Unity Starts With Defining True Doctrine, Pt 2

Quoting Martyn Lloyd-Jones . . .

	We are told that the Christian faith cannot be stated in propositions, that it is something mystical that cannot be analyzed or put down in a series of definitions stating what is right and what is wrong. By saying that, they are not only running counter to the practice of the church in the earlier centuries when she drew up her creeds and confessions of faith; They are also denying the teachings of the new Testament itself which maintains that the truth can be so defined that you can say that a man has departed from it. For how can you say that a man has departed from something if you do not know what the thing is? The whole presupposition is that it can be defined and described accurately. [Continuing from part 1] Nothing is so interesting as to contrast the ecumenical councils of the first centuries of the Christian era with the World Council of the Churches today. The great concern of the former was doctrine: definition of doctrine and denunciation of error and heresy. The chief characteristic of the modern movement is doctrinal indifferentism and the exaltation of a spirit of inclusivism and practical co-operation. But the apostle goes even further than that. He says to the Philippians, "Brethren, be followers together of me" (Phil. 3:17). He does not hesitate to put it like that. He appeals to them to follow him and his teaching and example. That follows from what he has already said: "Nevertheless, whereto we have already attained, let us walk by the same rule, let us mind the same thing" (verse 16). They were to think the same thing, and to go on preaching and teaching the same thing. In 2 Timothy 2:8 he talks about 'my gospel'. He is contrasting it with 'other gospels'. He is not saying what I once remember hearing in a sermon on this text: "The important thing is that you should have an experience, that you should be able to say "my gospel". Of course, it may not be the other man's gospel, but the thing is, can you say "my gospel"?" According to that interpretation, the important thing is to have an experience, to be able to say that something has happened to you. The precise cause of the experience is regarded as being unimportant. But the apostle, surely, is teaching the exact opposite of that. He is saying that his gospel alone is the true gospel, not because it was his, or because of what it had done for him, but because of what God had done in Christ. The context in which he makes this statement is in the false teaching of others. He says "remember that Jesus Christ of the seed of David was raised from the dead according to my gospel". There were other teachers who said that 'the resurrection was past already', and they were overthrowing 'the faith of some' (verse 18). Do not listen to them, he says. The gospel that he, Paul, preached was the only true gospel, and any teaching that contradicted it was a lie. In other words, he not only defines it, and says that it can be defined, but he says, This is it, and every other is wrong. The same truth emerges in Hebrews 4:14-16: "Seeing then that we have a great high priest, that is passed into the heavens, Jesus the Son of God, let us hold fast to our profession" - our confession, the faith which we believe concerning Him - 'Jesus the Son of God'. The remedy for the unhappiness of those Hebrew Christians was not to cultivate a vague general spirit of fellowship, but to hold fast the cardinal doctrines. ... Everywhere in the New Testament, as we have seen, there is an insistence upon true doctrine in contradiction to false doctrine. That is only possible because doctrine can be defined and stated in terms and propositions. We have an objective standard by which we can test ourselves and others.
From:	The Basis of Christian Unity (1962)

Unity Starts With Defining True Doctrine, Pt 1

Quoting Martyn Lloyd-Jones . . .

	The majority-view today holds that the way to produce unity is not to discuss and consider doctrine, but rather to work together and pray together. The slogans include 'doctrine divides'. This becomes serious when applied to the question of evangelism. The most common argument used is that evangelism is impossible apart from this unity, that a divided church is an offense to the world, and that while we are divided the world will not listen to us. During an evangelistic campaign in London, a Christian newspaper carried the headline: "Let us have a theological truce during the Campaign". A well-known theological leader had also committed himself to this: "We can all at any rate be ecumenical in evangelism". That it is only after the stage of evangelism that you begin to consider doctrine is a very common and prevailing view. All of this makes it of vital importance that we should be clear in our thinking on these questions which I have raised with regard to the basis of Christian unity. ... The New Testament everywhere insists upon true doctrine. I emphasize this because, as we have seen, the whole tendency today is to discourage talk about doctrine and to urge that we work together, because 'doctrine divides'. Doctrine is being discounted in the interests of supposed unity. The fact is, however, that there is no unity apart from truth and doctrine, and it is departure from this that causes division and breaks unity. The first thing the New Testament emphasizes is that doctrine can be defined. If this were not so Paul would never have written his Epistle to the Romans. ... He had been unable to visit them, so he writes to them a summary of his teaching. It is a great doctrinal statement in which the cardinal doctrines of justification, atonement, union with Christ, assurance, the final perseverance of the saints, and so on, are set forth. Let us remind ourselves again of 1 Corinthians 3:11: "Other foundation can no man lay than is laid". The apostle had already laid it: Jesus Christ and Him crucified; there is no other. That is an absolute. What is the purpose of 1Corinthians 15? Is it not to say just this: that belief or disbelief in the literal physical resurrection is not an immaterial or unimportant point? The apostle says that it is as important as this, that if it had not happened, "then is our preaching vain, and your faith is also vain...ye are yet in your sins" (verses 14,17). But the whole tendency today is to say that it does not matter whether a man believes in the literal physical resurrection or not. The apostle Paul says that it is an absolute and that there is no gospel apart from it: 'Ye are yet in your sins'! The same argument is found in 2 Tim. 2. Nowhere, perhaps is it stated more clearly than in the first chapter to the Epistle to the Galatians. He 'marvels' that they are so soon turned away from the gospel which he had preached to them: "I marvel that ye are so soon removed from him that called you into the grace of Christ unto another gospel; which is not another..." (Gal. 1:6-7) How can he say that if you do not define the gospel? But that is far removed from the modern attitude, and the way in which the subject of unity is being presented today.
From:	The Basis of Christian Unity (1962)

Unity Across Denominational Lines

by Phil Johnson @ http://teampyro.blogspot.com

This is the final post in a four-part series on unity. Previous entries, in order, may be found here:

1. Sola Scriptura and the Proliferation of Protestant Denominations
   
2. Sectarianism and Separation
   
3. The Wrong Kind of Unity
   

ere's a fact many miss: To a very large degree, the unity Christ prayed for does exist among genuine believers, and it is a unity that transcends denominational lines.

All Christians are "in Christ"; therefore they are all one with the Father, and one with each other as well. Notice carefully what Christ says in verses 22-23: "[I pray] that they may be one, just as We are one; I in them and You in Me, that they may be perfected in unity." The basis of that unity is not a denominational affiliation; it is our position in Christ.

Faithful evangelical Protestants believe God is answering that prayer of Christ even now. We enjoy an amazing degree of unity with one another, despite our denominational distinctions. In other words, the kind of spiritual unity Christ prayed for does exist in the true body of Christ worldwide despite denominational barriers. Our Lord's prayer for His church has not gone unanswered.

Christ's true church is not confined to a single congregation, denomination, or earthly organization. The church is composed of all true believers in Christ, regardless of denominational affiliation or membership in any earthly assembly. In the words of the Westminster Confession of Faith, "The catholic or universal church, which is invisible, consists of the whole number of the elect, that have been, are, or shall be gathered into one, under Christ the Head thereof; and is the spouse, the body, the fullness of him that filleth all in all" (25.1). When the Confession speaks of the church as "invisible," it does not mean the church is inconspicuous or utterly hidden from view. It means that its precise boundaries cannot be detected through human perception. There are people who claim to be, and appear to be, part of the body, but they are not. Others, perhaps unknown to us, are true believers and members of the body. The exact boundaries of the true church are not always easy to discern. But nonetheless genuine believers are "all one in Christ Jesus" (Gal. 3:28)—united with Him, and therefore united with one another. "For even as the body is one and yet has many members, and all the members of the body, though they are many, are one body, so also is Christ. For by one Spirit we were all baptized into one body" (1 Cor. 12:12-13).

During His earthly ministry, Christ told the disciples: "I have other sheep, which are not of this fold; I must bring them also, and they will hear My voice; and they will become one flock with one shepherd" (Jn. 10:16). The "one shepherd" is Christ himself, not an earthly vicar. And the "one flock" is also a spiritual reality even now, with believing Jews and Gentiles united in one new body, and the middle wall of partition between Jew and Gentile having been broken down (Eph. 2:14-16). The perfect manifestation of that unity awaits fulfillment in a future time, when "we all attain to the unity of the faith, and of the knowledge of the Son of God, to a mature man, to the measure of the stature which belongs to the fullness of Christ" (Eph. 4:13). In the meantime, to settle for the superficial unity imposed by a monstrous worldwide ecclesiastical hierarchy would be a serious mistake.

The unity Christ prayed for has always existed in the true body of Christ. It is an organic, not an organizational unity. It is a spiritual, not a corporeal unity. And it is not a unity without diversity. (If He had wanted unity with no diversity, He would not have gifted us with different spiritual gifts.) But the kind of unity Christ prays for is a unity in spite of our great diversity.

The truth is that on the vital issues there is far more agreement among Protestants than Catholic and Eastern Orthodox church leaders would like to admit. All evangelical Protestants are in agreement on the doctrine of justification by faith (sola fide) and the authority of Scripture (sola Scriptura).

Proof that unity is the rule among believers despite their denominational differences can be seen in a survey of the denominational backgrounds of the men who have contributed to this book. We may not always agree on every point and every particular of secondary doctrinal questions. But on the essential gospel truths we are in full agreement. And our unity in Christ is unbroken by denominational lines between us. We embrace one another with sincere love as members of the one body of Christ. We are one in Christ.

The evangelical school where I studied is an interdenominational Bible institute. My professors were Presbyterians, Baptists, Congregationalists, and Independents. Students came from an incredibly diverse array of Protestant denominations. We prayed together, studied together, and did evangelistic work together. Our denominational differences were no barrier to our unity in Christ.

The church I'm a member of now is a non-denominational church. Our members come from backgrounds as varied as Baptist, Brethren, and Presbyterian congregations. Our pastor is regularly asked to speak in all kinds of denominational settings. In recent years he has spoken in Anglican churches, Baptist conventions, Presbyterian conferences, and charismatic congregations. We do enjoy a tremendous unity with all those who truly love Christ and are faithful to his word—regardless of our denominational differences.

The limits on this trans-denominational unity are set by Scripture itself. We cannot welcome into our circle of fellowship people who deny truths that are essential to the gospel (2 John 7-11); and we cannot embrace people who affirm a gospel Scripture condemns (Gal. 1:18-19). The gospel and all truths essential to it are therefore nonnegotiable points of doctrine, and unity on these matters is a prerequisite to any other kind of unity.

But there's nothing inherently sinful with holding denominational convictions on secondary issues. Denominations in and of themselves are not necessarily an obstacle to true Christian unity, and Protestants should not be bullied into conceding otherwise.

Of course, when differences on secondary issues are magnified and used to promote strife and hostility between brothers and sisters in Christ, that is sectarianism. It's the very attitude Paul condemned in Corinth when some of the believers there were dividing in groups loyal to Paul, or Apollos, or Cephas, and refusing fellowship to members of the competing groups. Such sectarianism is certainly sinfully divisive. But that is not a necessary result of denominationalism. And those of us with broad denominational associations and close friendships in Christ across denominational boundaries are living proof of that.



There is room for brethren to disagree within the bonds of unity, and sometimes those disagreements can be sharp (cf. Acts 15:36-39). In fact, it is unlikely that there are any two Christians anywhere who will agree completely on the meaning of every passage of Scripture. Unity does not mean that we must agree up front on every point of truth. On the other hand, unity certainly does not mean that we should ignore the issue of truth altogether and settle for a superficial organizational unity.

As far as we are concerned, both the ecumenical idealogues and the Roman Catholic Church can keep the phony substitutes for true unity they are peddling. The unity we already enjoy with all people of God who submit to the authority of Scripture and who truly love Christ is far superior to the appearance of unity brought by a hierarchy of priests or a ministerial association that deliberately masks essential differences.

It is a fearful reality that when "we all come to the unity of the faith and of the knowledge of the Son of God, to a perfect man, to the measure of the stature of the fullness of Christ" (Ephesians 4:13), those who merely profess love for Christ but have no true regard for His truth (including, we fear, many of the same people who do the most talking about "unity" nowadays) will find themselves sent away with the goats rather than united with the sheep.

The Wrong Kind of Unity

by Phil Johnson @ http://teampyro.blogspot.com

he unity Christ prayed for in the church is not, to begin with, an organizational unity.

When Jesus prayed that we all might be one, He was describing a spiritual unity. In John 17:11, He prayed "that they may be one, even as We are." Verse 21 continues: "that they may all be one; even as Thou, Father, art in Me, and I in Thee, that they also may be in Us."

That describes a very specific kind of spiritual unity that proceeds from our union with Christ. Christ Himself likens it to the unity between Father and Son. It is certainly not something as mundane and superficial as the homogenization of all churches under one earthly hierarchy of bishops in Rome or Constantinople.

Organizational unity cannot guarantee true spiritual unity, and the proof is seen in the Church of Rome herself. Despite all the Catholic finger-wagging about the lack of unity reflected in Protestant denominationalism, there may well be more disharmony within the Roman Catholic Church than there is in the typical Protestant denomination.

Take, for example, Catholic Answers, the apologetics organization headed by Karl Keating. Although Keating and Catholic Answers did not invent the argument that Protestant denominationalism disproves sola fide, they certainly have perfected and popularized it. Staff apologists from Catholic Answers are the chief ones who brought this issue to the forefront of the Catholic-Protestant debate.

Catholic Answers published the tract cited in the first post in this series. And Keating himself personally trained a number of pro-Catholic debaters to employ this argument in their dialogues with Protestants.

Catholic Answers has hammered this same theme for years. According to them, an infallible, magisterial interpretation of Scripture is the only thing that can assure true unity, and the continuing proliferation and fragmentation of Protestant denominations is living proof that there can be no unity under the principle of sola scriptura.

Suppose for the sake of argument we grant their premises and measure the Catholic apologists themselves by their own standard? Keating is arguably the most prominent of dozens of Catholic apologists on the Internet. All of them claim they have an infallible interpretation of Scripture, given to them through the magisterium of Rome. So how has the principle of "unity" fared in the Roman Catholic apologetics community?

Not very well, it turns out. To cite one well-known example, Keating has disavowed and waged war on the Internet for several years against one of his best-known former lieutenants, Gerry Matatics, a convert from Protestantism who now heads an organization of his own. The trouble began, it seems, when Matatics declared his preference for traditional Catholicism with a Latin Mass, while Keating is staunchly in favor of the innovations instituted by the Vatican II Council—including the new Mass in the vernacular.

In 1995, Keating said he considered Matatics "a sad example of how schism leads very quickly to heresy." [The Wanderer, February 16, 1995 p. 7.] Keating has published a number of articles over the years in This Rock magazine warning other Catholics against his former associate's influence. [e.g., Karl Keating, "Habemus Papam?" This Rock (July/August 1995).] Both sides took their case to the World Wide Web, posting articles and open letters, debating whether Keating or Matatics best represents the "Catholic" position. [See, for example, "An Open Letter to Mr. Gerry Wells in Defense of Gerry Matatics"]

The battle raged for several years while Matatics remained in full communion with Rome. Then in early 2005, Matatics embraced a view known as sedevacantism, which is the opinion that no legitimate pope has occupied the Holy See since the death of Pius XII. Ostensibly, this involves a kind of auto-excommunication. According to Dave Armstrong (himself a lay Catholic apologist), when Matatics renounced the current pope,

he incurred latae sententiae (automatic excommunication), based on cc. 751 and 1364 of the Code of Canon Law. The first states: the aforesaid canons defines schism as "refusal of subjection to the Roman Pontiff, or of communion with the members of the Church subject to him". The second states that the penalty for is automatic excommunication.

Matatics, of course, still considers himself a Roman Catholic—a truer Catholic than those who accept Vatican II. The ironic thing is that virtually every pope for the 450 years before Vatican II would have much more in common with Matatics than with Keating in their respective opinions about the Mass. (So much for semper eadem.)

And Matatics is not the only Roman Catholic apologist to wage a public feud with Keating. Robert A. Sungenis is still at it.

Such feuds are symptomatic of several larger conflicts within the Catholic Church. Keating is a "conservative Catholic," whereas Sungenis is a "traditionalist." The Roman Catholic Church is home to vast differences of opinion about the Marian doctrines, confusion about supposed Marian prophecies, disputes over canon law, and other deep-seated disagreements about important doctrines. Various factions and sects operate within the walls of the Catholic Church, waging polemic battles as lively and intense as any that ever took place between Protestant denominations.

Add into that mix the scores of radical or liberal priests who blend their peculiar doctrinal and political preferences into the Catholic system, and you have a chaos of varying opinions that is at least equal to that of even the most variegated Protestant denomination.

The simple fact is that there is really no more unity of agreement among Roman Catholics than there is among Protestants. Even with an "infallible interpretation" of Scripture, it seems, the Roman Catholic track record on true spiritual unity is as bad as, or worse than, that of the Protestants.

How much "unity" can there be, for example, between, say, Father Andrew Greely and Mother Angelica (to name two of America's best-known Catholics)? Greely is a liberal priest and novelist, who once said on "Larry King Live" that he believes the Catholic Church eventually will not only ordain women as priests, but also elect a woman as pope. Mother Angelica is a traditionalist Franciscan nun who has used her televised talk show to criticize other Catholic leaders, including Cardinal Richard Mahoney, for their non-traditionalist stance on liturgical matters.

Do Catholic critics of Protestant denominationalism seriously imagine that their Church embodies a pure, visible, organizational, and spiritual unity comparable in any way to the unity within the Trinity?

In fact, with so many who profess loyalty to Peter's chair waging battle amongst themselves over church politics and key points of truth, it should be painfully obvious to all that Roman Catholics are really no better able to agree on their own Church's "infallible interpretation" than Protestants have been able to agree in exhaustive detail on the meaning of Scripture itself.

Clearly, an external, organizational unity cannot guarantee the kind spiritual unity Christ was praying for. It would be a serious mistake, and a serious blow to real unity, to imagine that the answer to our denominational division is the abandonment of denominations altogether, and the union of all who profess Christ into one massive worldwide organization where we affirm only what we all agree on. No real agreement whatsoever would be achieved through such means, and thus we would have no more true unity than we already enjoy. Meanwhile, the cause of truth would suffer a severe blow, and that would ultimately prove fatal to all genuine unity.

But the unity Scripture calls us to is a unity in truth. Paul wrote, "Now I plead with you, brethren, by the name of our Lord Jesus Christ, that you all speak the same thing, and that there be no divisions among you, but that you be perfectly joined together in the same mind and in the same judgment" (1 Cor. 1:10). He did not counsel the Corinthians to grasp for a superficial unity by setting truth aside and embracing an organizational unity without regard to sound doctrine. Nor did Paul order them to abandon their differences and simply place a blind and implicit trust in his apostolic magisterium. He was urging them to work through their differences and strive to achieve unity in both heart and mind. Such unity is possible only when people are themselves in union with Christ. "For who has known the mind of the Lord, that he will instruct Him? But we have the mind of Christ" (1 Cor. 2:16).

That is precisely the kind of unity Christ was praying for. There is nothing superficial about it. It is a unity of spirit. It is a unity in truth. And that is why, in the context of his prayer for unity, Christ also prayed, "Sanctify them in the truth; Your word is truth" (John 17:17).

Sectarianism and Separation

by Phil Johnson http://teampyro.blogspot.com

The Danger of Schism

ast week I began a series of posts by mentioning the ever-increasing number of denominations, church splits, and intramural sectarianism in the wider Protestant world. This not an issue Protestants can or should easily sweep aside. It is quite true that schism is a fruit of sin and unfaithfulness, and it has hurt our testimony.

The apostle Paul rebuked the Corinthians for having a sectarian spirit: "Each one of you is saying, 'I am of Paul,' and 'I of Apollos,' and 'I of Cephas,' and 'I of Christ.' Has Christ been divided? Paul was not crucified for you, was he? Or were you baptized in the name of Paul?" (1 Cor. 1:12-13). Later in the epistle he added, "For when one says, 'I am of Paul,' and another, 'I am of Apollos,' are you not mere men? What then is Apollos? And what is Paul? Servants through whom you believed, even as the Lord gave opportunity to each one" (3:4-5).

Deliberately causing schisms in the body of Christ is a demonic sin—so much so that divisive people are not to be tolerated in the church. In Matthew 18, Christ outlined a series of four steps churches should go through in calling a sinning brothers to repentance. But when someone is schismatic, Paul says, that discipline process may be accelerated. He wrote in Titus 3:10-11: "Reject a factious man after a first and second warning, knowing that such a man is perverted and is sinning, being self-condemned."

It's fair to ask, then, if schism is such a serious sin, why are there so many different denominations? The Protestant Reformation gave rise to Lutheranism, Presbyterianism, Anglicanism, Congregationalism, Methodism, Episcopalianism, the Plymouth Brethren, the Open Brethren, the Closed Brethren, the Church of Christ, the Church of the Nazarene, the Church of God, the Assemblies of God, Holiness churches, Pentecostal churches, Dutch Reformed churches, Christian Reformed churches, Protestant Reformed churches, Baptists, Reformed Baptists, Sovereign Grace Baptists, Landmark Baptists, Independent Baptists, American Baptists, Southern Baptists, Freewill Baptists, General Baptists, Regular Baptists, Particular Baptists, and Strict and Particular Baptists.

And that list only scratches the surface. The Handbook of Denominations lists hundreds more.

Let's be honest: one can hardly blame non-Christians for being nonplussed by the variety. The pagan from a non-Christian society is not likely to look at Christendom and say, "Behold, how they love one another."

The Necessity of Separation

On the other hand, we who are Christians must understand that Christendom is not "the church." All who call themselves Christians are not true followers of Christ—and there's no reason we should try to make Moslems or Hindus think all varieties of so-called Christianity are truly Christian.

Just because a church or denomination calls itself "Christian" does not mean it is part of the body of Christ. That has been true even from biblical times. Consider, for example, the seven churches in Revelation 2 and 3. At least one was totally apostate and three or four others were already apostatizing. We know from Jesus' warning to the church at Laodicea that it is possible for a church to abandon the truth so completely that Christ Himself will reject that church and spew it out of His mouth.

True Christians must not fellowship with such apostate groups (2 Cor. 6:15-17; Eph. 5:11).

In other words, some degree of doctrinal purity is a valid prerequisite for organizational unity. It's simply wrong to set aside all our doctrinal differences for the sake of an artificial organizational "unity." This is particularly true of those doctrinal issues that are immediately germane to the gospel. In fact, the apostle Paul taught that so-called "Christians" who corrupt or compromise the utter freeness of justification are not to be regarded as brethren at all! He pronounced a curse on them (Gal. 1:8-9). The apostle John taught the same thing (2 John 7-11).

Since the major point at issue between Protestants and Catholic or Orthodox traditions is the gospel (particularly the doctrine of justification by faith—which is the very point Paul wrote to defend in his epistle to the Galatians), it is utterly fatuous to suggest that a show of external unity should take precedence over our doctrinal differences. It is tantamount to saying Christians are not supposed to be concerned with truth at all.

Is organizational solidarity what Jesus meant by unity? That's a question worth examining, and we'll take it up in the next entry.