Many Evangelicals in our day know little of what the true Gospel really means. As a result, many New Evangelicals hasten Rome-ward at the expense of their heritage. The New York Times on May 30, 2004, carried news of the alliance called “Evangelicals and Catholics Together” (ECT) showing it as a movement that is changing the face of Christianity.
Timothy George, a leading Reformed man of the Founders Movement, has fully endorsed ECT. He has also written about it and has implemented it in other fields of activity. His most successful endeavor, however, is that after a conference with John Armstrong, the whole Reformation and Revival magazine, and web page, have now espoused the philosophy of ECT.
The ministry now has a new name “ACT 3.” On the ministry’s web page the name is explained as, “ADVANCING THE CHRISTIAN TRADITION, IN THE THIRD MILLENIUM”
Timothy George not only upholds the Catholic Church, but also has high praise for Ratsinger, Pope Benedict XVI. Mark Noll has co-authored a book with Carolyn Nystrom, called “Is the Reformation Over? An Evangelical Assessment of Contemporary Roman Catholicism.” This book attempts to undermine all that the true Gospel stands for. This is the same Mark Noll who was one of the signers of ECT.
There is also a new movement called “Christian Churches Together.” It is a movement of what are called “the historical churches” including Catholicism, and it is being carefully organized for exactly the same purposes as ECT. Much more ominous is, “The Coming Home Network,” whose stated purpose is, “to provide fellowship, encouragement and support for pastors and laymen of other traditions (Protestant, Orthodox, etc.) who are somewhere along the journey or have already converted to the Catholic Church.”
Over and above the previously stated, there are the false doctrines propagated by the New Perspective that have engulfed much of the Reformed Presbyterian and Reformed circles causing much confusion, and like the ECT movement tending towards Rome.
The very Gospel is being ruthlessly attacked by former Presbyterians. Former Presbyterian pastors who have apostatized into Roman Catholicism are now in full time work defending Roman Catholicism in books, videos, conferences, and on the Internet. Of such are Scott Hahn, Jeff Cavins, Larry Lewis, Marcus Grodi, and Jerry Matatics, just to mention a few.
Now, there are also a great many churches embracing both the Emerging church movement and that of “contemplative prayer.” These are in human terms highly successful; yet, biblically they contradict the true Gospel of grace. To answer these and other aberrations from biblical faith, we need know solidly what the true Gospel really is. It is only by the Gospel that one is made right in Christ before the all Holy God.
The first and second National Evangelical Anglican Conferences met at Keele and Nottingham in the UK in 1967 and 1977, respectively. Leading Evangelicals, such as John Stott and J. I. Packer, endorsed the statements from these. John Stott, who chaired the first conference at Keele, made it clear that the conference was accepting not only Anglo-Catholics and liberals, but Roman Catholics also. The declaration was in the following words,
“All who confess the Lord Jesus Christ as God and Saviour according to the Scriptures and therefore seek to fulfill together their common calling to the glory of one God, Father, Son and Holy Spirit have a right to be treated as Christians, and it is on this basis that we wish to talk with them.”
The conference at Nottingham went further than Keele, giving the compromise already proclaimed a complete seal of approval. Nottingham also endorsed and praised the Charismatic movement and is remembered for David Watson’s reference to the Reformation as “one of the greatest tragedies that ever happened to the church.” The Times newspaper on February 19th 2007 in an article headlined, ‘Churches Back Plan to Unite Under Pope’ brought the whole agenda of ARCIC again before the public. More negotiations however are needed before the actual submission of Anglo Catholics to Papal Rome takes place.
Evangelicals and Catholics Together
Some seventeen years after the Nottingham Conference in England, the most drastic departure from true Evangelicalism took place in the United States in 1994. At the end of March 1994, a group of twenty leading Evangelicals and twenty leading Roman Catholics produced a document entitled “Evangelicals and Catholics Together: The Christian Mission in the Third Millennium,” (ECT).
The two main instigators of this ecumenical thrust were Charles Colson and Richard John Neuhaus, a Lutheran pastor turned Roman Catholic priest. The writing of the document began in 1992. Larry Lewis of the Home Mission Board of the Southern Baptist Convention, Jesse Miranda of Assemblies of God, John White of the Geneva College and National Association of Evangelicals, and others, including two Jesuits, Avery Dulles and Juan Diaz-Vilar, assisted Colson and Neuhaus. Cardinal Idris Cassidy, the head of the Pontifical Council for Promoting Christian Unity, was said by Richard John Neuhaus to have given “very active support throughout the process.” The Evangelical signatories included J. I. Packer, the late Bill Bright of Campus Crusade for Christ, Mark Noll of Wheaton College, and Pat Robertson of The 700 Club. Roman Catholic signers included such well-known figures as the late Cardinal John O’Connor, Archbishop Sevilla, Archbishop Stafford, and Bishop Francis George, now Archbishop of Chicago.
The Gospel According to ECT
The signers of ECT readily admit to “differences that cannot be resolved here.” Nevertheless, motivated by the desire to face important moral issues together, the authors of ECT flatly state that Evangelicals and Catholics are one in Christ, and that all are truly Christians.
In a similar manner, an addition had to made to the Gospel. The ECT addition that redefines faith is, “living faith active in love.” “Living faith” implies works and to Catholics, baptism in particular. This is documented in present day official teaching of the Church of Rome where Rome teaches, “the very root of the Church’s living faith [is] principally by means of Baptism.”[2] The theology of the Church of Rome always comes back to the concept of “living faith” so as to include “works righteousness” and particularly in her sacraments, which she defines as necessary for salvation.[3]
The Evangelical signers of ECT have concurred with the Roman Catholic definition of “living faith active in love,” and thus they have formally agreed to an addition to the Gospel that nullifies its message. By endorsing Roman Catholic teaching, therefore, they have denied the clear teaching of Scripture, “But after that the kindness and love of God our Savior toward man appeared, not by works of righteousness which we have done, but according to His mercy He saved us.”[4]
Disturbing Effects of ECT
The devastating effect of the Evangelical compromise with the Gospel is to put a stop to evangelizing Roman Catholics across the world. If this compromise of the true Gospel of Jesus Christ is accepted, then Bible-believing churches will refrain from evangelizing Catholics. The impact on the true Church in third world Catholic countries of Central and South America, in Africa, as well as in Spain, Portugal, and the Philippines, is already apparent.
If this anti-evangelical trend continues unchecked, it will restrain mission work and evangelism. But this is exactly the policy the ECT signatories promote when they state, “...it is neither theologically legitimate nor a prudent use of resources for one Christian community [church] to proselytize [evangelize] among active adherents of another Christian community.”[5] Since when has it been theologically illegitimate to expose error and heresy?
Compounded Endorsement of Rome
On November 12, 1997, a second document entitled, “The Gift of Salvation,” was signed and published by Evangelical and Roman Catholic leaders. It is also called “Evangelicals and Catholics Together II.” Its expressed intention was to demonstrate the “common faith” of Evangelicals and Roman Catholics, and further, to “acknowledge one another as brothers and sisters in Christ.” It was published in the December 8, 1997 issue of Christianity Today.
Explicitly, the Roman Catholic signatories, such as Richard John Neuhaus and Avery Dulles, S. J., state in the document that they are “Catholics who are conscientiously faithful to the teaching of the Catholic Church.” The Roman Catholic doctrine of conferred justification is taught as the Gospel. The Evangelicals are now joined together in not only giving a clouded Gospel-Justification message, but also in a distinctively erudite manner, endorsing Rome’s doctrine of conferred inner righteousness.
A Studied Denial of the Gospel
This second ecumenical document states, “Justification is central to the scriptural account of salvation, and its meaning has been much debated between Protestants and Catholics.” Then it claims that the signers have reached agreement. Their statement of accord is,
“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 subject under review is stated clearly in the first sentence. “We agree that justification…is conferred through the Father’s sheer graciousness.” But it is only by careful reading that one comes to see what the two pivotal sentences state grammatically, “it [justification] is entirely God’s gift, conferred [rather than imputed]…and by virtue of his [God’s] declaration it [justification conferred] is so.”
This is traditional Roman Catholic doctrine. To employ the Roman Catholic word “conferred” instead of the biblical word “imputed” is tantamount to putting aside the authority of Scripture on the issue of justification. Since medieval times, the Roman Catholic Church has clearly distinguished between the concept of imputation and the Thomist concept of God’s grace conferred as a quality of the soul. Since the Council of Trent, she has condemned the biblical doctrine of justification by faith alone. Present day dogma of the Roman Catholic Church not only upholds the teaching of the Council of Trent but also declares that such Councils are infallible.[6]
The Roman Catholic Church’s persistence in using the word “conferred” is an attempt to substitute her sacraments for the sovereign grace of the Holy Spirit. The concept that the sacraments automatically convey the grace of the Holy Spirit to people is pivotal to Papal Rome. However, what is proclaimed in Scripture is that the Holy Spirit is infinite, supreme, omnipotent, and all sufficient in convicting of sin and in bringing a person directly to new life in Christ Jesus. “He [The Holy Spirit] will reprove the world of sin, and of righteousness, and of judgment.”[7] Nevertheless Rome will not repudiate the concept of “conferred” because for her the sacraments are “necessary for salvation.” Without her seven sacraments, she has no function as a Church in the lives of people.
Defense of “Evangelicals and Catholics Together”
The most serious apologetic for these documents called “Evangelicals and Catholics Together” is in the book of the same title Evangelicals & Catholics Together: Toward a Common Mission. Hereafter, we refer to the book by the subtitle as Common Mission. The architects of ECT were well aware of the crucial distinctions concerning the Gospel separating Catholics and Evangelicals, but they chose both to deny and to bypass them.
J. I. Packer writes in Common Mission, “Neither evangelicals nor Roman Catholics can stipulate that things they believe, which the other side does not believe, be made foundational to partnership at this point; so ECT lets go Protestant precision on the doctrine of justification and the correlation between conversion and new birth.”[8] That such compromise is unbiblical is seen from his statements earlier in the same article when he said, “Roman teaching obscures the Gospel and indeed distorts it in a tragically anti-spiritual and unpastoral manner….”[9] He further states, “Rome’s official doctrinal disorders, particularly on justification, merit, and the Mass-sacrifice, so obscure the Gospel that were I, as a gesture of unity, invited to mass—which of course as a Protestant I am not, nor shall be—I would not feel free to accept the invitation.”[10]
Towards the end of the article, Packer speaks of the evils of “humanism, materialism, hedonism and nihilism.” To rebuild a Christian consensus, he proposes that “…domestic differences about salvation and the Church should not hinder us from joint action in seeking to re-Christianize the North American milieu….”[11] These are amazing words from the author of Knowing God. The “orthodox Evangelical J. I. Packer” of old spoke of the doctrine of justification by faith alone, sola fide, as “like Atlas, it bears a world on its shoulders, the entire evangelical knowledge of saving grace!” Now the same saving faith is downgraded to the “domestic differences about salvation.” In a 1994 article, “Why I Signed It,” he refers to sola fide (faith alone) as “small print.”
Packer, in setting aside precision on the doctrine of justification, has denied biblical faith. The Apostle Paul contended for the “faith alone” issue against the Judaizers, and likewise, the Reformers contended for the “faith alone” issue against the Roman Catholics of their day. It was the burning issue for many thousands of Evangelicals who gave their lives at the stake: John Huss, William Tyndale, John Rogers, Hugh Latimer, Nicholas Ridley, Anne Askew, John Bradford, and John Philpot, to name but a few. Packer has reduced the crucial and fundamental element of the Gospel to “domestic differences about salvation” or “small print.” However, Christ Jesus’ righteousness is the crown jewel of biblical faith. It is the pivotal doctrine of truth revealed again by the Lord God in the pages of His written Word. Packer has denied biblical faith and the testimony of the multitudes of true believers who under the Roman Catholic Inquisition gave their lives, not for “domestic differences about salvation” but rather for their faith in Christ Jesus alone.
Separation for the Sake of the Gospel is Not Necessary
In the same book, Richard Neuhaus stated emphatically, “If, at the end of the twentieth century, separation for the sake of the gospel is not necessary, it is not justified.”[12] What Neuhaus was effectively saying is that the Gospel is no longer relevant to Christian unity. This seems to be the precise intent of the 1994 ECT document and equally the 1997 “The Gift of Salvation” document. If true Evangelicals do not combat this heinous attack on the Gospel, then Neuhaus’ anti-scriptural words “separation for the sake of the gospel is not necessary or justified” might well fall on them and their children after them. If the lie is swallowed, that separation for the sake of the Gospel is not justified, then the logical conclusion is that churches should cave in and submit to the Church of Rome. This has always been the avowed goal of the Roman Catholic Church, as her documents verify. Neuhaus argues that “to declare it [justification by faith alone] to be the article by which the Church stands or falls in a manner that excludes other ways of saying the gospel is to turn it into a sectarian doctrine.”[13]
In this statement, the true Gospel of grace has not simply been declared unnecessary, it has also been labeled a “sectarian doctrine.” This statement by Neuhaus shows the intent of Catholics who have planned and fostered the entire deceitful compromise with Evangelicals. Their purpose is to make the true Gospel of grace through faith in Christ alone to be irrelevant, all the while promoting as truly Christian the Catholic “salvation by works-gospel” which is no gospel. Charles Spurgeon’s timely words apply now even more than in his own day, “Since he was cursed who rebuilt Jericho, much more the man who labors to restore Popery among us. In our fathers’ days the gigantic walls of Popery fell by the power of their faith, the perseverance of their efforts, and the blast of their gospel trumpets…” The Gospel trumpet is the very issue at stake. The Roman Catholic and Evangelical signers of ECT I and II first give the false message of Rome, and then in defense of what they have written, declare that the Gospel of Christ is a “domestic matter” or even “a sectarian doctrine.”
Other Major Movements on the Path to Papal Rome
Over and above the previously stated, there are the false doctrines propagated by “The New Perspective” movement that have engulfed much of the Reformed Presbyterian and Reformed circles. A notable exception is the Free Presbyterian Churches that have been strong and outspoken against these movements.
“The New Perspective,” like ARCIC and the ECT movement, is tending towards Rome. “The New Perspective” as a denial of the doctrine, biblical justification, actually began in 1997 with Professor Norman Shepherd of Westminster Theological Seminary. Shepherd was not the only member of the Westminster faculty who taught justification by faith and works. The majority of the seminary faculty and Board of Trustees approved of Shepherd’s teaching and defended him against his critics. Westminster Seminary has taught this false doctrine to many hundreds of men who now occupy positions of influence. The New Perspective movement also embodies what is called “Auburn Theology” with well-known writers and pastors as Steve Wilkins, Douglas Wilson, Steve Schlissel, and R. C. Sproul, Jr. As a result of the New Perspective and its offshoots, many have abandoned the true faith, churches and families have been split, and some Presbyterians have become Roman Catholics. Most of all Christ Jesus and His Gospel have been dishonored.
Former Presbyterians and others who have apostatized into Roman Catholicism are ruthlessly attacking the very Gospel. Some of these are now in full-time work defending Roman Catholicism in books, videos, conferences, and on the Internet. Of such are Scott Hahn, Jeff Cavins, Marcus Grodi, and Jerry Matatics, just to mention a few. There is also a movement called “Christian Churches Together.” It is a movement of what are called “the historical churches” including Catholicism, and it is being carefully organized for exactly the same purposes as ECT. Much more ominous is “The Coming Home Network.” Its stated purpose is, “…to provide fellowship, encouragement and support for pastors and laymen of other traditions (Protestant, Orthodox, etc.) who are somewhere along the journey or have already converted to the Catholic Church.”
There are also a great many churches embracing the Emerging church movement. This movement has become a dangerous threat at the present time affecting the USA, the UK, France, and other parts of Europe. The leadership of the Canadian Atlantic Baptist Convention gave their full and steadfast endorsement to the movement’s main leader Brian McLaren’s teachings. They actually declared that the teachings of Brian McLaren to be orthodox.[14] On February 28, 2007 in Toronto there was a workshop called “The Evolving Church a natural selection.” The workshop leaders included Sylvia Keesmaat, co-author of Colossians Re-mixed and professor at the Toronto School of Theology. Her workshop was entitled Justice and Creation Care. The keynote speaker was Shane Claiborne.[15]
Brian McLaren and Tony Jones are chief leaders of the movement that essentially markets Catholic mysticism. Another leader, Anglican Alan Jones, takes the movement further into the Roman Catholic fold. His audience is large. It is important to study his stratagem. He also has endorsed the United Religions Initiative, which includes an acceptance of Islam that has become a terrorist menace in recent times. Christianity Today published an article entitled “The Emergent Mystique”[16] It stated, “Not since the Jesus Movement of the early 1970s has a Christian phenomenon been so closely entangled with the self-conscious cutting edge of U.S. culture.” While this new movement is permeating modern Evangelical circles in the USA, it has had disastrous effects also in France and in Ireland and is beginning to infiltrate England. It is vitally important to understand the essential modus operandi of the Emerging church movement before it leads more and more astray into the mystic clutches of Papal Rome and Greek Orthodoxy. The constant deadly deception of the movement is that it arrogantly advertises a way of direct access to God and thus repudiating any need of the Lord Jesus Christ as the One Mediator between God and men. This is documented in four articles on the Emerging church movement that are posted on the Berean Beacon website. Christ Jesus as Savior and the One Mediator is exalted high above “all principality, and power, and might, and dominion, and every name that is named, not only in this world, but also in that which is to come.”[17] He alone has been given all authority in heaven and in earth, not the mystical charms of Papal Rome, Greek Orthodoxy, or the Emerging church movement.
The Present Day Consequences and Our Response
The Evangelical apostates that we have documented in this address have a name of being Christian but in fact are a danger to those who have remained true to the Gospel. What is so disheartening is that so many true believers have remained silent as the apostasy increases in numbers and influence. Well-known Evangelical leaders have attempted to trample under foot the blood of the everlasting covenant and are hastening more and more towards acceptance of Papal Rome. We are to separate from those who promote heresy and “earnestly contend for the faith which was once delivered unto the saints.”[18]
What we might expect has indeed happened with serious consequences in legislation. Legislation termed “hate crimes” has been in existance in England since the Crime and Disorder Act of 1998, and The Criminal Justice Act of 2003. However, such legistation became stronger and more explicit in 2006. I quote from the UK government home office webiste, “Parliament approved a bill on 31 January 2006 that made it a criminal offence to use threatening words or behaviour with the intention of stirring up hatred against any group of people defined by their religious beliefs or lack of religious beliefs. The bill gained Royal Assent on 16 February. Any prosecutions under the Act, when commenced, will require the consent of the Attorney General.”[19]
A bill in the US Congress, introduced by Democrat Sheila Jackson Lee of Texas in January 2007, would expand the scope of current US federal hate-crime laws. The legislation is similar to measures passed by the House in 2005 and by the Senate in 2004. The bill seeks to establish a new Federal offense for hate crimes and would mandate a separate Federal criminal prosecution for state offenses tried under its provisions. A sentence of life imprisonment could await those convicted. In Canada the definition of hate crime has evolved out of the Criminal Code sections for Hate Propaganda and the Purpose and Principles of Sentencing. Hate crimes are offences “motivated by bias, prejudice or hate based on race, national or ethnic origin, language, colour religion sex, age, mental or physical disability, sexual orientation, or any other similar factor.” These are three examples that show the direction in which legislation in the UK, USA, and Canada is headed. As apostasy increases, it seems inevitable that more and more laws will be enacted which can be turned against true believers.
In Face of Apostasy We Present the Gospel
The greatness of the Gospel is that each one exalts the Person and work of Christ Jesus; He is the exalted Head of His Church. In the Gospels, Christ Jesus appears as the “Christ,” the anointed One. His purpose was His work of obedience and death, in which He received for Himself, i.e., in His humanity, the perpetual fullness of the Holy Spirit. Pentecost declared Him to be the exalted Prince and Savior as the abundance of pouring out of the Holy Spirit was not for Himself, but for the Church, which is His body. As the Apostle Peter preached, “Therefore being by the right hand of God exalted, and having received of the Father the promise of the Holy Ghost, he hath shed forth this, which ye now see and hear.”[20]
Our primary and permanent duty consists of faith in Christ Jesus and in His Word. To withstand and counter the apostasy we have documented we need to see principle given us in the Lord’s Word and to apply it. “Where sin abounded, grace did much more abound: that as sin hath reigned unto death, even so might grace reign through righteousness unto eternal life by Jesus Christ our Lord.”[21] Grace reigning through righteousness is not only possible it the essential core factor of the Gospel. “But now the righteousness of God without the law is manifested, being witnessed by the law and the prophets; even the righteousness of God which is by faith of Jesus Christ unto all and upon all them that believe; for there is no difference.”[22] Righteousness is found in and of Christ. It is the demonstration of His faithfulness[23] even unto death. Such perfect rectitude is of God, and from God, “even the righteousness of God which is by faith of Jesus Christ.” The great news is that this absolute righteousness is “unto all and upon all them that believe.” Since the true believer has a legal identification with righteousness of Lord Jesus Christ, how ardently ought we to pray Christ Jesus’ own words, “O righteous Father, the world hath not known thee; but I have known thee”[24] The Lord Jesus Christ made His will and testament and now shows for the righteousness of it all. “O righteous Father” has a double force. First God is not only merciful, but He is just in sanctifying His people. His grace reigns through righteousness. It expressed the Savior’s confidence in His Father as righteous. The Lord continued in prayer, “And I have declared unto them thy name, and will declare it: that the love wherewith thou hast loved me may be in them, and I in them”[25]
Here the Christ Jesus the Lord briefly sums up what He had done and would still do for His own people. He would make known the Father to them. Christ Jesus is now, by the Spirit, revealing the Father, and He will continue so to do throughout eternity. Then He states why He is proclaims of the Father’s name, “that the love wherewith thou hast loved me may be in them, and I in them. Where Christ is known as the Father’s sent One, the deepest blessing and the highest privileges are even now given, and not merely what awaits His people at His coming. If ever there was one capable of estimating another, it was Christ in respect to His Father. The declaration of who the Father is with equal competence is now made known to us. He gives us a consciousness of the same love of the Father, which rested on Himself.
God is faithful awaken a consciousness of His love for His people, “Faithful is he which calleth you, who also will do”[26] Sanctification and revival depend totally on Him. As He has begun a work of grace in our lives, we may depend on His faithfulness to complete it! Our confidence in praying for true revival in face of Apostasy is that the Lord God treats us not on the ground of our merits, of which we have none, but for His own name’s sake. God is unchangeable in His own purpose of grace, “whom he called... them he also glorified”[27] The inexhaustible wealth of divine grace is flowing. The only begotten Son became flesh is the One who is “full of grace and truth.” Because we have been made joint heirs with Him it is written, “and of his fullness have all we received, and grace for grace.”[28] Stand firm on God’s love to revive His people and to bring new life to those dead in trespasses and sins. There is no reserve in the outflow of God’s love to us so unlikable objects. He has loved us with an everlasting love, so our confidence in looking for revival stands firm! The Lord God gives a full expression of the dependability of His everlasting love toward His own, by effectually calling us of darkness into His marvelous light. This should fully assure us of the certain continuance of it. It is His purpose that we be revived!
All the powers of darkness and apostasy cannot shake these promises, they stands firm. “The foundation of God standeth sure”[29] The Apostle Paul rested on the faithfulness of God when he said, “I know whom I have believed, and am persuaded that he is able to keep that which I have committed unto him against that day”[30] and so should we be in our day. Please pray for and expect the display of His power in the grace that we so badly need in our day. Then indeed will grace reigns in our personal lives and churches with sovereign freedom, power, and bounty!
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[1] Jeremiah 23:6; Romans 3:22-28; Romans 4:5-8; Romans 5:17-19; 1Corinthians 1:30, 31; 2Corinthians 5:19; 21, Ephesians 1:7; and Titus 3:5-7
[2] Catechism of the Catholic Church (Liguori Publications, 1994) Para 249. Hereafter referred to as Catechism
[3] Catechism, Para. 1129
[4] Titus 3:4, 5
[5] ECT, §V, “We Witness Together”
[6] Catechism, Para. 891
[7] John 16:8
[8] Common Mission p. 167
[9] Ibid., p. 153
[10] Ibid., pp. 162, 163
[11] Ibid., p. 172
[12] Ibid., p. 199
[13] Ibid., p. 207
[14] www.takebackcanada.com/emergingchurch.html
[15] www.emergentcanada.blogspot.com
[16] http://www.christianitytoday.com/ct/2004/011/12.36.html 1/18/06
[17] Ephesians 1:21
[18] Jude 3
[19] http://www.homeoffice.gov.uk/crime-victims/reducing-crime/hate-crime
[20] Acts 2:33
[21] Romans 5:20
[22] Romans 3:21-22
[23] Greek pistis. There are many contexts where this is necessarily translated faithfulness Matthew 23:23, Romans 3:3, Galatians 5:22, Titus 2:10, etc. There are several passages in which faithfulness of the Lord is mentioned. In each case, name of Jesus Christ is in the genitive case indicating that faithfulness is a character quality which He processes (Galatians 2:16, 3:22; Ephesians 3:12, Philippians 3:9).
[24] John 17:25
[25] John 17:26
[26] 1 Thessalonians 5:24
[27] Romans 8:30
[28] John 1: 16
[29] Timothy 2:19
[30] II Timothy 1:12