The inclusion of Roman Catholicism in this paper is purposeful. Like any other religion, it is a false doctrine of works, and a false combination of the teachings of man and the Word of God, the Bible. It has always been a marriage of the world systems of government and religion. In history, Roman Catholics have sought (and in some cases gained) much political power and influence. The Roman Catholic system of religion allows them to control their followers, because the Church ‘holds the keys’ of heaven and hell. They have this control over all of their followers, who have included many princes and rulers. They claim to be Christian, but Paul’s letter to the Galatians calls them out as those to be anathema (damned) because they bastardize the Gospel by adding works and the tradition of man.
Short History
According to Catholics, their faith was established by Jesus, and built upon Peter (Matthew 16:18) who was the first ‘Pope’.
"Jesus entrusted a specific authority to Peter: "I will give you the keys of the kingdom of heaven, and whatever you bind on earth shall be bound in heaven, and whatever you loose on earth shall be loosed in heaven." The "power of the keys" designates authority to govern the house of God, which is the Church. Jesus, the Good Shepherd, confirmed this mandate after his Resurrection: "Feed my sheep." The power to "bind and loose" connotes the authority to absolve sins, to pronounce doctrinal judgements, and to make disciplinary decisions in the Church. Jesus entrusted this authority to the Church through the ministry of the apostles and in particular through the ministry of Peter, the only one to whom he specifically entrusted the keys of the kingdom."
The history of the early church has been adopted by the Catholic Church as their own with some legendary changes. The most significant claims of Peter being the first Pope beginning the line of apostolic succession is not even supported by secular or Biblical history. For example, Peter was never in Rome, and was not even seen as a prominent leader in the early church after Acts 10, and he aligned himself as just one of the apostles, not the chief apostle or Pope (1 Peter 1:1). The legend of Peter as the ‘rock’ upon which the church is built is needed for the church to claim the unbroken apostolic authority to exercise control as the True Church.
What really separates Roman Catholicism from the rest of the Biblical underground church is the adoption of Roman traditions for church government as well as adopting some traditions of their communities that they were a part of. Ultimately, the Catholic Church was formalized and standardized in 313 as Constantine legalized Christianity and took over as the head of the Roman Church. They formalized position of bishops and the bishop of Rome (the Pope) Leo 1 was likely the first pope in Rome around 440 AD.
Summary of Beliefs
The Catholic Church believes much like we do when it comes to Jesus Christ. They hold that Jesus is eternal God, begotten not made, of one being with the Father. They believe that Jesus was born of a virgin. They hold to his death, burial, and resurrection as historical fact. Unfortunately, the official position of the Church views justification purchased at the cross as incomplete. In fact, in the Catholic view if one agrees with the Bible that justification is by faith alone, that person is damned:
"If any one saith, that by faith alone the impious is justified; in such wise as to mean, that nothing else is required to co-operate in order to the obtaining the grace of Justification, and that it is not in any way necessary, that he be prepared and disposed by the movement of his own will; let him be anathema".
"If any one saith, that man is truly absolved from his sins and justified, because he assuredly believed himself absolved and justified; or, that no one is truly justified but he who believes himself justified; and that, by this faith alone, absolution and justification are affected; let him be anathema,".
If not by faith alone, how is one justified? According to the Catholic church, we must have works, specifically the sacraments, to add enough merit to gain eternal life:
"Moved by the Holy Spirit, we can merit for ourselves and for others all the graces needed to attain eternal life, as well as necessary temporal goods”.
"...Moved by the Holy Spirit and by charity, we can then merit for ourselves and for others the graces needed for our sanctification, for the increase of grace and charity, and for the attainment of eternal life."
"The Council of Trent teaches that the Ten Commandments are obligatory for Christians and that the justified man is still bound to keep them; the Second Vatican Council confirms: "The bishops, successors of the apostles, receive from the Lord . . . the mission of teaching all peoples, and of preaching the Gospel to every creature, so that all men may attain salvation through faith, Baptism, and the observance of the Commandments."
Even if you gain enough merit, you can lose your justification. You need to regain it from the church through works (sacraments):
“Justification can be lost by sinning. To regain the grace of justification you must participate in the sacraments and perform penance”.
The Roman Catholic belief is that tradition is equal to Scripture (which only the Magisterium can interpret) so they are able to justify the adoption of tradition from the variety of pagan faiths that were around at the time of its legalization by Constantine. These traditions include the veneration of Mary, and her role as a co-mediator with Jesus Christ. The Catholics simply renamed the pagan female deities, and imitated the worship of these deities, elevating the human sinner Mary to god-like status. They also got traditions like the confessional, church government, and the ‘sacrifice of the Mass’ by adopting various pagan religious practices.
The Biblical View
Many of these practices mentioned above seem innocuous to the faithful Catholic, but as we study the origins and understand the scripture, the traditions are seen as tools to make the Catholic Church herself as the Savior, and not King Jesus. Martin Luther in his Commentary on Galatians was very direct in addressing the shortcomings of the Catholic Church specifically on the theme of justification:
“The nefarious opinion of the papists, which attributes the merit of grace and the remission of sins to works, must here be emphatically rejected. The papists say that a good work performed before grace has been obtained, is able to secure grace for a person, because it is no more than right that God should reward a good deed. When grace has already been obtained, any good work deserves everlasting life as a due payment and reward for merit. For the first, God is no debtor, they say; but because God is good and just, it is no more than right (they say) that He should reward a good work by granting grace for the service. But when grace has already been obtained, they continue, God is in the position of a debtor, and is in duty bound to reward a good work with the gift of eternal life. This is the wicked teaching of the papacy.
Now, if I could perform any work acceptable to God and deserving of grace, and once having obtained grace my good works would continue to earn for me the right and reward of eternal life, why should I stand in need of the grace of God and the suffering and death of Christ? Christ would be of no benefit to me. Christ's mercy would be of no use to me.”
In other words, Roman Catholicism is a perversion of the Gospel. Paul himself calls it thus; anything else than the simple repentance from sin and trust in Christ alone is another gospel resulting in damnation:
Galatians 1: 6-9 I marvel that ye are so soon removed from him that called you into the grace of Christ unto another gospel: 7Which is not another; but there be some that trouble you, and would pervert the gospel of Christ.
8 But though we, or an angel from heaven, preach any other gospel unto you than that which we have preached unto you, let him be accursed. 9 As we said before, so say I now again, If any man preach any other gospel unto you than that ye have received, let him be accursed.
Galatians 2:21 I do not frustrate the grace of God: for if righteousness come by the law, then Christ is dead in vain.
Roman Catholics, like the Judaizers in the New Testament, desire there to be a connection to the Church that requires reliance on the church and tradition in order to gain salvation. This control is gained by making the church, the priesthood and the sacraments the only vehicle by which man can be saved. In the middle ages ignorance of the scripture allowed this control to extend from the peasants all the way to governments and kings. In the modern day, this willful ignorance of the masses has allowed the Catholic Church to pull the wool over the eyes of other Christian denominations and Christian leaders. This is accomplished by changing terminology related to salvation to match biblical terms. The use of the terms grace, born again, justification, and receiving Christ are examples of salvation terms that Roman Catholic leadership has co-opted for their purpose.
Term
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Roman Catholic Meaning
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Biblical Meaning
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Born Again
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Baptism (mostly infant)- means that infant is now a member of the church and part of the body of Christ- and can receive the grace of God via the sacraments and works. This removes original sin and actual sin.
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A gracious act of God by which He imputes Jesus’ righteousness to repentant sinners. Based on the grace of God not the merit of any work. (John 1:12-13, 3:3, 5, 16-18, Acts 4:12, 2 Corinthians 5:17,21
1 Peter 1:23)
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Receive Christ
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The Eucharist, or the sacrifice of the Mass (Lord’s Supper), Where the Catholic believes the elements of wine and wafer are changed into the actual body and blood of Jesus
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A colloquialism, taken from John 1:12-13, the idea that when we repent and place trust in Jesus we ‘receive Him’ into our lives. Upon repentance and faith we become a new creation (2 Corinthians 5:17)
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grace
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Is a gift, granted to those who are baptized, and infused into the Catholic through doing good works and receiving the different sacraments
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It is a gift, received by faith- not of works (Ephesians 2:4-5, 8-9)
It is because of this that we are saved from sin and brought into the life of God allowing us to be born again (2 Timothy 1:8-10, Acts 15:11)
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justification
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The process of Justification is begun with baptism, and continued (even regained) through participation in the sacraments of the church and the doing of good works
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Justification is by faith, it is a one time judicial declaration of “NOT GUILTY” by God over the repentant sinner, based on His grace and the finished work of Jesus Christ on the cross.
Titus 3:7 John 1:12, Isaiah 53:12; 1 Pet. 2:24, Rom. 3:20,24, 28; 4:5; 5:1,9; Eph. 2:8-9
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In conclusion, the Roman Catholic Church’s Jesus is another Jesus, one who looks very similar to the Biblical Jesus, but is a stripped down version needing the help of the Church and good works to complete salvation in the lives of believers. The Catholic Jesus needs the help of his mother to mediate between Him and His followers. He also needs priests, bishops, archbishops, and popes to assist Him in completing the task of saving and leading the church. The Bible, however, is clear that salvation is something that is both initiated and completed by God (John 1:12-13, 3:3-14, 10:27-30, Philippians 1:6, Ephesians 2:4-5,8-10). And that Jesus has all authority (Matthew 28:18) and is the head of the church (Ephesians 1:22, 5:23, Colossians 1:18). It is Jesus alone who is our advocate (1 John 2:1) with God the Father. And while Jesus’ followers are called and created in Christ to do good works (Ephesians 2:10, 2 Corinthians 5:17) these works are the result and evidence of the change that has been wrought in Christ. Outside of Christ’s work in salvation, none of our works are good (morally excellent) (Isaiah 64:6, Romans 3:12) nor can they save us (Romans 3:20). Martin Luther says it best:
“With Paul we absolutely deny the possibility of self merit. God never yet gave to any person grace and everlasting life as a reward for merit. The opinions of the papists are the intellectual pipe-dreams of idle pates, that serve no other purpose but to draw men away from the true worship of God. The papacy is founded upon hallucinations.”By the term "flesh" Paul does not understand manifest vices. Such sins he usually calls by their proper names, as adultery, fornication, etc. By "flesh" Paul understands what Jesus meant in the third chapter of John, "That which is born of the flesh is flesh". (John 3:6.) "Flesh" here means the whole nature of man, inclusive of reason and instincts. "This flesh," says Paul, "is not justified by the works of the law."The papists do not believe this. They say, "A person who performs this good deed or that, deserves the forgiveness of his sins. A person who joins this or that holy order, has the promise of everlasting life."
To me it is a miracle that the Church, so long surrounded by vicious sects, has been able to survive at all. God must have been able to call a few who in their failure to discover any good in themselves to cite against the wrath and judgment of God, simply took to the suffering and death of Christ, and were saved by this simple faith.Nevertheless God has punished the contempt of the Gospel and of Christ on the part of the papists, by turning them over to a reprobate state of mind in which they reject the Gospel, and receive with gusto the abominable rules, ordinances, and traditions of men in preference to the Word of God, until they went so far as to forbid marriage. God punished them justly, because they blasphemed the only Son of God.This is, then, our general conclusion: "By the works of the law shall no flesh be justified."”
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