Protestants And The Pope: The Biblical And The Confessions
24 February 2010By Robert W Godfrey
The death of Pope John Paul II and the election of
Pope Benedict XVI have drawn great attention to the
papacy in recent months. Such intense interest is
remarkable. Much of it relates to the personality and
accomplishments of John Paul II. He was a man of great
courage and contributed significantly to the collapse
of communism in eastern Europe.
Part of the interest also results from the powerful
images that Rome can offer television cameras. Some of
the greatest art and architecture of western
civilization serve as a backdrop for elaborate rituals
performed by gloriously clad clerics.
Part of the appeal for many—including non-Roman
Catholics—is the sense of continuity and certainty
provided by the institution of the papacy. The office
of the pope connects us with the past, with a time of
greater Christian presence and influence at all levels
of society and culture in the west. It also speaks of
certain moral standards defended against the
relativism of our times.
All of these elements of appeal for the papacy went
largely unexamined by the media. I heard few
authentically Protestant voices challenging the papacy
on historical or theological terms. A few Protestant
leaders briefly provided words of praise for John Paul
II, but the only criticism of papal theological
positions came from more liberal Roman Catholics.
Perhaps the nature of the event (and of the media)
made it unlikely that much Protestant opinion would be
expressed. But in America—with many more Protestants
than Roman Catholics—one might have expected some
media exploration of why Protestants do not
acknowledge the pope as the head of the church. The
repeated claims that the pope is the successor of
Peter and that the papacy is a 2000 year old
institution went unexplored and unchallenged.
This Protestant silence says much about the state of
Protestantism today. After observing the postponement
of a royal wedding and the presence of the Prince of
Wales, the prime minister and the Archbishop of
Canterbury at the papal funeral, one Oxford historian
declared, “Protestant England is dead.” Similarly, in
America the reaction to the death of John Paul II was
surprising. Our president, a Methodist, ordered
American flags flown at half-staff—an honor not even
accorded Winston Churchill. And while Mrs. Lillian
Carter headed the American delegation to the funeral
of John Paul I, the president and two former
presidents represented the United States at this
funeral. Does the American response indicate that
Protestant America is more interested in religious
toleration or a Christian united front than it once
was?
Historic Protestant View of the Pope
Historically Protestants have been very critical of
the papacy as an institution. They have rejected the
papacy for its theological claims and for its
tyrannical exercise of power over the churches.
Rome’s Claim #1: The Bishop of Rome is the earthly
head of the whole church.
Protestants have wanted to show historically and
theologically that this claim is invalid. They have
argued that the papacy is not a 2000 year old
institution. Even if Peter did minister and die in
Rome, it can not be demonstrated that he was bishop
there in the Roman Catholic sense of that word. For
Rome a bishop is a separate office in the church
superior to the ministers (or priests) who serve under
him. If Peter was a bishop in Rome, he was bishop in a
New Testament sense where bishop is simply another
term for minister or elder (see Titus 1:5-7). In I
Peter 5:1 Peter simply refers to himself as a “fellow
elder.”
Certainly many churches in the first five hundred
years of the history of the church did not recognize a
sovereign authority in the bishop of Rome. The
churches of Eastern Orthodoxy have never recognized
such a claim, and many churches in the western part of
the Roman empire during those early centuries did not
recognize them either.
Rome’s Claim #2: Peter is the rock on which the whole
church is built.
Roman Catholics have argued that Jesus indicated that
the church is built on Peter as its rock, appealing to
Matthew 16:18, 19. Peter (Petros) confesses that Jesus
is the Christ, and Jesus responds that on this rock (petra)
he will build his church. Most Protestants have
insisted that Jesus the Christ is the rock on which
the church is built. (Some argued that Peter as the
confessor and believer in Christ stood for the faith
of the church and in that sense was the rock.) Peter
in his first epistle sees Jesus as the rock, calling
Jesus the rock of offense (I Pet. 2:8). Also the keys
of the kingdom given to Peter in Matthew 16 are not
uniquely given to him, for Matthew 18:18 shows that
they are given to all the disciples.
Even if Peter were the head of the entire church and
the rock on which the church is built as the leading
apostle, that fact would not demonstrate that Peter’s
power could be passed on to anyone else. Only Jesus
makes apostles, and even Rome grants that the office
of apostle does not continue in the church beyond the
first century.
The Pope as Antichrist: In Europe during the Middles
Ages voices were raised against the claims of the
Bishop of Rome. Some medieval Christians—notably
radical followers of St. Francis of Assisi and of John
Hus—argued that the pope was in fact the Antichrist
because of his power, wealth and corruption. The
pope’s use of military power, his accumulation of vast
wealth and various moral scandals in the Vatican all
seemed to support this belief.
The conviction that the pope was the Antichrist was
held by almost all Protestants in the sixteenth and
seventeenth centuries. When the pope refused to
support reformation in the church and began to use the
power of his office to persecute the advocates of
reform, Luther concluded that the pope was Antichrist.
Most other Protestants followed Luther in that belief.
Historic Protestant View: Biblical
Basis
These early Protestants appealed to various texts of
the Bible to support their contention. They cited 2
Thessalonians 2:3,4,9,10: “Let no one deceive you in
any way. For that day will not come, unless the
rebellion comes first, and the man of lawlessness is
revealed, the son of destruction, who opposes and
exalts himself against every so-called god or object
of worship, so that he takes his seat in the temple of
God, proclaiming himself to be God….The coming of the
lawless one is by the activity of Satan with all power
and false signs and wonders, and with all wicked
deception for those who are perishing, because they
refused to love the truth and so be saved.” Those
Protestants noted that the Pope opposed the truth and
claimed miracles to support his unbiblical teaching.
They argued that he seated himself in the heart of the
church which is the temple of God and took divine
prerogative to himself, especially in changing the
Gospel of grace.
They also applied Revelation 13:6,7 about the beast to
the pope: “It opened its mouth to utter blasphemies
against God, blaspheming his name and his dwelling,
that is, those who dwell in heaven. Also it was
allowed to make war on the saints and to conquer
them….” (See also Daniel 7:25.) Protestants claimed
that Rome’s rejection of the doctrine of justification
by grace alone through faith alone was a blasphemy
against God and his grace in Christ. This doctrine was
anathematized, or denounced as accursed, at the
Council of Trent (1545-1563), a council which Rome
believes is an official ecumenical council of the
church. Trent’s anathemas were approved by the popes
and remain a condemnation of that doctrine to this
day. Further, many Protestant believed that because
the popes supported the persecution of Protestants,
leading to the martyrdom of tens of thousands of them
in the sixteenth century, the papacy was revealed as
the Antichrist.
Historic Protestant View: The
Confessions
So strong was this Protestant conviction about the
Pope that it was incorporated into several Protestant
confessions. Philip Melanchthon in the official
Lutheran “Apology of the Augsburg Confession,” (1531),
Article 15, wrote: “If our opponents defend the notion
that these human rites merit justification, grace, and
the forgiveness of sins, they are simply establishing
the kingdom of Antichrist. The kingdom of Antichrist
is a new kind of worship of God, devised by human
authority in opposition to Christ….So the papacy will
also be a part of the kingdom of Antichrist if it
maintains that human rites justify.”
Martin Luther wrote even more strongly in the Lutheran
confessional document, the Smalcald Articles (1537),
Part 2, Article 4, “The Papacy,” “this is a powerful
demonstration that the pope is the real Antichrist who
has raised himself over and set himself against
Christ, for the pope will not permit Christians to be
saved except by his own power, which amounts to
nothing since it is neither established or commanded
by God.”
The Westminster Confession of Faith (1647), chapter
25, section 6 declared: “There is no other head of the
Church but the Lord Jesus Christ: nor can the Pope of
Rome, in any sense be head thereof; but is that
Antichrist, that man of sin and son of perdition, that
exalteth himself in the Church against Christ, and all
that is called God.”
While confessional Lutherans have not changed their
confessional statements, most American Presbyterian
churches have removed the declaration that the pope is
Antichrist from their confession.
Conclusion
If many Protestants today are not persuaded that the
pope is the Antichrist, what should we say of him? Has
the theology of the Roman Catholic Church about the
pope and about the Gospel changed? The Roman Catholic
Church has changed some of its claims about being the
only institution in which one can find salvation. It
is willing to call Protestants in some sense separated
brothers. There does seem to be more toleration and
less commitment to coercion on the part of the bishop
of Rome. We should be glad for these changes.
Still the basic teaching about the authority of the
pope has not changed and the teaching about the Gospel
also has not changed. The Roman Catholic Church still
anathematizes the Protestant and biblical doctrine of
justification.
The most important criterion by which any minister
must be evaluated is this: did he preach the Gospel of
Jesus Christ? As Paul taught clearly: “But even if we
or an angel from heaven should preach to you a gospel
contrary to the one we preached to you, let him be
accursed” (Gal. 1:8). By that standard we must
conclude that Pope John Paul II was no more a success
than his predecessors since the time of the
Reformation. Let us pray that Pope Benedict XVI, a
very learned man, may come to see the truth as it is
in Christ and teach it faithfully.
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