FORGET NONE OF HIS BENEFITS, volume 4, number 16, April 21, 2005
“I am the way, and the truth, and the life; no one comes to the Father,
but through Me.” John 14:6.
Papacy
By now the whole world knows that the Cardinals of the Roman Catholic Church recently voted Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger, now known as Pope Benedict XVI, as the 265th leader of the Roman Catholic Church which has a membership worldwide of over one billion people. It appears that Benedict XVI will continue the same policies and theological stance of his predecessor Pope John Paul II, one with whom he worked very closely for over twenty years as leader of the Vatican’s Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith. The new pope is a scholar who holds firmly to the orthodox positions of the Roman Catholic Church on abortion, homosexuality, male priests only, celibacy, and withholding communion to those who support a manifest grave sin such as abortion or euthanasia. The new pope is a theological conservative and thus a friend to many of us in some areas, but ought we embrace fully and uncritically his belief system?
In his paper Dominus Iesus, written August 6, 2000 while he was Cardinal Ratzinger, the new pope takes up the issue of relativism and religious pluralism. He says many good things and I quote now a few of them, “The Lord Jesus, before ascending into heaven, commanded his disciples to proclaim the Gospel to the whole world and to baptize all nations. . .The Church’s constant missionary proclamation is endangered today by relativistic theories which seek to justify religious pluralism. . .As a remedy for this relativistic mentality, which is becoming ever more common, it is necessary above all to reassert the definitive and complete character of the revelation of Jesus Christ. . .The Church’s tradition reserves the designation of inspired texts to the canonical books of the Old and New Testaments, since these are inspired by the Holy Spirit. . .The doctrine of faith must be firmly believed which proclaims that Jesus of Nazareth, son of Mary, and he alone, is the Son and the Word of the Father. . .It must therefore be firmly believed as a truth of Catholic faith that the universal salvific will of the One and Triune God is offered and accomplished once for all in the mystery of the incarnation, death, and resurrection of the Son of God. . .Not infrequently it is proposed that theology should avoid the use of terms like unicity, universality, and absoluteness, which give the impression of excessive emphasis on the significance and value of the salvific event of Jesus Christ in relation to other religions. In reality, however, such language is simply being faithful to revelation.”
So far so good. Most of us could agree wholeheartedly with these statements. However, let’s read further. “The fullness of Christ’s salvific mystery belongs also to the Church. . .Just as there is one Christ, so there exists a single body of Christ, a single Bride of Christ; ‘a single Catholic and apostolic Church’. . .The Catholic faithful are required to profess that there is an historical continuity- rooted in the apostolic succession- between the Church founded by Christ and the Catholic Church. . .This Church, constituted and organized as a society in the present world subsists in the Catholic Church, governed by the Successor of Peter and by the Bishops in communion with him. With the expression subsistit in, the Second Vatican Council sought to harmonize two doctrinal statements: on the one hand, that the Church of Christ, despite the divisions which exist among Christians, continues to exist fully only in the Catholic Church, and on the other hand, that ‘outside of her structure, many elements can be found of sanctification and truth’, that is, in those Churches and ecclesial communities which are not yet in full communion with the Catholic Church. But with respect to these, it needs to be stated that ‘they derive their efficacy from the very fullness of grace and truth entrusted to the Catholic Church. Therefore, there exists a single Church of Christ, which subsists in the Catholic Church, governed by the Successor of Peter and by the Bishops in communion with him.”
To put it simply, according to Pope Benedict XVI, who is simply restating the orthodox Catholic position, anyone outside the Roman Catholic Church is not in Christ, is on the road to hell. I am sure there are many Roman Catholic believers, those who trust solely in the finished work of Christ, who do not embrace their church’s teaching on this issue. And for this we ought to be thankful. We ought also to be thankful for the Pope’s teaching that other religions do not offer a way to God, though his suggestion that the mystery of Christ and the Church is some how a means by which many of these in the end will be saved, is very troubling.
But to embrace fully Pope Benedict XVI’s doctrine is to place Protestants outside the kingdom of God, and until this belief changes, the theological divide of the last 500 years will continue.
FORGET NONE OF HIS BENEFITS is a weekly devotional by Reverend Al Baker, pastor of Christ Community Presbyterian Church (Mission, PCA) in West Hartford, Connecticut.
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