Posted by
ValiantForTruth on Sunday, June 14, 2009 10:37:01 PM
“My contention is that the increase in Roman Catholicism is due to one thing only, and that is a weak and flabby Protestantism that does not know what it believes. There is only one thing that can counter it, and that is a biblical and doctrinal Christianity. A Christianity that just preaches ‘Come to Jesus’ cannot stand before Rome for a second. Probably what that will do ultimately will be to add to the numbers belonging to Rome. People who hold evangelistic campaigns and say, ‘Ah, you Roman Catholics, go back to your church, are denying New Testament teaching. We must warn them. There are innocent people who are being deluded.”
-Martyn Lloyd-Jones, Preaching on ‘The Wiles of the Devil’, January 29, 1961
In light of Lloyd-Jones’ prophetic words, church historian Iain Murray reviews Mark Noll and Carolyn Nystrom’s book, Is the Reformation Over? An Evangelical Assessment of Contemporary Roman Catholicism in his new book Lloyd-Jones: Messenger of Grace...
The authors believe that a change ‘unimaginable forty years ago’ has taken place between most of evangelicalism and Roman Catholicism. They assure us that instead of the evangelical opposition of former times, there is now a new openness among all but the ‘few’ who are ‘paranoid or ignorant’. Except for this one lapse, Noll and Nystrom eschew the name-calling. It is a parody of Christianity that allows anyone to suspend love for his neighbor if that neighbor is a theological opponent.
The authors insist that on the fundamental matter of salvation and what constitutes a Christian, a new unanimity has been reached. On justification only details of disagreement remain: the main truth is agreed: ‘If it is true, as once was repeated by Luther or Calvin that justification is the article on which the church stands or falls, then the Reformation is over’.