the Very
Rev. Ms. Sheilagh Kesting, who said, “We’re
going to do it together, so that we can say very
publicly we are not in the same position now
that we were 450 years ago; that we can speak
together about what happened at the Reformation;
we can recognize the continuity of the
pre-Reformation and post-Reformation Church and
that whole journey through to the Scottish
Renaissance. I think that is quite an important
thing.” She also stated, "It takes us a whole
step along a journey of agreement, and it puts
pressure on us, because if we say 'we have a
common understanding of baptism' and are able to
renew our vows together, what does that say
about our understanding of the Church and of
Communion?"1
That "common understanding of baptism" means
that the once-Protestant Scottish Church has
surrendered to the Roman Catholic teaching that
salvation begins with water baptism, and is
maintained through participation in the liturgy
of the church. The same false teaching is being
spread in the American church today, principally
as the Federal Vision theology, emanating from
the followers of purportedly Reformed theologians such as
Norman Shepherd and Richard Gaffin.
The centuries don't matter to the Vatican.
Antichristian Rome stands, patiently
intransigent, while both liberals and many
Evangelicals are increasingly eager suitors.
Reaching an “understanding” with Rome by
definition means the surrender of authentic
Biblical Christianity recovered at the
Reformation, while Rome gives up nothing. Rome
will not be satisfied until the surrender is
complete, however long it takes.
"You Garnish the Sepulchres of the Righteous"
It will be interesting to see how
the Scottish Church — founded by John Knox and
other Protestant stalwarts on the rock of
salvation in Christ alone, by grace alone,
through faith alone, apart from works, on the
basis of Scripture alone — is going to celebrate
the anniversary of the Reformation together with
those who teach that Rome alone holds the keys
to salvation. Doubtless it will involve a
hypocritical "garnishing of the sepulchres of
the righteous," the same sin for which Jesus
condemned the scribes and Pharisees during His
days on earth.
In an address to a 1960 meeting
honoring the memory of John Knox on the 450th
anniversary of his birth, Dr.
Martyn Lloyd-Jones said this:
These are terrible and
terrifying words: ‘Woe unto you, scribes and
Pharisees, hypocrites! because ye build the
tombs of the prophets, and garnish the
sepulchres of the righteous, and say, If we had
been in the days of our fathers, we would not
have been partakers with them in the blood of
the prophets. Wherefore ye be witnesses unto
yourselves, that ye are the children of them
which killed the prophets. Fill ye up then the
measure of your fathers. Ye serpents, ye
generation of vipers, how can ye escape the
damnation of hell?’ [Matthew 23:29-33]
Now those are the words of
the Lord Jesus Christ and He was addressing His
own generation, His own contemporaries. He said,
in effect, You are paying great tribute to the
memory of the prophets; you are looking after
and garnishing their sepulchres and you are
saying what great men they were — How noble, how
wonderful, we must keep their memory alive — and
you say what a terrible thing it was that your
forefathers should have put these men to death.
If you had been alive then, you maintain, you
would not have joined them in those wicked
deeds; you would have listened to the prophets,
you would have followed them. You hypocrites,
says our Lord, you would have done nothing of
the sort.
How, then, does He prove
it? Well, He does it in this way. He tests their
sincerity by discovering what their attitude is
at the present to the successors to the
prophets. What is their reaction to the people
who are still preaching the same message as the
prophets? He says, You say that you are admirers
of the prophets and yet you are persecuting and
trying to compass the death of a man like myself
who is the modern representative of the same
message, and the same school of prophecy. Ah,
says our Lord, it is one thing to look back and
to praise famous men, but that can be sheer
hypocrisy. The test of our sincerity this
evening is this: What do we feel about, and how
are we treating, the men who, today, are
preaching the same message as was preached by
John Knox and his fellow reformers?
So, you see, this meeting
is a very important one for us. You cannot do a
thing like this [meeting to honor the Reformers]
without examining yourself, without coming under
scrutiny. Our presence indicates that we are
admirers of these great prophets of God, but I
wonder whether we are in reality? So it is a
good thing, it seems to me, that we should come
together, if only so that we can examine
ourselves in the light of this word of our Lord
and Saviour Jesus Christ.2
What was beginning to be true in
Dr. Lloyd-Jones' time is becoming full-blown
reality in the early 21st century: Much of today's
formerly Protestant church views the
Reformation as a tragic mistake that must be
undone. We shall look at Dr. Lloyd-Jones
prescient words
on "the state of the church" in our next
article.
Next: "What of the state of the church?"
Recommended Resources
Available in our Online Store:
References:
-
Craig Brown, "Kirk and Catholic Church
Strengthen Ties," The Scotsman,
5/21/2010, as viewed online at
http://thescotsman.scotsman.com/scotland/Kirk-and-Catholic-Church-strengthen.6310196.jp.
-
D. Martyn Lloyd-Jones, "Remembering the
Reformation" in Knowing the Times: Addresses
Delivered on Various Occasions, 1942-1977
(Edinburgh: Banner of Truth. 1989). 92-93.
|
Printer-Friendly Page
