DEBATE AUDIO: Does the Roman Catholic Church Deny the Gospel?

Debate Format, Burden of Proof, and the Opening of the Catholic Case

Moderator. I am the chair to which our debate pastors will direct their comments, their arguments and their questions instead of to each other. Um, I actually left my phone in my car and I don't know how I'm going to get through the next two hours without tick tock, but I hope that these, uh, arguments are more intellectually stimulating than that.

And I want to thank you all for coming here tonight. Um, this isn't the Roman Coliseum. These guys are going to have an academic debate. So I applaud you for being in the same space with each other, um, to observe and, uh, learn from that.

So, like I said, I left my phone in the car. Please silence your devices. If you need to leave your seat, the restrooms are in the back. Please don't return to your seat until an appropriate break in the debate.

Um, any intentional interruption of the proceedings will result. We have wonderful security here in dismissal from the Rialto. Um, and I would like to also ask that we have applause at the beginning and the end when I introduce, um, or when I hand over the stage and then at the end when they will shake hands after their closing remarks should be the only two appropriate times for applause.

Um, tonight's principal debate titled is the Roman Catholic Church a gospel denying church will last about an hour and a half with 30 minutes of questions from the audience afterwards. As we go through the various sections, I will explain the format and, uh, we will begin it and provide additional information as necessary.

Arguing for the resolution is Pastor Alan S. Nelson, the fourth. He is pastor of Providence Baptist Church in Perryville, where he served since 2016. He is a 2004 graduate of Perryville High School, a 2008 graduate of Arkansas Tech University, and a 2021 graduate of Grace Bible Theological Seminary in Conway.

He and his wife, Stephanie, have been married since 2006, and they have six children. Arguing against tonight's resolution is Father Stephen Hart, a native of Little Rock. He is a 2011 baccalaureate graduate of Cragdon University, holds a Master of Catholic Philosophical Studies and a Master of Divinity from St. Maynard Maynard Seminary, as well as a Bachelor of Sacred Theology from Pontifical St. Anselmo.

He was ordained a priest of the Diocese of Little Rock in 2017 and has been pastor of Sacred Heart in Moralton and St. Elizabeth in Apollo for the past two years. He is currently working towards a license in Sacred Theology from Mundelein Seminary and the University of St. Mary of the Lake.

Welcome these wonderful pastors to the stage. Thank you, and the participants would also like to thank all who made this evening possible, including the staff at the Rialto Jones Security Services, which I mentioned earlier, the Conway County Sheriff's Office, Moralton Police Department, the administration of University of Arkansas Community College at Moralton, who facilitated the search for a moderator, as well as Mr. Dalton Tyner, who served as the moderator pro temp for the last few weeks.

And the pastors would also like to encourage you to consider making donations to the Moralton-based charities, Abundant Life and the Conway County Care Center. The participants have agreed on a common code of conduct.

Neither one shall directly address the other. All comments shall be made to the chair with the title, Mr. Moderator. Neither one shall interrupt the other when it is not his turn to speak. Neither one may make ad hominem remarks, that is, comments that are against the good character or the good intentions of the other side.

They have mutually agreed to call each other Pastor Nelson and Pastor Hart. The first section will be the opening remarks. Each side will make opening remarks of up to 15 minutes in length. And before the debate, they agreed that because Pastor Hart will be going second, he may have the ability to reduce his time and save one extra minute for his closing remarks.

The rebuttals. The rebuttals. Yes, immediately after. Oh, that will be the second portion of the debate. So one minute less here, one minute more there, a little bit of grace period. We're all going to be nice to each other.

And now, sorry about that. And now we will listen to Pastor Nelson's opening remarks. Thank you, Mr. Moderator. I want to.

Justification by Faith Alone and the Roman Catholic Doctrine of Merit

Establish up front tonight that there will be two different gospels presented on this stage. Both will use similar words, grace, faith, justification. Both will talk about Jesus, but the two gospels you will hear will have very different definitions of these terms.

We are essentially using two different dictionaries. Even in the first century, there were those wanting to distort the gospel. So Paul writes in Galatians 1 .9, if anyone is preaching to you a gospel contrary to the one you received, let him be accursed.

That word for accursed, Paul uses is the Greek word anathema. It just means delivered up to the judicial wrath of God. And so you need to know tonight that the positions put forward on this stage are irreconcilable.

That is, they both cannot both be right. According to scripture, one of them is going to result in being under God's wrath for all eternity. This is a quite serious matter. Mr. Moderator, this is why I'm here tonight.

I'm not here to win an argument. I'm here for the sake of this community, for the sake of souls, for the sake of all those who will listen to this debate. I want, even up front, to show my love for Roman Catholic friends and neighbors.

I am simply here to present the gospel of our Lord Jesus Christ. Psalm 143, verse 2. David says, enter not into judgment with your servant, for no one living is righteous before you. And this is because David, a man after God's own heart, understands God's standard of righteousness.

David was a recipient of God's grace, but he understands if he's judged upon his own deeds and on his own merits, he's going to fail God's standard. Romans 3 .10 says it this way, none is righteous, no not one.

So now the question becomes, how can we be justified in God's sight? And this brings us to the heart of the divide between the gospel of Christ and the teachings of Rome. Being justified simply means just as if I'd, you get that, just as if I'd always obeyed God perfectly.

And the question is, how do I get to the point where God says I've met that standard? Do I meet it through a process myself of cooperation with the grace of God? Or is my condition such that I need God to judicially declare me righteous, based solely on the work of Christ alone?

To be clear, the holiness of God demands personal, perpetual, and precise perfection to his law. No slight, no faltering in any way, not an ounce, not one blessed ounce of misplaced motivation, bad attitude, bad actions, one slip up won't do.

So to understand our predicament rightly, you need to understand God's holy law. Are we going to relax God's law to let people get in on imperfect merit? Or are we going to uphold God's law, and the only way in is if someone else meets its standard for us.

James chapter 2 verse 10 says, whoever keeps the whole law but fails in one point has become guilty of all of it. Failing in one point, guilty of all of it. So any who have failed the law at a single point, even the smallest of sins, is guilty of the entire law and is condemned.

So in this regard, to tell a white lie incurs as much guilt as adultery in terms of condemnation before a holy God. This is God's perfect standard. Now, Mr. Moderator, I'm going to share with you the official teaching of Rome.

I understand that there'll be some in here, they may not personally affirm these teachings, but this is the official Roman Catholic doctrine. So Rome says, paragraph 2010 in the Catholic Catechism, that God gives man initial grace, the initial grace of justification, but then by this we can merit for ourselves and others the graces needed for the attainment of eternal life.

We can merit graces. Listen to that carefully. Okay, so to merit something, friends, Mr. Moderator, it's not grace. If you give me a million dollars for cleaning your house, well, that's quite generous.

Guess what? I still earned it because I cleaned your house. Or the Council of Trent, session 6, paragraph 16, says life eternal is to be proposed to those working well unto the end. Or the Catholic Catechism, number 2068, says all men may attain salvation through faith, baptism, and the observance of the commandments.

Now back to man's guilt. Rome puts forth a false gospel that says, here is grace, here is initial justification, but you must cooperate with this grace. You must keep it up. Yet no man can meet God's standard through the law.

That is, the commandments that Rome says that we can keep to attain salvation, you can't do it. So Trent, session 6, canon 14, says if anyone says that by faith alone, absolution and justification are effected, let him be anathema.

Same word we heard from Galatians 2 .16. What is Rome saying? They're saying it's not faith alone that brings you peace with God. Your continued and final justification depends on you working with God and in obedience to Rome.

One must work well to the end. Well, Mr. Moderator, I would ask us to ask ourselves, how do I know if I'm working well to the end? Is my priest supposed to tell me? And if my working well must meet God's perfect standard of obedience, how can I ever have peace with God?

I cannot. This is, frankly, a hopeless hamster wheel. You will not and you cannot meet this standard. The standard is, again, personal, precise, perpetual perfection to God's law. So what Rome does is place you back into the Garden of Eden.

Your slate is temporarily wiped clean. You're now back in the place of Adam. Rome offers you a do-over. Original sin is erased. But now salvation hinges on your lifelong participation in a man-made religious system containing sacraments, penance, Mary, the saints, popes, priests, and then, of course, the catch-all of purgatory to get you finally ready for heaven.

And in all of this, Rome says in Trent, session 6, paragraph 9, no one can know with a certainty that he has obtained the grace of God. Mr. Moderator, instead of magnifying the glory of Christ, Rome's system turns the eyes upon human effort, sacramental rituals, a sacerdotal priesthood, even the idolatrous practices, frankly, of worshiping wafers and prayers to Mary.

One can go to Mass every single day of his life and never meet God's standard. In fact, going to Mass only puts you further away from God's standard. This directly contradicts the Bible, which says, friends, in Galatians 2 .16, yet we know that a person is not justified by works of the law, but through faith in Jesus Christ.

So we also have believed in Jesus Christ in order to be justified by faith in Christ and not by works of the law, because by works of the law, no one will be justified. What Rome has put in the place of the Mosaic law bears the same exact point that Paul is making in that text.

They are affirming true things about Christ while adding man-made invented works to attach to the gospel, thereby altering it. One percent poison in your coffee is enough to kill you. And Rome has gone far above that in adding to the gospel.

Thus, this hopeless gospel is a false gospel, and Rome's gospel, according to Paul, is anathema. It's not the gospel of the New Testament. And this is why I'm here tonight. I got a list long enough of people that don't like me.

I'm not here to make that list grow longer. I'm here to shine forth light in the darkness. I'm here to say, Mr. Moderator, that there is a way out. There is freedom. Nobody has to be enslaved to the papacy.

But what is this way out? It is the biblical gospel. Romans chapter 4, verse 4 -8 says this,. Now to the one who works, his wages are not counted as a gift, but as his due. And to the one who does not work, but believes in him who justifies the ungodly, his faith is counted as righteousness.

Just as David also speaks of the blessing of the one to whom God counts righteousness apart from works, blessed are those whose lawless deeds are forgiven and whose sins are covered, blessed as a man against whom the Lord will not count his sin.

Mr. Moderator, this passage teaches that all of our lawless deeds, past, present, future, can be covered. The Lord is willing to not count our sins against us. The biblical gospel then can simply be summarized in one word.

One word. Christ. Christ. Not Christ plus, but Christ alone. All things necessary for man's salvation are in Jesus Christ. Colossians 1 -30 says, Christ Jesus became to us wisdom from God, righteousness, and sanctification and redemption.

The command and promise of God's perfect law is this. You do this and you will live if you disobey at any point, thought, deed, attitude, motivation, action, you will die. And your punishment? Hell. Rome says, do your part in cooperating with God in this religious system and attain eternal life, but you'll never be sure about it until you die.

And if you die in the state of grace, and that's an internally significant if, if you die in the state of grace, well, you'll go to heaven after purgatory. Mr. Moderator, I wonder who would want to hinge their eternity upon that word if, but here's the biblical gospel.

Jesus Christ has done it all. God sent forth his son born of the Virgin Mary and born under the law. Jesus fulfilled perfect, personal, precise, obedience, perpetual to the law of God. Then he went to the cross, not merely as a victim, but as Isaiah 53 shows us a willing substitute for sinners.

So the question, how can a righteous God not impute our sins to us because they were imputed to Christ. He bore our sins, all of them in his body on the tree as our substitute. And the wrath of God is propitiated by his death.

He cries with his final breath. John 19 30 says it is finished. And in Romans 4 25, Paul says that Jesus was raised for our justification. That is, it is his resurrection from the dead that secures our justification, not his being represented in the Eucharist, which is a falsehood.

And so to the one who does not work, but believes in him who justifies the ungodly, his faith is counted as righteousness. The righteousness of Christ then is not infused into our souls. Rather, it's legally credited to our account.

It's imputed to our crown by grace alone through faith alone in Christ alone. And Mr. Moderator, one must be in Christ to go to heaven. And those who receive him by this way, grace alone through faith alone in his finished work alone, rejecting manmade systems are in indissoluble union with Christ forever.

Their whole salvation is wrapped up in Christ. God requires perfection by his holy standard. I cannot give this, but Mr. Moderator here, the good news, what God has required Christ alone has accomplished.

When sinners put their faith in Christ alone, they are forever and completely legally credited with the 100 obedience of Jesus as their whole and only righteousness forgiven of all sins, past, present, and future by Christ's sufficient work in Rome system.

Christ is necessary, but not sufficient. Grace is necessary, but not sufficient. Paragraph 1996 of the Catholic catechism says, grace is a help. I need more than a help because I'm not sick. I'm dead.

The cooperative works of man become necessary in the Roman system to secure dying in a state of grace in the papal system. For example, one person is baptized, cooperates with grace, performs works, merits heaven.

Another person, baptized, they fail to cooperate and they go to hell. What is the final determining factor? It's not grace and it's not Christ. It's human works. It's not Christ's sufficiency or grace's efficacy.

This is not the biblical gospel that points us to the sufficient work of Christ, whereby by his life, death, burial, and resurrection alone, we have peace with God by trusting him. Romans 5, 1. This is why Rome will say in Trent, session 6, chapter 11, no one ought to flatter himself up with faith alone, fancying that by faith alone, he is made an heir.

They're wrong because the Bible says in Romans 3, 28, for we hold that one is justified by faith apart from works of the law. The Roman Catholic church denies the gospel. God declares believers forever and completely justified based on the finished work of Christ alone.

That standard is hanging above every person's head. Every person, whether they've heard of Christ or not, every person's head, the standard is you must keep this law perfectly. And the answer is God has done it in Christ.

Mr. Moderator, I would ask us, are we looking tonight for wages or grace? You see, the Bible says in Romans 6, 23, that the wages of sin is death, but the free gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus, our Lord.

Thank you, Mr. Moderator. Thank you. The second section of tonight's debate. Oh, thank you. And now Mr. Hart, or I should say Pastor Hart, as the party against the resolution makes his opening remarks up to 15 minutes, perhaps reserving one minute for the next portion.

He is reading from a prepared script and may not yet respond directly to Pastor Nelson's opening.

The Catholic Case for Grace, Covenant, and the Gospel

Remarks. Praised be Jesus Christ now and forever. Mr. Moderator, I'd like to express my thanks to all who made this evening possible, including Pastor Nelson for accepting my invitation to this debate.

It started on April 21st, the day Pope Francis died. I received a snapshot of his Facebook post from a parishioner who was very upset by it. And I advised the parishioner not to engage with it, but to offer a prayer for him instead.

Later that day, I sent the snapshot to a non-parishioner acquaintance of mine. But in listening to this acquaintance, who then explained that they once knew Pastor Nelson very well, suddenly I had a mental image of this very occasion, an image I could not shake.

Anyone who is in leadership knows that before they cast the die in the public forum, as I did two days later, they must answer three questions. Does this need saying? Does this need saying now? Does this need saying by me?

I found myself saying yes to all three. Before April, I never knew of Pastor Nelson. But in this last month, I have had people stop me in the store, at the gym, and on street corners. I have received emails and letters from near and far.

They do know him, they told me, some even since he was a child. And so they have seen the way that he has grown and changed over the years. I'd like to repeat what I mentioned on Facebook last month. I respect that Pastor Nelson has a conscience and the determination to speak his convictions.

Still, I find him incorrect on the resolution that the Catholic Church supposedly denies the gospel. Mr. Moderator, in a criminal case, the prosecution, not the defense, has the burden of proof. Same with the plaintiff, not the defense in a civil case.

In tonight's debate, Pastor Nelson, as the party for the resolution, will have the burden of proof, and it's a whopper. He has an hour and a half to do three things. Sorry, I lost my place. First, he must tell us what the essence of the gospel is, and I have no doubt he will represent himself well.

Anyone who spends time in the pulpit weekly, as he does, or who preaches in the public square with a bullhorn, will have no sweat expressing just what they think. Although there will be differences, I anticipate that the Catholic Church preaches many of the same things that he would.

That God created everything out of nothing, and that he created it good. That God created humanity very good and in his own image, that is, with intellect and free will. That through its sin, humanity fell from right relationship with God.

That God did not wish humanity to leave humanity outside of right relationship with him, but revealed himself by a series of loving covenants to his chosen earthly people, the Jews. That in the fullness of time, God himself, the word, became flesh and dwelt among us, our incarnate Lord Jesus Christ.

He who fulfilled all the prophecies and ancient types of the Jewish covenants, that at the apex of his life, through his passion and resurrection, Christ Jesus inaugurated a new and eternal covenant for the remission of our sins, for our restoration to the father's grace, and for new life by his spirit.

In a word, the gospel is that in Jesus Christ, God has visited his people, redeemed them, and leads them to salvation. This is the heart of the gospel, and the Catholic Church does not deny it, but is proud to proclaim it.

Still, carrying the burden of proof, Pastor Nelson must do more than just tell us of the gospel. He must do two more things, and they will be much more difficult. The second is that he must successfully demonstrate that his interpretation of the gospel is the only right one.

After all, he stated on Facebook that, quote, a partial gospel is not a gospel, unquote. And so he will abide no disagreement among Christians as to how Christ redeemed and saves us. It's all or nothing.

That is a heavy burden of proof indeed. But he still must do a third thing. To prove that the Catholic Church denies the gospel, he must also demonstrate successfully that he is correctly interpreting Catholic teaching.

I am particularly pessimistic on that last point, Mr. Moderator. You see, in his fervor to preach, Pastor Nelson has hardly let a comment on Facebook go by without feeling the need to respond. And so even a cursory glance of some of his comments and videos shows that our audience need not hope to get a good education on Catholic teaching from him.

I do not want to use all of my time, but I will offer a few highlights, and I will note for the audience's benefit that anytime I am quoting him, I am supplying you with photographic evidence. In his April 25th apology video on his personal and publicly accessible Facebook page, at 5 minutes 40 seconds, Pastor Nelson states that it's possible that Pope Francis might have been spared from hell if he had repented, as Pastor Nelson sees it, by putting his faith in Christ and not, quote, not faith in Rome and not faith in Mary and not faith in the saints, unquote.

I'm not sure what he's referring to here, but it cannot be Catholic teaching. In several Facebook quotes, posts, he quotes the texts of the Catholic Church's Council of Trent as his rationale for why the church supposedly rejects the gospel.

But can he here produce a relevant passage of Catholic teaching on this supposed faith in Rome, faith in Mary, faith in the saints? He cannot, for no such teaching exists. In fact, in her catechism, the church makes clear that God alone is the object of faith.

Yes, there is the communion of saints and the honoring of saints, which Catholics hold together with all of the other ancient and apostolic churches, and even some Protestant communions as well, but neither the Catholic Church nor any of these others place their faith in Mary or the other saints.

As for faith in Rome, I would wager he means the teaching authority of the church, but this gets us to another error earlier in the same video at exactly the four minute mark, when he states that Catholics, quote, put the authority of the church on equal plane with the scriptures, unquote.

This common accusation of anti-Catholic rhetoric is false. In its dogmatic constitution on divine revelation, the church states that while the task of authentically interpreting the word of God belongs to the church's teaching authority, it also states that, quote, this teaching office is not above the word of God, but serves it, unquote.

I will offer a few more. On Facebook, he stated that the Catholic Church thinks that mortal or deadly sin is greater than Christ's atonement. Wrong again. Calvinists believe that Christ only redeemed those he will save, and because the saved cannot resist God's grace, those covered by Christ's atonement cannot be in sin.

Catholics hold a view of atonement in which Christ died for all mankind, whether or not they will be saved. By his grace, we can be in right relationship with him, but we still have the freedom to move out of relationship with him, just like with other relationships in our lives.

We are not robots that God makes do evil things, like in Calvinism. On another topic, he also falsely stated repeatedly that the Catholic Church denies the headship of Christ in his body and bride, the church.

Another unforced error. Mr. Moderator, these are just a few examples of Pastor Nelson's erroneous understandings of Catholic teaching. If he cannot grasp correctly Catholic teaching, how will he be able to say that the Catholic Church rejects the gospel?

It's a problem. In fact, however Pastor Nelson might identify, I anticipate this evening that we will have from him many of the usual issues of fundamentalist methodologies. There will be text, but will there be context?

There will be quotations, but will they be set against their proper background, or will they be cherry-picked to make us gasp and clutch our pearls? I certainly couldn't fault him for quoting scripture or quoting the catechism or quoting certain theologians, for I am prepared to do the same, but while he will presumably have a good command of the scriptures, will he have the same command of Catholic teaching?

Not just seeing the pieces, but the integral whole? Seeing not just the trees, but the forest? Whether it's the communion of saints, the Catholic doctrine of justification, the magisterium, the papacy, and more, will he interpret correctly?

This question of interpretation, Mr. Moderator, gets us back to the second thing Pastor Nelson must do this evening, which is to show that his interpretation of the gospel is the only one. How do we know this?

In one of his first replies to me on Facebook on April 23rd, he said, quote, friend, don't pick a fight that you're unwilling to finish. You deny the gospel because you deny salvation by grace alone, through faith alone, in Christ alone, to the glory of God alone.

Unquote. Here we see what Pastor Nelson holds as the gospel, salvation by grace alone, through faith alone, in Christ alone, to the glory of God alone. That's a lot of alones, but the important point here is not just that we catch a glimpse of his position, but also we can see that for him, anyone who does not hold to these alones, exactly as he does, is a gospel denier.

Pastor Nelson points to scripture itself as the reason for this. He is a proponent of the plain meaning interpretation of the Bible. Scripture, he said on Facebook, is quote, crystal clear, self-authenticating.

Mr. Moderator, if the meaning of scripture was always plain, as Luther inventively held, crystal clear and self-authenticating, we wouldn't have tens of thousands of Protestant denominations today. Luther would never have had a beef in the mid -1520s with that Swiss upstart Zwingli, who was interpreting scripture differently and beginning to steal his limelight.

The two men meeting at Marburg in 1529 would have never left annoyed with each other that they couldn't agree on the Lord's Supper. The first generation Lutherans would never have persecuted the Anabaptists.

Calvin would never have disagreed with Luther and Zwingli on several topics. The major Lutheran and Calvinist theologians of the early 1600s wouldn't have disagreed on the extra Calvinisticum, an important question in Protestant theology on how Jesus is present in creation.

That's just the first hundred years. I could go on. You don't need to be a student of history to know this. Anyone who has undergone the pain of seeing a church congregation split in two over the interpretation of scripture is aware that the meaning is not always plain.

It is no surprise then that the question of justification, how we are saved by grace in is not an area of total agreement among Christian denominations. My purpose this evening is not to convince our audience of the Catholic position on justification.

My responsibility is to deflect Pastor Nelson's championing the idea that the church denies the gospel. Can he quote scripture? So can I. Can he make quotations, appeals to theologians, and more? So can I.

I cannot stress enough to our listeners how immense Pastor Nelson's burden of proof is. I do not need to prove definitively the Catholic position. I only need to show that, one, doubts can be cast upon his understanding of the gospel's essence.

Two, that he probably does not know Catholicism so well as he thinks he does, and certainly not enough to be able to dismiss it as gospel-denying. With that, Mr. Moderator, I conclude my opening remarks and cede my time back to the chair.

Thank you. At 11 minutes and 40 seconds, the second portion of our debate will be the rebuttals. The rebuttals will be up to 10 minutes in length. Pastor Nelson, as the party for the resolution,.

Speaks first. Thank you, Mr. Moderator, and I would extend my thanks to Pastor Hart. I am not sure how many Bible verses were quoted in that, but I don't think it was many, if any. Just a simple man from south of the river, and forgive me for my lack of intellect, but when I read things like this, every grace granted to men has three successive steps.

By God, it is communicated to Christ. From Christ, it passes to the Virgin, and from the Virgin, it descends to us. That's Pope Leo XIII. The Catholic Church is always and with justice, but all her hope and trust in the Mother of God, she who is associated with him in the work of man's salvation, has favor and power with her Son greater than any other human or angelic creature has ever obtained or even can obtain.

That's also from Pope Leo XIII. On one hand, Mary is all-powerful with her divine Son, who grants all graces to mankind through her. On the other hand, she is by nature so good and so merciful that inclined to aid spontaneously those who suffer.

She's absolutely incapable of refusing her help to those who invoke her. That's from Pope Benedict XVI. Yes, just a simple man reading those things. Mr. Moderator, surely you could understand how I might be inclined to think that the Roman religion is idolatrous.

I have no problem going to the Scriptures, and I'm going to Romans chapter 3 if you want to turn there in your Bibles, but I will say this. The difference between Rome and the biblical gospel is that Rome has canonized heresy.

I'm willing to understand that there are people out there who don't understand everything that they believe. They don't understand the fullness, but Rome has put it in writing, their rejection of the gospel.

Yes, they affirm creation. So does Mormonism. So does Jehovah's Witnesses. But neither of those, along with Roman Catholicism, do we put in the camp of the one holy apostolic Catholic church. They've abandoned Christianity.

So we'll turn for a minute to Romans chapter 3. I'm not going to apologize that I go to the Bible. Romans chapter 3. Well, I mean, I don't know. I want to make a comment about Facebook, but I'm not. Romans chapter 3, verse 23.

For all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God and are justified by His grace as a gift through the redemption that is in Christ Jesus, whom God put forward as a propitiation by His blood to be received by faith.

This was to show God's righteousness, because in His divine forbearance, He passed over former sins. That word in the text justified grammatically there. It's a present passive participle. The key being passive.

Passive, you understand. Not something you do, something done to you. And it's a legal term. It's a courtroom word. You are declared righteous. You don't make yourself righteous. So imagine you're in a courtroom and the judge pronounces you not guilty.

That's a legal declaration. It's final. It's objective. You don't become more not guilty over time. You are simply declared not guilty. Case closed. And Paul says this declaration in the text is a gift.

Why is it a gift? Because you cannot earn it, nor can you increase it. It is a legal declaration applied to you based on the complete and finished work of Christ alone. But Rome teaches otherwise. Yes, I quote the Council of Trent.

Why? Because the Council of Trent is official Roman doctrine. The Council of Trent, session 6, paragraph 10. Through the observance of the commandments of God and of the church, faith cooperating with good works, the justified increase in that justice which they have received and are still further justified.

Mr. Moderator, this is anti-gospel, and I'll give you two main reasons why. But first, you need to listen very carefully. The Roman Catholic Church does not deny faith. I've never said that they did.

They do believe in faith. They do believe in grace. I said that in my opening statement. What they don't believe in is a sufficient grace, nor do they believe in faith alone. Their teaching redefines justification, because justification in Scripture is not an inward change.

It is a once-for-all declaration of righteousness based on Christ's merit, not mine. That's why Romans 5 .1 says it this way. Since we have been justified by faith, we have peace with God. Peace. It doesn't say we hope to be justified.

It doesn't say we're gradually justified. It says we have been justified, and we have glorious gospel peace with God as a result. It's only by what Christ has done and not me. So Rome confuses, and this is in their official teaching.

Even a simple Arkansan can understand it. They confuse justification with sanctification. But biblically, sanctification flows from justification. It doesn't contribute to your justification, because if justification can be increased, then it's never complete.

And if it's not complete, then you haven't met God's standard. And if you haven't met God's standard, He's unjust, and you lose the gospel. If you can be more justified, then you were never fully justified to begin with.

So again, it lowers God's standard. That's the second reason. Rome essentially teaches, do your best, cooperate with grace, keep the commandments, and you'll make it, as long as you don't commit mortal sin.

But you'll probably make it. That's a very similar system as Mormonism. And that's why I lovingly say, again, to make myself clear, Roman Catholicism, Mormonism, Jehovah's Witnesses, are outside the Christian faith, because they deny the gospel of grace.

You understand that the standard of God's law is not how sincere you are. The standard of God's law is perfection. If God allows for your sins and imperfection to pass as perfect righteousness, He's unholy, He ceases to be God, we're undone.

If a person, think about this in your minds, if a person can increase injustice, as Trent says, the official Catholic doctrine teaches, if you can be further justified, then at this point, you haven't met God's standard, because God's standard is perfection.

You're not yet justified. And this is why our only recourse and hope is Christ Jesus, that His righteousness would be credited to our account by grace alone, through faith alone. This is the only way.