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The Church’s Authority, Peter, and the Reformation

And the way we know this is because of the magisterium of the church. But in particular, Jesus says to Peter, You are Peter and on this rock I will build my church.

The church is fractured into a million pieces. Christians disagree about almost everything. Even if you dislike the Catholic Church, it seems odd for any Christian to gleefully celebrate Reformation Day.

You're celebrating disunity and brokenness, like throwing a divorce party. No matter what branch of Christian you are, the proper attitude towards the Reformation is one of solemness and sadness. Even if you think it was necessary, it just makes no sense to celebrate the fact that there are 10 ,000 denominations.

Justification, Grace, and the Catholic Difference

That's why Trent talks about justification, which happens through faith and grace alone, quite right. But then it speaks of an increase in justification, which can happen through our cooperation. And in this we get, if you want, the Catholic difference.

Conservative Catholics, like Matt Walsh and Michael Knowles, fight for a lot of good things, such as the value of unborn children, the definition of men and women, the importance of parents educating their children, and religious freedom.

I even support the Daily Wire financially, because I think it's playing an important role in fighting back against those who are seeking to undermine and destroy biblical values. However, the alliance between Christians and Catholics on many issues related to the culture makes Catholicism extremely dangerous, since it's important to carefully distinguish between where we are allied with many Catholics.

And where we are not. When it comes to how you define Christianity today, it would be a whole lot easier if I went with the mere Christianity view, because we could get a real, you know, we could still put together a decent number of people if you just didn't have to worry about that gospel thing.

And since Roman Catholicism teaches a false gospel that does not save, Christians should recognize that Catholicism will be one of the primary reasons why so many people will end up in hell. For this reason, the Roman Catholic Church is certainly one of Satan's greatest assets against the true gospel of Jesus Christ.

The real issue that I pointed to in the Roman Catholic controversy is the gospel. And if you understand Rome's teaching on the nature of the Mass, the nature of the priesthood, and the nature of forgiveness and the sacraments, then you must come to the conclusion that if Paul was right to anathematize the Judaizers for adding one requirement by saying, to get into the New Covenant, you've got to get into the Old Covenant first before you can then get into the New Covenant.

So you've got to be circumcised before you can become a follower of Jesus. They added one thing. You've got to follow the same path the rest of us have followed. If Paul was right to say, that is anathema, that is not even Christian, you are separated from the faith by your action of doing that, then logically, when you look at all of the additions that Rome has added to the gospel, then Rome's gospel likewise must be considered to be under the anathema of Paul.

Otherwise, you just simply have to throw out Paul's authority. Or you have to say, well, you know, back then, an apostle could do that. We can't do that today. We can't tell what a true gospel is today.

Even though we have their example, even though we have page after page after page of New Testament writings that illustrate these things.

Salvation, the Atonement, and Imputed Righteousness

The biggest problem with Roman Catholicism is its view of salvation and the atonement. The Bible clearly teaches that Jesus' atoning work was completely sufficient and that sinners are justified through faith alone.

In Romans and Galatians, to illustrate the reality that it is to the one who does not work but believes on him who justifies the ungodly, his faith is reckoned as righteous, Romans chapter 4. That is destructive of all human boasting, and that's why it's so unpopular and will always be unpopular until the day Jesus returns.

Amongst worldly people, it will always be unpopular to destroy any ground of arrogant boasting and pride on man's part. It takes the control out of our hands.

However, Catholicism adds works that sinners need to perform to remain saved and to grow in justification.

That's why Trent talks about justification, which happens through faith and grace alone, quite right. But then it speaks of an increase in justification, which can happen through our cooperation. And in this we get, if you want, the Catholic difference.

When you understand that there is no finished work of Christ within Roman Catholicism, there isn't. There is no finished work. That priest, right now, in services, Roman Catholic churches around the world, there are priests who believe that they are re-presenting, not a, they believe it is a re-presentation of the same sacrifice of Calvary, but in an unbloody manner.

They're re-presenting the one sacrifice of Christ, and that it is a propitiatory atonement. It's a propitiatory act. Once you understand that, then you think through that. What that means is, in Roman Catholicism, you can come to the cross over and over and over and over again, and still die impure and have to go to purgatory, or still die impure, in fact, having committed a mortal sin, losing the grace of justification and going to hell, even though you went to the cross, literally thousands of times in your life.

And central to that is the idea of the necessity of the Roman Catholic priest, who, because of his sacerdotal authority, is able to call Jesus down from his throne and render him present upon the altar of the church over and over and over again.

That's their terminology, not mine. That's their language. You have to have that. That's why there is one true church. And you have to accept the sacerdotal authority of the Roman hierarchy, so that you can have that one true church.

The sacramental system becomes the means by which the church controls the grace of God and therefore the people of God.

In fact, during the Council of Trent, Catholicism explicitly anathemized some of the central teachings of the gospel concerning how sinners are saved.

To our Catholic friends, listen to this. Council of Trent, Session 6, Canon 9. If anyone says that by faith alone, the sinner is justified, so as to mean that nothing else is required to cooperate in order to obtain the grace of justification, let him be anathema.

Again, Session 6, Canon 11. If anyone says that men are justified either by the imputation of righteousness, of the righteousness of Christ alone, or by the remission of sins alone, to the exclusion of the grace and love that is poured forth in their hearts of the Holy Spirit and is inherent in them, or even that the grace by which we are justified is only the favor of God, let him be anathema.

And finally, if anyone says that the guilt is remitted to every penitent sinner after the grace of justification has been received, and that the debt of eternal punishment is so blotted out that there remains no debt of temporal punishment to be discharged either in this world or in the next in purgatory before the entrance to the kingdom of heaven can be opened, let him be anathema.

They do not preach the same gospel.

One central gospel teaching is that sinners are righteous before God because Jesus' righteousness is imputed to them. But, shockingly, Catholicism explicitly rejects this teaching.

They reject the idea of the imputation of Christ's righteousness. Righteousness is infused into you at baptism. It makes you good.

Scripture, Sola Scriptura, and the Sufficiency of the Bible

Why is the Roman Catholic Church so wrong on so many foundational issues? The central problem is that it does not view Scripture as God's exclusive revelation to the human race, but also believes that the Catholic Church receives additional, infallible revelation that is separate from Scripture.

The very fact that most of my debates with Roman Catholics has been on Sola Scriptura. That's the one topic I've done more than any other. Why? Because Rome rejects it. Why? Because you can't, using Sola Scriptura and Tota Scriptura, all of Scripture and Scripture only, you cannot come up with Rome's dogmas.

You have to have external authorities. You have to have a lens through which to read the Scriptures, and then you have to be bringing in external stuff to put this all together. And so Rome denies the sufficiency of Scripture.

And it's not surprising that there is a constant, every single generation battle for us to continue to believe.

In the sufficiency of Scripture. Next, let's consider the Pope, whom Catholics believe is the vicar of Christ. One obvious problem is that numerous popes have had extremely problematic theology and lifestyles.

Many people feel that when it comes to our day,.

Maybe we should reanalyze all those anathemas. I mean, does anyone really believe that kindly old fellow in Rome really wants to anathematize all of us? Well, to be perfectly honest with you, I think there's a pretty good reason to question whether that kindly old fellow in Rome is even a Trinitarian, let alone, as there's really good reason to believe, he is a universalist, that he believes everyone's going to be saved.

He doesn't believe the large number of things that his predecessors did believe, which is one of the complicating factors that we have to consider as we talk about our relationship with Roman Catholicism today.

What is it?

Regarding this problem, Michael Knowles presents the common Catholic response, writing, an important reminder that the Pope is quite fallible, except in those rare cases when he is infallible. However, it seems entirely reasonable to ask, how is it possible for the supposed head of the entire Church, the earthly representative of Christ himself, to have a worldview that is so thoroughly unbiblical?

The most reasonable answer seems to be that the Pope simply is not who Catholics say he is.

One of my first suggestions was, let's debate Pope Francis. It's not a good day to be a Roman Catholic apologist. Every day you have to wake up and there's that gnawing fear. What has he said now? And to whom did he say it?

And how am I going to spin this? I'm absolutely serious.

Catholics argue that Peter was the first Pope and that Catholicism began with Peter, but there is simply no evidence to support this position. There is a vast chasm between what Catholics believe today and what the earliest Christians believed.

Well, when do you think.

Roman Catholicism started? That's actually a very important and good question. I suppose we should define that first, huh? Because a lot of people have the idea that Roman Catholicism starts with Peter.

Maybe it was the Council of Nicaea. Constantine. No, as I've pointed out, if you look at the official dogmas of the Roman Catholic Church that you have to believe to be a Roman Catholic today, no one at the Council of Nicaea believed what you have to believe to be a Roman Catholic today.

But some of those dogmas were not even heard of in the first 500 years of church history. I mean, you simply can't point me to an Orthodox-believing Christian in the first 500 years that believed in the bodily assumption of Mary as a dogma of the faith.

There just isn't anybody there. The reality is.

That the numerous unbiblical doctrines of the Catholic Church, such as purgatory, developed gradually over time. And eventually, these unbiblical doctrines were aggregated into what is now known as the Roman Catholic Church.

Where do I think.

Roman Catholicism really begins? Well, the problem is if you ever see a tract or a book that has a list of dates, be very skeptical, because nothing just comes into existence overnight. You don't have people going to bed one night believing one thing, and then they wake up the next morning, ah, purgatory, yes.

No, there has to be lots of development. There has to be all these sub-beliefs that start coming together to form these things over time. And that's exactly what you do see.

In church history. James White, who has studied Catholicism extensively, argues that the Catholic Church essentially began in 1215 at the Fourth Lateran Council, because this was the official beginning of the concept of the Mass as we know it today, where the practice of transubstantiation occurs.

For me personally, I think the most, um, I think the best date that I can use for the origin of what would be modern Roman Catholicism would be the Fourth Lateran Council in 1215 AD. Why? Because when you look at Roman Catholic worship even to this day, except in the most liberalized forms of it, the central act of worship has remained the same for pretty much a solid 800 years, and that is the concept of the Mass.

And once you start having the reservation of the host, and so because of the doctrine of transubstantiation, then you believe that God is physically present in the church building and you are bowing to God.

That's why, that's why you genuflect, that's why you do what you do. That dogma was unknown in the first thousand years.

Marian Dogmas, Indulgences, and Ongoing Error

Catholicism also teaches a wildly heretical view of Mary that exalts her in a way that no human should be exalted. There's even another Marian dogma that many Roman Catholics.

Do believe and are pushing to have defined, and there was a possibility back in the late 1900s, 1990s, that John Paul might have established this particular dogma, and it's the idea that Mary is co-redemptrix, co-mediatrix for the people of God.

So co-redeemer, co-mediator with Jesus for the people of God. Popes have taught since the 1800s that no grace flows to anyone except through Mary. Mary is the head, Mary is the neck that turns the head that is God's grace.

So it all flows through Mary. This centrality of Mary.

Is very much a part of the experience of certain strands of Roman Catholicism today. Throughout history, the Catholic Church has never retracted its errors, but in fact, simply continues to maintain and add to its errors.

For example, indulgences, the unbiblical Catholic doctrine that believers can pay to reduce punishment, is still very much in effect today.

When it comes to Roman Catholicism, Rome has only added to the number of errors that she teaches. She has not corrected any of them. Some people say, oh, Vatican II changed all that. Like what? The documents of Vatican II have more sections on indulgences than they have on justification.

Think about that for a second. Indulgences are still a completely valid concept within Roman Catholic theology, and this pope still gives out what are called plenary indulgences, a full remission of all the temporal punishments of sins upon your soul for doing certain things.

Catholic Allies, the Trinity, and the Judaizers

Many today argue that Protestants should consider Catholics their allies because they share core theological beliefs, such as the Trinity. We have far more in common than what divides us. When you talk about Pentecostals, Charismatics, Evangelicals,.

Fundamentalists, Catholics, Methodists, Baptists, Presbyterians, and on and on and on, well, they would all say we believe in the Trinity, we believe in the Bible, we believe in the Resurrection, we believe salvation is through Jesus Christ.

These are the big issues. However, the unfortunate problem is that Paul himself condemned the Judaizers for teaching essentially the same things that Catholicism teaches today.

If what Galatians 1 says is true, if what Galatians 2 says is true, if the anathematizing of the Judaizers is correct, and if the statement in Galatians chapter 2, we did not put up with them for even an hour, so that the truth of the gospel might remain with you, and Paul identifies them as pseudedelphoi, false brethren.

It means they look like us, they talk like us, they use our language, but they're false brethren. If that is true, then I would say to anyone who says, now you're overreacting, give me some explanation as to how you can make the Roman Catholic gospel fit with Paul's teaching of justification.

Show me.