Post by rick on Apr 19, 2006 12:05:06 GMT -5
The Visible Church(Part 1)
Was There All Along
by Cindy Beck
“I just can’t be Protestant anymore,” I blurted out one night as my husband and I were driving in the car.
“What?”
“This is just crazy. Every church teaches something different. Every pastor interprets the Bible according to his own personal beliefs. How is anybody supposed to know who’s teaching the truth?”
“Well, all we can do is choose the denomination that’s most faithful to the Bible.”
“So we decide what the Bible means? We decide what’s true? Then the Bible isn’t our final authority – we are.”
Kerry was silent for a moment.
“Well, if you’re not Protestant anymore, then what are you?” he asked.
I didn’t know.
“Lord,” I prayed later that night, “I’ll go wherever You want me to go. Please, just lead me to the truth.”
I never imagined that I would one day become Catholic, even when I knew I could no longer be Protestant. Catholicism simply wasn’t an option. When I left Protestantism, I had no idea where I was going. I only knew that there had to be something else. No matter where it led, I had to find the truth. I never dreamed it would be in the last place I ever wanted to look.
* * * * *
Raised without a religious faith of any kind, I envisioned God as a stern Judge rather than a loving Father. Knowing my sinfulness, I didn’t think He would ever forgive someone like me. But in the mid-1980s, I discovered the Trinity Broadcasting Network on TV. The televangelists spoke of a merciful and forgiving God Who “so loved the world that He gave His only Son, that whoever believes in Him should not perish but have eternal life” (John 3:16). One night, in front of the TV set, I prayed the “sinner’s prayer” and asked Jesus into my heart as my Lord and Savior.
I began attending a Charismatic church whose pastor frequently appeared on TBN. Amid rock and roll music, swaying bodies, and waving arms, I was baptized. Charismatic worship was an exciting new experience. I had never before seen people speaking in “heavenly languages” or being “slain in the Spirit.” Visiting evangelists told amazing stories of “signs and wonders and miracles.” I longed to receive the gifts of the Spirit myself and went forward for the “laying on of hands” each week, but nothing happened.
As time passed, I began to question some of the beliefs of my church. Our pastors promised that we would receive physical as well as spiritual healing if we only had enough faith. And yet each week I watched as the same people went forward time and time again. No one ever got up out of a wheelchair, and the blind did not see. I wondered if these poor people who loved the Lord felt as though they themselves were to blame because they didn’t have enough faith to be healed. But as I read the Bible, I saw that God has a purpose for suffering in the Christian life (cf. Rom. 5:3-4, 8:17; Phil. 1:29; 1 Pet. 1:6-7).
I was also deeply troubled by the emphasis on “speaking in tongues.” Hadn’t the Apostle Paul said, “But in the church I would rather speak five intelligible words to instruct others than ten thousand words in a tongue” (1 Cor. 14:19)? Though our pastors appealed to the first letter to the Corinthians to support the practices in our church, I could see that Paul was admonishing them for their excesses. “Brothers, stop thinking like children” (1 Cor. 14:20), he told them.
As the Charismatic movement became more and more extreme, I began to distance myself, and I eventually left the church. For a time I continued to read the Bible, but it wasn’t long before I gave that up, too. As the cares of the world crept back into my life, I slowly abandoned the practice of my faith. For the next several years, I drifted further and further away from the Lord. Stubbornly resisting His grace, I tried to find happiness in the pleasures of the world.
It was during this time that I met my husband. Kerry had been raised in the Lutheran Church and had even been an altar boy in his youth, but fell away from his faith as a teenager. Together we went about living extremely self-centered, self-indulgent lives apart from the Lord.
Then one day, I got a letter from a woman I had known years earlier in the Charismatic church. She had become a Jehovah’s Witness. I knew that the Witnesses deny that Jesus is the eternal Son of God and teach that He is Michael the Archangel. While I didn’t remember very much about my faith by then, there was one thing of which I was absolutely certain: Jesus Christ is not a created being; He is God in human flesh, the Second Person of the Holy Trinity.
I found my Bible and called her, determined to show her from Scripture the truth about Christ. But it had been so long since I had studied the Bible, I forgot the passages that proved Christ’s Divinity. So I began to study Scripture again in earnest and we continued to talk until, on the advice of her elders, she cut off all contact. I never heard from her again. But like the prodigal son, I had come to my senses and longed to return to my Father’s house. I begged the Lord to forgive me for my years of sin and rebellion and I re-surrendered my life to Christ.
* * * * *
Scanning through the stations on the radio one day, I came across a discussion of the Jehovah’s Witnesses. I discovered the “Bible Answer Man,” a call-in radio talk show hosted by Hank Hanegraaff, president of the Christian Research Institute. I contacted CRI for more information about the Witnesses and became an avid listener of the show.
I started going to church again, attending a Baptist church near my home. How different it was! I had thought all Christians clapped and danced and shouted in church. But worship in the Baptist church was orderly and dignified. I felt so much more comfortable there.
At first, Kerry resisted. But by the grace of God, it wasn’t long before he had a conversion experience of his own. Kerry recommitted his life to Christ and we began following the Lord together.
Over the next few months, as he grew in his relationship with the Lord, Kerry became more and more uncomfortable in his job as the manager of a secular bookstore. Books on the occult, adult magazines, and the like were offensive to his new faith in Christ, so he prepared to look for some other kind of work.
I was listening to the “Bible Answer Man” on the radio one day when Hank announced that the Christian Research Institute was accepting resumes.
“Why don’t you send your resume to CRI?” I suggested to Kerry later that night.
We had no idea what kind of position was available. As it turned out, a manager was needed for the on-site bookstore – and Kerry got the job.
Founded in 1960 by the late Dr. Walter Martin (The Kingdom of the Cults), the Christian Research Institute is the largest Protestant apologetics organization in the world. CRI publishes the award-winning magazine The Christian Research Journal, and the “Bible Answer Man” broadcast is heard on over one hundred radio stations in the U.S. and Canada. What an honor it was that Kerry was going to be a part of this ministry. We could hardly believe that the Lord had blessed us in this way.
Kerry began working for CRI in the summer of 1996, and we moved north from San Diego to Orange County. Kerry loved his new job and quickly became a valued and well-liked member of the CRI staff. Within a year, he was supervising the warehouse and shipping department in addition to the bookstore. I became a volunteer and eventually started working for him in the warehouse on an as-needed basis. We made wonderful new friends and enjoyed working alongside our brothers and sisters in Christ.
After our move, we set about finding a new church. We wanted to try a different denomination, as we were troubled by the “secret rapture” teaching that was so prevalent in our Baptist church, for which we could find no Biblical support. We were surprised to learn that this teaching was less than two hundred years old and that it has never been accepted by the majority of Christian believers.
We eventually settled into a Reformed church. For the next two years, we studied the history of the Protestant Reformation, embracing Reformed theology wholeheartedly. I loved Calvinism – at last I could love the Lord not only with my heart but with my mind as well (cf. Matt. 22:37). Calvin’s doctrines on election, predestination, and the perseverance of the saints were particularly comforting. I loved the teaching that everything was in God’s Sovereign hands, determined before the foundation of the world.
We attended Bible studies and conferences, read numerous books, and listened to hundreds of theology tapes. We were learning from the best theologians the Reformed tradition had to offer.
One evening in a Bible study class, we were discussing Sola Scriptura (Scripture alone) when the topic of conversation switched to the canon of Scripture itself. Our teacher quoted my favorite theologian, R. C. Sproul, as saying that the canon of Scripture is a “fallible collection of infallible books.”
“What a strange thing to say,” I thought. “If the collection of books is fallible, how could anyone be certain that we have infallible books?” It didn’t make sense. Still, I put the thought out of my mind.
But it wasn’t long before another crack in my Reformed fortress began to appear. During another Bible study, a question was asked about the parable of the sheep and the goats in Matthew 25: How could we explain this passage in light of the doctrine of Sola Fide (Faith alone)? The answer that was given was less than satisfactory. How did this parable fit our theology, I wondered? The passage began to haunt me.
“When the Son of Man comes … He will sit on His throne in Heavenly glory. All the nations will be gathered before Him, and He will separate the people one from another as a shepherd separates the sheep from the goats. … Then the King will say to those on His right, ‘Come … for I was hungry and you gave Me something to eat, I was thirsty and you gave Me something to drink, I was a stranger and you invited Me in, I needed clothes and you clothed Me, I was sick and you looked after Me, I was in prison and you came to visit Me.’ … Then He will say to those on His left, ‘Depart from Me … for I was hungry and you gave Me nothing to eat, I was thirsty and you gave Me nothing to drink, I was a stranger and you did not invite Me in, I needed clothes and you did not clothe Me, I was sick and in prison and you did not look after Me.’ … ‘Lord, when did we see You hungry or thirsty or a stranger or needing clothes or sick or in prison, and did not help You?’ … ‘I tell you the truth, whatever you did not do for one of the least of these, you did not do for Me.’ Then they will go away to eternal punishment, but the righteous to eternal life” (Matt. 25:31-46).
Here was the clearest picture of the final judgment in all of Scripture, and the Lord was rewarding or condemning the people according to what they had done. As I searched Scripture, I found that this was not an isolated text (cf. Matt. 12:36-37, 13:49; John 5:28-29; Rom. 2:6-8; 2 Cor. 5:10; 1 Pet. 1:17; Rev. 2:23, 20:13).
How did all of this fit “Sola Fide”?
I knew that we are saved by the free gift of God’s grace; there is nothing we can do to earn our salvation (cf. Eph. 2:8-9). But the simple formula of “faith alone” did not do justice to the totality of Scripture. How could we reconcile Martin Luther’s doctrine of forensic justification and imputed righteousness with the clear teaching of the Bible?
“Do not let anyone lead you astray,” said the Apostle John. “He who does what is right is righteous, just as He is righteous” (1 John 3:7).
Luther said, “No sin can separate us from Him, even if we were to kill or commit adultery thousands of times each day” (Let Your Sins Be Strong, 1521). But the Apostle Paul warned, “Do you not know that the wicked will not inherit the Kingdom of God?” (1 Cor. 6:9).
Was the doctrine of Sola Fide misleading countless people into a false sense of security? I remembered the Lord’s stinging warning in Matthew 7:21. “Not everyone who says to Me, ‘Lord, Lord,’ will enter the Kingdom of Heaven, but only he who does the will of My Father Who is in Heaven.”
I wondered. Had Martin Luther really “rediscovered” the gospel? Or had he invented something new?
* * * * *
It began to bother me that there were so many theological differences among the CRI staff. The Lutherans disagreed with the Baptists, who disagreed with the Reformed, who disagreed with the Calvary Chapel people and so forth. Though we claimed to be united on essentials, in reality we had serious disagreements on central theological issues: Does God regenerate us in baptism or is it only a sign? Is Christ truly present in the Lord’s Supper or are the elements merely symbolic? Can we resist God’s grace and lose our salvation or are we eternally secure? It seemed absurd to me that we could hold so many contradicting views and yet all claim to be “within the pale of orthodoxy.” Somebody had to be wrong.
And what of those Christians who disagreed with CRI positions? We all looked to the Bible; what made our opinions more correct than those of anyone else? We were sending out “fact sheets” every day, but how could we really be certain that we were telling people the truth? I began to view CRI as a microcosm of Protestantism. At the end of the day, all we could do was “agree to disagree,” because each one had his Bible and was determined to decide for himself what was true.
One evening, Westminster Theological Seminary hosted a debate between the Lutherans and the Reformed on the topic of the Real Presence of Christ in the Eucharist. Kerry and I couldn’t make it, but a Lutheran co-worker from CRI attended the debate and told us about it the following day. He said the discussion had quickly become heated, each side hurling Bible verses back and forth, saying things that were “almost blasphemous.”
“Oh, this is just ridiculous,” I thought to myself. “It’s been nearly five hundred years since the Reformation and they still can’t agree on what the Bible means!” And then I came to a startling realization: Sola Scriptura doesn’t work.
* * * * *
I couldn’t stop thinking about the hopeless state of division and confusion within Protestantism. With the Bible alone as our guide, we had managed to split into nearly 30,000 bickering denominations with no end in sight. How could so many sincere men of God, all claiming the Bible as their sole authority, come up with so many different interpretations of Scripture? Whose interpretation were we supposed to trust? How could we look to the Bible alone if nobody could say authoritatively what it means?
The weakening of faith and the collapse of moral values were equally disheartening. Many mainline churches, once stalwart in defense of orthodox Christian doctrine, now watered down fundamental beliefs such as the inerrancy of Scripture, the Virgin Birth, the Bodily Resurrection, and even the Divinity of Christ. Rejecting Biblical morality, homosexual practice and lifestyle were becoming acceptable. Even traditionally conservative denominations were now permitting abortion. What would have been unthinkable even fifty years ago was rapidly becoming commonplace today. And still, all looked to the Bible alone and continued to claim the perspicuity of Scripture.
I had to see for myself what “private interpretation” had really led to. I asked Kerry to take me to see the various denominations. We began going on what we called our “field trips,” visiting a new church every week.
One Sunday morning, we went to the fastest-growing church in southern California. One of the new “seeker-sensitive” mega-churches, it seemed more like a stadium event than a religious service. There were no Christian symbols on the walls, not even a Cross. Musical instruments covered the stage from end to end. The pastor’s sermon was motivational and we enjoyed the lively, contemporary Christian music, but there wasn’t a word about sin, repentance, or Christ’s death on the Cross. Was this worship? Or was it entertainment? Was this what five hundred years of Protestantism had produced?
Kerry was quickly becoming as disillusioned as I was. We began to think that perhaps the solution could be found in the Anglican-Catholic Church. We found St. Matthew’s, a parish about thirty miles from our home, and began attending services each week. For a time, we loved it there. The worship was reverent and the parish priest gave some of the best sermons we had ever heard.
But there was no Anglican-Catholic parish in San Diego, where we hoped to return someday. And I discovered that the Anglican-Catholic Church had only been established as recently as 1978, when it separated from the Episcopal Church. It was just one more denomination, split off from yet another denomination.
I was terribly frustrated. Paul had warned against divisions (cf. 1 Cor. 1:10) and said that we are to watch out for those who cause them (cf. Rom. 16:17). “For the time will come,” he wrote, “when men will not put up with sound doctrine. Instead, to suit their own desires, they will gather around them a great number of teachers to say what their itching ears want to hear” (2 Tim. 4:3). I was weary of being “blown about by every wind of doctrine” (Eph. 4:14). Surely this disunity and confusion was not the work of the Holy Spirit.
* * * * *
We were visiting a small, Episcopal church in our neighborhood one week, when the pastor announced that there was going to be a day of prayer for unity and a special ecumenical service held at a nearby Greek Orthodox church. Knowing very little about the Eastern Orthodox, I was intrigued.
“Why don’t we go and see what it’s like?” I suggested to Kerry. “We’ve already been everywhere else.”
Though we missed the ecumenical service, one Sunday morning a few weeks later, we decided to visit the Orthodox church.
The smell of incense filled the air as we entered St. Paul’s Greek Orthodox Church for the Divine Liturgy. It was the most majestic church that we had ever seen. The priest, clad in a lavish golden vestment, censed the altar as he prayed in the Sanctuary. Worshipers lit candles and kissed the icons, making the Sign of the Cross. Kerry and I sat down in silence. There was a sense of reverence here that we had never experienced before. But as the celebration of the Liturgy progressed, we felt terribly out of place as the people around us stood, knelt, prayed, sang, crossed themselves, and even kissed! As beautiful as it was, I didn’t know if we would ever go back again.
I began reading about the Eastern Orthodox and discovered that theirs was an ancient church with a living, historical connection to the Apostles and to Jesus Himself. As far as I had been concerned, Church history began in the sixteenth century. I knew nothing about the fifteen hundred years before the Protestant Reformation. I began to wonder about the early centuries of Christianity. What had the early Christians been like? How had they worshiped? Reading Church history, I discovered the writings of the Apostolic Fathers. The writings of the early Fathers opened up a whole new world to me that I never knew existed.
Was There All Along
by Cindy Beck
“I just can’t be Protestant anymore,” I blurted out one night as my husband and I were driving in the car.
“What?”
“This is just crazy. Every church teaches something different. Every pastor interprets the Bible according to his own personal beliefs. How is anybody supposed to know who’s teaching the truth?”
“Well, all we can do is choose the denomination that’s most faithful to the Bible.”
“So we decide what the Bible means? We decide what’s true? Then the Bible isn’t our final authority – we are.”
Kerry was silent for a moment.
“Well, if you’re not Protestant anymore, then what are you?” he asked.
I didn’t know.
“Lord,” I prayed later that night, “I’ll go wherever You want me to go. Please, just lead me to the truth.”
I never imagined that I would one day become Catholic, even when I knew I could no longer be Protestant. Catholicism simply wasn’t an option. When I left Protestantism, I had no idea where I was going. I only knew that there had to be something else. No matter where it led, I had to find the truth. I never dreamed it would be in the last place I ever wanted to look.
* * * * *
Raised without a religious faith of any kind, I envisioned God as a stern Judge rather than a loving Father. Knowing my sinfulness, I didn’t think He would ever forgive someone like me. But in the mid-1980s, I discovered the Trinity Broadcasting Network on TV. The televangelists spoke of a merciful and forgiving God Who “so loved the world that He gave His only Son, that whoever believes in Him should not perish but have eternal life” (John 3:16). One night, in front of the TV set, I prayed the “sinner’s prayer” and asked Jesus into my heart as my Lord and Savior.
I began attending a Charismatic church whose pastor frequently appeared on TBN. Amid rock and roll music, swaying bodies, and waving arms, I was baptized. Charismatic worship was an exciting new experience. I had never before seen people speaking in “heavenly languages” or being “slain in the Spirit.” Visiting evangelists told amazing stories of “signs and wonders and miracles.” I longed to receive the gifts of the Spirit myself and went forward for the “laying on of hands” each week, but nothing happened.
As time passed, I began to question some of the beliefs of my church. Our pastors promised that we would receive physical as well as spiritual healing if we only had enough faith. And yet each week I watched as the same people went forward time and time again. No one ever got up out of a wheelchair, and the blind did not see. I wondered if these poor people who loved the Lord felt as though they themselves were to blame because they didn’t have enough faith to be healed. But as I read the Bible, I saw that God has a purpose for suffering in the Christian life (cf. Rom. 5:3-4, 8:17; Phil. 1:29; 1 Pet. 1:6-7).
I was also deeply troubled by the emphasis on “speaking in tongues.” Hadn’t the Apostle Paul said, “But in the church I would rather speak five intelligible words to instruct others than ten thousand words in a tongue” (1 Cor. 14:19)? Though our pastors appealed to the first letter to the Corinthians to support the practices in our church, I could see that Paul was admonishing them for their excesses. “Brothers, stop thinking like children” (1 Cor. 14:20), he told them.
As the Charismatic movement became more and more extreme, I began to distance myself, and I eventually left the church. For a time I continued to read the Bible, but it wasn’t long before I gave that up, too. As the cares of the world crept back into my life, I slowly abandoned the practice of my faith. For the next several years, I drifted further and further away from the Lord. Stubbornly resisting His grace, I tried to find happiness in the pleasures of the world.
It was during this time that I met my husband. Kerry had been raised in the Lutheran Church and had even been an altar boy in his youth, but fell away from his faith as a teenager. Together we went about living extremely self-centered, self-indulgent lives apart from the Lord.
Then one day, I got a letter from a woman I had known years earlier in the Charismatic church. She had become a Jehovah’s Witness. I knew that the Witnesses deny that Jesus is the eternal Son of God and teach that He is Michael the Archangel. While I didn’t remember very much about my faith by then, there was one thing of which I was absolutely certain: Jesus Christ is not a created being; He is God in human flesh, the Second Person of the Holy Trinity.
I found my Bible and called her, determined to show her from Scripture the truth about Christ. But it had been so long since I had studied the Bible, I forgot the passages that proved Christ’s Divinity. So I began to study Scripture again in earnest and we continued to talk until, on the advice of her elders, she cut off all contact. I never heard from her again. But like the prodigal son, I had come to my senses and longed to return to my Father’s house. I begged the Lord to forgive me for my years of sin and rebellion and I re-surrendered my life to Christ.
* * * * *
Scanning through the stations on the radio one day, I came across a discussion of the Jehovah’s Witnesses. I discovered the “Bible Answer Man,” a call-in radio talk show hosted by Hank Hanegraaff, president of the Christian Research Institute. I contacted CRI for more information about the Witnesses and became an avid listener of the show.
I started going to church again, attending a Baptist church near my home. How different it was! I had thought all Christians clapped and danced and shouted in church. But worship in the Baptist church was orderly and dignified. I felt so much more comfortable there.
At first, Kerry resisted. But by the grace of God, it wasn’t long before he had a conversion experience of his own. Kerry recommitted his life to Christ and we began following the Lord together.
Over the next few months, as he grew in his relationship with the Lord, Kerry became more and more uncomfortable in his job as the manager of a secular bookstore. Books on the occult, adult magazines, and the like were offensive to his new faith in Christ, so he prepared to look for some other kind of work.
I was listening to the “Bible Answer Man” on the radio one day when Hank announced that the Christian Research Institute was accepting resumes.
“Why don’t you send your resume to CRI?” I suggested to Kerry later that night.
We had no idea what kind of position was available. As it turned out, a manager was needed for the on-site bookstore – and Kerry got the job.
Founded in 1960 by the late Dr. Walter Martin (The Kingdom of the Cults), the Christian Research Institute is the largest Protestant apologetics organization in the world. CRI publishes the award-winning magazine The Christian Research Journal, and the “Bible Answer Man” broadcast is heard on over one hundred radio stations in the U.S. and Canada. What an honor it was that Kerry was going to be a part of this ministry. We could hardly believe that the Lord had blessed us in this way.
Kerry began working for CRI in the summer of 1996, and we moved north from San Diego to Orange County. Kerry loved his new job and quickly became a valued and well-liked member of the CRI staff. Within a year, he was supervising the warehouse and shipping department in addition to the bookstore. I became a volunteer and eventually started working for him in the warehouse on an as-needed basis. We made wonderful new friends and enjoyed working alongside our brothers and sisters in Christ.
After our move, we set about finding a new church. We wanted to try a different denomination, as we were troubled by the “secret rapture” teaching that was so prevalent in our Baptist church, for which we could find no Biblical support. We were surprised to learn that this teaching was less than two hundred years old and that it has never been accepted by the majority of Christian believers.
We eventually settled into a Reformed church. For the next two years, we studied the history of the Protestant Reformation, embracing Reformed theology wholeheartedly. I loved Calvinism – at last I could love the Lord not only with my heart but with my mind as well (cf. Matt. 22:37). Calvin’s doctrines on election, predestination, and the perseverance of the saints were particularly comforting. I loved the teaching that everything was in God’s Sovereign hands, determined before the foundation of the world.
We attended Bible studies and conferences, read numerous books, and listened to hundreds of theology tapes. We were learning from the best theologians the Reformed tradition had to offer.
One evening in a Bible study class, we were discussing Sola Scriptura (Scripture alone) when the topic of conversation switched to the canon of Scripture itself. Our teacher quoted my favorite theologian, R. C. Sproul, as saying that the canon of Scripture is a “fallible collection of infallible books.”
“What a strange thing to say,” I thought. “If the collection of books is fallible, how could anyone be certain that we have infallible books?” It didn’t make sense. Still, I put the thought out of my mind.
But it wasn’t long before another crack in my Reformed fortress began to appear. During another Bible study, a question was asked about the parable of the sheep and the goats in Matthew 25: How could we explain this passage in light of the doctrine of Sola Fide (Faith alone)? The answer that was given was less than satisfactory. How did this parable fit our theology, I wondered? The passage began to haunt me.
“When the Son of Man comes … He will sit on His throne in Heavenly glory. All the nations will be gathered before Him, and He will separate the people one from another as a shepherd separates the sheep from the goats. … Then the King will say to those on His right, ‘Come … for I was hungry and you gave Me something to eat, I was thirsty and you gave Me something to drink, I was a stranger and you invited Me in, I needed clothes and you clothed Me, I was sick and you looked after Me, I was in prison and you came to visit Me.’ … Then He will say to those on His left, ‘Depart from Me … for I was hungry and you gave Me nothing to eat, I was thirsty and you gave Me nothing to drink, I was a stranger and you did not invite Me in, I needed clothes and you did not clothe Me, I was sick and in prison and you did not look after Me.’ … ‘Lord, when did we see You hungry or thirsty or a stranger or needing clothes or sick or in prison, and did not help You?’ … ‘I tell you the truth, whatever you did not do for one of the least of these, you did not do for Me.’ Then they will go away to eternal punishment, but the righteous to eternal life” (Matt. 25:31-46).
Here was the clearest picture of the final judgment in all of Scripture, and the Lord was rewarding or condemning the people according to what they had done. As I searched Scripture, I found that this was not an isolated text (cf. Matt. 12:36-37, 13:49; John 5:28-29; Rom. 2:6-8; 2 Cor. 5:10; 1 Pet. 1:17; Rev. 2:23, 20:13).
How did all of this fit “Sola Fide”?
I knew that we are saved by the free gift of God’s grace; there is nothing we can do to earn our salvation (cf. Eph. 2:8-9). But the simple formula of “faith alone” did not do justice to the totality of Scripture. How could we reconcile Martin Luther’s doctrine of forensic justification and imputed righteousness with the clear teaching of the Bible?
“Do not let anyone lead you astray,” said the Apostle John. “He who does what is right is righteous, just as He is righteous” (1 John 3:7).
Luther said, “No sin can separate us from Him, even if we were to kill or commit adultery thousands of times each day” (Let Your Sins Be Strong, 1521). But the Apostle Paul warned, “Do you not know that the wicked will not inherit the Kingdom of God?” (1 Cor. 6:9).
Was the doctrine of Sola Fide misleading countless people into a false sense of security? I remembered the Lord’s stinging warning in Matthew 7:21. “Not everyone who says to Me, ‘Lord, Lord,’ will enter the Kingdom of Heaven, but only he who does the will of My Father Who is in Heaven.”
I wondered. Had Martin Luther really “rediscovered” the gospel? Or had he invented something new?
* * * * *
It began to bother me that there were so many theological differences among the CRI staff. The Lutherans disagreed with the Baptists, who disagreed with the Reformed, who disagreed with the Calvary Chapel people and so forth. Though we claimed to be united on essentials, in reality we had serious disagreements on central theological issues: Does God regenerate us in baptism or is it only a sign? Is Christ truly present in the Lord’s Supper or are the elements merely symbolic? Can we resist God’s grace and lose our salvation or are we eternally secure? It seemed absurd to me that we could hold so many contradicting views and yet all claim to be “within the pale of orthodoxy.” Somebody had to be wrong.
And what of those Christians who disagreed with CRI positions? We all looked to the Bible; what made our opinions more correct than those of anyone else? We were sending out “fact sheets” every day, but how could we really be certain that we were telling people the truth? I began to view CRI as a microcosm of Protestantism. At the end of the day, all we could do was “agree to disagree,” because each one had his Bible and was determined to decide for himself what was true.
One evening, Westminster Theological Seminary hosted a debate between the Lutherans and the Reformed on the topic of the Real Presence of Christ in the Eucharist. Kerry and I couldn’t make it, but a Lutheran co-worker from CRI attended the debate and told us about it the following day. He said the discussion had quickly become heated, each side hurling Bible verses back and forth, saying things that were “almost blasphemous.”
“Oh, this is just ridiculous,” I thought to myself. “It’s been nearly five hundred years since the Reformation and they still can’t agree on what the Bible means!” And then I came to a startling realization: Sola Scriptura doesn’t work.
* * * * *
I couldn’t stop thinking about the hopeless state of division and confusion within Protestantism. With the Bible alone as our guide, we had managed to split into nearly 30,000 bickering denominations with no end in sight. How could so many sincere men of God, all claiming the Bible as their sole authority, come up with so many different interpretations of Scripture? Whose interpretation were we supposed to trust? How could we look to the Bible alone if nobody could say authoritatively what it means?
The weakening of faith and the collapse of moral values were equally disheartening. Many mainline churches, once stalwart in defense of orthodox Christian doctrine, now watered down fundamental beliefs such as the inerrancy of Scripture, the Virgin Birth, the Bodily Resurrection, and even the Divinity of Christ. Rejecting Biblical morality, homosexual practice and lifestyle were becoming acceptable. Even traditionally conservative denominations were now permitting abortion. What would have been unthinkable even fifty years ago was rapidly becoming commonplace today. And still, all looked to the Bible alone and continued to claim the perspicuity of Scripture.
I had to see for myself what “private interpretation” had really led to. I asked Kerry to take me to see the various denominations. We began going on what we called our “field trips,” visiting a new church every week.
One Sunday morning, we went to the fastest-growing church in southern California. One of the new “seeker-sensitive” mega-churches, it seemed more like a stadium event than a religious service. There were no Christian symbols on the walls, not even a Cross. Musical instruments covered the stage from end to end. The pastor’s sermon was motivational and we enjoyed the lively, contemporary Christian music, but there wasn’t a word about sin, repentance, or Christ’s death on the Cross. Was this worship? Or was it entertainment? Was this what five hundred years of Protestantism had produced?
Kerry was quickly becoming as disillusioned as I was. We began to think that perhaps the solution could be found in the Anglican-Catholic Church. We found St. Matthew’s, a parish about thirty miles from our home, and began attending services each week. For a time, we loved it there. The worship was reverent and the parish priest gave some of the best sermons we had ever heard.
But there was no Anglican-Catholic parish in San Diego, where we hoped to return someday. And I discovered that the Anglican-Catholic Church had only been established as recently as 1978, when it separated from the Episcopal Church. It was just one more denomination, split off from yet another denomination.
I was terribly frustrated. Paul had warned against divisions (cf. 1 Cor. 1:10) and said that we are to watch out for those who cause them (cf. Rom. 16:17). “For the time will come,” he wrote, “when men will not put up with sound doctrine. Instead, to suit their own desires, they will gather around them a great number of teachers to say what their itching ears want to hear” (2 Tim. 4:3). I was weary of being “blown about by every wind of doctrine” (Eph. 4:14). Surely this disunity and confusion was not the work of the Holy Spirit.
* * * * *
We were visiting a small, Episcopal church in our neighborhood one week, when the pastor announced that there was going to be a day of prayer for unity and a special ecumenical service held at a nearby Greek Orthodox church. Knowing very little about the Eastern Orthodox, I was intrigued.
“Why don’t we go and see what it’s like?” I suggested to Kerry. “We’ve already been everywhere else.”
Though we missed the ecumenical service, one Sunday morning a few weeks later, we decided to visit the Orthodox church.
The smell of incense filled the air as we entered St. Paul’s Greek Orthodox Church for the Divine Liturgy. It was the most majestic church that we had ever seen. The priest, clad in a lavish golden vestment, censed the altar as he prayed in the Sanctuary. Worshipers lit candles and kissed the icons, making the Sign of the Cross. Kerry and I sat down in silence. There was a sense of reverence here that we had never experienced before. But as the celebration of the Liturgy progressed, we felt terribly out of place as the people around us stood, knelt, prayed, sang, crossed themselves, and even kissed! As beautiful as it was, I didn’t know if we would ever go back again.
I began reading about the Eastern Orthodox and discovered that theirs was an ancient church with a living, historical connection to the Apostles and to Jesus Himself. As far as I had been concerned, Church history began in the sixteenth century. I knew nothing about the fifteen hundred years before the Protestant Reformation. I began to wonder about the early centuries of Christianity. What had the early Christians been like? How had they worshiped? Reading Church history, I discovered the writings of the Apostolic Fathers. The writings of the early Fathers opened up a whole new world to me that I never knew existed.