Are Catholics Christians?

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When it comes to Roman Catholic theology, that is a little bit more complicated because if a consistent

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Catholic holds to the historic teachings of the Roman Catholic Church, they do not believe that one is justified by faith alone.

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They do believe in Jesus Christ. They trust in him. If you asked a

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Roman Catholic at any level, whether they were Orthodox or new to the faith, do you have faith in Jesus Christ that he died on the cross for sins, they would say yes, wholeheartedly, they would say yes.

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And even, I mean, this isn't a podcast about Mormons, but Mormons would say the same thing. But the question then becomes, is that sufficient for your right standing before God, and the answer to that would be no, and so the way

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I would answer this is that I do believe that Roman Catholics who grew up in the system, or it doesn't matter how long they've been in it, that there will be some in heaven because they are going to go against, whether willingly or not, they're going to go against the historic teaching and they believe in Jesus Christ alone to be sufficient for their salvation.

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I personally call those people inconsistent Catholics because they're not agreeing with their church's doctrine.

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But yet, if they believe in Jesus Christ alone, and to be clear, a lot of the Roman Catholic teaching is very accurate.

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I mean, we hold to the same understanding of the virgin birth of Mary, the Trinity, the eternality of God.

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I mean, all of that, we agree with them on. Roman Catholics, by definition, hold to the ecumenical creeds, which we do too.

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Right, exactly. Yeah, but that would be my answer, is that those who would either knowingly or unknowingly deny the foundation theology of salvation of the

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Roman Catholic church, those people will definitely be, according to scripture, justified. Yeah, I agree with you.

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You used the phrase inconsistent Catholics will be in heaven. I think that's helpful. A consistent

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Catholic who holds to the official teaching of the Roman church, we would understand to be denying the gospel.

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One way I might put it is there are going to be many Roman Catholics in heaven in spite of the official teaching of their church, where they, in spite of many of the things that their church would formally teach and hold to, they are trusting

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Christ alone for their standing before God entirely, and they understand that Jesus has saved them.

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This hits close to home for me. My wife is Italian, and her grandfather came over from Italy and died here in the

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States as a part of the Roman Catholic church, and my wife remembers having a number of conversations with her grandfather over the course of years where he was very clear that he was trusting in Jesus and Jesus only for his salvation, and my wife's parents were

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Protestants, and my wife obviously is too. These conversations matter a lot to us when we're dealing with loved ones and family members, and so my wife would say,

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I don't know, only God knows, but I really think that my grandfather was a

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Christian, was meaning to trust Christ in spite of the fact that he was in the church of Rome, and I think there are many people that would fit that description, but we want to be really clear about the differences that do exist between Reformation theology and Roman Catholic theology.

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Five hundred plus years ago, the Protestant Reformation started in a recognizable way as people look back on history, and 1517 is the year that most people point to with some of the events that transpired there, and if we think about the

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Reformation itself, it's been said by many, and we agree, that the formal battle of the

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Reformation was over sola scriptura, that is, meaning that scripture alone is the only ultimate and final authority for the church in matters of doctrine and practice, but the material battle, the heart and soul of the

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Reformation, if you will, was over sola fide, that being faith alone.

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So the answer to the question, how is a sinner saved and reconciled to a holy God, it is by faith alone, in Christ alone, grounded in the grace of God alone.

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It has nothing to do with our works or our obedience. It's all about the works and the obedience and the merits of Christ applied to sinners by faith, and so that is the watershed.

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That's the real dividing line. When the rubber meets the road, the difference between being a Reformed Christian and being a

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Roman Catholic is that, that we believe we can be assured of salvation in Christ by faith, and we believe that Jesus has done everything, and we don't achieve righteousness, but rather we receive righteousness by faith in Jesus, and so what we want to do now for a few minutes is highlight these distinctions using some language from the

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Council of Trent, which occurred from the mid -1540s to the mid -1560s in response to the

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Protestant Reformation. It was Roman Catholic Ecumenical Council, and we want to compare those teachings to Reformation theology as articulated in the 1689