The Roman Catholic Chuirch and the Gospel

So, we have Dr. James White with us here today. He is the author of several acclaimed books, including

The God Who Justifies and The Forgotten Trinity. He is the director of Alpha and Omega Ministries, which is a

Christian apologetic organization. And thank you for pronouncing it correctly. It always gets massacred in the

UK, they have Omega, I don't know what that means, but... I was preparing a lot for this interview.

And he is an elder of the Phoenix Reformed Baptist Church. I also have here that you are an accomplished debater, having participated in over 100 moderated debates covering topics such as Calvinism, Roman Catholicism, Islam, Mormonism, debating

Jehovah's Witnesses and Atheists. And Dr. White has taught

Greek and Hebrew, also systematic theology, and various topics in the field of apologetics.

So we are really grateful that we can have you here today. And we have a couple of questions, and if we can get some of your insights or your thoughts on it, that would be great.

Great. It's great to be with you. Yeah, I just want to say welcome, James, also, and thank you so much for taking the time to do this interview with us.

And as Radek mentioned, one of the fields of your expertise is

Roman Catholicism. So we would like to focus this debate on Roman Catholicism and how it differs from evangelical faith.

So before we move on to some further questions, could you define evangelicalism for us?

Start with a tough question. That used to be something you could do fairly easily because you could define the evangel, the gospel, and there were certain things that defined evangelicals, such as their commitment to biblical authority, to a biblical gospel, to the return of Jesus Christ, to a conservative biblicism.

Unfortunately, today, especially in Western countries, people are being identified as evangelicals who are straying far away from that.

Now, I hope that's not the case where you're from, but it might be, or if it's not yet, it probably will be, because even to the point of doctrines like the

Trinity becoming compromised amongst people who are being identified as evangelicals, obviously, historically, the primary issue separating

Roman Catholicism and evangelicalism in the historic sense,

Protestantism at least in its historical sense as well, is really focused upon two aspects, the issue of authority and the issue of the gospel.

And so at the time of the Reformation, we're coming up on the 500 -year anniversary of at least the traditional beginning of the

Reformation with the 95 Theses in October 31, 1517, which if you know your history, there was a whole lot before that, a whole lot after that that really was relevant to that.

But at that time, historians identify the formal principle of the

Reformation to be sola scriptura, the scriptures are the sole infallible rule of faith for the church.

And then the material principle, that which was proclaimed, was sola fide, that faith alone is the mechanism by which a person acquires that righteousness from God that it can allow them to have true peace with God.

And though there have been many developments and changes and various movements within Roman Catholicism since then, those issues remain the important issues in dealing with Roman Catholicism.

And so that's where most of the debates that I've done have focused. We've debated the papacy and Marian dogmas and all sorts of other things.

But more often we're debating sola scriptura and justification, the mass because the mass is very directly relevant as the central aspect of Roman Catholic worship to the gospel and things like that.

And those issues are new for every generation, they're not going away.

Unfortunately, many evangelicals have for some reason decided to consider those to be somewhat side issues rather than central and definitional issues.

So how would you say evangelical church defines authority differing from what is the main authority for the

Roman Catholic? Just last week a man that I've debated a few times by the name of Tim Staples, a

Roman Catholic apologist in the United States, took a phone call on a radio program he was doing and he made a statement that I think sort of summarizes it.

He said, well you need to remember that Roman Catholicism does not derive its doctrine from any text of scripture.

And he's right, while Roman Catholicism will make references to scripture and will speak of scripture as having authority, fundamentally

I have always argued that the opposite of sola scriptura is sola ecclesia.

What do I mean by that? Well, Rome says that you have scripture and tradition and that the church is under the authority of scripture and tradition.

The problem is Rome says that she has the authority to define what scripture is, fix the can of scripture, and to interpret scripture infallibly.

And hence when she interprets it cannot be corrected in that. She also says she gets to define what tradition is, what the extent of tradition is, what writing of the early church fathers is going to be considered tradition and what others are going to be rejected, and then to infallibly interpret what that tradition is as well.

How can you be under the authority of two things that depend upon you for their definition and interpretation?

I say to you it's impossible. The ultimate authority of the Roman Catholic Church is the

Roman Catholic Church. And so Rome is in essence in a monologue with herself, it's not that there's a dialogue with scripture, with tradition, things like that, that's just not the case.

And over the past, well since the time of the Reformation, when you look at what Rome has defined dogmatically it hasn't been a clarification of the doctrines of salvation or anything like that.

What are the three big dogmas that have been defined by Roman Catholicism since the Reformation?

1870, papal infallibility, 1854 before that you had the Immaculate Conception, and then finally the bodily assumption of Mary in 1950.

And so these are doctrines utterly outside of biblical revelation and especially with the last two utterly outside of the tradition of the early church as well.

And so Rome has really become an authority unto herself and hence is not really reformable because there is no voice that she can listen to that can bring about reformation.

The Protestant says semper reformanda, always reforming. The church listens to and is subservient to the voice of her master, of her spouse which is found in scripture.

And even when the church is described as the pillar and ground of the truth in Paul's epistle to Timothy, that's actually talking about the local church and a pillar and ground holds something else up.

Rome often misuses that text, we believe the church is the pillar and ground of the truth but the church is holding something else up which is the gospel of Jesus Christ which is the very truth of God.

And it is our glory and our calling to present that to others but we don't define that, it is given to the church.

And so we stay under the authority of the word of God, we realize that scripture is the only

God -breathed revelation that we possess. There is nothing else that is

God -breathed other than the scriptures. And it's funny in a debate that I had with a

Jesuit priest, a very kind man and a man I have a lot of respect for, as we discussed this issue

I asked him a question and I really think it sort of illustrates this. He was talking about the need for the tradition of the church and all the rest of these things and I asked him a question, is there any word of Jesus, anything

Jesus has ever said that is found to be dogmatically defined by the

Roman Catholic Church on the basis of tradition alone that's not found in scripture? Is there anything

Jesus said that the Roman Catholic Church has said, yes, Jesus said this and it's not found in scripture?

And he said, no, no, there's nothing. So when you look at what the tradition of Rome has done, it has never clarified the gospel, it has always muddied the gospel, it has always brought less clarity to the gospel by bringing in things that the

Holy Spirit did not give us. Yeah, it is indeed a precious truth, reality that we hold on to, the sola scriptura, we have the word of God given to us, as Paul mentions to Thessalonians, focusing on them how they received the word for what it really is, the word of God.

So, yeah, comparing that to making the church final authority and tradition, the consequences of that are obviously man -made doctrines, dogmas and other teachings.

So, but on the other side, if you could maybe give a brief answer to one of the accusations that might come up often against evangelicals is the evangelical chaos because we don't have the authority of the church.

How come, or that's why there is such a chaos among evangelicals because there's no authority really.

Well, is there chaos amongst evangelicals or are we playing around with the very definition of the term evangelical?

Roman Catholic apologists, defenders of Rome for many years have argued that sola scriptura is a blueprint for anarchy.

They inflate the numbers and say there are 33 ,000 denominations or something like that, which is not true, but certainly there are divisions and differences just as there are amongst

Roman Catholics. I mean, let's face it, if you go to Boston College and listen to what's taught there and then go to a conservative

Roman Catholic parish, there's just as much variety and difference there. It's just that Rome doesn't get rid of their liberals.

Most of us do. So the reality is that having an infallible authority does not provide the kind of doctrinal unanimity that Rome would like us to believe that it does.

And actually, when you think about it, evangelicals who actually practice sola scriptura have a significantly closer level of agreement amongst themselves than Roman Catholics find amongst themselves.

What do I mean? Well, for example, I have many Presbyterian friends, conservative

Presbyterian friends. We would disagree on some issues of church government, we disagree on infant baptism, but we stand shoulder to shoulder on the matters of the gospel.

Now you can go, I mentioned Boston College, there are many other places you can go to where you will have the

Marian dogmas spiritualized, you'll have the mass spiritualized, you'll have a far wider degree of expression of opinion amongst people who are still considered to be faithful members of the

Roman Catholic Church, the church does not discipline them. Whereas the two of us,

I and my Presbyterian brother, we stand shoulder to shoulder on justification and sanctification of the gospel and all of these things.

And when we disagree on infant baptism, we can go to the scriptures to dialogue about these issues.

Rome's possession of an allegedly infallible authority has not produced the kind of unanimity that she would like to pretend she actually has.

And that certainly has been seen, for example, in recent elections in my country in the United States where the majority of Roman Catholics voted for candidates that supported things the

Roman Catholic Church says are mortal sins such as abortion. So the idea that this has led to chaos just simply doesn't follow because the majority of the divisions that exist amongst non -Roman

Catholics are not because of sola scriptura, they're because of not practicing sola scriptura, they're because of allowing external authorities in that overrides the scripture, following after traditions and things like that.

So it's not because of sola scriptura that you have these divisions, it's in spite of it, it's because of ignoring it and not actually applying it.

So yeah, it's a common argument, but it's an argument that's just really vacuous. If you can focus on the gospel a little bit, because you already mentioned it a couple of times, could you define for us the biblical gospel, like what does the

Bible teach, what do the 66 books of the New Testament and the Old Testament teach as the true biblical gospel, how is a sinner reconciled to a

God who's just and holy? That would be the first part of the question. And then after you describe that, after you define the biblical view on the gospel, could you reflect a little bit on how is that different from the

Roman Catholic gospel? Well, in a brief summary fashion,

I would say that the gospel is first of all what God does. It's not about man.

It has its origin in the triune God in eternity past. It is how God glorifies himself.

And he glorifies himself by saving a particular people by grace alone, and grace has to be free.

God is under no obligation to save it all. He does so because it glorifies him.

He does so because he wants to join a people to himself that will be his peculiar treasure for eternity.

And so the gospel is triune. It is about the father decreeing to create and to bring this people into existence.

It's about the son who amazingly enters into his own creation as Jesus of Nazareth.

And he does so because there needs to be this unique person who can be at the one unique place called the cross where the wrath of God against sin meets the love and mercy of God in the one person and one place where they can come together so that the full realm of God's attributes are revealed.

His holiness is not compromised. His wrath is fully seen.

And yet the full and only in that context is the full depth of the love and mercy of God seen because of the incarnation.

And then it's Trinitarian because the spirit of God then comes and opens hearts and minds and takes out hearts of stone and gives us hearts of flesh and takes fields of dead bones and turns them into living people.

It's all the spirit of God that brings these things about. And so it's a triune message that to any person who experiences conviction of sin, who recognizes that they are the creature of God, they have violated

God's law, they will stand before God to be judged. That any person who desires to be right with God can call upon Jesus Christ in repentance and faith.

And there has never been anyone who has called upon Jesus Christ and in true repentance and true faith who has not found him to be a perfect savior.

But the only person who does that is the person in whose life the spirit of God has brought that conviction, who brings them to that position of recognizing who

Jesus Christ is. And so since it is a triune gospel, the very idea that there is anything

I can add to it, that there is anything that could be imperfect about it without my addition is actually a blasphemous denial of the sufficiency of Christ.

I really don't think that people who try to add even the smallest thing to the gospel realize what an affront it is to a holy

God, what an affront it is to the finished work of Christ. As Paul says, it is only by faith, faith fits with grace.

If we try to bring something in our hand, to try to earn something from God, to try to say, you do 99 % of it,

I'll do 1 % of it, this is an affront to a holy God. It is the empty hand of faith that reaches out to God's grace.

And that is the only hand that will find God's grace to grasp it. As long as there is something in that hand, the terminology that Paul uses in Romans chapter 3 is that God closes every mouth.

The person who is ready to hear the gospel is the person who's had every bit of self -righteousness exposed.

And they stand before God, instead of making excuses, saying, I'm not as bad as this guy, I'm not as bad as that guy, instead of the self -righteous excuses that flow from our mouths, the picture that Paul paints is of the person who stands before the judge and his head is down and his mouth is closed.

He has recognized the rightness of the judge and the authority of the judge to proclaim sentence and throws himself fully upon the mercy of that court.

That is the one who is ready to hear the gospel of Jesus Christ. And that is something that only the Spirit of God can bring about.

Now, the problem is that when you look at what Roman Catholicism has done with the same words that I just used, they will talk about the wrath of God, they will talk about the cross.

But because of the additions that we were just talking about, the man -made things that have come in, the central act of worship and the central act of the gospel within Roman Catholicism, and I think most

Roman Catholics who are Orthodox Roman Catholics who read the Universal Catechism and attempt to follow what the church has actually taught, will recognize that the central act of worship of Roman Catholicism is the

Eucharistic sacrifice of the mass. This is the focus of everything else within Roman Catholicism and I use that terminology very specifically, it's very accurate

Orthodox Roman Catholic terminology, the Eucharistic sacrifice. It is said in Roman Catholicism to be a propitiatory sacrifice because of the transubstantiation through the sacramental authority of the priest at the words of consecration.

Transubstantiation takes place so that Jesus is rendered present body, soul, blood, and divinity upon the altar of the

Roman Catholic Church in an unbloody sacrifice, in a re -presentation of the one sacrifice of the mass.

And as the result of that there is a propitiatory action, however, because of the repetitive action of the mass because you can go to mass 10 ,000 times, 20 ,000 times in your life.

And I would imagine in your country there are people who go daily to mass and if they live to be very elderly they may have gone 20, 25, 30 ,000 times in their life.

They believe that they're approaching the same sacrifice of the cross but the fact that they keep going back and keep going back demonstrates that that sacrifice never perfects them.

There is a limitation to the propitiatory effect and Rome teaches that you can go to mass over and over again and still commit a mortal sin, lose the grace of justification, and end up being an enemy of God.

Even then you can commit venial sins and when you die you have to go to purgatory to undergo satispasio, to be purged of the temporal punishments of those sins.

And my argument from the very beginning is just this, that is not the effect of the one sacrifice of Jesus Christ.

When you look at Hebrews chapter 10, the message of Hebrews chapter 10 is this, that the repetitive sacrifices of the old covenant pointed to the imperfection of those sacrifices.

If you have to enter the old covenant you had to keep coming back every year, every year over and over again.

That high priest had to go into the Holy of Holies and he had to sprinkle that blood upon the altar.

Have you ever thought what that altar looked like after a few years? Have you ever thought of the dry crusted blood?

And when that high priest comes in with that blood and there is the blood I sprinkled last year and there is the blood

I sprinkled the year before that, was this not pointing to something greater than itself? This cannot be the final thing.

The repetitive nature of that sacrifice, according to Hebrews, pointed to the imperfection.

There's something more to come. In fact, the term that is used, and I'm sorry about getting passionate about it, but this is the heart of the gospel.

The term that is used in Hebrews chapter 10 is that in a repetitive sacrifice you have an anamnesis.

You have a reminder of what? Sins. There is a reminder of sins in a repetitive sacrifice because if you have to repeat it, then the sin hasn't been dealt with.

And that's why those repetitive sacrifices were pointing to something greater. But that term anamnesis, it is so beautiful.

It's used elsewhere in the New Testament. Only one other time. And it's in the Lord's Supper.

And Jesus said, when you do this, do it as an anamnesis of what?

Of me. Not of sin, but of the sin bearer. The Lord's Supper has been turned into a repetitive sacrifice in Roman Catholicism when the reality of the biblical revelation is that what it's supposed to remind us of is a finished sacrifice, a one -time sacrifice that perfects for all time those for whom it is made.

There is no finished sacrifice in Roman Catholicism. And without a finished sacrifice, all the other debates about justification and repetitive justification and purgatory and everything else, pale in insignificance, there is no finished sacrifice in Rome.

And that's why there is no peace in Roman Catholicism. I did a debate with that same

Jesuit priest once, and I asked him a question. He's an expert in multiple languages.

He knows the Hebrew language really, really well. And I said, the greatest commandment is to love the

Lord your God while your heart, soul, mind, and strength. If breaking the greatest commandment is not a mortal sin, then

I don't know what could be a mortal sin. If you admit that you could commit a mortal sin before your head hits the pillow tonight, and you believe that if you commit it, you are now the enemy of God, you're no longer the friend of God, you're no longer at peace with God, then you know, especially because you know the

Hebrew language, that the term shalom, peace, would not be descriptive of your relationship with God.

Because to have true peace means that you have a wellness of relationship.

If war is about to break out, that's not shalom. How can you say with Paul in Romans 5 .1,

therefore having been justified by faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ. How can you say that when you know that you could be the enemy of God this very evening?

And that is the primary thesis that I've been presenting now for many years, is that the primary reason we need to evangelize

Roman Catholics is because the Roman Catholic Church, see, I'm differentiating between I evangelize

Roman Catholics because the Roman Catholic Church has stolen from them the one thing that can give them peace with God, and that is the finished sacrifice of Jesus Christ.

He said it is finished, it is done. It does not have to be redone over and over and over again.

I'm glad that you made it a difference because certainly we are all sinners.

We all fall short of the glory of God, and I hope that whoever is going to listen to this video, they understand that our heart is that we love the

Roman Catholics who are in the church, and as you said, we want to evangelize them, we want to present them the true gospel that's found on a scripture saloon, and as we're talking about those things, we are pointing out some of the teachings of the church, some of the doctrines of the church that do not correspond with the

Bible that are... And rob them of the peace that the true gospel offers, yes.

But it's not... People, unfortunately, think that if you say Roman Catholicism teaches this, that that's an attack on an individual person.

It is not. We're talking here about the fact that, and to the Roman Catholic person in the audience, you know how elusive that peace is.

You know that it only lasts for a little while. We're talking about a gospel that gives you peace permanently because it is based upon the finished work of a perfect Savior.

When you bow and genuflect before that monstrance, before that altar, and that consecrated host, when you do that, you are giving credence to a belief that, first of all, is not biblical in any way, shape, or form.

It is directly counter -biblical to what the book of Hebrews teaches about the sacrifice of Christ, but you know that that sacrifice is not going to perfect you.

And the book of Hebrews says a repetitive sacrifice is a reminder of sins. The one sacrifice of the cross does not remind us of sins, it reminds us of the sin bearer.

It is the very basis of our relationship with God, the very basis of the peace we have with God. And that is worth arguing about.

That is worth going against the culture that says, don't talk about these things, don't have division, just all get together and not worry about this stuff.

Well, I am sorry, but a believing Roman Catholic knows that my gospel and their gospel are different.

And as much as we might want to hold hands to stand against the utter decay of our societies and the moral and ethical madness that surrounds us, the reality is that if someone walks up to us and asks us, how can

I have peace with God, the Roman Catholic is going to answer in a fundamental, the Orthodox Roman Catholic is going to answer in a fundamentally different way than you and I are.

That creates a division. And if we love the truth, if we love God, if we love the other person, we will not compromise that, we will argue that.

If we can't argue that, all that's left is for us to fight. And that's why we have to, we do it with respect, we do it with love, but if you love the truth, you do not remain silent and you do not compromise it.

Sadly, many evangelicals have decided that these issues just don't matter anymore, we need to get as many numbers as we're shrinking, we need to get as many numbers as we can together.

And so we're just going to put the gospel off to one side. It is a fundamental act of disrespect to God himself and to the cross of Jesus Christ.

There is no question about it. Yeah. Yeah, that's the reality that what you said, because we love

God, we care about what he said and what he did. And because we love the people, we care about how they stand before God and what happens with them in eternity.

It's not a minor issue. You know, my life would be a lot easier if I could just get along on the subject of Roman Catholicism.

I mean, let's face it, in my country, there would be many more doors open to me if I did not say what

I say and do what I do in regards to Roman Catholicism. But here's the one problem. The book of Galatians is still in the

New Testament. If the book of Galatians wasn't in the New Testament, maybe I could get away with it.

But the fact of the matter is, when you look at the book of Galatians, Paul uses the strongest words in all of the

New Testament. And what is he directing those words at? He's directing those words at those people who had added a single thing to the gospel.

There's no indication they denied the deity of Christ. There's no indication they denied the resurrection. There's no indication they were unorthodox on anything else, but they added one thing to the gospel.

They said, yes, faith in Christ is vital, but it's not enough. There's something else.

There's sort of a precondition you have to meet for even that faith to be truly valid. They added one thing to the gospel.

And Paul says, you are anathema. In fact, in chapter 5, he goes so far as to make it very, very clear.

These people claim to be Christians. They are naming the name of Christ. They claim to be brothers.

And they are trusting that Jesus Christ is going to save them. And he says, if you receive circumcision, that's the one thing they added.

You've got to enter into the Mosaic covenant. If you receive circumcision, I say to you, Christ will be of no benefit to you.

What that tells us is he knew that they were going to say, oh, ultimately it's Jesus that saves me.

And Paul said, no, it's either all of grace or it's all of obedience.

You're either going to trust solely in Christ or you can trust solely in your own works.

This idea of putting things together and your works and your righteousness, no, it's either all

Christ or none of Christ at all. He will be of no benefit to you. That when I look at what

Rome has added to the gospel, not just in regards to the mass, but in regards to purgatory and indulgences and Roman Catholic priests who when they are ordained are called an alter

Christus, another Christ, and their sacramental authority to forgive sins and the sacrament of penance and the control of the channels of grace through the sacraments and all the rest of the stuff.

When I look at that, the people in Galatia had never dreamed of adding to the gospel what

Rome has added to the gospel. So if adding one thing brought the anathema of God, my goodness, what is adding two dozen things going to bring?

And that means we have to, if we care, speak the truth on these matters.

Well, do you think it would be okay to approach the Roman Catholic Church and Roman Catholic priests individually?

Let's say there's a Roman Catholic priest in my town who believes the Bible as far as we want to define that.

And can there be such a thing as a

Roman Catholic priest who denies the Roman Catholicism, embraces the

Bible, continues in the liturgy, continues in a mass, continues in all those things that are happening on a

Sunday? Is there a simple answer to that? No, I would struggle very much with a priest because that priest, unless he was unconscious during his ordination, which is probably pretty unusual, is going to know exactly what was said over him, exactly what he was called.

And as I said, in the ordination of the Roman Catholic priest, that Roman Catholic is called an alter

Christus, another Christ. I have a hard time believing that anyone who truly bows the knee to Jesus Christ would allow themselves to be identified and be identified as others, as an alter

Christus, another Christ. But is it possible that there is a layperson who doesn't know the teachings of the magisterium very well, but reads the

Bible, interprets what they see in the Roman Church in the light of the Bible, rather than interpreting the

Bible in the light of the teachings of the Roman Church, and hence has a simple faith in Christ, is trusting only in him, and yet remains a part of that communion out of ignorance and will be an heir of eternal life?

Yes, I do believe that that is a possibility. But there were a lot of caveats to what I just said.

There really were. There were a lot of ifs, ands, or buts there. And so my assertion would be, yes, they can be saved in spite of the church, but not because of the church.

But I would think even an Orthodox Roman Catholic would say, that person isn't really a Roman Catholic, because if their level of ignorance is at that point, they don't even know what the mass is about and things like that, is that person really a

Roman Catholic? That is, I think, one of the issues that we'd have to address. So on the practical side, practical implications of what you just said, is there any area of life and ministry where we can stand shoulder to shoulder with Roman Catholics?

I mean, I can imagine people say, well, Christology, we agree on Christology. Christ is part of the

Trinity, and he's the son of God. And so we agree on some things.

How far can we go on? Well, I'd have to make two differentiations. One, we can stand side by side in, for example, standing against the profaning of marriage that is taking place in our culture, where the culture thinks we can redefine what

God has given to us in the very first institution that God made amongst man, which is the home, the family.

Obviously, we both agree that that is a fundamental violation of our created nature, and so on and so forth.

So there are cultural issues that we agree upon. The problem is this.

What I've seen amongst many evangelicals is they see that, and they become so involved in working together with Roman Catholics on that issue, that on their priority list, the gospel, which has to be number one, starts moving down the list, and other things are put above the gospel in importance.

That is of great concern to me. Many years ago, I was involved with an organization in the

United States called Operation Rescue, which would close down by just—hundreds of people would show up at an abortion clinic and just close it down because we'd sit down, nobody can get in and out, and then eventually we'd be arrested and dragged away, but we would close down—it would give us the opportunity to speak about what's going on.

Well, I was even a spokesperson for a while because I'm a debater, and I will tell you one thing.

There is one debate where I will be absolutely, positively merciless.

I will tear a person to shreds without a moment of mercy, and it's when they're defending the murder of unborn children.

I will do it, and I've done it, and will continue to do it. But here's what happened.

I couldn't continue in that position with Operation Rescue because I had to come to the conclusion—it became very clear to me that pressure was being put upon me to not say anything about Roman Catholicism to the

Roman Catholics that were involved. I was being asked to, in essence, put myself in situations where I could not speak the gospel.

That, personally, was where I made the division. The dividing line for me was,

I can't do that. I cannot put myself in a place where I cannot say to a person, you're trusting in a falsehood.

Let me speak to you about what the gospel is. And so, while I continue to oppose abortion with every fiber of my being,

I can't put myself in a position to compromise the one power that has been given to the church that can change the hearts and minds of men about abortion, and that's the gospel of Jesus Christ.

Do you see any kind of, like, here in Europe—I'm not sure how it is in the

States, but there's the ecumenical movement. The Roman Catholic Church is not necessarily part of the ecumenical movement, but I think it's the same in Poland.

A citizen check, they are kind of like visitors or observers of the ecumenical movement.

Do you think there are any advantages for us to be in such a union when we don't look just at today, but we look at the future?

Do you see some advantages laying ahead of us, or do you see some dangers from such a unity, from not standing up, not saying we believe a different gospel, you know, maybe thinking, like, there's a lot of projects, maybe such a project as you mentioned right now, that we can do together.

When it comes to the gospel, when it comes to preaching the gospel, when it comes to informing the people or proclaiming the gospel to the people who are saved, which should be,

I think, the biggest priority. Is there any advantage or is there a disadvantage?

Well, possibly the ecumenical movement in your countries looks different than in the

United States because Rome clearly is, maybe not officially, but through her representatives, a part of that kind of dialogue and discussion within the

United States. I say, when I do debates with Roman Catholic apologists, this is the only true ecumenism.

We are here, we are not compromising our positions, we are not playing games, you are saying

I'm wrong, I'm saying you're wrong, and we are dealing with the issues in a way that we seek to honor truth.

That's the only meaningful ecumenical dialogue from my perspective. Sitting around and minimizing our truths, minimizing the differences between us and compromising truth, that may be something that liberals like to do, it's not something

I like to do, and I don't think it's honoring to God, I don't think it's even honoring to the traditions of either

Roman Catholicism or non -Roman Catholic churches. And so, while on a social level, we can certainly have dialogue as to how we can oppose the culture of death and things like that,

I really think that when it comes to theological issues, which is what the ecumenical discussion is all about, it's all about, from Rome's perspective, it's all about wooing us into the one true church.

There's only one true church from Rome's perspective, they're never going to recognize our communions as true churches and as having an equal standing before God, that's just part of the dogmatic teachings of the

Roman Catholic Church. From their perspective, what they're trying to do is win us to the church. And I listen to a lot of Roman Catholic radio in the

United States, and the conversion stories are conversion stories not to Christ, but to the church. And so,

I have nothing to do with, quote unquote, ecumenical dialogues in that form. Like I said,

I think a true ecumenical dialogue is what I've done about 40 times, and that is engage in public debate where you lay out the thesis, here's what

Rome teaches, here's what the Bible teaches, let's debate about it. And I think that's not only biblical because that's what the

Apostle Paul is doing in Ephesus and places like that, but I think it just makes a whole lot more sense.

And I think people in their guts, they recognize that a lot of that ecumenical stuff is just a saving face way of compromising the gospel.

And certainly, debates can be done wrong, they can be done with the wrong spirit, they can be done in a nasty way.

I try not to do that, obviously. But I think they can be done in a way that is really the only true ecumenical dialogue.

You're not only a debater, you are also a minister in the church. You deal with real life issues with people in the church.

So I have a question on that side of your ministry, because I believe there will be people who will be watching this video who have certain sincere questions about their faith and Christ and the

Bible and its role in their lives. And they're probably wondering, do they have to leave the

Catholic Church? What would you tell a person that thinks, can I just believe in what you told me and stay in the church?

If I were to have a person, I can understand all sorts of circumstances that could prompt that question.

For example, a woman who is married to a Roman Catholic man who knows that her embracing of Christ is going to cause no end of difficulties within that family.

I understand that, the New Testament understands that. Jesus said, I've come to bring a sword, a division, husband against wife and wife against husband.

But here's the fundamental question that has to be asked. If we truly as believers love

Jesus Christ and we love what he has done for us and if we honor him, the whole reason we want to be at the

Lord's table is to remember the great price that was paid for our redemption. The whole reason we want to hear the gospel over and over again is because we know it's the only reason we have peace with God.

We rise in the morning and our eyes open and we see the morning sun.

Why is it that holy God does not break forth in wrath against me? Well, it's nothing about me, it's all about him.

If that is where our heart is, if we love Christ and we honor him as Lord, how could we possibly desire or even survive being in a context where we know that every single time we go to that place, the blessed truths that have given us peace with God are going to be fundamentally denied in the presence of that repetitive sacrifice of the mass.

We have to, as hard as it is for people to hear, and I realize that only the spirit of God can cause this for people to understand this, but we have to realize that the mass is a fundamental blasphemy of the work of Christ.

You say, how can you say that? Because of what I already said before, because of what Hebrews chapter 10 says, because of what inspired scripture says.

It's not a matter of disliking Roman Catholics, it's a matter of simply being honest with the teachings of Rome and the teachings of the

Bible. And if you re -sacrifice Christ over and over again, you undo the perfection of his cross, you are fundamentally blaspheming his work.

How can any person who is a believer in Jesus Christ want to subject themselves to the experience of doing that over and over and over again?

And that's what you have to do. If you're not going to mass, you're not a Roman Catholic. I mean, let's be honest,

I think from our own Catholic view, they would at least honor the reality that a person who isn't coming to mass or doesn't believe that it is what

Roman Catholicism teaches it is, that that person's not really a Roman Catholic, and maybe they should go someplace else, maybe they should find a place that's more amenable to their beliefs.

But I can understand why some would say, we want to stay. I hear that,

I understand that. But the fundamental thing is, what's the priority? I say the priority has to be to honor the

Lord Jesus Christ and to show your love for him, and that's why we can't stay there. Yeah, amen.

One last question I would have. I know you, would you have more questions? No, go ahead. We're going to cut this moment now.

Go ahead. Yeah? Okay. You're also a scholar of the history of the church, right?

I've taught church history. You teach church history. I wouldn't call myself a historian. So one question that comes up often,

I think, from Roman Catholics, at least those that maybe are not informed well enough about the history of the church, is the supposition that the

Roman Catholic Church is the original church that came from the apostles, and that's often an argument against the evangelical movement, that we are a very young movement, we have nothing to do with the biblical apostolic movement.

Can you give a brief answer to that? What the church history actually teaches us about that?

Well, first on a theological level, if you're a follower of the apostles of Jesus Christ, is the best way to follow them to claim some type of historical meandering line of succession that has to go back through the period of time when the papacy wasn't even in Rome, it was in Avignon, France, and the time where there were three different popes who all excommunicated one another, and the period of time was called the pornocracy when the papacy was purchased, and people inhabited it that were just horrific people.

And do you really want to say, I am in apostolic succession to the apostles because I have this amazingly crooked line that goes all the way back through history, isn't the far better definition of apostolic succession,

I teach and believe what the apostles taught and believed in the only source of information about their beliefs that we can rely upon, and that's the inspired scripture?

I think apostolic succession is a wonderful thing, but the only way to stand in the succession of the apostles is to teach and believe what they taught and believed, and Rome doesn't do that and cuts you off from the only way that you can know that, and that is sola scriptura.

So that's the first thing to keep in mind, is real apostolic succession.

Is following what the apostles actually taught, and if you believe in the Marian dogmas and all the rest of the stuff, that's not what the apostles taught by any stretch of the imagination, and church history bears that out.

But secondly, my response to that would be this, the modern Roman Catholic church is not the church of antiquity, it is not.

You say, oh, but it looks just like it. No, it doesn't, and let me give you a real good challenge that I think a lot of people have found to be somewhat useful.

The first ecumenical council, now ecumenical council meaning worldwide council, that's an anachronistic term, that's something that's sort of projected back upon it, but the first major council of church history outside of Acts chapter 15 is the

Council of Nicaea in 325 AD. I would challenge any Roman Catholic to show me a single bishop at the

Council of Nicaea who believed what they believe today defines a

Roman Catholic. There was no one at the Council of Nicaea who believed the Bishop of Rome was the infallible successor of Christ, there was no one at the

Council of Nicaea who believed in transubstantiation, that the mass is a propitiatory sacrifice as Rome has defined it today, there was no one there who believed in purgatory and indulgences, there was no bishop there who believed that Mary is bodily assumed to heaven or immaculately conceived, all the

Marian dogmas, there was no belief like that amongst those men, so how can you say that that is the

Roman Catholic Church when the bishops that made up that council would never be considered Roman Catholics today?

The only answer that Rome has to that is, well, it's the doctrine of development. You see, it's like the acorn to the oak tree.

Well, okay, if you want to say that, go ahead and say that, but that's a fundamental abandonment of the actual claim that this is the same church all the way down through history.

If those bishops didn't believe what you would demand of a bishop to believe today, then don't tell me that's the same church, it's not the same church.

So if you understand what true apostolic succession is and if you look at the facts of the dogmas of Rome and what was believed by the primitive church, the claims just don't stand up.