This week’s White Horse Inn radio program (January 21, 2007, available for download here) entitled “Has God Really Said?” explores distortions of truth within Christianity, using the example of the serpent talking with Eve in the Garden of Eden, opening the door to the first sin by asking the question “Has God [really] said, ‘You shall not eat from any tree of the garden?’” (Genesis 3:1). In focusing on distortions of truth within Christianity, one of the natural questions that arises is, “Why are there so many denominations?” In discussing this issue, some important points were raised that have ramifications for Adventism; in fact, the Adventist church was specifically mentioned in one of the examples that is reproduced below. It is remarkable that the members of this panel, who are from the Reformed tradition, were able to find agreement that it isn’t what a denomination confesses that reveals the hearts of individual church members. Even the reformer John Calvin was able to identify a “church within a church” in the Roman Catholic tradition that held to the true gospel. In the final analysis, what binds Christians together is their confession of Jesus Christ as Savior and their belief in the gospel. Both current and former Adventists can learn something from this discussion and perhaps be more careful about the labels we apply to each other.
Panelists in this dialogue:
Kim Riddlebarger (KR) is Pastor of Christ Reformed Church in Anaheim, CA
Ken Jones (KJ) is Pastor of Greater Union Baptis Church in Compton, CA
Michael Horton (MH) is Professor of Systematic Theology and Apologetics at Westminster Theological Seminary
KJ: ...we must recognize that the fact of denominations and the various number of denominations is a fact of our own limited understanding and sometimes, flat out sin on our part.
KR: We lease our church facility from a Seventh-day Adventist congregation and there’s an associate pastor on their staff who was in prison in Cuba for eight years because he was an Adventist. And he made the point to me, “You and I can debate which day we go to church on and some of the stuff we eat, but [if] you find yourself in a prison camp with Baptists and Pentecostals and Roman Catholics–and all of the sudden its what you have in common against an atheistic secular state [that’s important].”
KJ: Amen.
KR: And I think a lot of this discussion takes place because we’ve had it so easy; it’s easy to be divided over non-essential things.
KJ: Well...[now that] you mention that, when I was in Nigeria two years ago we did a pastor’s conference. It was the first interdenominational pastor’s conference in Joss, Nigeria. Here [the pastors] were, meeting other clergy from different denominations for the first time. And it just so happens, two or three weeks prior to our coming there, a whole Christian village had been annihilated by the Muslims. It’s at times like these [that] where we worship, the day upon which we worship, who we baptize–all of those issues become so secondary to what the essential message is, and that is the person and work of Jesus Christ. And throughout that week, they were able to find strength as [we] were able to lay out the basic claims of the gospel–the riches of God, in the person of Jesus Christ.
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MH: How about [The Council of] Trent? This is harder because there are so many different versions of Roman Catholicism. I know many Roman Catholic folks including priests and theologians who really do deep down agree with justification, who do embrace the gospel. But when you ask them what they think of the Council of Trent, which says it was anathema–condemned the view that it is heretical that we are justified by faith alone, through grace alone, on the basis of Christ alone. What do we do in a situation like that? Is it an outright denial that constitutes heresy?
KR: I think Calvin helps us greatly on that one, he says, “Rome has ceased to be a true church although a true church exists in her midst.” That the official church, by anathematizing the gospel, at that moment is no longer a true church–it is a false church based on its profession of faith–it denies Paul’s gospel for Pete’s sake! However, there are many people within the Roman Catholic church, who, when their head hits the pillow at night, are saying “Thank you Lord that Christ died for my sins” and that there are numbers of believing Christians within the Roman church. And so there’s this blessed inconsistency.
MH: So you can have a heretical confession of faith on the part of a church, and yet a person within that body can demur, even implicitly, and really trust in the gospel. ... We can’t extend the right hand of fellowship to that person, unless and until their visible profession of faith–by joining a church that truly confesses the faith–is consistent with their personal confession.
KR: And they’re stuck in a situation where–even though they may be believers–they do not hear the word preached in the proper sense, they’re not getting any of the benefits of membership in a true church, they’re hearing things that are conflicting with what they know in their heart to be true and what they believe. They’re going to be buffeted by false doctrine and they’re not going to find consolation for their guilt and their troubled conscience there. So they’re going to live a very impoverished and miserable Christian life, unless and until they get out. But they still should be numbered among the elect and they still confess in their private moments that Christ is their all-sufficient righteousness.
