Posted by
ValiantForTruth on Saturday, June 27, 2009 10:14:10 AM
The book by Noll and Nystrom is dedicated to J. I. Packer who is called the ‘discerning pioneer’ as opposed to Lloyd-Jones who would be among the ‘ignorant and paranoid’ who came out with strong warnings against ecumenicalism. The question of interest is which man had the better discernment. Has the ecumenical movement produced a stronger more vibrant church that is working according to the Great Commission? Or has it weakened the Protestant churches by further blurring the biblical doctrines of Justification and Church and New Covenant distinctives, producing a ‘weak and flabby Protestantism’? Look at the church in England today. Has not history demonstrated that Lloyd-Jones, like Jeremiah was the unheralded prophet?
According to Iain Murray the thinking behind Is the Reformation Over? is virtually Packer’s thinking. The book stands on the opinion that ‘Catholics and Protestants fighting together for the basics of the creed is nowadays more important [than discussion on individual doctrines].’ The ‘basics’ include the way of salvation, so the two sides should now evangelize together [Evangelicals and Catholics Together]. That serious differences remain is not defied, but they are not such as to warrant any questioning of Roman Catholics as fellow believers.
Certainly, where there are basic gospel truths, Christians may be found. That such basic truth survives within the formularies of the Roman Church is not denied, nor has such a denial ever been part of the Protestant case against Rome. The issue is whether the system of teaching and practice with which Rome indoctrinates her people is consistent with those basic truths. The Reformers judged that system against Scripture and showed the fundamental contradictions:
Instead of upholding the NT gospel, the Roman system is calculated to lead away from the faith in Christ to faith in the Church and faith in the priest; from faith in gospel promises to faith in sacraments and ‘good works’; from faith in the Bible to believing ‘what the church believes’. Let the reader take up the Roman Catechism and judge this is true or a caricature.