Saturday 18 September 2010

Why I am Not a Roman Catholic

With the visit of Pope Benedict to the UK in full swing many issues that have exercised Christians for years are, for a short season, exercising the minds of a wider audience. Beyond the perennial and seemingly endless scandal of child abuse at the hands of Catholic priests, a scandal that goes back a thousand years, questions are being asked about the popularity of this pope,  the relevance of the church and the relationship between Rome and Canterbury.

Religious correspondents and media and newspaper commentators are talking about what divides them and what might bring them closer. As the pope highlights the challenges of militant secularism and urges young people to find fulfilment in the spiritual some are seeing a common cause and asking whether they are now close enough to work together in mission.

Some insist that a bigger threat than any sectarian controversies is modern liberal values against which we should be working alongside Roman Catholics. This makes sense on some levels and there is much to be gained in being co-combatants with Rome against the secularism that is threatening us; but how far down that road might we safely go?

The issues with which the Reformers were concerned were fundamental to biblical faith and we must ask is the gap on these issues now so small as to be unimportant, or are there still significant issues that prevent us embracing across the Lord's Table? For me the issues have always been more fundamental than gay clergy, women priests and church government. It is about the question of whether we are saved by grace alone, through faith alone in Christ alone. Whether he is our sole and sufficient mediator or whether there need be a priestly class to mediate Christ.

Christ Alone, Faith Alone, Grace Alone

Christ Alone

The Catholic and Evangelical understandings of Christ's death and what it achieved are profoundly different. Those who seek common ground with Catholicism fail to address this problem. Yet it is the most important aspect of the New Testament message and it is essential to get it right:

“For what I received I passed on to you as of first importance: that Christ died for our sins according to the Scriptures, that he was buried, that he was raised on the third day according to the Scriptures, and that he appeared to Peter, and then the Twelve...” (1 Co.15:3-5)

What we believe about these things is “of first importance”.

To the Catholic Christ died for “sins” and not for “sinners”.

To the Catholic Christ's death earned a "treasury of merit" on which the believer draws time and again by means of the sacraments to gain forgiveness and purification from sins today. This adds works of merit to Christ's work of Atonement.

To the Evangelical Christ's death was a "once for all" act that won complete salvation "for all who believe", i.e. “sinners”. This is the classic "penal substitution" doctrine denied by Rome.

When Paul writes in 1 Co.15 about Christ dying “for our sins” he is not saying that Christ died for sins and not sinners. He means “for the sake of” our sins, or “because of” our sins. In other words, it is because we are sinners that Christ died. Sin in man was the reason for Christ dying. But in dying Christ died for sinners:

To purchase people – Rev.5:9; 14:4

With his blood – Acts 20:28

Bought at a price – 1 Cor.6:20; 7:23

To ransomed many – Mt.20:28

The picture is of one purchasing, buying and redeeming and not one of simply making grace available on condition of a quid pro quo:

“If justification were through the law, then Christ died for no purposes” (Gal.2:21)

Christ’s death won a complete salvation:

“But when Christ had offered for all time a single sacrifice for sins, he sat down at the right hand of God, waiting from that time until his enemies should be made a footstool for his feet. For by a single offering he has perfected for all time those who are being sanctified” (Heb.10:12-14)

Faith Alone

The Catholic and Evangelical understanding of how we receive salvation are irreconcilably different.

To the Catholic salvation is gained, first, by continually applying to Christ's store of merit and applying Christ's merit to themselves daily. Secondly, this merit is mediated through a priesthood and ritual activity - the sacraments.

"If anyone says that justifying faith is nothing else than confidence in divine mercy, which remits sins for Christ’s sake, or that it is this confidence alone that justifies us, LET HIM BE ANATHEMA" (Council of Trent, Canons Concerning Justification, Canon 12).

To the Evangelical salvation is a gift that is received all at once. To deny faith alone is to deny Christ alone. To add to Christ's work is to subscribe to a profoundly different ecclesiology which includes essential rituals and priesthood mediation.

“Unlike the other high priests, [Christ] does not need to offer sacrifices day after day, first for his own sins, and then for the sins of the people. He sacrificed for their sins once for all when he offered himself” Heb 7:27

Faith alone safeguards the more important Christ alone.

Grace Alone

The Catholic understanding of grace is piecemeal, applied daily in our pilgrimage in order to win a little more salvation each day. This puts the emphasis on the activity and attitude of the believer.

"If anyone says that the justice received is not preserved and also not increased before God through good works, but that those works are merely the fruits and signs of justification obtained, but not the cause of its increase, LET HIM BE ANATHEMA" (Council of Trent, Canons Concerning Justification, Canon 24).

The Evangelical understanding of grace is that it is God's unmerited favour toward the sinner that cannot be accessed via fallen man's activity but through faith alone in Christ alone. This puts the emphasis on the activity and attitude of God.

Grace is:

A State - Therefore, since we have been justified by faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ.

Through him we have also obtained access by faith into this grace in which we stand, and we rejoice in hope of the glory of God (Ro.5:1-2)

A Companion - But by the grace of God I am what I am, and his grace toward me was not in vain. On the contrary, I worked harder than any of them, though it was not I, but the grace of God that is with me (1 Cor.15:10)

Christ’s Work - For the grace of God has appeared, bringing salvation for all people,

training us to renounce ungodliness and worldly passions, and to live self-controlled, upright, and godly lives in the present age, waiting for our blessed hope, the appearing of the glory of our great God and Saviour Jesus Christ (Titus 2:11-13)

God’s Gift - Having gifts that differ according to the grace given to us, let us use them: if prophecy, in proportion to our faith (Ro.12:6)

Catholics have conflated justification and sanctification; the gift of life and the course of life.

The Power of “Believing”

"What must we do to do the works God requires?" Jesus answered:"The work of God is this: to believe in the one he has sent" (John 6:28-29)

To believe”, of course, does not simply mean to give intellectual assent. In the Bible to believe is to put your full trust in. The believer has put his or her full trust in Jesus for salvation.

In John’s gospel he uses the verb “believe” 98 times (Mt.11; Mk.10; Lk.9). John can teach us something about “believing”. We can believe “that” something happened; believe “what” people say, but John uses the verb with the preposition “into”, as in

"For God so loved the world, that he gave his only Son, that whoever believes in him should not perish but have eternal life” (John 3:16)

Paul writes:

But God, being rich in mercy, because of the great love with which he loved us, even when we were dead in our trespasses, made us alive together with Christ--by grace you have been saved--and raised us up with him and seated us with him in the heavenly places in Christ Jesus, so that in the coming ages he might show the immeasurable riches of his grace in kindness toward us in Christ Jesus. For by grace you have been saved through faith. And this is not your own doing; it is the gift of God, not a result of works, so that no one may boast (Eph.2:4-9)

He is saying that our standing before God is such that, in Christ, we are seated in heavenly places. Of course we do have the rest of our lives to go through on this earth. But Christ has paid for our sins and we can now walk in confidence, in him, knowing that we have eternal life, a life that has been won for us by him and that we appropriate by trusting “in” him.

Of course, a gift must be appropriated and this gift is appropriated by believing. The recipient of the gift has put their trust in the giver and the worth of the gift and thereby receives the gift. John 5:24 clearly shows this; Hear, believe and receive eternal life.

Of course works follow, but they follow, they don't lead to salvation. The person whose works have worth is the saved person. The unsaved may work and work but to no avail because they have not trusted. They have refused the gift by the very act of trying to prove worthy of it!

For the wages of sin is death, but the free gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord (Ro.6:23)

Sin pays wages! Eternal life, on the other hand, is a free gift "in Christ Jesus our Lord" What does that mean, "in Christ Jesus our Lord"? It means that those are in him who have put their trust in him. If you put any trust at all in anything you can do by way of works then you are, by definition, not in him but in yourself; because that is what you have trusted in.

The Australian theologian Leon Morris called the following the most important paragraph in history:

But now the righteousness of God has been manifested apart from the law, although the Law and the Prophets bear witness to it-- the righteousness of God through faith in Jesus Christ for all who believe.

For there is no distinction: 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 had passed over former sins.

It was to show his righteousness at the present time, so that he might be just and the justifier of the one who has faith in Jesus. Then what becomes of our boasting? It is excluded. By what kind of law? By a law of works? No, but by the law of faith.

For we hold that one is justified by faith apart from works of the law (Romans 3:21-28)

Catholicity has been described as a local community with a world-wide vision; the people of God, gathered around the word of God, ready to do the will of God. Catholic, in this sense, is not a structure, or church order, but a description of God’s people, the universal church. It is not a divide between laity and clergy but a fellowship of all prepared to work the works of God. It is a means of mediation only in that it mediates God’s grace to a fallen world, not insisting it is the way but humbly pointing to the One who is the way so others may come too and know salvation by grace alone, through faith alone, in Christ alone.

11 comments:

NM said...

Excellent post! I really enjoy reading this and your other blog!

Mike Tea said...

Thank you for your words of encouragement. God is very good.

Brantigny said...

Thank you for examining the differences.
Brantigny

Unknown said...

Not Saved by Faith Only

Ye see then how that by works a man is justified, and not by faith only. (James 2:24)

It cannot get any clearer than the verse in James that good works are necessary for Christians to truly have the life that Jesus promises.

Common objections...

James is not speaking of salvation. But notice that the verse immediately preceding refers to Abraham's saving faith...

And the scripture was fulfilled which saith, Abraham believed God, and it was imputed unto him for righteousness: and he was called the Friend of God. (James 2:23)

The book of James is hard to understand and therefore this verse should be ignored. In fact, Martin Luther wanted to remove this book from the Bible.

But the verse is actually easy to understand for those who accept Catholic teaching.

Shame on those Protestants...interpreting the Bible as their sole authority with preconceived doctrines.

Mike Tea said...

Michael, So your solution to the apparent problem is to simply ignore verses that don't fit? That is convenient. You also seem to assert that reason and understanding are peculiarly Catholic traits:

"But the verse is actually easy to understand for those who accept Catholic teaching."

Well, yes, if you subscribe to an idea you are bound to think it is "easy"; but is it biblical? I prefer a faith that seeks the whole counsel of God from the whole Word of God.

Look, James, in 2:23, is in full accord with Paul in Romans 3:23,28. On the other hand, Paul in Philippians 1:27 is in accord with James in 2:21,24. Both argue salvation through faith, both urge obedience.

Paul is setting out a carefully reasoned argument in Romans in which he shows that “all have sinned and come short of the glory of God, being justified freely by His grace."

James is addressing the conduct of Christians in their meetings (Js.2:2) and carefully arguing that the faith of a Christian issues in correct conduct; “faith without works is dead”.

Paul is writing about how we are saved and James is writing about how a saved people live. Paul is writing as a missionary, James as a pastor.

Some speak as though Christians can get saved and then live as they please because they have their ticket to heaven. It is as though Christians are blind to all the texts in the Bible that demand obedience; this is not so.

Christians are acutely aware of their duties and obligations towards God and take them very seriously. If anyone doubts this you need only think of the countless acts of charity, great and small, performed by Christians every day: churches, missions, charities, financial giving, acts of service, sacrifices of time and resources, etc.

Shame on those people who see only what they want to see, accuse Protestant Christians of antinomianism, and pick and choose which verses of Scripture they attend to and which they ignore.

Unknown said...

Mike Tea said...
..because I am a Christian who dares to think..

Dear Mike,
When thought realises that whatever it does any movement that it makes is disorder, then there is silence.

Mike Tea said...

If in doubt, say something enigmatic.

Unknown said...

Dear Mike,

DO YOU PLAY RUSSIAN ROULETTE WITH YOUR SALVATION?

Abide in Me, and I in You...


Jesus said:
"I am the true vine, and my Father is the vinedresser. Every branch of mine that bears no fruit, he takes away, and every branch that does bear fruit he prunes, that it may bear more fruit.

You are already made clean by the word which I have spoken to you. Abide in me, and I in you. As the branch cannot bear fruit by itself, unless it abides in the vine, neither can you, unless you abide in me.

I am the vine, you are the branches. He who abides in me, and I in him, he it is that bears much fruit, for apart from me you can do nothing.

If a man does not abide in me, he is cast forth as a branch and withers; and the branches are gathered, thrown into the fire and burned. If you abide in me, and my words abide in you, ask whatever you will, and it shall be done for you."
(John 15:1-7)

Wow! In those seven verses, the word ABIDE is mentioned seven times. The context of those verses provides us with a lot of light as to what is required of us by GOD for our eternal salvation.

Jesus said:
"Enter by the narrow gate; for the gate is wide and the way is easy, that leads to destruction, and those who enter by it are many. For the gate is narrow and the way is hard, that leads to life, and those who find it are few." (Matthew 7:13-14)

So we must not only ABIDE in Him but we must also strive to enter by the narrow gate. If we do not ABIDE in Him, then it is obvious that we are not on the path to the narrow gate of salvation, but on the path to the wide gate and to eternal destruction.

So Jesus said that if we do not ABIDE in Him (the Vine) then we will be taken away from the Vine by the Father, and will be cast off only to wither, to be gathered, and then to be thrown into the fire and burned.

Now that I have your attention, shouldn't we now find the meaning of the word ABIDE?

The theological meaning of ABIDE is to dwell within. Jesus would come and dwell in us and we likewise in Him. So as long as we do what Jesus requests of us then we are on the path to the narrow gate to salvation.

So to assure that we are on right path, Jesus has commanded that we must ABIDE in Him.

What is required in order to have Jesus ABIDE in us and we in Him?

Can we do it:

1. By accepting Him as our our own personal Lord and Savior ?
No. Where does the Bible say that?

2. By the grace of GOD only? Sola Gracias?
No. Where does the Bible say that?

3. By faith in GOD alone? Sola Fides?
No. Where does the Bible say that?

It is simple common sense that since He commanded that we must do something, then doesn't it stand to reason that He would also tell us how to do it?

Jesus was very clear in what we must do in order to have Him ABIDE in us and we in Him.

Jesus left this command for us in John 6:53-57:

53 "Truly, truly, I say to you, unless you eat the flesh of the Son of man and drink his blood, you have no life in you (the taken away branch);

54 he who eats my flesh and drinks my blood has eternal life, and I will raise him up at the last day. 55 For my flesh is food indeed, and my blood is drink indeed.

56 HE WHO EATS MY FLESH AND DRINKS MY BLOOD ABIDES IN ME, AND I IN HIM.

57 As the living Father sent me, and I live because of the Father, so he who eats me will live because of me."

Mike Tea said...

Michael, I appreciate the work you have done to make your point, especially the links you provided. I have put my case from Scripture and you, in response, have put your understanding.

It would be good if we could actually respond to each other’s points so as to avoid talking past each other and end up with a tit-for-tat exchange.

Your argument is based on a false premise. The statement from Bob Stanley misrepresents what I and my fellow Evangelicals believe. He writes:

“Some non-Catholics teach that all you have to do to achieve salvation is to accept Jesus Christ as your personal Lord and Savior, and your salvation is assured in this life. You only have to make a once in a lifetime commitment and no matter what you do for the rest of your life, you can be certain that you will go to Heaven when you die. Once you do this, it is an impossibility that you will ever lose your salvation. That train of thought, however, is not Biblical, and in reality it is a sin of presumption.
Jesus did not die just so we could sin.”


The problem is the line, “You only have to make a once in a lifetime commitment and no matter what you do for the rest of your life, you can be certain that you will go to Heaven when you die.”

It suggests that an Evangelical believes there is no obligation on his part to pay attention to his faith. That he has simply applied for a ticket to heaven, it proved to be there for the asking, and now he has gone merrily on his way to rape, pillage, murder and in so many ways live as he pleases confident in the knowledge that, as long as he doesn’t get caught in this life, he will be OK for the next.

This is a grotesque caricature of Evangelical faith and neither I nor anyone I know subscribes to this extreme antinomianism. A believer pays attention to his faith because he is saved; that is the point.

What you see as licence we see as the perseverance of the saints; surely an idea you will have come across. Believers persevere in good works because we abide in Christ.

Sometimes people like me are so anxious to emphasise grace that we forget to mention discipleship for fear that fallen man will arrogantly assume it gets you to heaven.

But why, if the charge you bring is true, do we worship, serve, sacrifice and pray? If your read again my earlier answer about Paul and James you will see a process of salvation by grace, through faith in Christ (Ro.3:20-28) issuing in salvation for works prepared beforehand and done in Christ’s strength (Eph.2:10)

Not everyone does believe in the perseverance of the saints, I know, but no one I know believes what you have refuted.

I will come back and discuss the communion question again if I may. It is another subject and one that deserves more than a brief comment.

Unknown said...

Dear Mike,
I will be praying for you when I attend ROSARY this Thursday.

God bless you
Michael Gormley

Mike Tea said...

Thank you Michael. I appreciate that.