Papism

Anyone who has argued much with Catholics against Roman Catholicism has heard this question: “If the Catholic Church is not the true church, then where was the church for all the centuries between the alleged apostasy of Rome and the Reformation?” Dr. Luther replies:

In passing, I will here reply to the passage where you [Erasmus] describe it as unbelievable that God should overlook an error in His church for so many ages, and not reveal to any of His saints a point which we maintain to be fundamental in Christian doctrine. In the first place, we do not say that God tolerated this error in His church, or in any of His saints. For the church is ruled by the Spirit of God, and Rom. 8 tells us that the saints are led by the Spirit of God (v. 14). And Christ abides with His church till the end of the world (Matt. 28.20). And the church is the pillar and ground of the truth (i Tim. 3.15). This we know; for the Creed which we all hold runs thus, ‘I believe in the holy catholic church.’ So it is impossible that she should err in even the least article. Even should we grant that some of the elect are held in error throughout their whole life, yet they must of necessity return into the way before they die; for Christ says in John 8: ‘None shall pluck them out of my hand’ (John 10.28). But what is hard and problematical is just this: ascertaining whether those whom you call the church were the church—or, rather, whether after their lifetime of error they were at last brought back to the truth before they died. It does not at once follow that, if God suffered all those consummate scholars whom you quote to err throughout so many ages, therefore He suffered His church to err! Look at Israel, the people of God. There, out of a great number of kings over a long period of time, not one king is mentioned who did not err. Under Elijah the prophet, all the people and every public institution among them had gone astray into idolatry, so that he thought he was the only one left; yet, while the kings and princes, priests and prophets, and all that could be called the people and church of God, were going to ruin, God had reserved seven thousand to Himself (cf. i Kings 19.18). But who saw them, or knew them to be the people of God ? And who will dare to deny that in our day, under these principal men of yours (for you only mention persons of public office and of great name), God has kept to Himself a church among the common people, while allowing all whom you mention to perish like the kingdom of Israel? For it is God’s prerogative to bring down the chosen ones of Israel, and, as Ps. 77 says, to slay their fat ones (Ps. 78.31); but to preserve the dregs and remnant of Israel, according to Isaiah’s words (cf. Isa. 10.22).
   What happened under Christ Himself, when all the apostles were offended at Him, when He was denied and condemned by all the people, and only Joseph, Nicodemus and the thief on the cross were preserved? Was it not the former group who were then called the people of God? Indeed, there was a people of God remaining, but it was not so called; and that which was so called was not it. Who knows whether, throughout the whole course of world history from its beginning, the state of the church has not always been such that some were called the people and saints of God who were not so, while others, who were among them as a remnant, were the people and saints of God, but were not so called?—as appears from the histories of Cain and Abel, Ishmael and Isaac, Esau and Jacob. Look at the time of the Arians, when scarcely five catholic bishops were preserved in the whole world, and they were driven from their sees, while the Arians reigned everywhere, taking to themselves the public name and office of the church. Yet under these heretics Christ preserved His church; though in such a way that it was not for a moment thought or held to be the church.
   Or show me a single bishop discharging his office under the kingdom of the Pope. Show me a single council at which they dealt with matter of religion, and not with gowns, rank, revenues and other profane trifles instead, which only a lunatic could consider the province of the Holy Ghost! Yet they are called the church, despite the fact that all who live as they do are lost, and are anything but the church. Even under them, however, Christ has preserved His church, though not so as to be called the church. How many saints do you think the Inquisitors alone have in time past burned and killed for heretical perversions, such as John Hus and those like him? And many holy men of the same spirit doubtless lived in their day.
   Why do you not rather marvel at this, Erasmus: Since the world began, there have always been superior talents, greater learning, and a more intense earnestness among pagans than among Christians and the people of God. It is as Christ Himself acknowledges: ‘the sons of this world are wiser than the sons of light’ (Luke 16.8). What Christian can be compared with Cicero alone (to say nothing of the Greeks) for ability, learning and hard work? What then shall we say hindered them from finding grace? For they certainly exerted ‘free-will’ to the utmost of their power! Who dare say that not one among them pursued truth with all his heart? Yet we are bound to maintain that not one of them reached it. Will you say in this case too that it is unbelievable that God abandoned so many great men throughout the whole course of history and let them strive in vain? Certainly, if ‘free-will’ has any being and power at all, its being and power must have been present with such men as these, in some one case at least! But it availed nothing; indeed, it always wrought in the wrong direction; so that by this argument alone it can be proved clearly enough that ‘free-will’ is nothing at all, inasmuch as one can show no trace of it from beginning to end of the world!
   But I return to the matter in hand. What wonder, if God should leave all the great men of the church to go their own ways, when He thus allowed all the nations to go their own ways, as Paul says in Acts (cf. Acts 14.16) ? My good Erasmus, God’s church is not so common a thing as the term ‘God’s church’; nor are God’s saints so promiscuously found as the phrase ‘God’s saints.’ The saints are pearls and precious jewels, which the Spirit does not cast before swine; but (as Scripture puts it) He keeps them hid, that the wicked may not see the glory of God! Else, if they were open to the recognition of all, how could they be so vexed and afflicted in the world as they are? So Paul says: ‘Had they known him, they would not have crucified the Lord of glory’ (i Cor. 2.8).
   I do not say this because I deny that those whom you cite are the saints and church of God; but because it cannot be proved that they really are saints, should anyone deny it; it is left completely uncertain; which means that no position is sufficiently guaranteed by their holiness to make good any doctrine. I call them saints, and so regard them; I call them the church, and so judge them—but by the rule of charity, not by the rule of faith. By which I mean that charity, which always thinks the best of everyone, and is not suspicious, but believes and assumes all good of its neighbour, calls every baptized person a saint. There is no danger involved if she is wrong; it is the way of charity to be deceived, for she is open to all the uses and abuses of every man, as being handmaid of all, good and bad, believing and unbelieving, true and false. Faith, however, calls none a saint but him who is proclaimed such by divine sentence; for the way of faith is not to be deceived. Therefore, though we should all look on each other as saints as a matter of charity, none should be declared a saint as a matter of faith, as if it were an article of faith that so-and-so is a saint. (In this way, that adversary of God, the Pope, canonizes as saints men of his own choice, whom he never knew, so setting himself in God’s place [cf. 2 Thess. 2.4].) All that I say of those saints of yours—ours, rather—is this: that, since they differ among themselves, those should rather have been followed who spoke best (that is, for grace against ‘free-will’), leaving aside those who through weakness of the flesh testified of the flesh rather than of the Spirit. So, too, in the case of those who are inconsistent, the places where they speak from the Spirit should have been picked out and held fast, and those where they savour of the flesh let go. This is the right course for the Christian reader, as being the clean beast that parts the hoof and chews the cud (cf. Lev. 11.3; Deut. 14.6)! But as it is we abandon our judgment and swallow everything indiscriminately; or else (what is more wretched still) we reject the better and acclaim the worse in one and the same author, and proceed to affix to those same worse parts the title and authority of his sanctity—which he gained, not by reason of ‘free-will’ or the flesh, but by reason of that which is best of all, even of the Spirit only!

—Martin Luther, The Bondage of the Will (Revell, 1957) pp. 119-123.

A rather humorous cartoon on James White’s site yesterday brought to mind the old Catholic claim that Catholics don’t actually worship Mary, they only venerate her. They claim to be offering latreia (λατρεια), not douleia (δουλεια).

I’m no Greek scholar; I’ll admit that up front. However, I still think I can make some basic observations based on lexical definitions and word usage in the text.

The word latreia, or its corresponding verb form, is found in the following New Testament passages:

• Matthew 4:10
• Luke 1:74; 2:37; 4:8
• John 16:2
• Acts 7:7, 42; 24:14; 26:7; 27:23
• Romans 1:9, 25; 9:4; 12:1
• Philippians 3:3
• 2 Timothy 1:3
• Hebrews 8:5; 9:1, 6, 9, 14; 10:2; 12:28; 13:10
• Revelation 7:15; 22:3

In all but two of these passages, Acts 7:42 and Romans 1:25, latreia is directed toward God; and in those two exceptions, it’s not a good thing — it is idolatry.

In Matthew 4:10 and Luke 4:8, it is made clear that God alone is to be the object of our latreia.

It is written, “You shall worship the Lord your God and serve (latreuo) Him only.”

So I ask, how is it helpful to distinguish between douleia and latreia in defending the “veneration” of Mary? Using Scripture alone, can this be defended? Or is it true, as James White is fond of pointing out, just because Rome says so?

It is a great indication of the hubris of men that the Roman Catholic religion avers that the authority of Scripture has been given it by ecclesiastical decree. Calvin, of course, agrees with me:

Not the Church but the Spirit Confirms the Word
As John Calvin pondered the basis of our confidence in the gospel, he was dismayed that the Roman Catholic Church made the authority of the Word dependent on the authority of the church:

A most pernicious error widely prevails that Scripture has only so much weight as is conceded to it by the consent of the church. As if the eternal and inviolable truth of God depended upon the decision of men! [John Calvin, Institutes of the Christian Religion (Westminster Press, 1960), 1:75 (I.vii.1).]

   How then shall we know for sure that the gospel is the word of God? How shall we be sure, not the just that these things happened, but that the biblical meaning given to the great events of the gospel is the true meaning—God’s meaning? Calvin continues:

The testimony of the Spirit is more excellent than all reason. For as God is a fit witness of himself in his Word, so also the Word will not then find acceptance in men’s hearts before it is sealed by the inward testimony of the Spirit. The same Spirit therefore who has spoken through the mouths of the prophets must penetrated into our hearts to persuade us that the faithfully proclaimed what had been divinely commanded . . . because until he illumines their minds, they ever waver among many doubts! [Ibid. 79 (I.vii.4).]

—John Piper, God Is the Gospel (Crossway, 2005), 78–79.

The church has historically called Scripture the “norm of norms and without norm.” The phrase “norm of norms” indicates the superiority of Scripture above all other standards, just as the New Testament calls Christ the “King of kings” and “Lord of lords.” With this phrase, we acknowledge that Scripture stands superior to all other authorities. But this does not mean that Scripture is simply a “first among equals.” The additional phrase “without norm” says that it stands alone, with or without the affirmation of other authorities. It is what it is whether it is acknowledged or not. Scripture alone is infallible; Scripture alone cannot err.

This is the major point of conflict between Rome and the Reformation, between Roman Catholicism and Christianity. Rome claims infallibility for the church as well as Scripture. In fact, Rome claims to have infallibly created the canon of Scripture. Protestants make no such claims. We know that we are fallible, from the lowest to the highest. We know that the possibility of error exists in everything we do, including — and this is troubling to many — the compiling of the canon of Scripture.

On this issue, R. C. Sproul writes:

   This disagreement . . . points to the larger issue that surrounds the question of canon. How was the canon established? By whose authority? Is the canon closed to further additions? . . . Did the canon come into being by the fiat of the church? Was it already in existence in the primitive Christian community? Was the canon established by a special providence? Is it possible that certain books that made their way into the present canon should not have been included? Is it possible that books that were excluded should have been included?
   We know that at least for a temporary period Martin Luther raised questions about the inclusion of the Epistle of James in the New Testament canon. That Luther once referred to James as an “Epistle of Straw” or a “right strawy Epistle” is a matter of record. Critics of biblical inspiration have not grown weary of pointing to these comments of Luther to argue their case that Luther did not believe in the inspiration or infallibility of Scripture. This argument not only fails to do justice to Luther’s repeated assertions of the divine authority of Scripture and their freedom from error, but more seriously it fails to make the proper distinction between the question of the nature of Scripture and the extent of Scripture. Luther was unambiguous in his conviction that all of Scripture is inspired and infallible. His question about James was not a question of the inspiration of Scripture but a question pf whether James was in fact Scripture.
   Though Luther did not challenge the infallibility of Scripture he most emphatically challenged the infallibility of the church. He allowed for the possibility that the church could err, even when the church ruled on the question of what books properly belonged in the canon. To see this issue more clearly we can refer to a distinction often made by Dr. John Gerstner. Gerstner distinguishes between the Roman Catholic view of the canon and the Protestant view of the canon in this manner:

Roman Catholic view: The Bible is an infallible collection of infallible books.

Protestant view: The Bible is a fallible collection of infallible books.

   The distinction in view here refers to the Catholic Church’s conviction that the canon of Scripture was declared infallibly by the church. On the other hand, the Protestant view is that the church’s decision regarding what books make up the canon was a fallible decision. Being fallible means that it is possible that the church erred in its compilation of the books found in the present canon of Scripture.
   When Gerstner makes this distinction he is neither asserting nor implying that the church indeed did err in its judgment of what properly belongs to the canon. His view is not designed to cast doubt on the canon but simply to guard against the idea of an infallible church. It is one thing to say that the church could have erred; it is another thing to say that the church did err.
   Gerstner’s formula has often been met with both consternation and sharp criticism in evangelical circles. It seems to indicate that he and those who agree with his assessment are undermining the authority of the Bible. But nothing could be further from the truth. Like Martin Luther and John Calvin before him, Gerstner has been an ardent defender of the infallibility and inerrancy of Scripture. His formula is merely designed to acknowledge that there was a historical selection process by which the church determined what books were really Scripture and what books were not Scripture. The point is that in this sifting or selection process the church sought to identify what books were actually to be regarded as Scripture.
   It may be said that Rome has a certain “advantage” with respect to infallibility. Rome believes that the church is infallible as well as the Scripture. This infallibility extends not only to the question of canon formation but also to the question of biblical interpretation. To summarize, we can say that according to Rome we have an infallible Bible whose extent is decreed infallibly by the church and whose content is interpreted infallibly by the church. The Christian individual is still left in his own fallibility as he seeks to understand the infallible Bible as interpreted by the infallible church. No one is extending infallibility to the individual believer.
   For the classic Protestant, though the individual believer has the right to the private interpretation of Scripture, it is clearly acknowledged that the individual is capable of misinterpreting the Bible. He has the ability to misinterpret Scripture, but never the right to do it. That is, with the right of private interpretation the responsibility of correct interpretation is also given. We never have the right to distort the teaching of Scripture. Both sides agree that the individual is fallible when seeking to understand the Scripture. Historic Protestantism limits the scope of infallibility to the Scriptures themselves. Church tradition and church creeds can err. Individual interpreters of Scripture can err. It is the Scriptures alone that are without error.

—R. C. Sproul, Scripture Alone (P&R Publishing Company, 2005), 40–43.

As heirs of the Reformation, and in distinction from Roman Catholicism, we hold to the perspicuity of Scripture. This is the doctrine that any believer can, by the illumination from the Holy spirit, understand the Scriptures adequately to know what God would have him believe and do. In saying this, we do not mean that all Scripture is equally easy to understand. Some passages are, as Peter confessed, “hard to understand” (2 Peter 3:15–16). On this subject, in his Disputation . . . against the Papists, William Whitaker quotes none other than a pope, Gregory the Great (540–604), whom Calvin is said to have called “the last good pope.”

The very obscurity of the words of God is of great use, because it exercises the perception so as to be enlarged by labour, and, through exercise, be enabled to catch that which a lazy reader cannot. It hath besides this still greater advantage, that the meaning of sacred scripture would be lightly esteemed, if it were plain in all places. In some obscure places the sweetness with which it refresheth the mind, when found, is proportionate to the toil and labour which were expended upon the search.

—Gregory the Great, quoted in William Whitaker, Disputations on the Holy Scriptures (Soli Deo Gloria, 2005), 375.

William Whitaker cites the Apostle Paul’s praise of the Bereans against the Roman Catholic doctrine of sola ecclesia:

   Our seventh argument [demonstrating that scripture, and not the church, is the interpreter of scripture] is taken from Acts xvii. 11, where the Bereans are praised for searching the scriptures whether those things which Paul taught were so. From which place we argue thus: If the doctrine of the apostle was examined by scripture, then the doctrine of the church should also be examined by scripture. The antecedent is true; therefore also the consequent. The Jesuit here hath but one reply. He says that the person of the apostle was not known to the Bereans, and that they did not understand whether Paul was an apostle or not; and therefore that they did well in judging his doctrine by the scriptures: but we do know (says he) that the church cannot err, and therefore we ought not to examine its teaching. I answer: It makes little matter whether the Bereans knew Paul to be an apostle or not. The question is not about persons, but about the kind of teaching. The Bereans are praised for not rashly and hastily receiving whatever Paul taught them, but diligently examining his doctrine by scripture. Whence we draw two inferences: First, that all doctrine is to be judged by the scriptures. For, if the Bereans compared the preaching of an apostle with the rule of scripture, shall we embrace without any examination whatever the pope may please to maintain? Secondly, That the apostles preached nothing which could not be established by the scriptures of the prophets, and did perfectly agree with them. But we (says he) know that the church cannot err. But we (say I) know that the pope errs shamefully, and they who think otherwise err also to the eternal ruin of their own souls. . . . Verily, the church, that is, the pope, would be a kind of God if he could not err.

—William Whitaker, Disputations on the Holy Scriptures (Soli Deo Gloria, 2005), 457.

Tom Ascol and John Calvin on sin, and God’s simultaneous love and hatred toward sinners:

   God’s response toward all sinners is anger and opposition. His wrath is provoked and stored up against all sin.
   The distinction that Roman Catholicism makes between venial and mortal sins is baseless. While Protestants rightly reject that kind of distinction theologically, it often subtly informs much of their thinking about sin and judgment. Many are under the false impression that God’s wrath in general, or hell in particular, is reserved for those guilty of “major sins,” such as Adolf Hitler or Saddam Hussein. Lesser sinners are tempted to hope that their case is significantly different. This is why even the title of Jonathan Edwards’ famous sermon, “Sinners in the Hands of an Angry God,” so often evokes scorn. It is assumed that while it might be conceivable that some sinners would be in that horrible position, surely it is not true of all.
   To this Calvin answers, “Every sin is a deadly sin!” [Calvin, Institutes of the Christian Religion, 2.8.59.] In saying this, he was merely echoing the prophet Ezekiel, who teaches, “the soul who sins shall die” (18:4, 20), and the apostle Paul, who writes in Romans 6:23, “The wages of sin is death.” Calvin exhorts Christians to acknowledge this fundamental, vital point of biblical teaching: “Let the children of God hold that all sin is mortal. For it is rebellion against the will of God, which of necessity provokes God’s wrath, and it is a violation of the law, upon which God’s judgment is pronounced without exception.” [ibid.]
   This is true even for those whom God chose before the foundation of the world to receive salvation (Eph. 1:4). Though they are the objects of eternal, divine love, they are nevertheless liable to God’s anger because of their sin. Paul reminds the Ephesians of this fact when he writes that Christians were “by nature children of wrath, like the rest of mankind” (2:3). This means that, before their conversion, the elect are both deeply loved by God and at enmity with Him. Calvin explains the matter quite starkly by quoting Augustine after invoking Romans 5:8:

Therefore, [God] loved us even when we practiced enmity toward him and committed wickedness. Thus in a marvelous and divine way he loved us even when he hated us. For he hated us for what we were that he had not made; yet because our wickedness had not entirely consumed his handiwork, he knew how, at the same time, to hate in each one of us what we had made, and to love what he had made. [Ibid., 2.14.4.]

—Thomas K. Ascol, John Calvin: A Heart for Devotion, Doctrine, and Doxology, ed. Burk Parsons (Reformation Trust, 2008), 160–161.

Arminians have often caricatured the doctrine of Irresistible Grace as dragging sinners, against their will, into the Kingdom of God. But that is not what any Calvinist believes, and it is certainly not what Calvin himself believed. Keith Mathison writes:

   In 1542, the Dutch Roman Catholic theologian Albert Pighius wrote a work titled Ten Books on Human Free Choice and Divine Grace. Pighius was critiquing Calvin’s teaching on the subject of free will and predestination as found in the 1539 edition of the Institutes. In 1543, Calvin wrote a response to Pighius titled The Bondage and Liberation of the Will. This book contains Calvin’s most extended treatment of the relationship between God’s grace and man’s will. In it, Calvin sums up his argument against Pighius in the following statement:

But all that we say amounts to this. First, that what a person is or has or is capable of is entirely empty and useless for the spiritual righteousness which God requires, unless one is directed to the good by the grace of God. Secondly, that the human will is of itself evil and therefore needs transformation and renewal so that it may begin to be good, but that grace itself is not merely a tool which can help someone if he is pleased to stretch out his hand to [take] it. That is, [God] does not merely offer it, leaving [to man] the choice between receiving it and rejecting it, but he steers the mind to choose what is right, he moves the will also effectively to obedience, he arouses and advances the endeavor until the actual completion of the work is attained. [Calvin, The Bondage and Liberation of the Will: A Defence of the Orthodox Doctrine of Human Choice Against Pighius, 114.]

   Contrary to Pighius, Calvin affirms that grace is efficacious:

[In the Institutes] I say, then, that grace is not offered to us in such a way that afterwards we have the option either to submit or to resist. I say that it is not given merely to aid our weakness by its support as though anything depended on us apart from it. But I demonstrate that it is entirely the work of grace and a benefit conferred by it that our heart is changed from a stony one to one of flesh, that our will is made new, and that we, created anew in heart and mind, at Transforming Grace length will what we ought to will. For Paul bears witness that God does not bring about in us [merely] that we are able to will what is good, but also that we should will it right up to the completion of the act. How big a difference there is between performance and will! Likewise, I determine that our will is effectively formed so that it necessarily follows the leading of the Holy Spirit, and not that it is sufficiently encouraged to be able to do so if it wills. [Ibid., 174.]

   As we see, Calvin clearly taught that in order for man to be saved, the Holy Spirit had to work efficaciously and irresistibly to bring him from a state of spiritual death to spiritual life.
   In his teaching on the subject of saving grace, Calvin merely followed the doctrine set forth in the Scriptures. The doctrine of efficacious grace is necessary because of the state of fallen man. Man is born dead in sin (cf. Rom. 5:12; Eph. 2:1; Col. 2:13), with his mind and heart corrupted (Gen. 6:5; Jer. 17:9; Rom. 8:7–8; 1 Cor. 2:14). He is a slave to sin (Rom. 6:20; Titus 3:3) and therefore unable to repent and come to God (Jer. 13:23; Matt. 7:18; John 6:44, 65). Because of this, man must be born again (John 3:5–7). Those whom God elected and for whom Christ died are brought to life by the Holy Spirit (John 1:12–13; 3:3–8; 5:21; Eph. 2:1, 5; Titus 3:5). God gives them faith and repentance (Acts 5:31; 11:18; 13:48; Eph. 2:8–9; Phil. 1:29; 2 Tim. 2:25–26), and they are justified.

—Keith A. Mathison, John Calvin: A Heart for Devotion, Doctrine, and Doxology, ed. Burk Parsons (Reformation Trust, 2008), 173–174.

Union with Christ confers upon us the dual benefits of justification and sanctification. That is, we are both declared righteous (justified), and made righteous.

   The double benefit of justification and sanctification provides an immediate answer to the Roman Catholic objection that Calvin and the other Reformers wrongly divided these doctrines, or removed good works from their proper place in the Christian life. On the contrary, Calvin’s doctrine of union with Christ unifies his theology of salvation. Viewing both justification and sanctification from the perspective of union with Christ shows how intimately these saving benefits are related.
   Calvin was convinced that the several benefits of salvation, though distinct, could never be divided. To receive Christ by faith is to receive the whole Christ, not just part of Him. Thus, in coming to Christ we receive both justification and sanctification. To separate these benefits, Calvin said, would virtually tear Christ in two. But of course “Christ cannot be torn into parts, so these two which we perceive in him together and conjointly are inseparable—namely, righteousness and sanctification.” [Calvin, Institutes of the Christian Religion, 3.11.6.]
   A key text for Calvin’s doctrine of salvation was 1 Corinthians 1:30, where Christ is described as “our righteousness and sanctification.” “If you would properly understand how inseparable faith and works are,” Calvin wrote, “look to Christ, who, as the Apostle teaches, has been given to us for justification and for sanctification.” [John Calvin, Responsio, in Ioannis Calvini opera selecta, ed. P. Barth, W. Niesel, and Dora Scheuner (Munich: Chr. Kaiser, 1926–1952), 1:470.]
   First Corinthians 1:30 clearly distinguishes the two benefits of union with Christ, so that we comprehend God’s full work of salvation in declaring us and making us righteous. Yet justification and sanctification are also joined together as inseparable benefits we receive simultaneously in Christ:

Although we may distinguish them, Christ contains both of them inseparably in himself. Do you wish, then, to attain righteousness in Christ? You must first possess Christ; but you cannot possess him without being made partaker in his sanctification, because he cannot be divided into pieces (1 Cor. 1:13). Since, therefore, it is solely by expending himself that the Lord gives us these benefits to enjoy, he bestows both of them at the same time, the one never without the other. [Calvin, Institutes of the Christian Religion. 3.16.1.]

—Philip Graham Ryken, John Calvin: A Heart for Devotion, Doctrine, and Doxology, ed. Burk Parsons (Reformation Trust, 2008), 197–198.

Sixteenth century Roman Catholic apologist Robert Belarmine (1542–1621) proposed “five rules whereby true and genuine traditions of the apostles [traditions held by Rome as equal to scripture] may be distinguished.” William Whitaker listed those rules along with his rebuttals. On the first:

   The first rule is this: Whatsoever the universal church holds as an article of faith, and which is not found in the Bible, is without any doubt apostolical. The reason of this rule is, because the church cannot err. That the church cannot err, he proves by a twofold argument: first, because it is the ground of truth; secondly, because, as Christ says, the gates of hell shall not prevail against that rock upon which the church is built. I reply: The present occasion does not permit me to handle the question, whether or not the church may err [Whitaker has already done so earlier in this work]: there will be another fitting place for discussing that subject. Meanwhile, I return two answers.
   First, I demand what they mean by the universal church? For although a very great number of men everywhere throughout the churches may have embraced some practice or opinion, it does not therefore follow that it should be ascribed to the whole church; because there may be many who condemn it, and amongst these the church may subsist. So when Christ was upon earth, there were many traditions of the Pharisees which had become prescriptive, such as are mentioned Matt. xv. and Mark vii.; some of which related to faith, and some to practice. These were universal (if those are to be styled universal which are observed by the great majority), and had prevailed in the church through a long course of years and ages; for they are called the traditions “of the elders.” Does it therefore follow, either that these were divine, or that all men who belonged to the church held them, especially when it is certain that some of them were plainly impious? Superstitious rites, then, and perverse opinions, and traditions repugnant to piety, may prevail amongst men professing God’s holy religion. For the church does not always consist of the greatest or the most numerous, but sometimes of the fewest and the meanest.
   Secondly, Bellarmine cannot prove that any popish tradition was observed in all churches. For, to take his own example, many churches have entertained doubts concerning the number of the canonical books, as we have shewn in the first controversy. It follows, therefore, that it was no apostolical tradition, because it was not received by the universal church, according to this rule of Bellarmine’s. . . . He says that all points which the church holds as articles of faith were delivered by the apostles or prophets, in writing or by word of mouth, and that the church is not now governed by new revelations, but remains content with that which it received from the apostles. If this be true, then the church cannot now deliver any thing as an article of faith which was not heretofore, from the very times of the apostles, received and preserved as an article of faith. But the papists affirm that the church can now prescribe some new article of faith, which had not been esteemed in former ages as a necessary dogma. That the virgin Mary was conceived without original sin, was formerly thought a free opinion, not a necessary part of faith . . . But, at present, it is not permitted amongst papists to retain the ancient liberty of opinion upon this subject; and he is hardly deemed a catholic, who ascribes any even the slightest taint of sin to Mary. The university of Paris admits no one to any of the higher degrees in divinity, who does not solemnly swear both that he believes that Mary was conceived in immaculate purity, and that he will constantly persevere in the assertion of the spotless conception of the virgin. . . . [Bellarmine] says that the church is not now governed by new revelations, but remains content with those things which they who were the ministers of the word handed down. So beautifully do they agree among themselves. Some say that a new dogma, which never was such before, may be prescribed by the church; others, that the church is not governed by new revelations, but remains content with those things which were delivered from the beginning. So that either Bellarmine’s rule is false, or these articles of faith cannot and ought not to be considered necessary. But I demand of Bellarmine, whether it was delivered down by the apostles, that the epistle to the Hebrews was written by Paul. All the papists allow it. [Bishop Lindanus (1525–1588, )] affirms that it is no less necessary to believe it Paul’s, than to believe its canonicity. If that be true, then this is an apostolical tradition: if it be apostolical, then it was always received by the universal church. But it may be easily shewn that many churches thought otherwise; yea, that the Roman church itself was once in the contrary opinion, as appears from Jerome’s catalogue of illustrious men, under the title Caius. Either therefore the Roman church erred in the one tradition or in the other; or else at least this first rule of Bellarmine’s is not true, certain, and perpetual.

—William Whitaker, Disputations on the Holy Scriptures (Soli Deo Gloria, 2005), 503–504.

William Whitaker closed his work, A Disputation on Holy Scripture Against the Papists especially Bellarmine and Stapleton, with a summary “To the Christian Reader”:

   If ever any heretics have impiously outraged the holy scripture of God, we may justly rank the papists of our time with this class of men, who pervert things the most sacred. For, not to mention how insultingly most of them speak, and how meanly they think, of the scriptures, and to pass by at present the insane slanders of certain of them, (because I would not hurt your pious ears with the foul speeches these men have uttered,) there are especially six opinions concerning scripture which they now hold and obstinately defend, that are eminently absurd, heretical, and sacrilegious.
   The first concerns the number of canonical and truly inspired books of scripture; since, not content with those which in the old Testament were published by the prophets, in the new by the apostles and evangelists—the chosen organs of the Spirit, they add to this fair and perfect body of canonical scripture, not only the Wisdom of Solomon, Ecclesiasticus, Judith, Tobit, but even the history of the Maccabees, the apocryphal stories of Susanna and Bel and the Dragon, and fragments of Esther, than which nothing more spurious can be imagined.
   The second is, their placing the authentic scripture in the old Latin translation, which they call the Vulgate, and not in the sacred Hebrew and Greek originals: which is not merely, as Glaucus with Diomede [Iliad, vi. 234—236.], to exchange gold for brass, but to prefer the work of man to that of God. Who can doubt that Glaucus was a wise man compared with these? Brasen arms are as fit for all warlike purposes as golden; but who would not choose to learn true religion from the words of the Holy Ghost rather than from those of a translator—especially such a translator, and draw the water which he drinks from a spring, and not a cistern? Besides, in forbidding the people to read the scriptures, and performing their service in a strange language, they plainly take away all mutual converse of God with the people, and the people with God, and interrupt the intercourse and communion of the Deity with man.
   The third is, their determining that the authority of scripture depends upon the voice and testimony of the church, and their teaching that the scripture is no scripture to us except on account of the sentence of the church; which is just the same as Tertullian formerly so wittily charged upon the heathen, Apol. c. 5: “With you divinity depends on human choice. God is no God, unless it so pleases man. Man must now be kind to God.” It is absolutely thus that the papists maintain, that the scriptures would be no scriptures to us, if the church did not give them their authority, and approve them by her judgment.
   The fourth is, their complaining of the incredible obscurity of the scriptures, not for the purpose of rousing men to diligence in studying and perusing them, but to bring the scriptures into hatred and subject them to wicked suspicions: as if God had published his scriptures as Aristotle did his books of Physics, for no one to understand. “Know that they are published, and yet not published; for they are only intelligible to those who have heard myself.”
   The fifth is their refusal to have controversies decided by scripture, or to allow scripture to be its own interpreter, making the pope of Rome the solo judge of controversies and of scripture: as if scripture were of no force without the pope, could hold no sense but what it received from the pope, nor even speak but what the pope saw good; or as if God did not speak to us, but only by the pope as his interpreter.
   The sixth is, their asserting the doctrine of scripture, which is most full and absolutely perfect, to be incomplete; and therefore not only joining innumerable unwritten traditions, whereof their was no mention in the bible, with scripture, but even setting them on a level with scripture in dignity, utility, authority, credit, and necessity: wherein they fall under the weight of just so many anathemas from Christ as the traditions are which they add to scripture. Who can adequately conceive the greatness of this insult, that these rotten popish traditions, whereof there is not one syllable in scripture, should be counted equal to the scriptures?
   These monstrous errors of the papists, courteous reader, we refute in this book, not only by arguments and testimonies drawn from scripture, but also by those other proofs in which our adversaries principally confide; nor do we produce merely the ancient fathers of the church as witnesses on our side, but also the schoolmen and classic authors of the papists, who though, as the apostle says, they “held the truth in unrighteousness,” yet left it not without witness.

—William Whitaker, Disputations on the Holy Scriptures (Soli Deo Gloria, 2005), 705–707.

You’ll notice that Whitaker wastes no time with soft, conciliatory words, but calls the “papist” doctrines what they are: insulting to scripture, “absurd, heretical, and sacrilegious,” “monstrous errors,” “under . . . anathemas from Christ.” There is no hint of Evangelicals and Catholics Together, only proof that such fellowship is not possible (2 Corinthians 6:14). This leads us to ask, what has happened to the church today? Where is the resolve to “hold fast the confession of our hope without wavering” (Hebrews 10:23), to “guard what has been entrusted to you” (1 Timothy 6:20)? God help us to know the truth, and to stand firm in it — for the sake of the gospel and the souls of men, for the glory of God.

We all know, don’t we, that the puritans hated sex and considered it to be exceedingly sinful. After all, that is what “puritanical” means, isn’t it? Well . . . maybe not. According to Leland Ryken, that attitude belongs to the Roman Catholics, particularly during the middle ages. Rome taught that sex, although less sinful for some than the alternatives, was always sinful, not in the act itself, but in the driving passions and resulting pleasure. This view was held by no less than our beloved Augustine, who commended married couples who abstained from sex!

The Puritans rejected that attitude wholeheartedly, and made no secret of their opposing view. Ryken writes that “When a New England wife complained, first to her pastor, and then to the whole congregation, that her husband was neglecting their sex life, the church proceeded to excommunicate the man.” [Worldly Saints, 39.]

Catholic doctrine had declared virginity superior to marriage; the Puritan reply was that marriage “is a state . . . Far more excellent than the condition of single life.” Many Catholic commentators claimed that sexual intercourse had been the resultof the Fall and did not occur in Paradise; the Puritan comeback was that marriage was ordained by God, “and that not in this sinful world, but in paradise, that most joyful garden of pleasure.”
   . . .
   Given the Catholic background against which they wrote and preached, the Puritans’ praise of marriage was at the same time an implicit endorsement of marital sex as good. They elaborated that point specifically and often. This becomes clearer once we are clued into the now-outdated terms by which they customarily referred to sexual intercourse: “matrimonial duty,” “cohabitation,” “act of matrimony,” and (especially) “due benevolence.”
   Everywhere we turn in Puritan writing on the subject we find sex affirmed as good in principle. [William] Gouge referred to physical union as “one of the most proper and essential acts of marriage.” It was Milton’s opinion that the text “they shall be one flesh” (Gen. 2:24) was included in the Bible

to justify and make legitimate the rites of the marriage bed; which was not unneedful, if for all this warrant they were suspected of pollution by some sects of philosophy and religions of old, and latelier among the Papists.

William Ames listed as one of the duties of marriage “mutual communication of bodies.”
   So closely linked were the ideas of marriage and sex that the Puritans usually defined marriage partly in terms of sexual union. [William] Perkins defined marriage as “the lawful conjunction of the two married persons; that is, of one man and one woman into one flesh.” Another well-known definition was this: Marriage

is a coupling together of two persons into one flesh, according to the ordinance of God. . . . By yoking, joining, or coupling is meant, not only outward dwelling together of the married folks . . . but also an uniform agreement of mind and a common participation of body and goods.

   Married sex was not only legitimate in the Puritan view; it was meant to be exuberant. Gouge said that married couples should engage in sex “with good will and delight, willingly, readily, and cheerfully.” An anonymous Puritan claimed that when two are made one by marriage they

may joyfully give due benevolence one to the other; as two musical instruments rightly fitted do make a most pleasant and sweet harmony in a well tuned consort.

Alexander Niccholes theorized that in marriage “thou not only unitest unto thyself a friend and comfort for society, but also a companion for pleasure.”
   In this acceptance of physical sex, the Puritans once again rejected the asceticism and implicit dualism between sacred and secular that had governed Christian thinking for so long. In the Puritan view, God had given the physical world, including sex, for human welfare.

—Leland Ryken, Worldly Saints: The Puritans as They Really Were (Academie Books, 1986), 42, 43–44.

Leland Ryken on Puritan hermeneutics:

The logical starting place is the Puritans’ belief that the Bible must ordinarily be interpreted literally or historically, not arbitrarily allegorized. To understand why the Puritans made so much of the literal or single interpretation of Scripture, we need to know something about the centuries-long Catholic practice of attributing allegorical interpretations to virtually all of Scripture.
   Catholic interpreters, for example, claimed that in the story of Rebekah, Rebekah’s drawing water for Abraham’s servant really means that we must daily come to the Bible to meet Christ. The six water pots at the marriage in Cana refer to the creation of the world in six days. The woman’s comment in the Song of Solomon that “my beloved is to me a bag of myrrh, that lies between my breasts” was interpreted as meaning the Old and New Testaments, between which stands Christ. Another commentator found the breasts to denote the learned teachers of the church, and yet another thought the verse referred to the crucifixion of Christ, which the believer keeps in eternal remembrance between his breasts, that is, in his heart.
   To the Puritans, such allegorizing was ridiculous and unreliable. “The Scripture hath but one sense,” claimed Tyndale, “which is the literal sense, and that literal sense is the root and ground of all, and the anchor that never faileth.” Thomas Gataker agreed: “Sir, we dare not allegorize the Scriptures, where the letter of it yields us a clear and proper Sense.
   We should pause to note what the Puritans did not mean when they insisted on the literal or plain interpretation of Scripture. They did not mean that the Bible is literal rather than figurative. William Bridge, for example, commented that “though the sense of the Scripture be but one entire sense, yet sometimes the Scripture is to be understood literally, sometimes figuratively and metaphorically.” The Puritans did not even deny that there were allegorical passages in the Bible. James Durham wrote, “There is great difference betwixt an allegoric exposition of Scripture, and an exposition of allegoric Scripture.”

—Leland Ryken, Worldly Saints: The Puritans as They Really Were (Academie Books, 1986), 145.

While Rome had held the clergy above the common people, declaring that only they could interpret the Scriptures, the Puritans followed the Reformers in insisting

that the Holy Spirit illumines the mind of any Christian as he or she reads the Bible. “Every godly man hath in him a spiritual light,” declared John White, “by which he is directed in the understanding of God’s mind revealed in His word.” Thomas Goodwin said with equal confidence that

The same Spirit that guided the holy apostles and prophets to write it must guide the people of God to know the meaning of it; and as he first delivered it, so must he help men to understand it.

What are we to make of this confidence that the Holy Spirit guides us in understanding the Bible? We must realize that Catholic allegorizing of the Bible had obscured Scripture, in effect making “the Pope the doorkeeper of Scripture, not the Holy Spirit.” Set in the context of ingenious Catholic allegorizing in which the Bible’s message was decipherable only by the clergy, the Puritan belief in the illumination of the Holy Spirit put the Bible back within the grasp of every reader. Thus John Ball could write:

We are not necessarily tied to the exposition of Fathers or Councils for the finding out of the sense of Scripture. Who is the faithful interpreter of Scripture? The Holy Ghost speaking in the Scripture is the only faithful interpreter of the Scripture.

—Leland Ryken, Worldly Saints: The Puritans as They Really Were (Academie Books, 1986), 146–147.

One sure warning that you are about to hear a really bad song is when the singer announces, “This is a song the Lord gave me.” At that point, you should plug your ears, and probably hold your nose, as well.

A couple weeks ago, Calvin’s comments on John 2:4 provoked a discussion in which I learned something I hadn’t known about Roman Catholic Mariology: apparently, Mary is the “New Eve.” Of course we know that Christ is the “last Adam” (1 Corinthians 15:45), but I had never heard any mention of another Eve. Turns out it’s because there isn’t any. What should have immediately occurred to me, but didn’t, is that there couldn’t be a second Eve because Christ already has a bride (Ephesians 5:22–27), chosen before the foundation of the world (Ephesians 1:4).

Well, the gentleman who was schooling me on this mysteriously dropped out of the conversation, so I never really got a satisfactory explanation. While I was waiting to see if he would return, my mind began wandering through the maze of papist Mariology, and I began to wax poetic. Those who remember my previous poetic works, including a contribution to contemporary worship music and a collection of cheese couplets, may want to go elsewhere at this point. Anyway, considering all that the Bible says about Mary, and adding to that all that Rome has said . . .

“This is a song the Lord gave me.”

Not Quite the Magnificat . . . (tune and inspiration)

A couple thousand years ago, I was a Jewish lass
A strange thing happened to me (pardon me if this sounds crass)
I was impregnated by the Spirit of the Lord
And had a holy baby who was very much adored

This baby was the son of God and made me very proud
He was so good that some folks claim he never cried out loud
And then some guys in funny hats invented theories odd
Among them being that I am the very mother of God

So now I am God’s mother and the mother of his son
But I’ll reveal a stranger fact before my song is done
My baby was the second Adam, I, the second Eve
Which made me my son’s wife, a thing I hardly can believe

Now if I am God’s mother, Jesus then is my grandson
I know that is a weird thought, but it’s not the weirdest one
I’ve come to a conclusion that is sticking in my craw
If I am Jesus’ wife, then I’m my granddaughter-in-law

So . . .

I’m my own grandma, I’m my own grandma
It sounds funny, I know, but Rome says it is so
Oh, I’m my own grandma

They went out from us, but they were not really of us; for if they had been of us, they would have remained with us; but they went out, so that it would be shown that they all are not of us.

—1 John 2:19

• Explaining the Heresy of Catholicism
• Irreconcilable Differences: Catholics, Evangelicals, and the New Quest for Unity
• When Believers Stop Believing: Portrait of an Apostate

I scanned my shelves this morning and counted Bibles. In my office alone, I found three reader’s Bibles, eight Study Bibles, one Parallel Bible, two Greek New Testaments, one Harmony of the Gospels, and one Harmony of Samuel, Kings, and Chronicles. If I lost all those, I could still find at least two complete Bibles and a couple of nearly complete Bibles in commentary sets, plus the Gospels, Psalms, and other books in various other commentaries. I also have a Douay-Rheims, a New World Translation, and an NIV parked between Charles Finney and Rick Warren, but I’m not counting those. Then there are the ten-or-so paperbacks I’ve got for giving away. If I went through the whole house, I’m sure I could find a dozen and a half more.

The point, as you’ve probably guessed, is that that’s a lot of Bibles. I admit that I seldom give much thought to this abundance of treasure. Only occasionally do I think of the history of the Bible — my English Bible, to be precise — and what it cost and who paid the price so I could have just one.

Five hundred years ago, men like William Tyndale paid the ultimate price to bring the Bible, in English, to common folks like me.

Having promoted the Reformation teachings of Luther, Tyndale had fled King Henry VIII and England and gone into hiding on the continent. Eventually, Henry was “inclined to mercy,” and an English merchant named Stephen Vaughn was commissioned to find Tyndale and ask him to return home to England. Vaughn, having found Tyndale, informed the King in a letter, “I find him always singing one note.” John Piper writes:

   The thirty-seven-year-old Tyndale was moved to tears by this offer of mercy. He had been in exile away from his homeland for seven years. But then he sounded his “one note” again: Will the king authorize a vernacular English Bible from the original languages? Vaughan gives us Tyndale’s words from May 1531:

I assure you, if it would stand with the King’s most gracious pleasure to grant only a bare text of Scripture [that is, without explanatory notes] to be put forth among his people, like as is put forth among the subjects of the emperor in these parts, and other Christian prices, be it of the translation of what person soever shall please his Majesty, I shall immediately make faithful promise never to write more, nor abide two days in these parts after the same: but immediately to repair unto his realm, and there most humbly submit myself at the feet of his royal majesty, offering my body to suffer what pain or torture, yea, what death his grace will, so this be obtained. Until that time, I will abide the asperity of all chances, whatsoever shall come, and endure my life in as many pains as it is able to bear and suffer.

In other words, Tyndale would give himself up to the king on one condition—that the king authorize an English Bible translated from the Greek and Hebrew in the common language of the people.
   The king refused. And Tyndale never went to his homeland again. Instead, if the king and the Roman Catholic Church would not provide a printed Bible in English for the common man to read, Tyndale would, even if it cost him his life—which it did five years later.

—John Piper, Filling Up on the Afflictions of Christ: The Cost of Bringing the Gospel to the Nations in the Lives of William Tyndale, Adoniram Judson, and John Paton (Crossway, 2009), 28–29.

Tyndale was forced to do all of his translating and writing as an exiled fugitive. Multitudes were tortured and killed for smuggling his books into England, or for simply possessing them. In 1535, he was befriended by an Englishman named Henry Philips. Philips, over several months, won Tyndale’s trust with the intention of betraying him. On October 6, 1536, at the age of forty-two, Tyndale was strangled and burned at the stake.

Summarizing the difference between the biblical doctrine of justification by faith alone and the Roman doctrine of justification by faith plus merit, R. C. Sproul writes:

[T]he Roman view of justification starts with baptism. The benefits that accrue from baptism can be lost by committing mortal sin, but they can be recovered by penance. The regained justification lasts until another mortal son is committed, and the cycle repeats. According to the Roman view, a believer’s destiny is determined by the purity of his heart at the time of death. Even if the believer does not die in a state of impenitent mortal son, there may be impurities on the soul, necessitating purgatory until the impurities are cleansed.
   All of this is presented in the most recent Roman Catholic catechism. It states that if a believer has any impurities on his or her soul at the time of death, the believer will go to purgatory the soul of the believer may be in purgatory for only a week of he or she is near to sainthood, but more likely the believer will remain there for several hundred years, perhaps ever two million, three million, or four million years—until, in that place of purging, the believer is so cleansed from impurities that finally, when God looks at him or her, he sees an inherent righteousness.
   Is that good news? It is actually the worst possible news we can hear. If someone told me that the only way I could get into the kingdom of heaven and be adopted into the family of God is to get rid of all impurities in my soul, I would despair. So let me tell you what the good news is. I despair of my righteousness; I acknowledge my sin. I put my trust in Christ and Christ alone. And the good news is that at the very instant I do, all that Jesus is, and all that Jesus has, is mine, and for the rest of my days he has me covered. The Father looks beyond my impurities and all my sin, and he sees the cloak of righteousness of Jesus. For that reason, I am justified not for today, not for this week, not until I commit another sin, but for eternity. Is there any better news than that in the whole world?

—R. C. Sproul, Preaching the Cross (Crossway, 2007), 100–101.

Preaching the Cross is a collection of messages from the 2006 Together for the Gospel Conference. You can download the entire message from which today’s quote was taken here.

In which I share an excerpt from my newest joke book.

You may be surprised, as I was, to learn that there is such a thing as The Catholic Study Bible. Roman Catholic history makes the idea of Catholics actually studying the Bible (or even reading it) seem fantastic. I myself have only known one Catholic who read the Bible at all — and I have made an effort to find this out about my Catholic acquaintances. Nevertheless, such a thing exists, and happens to be lying in front of me at this very moment, open to Mark 6:3. This is the passage the notes of which every New Testament reference to Jesus’ brothers and sisters is referred.

As you likely know, Roman Catholic dogma claims that Mary, the mother of Jesus, remains perpetually virgin. There is, of course, no biblical suggestion that that is so, yet it is a doctrine believed de fide, or as an essential doctrine denial of which is heresy. Therefore, whenever Scripture refers to the brothers of Jesus, it must mean something else, because . . . well, because if it doesn’t, then Rome is wrong, and that is simply inconceivable.

So they explain:

The brother of James . . . Simon: in Semitic usage, the terms ‘brother, ‘sister’ are applied not only to children of the same parents, but to nephews, nieces, cousins, half-brothers, half-sisters; cf Gn 14, 16; 29, 15; Lv 10, 4. While one cannot suppose that the meaning of a Greek word should be sought in the first place from Semitic usage, the Septuagint often translates the Hebrew ’āh by the Greek word adelphos, “brother,” as in the cited passages, a fact that may argue for a similar breadth of the meaning in some New Testament passages. For instance, there is no doubt that in v 17, “brother” is used of Philip, who was actually the half-brother of Herod Antipas. On the other hand, Mark may have understood the terms literally; see also Mt 3, 31–32;12, 46; 13, 55–56; Lk 8, 19; Jn 7, 3,5. The question of meaning here would not have arisen but for the faith of the church in Mary’s perpetual virginity.

—The Catholic Study Bible (Oxford University Press, 2006), 1326.

The note is, on the one hand, disappointing. I really expected a much higher level of sophistry from these great Papist scholars. On the other hand, I get a good chuckle out of the brazen admission that they really don’t have a leg to stand on, and must perform linguistic tricks just to say the word might, given the right screenwriter and director, believably be cast as something other than itself. Quite humorous is their insinuation that we should utter in hushed tones, “Ooh, nuance!” at the revelation that half-brothers have been referred to simply as brothers. Oh, such broad semantic range!

The cherry on the sundae is the editors’ final bare-faced admission that, if Rome hadn’t put them on the spot, they never would have thought to impose anything but the plain meaning on the text.

• Related silliness.

I have a bit of Papism on the brain lately; you may have to bear with me.

Last week I commented on the so-called explanation for the Roman doctrine of the perpetual virginity of Mary found in The Catholic Study Bible (Mark 6:3). This is a de fide doctrine, that is, “of the faith.” These are essential doctrines, denial of which is heresy. Also held de fide is the doctrine of the immaculate conception:

On the 8th December, 1854, Pope Pius IX, in the Bull “Ineffabilis” promulgated the following doctrine as revealed by God, and therefore to be believed firmly and constantly by all the faithful: “The Most Holy Virgin Mary was, in the first moment of her conception, by a unique gift of grace and privilege of Almighty God, in view of the merits of Jesus Christ, the redeemer of mankind, preserved free from all stain of original sin.”

—Ludwig Ott, Fundamentals of Catholic Dogma (The Mercier Press, 1960), 199.

According to Roman dogma, Mary was born, and remained, without sin. Mary: sinless, and perpetually virgin. There is a conflict in there that ought to be obvious. Can you see it? If not, don’t feel too badly. It only occurred to me as I listened to John MacArthur Explaining the Heresy of Catholicism. The following verses from 1 Corinthians 7 should clear it up for you:

3 The husband must fulfill his duty to his wife, and likewise also the wife to her husband. 4 The wife does not have authority over her own body, but the husband does; and likewise also the husband does not have authority over his own body, but the wife does. 5 Stop depriving one another, except by agreement for a time, so that you may devote yourselves to prayer, and come together again so that Satan will not tempt you because of your lack of self-control.

If Mary had remained a virgin, she would have sinned. That she would have sinned gives me no problem. I certainly believe that she, like every other descendant of Adam, was conceived in sin and brought forth in iniquity (Psalm 51:5), and lived, like all of us, in constant need of forgiveness. I could even buy her perpetual virginity, if it was not so plainly false and the Roman apologies so absurd. What is impossible to reconcile is the proposition that she both was sinless and lived a life that was fundamentally sinful.

As I like to say, you do the math.

Related: Did Augustine Teach the Sinlessness of Mary?

With Reformation Day just past, I’ve pulled from my bookshelf a reminder that the Reformation still matters, from The Holy Bible: Confraternity Edition (1958).

Indulgences

A

The faithful who spend at least a quarter of an hour in reading Holy Scripture with the reverence due to the Word of God and after the manner of spiritual reading, may gain: An indulgence of 3 years.

B

Those, however, who read at least a few verses of the Gospel and further kiss the book of the Gospels, devoutly reciting one of the following invocation: Through the Gospel's words may our sins be blotted out—May the reading of the Gospel be our health and protection—May Christ the Son of God, teach us the words of the Holy Gospel, are granted: An indulgence of 500 days;

A plenary indulgence on the usual conditions, if they perform this act daily for an entire month, as given above;

A plenary indulgence at the hour of death, if they frequently performed this devout exercise during their lives, provided that they have made their confession and received the holy Communion or are at least contrite, and invoke devoutly the most holy Name of Jesus with their lips, if possible, otherwise in their hearts and accept death patiently form the hand of God as the just penalty for sin.

“Oh, but that all changed with Vatican II,” you say? Think again.

[F]or Catholic leaders, most prominently the pope, the focus in recent years has been less on what Catholics have in common with other religious groups than on what sets them apart — including the half-forgotten mystery of the indulgence.

“It faded away with a lot of things in the church,” said Bishop DiMarzio. “But it was never given up. It was always there. We just want to people to return to the ideas they used to know.”