November 11, 2020 Show with Dr. Tony Costa on “Pope Francis’s Affirmation of Same-Sex ‘Civil Unions'”

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

Carlisle, Pennsylvania, 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 in 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. Good afternoon,

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.

This is Chris Arnzen, your host of Iron Sharpens Iron Radio, wishing you all a happy Wednesday on this very rainy

Veterans Day, November 11th, 2020, at least it's very rainy here in Carlisle, Pennsylvania.

I am thrilled to have back on the program a very dear friend who's also one of my favorite guests, one of my favorite conference speakers who

I have arranged conferences and debate for here in Carlisle and also on Long Island, New York and in New York City.

His name is Dr. Tony Costa. He's the professor of apologetics and Islam at Toronto Baptist Seminary, and he also happens to be an expert on Roman Catholicism, and Dr.

Costa is himself a former Roman Catholic before receiving the gift of eternal life and a new heart by the grace and mercy of God.

He is currently a Reformed Baptist scholar, theologian, and apologist, and we are going to be discussing today

Pope Francis' affirmation of same -sex civil unions, and what does this say about Rome's claims that an infallible papacy prevents doctrinal confusion, and it's my honor and privilege to welcome you back to Iron Sharpens Iron Radio, Dr.

Tony Costa. Hey, Chris, it's great to be back, and looking forward to this next two hours on the show with you.

Well, before we go into the topic, tell our listeners about Toronto Baptist Seminary. Yes, Toronto Baptist Seminary is a

Reformed Baptist seminary in Toronto, Ontario, Canada, and it was founded in the early 30s by the late

Dr. T .T. Shields, and it was also part of the ministry of Jarvis Street Baptist Church, of which

Dr. T .T. Shields was the senior pastor. We are a seminary that trains men and women for the mission field.

We train both men and women in academic studies of the Bible and theology, church history, apologetics, and we also train men for the ministry of the

Word. So we have trained men into the pastorate that have gone virtually every place around the world.

From every major continent, we have pastors that graduated from our seminary.

So we are a seminary that is privately funded. We're not funded by the government here up in Canada, one of the reasons being that the government tends to ask for compromise on various doctrinal issues.

So by God's grace, God's people have been faithful, and we have been fully funded by the people of God and those who want to keep the ministry of Toronto Baptist Seminary going.

Well, I'm utterly shocked. Do you mean to tell me the government of Canada would not want to gleefully support a conservative, biblically sound theological seminary?

No, no, not at all. In fact, our current Prime Minister, Justin Trudeau, once remarked that evangelical

Christians are the worst thing that has ever happened in Canada. And so he's not a friend of evangelical

Christianity. He's very chummy with Islam and other religions, but when it comes to especially evangelical

Christianity, he's very critical. And so that's why we are glad that we could still remain a private seminary and not have the government imposing various restrictions on us.

Yeah, it never ceases to amaze me how very liberal individuals and organizations and churches and governments can be so warm and loving and supportive of Islam, when the very reasons they typically hate evangelical

Bible -believing Christianity, the very reasons are typically involved our strong stances on biblical morality.

And Islam shares the majority of those moral positions actually on steroids, because if you are living under Sharia law, you could very likely be executed for disobeying those moral regulations.

That's right. That's right. And because these other groups like Islam and other religious groups are seen through the prism of social justice and progressivism as minorities and as oppressed people, they always get a pass.

And of course, the church is seen as part of the historic oppressors, the colonizers, and they're seen as the ones responsible for some of the major travesties in history, the crusade, the slave trade, and so forth and so on.

So as you probably notice in the media, when Christians are mowed down in Mozambique, as they just were,

I believe just this past week, Chris, you may have heard Muslim terrorists in Mozambique went into a football field and basically decapitated all these people, especially

Christians, and just decapitated them en masse. And also when we hear about this in various countries across the, even in China, we know that many

Muslims there are being held in camps, in concentration camps by the Communist Chinese Party.

And the West just yawns. The West does not say a word about it. But anything to do with Christianity, you will notice it is always something that is capitalized in something that is always front and center.

And they usually use it as an example of why Christianity has been the worst thing that ever happened to the

West. Well, that is not our discussion today, however, and we must get you back on to discuss

Islam, since it is an area of expertise that you have as professor of Islam at Toronto Baptist Seminary.

But today we are discussing something that has evoked a lot of controversy, both inside and outside the

Church of Rome, both on the left and the right wing of Roman Catholicism itself.

This has all stemmed from a documentary that has recently been produced called

Francesco. And in this new documentary, Pope Francis expressed openness to the idea of laws recognizing civil unions, including for homosexual couples, to protect their rights.

Some of the statements, and I'm going to go through these statements right now, all in a row, and then we will later, immediately following, we will put these under the microscope one by one and have

Dr. Costa respond to them. The statements by Pope Francis that are most controversial in regard to this issue are homosexual persons have a right to be in the family and the parents have a right to recognize this son as homosexual, this daughter as homosexual.

Nobody should be thrown out or be made miserable over it.

And another statement that he made, they are children of God, referring to homosexuals, and have a right to a family.

And then he also said, I've always defended doctrine, and it is curious about the law on homosexual marriage.

It is a contradiction to speak of homosexual marriage. Okay, that's good so far.

But what we have to create is a civil union law.

That way they are legally covered. I defended that. So those are the comments from this documentary,

Francesco, that Pope Francis uttered during this documentary.

And of course, there are the more conservative Catholics that are critiquing the documentary or, you know, accusing the documentary of taking

Pope Francis's words out of context, by stringing a bunch of statements like this together, when apparently, according to these conservative

Catholics, that that they were stated by Pope Francis, with greater gaps of time in between, and somehow that is supposed to change, to some degree, their meaning.

I don't know how those statements taken right on their face could be viewed more approvingly by any conservative individual, anybody who believes in the inerrancy of the

Bible. As much as we oppose the Church of Rome, for having a false gospel and for their denial of Sola Scriptura, they do believe, at least dogmatically, in the inerrancy of Scripture, and they do believe

Scripture is God -believed, and so on. So there is enough in the Bible alone, and there's enough even in Roman Catholic history, to show that these are clearly ahistorical and unbiblical and even un -Catholic or anti -Catholic and anti -biblical ideas.

Let's go over these one by one. And first of all, let me also comment that, and perhaps you could respond to this, the more conservative

Catholic will say, in defense, this is nothing more than an example of how a

Pope can have personal beliefs and make comments that reflect his own ideas, that have nothing to do with teaching that is binding on the

Church, nothing to do with dogma. So therefore, it is not a contradiction to Catholic teaching that is declared ex cathedra, or binding as official dogma.

And therefore, we who are Protestants should not claim that these somehow refute the notion of papal infallibility, because they would view none of these statements as infallible, and they would also say this refutes the left -wing

Catholics that are jumping for joy, and especially those who are involved in homosexual activity, who are jumping for joy that their

Pope is affirming them, because they would say they too should have no such comfort, because these are not dogmatically binding statements.

Now, first of all, before we even go any further, would you say that I accurately assessed that?

Yes, I think you have, Chris. And if I, did you want me to just jump in and just respond to the common excuse that Roman Catholics use, that this is not a pronouncement made ex cathedra?

Yes, yes. But rather, yes. Let me just say that that, I think, is pure obfuscation, because what they're basically saying is, well, the official teaching of the

Church is this, and when the Pope speaks, he is not infallible except when he speaks ex cathedra.

But the problem here is not whether or not he's speaking ex cathedra, and that hasn't happened for 70 years.

The last dogmatic assertion of the Church was 1950, with the dogma of the

Assumption of Mary. But the issue here, Chris, is that the Pope is supposed to be, first, a

Christian, first and foremost. And as a Christian, he is supposed to abide by what

Scripture teaches. That's what the Catechism of the Catholic Church asserts about homosexuality, that it is a depraved practice and a grievous sin.

And so why they would use the argument that, well, he's not speaking infallibly, does that give him the excuse to basically utter unchristian ideas and doctrines?

And so you don't have to be infallible or to speak ex cathedra to know what

God says clearly in his word about unions that are outside the parameters of marriage.

And so I think it is just pure obfuscation, and it's laughable on its face, because what they're basically saying is, well, the

Pope can go around as an Arian and believe that Jesus Christ, the Son of God, was created by the

Father before all things, but at least he's not speaking ex cathedra, and so we really don't have to believe him there.

So I think, Chris, it's just outright obfuscation. The Pope, if he claims to be a

Christian, first and foremost, then his conscience should be bound by the Word of God, and even in the sacred tradition of the

Roman Catholic Church, homosexuality is clearly defined, or any homosexual acts in marriage or outside of marriage or in any form of any union is always considered sinful.

And we're going to be returning to this whole concept of papal infallibility and how this allegedly does not refute that, and that both the heirs of the

Reformation who were anathematized by Trent and also left -wing

Catholics are getting this all wrong, and they are exaggerating the importance of these statements, either those who are vehemently opposed to them or those who are celebrating them.

But we'll return to that after we examine some of these statements as to their faithfulness to the

Scriptures. First of all, we have the statement, if we were convinced that they are children of God, things would change quite a bit.

And I'm assuming from everything else that follows, the

Pope is saying that we should view unrepentant homosexuals, those who are actually ongoing in their identity, they're identifying themselves by their sexual desires, and since they are remaining in this state, that we as Protestants, or those at least who are theologically reformed, biblically faithful, because there are obviously heretics that abound in Protestantism and even

Evangelicalism, that would affirm the idea of a homosexual Christian, which is a damning lie.

But the idea that we should view these folks as children of God.

Now, let's start with that. Are all people, as I even hear fairly regularly on Fox News, when

I hear some of the anchors and guests who identify themselves as Evangelical Christians, I have often heard the phrase, well, it doesn't matter what religion you belong to, we are all children of God.

Is that true? Are we all children of God? No, no, not at all. That's not a biblical teaching.

The Bible is very clear on this, Chris, John 1, 12, to those, as many of those who received him, that it's

Christ to them he gave the right, the authority to be the children of God, or the sons of God, as the

King James has it. And so it is Christ himself, the Son of God, who makes us sons of God by regeneration and by election.

Those who the Father gives to the Son, to them he gives them the right and the authority to become the children of God.

Very clear in John 8 as well, if you remember the dispute the Lord Jesus had with the unbelieving Jews, and they said to him that we have

God as our Father. Jesus said, if God was your Father, you would love me and believe in me. And the

Lord Jesus went on to say that you are of your father the devil. He was a liar and a murderer from the beginning, and you seek to follow his will.

And so it's very clear. 1 John also points out, 1 John 3 points out that we may discern between the children of God and the children of the devil.

So the Bible makes it very clear that only those who are in Christ, who are regenerated by the

Holy Spirit, only they have the right to be called the children of God, and they can approach

God as Abba, as Father. But you see, the Roman Catholic Church has itself in a bit of a pretzel here,

Chris, because the Roman Catholic doctrine of baptismal regeneration maintains that at baptism, the child becomes the child of God.

The child is regenerated, their original sin is wiped out, and they become children of God.

And so homosexuals in the Roman Catholic Church who are baptized as children, Rome would have to say, by virtue of their baptism, they are, it's so facto, children of God.

Now the Pope doesn't distinguish here. When he made the claim that homosexual people have a right to be in the family, they are children of God.

He doesn't distinguish between whether he's talking about Roman Catholic folks who are gay and lesbian, but it seems to be that he has a very general idea here, referring to everyone in general.

So it's very clear from Scripture, Chris. One would be very hard -pressed to demonstrate from Scripture that unbelievers who are unregenerate, unrepentant, are children of God.

Scriptures teach no such thing. Now, there are people, obviously, those especially, if you're speaking about evangelicals, who would make those claims that we're all children of God.

They're being improperly taught, I'm assuming, unless they're just being politically correct for the sake of their jobs or whatever the reason.

But they're misunderstanding, to give it the best spin, if they're just making mistakes in the way they speak.

They are giving a wrong, an unbiblical spin on the fact that God has created every human being.

And they will attribute to the fact that he is our creator, and probably most of Christendom, with the exception of some in the

Reformed community, that don't believe all men are created in the image of God.

There are those that believe that is only referring to the elect, and specifically regenerate people who are the elect.

But if you were even to take the broader definition that all humans, whether elect or not, are created in the image of God, that does not mean that God is our father.

That does not mean he is the father of the reprobate, when we clearly see in the Scriptures that Jesus has identified some of humanity as being children of the devil.

If you could continue. Correct. Yes, correct, Chris. And also, the fact that humans are made in God's image does not logically follow that all of them are

God's children, because many of those who will be sent out into eternal punishment and alienation from God's presence at the

Last Judgment, they're also image -bearers. I believe that all human beings bear the image of God.

I think James points that out, where he talks about how we should not curse our fellow human beings, because they are made in the likeness and the similitude of God.

So James makes it clear that our fellow human beings are also made in God's likeness.

But that image, through to the Fall, is marred. That image has been marred, and in regeneration,

Jesus Christ restores us to that perfect image. We are being conformed, we are told, to the image of his

Son in our sanctification. And so, Judas Iscariot was an image -bearer of God as well, but Jesus pointed out that he was the son of perdition, that he was meant to go into destruction so that the

Scriptures might be fulfilled. So it doesn't logically follow that just because humans bear the image of God that they are necessarily children of God.

The Bible does not make that connection. The closest we come to this, Chris, is in Paul's sermon in Athens in the book of Acts, chapter 17, where he is talking to the

Athenians, and there he is quoting from one of the Greek poets where he said, we are his offspring.

And so, it's important to realize that Paul is not quoting Scripture here, Paul is quoting one of the poets, and Paul is using that as a means to bring the

Athenians in to listen to the message that God has created them, and that they are accountable to him as his creatures.

They're morally accountable to him. But it's important to realize that nowhere in Scripture does the

Bible ever speak of unbelievers as God's children. There would be no need for John, for example, in his first epistle.

There'd be no need for John to say, thereby we know the children of God and the children of the devil.

So the Bible is very clear on this. If you're either an Adam or you're in Christ, if you're an

Adam, unfortunately you will die, and you come under the, we are children of wrath, we are called children of disobedience in Ephesians 2.

But if you're in Christ, then you are made a child of God. And this is very important,

Chris. John 1 -12 does say, to as many as received him, that's Christ, Christ gave them the power and the right and the authority to be called children of God.

And then verse 13 is very important, who were born not of the will of man nor of the flesh, but they were born of God.

He was God who birthed them by his grace and regeneration and so forth.

So only those whom God has regenerated by the Holy Spirit, that have the Holy Spirit, only they can be properly called the sons of God.

And that's why, again, Romans 8, Paul says that those who are in the flesh cannot please

God. But you need the Holy Spirit. Those who are led by the Holy Spirit, Paul says, they are the sons of God.

And so it's very clear, the Scripture is very clear that the sons of God, children of God, are a distinct group from those who are outside of God's redemption.

And I just had an idea that flew out of my head just a second ago. It'll come back.

I hope so. Or perhaps there's a reason for that. But going back to the statements of Pope Francis that have caused this controversy, which, first of all, obviously, they're not a huge shock, because he has revealed his left -wing sentiments, even as soon as he was elected or appointed to the papacy.

So it's no real surprise, even at one point when he was asked about homosexuality, he said, who am

I to judge? Well, first of all, I would say, yeah, you're right. You're no one to judge, because you are not the vicar of Christ.

You're not the head of the church. But he claims to be. So for him to make the statement, who am

I to judge, is quite absurd. But the second quote that I would like to have you address under the microscope, homosexual persons have a right to be in a family, and the parents have a right to recognize this son as homosexual, this daughter as homosexual.

Nobody should be thrown out or made miserable over it. Now, that statement,

I believe, is a mixture of half -truths and falsehoods.

And in fact, I'm going to have you go over some of those half -truths and falsehoods when we return from our first break.

And our email address, if anybody would like to join us on the air, is chrisarnsen at gmail .com,

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 of residence, and your country of residence if you live outside the

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Don't go away. We'll be right back with Tony Costa right after these messages from our sponsors.

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And if you just tuned us in, Tony Costa, the wonderful voice that you just heard, he is our guest today for the entirety of the program and he is responding to Pope Francis' recent affirmation as recorded in a documentary called

Francesco, his recent statements affirming same -sex civil unions 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

chrisarnsen at gmail .com gives your first name at least your city and state of residence and your country of residence if you live outside the

USA only remain anonymous if your question involves a personal and private matter. I remembered now

Tony what I was going to say before I told you come back Chris there you go when we were thought it around you came back when we were reflecting upon Pope Francis' statement if we were convinced that they, meaning homosexuals, are children of God things would change quite a bit.

Now a couple of things I wanted to say is that some people may be either intentionally or just because of poor memory dropping half the second half of a very important verse out of the scriptures.

Galatians 3 26 says for you are all children of God and the second part that people are eliminating through faith in Jesus Christ or through faith in Christ Jesus.

That's an important factor in being a child of God and obviously not everybody has faith in Christ Jesus and therefore our

Arminian friends have to be very careful when they accuse the

Calvinists of allegorizing and spiritualizing everything in scripture by saying remember all is all it's always when we when you see all in the bible it always means all well obviously the strictest of fundamentalists who despise

Calvinism would never believe that everyone is a child of God possessing faith in Christ Jesus so obviously that can't mean every single person and the other thing that it would completely annihilate if you were to take this idea that we are all children of God including unrepentant homosexuals the whole concept of the doctrine of adoption and Ephesians 1 3 to 5 blessed be the

God and father of our Lord Jesus Christ who has blessed us with every spiritual blessing in the heavenly place places in Christ even as he chose us in him before the foundation of the world that we would be holy and without defect before him in love having predestined us for adoption as children through Jesus Christ to himself according to the good pleasure of his will so obviously if we were already children of God before we came to faith in Christ then this idea of adoption would be meaningless wouldn't it that's right that's right and also remember as well

Chris that we are not children of God by nature now this is very important we're not children of God by nature there's only one who is son of God by nature and that is the eternal son of God who shares the nature the divine nature with the father and the holy spirit and that is why he is the one and only son the only begotten son the one unique son of God and therefore we are not uh children of God by nature that's why we need to be adopted and in Ephesians the reason why

Paul uses the language of adoption and in Romans 8 as well is because in Ephesians 2 verse 1

Paul has already identified us he's identified us before Christ before we came to Christ he spoke of us as sons of disobedience among whom we all once lived and then he goes on to say we were by nature children of wrath like the rest of mankind and therefore because we were children of wrath we were children of disobedience this necessitated that God would adopt us that is we were not his children and then he adopted us as his children and and this idea of adoption

Chris is so important because the the Greek word Paul uses there is with a

Greco -Roman word that was used in the in the first century and what it implied was that a person a child that was adopted as a son even though he was not biologically related to the to the father the stepfather he would be deemed to have all the full rights as if he were a biological son so take for example

Augustus Caesar the Roman emperor during the time of Jesus's birth the

Roman emperor Augustus Caesar was the adopted son of Julius Caesar he was not the biological son of Julius and but by by virtue of adoption he was treated as if he were the very son of Caesar and therefore he was eligible to become the next emperor and so it's in that context that Paul refers to us as children of God as children who've been adopted so that is crucial because the context of Ephesians bears out that we were once children of wrath we were sons of disobedience and God adopted us into his family and made us his children okay and the other uh statement by Pope Francis I wanted us to examine again homosexual persons have a right to be in the family and the parents have a right to recognize this son as homosexual this daughter as homosexual nobody should be thrown out or be made miserable over it now obviously there are some half -truths in there um we don't

I'm assuming you would agree with me that if a child even a teenager or somebody in their 20s or however old they may be living under the roof of their parents he says to them

I'm really struggling with same -sex attraction um

I need your prayers I need uh guidance I need help in this situation and of course situations may vary from household to household when these things occur they may even say that they're involved in the physical activity and whether or not that automatically means they should be removed from the household that's something between that family and biblically faithful elders of a church but but we are not saying that parents should hate their children that are involved in either homosexual desire or activity that they should necessarily be banished from the family and I think that there as I just hinted at I think that there are uh occasions when especially if an older child is being a horrible influence on younger children where this person if he is unrepentant should be uh demanded to leave the household as long as they were old enough to fend for themselves and so on and but of course

I think that no parent should allow homosexual activity to be going on under their roof uh so so you do have a mixture there you have have truths in this misleading statement but the thing that is really

I think the most significant part of this statement is nobody should be thrown out or made miserable over it should not sin make us miserable yes of course of course and the idea here is that if a son or a daughter in the household is struggling and again homosexuality is sinful to God just as much as promiscuity fornication watching pornography and acting out what you view on pornography all of these things are sinful and people struggle with these sins but if you're going to bring let's say some gay son says

I'm going to bring my boyfriend over or a husband the daughter says I'm going to bring my my girlfriend over to sleep over absolutely not that is you have to respect the right to the home uh and and recognizing that you have same -sex attraction is not the same as endorsing that type of practice and so I think that in the household

I certainly uh with my own children I certainly wouldn't uh tell them to leave my home if they were telling me that they were struggling and they were they were seeking help and and and prayer and so forth and so on but if you become a recalcitrant uh a person who who bucks that authority in the home uh which is a which is is basically a reflection of of you rejecting and bucking against God's ultimate authority uh then then

I think there comes there's a place for discipline there and if they're old enough then I think parents who have a right to say look we cannot condone this behavior in our home uh we are we are

Christians we raised you to fear God and so forth and so on so I agree with you Chris I think uh

I think Francis is being uh I think he's being very very um ambiguous here uh he's not being very clear on this um so we're not saying that we're going to throw out our children because they're struggling with this uh but it's another thing to allow this type of practice to go on under your roof in fact we have to go to our midway break right now

Tony and I do want to revisit this uh a couple of sentences uh if anybody would like to join us our email address is chrisarnson at gmail .com

c -h -r -i -s -a -r -n -z -e -n at gmail .com please give us at least your first name your city and state of residence in your country your residence if you live outside the

USA only remain anonymous if your question involves a personal and private matter this is our longer than normal break in the show because Grace Life Radio 90 .1

FM in Lake City Florida requires of us a longer break so that they can air their own public service announcements and other things that localize this show to Lake City Florida which is a requirement of the

FCC so please be patient with us and use this time wisely uh while they are airing

Grace Life Radio that is airing their own local announcements we are airing our globally heard commercials and I would strongly ask you and urge you please to write down as much of the information as you can provided by as many of our advertisers as you can and respond to these ads either by purchasing what they're selling or making use of the services or at least by responding to them and thanking them for sponsoring this show we depend on our advertisers to exist we need the finances that come in through these advertisements so please try to patronize our advertisers as much as you can and we look forward to hearing from you and your questions for Dr.

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Dividing Line webcast here although God has brought me all over the globe for many years to teach preach and debate at numerous venues some of my very fondest memories are from those precious times of fellowship with Pastor Rich Jensen and the brethren at Hope Reform Baptist Church now located at their new beautiful facilities in Coram, Long Island, New York.

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Before we return to our guest Tony Costa, as we reflect upon Pope Francis' affirmation of same -sex unions, we just have a couple of important announcements to make.

Friday, we are going to have two excellent interviews back -to -back.

I am quite confident they will be excellent, even though they haven't occurred yet. My friend

Gary DeMar, President of American Vision, is going to be addressing his new book,

Restoring the Foundation of Civilization, God's Government or Chaos.

That's from 4 to 5 p .m. Eastern Time this Friday, and then from 5 to 6 p .m.

during the second half of the show, I am going to have a first -time guest, and that first -time guest is a brother who came from the highest recommendations from Mike Gadosz, and here it is.

I was looking for his name and the title of his book. Mike Gadosz of Solid -Ground

Christian Books has published a new book that should be available next week, Battle Cry, Reflections for Soul Readiness in the

Defense of the Gospel in and out of Season, by James Fryer, who, as I said, will be a first -time guest this

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chrisarnsen at gmail .com, and put I need a church in the subject line. That's also the email address where you can send in a question to Dr.

Tony Costa on the subject of Pope Francis' recent affirmation of same -sex civil unions.

That's chrisarnsen at gmail .com. Give us your first name at least, your city and state of residence, and your country of residence if you live outside the

USA. Now, going back to Pope Francis' statement, homosexual persons have a right to be in the family, and the parents have a right to recognize this son as homosexual, this daughter as homosexual.

Now, people, not only Roman Catholics who have a flawed view of homosexuality to begin with, because I don't know if you are aware of this, you probably are,

Tony, but a lot of our listeners might not be aware of this, even conservative Roman Catholics typically think it is completely acceptable and right to ordain into the priesthood a candidate that tells those interviewing him that he is a homosexual.

They are only requiring that the person takes a vow of chastity but they seem to think that this condition, they're acting like this condition is something irreversible, something that makes up and embodies the very personhood of this individual, and just as many people are heterosexual, and many people are

Caucasian, and many people are Black, and many people are Asian, and many people are

Hispanic, and many people are Native American Indian, many people are homosexual, and that's just the way they are, and deal with it.

They only, as I said, require that they remain chaste. Now, that flies in the face of 1

Corinthians chapter 6, 11, where Paul says, including to homosexuals who are in his audience, some,

I'm sorry, such were some of you, but you were washed, but you were sanctified, but you were justified in the name of the

Lord Jesus Christ, in the spirit of our God, and again I emphasize, such were some of you.

This is not a life sentence when somebody discovers that they have these urges, these desires, these attractions to the same sex.

If they place their trust in Christ, I'm not saying that Christ has guaranteed that these struggles with sin will vanish instantly, but they are not to believe that this is the way they are wired irreversibly.

Am I right? Isn't that a sin to give up on God, and wave the white flag, and say, God will not or cannot change me?

Yeah, absolutely, because, and I'm glad you brought up 1 Corinthians 6, because 6 -11 there, because Paul had just given a list of various sins that keep us out of the kingdom of God, and among them is homosexuality, or homosexual behavior.

And in that very chapter, remember in 1 Corinthians 6, 9 and 10, Paul goes on to point out that our bodies are the temple of God, and the temple of the

Holy Spirit, and therefore the body belongs to the Lord. The body is not to be used for sexual immorality.

And therefore, in light of that, Paul goes on to say, look, some of you guys were like this, some of you guys were adulterers, some of you guys were homosexuals, and so forth, but you were cleansed, and so forth.

Now, the call of Christ in our lives, the Lord Jesus says that if you wish to be my disciple, you have to deny yourself and take up your cross and follow me.

And so there's a measure there, Chris, of us denying ourselves, which includes denying our needs, our sexual desires that may be perverted and against God's law, and so forth.

And so the Lord Jesus calls us to total surrender, that it's not about you. At the end of the day, it's not about your needs, and no one has ever died from not having sex, and the call of Christ is one of not just denying yourself, but it's one of taking up that cross and following Him.

And many people have died, and many people have died by having homosexual sex, and even heterosexual promiscuous sex.

That's correct, that's correct. And so, again, sexuality is something that was created by God.

It is created by God to be enjoyed within a context of marital covenant, and just like fire,

Chris, fire, when it's not properly contained, can be destructive, and same with sexual relations.

When it's not properly maintained in the way God designed it, it has serious ramifications.

Now, what is astounding to me is that the comments of Francis fly right in the face of the official statements that you could even find on the

Catechism of the Catholic Church. So what he's definitely against, Chris, and to his credit, he's willing to say, look,

I'm not talking about gay marriages only between a man and a woman, because in the Roman Catholic Church, marriage is also a sacrament that conveys grace.

But where I think he's really tripping up here is, he seems to think that being in a civil union is not marriage.

But, Chris, when we think about a union of two homosexual men, I mean, we're not talking about Felix and Oscar and the odd couple here.

We're talking about two men who are sexually attracted to each other, or two women who are sexually attracted to each other.

And the problem here, I think, is the word union. When he speaks about a union, well, what does that mean?

Well, obviously, it sounds like something like people today who live common law, that is, they live together, but they're not legally married, and so forth.

So his very language of civil union, I think, is very disturbing here, because it still does not answer the question that you still have two people engaging in practices that are clearly condemned by God and are punishable by eternal separation from his presence.

Now, this is sort of redundant here. Pope Francis saying they, meaning homosexuals, are children of God and have a right to a family.

We've already addressed that. But he leaves open the misinterpretation, and I'm assuming it's a misinterpretation.

A right to a family conjures up the idea of two homosexuals acting as parents of adopted children, or even the children of one or both of these same -sex partners, after they had sired children of females, whether they're wives in a former marriage or girlfriends or whatever the case may be.

But apparently, the conservatives who are critiquing this documentary said that Pope Francis has not affirmed homosexual couples, same -sex couples adopting children.

Now, whether that's true or not, I don't know. But that certainly leaves that idea in one's head being so vague in the statement, doesn't it?

Yes. No, I totally agree with you. I mean, 17 years ago, Chris, in 2003, the

Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, which is one of the offices, if you will, of the

Vatican that oversees doctrine, doctrinal issues, at that time they had issued a document where they urged

Roman Catholics to oppose, and I'm quoting here, to oppose giving, quote, legal recognition to unions between homosexual persons, close quote, especially when those unions are equated with marriage and would allow the couple to adopt children.

And so it's interesting that in 2003, that's just 17 years ago, the Congregation for the

Doctrine of the Faith had issued a document telling Roman Catholics that they should oppose giving legal recognition to unions between homosexual persons, and now

Pope Francis, in 2021, is now, sorry, 2020, is now saying that we should allow legal recognition of civil union for homosexuals.

And in fact, we find here that the

Pope is not against the idea of these unions, he's solely against the idea of same -sex marriage.

But call it what you will, sexuality is practiced outside of marriage as well, and equally condemned in Scripture.

So there seems to be some tension between what Pope Francis is saying now and what the

Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith was saying 17 years ago in 2003. Now, it is very obvious Pope Francis wants to make people who are involved in unrepentant and damnable sin, sin that is an abomination, sin that is unnatural, sin that the

Church of Rome, for centuries up until him being the

Pope, has condemned in the harshest words and terms and so on, although having deficiency, as I've already mentioned, that even conservative

Catholics believe that a man who admits to being a homosexual, as long as he takes a vow of chastity, is welcomed into the priesthood if he qualifies in other ways.

But this idea of making people feel more comfortable and enjoying life more, while they are in the midst of unrepentant sin, is this even an idea that Christians should contemplate?

I'm not saying that we should be torturing people involved in unrepentant sin, that we are never to be kind to them, that we are never to make their lives pleasant.

I mean, we are to pray for even our enemies, and we are to do good for our enemies, and so on.

But to make their lives, and even establish laws that make them feel more comfortable and free to remain in unrepentance, that is not a

Christian mindset or worldview, is it? No. No, no. I mean, Scripture is replete with prohibitions against sinning.

Scripture reminds us over and over and over again that we ought to walk in the

Spirit, not in the flesh, not to gratify the desires of the flesh. It warms us over and over again to flee youthful lusts and to pursue holiness, without which no man shall see the

Lord. And so the life of the Christian is, in a sense, a life of ongoing repentance.

We are told to confess our sins, and if we confess our sins, He is righteous and just to forgive us our sins and cleanse us from all unrighteousness.

And therefore, the Christian life is to be a life lived for Christ, where He calls us once again to deny yourself, and that means making

Him Lord of your life, putting Him first and foremost as King over every aspect of your life.

And so the way that He makes this sound, Chris, it really goes against the official teaching of the

Roman Catholic Church. As I pointed out, anyone can find this online at vatican .va,

vatican .va. They can simply look under the Catechism of the Catholic Church, look at Chapter 2,

Article 6, dealing with the Sixth Commandment, and Sections 2357 to 2359 deal with the whole question of chastity and homosexuality.

And the document in the Catechism, Chris, would agree with everything you and I just said here.

Claiming that Scripture presents homosexuality as a grave depravity, that's a direct quote, and that the tradition of the

Church has declared that, quote, homosexual acts are intrinsically disordered, close quote.

They're contrary to natural law, and they close the sexual act to the gift of life. And so the

Church in the Catechism goes on to say, under no circumstances can they be approved, and that is the union of two men and two women.

But what Francis is saying is, sure, let's just give them recognition of legal civil unions, as long as we don't call it marriage.

But as you know, Chris, the old saying, a rose is a rose by any other name. Sin is sin by any other name.

Whatever name you give it, it is still a violation of God's law. So I think this is more,

I think, more telling of the person of Francis. You would never hear this from Pope Trump II, or even

Benedict XVI, who is now Pope Emeritus. But I think this lends itself to Francis' leftist liberation theology.

He's a Marxist. I see no evidence to indicate he is a fan of capitalism. So all of that put together,

Chris, I think shows us that we're dealing with a very different kind of Pope here. Now the last statement that we'll examine is where Pope Francis said,

I've always defended doctrine, and it is curious about the law on homosexual marriage.

It is a contradiction to speak of homosexual marriage. Okay, so far, so good.

But we have to create, but what we have to create is a civil union law, and that way they are legally covered.

I defended that. Now that, once again, goes back to what we've already said, that he is all in favor of making people involved in unrepentant, ongoing sin more comfortable with less negative consequences in their life to deal with, in this life anyway.

And let me introduce this concept to the whole conversation.

Nobody is really doing any favor to a person involved in unrepentant homosexuality or any unrepentant sin by salving their conscience and making them more free and comfortable to continue in their depraved lives.

I mean, are we actually blessing or doing good or doing a favor to any of these people in this way?

No, absolutely not. It's quite diabolical when you think about it, Chris. We're not doing them a favor because we are not presenting to them the holiness of God.

We're not presenting to them the call on everyone's life, especially the

Christian, to walk in holiness. And so my main concern here,

Chris, and I've been pointing this out to some Roman Catholics on social media, how can this man be the so -called shepherd of the

Church Catholic? How can this man be the so -called

Vicar of Christ on the earth when he is clearly, clearly not speaking the words of Christ?

He's not leading the sheep in holiness. So I really think that this says more about the state of the

Roman Catholic Church. And I'm not saying all Roman Catholics agree with Francis on this, but the same

Roman Catholics are stuck with the fact that they still call him the Holy Father and they still believe that he has been appointed as the

Vicar of Christ. I don't know how any person who calls themselves the Vicar of Christ and the

Holy Father can endorse this type of behavior, Chris, because all this is is just an occasion for sin.

And we have to go to our final break, and what I'm going to do is

I'm going to read a question from a listener and have you answer it when we come back. Sure. We have

Brian from New Hyde Park, Long Island, New York, who says,

Isn't Francis just exercising his own personal interpretation on gay unions, just like most

Roman Catholics, because he's not speaking in an official capacity proclaiming a dogma, yet he's advocating a sinful lifestyle, isn't he?

And we'll have you respond to that when we come back from our final break. And once again, if you have a question, send it in immediately because we're rapidly running out of time.

ChrisArnson at gmail .com. ChrisArnson at gmail .com. Don't go away, we'll be right back.

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This is Chris Arnzen. And right before the break, Dr. Costa, we had a question from Brian in New High Park, Long Island, New York.

Isn't Francis just exercising his own personal interpretation on gay unions, just like most

Roman Catholics, because he's not speaking in an official capacity proclaiming a dogma, yet he's advocating a sinful lifestyle, isn't he?

Well, this goes back to, I remember clearly, it could have been the late 80s or early 90s when

Father Mitch Pacwa, who, although he is a Roman Catholic priest, and I believe has a false gospel,

I think he's a man of integrity. And he's not a dishonest person, intentionally, that is.

And I quite like him as a person very much. But he was involved in a very well -known debate on the

John Ankerberg Show with, oh boy, his name just flew out of my head.

Walter Martin. Yes, yes. I've interviewed his daughter,

Cindy Martin Morgan, many times. But anyway, when

Walter Martin was debating him on the papacy, Mitch Pacwa admitted during the debate that he believed that there will be many popes in hell.

And I can still remember the laughter breaking out in the audience when

Walter Martin started saying, he said it, he said it, not me, he said it. But the

Catholic Church, their apologists have actually said one of the beautiful proofs that the

Church of Rome is the true church is that they have had popes who have been wicked, unregenerate, heretical, and blasphemous people who are going to be in hell or are already in hell.

But they still, and this is where they say this is such a wonderful miracle, that God has still preserved the

Roman Catholic Church and even the papacy because none of these men defined as dogma anything that is heretical or blasphemous or that is in contradiction of scripture.

Now, the thing that really gets me frustrated about this is that for most of my

Christian life, I was raised Roman Catholic, as you know, and for most of my life as an evangelical, I've been hearing Catholic apologists say the doctrine, the

Reformation doctrine of sola scriptura and the sufficiency of scripture, sufficiency of scripture alone, and that scripture alone is our sole infallible inerrant authority over the

Church, that this is a blueprint for anarchy and that the

Roman Catholic Church has this beautiful blessing of never having to worry that they will be in error and that they will be misguided and that their

Pope will always be a faithful shepherd because he will never teach dogmatically things that are not true.

Now, how on earth could your average Catholic really have any faith that this man is a shepherd they can have confidence in to guide them when he is teaching things that not only defies scripture and are anti -Christian and anti -biblical, but things that would have had him executed by the

Church of Rome centuries ago? I mean, isn't this just a fallacy, this idea that Protestants have a blueprint for anarchy because they are subject to individual private interpretation of the

Bible where we have a Pope that is inerrant and infallible and we can trust him to rightly teach us what the

Bible says? Not only does he hardly ever do that dogmatically in history, but he speaks things that contradict not only the

Bible but Catholic history, and we are supposed to think that this man is still a safe guide for the body of Christ.

Now, if you could just continue. Right, right. Well, I mean, it reminds me of Luther at the

Diet of Worms where he pointed out that he would not recant unless he was convinced by scripture, and he points out how

Popes and councils have contradicted each other, and that's very much true then as it is today.

I would also add to the mix as well that the papacy, actually, the whole idea of infallibility, papal infallibility,

Chris, was never defined or enunciated until Vatican I in 1870, and even when it was put out at Vatican I, it was opposed by a large number of bishops who opposed it, and they believe that Pius IX actually rigged the electoral votes, no pun intended to what's going on right now with the presidency, but that's very much the case.

There was a lot of rigging of votes going on, and when Father Pacwa said that, look, you know, we've got, there are popes who are in hell, and so forth.

Well, yeah, I mean, Pope Honorius, for example, was a monothelicist.

He denied the Orthodox teaching that Christ had two wills, the divine and human wills, and he was deemed a heretic.

But then the Roman Catholic Church, on the other side of its mouth, is saying, but these popes were lawfully ordained, they received the sacrament of holy orders, which means that they were marked with the mark of Christ, and so they were born again at their baptism, they were regenerate, and the whole thing, really,

Chris, when you think about it, it is absolute bedlam. It is absolute chaos.

Romans 8 says, those whom God foreknew he justified, and those whom he justified he called the elective, and they will be glorified.

So if you're called and justified by God, you are a shoo -in. Your glorification is certain.

But when I listen to Father Pacwa, when I listen to modern -day apologists at Catholic Answers, we simply keep hearing this double -talk that goes on.

I mean, to answer the question that Brian had very quickly, Chris, I mean, to say that he's just giving his personal opinion, but wouldn't the pope, as a

Christian, be stating what the biblical worldview and opinion is on this?

I mean, John said, let us not just be hearers of the Word, but let us be doers of the

Word. And James says, faith without works is dead, and one who says he has faith and doesn't have works is like someone who looks in the mirror and then forgets what he looked like.

So I don't buy this excuse that the pope is just rendering his own personal opinion, but as a

Christian, should he not, in the very least, be enunciating what God has stated about matrimony, what

God has stated about sexual act outside of the covenant of marriage? And so really, what

I think, Chris, is what I stated at the outset. I think this is just obfuscation on the part of many of our

Roman Catholic friends. Yes. The claim of Rome that they are safer than we as Protestants are, and when

I say Protestants, I'm speaking of heirs of the Reformation who truly uphold Protestant teaching as it has historically been understood, and the fact that it has been biblical, not the apostates and mainline

Protestant churches, but that the Church of Rome is safer than us because we have our own private interpretations to deal with, and they have this infallible interpreter.

The problem is, they don't have an infallible interpreter for their infallible interpreter.

I mean, I don't believe they have any infallible interpreter, but to act as if they bypass the problem of private interpretation is ridiculous, because everybody is always scrambling around trying to define what any

Pope says in an encyclical or any kind of statement. Right. And also,

I was just going to add, Chris, that what parts of Scripture, other than Matthew 16 and John 21, the so -called papal passages, what parts of Scripture have been infallibly interpreted?

And I think Raymond Brown, a famous Roman Catholic scholar, openly admitted that there's a huge portion of the

Bible that has not been infallibly interpreted. And isn't there an argument that there has never been an ex -Catholic...

Yes! Yes, in fact, Raymond Brown made that claim, that there has never been, other than the pronouncements that have been made on the papacy and the

Immaculate Conception of Mary and the Assumption of Mary. But other than that, Chris, there is nothing that...I

mean, is there an infallible interpretation on Genesis 1? I don't know of any in the

Roman Catholic Church. I don't know any Pope who's given an infallible interpretation of Genesis 1.

So, again, who...I mean, does the infallible interpreter have an infallible guide?

And they'll say, well, that is the Holy Spirit, but how can a Pope who claims to be infallible when he speaks ex -Cathedra?

Remember, Chris, that was 70 years ago. That was in 1950, the last dogma that the

Roman Church defined. And so for 70 years, the Church has been without any official infallible dogma.

And I think that this shows, Chris, that the Roman Church is actually a divided house.

I mean, we can talk about the sativacantists, we can talk about others who are not following the

Roman Church, those who believe in artificial birth control, and so forth. There's a lot of division in the

Roman Church. Yeah, the sativacantists, just so our listeners understand what that means, they believe that the office of the papacy is biblical, but they believe that that office has been empty since Vatican II, that sativacantist means the chair is empty, the seat of Peter is empty, is vacant.

And so therefore, you have people like Jerry Matatix, who was a believer when

I first met him and had him involved in two debates on Long Island. He was a believer that the current

Pope at the time, which was John Paul II, he believed at the time that John Paul II was an authentic Pope, but he no longer believes that, he no longer believes any

Pope has been a real occupant of the seat of Peter since Vatican II.

Yeah, and Robert St. Genesis, if you remember our friend that I debate on the

American Conception, Carlisle, he opposes some of the

Marian apparitions, particularly the one in Medjugorje.

He denied it and actually thinks it's demonic. Yes, and there are more traditionalist Catholics tend to believe that it is a false apparition.

Right, right. So again, there is a lot of division in the Roman Church, and so the claim that,

I mean, the claim that Sola Scriptura is ripe for dissension, I think is false.

I think God's Word unites us, doesn't divide us, and that's because Cat is infallible. The Scriptures are

God -given, but when it comes to the Church, the Roman Catholic Church, they hold to Sola Ecclesia, and so in their position, the

Church alone defines Scripture, the Church defines the canon, the Church defines everything there is to the

Christian life, and all we've seen from that is utter division, and not just utter division, but doctrinal confusion as well.

Yeah, when they say that the fact that there are, and they claim that there's over 30 ,000 denominations, which is not true, but they make that claim that Sola Scriptura is the blueprint for that kind of division, well, if you want to compare apples with apples instead of apples with oranges, you have to compare the

Church of Rome and the divisions that exist in that denomination with those conservative evangelicals who actually believe in Sola Scriptura, and the differences that we have, although some of them serious, we agree on what the

Bible teaches that is necessary for salvation. We believe in unanimity, the pillars of the faith, and the

Church of Rome has far more divisions under the umbrella of Rome than we do.

They are not a monolith. No, no, and they confuse unity with uniformity.

I mean, we believe in the unity of the body of Christ, and the Church across the world, there are cultural differences in some churches depending which continent you're on, but we believe in unity.

The Roman Church believes in uniformity. It's the same liturgical reading every Sunday, it's the same, the words during the

Mass are universal around the world, even if they're in different languages, they are all the same, and so the

Roman Church thinks that as long as you have this uniform church that this is the church that Christ established, but no, not at all.

Uniformity is not the same as unity. Now, Brian from New Hyde Park, I guess this must be, he must be quoting you, because he wants me to tell you this.

I have a feeling he may be quoting you. He says, tell Tony I believe the papacy is burped from hell.

Is that something that you said, or is it a quote you used? I don't, yeah,

I would have used worse language. No, I'm kidding. I honestly don't know. Maybe I did say that in some past interview or lecture or something.

I don't know, but I would definitely say the papacy is definitely unbiblical and opposed to Christ's kingdom.

In fact, there are many Roman Catholics who believe that Pope Francis is from hell, and it's interesting, unlike the

Sedevacantists, the Lefebvrites believe that every pope since Vatican II is evil and unregenerate, but they still believe that they are true popes.

Yeah, yeah, and then you'll have them quoting Saint Malachi, who is believed to have predicted that the last pope would be, the last, the anti -Christ figure would be the pope.

I mean, the Reformers, consistently, even up until John Wesley and the

Methodist Church, the Reformers, unanimously, including the

Church of England in its 39 Articles of Faith, all of them confess the papacy is anti -Christ.

Every single one of them. So, it's not surprising that the

Reformers had one thing in common, that the papacy was anti -Christ, not only because it violated

Scripture, but even the very title that the pope used, the word vicar of Christ, in Latin, vicaris

Christi, the word vicar means to be in the place of, like the word vicaris atonement means

Christ died in the place of sinners. And the Greek equivalent of the word vicaris in Latin is the

Greek word anti, the preposition anti. And so vicaris Christi is the same as anti -Christos in Greek, which means not only that this person claims to be in the place of Christ, but is at the same time against Christ, opposed to Christ.

And it's interesting that Pope, that even Father Pacwa in his debate with James White, brought up the fact that a priest is an alter

Christus, another Christ. Yes, yes, indeed. And I think another

Christ in the latest 2 Corinthians 11, 3 and 4, those who preach another Christ, another

Jesus, another gospel. But we're actually out of time, Tony, I'm sorry. Sure.

And I want to make sure, first of all, I know that the website for Toronto Baptist Seminary is tbs .edu,

tbs .edu for Toronto Baptist Seminary, and any other contact information you care to share?

Yeah, well, folks can come and visit my Facebook page. I have a lot of my lectures and events on there.

The Baptist Seminary is offering online courses as well, because of the COVID situation.

So next, starting in January, the new year, I will be teaching two courses. One will be on the reliability of the

Bible, and we will be dealing with everything from preservation to textual variance to archaeology to perspicuity of scriptures.

So if any of your listeners are interested, they can apply online, they can take the course as an audit student if they wish, if they just want to learn.

I'm also teaching comparable religions as well. So yeah, my

Facebook page will contain all that information. And his last name, folks, is C -O -S -T -A,

Tony Costa. Thank you so much, Tony, for being such an excellent guest. I look forward to your frequent return to our program.

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