Updated April 5, 1999 (first published December 3, 1997) (David W. Cloud, Fundamental Baptist Information Service, P.O. Box 610368, Port Huron, MI 48061-0368, fbns@wayoflife.org) -- On October 7, a group of Evangelical and Catholic theologians met together in New York City and adopted an ecumenical statement entitled "The Gift of Salvation" or "Evangelicals and Catholics Together II." The statement has been circulated via the Internet and other means for the last two months, but it was formally published for the first time in Christianity Today, December 8, 1997. The evangelical signers include Bill Bright (head of Campus Crusade for Christ), Chuck Colson, Max Lucado (Church of Christ pastor, popular author, frequent speaker at Promise Keepers meetings), and J.I. Packer (Regent College, British Columbia). The statement distributed via the Internet included Richard Land, head of the Southern Baptist Christian Life Commission, and Bob Seiple (World Vision) as signers, but their names are omitted in Christianity Today. No explanation is given.

This new ecumenical statement is an outgrowth of the original "Evangelicals and Catholics Together" declaration of March 29, 1994. It "emerged from a series of conferences convened by Charles Colson and Richard John Neuhaus."

The publication of "The Gift of Salvation" in Christianity Today is accompanied by an introduction by Timothy George, senior adviser to Christianity Today and dean of Beeson Divinity School at the Southern Baptist-supported Samford University in Birmingham, Alabama. George says that "The Gift of Salvation" "has been made possible by a major realignment in ecumenical discourse: the coalescence of believing Roman Catholics and faithful evangelicals who both affirm the substance of historic Christian orthodoxy against the ideology of theological pluralism that marks much mainline Protestant thought as well as avant-garde Catholic theology. Thus, for all our differences, Bible-believing evangelicals stand much closer to Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger than to Bishop John Spong!" (George, "Evangelicals and Catholics Together: A New Initiative," Christianity Today, Dec. 8, 1997, p. 34).

Timothy George and the other signers of this new ecumenical initiative like to think of themselves as "faithful evangelicals," but in reality, they are the blind leading the blind. A true Bible believer does not stand close either to Catholic Cardinal Ratzinger or to the modernist Spong. Neither are friends of the gospel of the Lord Jesus Christ. To pretend that a Roman Catholic can be faithful to his "church" while at the same time affirming the biblical doctrine of justification, that salvation is strictly by faith alone through grace alone by the atonement of Christ alone without works or sacraments, is unbelievable blindness. If the Catholic theologians who signed "The Gift of Salvation" really believe this doctrine of salvation, they are commanded by the Word of God to depart from the unscriptural Catholic Church with its false gospel and blasphemous claims and doctrines of Devils (1 Timothy 4:1-6).

The Content of "The Gift of Salvation"

"The Gift of Salvation" is a bland and, in the ecumenical context, insufficient affirmation of the doctrine of biblical justification. It begins by thanking God that in recent years many Evangelicals and Catholics "have been able to express a common faith in Christ and so to acknowledge one another as brothers and sisters in Christ."

Consider the following excerpts from "The Gift of Salvation" --

"...we affirm the binding authority of Holy Scripture, God’s inspired word; and we acknowledge the Apostles’ and Nicene creeds as faithful witnesses to that Word."

"We agree that justification is not earned by any good works or merits of our own; it is entirely God’s gift, conferred through the Father’s sheer graciousness, out of the love that he bears us in his Son, who suffered on our behalf and rose from the dead for our justification. Jesus was ‘put to death for our trespasses and raised for our justification’ (Romans 4:25). In justification, God, on the basis of Christ’s righteousness alone, declares us to be no longer his rebellious enemies but his forgiven friends, and by virtue of his declaration it is so."

"The New Testament makes it clear that the gift of justification is received through faith."

"We understand that what we here affirm is in agreement with what the Reformation traditions have meant by justification by faith alone (sola fide)."

"Sanctification is not fully accomplished at the beginning of our life in Christ, but is progressively furthered as we struggle, with God’s grace and help, against adversity and temptation. In this struggle we are assured that Christ’s grace will be sufficient for us, enabling us to persevere to the end. When we fail, we can still turn to God in humble repentance and confidently ask for, and receive, his forgiveness. We may therefore have assured hope for the eternal life promised to us in Christ. As we have shared in his sufferings, we will share in his final glory. ‘We shall be like him, for we shall see him as he is’ (1 John 3:2). While we dare not presume upon the grace of God, the promise of God in Christ is utterly reliable, and faith in that promise overcomes anxiety about our eternal future."

"In obedience to the Great Commission of our Lord, we commit ourselves to evangelizing everyone. We must share the fullness of God’s saving truth with all, including members of our several communities. Evangelicals must speak the gospel to Catholics and Catholics to Evangelicals."

An Insufficient Statement

In light of Rome’s false sacramental gospel, this ecumenical statement is sorely insufficient. In typical New Evangelical fashion, the evangelical authors and signers omitted many things that are necessary to properly delineate the true Bible gospel from the false Roman Catholic one. For the most part, what they stated about justification is not inherently unscriptural; the most serious problem lies in what they failed to state. You see, Rome has always admitted that salvation is a gift of God’s grace in Jesus Christ, that it comes only through the Lord Jesus Christ, that it comes through faith, and that God’s grace is sufficient for salvation. Rome agrees with all of that. It has brought God’s curse upon itself, though (Galatians 1:7), by going beyond this and claiming that salvation is distributed through its sacraments and priesthood.

THIS ECUMENICAL PAPER FAILS TO STATE THAT THE SALVATION OF THE SOUL HAS NOTHING WHATSOEVER TO DO WITH WORKS OR SACRAMENTS. To be meaningful, the document would state that justification is by God’s grace alone through the atonement of Christ alone through faith alone, WITHOUT WORKS OR BAPTISM OR OTHER SACRAMENTS OR CHURCH OR PRIESTHOOD.

THIS STATEMENT ALSO FAILS TO EXPOSE THE MANIFOLD WAYS IN WHICH ROME HAS DENIED THE GOSPEL. To be meaningful, the document would state without hesitation that Rome has perverted and denied the Gospel of the grace of Christ not only through its definition of the gospel but also by its sacramental system; by its doctrine of baptismal regeneration; by exalting its priests, popes, saints, and Mary as alleged mediators between Christ and men; by its doctrine of purgatory, etc.

The document’s failure to address these matters plainly leaves it empty and insufficient. It does not get at the heart of the problem of Rome’s error. It skirts the fundamental issues, and leaves more questions unanswered than answered. The authors of this statement are intelligent men, and we can be assured that this is not done in ignorance.

A Meaningless Statement

Further, the "Gift of Salvation" ecumenical statement is really an exercise in vanity. The Roman Catholic signers cannot speak for Rome, and they admit that they do not do so. Roman Catholic doctrine is formally defined by its popes, fathers, and councils. It is not for individual Catholics to decide what they will believe and what they will not believe. The signing of such a statement by 15 Catholic theologians, even if it were a truly sound and sufficient statement of biblical justification, means absolutely nothing other than to cloud the issue of the gospel in the minds of gullible people.

A Deceptive Statement

The "Gift of Salvation" statement is more than an exercise in vanity, though. It is one of the most deceptive things I have ever seen. The concluding paragraph claims that the Catholic signers are "conscientiously faithful to the teaching of the Catholic Church."

That is a blatant lie, and I will not hedge my terms. Rome unequivocally denies that justification is by grace alone through faith alone without works or sacraments. Rome unequivocally condemns those who teach that justification is by grace alone through faith alone without works or sacraments. (See "Is the Roman Catholic Church Changing" and "How Rome Denies Salvation by Grace Alone.") The Catholic signers are well aware of this. Therefore, it is patently impossible for a faithful Catholic to understand justification "in agreement with what the Reformation traditions have meant by faith alone (sola fide)."

If these Catholic theologians really believe that salvation is by grace alone through faith alone without works or sacraments, if they really believe that justification was defined properly by the Reformation, they should publicly repudiate Rome’s false gospel. They should expose the Council of Trent and the Vatican II Council as false. They should separate themselves from an institution that is committed to a false gospel and that has cursed and tormented and murdered humble Bible-believing saints through the centuries.

CONCLUSION

Rome has not changed its doctrinal position or its claims to be the one, true, holy, apostolic church. It is engaged in a clever ploy. It is using the ecumenical movement to bring the separated sons home to the papa (which is the meaning of the term pope), and it is succeeding brilliantly. The amazing fact is that Rome has not hidden its goal in ecumenical relations. Consider the following statement from the Vatican II Council:

"The term 'ecumenical movement' indicates the initiatives and activities encouraged and organized, according to the various needs of the [Roman] Church and as opportunities offer, to promote Christian unity. ... The results will be that, little by little, as the obstacles to perfect ecclesiastical communion are overcome, ALL CHRISTIANS WILL BE GATHERED IN A COMMON CELEBRATION OF THE EUCHARIST, INTO THE UNITY OF THE ONE AND ONLY CHURCH, which Christ bestowed on his Church from the beginning. THE UNITY, WE BELIEVE, SUBSISTS IN THE CATHOLIC CHURCH AS SOMETHING SHE CAN NEVER LOSE" (emphasis added) (Vatican II, Decree on Ecumenism, chap. 1, 4, p. 416).

Do not be deceived, friends.

"And I heard another voice from heaven, saying, Come out of her, my people, that ye be not partakers of her sins, and that ye receive not of her plagues" (Revelation 18:4).

"Preach the word; be instant in season, out of season; reprove, rebuke, exhort with all longsuffering and doctrine. For the time will come when they will not endure sound doctrine; but after their own lusts shall they heap to themselves teachers, having itching ears; And they shall turn away their ears from the truth, and shall be turned unto fables" (2 Timothy 4:2-4).