Where Do We Draw the Line?

Welcome to Conversations with a Calvinist,. I'm Keith Foskey and I am a Calvinist. Now, if you were a listener to Coffee with a Calvinist, that was our daily program and that show has come to a conclusion.

But we're continuing on in the same vein with Conversations with a Calvinist and instead of being a daily program, we're now going to have this program once a week and our goal and why we've changed the name to Conversations is that we're going to focus more on scripture, defending truth, and engaging culture.

And in that, we're going to be focusing on your questions and conversations with other Bible teachers. So we're going to have several different things from Coffee with a Calvinist, but we're still going to maintain our same focus on, again, teaching scripture, defending truth, and engaging culture.

Unity, Ecumenism, and the Question Behind the Episode

So again, if you're coming over from Coffee with a Calvinist and you're listening to us now, I want to thank you for continuing with us. And if you're a new listener, then this program, again, we had a one-year Coffee with a Calvinist and now we are doing Conversations with a Calvinist and we're looking forward to this new once-per-week program.

And today's episode is actually going to be based on a question that I received from a listener. And the question is this, it says, Hello, Pastor Keith. Recently, I heard a discussion between some well-known Christians regarding unity among Christians despite denominational differences.

These Christians represent a more traditional Protestant faith and we're working with Seventh-day Adventists and Roman Catholics to spread the gospel. My question to you is where does the Reformed believer draw the line on this and what scripture would support your view?

And it goes on to give the person's name. And I want to thank you, Holly, for giving that wonderful question. And that's going to be the focus of today's episode. In fact, I've entitled today's episode, Where Do We Draw the Line?

And this question really gets to the heart of something that is called ecumenism or ecumenism. And that is the concept of Christians who belong to different denominational backgrounds working together to have close relationships among their churches and trying to promote Christian unity.

That's the basic definition of ecumenism is trying to promote unity between Christian denominations. Though sometimes it is used to describe cross-religion relationships, sometimes ecumenism is used to promote unity between such as Christians and Muslims and Hindus and Buddhists.

And that is a very broad use of the term ecumenism. And really, I would say it's not the proper use of the term, even though some people do use it for that. I would say ecumenism in its proper use is trying to bring together Christians of different denominations to work together and develop relationships and try to break down the walls of division that denominations create.

And since Holly's question deals with groups that identify as Christians, we're going to go with that definition. And maybe on a future program, we can talk about the other side. What about other religions and can we have unity there?

The answer, of course, is no, we can't have unity outside of Christ. But we're going to talk today, as I said, about unity between Christian denominations. How can we have it? And again, Holly's question was based on seeing this within certain groups that were working with Seventh-day Adventists and Roman Catholics, and they were working together, as she said, to spread the gospel.

So we're going to look at a few scripture passages. We're going to talk about the Bible's focus on Christian unity. There is a biblical focus on Christian unity. But we're also going to talk about the Bible's call to discernment.

And then we're going to sort of come to a conclusion. Okay, what, where does the line get drawn? And how do we know when we've crossed the line? So let's first look at one of my favorite passages. And this is in the 17th chapter of the Gospel of John.

So if you have your Bibles, you can turn in your Bibles to John 17. We're going to look at two parts of this text. We're going to look at verse 11. Then we're going to look at verses 20 and 21. This is what is typically known as the high priestly prayer of Jesus.

Jesus is praying for his disciples. And he even says, I'm praying not only for my disciples, but I'm praying for those who will believe because of their testimony. So Jesus is praying for us. There's a prayer in the Bible where Jesus prays for believers.

And that's an amazing reality. So if you've not spent much time in John 17, I encourage you to go read this passage in its entirety. This is Jesus praying for his people. Oftentimes we call the Our Father which art in heaven, how would be that name?

We call that the Lord's Prayer. That's not the Lord's Prayer. That's the model prayer. John 17 is the Lord's Prayer. This is Jesus's prayer for his people. And he says this verse 11, he says, and I am no longer in the world, but they are in the world.

And I am coming to you. Jesus is speaking to God the Father. And he says, Holy Father, keep them in your name, which you have given me that they may be one, even as we are one. Now that is a powerful call to Christian unity from the mouth of Jesus Christ.

He's asking the Father to keep them in his name and that they may be one. And many people in the ecumenical world point to passages like this, and they say, see here, the prayer of Jesus is that his church would be united.

And then you go to verse 20. He says, I do not ask for these only, but also for those who will believe in me through their word that that's us, Jesus is praying for us, that they may all be one, just as you Father are in me and I am you, that they also may be in us so that the world may believe that you have sent me.

So Jesus connects unity within the body with a good witness to his coming. He says that they may be one so that the world may believe that you have sent me. Now I want to just for a moment say this. I do think one of the ways that we as Christians do harm our witness is with the constant infighting that we tend to have among believers.

Churches split over things that really are so small and meaningless, and people divide from churches and leave churches over things that really do not have any significant weight. The joke about color of the carpet, you probably heard the joke that people will split a church over the color of the carpet.

That is not a joke. That is something that is based in reality. People get upset, people find division over the smallest of things, and so when Jesus makes this statement that they be one so that the world may believe that you have sent me, this call to unity, this call to brotherhood, this call to come together by the Lord Jesus Christ, this should not be overlooked and should not be diminished.

There's a few other passages that I wanted to point out. If you want to write these down, maybe you can look at them later. Psalm 133 verse 1, behold how good and pleasant it is when brothers dwell in unity.

And that reminds me also of the counter to that is in the scriptures where it says that one of the things that the Lord hates is those who sow discord among the brothers. So it's good and pleasant when brothers dwell in unity, and it's bad when someone sows division among the brethren.

So we have sort of a juxtaposition there. And Philippians 127, the apostle Paul writes this, only let your manner of life be worthy of the gospel of Christ so that whether I come and see you or am absent, I may hear of you that you are standing firm in one spirit with one mind, striving side by side for the faith of the gospel.

So this is Paul speaking to the Philippian church, and he's saying I want you to be standing firm in one spirit with one mind, striving side by side for the faith of the gospel. So again, I know it may seem like I'm piling on, but I want to stress in the first part of this episode that there is a call in the scripture to unity.

The apostle Paul, 1 Corinthians chapter 1 verse 10, I appeal to you brothers by the name of our Lord Jesus Christ that all of you agree and there be no divisions among you, but that you may be united in the same mind and the same judgment.

So yes, is there a call to unity in the scripture? You better believe it. You better believe there's a call that we be one of mind, one of spirit, that we be striving side by side for the faith of the gospel.

So when the ecumenical community says that Christ has called us to unity, the apostle Paul has called us to unity, the old covenant scriptures, the Psalms call us to unity. They speak of the danger of sowing division.

All of that is true, and we must not diminish that those things are true. Having said that, I want to now look at the other side of this issue, because as much as there is a call for unity, there is also a call for discernment.

And I remember years ago, there was a church that was having some difficulties, and I knew somewhat of what was going on with the church and with the difficulties. And unfortunately, there were a lot of things that were happening, and a lot of social media posts were being put out from either side of this particular issue.

And one of the persons who posted posted on their page, they posted 1 Corinthians, which I just quoted, 1 Corinthians chapter 1, verse 10. I appeal to you, brothers, by the name of our Lord Jesus Christ, that all of you agree, and that there be no divisions among you, but that you be united in the same mind and the same judgment.

And I thought to myself, that's a good positive post, and that is true. But at the same time, at the same time, the same person who wrote 1 Corinthians chapter 1 wrote 1 Corinthians chapter 11. And this is what I want you to hear.

Listen to 1 Corinthians chapter 11, verse 18. The Apostle Paul writes this, for in the first place, when you come together as a church, I hear that there are divisions among you, and I believe it in part, for there must be factions among you, in order that those who are genuine among you may be recognized.

Now, that's a passage that doesn't get a lot of attention from a lot of people, especially in the ecumenical world. But this passage is what came to my mind when I saw that, because I was thinking about the situation, and I was thinking, there are false believers who are stirring up trouble.

And one of the things that division does do is division separates the true from the false. There are false professors who are in the church. There are false teachers. Wolves in sheep's clothing is the way Jesus described them.

There are false teachers. There are also false Christians. The Bible refers to the pseudo-Adolphos, or the false brothers. And so, that is a real issue. And the Apostle Paul says, yes, there's going to be factions.

Yes, there's going to be divisions, because these divisions show who is real and who is false. And so, as much as the Bible calls us to unity, it also calls us to discernment. And so, the question becomes, and really, as I said, it's the question of this whole program, where is the line?

Where is the line that would cause us to separate from a church, or from a ministry, or would cause certain churches not to get involved with other churches? And when we ask the question, where is the line, I want to talk about two extremes.

Some people don't think there's a line, and they say, unity at all costs. I don't make these things up. I literally hear people say this, and I heard a preacher say that one of the things he loved about his church was that they didn't let doctrine divide.

They didn't let doctrine divide. And basically, what he was saying is, you can believe what you want, and you can have whatever doctrines you want, and you can be fine in their church. I'll tell you who it was.

It was a man from Bethel, which I don't consider to be a true church, but I don't know this man, who he is. It wasn't the pastor there, Bill Johnson, I think is his name. It wasn't him. It was another guy, but this guy came on, and he talked about how much he loved Pastor Bill, and how much he loved this family, and all this stuff.

So it was some kind of a guest speaker or something, and he said, you know, I love the fact that we have diversity in doctrine, and doctrine shouldn't divide us. And so basically, what he's saying is that unity is more important than doctrine, and unity should be what is sought at any cost, and that is the focus.

And he is certainly not alone. I mean, you go to many churches, particularly left-leaning churches, and doctrine is set aside for community and for social unity. And several years ago, there was a movement that tried to really catch traction, and never really caught traction, at least not for long.

It was called the Emergent Church, or the Emerging Church Movement, and that movement was all about trying to establish that we really don't know what the truth is, so it really doesn't matter what people believe.

What matters is how they feel, and how you treat them, and whether or not they feel good. And so you had guys, I think Brian McLaren was one of the guys in that movement, and it was all about how, you know, we've misinterpreted the Bible, misunderstood everything, nobody really knows what anybody's saying.

So again, this is the one side, I would say this is the far left, if I were just describing it, I would say you got the left side, which basically says unity at all costs, unity over truth, truth is secondary to unity, and that extreme is so dangerous, I can't even imagine ever going that direction.

Now the other side can also be dangerous, and that is where you draw the line so tightly that eventually nobody fits into the category except for you and a very exclusive few that you put in your small group.

And honestly, sometimes it's people who it's just them and their church, they're the only ones who are saved, and even then it's not even everybody in their church, it's just a select few. And again, it's like Dr. White says sometimes, if you draw the circle so tight, eventually you're the only one standing in it, and then you're standing on one foot.

I think of a person I used to have a lot of dealings with, he was a minister and we did some things together, we used to have a pretty good back and forth exchange, and he began to go down the road of drawing his circle tighter and tighter, and eventually he began to basically say that he was holding views that were what I would describe as more hyper-Calvinistic than just Calvinism, and I don't have time to really describe all the things that go into that and the distinctions are, but it became to the point where he was basically anathematizing anyone, and saying, you know what, if you don't hold to a Calvinistic view of salvation, then you're lost.

If you're not preaching the Calvinistic view as he understands it, then you're lost. And it really just became, again, that circle became tighter and tighter and tighter, and now I don't know how many people that he would actually affirm as fellow brothers and sisters in Christ, co-laborers in the gospel.

And see, that's the thing I want to make clear, is that even though I am a confirmed Calvinist, I believe the doctrines of grace, I preach and teach in a church that affirms a confession that proclaims the doctrines of grace, this is who we are as a church, this is who I am as a pastor.

I am a confirmed Calvinist, but I am not for a second going to say that if a person is not a Calvinist, then that means they're not a Christian. I wouldn't even say if a person's not a Calvinist and he's a pastor, he's necessarily a false teacher.

I would say he might be wrong on a few things, and I think he is, but that doesn't mean he has the gospel completely wrong, and that's something that may cause some of you to get a little uncomfortable.

But there are Arminians who preach justification by grace alone, through faith alone, in Christ alone, and that's the heart of it. And so can I labor with someone who doesn't share my Calvinism? And the answer to that is yes, but I'm going to get into a moment where I believe the line is.

So just so you know, the line I don't think is the doctrines of grace. I don't think that's the line where a person would have to affirm that for me to be able to co-labor with them. That's not it. It is important.

I do believe, again, that the doctrines of grace are true. I a lot of potential issues if we were ministering together in maybe some type of a preaching ministry or something. There may be some difficulties there, but again, that's not the line.

We're going to get to the line in a second. What is the line? But before we do that, let me just again say, we have those who would say, unless you're a Calvinist, unless you're a Reformed Baptist, or unless you're a 1689 Reformed Baptist or whatever, that you're not right and that you're lost.

The question is not whether or not you're right. The question is whether you're lost, whether we can't minister or do anything together. And I think that's where the danger comes in, is we become very narrow there.

I want to draw a picture for a second. If you remember, and those of you who listen to this program are probably very familiar with Dr. R .C. Sproul and Dr. John MacArthur. Now, Dr. R .C. Sproul and Dr. John MacArthur were very different in many ways.

John MacArthur is dispensational. R .C. Sproul is covenant theologian. Dr. R .C. Sproul is baptistic, credo-baptist. R .C. Sproul is paedo-baptist, believes in baptism of infants. Dr. John MacArthur, his church is independent, not denominational.

Dr. R .C. Sproul is Presbyterian. And even though I'm not sure which Presbyterian group they were part of, but I know they certainly identified as being Presbyterian denominationally. And so there were differences, but yet these men took the chancel together.

These men loved one another, and they both preached side by side as co-laborers in the gospel. And that is the dividing line. That's the line. The line is the gospel. If a person or a group does not have the gospel, then we cannot labor with them.

We cannot side by side teach and preach with them. We cannot proclaim the truth with them because they do not have the truth. If you have your Bible open, turn with me to one final passage, and I want you to read Galatians 1, beginning at verse 6.

The Apostle Paul writes to the Galatians, I am astonished that you are so quickly deserting him who called you in the grace of Christ and are turning to a different gospel. Not that there is another one, but there are some who trouble you and want to distort the gospel of Christ.

But even if we or an angel from heaven should preach to you a gospel contrary to the one we preached to you, let him be accursed. As we have said before, so now I say again, if anyone is preaching to you a gospel contrary to the one you received, let him be accursed.

So what does Paul say is the dividing line? The gospel. That is the dividing line. This is why I could unite with a Presbyterian Reformed person, whether it be PCA or OPC, I can unite with them for the proclamation of the gospel, but I can't unite with someone from the Presbyterian Church USA, which is the liberal wing of the Presbyterian Church, because those churches have denied the gospel.

Many of them have denied justification by faith alone in Christ alone. Many of them have denied the miracles of scripture. They have denied the truths of the Bible that are foundational to the gospel, such as the virgin birth, the substitutionary atonement, the death, burial, and resurrection of Jesus Christ.

And in denying those things, you have denied the gospel. And so it really isn't necessarily a denominational name, because again, there are some Presbyterians who believe the gospel, there are some Presbyterians who don't.

There are some Lutherans who believe the gospel, there are some Lutherans who don't. There are some Baptists who don't believe the gospel. There are liberal Baptist denominations out there in liberal Baptist churches.

Not all Baptists are gospel-believing, scripture-affirming people. There are many diversities among the Baptists. And so where do we draw the line? We draw the line on the gospel. The Apostle Paul drew the line in the sand.

He said, if anyone is preaching a gospel contrary to the one you received, let him be accursed. And that, in the strongest use of the term, let him be under the wrath of God. So I'm not going to be uniting with someone who is accursed.

I'm not going to be uniting with a group that is accursed. So now let's go back to Holly's original question. She asked about the Seventh-day Adventists. She asked about the Roman Catholics. Not specifically, but that was part of her question, because that's what she saw.

I'll say right away, and I've said this clearly on many occasions, so it should come as no surprise, I do not believe Rome has the gospel. Rome has long departed from the truth of the gospel. They do not believe in justification by grace alone, through faith alone, and Christ alone.

In fact, the Council of Trent, which was the Counter-Reformation Council, denied justification by faith alone, and accursed people who believed in it. So in that, they put a curse on those who believe the gospel, which is very sad but true, and they have a false view of who Christ is and what he has done.

Do they hold some truths? Yes, they hold to a basically orthodox view of the Trinity. They hold certain moral views that we would agree with. Certainly their view on abortion would be very close to our own, and that we would believe that it's a sin, and something that should be abolished.

And they hold a very high view of marriage, and in general, a lot of things that we would say, yes, we affirm those things, but when it comes to the gospel, that's the line, and we cannot cross that line.

And so, even though I have stood outside of abortion clinics, holding signs and praying, and I've done so with Roman Catholics nearby, I have never felt as if I was standing with them. Even though someone might say, well, in that sense, we are co-belligerents, not co-laborers, but co-belligerents in the gospel, and there's something to be said for that.

We are both fighting against the same thing, and in that sense we're fighting together against a common enemy. But in that sense, though, the difference is we are not proclaiming the same message of salvation.

And if you're outside of an abortion clinic, and you're not proclaiming salvation in Christ alone, then you really ought not be there, because honestly, if all you're doing is trying to save babies, that's noble, but the goal of going is proclaiming the gospel, not just trying to keep people from having abortions, but trying to point people to the Lord Jesus Christ.

This is why I think it's often misunderstood that, oh, we're going to save babies. Yes, that's true. We want to save babies, but when we go, we want to also proclaim the gospel of Jesus Christ. That's the goal, and that's the mission, and that's why I do appreciate men like Bobby McCreary and Jeff Durbin and others who go to abortion clinics, and they don't just save babies.

They do that, and it's true that they do that, but they also preach the gospel, and the gospel divides. And if you go to the abortion clinic, and you preach the gospel, the Roman Catholics won't have nothing to do with you.

They don't want to hear you. They don't want to be near you, and I've seen that with my own eyes. So there's no unity there, because it's not unified in the gospel. Now, Seventh-day Adventists, there is some debate about whether or not they have a right understanding of the gospel.

I will say this. They have a ton of baggage. The Seventh-day Adventists, because of the writings of L. N. G. White, because of their view of investigative judgment and many other false teachings that they have, I think it's very difficult to say that we would be able to unite together, because, again, I don't know that they would hold the gospel, even though I have been told that there are some who do hold to a gospel of justification by grace alone through faith alone, and I'm not going to deny that that's possible, but the heart and history of that movement tends to be towards a very legalistic, graceless, and really gospel-less faith.

So I would say that I would have to do a lot of—I would have to do a lot of research into whatever group I was dealing with. If it was a Seventh-day Adventist group, I would have to do some research into that particular group who was asking to minister together before I would be willing to, and I might even add, I wouldn't go seeking them out.

The only time—they would have to be the ones seeking me out, and I would have to be—there would be a lot of questions before I would be willing to move forward in any form of uniting relationship, and I don't see that happening, because many of them see me and my ministry and Calvinism as a bridge too far, and they don't want anything to do with us in general anyway.

But just getting back to the original question, the question of what is the line, how do we draw the line, how do we know the line? The line is the gospel. I have, over the years, seen many churches that have wonderful programs and things that they're trying to do for the community, feed the community, do different things, but they don't have the gospel.

We cannot unite in a Christian cause unless we have unity in the gospel. And I want to finish with a story. Now, this isn't a story that happened to me, this is a story that happened to Dr. R .C. Sproul, but it's a funny story, it's an interesting story, because here's the thing that often is the dividing line in these conversations.

Several years ago, Dr. Sproul told a story of how a group of people came to his office, and they were saying that they had finally reached perfect unity within their community of faith, and that their community of faith included Roman Catholics and Lutherans and Baptists and Presbyterians, and they were trying to get Dr. R .C. Sproul to unite with them, saying that because of this movement of the Spirit, they had come to complete unity in the faith, and they wanted him to be a part of this effort toward unity.

And Dr. Sproul, in his very comical way, he said, that's great, it's great, you guys have found unity, that's wonderful, but I have a question for you. He said, is man justified by faith alone or not?

He said within five minutes, they were arguing with one another, they were at each other's throats, and all of the unity that they claimed to have was out the window. So what does that tell us? Oftentimes when people claim unity, it is because they are not concerned enough with the truth, and they're not agreeing on what constitutes the gospel.

So do you understand the gospel? Do you understand what it means to be saved by grace alone, through faith alone, in Christ alone? That's the dividing line, and that is what separates those who we can unite with, and those who we cannot.

Thank you for listening today to Conversations with a Calvinist. I'm Keith Foskey, and I've been your Calvinist. May God bless you.

Find him to be a perfect Savior. He is the way, the truth, and the life, and no one comes to the Father except through him. May God be with you.