December 12, 2018 Show with Dr. William Webster & Rev. David T. King on “The Lie of Rome that Sola Scriptura Was Invented by the Reformers”

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Live from the historic parsonage of 19th century gospel minister George Norcross in downtown

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Carlisle, Pennsylvania, it's Iron Sharpens Iron, a radio platform on which pastors,

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Christian scholars and theologians address the burning issues facing the church and the world today.

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Proverbs 27 verse 17 tells us, Iron sharpens iron, so one man sharpens another.

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Matthew Henry said that in this passage, quote, we are cautioned to take heed whom we converse with and directed to have in view in conversation to make one another wiser and better.

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It is our hope that this goal will be accomplished over the next hour and we hope to hear from you, the listener, with your own questions.

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Now here's our host, Chris Arntzen. Good afternoon,

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Cumberland County, Pennsylvania, Lake City, Florida, and the rest of humanity living on the planet Earth who are listening via live streaming at ironsharpensironradio .com.

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This is Chris Arntzen, your host of Iron Sharpens Iron Radio, wishing you all a happy Wednesday on this 12th day of December 2018, and I am so delighted to have for the very first time together on an interview.

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I've interviewed both of these brothers in Christ and friends before, but separately, and this is the first time that they have ever been interviewed at the same time anywhere, and I'm speaking of my friends

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Dr. William Webster and Rev. David T. King. Dr. William Webster is pastor of Grace Bible Church of Battleground, Washington.

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He is the founder of Christian Resources and an author of a number of books, including

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The Banner of Truth titles, The Church of Rome at the Bar of History, and Salvation, the

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Bible, and Roman Catholicism. And also joining us is Rev. David T. King, who is an ordained minister having served in the

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Presbyterian Church in America, known as the PCA, and the Orthodox Presbyterian Church, known as the

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OPC, and he is the co -author with Dr. William Webster of the three -volume work,

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Holy Scripture, the Ground and Pillar of Our Faith. And it's my honor and privilege to welcome both of you back to Iron Sharpens Iron Radio, Dr.

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William Webster and Rev. David T. King. Thank you, Chris.

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Yes, Chris, good to be with you. Thank you. And David, I don't mean any slight against our brother

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William Webster, but since it's been so long, I am especially glad that you're on the show today, because it's been quite a number of years, in fact, that the last time you were on the program,

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I was still broadcasting out of Long Island, New York, on WNYG Radio. So it's been quite a while, and it's just such a joy to have you back on the show.

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Well, thank you, Chris. Good to be here. Dr. William Webster, please tell our listeners about Grace Bible Church of Battleground, Washington.

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Grace Bible Church has been in existence, and I've been a pastor since the beginning for, let's see, 17 years.

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It is an independent church, Reformed Baptist Church, just using categories here to give people some idea of what we stand for.

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We are basically a community. It's a small community of committed believers who love the

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Lord and are fully committed to His Word and His Gospel, and who seek with all our heart to bring honor and glory to His name.

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Praise God. And tell us about Christian Resources. Christian Resources is a ministry

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I started probably about 20 years ago. It's an online resource primarily, but it involves also books, which

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I have authored in print. It deals with major issues related to the

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Reformation, with church history. It is unapologetically evangelical in a

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Reformational sense, and it also deals with issues of apologetics with respect to Christianity and the

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Lord Jesus Christ and the Christian life and how to live the

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Christian life. Amen. And my brother and friend, Rev. David T.

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King, the issue of Roman Catholicism has been a great burden to you and also to your friend and brother, or mutual friend and brother,

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Dr. Bill Webster. Can you tell us why the

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Church of Rome has such a burden on your heart to actually lead you to the point where you did intensive research along with Bill Webster to dig into the

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Church Fathers and into church history to join him on this monumental project that has been in print quite a number of years now,

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Holy Scripture, the ground and pillar of our faith? Well, years ago,

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Bill and I were posting together on an old web board, and we were disputing with members of the

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Roman Communion, and it became very clear that the truth of Holy Scripture was not being represented in a historical fashion.

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And it really moved me to begin to study exactly what the early

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Church had to say about the Scriptures and what their view was, and not just simply going on the word of someone else, it really behooved me to find out firsthand what their views were.

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And so we began to study in depth and just poring over various sources, and it became very obvious that the view of the early

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Church as represented by the Roman Communion simply wasn't the truth.

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Yes, many Roman Catholic apologists, and I think many that know better, give this view that the

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Roman Catholic Church has been a monolith and has not really changed at all since they claim

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Jesus founded their church and appointed Peter as their first Pope, allegedly.

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And they basically say that many of the teachings of the

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Protestant Reformation, and even held today by heirs of the Reformation, are inventions of the

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Reformers, that these are novel ideas that had no place in history prior to the 16th century.

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And that is why, in fact, we are titling our discussion today, The Lie of Rome that Sola Scriptura was invented by the

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Reformers. But Bill Webster, this is a myth that the

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Reformers invented Sola Scriptura, and in fact, if you could define

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Sola Scriptura for us right now. Sola Scriptura is basically the understanding that there is one source of revelation available to us from God, special revelation that he has given in his inscripturated word.

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Tradition is not inspired. We always have to deal with tradition in one form or another, but the only inspired revelation that has been given to us by God is his written word in the

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Old and New Testaments. As a result of being inspired, it carries with it innate authority from God.

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It is divine in its authority. And the issue then is, that comes to play in all of this issue, it is an issue of authority with respect to, it was an issue of authority, that was the ultimate issue in the

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Reformation. It's the issue of authority today with respect to the

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Roman Catholic Church and its teachings about the church and tradition. What ultimately is the supreme authority for every believer and for the church as a whole?

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That's the issue. And what we contend, and what we contend the early church taught, and what

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Scripture teaches about itself, is that it is Scripture given by God as the ultimate authority over every human being and over the church at large.

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There is an accountability here to the written word of God. It is sufficient to declare to us all that we need to understand and know about faith and morals.

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And in that sense then, everything else comes under that authority and is subservient to it.

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The Church of Rome elevates itself above the written word of God and asserts that it is sola ecclesia as opposed to sola scriptura.

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And that our ultimate authority is the church, who then is the infallible interpreter of Scripture and the one who has retained the fullness of Revelation because Revelation is not contained totally in Scripture alone.

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It also is contained in the oral tradition, the unwritten word of God.

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So you have the written word of God and the unwritten word of God, according to the Roman Catholic Church. And the

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Protestant Church has rejected, according to Rome, on the basis of sola scriptura, a very important aspect of that Revelation.

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We contend that is not true, that the only Revelation we possess that is inspired by God is the written

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Scriptures. And first of all, I want to make sure that our listeners understand something about the title of our show today, the lie of Rome that sola scriptura was invented by the

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Reformers. And what I have meant by this is not that every

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Roman Catholic who wrongly repeats the standard line of the

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Church of Rome that the Reformers invented sola scriptura. I'm not saying that all of these people who are

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Roman Catholics are consciously lying about this. I believe many are, but I believe that there are also multitudes that are saying this out of ignorance, they're saying this because they've been wrongly taught themselves.

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They are just parroting what they have been taught and they have been parroting what their mentors in the faith, men like Scott Hahn and many other,

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Patrick Madrid, and you could go on and on, the folks over there at Catholic Answers, they're repeating what these folks have said.

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And so when I say the lie of Rome, that is basically just intending to convey the idea that the

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Church of Rome continues to declare a false, a very false and slanderous idea that those of us who believe that the

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Scriptures are our sole infallible and inerrant authority are not believing something that is more ancient than the

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Reformation and we are, in their minds, believing something that is not even biblical. And this, we would say, is a lie, whether the folks telling this story, if you will, are consciously repeating something that they know to be false or whether they are just naively repeating it.

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Obviously, the two main issues that are brought up by Roman Catholics in regard to Sola Scriptura are that the

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Church never believed it before the Reformation and the Bible itself does not teach it.

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David T. King, if you could respond to those claims of the

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Church of Rome. Myself, were you asking me, Chris? Yeah, to start with, sure.

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Okay, well, let me just say, first of all, that when Calvin wrote his prefatory address to King Francis I of France, he noted that the disputants in his day by the

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Church of Rome were opposing the gangstems. What they claimed was the testimony of the ancient fathers.

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And Calvin indicated to King Francis I that were the contest or the decision between them determined by patristic authority alone, he said, the tide of victory, to put it mildly, would turn to our side.

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Calvin was a student of the early Church, and he knew them quite well.

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And also, he recognized that the early Church had a strong testimony to both the material and formal sufficiency of Holy Scripture, which

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Rome denied. And what was the other thing you wanted me to... That is claimed by Roman Catholics that we as Protestants hold up the

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Bible so high, and yet they will say, this idea of sola scriptura is not even in this

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Bible that we claim to be our sole infallible and inerrant authority. Yes, well, it's very clear from the

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Scriptures that the Bible knows no other infallible source beside it.

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There isn't any testimony in Scripture to the infallibility of some kind of Church council or Church decision, and there isn't any testimony in Holy Scripture to the infallible authority of tradition.

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One of the main passages that Roman apologists loved to cite would be the one from 2

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Thessalonians chapter 15, where the Apostle Paul refers to both an epistle or what he had spoken orally.

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And in that particular passage to which the

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Apostle Paul referred, he was not speaking. That became very clear.

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He was not speaking of traditions that were awaiting some kind of future development of an infallible

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Church, because he was talking about something that the

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Thessalonians already knew to be the tradition of the Apostles, and that tradition had already been, well, was eventually inscripturated.

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But the basic traditions to which Paul was referring in that passage, as he makes clear, is that they were those that spoke about the

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Gospel. And they had already been delivered to the Thessalonians, they had been commanded to stand fast in them and to hold to them.

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So these were things that had already been identified for the believers of the Thessalonian Church.

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They weren't tradition in the Roman sense that were awaiting future development, such as we have in the case of the

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Marian dogmas and papal infallibility or even papal primacy.

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And when you study the early Church, the Church in the East never recognized the papal primacy of the

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West. And in the cases where the Churches of the East did appeal to the

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West, they appealed to the West only because they wanted to have the West on their side in a dispute against other churches in the

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East. Not because they saw the Church of Rome as an infallible, adjudicating authority, but rather because the

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Church of Rome was the only church in the West that had an apostolic seat. And so they wanted to claim the support of the

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Western Church behind them in any dispute that they had with other churches. But when you read people like Basil of Caesarea, who was constantly speaking about the pride of the

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Western Church and the pride of the Roman Pontiff, it became very clear that they never held to some other authority besides Scripture.

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Now earlier in the Scripture, in 2 Timothy 3, we have, starting in verse 16,

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All Scripture is inspired by God, or God -breathed, and profitable for teaching, for reproof, for correction, for training in righteousness, so that the man of God may be adequate, equipped for every good work.

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And I think that that last phrase there, in verse 17, is very pivotal to the discussion, because there is no way that the

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Bible would teach things that the

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Roman Catholic Church participates in, and teaches themselves, that are unique to them.

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There is no way that the Bible would aid a

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Christian in coming to the belief that they are to venerate

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Mary and the saints, that they are to venerate statues and relics, that they are to worship the hosts at the

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Mass, or even the concept of the Mass. There are many things that Roman Catholics do that the

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Scriptures do not teach, that you cannot train someone using the

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Scriptures, as this text is teaching, to enable them to do every good work, and if those things are good works, those things would not be falling under that category, using the

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Bible. I mean, am I right? Do you understand what I'm saying here? Bill?

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Yes, All Scripture... No, go ahead, Dave. Go ahead, Dave. Well, All Scripture is

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God -breathed, is what Paul is essentially saying. And he was speaking to Timothy in this letter in the first place, and then addressing us as well in the second place.

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But he encouraged Timothy to continue in those things which he had been learned and assured of, and knowing from whom he had learned them.

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That is, from a godly grandmother and a godly mother, and they had taught him from childhood the

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Holy Scriptures. And Paul states very forthright here, and he says to Timothy that the

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Scriptures are able, they possess the power, he said, to make you wise for salvation through faith that is in Christ Jesus.

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And of course, when Timothy was just a child, all he had was the Old Testament Scriptures.

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And surely if the Old Testament Scriptures were sufficient to produce such faith in Christ, then how much more the

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New Testament Scriptures as well. So, there is no,

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Scripture knows no competing authority, no rival authority to itself.

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And Bill, what I was trying to convey in my sloppy way, is obviously that when

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Paul, under the inspiration of the Holy Spirit, is teaching Timothy, that the

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Scriptures are adequate to train up disciples in every good work.

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And if the Roman Catholic believes venerating Mary and the saints and statues and icons and relics, if the

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Church of Rome believes those are good works, they cannot fall under the category of God -breathed truth, can they?

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No, and let me use Mary as an example since you bring this up. What you're dealing with here are customs and practices that come out of tradition.

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To find biblical support for these practices is non -existent.

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It is not there. We are to venerate Christ alone. But, just to give you an example from an historical writing,

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Cyril of Jerusalem, writing the catechetical lectures in the mid -4th century, says this, unless you learn, and he's speaking to those he is catechizing, those who have professed faith in Christ, who are coming into the faith, unless you learn from the

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Holy Scriptures concerning the Virgin, receive not the testimony from man.

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Anything that is taught about Mary that cannot be validated from Scripture is to be utterly rejected as a teaching from man and not

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God. The whole issue of what the Reformers were trying to do is bring the

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Church back to a patristic principle of sola scriptura, the ultimate authority of Scripture.

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What you find in the Roman Catholic tradition is exactly what happened with Judaism when

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Jesus had to withstand the Jews of his day because of tradition that had come into their practice over time, which he said invalidated

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Scripture. Exactly the same thing has happened with Roman Catholicism over the centuries.

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A perfect example is the teaching of the Assumption of Mary. The Assumption of Mary was not made dogma until 1950.

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It is now necessary to believe that teaching in order to be saved.

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That is a teaching that you find nowhere in Scripture, nowhere in tradition.

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It is utterly contradictory to the rule of faith in the early Church. It was never taught.

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It is utterly contradictory to the written Scriptures because of a lot of the doctrines that come out of that particular doctrine about the role of Mary as a

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Queen of Heaven, as a co -mediatrix, co -redemptrix. These are doctrines that undermine and subvert the authority of the

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Word of God. In fact, historically, the teaching of the

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Assumption of Mary did not originate with the Church. It originated with Gnosticism and Gnostic writing called the

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Transitus Mariae. It came into the Church in a forged way where a particular

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Church Father in the 6th century thought that it was the legitimate work of Melito of Sardis, an early

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Church Father. It is a spurious Gnostic work. It was condemned by two popes in the 5th and 6th centuries as heretical.

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That teaching, that writing, the very foundation to this teaching of the

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Assumption of Mary was heretical, it was condemned by two bishops of Rome.

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And now it is dogma. That is where you always run into issues now with tradition where there is no restraint, there is no accountability.

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The ultimate authority here, as it was with Jesus and the Jews and the

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Jewish people he was dealing with at the time, he said, your tradition undermines, it invalidates the

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Word of God. The written scriptures are always the final judge and the final criterion of the teachings of men.

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That was the universal teaching of the early Church, and it is what we need to return to today.

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Now, going back to 2 Timothy 3 .17, we cannot, obviously then, consider these things that you were just addressing about Mary that are not found in the

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Bible, and multitudes of other things that the Church of Rome teaches that are not in the Bible, we cannot consider them, and Roman Catholics should not consider them, good works.

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If the Bible is sufficient to equip us for every good work, and these things are nowhere to be found in the pages of the

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Bible, they cannot be categorized, these novel things that the Church of Rome teaches, they cannot be categorized as good works.

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Correct? Absolutely correct. To be a sanctified man or woman, you have to walk in obedience to the

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Word of God, not in practices and customs that undermine its authority.

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And David, you sounded like you were going to say something, and if you could hold on to your thought, because we're going to go to a break right now, and if anybody would like to join us on the air with a question of your own, our email address is chrisarnsen at gmail .com.

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C -H -R -I -S -A -R -N -Z -E -N at gmail .com. Please give us your first name, at least, your city and state, and your country of residence if you live outside the

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USA. Please only remain anonymous if your question involves a personal or private matter. I would love especially to hear from Roman Catholics.

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I would love to hear from people who disagree with our guests, especially. I'm not excluding those that agree, of course, but I would love to hear from Roman Catholics especially, and I understand if some of you who are

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Roman Catholic would prefer remaining anonymous. I will permit you to do that, but our email address again is chrisarnsen at gmail .com.

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chrisarnsen at gmail .com. Don't go away, God willing. We'll be right back after these messages from our sponsors.

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So please keep that in mind. We are now back with our two guests today, Dr. William Webster and Rev.

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David T. King. Together they are co -authors of the three -volume set

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Holy Scripture, the Ground and Pillar of Our Faith, which contains over 900 pages,

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I believe, of information proving and documenting that the concept of sola scriptura, that the scriptures alone are the sole infallible and inerrant authority of the

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Church, that the Church Fathers believed in this, and this is not a novelty or an invention of the 16th century

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Reformation. If you'd like to join us on the air, our email address is chrisarnsen at gmail .com,

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C -H -R -I -S -A -R -N -Z -E -N at gmail .com. Please give us your first name, city and state, and country of residence if you live outside the

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USA, and only remain anonymous if your question involves a personal or private matter. We do have a number of people already waiting to have their questions asked and answered, but I wanted

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David T. King to continue the train of thought that he had, that he wanted to bring up, right before we went to the break.

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Yes, thank you, Chris. A few minutes ago, Bill made reference to the early

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Church Father, Cyril of Jerusalem, and I just wanted to note that Edward Younger, who was a

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Jesuit in the Roman Communion, wrote a book on Cyril of Jerusalem, and he stated in that book that Cyril subscribed to a form of scriptor's solo doctrines, stating categorically that every doctrine must be based on the scriptures.

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So even that member of the Roman Communion made it clear that the early

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Church Father, Cyril of Jerusalem, more or less held to that position. And then

37:57

I'd also like to note that you have other scholars in the Roman Communion. I'm thinking of George Duvard, and in his book, it was published way back in 1959, he said, whichever formula we prefer, we're led by patristic theology to consider that there's a sense in which scripture alone is an authentic expression of Catholic Christianity.

38:24

And when I think of those doctrines that are peculiar to Rome, those are not

38:31

Catholic Christianity, because they're espoused by Rome, they're not espoused by the

38:38

Church Universal. And Duvard also made note in another, in the same book, actually,

38:45

Holy Writ or Holy Church, he said the greatest centuries of the Middle Ages, speaking of the 12th and the 13th, were thus faithful to what he called the patristic conception of scripture alone.

39:00

Just wanted to point out that the Reformers were not novel in their affirmation of this return to scripture.

39:10

Yeah, we're not the Reformers, basically saying to the

39:16

Roman Catholic apologists of their day, we have not departed from the patristic treasure trove or the church fathers that we claim to have great insight into the

39:32

Bible in many areas. You, as the Church of Rome, have departed from it.

39:39

It's not like the goal of the Reformation was to invent new things or even to start a new church.

39:46

Weren't they appealing very often to the fact that the patristic evidence that they both claimed as their own, both to the

39:55

Church of Rome and the Protestants, that the weight of the patristic evidence was on the side of the

40:02

Reformation? Bill? Which one? Yeah. The weight, that's absolutely certain.

40:11

The weight of patristic evidence historically is on the side of the Reformers. The Council of Trent said that it is illegitimate, unlawful to interpret

40:22

Scripture in any way contrary to the overall teaching of the

40:28

Church of Rome or contrary to the unanimous consent of the Fathers. If there is one principle, one teaching of the

40:39

Reformation that can legitimately embrace the unanimous consent of the

40:45

Fathers, it is this principle of sola scriptura. These Fathers held to the absolute belief in the authority of the written

40:58

Scriptures. They believed in its infallibility, its inspiration, without question.

41:06

But because of that, it held supreme authority in their lives and in all of their theologizing.

41:14

When you find in dealing with heretics and dealing with the different issues that came up in the

41:20

Church where all the debates were going on, it always came down to the ultimate issue of what does

41:26

Scripture teach? Any dogma that you taught had to be ratified and verified and demonstrated and proved from the written

41:35

Word of God. In fact, Thomas Aquinas makes an interesting statement in his

41:41

Summa. He says, canonical Scripture alone is the measure of faith.

41:48

And that's why Tabard made the statement that in the greatest centuries of the Middle Ages, the 12th and 13th, they were faithful to the patristic concept of Scripture alone.

42:01

That is a biblical and a patristic principle.

42:09

Now before I go to the listeners who have written questions, I just wanted to have you clarify a couple of things about your three -volume, your massive three -volume monumental work,

42:24

Holy Scripture, The Ground and Pillar of Our Faith. First of all, in fact, David, I guess you could pick up, this title is not what the

42:35

Scriptures say. Yeah, they say that the Holy Scriptures are the ground and, I'm sorry, that the Holy Scriptures are the, going back to this quote, this is a patristic quote, this is not a quote from the

42:53

Scriptures. It's a patristic quote from Irenaeus. Right. Yeah.

43:00

And how would you respond to somebody who is saying that this is a twisting of what the

43:05

Bible actually teaches? Bill, did you want to go or did you want me to address that?

43:13

It doesn't matter. You go ahead, David. Well, it's,

43:20

Irenaeus, and again, when we speak of scholars' positions on Scripture alone, even the great

43:29

Anglican scholar R .P .C. Hanson says that Irenaeus allowed

43:35

Scripture alone to be his source of information about God, and the Scripture tells us nothing, that we can know nothing.

43:43

So, and you find this repeatedly again and again. There are certain things that Irenaeus says in terms that had come down to him by way of tradition that surely was, that could not have been taken from Scripture.

44:00

He thought that Scripture, that Christ had lived to be 50 years of age.

44:08

And he makes mention of that, that Christ must have been crucified shortly before he was 50, and he takes that from Scripture where Jesus was questioned and someone responded to him and said, you are not yet 50 years of age.

44:25

And so, even that was not an unwritten tradition. It wasn't true, but Irenaeus thought that he was being faithful to the principle of Scripture when he dated the age of Christ at about 49 or 50 years of age in his work against Heretic.

44:45

So Irenaeus stuck very close to Holy Scripture. So what

44:51

I meant to say was that in 1 Timothy 3 .15 it says, the church of the living

44:57

God is the pillar and foundation of the truth. That's what I was intending to say, that there are

45:03

Catholics who might say, hey, wait a minute, this title is not even what the Bible teaches because it's saying that the

45:09

Scripture is the ground and pillar of our faith, whereas the Bible says the church is the pillar and foundation of the truth.

45:15

If you could comment on that. And perhaps, Bill, you could pick up on that one. Yeah. Go ahead,

45:22

Bill. No, go ahead. No, you go ahead. Sorry about that.

45:30

Paul is simply saying there's responsibility of the church to hold up the truth, to preach the truth.

45:38

And the church is not the originator of truth. Truth originates with God. The responsibility of the church is to hold up the revelation that God has given to us of Himself, of His mind and His will, in Holy Scripture.

45:55

And so the church, it's the responsibility of the church to preach the

46:00

Scriptures. Go ahead, Bill. I'm sure Bill can comment further. No, I just should say, it might be helpful to quote

46:07

Irenaeus. He makes a statement, we have learned from none others the plan of our salvation than from those through whom the gospel has come down to us.

46:18

And that's a form of the word tradition, which they did at one time proclaim in public, and by that he means orally.

46:27

And at a later period, by the will of God, handed down to us in the

46:32

Scriptures to be the ground and pillar of our faith. So what he's saying is that yeah, we all agree that in the initial stages of the forming of the church, the apostles preached orally.

46:49

But it didn't remain oral in nature. That by the will of God, what they taught orally was inscripturated in the

46:58

New Testament. And what he's saying is that now, that oral proclamation is no longer to be viewed as the ground and pillar of the faith.

47:10

It is what they have written. How do we know what they preached orally? We have the written word of God to tell us.

47:20

Roman Catholics and Protestants all agree that the written Scriptures are the inspired word of God.

47:26

We agree on that issue. The issue is that it is the sufficient word of God.

47:33

Or is there additional revelation that has been handed down orally from the apostles that is still retained by the church that forms the complete corpus of what we would consider to be the revelation of God.

47:49

And what he's saying is that the only revelation we possess now that is the ground and pillar of our faith, that is the foundation for our faith, that is the supreme authority over us with respect to our faith, is the word of God.

48:04

And we see he believes that in the way he dealt with the Gnostics in his writings.

48:09

Because he makes it clear, and Heiko Obermann brings this out, he says for Irenaeus to appeal to revelatory truth, that is anything that you consider the word of God, apart from Scripture, is heretical

48:24

Gnosticism. Because that's the argument the Gnostics made against the church in order to subvert the authority of the word of God.

48:34

They claim to have an oral tradition from the apostles which they alone possess that you needed if you were going to understand the fullness of faith.

48:44

This teaching of the insufficiency of the scriptures and oral tradition supplementing the full revelation of God is not a teaching from the early church.

48:56

It is a Gnostic teaching. It originates with heresy. And I wanted to say that as you know, one of the most frequently made accusations against Protestants in regard to the patristics is that whenever it seems that quotations from the church fathers are made that support uniquely

49:21

Protestant teachings, that they are being taken out of context. And is this not one of the reasons that the

49:30

Holy Scripture, the ground and pillar of our faith, is over 900 pages long and in three volumes?

49:36

Because of the fact that you wanted to make clear that these citations that you were including in these volumes were not taken out of context.

49:48

They're not taken out of context. Well, that's easy to say. Okay, and people who never read church fathers, and very few people read church fathers, so it's easy to make that claim that these are being lifted up out of the context in which they were given.

50:06

If you really want to understand what they're teaching, you need to understand the overall context. We go to great lengths to try to give the proper context as well as abundant quotes from Roman Catholic, Orthodox, and Protestant historians and theologians of the patristic nature of the theology that they held to in the early church to support the conclusions we're coming to from the data we're giving.

50:38

And they confirm the data. As David just quoted from George Tabard, he's a

50:45

Roman Catholic. He's saying, he's conger says, other historians that are

50:52

Roman Catholic clearly state, if you know the church fathers and their writings, the only conclusion you can come to is that this is a basic fundamental principle they held to.

51:03

The principle of sola scriptura. They did not believe that tradition was an additional revelation that was all in nature given by God.

51:15

In addition to the written scriptures, the written scriptures are materially sufficient.

51:22

They alone are the true revelation of God given to His church.

51:28

Now, correct me if I'm wrong, but I seem to have a memory that some of the patristic evidence that you include in these three volumes were things, writings that were translated into English for the first time.

51:41

Am I correct in remembering it that way? Yeah, I'm up for that.

51:47

Go ahead, David. Bill hired the number of men at Notre Dame University to translate some, particularly some medieval scholars that had never been translated before, noting on the canon of scripture that their view of the canon favored was limited really to what eventually became the

52:15

Protestant view of scripture, but really, from the very beginning, you know, the Church of the

52:21

East had a very, had a limited canon in that they did not recognize the vast majority of the apocryphal works.

52:28

But Bill can probably comment on that more extensively.

52:36

Part of the work that I did on the historical defense of some scripture was dealing with the canon. And I looked at that in three phases.

52:43

You have the canon of the Jews, and obviously this is dealing specifically with the Apocrypha from the

52:51

Old Testament, because the Church of Rome at the Council of Trent in the 16th century elevated the

52:58

Apocrypha to a place of canonical scripture. It had never been done previous to that by a general council.

53:10

You can go back to the North African councils of the late 4th century with Augustine, where there seems to be an acknowledgment that the

53:22

Septuagint which they used, which included works of the Apocrypha would be included as canonical books, but that is a regional council.

53:31

From Jerome, Jerome rejected that view because he was a biblical

53:37

Hebrew scholar, and he knew what the Jewish canon was. So he held the view that the

53:43

Apocrypha was deuterocanonical in the sense that the proto -canonical books were only those that were held by the

53:50

Jewish canon. These other writings could be used for edification in the church, and that's what

53:58

Athanasius taught, but you never would appeal to them as an authority as canonical scripture to settle issues of doctrine.

54:07

And from Jerome on, what I looked at in the medieval church was what was the view of the church after Jerome translated his

54:18

Vulgate with respect to the Apocrypha and the vast majority of the church from the time of Jerome all the way up to the

54:27

Reformation rejected the Apocrypha as being canonical. The Glossa Ordinaria is the official

54:37

Bible that was used in all the theological schools during the

54:42

Middle Ages for the training of theologians, and in the preface of all the Apocryphal books, it makes a statement,

54:49

Here we give the commentary on the book of Saint Hobbit. It is not included in the canon, and they did that for all the books of the

54:59

Apocrypha. But I had a number of theologians, major theologians of the

55:05

Middle Ages, I had their works translated with respect to their commentaries and their comments on their view of the

55:13

Apocrypha and how it related to the church in their day. We're going to our midway break right now.

55:19

The midway break is a longer than normal break because Grace Life Radio 90 .1

55:25

FM in Lake City, Florida localizes Zion Trip and Zion Radio to Lake City, Florida by airing their own public service announcements and commercials.

55:35

So therefore, please be patient as we take this elongated break. Use this time wisely by not only writing in questions to our guests,

55:45

Bill Webster and David T. King, but also use this time to write down the information provided by our advertisers because the more frequently and successfully you can patronize our advertisers, the longer they are likely to remain our advertisers and that means the longer we are likely to remain on the air because we depend on their advertising dollars.

56:07

So please write down that information provided by our advertisers and respond as much as you can. But if you'd like to submit a question and get in line here to ask a question of Bill Webster and David T.

56:19

King, our email address is chrisarnson at gmail .com C -H -R -I -S -A -R -N -Z -E -N at gmail .com

56:26

and please give us your first name, city and state, and country of residence if you live outside of the

56:31

USA and only remain anonymous if your question involves a personal and private matter. And by the way,

56:38

Bill, I am going to be forwarding to you right now an email that we received already from Pastor Josh Fryman of the

56:46

New Testament Baptist Church of Larimore, North Dakota and you'll be able to have time to look over that question during the break because it is specifically addressed to you in regard to at least one of your books that you wrote

57:01

I believe for Banner of Truth or maybe one of your Christian Resources books. But we're going to be right back after these messages so don't go away.

57:29

James White here, co -founder of Alvin Omega Ministries and occasional guest on Iron Sharpens Iron Radio.

57:35

I'm so delighted that my friend Chris Arnzen will be heading down to Atlanta for the next G3 Conference from January 17th through the 19th, 2019.

57:43

We'll all be joining a very impressive lineup of speakers on the theme A Biblical Understanding of Missions.

57:49

Speakers include John Piper, Steve Lawson, Vody Baucom, Mark Dever, Conrad Mbewe, Phil Johnson, Josh Bice, yours truly, and many more.

57:59

I hope you all join Chris and me for this phenomenal event. For more details go to g3conference .com

58:06

that's g3conference .com Iron Sharpens Iron Radio is sponsored by Harvey Cedars, a year -round

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Hello, my name is James Renahan, and I'm the president of IRBS Theological Seminary in Mansfield, Texas.

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Gary Kimbrell, Senior Pastor at Bethlehem Baptist Church in Laurel, Mississippi. And I'm hoping that many of you who listen to Chris Arnson's Iron Sharpens Iron radio program will join

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If you love God's Word and love to hear it powerfully preached, I can assure you that you will not be disappointed.

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Our speakers at the Deep South Founders Conference this year include Rusty Reed, Gerald Henderson, Jason Goodwin, Bobby Crenshaw, and our keynote speaker all the way from Zambia, Dr.

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01:07:29

Welcome back. This is Chris Sorensen. If you just tuned us in, our two guests today are Dr. Bill Webster and Rev.

01:07:36

David T. King. We are discussing the very provocative theme,

01:07:42

The Lie of Rome, that solo scriptura was an invention of the reformers. If you'd like to join us on the air with a question for Bill Webster and David King, our email address is chrissorensen at gmail dot com,

01:07:54

C -H -R -I -S -A -R -N -Z -E -N at gmail dot com. And please give us your first name, city and state of residence, and your country of residence if you live outside the

01:08:01

USA. Only remain anonymous if your question involves any personal or private matter. Before I return to our discussion,

01:08:08

I just have a few very important announcements. First of all, CVBBS .com,

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that's Cumberland Valley Bible Book Service, who supports Iron Trip and Zion Radio, has a

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Please always remember to mention Chris Sorensen of Iron Trip and Zion Radio whenever you order at CVBBS .com,

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that's CVBBS .com. And of course, remember that if you prefer ordering by phone and actually speaking to a live voice, you can call

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CVBBS .com Monday through Friday between 10 a .m. and 4 .30

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p .m. Eastern Time at their toll -free number 800 -656 -0231, 800 -656 -0231.

01:09:11

Also, we have the Iron Trip and Zion Radio Pastor's Luncheon coming up that I hope all men in ministry leadership who hear this will attend.

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Whether you live locally or need to take a train, plane, or automobile, we would love to see you there. It's absolutely free of charge.

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It's being held Thursday, January 3rd, 11 a .m. to 2 p .m. at the Carlisle Fire and Rescue Banquet Hall here in Carlisle, Pennsylvania.

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It's being sponsored by our friends at BatteryDepot .com, LinbrookBaptist .org, and NASBible .com,

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the publishers of the New American Standard Bible. And not only will you be fed physically with food for free, compliments of our friends at Firehouse Subs, but you will also be fed spiritually with what

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I have no doubt will be a powerful message by my dear friend, Dr. Tony Costa, Professor of Apologetics in Islam at Toronto Baptist Seminary.

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Dr. Costa has spoken at the luncheon before, and he is returning, and I'm so thrilled about that.

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He is going to be speaking on the theme, The Meaninglessness of Life and the Destruction of Western Society Without God.

01:10:26

Not only will you be getting the free message by Dr. Costa and the lunch that I mentioned, but also, nearly every single major Christian publisher in the

01:10:36

United States and the United Kingdom has donated books that will be given away to every person attending.

01:10:43

I'm talking about two at least heavy sacks of books. I select a title from each publisher, and they donate 100 copies of each of those titles, so that every man attending can have a copy each of those titles, and since there's quite a number of publishers doing this in the

01:11:04

United States and the United Kingdom, there are at least two heavy sacks of books that you'll be going home with, absolutely free of charge, and there is nothing for sale at the

01:11:14

Iron Sherpins Iron Radio Pastor's Luncheon. There is no ulterior motives. There is only the intention of blessing men in the ministry with a time of good food, rest, relaxation, fun, fellowship, hearing a meaningful message that will benefit their lives in ministry, and also to make new friends that they may have never met before.

01:11:38

This was the design of my late wife, Julie, in the 1990s, and we have been continuing this tradition of hers after she has gone home to glory with Christ.

01:11:49

If you want to attend this, and you are a man in ministry leadership, this is not for the ladies. Our email address is chrisarnson at gmail dot com, chrisarnson at gmail dot com, and put

01:11:59

Pastor's Luncheon in the subject line. Then, immediately following that, there is an event that Dr.

01:12:07

Tony Costa will be speaking at here in this area that is open for everyone, men, women, and children, whether you are a

01:12:14

Christian or not. Dr. Costa will be speaking on the theme Contending for the

01:12:19

Faith, The Church in a Postmodern World. That is going to be at the Enola First Church of God in Enola, Pennsylvania, where my dear friend,

01:12:28

Pastor George Jensen, is the pastor. That is going to be held Friday, January 4th, through Sunday, January 6th.

01:12:35

This is also free of charge. If you would like to attend this event, you can go to enolacog .com,

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that is e -n -o -l -a -c -o -g dot com, or you can call 717 -732 -4253, 717 -732 -4253, which is the number of the

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Enola First Church of God in Enola, Pennsylvania. If you would like to email me as well for more details, you can just send me an email to chrisarnson at gmail dot com and put

01:13:04

Tony Costa conference in the subject line or something similar. I look forward to seeing as many of you as possible at that conference from Friday, January 4th, through Sunday, January 6th.

01:13:18

Then, later on in the month, I am going to be, God willing, for the third year in a row attending the

01:13:24

G3 conference in Atlanta, Georgia, more specifically College Park, Georgia.

01:13:30

I love this conference and it has proven to be extremely beneficial to me personally and also the

01:13:36

Iron Sherpa and Zion Radio Manning and Exhibitors booth there. The G3 stands for Gospel, Grace, and Glory, in case you're wondering.

01:13:45

And they have a very long roster of speakers there from Thursday, January 17th, through Saturday, January 19th.

01:13:53

The speakers include Dr. James R. White, John Piper, Stephen J. Lawson, Votie Baucom, Mark Dever, Conrad M.

01:14:00

Bayway, Phil Johnson, we have Todd Friel of Wretched TV and Wretched Radio, Stephen J.

01:14:07

Nichols, the President of Reformation Bible College, the college founded by the late R .C. Sproul and Ligonier Ministries, and many more are on that very long roster.

01:14:16

If you'd like to attend, go to g3conference .com, g3conference .com. You can also register for an

01:14:22

Exhibitors booth if you'd like to join me there and man your own Exhibitors booth. If you have a business, a church, a parachurch ministry, or a special event that you want to promote in that crowd of between 4 ,000 and 5 ,000 people that they are expecting there.

01:14:37

That's g3conference .com, g3conference .com. By the way, they only have room for 10 more Exhibitors booths.

01:14:43

So, if you would like to man your own booth, I would jump on that opportunity very quickly.

01:14:49

Then, even further into the month of January, the

01:14:54

Deep South Founders Conference is being held. This is going to be my first time manning an Exhibitors booth at the

01:15:00

Deep South Founders Conference at Bethlehem Baptist Church in Laurel, Mississippi. In fact, it's my very first time ever in Mississippi, God willing.

01:15:08

And that's going to be on the theme of sanctification. And the speakers include

01:15:13

Rusty Reed, Gerald Henderson, Jason Goodwin, Bobby Crenshaw, and Dr. Conrad Mbewe, Pastor of Kibwata Baptist Church of Lusaka, Zambia, Africa, and Chancellor of African Christian University.

01:15:25

If you'd like to attend this event from January 24th through the 26th in Laurel, Mississippi, go to deepsouthfounders .com,

01:15:34

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01:15:43

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01:16:02

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01:16:32

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01:16:42

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and put advertising in the subject line, and we would love to help you launch an ad campaign as long as whatever it is you're promoting is compatible with what we believe.

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You don't have to believe identically with me, but you need to be promoting something that is compatible with what I believe and I would love to help you launch that campaign because we really do need the advertising dollars.

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In fact, we are in urgent need of your donations and advertising dollars right now because we are in some pretty frightening financial times right now.

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So, please help us out as much as you can. And also, you can send in an email with a question to our guests

01:17:40

Bill Webster and David T. King to chrisarnson at gmail .com chrisarnson at gmail .com

01:17:46

And, we'll start with you, Bill Webster. You probably have the question in front of you since I forwarded it to you, but Pastor Josh Fryman of New Testament Baptist Church of Larimore, North Dakota says,

01:18:01

Mr. Webster, thank you for the work put into Must Jesus be Lord to be Savior? It has proven to be a help to many including myself.

01:18:10

Also, what is a way you recommend defending Sola Scriptura while also making clear the truth that the spirit is necessary?

01:18:18

For instance, the Pharisees had Scripture and facts but not the truth. Excellent questions.

01:18:25

And, we'll start with you, Bill. And, we can have David also jump on that as well.

01:18:32

Okay, the issue of Sola Scriptura is an issue

01:18:37

Jesus dealt with with the Pharisees as this example was brought up. A couple of problems with the whole issue of Judaism and the religious leaders.

01:18:49

They held to the Scriptures and a high view of the written word of God. They supplemented that ultimate authority with their own tradition.

01:19:01

That tradition invalidated the actual Scriptures. These were men, unfortunately, who had a false theology based on tradition where they were identifying as the people of God.

01:19:16

They professed the true and living God but they did not know the true and living God. There's an issue here of salvation.

01:19:22

That's why Jesus had to speak to Nicodemus about that fundamental issue in his own life.

01:19:29

Nicodemus, you are the great teacher of Israel. You are Jewish. By all that appears to be righteous, you seem to be the pinnacle of an example of a righteous man.

01:19:44

You're not born again. You do not have the Spirit of God. Part of the issue, why the

01:19:50

Scriptures are given, is to teach us what it means to know God and how to know God. Part of the problem with the

01:19:57

Roman tradition is that it can undermine that fundamental truth of the Gospel. That is one major issue that is at the forefront of this controversy between Protestantism, Evangelical Protestantism, that stands in the tradition of the

01:20:17

Reformation and Roman Catholicism. You have the issue of authority and that formal principle of the

01:20:26

Reformation that Sola Scriptura that leads then into the issue of the Gospel. What is the major message of this authority that has been given to us by God?

01:20:39

The ultimate issue is knowing Him. How do I know Him? If I know

01:20:45

Him, I have the Spirit of God. Sola Scriptura is simply the foundation. It is saying

01:20:51

Scripture is given by God. It is sufficient for what

01:20:56

I need to know about God, about how to know Him, what is the

01:21:01

Gospel, and then how to live. Sola Scriptura doesn't mean that all

01:21:07

I need is Scripture because there are other things that the

01:21:14

Scriptures themselves teach that God uses in a life to sanctify them, to draw them to Himself.

01:21:24

So when you talk about Sola Scriptura, you're talking about the sufficiency of the

01:21:30

Scriptures, materially sufficient to tell me how I need to live.

01:21:36

Well, I need the Spirit of God. I am told to walk in the Spirit. The power of the

01:21:41

Spirit is absolutely essential for understanding the

01:21:47

Word of God, for ministering the Word of God, and for living the Christian life.

01:21:53

Why do I say that? Because Scripture itself tells me that. So the all -sufficient

01:21:59

Scriptures have this revelation given to us that teaches us how to walk with the

01:22:07

Lord. I once heard a Roman Catholic apologist make the statement, well, you know, Scripture itself says it's not sufficient, and he went on to James 1 where the

01:22:19

Scriptures teaches that, you know, count it all joy when you encounter various trials, knowing that the testing of your faith produces endurance.

01:22:28

Let endurance have its perfect result, that you may be perfect and complete, lacking in nothing.

01:22:34

And what the conclusion drawn from that was said, see, Scripture itself is not sufficient.

01:22:42

You also, you're taught here that you also need God working in circumstances to sanctify your life.

01:22:48

Well, the simple answer to that is, God, I know that because Scripture teaches me that.

01:22:54

So, it doesn't teach that all I need is Scripture, it teaches me that all

01:22:59

I need to understand how to live this life, the foundation for my entire life in terms of what

01:23:08

God has revealed, is in the Word of God. And, David, isn't this one of the things, the specific thing that Pastor Josh Fryman asked about the necessity of the

01:23:22

Spirit, isn't this one of the things that separates Reformed theology and Reformed Christianity from not only

01:23:30

Pelagianism, but Semi -Pelagianism and Arminianism? Of course, you would have many of the latter two categories claiming that the

01:23:38

Spirit would be necessary, but it seems to contradict what they teach about every human being having the innate potential to understand the

01:23:48

Gospel and Bible and respond to it savingly.

01:23:54

So, therefore, obviously, you can't have the Holy Spirit equally in a way that is other than impotent drawing men to himself and saving him because of the fact that you have many people who are being given

01:24:15

Bibles that they read, they're hearing sermons, they're reading tracts, they are even brilliant geniuses and seminaries who are lost, but we as Reformed Christians believe that it is necessary to be regenerate first by the miracle of the

01:24:34

Holy Spirit to even savingly come to Christ. Am I not correct here? Yes, that's right.

01:24:40

The Apostle Paul teaches us in Romans 8 -7 that the carnal mind is enmity with God, it is at war with God.

01:24:47

Paul says it is not subject to the law of God, nor indeed can it be.

01:24:53

Paul states that it's the inability of the carnal mind to come to God on neutral grounds because of this innate objection to God and it's the autonomy of man that speaks time and time again.

01:25:11

But if we read Reformers like John Calvin, Calvin always emphasized the connection of word and spirit.

01:25:19

Word and spirit. He never separated the two. He said the two go together.

01:25:25

You read someone in the early church like well, for instance, Basil of Caesarea, he's writing to a widow and he says to her, enjoying as you do the consolation of the

01:25:40

Holy Scriptures, he said, you stand in need neither of my assistance nor of that of anybody else to help you comprehend your duty, you have the all sufficient counsel and guidance of the

01:25:56

Holy Spirit to lead you to what is right. In other words, there's the combination of word and spirit.

01:26:05

Word and spirit even in Basil of Caesarea. And it seems to us today that constantly when

01:26:14

Rome emphasizes that private interpretation of Scripture or an honest examination of Scripture by an individual is wrong,

01:26:26

Rome is constantly trying to place itself between the Christian and Holy Scripture.

01:26:33

The Roman Magisterium, the teaching office of the Church, they're constantly placing that between the

01:26:41

Christian and Holy Scripture. Even in the Council of Trent, they forbid that the

01:26:48

Bibles should be translated in the vulgar of the people. They didn't want to give people direct access to the

01:26:58

Scriptures. But over and over again, you see the necessity of the work of the Holy Spirit and opening our eyes to the truth of God that's been revealed in Holy Scripture.

01:27:10

And Bill's correct about what he said about that passage in James chapter 1. The Roman apologist that is studying that in James 1 seems to be unconscious that his source for that discipline is

01:27:24

Holy Scripture. It is Holy Scripture that is norming the very discipline of what he spoke.

01:27:30

And guess what, Pastor Josh Freiman, you have won by virtue of your question being sent today, you have won the book

01:27:38

Salvation, the Bible, and Roman Catholicism, compliments of our friends at Banner of Truth, located right here in Carlisle, Pennsylvania, the

01:27:46

American headquarters anyway, who have donated copies of this book by our friend

01:27:52

Dr. William Webster. To those who write in questions and thank you so much for the excellent questions that you submitted, please give us your full mailing address in Laramore, North Dakota, so that CVBBS .com,

01:28:05

Carmel Valley Bible Book Service, can ship this book out to you. Again, compliments of our friends at Banner of Truth.

01:28:13

And if you could, Dr. Bill Webster, tell our audience

01:28:24

When I was first converted, I was brought by faith through the instrumentality of the

01:28:35

Evangelical Church. And I initially, because of my background,

01:28:43

I found myself, because of my newfound faith and because it is Protestant, wondering about where, you know, my own tradition and what

01:28:53

I had been raised in and how compatible it was to the written scriptures.

01:29:00

And as I began to research that and to look into that, I was rather stunned and shocked to find that when it came to, and I shouldn't have been, this is a basic Reformation issue,

01:29:11

I found that the official teachings of Roman Catholicism on salvation were very much antithetical to the teachings of the

01:29:21

Word of God with respect to the Gospel. And it was in my Bible school that I attended,

01:29:27

I had to write a thesis paper. I chose to do the research and write a paper on this issue of the

01:29:36

Church of Rome and salvation and the Bible. I ended up submitting that to Banner and Truth and they graciously printed that and published it.

01:29:48

And that's sort of where I started in terms of my desire to begin to do more research and to become more involved in trying to do outreach to those who are involved in Roman Catholicism.

01:30:04

Praise God. Well, we're going to our final break right now. It's going to be much more brief than the last one. If you have any questions, please send them in immediately because we're rapidly running out of time.

01:30:14

chrisarnson at gmail .com is our address. Before I go to the break,

01:30:19

I will read a question to you and you can answer it when we return. Both of you can answer it.

01:30:26

We have Pastor Jeffrey Waddington of the Knox Orthodox Presbyterian Church in Lansdowne, Pennsylvania, who asks, which pronouncements of the

01:30:38

Pope are ex cathedra? That will be the question for both of you and you'll have time to think about that.

01:30:46

In fact, when we come back, if you could define that, that would be helpful. Don't go away,

01:30:52

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That's Solid Ground That's Solid Ground That's Solid Ground That's Solid Ground That's Solid Ground That's Solid Ground That's Solid Ground That's Solid Ground That's Solid Ground That's Solid Ground That's Solid Ground That's Solid Ground That's Solid Ground Welcome back, this is

01:40:16

Chris Arnzen. If you've just tuned us in, we have been interviewing Bill Webster and David T.

01:40:22

King on the issue that is a very provocative issue of an issue that professing

01:40:29

Christians disagree on and it is something that we believe is of the utmost importance in this day and age of rampant unbiblical ecumenism and the issue is the lie of Rome that sola scriptura was invented by the

01:40:46

Reformers if you'd like to join us on the air with a question of your own do so immediately because we are rapidly running out of time our email address is chrisarnson at gmail .com

01:40:55

chrisarnson at gmail .com and before the break I read the question that was provided for us by Pastor Jeffrey Waddington of Knox Orthodox Presbyterian Church in Lansdowne Pennsylvania what pronouncements of the

01:41:12

Pope are ex cathedra or ex cathedra and if you could start David T King and then we'll have Bill Webster chime in as well well

01:41:21

I suppose the first way of response is Chris there are very few that are actually and actually start off with the definition of ex cathedra or ex cathedra the

01:41:32

Pope has to be speak speaking from the chair on an official teaching of the of the

01:41:39

Roman Communion and he has to be you know speaking officially as the teacher of all

01:41:47

Christianity so he so he proposes for it to be an ex cathedra statement but that there are very few statements and perhaps

01:42:01

Bill would probably be the best to comment on that by the way

01:42:07

I've never had the pleasure of meeting Pastor Waddington but I do think that his the editor of one of the editors of the

01:42:17

Confessional Presbyterian by the way I have a I can give a shameless plug I've got an article coming out in that journal in the issue this year it should be available any day now oh great but but but the thing about it is is that the

01:42:35

Pope rarely makes any kind of statement like that and Bill would probably be best to identify particular statements of the

01:42:45

Pope I'd like to say one thing if I could before we get off the air today Chris about the genesis of our work the genesis of our books really was born out of a modest proposal between Bill and myself to respond to some

01:43:03

Roman apologists and we were simply going to sit down and author a book together but over the course of time as we began to study it in in our study took

01:43:17

I think we spent about six and a half years in research and we just kept finding more and more and more that that was a bolster to the principle of Sola Scriptura in Scripture and and in the history of the church particularly in the history of the church and actually not that the length of any work is a comment on the truth of it but actually our books together

01:43:46

I think was over 1 ,200 pages ended up being three volumes but originally our proposal was a very modest one we were just going to write it was because the research the research we put into it just produced this enormous amount of evidence and we thought it was important to list all of it in fact

01:44:10

I remember when the three volume set first came out for quite a while I think even years at least a handful of years there was no

01:44:21

Roman Catholic response to it has there been any meaningful response at all to this book since it came out

01:44:30

I'm not really go ahead bill I was going to say

01:44:36

I'm not I'm not aware of any serious response to what we've written we engaged with quite a bit of Roman Catholic apologetic literature in particular not by Scripture alone in the day when that came out which is edited by Robertson Janice but involves other articles and chapters written by a number of other well -known

01:45:12

Roman Catholic apologists like Philip Blosser and Patrick Madrid choco

01:45:20

Lagos just to name a few so but in terms of getting a real response from anyone

01:45:29

I have never seen a thoughtful serious response to what we've written so going back to ex cathedra very often you will hear

01:45:42

Roman Catholics use the argument of ex cathedra declarations as a defense to steer the conversation away from the importance of some statements and encyclicals and things that Popes have said and written that they would even agree are utterly ridiculous especially when we have a

01:46:08

Pope as liberal as Pope Francis oh I shouldn't say we have a Pope they have they have a

01:46:15

Pope as liberal as Pope Pope Francis and you have many of the conservative and traditionalist Catholics who don't even bring him up in public because they're so embarrassed but they'll say well it doesn't really matter because he hasn't said anything crazy ex cathedra if you could comment on that bill well that term ex cathedra was dogmatized in the 19th century in 1870 at the

01:46:42

Vatican Council first Vatican Council where the that council defined as dogma of the doctrines of papal primacy and rule and papal infallibility and the basic teaching is that when the

01:47:01

Bishop of Rome who they believe was appointed by Christ to be the head of the church visible that on earth that when he teaches in his official capacity as a

01:47:14

Bishop of Rome ex cathedra on anything related to an issue of faith or morals that he speaks infallibly this is a teaching that was unheard of in the early church that there's absolutely no church father that held to this view the church at large has never subscribed to the teaching that the

01:47:43

Bishop of Rome is to be the supreme head of the church and that he is in his official capacity infallible and so if you go back in history this you have to impose a later dogma on the teachings of the

01:47:59

Bishops of Rome and there are very very few statements that are given by Bishops of Rome throughout the history of the church that would be considered infallible one the

01:48:11

New Catholic Encyclopedia would say that the Declaration of Boniface VIII I think it was in 1302 called

01:48:19

Unum Sanctum where he defined salvation and he said it is necessary for every human creature to be subject to the

01:48:29

Bishop of Rome for salvation that is considered an ex cathedra statement it's considered to be infallible another would be

01:48:38

Pius IX in 1854 when he defined the doctrine of the

01:48:44

Immaculate Conception of Mary another would be in 1950 when

01:48:50

Pius XII defined the dogma of the Assumption of Mary to my knowledge those and there could be others

01:49:01

I but to my knowledge at least those are the ones that would be officially considered truly ex cathedra statements by the

01:49:12

Bishops of Rome yeah I could see where Roman Catholics would be a bit uncomfortable with the present -day

01:49:21

Roman Pontiff and would be very uncomfortable if he were to give an official declaration that would go against the official teaching of the

01:49:33

Catholic Church that he's not done that so you know you can you can say well you know he is a private theologian he's we're not subject to anything that he has officially stated nonetheless this teaching is very concerning given the fact that it is so late in church history was never embraced by anyone in the early church or for centuries throughout the

01:50:01

Middle Ages this was never a doctrine that was held by the church and the Eastern Church obviously even today would never subscribe to this teaching that the

01:50:12

Bishop of Rome was infallible in any way and you have heroes of the

01:50:19

Church of Rome church fathers and giants of their religion that would have been executed if those some of those dogmas existed when they were alive but obviously they use that to defend the reputation of these men who disagreed with many of the dogmas that came about in later centuries they say well it wasn't ex -catholic it wasn't declared ex cathedra or ex cathedra when they were alive so they have a past I mean it's really kind of absurd isn't it well you know again the definition you're not going to find the definition in the early church and in any council or anywhere so what you have to do is look at the principle of how they define what ex cathedra means it is interesting if you go back to the six ecumenical council in 680 that that's three

01:51:17

Constantinople that council condemned a Bishop of Rome for heresy they define that condemnation in terms of his official teaching as the

01:51:32

Bishop of Rome they don't use the term ex cathedra but all of the principles that define what that means are there in their statements when they condemn the

01:51:45

Bishop of Rome Pope Honorius LB the former

01:51:50

Bishop of Rome they named him by name in his official capacity as the

01:51:58

Bishop of Rome and they condemned him for an official teaching that he gave they say it's official the language cannot be missed it constitutes the principles of what it means to teach ex cathedra because they said that Satan raised up Pope Honorius and a number of other teachers of bishops to infect the church with false doctrine and they used these men and one of them was the

01:52:30

Bishop of Rome and they condemned him by name in its official capacity as a heretic so you can take the principle and apply it but you're not going to find an explicit statement we are condemning this man on the basis of an ex cathedra statement because that was not defined until the 19th century right by the way dr.

01:52:51

Waddington you have also won a free copy of the book that we are giving away complements of banner of truth salvation of the

01:52:59

Bible and Roman Catholicism please give us your full mailing address so that CV bbs .com

01:53:04

can ship that out to you we have Gordy in Mechanicsburg Pennsylvania how much do you think the leaders in the

01:53:11

Roman Catholic Church rely on their parishioners ignorance of the scriptures to maintain their integrity or is there an increasing interest to try to read the scriptures for oneself in say the last 10 years yeah well

01:53:26

I was in Catholic school after Vatican II so allegedly we were being encouraged to read the scriptures we were all required to buy good news for modern man the

01:53:39

Catholic edition and we had them in our desks but we very rarely ever were instructed by the nuns to open them up but anyway if you could comment on Gordy's question

01:53:50

David if you could start how much do you think the leaders in the Roman Catholic Church rely on their parishioners ignorance of the scriptures to maintain

01:53:59

I think by and large I think by and large they rely a great deal upon the ignorance of their parishioners it is true that the documents of Vatican II to do encourage parishioners now to read the scriptures but I have found time and time again even in recent days with Roman apologists that anytime you try to bring up scripture within of course the responses that's your interpretation in other words it's not the interpretation of the magisterium so I'm I'm not so sure how helpful

01:54:37

Vatican II would indicate the reading the scripture is for the common person so long as the person is relying upon the magisterium of the church but throughout my years

01:54:48

I've met very few members of the Roman Communion who are really familiar with the scriptures who really know their

01:55:00

Bibles thank you Gordy you've also won a free copy of the book salvation the

01:55:07

Bible and Roman Catholicism compliments of our friends at the banner of truth we have

01:55:14

Mary in Cork Ireland and I have to enlarge Mary's question because the font and the email is microscopic all right let's see here

01:55:24

I'm not sure if this was covered but I was I wonder would one of your guests help me to understand the scripture about the

01:55:33

Queen of Heaven in Jeremiah chapter 7 verse 18 and Jeremiah chapter 44 verses 17 through 25 as I know they give the title to the

01:55:43

Virgin Mary in the Roman Catholic Church Bill if you could start

01:55:50

David all right David well you know Jeremiah there he he he's explicit he says you you shall not you know refer the hers the

01:56:01

Queen of Heaven I mean I mean there's no support of that in Jeremiah Jeremiah you know is you know comes out against that ability of anything to add and well in the book of Revelation in chapter 12 you have a woman clothed with a son this is what is taught is that this is this is

01:56:24

Mary the patristic understanding of that particular passage it is not

01:56:32

Mary it's the church this elevating of the person of Mary and we we need to venerate her as far as scripture does but where you go beyond what scripture teaches about Mary you get into these traditional areas where you begin to elevate her to the point where she is one of the

01:56:56

Trinity but she is almost demonized

01:57:01

I mean deified some of the deified the the descriptions that are given her and later in the

01:57:09

Middle Ages of her exaltation basically is is putting her on a level equal to the

01:57:19

Son of God she is a mediatrix a co -redemptrix the Queen of Heaven who rules over the kingdom of God as a co -regent with her own son this is blasphemous teaching it is unbiblical and unhistorical again it it it originates with Gnosticism but has come into the church through an unbridled tradition and it deceives men with respect to the truth of the

01:57:52

Word of God and the gospel that means to truly know him we are out of time and I definitely want the two of you to come back quickly if you are willing to be our guest to continue this very deep subject

01:58:06

I will send you a calendar of available dates after we are off the air so I hope you genuinely are interested as much as I am to return

01:58:15

I want to thank we have a listener Cody in Albany Oregon who is a first -time questioner

01:58:25

I'm sorry we don't have time to read your question and have it answered but we will try to bring that up during our next interview

01:58:33

God willing with Bill Webster and David T King we are going to send you a free copy of the book that we have been discussing salvation the

01:58:42

Bible and Roman Catholicism compliments of banner of truth we're also going to be sending you a new new

01:58:47

American Standard Bible since you are a first -time questioner well I know that Christian resources can be found at Christian truth calm

01:59:00

Christian truth calm and if you want to get in contact with Bill Webster or David King just go to that website

01:59:07

I want to thank you both for being our guest today please hold on so I could give you a proper goodbye off the air

01:59:13

I want to thank everybody who listened especially those who took the time to write and I want you all to always remember for the rest of your lives that Jesus Christ is a far greater