Article by Joe Carter: https://www.thegospelcoalition.org/article/9-things-you-should-know-about-the-council-of-trent

A further update: https://www.thegospelcoalition.org/article/is-the-reformation-over-a-statement-of-evangelical-convictions/

John Stott: “We are ready to co-operate with them (Roman Catholics, Orthodox or liberal Protestants) in good works of Christian compassion and social justice. It is when we are invited to evangelize with them that we find ourselves in a painful dilemma for common witness necessitates common faith, and co-operation in evangelism depends on agreement over the content of the gospel.”

“At the moment the Roman Catholic Church condemned the biblical doctrine of justification by faith alone, she denied the gospel and ceased to be a legitimate church, regardless of all the rest of her affirmations of Christian orthodoxy. To embrace her as an authentic church while she continues to repudiate the biblical doctrine of salvation is a fatal attribution.” – Dr. R.C. Sproul, “Is the Reformation Over?” Tabletalk, September 2009, p. 7.

See the Roman Catholic Church’s Council of Trent, Canons 9, 11, 24, 30, 32.

“The Roman Catholic Church has changed since the 16th century. There’s no question about it. And the differences that we had in the 16th century have changed. They’re far greater now than they were in the 16th century. All the Mariological decrees have come since the Reformation. The ‘de fide’ proclamation of the infallibility of the Pope came since the Protestant Reformation. Things are not getting better; they’re worse. And in the recent Roman Catholic Catechism of the decade of the 90s, all of the essential issues of the 16th-century debate were reaffirmed in that catechism including the treasury of merit, purgatory, indulgences, justification through the sacraments. So, when people say that the Reformation is over, they just don’t know what they’re talking about. It’s that simple.” – Dr. R. C. Sproul

R C Sproul – from the sermon: https://learn.ligonier.org/sermons/abraham-justified-faith

In our day, the doctrine of justification has been battled afresh within so-called evangelical circles, revealing that evangelical circles are not truly evangelical. Anyone who challenges sola fide cannot do so and legitimately be counted as an evangelical, because justification by faith alone is at the very heart of historical evangelicalism.

Be that as it may, all kinds of people call themselves evangelicals, but they call themselves evangelicals with a dead vocation. Their profession of evangelicalism is a false profession because they deny the evangel that defines evangelicalism. At the center of the debate is whether or not the aspect of imputation is crucial to justification by faith alone.

We saw the startling manifestation in the mid-1990s called “Evangelicals and Catholics Together,” when some leading evangelicals in our country declared to the world that they had a unity of faith in the gospel with their Roman Catholic friends, who appealed to their own orthodox Roman Catholic doctrine. Nevertheless, these so-called evangelical leaders declared that they had a union of faith in the gospel with their Roman Catholic friends.

In discussions with these evangelical leaders, I raised some questions. I said: “I know I don’t have a unity of faith with people who deny justification by faith alone and preach a different gospel from the biblical gospel. I can be friends with them. I can have a unity in concerns about abortion and a host of other things, but not in the gospel, because we don’t believe the same gospel. Here’s my problem: If you have a unity of faith in the gospel with these people, and I don’t have a unity in the faith in the gospel with them, how can I possibly have a unity of faith in the gospel with you?”

We had a series of meetings that were important, and in one meeting, I kept pressing the point to one of the leaders of this group. I said, “Do you believe that justification by faith alone is essential to the gospel?” He kept saying to me, “I think it’s central to the gospel.” I said: “That’s not what I asked you. I asked you whether it is essential. If you don’t have justification by faith alone, you don’t have the gospel.” Try as hard as I could, I could not get the man to make that assertion.

So much controversy arose out of that ECT initiative that they came out with a second document, which in my judgment was far worse than the first one, in which they said, “We together agree in the faith of the gospel because we believe that justification requires faith, and we believe that we are saying the same things that the Reformers were saying in the sixteenth century.” Then they came to me and said, “What do you think now?”

I said, “What do I think now? Like Michael Horton says, if you are making chocolate chip cookies and you get eggs, flour, milk, and sugar and you mix it all together, you have the stuff that makes up chocolate chip cookies, but there is one critical ingredient that is missing. There are no chocolate chips. Without the chocolate chips, you do not have chocolate chip cookies. Without sola fide, you do not have justification by faith alone.”

At the end of that second document, they said, “We leave the question of imputation for later discussion.” I thought: “Leave the question of imputation for later discussion? That is the chocolate chips.”

Historically, the whole issue regarding justification is about this question: How does the righteousness of Christ become mine? Is it because it is poured into me through the sacrament of baptism and later again through the sacrament of penance? Or is the righteousness of Christ imputed to me, counted for me, transferred to my account?

Here is the point of the debate in a nutshell: Is the righteousness by which I am justified a righteousness that is found in me, an inherent righteousness? The Council of Trent says you must have righteousness inhaerens. In other words, righteousness must be in you before God will ever decree that you are justified. That is why you must have the structure of purgatory and all the rest, so that you might spend millions of years there until you get enough righteousness in you before God will ever pronounce you just.

That is not gospel; that is bad news. It would leave me without hope. If I have to wait until I am inherently righteous, I am a dead man. But the gospel is that we are righteous on the basis of the righteousness of Jesus that is transferred to our account, imputed to us, what Luther called a iustitium alienum, an alien righteousness, a righteousness that is extra nos, outside of us. The righteousness by which you are justified is the righteousness that Christ manifested in His life of perfect obedience.

It is Christ’s righteousness that justifies you. All you bring to the table is your trust in Him and His righteousness. If you add one ounce of your own righteousness as your confidence in your justification, you are repudiating the gospel. That is what Paul is saying here without any ambiguity by citing David.

David described the blessedness of the man to whom God imputes righteousness apart from works. Do you know such blessedness? There is no greater blessedness under heaven than to have God, in His mercy and grace, transfer the righteousness of Jesus to your account.

On Christmas Eve, I told a story about a priest with dirty clothes. I did not just do that to entertain the children. That story about the priest and the dirty clothes is the story of imputation. It is the story of the gospel, the only gospel by which we stand or fall. Dear friends, imputation is what it is all about. It is Christ’s righteousness counted for you.

Can you imagine standing before God? When I stand before God, He will know everything I have ever done wrong, every evil thought, and every wicked deed I have ever performed. If He looks at me inherently, all He will see are filthy rags. But that is not how He looks at me. He looks at me and He sees Christ. He sees the covering of the righteousness of Christ, the cloak of righteousness. That is why the New Testament says that Christ is our righteousness. He is my righteousness. The only righteousness I possess is the righteousness of Christ, and I possess it by transfer, by reckoning, by imputation.

Based on that, I tell my friends in the theological world that if you negotiate imputation, you give it all away. That is the article upon which sola fide stands or falls, and sola fide is the article upon which the gospel stands or falls. The gospel is the article upon which the church stands or falls.

This question is answered in the first 12 minutes of this panel discussion at this year’s Ligonier National Conference (April 12, 2025):

https://www.youtube.com/embed/fLctU-4vzX0?si=495h4YVcVyzabz9b

Transcript: (slightly modified for clarity)

Chris Larson:  In classical Reformed theology, what is the most historically orthodox and accepted interpretation of Matthew 16:18? And I tell you, you are Peter, and on this rock, I will build my church and the gates of hell shall not prevail against it.

Dr. W. Robert Godfrey: Well, I think the two dominant Protestant approaches to that is that the Rock is Christ, which is always a good place to start.

Peter in his first epistle says, the rock of the church is Christ. So, if Peter is central in Matthew 16, we ought to listen to Peter. Peter says, the rock is Christ.

Others have said that the rock on which the church will be built is the confession of Peter, confessing that Jesus is the Christ.

The name Peter and the word for rock and Greek are related, but they’re not identical, which I think does point that it’s not really Peter on which the church is built, but it’s Peter’s confession or Peter’s Messiah on which the church is built.

Dr. Derek Thomas: Sinclair, do you agree with that? Come on. I know you don’t.

Dr. W. Robert Godfrey: It’s all right.

Dr. Sinclair Ferguson: Not being a church historian, you can’t a hundred percent trust my judgment on this, but I think that this issue did not become controversial until the Bishop of Rome was claiming authority over the whole church, and the supremacy of the church in Rome. And until that point there was a variety of views of how you interpret it (Matthew 16:18). And at least from my limited knowledge of the history of the reformed tradition, those various views have continued, so in a sense to ask what is the orthodox reformed view, looking for a narrow answer is actually to ask a question that the history of the reformed tradition does not itself answer. My personal view is nearer the second view that, that Bob mentioned. I think that actually, that is a specific prophecy about how Christ is going to build the church. That Paul indicates that the church is built on the foundation of the apostles and prophets Christ Jesus himself being the chief cornerstone.

And I think if you hold together everything that’s in that statement… I think you, you have there the nuance … the lenses through which you should interpret Matthew 16:18. Because as a matter of fact, while the keys are given to all the apostles, it is Peter who first of all takes them out of his pocket and opens the kingdom. Which is what Matthew 16:18 to 20 is really about.

It’s Peter who then opens the door of the church to the Gentiles again through the preaching of the gospel. So, I think there is in Matthew 16:18, not just a general statement about, I’m going to build my church. But I am going to use these particular individuals of whom Peter seems to be a key and I think it is significant as I think I maybe said the other day, that every time the apostles are listed, whether it’s all 12 of them or whether it’s just three of them, Peter is always the first name.

And that should be no more difficult for us as Protestants than the role we understand that is given to the Apostle Paul to be the apostle to the Gentiles. And I think it’s partly because of the controversy that has surrounded Matthew 16:18, that we Protestants are far more comfortable about speaking about the Apostle Paul as the great apostle. He is our apostle, and we are very nervous about thinking that Christ might have given a role to Simon Peter.

And then I think we can understand this because I think one of the things we see, we see this among ourselves that Christ has called us to a common ministry, but he’s given each of us different roles. And if it were not for the Roman controversy, I think we would be comfortable about seeing that Jesus is speaking to Peter in particular not abstracted either from all of the other apostles, nor abstracted from the fact that Peter is confessing Christ. But that within that context, Peter did have a rather singular role that was given to him in the church.

Dr. W. Robert Godfrey: Yeah, I think that’s absolutely true and, and I think it is important, maybe this is a crucial question for next year. But, I think it’s very important, even if we all agreed that Peter himself individually is the rock on which the church is built, even if we granted that in terms of the exegesis of Matthew 16, it does not in any necessary way imply that the Bishop of Rome continues the work of Peter. So that kind of move by our Roman Catholic friends, doesn’t necessarily follow. And when you look at the history of the church, the Bishop of Rome doesn’t really even claim Petrine authority until the middle of the third century. And now I know what you’re all thinking. You’re all thinking, why haven’t I mentioned Canon three of the Council of Constantinople.

Dr. Sinclair Ferguson: Yeah. Why haven’t you mentioned the Third Cannon of the Council of Constantinople?

Dr. W. Robert Godfrey: Well, I didn’t want to confuse you. It’s very interesting because the meeting of the Council of Constantinople is held in Constantinople. It’s the kind of useful things church historians can tell you. And at the council, they adopted the third cannon, which says, the Bishop of Constantinople has primacy of honor in the church after the Bishop of Rome because Constantinople is the new Rome. And the Pope was furious. This is 381. The Pope was furious because the council had in effect declared the Bishop of Rome has honor only because he’s bishop in the old capital of the empire, not because he’s the successor of Peter. And so the Bishop of Rome refused to acknowledge Canon three of the ecumenical council.

So it’s very interesting the church as a whole gathered in an ecumenical council, says something about the Bishop of Rome and the Bishop of Rome rejects it. So, this notion that the voice of the ancient church is unified in declaring, the role of the Bishop of Rome is simply untrue.

Is that profoundly helpful?

Dr. Sinclair Ferguson: Well, it’s funny. Yeah.

Dr. W. Robert Godfrey: That’s all I’m here for.

Dr. Sinclair Ferguson: I think it’s interesting just by way of confession. When I was a young teenager seeker, I saw an advert for 21 lessons about the Christian faith, and I sent off for them. And they came to me in a brown envelope, and I realized they’d come from the Catholic Truth Society. So in the interest of full disclosure, my name may be somewhere down in the dungeons of the Vatican as somebody to just keep your eye on. [laughter]

But even as a teenager, I noticed in all of these 21 lessons, I used to get up early on Tuesday and Thursday morning. Because I was frightened my mom and dad would discover what was happening. But even as a teenager, I noticed that they would have some Bible material and then the transition would be, “and is it not reasonable to think?” And I used to think as a dark-minded Scottish boy, I don’t actually see that as being reasonable because it doesn’t grow out of the passages that you’ve indicated to me.

And then later on I realized that the arguments that were used for the papacy were always extra biblical arguments. Isn’t it reasonable to assume that since we are in the empire and there needs to be a succession plan that’s so in the church there also should be a succession plan? And I think it dawned on me then that actually the big difference between Roman Catholics and Protestants at ground level is, we believe that God has spoken exclusively in His word, and the Roman Catholic believes that there are two strands of revelation. One is God’s word and the other is the strand of sacred tradition. And inevitably, when you have a second strand of revelation, the second strand trumps the first strand. That statement is no political reference, by the way. That’s true of the charismatic movement, and by and large, it’s true of Roman Catholics. Even the Roman Catholic leaders who have expressed in places very fine biblical theology will then add, “and here is what the church believes.” And that is a radical distinction between ourselves and Rome. And I’m just agreeing with the third canon of the Council of Constantinople, with which we are all now familiar. [laughter]

Dr. W. Robert Godfrey: What a good man! What a good man! It also is true, very briefly, that we don’t need a succession plan for the head of the church. Because we have a king who never dies.