Roman Catholic or Protestant

Welcome to No Compromise Radio, a ministry coming to you from Bethlehem Bible Church in West Boylston. No Compromise Radio is a program dedicated to the ongoing proclamation of Jesus Christ, based on the theme in Galatians 2, verse 5, where the Apostle Paul said, �But we did not yield in subjection to them for even an hour, so that the truth of the gospel would remain with you.

In short, if you like smooth, watered-down words to make you simply feel good, this show isn�t for you. By purpose, we are first biblical, but we can also be controversial. Stay tuned for the next 25 minutes as we�re called by the Divine Trumpet to summon the troops for the honor and glory of her King.

Here�s our host, Pastor Mike Abendroth.

Are You a Catholic or a Protestant?

Welcome to No Compromise Radio ministry. It is, in fact, Tuesday today, even though, Steve, it seems really like a Wednesday morning. Well, it does, but you know, it�s also bright and sunny today, but it feels like it�s raining in my heart.

This is brutal. This is brutal weather when it�s cold and rainy. You know, cold�s not too bad, rainy�s not too bad, but cold and rainy. Something about rainy day people, I don�t know. Rainy days and Tuesdays always get me down.

Days and Mondays. Steve, I just have one simple question for you today on No Compromise Radio. Only one? Okay. Yes, yes. It will lead into others, but this is the simple question. This is the baseline question.

This is the plumb line. This is the�what else do we have that would be something like that? This is the canon, right? This is the canon question. This is the measuring part. Yes. This is the measuring reed rod.

Are you a Catholic or a Protestant? Big C or small c. Oh! Oh! My son Luke is�we�re doing a creeds and confessions overview in Men�s Discipleship on Sunday morning, and so he knows the difference now between small c and large c, Catholic.

Nice. And so do the others. Men have two questions. Well, women have them too. When you start reading through creeds and confessions, Nicene Creed, Apostolic Creed, you name it� Apollo Creed. Apollo Creed.

Creed�s Creed. It can easily turn into, what does one baptism for the remission of sins mean? And it also�what do you mean one holy Catholic and Apostolic Church? What would that mean? That�s a tough one.

I know. That�s probably why we don�t read those in our church services. Probably not. Yeah. Do you ever go to church services where they read the creeds? I�ve not. No. Yes. Okay. All right. So there�s a website here that I just typed in, and it�s from Ron True Blue�Ron Blue�from Dallas Seminary of all places.

Yeah. Right? Yeah. I think Mike Dendron, he�s from Dallas Seminary. He knows the difference between the two. Where�s Dallas Seminary located? Well, it�s just outside of Arlington. So it�s not in Dallas.

Do you want to make any disclaimer about Dallas Seminary? We�re taking this from Dallas Seminary because I think we have some uber-reformed people who listen, and they�re probably going to tune out. Well, we know Dallas Theological Seminary, by and large, non-lordship, you know, and Arminian.

But do you think they�re Protestant? Yes, mostly. How clear is your understanding of Protestant theology? Test yourself and see. Evaluate each of the following 10 paired statements, P-A-I-R-E-D, and mark the one that you think that best states or think best states a Protestant doctrinal position.

This was used for a class at Dallas Seminary on these two. Would that be ladies in the class, too? Most likely. I mean, there were female DTS students in 2000 when we went on an Israel trip with them, my wife and I did.

Just the female Dallas Seminary students, you and your wife, that�s who went? No. Were you leading the group or something? It was a bunch of guys from the Master�s Seminary and then some folks from DTS went as well, separate buses.

But we met occasionally. Wow. And how would you describe the interaction between the two buses? Interesting. Well, because when we got together and did things together, I think we had like three joint worship services.

Seder. And they led one of them, and it was very interesting to me because the main point of the passage about Jesus getting out of the boat and walking on the water and then, or actually walking on the water toward the boat, was that Jesus wants to have a relationship with you.

And I've never forgotten that. I go, really? That's the point? Hmm. The John Gershner in me wants to say Jesus has a relationship with everybody. For unbelievers, it's a relationship of mortal enemy. It was pretty girly preaching.

But it was, but a man, a human man was doing the teaching. Yes. But it was girly. So it would be like Carl Truman at the Starbucks seeing a man in a woman's dress? Is that what it would be like? Is that what you're trying to say?

Yeah, it was pretty shocking. Okay. Well, maybe this is an old DTS document. Yeah. Yeah. Could be. I remember—. From the 30s. —hearing S. Lewis Johnson say that Lewis Berry Chafer would be appalled if Dallas Seminary ever had any women in its classes.

Well, then he would be appalled right now. You know, it starts simply enough, too. Why don't you just have the ladies sit in on some of the classes so they can learn what the husbands are learning? It kind of starts simply, right?

Yeah. Why are we holding back information from women? Well, Master Seminary, the wives were allowed to go to one class. I know. I know. I know. I know. All right. Number one. This is the paired statements.

There's 1A and 1B, of course. God gives a man right standing with himself by mercifully accounting him innocent and virtuous. And so, Steve, what would be the opposite? You don't even have to read it.

You want to just give me the—no, no, let's read it. Let me read the good one. You read the bad one. Now Steve reads the bad one. God makes—or God gives a man a right standing with himself by actually making him into an innocent and virtuous person.".

Okay, so since I read the first one, that must be right, because I'll read the good ones. No, we'll go back and forth. And so, Steve, what's the difference between accounting, imputation language, and actually making, or imputed and infused?

Because the Bible talks about making. It talks about reckoning a man righteous. It doesn't talk about turning him into an innocent and virtuous person. And by the way, the problem with turning him into an innocent and virtuous person is you have difficulty when that innocent and virtuous person then sins.

You have to take that into account. The way the Roman Catholics do it, of course, is you sin, then you confess, and you do penance, and then you are turned again into a virtuous and innocent person. So it's very much works-based that way.

Would it be similar to your shampoo bottle instructions? Rinse, wash, rinse, repeat, yes. Repeat is the big one. Everywhere you go, especially Romans chapter 4, you see the language of imputation. That's probably the imputation chapter, the accounting chapter, crediting something to someone's account.

The verse that I like the most that helps me with the language of accounting are imputation, and all the Bibles found in Philemon, one chapter, and it says in verse 18, if he has wronged you at all or owes you anything, charge that to my account.

What great language for imputation. Charging something to someone else's account. Now would it be fair to say that the Catholics here, the Roman Catholics, are confusing? I know they're doing more than this, but are they confusing justification and sanctification?

Yes. Okay, see, there we have it. All right, are you Catholic or Protestant? So far, number one, Steve? I think I'm a Protestant. One to nothing. Yeah. Right, sorry. Now is this gonna be seven, and seven to nothing is a skunk?

We just have to stop the game after seven? Yes, you do. There's the mercy rule. Okay, are you a Catholic or Protestant? Number two, God gives a man right standing with himself by placing Christ's goodness and virtue to his credit.

Or, Pastor Steve says... God gives man a right standing with himself by putting Christ's goodness and virtue into his heart. Steve, the other day I was listening to someone, and he said, basically, evangelicalism today, when it discusses Jesus in our heart, he said it's nothing more than Roman Catholicism.

Or nothing less than Roman Catholicism. Or nothing less, regardless of that statement. And so this is very similar to the first set of paired statements. Either placing Christ's goodness and virtue to his credit, or putting something into.

So when you study Roman Catholic Protestant differences, you get a lot of infused, kind of poured into language, changing language for justification, and then you get the language of the Protestants that would be charged, credited, imputed, reckoned, that kind of language.

And when you hear that language, you're pretty much hearing the Protestant. We protest infusion. So in other words, it's a difference between what the Bible says and what the Church teaches. Well, it was reckoned to him as righteousness.

Yes, that's what the Bible says. Okay, so now, Steve, what would that give you for a score tally? 2 -0. 2 -0. We're winning. Kind of sounds like the Patriots score at the beginning of Super Bowl last year.

Painful memories. Number three, God accepts the believer because of the moral excellence found in Jesus Christ. Or, God makes the believer acceptable by infusing Christ's moral excellence into his life.

Now see, I think probably what we should do with this quiz here, this test that we found, we should switch things up because everyone... It's always the second one. Yeah. The B is always the... It's kind of like true or false, except for it's always true or false.

So we are accepted in the Beloved. I think that's what the text says in Ephesians chapter 1 in the Beloved, and so God sees us through the lens, as it were, of Christ's perfect righteousness. That's why we harp about the righteousness of Christ.

Christ perfectly obeyed as he was under the law. Well, this is so unbiblical, this idea that somehow we get his moral excellence, and you'd have a hard time, again, explaining how someone with Christ's moral excellence would ever sin.

Yeah, and again, Steve, you know I love you and care for you, but I think you're kind of lacking in Christ's moral excellence in your life. What? Say what? All right, number four. We have ten of these, and I think we can get through all ten.

I think so. I think so. Okay, ten. Steve, would it make you feel better if you read the first one? It would. Okay, go ahead. We're all about your feelings here on NoCo Radio. Thank you very much. Always biblical, always empathetic.

Always Protestant. Yeah, that's a good one. That's the Saturday show. If a sinner becomes born again, the regenerating, transforming process of character, he will achieve right standing with God. Oh, isn't that good?

We did the little switcheroo, and Steve didn't even notice. The detective in him got it. Yeah, yeah, I'm the bad guy now. That was sure serendipitous, wasn't it? For B, if the sinner is granted right standing with God through faith, born again, he will then experience transformation of character.

I think you're playing favorites. Well, I would actually say I think this Ron Blue deal at DTS, I wouldn't really even say it this way. If the sinner is granted right standing with God through faith, born again, is that what it means to be born again, granted right standing through faith?

No, because regeneration and belief are not synonymous. Now, they may be simultaneous, but they're not synonymous. Well, I think they're confusing here as we look at just the panoply of God's great salvation.

Justification and regeneration are two separate things. Now, they may start, they may happen at the same time, and we can talk about the orders and all that other stuff, but I just would just cross that born again part out and say the sinner's granted right standing with God through faith, he will then experience a transformation of character.

In other words, the Protestant believes at justification, declared righteous based on the work of another, sanctification begins. And since God is holy, we are to live out our lives in response to what God has done.

If you're a Lutheran or you're a Tulian, what you do is you say you just, sanctification is remembering your justification, but I think it's more than that, and so we are Protestants, and we don't confuse justification with sanctification.

Did you say Tulian? I did. Okay. Nothing, Jesus plus nothing equals everything. I think he's got an overtly Lutheran view of sanctification, and the Lutherans would believe you just got to keep going back to justification, and that's pretty much the extent of it.

So there's my little comment. Okay. That was for Paul Shirley right there, that comment. Pastor Paul. Shout out to Paul. Shout out to Paul. Okay, do you want to read ahead of time what five is so you feel better, or you want to just go for it?

Yes, I do. Which one do you want me to read? I don't care. I'll take A. We receive right standing with God by faith alone. See, this has got the DTS kind of thing to it. We should have done our own, but we have day jobs.

Yeah, I'm not really fond of that language, but go ahead and read B. Okay. We receive right standing with God by faith, which has become active by love. Well, if we said... What's C? If we said which one's worse, which one would you pick?

I think I'd have to go with B. Yeah. How would you rearrange A so it sounded a little more Protestant? We receive right standing with God by Christ's perfect work. Yeah, through faith alone in Christ alone, or something like that maybe.

Yeah. The thing about it is we want to make sure that we understand faith as an instrument of means. It is not meritorious itself. It isn't salvific, like I have always stolen B .B. Warfield's comments, something similar to faith didn't die on a cross, faith didn't live a perfect life, faith wasn't raised from the dead, faith doesn't, you know, etc.

So I want to just make sure that we never think faith is the... it procures with the instrument of means. That's how I would use it. Well, if you look at it this way, if we receive right standing, are justified, declared righteous with God by faith alone, I mean that sounds like a reformer kind of thing.

Yeah, I guess, you know, I was thinking about it a different way, but theological shorthand, it's true. Yeah. Justified by faith. It's just maybe not explained as well as maybe we would like, but yeah, I guess I can go for A the more I read it and think about it, because I think we were thinking we were infusing too much DTS into the...

Oh, you are right! I reckon we did that. Okay, LaGidzimai. All right, number six, we achieve right standing with God by having Christ live out his life of obedience in us. Hmm. Now why did I get the bad one on this one?

I don't know if the other one's good, but this one's certainly muy mal para mi. Y tu también. We achieve right standing with God by accepting the fact that he obeyed the law perfectly for us. See, even that, that's just a DTS thing.

You know what we'd like is we'd like to have one of these that's just done with a little more fine-tuning. Let's just get the pencils out and fine-tune this a little bit. Yeah. Sharpen the pencils. A little Reformation in there.

So we definitely do not believe that A is right. Right standing with God is not even by accepting the fact. Yeah. Right standing with God is... We achieve right standing or we are justified with God because he obeyed the law perfectly for us.

Yeah, let's just get rid of those accepting the facts. Yeah. That's a fact, Jack. Yeah. Billy Jack. Yeah, it has nothing to do with whether we accept it. Well, I mean, this is maybe just too short. I mean, you know, and not theologically precise enough.

Okay, number seven, we achieve right standing with God by following Christ's example by the help of his enabling grace. Is that Norm Geisser? Did he say that? Yeah, it's a little booster shot. Okay, booster.

Or we follow Christ's example because his life has given us right standing with God. I like the second one better. It's not all inclusive of the doctrine of Reformed sanctification. But how much more are we saved by his life?

You know, so you could kind of see that sort of language there. Yeah, so I think that's better, and today many people probably do what I did when I was a kid. There was a Roman Catholic Church across the street.

It actually was called St. James. St. James? James was a saint. St. James Place. Yeah. Right there. St. James Place. And the nuns lived right across the street from us, and they, interestingly, Steve, I've never told you this story.

My father, to them, they thought he looked like Billy Graham. And so my dad would try to be nice to them. We were the Lutheran family across the street, surrounded by St. James parishioners. And the nuns thought my dad looked like Billy Graham.

And so there's just a little interesting tidbit, but I would say that in the church, when I would go to the Catholic Church on occasion, I thought it was really neat because it was really close to what they did in the Lutheran Church until we did it, got up and said the Lord's Prayer.

And then I was tracking. I thought, this is right, our Father, our Father, who art in heaven, who art in heaven. Hallowed be the hallowed be... And I got it. Until the very end, I blurted out, to thine be the kingdom and the glory and the power forever and ever.

Amen. And that's not said by the Roman Catholics. Really? They don't do that? Because it's in the Byzantine text, not the Alexandrian text. And then later I found out it's not in Vaticanus and Sinaiticus, and realized the Catholics were right about it.

Wow. Hey, even a blind squirrel. A blind squirrel. All right. Number eight, we're looking at, is this Ron Blues? Yes. Is it? No, I don't think it's Ron Blues. Ron Blue, yeah, he's got the blues. Oh, it is Ron Blue.

Doesn't he do a lot of the money stuff, so he's good with accounting terms? He should be. Yes, true blue. All right. Blue Note Jazz. Number eight, God first pronounces that we are good in his sight, then gives us his spirit to make us good.

That's the first option. Or God sends his spirit to make us good, and then he will pronounce that we are good. God don't make no junk. See, I wouldn't put, I wouldn't, I would say both of these in a different fashion.

Now maybe what Mr. Blue is trying to do is make this for a high school Sunday school class, but then I realized it's for the Dallas Seminary class. I don't know, but I would have been a little more technical and used more Reformed jargon of the day.

Or, you know, maybe some Bible verses. Well, that's true. Maybe this was an old quiz. I think S. Lewis Johnson in his DTS days would have approached it a little differently. Sounds kind of hokey. Sounds kind of hokey.

Whatever happened to the signature of God stuff in the Grant Jeffries deal? You know, he could probably sell a lot of books if he did that to the Quran, because you could find the signature of Allah in the Quran if you just have a big enough computer.

Signature of Allah. See, therefore it must be real. Hmm. Yeah, you'd do it probably with Betty Crocker's cookbook, too. Well, I know they did it with Moby Dick. That's my favorite example. Yeah, well, you know, the thing is with, what's the very, very famous Massachusettian cook?

Oh, cook. She's the chef. She's the lady who... Julia Child. Yeah, yeah. Cut her finger on Saturday Night Live. With her cookbook, when you can't see pictures, I just don't know how they sell. I want to see a picture ahead of time so I can know what it looks like.

Or what it's supposed to look like. Well, that's right. Honey, this doesn't look anything like the picture. You ever look at the old cookbooks and then you realize even in the best cookbooks, the pictures were horrible.

They were horrific. Well, yeah. You know what I used to do? I used to read whatever recipes were on the cereal boxes of the cereal I was eating when I was a kid. Well, then only you, Steve, would remember.

Some would remember. I know John would remember in Idaho, but when you had Ritz crackers, what was the thing on the Ritz crackers? Oh, they had that apple pie thing. Yeah, what was it called? Faux apple pie.

Faux, mock apple pie. And so, can you imagine? You get real pie crust and then you fill it with a bunch of Ritz crackers and then special additives and lemon juice and other things, and then it tastes like apples.

A mock apple pie. I'd like to know how many calories in that there would be. Enough sugar and enough tartness. Ken Kajillion. I mean, that's one time where I'd go, you know, you probably should just have the apple pie.

It's probably better for you. So maybe we could call this mock Protestantism. Or faux Protestantism. Yeah, I would say that the Roman Catholic Church is doing its very best to get unwary Protestants, so-called Protestants like Methodists, Episcopalians, Lutherans, etc., to have these agreements together.

Oh, sure. Well, I read this thing the other day where Episcopalian priests are converting to Catholicism and they just get to keep their wives and stuff, and I thought, oh, how convenient. You know, very nice.

Keep their wives. I'll convert to your religion under one, just with one caveat. What's that? A prayer to Mary? Nah. A baptism, you know, for the dead? Nah. No, I don't think they do that, do they? No, they don't.

I get to keep my wife. Okay, you're in. Yep, you're good. Number nine. Christ's finished work on the cross and intercession at God's right hand gives us favor in the sight of God. Okay, the other one?

It is the indwelling Christ that gives us favor in God's sight. How about C? What does Christ's intercession at God's right hand have to do with giving us favor in God's sight, positionally? Yeah, I don't see that.

That is bad. Yeah, I don't see that. What would you be if you weren't a Protestant or a Catholic and you believed in that? What's that position? It's the... That's the jammer, Aldian. It's the Pro-Catholism view.

What does that have? I mean, I'm glad Christ finished work on the cross gives us favor in the sight of God. See, right away I knew that wasn't the Catholic position, because for them it's never finished.

Right. Hence, got to get back for the wafer and all that stuff. Right. Yeah, so we get that part, but I don't know what the intercession has to do. I'm glad for the intercession. Yeah, because the intercession is important.

Okay, number ten. Only by the imputation of Christ's righteousness through faith can we fully satisfy the claims of the Ten Commandments. This is another one that's gonna be bad. Number ten. By the power of the Holy Spirit living in us, we can fully satisfy the claims of the Ten Commandments.

Yikers. I know that there are people who believe B, right? If Jeff Waddington's listening from Christ the sinner, he's gonna just give us a licking when it comes to our interpretations of this, but these aren't ours, Jeff.

Yeah, we didn't write these. Maybe we should write ours, but we didn't. Well, I think the language could be a lot more precise. I guess you could say that about everything. You could probably say that about No Compromise Radio Tuesday shows, probably, and Wednesday shows and Thursday shows.

It could be more precise. No way. Yeah, but here's what we're after. We're after trying to keep justification and sanctification in their proper biblical roles, and so you'll see the muddying of that in Roman Catholicism, and enabling grace through sacraments, and what is a sacrament?

Why are they seven? And we're gonna have to do another show on that, because we got ten seconds to go. Well, certainly we'll have to do another show at some future date. Yes. Nocoinfo at radio .com. Is that what it is?

It's info at nocompromiseradio .com. No Compromise Radio with Pastor Mike Abendroth is a production of Bethlehem Bible Church in West Boylston. Bethlehem Bible Church is a Bible teaching church firmly committed to unleashing the life-transforming power of God's Word through verse-by-verse exposition of the sacred text.

Please come and join us. Our service times are Sunday morning at 1015 and in the evening at 6. We're right on Route 110 in West Boylston. You can check us out online at bbchurch .org or by phone at 508 -835 -3400.

The thoughts and opinions expressed on No Compromise Radio do not necessarily reflect those of WV &E, its staff, or management.