Is prayer to saints / Mary Biblical? from gotquestions.org

A reader who is Catholic told me that if I have a problem with the idea of people asking Mary and other saints to intercede for them in prayer, then I should also have a problem with asking other believers to pray for me. I found the following article on gotquestions.org and posted the first part of the article here. Please go to the link to read the entire article. I think the writer brings up many good scriptural points to refute the practice of praying to Mary and the saints or asking for their intercession.


Question: "Is prayer to saints / Mary Biblical?"

Answer: The issue of Catholics praying to saints is one that is full of confusion. It is the official position of the Roman Catholic Church that Catholics do not pray TO saints or Mary, but rather that Catholics can ask saints or Mary to pray FOR them. The official position of the Roman Catholic Church is that asking saints for their prayers is no different than asking someone here on earth to pray for you. However, the practice of many Catholics diverges from official Roman Catholic teaching. Many Catholics do in fact pray directly to saints and/or Mary, asking them for help – instead of asking the saints and/or Mary to intercede with God for help. Whatever the case, whether a saint or Mary is being prayed to, or asked to pray, neither practice has any Biblical basis.

The Bible nowhere instructs believers in Christ to pray to anyone other than God. The Bible nowhere encourages, or even mentions, believers asking individuals in Heaven for their prayers. Why, then, do many Catholic pray to Mary and/or the saints, or request their prayers? Catholics view Mary and saints as "intercessors" before God. They believe that a saint, who is glorified in Heaven, has more "direct access" to God than we do. Therefore, if a saint delivers a prayer to God, it is more effective than us praying to God directly. This concept is blatantly unbiblical. Hebrews 4:16 tells us that we, believers here on earth, can "...approach the throne of grace with confidence..."

1 Timothy 2:5 declares, "For there is one God and one mediator between God and men, the man Christ Jesus." There is no one else that can mediate with God for us. If Jesus is the ONLY mediator, that indicates Mary and saints cannot be mediators. They cannot mediate our prayer requests to God. Further, the Bible tells us that Jesus Christ Himself is interceding for us before the Father, "Therefore He is able to save completely those who come to God through Him, because He always lives to intercede for them" (Hebrews 7:25). With Jesus Himself interceding for us, why would we need Mary or the saints to intercede for us? Who would God listen to more closely than His Son? Romans 8:26-27 describes the Holy Spirit interceding for us. With the 2nd and 3rd members of the Trinity already interceding for us before the Father in Heaven, what possible need could there be to have Mary or the saints interceding for us?

Tony Bartolucci: Drowning in the Tiber--Part 8 and 9 are up

Part 8 and 9 of Pastor Tony Bartolucci's sermon series Drowning in the Tiber are up and ready to download. I'll be listening ASAP!

The Sabbath Rest: Part Two

After I wrote 'The Sabbath Rest' post, I remembered that my husband had written a sermon series a while back about the ten commandments, which of course included one about the sabbath. I went back and read it, and it fit exactly what I was trying to hint at in the first post. Following are a few exerpts from the sermon, but please follow the link to read the entire message.
First my husband talks about the commandments in general:

In our New Testament age, the real application of these commands belongs to the church. Sometimes Christians get confused when they remove the New Testament foundation from their understanding of these commandments and try to put themselves under the Old Testament law. The cross of Jesus Christ is the lens by which everything in the scripture must be viewed. We cannot go back and try to put our lives under the Old Testament law, but we must submit ourselves to the New Testament commandments that are applied through the law of faith. Jesus said that He did not come to do away with the law but to fulfill the law and then offer Himself as a redemptive sacrifice for us. This Bible, Christianity, encouragement, Jesus, justification, salvation, Sufficiency of Christ, The Gospelis affirmed and explained in Romans 3:

23 for all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God, 24 being justified freely by His grace through the redemption that is in Christ Jesus, 25 whom God set forth as a propitiation by His blood, through faith, to demonstrate His righteousness, because in His forbearance God had passed over the sins that were previously committed, 26 to demonstrate at the present time His righteousness, that He might be just and the justifier of the one who has faith in Jesus. 27 Where is boasting then? It is excluded. By what law? Of works? No, but by the law of faith. 28 Therefore we conclude that a man is justified by faith apart from the deeds of the law. 29 Or is He the God of the Jews only? Is He not also the God of the Gentiles? Yes, of the Gentiles also, 30 since there is one God who will justify the circumcised by faith and the uncircumcised through faith. 31 Do we then make void the law through faith? Certainly not! On the contrary, we establish the law.

After explaining more about this, he goes on to speak specifically about the sabbath:

Since we are looking at the Ten Commandments through the light of the New Testament and the lens of the cross, I decided that the Sabbath should be the first point of study. The reason being is that this is the most misunderstood commandment by Christians and it also points God’s people directly to Jesus Christ. Since Jesus is the focal point by which we view the Old Testament and all commandments, it only makes sense to begin from this point.



The Sabbath is not Sunday. The Sabbath is the seventh day of the week which is Saturday. In the beginning, God created the heavens, the earth, and all that is in them in six days and on the seventh day He rested. God rested in order to provide an example for God’s people to follow His example and to rest on the Sabbath. This principle also points to a deeper spiritual understanding as we will soon explore. Many who oppose the concept of Sunday worship such as the Seventh Day Adventist frequently challenge all the other denominations to prove that the Sabbath was changed. One leader in this denomination offered $64,000 for anyone who can prove biblically that the Sabbath was changed to Sunday in the scriptures.



Don’t waste your time with this challenge for you will not find anything in the Bible where God changed the day in which we celebrate the Sabbath. The problem is that the question is flawed.

After explaining the concept of the sabbath, my husband goes on to the most important part of the message, which speaks of the meaning of the sabbath rest, and how it is fulfilled in Jesus Christ.

Jesus made a point of shaking up the religious leader’s view of the Sabbath. If you read through the gospels, take note of the number of times Jesus blatantly violated the Sabbath in the sight of the Pharisees. As you do, keep in mind that the Pharisees were not condemned for questioning Jesus’ breaking of the Sabbath, they were condemned for rejecting Jesus. A little earlier I noted that the command to keep the Sabbath pointed to a deeper spiritual principle. Jesus broke the traditional view of the Sabbath in order to draw attention to the spiritual meaning of the Sabbath. He constantly proclaimed that He was Lord of the Sabbath and that the Sabbath was meant for man. Man wasn’t created for the Sabbath, but the Sabbath was created for man (Mark 2:27). As we examine this law, keep in mind the teaching of Galatians 3:24-25

24 Therefore the law was our tutor to bring us to Christ, that we might be justified by faith. 25 But after faith has come, we are no longer under a tutor.



The law of the Sabbath pointed to what was fulfilled in Christ. In the Old Testament, breaking the Sabbath was punishable by death. Look at Exodus 31:14-15

14 'You shall keep the Sabbath, therefore, for it is holy to you. Everyone who profanes it shall surely be put to death; for whoever does any work on it, that person shall be cut off from among his people. 15 'Work shall be done for six days, but the seventh is the Sabbath of rest, holy to the LORD. Whoever does any work on the Sabbath day, he shall surely be put to death.



Not all the commandments carried a death penalty; so why did God put such importance on the Sabbath that any who broke it would pay with their life? To understand the reason we must understand the meaning behind the Sabbath which could not have been known before Christ revealed the covenant of the New Testament to the church. The above scripture also helps us to understand why the Jews had such a hard time accepting Jesus’ breaking of the Sabbath. Any work was punishable by death regardless of how miniscule it was, but when Jesus came, He intentionally broke the Sabbath for the purpose of bringing attention to His Lordship and the principle of the Sabbath.

What is that principle which is so essential that if we do not obey it, the end is death?

If Jesus was indeed the Lord of the Sabbath, then He had to have a reason for breaking the Sabbath and teaching His disciples to do so. In the Old Testament, God clearly instructed people not to gather food on the Sabbath and someone found picking up sticks for firewood was executed for breaking the Sabbath. Now Jesus and His disciples are walking through a field and gathering food on the Sabbath in the sight of all. When questioned, Jesus says that the Sabbath is made for man and not man for the Sabbath and then claims that He has the right to do what He is doing because He is also the Lord of the Sabbath. Jesus is making the claim that not only does He have the right to rule the Sabbath, but He is also changing the way mankind views the Sabbath.



The law of keeping the Sabbath clearly served a purpose that God reinforced with severe judgment, but as revealed by Jesus, the Sabbath was a tutor for a greater principle that was now being revealed by His ministry on earth. The Sabbath is the rest given by God and the promise to God’s people. Through the law, God taught His people to understand the promise but God did not permit God’s people to inherit the promise by the law. When God led the people to the Promised Land, He required faith before they could inherit the promise. Without faith, God delivered the people out of the bondage of Pharaoh; without faith God led them through the wilderness; without faith God defeated all enemies, gave them manna, water from the rock and showed the children of Israel many mighty works. However, when the time came to inherit the promise, God required faith.



God sent twelve spies into the land – one from each tribe. He did this to test God’s people. They spied out the land and brought a discouraging report to the people. The land was just as God promised, but the inhabitants were strong and could not be defeated. Even though God defeated everyone that challenged Israel and even humbled Pharaoh, the children of Israel still had no faith and rebelled against the Lord. It was not the law that prevented them from inheriting the promise, but unbelief. Keeping the law meant nothing if faith was absent. Look at Hebrews 3:

17 Now with whom was He angry forty years? Was it not with those who sinned, whose corpses fell in the wilderness? 18 And to whom did He swear that they would not enter His rest, but to those who did not obey? 19 So we see that they could not enter in because of unbelief.

Hebrews 4:1 Therefore, since a promise remains of entering His rest, let us fear lest any of you seem to have come short of it. 2 For indeed the gospel was preached to us as well as to them; but the word which they heard did not profit them, not being mixed with faith in those who heard it. 3 For we who have believed do enter that rest, as He has said: "So I swore in My wrath, 'They shall not enter My rest,' " although the works were finished from the foundation of the world. 4 For He has spoken in a certain place of the seventh day in this way: "And God rested on the seventh day from all His works"; 5 and again in this place: "They shall not enter My rest." 6 Since therefore it remains that some must enter it, and those to whom it was first preached did not enter because of disobedience, 7 again He designates a certain day, saying in David, "Today," after such a long time, as it has been said: "Today, if you will hear His voice, Do not harden your hearts." 8 For if Joshua had given them rest, then He would not afterward have spoken of another day. 9 There remains therefore a rest for the people of God. 10 For he who has entered His rest has himself also ceased from his works as God did from His. 11 Let us therefore be diligent to enter that rest, lest anyone fall according to the same example of disobedience.



This passage of scripture is where the rubber meets the road. This scripture clearly makes a connection between God’s example of rest on the seventh day, the Promised Land of the children of Israel and the rest provided through Christ as it ties them together as being all a part of the same principle. Notice that God speaks of the ‘rest’ of God’s people as the ‘rest’ of the Sabbath. This passage in Hebrews provides an important key to understanding the command to keep the Sabbath for it links the rest of the promise of God with the rest of the Sabbath. God used the example of Israel to teach us the principle of our promise of salvation. Jesus is the Lord of the Sabbath because He is Lord of our salvation. We enter the rest of the Lord through the cross of Jesus Christ for He alone leads us into the promise.

Please read the entire message to see all the points my husband brings out.
Jesus performed many miraculous healings on the sabbath. I again submit that, for those with eyes to see and ears to hear His word, this is a clear message that our healing is accomplished by Him on a day of rest and not on a day of works. He is our Sabbath Rest, by faith and not by works.

Hebrews 4

1 Therefore, since a promise remains of entering His rest, let us fear lest any of you seem to have come short of it. 2 For indeed the gospel was preached to us as well as to them; but the word which they heard did not profit them, not being mixed with faith in those who heard it. 3 For we who have believed do enter that rest, as He has said:

“ So I swore in My wrath,

‘ They shall not enter My rest,’”

although the works were finished from the foundation of the world. 4 For He has spoken in a certain place of the seventh day in this way: “And God rested on the seventh day from all His works”; 5 and again in this place: “They shall not enter My rest.”
6 Since therefore it remains that some must enter it, and those to whom it was first preached did not enter because of disobedience, 7 again He designates a certain day, saying in David, “Today,” after such a long time, as it has been said:


“ Today, if you will hear His voice,
Do not harden your hearts.”

8 For if Joshua had given them rest, then He would not afterward have spoken of another day. 9 There remains therefore a rest for the people of God. 10 For he who has entered His rest has himself also ceased from his works as God did from His.

The Sabbath Rest

Why did Jesus so many times heal people on the sabbath? Was it simply to annoy the Jews, or was there some deeper reason?
I submit, after reading the story of Jesus healing the man born blind, in John 9, that He did it to show that our healing is done on a day of rest (faith) and not a day of works.

William Webster: How Rome Defines Saving faith

We've been having a discussion here about whether Rome teaches salvation by works (merit) and while I take a break for the weekend before investigating the Catechism of the Catholic Church, I wanted to give people the opportunity to read these two articles by William Webster. The first is his testimony called Did I Really Leave the Holy Catholic Church?
The second is his article called Saving Faith: How Does Rome Define It?

As these articles will show, IF the catechism does NOT teach justification by works (which I have not admitted, and I believe it has been shown before that it does)then there are other ways in which the Roman Catholic Church adds works to salvation, and subverts the true gospel of Christ, namely, by adding dogmas which must be believed for salvation, but which were never taught in scripture or believed by the early church.

Two false gospels: Daughters of Augustine--Part Three, a clarification

I had said I would talk some more about Augustine's influence on Calvin next, but I wanted to clarify something first. I have called the two belief systems, Roman Catholicism and Calvinism, that descend (in part) from Augustine 'false doctrines.' That does not mean, however that I believe everyone who is within these belief systems is not a true Christian. As far as Catholicism goes, I believe it is wholly false, yet some within it are saved. As for Calvinism, I know and know of many Calvinists who are true believers, and Calvinists are great defenders of salvation by grace alone through faith alone. Pastor Cloud has written of this in the article I linked to in the last post, 'The Calvinism Debate.' Following is an excerpt from the article, from the section called 'I do not treat all Calvinists the same.'

It is important to understand that there is a great variety of doctrine and practice among Calvinists, and by no means do I consider a man to be an enemy of the truth just because he accepts some of the Calvinist theology. The book Spurgeon vs. Hyper Calvinists: The Battle for Gospel Preaching by Iain Murray (Edinburgh, Banner of Truth Trust, 1995) does an excellent job of describing some of the differences among Calvinists. There are soul winning Calvinists, Calvinists with great evangelistic and missionary zeal; and there are Calvinists who condemn these things. Some interpret Calvinism in such a way that they do not believe in offering salvation to or preaching the gospel to all sinners; they do not even believe that God loves all men. According to Murray’s definition, these are “hyper Calvinists.”

Charles Spurgeon refused to try to reconcile every seeming contradiction in the Bible, and he was wise enough to know that he could not understand every mystery of God. He said:

“That God predestines, and that man is responsible, are two things that few can see. They are believed to be inconsistent and contradictory; but they are not. It is just the fault of our weak judgment. Two truths cannot be contradictory to each other. If, then, I find taught in one place that everything is fore-ordained, that is true; and if I find in another place that man is responsible for all his actions, that is true; and it is my folly that leads me to imagine that two truths can ever contradict each other. These two truths, I do not believe, can ever be welded into one upon any human anvil, but one they shall be in eternity: they are two lines that are so nearly parallel, that the mind that shall pursue them farthest, will never discover that they converge; but they do converge, and they will meet somewhere in eternity, close to the throne of God, whence all truth doth spring” (C.H. Spurgeon, New Park Street Pulpit, Vol. 4, 1858, p. 337).

Spurgeon warned about creating theologies that attempt to reconcile every biblical difficulty:

“Men who are morbidly anxious to possess a self-consistent creed, a creed which will put together and form a square like a Chinese puzzle,--are very apt to narrow their souls. Those who will only believe what they can reconcile will necessarily disbelieve much of divine revelation. Those who receive by faith anything which they find in the Bible will receive two things, twenty things, ay, or twenty thousand things, though they cannot construct a theory which harmonises them all” (C.H. Spurgeon, “Faith,” Sword and Trowel, 1872).

In these matters, Charles Spurgeon was a Calvinist but he was much more than a Calvinist; he was a Biblicist. It has been said of Spurgeon, that if you pricked him, even his blood was “bibline.” He loved theology and studied theology earnestly, but the bottom line was that he had childlike faith in everything the Bible says.

And while Spurgeon was a Calvinist, he was at the same time a great evangelist and believed in offering the gospel to all men and urging all men to be saved. Spurgeon believed that more sinners could be saved if the gospel was preached to them, and he did not try to reconcile such a view with God’s election. He believed his responsibility was to preach the gospel to as many sinners as possible. He believed that tools such as prayer could result in a greater harvest of souls. He had prayer meetings before the preaching services and every Monday night and on other occasions. Sometimes when the auditorium of the Metropolitan Tabernacle was full, a group would remain in the downstairs prayer hall and pray during the preaching (as per an e-mail from Mrs. Hannah Wyncoll, Administrative Assistant, Metropolitan Tabernacle, June 2, 2000). Spurgeon loved soul winning and taught his people to be soul winners. His famous book The Soul Winner is still in print. There were some in Spurgeon’s church who “made it their special work to ‘watch for souls’ in our great congregation, and to seek to bring to immediate decision those who appeared to be impressed under the preaching of the Word. [Bro. Cloud: Note the word ‘decision’ in Spurgeon’s description of this soul winner!] One brother has earned for himself the title of my hunting dog, for he is always ready to pick up the wounded birds. One Monday night, at the prayer-meeting, he was sitting near me on the platform; all at once I missed him, and presently I saw him right at the other end of the building. After the meeting, I asked why he went off so suddenly, and he said that the gas just shone on the face of a woman in the congregation, and she looked so sad that he walked round, and sat near her, in readiness to speak to her about the Saviour after the service” (C.H. Spurgeon, The Full Harvest, p. 76). Thus we see that Charles Spurgeon was a man who was very zealous for the winning of souls, and his Calvinism and his convictions about the sovereignty of God in no wise hindered that.

On the other hand, many Calvinists of that day opposed Spurgeon vehemently from their pulpits and in their magazines and denounced his practice of giving invitations for sinners to come to Christ. (He did not have the people actually come forward during the church service as is commonly practiced today, but he invited them to come to Christ all the same; and he believed that a sinner was saved in every seat in the Metropolitan Tabernacle’s massive auditorium of that day.)

For example, one popular Calvinist paper of Spurgeon’s day was the Earthen Vessel. In one of its issues in 1857, it boldly stated that “to preach that it is man’s duty to believe savingly in Christ is ABSURD.” Well, that was exactly what Spurgeon preached, so to a great many Calvinists of his day, Spurgeon was an absurd fellow!

This reminds us that there are different kinds of Calvinists and it is not wise to lump them all into the same mold.

I have had the privilege of knowing, and communicating at a distance with, many godly soul winning Calvinists. Though I am in strong disagreement with such men on the subject of Calvinist theology, I do not consider them enemies.

Next time I would like to talk about Augustine, and discuss the perspective I have already given, plus another perspective I have just found that sees him as, not only a great defender against heresies, but because he was a man always learning and growing, his voluminous writings have inspired two opposing systems: Roman Catholicism and the Reformation doctrines of grace.

Two false gospels: Daughters of Augustine--Part Two

Pastor David Cloud of Way of Life Literature has several good articles about Calvinism in his topical database. One if these is called The Calvinism Debate; it was very helpful to me in understanding Calvinism and comparing it to scripture. One of the sections that was helpful was called 'Some central errors of Calvinism. Number 7 of this section was called 'CALVINISM GOES BACK TO THE “CHURCH FATHERS” FOR AUTHORITY INSTEAD OF STRICTLY TO THE NEW TESTAMENT APOSTLES AND PROPHETS' and stresses that Calvin was very dependent upon Augustine for his doctrines and philosophies. St. Augustine is also a major founder of much Catholic doctrine. Following is section 7:

Calvin freely acknowledged that his authority was Augustine. Consider the following quotes:

“If I were inclined to compile a whole volume from Augustine, I could easily show my readers, that I need no words but his” (Institutes, Book III, chap. 22).

“Let Augustine answer for me…” (Ibid.).

“[Augustine is the one] we quote most frequently as being the best and most faithful witness of all antiquity” (Institutes, Book IV, chap. 14).

“Augustine is so wholly with me, that if I wished to write a confession of my faith, I could do so ... out of his writings” (Calvin, “A Treatise on the Eternal Predestination of God,” trans. by Henry Cole, Calvin’s Calvinism, Grandville, MI: Reformed Free Publishing, 1987, p. 38; cited in Laurence Vance, The Other Side of Calvinism, 1999, p. 38).

WHO WAS AUGUSTINE? He was so polluted with heresy that the Roman Catholic Church has claimed him as one of its “doctors.”

Augustine was a persecutor and the father of the doctrine of persecution in the Catholic Church. The historian Neander observed that Augustine’s teaching “contains the germ of the whole system of spiritual despotism, intolerance, and persecution, even to the court of the Inquisition.” He instigated bitter persecutions against the Bible-believing Donatists who were striving to maintain pure churches after the apostolic faith.

Augustine was the father of amillennialism, interpreting Bible prophecy allegorically; teaching that the Catholic Church is the kingdom of God.

Augustine taught that Mary did not commit sin.

Augustine believed in purgatory.

Augustine was one of the fathers of the heresy of infant baptism, claiming that unbaptized infants were lost, and calling all who rejected infant baptism “infidels” and “cursed.”

Augustine exalted church tradition above the Bible and said, “I should not believe the gospel unless I were moved to do so by the authority of the Catholic Church.”

A great danger of christians following the doctrines of one man, such as Calvin, and Augustine before him, is that people become dependent upon those doctrines as systematized or 'crystalized' by that one man instead of seeking God directly in His word and letting the Holy Spirit teach us. This doesn't mean it's not good to be taught by godly men; of course it is; but we are responsible to compare everything to scripture and God promises He will teach us if we seek Him diligently in His word.
I'd like to look more at what Calvin taught as he received it from Augustine next time I post, if possible.

Answers in Genesis: Study shows many populations descended from only three genetic groups: Shem, Ham, and Japeth? Not a surprise to bible-believers

Answers in Genesis posted a newsletter article entitled “Among Many Peoples, Little Genomic Variety” which links to a Washington Post article about a study on this subject. The results of the study are no surprise to those who hold to the literal truth of God's word in the creation story in Genesis. Following is the Answers in Genesis article:

A new genetic study of 53 human populations shows that each falls into one of three genetic groups—yet that the three groups aren’t as different as was thought. The legacy of Shem, Ham, and Japheth (Noah’s three sons), perhaps?

Washington Post writer David Brown reviews a recent study that analyzes genetic information from 53 human groups, comparing and contrasting what makes us human.

Generally speaking, all people groups seem to fall into “just three” categories, Brown reports. According to evolutionists, this tripartite division originated when humans left Africa tens of thousands of years ago, splitting into African, Eurasian, and East Asian groups (the third of which includes Pacific Islander and Native American groups).

For creationists, that division makes plain sense as reflective of the people groups that split off after Babel, all descendants of Shem, Ham, and Japheth. Of course, in the millennia since, those people groups have migrated and interbred, so it’s difficult to say perfectly what modern groups belong to what ancestor—or even to imply that the ordinary human descends from just one of Noah’s three sons/daughters-in-law. Additionally, the genomes have been influenced over the years by environment. So a population of Shem’s descendants and a population of Japheth’s descendants living in the same environment for millennia would come to resemble one another. Brown makes the point, albeit from an evolutionary perspective:

People adapted to what they encountered the way all living organisms do: through natural selection. A small fraction of the mutations constantly creeping into our genes happened by chance to prove beneficial in the new circumstances outside the African homeland. Those included differences in climate, altitude, latitude, food availability, parasites, infectious diseases, and lots of other things.

Nonetheless, the study is an exciting reminder of the reality of the Genesis account.

But what else is interesting is that the three broad groupings in the study aren’t as different as evolutionists expected. Brown writes, “Scientists have long known that regardless of ancestral home or ethnic group, everyone’s genes are pretty much alike. We’re all Homo sapiens. Everything else is pretty much details.” Brown identifies skin color as the “most obvious” of these details. Of course, that reflects what creationists have emphasized, but differs from what some evolutionists originally preached (see Darwin’s Plantation for more). He goes on, “Population geneticists expected to find dramatic differences . . . [but] that’s not what scientists have found. Dramatic genome variation among populations turns out to be extremely rare.”

The entire study reminds us of how the variation we see among human populations today could have arisen as our forbears left Babel. Genetic drift and natural selection played important roles over time, which is why any two humans randomly selected may differ in stature, skin color, disease susceptibility, lactose tolerance, and so forth—even while all of us remain entirely and equally human. The Bible’s message in Acts 17:26—that we are all of one blood, descendants of Adam through Noah—is a powerful truth explaining our world.

Two false gospels: Daughters of Augustine, Part One

I've been looking into the doctrines of Calvinism off and on during this same time that I've also been studying Roman Catholicism, and today I again came across this statement about Calvinism here
by Pastor David Cloud of Way of Life Literature:

Thus, while I have not read every book on this subject that could be recommended by my readers, I have made a considerable effort to understand Calvinism properly and not to misrepresent it (though I have learned that a non-Calvinist will ALWAYS be charged with misrepresentation).

The Calvinist will doubtless argue that I simply don’t understand Calvinism properly, and to this I reply that if Calvinism is that complicated it can’t be the truth. If a reasonably intelligent preacher who has studied and taught the Bible diligently for 32 years and has published a Bible encyclopedia and many other Bible study books can study Calvinism with a desire to understand it properly and still not understand it, then it is far too complicated to be the truth! The apostle Paul warned that it is the devil that makes theology that complicated. “But I fear, lest by any means, as the serpent beguiled Eve through his subtilty, so your minds should be corrupted from the simplicity that is in Christ” (2 Cor. 11:3). Of course, Calvinism is not simple by any means and this is one reason why it produces an elitist mentality. To understand Calvinism one must deal with compatibalism, monergism versus synergism, electing grace vs. irresistible grace, effectual calling vs. general calling, effective atonement vs. hypothetical atonement, libertarian free will vs. the bondage of the will, objective grace and subjective grace, natural ability and moral ability, mediate vs. immediate imputation of Adam’s sin, supralapsarianism, sublapsarianism, infralapsarianism, desiderative vs. decretive will, and antecedent hypothetical will, to name a few!

This statement reminded me of a statement I made to Elena (who is a Roman Catholic) about Roman Catholicism under the comment section on my post called 'Pastor Tony Bartolucci on Francis Beckwith: Drowning in the Tiber.' I had commented to Elena that I have been studying Roman Catholicism consistently for months, and on and off for several years, and she, apparently believing that Roman Catholicism is impossible to understand without years of study, or by those who do not adhere to it's tenets, said: " ooooo!! Months huh? Honey, you haven't even scratched the surface." My reply was:

That's arrogant, Elena. If it takes years to understand enough about the RCC to know whether or not it teaches the true gospel, then we are all hopeless, Elena. If the RCC teachings are so hard to understand that a normal person, a born again person like me, can't understand them when comparing them to scripture then the RCC teachings are definitely not the gospel, because the gospel is simple and concise. I don't need to study for twenty years and have an advanced degree in theology to be able to compare doctrines to scripture. All believers are told to do this, to beware of false teachings, and we all can do it in days or weeks if we prayerfully study with the help of the Spirit who teaches believers.

I have been coming to the conclusion that both Roman Catholicism and Calvinism are false doctrines, and both,coincidentally(?), descending at least in part from Augustine of Hippo.

Why Evangelicals are Returning to Rome: The Abandonment of Sola Scriptura as a Formal Principle-- By Bob DeWaay

Here is a message by Bob DeWaay on why evangelicals are returning to the Roman Catholic church. Following is the introduction to the message.

The February 2008 edition of Christianity Today ran a cover story about evangelicals looking to the ancient Roman Catholic Church in order to find beliefs and practices.1 What was shocking about the article was that both the author of the article and the senior managing editor of CT claim that this trip back to Rome is a good thing. Says Mark Galli the editor, “While the ancient church has captivated the evangelical imagination for some time, it hasn’t been until recently that it’s become an accepted fixture of the evangelical landscape. And this is for the good.”2 Chris Armstrong, the author of the article who promotes the trip back to the ancient church, claims that because the movement is led by such persons as “Dallas Willard, Richard Foster, and living and practicing monks and nuns,” that therefore, “they are receiving good guidance on this road from wise teachers.” This he claims shows that, “Christ is guiding the process.”3

Apparently, contemporary evangelicals have forgotten that sola scriptura (scripture alone) was the formal principle of the Reformation. Teachings and practices that could not be justified from Scripture were rejected on that principle. To endorse a trip back to these practices of ancient Roman Catholicism is to reject the principle of sola scriptura being the normative authority for the beliefs and practices of the church. In this article I will explore how modern evangelicalism has compromised the principle of sola scriptura and thus paved smoothly the road back to Rome.

Here is the conclusion to the message, but please go to the link above to read the entire article.

Perhaps the best antidote to rejecting sola scriptura and going back to Rome would be a careful study of the Book of Hebrews. It describes a situation that is analogous to that which evangelicals face today. The Hebrew Christians were considering going back to temple Judaism. Their reasons can be discerned by the admonitions and warnings in Hebrews. The key problem for them was the tangibility of the temple system, and the invisibility of the Christian faith. Just about everything that was offered to them by Christianity was invisible: the High Priest in heaven, the tabernacle in heaven, the once for all shed blood, and the throne of grace. At the end of Hebrews, the author of Hebrews points out that they have come to something better than mount Sinai: “But you have come to Mount Zion and to the city of the living God, the heavenly Jerusalem, and to myriads of angels, to the general assembly and church of the first-born who are enrolled in heaven, and to God, the Judge of all, and to the spirits of righteous men made perfect, and to Jesus, the mediator of a new covenant, and to the sprinkled blood, which speaks better than the blood of Abel” (Hebrews 12:22-24). All of these things are invisible.

But the life of faith does not require tangible visibility: “Now faith is the assurance of things hoped for, the conviction of things not seen” (Hebrews 11:1). The Roman Catholic Church has tangibility that is unmatched by the evangelical faith, just as temple Judaism had. Why have faith in the once-for-all shed blood of Christ that is unseen when you can have real blood (that of the animals for temple Judaism and the Eucharistic Christ of Catholicism)? Why have the scriptures of the Biblical apostles and prophets who are now in heaven when you can have a real, live apostle and his teaching Magisterium who can continue to speak for God? The similarities to the situation described in Hebrews are striking. Why have only the Scriptures and the other means of grace when the Roman Church has everything from icons to relics to cathedrals to holy water and so many other tangible religious articles and experiences?

I urge my fellow evangelicals to seriously consider the consequences of rejecting sola scriptura as the formal principle of our theology. If my Hebrews analogy is correct, such a rejection is tantamount to apostasy.