Roman Catholicism

Program 1.: How Can a Sinful Person Be Forgiven and Accepted by a Holy and Righteous God?
Program 2.: A Definition of the Words and Issues Dividing Catholics and Protestants Surrounding the Doctrine of Justification
Program 3.: Is a Sinner Justified by Faith in Christ Alone or Faith Plus His Own Good Works?
Program 4.: Did Jesus Make Peter "Pope" Over the Church?
Program 5.: Did Jesus Establish Peter as Pope to Rule Infallibly in Matters of Faith and Morals?
Program 6.: What Issues Divide Protestants and Catholics Concerning Mary?
Program 7.: Does the Bible Teach That Mary Is Co-Mediatrix and Co-Redemptrix with Jesus?
Program 8.: Is It Necessary for People to Confess Their Sins to a Roman Catholic Priest Before God Will Forgive Them?
Program 9.: Is There Such a Place as Purgatory?
Program 10.: Can Indulgences Help Those in Purgatory?
Program 11.: Is Catholicism's Doctrine of Penance Found in the Bible?
Program 12.: When a Catholic Commits Mortal Sin and Loses His Justification, How Can He Get It Back?
Program 13.: Where Do Catholics and Protestants Differ on the Doctrines of Sanctification and Justification?

Program 1

How Can a Sinful Person Be Forgiven and Accepted by a Holy and Righteous God?

Introduction:

Tonight, John Ankerberg will compare what Roman Catholics and Protestants believe concerning the important question, "How can a person be forgiven and accepted by a holy and righteous God?" The answer that is given comprises what is called "the doctrine of Justification."

Both Roman Catholics and Protestants agree that Christ's death on the cross is at the center of this debate. Both agree the merits of Christ are necessary for a man to receive Justification. But where Catholics and Protestants disagree is, "How do the merits of Christ become mine?"

Catholicism teaches that there is a preparation of the sinner before he can be justified; then there is the moment at baptism when Justification itself takes place, followed by a lifetime of becoming more justified. The preparation before Justification begins with God who gives prevenient grace. This prevenient grace, also called "sanctifying grace," or "the habitus of grace," is a power God infuses into the sinner. This power begins to transform and change the person internally, so that he comes to know he is a sinner, begins to consider God's mercy, develops hope, and trusts and loves God meritoriously. During this preparatory period, the sinner realizes he can accept or reject God's grace. If he freely assents to cooperate with God's grace, he will be further inclined to detest his sins and desire to be baptized and receive Justification.

As the Council of Trent stated, "Sinners assenting to cooperate with God's grace are then disposed to convert themselves to their own Justification." This means that when a man decides to cooperate with God's power within him, he can live a life sufficient enough to merit what Catholicism calls "congruous merit"-- merit that makes it "fitting" for God to bestow Justification on him. Catholics are quick to point out that they have never taught that a sinner in his own strength can merit Justification. But Catholicism does teach that in cooperation with Christ's strength, the sinner can live a life that is meritorious enough that it makes it congruous, or fitting, for God to grant Justification.

For Catholicism, then, the merits of Christ cause the sanctifying grace God gives us, which, if we cooperate with it, we are made personally righteous within. It is this inward personal righteousness which is the real ground and reason for man's Justification in Catholicism. Then, on the basis of this real transformation, at the moment of baptism, God forgives original sin and all actual sins, and grants Justification.

In addition Trent said, "There are degrees of Justification which vary according to the gift of God and man's dispositions and cooperation with grace."

Trent also said, "Indeed the good works of the justified man are not mere signs of his religious conversion; rather, being done in grace, they are themselves the causes of an increase in the degree and reality of man's sanctification."

And finally Trent said, "To those who work well until the end, and trust in God, eternal life is to be offered. Both as a grace, and as a reward promised by God Himself, to be given to their good works and merits." Because man's cooperation with God's grace will always be imperfect and tainted with sinful acts that might destroy Justification, throughout his life man can only hope he will be finally justified and cannot enjoy the certainty he is going to be in heaven.

On the other hand, for Protestants, Justification is not God's judgment based on the personal righteousness within the believer; rather, Justification is God's judgment based on the righteousness of Christ, in whom the sinner believes.

In Protestantism, Justification is an act of God's grace, a judicial declaration acquitting the sinner of guilt and delivering him from condemnation. It's a free forgiveness of sins and a sure title to eternal life. The transformed life is vital in Protestant theology, but it is not that which justifies a man. Rather, the transformed life comes as the immediate result of being justified, which Protestants call "sanctification."

Protestants believe man cannot merit Justification in his own strength, or merit it by working in cooperation with God's prevenient grace. If he could, salvation wouldn't be totally the gift of God. Rather, Protestants teach that through faith, the sinner reaches out to Christ and the merits of Christ are imputed, or transferred, from Jesus' account so to speak, to the account of the sinner. God sees the sinner and Jesus together, and makes a legal declaration about the sinner's life. It is like the person who is condemned, waiting on death row, suddenly being granted a pardon. God pardons the sinner; that is, He declares him to be free from the penalty of all his sins and grants him eternal life. Protestants believe it is solely the merits of Christ's sacrificial death on the cross, which are imputed or transferred to the believer, that cancel out the sinner's debt. That's why for Protestants Justification is an act that can take place in a single moment-- the moment the sinner, through faith, asks for the benefits of Christ to be applied to his life.

Catholicism denies that such a legal declaration concerning Justification takes place. The Council of Trent stated, "If anyone says that men are justified by the sole imputation of the justice of Christ, let him be anathema."

But in response, Protestants insist that Justification can only be by faith alone, since the Bible teaches Christ provided all that is necessary for God to justify a person. Protestants do not believe faith is a meritorious work that God looks at as the reason or the basis for a person's Justification. Rather, faith is only the instrument which allows someone to reach out to Christ, who is the sole reason and grounds upon which God justifies. A person can have a weak faith but still be fully justified because his Justification depends solely on Christ. It does not depend on the amount of his faith.

However, Roman Catholics believe that more than faith is needed in order for a person to obtain Justification. They insist, there must be both faith and works. The Council of Trent declared, "If anyone says that the good works of the justified person does not truly merit an increase of grace, and the obtaining of eternal life, let him be anathema."

So tonight, "Does the Doctrine of Justification in the Bible call for faith alone in Christ, or faith plus works?" John's guests are Father Mitchell Pacwa, an ordained Roman Catholic priest who is a member of the Society of Jesus, a Jesuit. He has an earned Doctor of Philosophy degree and is currently professor at Loyola University in Chicago. John's second guest is the late Dr. Walter Martin, director and founder of the Christian Research Institute in California. Please join us for this discussion.

Dr. Walter Martin: The whole idea of the New Testament and the whole idea of the Reformation was, "Look, you cannot get right-standing with God by human effort or by any sacerdotal system. You're going to get it by a relationship to Christ. And you said that-- very forcefully. You said, "You were trying to teach people not "what" but "who." And that the core of Christianity was a personal relationship with Jesus Christ through the Holy Spirit, by which we know we have passed out of death into life. Now, this is the crux of the Reformation. When the Reformers said, "You are justified by faith," they were not trying to say the sinful nature was eradicated or man didn't need it....

Fr. Mitchell Pacwa: No, true. That's right.

Martin: They were saying, "This is what God did for you. You can't do if for yourself." This is the point I think we have to recognize. The moment that you take Trent's position and really ram it home, you run smack into Romans 4 and you run smack into First John, which tell you, "Christ is the propitiation for all our sins, and not for ours only-- for the sins of the whole world."

Pacwa: Texts are quoted in Trent...

Martin: I know.

Pacwa: And the thing that...couple of things on that. First of all, I agree with Trent that it's not a conclusion of Justification and Sanctification, but to see that this is, you know...because it is part of a relationship.

Martin: But you cannot...you're not going to make the mistake of making Justification, Romans 4, which is an act of God...

Pacwa: Right.

Martin: ...pure and simple...

Pacwa: Absolutely.

Martin: ...You can't make that as something intrinsic to man because He infuses grace into us. Then you've got Sanctification and Justification as two parts of the same thing.

Pacwa: Well, and that's, I guess, exactly what I agree with.

Martin: That's exactly what Trent did.

Pacwa: I know. And that's exactly what I agree with.

Martin: But, we have been redeemed in Christ.

Pacwa: Absolutely.

Martin: We have been justified by faith.

Pacwa: Absolutely.

Martin: Okay. The Justification by works, which you are referring to, is progressive in the life of the believer, as a result of sanctification. Because it's the Spirit that works in us to transform us into the image of Christ...

Pacwa: Absolutely! That's Trent.

Martin: ...and because of that, we are able to perform good works.

Pacwa: Well, I don't see where Trent says something different except in saying that that is part of the same process of Justification.

John Ankerberg: Well, let me give you Trent and see if we can define it here. "If anyone says that by faith alone the sinner is justified in such wise as to mean that nothing else is required"-- which is what Walter is saying...

Martin: Yeah!

Ankerberg: ...okay? "Nothing on our part is required"--Jesus did it all. It doesn't depend on us or what God does in us at that point, it depends on Jesus. Okay? Trent is saying, "If anyone says that by faith alone the sinner is justified in such wise as to mean that nothing else is required to cooperate"-- that man's got to cooperate in order for the obtaining of the grace of Justification-- "that man is to be anathema" We're saying that man does not have to do something in cooperation to have God justify him.

Pacwa: He doesn't have to say "Yes" to the grace? Do you have to say "Yes" to the grace of Christ or not? Ankerberg: I would say, "For by grace are ye saved through faith."

Pacwa: Do you have to make that act of faith by your will?

Ankerberg: Yes.

Pacwa: That is something that you are doing. That is your will...

Martin: By grace.

Pacwa: By grace, prevenient grace, but it is your will doing it and it is Christ that gives us the command to repent.

Martin: Yeah, but if God doesn't "jiggle your will" by grace, you aren't going to do it.

Pacwa: And again, though, the Council of Trent does not teach otherwise. The Council teaches that we have to have prevenient grace.

Ankerberg: Let's stick with the actual teachings of the Catholic Church...

Martin: I'm trying.

Ankerberg: Walter, are you saying this: "If anyone says that men are justified either by the sole imputation of the justice of Christ...." Are you saying that? Are you saying that a man is justified by the sole imputation of the justice of Christ?

Martin: Romans 4. Absolutely.

Ankerberg: Okay. Trent says, "...that man is anathema."

Pacwa: Okay. What do they mean by the word "imputation"?

Martin: Not the way he's explaining it. I don't agree with what your explanation is, but I know what you're saying. Though I don't like it.

Pacwa: Well, see, the key word there is "imputation."

Ankerberg: Okay, imputation is...

Pacwa: In other words, they're saying that it is just something that is, you know, put over you in a legal way that's a simple declaration in the way that the Nominalist philosophers just would impute something to a person. Whereas the Catholic Church is trying to say instead of imputation, it's rather a transformation of the inner person...and that's....

Ankerberg: I think we agree that the Catholic Church is saying that.

Martin: There's no problem...yeah, we know that.

Pacwa: Okay.

Ankerberg: What we're saying is, "Is that what the Scripture exactly in Romans 3 and 4 is saying?" If God is saying something different than Trent at that point, then we should stick with the Scriptures.

Martin: Abraham believed God.

Pacwa: If that's the only Scripture, but that's not the only Scripture. And that's precisely the Roman Catholic Church's point.

Ankerberg: Okay. Let me put it the other way. The fact is that Protestants have at least an explanation that Walter...well, you haven't given the one on lames 2 yet. But there's an explanation for James 2, okay, that will reconcile that with Romans 3 and 4. I have never heard a Roman Catholic reconcile Romans 3 and 4.

Pacwa: Ah! Did you read the rest of the chapters in that succession of Trent? Because one of the things that...

Ankerberg: Explicitly.

Pacwa: ...they do is deal with those texts precisely. First of all, they quote Romans 3:24 in chapter 7 [of Trent] and say that the traditional understanding of Romans 3, "Being justified freely by grace through the redemption which is in Christ Jesus." Okay? And also 5:1 that, "Having been justified by faith, we have peace with God through the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ through whom we have had access by faith unto this grace." Now, the way they deal with that in the same paragraph is, "We are justified by faith because faith is the beginning of human salvation. The foundation and the root of all Justification...."

Ankerberg: All right let's stop right there...let's stop...

Pacwa: "...without which it is impossible to please God."

Martin: That is the basis...

Ankerberg: The question is, "Is it a beginning transaction or is it a final transaction?"

Pacwa: I think that's where we disagree.

Martin: Right. This is the point-- what you just read. Faith is the beginning of the transaction, right?

Pacwa: Yes.

Martin: No! "For by grace"-- past tense--"you have already been saved, through faith...."

Ankerberg: Correct.

Martin: "...not by yourselves." Not by anything working in you. Nothing like that. No transformation in you. You have been saved by grace outside yourself, which reaches down, redeems you and then justifies you, and the transformation of the Spirit coming into us in the New Birth makes us in the image of Christ. We become new creations in Christ Jesus. What Trent is saying is that faith is the beginning of the transaction of Justification. But what the text is saying is that salvation is by grace-- that's the initial act of God-- grace proceeds from mercy. Mercy proceeds from love-- the nature of God. All right, now, we're transformed by the power of grace. That's why the emphasis in Ephesians 2 is, "By grace you have already been saved"-- you're not working for it, you see? This is Catholic Catechism here, since Vatican II specifically says that Paul's wrong and I just cannot understand how Trent or they can say it. Quote: "If we follow Christ, we shall never place anyone or anything above God." Right?

Pacwa: Yes.

Martin: "We shall love and serve Him alone." Right?

Pacwa: Yes.

Martin: "And in doing this, we shall save our soul. We shall earn heaven. We shall have happiness with God forever." But if you can earn heaven, "if righteousness comes by the efforts of man," Paul says, "Christ died for nothing."

Pacwa: If, though, at the same time Christ, for instance in Matthew Chapter 6 talks about us having merits-- you know, merits by fasting, merits by prayer, merits by almsgiving-- and Jesus Himself uses that term, then is there not necessarily some form of merit?

Martin: Can I ask the question in rabbinical rhetoric?

Pacwa: Of course.

Martin: What is the context of Matthew 6? To whom is it addressed specifically? --

Pacwa: He's addressing it to the disciples in the context of the crowds to explain how not to pray, how not to give alms. and how not to fast.

Martin: And all of it is in the context of Judaism as it was then abused.

Pacwa: Right.

Martin: Right?

Pacwa: Yes.

Martin: Now, we're moving out of the concept of "law," the covenant of law, which emphasized meritorious behavior.

Pacwa: Yes.

Martin: Okay? Job was a righteous man. Why? Well, he not only believed God but he also offered sacrifices, he prayed for his children, merit, merit, merit. But your whole viewpoint changes in the New Testament because you are no longer under a covenant of law, as were the Jews, now you are under a covenant of grace. Grace does not exclude obedience to God, but grace is what redeems, not the concept of piling up merits.

Pacwa: Okay. And again, Trent, in the same paragraph says that, too. It says, "We are said to be justified gratuitously, because none of the things that precede Justification, whether faith or works, merit the grace of Justification."

Martin: But by good works...

Pacwa: We don't teach in Catholicism that you can merit the grace of Justification at all. And Trent specifically rejects that. But, there is room for merit because Christ Himself gives that room by saying that you need to merit properly. Improper prayer is wrong.

Martin: But not as a means of redemption.

Pacwa: That's what they say here...that it does not merit Justification.

Martin: Okay. If it doesn't...if it doesn't...then the act of Justification itself, outside of man, is sufficient. If you can't do anything to improve Justification, what God did in Romans 4 with Abraham is "kaput," it's over.

Pacwa: Okay. And here again, the term "Justification"-- here again is where we get into disagreement...

Martin: Right.

Pacwa: "...is that they defined the term "Justification" to include the acts of love, without which you cannot know God...obeying the commandments....

Martin: That was my paint. What they did was under Justification, which Paul doesn't do. He teaches Sanctification separately after redemption, not as a means of redemption.

Pacwa: But at the same time [James] says that unless you have those acts of Sanctification, you cannot be saved.

Martin: Because they're the fruit, or the evidence of the Justification.

Pacwa: Necessary to be saved.

Ankerberg: No.

Pacwa: Correct?

Martin: No. You're not...

Pacwa: Can you know God without love?

Martin: No, you cannot know God without love and you cannot fulfill the will of God or the law of God without love.

Pacwa: Okay. Can you know Christ without obeying all His commandments?

Martin: Yeah, because you do it every day of your life and so do I.

Pacwa: Now, what does Jesus Himself, though, say?

Martin: Now, don't get Him out of context. It said, "If you love me, keep my commandments...."

Pacwa: True.

Martin: "...He that keeps my commandments is he that love me." But, He made provision for the fact that we as mortals obviously, we sin....

Pacwa: Yes.

Martin: ...otherwise, you wouldn't be hearing confessions. Right? So people sin and you give them absolution in the name of Christ, right?

Pacwa: Right.

Martin: Because they're imperfect.

Pacwa: That's right.

Martin: They're failures. They're sinners like everybody else.

Pacwa: Right.

Martin: You and I are, too.

Pacwa: Right.

Martin: So, our salvation is by grace...

Pacwa: Yes.

Martin: ...through faith...

Pacwa: Yes.

Martin: ...and unto the production of works, which testify to what God did for us, not what we did for ourselves.

Pacwa: And where we disagree is precisely there, because we understand the Scriptures to also say that those acts of obedience to the commandments are part of that process of Justification whereby if we omit that at any point, if we... Again, like I John 5 makes a distinction in different kinds of sin. But if one commits serious sin, one can cut oneself off from Christ and thereby lose one's Justification.

Martin: That's the Arminian position. I'm familiar with that. But that's not my point. My point is deeper than that position. The point that I'm trying to make is that if we're justified freely by grace...if we're justified by faith...if we're transformed by the power of God and we become new creations in Christ...

Pacwa: Yes.

Martin: ...if all of this takes place, it is by God's grace. Now, if you are going to go on from there, as Trent does, and talk about the act of Sanctification and obedience to the commandments of God and so forth, you've really got a dead end. Because the Scripture says in James, which you're fond of quoting, "Whosoever offendeth in one point of the law is guilty of all." Now, you haven't committed adultery, but you've lied. You're guilty of the law and the whole thing comes crashing down on your head.

Now, what is sin but transgression of the law? All unrighteousness is sin. You and I and everybody else, professing Christians, perform acts of unrighteousness in specific categories, whether mortal or venial, we transgress the law. By transgressing the law, we testify that the law is holy, righteous, just and good and that salvation has to be by grace, because "we ain't keepin' it!" Right?

Pacwa: Right! And again, the Catholics don't deny that it's by grace...the grace of Christ. But the thing that we have difficulty in going with you to say that I can claim to be saved, is [that] Paul, the great teacher of faith, refuses to claim that he's saved. He won't teach that about himself. He says...

Martin: Where would you get that?

Pacwa: For instance, in the first letter of Paul to the Corinthians, Chapter 9...

Martin: "I know in whom I have believed and I am persuaded that He is able to keep what I have committed to Him against that day...."

Pacwa: He...

Martin: "Neither death nor life, angels, principalities, nor powers, height nor depth, nor anything in all creation shall be able to separate me from the love of God which is in Christ Jesus our Lord." That's security.

Pacwa: The one thing that he doesn't include in that list is himself, and that's why....

Martin: "I am persuaded..."?

Pacwa: No, he doesn't include himself as one of the things that can keep him separated from Christ. So he says here in I Corinthians 9, "But I do not run so uncertainly, and I don't fight like one who beats the air, but I keep my body under subjection...bring it into subjection...lest by any means, after having preached to others, I myself am disapproved." Martin: That's where I disagree. I don't think that he's saying that...

Pacwa: But when he says...

Martin: ...and I'm not arguing Calvinism, either. I'm simply saying, I don't think a man who writes multiple passages in his 13 epistles about what it is to "pass out of death into life," what it is to be justified by grace, justified by faith, and he keeps using the word "saved" in the past tense .

Pacwa: Yes.

Martin: I cannot believe that the man in one verse is going to say, "Lest I myself, after having done all of this, I'm now unsaved."

Pacwa: Well...and the thing...that's again where we disagree. That he can say both. And this is kind of being "fiddlers on the roof'-- keeping this crazy balance-- that Catholics are trying to do. That: Yes! You have to have confidence in Christ. And to commit despair is a sin, and to say to despair of Christ in any way is something that we do not advocate at all. But, at the same time, like Paul, who is concerned that he would be disqualified or cast away from the race, or disapproved, that we also have to say, "l cannot be confident that I am faithful now or will always be faithful..."

Martin: But the word is not "lost" there in the Greek.

Pacwa: "Disapproved" from a race.

Martin: It doesn't mean "lost."

Pacwa: It doesn't mean "lost" as such, but it does not mean "win" either.

Martin: Well, I mean there's a lot of people in a "no win" situation. Because a lot of people start out in the Christian life vigorously working to serve the Lord and they hit dry spots in their lives where they don't produce anything Catholics and Protestants...

Ankerberg: We need to have a final wrap-up statement from both of you. I let you go a little longer than we should and I want a final wrap-up statement. Father Pacwa?

Pacwa: Okay. The thing that I would say is that Catholicism is trying to protect two things: On one hand the first and foremost place of Christ as absolutely essential. And human will, to be able to accept that grace. And, then I guess a third thing: to see that this process of Justification is one of complete transformation of the person. Until we meet Christ, we can't be positive that we're saved, but neither should we despair of it. We can't be in despair either.

Ankerberg: Walter?

Martin: Catholicism, carried to its logical conclusion, is a denial of Justification by faith in the context of Romans 4 and 5 because it involves works as a means of merit. The Roman Catholic doctrine itself teaches that man cooperates by faith and works, for redemption, whereas biblical theology says, "It's by grace we have been saved through faith, not by ourselves; it's the gift of God, not by works, lest anyone should boast." So, for me, to carry it to its logical conclusion, 1, having gone to Catholic schools as you have, I've been trained in it, know perfectly well that I was taught, and I'm sure you were too, that you have faith in Jesus Christ and you work like a beaver, because if you don't....purgatory!"

Pacwa: Yeah...at least!

Ankerberg: All right, with that, let's get into...

Pacwa: At least!

Ankerberg: Thanks for joining us.

Martin: You got that, I can see!

Ankerberg: Join us again next week.

Program 2

A Definition of the Words and Issues Dividing Catholics and Protestants Surrounding the Doctrine of Justification.

Introduction:

This evening John Ankerberg will examine what Catholicism teaches concerning the doctrine of Justification and what are the issues surrounding this doctrine that divide Catholics and Protestants today. The doctrine of Justification deals with the question, "How can a sinful person be accepted by a holy and righteous God?"

Both Roman Catholics and Protestants agree that this doctrine is important since, if a man seeks to be forgiven in a way in which he cannot be forgiven, then he won't be forgiven. Both Catholics and Protestants agree that the benefits and merits of Christ are necessary for a man to receive Justification, but where Catholics and Protestants disagree is, "How do the merits of Christ become mine?"

[Begin Program Excerpt]

Martin: Catholicism, carried to its logical conclusion, is a denial of Justification by faith in the context of Romans 4 and 5 because it involves works as a means of merit.

Pacwa: And where we disagree is precisely there, because we understand the Scriptures to also say that those acts of obedience to the commandments are part of that process of Justification.

Martin: The Roman Catholic doctrine itself teaches that man cooperates by faith and works for redemption, whereas biblical theology says it's "by grace we have been saved through faith, not by ourselves. It's the gift of God, not by works lest any man should boast."

Pacwa: As Saint James says "Faith alone is not enough." Faith without good works is insufficient because the Justification that the Catholic Church talks about is not, as Luther taught, merely imputed.

Martin: Romans 4. Absolutely.

Ankerberg: Okay. Trent says that man is anathema.

Pacwa: Whereas the Catholic Church is trying to say instead of imputation, it's rather a transformation of the inner person and that's....

Ankerberg: I think we agree that the Catholic Church is saying that.

Martin: There's no problem. Yeah. We know that.

Pacwa: Okay.

Pacwa: We are justified by faith because faith is the beginning of human salvation. The foundation and the root of all Justification....

Ankerberg: All right let's stop right there...let's stop...

Pacwa: ...without which it is impossible to please God.

Martin: That is the basis....

Ankerberg: The question is, "Is it a beginning transaction or is it a final transaction?"

Pacwa: I think that's where we disagree.

Martin: Right. This is the point. What you just read. Faith is the beginning of the transaction, right?

Pacwa: Yes.

Martin: No! "For by grace"-- past tense-- "you have already been saved, through faith."

Ankerberg: Correct.

Martin: "Not by yourselves." Not by anything working in you. Nothing like that. No transformation in you.

[End Program Excerpt]

The whole purpose of The John Ankerberg Show is for you to understand the issues clearly. So to help de fine terms and allow you to understand the tensions that exist to this day over the issue of Justification between Roman Catholics and Protestants, John Ankerberg will define six key terms that represent what the Protestant reformers were teaching, and across from each of these points, six terms that represent Roman Catholicism's understanding of Justification.

On the Protestant side, the first key term is FORENSIC. Across from forensic on the Roman Catholic side are the words, LEGAL FICTION.

Number two on the Protestant side is SYNTHETIC. Number two under Roman Catholicism is the word ANALYTIC.

Number three on the Protestant side is IMPUTATION. Three across from Imputaton is the Catholic word INFUSION.

Number four on the Protestant side is NO HUMAN MERIT. Four across from No Human Merit is the Catholic word CONGRUOUS MERIT.

Number five on the Protestant side is CAN'T LOSE IT. Number five on the Roman Catholic side is CAN LOSE IT.

Number six on the Protestant side is FAITH ALONE. Six across from Faith Alone is the Catholic position FAITH AND WORKS ARE NECESSARY.

Tonight John Ankerberg will go through these terms with you and show you how they relate to the discussion that you will be hearing in the next two weeks concerning Justification. We invite you to join us.

Ankerberg: Good evening. We are in the midst of a series of debate programs between Jesuit Professor Father Mitchell Pacwa and Protestant scholar, the late Dr. Walter Martin, concerning the doctrines of Roman Catholicism. In the weeks to come, we will be debating papal infallibility, Catholicism's view of Mary, the mother of our Lord, confession, and purgatory.

In this program we will examine the doctrine of Justification, the main issue that caused the Reformation and still divides Catholics and Protestants today. Only if you understand the terms surrounding this issue will you be able to come to a conclusion on: "How can a sinful person be forgiven by a holy and righteous God?"

So to define the main terms and issues, I'm going to set before you a chart, containing six key terms, that represents what the Protestant Reformers were asserting, and then across from each of their points, another column of six key terms that represents the Roman Catholic understanding of the doctrine of Justification.

To begin, the first word on the Protestant side that describes what they mean by Justification is the term Forensic. Forensics has to do with speech. Maybe you were involved in a forensics club at school, so you know this term.

The reason why Protestants label their position "Forensic Justification" is because their ultimate basis of Justification is the "spoken declaration" of God. When God declares or pronounces that a sinful man is just, he is, in fact, just.

The Protestant position is based on the Scripture passage of Romans, Chapter 4, where the Apostle Paul appeals to Abraham to prove his point of Justification by Faith. Paul says that "Abraham believed God" -- when God made certain promises to him), and when Abraham believed God, as a result God reckoned, or imputed, or credited to him righteousness. That is, God declared Abraham's status to be as one who was at that moment standing righteous in God's sight.

So, for Luther and the Protestant Reformers, the basis of Abraham's Justification is found in God's declaration concerning Abraham that He pardoned or justified him the moment he believed. Forensic Justification, then, is a declaration, an act, that God does outside or apart from man. It is the judicial pronouncement of God about a sinful man, that he, as a result of placing his faith in Christ, now stands before God having the status of justness. In brief, the sinful man has been officially declared pardoned by God.

Now the Roman Catholic Church considers forensic Justification to be, as we can see in Point I on their side, a Legal Fiction; that is, this would involve God calling a man "just," when in and of himself, the man is not just.

This has its roots in the dispute stemming from Luther's very famous slogan: "Simul Justus et Peccator," which means "at the same time just and a sinner." What Luther meant by this was that when God sees that a man truly believes, He then declares that man justified legally in His sight. But at the same time, the pardoned sinner is still a sinner in and of himself.

Catholicism objected to this, believing that God will not declare a man to be just until after a man works in cooperation with God's grace and has be come just. In other words, God will not call an ashtray a rose. So Catholicism believes that the Protestant concept of Forensic Justification involves a very serious problem in the righteousness of God-- namely it involves God in a legal fiction of calling someone just, who in and of himself, is not just.

But this brings us to Point 2. To get a broader understanding of what Protestants meant by Forensic Justification, and why they said it did not involve God in a legal fiction, we need to look at the second word which describes their view. It is the word Synthetic. By this term, the Protestant Reformers meant there is a Synthesis, a combining or adding of something to the sinner's account when he stands before God. Namely, the sinner appears before God, in union with Christ.

The biblical imagery says that the sinner appears clothed with the righteousness of Christ; that is, the righteousness, the merits of Christ are given or imputed to him, and cover him. God declares a sinner just, not because He looks at the sinner's good deeds, but He declares him just in Christ. It's the unlimited merits of Christ stemming from Jesus' perfect life and atoning death which constitute a man righteous, not the merits of the man.

Now to say that the merits of Christ are Imputed, which is Point 3 underneath the Protestant side, means that the merits of Christ are reckoned, credited, counted or transferred from the account of Jesus, so to speak, and placed over in the account of the sinner. The moment the sinner believes in Christ, God sees him standing "in Christ" where all the riches and merits of Christ overwhelmingly cancel out the sinner's debts. The "Synthesis" has taken place. That is, Christ and His merits have been added to the account of the sinner. The sinner offers and pleads nothing of his own before God, but everything that Christ has done for him. It is on the basis of the merits and riches of Christ alone which are imputed to the sinner, that allows God to declare him justified or pardoned.

[Begin Program Excerpt]

Martin: Romans 4. Absolutely.

Ankerberg: Okay, Trent says "...that man is anathema."

[End Program Excerpt]

Ankerberg: Now, 2 across from Synthetic, on the Roman Catholic side, is the word Analytic which describes how they understand Justification. The word Analytic here means to analyze, to examine, to study in order to determine the outcome. Roman Catholicism believes God declares a person just only after He analyzes the person and finds within the person real righteousness, real justness within.

Now, how Catholicism says a person becomes truly righteous within is described by their word under Point 3, which is the word Infusion. By Infusion Catholicism teaches that God's prevenient grace, or the power of Christ, is infused or placed into the sinner. When this power is given, and the sinner cooperates with this power, then he can arrive in a state of justness. Only then will God declare him to be just because he has, in fact, become just. Now, Catholicism is not teaching a crass view of Justification, that a man in and of himself can live a holy and righteous life and earn Justification in the sight of God.

But Catholicism is teaching that in the power of Christ, a man can arrive at a point where he will become just within, and then God will be able to declare him justified.

[Begin Program Excerpt]

Pacwa: Whereas the Catholic Church is trying to say instead of imputation, it's rather a transformation of the inner person and that's....

Ankerberg: I think we agree that the Catholic Church is saying that.

Martin: There's no problem. Yeah. We know that.

Pacwa: Okay.

Ankerberg: What we're saying is what the Scriptures exactly in Romans 3 and 4 are saying. If God is saying something different than Trent at that point, then we should stick with the Scriptures.

[End Program Excerpt]

Ankerberg: All right, let's summarize: Catholicism believes the basis of a man's Justification is the righteousness which God finds within the person. For Protestantism, the basis of Justification is Christ Himself, His righteousness. In Protestantism, a man's righteousness within is not in any way the basis upon which God pardons a man; rather, God pardons a man solely on the basis of Christ.

In Catholicism, that which is called sanctification, or the inner transformation within a person, must come before a man can be justified.

In Protestantism, sanctification or the transformation of the person's inner life, comes only as the immediate result of Justification, and never is the means by which a man gains Justification. Protestants believe Catholicism has not accepted Paul's teaching in Romans and Galatians where he clearly defines the only basis upon which God says He will justify a man. Paul says, "To the one who does not work, but believes in Him who justifies the ungodly, his faith is 'reckoned,' imputed, or counted to him as righteousness" (Romans 4:5).

Next, under 4 on the Protestant side we find the words No Human Merit. By this, Protestants mean that man has no merit of his own whatsoever that can dispose God to justify him. Justification is not God's judgment based on the personal righteousness within the sinner or of any kind of good works a man can do. Rather, Justification is God's judgment based on the work of Christ at the cross in whom the sinner believes. The Bible says, "But now a righteousness from God, apart from law, has been made known,...This righteousness from God comes through faith in Jesus Christ to all who believe." The Apostle Paul emphatically states it is "Not by works of righteousness which we have done, but according to his mercy he saved us" (Titus 3 :5).

[Begin Program Excerpt]

Martin: Catholicism, carried to its logical conclusion, is a denial of Justification by faith in the context of Romans 4 and S because it involves works as a means of merit. The Roman Catholic doctrine itself teaches that man cooperates by faith and works for redemption, whereas, biblical theology says it's "by grace we have been saved through faith, not by ourselves: it is the gift of God, not by works lest anyone should boast." Not by anything working in you. Nothing like that. No transformation in you.

[End Program Excerpt]

Ankerberg: Four across from the Protestant phrase "No Human Merit" is the Roman Catholic phrase, Congruous Merit. Catholicism teaches that working in co-operation with prevenient grace, or the infused power of Christ within a person, that the sinner can then live a life that is not absolutely perfect, but a life that is meritorious enough to make it congruous or "fitting" for God to grant him Justification. In brief, a sinful man's cooperation with Christ's infused power can lead him to do good deeds that will earn him congruous merit before God.

Now, this is very important: Those good works done in the power of Christ which earn him congruous merit are necessary for salvation and must be present before Justification takes place in Roman Catholicism. They are a condition for receiving a right standing before God that entails the promise of heaven.

[Begin Program Excerpt]

Pacwa: And where we disagree is precisely there, because we understand the Scriptures to also say that those acts of obedience to the commandments are part of that process of Justification.

[End Program Excerpt]

Ankerberg: Next, I want you to listen very carefully as we come to a very interesting one.

Number five for Protestants is the phrase "Can't Lose Justification," Historically, the Protestant Reformers argued that since a man's Justification depended solely on Christ's meritorious life and atoning death and not upon anything which a man can do, a man could not lose his Justification. Since Christ has already lived a perfect life and died to pay for all of man's sins, nothing will ever change what Christ did which is the basis of a man's Justification. Therefore, once a person believes in Christ, he or she is secure. Because salvation is totally a gift from God based on Christ's atoning death for us, while believing in Christ, the total number of good or bad deeds a person does will not change this gift from God.

It should be pointed out that though Luther agreed that the merits of Christ were the sole basis of a man's Justification and Christ's merit did not depend in any way on a man's deeds, Luther still thought that a man could lose his Justification if he decided to totally turn away from Christ. Since God's gift of forgiveness of sins and eternal life was received by faith, if a man decided not to believe and to rest his eternal destiny in Christ, and totally turned against Him, only then would a man lose his salvation. In other words, the only sin that Luther felt would cause a man to lose his salvation was the sin of apostasy.

Now on the other hand, Calvin taught that once God justified a man, God would strengthen that man's faith and protect him so that he would never want to turn away from believing in the work of Christ on his behalf.

Five across from the Protestant position of "Can't Lose Justification" is Roman Catholicism's position, "You Can Lose It." Catholicism believes that justifying grace within a man can be obliterated by his committing mortal sin. Roman Catholicism distinguishes between venial sins-- sins that are not so serious that they involve the destruction of justifying grace-- and mortal sins, which are sins so serious that the grace of Justification can be destroyed within man. If a man commits a mortal sin and destroys his Justification, in order for him to regain it, Catholicism teaches he must come via the Sacrament of Penance, which involves confession, absolution, and satisfaction.

Catholics do believe in Christ, but are reminded that their Justification also depends on their works co-operating with Christ. Catholics are taught that because a man cannot know his own heart, and because he is subject to many temptations, a man may commit a variety of mortal sins, any one of which could destroy his Justification. That is why the Council of Trent stated, "Each one, when he regards himself and his own weakness and indisposition, may have fear and apprehension touching his own grace; seeing that no one can know with a certainty of faith, which cannot be subject to error, that he has obtained the grace of God." So for Catholicism, a man can lose his Justification and can't be sure he will someday be in heaven.

[Begin Program Excerpt]

Pacwa: But if one commits serious sin, one can cut oneself off from Christ and thereby lose one's Justification.

[End Program Excerpt]

Ankerberg: Under six, representing the views of Protestants, are the famous words, "By Faith Alone."

For Protestants, faith is not just intellectual assent to certain facts about Christ's salvation; rather, faith is a knowledge of the facts plus a total trust or resting of one's eternal destiny in Jesus Christ, who is the sole reason and grounds upon which God justifies us.

For Protestants, Justification is an act that can take place in a single moment, the moment the sinner, through faith, trusts Christ completely. At that moment, the benefits of Christ are applied to the sinner's life and he is officially judged and declared by God to stand in His sight as righteous. For Protestants, the person's faith is not a meritorious work that contributes or helps provide Justification. Rather, faith is only an "instrument" which allows a sinful person to reach out to Christ, who is the sole reason, grounds, and basis upon which God justifies.

Let me try to illustrate. Picture a burning building and a person trapped on the third floor. When that person is urged to jump, to have faith that the firemen below will catch him in their net, if he jumps, it will not be the person's faith which saves him; rather it will be the net and the firemen holding the net who catch him. In salvation, it is not the component of faith which saves us; rather, it is Christ who saves us. Our faith merely decides to allow Christ to rescue us and commits us into Christ's hands.

To clearly see that faith in no way provides the basis of our salvation, answer this: How much do you think your "faith" would save you if, after you jumped off the third floor, on the way down you discovered the firemen were only standing in a circle and weren't holding any net? At that point, it would be very clear that your faith can't do anything to save you. What you need is a real net with real firemen holding it. The same is true spiritually.

It's not your faith that actually provides your salvation; rather, it is Christ who paid for all your sins on the cross, and has the strength to do all the saving. Faith is nothing more than your decision, your exercising your free will, to ask Christ to save you. Why should anyone think that your decision to ask Christ to save you, your placing your faith in Him, actually helps Him do it?

Now, six across from "Faith Alone" is Catholicism's belief that Justification is by faith plus works. For Catholicism, faith is required but they object to saying that faith alone is all that God requires for Him to justify a person. In addition to faith, Catholicism also requires "works."

[Begin Program Excerpt]

Pacwa: But at the same time, as St. James says, faith alone is not enough. Faith without good works is insufficient. Because the Justification that the Catholic Church talks about is not, as Luther taught, merely imputed.

[End Program Excerpt]

Ankerberg: The dispute centers on some key passages in the New Testament, most notably the 3rd and 4th chapters of Romans and the 2nd chapter of the Epistle of James. Let's look at these passages right now.

Romans, Chapter 3, beginning at verse 28 says: "For we maintain that a man is justified by faith apart from the works of the law." Protestants believe that since Paul says that a man is justified by Faith apart from the works of the law, then one can only conclude Justification must be by faith alone. There are no other options.

Further, Paul's own conclusion in chapter 5 is, "Therefore being justified by faith we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ through whom we have gained access by faith into this grace in which we now stand."

In Romans, Chapter 4, the apostle builds his case for Justification by Faith without works by giving a historical example, where he appeals to the case of Abraham. It begins, "For if Abraham was justified by works, he has something to boast about; but not before God. For what does the Scripture say? Abraham believed God and it was reckoned to him as righteousness." Here again, the word reckoned means to count, to impute, to place to the account of Abraham. After stating this about Abraham, Paul argues, "to the one who does not work, but believes in Him who justifies the ungodly"-- notice once again, that according to Paul, God justifies the ungodly, not the one righteous within-- "his faith is reckoned (or imputed) as righteousness."

Now, what Paul very clearly says is that when Abraham believed God, that was the time of his Justification. "Abraham believed God and it was counted to him as righteousness." Abraham believed God and he was justified by divine declaration apart from works.

So here in Chapter 4 the Apostle Paul links the statement from Chapter 3, "We are justified by faith apart from the works of the law," with the historical situation of Abraham to prove his case that a man is declared justified by God the moment he believes. Paul labors the point that it is by faith alone in Christ and nothing of man's works that is the basis of God's justifying a man.

Now, how does the Roman Catholic Church deal with this? Well, they counter this concept of Justification by Faith alone by an appeal to James 2, verse 24. It reads: "You see then that a man is justified by works and not by faith alone."

Now, Roman Catholic scholars say to Protestants, "Can the Bible make it any clearer? Here you are going around teaching that Justification is by Faith alone and yet we have a statement from the Apostle James that says, 'You see then that Justification is by works and not by faith alone.' And what's more, not only does James say that Justification is by works and not by faith alone, but he appeals to Abraham to prove his point, the very historical figure that the Apostle Paul appealed to in stating his case of Justification by faith in Romans 4."

Now, does this mean we have an irreconcilable contradiction between the two apostles? Are they teaching different doctrines? No, as we will see next week during our debate, the Apostle Paul in the book of Romans is talking about how a man is justified before God, whereas the Apostle James is talking about how a man is justified before men.

James is answering the question, "How can we tell what is true, genuine faith?" His answer is, "If a man says he has faith but has no works, that kind of faith is not a real faith-- that is a dead faith."

Luther and the Reformers would agree. They said, "Works do not bring Justification, but they [works] do grow out of it. Works are the fruit, the results, the evidence that shows that a man has a genuine faith." So the two apostles are in agreement. There is no contradiction.

James is not talking about works bringing a man into a relationship with God. He knows that Justification before God only comes by true faith in Christ. What James is saying is, since men cannot see another person's heart, as God can, to judge whether or not that person has true faith, the only thing that men can see is a person's works.

But a genuine faith will always result in producing good works. Therefore, in this sense works can justify a person before other men, but not before God. Works show [to men] that there is genuine faith present. That's why James cites Abraham's good works as the proof that Abraham had a genuine faith, while the Apostle Paul cites Abraham to prove that Abraham was justified before God the moment he believed, and before God no works were involved.

In brief, James is saying, if people want to test whether or not the faith that justifies a man before God that Paul is talking about is really in a person, the only way they can check this is by looking at the results that flow from a true faith, namely, a person's works. So, it's works that justify a man's claim to faith in front of people. It's faith alone in Christ that justifies a man before God.

Next week I hope you will join me to hear Father Pacwa and Dr. Martin debate this further.

Program 3

Is a Sinner Justified by Faith in Christ Alone or Faith Plus His Own Good Works?

Introduction:

As the Council of Trent stated, "Sinners assenting to co-operate with God's grace are then disposed to convert themselves to their own Justification." This means that when a man decides to cooperate with God's power within him, he can live a life sufficient enough to merit what Catholicism calls "congruous merit"-- merit that makes it "fitting" for God to bestow Justification on him. Catholics are quick to point out that they have never taught that a sinner in his own strength can merit Justification. But Catholicism does teach that in cooperation with Christ's strength, the sinner can live a life that is meritorious enough that it makes it congruous, or fitting, for God to grant Justification.

In addition, Trent said, "There are degrees of Justification which vary according to the gift of God and man's dispositions and cooperation with grace."

And finally Trent said, "To those who work well until the end, and trust in God, eternal life is to be offered, both as a grace, and as a reward promised by God Himself, to be given to their good works and merits." Because man's cooperation with God's grace will always be imperfect and tainted with sinful acts that might destroy Justification, throughout his life man can only hope he will be finally justified and cannot enjoy the certainty he is going to be in heaven.

So tonight, "Does the Doctrine of Justification in the Bible call for faith alone in Christ, or faith plus works?" John's guests are Father Mitchell Pacwa, an ordained Roman Catholic priest who is a member of the Society of Jesus, a Jesuit. He has an earned Doctor of Philosophy degree and is currently a professor at Loyola University in Chicago. John's second guest is the late Dr. Walter Martin director and founder of the Christian Research Institute in California. Please join us for this discussion.

Pacwa: What Trent says is that you cannot do those good actions unless Christ gives you the grace to do so. And that it is His grace empowering you to do those good acts, not your good acts.

Ankerberg: Yes. But even though Trent says that you are given that grace by God, they say, "But not to the extent that it's not you doing it in the strength of Christ."

Pacwa: Right.

Ankerberg: You have to do it. It doesn't just automatically happen.

Pacwa: That's....

Ankerberg: That's what we object to. It's Christ who does it all. No "meritum congruum." It's not condign or congruous merit. There's no merit whatsoever. Christ does it all!

Pacwa: So that there's nothing at all that you yourself do in terms of your...?

Ankerberg: Not in terms of providing redemption. That's what Scripture says.

Pacwa: I guess that neither goes with the teaching of the Church that I, obviously, am committed to as having authority, nor does it fit my own experience that there...l see in my own experience even, that I'm presented with the option to do grace, to receive a moment of grace, or to reject it. Now, when I accept it, with my own will, saying "Yes"...I'll say "Yes" to that grace of Christ. I know that it is Christ doing it in me, and that it is not me doing it by myself. But if it were me doing it on my own, I would be committing sin.

Martin: Can I quote here, please?

Ankerberg: Certainly.

Martin: A Roman Catholic scholar, The Catholic Response, Fr. Stravinskus, an apologist answering Protestants, when he's dealing with the subject we're talking about right now. Talking about salvation and the merits of Christ and so forth. "When confronted with the offer of salvation, a person is given the impulse to respond with faith, which is always a gift, always an act of the whole person. When we speak of faith as a gift, we mean that no human being can do anything to merit it..."

Pacwa: Absolutely.

Martin: "...but that it is freely bestowed by a gracious God."

Pacwa: That's right! That's Trent.

Martin: Now...I know it is. Now, if you can't do anything to merit it, how is it that after you have been saved, you can merit it for somebody else in purgatory?

Pacwa: Because what I can do is to continue to receive the grace of Christ, and say, "Lord, I want to receive this and I want to pray for this other person" just as I do when they're still alive. When people are alive-- people I've offended, for instance. One of the real healing things that helps reconcile people in this life is praying with them and for them. And what we believe is that that process is not ended by death-- not because we're powerful or because we have a little "S" on us that means we're a little savior-- but rather because they are still part of the Body of Christ. Just as much as they were on this earth.

And as a matter of fact, even more so in the sense that those who are in purgatory are absolutely assured of their salvation. They not only have confidence, they have absolute assurance of salvation. That only those who are redeemed are able to have received that purification in purgatory, to prepare them to enter the gates of heaven.

Martin: Are you trying to say that the souls in purgatory who are being punished for temporal...for temporal punishment have not only confidence in their salvation but assurance of it, and you don't?

Pacwa: I have absolute confidence in my salvation....

Martin: How about the assurance?

Pacwa: I have assurance at this moment. Again, we have to be careful about not getting into the debate about free will. We keep getting into it, but it's hard to avoid, because I don't know about the next moment whether I will continue to be faithful. I pray to God that I will always be open to His grace so that I can be faithful....

Ankerberg: But it depends on you. That's why you're not sure.

Pacwa: There is a part of it where I have to...it depends...my faith depends on grace.

Ankerberg: Can you see the difference there? Can you see the difference?

Pacwa: Oh, absolutely.

Ankerberg: If we depend on Christ, His work's already done and "in the bank."

Pacwa: Right.

Ankerberg: Okay. But if I have to in any way have His credit, His merit, His power and mine-- this is where the Protestants say, "No!" If it's on me, then yeah, we would join your ranks. But if it's based on Christ, if the solid foundation is Christ and not Christ and me-- you see, that's where we'll never get assurance. I agree with you on Catholic theology. You'll never get assurance under your system.

Pacwa: That's right.

Ankerberg: But in Protestant theology, they look at the Scripture verses that say, "It's on Christ!"

Pacwa: Well, so do we, with the addition, of course, that I have to say "Yes" to it in my free will. That I have a choice....and that's the only point at which I have anything to say. Will I, by my free will, say "Yes" to that grace? Now...well, the thing that I would have to ask you is, "Do you thereby deny that human free will has anything to do with your acceptance?"

Ankerberg: No, we just don't get credit for it. We don't merit it like you do. We believe that God helped us to come to that point....

Pacwa: So do we.

Ankerberg: ...and we don't get credit for it.

Pacwa: Right.

Ankerberg: You get credit for it, though. Congruous merit. We're saying that if you could just drop the merit point, we'd be friends. Jesus paid it all!

Pacwa: I'll be friends without dropping it, but I won't drop it. But the thing that...

Ankerberg: Friends theologically.

Martin: Go one step further...

Pacwa: The thing, though, about that merit again, it's not that my act-- and this is not the Catholic understanding at all-- that my act of free will merits anything. It's the simple saying "Yes" to what God gives as His merit by Christ on the cross.

Martin: I am concerned with one thing though, Fr. Pacwa.

Pacwa: Yes.

Martin: You quoted a moment before about those who do righteous...would you make that quote again?

Pacwa: Yes. "Ho poion dikaiosune dikaios estin"-- "The one who does righteousness or Justification, is righteous."

Martin: Okay. Now transpose that to Romans 4. It won't fit.

Pacwa: What do you mean, "It won't fit?"

Martin: Abraham is already accounted righteous by imputation before he acts.

Pacwa: Yes, except...

Martin: He didn't do righteousness. It came to him before he did it.

Pacwa: Except what does James say?

Martin: Let's stick with Romans.

Pacwa: No, no, no, no!

Martin: Then we'll go to James.

Pacwa: No, no, no! We can't understand Romans without James because James says that Abraham was justified by what?

Martin: By works.

Pacwa: By his works...

Martin: Sure, but...

Pacwa: So, we have both.

Martin: No. Well, let's...

Ankerberg: If you're going to use the word...

Pacwa: Sort of like the "Certs" commercial-- both right.

Ankerberg: No, you don't.

Martin: I never denied "dual Justification." Justification before God...

Pacwa: Well, he does. What do you mean by "dual Justification"?

Martin: I'm going to explain.

Pacwa: Oh, okay?

Martin: In dual Justification, we're talking about two spheres. The first sphere is spiritual and God alone is privy to it...

Pacwa: Yeah.

Martin: ...the second sphere is temporal and men can see it. Now, I can't see the faith you have in Christ that would justify you from your sins. But God can see it.

Pacwa: Yes.

Martin: God saw in Abraham that he was going to be declared righteous by faith. God gave him redemption. That is the sphere of God's knowledge. We can't see that.

Pacwa: Right.

Martin: But God saw it, so He says, "He's righteous." "I see it. He's righteous."

Pacwa: Right.

Martin: Now, James is saying, "Look, the kind of faith that does not move into the sphere that can be evaluated and perceived and judged is not saving faith at all. The demons have that kind of faith and they tremble. That's not going to save them.

Pacwa: Right.

Martin: So, all James is saying, "The world must see the existence of your faith in the works that you perform." That's the sphere of Justification before men. But the sphere of Justification before God precedes that. God saw in Romans 4 that Abraham...God saw in Romans 4 that Abraham already was righteous. God said so.

Pacwa: Yeah.

Martin: But yet, nobody else could see that till he raised the knife over Isaac. Then they knew. That's all James is talking about.

Pacwa: But nobody was there to see him, for one thing, when he raised the hand over Isaac. That the only...

Martin: Isaac was there.

Pacwa: Isaac was there, but nobody saw his good works. It was God who was there to see his works.

Martin: But what James is trying to point out to us, I think is very....

Pacwa: Where do you see that written down that this is what James is about?

Martin: Oh, but wait a minute! You started out a little while ago saying, "Just because it isn't explicitly affirmed doesn't mean it cannot be inferred from the context." I'm saying exactly the same thing.

Pacwa: I know, and I was just going to say, "Now you're starting to talk like you are papally infallible."

Ankerberg: No. I'd like to get in here and bring in something and ask you from the context of Scripture again. We brought up James as being the main hindrance to this idea of Justification that's imputed. And let me ask you to give me a definition of "Justification" off the lips of our Lord Jesus, where He uses the proverb and says that, "Wisdom is justified by her children." What does justified mean there? Does it mean that Wisdom will, by her children, go up and have a declaration before God somehow, or does it mean that the children of Wisdom will somehow infuse grace into Wisdom and therefore she's justified? What does it mean?

Pacwa: First of all, to deal with that text, where He's talking about John the Baptist and all, the word "justice" and "Justification" has a wide range of meanings.

Ankerberg: Yeah, but just tell me what it is there. That's what I'm shooting at first of all.

Pacwa: In that particular text He's dealing definitely with...one of the majority uses in the Old Testament, namely, a legal Justification that...

Ankerberg: No, He's not. No, He's not.

Pacwa: ...You don't think it's a legal Justification?

Ankerberg: No. It can't be. In other words, Wisdom is a proverb here and it's being personified into a woman. And it's saying that somehow her children somehow justify her.

Pacwa: Okay.

Ankerberg: Okay? Now, I would submit to you, if you will look in your Arndt & Gingrich-- your Greek Lexicon, which I'm sure you are familiar with...

Pacwa: Yes.

Ankerberg: ...you'll find seven different meanings to the word "justified."

Pacwa: Sure.

Ankerberg: And one of the things that we have a problem with is when we transfer over into James, which is Wisdom Literature, versus Paul who has Systematic Doctrine, spelled out in Romans-- you've got chapter after chapter of the doctrine that Paul is preaching. Wisdom Literature is practical and it takes that which is doctrine and applies it. Now, if I can take the same interpretation of the word "justified" off Jesus' lips, in His proverb that "Wisdom is justified by her children," which has to mean that Wisdom is vindicated by her children-- "If you want to see what real Wisdom is, look at the children." The children will vindicate Wisdom-- will prove it. You'll see the results. Now, take that same understanding of the word "justified" and put it into the context, if I can, of James 2. James says, "What good is it, my brothers, if a man claims to have faith but has no deeds.', Here, James is answering the question about those who say they have faith, but there are no...there is no change in their life. Okay? And he goes on: "Can such a faith save him?" Luther and the Reformers said, "No! It's a dead faith! A faith that does not result in works is a dead faith. That will never save you."

Pacwa: That's right.

Ankerberg: Then it goes on: "If one of you says to him, 'Go, I wish you well; keep warm and well fed' but does nothing about his physical needs, what good is it?" What kind of faith is that? It's no good. In the same way, faith, by itself, if it is not accompanied by action is dead. The Reformers would say, "Sure! That's true."

Pacwa: So would the Catholics.

Ankerberg: And so would the Catholics. "But someone will say you have faith, and I have deeds. Show me your faith without the deeds and I'll show you my faith by what I do." There's somebody that's standing there that's saying, "Well, listen, let's have a contest. I'll show the faith and you show the deeds." And James gets a little sarcastic in here and says, "To all of those that think they can simply believe and no transformation has to come out of their life..." he gets a little sarcastic and he says, "Hey, you do real well with your creed there...your belief in God and all of that. You believe that there is One God? Good. Even the demons believe that." You have qualified to be a demon. And Luther and the Reformers said that in terms of faith, a true faith is not just having an assent of the facts. It's not just having a knowledge of the facts...

Pacwa: Sure.

Ankerberg: I had professors at school, and I'm sure that you did, that knew church history back and forth. They knew the doctrines that we're talking about, and didn't believe a stitch of it!

Pacwa: That's right.

Ankerberg: They knew it, but that doesn't save you. The demons know it and even tremble-- they even go a little further than some people. They're a little scared about it. But it doesn't make sure that they're going to be saved. It doesn't mean they're going to be in heaven. So he goes on: "You foolish man! Do you want evidence that faith without deeds is useless?" Then, he goes to Abraham as the illustration, which is the same historical figure that Paul uses. Paul has got done saying, in Romans 3, that, "We conclude then that a man is justified without the works of the law." He uses Abraham as an illustration. Abraham didn't have any works. It was, "He believed God" and at that point it was "reckoned to him as righteousness."

Pacwa: Right.

Ankerberg: And then he goes back to Genesis-- a certain part of Genesis...

Pacwa: [Chapter] 22.

Ankerberg: No, [Chapter] 14, isn't it? He goes back to when Abraham believed God and...

Pacwa: Genesis 15:6.

Ankerberg: ...God says "It was reckoned to him as righteousness." James picks up Abraham and he goes to 22, and he uses Abraham. But how does he use him? That's what we've got to find out. His point is to say this, that real faith will always result in works. Real faith, if I can use the same word that Jesus used-- "justifies"-- will vindicate a man who has faith, see? And look at how it fits, perfectly. "Was not our ancestor, Abraham, considered righteous"-- or vindicated, or justified-- "Wasn't our ancestor, Abraham, vindicated for what he did?" In other words, didn't it show? Wasn't he vindicated? Was it his true faith, that Paul is talking about-- that when he believed in God, God gave it to him, and God who could see the heart, so that's a real one, no works...not any other basis except your faith and my promises-- that gave him his standing.

Which is what Romans Chapter 4 says. James picks it up and says, "That's right! And how do we prove that this guy Abraham who says he got it, how do we know that he really does? Out of his life his works will vindicate him." Which goes on-- let me just finish it up here. "You see that his faith and his actions were working together and his faith was made complete." Do we say that faith in the Reformation doctrine has to be complete? Sure! That's what Hebrews is saying. In one sense we have our standing. In the other sense, we are still being transformed into our standing, which is Christ.

Pacwa: The thing that I would ask you then, is that, first of all, to specify more carefully than you have done the difference between "Justification," as you're using it, and "vindication." What's the nuance that you're getting at that's different?

Ankerberg: Simply the fact that one comes as a result of true faith, and the other one is a different basis altogether. That Justification is a declaration that God makes on Abraham's life apart from any works, on the sole basis that he believed in God.

Pacwa: Yes, and again we...you see....

Ankerberg: Walter, is that basically what you were saying?

Martin: Yes, certainly what I was saying, but also in James, I didn't invent-- John read the whole context-- I didn't invent a traditional interpretation or anything like that. It specifically says there, "We see how Abraham was justified....We see...We see." It's a testimony, a physical thing, and something you can observe. A phenomenon you can see. His works testified to the existence of his faith. That's what vindicated him.

Pacwa: So, only if you change the meaning of the word-- the verb "justify"-- to be "vindicate" and use it in that sense, which you won't use when you apply it to Paul's usage, that then....

Ankerberg: Ah-hah! The context! You're a biblical scholar....

Pacwa: Sure.

Ankerberg: You know that the context is basically where you get the meaning of these words.

Pacwa: Exactly.

Ankerberg: All right...

Pacwa: The thing we have to see here, though, is that on both sides...l mean, I would not use "vindication" in the sense that you do to translate Paul. I don't think....

Ankerberg: I know you wouldn't, but it's a legitimate meaning right off the lips of our Lord Jesus.

Pacwa: Sure. The thing that we also have to see is that it's not the only meaning, and we can only accept the sense that you have if I accept your presuppositions and that you say that that's the context, and then I say, "Okay." But if I do not accept your translation and say that that meaning of "vindication" is here....

Ankerberg: You have an irreconcilable conflict, then, between James and Paul.

Pacwa: No, no, no!

Ankerberg: You certainly do!

Pacwa: That...no, no, no....

Ankerberg: You have no way of defining Paul.

Pacwa: You only say that we do because you also insist on the sense of imputation that's part of Protestant theology.

Ankerberg: "In a sense!" It's the words that are used!

Pacwa: And...well, not quite. Again, let me finish.

Ankerberg: "Reckoned?"

Pacwa: Well, let me....Again, I don't deny they used "reckoned" and the word "chashad," behind it. No way do I deny that. And, again, neither does Trent in Chapter VIII, Session VI.

Ankerberg: They deny it by what they say...

Pacwa: They do not deny it by what they say. They say that that's the beginning!

Ankerberg: ...because remember what I read...remember Canon XXXII there that I read to you concerning the fact that your works then cooperate with the...

Pacwa: Okay...wait, wait, wait. Let me finish a sentence, okay?

Ankerberg: ...Spirit of Christ to merit you heaven?

Pacwa: Now, let me get to the...so I can make the sense that we get out of it.

Ankerberg: Okay.

Pacwa: Okay. That we believe that these works that he does as part of his faith, as part of his Justification, are the grace of God working in him. So that we see that we don't need to change the sense....the sense of justice to vindication here, because it's these works that are flowing from the grace of Christ still acting in the man who believes. And so that rather than seeing that James and Paul are opposite or opposed to each other-- No way! They can't be. They're in Scripture. And that there has to be a unity of understanding between the two. And that is revelation.

Ankerberg: Okay. Let's have a concluding statement tonight from both of you, and Fr. Pacwa, wrap it all up in one short statement there.

Pacwa: That's tough. I guess that we would just see it as Catholics, as I've said so many times, that we're saved by the grace of Christ and saved by that alone. But that it's a grace that has effectiveness, an effectiveness in terms of our actions, and that we, by accepting it in our own act of faith, by our will, accept the grace given to us to believe. We don't believe on our own; we don't have grace on our own-- it's all that Christ does for us. But it is something that because it is God working in us, through our will, and using that will that He gave us to begin with, that there's a transformation of our personality that will affect everything that we do. And it is only because of our complete union with Christ which He gives us that we have the power to do what we do, and no other means is there. And that's the good news that we have proclaimed and is the faith of millions and millions.

Ankerberg: Okay. Dr. Martin?

Martin: The reason why there was a Protestant Reformation is because the combination of faith and works-- the individual's merit system which had been developed and evolved in the Church had gotten the Church to the place where she was selling the things of God and Trent had to admit it later on. So, what actually I would emphasize is the fact that the gift of God is eternal life. It's by grace alone, through faith, not by works lest anyone should boast. Whether it's my works, effected through the grace of Christ, or work which I try and contribute towards my salvation-- whatever the use of works may be-- it's disqualified by biblical theology. It is solely by grace, through faith, the instrument of faith, in Jesus Christ. And, God wants us to have a transformed life as a result of this, and if the transformation of the life is not evident, then there is no Justification by works in the life of the individual, the world can't see it, and that's a dead faith. That's the difference, and the difference is grace versus a combination of faith and works. And that's why there was a Reformation.

Ankerberg: Gentlemen, I surely appreciate your being here.

Program 4

Did Jesus Make Peter "Pope" Over the Church?

Introduction:

This evening John Ankerberg will examine the evidence for some of the doctrines taught by the Roman Catholic Church.

Tonight's topic, "Is There Evidence That Jesus Christ Established the Office of "Pope" Over His Church?" The Catholic church claims that Jesus conferred on Peter and his successors supreme power in faith and morals over all the other apostles and over every Christian in the Church. But is this true?

This doctrine is supposedly based on Matthew 16 where it states, "Thou art Peter and upon this rock I will build my Church, and the gates of hell shall not prevail against it. And I will give to thee the keys of the Kingdom of Heaven; and whatsoever thou shalt bind upon earth it shall be bound also in heaven, and whatsoever thou shalt loose on earth, it shall be loosed also in heaven."

But many Christians reject Roman Catholic interpretation. They point out that in the very passage appealed to before Jesus spoke to Peter, He had asked His disciples whom men were saying that he was.

Peter replied, "Thou art the Christ, the Son of the Living God."

Jesus agreed with Peter's statement and used it to teach that He Himself will be the Rock, the foundation upon which the Church will be built. For Jesus says, "Thou art Peter"-- petros, a small stone-- "and upon this petra"-- great massive rock, referring to Peter's truthful declaration of Christ's deity-- it is upon this truth that Jesus says He will build His Church.

Which of these interpretations best fits the scriptural record? What did Peter mean when he stated in his own epistle that Jesus was the chief cornerstone and all other Christians are living stones?

Other questions surrounding the doctrine of the Pope are: Why are there no Scripture verses that teach how the of office of Pope is to be transmitted by Peter to his successors? Why is it that the Apostle Paul never mentions the office of Pope in any of his epistles when he teaches about the offices in the Church? When Jesus gave Peter the keys to the Kingdom, doesn't Scripture show that Jesus gave the same keys to the other apostles? Does Scripture teach that the keys are a declaratory authority to announce the terms on which God will grant salvation, or, as Roman Catholics teach, an absolute power to admit or exclude someone from heaven? Both sides admit that in the first chapters of Acts, Peter exercises the keys to the Kingdom by declaring the gospel to both Jews and Gentiles, as Jesus said He would, but then, the other apostles declare the gospel and Peter drops from sight in the scriptural account. When Peter does reappear, at the council of Jerusalem, why is it that the Apostle James leads the Church and not Peter?

Tonight, you will hear both sides of this question. John's guests are Father Mitchell Pacwa, an ordained Roman Catholic priest. He has an earned Doctor of Philosophy Degree and is currently Professor of Old Testament at Loyola University in Chicago. John's second guest is the late Dr. Walter Martin, director and founder of the Christian Research Institute in California. Please join us.

John Ankerberg: Good evening. Tonight we're examining the claims and the authority of the specific doctrines of the Roman Catholic Church. What is the evidence for their claims and their teachings? My first guest is an ordained Roman Catholic Priest-- Fr. Mitchell Pacwa, who is a member of the Society of Jesus-- a Jesuit. He has earned a Doctor of Philosophy degree and is currently a professor of Old Testament at Loyola University in Chicago. My second guest is the late Dr. Walter Martin. Dr. Martin was director and founder of the Christian Research Institute in California, and Walter was the author of many books-- especially the classic book known by both Protestants and Catholics-- The Kingdom of the Cults. Gentlemen, we're glad that you're here tonight.

Father Pacwa, I've got to come to you right off the bat here. I'm reading from the New York Catechism and I'd like to talk about the authority that the Roman Catholic Church says that they have and has taught in many of their documents. I'm reading from the New York Catechism> which says, "The Pope takes the place of Jesus Christ on earth. By divine right, the Pope has supreme and full power in faith and morals over each and every pastor and his flock. He is the true Vicar of Christ, the Head of the entire Church, the father and teacher of all Christians. He is the infallible ruler, the founder of dogmas, the author of and the judge of councils, the universal ruler of truth, the arbiter of the world, the supreme judge of heaven and earth, the judge of all, being judged by no one, God Himself on earth."

And this seems to rest on the basis that was stated by Cardinal Gibbons in his book Faith of Our Fathers-- the short one here-- "The Catholic Church teaches that our Lord conferred on St. Peter the first place of honor and jurisdiction in the government of His whole Church and that the same spiritual supremacy has always resided in the popes or bishops of Rome, as being the successors of St. Peter. Consequently, to be true followers of Christ, all Christians, both among the clergy and laity, must be in communion with the See of Rome where Peter rules in the person of his successors."

The opposite way of saying this would be, "If anyone says that the blessed Apostle Peter was not constituted by Christ our Lord prince of all the apostles and visible head of all the church militant, or that he, Peter, directly and immediately, received from our Lord Jesus Christ a primacy of favor only and not one of true and proper jurisdiction, let him be anathema." Now, I know that most of the writings of Jesus establishing Peter go back to Matthew Chapter 16.

Pacwa: Yes.

Ankerberg: And I'd like to start with that tonight. Matthew Chapter 16, verses 17-19 is supposed to prove this doctrine. And I would like for you to tell us why you think that this doctrine is proved from this passage or from other verses. Let's start with that.

Pacwa: Okay. The sense that the Church developed in its understanding of that text over time was twofold....in the Church. On one hand, as almost every Protestant knows, there are two words here-- that, "You are 'Petros,' and on this 'petra' I will build my church." In the early Church, the Greek fathers and Western fathers alike, both interpreted it in two ways: (1) They said that the "Rock"-- Peter-- is the person on which Jesus is building the Church, and (2) other times, even the same fathers of the Church, like Augustine, for instance, taught that the Petra is his act of faith.

Ankerberg: Let me read the verse for the people at home so they know what we're talking about.

Pacwa: Sure.

Ankerberg: Verse 18-- and I'm reading from the Catholic Bible-- "And I say to thee that thou art Peter, and upon this rock I will build my Church and the gates of hell shall not prevail against it."

Pacwa: Yes, that text there is about Peter being called "rock." On one hand, even in the early Church when they use that distinction between "petra" and "petros," you know, it's explained in different ways. "Petra," the noun, is feminine, and it was just masculinized when translating Peter's name into Greek. Okay? In Aramaic, it would be no different. "Ante kepha ve'al kepha dinnah ebanah kenisiyah sheli"-- just plain Aramaic. And there would be no distinction in terminology.

As a matter of fact, I don't know if you've been to Israel, but the place where this takes place, Caesarea Philippi, is a perfect setting for this statement. Because behind the city is this solid rock cliff that goes on for approximately a mile in either direction. It's just enormous. And so this is also a visual image here. So we see that this-- we believe...that this person and his after-faith, or both, are the basis on which Jesus builds His Church and is a principle that we see throughout the Gospels that where Jesus is, He makes His apostles, especially, and the rest of us, too. So that Jesus is the Rock of our Salvation-- to be sure, but He makes Peter "the Rock." Jesus called Himself "the Good Shepherd" in John Chapter 10. But, in another commission to Peter, which Scripture scholars of all different brands and colors consider to be the Johannine version of the same setting apart of Peter where he is called shepherd. So, Jesus, the Shepherd, makes Peter The Shepherd, because he wants to know, anyway, whether Peter loves Jesus more than all the rest.

Ankerberg: Okay. Let me stop you there and, Dr. Martin, why don't you get into this?

Martin: Well, what we're really talking about are differences that persist since Vatican II between classic Roman Catholic theology and Protestant theology or Reformation theology. And what he is saying, I'm well acquainted with as any scholar in the area would be. The problem that we have is that the statements you read before from Cardinal Gibbons, and other statements which have been made, indicate that it goes far beyond the concept of Peter's faith. It goes to the actual "individual," and I think you would be the first to admit that...

Pacwa: Yes.

Martin: For instance, in Boniface VIII's "Unum Sanctum," which Cardinal Manning says, and I quote, "Is beyond all doubt an ex cathedra." That's Manning, who is an authority, allegedly, on papal decrees. And he says, quoting "Unum Sanctum," "We declare, affirm, define and pronounce it to be necessary to salvation for every human creature to be subject to the Roman pontiff."

Again, Pius IX, "I alone, despite my unworthiness, am the successor of the apostles,"-- following Gibbons-- "the Vicar of Jesus Christ"-- following the Catechism-- "I alone have the mission to guide and direct the barc of Peter"-- successor of the apostles-- "I am the way, the truth and the life. They who are with me are with the Church. They who are not with me are out of the Church."

Now, what disturbs the Protestant at this particular juncture is that we are no longer talking about the "faith of Peter"-- Peter is "a little stone built up into the tabernacle." He says so himself. What we're dealing with now is a statement of the usurpation of the role of deity. And you mentioned before "what Christ was He called the apostles." Well, Christ was God. The apostles were never called "God."

Pacwa: Right.

Martin: And yet here in this particular statement that we read before-- John read from Gibbons-- you have the Pope being called "a god on earth." He's not a "god on earth"-- he's a man. And he's a sinner in need of a Savior just like all of us. And so the principal idea of carrying on the idea of the "faith of Peter" in the Church is one thing. But to argue for the supremacy of the man when the man's predecessor, Peter...if there's one person that should know what Jesus meant in Matthew 16, it's got to be Peter.

And if you go to I Peter, Chapter 2, it specifically says, "You are built on the chief cornerstone-- Jesus Christ." He said, "We're all little stones built up into a spiritual tabernacle, Jesus Christ the chief cornerstone,"-- the Church Universal, the Church invisible-- but we're all part of the building-- and we're "built upon the foundation of the apostles and the prophets, Jesus Christ, chief cornerstone." Now, you admitted before that Christ is the Rock, the Foundation, the Savior, and so forth.

Pacwa: Yes.

Martin: Great. If that's true, why is it necessary to transfer titles that belong to Christ to the papacy, such as "Holy Father"? Now, calling you "Father," or me "Father," or somebody else "Father" as a title, we both agree is a title. But to say "Holy Father," which is a title reserved uniquely for God Himself and to identify that with a man, to call him in the Catechism "a god on earth," this goes, in the Protestant mind, far contrary to the Scriptures than just the idea of "Peter's faith."

Pacwa: One of the things about...even a title, "god on earth," as you know, in the so-called "Covenant Code" in the book of Exodus, judges in Israel are called "god" in Hebrew-- they are called "Elohims."

Martin: Psalm 82:6.

Pacwa: Not only...no, in Exodus itself.

Martin: I know, but it is the same word, "Elohim."

Pacwa: Yes. That's right-- another example of it. And one of the things that I find, in Hebrew text, disturb ing, but again, it's Scripture. And it only would be applied to the Pope in his role as a judge of various issues.

Now, for sure, the Catholic Church looks upon the Pope as a successor of Peter-- not just his after-faith, but of the person. And, that he has the authority of Peter that goes from not just being a "rock" but as it also says here in the text, "I will give to you the keys of the kingdom of heaven, and whatever you"-- singular-- "shall bind on earth shall be bound in heaven; and whatever you loose on earth shall be loosed in heaven."

And so that this person-- who then is author, John, told to feed the lambs and sheep-- is here given an authority to loose and to bind in a singular way. Now, the apostles are given the same authority of loosing and binding later on in Matthew 18 and also in John 20, especially in reference to forgiveness of sins....

Martin: As you made a point a moment ago of the singular usage of "l will give to you the keys of the kingdom," in Matthew 18 you have a parallel where it's a plural...

Pacwa: Right. That's right.

Martin: ...where He gives the disciples the power to bind and loose, which is "the keys to the kingdom."

Pacwa: And one of the important aspects of the Catholic teaching of the papacy is that the papacy cannot be seen apart from the college of the bishops. The Pope, even...for instance, there are two statements by Popes that claimed for sure-- claimed by them, not by Cardinal Manning, but claimed by the Popes-- to be infallible: The Immaculate Conception of the Blessed Virgin-- which I'm sure we'll get to later, and the Assumption into Heaven of the Blessed Virgin-- which we will also get to later. No doubt! Martin: I think we better reel the tape back and get to the first one where he committed the error of begging the question and affirmed himself infallible in 1870, which the Universal Church never recognized. He said, "I am the successor of Peter." "I am the infallible teacher." And they said, "Why?" And he said, "Because I said so." And that's exactly what happened!

Pacwa: At the same time, that's not all that happened, because cardinals themselves...

Martin: But there was more...

Pacwa: ...there is quite a bit more. Cardinals and other bishops came there...

Martin: Yeah.

Pacwa: ...craving....Manning himself being one of them, a convert from Protestantism, who eventually was ordained and became the first Cardinal of England after the restoration of the bishoprics there. The bishops had not been allowed to be in England up until the early 19th Century.

Ankerberg: Father Pacwa, can I come back here...if we're going to talk about the "keys of the kingdom," which we're talking about, [there's] no doubt Jesus said "the keys to the kingdom," but also in Matthew you find that the Pharisees and the scribes had the keys to the kingdom and the other disciples are given the keys to the kingdom.... I think what the Protestant side of the Church is saying is that the definition of "the keys of the kingdom" has been overblown and where do you get these fantastic claims of authority?

Number one, to Peter, because then you'd have to justify it biblically as well as historically. And Protestants reading their Bible-- a lot of people, including Catholics that I've got quotes here-- read their Bible and they don't find Peter being supreme in the Scripture text-- the one we're reading or the one in John. Why did Jesus three times say to Peter, "Do you love me?" Because it goes back to the fact he denied Him three times when he was supposed to stand for Him.

Pacwa: Yes.

Ankerberg: Now, all the Scriptures from the time that Jesus said, "You are the rock," from that point on, right immediately, Peter turned around and said something wrong and Jesus accused him of being one that was used by Satan...

Pacwa: Sure

Ankerberg: Okay? You go on and Peter affirms later on in Matthew that he is going to stand for Jesus; he will be there and all the rest will flee. And Jesus turns and says, "No, I'll tell you what,...you're going to deny me three times." And he opposes Jesus and says, "No!" And then he goes ahead and he does it anyway. So, instead of people seeing Peter as supreme and the head of the Church, Peter blows it.

Pacwa: One of the things...I'm glad you brought that up. Because, as I started to say before, again, that supremacy of Peter among the bishops is only possible in the context of all the bishops. Okay?

Ankerberg: But we don't see it in the context of the New Testament, of the apostles.

Pacwa: That's one of the things that we Catholics disagree on in terms of understanding the New Testament. First of all, I can't think of any text where the Pharisees are said to have the keys of the kingdom.

Ankerberg: Well, let me give one to you then. Matthew Chapter 23, verse 13, you will find that the scribes and Pharisees exercised the same kind of power, but let me...we've only got about a minute left here and what we need to do in this week's program, when I talk about the fact of Peter being supreme among the apostles, I find that Paul opposed him to his face.

Pacwa: Right. Absolutely.

Ankerberg: Was he supreme there? Was he the head there?

Pacwa: At the same time...sure he was!

Ankerberg: He was wrong.

Pacwa: And that's one of the things about the papacy I think that Protestants misunderstand in terms of "infallibility." Not everything the Pope says is infallible by any means.

Martin: But in matters....

Pacwa: ...by any means.

Ankerberg: Okay. We've get just a few seconds left.

Martin: But in matters of faith and morals, he is. And he was immoral in his dealing with the Gentiles, and Paul rebuked him on a matter of faith and morals. Pacwa: There are three conditions for the Pope's infallibility in issues of faith and morals and we'll have to talk about the three conditions when we come back.

Ankerberg: Okay. I appreciate that. We're going to look into this: "Was Peter given the supremacy among the other apostles?" And we're going to look at the history as well as the Scripture concerning the early Church next week, and so I hope that you'll join us.

Program 5

Did Jesus Establish Peter as Pope to Rule Infallibly in Matters of Faith and Morals?

Ankerberg: Good evening. Tonight we're examining the claims and the authority, the teachings of the Roman Catholic Church.

My first guest is an ordained Roman Catholic priest, Father Mitchell Pacwa, who is a member of the Society of Jesus, a Jesuit. He has an earned Doctor of Philosophy degree and is currently a Professor of Old Testament at Loyola University in Chicago. My second guest is the late Dr. Walter Martin, who was the director and founder of the Christian Research Institute in California. Walter was the author of many books, especially the classic book known by both Protestants and Catholics, called The Kingdom of the Cults.

Gentlemen, we're glad that you're here tonight. I want to move on in our talking about the claims of the Roman Catholic Church concerning, this week, the infallibility of the Pope. Let's actually take a look at this.

Reading from Vatican Council which met in Rome in 1870 they said, "We teach and define that it is a dogma divinely revealed, the Roman Pontiff, when he speaks ex cathedra, that is, when in discharge of the office of pastor and doctor of all Christians by virtue of his supreme apostolic authority, he defines a doctrine regarding faith and morals to be held by the Universal Church by the divine assistance promised him in blessed Peter, is possessed of that infallibility with which the Divine Redeemer willed that His Church should be endowed for defining doctrines regarding faith and morals, and that therefore such definitions of the Roman Pontiff of themselves, and not by virtue of the consent of the Church, are irreformable."

Now, we need to keep coming back for evidence. Many in the Roman Catholic Church take it for granted that that's true, but there are others that do not.

And Father Pacwa, I'd like you to comment about the fact of: If Jesus gave the supremacy to Peter, how do you deal with Paul? Because, let me give you a few facts about Paul in relationship to Peter, and I'd like you to comment, if you would, please. Peter has no say in Paul's appointment. There are 13 epistles that Paul wrote, 2023 verses. Peter only wrote two epistles-- 166 verses. Paul mentioned Peter more than once, but he never mentioned him with any special title of honor, such as the Vicar or Pope, or above any of the other apostles.

Paul did not mention the papacy when he referred to the offices of the Church in I Corinthians 12 and Ephesians 4. Paul as an apostle claimed authority over the Roman Church itself in Romans Chapter 1:5,6 and 16:17. Paul claimed for himself that "he was behind the very chiefest apostles in nothing" (2 Corinthians 12), and that then specifically you have Paul rebuking Peter, without any mention of Peter's supremacy, in Galatians 2.

Now, if Peter was the chief, it would seem that Paul would have acknowledged that in his epistles and would have acknowledged it in the respect he gave when there was a matter of doctrine on the table. We see none of that for Peter.

Pacwa: First of all, what you have in Paul and Peter's dispute in Galatians is not a dispute about some infallible statement by Peter, it is about his own practice...

Ankerberg: Okay.

Pacwa: ...on something that already had been decided by the Church. Now, Catholics do not say that we can't tell the Pope to live up to certain things in his own life. As a matter of fact, Dante, in his "Inferno" mentions that a number of Popes are in hell for various reasons.

Martin: Remember, you said that. I didn't!

Pacwa: That's right! Why not say it? I don't know that they're in hell; Dante knew-- so he says. And the thing that the Pope's infallibility does not mean is that the Pope is right all the time. In no way does the Catholic Church even teach that. He's infallible only when he speaks ex cathedra, in order to clearly speak infallibly. He has to say that explicitly to be speaking infallibly.

Secondly, it has to be to the whole Church, not to one part or one individual of the Church, but to everybody in the Church.

And thirdly, it has to be on the issue of faith and morals. He cannot infallibly say that the stock market will drop.

Ankerberg: Okay. You have continued to tell me about the fact of what he speaks. When I'm saying the word "supreme," it seems to also mean more than just what he speaks. There ought to be the respect. There ought to be the dignity, the honor...the mention of the fact of his office by all the other apostles, and we see none of that. It's silent-- dead silence in the New Testament.

Martin: I...go ahead.

Pacwa: I don't...again, I don't think that it is. It is not dead silent. Okay, again...even Paul when he...

Ankerberg: Would you show me where it is?

Pacwa: Paul does not call him Simon Barjona, does he?

Ankerberg: What does he call him?

Martin: Peter.

Pacwa: Cephas.

Ankerberg: Peter.

Pacwa: Cephas or Peter, which is a title given him, which is "Rock," not his given name. And he doesn't refer to him as Simon, ever. It always calls him by Cephas.

And even in Corinthians, what he's dealing with is a specific problem of people having been divisive on account of Peter, later on, in the next generation-- about 35 years later...well, more than that from the Corinthians-- about 45 years later-- we will see that it will be the Bishop of Rome, St. Clement 1, who is the second after Peter, and Paul who will be correcting the same Church because of division. They never learned. And so it's the Bishop of Rome that takes that authority in 95 A.D.-- before the New Testament is finished being written-- and he is the one that tells them...he sends legates over there to Corinth and says, "You Corinthians, get united with your priests again," and he orders his legates not to come back home until they're united. So he takes that authority, and the very next generation as the role of Peter to bring unity to the Church.

Ankerberg: Okay, Dr. Martin, I'd like you to put the other side of the fence. I said that there was a hypothesis that Fr. Pacwa is using-- namely that in referring to Peter, which we all agree is, "small rock," and that there is a differentiation between the other Rock. There is something different. It's not referring to Peter because of the way it's written. All right. What would be another option that would seem to fit this evidence better from your point of view? Would you please explain that so we get it on the table anyway.

Martin: I would take Augustine's position,...

Ankerberg: All right.

Martin: A very great theologian,...that Peter's confession of faith: "Thou art the Christ, the Son of the living God" is the foundation. And that it's not Peter. Cross-referencing it to I Peter Chapter 2, Peter didn't understand it to refer to him. He put himself in with all the rest of the "little stones" built up into the spiritual house, Jesus Christ being the chief Cornerstone.

Ephesians 2:20 says, "We're built upon the foundation of the apostles and the prophets, Jesus Christ, the chief Cornerstone." He quotes Scripture, "Behold I lay in Zion a cornerstone, a rock of offense. Whoever believes on Him..."-- not Peter. Christ-- "will not be ashamed."

That Peter was a moving force, a chief apostle in the Church, there's no doubt whatsoever. That his writings were authoritative and they were accepted as such. That he recommended Paul's writings as Scripture, even calling it "Scripture," equating it with the Old Testament, is indicative of the fact that they agreed in their basic theology. Well, since they agreed in their basic theology, the facts fit the hypothesis that the whole structure of the New Testament and the first five centuries following that, historically, did not give any supreme role to the Bishop of Rome.

Ankerberg: Okay, now, I want you to go on and let's get into a definition of "the keys." Okay? Father Pacwa has defined how the Roman Catholic Church sees the keys and would you give another hypothesis for that?

Martin: Yes. The alternative to that is the parallel passage of Matthew 18 with which he is well acquainted also and mentioned it before-- namely that Christ was speaking to the disciples, not to Peter, and the apostles in general. He said, "If any two of you shall agree on anything on earth, it will have been done in heaven-- what you bind on earth is bound in heaven."

Now, the keys of the kingdom were the power to bind and loose. Peter had that power, but it wasn't Peter's power alone. Matthew 18 gives that power to you and to me to pray together that we may bind or loose. So, I'd take that to be the alternative proposition to the Roman Catholic position.

Ankerberg: Would you say that the binding and loosing is a declaratory power and not one of supremacy?

Martin: Yeah, I think it's a right to declare something by faith, and I think Peter had that right. But if he was really the supreme pontiff of the Church-- this is a very strong point, I think-- then the disciples or the apostles, the men who went into the second century, the great theologians of that time, would surely have recognized the primacy of Rome. And they didn't.

Ankerberg: Fr. Pacwa, would you respond to that hypothesis? Why do you think that the evidence of the New Testament does not fit that hypothesis?

Pacwa: First of all, you know that when Jesus is speaking in Matthew 18, He's not speaking to the crowds but to the apostles.

Martin: Right.

Pacwa: And so that, you know, it's not just "we" who have that same authority, except in a derived sense, but the apostles and their successors, the bishops, along with the successor of Peter, have that authority to make decisions that we don't. For instance, decisions like, "What goes into the New Testament?" That was not made by the New Testament, it was made by the bishops. They chose which books were to be canonical. The laypeople didn't do it except in that secondary sense.

The bishops were the ones who were the "traditores," that is, the ones who carried on the tradition as to which books derived from Paul, Peter, James and the others, and then finally in councils, and in series of councils, decided which ones....we now have the 27, and really it was not until Pope Damasus 1, in giving authority to the Councils of Carthage and Hippo in the end of the fourth century and the beginning of the fifth. So that we have for the first time 27 books of the New Testament. Before that we have 22 books. So the authority of the New Testament derives from these bishops and from the Pope and an authority which Protestants continue to accept as their own basic authority.

Ankerberg: Okay, let's get a response.

Martin: There's a severe fallacy in the reasoning. In order to establish what you just said, you must assume that there is a papacy with the power to do that...

Pacwa: Yes!

Martin: Well, I deny the assumption.

Pacwa: Yes.

Martin: So...

Pacwa: It's a fallacy only if I accept your assumption. Martin: Right! Right! Just as it's a fallacy if I accept yours.

Pacwa: That's right. That's right.

Martin: So the point...

Pacwa: We're stuck!

Martin: Yes, we're stuck! We're stuck in one important area, and I think we can get out of it pretty quickly.

Pacwa: Yes...

Martin: This is it. In Vatican I, which was the cornerstone of all the power of the contemporary papacy...we know that, because it was then at Vatican I which John just read that the statement was clearly defined for the first time in history, that this was the position, okay?

Now, when that was done at Vatican I on July 13, 1870, an argument was raised on the floor, voted on by 18 bishops supporting it, and this is what was stated, historically, if I may quote it: "Well, venerable brethren, history raises its voice to assure us that Popes have erred. You may protest against it or deny it as you please, I'll prove it. Pope Victor in 192 first approved of Montanism and then condemned it. Marcellinus was an idolator; he entered the Temple of Vesta and offered incense to the goddess. You'll say that it was an act of weakness, but I answer a Vicar of Jesus Christ dies rather than become an apostate. Liberius consented to the condemnation of Athanasius and made a profession of Arianism that he might be recalled from his exile and reinstated in the Holy See. Honorius adhered to Monothelitism. Father Gratry has proved that to demonstration. Gregory I calls anyone 'Antichrist' who takes the name Universal Bishop, and Boniface III made the patricide Emperor of Phocas confer the title upon him. Paschal II and Eugenius III authorized dueling. Julius II and Pius IV forbid it. Eugenius VI approved the Council of Basle and the reinstitution of the chalice of the Church of Bohemia. Pius II revoked the concession. Hadrian 11 declared civil marriages to be valid, Pius VII condemned them. Sixtus V published an edition of the Bible and by a Bull recommended it to be read. Pius VII condemned the reading of it. Clement XIV abolished the order of the Jesuits"-- that's you!...

Pacwa: He died.

Martin: Universal Church, bye-bye...okay? You're out!-- "permitted by Paul III and Pius VII" put you boys back in business!

Pacwa: Right!

Martin: "Pope Vigilius purchased the papacy from Belisarius, Lieutenant of the Emperor Justinian. Eugenius III"-- number four in the original-- "imitated Vigilius. Bernard [St. Bernard, the "bright star of the Reformation"] says, 'Can you show me in this great city of Rome anyone who would receive you as Pope that they had not received gold or silver for it?"'

Pacwa: Sure...

Martin: Let me finish this statement. It's important. "You know the history of Formosus too well for me to add to it. But you will tell me these are fables, not history, fables! Go, Monsignori, to the Vatican library and read Platina, the historian of the papacy and the annals of Baronius. These are facts which for the honor of the Holy See we would wish to ignore. Cardinal Baronius speaking of the papal court said, 'What did the Roman Church appear in those days? How infamous! Only all-powerful courtesans governing in Rome! It was they who gave, exchanged and took bishoprics; and horrible to relate, got their lovers, the false Popes, put on the thrones of St. Peter!"'

Ankerberg: Okay, we've got to call an end to it here, Walter. We need a statement from Fr. Pacwa here. What do you have to say concerning these things?

Pacwa: Well...

Martin: This is by an Archbishop, not me.

Pacwa: I know, and that's...we don't deny it at all. Again, that's the basis on which Dante said some of these folks are going to be in hell.

Ankerberg: So...

Pacwa: And "infallibility" does not mean Justification.

Ankerberg: No. But what I hear you say is that all the statements that the Popes made that are proven wrong-- they're not infallible.

Pacwa: Right.

Ankerberg: And also you say...

Pacwa: They don't meet the three criteria for infallibility. Ankerberg: Yeah...and the fact is that in spite of the fact that Peter is supposed to be supreme, not just the fact of what he said but supposedly "recognized" as such-- the Head of the Church, the leader. When he speaks, there ought to be some respect in listening. Okay? And you would expect that he would be leading in some other areas as well. We have yet to establish the fact that you find that in Scripture. You have yet to discount the fact that the other apostles were given the same ability. You have yet to discount the fact that Paul, in looking at Peter, never mentions it, never writes to him mentioning the fact that he's the head of the Church. And...on and on and on....

Pacwa: But, see, the problem with your "on and on and on" is that you don't accept the Catholic understanding of...well, in pointing out of other data, where Peter is head. As a matter, as Dr. Martin himself said, that Peter clearly takes the dynamic leadership of the Church after the ascension of Jesus...

Ankerberg: For three chapters and then it disappears.

Pacwa: Three chapters and Chapter 10....

Ankerberg: But in Chapter 10 he's disputing with the people that are there. They don't show him the honor that you're talking about.

Pacwa: No, no, no...you're the one that keeps on saying that supremacy means that everything you say is going to be honored.

Ankerberg: I'm not saying that....

Pacwa: Yes you are!

Ankerberg: I'm saying the respect. If the Pope were to walk into the door he should have the final word in an argument.

Pacwa: Why? Who said that? Jesus didn't say that and we don't say that Jesus did.

Ankerberg: "Supreme" means first. The first word and last word.

Pacwa: That doesn't mean in tenns of me way it's going to be enacted. That he's going to have that...you're defining it as a straw man and then saying we don't have it. We never said that that's what it means. What it means is....

Ankerberg: Define "supreme" for me, then.

Pacwa: What it means is that when he speaks to the whole Church in the name of Peter and on faith and morals that that is infallible.

Ankerberg: But he's not the head, then, of the apostles.

Pacwa: He's the head of the Church as well in terms of being the head of the....

Ankerberg: What does "head" mean? How would they recognize it from the examples that are given in Scripture?

Pacwa: Well, in terms of the examples given in Scripture, his choosing a replacement for Mythias; his being the first one to go and lead John to lay hands on the Samaritans.....

Ankerberg: But he was sent down by the Church to do that.

Pacwa: Sure!

Ankerberg: And he came back and they didn't just accept his word. They argued with him.

Pacwa: So?

Ankerberg: I don't see him being the head.

Pacwa: Again, his headship does not come from them and their approval...

Ankerberg: But they didn't recognize....

Pacwa: ...his headship comes from the fact that Jesus is the One who revealed to him so he should be baptized...

Ankerberg: So what you're saying is that the Church didn't recognize it, but he still had it.

Pacwa: Absolutely. Because it comes from Christ, not from the Church. That's one of the reasons why it's said to be apostolic and divinely instituted.

Ankerberg: Yeah, but let's follow that through, is that he had it but they didn't recognize it. Why didn't they recognize it if they were all there? I mean, Jesus never told anybody else? He only told Peter, and Peter never mentioned it?

Pacwa: In terms of recognizing things, did they recognize the existence of the New Testament yet? No. Did they recognize the definition of the Trinity? No. Did they recognize the two natures of Christ? No...in terms and ways we could talk about today? No. Lots of things they don't recognize...but over time....

Ankerberg: Did they recognize that Jesus was God? Yes! Did that go into the Chalcedonian and Nicean Councils? Yes...

Pacwa: Sure!

Ankerberg: There's a basis there. I'm saying, "I don't see any basis."

Pacwa: Well, okay. You don't accept, you know, the evidence that we accept....

Ankerberg: I don't see any evidence, is what I'm saying.

Pacwa: You don't see that Christ gives Peter this vision to go baptize Cornelius?

Ankerberg: I see that he got that, and I see Paul got others and the other apostles got that...and so now we have...

Pacwa: But who got it first?

Ankerberg: Huh?

Pacwa: Who got it first?

Ankerberg: Okay.

Pacwa: And who got it by vision, first?

Ankerberg: That's why we would say, "The keys to the kingdom are the declaratory power which Peter exercised"....

Martin: Yes.

Ankerberg: ...and then the other apostles also went and exercised it as well. And that's all it means.

Pacwa: And....no, that's not all it means. One of the things that also we see develop in the history of the Church, just like we see the development of the Christological and Trinitarian doctrines, is that [of] Peter's role-- among the other apostles, because we don't deny that the other bishops, the successors of the college of apostles, have authority to bind and loose. We don't deny that at all. They do. In local areas they have authority that the Pope does not have in their diocese. They can make rules in their diocese apart from the Pope, the way states can apart from the federal government, but....

Ankerberg: Okay. Dr. Martin, we need a final word from you here because we're out of time. Let me summarize what I hear you saying though. You're saying that the Church there did not recognize Peter as head. Peter had that headship from Jesus.

Pacwa: Right.

Ankerberg: Okay. Now, I really am amazed that you would say that.

Pacwa: Well, first of all, I didn't say they didn't recognize the head...there's not that full-blown, you know, kind of description of supremacy and headship that you would like to have us describe and also that happens later on in history.

Ankerberg: That Rome says is there.

Pacwa: He has an authority that comes from Jesus-- in Matthew 16, Luke 22, and Acts 10....

Ankerberg: It still has to be proved that that's the kind of authority. We agree that it's a declaratory. We see one example of that and then Peter fades. That's the record.

Pacwa: He fades in terms of the history of the Acts of the Apostles because Luke, for whatever purpose....

Ankerberg: If he was the head of the Church, you would think that he would actually be the head of...he would be focused on all through Acts. We find three chapters and then it turns to Paul.

Pacwa: Why? Why would you expect that?

Ankerberg: Because he's the head of the Church...

Pacwa: So?

Ankerberg: ...this is the key point. He is the chief representative, according to Rome, of Jesus Christ on earth...

Pacwa: Right. But why would they talk about him?

Ankerberg: ....and he's not going to be mentioned?

Pacwa: Why?

Ankerberg: Why? Because "he is the head of the Church."

Pacwa: If Jesus already said it, why do you have to talk about it all the time. You just do it.

Martin: You see, our problem is a semantic problem in that when we say, "The Church," we're talking about the universal Church founded by Christ, carried on by the apostles and then by their disciples on forward through history. When he is using the term, "The Church," he is speaking of the Roman Catholic Church, which is one, holy catholic and apostolic, the successor to apostolic authority. So, every time you see the word "Church" from the first century on...second century on, really...then, immediately it's cast into the context of "authority," derived from Peter...

Pacwa: And the apostles.

Martin: Yeah. That's why I keep saying that the appeal of the fathers is not to the tradition of the Church, and not to the arguments that were aroused and carried on vigorously amongst themselves. All of them, when they appeal, it's "scriptura sola." They're appealing to Scripture, Scripture, Scripture. And what John's saying and what I'm saying is this: If you want to believe that the Church made the Scripture, you have a problem. Because the kerygma, which was the preaching of the Gospel, was not inscripturated totally until the close of the first century.

Pacwa: No, that's not a problem. That's a strength of our position.

Martin: Well, no. I don't think it is the strength. Because the fathers reproduced the entire New Testament, virtually, themselves in the next three centuries....

Ankerberg: Except for six verses.

Martin: ...with the exception of....pardon?

Ankerberg: Six verses.

Martin: So...without six verses. That's the Fathers. If you had no Church supervising through the magisterium-- the teaching ministry, the gathering together the information and putting it together-- you still have the different fathers in different locations all writing, all reproducing the teachings of the apostles. You put it all together, and they knew that they had from their own specific references, their own teachers, they knew that they had the Gospels right. They knew they had the book of Acts right. So, they subjected everything to the Canon of the Gospels and Acts to test the Epistles. Now, that's how they arrived at the information. It wasn't somewhere down the line at the year 364 where they all of a sudden got together, brought everything into a room and said, "Now we're going to vote on it."

Ankerberg: Okay, Fr. Pacwa, give us one last statement here. Thirty seconds, okay?

Pacwa: Well, again, one of the things that we also see is that the fathers do appeal, not to "sola scriptura," but also to the traditions that they have...

Martin: But always in accordance with Scriptures.

Pacwa: ..and even Athanasius...

Martin: Always in accordance with Scripture.

Pacwa: Always. And so do we teach the same thing-- that tradition and Scripture are always...the apostolic tradition and Scripture are always in accord.

Ankerberg: All right. Let's pick this up next week and in fact, I think we're going to turn to another area: What Issues Divide Protestants and Catholics Concerning Mary? So please join us next week.

Program 6

What Issues Divide Protestants and Catholics Concerning Mary?

Introduction:

Tonight John Ankerberg will examine the evidence concerning the position of Mary in the Roman Catholic Church and why it is that Protestants disagree. The high elevation of Mary can be seen by examining the Church's current teachings and Papal Encyclicals.

Roman Catholicism teaches today that Mary is the mother of God. Pope Pius XII's encyclical in 1943 said "She is the mother of our head."

Catholicism claims Mary is full of grace, therefore free of original sin and kept from all actual sin. The Pope's encyclical agreed, claiming Mary is free from any personal or inherited blemish.

Catholicism asserts that Mary is perpetually a virgin; that is Mary was a virgin not only before, but during and after the birth of Jesus.

In addition Catholicism claims Mary was bodily assumed into heaven where she now reigns with Christ. The Pope's encyclical says, "Mary, now glorified body and soul, reigns together with her son."

Although it's not yet officially sanctioned, Catholicism has given to Mary the title of "Mediatrix of all graces," and the Pope has agreed, teaching, "It was in answer to Mary's all powerful prayers that the Divine Redeemer's Spirit was given to the newly born Church, and by her intercession, obtains from Him"-- that is from Jesus-- "abundant streams of grace to all the members of the mystical body."

Another title not yet officially sanctioned, but still given to Mary, is that she is co-Redemptrix with Jesus. The Pope affirmed this in his encyclical by teaching, "Mary offered Jesus to the Father for all the children of man who are defiled by Adam's unfortunate fall," and "By bearing her immeasurable sorrows, she has supplied what was lacking in the suffering of Christ for His body, the Church."

Protestants believe Catholicism has elevated Mary to Godhood. For example, Protestants can agree that Mary was the honored mother of the human body of Jesus, but object to using the title "Mother of God," claiming it sets up a misrepresentation in most people's minds. Protestants maintain that all Christians believe God is eternal and without beginning, therefore He has no mother.

Both sides agree that Mary was the mother of Jesus who was both God and man, but she did not add divinity to Jesus' human nature. Therefore, Protestants say the title "Mother of God" should be dropped because it is a misleading term.

Secondly, Protestants believe it is not biblical to teach that Mary was conceived without original sin and committed no actual sin during her life. Thomas Aquinas, the supreme theologian of the Catholic Church, declared that only a sinner needs a Savior, and Mary must have been a sinner since she stated, "My spirit rejoices in God my Savior." Protestants think this doctrine deprives Christ of His uniqueness as the sinless one.

Third, to say Mary is "Full of grace," does not mean, as Catholicism implies, that Mary is sinless. Scripture also says, Stephen, Elizabeth, Barnabas, and others were "Full of Grace." Yet no one claims they were sinless.

Fourth, Protestants do not believe that Mary was a perpetual virgin. The Bible, according to Matthew 12 and Mark 6, plainly shows Mary had other children.

Fifth, Protestants insist that Scripture nowhere teaches that Mary was assumed bodily into heaven.

And finally, Protestants insist that Mary cannot be co-Mediatrix or co-Redemptrix with Jesus, since the Bible states there is only one mediator between God and Man, the man Christ Jesus, and only Jesus can forgive a man's sin.

So, tonight both sides will present the evidence concerning the place of Mary in Christian thinking. John's guests are Father Mitchell Pacwa, an ordained Roman Catholic priest, who is a member of the Society of Jesus, a Jesuit. He has an earned Doctor of Philosophy degree and is currently Professor at Loyola University, Chicago. John's second guest is the late Dr. Walter Martin, director and founder of the Christian Research Institute in California. We invite you to join us for this discussion. Ankerberg: Welcome! Tonight we're talking about the claims and the doctrines of the Roman Catholic Church. My first guest is an ordained Roman Catholic priest, Fr. Mitchell Pacwa, who is a member of the Society of Jesus-- the Jesuits. He has also earned a Doctor of Philosophy degree and is currently a Professor of Old Testament at Loyola University in Chicago. My second guest is the late Dr. Walter Martin, Director and Founder of the Christian Research Institute in California. Walter was the author of many books, especially the classic book known as The Kingdom of the Cults, which both Protestants and Catholics read.

Gentlemen, I'd like to start tonight with the topic of "Mary." Here is an issue that has divided Catholics and Protestants down through the years and seems to be going that direction even more so. I think we ought to start off by saying that there's no doubt about the fact that Mary, the mother of Jesus, deserves a high honor in the Church. She was picked out to be the mother of Jesus, and Scripture says she responded to God's call to her and she herself said, "Henceforth all generations shall call me blessed." And I don't think that anyone holding to the inspiration of the Scripture would deny the fact that Mary needs to be honored and recognized for the great things that she has done. But the problem comes with some of the other statements that the Roman Catholic Church is making.

In fact, Walter, let's start with you this week in terms of, "What do you see happening with these things being said about Mary." Maybe you could outline those things you would like to talk about concerning the progress of Mary and what you think about that biblically.

Martin: I think, primarily, as you said, that Mary was the greatest woman that ever lived, the mother of our Savior, and as such, should be honored above all women. There's no doubt about that. However, in Protestant theology, the development of Maryology-- or as some have called it, "Maryolatry," there is not only a concern in Protestant thinking, but also a concern in some areas of Roman Catholicism. Vatican II, specifically in the translations of the dialogue of the bishops, was very concerned with the fact that the Virgin Mary was receiving more attention, adoration, than Christ in Latin America and in Spain and in other parts of the world. They felt some of the delegates had gotten out of hand and they referred to it as "the cult of Mary." My own personal feeling on the subject is that the Mary of biblical theology is quite different from the Mary of evolutionary Catholic dogma. The Mary of biblical theology is a simple Jewish maiden, selected by God. She says, "Behold the handmaiden of the Lord." She says, "My soul doth magnify the Lord...my spirit rejoices in God, my Savior." The fact that she identifies God as "Savior" indicates the fact that she is willing to confess the fact that she's a sinner, as everybody else, who is in need of a Savior. The fact that Mary died is proof that she was a sinner because the "wages of sin is death," and death has passed upon all men, according to Romans Chapter 5-- in that all have sinned. Mary died, was resurrected, and assumed into Heaven, according to the doctrine of the Immaculate Conception...

Pacwa: No. The Assumption.

Martin: Excuse me...the Assumption of Mary. I think the doctrine of the Immaculate Conception and other specifics of Catholic theology lead Protestants to believe-- and I'm one of them-- that...

Ankerberg: Tell us what it is, Walter. What is the Immaculate Conception?

Martin: Yes. There has been a perversion of the doctrine of Mary. Now, I think that we should define what this perversion is, and you asked, "What's the Immaculate Conception?" What's taken place, as I have observed-- and I'm sure we'll get some dialogue on this subject pretty quickly-- is that Mary parallels Christ in Catholic theology.

First of all, she is proclaimed to be the Mother of God; she is proclaimed to be immaculately conceived, which means that she was conceived without the stain of original sin. She is proclaimed to be perpetual virgin; she is proclaimed to be assumed bodily into Heaven after her death which means that she was transformed into a new body. She is proclaimed "Queen of Heaven"; she is proclaimed "Mediatrix of All Graces," which maintains that as Christ dispenses redeeming grace to mankind, Mary will, with Him, have the final word as to who will or who will not receive that grace of God. And, finally, number seven, as "co-Redemptrix of the Universe."

Now, these are what I would call "seven steps to deity." Because "Mother of God" obviously is a term which is indicative of an enormously high position. Two, that she is perpetually virgin means that she was forever throughout her life maintained free from sin. She was immaculately conceived which means she was conceived by the Holy Spirit so that she-- that her own nature, from her mother was...to quote this correctly....

Pacwa: Ann.

Martin: Her mother, Ann, yes, conceived Mary without the stain of original sin, if I have it correctly.

Ankerberg: She was free from all sin, original and personal.

Martin: Oh, yes...

Pacwa: Right.

Martin: That she is assumed into heaven bodily parallels the resurrection of Christ. So the Immaculate Conception parallels the virgin birth. The perpetual virginity-- free of actual sin-- parallels the sinlessness of Christ during His earthly life. The bodily assumption into Heaven parallels the resurrection of Jesus Christ. The "Queen of Heaven" parallels Christ as King of the Universe. "Mediatrix of All Graces" parallels Christ as Mediator, and "co-Redemptrix of the Universe" participates with Him in the redemption of mankind.

All of these have raised her step-by-step to the place where Pope Pius XII, in the Marian Year in which he proclaimed the Assumption of Mary, said,

Enraptured by the splendor of your heavenly beauty and impelled by the anxiety of the world, we cast ourselves into your arms, O, immaculate mother of Jesus, and our mother, Mary. God crowned you Queen of the Universe.
O, crystal fountain of faith, bathe our minds with eternal truths; O, fragrant lily of all holiness, captivate our hearts with your heavenly perfume. O, conqueress of evil and death, inspire in us a deep horror of sin. O, well beloved of God, hear the ardent cries which rise from every heart in this year dedicated to you: convert the wicked, dry the tears of the am icted and the oppressed. Comfort the poor and the humble, quench hatred, sweeten harshness.
In your name, resounding harmoniously in heaven, may they recognize they're all brothers. And, finally, happy with you we may repeat before your throne that hymn which is sung today around your altars: You are all beautiful, O, Mary, you are the glory; you are the joy; you are the honor of our people.

Sorry about that! She is not the "crystal fountain of faith"-- Jesus Christ is the author and finisher of faith. She is not the "glory and joy and honor of Christians"-- Jesus Christ is our glory. In Him is the hope of glory. Christ is the One we honor, and it's pretty obvious, just from reading throughout the prayer, that titles are conferred upon her which belong to God. "Convert the wicked and dry the tears of the afflicted" is the job of the Holy Spirit, who "convinces the world of sin and of righteousness and of judgment." It is the comfort that she is giving, allegedly, that is the very reason Jesus sent the Holy Spirit, which was to be our "Comforter." Now, giving Mary all her due right, all the positions she is entitled to, she is not "our life, our sweetness and our hope." And that we have to confess in the Catholic Church in which we say, "Our life, our sweetness and our hope, to thee we cry, poor banished children of Eve."

Now, Mary is not our life-- Jesus Christ is our life. She's not the sweetness of our life-- He is the sweetness of our life. She certainly isn't our hope, because "Christ in you is the hope of glory." What I'm objecting to, from a biblical perspective, is that the Mary of the Bible is not the Mary of Catholic theology.

We have now developed what Bishop Strossmayer said in 1870, "We have made a goddess of the Virgin Mary." Now, that, I think, is probably what upsets Protestants more than any other thing, apart from the infallibility of the papacy; which is the idea that Mary, a mere creature, created by God, is paralleled in Catholic theology dogmatically with Christ Himself. So that Cardinal Spellman in New York wrote, "O, Mary, gate of heaven, none shall enter in except through thee."

Sorry about that! Sorry! "I am the Way, the Truth and the Life." "I am the door of the sheepfold." "I am the gate." "By me if any man enters in, he shall be saved." What we see in Catholic theology is the blasphemy of attaching to a woman, even in her high position, the titles and position and offices of God. And that's why I feel very strongly that we must deal with it as biblical theology.

Ankerberg: Okay, Fr. Pacwa, come on back the other way.

Pacwa: I need.....

Ankerberg: Do you agree or disagree, first of all?

Pacwa: Oh! I would hope that, you know, you don't come too close to blasphemy in some of this, too, against the Mother of God. There are a lot of things...and there's a lot of points to try to deal with and I won't be able to remember them all. So...

Ankerberg: We'll go over again.

Pacwa: First of all, the titles of Mary are titles that did definitely "develop" and in no way do we deny that. But they developed in the Councils because of defining who Christ is. To call her the "Mother of God" is essential for the faith, because otherwise it's to say that Jesus, "God and Man," is not God....

Ankerberg: As long as we all understand what we mean...

Pacwa: ...and that is the point of calling her the "Mother of God"...

Martin: Why?

Pacwa: To call her simply the "Mother of Christ," is as if to separate Christ's divinity from His humanity, and that cannot be done by anybody Orthodox. You have to call Jesus God and Man from the moment of His conception, and at no other moment beyond that. And therefore, from that moment on, she is the Mother of God. The Councils that defined her as "Mother of God," did it because of trying to protect our understanding that Jesus is God from the moment of Elis conception and not one second later.

Ankerberg: I don't see any problem with that statement. Maybe Walter does. I did the Greek on that myself...

Martin: I do.

Ankerberg: ...and, well, if you're saying that she is the one that produced God...

Pacwa: No. And Catholics never taught that. Never!

Ankerberg: No, but it sounds like that, doesn't it?

Pacwa: No, that is only what people who teach heresy would teach,...

Martin: But the....

Pacwa: ...because the Catholic Church never teaches that a human creature can ever produce divinity. She is the Mother of Jesus Christ, God and Man, and therefore, the Mother of God because Jesus is God.

Martin: It's based on a false syllogism. I was taught: Jesus is God; Mary is the Mother of Jesus, therefore Mary is the Mother of God. You were, too. All right, let's take that syllogism and apply it. God is Trinity...

Pacwa: Yeah.

Martin: ...Mary is the Mother of God. Mary is the Mother of the Trinity. The same logic holds and is devastating...

Pacwa: And it's...

Martin: She is the Mother of God the Son, Second Person of the Trinity.

Pacwa: Absolutely.

Martin: God in human flesh. She gave Him a human nature.

Pacwa: But also..

Martin: Period!

Pacwa: ...not "period." We never have said that she is the Mother of the Trinity.

Martin: I know that. I'm just trying to show that the syllogism which we have, which leads us to the conclusion that she is the Mother of God.

Pacwa: Only if you take it to the point of heresy,...

Martin: It makes her the Mother of the Trinity.

Pacwa: ...and that, that is never taken to that point. Such a point would be ridiculous....

Martin: ...it is heresy to say she is the Mother of God, because God is Trinity.

Pacwa: The problem with it is that you then end up agreeing with Nestorius and Arius...

Martin: Never! Never!

Pacwa: Well, that's exactly what they tried to deny-- that Mary is the Mother of God and as such that they ended up denying His divinity.

Ankerberg: All right. I can see your basis for saying that, but when you get on to the next four, I don't see a basis. Let's move on.

Pacwa: All right, well, the other things about the definitions of Mary and what she is, again, always took place ancillary to defining Christ, throughout the history of the Councils. Do you have any disagreement with that?

Martin: Yeah, one disagreement.

Pacwa: What's that?

Martin: The Councils do not define Christ. The New Testament defines Christ. The Councils confirm the text.

Pacwa: But they define what that authentic and Orthodox faith has to be in...from Scripture, because other people who claim to read Scripture well, do not, and they pervert the doctrine of the New Testament. And so the Councils make it clear what that definition is.

Martin: But the Roman Catholic publications I have tell me-- and I can produce the references quite easily-- that all that is necessary for salvation...all that is necessary for salvation is contained in Holy Scripture.

Pacwa: Right. And it's also all contained in tradition.

Martin: I won't get into "tradition" right now, but it sure is contained in Holy Scripture.

Pacwa: It's contained in Scripture and tradition.

Martin: If that's true, and the Fathers reproduced all but six verses of Holy Scriptures within three centuries...

Pacwa: Right.

Martin: ...plus the text and the manuscripts...

Pacwa: Right.

Martin: ...if that's true, then you didn't need Councils to define what they recognize as the already existing body of truth. The Councils were called to deal with heretical doctrines.

Pacwa: Right. And, one of the things that they do along with fighting those heretical doctrines is to clarify who Christ is. They also make the statements about Mary. And that's all that I'm saying.

Ankerberg: Okay. Let me push you right on what you're saying, then. Then the Council found this in Scripture: "The doctrine of the Immaculate Conception maintains that the most blessed Virgin Mary in the first instance of her conception..."

Pacwa: Right.

Ankerberg: "...when she was born, by a unique grace and privilege of the Omnipotent God and in consideration of the merits of Christ Jesus, the Savior of the human race, was preserved free from all stain of original sin."

Pacwa: Right.

Ankerberg: "...It is a doctrine revealed by God and therefore must be firmly and constantly held by all the faithful." Would you tell me where the Council got that from Scripture?

Pacwa: Okay. First of all, when Mary is addressed by the angel, she is said to be the "one of grace..."

Martin: Never "theotokos." Not till the third century.

Pacwa: Again, we're talking about "theotokos." We're talking about dealing with her in terms of Immaculate Conception. Martin: Yeah.

Pacwa: And the thing about the angel's address is to call her "the gracious one"-- the one filled with grace...St. Jerome translated it "the one full of grace." And the sense then of grace and sin being incompatible with each other led to the doctrine of the Church being believed by everybody... As a matter of fact, the doctrine that you give there is defined only in the 1850s and it's based on the faith of the community....

Martin: Now, that's a very important statement.

Pacwa: ...and...let me finish the statement...

Martin: Go ahead. I want you to finish...

Pacwa: ...the statement that refutes one of the things that you said. And you said something falsely in terms of what we believe. We do not believe that Mary is sinless, apart from the merits of Christ, as the declaration on the Immaculate Conception says, "She is sinless only because of the merits of Christ," and that she could not be sinless any other way.

Ankerberg: Why did Mary offer a sacrifice in Luke 2:21 for her sin?

Pacwa: Where does it say it was for her sin? It was for "uncleanness"...

Ankerberg: Well, what's that?

Pacwa: Uncleanness in Jewish studies, as you well know, does not mean anything...necessarily something sinful. For instance, if a human being touches the Scriptures, you become "unclean." Does touching the Bible make you commit a sin?

Ankerberg: Was it a sin in Leviticus 12 enough to have a sacrificial offering?

Pacwa: If you touched the Bible, you have to go to the Midrash.

Ankerberg: What I'm saying is, "Why did she think that she had to offer that offering, if what you're saying is true?"

Pacwa: Okay, because along with touching Scripture, another sacred item is blood. And after birth, for a month or so, I'm told-- I don't know; I've never given birth-- but I'm told that women continue to have bleeding. And so that period of waiting before a sacrifice is to make sure the bleeding stops, after giving birth, and then the woman is considered to be sacred...she also is unclean after her period-- not because that's a sin, but because the blood she sheds is sacred, as is all blood. And so a sacrifice is offered. Now, Mary goes ahead and offers a sacrifice and our understanding of her offering of the sacrifice is that she had no need to, but she did to obey the Jewish law just like Jesus had no need to be circumcised, but He was. He had no need to offer two turtle doves for Himself, but they were offered. He had no need to pay the temple tax, but He did....

Ankerberg: But Jesus never made...

Pacwa: ...as a sign; so that she obeys Jewish law, the way her Son, who had no need to obey Jewish law did.

Ankerberg: I know Walter wants to jump in on it. But you also have a statement by Mary herself at that point.

Pacwa: But, also, one of the things in terms of.... Ankerberg: Let's stick right on that point and then we'll go on.

Pacwa: Because one of the things that...[I'm] all set to deal with, because you mention a lot of stuff.

Ankerberg: Well, let's get a response on what we're talking about in terms of Mary.

Martin: You make us do our homework!

Pacwa: Yeah.

Martin: That's a lot of stuff here.

Pacwa: Yeah!

Martin: All right, look, you said something very important that is really a key. You said, "The Immaculate Conception in 1854 was the result of the long centuries of the accumulated community of the Church," right?

Pacwa: Right.

Martin: I want you to listen to some of the long centuries. Clement of Alexandria, "The Word, Jesus Christ, alone was born without sin." Augustine, Bishop of Hippo, one of the greatest theologians in the Church, "He, Christ, alone being made a man but remaining God never had any sin nor did He take on flesh of sin, though He took flesh of the sin of His mother." Ambrose, "Of all that are born of women, the Holy Lord Jesus was the only One who experienced not the contagion of earthly corruption." St. Bernard, "For this reason, our astonishment is not small in seeing that some of you are believed to be able to introduce a new feast that is unknown to the rite of the Church that cannot be approved by reason, that it is condemned by the ancient traditions, the Feast of the Immaculate Conception." You and Bernard do not agree, and he's Canonized!

Pacwa: That's right.

Martin: You're not!

Pacwa: But...

Martin: Can I finish this? You can go on from there...

Pacwa: Well, one of the things about Bernard is that he was wrong because there was a long-existing feast, often called the "Feast of St. Ann" conceiving Mary and was referred to...

Martin: But not of the Immaculate Conception.

Pacwa: ...but it was of St. Ann conceiving Mary without sin...

Martin: Recognizing that she.... Oh, no, I don't think it was without sin.

Pacwa: ...and one of the things about Bernard's statement is that he does not deny the Immaculate Conception as it's understood, he denied in his statement-- that you're quoting there...if you'll quote the rest of it-- that she was immaculate before she was conceived. And St. Thomas Aquinas makes the same denial. Neither Thomas nor Bernard believed that Mary was sinless before she was conceived.

Martin: They don't believe she was sinless afterwards either.

Pacwa: They don't say that. They merely posed a question of the immaculate...

Martin: Well, let me give it to you. "What honor should we believe in attributing to Mary that honor may be had, you say, for her conception"-- Thomas-- "which was anterior to her birth? Because without this conception neither her birth should be honored. Then would say if others, according to your own reasoning, were to maintain that it is necessary to hold feasts in honor of her parents? This is logical"-- it's the angelic doctor-- "Then it would be necessary to honor her grandparents, and her great-grandparents, and there would be no end at all. There would be feasts without number on the earth and it would be converted into a paradise." Again, that's Thomas Aquinas. Okay?

Pacwa: Yes.

Martin: Again, Peter Lombard-- "But this is asked on what account and whence is it that Mary was conceived without original sin? We say this was impossible." Melchior Cannas, famous professor of Canon Law and Dogmatic Theology on the subject-- "The dogma that holds the blessed Virgin was free from the original sin was nowhere delivered in Holy Scripture." St. Antonius-- "If the Scriptures are duly considered and the sayings of the doctors ancient and modern who have been devoted to the glorious Virgin, it is plain from their words she was conceived in sin." Leo I-- "The Lord Jesus Christ alone among the sons of men was born without sin." Pope Gallatus-- "It belongs to the Immaculate Lamb to have no sin." Gregory I-- "Christ alone was truly born holy." Innocent II-- "Eve was produced without sin but she brought forth in sin. Mary was brought forth in sin but she brought forth without sin." I have four other quotes on....

[End of first part of discussion on Mary. Part II continued next week.]

Program 7

Does the Bible Teach That Mary Is Co-Mediatrix and Co-Redemptrix With Jesus?

[Continued from last week's conversation]

Ankerberg: Okay. Let's get a response and move on. Keep going.

Martin: How do you respond to it? That's the community of the Church!

Pacwa: All right. The thing that we also have is that first of all, some of those folks don't see the issue...

Martin: Thomas Aquinas?

Pacwa: Thomas Aquinas....

Martin: ...the greatest theologian in the history of the Church?

Pacwa: That's right! Where Thomas Aquinas says....

Martin: Tell us.

Pacwa: Well, again listen to the good angelic doctor...

Martin: He made mistakes.

Pacwa: ...and "therefore before the infusion of the rational soul, the Virgin Mary...the blessed Virgin was not sanctified and that the fetus is conceived before the infusion of the soul is not subject to guilt." His issue is not the Immaculate Conception, he's talking about something before the soul is infused into the fetus.

Martin: He's discussing the Immaculate Conception.

Pacwa: And he misunderstands the issue. Martin: Thomas misunderstands?

Pacwa: That's what it says right here. That he says, "Before the infusion of the rational soul, the Virgin was not sanctified." Now...

Martin: If he was a Jesuit, you wouldn't talk this way.

Pacwa: Yes, I would. Yes I would. Now, the thing that we're saying is that the Immaculate Conception takes place as and at the point when her rational soul is infused into the fetus.

Martin: What are we going to do with Pope Gallatus, Pope Gregory 1, Pope Innocent III? What are we going to do with Antonius, Bernard, Clement, Augustine? What are we going to do with all this great community of faith that you all cite?

Pacwa: That you also have to... Martin: They all disagree with it.

Pacwa: Right. And there are other Fathers at the same time who do...

Martin: Which proves...which proves that it was not the consensus of the Church.

Pacwa: It's a consensus of the Church at the time...

Martin: Another Pope says it.

Pacwa: ...As he asks about it. Because the Pope didn't just declare it on his own. As a matter of fact, he declared it as he was asked to do so, by bishops, and he asked the bishops what he and the people believed, and as he went to the other theologians of the Church, and in looking at what they taught, discounting some because they misunderstood the doctrine, and then going back to the others.

Martin: That's the ones that didn't agree with him.

Pacwa: No, because they misunderstood it! Again, Bernard and Thomas being two prime examples.

Martin: But you see...

Pacwa: And they did misunderstand it.

Martin: Yeah, but wait a second. This doesn't fit because when we were talking a couple of weeks ago on the subject, we got on the subject of the Vatican I. In Vatican I there was a rebellion against him pronouncing himself infallible. And he had to threaten all the bishops there that disagreed with ex-communication if they would not acknowledge him as solemn pontiff. So, he, by his own authority, independent of what any of the others who disagreed with him thought, said, "I am infallible." "I am Confucius." "How do you know you're Confucius?" "Because I said I'm Confucius!"

Pacwa: Again, that goes back...

Martin: Round and round and round...

Pacwa: It's a round-and-round argument unless you accept what we talked about in previous shows...

Ankerberg: All right. Let's...

Pacwa: ...about the authority of Peter. But, the authority of Peter to declare that Mary is conceived without sin is something that, in spite of some....again, you can pick out a list of people who did disagree with the Immaculate Conception...

Martin: The "Community of Faith."

Pacwa: It's part of the community of faith. You also have to take a look at the faith of the folks. And one of the reasons that the Pope used to define this is that the Holy Spirit speaks to the Church and will not allow the Church to make error. Therefore, because the community of the Church is the Body of Christ, filled with the soul of the Holy Spirit, that...and the faith of the Church, through the ages, the dominant faith-- not, you know, a few-- the dominant faith therefore has to be listened to...

Martin: But Pope...

Pacwa: ...and there he, using his authority as Peter, goes ahead and declares on the basis of what the people believe. And the same principle was used in the Assumption-- that it was the faith of the Community of the Church-- The Body of Christ, and filled with the Holy Spirit that would be taught all things by Spirit-- and that this Community of the Church was what was able to say, "Yes, we want this, and we believe it, and it's what we consider essential for our faith."

Ankerberg: All right, let's test it, Walter. Let's jump-- because we're out of time in these things-- let me jump and we can tie it together with one further step, okay? And that would be, let's jump to Vatican II's reaffirmation here of a dogma that Mary is exalted by the Lord as Queen of All.

Pacwa: Yes.

Ankerberg: And she presented Him-- Jesus, that is-- to the Father in the temple, "was united in Jesus in suffering as He died on the cross, and in an utterly singular way she cooperated by her obedience of faith, hope, and burning charity in the Savior's work in restoring supernatural life to souls. Taken up to Heaven, she did not lay aside this saving role, but by her manifold acts of intercession continues to win for us gifts of eternal salvation. Therefore, the blessed Virgin is invoked by the Church under the title of 'Advocate and Mediator.'" Now, let me ask you this: "Where does that come in, in Scripture?"

Pacwa: Okay. Three important texts. First of all, Christ at the cross says to the unnamed, but we assume John, the beloved disciple-- this calls him the "beloved disciple," "Behold your mother, and behold your son." And we understand that to be a giving of His mother to all of us, which must be understood if the Body of the Church is the Body of Christ, the mother of Christ is therefore our mother as well.

Secondly, more direct relationship to that is, in the book of Revelation, Chapter 12, where the "woman, clothed with the sun. crowned with twelve stars, standing on the moon," gives birth to the Messiah. And it's no nation. And it cannot be the Church there, because the Church does not give birth to Jesus-- Jesus gives birth to the Church. Only one woman gave birth to Jesus, and that's the woman who is "clothed with the sun and crowned with the stars with the moon under her feet." That is in a cosmic queenship.

Also, in Luke's Gospel, we see that when Simeon confronts her at the temple, he says, "And a sword shall pierce your heart, so that the inner thoughts of many might be revealed." So that she has a role there, by her suffering, and her heart being pierced, to reveal the inner thoughts of many others. One of the other things that is important to understand her role as the reparatrix, mediatrix and so on, is that when it's defined, it is said to in no way add to what Jesus does, or subtracts from what Jesus does.

Martin: How about "equal"?

Pacwa: She cannot...it can't be "equal" in any sense of adding or subtracting.

Martin: "Co-Redemptrix"?

Pacwa: Co-Redemptrix in many ways, the way all of us have to be in that role.

Martin: "Co" means with.

Pacwa: "Co" means with. But again, the Church is clear to make sure that you can't do it without her in the sense that you would never know who Jesus is without her, unless Jesus was born of the Virgin Mary, God as Trinity and God as Incarnate could not be made known to us. It's through her that the personality of God is revealed. As a matter of fact...

Martin: Now be very careful here! Be very careful here. Because you just committed the fallacy of limiting the omnipotence of God, and saying that if He didn't do it this way He can't do it, and you can't say "can't"!

Pacwa: That's right! And the same thing has to be put on your feet as well, because that "shoe" means that God can assume her into Heaven, as He took up Elijah into Heaven...

Martin: If He wants to!

Pacwa: If He wants to. And, as He raised up other people from the dead when Jesus died, and if He can raise those people up-- many of whom we don't know-- Elijah we do, and Enoch, whom we believe to be raised up-- then can He not take His own mother, whom He must have chosen from all eternity? He did not pick a woman at random. There was no lottery. There was nothing like that at all.

Martin: It's not a question of...

Pacwa: It wasn't a bingo game.

Martin: Glad to hear that...

Pacwa: This issue is that God chose from all eternity that this woman would be chosen and thereby making her blessed of all women, so much so that when she approaches and she speaks the first announcement of this birth of Jesus, John in the womb is quickened by the Spirit and so is Elizabeth, and they respond in the Holy Spirit to her and again repeated through Elizabeth...."Blessed of all women...blessed is the fruit..."

Martin: But you want to respond to the Mary of Scripture, not to the Mary of dogma. The Mary of Scripture, says, "Whatever my Son says to you, do it."

Pacwa: "Do that." Absolutely.

Martin: The Son said that you are to consider Him the Mediator. "There is one God, one Intercessor between God and man, the Man, Christ Jesus."

Pacwa: But also...

Martin: Now, let me finish this now. Now, in New Testament theology, no one is Mediator but Messiah. It's Christ who, "offers the one sacrifice for sin forever, sits down at the right hand of God, enters the heavenly tabernacle established forever after the order of Melchizedek...Christ alone who intercedes."

Pacwa: Absolutely. Right.

Martin: Now, Mary is...no one is ever given any position of mediation except for the prayer that we can offer on earth for each other. But no one is "Mediatrix of All Graces." No one is "co-Redemptrix of the Universe."

Pacwa: Well, again, so say you.

Martin: But so says the New Testament.

Pacwa: No, the New Testament doesn't say that. You assume that the New Testament means that...

Martin: That's an argument from silence.

Pacwa: Exactly. Which you are also making!

Martin: I'm saying that the text says, "There is one Mediator."

Pacwa: "One Mediator." But at the same time look...

Martin: That's not silence.

Pacwa: ...what the text says. Look what the text says, "But you have approached Zion"-- to Mount Zion...

Martin: Hebrews.

Pacwa: "...the city of the living God, to the Heavenly Jerusalem, to myriads of angels, to an assembly of the firstborn who have been enrolled in the heavens and to God the judge of all men, and to the spirits of just men who have been made perfect..."

Martin: Right.

Pacwa: "...and to a new covenant and to Jesus, a Mediator, and to the sprinkling of His blood, which is better than Abel's..."

Martin: Christ is the Mediator.

Pacwa: Absolutely. But, the same verb that says, "You have approached Christ the Mediator and God the Judge," also says, "You have come to the angels, and you have come to the spirits of just men."

Martin: What it's talking about in the context of Hebrews is what our position is. This is what we've come to-- we've come to the city of God, as Augustine says. He gives a better exposition than we can. We come to the city of God through all these marvelous things. We've approached all these things because we've seen them by faith and by revelation of God. He's not telling us to approach the angels for mediation, he's simply saying, they're there! That's where we're going, Alleluia!

Pacwa: Well, not so! Because otherwise the book of Revelation would not show the angels taking prayers, like nuggets of incense, and offering them up to God. Nor would the book of Revelation show the 24 elders taking our prayers, like nuggets of incense, setting them on fire and releasing their power before God.

Martin: But you know, as well as I do, that this is Apocalyptic literature. You know as well as I do that when you talk about the woman with the 12 stars over her head, the Catholic theologians have interpreted that in various ways, "Israel" being the primary way. So, why is Mary suddenly with the 12 stars over her head-- 12 tribes of Israel-- why is it Mary instead of Israel giving birth to Messiah?

Pacwa: First of all, because the book of Revelation is Apocalyptic literature...

Martin: Yes.

Pacwa: ...it does not take away its authority as the Word of God.

Martin: To interpret it literally is to stick your neck out.

Pacwa: It's to stick my neck out, but in some ways, interpreting... I know...I know, you're ready for a hacking.... The Catholics weren't the only ones with an inquisition.

Martin: "Watch thyself!"

Pacwa: But the thing that the Church has done with that in conjunction with Hebrews is say, "You can go"-- as a matter of fact, "We need to go to these people." Precisely because they are part of the Body of Christ yet, and as members of the Body of Christ, they are in union with Him, interceding for us even now in Heaven, and...

Martin: But you don't confess to angels. You don't pray to angels. You don't worship angels...

Pacwa: We don't worship angels and we don't worship Mary.

Martin: It says...Ah, come on! It specifically says...

Pacwa: Absolutely. As a matter of fact, that's....

Martin: "Hail, Holy Queen! Mother of Mercy-- our life, our sweetness and our hope! To thee we cry, poor banished children of Eve." That's not worship?

Pacwa: "To thee we send up our sighs, mourning and weeping in this valley of tears."

Martin: And that's not worship?

Pacwa: "Turn then most gracious advocate thine eyes of mercy towards us..."

Martin: Right.

Pacwa: "...and show unto us the fruit of thy womb, Jesus."

Martin: Well, yeah, sure. But already, before you get to "Show us Jesus," you have already adored h~.

Pacwa: Again, one of the things that the Church rejects is adoration of Mary or any saint. I would reject that absolutely, personally, and anybody who does worship a saint, is committing idolatry...

Martin: I agree.

Pacwa: ...and the Church teaches that as well. In official doctrine that you may not worship any creature, including the blessed Virgin....

Martin: Is this heretical; "O, Mary, Gate of Heaven, none shall enter in except by thee." Is that heretical?

Pacwa: Well, first of all...not necessarily. Not at all, as a matter of fact.

Ankerberg: Let me add to that statement. Pope Leo XIII's statement, "No one can go to the Father except through the Son, and similarly, no one can go to the Son except through His mother, Mary."

Pacwa: That's right, because the way we come to know that the Son is the Son is through Mary.

Ankerberg: Is that what Scripture says?

Pacwa: Well it...

Ankerberg: Mary is the one who leads us to Jesus?

Pacwa: ...it doesn't say that Mary is the one that leads us to Jesus in the sense that she is the one who has the same authority of Christ. What it does show is that unless she had given birth to Him, we wouldn't know Him as Jesus Christ.

Ankerberg: Can you give me one Scripture verse in the New Testament that says that Mary is the one that leads us to Jesus?

Pacwa: Again, I said "No," because we don't say that Mary "leads us to Jesus" in the sense that Jesus leads us to the Father, because she's not God. She's not the Redeemer. She does so only in ways analogous so that you and I lead one another to Jesus.

Ankerberg: But can you see why some people shouldn't be called "Anathema" if they don't believe it, because there's not verses that say that and they don't want to believe the assumptions of a group of people that can't base it on the Scripture?

Pacwa: Okay, first of all. One of the problems is that the difficulty with the anathemas are mostly from not understanding what we believe about Mary and imputing to us things that we don't believe. For instance, that we adore her or commit blasphemy. Again, that....Never was I taught anything like that ever in my life.

Martin: I don't believe you were taught that either, but the fact is that Pius XII did it.

Pacwa: Well, again, that's where we disagree in terms of understanding him. And one of the things about these prayers calling her "the Gate," for instance. These things are poetry, and it's the kind of poetry of love where if we say, "Jesus is the Way, she's the gate." As a matter of fact, we talk about Mary frequently, as "Jesus is the New Covenant; she's the ark." "Jesus is the Son of David and Mary is the tower of David that reveals him to us..that holds Him in."

Ankerberg: Yeah, but Vatican II says strictly that, "The blessed Virgin is to be invoked by the Church." Do you take that as poetry?

Pacwa: Oh no. She's to be invoked and asked for her prayers.

Ankerberg: Where do you get that in the New Testament?

Pacwa: Well, first of all, it's not forbidden in the New Testament, and secondly, what we do....

Ankerberg: There's one Mediator.

Martin: I Timothy.....

Pacwa: Well, again, if you understand that praying for one another is taking away from the Mediatorship of Christ, then it would be a sin. But if praying for one another is consonant with the Mediatorship of Christ because (a) we pray for one another as members of the Body of Christ and in the name of Christ, and (b) she, more than anybody has that right, because Christ was in her body and she was there at Pentecost...

Martin: No.

Pacwa: ...she was so filled with the Holy Spirit....

Ankerberg: But if I pray "for" you, I don't pray "to" you and say, "You're my mediator."

Pacwa: No, but I can ask you...

Ankerberg: I can pray for you but I don't pray to you.

Pacwa: But you can ask me to pray for you. Ankerberg: Yeah, but you don't pray to...

Pacwa: That's...

Ankerberg: Yeah, but there's a difference between praying to Mary and making her the mediator.

Pacwa: And that's exact...the thing that we're understanding...

Martin: We're getting afield of the one important point here. Mary, in Catholic theology-- correct me if I'm wrong here-- the basic concept is that Mary is close to Christ because she's "the ark," "the vessel" that brought Him forth. So, I was taught, and you were taught too, that what you're supposed to do is to talk to Mary because she can talk to Jesus for you. She's His mother. She's closer to Him than you are. Okay?

Pacwa: Right.

Martin: Wrong! Because in Matthew Chapter 12 Jesus is asked the question, "Your mother and your brothers are outside." He said, "Who is my mother and my brother? I tell you, whoever does the will of my Father which is in heaven, the same is sister, brother, Mary, to me"...

Pacwa: Right.

Martin: Therefore, she's no closer to Him than I am by the blood of the cross.

Pacwa: Except...here's where...again, we've got too many...I've got to deal with two different issues here. First of all, let me deal with the one you brought up-- that praying to Mary is not a prayer. As a matter fact there are even a couple of words for it in Latin that we use to distinguish the...the kind of honor we give to her and the kind of honor we give to God. All the worship goes to God, not to her. Honor goes to her. The thing that we do in praying to her is to ask her to pray for us. It's not praying to her, as if she is the object-- what we call the "final" object, the final cause of our prayer. It's praying to her so that she goes to her Son. Then, in terms of what you're saying here, she is above all other women and all other people on earth, the one who obeys the will of the Father, because she hears the word of the angel, says, "How can it be done? Then, Let it be done." But by her Fiat, and she is that woman who obeys.

Ankerberg: Okay. I understand what you're saying. Can you understand us when we say we don't agree on the basis of strict verses that seem to us to logically rule that out completely?

Pacwa: Yeah.

Ankerberg: That's it!

Pacwa: The thing that I also sense is that the limitation that you put...for instance, by omitting, as a matter of fact the text of Scripture that we do use is the one in the wedding feast of Cana where Mary asks Jesus to do something He does not want to do. And He does it anyway. She tells the folks, "Do what He says." And He listens to her intercession. Now, in some ways she has to suffer for that, to be sure, in His public ministry. And He does make a separation from Him to her, and we believe that that's part of her suffering. Suffering that is redemptive in the same way that Paul teaches that our sufferings are redemptive in Colossians 1:24 where it says, "l make up in my own sufferings for what is still lacking in the sufferings of Christ for the sake of the Church." What she underwent in seeing her Son Jesus die. And the suffering of Jesus...

Ankerberg: Okay, Walter, you wrote a paper on that one right there. Why don't you answer it.

Pacwa: Well, let me finish the sentence first. Ankerberg: Okay.

Pacwa: In her suffering in seeing Christ die, her "having her heart pierced by the sword so that our inner thoughts could be revealed," she adds merit the way Paul adds merit.

Ankerberg: Okay, so you're taking historical accounts and you're making doctrine out of those, okay?...

Pacwa: Yes!

Ankerberg: ...Where you won't take the teaching statements of the people themselves in the New Testament. It's like saying a man...you know, it's the old adage of "Judas went out and hanged himself"; and the other verses, "Go and do thou likewise." The things you have are historical events, but you can't make doctrine just because something happened. You have to have the teaching statements of the Scriptures over them.

Pacwa: Well, one of the things-- here's where we also would have some more basic differences that we have to talk about at some other time. But one of the things that we understand about the use of doctrine is, first of all, Scripture does not forbid us to go to her. It rather says "Approach the spirits of the just..."

Martin: No, no, no, no...it doesn't say that!

Pacwa: The Scripture says, "Approach the spirits of the just" in Hebrews.

Martin: In Hebrews?

Pacwa: That's what the text says.

Martin: The text says, in Greek, the verb "to approach them," right?

Pacwa: Right.

Martin: And the context to the passage says, "We are seeing heaven opened, and we are approaching into heaven to God Himself, to the spirits of just men made perfect..." and so forth. Why not, Wait a minute! Why not pray to the just men made perfect? Why stop with Mary? Let's go to the angels! Let's go to them. If you're going to take that passage to mean that, we go to everybody.

Pacwa: As a matter of fact, one of the things that the context, first of all, says, is that our religion is not like Mount Sinai, a religion of fear and trembling... Martin: Right.

Pacwa: But, rather, it's a religion of approaching, unlike on Mount Zion. And the imagery is to contrast Mt. Sinai which could not be touched, versus Mount Zion which could be approached for offering sacrifice and people could come there. You could touch...

Martin: But you're using the argument of the verb.

Pacwa: And one of the things that it does says then, that the nature of our religion is one of approach...

Martin: Right.

Pacwa: ...and the coming of the spirits of the just... Martin: It doesn't say a thing about intercession.

Pacwa: Okay. But again, that's why we don't take that text just by itself. It does say "approach them" and as a matter of fact, we do approach the other saints.

Ankerberg: All right, we need a 30-second wrap-up here, Walter. We're out of time.

Martin: I can only say what I said before on the subject of prayer and worship. We're playing a word game when we use "veneration" and "worship"...

Pacwa: Not so! Martin: I think we're playing a word game because this is a very clear-cut statement by Pius XII, "Receive, O, most Sweet Mother, our humble supplications." Supplications are prayers.

Pacwa: Right.

Martin: "Above all, obtain for us that on that day, happy with you, we may repeat before your throne that hymn which is sung today around your altars. You are all beautiful, O Mary. You are the glory. You are the joy. You are the honor of our people." That's worship!

Pacwa: And that's where we disagree. We do not believe that that is worship because the angels and the elders of Revelation receive the prayers of the saints. We don't adore those elders, though John was tempted to do so. We don't adore the angels, as John was tempted to do so...

Martin: Forbidden to.

Pacwa: And he was forbidden-- that's why he stopped. And we also believe that we cannot worship Mary and we do not worship her. And that's by an act of the will. But, we give her our supplications, that is, we give her our prayers, and the prayers to other saints so that they who are with the Lord face-to-face in Heaven now, alive and before Him, can take our prayers to Christ in a way that's more direct than we who are still caught up in the concupiscence of sin cannot be as close to.

Martin: "One God, One Intercessor between God and man, the Man"-- not Mary-- "Christ Jesus."

Ankerberg: Okay...

Pacwa: And one Church, one Body of Christ, and members of the Body of Christ in heaven and on earth united to Christ can offer prayer to the Father in union with Him, so that there is no distinction...or not separation, I should say, between the Saints, Mary and Christ because they're members of Him.

Ankerberg: All right. It's been an interesting discussion. Thanks for joining us. Hope you'll tune in next week.

Program 8

Is It Necessary for People to Confess Their Sins to a Roman Catholic Priest Before God will Forgive Them?

Introduction:

Tonight, John Ankerberg will examine what Roman Catholicism teaches concerning the practice of confession. At the Council of Trent the Catholic Church stated, "The Universal Church has always understood that the complete confession of sins was also instituted by our Lord, and by divine law is necessary for all who have fallen after baptism. Because our Lord Jesus Christ left behind Him priests as His own vicars, as rulers and judges to whom all the mortal sins into which the faithful of Christ may have fallen should be brought, so that they, in virtue of the power of the keys, may pronounce the sentence of remission or retention of sins."

Catholicism claims the evidence for their practice of confession stems from two sources: first, from Jesus' own words in John 20:23, and second, the unanimous agreement of the Church Fathers. Jesus said in John 20:23, "If you forgive the sins of any, they are forgiven them; if you retain the sins of any, they are retained." But does this verse teach Christians must confess their sins to a priest, or is Jesus describing what God will do as a result of the apostles preaching the Gospel?

[Begin Program Excerpt]

Martin: John Chapter 20 is not saying that any one of the apostles or anybody else has the power to forgive sins in a priestly sense of confessional as the Church teaches it today. Instead, it's teaching that when we go out and preach the Gospel, as Jesus commanded us to, we are doing exactly what His Father sent Him to do. If men accept it, then we may say to them, "Your sins are forgiven. You have believed in Jesus Christ." If they don't accept it, we say to them, "You're still in your sins. You need to be re-born spiritually."

Pacwa: Because these sins are so serious, something must be done about them. And the way that God has given us is-- something that we've seen before, and this is (a) Jesus said so, in John 20, that we have to have these people who are going out to go ahead and forgive sins. Secondly, (b) in all the ministries in the Body of Christ we need intermediaries. And therefore, if we need ministers and intermediaries to proclaim the Gospel, then we also need them for this other ministry of forgiving of sins.

Martin: In John Chapter 20 there is no command to enumerate sins, no command for contrition, no command for satisfaction-- all of this is eisegesis-- or reading into the passage-- what the Catholic Church teaches.

Pacwa: Now, in Christ's command to the apostles to forgive sins in John 20:23, He doesn't give us the exact format for how the confession, the sacrament of confession should be done; thereby leaving it open to the necessities of the Church. And so as the Holy Spirit leads the Church in every age, that the Holy Spirit sees and lets the people use one form in one age, and then as we continue to learn and as different things need to be applied in different cultures and different ages, that the sacrament itself changes.

Martin: It's amazing that Father Pacwa can contradict Christ flat-out and not even twitch!

[End Program Excerpt]

Announcer: Protestants do not believe that it is necessary for a person to confess his sins to a priest before God will forgive him. Protestants believe that all believers have been given the right of access to God through Christ and are able to go directly to God in prayer. They hold to 1 Timothy 2:5 which instructs everyone to confess their sins to Christ alone, the only Mediator between God and man. I Timothy 2:5 says, "For there is one God and one Mediator between God and man, the man Christ Jesus."

Tonight, both sides will present the evidence for and against the practice of confession. John's guests are Father Mitchell Pacwa, an ordained Roman Catholic Priest who is a member of the Society of Jesus-- a Jesuit. He has an earned Doctor of Philosophy degree and is currently a professor at Loyola University in Chicago. John's second guest is Protestant scholar, the late Dr. Walter Martin, Director and Founder of the Christian Research Institute in California. Please join us for this discussion.

Ankerberg: We're talking about some of the doctrines of the Roman Catholic Church, and specifically, "How can your sins be forgiven?" After a Roman Catholic has been baptized and come into the Roman Catholic Church, if he commits a mortal sin, he must come back and regain his salvation-- his justifying grace that was obliterated when he committed mortal sin-- by the Sacrament of Penance. And Penance, as defined by Trent, includes three things: One is contrition-- you must be sorry for your sins; then you must confess your sins to a priest-- your mortal sins, not your venial sins; and then, thirdly, you must do works of satisfaction; and then the absolution-- the forgiveness, that the priest pronounces-- takes effect when you've done your works of satisfaction "ex opere operato," which means that automatically, at the end of your doing this, it takes effect when you have done your part.

But I'd like to come and center in on this thing. Is it absolutely necessary that to receive forgiveness of sins-- can you go straight to God and in prayer, ask Him to forgive your sins, or must you come to the priest? Now, we're not talking about the authority that the priest has. But we're talking about, in order for you to receive forgiveness must you-- before you can receive forgiveness from God-- must you do it this way? Now, let's get the Council of Trent on the boards here-- the official doctrine of the Roman Catholic Church-- which says that, "The entire confession of sins was also instituted by the Lord, and that it is necessary"-- here's this word "necessary" and anything that is "necessary" means if it is not there, then you've missed it-- "that it's necessary by divine right for all who have committed mortal sins after baptism to make confession to the priest in order that they may pronounce the sentence, either of remission or of retention of sins." Your sins are forgiven or they are not.

Now it says, "All mortal sins of which the penitents, after diligent self-examination"-- each one of you that's committed a mortal sin-- after you have diligently examined yourself and you're conscious of these mortal sins that you've done, "They"-- you're to bring those to the priest-- "ought to be enumerated in confession, even if they are most secret. For it is certain that nothing else"-- that's no other way for this to happen-- "it is certain that nothing else is required of penitents in the Church." Then it says, "If anyone either denies that sacramental confession is instituted or necessary to salvation"-- that's where we're coming in on the importance of it. Is it necessary for salvation by divine right for you to do this? Trent says if you don't, "...let him be anathema."

Now, Dr. Martin, I want to start with you on this one. Protestants would agree that it's all right for a person to come and get the advice from their minister. And they might even pray with the minister to God and get advice from that minister. But to say that there is no reason to believe that God will forgive a person unless he goes to the priest and confesses there, and does full confession and then does works of satisfaction, I think is abhorrent to Protestants. Can you tell us why?

Martin: Well, because in Protestant theology, God's grace brings to us the faith necessary to trust the Lord Jesus Christ. We pass out of death into life. The reemphasis constantly in the New Testament from Christ's mouth as well as from the apostles is that the Christian possesses-- "exei zoen aionion"-- he "has everlasting life." This is something given to him as a gift from God. We has passed out of that death which we were in our sins and have come to righteousness in Christ. Imputed righteousness and then imparted by the Holy Spirit.

The Christian reacts vigorously to the idea that it's necessary to go through an individual who carries you through three specific steps and then says, "After that's done, you must make satisfaction," when the scriptural text of I John 2 says "Jesus Christ is our advocate with the Father, Jesus Christ the righteous. He is the satisfaction, the expiation, the propitiation for all our sins, and not for ours only, but for the sins of the whole world." And, in fact, there's a very powerful passage which is seldom used in this connection, in 2 Corinthians Chapter 5: "All this is from God, who reconciled us to Himself through Christ and gave us the ministry of reconciliation; that God was reconciling the world to Himself in Christ, not counting men's sins against them." It isn't that they haven't sinned. He's not counting them against them. "He has committed to us the message of reconciliation. We are going forth into the world, imploring people to be reconciled to God, because God made Christ to become the sin offering for us who knew no sin, that we might be made as righteous as God through faith in Him."

So, the Protestant Christian relies solely upon the grace of God and the forgiveness which is in Jesus Christ. "Confessing our sins to Christ, He is faithful and just to forgive us and to cleanse us." We don't see any necessity for the acts of contrition, for the confession to a priest, and then for any satisfaction to be imposed.

Ankerberg: Father Pacwa, we're really glad that you're here tonight. And we really want to ask you, is it really absolutely necessary for people's salvation that they must do these things?

Pacwa: Yes. Absolutely.

Ankerberg: Why? What's the evidence?

Pacwa: First of all, let's take a look at Ephesians Chapter 5, beginning with verse 5: "Make no mistake about this: no fornicator, no unclean or lustful person"-- in effect, an idolater-- "has any inheritance in the kingdom of Christ and of God. Let no one deceive you with worthless arguments: these are sin that bring God's wrath down on the disobedient. Therefore have nothing to do with them." He's not preaching there to pagans, is he? Nor to Jews? He's preaching to Christians.

And we know, by experience, that Christians commit these sins. There are Christians who have been baptized, who have been redeemed, saved, they've been through all kinds of experiences-- baptized in the Holy Spirit-- and they still commit adultery. And there are ministers and there are priests who do that kind of thing. No one is exempt-- no class of people is exempt. And yet, we see that nobody who does these things can enter the kingdom of God. And that God's wrath comes down upon them-- whether they're Christians or not.

So, because these sins are so serious, something must be done about them. And the way that God has given us is something that we've seen before. The text we've used, of course, is John Chapter 20, where Jesus says to the apostles, "Whosesoever sins you..."-- "As the Father sent me, I send you." And breathes on them the Holy Spirit and says, "Whosesoever sins you forgive, they are forgiven. Whosesoever sins you retain, they are retained."

Now, what gets to the difference of the Catholic and the Protestant understanding of that text comes from the very nature of the way we see the Christian. Catholics see the Protestants, for all their talk of faith, don't have enough faith in what Christ is doing. Because the Christian is so radically part of Christ, as a member of the Body of Christ, that Christ's authority is given to the Christians. But because the Body of Christ is not made up of everybody having the same function but that there are different gifts within the Body of Christ and different ministries given by the Holy Spirit, this is one of those ministries given by the Holy Spirit for the upbuilding of the Body of Christ. And it is not the priest by his own power, but it is by the power of the Holy Spirit in the priest who is a part of Christ by his very existence in the Body of Christ, and especially by his ordination, set apart as an elder within the Body of Christ to be able to exercise the ministry of Christ. So that it is Jesus Christ acting through the priest.

Now, why do we need this minister? (a) Jesus said so, in John 20, that we have to have these people who are going out to go ahead and forgive sins. Secondly, (b) in all the ministries in the Body of Christ we need intermediaries. To hear the Word of Christ. St. Paul himself says in Romans 10, "How shall they hear unless someone is sent?" That somebody has to go out and preach the Gospel and be the intermediary to announce the Good News rather than just merely read it in the Bible. And therefore, if we need ministers and intermediaries to proclaim the Gospel, then we also need them for this other ministry of forgiving of sins. The actual effect of the sacrament in Catholicism, as one who goes to confession and hears confessions, is most salutary. I myself have experienced not only the sense of comfort and grace and peace through the forgiveness of sins and confession, but also I've seen the power of the sacrament to actually change me. Sometimes not right away. But the power of the sacrament of Christ working in this confession has, over time, with sins changed so that I stopped doing them. And I see that in the people whose confessions I hear. That there is grace operative there to make people new and different in Christ.

Ankerberg: Before you start, Walter, we've only got two minutes left before we need to take a break. But what you need to address here, I believe, is the fact of first you've got John 20:23, when Jesus said to remit and retain sins. We agree there's a power there. What kind of a power? Is it a declaratory power? Or is it a priestly confessional power? Second is, I don't think we disagree with edification of the saints and counsel. The question is, Is it absolutely necessary you do it that way to find forgiveness with God? Maybe you'd like to address that.

Martin: I'll address it by pointing out very simply that Christ was sent by the Father into the world primarily to preach. He tells the disciples that after the resurrection, and the apostles-- that they are to go and preach the Gospel. In John Chapter 20, there is no command to enumerate sins; no command for contrition; no command for satisfaction-- all of this is eisegesis-- or reading into the passage-- what the Catholic Church teaches.

Now, the second century Christians didn't accept this. We've already shown that by quoting Tertullian and others. They didn't accept the idea of auricular confession and absolution by any priest. They did public confessions, primarily, until it became scandalous because of the things that were going on, and so then they started talking privately.

John Chapter 20 is not saying that any one of the apostles or anybody else has the power to forgive sins in a priestly sense of confessional as the Church teaches it today. Instead, it's teaching that when we go out and preach the Gospel as Jesus commanded us to, we are doing exactly what His Father sent Him to do. If men accept it, then we may say to them, "Your sins are forgiven. You have believed in Jesus Christ." If they don't accept it, we say to them, "You're still in your sins. You need to be reborn spiritually." Now, that is, I think, a much simpler interpretation of the passage than to have to add to it an enumeration of things which are not in the context. Ankerberg: All right, we're going to come back for a reply right after our break, so please stick with us.

[End Program Excerpt]

* * * *

Ankerberg: Is the confessional of the Roman Catholic Church-- where people come and confess their sins-- is it absolutely necessary for you as a Christian to go to a priest and confess your sins or you won't be forgiven? Trent says, "If anyone either denies that sacramental confession is instituted or necessary to salvation by divine right, let him be anathema."

Gentlemen, before we go on, I'd like to throw in a couple of verses here, because this program is based on evidence. And first of all, to shed light on Jesus' statement in John 20:23, what kind of power is He giving to the apostles? Well, the Roman Catholic Church says it's the same kind of power that Jesus had. But in Luke 4:17-22, Jesus stood up to read the scroll of the prophet Isaiah. "And unrolling it, He found the place where it is written, "The Spirit of the Lord is upon me, because he hath anointed me to preach the gospel...he has sent me to heal the brokenhearted, to preach deliverance to the captives,...to preach the acceptable year of the Lord. And he closed the book, and he gave it again to the attendant, and sat down. And he said to them, This day is this Scripture fulfilled in your ears."

Jesus Himself in John 15 in the same book where John 20:23 is at said, "When the Counselor comes, whom I will send to you from the Father, the Spirit of truth, who goes from the Father, he will testify about me: But you must also testify, for you have been with me from the beginning."

And then, as long as the Roman Catholic Church looks to Peter with such great standing, Peter said-- following Jesus' words in John 15, what was his understanding? Acts 10:39, he said, "We are witnesses of everything Jesus did in the country of the Jews and in Jerusalem; they killed him by hanging him on a tree: but God raised him from the dead on the third day and caused him to be seen. He was not seen by all the people, but by witnesses whom God had already chosen, by us, who ate and drank with him after he rose from the dead. He commanded us to preach to the people"-- and to do what? ...to testify that he is the one whom God appointed as Judge of the living and the dead. All the prophets testify about him that everyone who believes in him receives forgiveness of sins." Now, let's put these into the hopper here of this conversation and let's...this is evidence.

Pacwa: A number of things we have to deal with. First of all, you're wrong on Tertullian. Tertullian did believe in confession. His argument in "De Poenitentia" is not against the existence of confession, his problem was, "Who should be forgiven?" He was against forgiving those who had handed over the sacred books or those who had committed adultery or those who committed murder. He said, "They are so evil, they can't be forgiven." Whereas, the Bishop of Rome said that, "Yes, they can be forgiven, and we will continue to minister forgiveness to them." So he wasn't against confession, he just thought that some people were so bad they couldn't receive it. And he was arguing also with Origen, who himself also believed in confession-- "exhomologesis," as they call it and they still call it in the Orthodox Church. So, in terms of being in the second century and in the third century, we've got the evidence on our side.

Ankerberg: Oh, no, you don't! Because the fact is, the very thing that you're talking about Tertullian is you don't have that kind of confession. You don't have the kind of confession where the person comes into the congregation and before them-- before the priest, bishops and everybody-- makes confession. You don't have that kind.

Pacwa: Okay. The kind of confession that they themselves had from the various liturgical books, including Hippolytus and the others, is that they would confess to the bishop and then do the penance in public. Now, as you yourself read-- and this deals with the second issue that Dr. Martin brought up-- that the Holy Spirit was given to us to lead us into all truth.

Now, in Christ's command to the apostles to forgive sins in John 20:23, He doesn't give us the exact format for how the confession...the sacrament of confession should be done thereby leaving it open to the necessities of the Church. And so as the Holy Spirit leads the Church in every age, that the Holy Spirit sees and lets the people use one form in one age, and then as we continue to learn and as different things need to be applied in different cultures and different ages, that the sacrament itself changes. And so that what we have in the early Church is a much more public, a much longer period of penance, and a much more public kind of penance. Whereas as time goes on, the penance is still even longer. Sometimes up to 21 years and so on. And we'll get to that when we deal with indulgences.

But then, there's a much more private confession. As pastoral experience of the Church shows that this kind of confession is best, then we change and we adapt, and we're still learning. The Church sees itself as learning. The text is...as a matter of fact, we understand, this is a very key issue in the way Catholics understand Scripture. It's the seed...that the Word of God that's spread out as a seed. It's an imperishable seed, as we see in I Peter 1. And a seed doesn't stay in that state.

And Protestants tend to say, "Well, unless we see it just in that little nugget form, that seed form, we're not going to believe any additions you've got. And we say "No, Wait a minute!" Christ gives an imperishable seed, planted in our hearts, and in the heart of the Church as a whole, and it grows up and it develops and it flowers. And so also is the development of the Sacrament of Confession. It's a growing and a development of that seed in John 20:23 and in the sense of the ministry of Christ, which is not primarily, as you said, a ministry of preaching. Christ came to redeem sinners. That's why He died. He didn't die so that He could preach. The preaching is to help us to understand the meaning of that. And the preach ing of the apostles is to understand the meaning of that. But the primary ministry of Jesus is not preaching-- it's death and resurrection so that we can be redeemed from our sins. And that the apostles-- to deal with your text from Luke Chapter ~ are told to go as Jesus was sent. So if it says in Luke 4 that Jesus fulfills that day, the commission to forgive sins and let loose those who are prisoners...

Ankerberg: "Proclaim." Not....

Pacwa: ...and to proclaim that, then the priests who are told in John 20:23-- the apostles were the bishops and then the successors after them-- So that they are fulfilling that and it's not a contradiction, but it's rather a fulfillment. And nor does it in any way-- to deal with your text from Acts Chapter 10-- nor does it in any way exclude our preaching of forgiveness. The priest must do that. That is part of my obligation as a priest-- to preach forgiveness from the pulpit and to preach Jesus Christ and Him crucified. But also part of my ministry is to proclaim the word that, "In the name of Jesus Christ, I forgive you and I absolve you of all your sins"-- not by my authority but by the authority of Christ.

Ankerberg: We've got two minutes left, Walter. You've got three things you've got to address. Number one is, what about Tertullian; and second, about the fact, did the Church change from what was given as the apostle said to the prophets and they did the same thing there in terms of preaching and repentance-- And then you might bring in some of these verses. But you have two minutes.

Martin: It's amazing that Father Pacwa can contradict Christ flat-out and not even twitch.

Pacwa: Of course he doesn't twitch.

Martin: "The Spirit of the Lord is upon me..."

Pacwa: Yes.

Martin: "...because he has appointed me to preach the good news."

Pacwa: Right.

Martin: Now, Jesus came preaching the good news.

Pacwa: Right.

Martin: He came fulfilling these things. That's flat-out true. The apostles did exactly the same thing-- grounded, of course, in the cross.

Pacwa: Right.

Martin: But I'm not incorrect where Tertullian is concerned. In fact, Tertullian contradicts you, he contradicts Trent, he contradicts penance. Listen carefully to what he has to say...

Pacwa: Which book are you quoting from Tertullian?

Martin: Elucidations...Tertullian. All right...

Pacwa: Is that "De Poenitentia"?

Martin: Let me quote Tertullian. You said I was wrong. Let me quote him. Okay? Tertullian says, "At the close...." Excuse me. "60,000 Christians received the Eucharist communion in one day in both kinds with no other than their private confessions to Almighty God. The scandalous evil liver alone was repelled from the Eucharist table." Now, this is to me very significant. Because here, 60,000 Christians are taking the Lord's Supper, the Mass, and there's no priest absolving their sins. There's no priest standing giving him penance, contrition or anything else. They are simply confessing to Christ and they are given the Lord's table. What's Trent going to do with that?

Pacwa: That's very Catholic. But read the next part.

Martin: Catholic?-- it contradicts Trent!

Pacwa: Not at all. As a matter of fact, a Catholic must confess privately, and if he has only venial sins, then the beginning of the Eucharist deals precisely with that.

Martin: 60,000 people had nothing but venial sins?

Pacwa: The early Church was pretty holy.

Martin: Oh, come on!

Pacwa: No. Not so. Listen, what does he say next?

Martin: This is "whistling Dixie"!

Pacwa: What's his next line? So that it doesn't contradict...

Martin: All I can say...I think it is contradiction. And I further think, from a biblical perspective, that forgiveness of sin is granted to the believer who is penitent and opens his or her heart to the Lord Jesus Christ. I John states that categorically. The entire system of priestly intermediacy between the individual and God usurps the role of the Holy Spirit, and of Jesus Christ as our Advocate, and places you-- a sinful human being-- in the position of acting in place of Christ, when you don't have the power to do that. All you have is a passage in John 20 which you say means what the Greek Fathers said it didn't mean!

Ankerberg: All right, we're going to continue this conversation. We're going to turn to the doctrine of purgatory-- So please join us then.

Program 9

Is There Such a Place as Purgatory?

Introduction:

This evening, John Ankerberg will examine what Roman Catholicism teaches concerning their doctrine of purgatory. The Catholic Church says purgatory is a place where Christians go at death, who are guilty of venial sins. Such Christians suffer in purgatory until fully purified. Not only are Christians purged of venial sins, but they must also pay any temporal punishment still due other sin. Catholicism states that a person does not remain and suffer in purgatory forever, as one does who is in hell. Rather, after a person's soul is cleansed of imperfections, he then goes to heaven. Protestants strongly deny that the doctrine of purgatory is biblical.

[Begin Program Excerpt]

Martin: Primarily, because in biblical theology in the New Testament the doctrine of purgatory is unknown. It's not mentioned. It was a later invention of Catholic theology. There is no suggestion of purgatory in Apostolic theology-there is no mention of the concept whatever. The only way you're going to get it is to read into the passages, and it took them 500 years to read it into the passages. So I think it's a little difficult for Protestants to swallow what turned out to be the biggest money-making proposition in the history of Roman Catholic doctrine-namely, to actually pay money for masses and sell indulgences. And, in fact, impute vicarious righteousness to people in a place that didn't exist, except in the thought processes of Roman Catholic theologians.

Pacwa: Now, in terms of the Scriptures, you're right, that we don't have a text that explicitly mentions it. But we have texts that we have to deal with very seriously; and I must admit this, too--the more I study this--in preparation for this [discussion], the more I did see the connection between our understanding of purgatory and the Catholic understanding of Justification--that they do go hand-in-hand. No doubt.

Martin: In other words, purgatory itself doesn't rest upon any series of verses which you can connect exegetically or hermeneutically. And really--and I think you're going to have to admit this--it really rests upon the teaching magisterium of the Church. We are testing by Scripture, and you are testing by the Church's authority. So, we're challenging the Church's authority to make those kind of interpretations because they violate the text and the context.

[End Program Excerpt]

Announcer: Protestants maintain that Scripture says there is only a heaven and a hell, but no purgatory. Protestants believe it is an affront to the grace of God to teach that He only forgives part of the penalty for sin, and yet there still remains some penalty that the sinner needs to pay. If the sinner must pay for even the temporal punishment of his sins, then Jesus really didn't pay it all at the cross. But Protestants point out that the Bible says, "The blood of Jesus Christ, His Son, cleanses us from all sin." Hebrews 10:14 states, "By one sacrifice Jesus has made perfect forever those who are being made holy." Protestants point to I John 2:1 and 2 which says: "If anybody does sin, we have One who speaks to the Father in our defense: Jesus Christ, the righteous One. He is the atoning sacrifice for our sins, and not only for ours, but also for the sins of the whole world. If we confess our sins, He is faithful and just and will forgive us our sins and purify us from all unrighteousness."

Tonight, you will hear both sides answer the question, "Is the doctrine of purgatory truly biblical?" John's guests are Father. Mitchell Pacwa, an ordained Roman Catholic priest, who is a member of the Society of Jesus-a Jesuit. He has an earned Doctor of Philosophy degree and is currently a professor at Loyola University in Chicago. John's second guest is Protestant scholar, the late Dr. Walter Martin, Director and Founder of the Christian Research Institute in California. Please join us for this discussion.

Ankerberg: Welcome! We're talking about some of the doctrines of the Roman Catholic Church. And I'm sure that you have heard about the doctrine of purgatory that is professed by the Roman Catholic Church and that's what we're going to discuss tonight. First of all, let me get some official statements on the board here tonight from the Catholic Church.

The Council of Trent said this in Canon 30: "If anyone says that after the reception of the grace of Justification, the guilt is so remitted and the debt of eternal punishment so blotted out to every repentant sinner, that no debt of temporal punishment remains to be discharged, either in this world, or in purgatory, before the gates of heaven can be opened, let him be anathema."

Or the Council of Florence stated this: "The souls of those who depart this life with true repentance and in the love of God, before they have rendered satisfaction for their trespasses and negligences by the worthy fruits of penance are purified after death with the punishments of purification."

Also, the Council of Trent said this, "I firmly hold that there is a purgatory, and that the souls detained there are helped by the prayers of the faithful. I affirm that the power of indulgences was left in the keeping of the Church by Christ, and that the use of indulgences is very beneficial to Christians." Dr. Martin, why is this repugnant to Protestants?

Martin: Primarily because in biblical theology in the New Testament, the doctrine of purgatory is unknown. It's not mentioned. It was a later invention of Catholic theology. It wasn't until Gregory I-that you have some five centuries after the Apostolic Era-that you have a pronouncement of this in the Catholic Church. It was actually a device for trying to answer the question: "There are some people not bad enough to go to hell and not good enough to go to heaven, so how are we going to deal with it?" "We'll have to deal with it in a method of purging them of their sins, of the temporal punishment of their sins." So purgatory evolved as a result of this in the context of church history.

Biblically speaking, of course, the Apostle Paul teaches us in 2 Corinthians Chapter 5 that if you are a true believer in Jesus Christ, "To be absent from your body," which is death, "is to be at home with the Lord," not purgatory. Christ is not in purgatory, Christ is in heaven at the right hand of God. So to be absent from the body is to be at home with the Lord for the believer.

In Philippians Chapter 1, as he is getting ready to die, the Apostle Paul says, "I'm torn between two things: to depart and be with Christ, which is far better, or to stay here, which is more necessary for you." He says, "I'm going to stay here, which is more necessary for you" but he really longs to die. "Because for me to live is Christ and to die is profit"--to go to be with the Lord.

There's no suggestion of purgatory in apostolic theology, there's no mention of the concept whatever. The only way you're going to get it is to read into the passages, and it took them 500 years to read it into the passages. So I think it's a little difficult for Protestants to swallow what turned out to be the biggest money-making proposition in the history of Roman Catholic doctrine. Namely, to actually pay money for masses and sell indulgences, and, in fact, impute vicarious righteousness to people in a place that didn't exist, except in the thought processes of Roman Catholic theologians.

Ankerberg: Father Pacwa, you're a biblical scholar. And I think Walter's got a book up there by Ludwig Ott. What is it, Catholic Dogma there?

Martin: Yes, Fundamentals of Catholic Dogma--you saw me bring it in. Fundamentals of Catholic Dogma. I didn't quote Ott. He had a section that I was going to quote, but it's very brief. He says under page 317, "The faithful on earth can by their good works, performed in the state of grace, render atonement for one another. As Christ the Head in His expiatory sufferings took the place the members, so also one member can take the place of another.

The doctrine of indulgences is based on the possibility and reality of vicarious atonement. The Apostle Paul teaches this..." and he cites Colossians Chapter I, 2 Corinthians Chapter 12, and 2 Timothy 4. In other words, the point is that what you're essentially dealing with here is the imputation of the prayers of the saints and of the Virgin Mary and of the sacrifice of the Mass to the benefit of the souls suffering in purgatory. This I find extremely strange, because when we were discussing Justification by faith with Father. Pacwa before, he was dead-set against the imputation of the righteousness of God as a legal forensic act. Yet here in purgatory, he doesn't object to it at all.

Ankerberg: What I'm coming to, here, you're a biblical scholar...

Pacwa: Yes.

Ankerberg: ...okay? You're an Old Testament professor.

Pacwa: Right. I've got a doctorate in it.

Ankerberg: Okay. The words of Scripture mean something to you, and yet you have your theologians admitting it's not found in the Scripture.

Pacwa: Okay. Let's deal with that issue first. We know that there are a lot of other things that we believe, that I know you believe, that are not in the Scripture as such, okay? The Trinity. That is not a word found there. A nd that's one of the reasons that the Jehovah's Witnesses deny it. And so that we can't deny some thing because the word is not in Scripture, otherwise you'd be using the same kind of reasoning process that the Jehovah's Witnesses do.

Martin: I think...I meant in the context.

Pacwa: And may we never do that!

Martin: Yeah. Oh, no.

Pacwa: Okay. So that we don't want to do at all. And the thing that we also know is that the doctrine of the Trinity is not spelled out anywhere in Scripture in the way that we see it in the Councils or the Creeds, right? But we know that the Councils and the Creeds, when they speak on the two natures of Christ, on the Threeness of God, that we know that they're taking that from the sense of Scripture, okay? Without having Scriptures that explicitly spell it out. That same process went on, by the same people, in terms of the doctrine of purgatory.

Now, in terms of the Scriptures, you're right, that we don't have a text that explicitly mentions it. But we have texts that we have to deal with very seriously, and I must admit this too: the more I study this...you know, in preparation for this [discussion], the more I did see the connection between our understanding of purgatory and the Catholic understanding of Justification. That they do go hand-in-hand. No doubt. First of all, the text that we want to deal with at the beginning is in Matthew [Chapter 5]. After Jesus says, "You've heard the commandment...." By the way, the context here begins with verse 20. It says, "Unless your righteousness exceeds that of the scribes and the Pharisees, you shall not enter the kingdom of heaven." So that's how He starts off. What does He mean? "You have heard from them, that if you kill anybody, you'll go to hell. I say, if you even are angry with them...."

And then Jesus goes on--"Lose no time, settle with your opponent while on the way to court"-verse 25-"...with him, otherwise your opponent may hand you over to the judge, who will hand you over to the guard, who will throw you into 'eis phulaken'-that is into prison. And there, I warn you, you will not be released until you have paid the last penny." So that's what Christ our Lord says.

Then, we also take a look at Matthew Chapter 12 when he's talking about the sin against the Holy Spirit. He says, "Whoever says anything against the Holy Spirit will not be forgiven." But He says that you also can't-if you commit me sin against the Holy Spirit-you can't do anything about it in this life or the next. But that means that for other sins- the implication would be-that you can do something about it in the next life as well as in this life.

Then, in terms of the text about the prison, what does Jesus do after He died? After He died He descended into "phulaken"--the same word that was mentioned as a prison in Matthew Chapter 5. And there He goes to preach to the souls who have died there. So this prison seems to refer in I Peter 3 to a place where souls are, which gets to another text that we also have to deal with. When Jesus says to the good thief, "This day you will be with me in paradise." Jesus did not go up to heaven. Jesus went down to this prison. That's what He calls paradise. He's not into heaven at all.

As a matter of fact, even after He rises from the dead and Mary Magdalene clings to Him, He says, "Don't cling to me now. I have not yet ascended to my Father." So that we see that His understanding of going up to heaven to open up the gates of heaven is that only on the ascension day, when He goes to the right hand of the Father does He go to heaven. And only then are the gates of heaven opened up. And that at that point does the good thief go there, not on the day he died. Well, where was the good thief before he went up into heaven? And that's what we understand as purgatory. And furthermore, that those who have those "last pennies" to be paid, will also go there and deal with that. Not as something that they merit on their own, but even in purgatory it's the grace of Christ that's operative to purify them of the effects of their sins or any venial sins that have not been remitted.

Ankerberg: Okay, we've got quite a few verses that are on the board, and we're going to take a break. When we come right back, Walter, we'll give you a chance to examine and explain those, all right? So stick with us.

* * * *

Ankerberg: All right we're back, and we're talking about the doctrine of purgatory that the Catholic Church is claiming is part of their dogma, that which people need to believe. That when a person dies that the temporal punishment that has not been paid by them is purged in a place called purgatory. And we're talking about the fact that it's not mentioned in Scripture, but the fact of, like the statements that are made at the Creeds, that Scripture- the sense of Scripture has been taken, and Father Pacwa is claiming that this brings you to the concensus of purgatory with other verses that he's gone through.

And Dr. Martin, I just happen to know that your Ph.D. work was in the Councils, and so you should be familiar with that. And then I'd like you to kind of take your time and go through these verses and explain why it is you think this does not teach purgatory and in fact, teaches absolutely something else.

Martin: Of course, Father. Pacwa is perfectly correct when he says that you don't have to have the name of a specific doctrine for it to be there. Trinitarian theology is there in the text, even though the name "Trinity" doesn't appear. The Theocratic Kingdom is there, even though the word "theocracy" doesn't appear-we know that also. That isn't really the issue.

The issue that we're dealing with is the actual texts in their proper context. And in the Matthew 5 passage which he quoted, Jesus is, by no stretch of the imagination talking about the afterlife. He's talking about how, as an illustration, people are to conduct their affairs in this life. And He says, "Because if you don't do this, why, if you don't settle your arguments quickly with people in this life, they're going to throw you into prison. And you're not going to get out until you pay the last nickel." Which meant, quite obviously, "Pay your debts and try and come to an agreement with your adversary as quickly as possible." To extrapolate to a purgatory after death is a classic non sequitur in logic. It doesn't follow at all. Because the context isn't even saying that. The context is talking about earth and not heaven. Now, if you wish to base your doctrine of purgatory on a conglomerate of verses, and then when you get finished say, "This is all talking about the same place," you've got to begin at the place where it specifically states the doctrine. This doesn't state the doctrine at all.

Ankerberg: Okay, that's the first one. Go to the next one.

Martin: And Matthew Chapter 12 actually is a parallel to that in the Synoptics in Mark Chapter 3. In Mark Chapter 3, when you put the two accounts together, it makes a great deal of sense. It doesn't come out with what Father Pacwa came out with. In fact, what he specifically says there is, "Whoever shall blaspheme the Holy Spirit never has forgiveness, not in this age or the one to come, but is guilty of aionion harmatios" which is "everlasting sin" or "eternal sin." Which means that the sin against the Spirit is a sin of eternal punishment and for which there is no forgiveness. There's another unforgivable sin also which is often not mentioned, which happens to be, the dying in unbelief, willful unbelief of Jesus Christ's Gospel and the truth of the Gospel. This also is "aionion harmatios"--everlasting sin. But the real point there in the passage in Matthew 12 and the cross-reference is not at all what he is saying it is. In fact, in context it's saying quite the opposite. It's talking about an everlasting sin. The passage which...what was the other passage which you...

Pacwa: I Peter 3.

Martin: I Peter 3. I can only rejoin to that, that the great Roman Catholic scholar, Dalton, is cited in Edward Blum's book on the "Commentary on Peter" as doing the most definitive work on this subject. And it says that: "He has done the most excellent work in this area. And Dalton, having drawn together all the Fathers..."-everybody he could get his hands on on the subject of what I Peter says- comes out with the direct opposite of what you are saying. Namely, that this passage has been in dispute for a long time, theologians have kicked it around for years, "descended into hell" or "passing after death"...

Pacwa: Hades.

Martin: Yeah, Hades-is a very open thing and he refers to it as a sphere of life. "Christ went and preached in His resurrection as the Redeemer to those who were not in purgatory," Dalton says, but "He's proclaiming to the fallen angels and those who have died in the past that God's Word has come to pass, the prophecies have been fulfilled, Messiah is here and their damnation is sealed." Now, I think Dalton's work on the subject is-not a Protestant work, a Roman Catholic work-is a very clear position to refute what you're talking about.

In other words, purgatory itself doesn't rest upon any series of verses which you can connect exegetically or hermeneutically. It really-and I think you're going to have to admit this-it really rests upon the teaching magisterium of the Church. The Church has the right to interpret Scripture in Catholic theology. The Church specifically states, "This is what this passage means to us, therefore you are bound under obligation to the authority of the Church to accept it." We're testing by Scripture, and you are testing by the Church's authority. So we're challenging the Church's authority to make those kind of interpretations because they violate the text and the context.

Ankerberg: One more thing that Fr. Pacwa brought up there, and I think it is absolutely right on target. And that was, he said in studying about purgatory, the doctrine of Justification that the Roman Catholics are presenting absolutely coincides with that. I think you are absolutely right.

Pacwa: Yes. Ankerberg; And I think that's why Luther and the Reformers saw purgatory, and prayers for the saints, and merit, and satisfaction all clearing up with the doctrine of Justification. Can you explain that, and then Father Pacwa, I think that's the key in what we want to talk about here. Dr. Martin?

Martin: Yes, because in the doctrine of Justification, a person is declared righteous by God on the basis of Christ's merits, not our own. In the case of purgatory, which follows the Roman Catholic doctrine of Justification being combined with Sanctification. In purgatory, you get the imputed merits of the saints, the prayers of the saints, the masses and so forth for...

Pacwa: And the merits of Christ, too.

Martin: Yeah, but these others are imputed. And it's even stated by Ott, "Vicariously imputed." So that you are actually bearing their sins and the punishment by helping them for the temporal punishment. Now, this ties in with the Justification by works, which is what the Reformers argued about in Catholic theology. They just don't have Christ declaring you righteous-a fiat act of God where He does it. In effect, you are getting merits from other people, and you are combining those merits. Therefore, you're adding to faith, works. Now, works are the outgrowth of saving faith. They are not any combination with saving faith for the purpose of the redemption of the soul. And that's what purgatory really is.

Father Pacwa, if I were to ask him, I'd say to him, "Do you believe that if you were to die tonight, you would immediately go to purgatory?" He would prob ably say, "Well, I think so, but I don't know." When you get into Catholic theology, this is part of the problem. The lack of [the] assurance that is given in the New Testament. "These things I write unto you, little children, who believe in the name of the Son of God"-you and me-"that you may know"-that you may have assurance, that you're certain-"that you have eternal life." And I think that's the point where we have a disagreement. You have to wait till after death to find out if you have escaped purgatory....

Ankerberg: Okay. We've got to cut in here and I want you...you've got a minute thirty to pick out one of those things and go after it. Okay? Then we're out of time.

Pacwa: I would just have to say that, you're right. We're not sure because that's not scriptural to be sure. That Paul himself was not sure, as we talked about before. He was not positive that he was going to be saved. And he knew that he had to buffet his body and that he had to suffer in this life. As a matter of fact, Christ even said that he would suffer. And he's the one who talks about after... in I Corinthians 3, saying that, you know, I don't even judge myself. He's the one that goes on to say that all of our works will be tested as if by fire, and to see that if you've built on the one foundation of Christ...that whether with straw, hay, wood, or precious stones, silver and gold. That if you have built on Christ, even if you built with works that were of lesser quality, that those will be tested by fire.

Now, the text of that, obviously, as you well know, deals with the end time. But, most of us are going to die, and most Christians have died before the end time. So that what we have to say then, is that testing takes place-that purification by fire that Paul talks about-must take place before they can go to heaven. Because they're dying before the end of the world, and that we need to have that purification and it's not an unsurety about Christ's salvation; but rather, we are positive that those in purgatory are saved by Christ. It's just that they're not purified enough to go to heaven where, "No impure thing can enter," as we see in the book of Revelation.

Ankerberg: Okay. We're going to pick up this again because we certainly haven't exhausted this. But Walter, you've got just a short comment and then we've got to close for this week.

Martin: To refute what Fr. Pacwa says I refer to a Roman Catholic translation of the Bible with the foot notes, Imprimatur and Nihil Obstat. On a Commentary on Romans Chapter 5 your Church says, "A development of the doctrine of Justification by faith. It is God who effects man's Justification through Christ..."

Pacwa: Right.

Martin: "...this gives the believer a firm confidence in his salvation." You ain't got it! That's the point!

Ankerberg: All right, let's save that. The assurance of salvation is a topic all by itself, and I'm sure everybody wants to hear it. So let's get into it next week. Please join us.

Program 10

Can Indulgences Help Those in Purgatory?

Introduction:

Tonight, John Ankerberg will examine what Roman Catholicism teaches concerning their doctrine of purgatory and indulgences. Are these doctrines of the Roman Catholic Church truly biblical? Officially, the Catholic Church at the Council of Trent instructed Christians to profess: "I steadfastly hold that purgatory exists, and that the souls there detained are aided by the prayers of the faithful. I also affirm that the power of indulgences has been left in the Church by Christ, and that the use of them is especially salutary for Christian people." Protestants deny that the Catholic doctrine of purgatory is biblical.

[Begin Program Excerpt]

Martin: Primarily because in biblical theology in the New Testament the doctrine of purgatory is unknown. There is no suggestion of purgatory in Apostolic theology. There is no mention of the concept whatever. The only way you're going to get it, is to read into the passages-and it took them 500 years to read it into the passages.

Pacwa: Now, in terms of the Scriptures, you're right, that we don't have a text that explicitly mentions it. But we have texts that we have to deal with very seriously. And I must admit this, too. The more I studied this, you know, in preparation for this [discussion], the more I did see the connection between our understanding of purgatory and the Catholic understanding of Justification. That they go hand-in-hand. No doubt.

Martin: In other words, purgatory itself doesn't rest upon any series of verses which you can connect exegetically or hermeneutically. And really-and I think you're going to have to admit this-it really rests upon the teaching magisterium of the church. We're testing by Scripture, and you are testing by the Church's authority. So we are challenging the Church's authority to make those kinds of interpretations because they violate the text and the context.

[End Program Excerpt]

Announcer: Can souls in purgatory be aided by the prayers of Christians? Does the Catholic Church still believe in the use of indulgences? The Roman Catholic Church teaches that people, by their good works, can merit for others the forgiveness of their temporal punishment for sins. But Protestants deny this, and hold that Christ alone can forgive the eternal and temporal punishment which every man deserves. Protestants do believe that a Christian can help another, can suffer helping others, and even pray that God will help others. But Protestants strongly deny that one Christian can merit any part of redemption for another- especially the remittance of another person's temporal punishment in purgatory. Protestants believe each man must make his own spiritual decisions during this life. His eternal destiny rests on whether or not he believed on Christ. The Bible says, "Believe on the Lord Jesus Christ, and thou shalt be saved." Once a man dies, his eternal state is sealed.

[Begin Program Excerpt]

Pacwa: Therefore, it is not my prayers and works and righteousness by my own power that does any good for any soul in purgatory. It is only because of my belonging to Christ that anything I do can have a good effect for anybody else, and that it can be transferred to them, because they are members of the Body of Christ. And I can do penance for them.

Martin: Since you can vicariously atone for those in purgatory by offering penance for them, as you said before, are you trying to teach thereby that you are capable of doing for them, as a man, what Jesus Christ's blood can't do?

Pacwa: I am not supplementing it, I am receiving it for the sake of somebody, and applying that grace and interceding as a member of the Body of Christ-as one who belongs to Christ-for another member of Christ.

Martin: But if it's, "One sacrifice for sin forever," and He paid it all on the cross, why is it necessary for you to supplement it?

[End Program Excerpt]

Announcer: Officially, the Roman Catholic Church teaches, "If anyone says that after the reception of the grace of Justification, the guilt is so remitted andthe penalty of eternal punishment so blotted out, that no penalty of temporal punishment remains to be discharged, either in this world or the world to come in purgatory, before the entrance to the kingdom of heaven can be opened, let him be anathema."

But Protestants insist that God sent Jesus to die on the cross to pay the total punishment for man's sins and God's forgiveness really provides for both the temporal and eternal punishment. I John 2:1 is appealed to, which says, "He is the atoning sacrifice for our sins, and not only for ours, but also for the sins of the whole world."

In Protestantism, Justification is an act of God's grace, a judicial declaration acquitting the sinner of guilt and delivering him from all condemnation. It's a totally free forgiveness of sins, and a sure title to eternal life. Finally, when the Apostle Paul wrote in the book of Romans, "We conclude that a man is justified by faith apart from works," does he conflict with the Apostles James, who wrote in his book, "A man is justified by works and not by faith alone"?

[Begin Program Excerpt]

Martin: All James is saying is, "The world must see the existence of your faith in the works that you perform." That's the sphere of Justification before men. But the sphere of Justification before God precedes that. God saw in Romans 4 that Abraham....

Pacwa: Where....

Martin: Listen. God saw in Romans 4 that Abraham already was righteous.

Pacwa: Yes.

Martin: God said so.

Pacwa: Yeah...

Martin: But yet, nobody else could see that until he raised the knife over Isaac. Then they knew. That's all James is talking about.

Pacwa: Another way to understand the text is that it is Christ giving James the power to do works. It's not two separate acts of Justification. And that's one of the other things that the Catholics want to do. It is one act of Justification that's going on in both texts. On one hand, we're talking about what God's doing; but on the other hand, we're also seeing the other side that deals with the good works that we must do for the faith to be a lively faith and to receive the kind of merits that Jesus Himself says that we ought to seek.

Martin: "But to him who does not work..."

Pacwa: Yes...

Martin: "To him that does not work..."

Pacwa: Yes.

Martin: "To him that does not work, but believes in the One who justifies the ungodly, his faith is counted as righteousness." That's Scripture!

[End Program Excerpt]

Announcer: The transformed life is vital in Protestant theology, but it is not that which justifies a man. Rather, the transformed life comes as the immediate result of being justified, which Protestants call "Sanctification." Protestants believe man cannot merit Justification in his own strength, or merit it by working in cooperation with God's prevenient grace. If he could, salvation wouldn't be totally the gift of God.

John's guests are Father Mitchell Pacwa, an ordained Roman Catholic priest, who is a member of the Society of Jesus-a Jesuit. He has an earned Doctor of Philosophy degree and is currently a professor at Loyola University in Chicago. John's second guest is Protestant scholar, the late Dr. Walter Martin, Director and Founder of the Christian Research Institute in California. Please join us for this discussion.

Ankerberg: Welcome. We're talking about some of the doctrines of the Roman Catholic Church. Tonight, I think you'll find we have a very interesting discussion going. We're talking about the doctrine of purgatory. First of all, what's the evidence for purgatory?

And part of this discussion is two things: First, from one of the Catholic theologians we find this statement concerning purgatory: "The faithful on earth can, by their good works performed in the state of grace, render atonement for one another." And then he goes on and declares that Pope Clement VI declared in the Jubilee Bull about the treasury of the Church and officially mentioned that also the merits-that is the atoning merits of the saints-the Church draws upon them in order to secure the remission of temporal punishment for those who are in purgatory.

And right along with that, the Council of Trent stated it this way: "If anyone says that after the grace of Justification has been received, to every penitent sinner"-this would assume that after the time of baptism that you've committed a mortal sin-"...to every penitent sinner the guilt is remitted and the debt of eternal punishment is blotted out in such a way that there remains not any debt of temporal punishment to be discharged, either in this world, or in the next in purgatory' before the entrance to the kingdom of heaven can be opened. Let him be anathema."

Dr. Martin, we closed last week talking about the fact that this centered in on the whole system that Roman Catholicism has concerning how a man can be forgiven, of being justified by faith according to the Scripture, that the Protestants usually are talking about. And Roman Catholics themselves even admit this. For example, in The Faith of Millions, it talks about the fact that if you have the doctrine of Justification, it would completely destroy, wipe away-and Father Pacwa admits this as well-it would completely destroy this whole system of meriting for those that are relatives in purgatory; it would take away this merit of your own satisfaction-of paying satisfaction for your own sins. What is the evidence in the Scripture that you would like to give to us that would speak directly to this problem? And then it ends up with the fact of, "How can a person know for sure he's not going to purgatory, he's not going to hell?" Can he know that from the biblical data?

Martin: He certainly can know it from the biblical data, because John writes in his first epistle that we should go on believing in the name of the Son of God, and those of us who do know-the Greek word is "to have knowledge"-"that you have eternal life and that you may keep on believing in the name of the Son of God." Christ spoke of passing out of death into life-no judgment that ends in death to those who are in Christ Jesus-John 3:36. Exactly the same idea. But you're perfectly correct.

This Roman Catholic doctrine hits at the very heart of the biblical doctrine of Justification by faith and salvation as a gift of God. Because, if-the passage we read once before comes to mind again-if we look at it carefully, it tells us in Hebrews Chapter 10 that "Jesus Christ on the cross by one offering has completed forever them which are being Sanctified." So it is a completed action by the sacrifice of the cross, and the Sanctification process continues on as a result of the completed action.

But you see, in Catholic theology, the Sanctification process is part of Justification, and therefore is tied to the merit of works and even vicarious atonement by living members of the Church. So you add to the work of Christ, and that's what Protestantism objects to; that's what the Reformers objected to. If you add anything to grace [it's] no longer grace, but works. That's the error of the Galatians.

Ankerberg: Before Father Pacwa speaks to that, one thing that you need to speak to that came up last week and that was the fact of, "No unclean thing will enter heaven." Christians obviously do have sin in their life. A lot of people watching tonight may have sins. They're Christians. Okay? What happens if they die and they haven't confessed that sin?

Martin: If God saw us as ourselves, in our carnal nature, as Paul describes it in Colossians and in Romans, particularly Romans Chapter 7...if God saw us that way, it would be impossible to enter the kingdom of heaven. But God sees us clothed in the righteousness of Christ. He accounts us righteous, He does not impute sin to our account. So that if we die tonight, let's say, and we had walked out and fallen down and taken the Lord's name in vain-that would be a mortal sin-then we would not go immediately to hell because we did that, because Christ's merit, which the Church speaks of all the time, is a repository of divine, ongoing grace. So our righteousness is in Christ, and not in ourselves.

Ankerberg: And there the merits of the saints aren't imputed, it's the merits of Christ that are imputed that covers it.

Martin: Exactly.

Ankerberg: Father Pacwa, come on back.

Pacwa: Well, first of all, the understanding that the Catholic Church has about this issue of the saints imputing for one another and praying for one another. Our basic understanding is grounded in our faith in the way we understand the doctrine of the Body of Christ. That the souls in purgatory have not ceased being part of the Body of Christ. Nor have the souls in heaven ceased being part of the Body of Christ. That all of us are so radically united in Christ, that we are still parts of one another. Even more so than the parts of my body are attached to me, because it's Christ who makes us one. Therefore, it is not my prayers and works and righteousness by my own power that does any good for any soul in purgatory. It is only because of my belonging to Christ that anything I do can have a good effect for anybody else and that it can be transferred to them because they are members of the Body of Christ. And I can do penance for them. As a matter of fact, Jesus talks about that in terms of preparing yourself to cast out demons. "Unless you do much prayer...some cannot be cast out except by much prayer and fasting," for instance.

Ankerberg: So you put a little "S" on your sweatshirt then, and you become the Savior and take over where I John 2 says it's Jesus' job.

Pacwa: No, no, no. Rather than putting a little "S" on my sweatshirt so that I can offer myself...

Ankerberg: Little "S" meaning "Savior" folks out there in the audience. We forgot to tell you that. Little "S" meaning "Savior." Jesus is the big Savior, and then we would be working with Him.

Pacwa: No. Rather than me putting a little "S" on my sweatshirt saying that I'm a little Savior, it's rather, "I belong to the Savior so much that when Paul persecutes them He [Christ] doesn't say, "Why are you persecuting them?" but "Why are you persecuting Me?" Whatever you do to the Church, you do to Jesus Christ.

Ankerberg: Where does He say that?

Pacwa: In Acts of the Apostles, Chapter 9, talking to Paul. Also in Matthew 25. "Whatever you do to the least of my brothers or sisters, you do to me." Not to them, to Me. What you do to the Church, you do to Christ. When Paul says, based on his own experience of Christ saying, "You're persecuting Me..."

Ankerberg: You're still a little Savior. You're doing it to Christ.

Pacwa: You're doing it to me because I belong to Christ, not because of my own merits, not because of anything I am, but I'm an adopted son of Christ, or an adopted daughter of Christ, and radically united to Him. And it is only on that merit given to me as grace by Christ, not a merit I have of my own, that makes me part of the Body of Christ through baptism and by the power of the Holy Spirit dwelling within me, that I'm able to do that. And the text that we understand speaking to that is in Colossians Chapter 1: "Now I rejoice in my sufferings on your behalf and I fill up the things that are lacking in the afflictions of Christ in my flesh on behalf of His Body which is the Church."

Ankerberg: You know the word "thlipsis" that's used there, don't you?

Pacwa: Yes. "Thlipsis."

Ankerberg: Do you know that Lightfoot in his commentary made a study of it and he says, "thlipsis"- "suffering" there-is never, ever in the entire New Testament ever used vicariously in terms of suffering. It's always used in the "afflictions" that man gives to a man.

Pacwa: But it's the suffering...in this case, he's wrong. Because we see that he's doing this for that which is lacking in Christ's afflictions, and so that he has one text that he doesn't include into his theory.

Ankerberg: Well, did you see that the same words are used about Epaphroditus who wants to give his life on behalf of the service of the Church--same words are used for him, and we don't get the idea that it's vicarious atonement. We simply are talking about the same thing that Jesus said would happen. "They persecuted the prophets and they're going to persecute you."

* * * *

Ankerberg: We simply are talking about the same thing that Jesus said would happen. "They persecuted the prophets and they're going to persecute you."

Pacwa: But here he adds, and like you say, "We don't understand it." We Catholics do. And the reason that we do so is because of this passage from Paul...

Ankerberg: But not exegetically.

Pacwa: And the reason we understand it is because Paul says it is "on behalf of His Body the Church" and he says that explicitly. So that, what I myself experience in suffering, is able to be sent to the other parts of the Body of Christ just like the thing that I ingest in one part of the Body of Christ going to another.

Ankerberg: We've got to do something real important right here. Dr. Martin, would you actually read those verses in context, please. Do you have them there?--in Scripture. And I think that it's important that we actually read the text of what Father Pacwa or Dr. Pacwa is also talking about here to make sure that we catch the sense of Scripture. Colossians Chapter 1.

Pacwa: I read from verse 24, which begins a paragraph.

Martin: "Who now rejoice in my sufferings for you, and fill up that which is behind of the afflictions of Christ in my flesh for his body's sake, which is the church."

Ankerberg: Could I ask you to do something before you do that, is read the verse in front of it and read the verse after it.

Martin: Sure. "If you continue in the faith grounded and settled, and be not moved away from the hope of the gospel, which you have heard, and which was preached to every creature which is under heaven, whereof I Paul am made a minister;..." [v.] 25: "Whereof I am made a minister, according to the dispensation of God which is given to me for you, to fulfill the word of God." It's obviously in the context-verses 23, 24 and 25-suffering as a believer- not vicariously for anything-but actually suffering as a result of being a Christian...

Ankerberg: Being a preacher of the...he says he's a minister of the gospel there.

Martin: You're being a preacher, you're being a minister of the gospel...

Ankerberg: And as the minister, he has been "afflicted," is the word. All right? And that same word is never ever used any other way in the New Testament. And sure, all of us as Christians, we share in the afflictions serving Christ. We serve the Body of Christ in proclaiming the gospel to other people, in counseling and so on, and it will cost us. We send missionaries out. Some of them die. It costs us to preach the Gospel, and that's why we're just like Christ.

Martin: Father Pacwa, you said something that is very important. You said before that you Catholics understand this to be the passage. What's interesting is that you understand it as a priest to teach that, because the magisterium of the Church has interpreted the passage to mean that. You don't have any choice. Whereas a Protestant can read the context and say, "Hey, [verses] 23, 24 and 25 don't teach that at all!" And we don't have a magisterium that says, "No matter what you think, that's what it teaches!"

Pacwa: And all is the more the pity for you, in that you miss that...

Martin: Oh, goodness!

Pacwa: First of all, the thing that you said, Paul himself rejoices not in his "thlipsis," okay? It's not in his "thlipseon," it's in his "pathemasin"...

Ankerberg: The "sufferings."

Pacwa: In his sufferings. Not in his "thlipsis."

Ankerberg: Right!

Pacwa: And it's those sufferings...and, of course, it's the sufferings that come as a minister and anybody, whether you're Catholic or Protestant, certainly. The more you live for the gospel, the more you're going to suffer. And that's just the way that it goes in the world. But the thing that....

Ankerberg: But I submit to you that the sufferings that he's talking about there follow right after he says that he's the minister that's supposed to proclaim and preach, and it makes obvious sense that the fact is that in his preachings, it cost him. And we know from the record of Acts that it cost him.

Pacwa: But he adds...and this is where the King James translates incorrectly, as it does 2,000 times, according to Protestant British scholars in the nineteenth century, that it says--as you quoted in the King James, "behind of." Now, that doesn't even make good sense in English. But the Greek word is "huper"--"on behalf of,'--"huper" followed by the genitive, and it's "on behalf of" His Body, Christ.

Ankerberg: Sure, we have no problem with that. That we, "on behalf of" serving others, we do it on their behalf. There's no problem with that. But we don't get vicarious atonement out of that.

Pacwa: Yeah, and that's one of the things that you're just missing.

Ankerberg: Because you know why we don't...?

Martin: Hopefully.

Ankerberg: ...is because it contradicts Scripture, which says there's only One who made atonement for us concerning sins. That's Jesus. You are robbing Jesus Himself of His redemptive work!

Pacwa: No. If that were the understanding of the Catholic Church, I would reject that! But the Catholic Church does not teach that at all. Instead, what we understand...

Ankerberg: You don't teach it, but effectively you bring that around so that it's so.

Pacwa: Not at all. What we're dealing with is another mystery, and it is one of the mysteries that Paul talks about himself teaching...

Ankerberg: It's not a mystery that "thlipsis" is never, ever used in the New Testament in terms of what you're talking about.

Pacwa: Well, let me finish what I'm saying, though, before we get to this "thlipsis" thing. That it's a mystery in which there is no way that we would say that our suffering, for the sake of the rest of the Body of Christ, is something that takes away from or adds to the sufferings of Christ. It is Christ working in us and it is His suffering being experienced in us, and us bearing that suffering rather than us being in any way disparaging him.

Ankerberg: When you have set up a system that Christ is merited at all, but you've got to merit to get the merit.

Pacwa: No, no, no. Again, He gives us that merit, and we...

Ankerberg: But not until you do something. Until you work and you do works of satisfaction.

Pacwa: Not so. That is not Catholic doctrine.

Ankerberg: That's what Lud[wig]'s saying right here.

Pacwa: Ludwig Ott. He may be saying that, but that's not what Trent says. What Trent says is that you cannot do those good actions unless Christ gives you the grace to do so. And that it is His grace empowering you to do those good acts, not your good acts making it possible....

Ankerberg: Yes, but even though Trent says that you are given that grace by God, they say, "But not to the extent that it's not you doing it in the strength of Christ."

Pacwa: Right.

Ankerberg: You have to do it. It doesn't just automatically happen.

Pacwa: That's right. That's right.

Ankerberg: That's what we object to. It's Christ who does it all. No "meritum congruum." It's not condign or congruous merit. There's no merit whatsoever. Christ does it all.

Pacwa: So that there's nothing at all that you yourself do in terms of your...?

Ankerberg: Not in terms of providing redemption. That's what Scripture says.

Pacwa: I guess that neither goes with the teaching of the Church that I obviously am committed to as having authority, nor does it fit my own experience.

Ankerberg: Thank you gentlemen. Our time has run out. I hope that you will join us next week.

Program 11

Is Catholicism's Doctrine of Penance Found in the Bible?

Introduction:

This evening, John Ankerberg will examine what Roman Catholicism teaches concerning the Doctrine of Penance. The Catholic Church says that after baptism, if a man or woman commits mortal sin, loses his salvation, in order to regain his salvation a person must come via the Sacrament of Penance.

Catholicism defines the sacrament of penance as having three parts: first "contrition"--that is, a person must be sorry for his sins; second, a person must fully confess each one of his mortal sins to a priest; and third, he must do works of satisfaction such as fasting, saying prayers, almsgiving, or doing other works of piety the priest gives him to do. According to the Catholic Church, after baptism, anyone who commits mortal sin and does not do penance will not regain salvation and will not be forgiven by God. Is Catholicism's doctrine of penance truly biblical? Is Catholicism correct in saying it is absolutely necessary for a person to do penance before God will forgive him?"

Protestants believe man cannot merit Justification or forgiveness by working in cooperation with God's power. If he could, salvation and forgiveness wouldn't be totally the gift of God. Protestants believe that Catholicism's Sacrament of Penance infers that the sacrifice of Christ was not sufficient to atone fully for man's sin and that Christ's sacrifice must be supplemented by man's good works.

Protestants believe that it is solely the merits of Christ's sacrificial death on the cross which are imputed or transferred to the believer that cancel out the sinner's debt. That's why for Protestants, Justification and forgiveness take place in a single moment--the moment the sinner through faith asks Christ for forgiveness of his sins.

However, Roman Catholics believe that more than faith is needed in order for a person to obtain forgiveness. They insist there must be both faith and works. The Council of Trent declared: "If anyone says that the good works of the justified person do not truly merit an increase of grace and the obtaining of eternal life, let him be anathema"

But Protestants respond, "Only Jesus Christ can atone for man's mortal sins and He did it once for all when He died on the cross and completely satisfied the divine law." What God desires in the sinner before He grants forgiveness is not works of satisfaction or a punishment of one's self for sins via penance, but repentance, which is a change of heart, a turning away from sin, and a complete trust in the work of Christ for the forgiveness of sin.

Tonight, you'll hear both sides presented concerning how a person can receive forgiveness for sins committed. Is it by confession of sins to Christ, trusting solely in His merits? Or is it by the Sacrament of Penance, where a person must be contrite, confess his sins to a priest, and do good works before God will forgive him?

Ankerberg: Welcome! Good evening. We're talking tonight about some of the doctrines of the Roman Catholic Church. And we want to make it so that it's vital, special for you in the audience. This is something we're all concerned about.

When a person becomes a Christian in the Roman Catholic Church, after baptism, what happens when they commit a sin--a mortal sin? Well, there is the Sacrament of Penance that they say that a person must go through, and that's what we're going to discuss tonight.

My guests are Father Mitchell Pacwa, who is an ordained Roman Catholic priest. He is also a member of the Society of Jesus--a Jesuit. He has an earned Ph.D. and is currently a professor at Loyola University in Chicago. And, Mitchell, we're glad that you're here. My second guest is the late Dr. Walter Martin, Director and Founder of the Christian Research Institute in California. Walter was the author of many books, especially the classic book known by both Protestants and Catholics, The Kingdom of the Cults. And, Walter, we're glad that you're here tonight, too.

Let me see if I can frame this for you. If you are a Christian, and you've sinned, what did you do? What did you do to get your salvation back if you're a Catholic? Because in the Roman Catholic Church, if a man commits a mortal sin after baptism, he loses his Justification, he loses his salvation. And he must regain it. Now how? The Roman Catholic Church says that the Sacrament of Penance is the way that you do it, and it is involved with at least three parts: contrition--the person must be sorry for his sins; second, a person must confess each one of his mortal sins fully to a priest; and third, he must do works of satisfaction, such as fasting, saying prayers, almsgiving or doing other works of piety that the priest gives him to do. Now, anyone, after baptism, who commits mortal sin and does not do this, according to the Roman Catholic Church will not regain salvation and will not be forgiven by God.

Before I come to my guests, let me just get the official statements on the board here. This is the Council of Trent concerning penance: "If anyone denies that for complete and perfect remission of sins, three actions are required in the penitent person; namely, contrition, confession and satisfaction, which three are called the 'parts of penance,' let him be anathema." Or, another part, Section VIII, "But let them bear in mind that the satisfactions they"--that is the priests--"will impose should be also for the avenging and punishment of past sins." Or, "The Holy Synod teaches that the liberality of the divine bounty is so great that we are able through Christ Jesus to make satisfaction to God the Father, not only by punishments voluntarily assumed by us for the punishment of sin, or imposed at the discretion of the priest in proportion to the transgression, but even by temporal scourgings inflicted by God and patiently borne by us." And finally, "If anyone says that the total punishment is always remitted by God at the same time as the guilt, and that the satisfaction of penitents is nothing else than the faith by which they apprehend that Christ has made satisfaction for them, let him be anathema."

Now, we also have to make it clear that the Roman Catholic Church is not talking about the eternal punishment, they are talking about the temporal punishment. But even that has been abhorrent to Protestants.

Dr. Martin, I'm going to come to you tonight. This is kind of standard knowledge among Roman Catholics that if they commit a mortal sin, they must come via the Sacrament of Penance. Why is it abhorrent to Protestants, and specifically, we want to keep it in the area of, "What does the Bible have to say?" Is this biblical? Is this true Christianity? What's the evidence?

Martin: Well, from a biblical perspective, there is no evidence that penance even exists at all, except as a construct of Catholic theology. Biblical theology doesn't mention the word "penance" at all. It uses the word "repent" of your sin, which means change your mind. And the reason why Protestantism reacted and protested--that's the meaning of the word-against this particular doctrine was because it hit at the heart of the finished work of Christ on the cross.

In 1 John, Chapter 2, the Scripture specifically states that Jesus Christ is the "expiation," or the "satisfaction," for all our sins--"Not for ours only, but for the sins of the whole world." So, by dying on the cross for our sins Christ paid the price once for all for all sin. The Epistle to the Hebrews carries exactly the same idea that, "He offered one sacrifice for sin forever. He sat down at the right hand of the Majesty on High."

So, what Protestants object to primarily in the Catholic doctrine is trying to add to what Christ did for us on the cross by having the priest act "in loco christos"--in place of Christ, and to add to the merits of Calvary. And this, of course, brings us right to the heart of Justification by Faith and right to the heart of the concept of the Mass or the Lord's Supper. And I think that's why Protestants react so strongly to it.

Ankerberg: You said in the end of one of our programs on Justification by Faith that the system of salvation that is being offered by the Roman Catholic Church logically concludes that it's faith plus works. Would you say this also supports that?

Martin: Yes, I think that the Roman Catholic doctrine puts a great deal of emphasis, as does the Council of Trent, on the subject of faith, but it adds to this, under an anathema--I don't think people understand what that means. That when the statement of Trent-and I quote them again, where Trent states that if you do not accept their concept, that you are anathema. The Holy Catholic Church anathematizes. Now, that's the strongest word you can get in New Testament Greek- it means "under the divine damnation" and is literally the word that Paul used in Galatians Chapter 1. So, when Trent issued that on penance-and most Protestants are unaware of this--they anathematized all Protestantism and Trent has never been rescinded in this area. There have been numerous books written by Catholic theologians, but in Catholic theology, neither popes nor councils can err when they speak in matters of faith and morals, and as a result of that, Trent still stands on the record anathematizing or "cursing in the name of God" all Protestants. Protestants find that an uncomfortable position to be placed in.

Ankerberg: Father Pacwa, what I want to come to you for your response Trent said this Sacrament of Penance is necessary for salvation. This is vital to every Roman Catholic; this is vital to every Protestant. A Protestant that does not come via contrition, confession and satisfaction--and I want to hold this conversation to the area of satisfaction. We've discussed confession in the prior program. But this area of satisfaction. If a person does not do the satisfaction-- because the sacrament works "ex opere operato," that is almost automatically by the doing of the works-when the person does have contrition, when he does have confession, and when the priest gives absolution, it does not take effect until he does his satisfaction. How can you get away from the fact that you are putting a small "S" on your T-shirt up there? You're a small Savior. You're doing something that Jesus Christ was supposedly supposed to do all of it. He was the Savior, the angels said in Luke.

Pacwa: Okay, a couple of things. First of all, let me address Walter about the anathema...

Ankerberg: Feel free.

Pacwa: An anathema only applies to those who know that this is true. In other words, that you cannot be anathematized if, in your own conscience, you think that this is wrong and that this goes so radically against your conscience that, you know....it's just evil. So, in that sense, the anathema is there for those who understand what we say, and say, "Yes, that's true," and then don't do it. So it's not an anathema "carte blanche" in that we respect...you see this in Pius IX back in the nineteenth century in terms of something pre-Vatican II as well as in Vatican II, that we also do respect the consciences of all Protestants and we do not anathematize them out, of course. So that's very important to keep in mind.

Ankerberg: So they're in invincible ignorance if they are not aware of this...

Pacwa: Yes.

Ankerberg: But those that are aware, that read their Bible want to know--first of all, we don't even find penance in the New Testament. We find the word repentance...and Trent...

Pacwa: Yes. Okay. First of all, a couple of things. Now let me get back to the thing on satisfaction and then we'll get to penance, okay?

Ankerberg: Right.

Pacwa: We know, from experience, when we're forgiven-- and this is Protestant or Catholic. When we come to Christ for forgiveness of sins, and we are truly repentant--we turn around from them, we let them go-and yet, which one of us does not still have, you know, echoes of the sins we've already committed, whereby you still remember what you did and it still is attractive? Someone who repents of say, of an act of lust that...they're sorry for it, they believe that Jesus is the One who redeems them from it, but that does not remove the attractiveness of repeating the same sin. And that's not just lust. It might be any other sin.

Okay, that's what we call the "fomes peccatus"-- that is the ashes, the remnant from the sin that Christ has forgiven. How do you deal with that effect of your sin? That's where the satisfaction comes in. That it's for these effects of sin that remain within us, by our own human experience every day experience-after we repent of sin, and that needs to be changed. We want that removed from us. That is not holy. That is not good. That is not from the Lord and has to be done away with. The acts of satisfaction are part of the process of that removal, and there are steps that are necessary for the removal...to replace the attraction to sin with the things of God-by almsgiving and so on...prayer, fasting. That | exchanges places for that. And that's a long process for anybody, Protestant or Catholic.

In terms of this thing something about the small "S" and us being a Savior, as you see in the Council of Trent's document in Session VI on Justification, anybody who says that they can do these good actions even after their sins are forgiven and do so on their own power and by their own ability, let them be anathema. That we do not believe that a person does these acts of satisfaction without grace. That it is precisely the grace of the Sacrament of Reconciliation or Confession that is operative in the penitent, so that they can do these actions of satisfaction. And it is only Christ working in the person that makes them able to be effective. If a person is acting apart from God's grace, apart from Christ, and trying to satisfy their past sins on their own, separate from Christ, let them be anathema, according to the Council of Trent. That we don't do it apart from grace, it is only in grace that we do so.

Ankerberg: Walter?

Martin: Precisely at this juncture the error arises, because in 1 John Chapter I we are told, "If we confess our sins...." This is written by John to the Ephesian Church--he was the elder at Ephesus. "If we confess our sins, He..."--not the priest-Christ. "...He is faithful and just to forgive us our sins, and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness." All unrighteousness. That would include any residual sin; that would include any residual leftover thoughts of lust or covetousness or whatever it might be. It says that if we confess to Christ, Christ is faithful and just to forgive, and to cleanse us from all our sins. Why is it necessary for me to go to a priest, or any person to go to a priest, to receive absolution from him and to go through the three stages that we are talking about, when, in the words of the old hymn, "Jesus paid it all. All to Him I owe. Sin had left its crimson stain, He washed it white as snow." I confess to Christ, Christ forgives me of my sins, He cleanses me--all by grace, through faith. What is the necessity of my having to go through what Trent says is necessary, what Catholic theologians say is necessary, when it is Scripture to which we must make our appeal?

Ankerberg: Okay, I want to break in right here. We're going to take a break and when we come back, Father Pacwa, you can give a full answer to that, but stick with us, we'll be right back.

* * * *

Ankerberg: All right, we're back, and if you've just joined us, we're talking about the doctrines of the Roman Catholic Church--specifically the Doctrine of Penance, and that part, which is the third part, where you have first contrition, then confession, the third part is, we make satisfaction, expiation for our sins for temporal punishment. If we don't, we're not forgiven. Father Pacwa, you were going to respond to Dr. Martin.

Pacwa: Dr. Martin, you've made a couple of statements. One being that, "Why should you listen to Trent or Catholic theologians?" First of all, Trent was merely restating what had been taught throughout the history of the Church. The ones who came up with the new doctrine were the Protestant Reformers, not the Catholics. It's not at all as if Trent had invented the idea of confession. The only groups that had denied confession would be the Waldensians, the Cathari, and a few other groups like that in the history of the Church. But, when we go back to the history of the Church, we see that in the earliest centuries, Origen, and even Tertullian, talks about a sacrament that's confession. Now, it was very different in form...

Ankerberg: Public.

Pacwa: It was public...

Ankerberg: In front of everybody.

Pacwa: ...couple of things. The confession of sin was done in private to the bishop...

Ankerberg: Sometimes.

Pacwa: ...but the...as a matter of fact the...yeah--sometimes. Most often, that was the case. In northern Europe, proselytized by the Irish Monks, that was always the case. In the Mediterranean world, it was sometimes done in...mostly done in private, sometimes in public, but that was rare. You don't have many cases of that in the history of confession where the person actually mentioned their sins out loud, but they did their penance in public. That everybody did in the early Church. And penance...

Ankerberg: But it was also abolished. You also know from your Church history that it is not the unanimous consent of the Church Fathers that they had confession the way you're talking about it and the way Trent is mapping it out. If you look in the Elucidations under Tertullian itself you will find that the East stopped it in 400 A.D. The West changed it to private, and the Orthodox made it voluntary.

Pacwa: In terms of form...that's one of the things that we also understand about the Sacrament of Confession, that we do not have any claim that the format of how it's done is the same--we know that.

Ankerberg: Then you wouldn't mind a person confessing to God?

Pacwa: As a matter of fact, if a person is to make a good confession, they need to do that. It's not either/or. And if they are in the faith....

Ankerberg: Yeah, but you say that it is necessary for the priest to hear it. That's the difference.

Pacwa: Yes.

Ankerberg: It's not just to God.

Pacwa: And, as a matter of fact, also in terms of Catholic law, it is necessary only when a person commits mortal sin...

Ankerberg: Yeah.

Pacwa: ...and that was also the case in the early Church.

Ankerberg: We'll have to come back to that a little later on in terms of mortal and venial...

Pacwa: Yeah.

Ankerberg: ....the fact of, I think all sins are mortal. But the fact is, you don't have to confess venial...you can work those out by works of expiation, too.

Pacwa: That's right, you can. But the ones you must confess would be mortal sins. And in the early Church, those were the ones that you had to confess.

Ankerberg: Okay, we'll come back to Church history in a bit, but talk to the biblical evidence concerning what Walter was saying.

Pacwa: Okay. The thing...the reason I had to address the Church issue is that it sounded almost as if Trent was making that up, and that's not at all the case. And that the reason is the early Church...

Ankerberg: I think they were making it up, but we'll come back to it. I just gave you five things that they did make up, that it wasn't unanimous consent. You can prove that in Church history.

Pacwa: Okay, in terms of they were not unanimous consent in terms of those things being explicated, and that's true with most Church Doctrines.

Ankerberg: But that's the form that Trent says. "It's got to be by the priest!"

Pacwa: Well, that was...it was done by the bishop in the early Church.

Ankerberg: Sometimes. And it was voluntary, and at other times it wasn't even there, is what the Church Fathers....

Pacwa: But most often, what you find, again, about the early Church in terms of the places that mention it, it is done to the bishop, and he's the one that has the authority. And the reason that they did that was biblical, and it was....

Ankerberg: Okay, I want to come back to that--the Church Fathers--when we get to the area of confession. But really, again, come back to the Scripture.

Pacwa: Yeah, that's exactly what I'm trying to get to. The reason that they did it in the early Church was because of the biblical injunction that Protestants do not keep because they don't have the authority to do so. Namely, in the text that Dr. Martin is so familiar with, is in John Chapter 20, and this is the basis of our understanding of confession. Jesus appears, on Easter Sunday night, in His glory, comes through the locked doors, and says, "Peace be with you." They're amazed. He shows them His hands and feet, and He says it again, "Peace be with you. As the Father has sent me, so I send you." So here He is giving them the power to do exactly what He did. Because He's God, He has the authority to do that. And then, He breathes on them and says, "Receive the Holy Spirit."

The priest does not forgive sins on his own human power, by his own human wit, but by the power of the Holy Spirit. And, if you forgive people's sins, they are forgiven them, and if you retain people's sins, they are held bound. So that the power of the priest to forgive sins is given by Christ on Easter Sunday night. I believe--and you see it in Saint Thomas--that it's grounded in the death of Jesus, whereby He forgave from the cross, and His death is the power of it, and it's also grounded in His resurrection when on the night of His resurrection, He gives them this authority. Now, that authority was used by Paul- for instance, against the man who committed incest...

Ankerberg: Okay, I've got to cut in because we've only got about two minutes left. But we've got the verse on the board, and the question--I think this comes right to the point of the matter. Just like with the keys given to Peter and the power that's there. Sure, there's a power that's given. The question is, "What kind of a power?" Is it a declaratory power, to preach and proclaim the gospel, so that when people believe and repent, the fact is they will have their sins forgiven by God? Or, is John 20:23 saying that you have to come before the priest, and he hears a complete order of all of your mortal sins, in order, and he prescribes penance, or he prescribes satisfaction--works of satisfaction--so that your sins will be forgiven? Now, that's the question...we've got about a minute left and we're going to come back to this fully next week. But Walter, get in here.

Martin: I simply have to make the point here that Jesus said, "As my Father sent me, I send you." The parallel passage to that, as you well know, is Luke 24, where He appears in the Upper Room to them and He says that the purpose He's giving them this message for is that they might proclaim the gospel and the remission of sins, through the preaching of the cross, through what He did.

Pacwa: Sure.

Martin: Now, if you parallel that with the very passage that you quoted, He isn't saying, "I am sending you" in the sense that "I'm going to make little gods out of you with the power to forgive sin, as my Father anointed me to be Messiah." He's not saying that! He's saying, "What I'm doing is, I'm sending you into the world to preach the gospel and the remission of sins, just as I was sent to do that." That was His commission.

Ankerberg: You can see, we're just getting to the essence of this, so I hope that you'll join us next week. We're going to continue to talk about how can you know that your sins are forgiven according to what the Scriptures are saying? So please join us then.

Program 12

When a Catholic Commits a Mortal Sin and Loses His Justification, How Can He Get It Back?

Ankerberg: Welcome! We're glad that you've joined us. We're talking about some of the doctrines of the Roman Catholic Church. Specifically, tonight, "How is that after a person has become a Christian in the Roman Catholic Church by baptism, after baptism, what if he commits a mortal sin--What do you have to do?" Well, you have to come via the Sacrament of Penance to have that mortal sin forgiven. Because in essence, that mortal sin has destroyed, obliterated, the Justification that you had within you. You are without salvation. You need to regain your salvation.

Dr. Martin, I'm going to come to you tonight. The Catholic Church has said, at the Council of Trent, that we are able--in the power of Christ, not our own power-- but using and cooperating with His power, but we do something with that power. We are able to make satisfaction to God the Father for the punishment of temporal sin. Now, we need to come back to that. Why do you find that abhorrent?

Martin: Well, the reason that it is so abhorrent to Protestantism and to biblical theology, I believe, is because it's adding to the merits of Christ. The Lord Jesus Christ with one sacrifice for sin forever purged our sins. The Lord Jesus Christ entered into the Holiest of All with His own blood. The Lord Jesus Christ made the one sacrifice. It's not necessary for repetitive sacrifice. It's not necessary for anyone to stand between us and Him. He is the Mediator between God and man.

When we were talking before in our previous program with Father Pacwa, he cited John Chapter 20 as an illustration of, "Whose sins you remit, they are remitted. Whose sins you retain, they are retained." This assumes that Christ was at that time speaking to the twelve apostles. The context is not that at all. It's Christ speaking to the apostles; it's Christ speaking to disciples who are in the room, because when you cross-reference it to the 24th Chapter of Luke and to Christ's own commission from the Father--the Father gave Him a commission to preach the gospel. And when He preached the gospel, if men received what He said, Christ absolved them of their sins. If they didn't, He told them they were children of the devil, and they remained in their sins. That same power is given to Christians. Not to a priesthood, but to Christians.

The second century Christians did not interpret that passage...in fact, the Greek Fathers--Dr. J. R. Mantey points this out, the great Greek scholar and authority on grammar in the New Testament--he points out in his grammar book that the Greek Fathers never cited John Chapter 20 as proof of auricular confession, or absolution, or penance, or anything whatever, because it was not in their vocabulary.

And then we had also a quotation from Tertullian about penance and the early Church Fathers. I think it is very interesting, because Tertullian is in the second century of the Christian Era, and Tertullian was very clear in his position on the subject. Now, he was an eyewitness in his Elucidations, "The penitential system of the primitive days referred to in our author"--and here we get to Tertullian--and Tertullian states particularly that, "Voluntary confessions were made in the East and the West but with widely various acceptance under local systems of discipline." It also points out that the whole concept of the early Church was one of confession publicly, not privately. And the reason they gave it up, referring to the author, "began when less public confessions were authorized on account of the scandals which publicity generated." So, it wasn't that the apostles were doing it and they were imitating it. They weren't doing it. They were doing it publicly, as they did in Corinth, holding the sins up for everybody to see. It generated so much scandal and so much problem that then they decided, "Well, we'll make this an in-house type thing where you can come and talk about this without public scandal." So what developed as confession, penance and so forth was actually an evolution by change. It was not by divine revelation.

So, if Tertullian is stating this in the second century of the Christian Era, and if John 20 and Luke 24 and Luke 4 are cross-referenced, you don't have any power to forgive anybody's sins in the name of Christ. It's not necessary, because Jesus forgives sin when we go directly to Him. Surely we cannot believe for a minute, that God would stop the power to forgive sin by Himself, and restrict it only to a selected group of people. If He did that, He'd be limiting His own omnipotence, and He's not going to do that. He still forgives sin. That's why John says, "If we confess our sins, He's faithful and just to forgive us our sins, and to cleanse us from all..."--that includes temporal punishment--"...all unrighteousness." That's the Protestant position, and that's the direct opposite of the Council of Trent.

Ankerberg: Father Pacwa, I'd like you to start your response with this verse that's come up both weeks, of I John Chapter 2:1, 2. Because there you have a straight, bald statement that I think we need to address. That Christ is the Propitiation; He is the Expiation for all of our sins.

Pacwa: That's right. And our faith in the Doctrine of Confession in no way denies that. As a matter of fact, that's what we believe is the very basis of the power of confession--that Jesus is the Propitiation. That it is not what the sinner does that saves the sinner, it is Christ's death on a cross and His resurrection from the dead that redeems anybody who goes to confession. And the power for confession is given to the priest only by the power of the death and resurrection of Jesus Christ.

Ankerberg: Okay, I agree with that. But what I'm finding hard to agree with is the fact...talk to the fact of the satisfaction. Because that verse is talking to the point that Jesus paid all the satisfaction. There's nothing else...that He gives that as a gift.

Pacwa: And one of the things that I tried to say last time and repeated again today, is that the ability to do the satisfaction is itself a grace. And it is the grace of Jesus Christ operative in the sinner--in the repentant sinner--that gives them the power to do satisfaction that is worthwhile. So that, it is precisely that propitiation of Christ actively working--and this I think gets at the difference between Catholic and Protestant understanding--that Protestants see that as merely a declaratory act. That Jesus just declares one to be forgiven. Whereas we see it, "No, it's that plus this working that out." As a matter of fact, as Paul says, "A faith that works itself out in love." Not a faith that is just in the head, but one that is working itself out....

Ankerberg: Okay...

Pacwa: ...and so that that's the power of Christ to change the person inside out. And that it's...rather than it be ing something that denies what we believe, that's the basis of what we believe.

Ankerberg: I think that you've hit it on the head again, and, Dr. Martin, please talk to this point of, "Is the Scripture talking about the fact of God working in and through us, so that in cooperation with His strength we do something." As Trent says, "We are able to make satisfaction," versus the fact of what the whole thing of Justification does revolve around. We've talked about this in a couple of other programs. Is Justification, as the Reformers said, "that which is propitiated by Christ and then imputed to us because of the merits of Christ, and there is nothing for us to do?" In fact, we are warned not to do anything. What do you think?

Martin: I think, pretty obviously, I would ask Fr. Pacwa a question. If God declaratively said, "Pacwa, you're a sinner, but I count you absolutely righteous this moment, and I impute to you the righteousness of my Son, in totality," would you not be forgiven?

Pacwa: I would be forgiven. But one of the things that I would say about that word is that God does not give us a word that--and this is where we have such stronger action against Luther--that for him the word of Christ is that you have the sinner, who is like a pile of dung, "cow dung" is the word he used...

Martin: Yes.

Pacwa: ...covered over by Christ, like snow. And that's the way that this imputation works--it covers us over. But underneath what are you? Cow dung! And the Catholics say, No! God's Word is a creative word, and a recreative word, so that when God speaks, whatever He says is done, and it makes a change within us. So that, the power of God's Word, to justify me, is not a legal...and this is where we get to the "legal fiction" problem...

Ankerberg: Right, right.

Pacwa: ...that it's not simply some sort of declaration and then it's left, but rather it's a word that operates within me to...for the Catholic approach to Martin Luther's image would be to take that same cow dung, plow it under, sow God's seed in there, and bring forth plants, bring forth wheat out of that very cow dung by transforming it into something different than what it is. And that's the way we understand God's Word. It's transforming us.

Martin: Yeah, but we're begging the question here, be cause in the fourth chapter of the Epistle to the Romans, David is a pile of cow dung. He has already betrayed Uriah and his heritage; he's already lied, he's cheated, he's stolen, he's murdered, and he's committed adultery and produced a bastard...

Pacwa: Yes.

Martin: ...and...in other words, everything is shot, Nathan says, "You're the man!" You did everything, see? Here's the pile of cow dung if there ever was one...

Pacwa: Yes.

Martin: Right?

Pacwa: Yes.

Martin: And God looks at him and David writes his Psalm, "Blessed is the man"--him [David]--"to whom the Lord will not impute sin." So, despite the fact that David commits the transgression and does all these things, he's used as an illustration in Romans 4 of a man justified before God, declaratory by faith.

Pacwa: Except...

Ankerberg: Okay, before you answer we've got to take a break here, or we're going to be out of time. We want to come back to this very thing. So hold on, we'll be right back!

* * * *

Ankerberg: Welcome. We're back, and we're talking about, "How does a man find forgiveness before God, according to Roman Catholic theology?" And we're right to that point where it's very important that, "How is a man justified?" Is there an infusion of grace that transforms the man, so that the righteousness inside the man, with the power of Christ, is the state, is the basis upon which God looks and says, "Because you are just, I will declare you justified?" Or, is Justification that which Christ has done at the cross and the sinner comes and holds out his hand and God gives him the gift which is imputed, which is "transferred" from one account to the other-- from Christ's account to the account of the sinner? Or better, in union with Christ God looks at that sinner and because of the merits of Christ declares that he has the standing of righteousness, and then begins the transformation. But the man, in his merits, has nothing to do with God's declaration. Now, Fr. Pacwa, we need you to come on back and we're glad that you're here.

Pacwa: Well, dealing with the example of that schlemozzel David...

Martin: Right.

Pacwa: ...who had sinned with Bathsheba and then was caught by the Prophet Nathan. He said, "Thou art the man!" David repented, and he was forgiven. And the prophet--who was it? Did David just confess to God by himself? No. The minister of announcing the forgiveness of God was the Prophet Nathan. First point. Second point...

Ankerberg: We don't have to worry about that because Trent said that the Doctrine of Penance as they enunciate it has nothing to do with the Old Testament system. So don't worry about that. We'll come back to it.

Pacwa: But still, just to have it clear that there are Old Testament antecedents for this, and that...including the priesthood of the Old Testament was part of that whole sense of there being intermediaries who would announce forgiveness, okay? But, along with that, what happens to David? He still is going to be punished for his sin. And after he commits the sin, it's forgiven, but he must still undergo the punishment. I didn't believe that you would bring up this example, because that's the classic one used throughout the history of the Church for understanding that you must still do satisfaction for the sin.

Martin: I did it for a reason.

Pacwa: And...Good! And thank you! The reason, at least on our side, is that he himself is still punished in spite of the fact of his forgiveness. And so it is with us...

Ankerberg: Before Walter answers, let me ask you this. So the basis of Justification in the Roman Catholic Church is the fact that God analyzes, looks at the sinner, and sees that he's righteous within. There's a transformation that takes place and because he is j ust, He pronounces him just. Okay?

Pacwa: Yes.

Ankerberg: So it's the basis of the righteousness of the sinner...

Pacwa: Yes.

Ankerberg: ...with the cooperation of Christ. But he actually has to be transformed....

Pacwa: As a matter of fact...

Ankerberg: ...God can't call a rose an ashtray! Pacwa: Exactly. And that it is precisely God's word that brings that transformation about. It is God's grace-- only through Jesus Christ--that brings that transformation about. And, Jesus Christ is the goal of that transformation, so that as Paul says, "You must put on the mind and the heart of Christ."

Ankerberg: Yeah...

Pacwa: So that the Justification includes learning and being transformed by grace to think like Christ and to love like Christ.

Ankerberg: I understand all that, but the basis is the man himself. Inside of himself he's got to be righteous, otherwise God doesn't call him righteous.

Pacwa: That's right. And it is God who does it.

Ankerberg: All right. That's what we want to talk about. Is that what you think the Bible is saying, Walter?

Martin: No. That's just the direct opposite of it, and there's a contusion of terminology here. I chose David as an illustration, because I know very well that that's an illustration in Catholic theology, for the reason of pointing out that the temporal punishment that David should have received was death.

Pacwa: That's right.

Martin: He should have been executed.

Pacwa: That's right.

Martin: But he was redeemed by grace because, through the lineage of David, the throne of David would be established in Christ, through Bathsheba. So he took the pile of dung, the adultery of David and Bathsheba, and transformed it by grace, so that through it comes the Davidic line and the Messiah. It had nothing to do with the intrinsic goodness of either one of them. They were adulterers.

Pacwa: That's right. And we don't believe that it is part of the intrinsic goodness either. It's the mercy of God by which the sinner is not executed when they commit the sin. That's part of God's mercy, and not the meritorious works of the sinner that makes that possible. Trent teaches clearly that nobody can do any meritorious works, nor can even one's act of faith be meritorious for salvation. It is God's grace that gives you the faith, and Christ's redemptive death that brings you salvation, not one's personal...what I believe, even if it is in Christ. It's not my act that saves me, it's Christ's grace working within me. And that's in Trent, Session VI.

Ankerberg: Yeah, but you have to...let's come back to the whole thing of that in a moment, but I'm still stuck on the fact of, "What is the basis that the Bible is talking about for Justification?" And maybe I could get an exegetical opinion from you, Dr. Pacwa, here, and because you are a professor at Loyola concerning the Scriptures. And, would you give me the antonym for the word "condemn" in Romans 8:33 which reads this way: "It is God that 'blank.'"--I'll let you fill in the word--"Who is he that condemneth?"

Pacwa: It is God that "justifies."

Ankerberg: All right. So the antonym of "condemn," which is a declaration, is "Justification"--which cannot be an infusion. It must be a declaratory thing that God does.

Pacwa: Only if you limit "condemnation" to being something that is merely declaration. Is not condemnation by God also a word that makes you what it says it is? Condemnation by God means that you are in a damned state.

Ankerberg: Let's pick that up and let me give you another verse to see how it works out here. "He who justifies the wicked"--the Scripture says. Now, according to Roman Catholic theology, if Justification is the infusion of God's grace, that would be a great thing, right?

Pacwa: Yes.

Ankerberg: The Bible says this: "He who justifies the wicked...it's hateful to Jehovah." The verse goes this way: "He who justifies the wicked and he who condemns the just, even both of them are hateful to Jehovah." This is an actual Hebrew translation of Proverbs 17:15. Now, I submit to you that if infusion is what Justification is, then God would not have said that it was hateful to Him. But what He's talking about is somebody that makes a declaration about those that are evil and declares them to be just when they're not, and vice versa. It has got to be a declaration, according to Scripture. I'll go one step further, if I would say, in doing the word study, that there is no place in the Scripture that uses the word "Justification"--"dikaio"--as infusion of grace.

Pacwa: Well, I would disagree.

Ankerberg: I want to hear it.

Pacwa: As a matter of fact, the one text I would think of would be in I John Chapter 3 where it says, "ho poion dikaiosune dikaios estin"--"The one who does righteousness is righteous." That says something about the very essence of that person. And, as a matter of fact, there are other texts where righteousness is not something that you receive but it is something that you do. For instance, in Matthew's gospel, Jesus our Lord Himself says in Chapter 6, verse I, that "your righteousness"--that is your "dikaiosune"--that is your "Justification"--is your alms and your fasting and your prayer.

Ankerberg: Yeah, but you're avoiding the topic of talking about where you have God in the context and man as a sinner. All of the verses that talk in terms of Justification in terms of redemption, put it into those contexts. Let me give you one spot specifically that will nail you down in this, I think. And that is Romans Chapter 4. It's a very interesting thing here. "But to the one who does not work..." Does not work. Does not cooperate. Does not work. "But believes in Him who justifies"--not the just ones. Not the ones that have infused grace. Not who have a transformed life. But the 'peccators,' the ungodly. "...who justifies the ungodly, his faith is reckoned as righteousness." And where I thought you were going, Walter, is Romans Chapter 4, two verses after that where David says, "Blessed are those whose lawless deeds have been forgiven and whose sins have been covered"--here's "ol' Luther's" illustration of the dung. He's been covered. How? "Blessed is the man whose sins the Lord will not impute." Will not take into account.

Martin: I quoted that before. The point, also, that I was trying to make is that we have strayed from the basis of Justification. While we're so busily engaged in talking in Trent and here on Justification by Faith, we have to ask ourselves a question: "Is it faith that justifies a man before God?" And if it is, it becomes a work. How is a man justified? How is a man "counted righteous" in the eyes of God? Romans Chapter 3:24 and Titus 3:7 both say the same thing. "Therefore, having been justified by faith"--Paul says in Romans 5, cross-referenced to "being justified freely by His grace." So, in Romans 3:24 grace justifies and in Titus 3:7 grace justifies, and so grace provides the justifying righteousness of God.

Ankerberg: Walter, could you hold that thought, and Father Pacwa, could you hold your thought there, and we'll come on back to this because we're out of time. I'm sorry, we're just past that point. We're talking about, "How is a man justified before God?" So please stick in there and we'll come back to it next week.

Program 13

Where Do Catholics and Protestants Differ on the Doctrines of Sanctification and Justification?

Ankerberg: Welcome! We're glad that you've joined us tonight. We're talking about some of the doctrines of the Roman Catholic Church that I think that you'll be interested in. Namely, what are they saying about how a person can come to be forgiven? How can your sins be forgiven before God? It's called the Doctrine of Justification. Is it by faith, alone, where you grab hold of Christ and trust Him solely, and it's imputed to you or it's transferred to you by God? Is it a legal declaration?--that's what the Protestants are saying. Or, as Roman Catholics are saying, is that God infuses grace into the person that brings him toward Himself, disposes him to act and then when the man cooperates and accepts it arrives in a state of justness. There's got to be a transformation before the Justification.

And we were talking about Romans 4-- and let me refresh your minds about Romans 4 again--and then, Father Pacwa, I said that you would start us off, so I want to come to you. Paul, in Romans Chapter 4, gives the illustration about Abraham, and talks about the fact that Abraham believed God and it was reckoned or it was imputed, it was "transferred" to him as righteousness the moment that he believed. And then, the verse that we had zeroed in on: "But to the one who does not work"--no works--"but believes in Him who justifies"--not "the just ones." This is an interesting point. It's not the just ones. Here's the peccators of Luther. The sinner is justified. And it's by his faith. And it's "reckoned as righteousness." As he says in [v.] 3, it's a righteousness that's given by God Himself. Father Pacwa, I want you to start us off this week.

Pacwa: First of all, we Catholics, because this is Scripture, a Scripture that we preserved and believe, and canonized as the New Testament, we accept that unconditionally. And we understand that, just as it says--and Trent itself says, nobody can do any works to earn God's righteousness. All right? And that it is not by a human work that you gain righteousness. And there is nothing that...even the act of faith as a human act is not satisfactory. It's satisfactory only by God's grace.

Ankerberg: So you would say...you're not afraid to say that you must have faith, and I think this is....

Pacwa: Yeah, absolutely.

Ankerberg: But what you object to is that you wouldn't say it's "faith alone."

Pacwa: That's right.

Ankerberg: It's got to be faith plus...

Pacwa: Plus...well, as a matter of fact, it has to be faith that works itself out with charity because that's what Scripture says. And the reason...

Ankerberg: Plus "works"--works of charity.

Pacwa: That's right. It's working itself out in charity. But even that charity-- you know the word there is "agape"--and as we know from I John, that God is Agape. That is, it is God's own Self-giving of Himself to us that makes faith work itself out in love. It's not that I am working it out in love, by my own merits or my own works; it is rather God operative within me. As St. Paul in I Corinthians 13 says that faith is in itself not as good or as important as charity. As a matter of fact, "If I have faith to move mountains but do not have charity, I'm nothing...."

Ankerberg: Yeah, but just to make sure that we know....

Pacwa: ....so that we have to keep...that charity is that which lasts even beyond this life. When I die, faith dies with me...

Ankerberg: Okay...

Pacwa: ...but when I go on into the next life, charity itself continues. And that's why it's even more important and is a necessary quality of my faith.

Ankerberg: I'm just saying that it's "necessary." That it's not faith alone. I mean, Trent says that. "Faith alone" is anathematized. So it's faith and works of charity and piety and these things--not in your own strength but in the power of Christ,...

Pacwa: Right. Right.

Ankerberg: ...but they must be a part of...

Pacwa: Grace.

Ankerberg: ...that which....

Pacwa: A gift of grace. Not apart, but a gift of grace.

Ankerberg: Yeah, it's a gift because God gives you the strength to do it but you do it!

Pacwa: By cooperating with my will, but it's God's grace doing it within me.

Ankerberg: That's right...but you get congruous merit, not condign merit but congruous merit, which is, "It's fitting for God then, with the grace that He's infused into you, and your cooperation with Him then and the transformation to justify you."

Pacwa: Right. And in the very same way that I was given a dollar by my father to go buy a Christmas present for my parents. That it's my father's gift to me that makes it possible for me to give a gift back. I haven't earned that, but at the same time, they appreciate it and in a sense gave me merit, the same thing we understand as God doing with grace. He gives us the grace and then says it's merit. But it's His gift to us that I give back.

Ankerberg: But it's that basis of your doing something with His help that is the Justification and that's what's abhorrent to Protestants...

Pacwa: Yes.

Ankerberg: Would you please tell us why, Walter?

Martin: I think, as I said on an earlier program, I want to go back to that again. Justification according to Romans 3 and Titus 3 is by grace.

Pacwa: Yes.

Martin: We're justified freely by His grace. Now, faith is the instrument of grace. In other words, because of grace, springing from the love of God for us-- God is Agape-God is Love. Because of grace, I am enabled to exercise faith, because faith is a gift from God. Faith itself is a gift from God. So l'm able to exercise faith. Now, that faith becomes the instrument. It's a gift imparted to the believer. And the instrument appropriating it is the faith we exercise in the Lord Jesus Christ. The grace of God comes to us, we exercise faith because of that grace, and we appropriate, as a result, what Christ has done for us on the cross.

There's an interesting book here which I would like to quote, Examination of the Council of Trent: "For Roman Catholic theologians, they understand the word 'justify' according to the manner of the Latin composition as meaning 'to make righteous through a donated or infused quality of inherent righteousness"'--which is what we were talking about just a moment ago--"from which works of righteousness proceed.

"However, Reformation theology accepts the word 'justify' in the Hebrew manner of speaking. Therefore, we define Justification as the absolution from sins, the remission of sins through imputation of the righteousness of Christ, through adoption and inheritance of eternal life, and that only for the sake of Christ who is apprehended by faith."

So, the difference between us--this is why the great argument of the Reformation still persists today-- this difference is this: That, "To him that does not work for it"--either cooperating with God or extrinsically working for the gift of salvation--"to him who does not work for it but believes"--through grace--"in the One who redeems the ungodly"--or justifies the ungodly--"his faith is counted as righteousness." Now, the core of Roman Catholic theology, no matter how we discuss it, is that faith generates within us merit, and that this merit merits God being beneficent towards us. He must be beneficent toward us as a result of it. But the Biblical position is, Christ died for the ungodly--the pile of dung...

Pacwa: Yes. Yes.

Martin: ...He transforms the dung by regeneration into the image of the Lord Jesus Christ. And He does it by grace through the instrument of faith.

Ankerberg: But let's talk about the time period because I think in the last series of programs and in this series of programs we have the same problem. That when you're talking about that pile of dung, we've got temporal time and logical time. Okay? Temporal time is when the rain falls, the grass gets wet. We're not talking about that. We're talking about logical time.

Let me take a Roman Catholic illustration first. Logical time is something that can happen all at once, but "A" [must happen to] make sure that "B" happens and "B" never can take place until "A" happens. For example, God puts--in Roman Catholicism-- His sanctifying grace into man. He infuses that into man. And at the same time man starts to be disposed toward God. It's not temporal time, it happens all at the same time. But you would never have the man responding to God in Roman Catholicism unless God first started to bring it...

Pacwa: Absolutely.

Ankerberg: Okay, you agreed with that and you said that in the last program. Now, what I'd like to talk about is this pile of dung that we keep bringing up here, and that is: Walter, are you saying that in logical time "A" is this: That first of all, the pile of dung is given status--nothing takes place. Nothing takes place except the pile of dung is looked at as a pile of gold because Christ's bank account is added to it. And then, logically in time, it produces "B." "A" always has to come first. First of all you're given the status--not on anything the man does, but because of Christ and what He did at the cross. That's the basis! Not anything in the man. The man is given status because of Christ. And then logically in time comes what is the doctrine in Protestant theology of Sanctification. That then the transformation starts. And the thing is that it begins then, and that all happens at once, but the Sanctification will never start until first the man has the status and the forgiving of sins. Is that what you're talking about?

Martin: It's even further than that. The error of Roman Catholic theology at this point is that it confuses Justification with Sanctification. So that instead of being justified by grace through the instrument of faith, and receiving the righteousness of God which gives you a judicial right standing before God and a transformed standing before God, through grace, they add to this the Doctrine of Sanctification, which means that I am meriting and working and confessing and having contrition and doing penance and all of this is becoming a process whereby I obtain Justification. The point that I'd like to make is this. That Justification is in the past tense essentially in Pauline theology. "Therefore, having been justified by faith, we have peace with God through the Lord Jesus Christ." We do not need the penance. We do not need the confession. We do not need a sacramental system that filters blessings to us which we already have received by grace!

Pacwa: The error we see in Protestant theology is they separate Justification from Sanctification, rather than seeing that as one process. For instance, in 1 Corinthians 1:30, Jesus is our Sanctification and our Justification. In 6:12 of the same book, "By our baptism we are justified and sanctified." That it's one process rather than this radical distinction. There are distinct moments within it, but to say that it is two separate processes is to separate Christ Himself who is Sanctification and Justification; and the process of baptism which is doing both. And so it's even in that sense to say that we...both in the past tense. But that it's just one long process--and that's what we don't want to separate. And that's what we see as the mistake in Protestant theology.

Ankerberg: All right, we're going to come back and we're going to talk about this a little bit more when we come right back. Stick with us.

* * * *

Ankerberg: We're back. We're glad that you're with us. We're, again, talking about, "How is it that you can find forgiveness with God?" What do you have to do? We all know that Jesus died on the cross for our sins. And in Roman Catholic theology as well as Protestant theology, we agree that the merits of Christ are the basis of our salvation. The question is, "How do you get it?" And what do you have to do to get it?

Do you just place your complete trust and dependence on the merits of Christ and God imputes something to you? Gives us a gift? No works. Nothing on your part. You just trust Christ and He gives you forgiveness?

Or, must you have the grace of God infused into you, and then you come to a point where you cooperate with that, and you do certain works in the strength of Christ that brings you to a state of justness, enough so that God can then say, "You're justified." Now, that's what we're talking about. Dr. Martin, has the Reformation, have Protestants, looking at their Bible...Why is there this dichotomy? Why is there this logical break between first of all saying Justification must come, and then as a result of Justification, Sanctification or the transformation by the Holy Spirit that starts to affect a life? Why have Protestants been so "sticky" about that?

Martin: Without Justification, you can't have a right standing with God that will enable you to live a life which is separated unto Him and for His service. So Protestants go back to, obviously, many passages in Scripture, but particularly to Romans Chapter 5, Romans Chapter 4...I have here a Catholic translation. Actually, it's a Revised Standard Version which the Catholic Church approved. In Romans Chapter 4, and what's being said here is this: "Abraham believed God and it was reckoned to him as righteousness." So it was belief that established his righteousness, not his works. "Now to one who works, his wages are not reckoned as a gift but as something due him. And to one who does not work, but trusts Him who justifies the ungodly, his faith is reckoned as righteousness."

Then he goes to David, "Blessed are those whose iniquities are forgiven, whose sins are covered up." That's where Luther got the snow on the pile of dung. "Blessed is the man against whom the Lord will not reckon his sin."

So in Romans Chapter 4 quite the opposite of the Doctrine of Penance, quite the opposite of a doctrine of combining Justification and Sanctification, as Roman Catholic theology does. You have the fiat declaration of a righteousness which comes by faith. Now, it isn't the faith that gives man his righteousness. It's grace that gives him his righteousness. That's what Paul is talking about here. And the instrument is faith. "Abraham believed God. It was counted as righteousness." But God saw his heart before he ever did anything.

Ankerberg: Okay. Father Pacwa?

Pacwa: The thing that we have to make clear is that we Roman Catholics do not deny those texts. And the way we understand the texts...for instance, the way that the Council of Trent does when it quotes them, and it says...the traditional understanding of Romans 3:24, "Being justified"--by the way, it's not past tense, it's "Being justified freely by His grace, through the redemption which is in Christ Jesus." Okay? But this is understood as the beginning of human salvation, the foundation and root of all Justification, without which it is impossible to please God. Hebrews 11, verse 6.

So that, rather than deny that we see that is the first step, and that it is that act of faith in Justification that begins this process. And as it also says, we are said to be justified gratuitously because none of the things which precede Justification, whether faith or works, merit the grace of Justification...

Ankerberg: Okay, but...

Pacwa: So that, in other words, it's the start of it, and we do not claim that we get it done by ourselves...

Ankerberg: Yeah, well....

Pacwa: ...and then the process continues with that inner transformation.

Ankerberg: Yeah. The question of, "Is it a beginning transaction or a final transaction?" Trent says that faith is the beginning. And you need to finish that up, because what is needed to make it a complete transaction? The faith is there, but it's not faith alone, it's faith plus the man's works cooperating with the strength of Christ that brings him to a state of Justification. And that state is never finished, because all through his life, he has to be more and more justified. Now, that's the question I'm....

Martin: But that is not biblical, though.

Ankerberg: This is what I want to get...would you give me a tense in Scripture that our professor here can respond to concerning past tense. It has taken place.

Martin: Romans 5:1: "Having been justified by faith."

Pacwa: But at the same time Romans 3:24 says that it is "being justified." And one of the problems that we would have with this being a past tense is that Paul himself does not claim to be absolutely so sure of his Justification that he knows he's going to heaven. He himself says in I Corinthians 9 that, "I have to buffet my body lest after having preached to others I become disqualified." He also says in the same book in Chapter 3 that "He himself had nothing on his conscience, but he doesn't judge himself." And so that this sense of Justification in Scripture is that: Yes, it's a process that's begun. Yes, it's God's grace operative and therefore that grace is definitely tending towards completion of salvation. But, because humans continue to have free will throughout the rest of their lives, that they can reject that, they can turn away from it.

And not only can they turn away from it, but for that Justification to continue to have effect in their lives, they must keeping acting as just people; they must keep acting in the power of Christ's grace. And if they stop acting in Christ's grace, they can put themselves out so that they can cut off the relationship. And we don't say that--that this is something that you've said a number of times--we don't believe you can destroy the Justification. It's not something that you can destroy, because it's God's grace. It's God's gift, so you can't....

Ankerberg: Trent says that you obliterate the grace of Justification with mortal sin.

Pacwa: You obliterate the...well, in a sense....

Ankerberg: It's a point-blank statement that they make.

Pacwa: It's a statement that I think has to be understood from the way that they're using it in Latin, but the sense of it is that you're cutting off the relationship. You can't destroy God's grace so that...it's infinite.

Ankerberg: Enough so that you have to regain your salvation, let's put it that way.

Pacwa: Pardon me?

Ankerberg: It's enough that Trent says that you are not in salvation, you have to regain your salvation.

Pacwa: Yeah, that's right. You can lose the salvation because you've cut off the relationship with Christ.

Ankerberg: You have lost it. You have lost it.

Pacwa: That's right. Absolutely.

Ankerberg: All right. That's all I'm saying.

Pacwa: If you commit mortal sin--if you commit murder, you commit any...as a matter of fact, Paul is the one that teaches that....

Ankerberg: You don't go to Mass.

Pacwa: ...anybody...you omit going to Eucharist, you omit going to the meetings every week...

Ankerberg: A mortal sin.

Pacwa: ...that you do those sins. Paul himself says--to the Christians, "Anybody who does these things will not enter the Kingdom of Heaven." In I Corinthians 6 and also in Ephesians Chapters 4 and 5 that Paul is the one who tells Christians that these can cut you off. And therefore we must accept what Scripture says.

Martin: Well, first of all, we're shifting the ground of argument to an Arrninian/Calvinist controversy about "saved and lost" and whether you can lose your salvation. That's not the issue we're talking about. We're talking about the issue that the writer of Hebrews puts great emphasis on in Hebrews Chapter 10. He says mat, "The Lord Jesus Christ has--alone, by Himself, as our great High Priest--done an unusual thing; for by a single offering, He has perfected for all time those who are sanctified...."

Pacwa: Yes.

Ankerberg: Those who are being sanctified.

Pacwa: Yes. Those who are "being"--not "were." "That are being"--present tense.

Martin: All right..." He has by..."

Pacwa: Present participle, as a matter of fact.

Martin: "By a single offering..."

Ankerberg: I've got also a word in there, Walter, that you want to go back to the fact of, you've got it both ways. You've got Sanctification as a status that's perfect four verses back in verse 10--"And by that wherein we have been made holy"--perfect passive indicative--"I am sanctified"--that resulted upon a prior past act. That's the status. And then you have four verses down here that Walter is reading, that the sacrifice is once and for all, and now, in my actual life it's being brought about. So you have both of them. Now, let's roll on, Walter.

Martin: Well, the only thing I can roll on to is this one important factor, and that is that the Catholic position always adds to it, in this process of Sanctification, the efforts and merits of the individual. Whereas the Scripture says, "By grace you have been saved, through faith; not by yourselves: it's the gift of God; not by your works lest any man should boast." What Catholicism ends up with is, "Saved by grace and kept by works."

Pacwa: Not quite. As a matter of fact, the problem is more that Protestants remove merit. And it is Jesus, our Lord, who has authority to talk about merit in the Gospel of St. Matthew Chapter 6. But I cannot accept Luther's...

Ankerberg: Okay, but I've got 30 seconds left for both of you here, 30 seconds for a wrap-up of what we've been talking about.

Pacwa: Basically, that the merit that we claim to get is a gift that Jesus Himself requires of us. And we ought to talk about that merit.

Martin: And from a biblical perspective, particularly Pauline theology, there is no merit that we have in ourselves. Our works testify to the merit Christ has imputed to us.

Ankerberg: Gentlemen, I sure appreciate your being here. Father Pacwa, it's been great having you with us...

Pacwa: Thank you.

Ankerberg: ...and I've enjoyed the "back and forth" and your friendship, and we'll have to have you back again in the future, if you'll come back...

Pacwa: Sure. Certainly. Love to.

Ankerberg: And, Dr. Martin, we're glad that you would come and share with us your thoughts as well. Thank you for being with us during these programs. Good night.

Digitized by The Augustine Club at Columbia University, 1998

augustine@columbia.edu

Last update: February 6, 1998

Roman Catholicism

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