By Reese Currie, Compass Distributors

In 2 John 8, John began with the words, "Look to yourselves, that we do not lose those things we worked for, but that we may receive a full reward" (NKJV).

As the Protestant church undoes the work of the Reformation and the work that led up to the Reformation, it should be aware of what it is giving away to have ecumenical unity with the Roman Catholics.

We probably all remember Wyclif as the man who first translated the Bible into English. But do we all know what drove Wyclif to his task?

Wyclif was a doctor of theology and the leading professor at Oxford University. The big theological issue of the day, back in the late 1300’s, was "dominion" or "lordship" over men, such as kingdoms. How was the right of earthly rule transmitted from God to earthly rulers? The widely held view at the time was that such rule was only valid when derived from the Roman church. This stemmed from the belief that God had given the pope dominion over of all temporal things and people. Another view was that lordship depended less on the mediation of the church than it did on whether the possessor of the power was in a state of grace.

One of Wyclif’s professors, Richard FitzRalph argued, "Why should the state of grace be required only of temporal rulers? Do churchmen have the right to rule when they live in mortal sin?"

Wyclif seized on this idea, and added some thinking of his own. He argued that the English government had the divinely assigned responsibility of correcting the abuses of the church within its realm, and to remove from office those church leaders who continued in sin. In 1377, the pope condemned Wyclif’s teachings.

Wyclif’s beliefs on dominion led him to realize that every believer, every person who has been given the Holy Spirit, holds an equal place in the eyes of God. If the personal relationship between man and God is the means by which dominion is conveyed, then no man can have religious dominion over another. The medieval priesthood and the sacrifical masses of the medieval church are not required, because there is no barrier between any believer and God.

In 1378, the Great Schism occurred, in which there were simultaneously popes in Avignon, France, and in Rome, excommunicating each other. (Catholic sources, in typical history-twisting dishonesty, place these popes in successive order, but in fact there were up to three simultaneous popes during this period.)

As this power struggle ensued, Wyclif’s view of the papacy hardened. He had realized that the political power of the papacy was completely inappropriate. He wrote, "Christ is truth. The pope is the principle of falsehood. Christ lived in poverty; the pope labors for worldly magnificence. Christ refused temporal dominion; the pope seeks it."

On this basis, Wyclif began to refer to the pope as the antichrist. He rejected the hierarchy of the church, because such hierarchy was incompatible with the teachings of Scripture. He rejected pardons, absolutions, pilgrimages, image worship (idolatry), adoration of the saints, indulgences and the "treasury of merits" (the basis for indulgences), and the distinction between "venial" and "mortal" sins. He rejected accepting the words of the church fathers over Scripture.

He also asserted the right of every person to interpret the Bible for themselves, which led to his translation of the Scripture into English. His final teaching, in 1380, was that transubstantiation was a myth. Transubstantiation is the false Catholic teaching that communion bread turns into the actual body of Christ, and communion wine turns into the actual blood of Christ. Wyclif asserted (correctly) that the early church held that the bread and wine were symbols of Christ’s body and blood, present sacramentally but not materially.

The Roman Catholic Church declared Wyclif’s teachings heretical. While unable to murder Wyclif, as they did many other reformers, after his death they succeeded in digging his body up to burn his bones, such was their rage with his teachings.

The Roman Catholic catechism, to this day, contains the text, "The task of interpreting the Word of God authentically has been entrusted solely to the Magisterium of the Church, that is, to the Pope and to the bishops in communion with him."

Interpretation of the Bible by the average Christian is prohibited in Roman Catholicism. Just as Wyclif’s opposite view was based on his beliefs concerning dominion, the Roman Catholic view is based on their belief concerning dominion, that the pope has been granted dominion over all mankind.

It is popularly taught, when we speak of John Wyclif, that the Catholic Church forbade the translation of the Bible into vernacular. Catholics and Protestant ecumenists claim this was never the case. Technically speaking, they are correct: the Roman Catholic Church never universally banned the translation of Scripture into the vernacular or its reading by laypeople. However, wherever vernacular translations turned up, a regional ban seemed to follow. The Councils of Toulouse (in 1229) and Tarragona (in 1234) forbade laypeople from reading vernacular translations of the Bible in an attempt to "protect" them from the teachings of the Albigenses, but this ban only applied to southern France. In the case of John Wyclif, a document called The Constitutions of Arundel (1408) (Chancellor Archbishop Thomas Arundel being the Chancellor of England and Archbishop of Canterbury in a time in which this was still a Roman Catholic post), prohibits "unlicensed laity" from translating the Bible into English, or from reading an English translation, without the express permission of a Catholic bishop. There is no documentation of such permission ever being given. This law continued to be in effect until 1529.

To summarize, from Wyclif we gained these things that are contrary to Catholicism:

1. The church is not organized hierarchically but all believers are equal before God.
2. The mediation of the church is not necessary, as every believer can go directly to God.
3. Since the Spirit indwells every believer, every believer has the right to read and interpret the Scriptures for themselves.

Caught out in a raging thunderstorm, Martin Luther promised St. Anne, Catholicism’s patroness of miners, that if he survived, he would become abandon his notion of becoming a lawyer to become monk. He followed through on his promises and became a strict monk of the Augustinian order. For all his austerity, he had great fear that he did not measure up to God’s standards. He became a great student of Scripture after he was made the chair of Biblical studies at Wittenberg University.

Romans 1:17 changed Luther’s life, "For in it the righteousness of God is revealed from faith to faith; as it is written, ‘The just shall live by faith’" (NKJV).

Luther later recalled, "Night and day I pondered until I saw the connection between the justice of God and the statement that ‘the just shall live by faith.’ Then I grasped that the justice of God is that righteousness by which through grace and sheer mercy God justifies us through faith. Thereupon I felt myself to be reborn and to have gone through open doors into paradise."

The same thought is given in other places in Scripture; for instance, Ephesians 2:8,9 states, "by grace you have been saved by faith, and that not of yourselves; it is the gift of God, not of works, lest anyone should boast."

Luther realized that this doctrine clashed sharply with the Roman Catholic system of justification by faith and good works. The "good works" included demonstrating your faith through acts of virtue, accepting church dogma and participating in church ritual. Justification by faith in Christ alone removes the requirement for intercession by priests (Hebrews 7 also proves this). The Roman Church had set itself up in the role of mediator and "dispenser" of grace, but Luther saw this was unnecessary in light of his new learning. But still he remained in the Roman Church, not knowing where his discovery was leading him.

It was the Church’s doctrine of indulgences that finally put him into the center of religious rebellion in Germany. In its false role as "mediator", and its false salvation system of "merits", the Roman Church claimed to have a treasury of "merits" that it could dispense through an "indulgence." If you sinned in the Roman system, you must either perform an act of penance to pay for the sin, or you can forgo the act of penance by purchasing an indulgence, in which case the Roman Church will grant you sufficient "merits" to pay for your sin.

All of this is evil and false teaching, since Jesus Christ paid the price for our sin already. We must repent of sin, but that’s a matter of turning away from sin with Christ’s help, not somehow "paying" for our sin which Christ has already paid for, and perhaps continuing in the sin only to pay for it again.

A Dominican monk named Tetzel came selling indulgences that he claimed would apply beyond the grave and into purgatory. He even had an "advertising jingle"—"As soon as the coin in the coffer rings, the soul from purgatory springs."

Purgatory is a false doctrine of the Catholics, a place where any leftover sins are paid for through torment before the Catholic can enter into heaven. I don’t believe that Luther, at the time, realized that purgatory was a false doctrine.

Luther sprang into action by posting his famous 95 Theses on the door of the Castle Church in Wittenberg. This was the customary way one challenged another to theological debate at the university; it was not an act of disrespect. The 95 Theses argued that indulgences could not remove guilt, could not apply to purgatory, and created a false sense of security in the donor. The German Dominicans and the Vatican were quick to say that questioning indulgences was tantamount to heresy.

Luther insisted on Scriptural proof that he was wrong, which brings us to another fundamental difference between Roman Catholicism and original Protestantism: In Roman Catholicism, tradition and rulings of councils and popes outweighs Scripture. In the course of an 18-day debate in Leipzig with John Eck, Luther proclaimed his second newfound belief, "A council may sometimes err. Neither the church nor the pope can establish articles of faith. These must come from Scripture."

When Eck returned to Rome, he moved to have Luther declared a heretic. Meanwhile, Luther took his new realization further. He realized that "sacraments" that had not been instituted by Christ were not valid. He retained only baptism and the Lord’s Supper, finding no Scriptural justification for the five other Roman Catholic sacraments.

Luther clarified his view on good works by saying, "Good works do not make a man good, but a good man does good works." He was explaining that good works do not lead to salvation, but are a result of salvation. He now understood the full thought expressed in Ephesians 2:8-10, "For by grace you have been saved through faith, and that not of yourselves; it is the gift of God, not of works, lest anyone should boast. For we are His workmanship, created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God prepared beforehand that we should walk in them" (NKJV).

On the threshold of his excommunication, Luther explained that monasticism is unnecessary because the essence of Christian living lies in serving God in one’s calling, whatever it may be, secular or ecclesiastical. In this, Luther was echoing a sentiment from Colossians 3:23-24, "And whatever you do, do it heartily, as to the Lord and not to men, knowing that from the Lord you will receive the reward of the inheritance; for you serve the Lord Christ" (NKJV).

Luther was finally excommunicated, and from there, was declared a heretic. Meanwhile, he continued his reforms. He abolished the Catholic office of bishop, finding no warrant for it in Scripture. (The office of pastor (or "overseer") which is translated "bishop" in some Bible versions was retained.) He removed the church from the episcopal system in the Roman Catholic Church to the system of independent assemblies found in Scripture.

He also removed the doctrine of forced celibacy for clergy. Paul incidentally had predicted this false doctrine in Scripture. 1 Timothy 4:1-3 says, "Now the Spirit expressly says that in latter times some will depart from the faith, giving heed to deceiving spirits and doctrines of demons, speaking lies in hypocrisy, having their own conscience seared with a hot iron, forbidding to marry and commanding to abstain from foods which God has created to be received with thanksgiving by those who believe and know the truth" (NKJV, emphasis mine).

To summarize, what we learned from Luther was:

1. Justification by faith, not faith plus works. Good works are the evidence of salvation, not the cause of salvation.
2. Scripture is the sole source of doctrine and practice in the church.
3. The pope and his councils are not inerrant, and they do not have the right to establish articles of faith.
4. The church’s indulgences, merits, ceremonies, etc. are of no value because salvation is by faith.
5. There are only two ordinances, baptism and the Lord’s Supper. The other five sacraments held in Roman Catholicism are invalid traditions of men.
6. Monasticism and vows of celibacy are unnecessary. Christian living involves serving God at whatever you are called to do, whether it is secular or ecclesiastical.
7. The Catholic notion of the office of bishop was considered unscriptural and eliminated.

Up until now, most of the reformation beliefs have been held by most Protestant denominations. However, there are two more doctrinal streams that should be examined, that have had less acceptance in the Protestant churches.

The Anabaptists reformed further than Luther. They saw no Biblical warrant for infant baptism or any other form of involuntary baptism. They found in Scripture that baptism always followed faith and never preceded faith. In Scripture it is always in the order, "they believed and were baptized." They did not view themselves as "anabaptists," or "re-baptizers", since they did not hold that an involuntary baptism of a person with no faith was Biblically valid; they preferred to call themselves Baptists.

Another sharp departure between the Anabaptists and Luther was their view on the relationship between church and state. Anabaptists found no state-church alliance in Scripture, and believed the state had no right to dictate what church its citizens attended.

State religion and infant baptism are inextricably intertwined. As state churches, Luther’s churches continued to look to the state for salary and support. Everyone who lived under the governance of the state had to adopt the state religion, and so, infants had to be "baptized" in order to join (or, really, be forced into) the state church.

The Anabaptists refused to baptize anyone who had not experienced personal, spiritual regeneration, and therefore, did not permit those people into church membership. This would have disqualified them from being a state church even had they wanted to be, since all members of a state must be part of a state church.

The Anabaptists organized their churches congregationally. There was no higher authority than the local congregation. Each believer was considered to be a priest to his fellow believers and a missionary to unbelievers. Decision-making rested with the entire membership of the local congregation, not a single ecclesiastical leader or board.

The main doctrines we received from the Anabaptists (which have not been accepted by many Protestant groups) are:

1. Believers’ baptism.
2. Separation of church and state.
3. Congregationalist church polity (that is, organization).

It is impossible to mention the Reformation without considering John Calvin. Calvin’s main advances were in the realm of theology. His churches were organized in the Presbyterian structure, in which decision-making rests with a board of presbyters, and were "state churches" and therefore kept infant baptism.

Calvin’s main contributions involved doctrines stemming from God’s sovereignty. TULIP Calvinism contains five basic points: Total Depravity, Unconditional Election, Limited Atonement, Irresistable Grace, and Perseverance of the Saints.

I will greatly oversimplify Calvinist doctrine when I describe it as teaching, "God foreknew who he would save, not through any merit of their own, and sent His Son to save just those people. All of those people (and only those people) will come to faith in Christ, and those who come to faith in Christ can never lose their salvation."

If you are interested in a more descriptive (and doubtless more accurate) Calvinist perspective, please see http://www.dtl.org/calvinism/article/sims/introduction.htm.

The Calvinist doctrines have not been adopted by very many Protestant churches, but certainly stand in stark contrast to the Catholic system. The various "Reformed" denominations and Presbyterians are about all. It is a fairly difficult to doctrinal system to accept for most people, as it takes a very low view of man, and a difficult system to understand. Some churches have accepted this or that portion of it, such as perseverance of the saints (which they re-term "eternal security") but have not accepted the other doctrines of Calvinism. Calvinists frequently find this practice insulting because they believe none of the individual doctrines make sense in the absence of any of the others. Other groups see security of the believer in Scripture but do not see all of the doctrines that Calvinists feel are necessary to support this doctrine.

Presbyterian churches have seemed almost eager to give up these Calvinist "doctrines of grace"; in Canada, 80% of the Presbyterian Church abandoned the doctrines of grace to join with the Methodists (who are Arminian, the antithesis of Calvinism) in the United Church of Canada.

To summarize the contribution of Calvin to Protestantism, since so few have accepted the overall body of his doctrine, I will simply say he added "the security of the believer" to our understanding of Christianity. The Catholic believer is never secure; their fortunes are tied inextricably to the church, which has the option to revoke salvation over doctrinal disagreement. Even a good Catholic can expect to be tormented in the afterlife in purgatory.

I am not going to accuse the Roman Catholic Church of any wrongdoing with regard to Protestants abandoning Reformation doctrines. The Catholics never held any of these doctrines and so certainly cannot be blamed when they are not upheld. As 2 John 8 begins, "Look to yourselves, that we do not lose those things we worked for" (NKJV). The loss of all the progress of the Reformation can be laid at the feet of Protestant ecumenists and no one else.

I am now going to take the Reformation doctrines presented in this document and demonstrate as briefly as I can how Protestant ecumenists are giving them away.

1. The church is not organized hierarchically but all believers are equal before God.
2. Congregationalist church polity (that is, organization) (moved from #11).

Let’s face it, not that many churches ever actually organized in a way that recognizes the equality of believers.

Those few that are in principle organized this way actually do have an unspoken hierarchy in which some people are more "prominent" than others. Nelson’s "Believer’s Study Bible", which reflects Baptist belief (Baptists are supposed to have a "flat" structure) advertises having essays by "prominent Baptist thinkers and teachers." How can they be "prominent" in a supposedly flat structure?

Most Protestant churches don’t even attempt the equality of believers, however. Most continue with episcopalian systems similar to the Catholics, or with presbyteries of elders that make all the decisions. Protestant presbyteries are unfortunately no more likely to come up with Biblical decisions than the Catholic episcopacy is, and perhaps even less so, when it comes to sexual morality.

There are other offenses to the equality of believers present in Protestantism that are more subtle. Certainly in most Protestant churches, the more affluent one is, the more likely it is that their views will be listened to. Also, in conservative Protestant churches, whether one is male or female has a great impact on whether their voice will be heard in debate, just as in the past one’s skin color had great impact.

3. The mediation of the church is not necessary, as every believer can go directly to God.

Seeking ecumenical union with the Roman Catholic Church, a church that does not believe in this, seems counterproductive to keeping this doctrine alive.

4. Since the Spirit indwells every believer, every believer has the right to read and interpret the Scriptures for themselves.

Although pope Leo XII condemned Bible Societies and Bible translations, the Catholics now greatly benefit from the ecumenical Bible Societies and the dynamic equivalency translations they produce. Dynamic equivalency involves loose translations of Scripture that are twisted to support the views of the translators. Catholics work on these translations and insert support for baptismal regeneration and other Catholic interpretations right in the text. More and more Bible Society translations are available in Catholic versions containing the apocryphal books, which are uninspired books used to justify some uniquely Catholic doctrines like prayer for the dead and purgatory.

5. Justification by faith, not faith plus works. Good works are the evidence of salvation, not the cause of salvation.

This doctrine is hardly upheld in Protestant circles. Supposed Protestants like Billy Graham adjust their message to "accept Christ" and then allow counselors of all denominations to interpret what "accept Christ" means. (This is necessary, since "accept Christ" appears nowhere in the Bible and does not even approximate a gospel message.)

When people come forward, they are asked what church they may have attended before. If they had been Catholic, they will get Catholic counselors, who interpret "accept Christ" to include all of the Roman Catholic doctrines.

The Alpha Course is used as an evangelical tool by Protestant and Catholic churches alike. It is so far from presenting the gospel message that whether or not works are part of salvation is so vague that Catholics can use it as well. This course originated with Anglican Protestants.

6. Scripture is the sole source of doctrine and practice in the church.

Scripture hardly impacts the doctrines of the modern Protestant church. Particularly in the area of sexual morality, the modern Protestant church is extremely libertine and gives absolutely no thought to what the Scriptures might say about the practices they approve. One’s own liberalism plays more of a factor in what one believes in the Protestant church than one’s Bible. For instance, when contemplating whether or not to ordain or marry gays, Scripture is essentially explained away by some "scholar" or ignored outright.

In addition to that, most modern Protestant churches suffer from what I call courseiolatry. That is, they take courses like Experiencing God, or The Purpose Driven Church/Life/etc., or The Prayer of Jabez, or a plethora of others, and study those instead of Scripture, with no particular concern whether or not the courses agree with Scripture. The courses frequently contain doctrines that are at variance with Scripture. If a person points out the errors, they risk being considered "divisive."

Finally, Calvinist Protestants in particular fall victim to "confessional Christianity", meaning, they will take the words of a document such as the Westminster Confession of Faith as being essentially on a par with Scripture. In this, they are no different at all from Catholics who place the magisterium’s traditions on a par with Scripture.

7. The pope and his councils are not inerrant, and they do not have the right to establish articles of faith.
8. The Catholic notion of the office of bishop was considered unscriptural and eliminated (moved from #10).

Some Protestant denominations have an Episcopalian structure and actually have bishops. Some denominations that lack bishops have functional equivalents, like "area ministers." Many Protestant denominations and individual churches arbitrarily implement rules that have no basis in Scripture, such as homosexual ordination on the liberal side, or no drinking and no smoking rules on the conservative side.

9. The church’s indulgences, merits, ceremonies, etc. are of no value because salvation is by faith.
10. There are only two ordinances, baptism and the Lord’s Supper. The other five sacraments held in Roman Catholicism are invalid traditions of men.

No particular consideration seems to be given to the validity of these additional "ceremonies" of Catholicism by ecumenical Protestants. They seem to ignore that these ceremonies exist, or that they are meant to confer "grace" from the Roman Church’s fictional bank of merits that they, as Protestants, are not supposed to believe in.

11. Monasticism and vows of celibacy are unnecessary. Christian living involves serving God at whatever you are called to do, whether it is secular or ecclesiastical.

I think most Protestants today seem to think that, if there is a calling from God on their life, it means they have to stop whatever they are doing, go to seminary for a few years, become ordained, and go pastor a church somewhere. There doesn’t seem to be much belief that one can serve God while working in a secular job. Those who are unwilling to go to the extreme of seminary training and ordination generally do not see any way they could serve God without, and therefore do nothing.

12. Believers’ baptism.

Extremely few churches believe this, but some influential groups that do, like the Southern Baptist Convention of the United States, continue to seek ecumenical union with the Church of England and the Roman Catholic Church, neither of which are in favor of this belief.

A great many Baptist churches deny the doctrines of their Anabaptist forefathers by permitting people into membership who have not been voluntarily baptized. This is due to an ignorance of their doctrinal heritage, and, perhaps more importantly, an interest in being more ecumenical.

13. Separation of church and state.

This doctrine concerns the government being unable to force a particular religion on their populace. Unfortunately, it has been changed in many minds into the "segregation of church and state," the belief that basically everyone has a right to voice their concerns about how the country is run except for Christians.

The Evangelical Federation of Canada seems willing to let this one slide. Before Canada’s 2004 Federal Election, the EFC and the Roman Catholic bishops were warned by the government that speaking out on gay marriage, abortion, and other "controversial issues" would cause them to lose their tax exempt status. There was nary a sound from the church on this; they were willing to sacrifice their voice and witness for continued tax exemption. So it could hardly be said that these Protestants believe in the separation of church and state.

14. Security of the Believer

Not many Protestants actually believe in the security of the believer, and for those denominations that do, it is often the first thing sacrificed on the altar of ecumenism. Eighty percent of the Presbyterian Church in Canada sacrificed this doctrine to unite with the United Church of Canada in 1927. It is doubtful to me that this doctrine would stop any Protestant church from uniting with Rome.

In the time of the Reformation, people were willing to die for the sake of having vernacular Bibles, the freedom to choose their own church, the right to teach their children the Bible’s doctrine rather than the pope’s doctrine. Protestantism disregards the sacrifices of the martyrs as it pursues the ecumenical agenda. The doctrines of the Reformation were gained at a great cost of life; but the Protestant churches are giving it all back for free, voluntarily, through ecumenism.

The Gradual Undoing of the Reformation: Part Two: The Cost of Ecumenism is Copyright © 2005 by Compass Distributors.

Scripture taken from The Holy Bible, New King James Version (Nashville, TN: Thomas Nelson Inc.), 1982.