It has been said that the epistle
of Romans, written by the apostle Paul, is one of the greatest and most sublime
books of Scripture. It is his
masterpiece. It is one of the most
profound and influential books ever written.
This book is called “Romans” because it was, of course, written to the
first-century church (that is, the assembly of Christians) in the city of
Rome.
It is a unique book, at least
partly because no other book in the Bible deals specifically, and at such great
length, with the doctrine of justification like this book does. As we have said before, when discussing
justification, this is the book to
which one must go. It does not deal with
justification only as a passing reference,
but in great detail. All other
references to justification should revolve around this context, namely, chapters three through five of Romans.
Again, this message was written
to the early Roman church. But the
church that most people identify as the Church of Rome today is the Catholic
Church, or the Roman Catholic Church,
headquartered in the Vatican. But the “gospel”
of the modern Roman Catholic Church is not the same gospel as that of the
first-century assembly of believers to whom the apostle Paul wrote in
Rome. The gospel that Paul delivered has
the power to save:
For I am not ashamed of the gospel of
Christ: for it is the power of God unto salvation to everyone that believeth;
to the Jew first, and also to the Greek.
For therein is the righteousness of God revealed from faith to faith: as
it is written, the just shall live by faith. (Romans 1:16-17 - KJV)
Notice that the just “shall
live,” i.e., shall obtain eternal life and make it to Heaven – by his faith, rather than by his works. Paul goes on into the next few chapters to
make this concept abundantly clear.
But the gospel of modern Rome
is “faith plus works equals salvation.”
It seems to ignore the clear message that Paul stressed 2000 years ago:
For we maintain that a man is justified
by faith apart from works of the Law. (Romans 3:28)
Now to the one who works, his wage is
not reckoned as a favor, but as what is due.
But to the one who does not work, but believes in Him who
justifies the ungodly, his faith is reckoned as righteousness. (Romans 4:4-5)
Just as David also speaks of the
blessing upon the man to whom God reckons righteousness apart from works:
(Romans 4:6 - NASV)
Justification happens that
first moment when a man recognizes his desperate spiritual need, when he surrenders to God, and allows Him to
change his heart. At this point he is
made right with God. He is now eligible
for Heaven. Although the man will now go
on to do good works, notice that justification is APART FROM the merit of any
of those works. It cannot be any clearer
from the passages above.
So, again, the “gospel” of
the Catholic Church (modern Rome) is not the one that Paul shared with the original
church in Rome. The Catholic gospel does
not have power to save, since it’s power depends (at least partially) on the
works of the individual striving for salvation.
This causes a man to trust in his own labor to “help” Jesus save him. But Jesus doesn’t need any help from us. There
is nothing that we can do to “supplement” His work. It is utterly blasphemous to think that His
work is lacking in any way. In saying
this, they are denying the full atonement of Jesus Christ. Remember, we (corrupt mankind) are the very reason that He had to go to the cross in the first place!
No, His suffering and work on the cross is fully sufficient (all by
itself) to redeem us.
Whatever happened to this
critical, foundational teaching given to the church of Paul’s day at Rome? Somewhere along the way, something seriously
went wrong. Paul’s message was
changed. Mostly because man wants to
take credit where he should not.
But note this claim from the Catholic
Church. According to the Dogmatic
Constitution on Divine Revelation, titled “Dei
Verbum,” the task of the Catholic Magisterium concerning the Word of God is:
“…guarding it scrupulously and explaining it
faithfully…” (chapter 2, paragraph
10) See also CCC #86.
But have they really guarded
Paul’s original sacred message, the inspired gospel of Jesus Christ? Are they “explaining it faithfully”
today? Indeed not. Once again, what the Catholic Church is
telling us today is not what Paul told the church at Rome back then. What we have is a different and unbiblical message
from modern Rome.
The word “gospel” means “good
news.” And Paul’s words concerning
justification are indeed good news. They
can be summed up in this way: Jesus Christ is powerful and His work is
absolutely sufficient. He has mercifully
and graciously paid the full penalty for sin on the cross, so man doesn’t have
to attempt to work his way into
Heaven. He doesn’t have to wonder if he
did enough good deeds or earned enough “brownie points.” He doesn’t have to worry about whether his
good works outweigh his bad works. He
can rest assured of his salvation by simply maintaining his faith, by trusting only in the work of
Jesus Christ on the cross.
The great apostle Paul had
quite a resume concerning his religious achievements. But his resume meant nothing when it came to
meriting salvation! He considered all
his achievements as dung (Philippians
3:4-9). Even Paul did not trust in his works, so how much more should we avoid trusting in ours?
On the other hand, the
“gospel” of modern Rome is another
gospel, with another Jesus, and another spirit (2 Corinthians 11:4). The poor faithful member of “Holy Mother
Church” serves a weak Jesus who is not able to fully pay sin’s penalty, and the
Catholic therefore needs to “cooperate with the grace of God” by maintaining
his duty to perform the sacraments – and it is indeed by his works that he must
merit eternal life (Council of Trent, Session 6, Chapter XVI). Talk about bad news!
To make matters worse, he is
also surrounded by a multitude of unbiblical teachings from his leaders. Yet, one of his leaders (Pope Pius X), in an official
Catholic statement says that the Catholic’s “one duty” is to obey his leaders [apparently,
no matter what they teach] (Vehementer Nos,
paragraph 8).
Conclusion
We would encourage everyone
from ANY church (whether Catholic, Orthodox, or Protestant) to do what the
Bible says and test all things (1
Thessalonians 5:21) with Scripture.
That even includes testing what your own church teaches.
The ancient Roman church of
the first century had it right. But
somewhere along the way, that simple gospel message got corrupted. Although they try, the modern Roman church
cannot rightfully claim to be the historic Christian church. Because of their many false teachings, they
are disqualifying themselves as the church that “guards” and “faithfully
explains” the Word of God.
By the way, there is no group today that can rightfully claim
that they are the original, or first, Christian church. The best they can do is to be faithful
followers of the original church’s teachings found in God-inspired Scripture.
We will end on this
point. The Judaizers were another group
that Paul contended with. And they were
committing the same error as the Catholic Church - the error of adding their
works to the cross (Acts 15:1, 5). And Paul
strongly condemned them:
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. 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
1:8-9 - KJV)
For more info. on Rome’s weak
view of the work of Christ, see this link:
