Covenant Reformed News – April 2018 • Volume XVI, Issue 24
This article defends the Reformed doctrine of God's sovereignty and particular grace against Pope Francis's criticism of the phrase "lead us not into temptation" in the Lord's Prayer. The author argues that the Pope's rejection of this petition stems from a semi-Pelagian or Pelagian theology that denies total depravity and God's sovereign election, positions also critiqued as prevalent in modern evangelicalism. The piece emphasizes the biblical and confessional Reformed understanding of God's complete sovereignty in salvation, election, and providence.
“Lead Us Not Into Temptation” and Pope Francis In a video in December, 2017, Pope Francis claimed that “lead us not into temptation” is a bad translation of the sixth petition of the Lord’s Prayer. However, this is a very accurate rendering of the words of the Lord Jesus in the original Greek. The Pope made this outrageous statement because he cannot reconcile Christ’s teaching with his own base view of God’s sovereignty. Semi-Pelagianism, which is akin to Arminianism, is Rome’s historic...