Replies

I am curious as he mentions the gospel.
Does John MacArthur believe Jesus died for our sins on Good Friday, according to Rome, or Passover, according to scripture?

Paul preached a ‘gospel’ according to scripture. And His gospel follows Passover,Unleavened Bread and First Fruits- not Good Friday, Holy Saturday, Easter Sunday. And there is a difference.
Quite a bit of a difference.

MacArthur may be more in line with Rome’s catechism than the Word Paul understood.

But that premise would have to start with believing Rome is selling another gospel and another Jesus..

John MacArthur may be just another daughter of Rome and not know it.. I pray His eyes open to Rome’s counterfeits.

I was a Protestant who didn’t see it until I came out of the world and relied exclusively on His Word for Truth..

When I discovered I was no different, I realized I was the hypocrit.. So I had to repent and turn to Him and to His full Truth.
And it would put the John MacArthur’s and the Pope on the same side,to John’s shock, I would be sure..

What a blessing!

http://www.biblicalcatholic.com/apologetics/a137.htm

Evangelical Pastor John F. MacArthur’s Ignorant Misrepresentation of Catholic Teaching
From posts by P and others on the Catholic Answers boards, December 2006
MacArthur is clearly wrong and ignorant

Sandusky << ...none of you can deliver on this final point, namely, that MacArthur has materially misrepresented the Catholic Church....No one has provided any factual misrepresentation made by MacArthur concerning the Catholic Church. >>

When MacArthur quotes the Catechism, the Council of Trent, or Vatican II documents, he is not misrepresenting the Catholic Church. When he goes on to say, “therefore the Catholic Church teaches X....” The X is where the misrepresentation comes in, whether we’re talking Mary, the Pope, the priesthood, Justification and Salvation, or sacraments and grace, etc.

“If he believes his salvation is provided only through grace by faith in Jesus Christ, he could be saved. But, if he accepts the full sweep of Catholic dogma, there’s no way. He has cluttered up the simplicity of salvation with a works/righteousness system.”

“Works/righteousness” means salvation is earned. You won’t find that in Trent or the Catechism which specifically rejects the idea salvation is earned. He also thinks no Catholic can be saved.

“We could talk about the idea that God is a tough guy, and if anybody wants grace out of God, it’s only Jesus who could get it from Him; but you can’t expect to go to Jesus because He’s pretty tough himself, so you need to go to Mary, because nobody can resist his mother.... “

That’s baloney too, you won’t find that in the official sources of doctrine. If he would just stick with the official sources (Catechism, etc) but he does not. The above is a misrepresentation, a material misrepresentation of official Catholic teaching.

“We could talk a lot about those things; concepts of purgatory, concepts of the sinlessness of Mary, the virgin birth of Mary, a lot of things about Catholic theology...”

The virgin birth of Mary? Please give me the Catholic document that speaks of the “virgin birth of Mary.” If he means the Immaculate Conception, fine, that is Catholic doctrine. If he means the Virgin Birth of Christ, fine, that is Catholic doctrine. But he doesn’t say that. He says the “virgin birth of Mary.” That is not Catholic doctrine, that is just ignorance.

“They also possess pastoral power, and the way they define that is quite interesting. In the Catholic dogma, it is refined as — defined as legislative, judicial and punitive. Their idea of pastoral work is not comfort and care and compassion. It is legislative, judicial and punitive.”

Show me the Catholic document (Catechism, etc) that says pastoral ministry does not involve comfort, care, and compassion.

“He never makes a mistake, and nothing he says, therefore, can ever be altered.”

Show me the Catholic document (Vatican I, etc) that says papal infallibility means the Pope never makes a mistake and nothing he says can ever be altered.

After quoting a lot from the Council of Trent, MacArthur says:

“That is why in the history of the Catholic church, nothing ever changes. The church absorbs its dissidents. It absorbs its immoral. [?] It absorbs its heretics. It absorbs everybody, and perpetuates the system. The one thing the Catholic church cannot tolerate is any kind of schism. And so it just keeps absorbing the dissidents in the perpetration of the system. And, therefore, it is full of all wretched kinds of beliefs, all levels of immorality and all different kinds of disregard for Catholic law down through the laity.”

That’s nice, but you won’t find any of that in the official sources: Catechism, Trent, Vatican II and the Councils, etc. When a person is excommunicated, he is not absorbed. Show me the official Catholic document that says heretics and schismatics are “absorbed.” If you can’t, that is a material misrepresentation of official Catholic doctrine. “Absorbed” is not a Catholic term, that is a MacArthur misrepresentation.

(The above from The Scandal of the Catholic Priesthood, 2002 by John MacArthur)

He also doesn’t know anything about Church history when he suggests the Catholic Church was invented at the time of Constantine, or that the Catholic Church takes her doctrines from Babylonian paganism (i.e. The Two Babylons by Hislop), or that the Fathers have anything to do with his evangelical fundamentalist Protestant doctrines (he has quoted St. John Chrysostom by name on his GTY program). That shows a complete ignorance of early Church history, the Church Fathers, and the history of Christian doctrine. I suggest a good reading of

JND Kelly’s Early Christian Doctrines or
Jaroslav Pelikan’s The Christian Tradition (volume 1)
P

More MacArthur ignorance

Oh, I’m not done yet. Try these on:

From The Scandal of the Catholic Priesthood

MacArthur: “In the eyes of the priesthood there is an inherent uncleanness in marriage and it’s a hangover from that sort of Manichaean/Gnostic idea of the evil of the flesh. There’s an uncleanness in romantic desire. There’s an uncleanness in normal love. There’s something shameful in that. And the desire for procreation is somehow the enemy of spiritual devotion.”

Show me the official Catholic document (Catechism, etc) that there is an inherent uncleanness in marriage and we have a Manichean/Gnostic idea of the evil of the flesh, that the desire for procreation is the enemy of spiritual devotion. Where does he get that one?...........