9. Closing Appeal

Rock and Sand takes its title from one of the best-known parables Jesus ever told. Two men build houses. One digs deep and lays his foundation on the rock; the other builds on the ground without a foundation. The storm comes to both. One house stands, and the other falls with a great crash. The Foreword applies the parable to churches, naming the Orthodox Church as the house on the rock and placing the others on sand.¹¹⁰

But the Foreword also says something that is easy to pass over. It acknowledges that the parable is first of all about “hearing and… incarnating the Gospel of Christ,” and that this “is, after all, what our Saviour was addressing.”¹¹¹ That is exactly right, and it is worth hearing the parable again in Jesus’ own words. “Why do you call me, ‘Lord, Lord,’ and do not do what I say? I will show you what the person is like who comes to me, hears my words and does them. He is like a man building a house who dug and went deep, and laid a foundation on the rock” (Luke 6:46–48).¹¹²

The rock in the parable is not an institution, a tradition, or a line of bishops. It is the words of Christ, heard and obeyed. A man builds on the rock when he comes to Christ, listens to what He says, and does it. That is the foundation this review has tried to dig down to in every section.

What Has Been Shown

It may help to gather the threads.

Rock and Sand rests on a claim it does not prove: that the Orthodox Church is the one true Church, and that its Tradition is the final authority by which all teaching must be judged. Section 1 showed that this claim cannot be tested by itself, any more than a measuring tape can be checked against itself. The only fair standard is one that no church made and that both sides accept as the word of God: the Scriptures.

Section 2 acknowledged that Trenham’s criticisms of Protestants are often deserved, and that the cure for those failings is greater faithfulness to Scripture, not less. Section 3 showed that Scripture presents itself as that standard. Jesus judged tradition by the written word, the apostles wrote down what they had taught, and the Bereans tested even an apostle by the Scriptures.

Section 4 showed that the Church, in Scripture, is the people whom the Spirit has joined to Christ, gathered in local congregations under the word of God and led by qualified elders, one of whom leads the rest. Such churches are apostolic because they hold what the apostles taught, and they rest on the one foundation that no one can replace, Jesus Christ Himself.

Section 5 showed that a sinner is made right with God by grace through faith, apart from works, and that true faith shows itself in a changed life. Section 6 showed that a believer may know he has eternal life, and that no one can snatch him from the Father’s hand. Section 7 showed that baptism follows the new birth as its public sign, and belongs to those who have heard the gospel and believed it. Section 8 explained why the dispute over the filioque, however serious for others, is not where the Baptist disagreement with Rock and Sand lies.

An Invitation to Every Reader

This review began by asking its readers to do what the people of Berea did: to examine the Scriptures daily to see whether these things are true. It ends with the same request. That request applies to Rock and Sand, and it applies equally to this review. Paul’s instruction was simple: “Test all things, and hold firmly to what is good!” (1 Thess. 5:21). No reader should accept a conclusion here merely because it has been stated with confidence. Every reference has been given so that it can be checked.

To any reader who has wondered whether the faith he was taught can stand against the arguments of a learned book, the answer offered here is that it can, because it was never meant to stand on its own strength. It stands on the word of God. The promises examined in these pages were written so that believers might have confidence: “so that you may know that you have eternal life” (1 John 5:13). That confidence does not depend on winning an argument. It depends on the faithfulness of the One who made the promise.

To readers who belong to the Orthodox Church or are drawn to it, this review offers its respect and its thanks. Trenham’s book was written with conviction and learning, and it deserved a careful answer. The same invitation is extended to them as to everyone else. Open the Scriptures, which both sides honor as the word of God. Read them in their plain sense. Ask what they say about how a sinner is made right with God, and whether that promise rests on what Christ has done or on what we must add to it. The answer to that question matters more than any other in this review.

The House That Stands

Storms come to every house. They come to churches through false teaching and division, and they come to individual believers through doubt, suffering, and the arguments of others. The parable does not promise that the house on the rock will escape the storm. It promises that the house will stand.

It will stand not because its builders were clever or its walls were old, but because it was “founded on the rock” (Luke 6:48). That rock is Jesus Christ and the word He has spoken. No one can lay any other foundation, and no one needs to. Whoever comes to Him, hears His words, and does them is building on ground that will never give way.