By Walid Shoebat (Shoebat Exclusive)

Let Christ be right and every Pope and Reformer who opposed Him be a liar!

Call me “confused,” call me names. Say that I am “out on a lim,” I don’t care anymore.

They tell me that all I need is Scripture.

Well, sure, but at times I have caught myself saying foolish things and interpreting foolishly. Even perhaps now, I am being foolish, so please HELP save my soul! SOS!

But when I bring out the utter heresies by reformers, they tell me that they do not care about what Luther or what Calvin said, they say “I only care about what Scripture says”.

Alright then, take my simple challenge, its perhaps my ten nails I am pounding at the gate of your soul, to examine if this is true, perhaps they can simply answer 10 very simple questions to the best of their ability: 1) Do you use Scripture Alone? In other words, do you believe that there is no church authority, that there should not be any authority of Church fathers that have already interpreted Scripture? Do you believe, here is a Bible and to each his own?

Prior to Luther, Scripture teaching and interpretation had to go in harmony with what the Church taught from time immemorial.

In those days, there was the Didache, St. Ignatius, St. Justin the Martyr, St. Irenaeus of Lyons, Tertullian, Origen, St. Clement of Alexandria, St. Cyprian of Carthage, Council of Nicaea, Aphraates the Persian Sage, St. Ephraim, St. Athanasius, St. Cyril of Jerusalem, St. Hilary of Poitiers, St. Basil the Great, St. Gregory of Nazianz, St. Gregory of Nyssa, St. Epiphanius of Salamis, Theodore of Mopsuestia, St. John Chrysostom, Apostolic Constitutions, St. Ambrose of Milan, St. Jerome and St. Augustine …

And before you label me as anti-Scripture, I am hardly anti-Scripture for it is the blueprint of our Christian theology and heritage.

But such a foundation was never isolated from the other foundation: The Church. The two always went together, hand (Scripture) and glove (the Church).

As I see today we live in an utter mess. We even divide whether its right or wrong to kill Hitler since killing Hitler is all of the sudden interpreted as “murder” by Calvinist John Piper. Is this why we divide and have millions of divisions because each and every one of us adheres to the teaching that the Holy Spirit leads each and everyone of us?

No man can argue “I use Scripture alone” unless they adhere to Luther because only Luther used “Sola Scriptura” (Scripture Alone). But is such interpretation of Scripture void from some authority.

People always answer me with: “Yes Walid, but the local church should have a say so as we interpret”.

But we have millions of pastors and local churches many of which carry the most heretical views. No one before Luther believed such an idea and in essence that would mean entire Christianity was taught falsely until Luther showed up and that the Church fathers were all wrong and Luther was that correction sent by God to rescue us all?

Christians prior to Luther did not personally use Scripture without adhering to Church authority to interpret major theological issues and concepts.

This is Christian history.

And they tell me that history is of no consequence!

I asked someone another simple question 2) Do you have problems with Coptic theology?
Fact is, when it comes to Protestants, Evangelicals, Messianic or Seventh Day Adventists or even non-denominational, regardless if they say that they “do not follow Luther but they follow Christ alone” they rejected the Copt theology once they reviewed their teachings.

And by the time I investigated non-denominational churches I found out that even these created a non-denomination denomination and that they are no difference than the others. A non-denomination denomination was simply an attempt to scoop from all denominations to enter that specific church to be fed by that specific pastor from his interpretation from “Scripture alone”.

Regardless if they do not even know Luther or Zwingli, their teaching was passed down and is etched into their psyche and soul.

Then I ask 3) How about Eastern Christian Orthodox theology?

Indeed, everyone I asked, the very ones who say they believe in Scripture alone and do not care about Luther reject Eastern Christian Orthodox theology and would adhere to only how Luther interpreted Scripture.

Then I asked: 4) Do you reject any other mainstream Christian theology besides what is in the Protestant reformation?

Indeed, by the time I examined their theology, they would reject all of them except Luther’s, Calvin’s, Zwingli’s … regardless even if they have never heard these names.

And it matters not that they might not even know who even Zwingli is.

For example, the tradition of iconoclasm stems from Zwingli whether they know this or not, they reject it while at the same rate they say “I follow Christ, not Zwingli” and they say “anyone who believes in icons are pagans” which is exactly what Zwingli taught in disagreement with all Church fathers.

Then I ask: 5) who exactly in all denominations you have a problem with? The answer is always it would be EVERYONE but what LUTHER and ZWINGLI taught while they said “we follow the Bible and we could care less about Zwingli or Luther”.

Aren’t Luther and Zwingli the KEY in their theology?

Then I ask: 6) Please show references from the True Church that was not Catholic or Orthodox or Copt prior to Luther who taught his doctrines? Name them?

I spent years asking this very simple question, fact was they cannot and will not dare answer this very simple question.

This I guarantee 100%, go-ahead try it.

The ones who tried named groups who were utterly non-Protestant and were not even remotely Evangelical or Messianic.

Was Christianity then discovered only in the sixteenth century?

Then I ask the ultimate question, 7) do you not have a problem gleaning theology from Luther who wrote: “The Jews and Their Lies”?

What I found out, every time, that while they condemn Luther’s book, the Jews and Their Lies, is that they actually don’t mind gleaning major theological concepts from a man who wrote such utter evil.

And when it came as to how Luther identified “saved by faith alone,” it even got worse. Luther said:

“If you are a preacher of grace, then preach a true and not a fictitious grace; if grace is true, you must bear a true and not a fictitious sin. God does not save people who are only fictitious sinners. Be a sinner and sin boldly, but believe and rejoice in Christ even more boldly … as long as we are here [in this world] we have to sin … No sin will separate us from the Lamb, even though we commit fornication and murder a thousand times a day.”

Every time I asked 8) Is Luther correct or incorrect on this theological concept and why?

BY the time we finished the dialogue Luther would end up being “correct” since one can sin all day long and still be “saved” since once a person is “saved” he is always “saved”.

Then when I got to the heretical issues, it got even worse, when Luther also said:

“Christ committed adultery first of all with the women at the well about whom St. John tells us. Was not everybody about Him saying: ‘Whatever has He been doing with her?’ Secondly, with Mary Magdalen, and thirdly with the women taken in adultery whom He dismissed so lightly. Thus even, Christ who was so righteous, must have been guilty of fornication before He died.”

This in fact actually mattered little to so many who would instantly respond with “Peter denied Christ 3 times, so why can’t Luther?”

But when I tell them that Peter repented and Luther never recanted these statements, they still stood behind Luther while they insisted “I do not follow Luther but Jesus Christ and the Bible alone”!

The most common response I get is that “Luther was grumpy and old and only said these things at the end of his life.”

But when I show them that this is false, the heretical teachings of Luther stems from the inception of his ministry, it made no difference.

In fact, even my article and my plea here will make no difference but gain me name-calling and condemnation from the very folks who chastise anyone condemning anyone.

Then I ask: 9) what do you feel Luther was as you read these statements made by him (and there are literally hundreds of them), was he: A) A Christian?
 B) A heretic?
 C) He was simply a sinner who was “sinning boldly”?

Their answer is always “C” since “A” would destroy their entire base in the so-called reformation and “B” is a disaster since it would mean that this reformation was founded by a heretic.

Then I ask: 10) Can one who is saved sin a million times over? Yes/No?

And the answer usually ends up with a “YES”.

And then they still tell me that they do not follow Luther but they follow the Scripture and Scripture alone which according to them this concept was always in existence.

What I ended up concluding is that everyone, no exception, who claims to believe in Scripture alone are really saying this: “I follow Scripture according to my interpretation alone”.