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Chapter 2

THE ORTHODOX AND THE ROAMING CATHOLIC,

AND THE NEED FOR SEPARATION

For abstract, use this link

CONTRAST

It is with sorrow that one has seen report of shared classes in the education of Romanist and Lutheran divinity students, and heard directly of the Lutheran Church in Australia having in Adelaide a celebration of the noted rapprochement of Romanist and Lutheran approaches to the justification by faith  issue, some years ago.

It is not just that Luther would have turned in his grave, had he been there and able: it is a capitulation, a denial of the biblical doctrine of separation, a conjoining of Gospel and idolatry, very much like similar cases of reversion noted in the history of Israel, as in the day of Ahaz (cf. Isaiah 7). Let us examine that for its principles.

Nor is it the Lutheran body alone which has lurched in this direction. The Anglicans, from the 1990s have been very explicit in their profound desire for liaison with, if not capitulation to the place of Romanism, and not to this alone (cf. A Question of Gifts II, News 85, 99, Christ Incomparable, Lord Indomitable Ch. 9), nor is it Anglicanism alone (News 121, 122, Open to Him ... ..Ch. 2, Spiritual Refreshings for the Digital Millenium Ch. 14, End-note 1; Tender Times for Timely Truths Ch. 7) which so confounds itself in this falling away period,  predicted by Paul (II Thessalonians 2:3). One Anglican Archbishop even looks for other ways to God as well as Christ, as noted in the last reference given above.

However, today our concern has been aroused in the Lutheran case, so let us look at this, in the light of the word of God, and consider King Ahaz first.

Refusing to believe by faith in the prodigious character of the Lord's provision, that spiritually sickly king compromised, sought help from Assyria and blasted the land with his unbelieving and pestiferous pollutions at the spiritual level, even daring to assault the sanctity of the temple. Small wonder his kingdom was invaded, and even weak and declining Israel took a few liberties with this erring Judah to its South, such as slaying 120,000 men in one day, in the land of that Ahaz (II Chronicles 28:7). Even the enemy (II Chron. 28:11-12) knew why Judah had fallen.

Similar in kind, though less severe in measure, is the case of Jehoshaphat, great king though he was, wrongly related in military partnership with Ahab, the wicked king of Israel, first having made an even more foolish marriage (II Chron. 18:1). For this, the Lord gave the good king a sharp rebuke.

"And Jehu the son of Hanani the seer went out to meet him, and said to King Jehoshaphat, 'Should you help the wicked and love those who hate the Lord?
Therefore the wrath of the Lord is upon you. Nevertheless good things are found in you, in that you have removed the wooden images from the land, and have prepared your heart to seek God.' "

All throughout the Bible, there is emphasis on separation in holiness, in spiritual fellowship from what defiles, is impure and polluted and does not repent, but carries on in evil principle. Thus Paul declaims in Romans 16:17, these words:

"Mark those who cause divisions and offences 
contrary to the doctrine which you have learned;
and avoid them."

He then proceeds to show the gravity of the case of people who make such changes as Romanism later in fact did. Indeed, the word "AVOID" is not hard to understand; and it does not mean 'pray with them', 'have fellowship with them' or 'share theological education with them.' It means rather what Luther correctly saw: you may not change, but we will and must: back to the Bible. Your error we can, do and must condemn! Fellowship became zero, and Luther's life was papally put at the mercy of any assailant.

The Lutheran Church in Adelaide has changed so much since Luther's day, that they were not interested in displaying one of Rev.  Robert Donaldson's books BECAUSE they were told  that his views on Romanism were quite like those of Luther! Thus it can celebrate the agreement on justification by faith, with Roman Catholicism: a body which in its Vatican Council INSISTS on all its previous formulations, one of which is this.

If anyone says, that by faith alone the impious is justified, in such wise as to mean that nothing else is required to co-operate in the acquisition of the grace of justification, and that it is in no way necessary for a man to be prepared and disposed by the motion of his own will; let him be anathema.

That assault on the Bible and on the faithful is found in Canon IX, Session V1, Council of Trent 1547. That Council is repeatedly confirmed in more modern times, in the religion of Romanism.

Paul to the contrary declares with John (Romans 9:16, John 1:12), that it is not of the one who wills but of God who shows mercy; and that they are born not of the will of the flesh, nor of the will of man, but of God. The will of man scripturally is categorically excluded in the actual operation of salvation, that of being born of God. SO far from necessary, it is an impertinence to include it (John 15:16). What is relevant to God, and how He does it, this is His business (Colossians 1:19ff. – see Ch. 3 below with Beauty of Holiness Ch. 2 and The Glow ... Ch. 4)! What is still operable by us at any level, this is ours, at that level; yet we have no business to intrude into His realm with our arrogating thoughts. Most of all, we are not wise to deny what scripture affirms, or to affirm what it denies.

Being born is not a voluntary phenomenon; nature and the word of God teach alike, against the assault of Rome on the word of God. It is difficult to dispose one's will when as Paul declares, "the natural man does not receive the things of the Spirit of God, for they are foolishness to him"! (I Cor. 2:14). To opt for life when one is dead (Ephesians 2:1-12, 4:17-19), is a ghoulish imagination, while to opt for what one deems foolish, is insanity! It is here excluded by name. The complete biblical teaching on this topic is not found by saying things, but by adhering to what God has given in the Bible (cf. The Glow of Predestination ... Ch. 8).

This Rome in its contrary teaching is moreover in treble idolatry (cf. A Question of Gifts II), and doubly is not available for fellowship (cf. I Corinthians 5:9-11, II Cor. 6:9ff.).

CONTRADICTION

Indeed, says Paul, with any such, idolaters, DO NOT EVEN EAT! 

To Mary popes have given titles Queen of Heaven and Redemptrix (cf. Jesus Christ, Defaced, Unfazed ... Ch. 8). This in the area of deity, but Jesus said that EVERYONE that does the will of God is His mother, sister, brother (Matthew 12:48ff.). How many queens then does heaven allegedly have, in this Romanist heresy ? And how is a woman a co-worker in redemption, even made to bear the name of an agent in the same, when "God forbid that I should glory except in the Cross of our Lord Jesus Christ, by whom the world is crucified to me and I to the world" glares at the contradiction, from Galatians 6:14!

Was Mary on the Cross ? She had a sword to her body, not a Cross for her labours.

Is a sinner a redeemer ? and does someone who gives a sacrifice for sin at circumcision time, have no account of her own to settle with the Almighty! (cf. Luke 2:23-24)! Is there no end to the hapless confusion and profusion of invention, as indeed there was in Israel of old, when it went similarly astray (Psalm 78:9ff., 32ff., 40-41).

By whose blood is atonement made ? that of Mary or of Christ ? (cf. Ephesians 1:7). Is the blood of the placenta an atonement ? or is the shed blood of the Cross, where a man is cursed, that which rightly bears the name where the Agent Himself bears the sin! (Galatians 3:13). Is Mary glorying in the cross of Christ ? Is a mother a tomb or a womb bearer ? Is everyone who does the will of God is My Mother and sister and brother, an exaltation or a levelling at the theological level! (Matthew 12). 

Christ, says Paul, has redeemed us from the curse of the law, being made a curse for us: for such is what is written concerning such death. What enormities come, with the Queen of heaven in the space of deity as 'one of us' among the celestial beings, when the difference is infinite between God and man. Small wonder then that the priest thinks in the Mass he can move God around, as if putty.

Christ ? He is far from such ignominious idolatry. MY WORDS ARE SPIRIT AND THEY ARE LIFE, says He in this field (John 6:62-63): what if He should return to heaven, he enquired, in turning their stunned minds to spiritual reality.

True man (Hebrews 2), He is in heaven (Acts 3:19ff.), pending His return, so that He declares, If someone says Christ is in the desert, or the inner room (as in Mass), do not believe him! (Matthew 24:26). Is the answer, Yes but I will! Or is it, You are wrong, for it is precisely in some room that we are supposed to 'find' you in a 'sacrifice' purportedly as real as the historic Calvary, so that the object of it is worshipped!  though the one whom it shows in spirit and in life, is statedly in heaven! It is God or man. It has been so for hundreds of years in this multiply exposed folly, with its forecast prohibitive attitude to meat and marriage (as foretold in I Timothy 4).

For the Mass, Romanism gives the name of the most absolute worship; but Jesus, having declared one must eat His flesh and drink His blood, challenged them: What if He should return to heaven! It is the Spirit which gives life, He corrected! The words that I speak to you, said He, they are spirit and they are life (John 6:62-63).

He was not becoming a personal cafeteria, but a sacrificial offering for substitutionary cover for all who believe (Galatians 3:13, Matthew 20:28).

NOW ONCE in the end of the world has He put away sin by the sacrifice of Himself (Hebrews 9): not often! says Hebrews.

Often, say the Mass people.

Without blood, say the makers of the Mass.

By blood ONLY is it effective, says the word of God (Hebrews 9:22-24). You add a queen, a lord and a piece of worshipped bread to the Lord: not bad for a substitute form of the religion.  Swallow that and you can swallow anything.

This is not merely addition (against Proverbs 30:6) to the word of God; it is addition to God Himself in His unique and infinite purity and power,  prerogatives and functions; and it is blatant contradiction.

He did not mean that in breaking the bread at the Last Supper He was committing suicide, any more than that in being the door for faith, He had hinges.

The papal teaching authority itself is the third divine feature, seized by Romanism; for Jesus declared this, Call NO MAN on earth father, for One is your father; nor call any teacher, for one is your teacher, JESUS CHRIST! (Matthew 23:8-10). Is the pope then sinless ? and eternal ? that he should so presume against the words of Jesus Christ. Is he not rather some form of opposition, expressly performing what is precisely forbidden! Is one two, is black blue, is wrong right, is God the same as man!

SUBVERSION

This in short form shows something of the necessity to leave what Luther left, Romanism, condemning its false teaching at great length. It shows the need to take the step the Reformation took, exposing its teaching of the mass as "blasphemous fables and dangerous deceits" (Anglican 39 Articles, Article XXXI), as the Presbyterians also did, deeming the pope, an antichrist (Westminster Confession XXV); and indeed Gregory I, a bishop of Rome near the first, declared that this elevation of the Roman bishop above the brethren was a work of antichrist.  The church is built on the foundation of the prophets and the apostles says Paul in Ephesians 2; nay more: it HAS BEEN BUILT on this. It is not being built on some other personnel.

Who are these who come with rank heresy, and additions to self-made specifications of deity and His affairs!

On this, compare SMR p. 1036: Small wonder Pope Gregory I (590-604) called anyone taking the title of 'Universal Bishop' an antichrist! (surely one of the best 'papal' utterances).

After all, the term objected to by this pope is pregnant with unscriptural arrogance (compare Matthew 20:25 ff., especially 20:28; I Peter 2:6; 5:1-4; 2:2-4,20-25; 4:12-15; Matthew 11:28-9).

For detail and data, on the Romanist heresies and divisions from the word of God, in practice and teaching, in formulation and condemnation: see the following: SMR pp. 911-931, 1032-10088H, with  News 101.

SEPARATION

For action, consult Separation 1997. Here numerous scriptures requiring separation from what is contrary to biblical teaching are presented and exegeted. The doctrine of Christ must be taught or NO receiving even into one's home on religious grounds, can occur (II John). Would a terrorist, announcing himself such, be received AS SUCH into your home, while he tells of us next move ?

The chapter just noted and hyperlinked  presents a large field of biblical commands and intimations that one must divide the holy from the unholy, the idolatrous from the biblical, the orthodox from the heretical, the light from the darkness. It is not only atheism, or agnosticism with which one can have no fellowship; but ANY variation from the clear teaching of the word of God which MUST be removed.

If not, then one simply must remove oneself. Whatever the situation, ONE thing is FORBIDDEN multiply, on many fronts, in principle and in practice is this: Abiding in, having fellowship with, remaining a member or attender of any body, any church, which will not change from what contradicts or adds to the Bible. Stay while it defiles the name of Christ ? scarcely.  Stay while it has fellowship with what does ?

Of course not: do you work at night with  thieves! In either case, there is a direct  rebellion, by departing from His directives in doctrine, or an abiding one, by refusing to obey the strictures of the Bible on what you may and may no to others who do. Would then theft adultery be 'good' to stay with too! The Uniting Church has shown how far people may sleep morally when even perversion is in view, as defined by the Bible in Romans 1!

Either of these anti-biblical errors (cf. Proverbs 30:6) causes divisions contrary to what has been taught as final (Galatians 1, Revelation 22); the one leading astray, the other being led to  receive this, and teaching it good or right or acceptable for some so to conduct themselves. AVOID in the Bible then becomes RECEIVE! If it were physical, it would be like 'obeying' doctor's orders not to eat some tainted food, and having fellowship with it, despite that, in one's stomach!

In fact, people who become 'teachers' not brethren under the one Teacher Jesus Christ are tolerated to the number of NONE, by Jesus Christ. Paul declares that even if HE HIMSELF preached any other Gospel then HE WOULD BE ACCURSED! The thing is final, devastating to presumption, ineluctable to addition, invulnerable to change. Do not add, says Proverbs 30:6 to His words, lest you become a LIAR! (cf. SMR Appendix C).

If anyone should refuse this, then the word of Christ bites like a tiger: "Why do you call Me, Lord, Lord, and not do the things that I say!" - Luke 6:46. If you do not take up your cross and follow Him, you CANNOT be His disciple; and this, it is HIS OWN WORD which says it! (Luke 14:27), and perhaps in case the point is lost, He also declares this: "Whoever of you does not forsake all that he has,  cannot be My disciple." How is a person one's LORD, if one ignores what He requires, and commands for oneself what He abhors ?

Would you be present at a Nazi Jew-extermination action ? Hardly. How then do you stay at a Gospel or bible deformation action, a presentation known and formal, when

	1) it is continual
	2) it is not a mere matter of education, but rather  a reversion back to darkness, those concerned having already met the light, and taken instead the prior night!

This matter can be avoided, in precisely the same way as cancer can, if you ignore it. It tramples on you, or tramps through you, taking more and more vital organs. If you desire this not at all, then as one dermatologist repeatedly declares, "Cut it out!"

ADORATION

What law commands, love seeks as Christ made clear of the law of His mouth (John 14:21-23), and there is total divine commitment to His word (Matthew 5:17-20), so that he who does not love Me, said Christ, does not keep My words.

When however you consider not only the fidelity of God, but the transformation for the sake of truth, in mercy, that we might be forgiven and forged anew, to become children of God, then the simple matter of forsaking what is dear, for what is dearer, the misplaced passions of man for the authentic passion for God, is seen in perspective. What transformation ? Why that of the eternal Word of God into the butt for blame and the goad to guilt, that it might find its resting place where it belongs, crucified with Christ.

What then, is to separate from what defiles: a burden ? Is it problematic pain ? What! is that too much for the love of God ?

As to the term 'passion' in this, it is not so much a passion in any normal sense, for that tends to suggest an ignoring of what is sound in the interests of sudden desire. In essence, it is a total commitment in delight to the Prince of Peace, with whatever agony on the way, because of love, something wrought in truth, because of reality, where one belongs, because of seeking from one's Source, so that one may be found in the mercy in which HE delights.

Passion ? yes, if you conceive of it without lust of ANY kind, but rather with integrity. It is an integral passion in integrity for reality; it is  passion for the regal without false regalia, for the mind of God without pollution, to know God without mere formalism, sacramentalism or sentimentality. It is the desire to come where the cross-roads display the destinies at their end, and seeing from the eminence of the cross of Christ, the meaning of all, to forget flittering about, filtering this and that, flustering in fashions; and to be at peace with the God of all serenity, of all pity, who is the Creator, the foundation and the fact for faith.

I have a good doctor! you may say. Good, and do you do what he asks ? Ah no, you reply, for he is a sort of symbol. I do precisely as I please of course; I do not pay him in order to deny myself, but to fulfil. Yet he stirs my mind occasionally, and I like him.

How strange! One would have thought a good doctor would help one by advice based on his excellent knowledge, to care for health, and that with few exceptions one would do as he indicates. When it comes to God, who has no limitations, if you have the Good God, then you would be expected to do what He says UNDER ALL CIRCUMSTANCES, not as if perfect, but by commitment without limit, in all heart and with all the mind.

"Oh that you had heeded My commandments," said the loving God of Israel, "then your peace had been as a river and your righteousness as the waves of the sea." (Isaiah 48:18). To leave the greatness of God for the shabby preferences of flesh, the psychic comforts of conformity to society or some establishment or other, it is as an athlete who seeing steak, eats his way to a gigantic pot; or as a scholar, who discerning much, becomes fascinated with digging ditches, and dies of a heart attack. To turn the back on the glory of the greatness of God, for the sake of breaking a command He has given as Creator and Pastor, it is to seek the shame and the contempt which comes to all dissidence from deity. To turn the face to Him, and to follow His word, however, it is like the rose in Summer, well-watered, blooming with effulgence, grounded in care (Matthew 15:13).