January 25, 2023 Show with Dr. William Webster AND David T. King on “Saving Faith: How Does Rome Define It?”

Iron Sharpens Iron Radio Introduction and the Theme of Saving Faith

Live from historic downtown Carlisle, Pennsylvania, home of Founding Father James Wilson, 19th century hymn writer George Duffield, 19th century gospel minister George Norcross, and sports legend Jim Thorpe, it's Iron Sharpens Iron.

This is a radio platform in which pastors, Christian scholars, and theologians address the burning issues facing the church and the world today. Proverbs chapter 27 verse 17 tells us iron sharpens iron, so one man sharpens another.

Matthew Henry said that in this passage, we are cautioned to take heed with whom we converse and directed to have a view in conversation to make one another wiser and better. It is our hope that this goal will be accomplished over the next two hours, and we hope to hear from you, the listener, with your own questions.

And now, here's your host, Chris Arnzen.

Afternoon, Cumberland County, Pennsylvania, Lake City, Florida, and the rest of humanity living on the planet Earth, we're listening via live streaming at ironsharpensironradio .com. This is Chris Arnzen, your host of Iron Sharpens Iron Radio, wishing you all a happy Wednesday on this 25th day of January 2023.

I'm absolutely thrilled to have two old, very long time and very close friends on the program today, and their names should not be unfamiliar to most of you in the Iron Sharpens Iron Radio listening audience.

Today, I have the privilege of having back on the program Dr. William Webster, who is pastor of Grace Bible Church of Battleground, Washington. He is an author and founder of Christian Resources. And we also have Reverend David T. King joining us, who is assistant pastor at Christ Church, which is a Presbyterian Church in America congregation of Katy, Texas, and co-author with Dr. William Webster of the monumental three-volume work, Holy Scripture, the Ground and Pillar of Our Faith, which totals approximately 900 pages of content.

Today, the three of us will be addressing Saving Faith, How Does Rome Define It? And first of all, let me welcome you back to Iron Sharpens Iron Radio, Dr. William Webster.

Thank you, Chris. Good to be here.

And David King, it's always great to have you on the program as well. Welcome back.

Likewise, Chris. It's great to be here.

Reformed Churches, Christian Resources, and the Upcoming Free Conference

And for the sake of our listeners who have not yet heard you, I'll have each of you describe the churches where you serve. If you could, Dr. Webster, let our listeners know about Grace Bible Church of Battleground, Washington.

Grace Bible is a Reformed Baptist church. We are right outside of the city of Portland, Oregon, in the state of Washington. We've been a church for a little over 20 years and very committed to the principles of the Reformation, the authority of Scripture, and the Gospel as revealed in the Word of God.

And if you want more details on this church, go to gracebiblebattleground .org. Gracebiblebattleground .org. Now tell us about Christian Resources.

Christian Resources is an apologetics ministry. I started back, let's see, probably 30 years.

Ago.

And it deals with, it's basically a defense of the Reformation. It deals with major historical issues related to the Reformation and Roman Catholicism. The biblical Gospel, the authority of the Word of God, all of the basics of the Reformation, why the Reformation is important, necessary.

It also deals with the fundamentals of the Christian life. It has a lot of research that I've done on historical issues, teachings about how to know the Lord, how to walk with Him. There are audio messages, but it's basically a ministry very committed to, again, the principles sola Christus, sola gratia, sola fide, sola scriptura, all for the glory of God.

Amen.

And if anybody wants more details on this ministry, go to christiantruth .com, christiantruth .com. And by the way, I just wanted to give a shout out to one of our listeners, and I'm probably going to butcher the city pronunciation, Bolly Nahinch in Northern Ireland, Cecil Andrews, who has been a long-distance friend of mine, and I've interviewed him in the past.

And he is a dear brother and operates Take Heed Ministries there in Northern Ireland. He just wanted to encourage our listeners today by saying, William Webster's writings have been of immense help to me in my ministry, takeheed .info, over the years, and I had the privilege of meeting Bill with my wife Margaret when we were co-ministering with the late Richard Bennett in Washington many moons ago.

Well, thank you for that, Cecil. And now, if you could, Pastor David T. King, tell our listeners about Christ Church of Katy, Texas, where you minister as an assistant pastor.

Yes, Chris, I have the privilege of serving as an assistant pastor at Christ Church in Katy, Texas, which I guess is 25, 30 miles west of Houston, Texas, and we are a PCA congregation and we adhere to the Westminster standards, that is, the confession and the catechisms, both the larger and the shorter, and we're the church that really seeks to preach the gospel and to encourage the members of our congregation to become mature disciples of Jesus Christ.

Praise God. And if you want more details on this church, go to cckpca .org, cckpca .org, cck for Christ Church Katy, which is the city in Texas, and pca for Presbyterian Church in America, cckpca .org.

I'm also thrilled to announce to our listeners, I made the announcement for the first time yesterday, but these two men who I am interviewing today are both going to be speakers at the next Iron Sharpens Iron Radio Free Pastors Luncheon at Church of the Living Christ in Loisville, Pennsylvania.

That's going to be held on Thursday, April 13th at 11 a .m. and absolutely free of charge, and this is only for men in ministry leadership, and not only are you going to be getting free admission and having a free meal, but you're also going to be leaving with a very heavy sack of free brand new books donated by Christian publishers all over the United States and the United Kingdom that have been personally selected by me from their catalogs, and so it's a no-brainer if you are a man in ministry leadership and are able to travel to Loisville, Pennsylvania, which is in Perry County, Pennsylvania, I strongly urge you to send me an email so that you can find out more details.

That email is chrisarnson at gmail .com, chrisarnson at gmail .com. Immediately following that, over the three days right after the luncheon, Friday through Sunday, April 14th through the 16th, these two brothers that I have on the show today are also going to be conducting a Bible conference, absolutely free of charge.

The Bible conference is open to everyone, men, women, and children, and again, absolutely free. The theme of this conference is The Gospel, Removed by Rome, Rescued by the Reformers, and Rejected by Modern Evangelicals.

It is a must, if you can attend this, to make every effort possible to be in attendance, especially since it's free, and you will be blessed and edified, and I'm sure you will leave there with even more ammunition to be even more ready to give an answer for the hope that lies within you as a result of attending that three-day conference.

And again, that's at a different location than the luncheon. That's at Grace Bible Fellowship Church of Harrisburg, Pennsylvania. And again, if you have any interest in attending that, and again, this one, unlike the luncheon, is open to everyone, men, women, and children.

Our email address is chrisarnson at gmail .com, chrisarnson at gmail .com. And put luncheon and conference in the subject line. Well, I'm going to give our email address to our listeners right away in the event that they have questions, primarily on the issue of Roman Catholicism and also on the true historic theology of the Protestant Reformation.

Our email address, again, is chrisarnson at gmail .com, chrisarnson at gmail .com, C-H-R-I-S, S-A-R-N-Z-E-N at gmail .com. As always, give us your first name at least, your city and state, and your country of residence if you live outside the USA.

Only remain anonymous if your question involves a personal and private matter. Let's say you are a Roman Catholic and you're beginning to question the beliefs that you were possibly raised in or have clung to for many years, maybe even decades.

You're starting to question these things. You're starting to hear that the Bible contradicts these teachings of Rome. Or perhaps you're even an evangelical and you realize that the church where you are a member is far from what the legacy of the Protestant Reformation has left to us.

And more importantly, you have noticed that it is very foreign from what the Bible teaches about many things. We would understand that you would want to remain anonymous for those kinds of questions, so please do.

But if it's just a general question, please give us your first name, city and state, and country of residence. Well, let me start with you, Bill, since you are the author of the book that we are primarily gleaning from in our discussion today, Saving Faith, How Does Rome Define It?

Give us some bedrock background as to what the Church of Rome dogmatically believes and why the Reformation was necessary, and also how the constant regurgitation of the Church of Rome, that they believe what Christ and his apostles laid down, and that they are continuing the unanimous consent of what the Church Fathers believed in regard to crucial issues.

And then after you give us some background information on that, we'll have David join us with his own comments. But if you could start, Bill.

The reason I put this book together, and it's an editing, I'm basically an editor on this.

One.

I do have some comments through it. My desire, because when you're dealing with the issues of belief systems, you need to accurately define whatever belief system you are dealing with, what they actually stand for and teach.

There's a lot of confusion that comes into discussions about these issues with respect to history and the Reformation and Roman Catholicism, Evangelicalism, Protestantism, if you will. As an Evangelical, going back to the heritage of the Reformation, the ultimate authority for what I believe and for what the Reformers taught is the written Word of God.

It is Sola Scriptura. It is the revelation that we possess of God, of what is true, of what the need of salvation is, of how that need is met through the person of the Lord Jesus Christ, and how that becomes an experience that is real and true in the life of a sinner, to be reconciled to God.

This is what the issue is all about. It's all about how a man can be made right with God, reconciled to God. That message is given very clearly in the written Word of God to us, and we are given warning after warning not to distort that message, not to deviate in the least from the truth of what the Word of God teaches about it.

I was raised Roman Catholic. I am today a very committed Evangelical in the right sense of what that word means, both from an historical standpoint and a biblical standpoint. I realize in talking to people that there is a lot of confusion about terms.

How do you define what Rome teaches about justification, sanctification, grace, faith, about Christ's work? Because the Roman Catholic Church does affirm we are justified by grace, through faith, in Christ.

The problem comes in defining terms because we use the same terms. Do we mean the same thing by the terms that we use? That is the crux of the matter. What I have done in this book is put together from the Code of Canon Law, the Catechism of the Catholic Church, from the Question and Answer Catholic Catechism by John Harden, the document of Trent, the Council of Trent, and the canons of Vatican I and Vatican II, as well as certain teachings of bishops of Rome that are considered to be ex cathedra, the defined dogmas of the Church.

What is it that Rome officially teaches from these sources? Now you have an objective standard based upon the truth of the Word of God. What does it say? What does the Roman Catholic Church actually teach with respect to these issues of the Gospel and salvation?

Are they compatible? It's kind of like with Augustine dealing with Pelagius. Pelagius did not deny the need for grace. He affirmed the term, but he redefined the term. In redefining the term, he redefined it in a way that made it unbiblical.

That was the issue for Augustine. It is the same issue we're dealing with here with the Roman Catholic Church and the way it defines these issues of the Gospel and salvation.

David, one of the things that you and I and Bill witness and have witnessed for quite a while is that you will have those who are members of evangelical churches, perhaps they were even raised that way, abandoning evangelicalism and converting to Roman Catholicism because they have swallowed wholesale the lie that the Catholic Church is merely continuing the very same teachings of Christ, his apostles, and the Church Fathers.

And they have also witnessed, rightly, that evangelicals are very foreign, many in our modern day are very foreign to what our heroes of the faith, the Protestant Reformers, actually taught and stood for at the risk of torture and death and fought for and pled for.

The Reformers, were they to revisit the planet Earth by some miracle of God and walk into most, or at least many, evangelical churches today, they would wonder what religion was actually housing this worship service, so-called, and they would probably scratch their heads and walk out the door.

But if you could tell us about this difficulty that we face when we see people converting to Catholicism, but they have either been fed a lie from Rome that they are swallowing, or they are thinking that the teachings that they are hearing in false modern evangelical churches are actually historically authentic.

Yes, I think that most of the time when you find there are certain, called evangelical Christians, if we can use that term in a loose manner, many times the reason they convert to Rome is that they are led to believe that they are connecting with the only true ancient church that has come down through the ages, and people believe that they are uniting with this only true church.

And yet, when you go back to the Scriptures, you find that the real issue of being in Christ comes through the preaching of the gospel, the gospel that calls us to repent of our sins, to turn away from our sins, and of course, to be honest, none of us do that perfectly, but what we are called to do is to repent purposefully, that we have a true turning away from our sins, and a turning unto the Lord Jesus Christ.

I like the way that the Westminster Confession describes faith. Faith is not something that comes alone as a gift to people who receive Christ. Faith in Christ is receiving and resting on Christ and His righteousness, and faith is the only instrument whereby we are justified before God.

And yet, faith that comes to us in the grace of God is not something that is alone in the person justified. It is ever, ever accompanied with all the other saving graces. It's not a dead faith. It's a faith that works by love.

It's a faith that desires to follow the Lord Jesus Christ, to be obedient to the commands of the Lord Jesus Christ. One thing I wanted to emphasize when Bill mentioned that Rome does, it takes the terms that we as evangelicals use, and they use the same terms, but they don't mean the same.

Thing.

We think of grace as something that is unmerited from God, and yet, if you read, for example, John Hardin's catechism, he tells us that we can merit for ourselves an increase of sanctifying grace. Well, if grace is unmerited, how can it be merited?

He also says that we can, when we exercise fidelity to the church, it gives joy in the heart, and that merits further grace. Again, grace is unmerited. It is the free favor of God that he bestows graciously upon the penitent sinner, the one who turns away from his sin and embraces the Lord Jesus Christ.

And so, we as evangelicals do not believe that grace is something that can be merited, and yet Rome takes that term and defines it in a very different way. And what Rome requires of the adherence to their standards is virtually implicit faith in the teaching of the church, in the official doctrines or dogmas of the church.

Those things must be embraced in order to be regarded as united to God's saving. And yet, grace is not something that can be merited.

Now, who is the Roman Catholic source you were quoting from?

I was quoting from John Hardin's catechism.

What century would that have been?

Well, I'm not quite sure. I think it was in the 20th century. The date of his catechism I have is 1981.

Okay. And it's kind of interesting how liberal the church of Rome has become, and yet their dogma set forth in Trent, and then just a few times after that, dogma which may never be altered, never changed, is very rarely for quite a long time the focus of any pronouncements of either popes or clergy.

And it is quite an interesting thing how you can have a pope as left-wing as Francis is, existing where he was clearly in violation of much of what Trent laid down as the absolute dogmatic beliefs that must be believed and followed and obeyed.

And I'm quite certain, and I'm wondering if you would agree, in the days of Trent, would not Francis be a candidate for execution by Rome with some of the extreme apostate views he has, even under using the church of Rome's own teachings as a litmus test?

Well, certainly so. When you engage Roman apologists today, they really don't want to talk about the present pope because they're very much embarrassed by him. And considering all the moral scandal in the church of Rome today with all of its boasted morality, yet you see the degeneracy among the clergy and where they are, including the present pope.

It seems as though it's collapsing on its own. It's a house of cards.

Yeah, in fact, Bill, it's an interesting situation that we as conservative, Calvinistic, Reformed evangelicals find ourselves in. When we are having conversations with most Roman Catholics, there are obviously sometimes, the rare occasion, when a traditionalist or one that more accurately reflects the historic teachings of Roman Catholicism pops his head up and we have a more realistic and honest conversation with two polar opposite views.

You have the modern Roman Catholic putting us in the position of having to be the bad guy and the not-so-nice guy or the mean guy because in the 21st century, we're the ones saying to them, No, you're not my brother.

I love you. You're a great friend. I love your company. I can't wait till you come over my house for dinner again. But you're not my brother in Christ because you are denying the gospel. And they are very willing to embrace us as their brothers, but they don't even realize that the Council of Trent, which again is dogmatic in what it laid down, teachings that never can be changed, they're the ones centuries before we were born, anathematized us.

I mean, if you want to pick up on that.

Yeah, if you go back in history, and this is basically a consistent theme all the way up through Vatican I, which was in 1870, 71, and then for years afterwards, Leo XIII wrote an encyclical affirming Vatican I, affirming Trent, affirming the historic stance of the Roman Catholic Church.

It alone is the one true church established by Christ in Peter with a succession coming down through Peter through the bishops of Rome throughout history. They alone possess the means of salvation for sinners.

Apart from the Roman Catholic Church, there is no salvation. That's a historical position. Pius IX said outside the Apostolic Roman Church, no one can be saved.

And yet, go ahead, I'm sorry.

No, you can multiply those kinds of statements by other popes. Leo was one, Leo XIII in the 20th century. But then you come back to Trent, and the dogmatic statements of Trent, the canons of Trent anathematizing those who disagree and take issue with and repudiate their teachings that are the response to the Reformation and a biblical gospel.

They have repudiated a biblical gospel, but they anathematize those who disagree with them because they believe that they are infallible and that they are indeed the one true church that alone can define doctrine that is truly saving for men.

Now, what I was about to say is that although every conservative Roman Catholic apologist today agrees with that last statement, they adamantly and vociferously disagree with the understanding that the evangelical Protestants are not their brothers and sisters.

It's interesting that even the most conservative of the modern apologetic world in Rome will always extend the olive branch to us as brothers because they probably realize it would be the death knell to their popularity amongst us and even further put up an impenetrable wall that prevents conversions from occurring if they start in mass spewing that we are all damned because we are not in the Church of Rome.

But I'm going to have us pick up where we left off there when we return from this first break. If you have a question for William Webster and David T. King, our email address is chrisarnson at gmail .com.

Chrisarnson at gmail .com. Give us your first name at least, city and state, and country of residence. Only remain anonymous. If your question involves a personal or private matter, don't go away. We'll be right back after these messages.

James White of Alpha Omega Ministries here. I'm very excited to announce that my longtime friend Chris Arnson of Iron Sharpens Iron Radio and I are heading down to Atlanta, Georgia again for the G3 National Conference.

That's Thursday, September 21st through Saturday the 23rd on a theme that I have been preaching, teaching, writing about, and defending in live public debates for most of my life, the sovereignty of God.

I'll be joined on the speaking roster by Steve Lawson, Voti Baucom, Paul Washer, Virgil Walker, Scott Anuel, and Josh Bice, founder of G3 Ministries. And there's more great news. Chris Arnson of Iron Sharpens Iron Radio can get you a 30 discount off the registration fee.

Go to g3min .org, that's g3min .org, and enter promo code G3ISIR. That's G3ISIR for the 30 discount. Chris Arnson and I look forward to seeing you all Thursday, September 21st through Saturday the 23rd at the G3 National Conference in Atlanta, Georgia on the sovereignty of God.

Make sure you stop by the Iron Sharpens Iron Radio Exhibitor booth and say hi to Chris Arnson while you're there. Go to g3min .org and enter promo code G3ISIR for your 30 discount off the registration fee.

The Prince of Preachers, Charles Haddon Spurgeon, once said, Growing a beard is a habit most natural, scriptural, manly, and beneficial. Grace and peace to all the Iron Sharpens Iron listeners. This is Tony with thestandardbeardcare .com.

That's right, thestandardbeardcare .com is a Christ-exalting, better-known, and simple name in beard care. So if you have a beard, know a guy with a beard, or ladies, if you're married to a man with a beard, head over to thestandardbeardcare .com, check out the vast array of all-natural, hand-crafted products to make that beard scriptural, manly, and beneficial.

And when you do so, you will help to support Iron Sharpens Iron Radio. When you use the promo code IRON at checkout, you will receive free shipping to anywhere in the lower 48, and 10 of your donations will go back to Chris Arntzen and Iron Sharpens Iron Radio.

So head over to thestandardbeardcare .com, where the standard is the standard.

If you're near retirement or thinking about retiring, you probably have questions. How do you make your savings last? How much should you take out, and when? You're ready for retirement, but are your finances?

Art Amundsen, an Edward Jones financial advisor, can help you build a strategy to help make sure your finances keep up with your long-term needs. Do what it takes to get there. Now it's time to make the most of retirement.

Visit edwardjones .com. That's edwardjones .com. Or call 717 -258 -4688. 717 -258 -4688. We here at Iron Sharpens Iron Radio are forever grateful for the generous financial support of Art Amundsen, Edward Jones financial advisor in Carlisle, Pennsylvania.

Call 717 -258 -4688 today.

I'm Dr. Joseph Piper, President Emeritus and Professor of Systematic and Applied Theology at Greenville Presbyterian Theological Seminary. Every Christian who's serious about the different faith and the Westminster standards should have and use the eight-volume commentary on the theology and ethics of the Westminster Larger Catechism titled Authentic Christianity by Dr. Joseph Morecraft.

It is much more than an exposition of the Larger Catechism. It is a thoroughly researched work that utilizes biblical exegesis as well as historical and systematic theology. Dr. Morecraft is pastor of Heritage Presbyterian Church of Cumming, Georgia, and I urge everyone looking for a biblically faithful church in that area to visit that fine congregation.

For details on the eight-volume commentary, go to westminstercommentary .com, westminstercommentary .com. For details on Heritage Presbyterian Church of Cumming, Georgia, visit heritagepresbyterianchurch .com, heritagepresbyterianchurch .com.

Please tell Dr. Morecraft and the saints at Heritage Presbyterian Church of Cumming, Georgia that Dr. Joseph Piper of Greenville Presbyterian Theological Seminary sends you.

When Iron Sharpens Iron Radio first launched in 2005, the publishers of the New American Standard Bible were among my very first sponsors. It gives me joy knowing that many scholars and pastors in the Iron Sharpens Iron Radio audience have been sticking with or switching to the NASB.

This is Darrell Bernard Harrison, co-host of the Just Thinking Podcast, and the NASB is my Bible of choice.

I'm Pastor Tom Buck at First Baptist Church in Lindale, Texas, and the NASB is my Bible of choice. I'm Pastor Kent Keller of Faith Bible Church in Sharpsburg, Georgia, and the NASB is my Bible of choice.

I'm Andrew Rapport, the founder and executive director at Striving for Eternity Ministries, and the NASB is my Bible of choice. I'm Mark Romaldi, pastor of Sovereign Grace Church of Greenbrier, Tennessee, and the NASB is my Bible of choice.

I'm Christopher Cookston, pastor of Prineville Community Church in Prineville, Oregon, and the NASB is my Bible of choice. I'm Matt Tarr, pastor of High Point Baptist Church in Larksville, Pennsylvania, and the NASB is my Bible of choice.

Here's a great way for your church to help keep Iron Sharpens Iron Radio on the air. Pastors, are your pew bibles tattered and falling apart? Consider restocking your pews with the NASB, and tell the publishers you heard about them from Chris Arnzen on Iron Sharpens Iron Radio.

Go to nasbible .com. That's nasbible .com to place your order.

Here at Iron Sharpens Iron Radio, praise God for the generous monthly financial support of Royal Diadem Jewelers. Educated by and affiliated with the American Gem Society, Jewelers of America, and the Gemological Institute of America.

For the perfect custom-designed engagement ring, or any one-of-a-kind piece of jewelry created exactly according to your imagination and specifications, Royal Diadem Jewelers has you covered. No matter where you live in the world, Royal Diadem will walk you step-by-step through every stage of the process, and even hold a high-tech internet virtual visit using state-of-the-art jewelry design technology to serve you.

They start by listening carefully to determine your needs. They're interested in making what you want, not what they want to sell you. From rough design to digital model, to photo-realistic image, to wax prototype model, to the finished product, they're continually listening to your input, likes and dislikes, making any changes necessary along the way.

This will ensure that your custom jewelry will turn out exactly as you dreamed, and well beyond your expectations. Visit royaldiadem .com. That's royaldiadem .com today. Sterling Vanderwercker, owner of Royal Diadem Jewelers, his wife, Bronnie, his business partner and manager, Brian Wilson, and the entire family thank you all for listening to, praying for, and supporting the work of Iron Sharpens Iron Radio.

And don't forget folks, royaldiadem .com is still offering Iron Sharpens Iron Radio an absolutely mind-blowing deal. They are giving us 100 of the profits from any sale of jewelry at royaldiadem .com to an Iron Sharpens Iron Radio listener as long as they mention Iron Sharpens Iron Radio when they are making their purchase.

So whether you are actually purchasing a piece of jewelry they already have in stock at royaldiadem .com for $100 or more, or if you're getting a custom-designed piece of jewelry created, like an engagement ring, or like turning your church logo, your parachurch ministry logo, your denomination logo, your seminary logo, into a piece of jewelry, like a pendant for a necklace, or a ring, or any other kind of piece of jewelry, or whatever else your imagination and your creativity can conjure up, royaldiadem .com are absolute masters and craftsmen at this art of customizing jewelry.

I've seen with my own eyes and held in my hands pieces of jewelry they have customized, including a cross pendant with a crown of thorns for one of the sons of the woman who led me to Christ in the 1980s.

He recently had a custom-designed cross made for a necklace, and it is absolutely mind-blowing. It is absolutely breathtaking, and he was thrilled beyond words. And that could be you, too, if you want a custom-designed piece of jewelry created.

Go to royaldiadem .com as soon as possible and mention Iron Sharpens Iron Radio so that we still qualify to get 100 of the profits from this job or from this purchase. We have no idea when they're going to pull the plug on this offer, so please try to make your purchase as soon as possible at royaldiadem .com.

Always mention Chris Arnzen of Iron Sharpens Iron Radio. We are now back with Dr. William Webster and Rev. David T. King discussing saving faith. How does Rome define it? And before I continue on the thread that we were discussing before the break, I want to go to, I believe he is a first-time questioner, Steve in South Berwick, Maine.

And Steve says, I wish I could send you the year's worth of dialogue that I have had between myself and a rather devoted Catholic. He is a relative and is probably one of the few diehard apologists of Catholicism I have ever met.

He literally quotes from things like De Verbum from the Vatican denies the authority of Scripture because, per him, we do not know if we have the full canon revelation from God. Saying things like, the Word of God and Scripture are not synonymous because much of the Word of God is not found in Scripture.

And then quotes passages like John 20, verse 30, Colossians 4, verse 16, 2 Thessalonians 2, verse 15. I responded with, this seems like you are basically saying that God can speak to people outside of Scripture, which was true during that time.

But we are called to use Scripture as a litmus test to see if what was heard to see if what was heard is valid. I think you are holding on what was not recorded in the Bible versus what we actually have.

This is very long, so I'm going to go on to his second points.

After this.

First of all, much of what he says seems to be, from my understanding, accurate according to what Rome believes with the exception of the canon. The Church of Rome believes there is a definite, settled canon even though their tradition supersedes the canon.

At least they act that way. But as far as what our listener is saying about his Catholic relative claiming we don't know what's in the canon, that is not a Roman Catholic teaching, is it?

Which one do you want to answer?

Bill, you can start.

That is not a Catholic teaching. The Catholic teaching defines the exact nature of the canon. Trent did that. It's dogmatic. They have laid it in concrete, so to speak. But that goes contrary to the history of the church that precedes.

In particular, the patristic age which did not, in the main, embrace the apocrypha as the inspired word of God. The early church, taking the view of Athanasius, viewed the apocrypha as having a certain function within the church for believers.

It could be used for the purposes of edification, but it was not authoritative. It was not scripture in the same sense as the written Hebrew canon was scripture, and the New Testament canon is scripture.

They rejected the apocrypha. Trent has dogmatized the nature of the apocrypha as being part of the canon of scripture. There is this divide, then, between the Evangelical Protestant church and its holding to the Hebrew canon of 39 books of the Hebrew Bible and the 27 books of the New Testament.

So that is very clear. There is no problem at all with what the canon is from a Roman Catholic standpoint. I think the question comes with his friend. He says that the Roman Catholic church alone has the authority to define the canon, and therefore the Protestant church has no basis upon which to say which books are in the canon.

And David, do you have anything to follow up with? David, are you there? Well, I guess David's not with us. I'm not sure why.

Here I am, Chris. Yeah, I had myself muted. Well, it's just another claim of the communion of Rome that we as Protestants cannot know the Word of God when we appeal to the historical development of the canon.

It's very clear, although they will argue with us that Rome is basically on the Protestant side when it comes to the historical definition of the canon. You can't go back, really, to one of the councils that they often appeal to.

I think it's in 397, a North African council, and they actually embraced one of the books of the canon that Trent excluded from the canon, that being, I believe it was, I think it was 3 Maccabees, or it's Estrus, 3 Estrus.

But they don't even have the same canon as that council. But the thing about it is God's Word does not need the validation of a church council. God's Word speaks for itself. It stands on its own authority.

Men like Chrysostom and Augustine have assured us of that in some of their own writings that God himself is the witness to his own Word. Hilary of Poirier assures us that only God is a fitting witness to his Word.

So we don't need a church council or the authority of some communion to define for us what the canon of Holy Scripture was. And it was very clear when you read the writings of some of the early church writers in the second century of the church already, they, before any council had made any statement on the canon of Scripture, they were quoting from books of Scripture knowing very well that it was Scripture from which they were quoting.

So I really think that that's a very poor argument, but it's one that the Roman apologist, he thinks that's a sure arrow in his quiver. And it really comes to nothing when you compare it to the historical development of the canon and the witness of the early church writers.