WHATEVER HAPPENED TO THE CHURCH AT ROME?

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:

https://www.christiantruth.com/articles/RCJustification.html

THE CONFUSION OF STEVE RAY

Catholic apologist, speaker and author Steve Ray has written an article about the debate between Catholics and Protestants on the topic of faith and the role of works in salvation.  The article is titled, “St. Paul did not Write to Us!” and it can be found here:

http://www.catholicconvert.com/blog/2004/06/11/st-paul-did-not-write-to-us/

In the article, Steve Ray mentions that when arguments about salvation come up:

“Protestants quickly accuse Catholics of teaching a salvation based on works and Catholics quickly point out that Protestants have swung the pendulum too far in the other direction by refusing to accept human cooperation and obedience as necessary to the process.”

This is pretty much an accurate account of what normally happens.  Catholics emphasize the role of works (faith plus works) and Protestants emphasize “faith alone,” or faith apart from the merit of works in order to be justified / saved.

Ray mentions the fact that Protestants usually go to the books of Romans and Galatians in the Bible to prove their point (and we would say, rightly so, because this is where justification is defined).  But according to Ray:

“But there is a huge problem here. Paul did not write these letters to us and he knew nothing of the Catholic-Protestant debate. The huge problem we have is the problem of anachronism.”

He goes on to define “anachronism,” which means:

“1. the representation of an event, person, or thing in a historical context in which it could not have occurred or existed; 2. a person or thing that belongs or seems to belong to another time.”

For example, saying that Moses looked at his wristwatch to see what time it was… or saying that the apostle John got in his Ford pickup to go to the market… these would be anachronisms, since wristwatches and Fords didn’t exist during their day.  

So, Steve Ray’s main points here are 1) Paul did not write specifically to us, 2) Paul didn’t know anything of a “Catholic-Protestant” debate back in his day, and 3) Applying Paul’s teaching in Romans and Galatians to the present day Catholic-Protestant debate is out of touch with reality in the sense that it is anachronistic.

But first of all, Ray’s point that “Paul didn’t write to us” is actually untrue and Ray is simply using this as a diversion.  Now, of course, we all know that Paul was not purposely writing SPECIFICALLY to us in the twenty-first century.  But the title of Ray’s article and his opening comments seem to suggest that Paul’s writings don’t apply to us today in any way.

But with this kind of reasoning, why should we obey any of the Ten Commandments today?  Would Ray say that since these also were not specifically written to us, but to Old Testament Jews, therefore, they are not to be observed by modern Christians?  He obviously wouldn’t say that!  So why does Ray even bring up this point?  Why use this deceptive title?  Again, this is simply a diversion that he uses to try and weaken or disregard the biblical evidence found in Romans and Galatians against Catholic teaching. 

   

But in a real sense, Paul did indeed write to us through the guidance of the Holy Spirit.  Paul’s words were infallible and God-breathed because they were Scripture (2 Timothy 3:15-17).  And ALL Scripture was written to us, indirectly, and ALL Scripture has some application for us today.  Paul’s words were not only directed to the people of his own day, but to all generations in the future, as well.  The principles within Scripture are always there, for every generation, to guide us into the truth.

Furthermore, the fact that Paul had never heard of a “Catholic-Protestant debate” is irrelevant.  But Paul was certainly very familiar with the substance of that debate.  It is not just about “Jew versus Gentile.”  It is the argument of the Judaizers, which was “faith plus works = salvation.”  But Paul specifically dealt with this same problem in both the Roman church (Romans 3:19 thru 5:21) and the Galatian church (epistle to the Galatians) in his day.   So today we are still wrestling with the same issues as they did back then.  Yet, Ray tries to spin this in such a way as to accuse Protestants of anachronism.  

But the fact is, Ray contradicts himself and admits at the end of the article that there is not really a problem after all, since he confesses that:

“… even though Paul didn’t specifically write his letters to us, if we study the cultural climate in which they were written, and stay faithful to the tradition in which they were passed on to us, the Holy Spirit (the primary author of the letters) will help us apply the principles and truth of those letters to our current situation.” (Emphasis added)

Notice the bold print.  Ray now admits that the Holy Spirit is able to help us apply these same biblical principles to our situation today.  But this is what we already said earlier.  So, where is the anachronism now?  First, he says that the principles in Romans and Galatians are anachronistic (don’t apply today), and now he’s saying that they do apply today (with the Holy Spirit’s help).  But if it applies today, then it is not an anachronism.  Steve Ray is backpedaling and admitting that there IS no “huge problem” here.  What starts off as his main complaint is now dismissed as no problem at all!  Confusion indeed.

But perhaps he would say that the biblical principles would only apply within the context of “Catholic Tradition,” but there is nothing in Tradition that can offset the clear message of unearned salvation in the inspired books of Romans and Galatians.

No, the real “huge problem” is that Catholics often ignore context in those sections of Romans and Galatians that actually deal with the specific doctrine of justification, and they try to add their works to their faith in order to earn salvation, as we have demonstrated elsewhere on this blog.  But, tragically, in combining their own works with Jesus’ work on the cross, Catholics are telling Jesus that His work and suffering was just not enough, thus bringing upon themselves the same curse that the first-century Judaizers brought upon their own selves (Galatians 1:8-9; 3:10-11; 5:1-4).  See this link:

http://theresurrectionstillspeaks.blogspot.com/2014/10/the-curse-of-judaizers.html

See also these other related articles:

http://answeringcatholicclaims.blogspot.com/2010/01/faith-alone-part-1.html

http://answeringcatholicclaims.blogspot.com/2010/01/faith-alone-part-2.html

http://answeringcatholicclaims.blogspot.com/2010/02/faith-alone-part-3.html

http://answeringcatholicclaims.blogspot.com/2010/08/sola-fide-revisited.html

http://answeringcatholicclaims.blogspot.com/2012/09/romans-213-and-context.html#comment-form

RE-DEFINING JUSTIFICATION

I see it happen all the time.  A Catholic and a Protestant will be discussing salvation, and the Protestant points out that the Catholic Church teaches that a person is saved by his faith plus his works.  But immediately, the Catholic will say, “Oh no!  We don’t teach that.  Salvation is not by works.  The Council of Trent teaches that justification is unmerited and not obtained by works of any kind (Session 6, chapter 8).”  But when the Protestant points to other sections of Trent (Session 6, chapters 10 and 16) to show that the Catholic Church does indeed believe in works for salvation, then they will start to back-track and point to certain Bible verses in an attempt to claim that believers really are saved by works.  They do a flip-flop.  What they first denied, they later try to vigorously defend.  You see, what the Catholic Church teaches is often confusing, even for Catholics. 

Much of the confusion seems to come from the fact that the Catholic Church believes that justification is split into two different categories:  “initial” justification and “ongoing” or “progressive” justification.  They believe that in the initial phase there are no works that merit salvation.  And, supposedly, this initial justification is achieved by water baptism (which, ironically, is a work).  But afterward, in the progressive phase, salvation is (according to them) indeed merited / earned by good works.  So, they believe a person can be justified at one point and then re-justified (or “more justified”) later.  But the fact is, they are confusing justification with sanctification, which involves the Christian’s growth process.  “Sanctification” means to be set apart for God’s use, and it is a process in which we are gradually conformed to the image of Jesus Christ (1 Thessalonians 5:23; Hebrews 9:13-14).  Good works are part of this process, but they are done out of thankfulness for what God has done for us, never to merit salvation.

But according to the Bible, there is no such thing as “initial” or “progressive” justification.  Biblical justification refers to a judicial sentence or decision, as in a courtroom.  It is a term having strong legal overtones, and is used together with words like “impute” (Romans 4:8), “reckoned” (Romans 4:4, 9-10), and “counted" (Romans 4:3, 5).  Justification means to declare someone righteous.  It is a proclamation of one’s status by the Judge (God).  There is nothing “progressive” about such a decision.  It is a one-time proclamation.  So, there is no such thing as an “increase” of justification.   You can’t be “a little justified” or “partially justified.”  According to the Bible, you’re either justified or you’re not.
  

The righteousness we have, as Christians, is based on the righteousness of the Savior, Jesus Christ, and His perfect work.  Any type of righteousness that would involve some sort of “progressive justification” is based, to some extent, on the righteousness of the believer and his works.  But that would be an imperfect righteousness.  And that’s exactly the type of justification that the Catholic Church offers to its members.

In fact, Catholic teaching on salvation falls into the same error as that of the Judaizers.  See this article:

http://theresurrectionstillspeaks.blogspot.com/2014/10/the-curse-of-judaizers.html

It seems that the Catholic Church’s redefining of justification has been subtle enough to confuse and deceive certain Protestants, as well.  Note, for example, the famous ECT documents (Evangelicals and Catholics Together), where some Protestants have joined with Catholics to promote “unity” and to stand together against certain evils in the world.  They even appear to now agree on justification, as well.  This may sound like a good thing.  But does this mean that the Reformation was all just one big misunderstanding, and that we should all hold hands and agree now?  Then why were there martyrs back then on both sides?  Did they all die for nothing?  Was it over a mere misunderstanding?  Hardly.  The differences between Protestants and Catholics were real back then, and they always have been.  What was error then, is still error now.  The ECT signers, in their quest for “common ground,” have come to an agreement on an unbiblical view of justification / salvation.

Conclusion

The apostle Paul was not so subtle in his view on salvation.  He says, “Are you so foolish?  having begun in the Spirit, are you now made perfect by the flesh?”  (Galatians 3:3)  Notice that Paul equates attempting to add works to the cross with living “by the flesh.”

My friends, out of all the Bible writers, it is Paul who deals with the concept of justification in the most detail (mainly Romans chapters 3-5 and the book of Galatians).  But he never tells us of a split justification like the Catholic Church teaches.  He uses no examples of “initial” or “progressive” justification in Scripture.  He offers no explanations or descriptions of this type of justification anywhere in his writings.  There is not even a brief mention of such a concept.

But on the other hand, Paul does tell us over and over that justification / salvation is obtained by faith and NOT by works (Romans 3:28; 4:2-6, 9-10; Galatians 2:16; 3:1-3; 3:11).  A man is saved by the grace of God through faith (i.e., trusting) in the work of Jesus Christ on the cross, and nothing else.  There is no list of good works, no sacraments, and no formulas that can be added to His sufficient work.  That is the simplicity of the true gospel.  But unfortunately, the Catholic view of justification is another gospel (2 Corinthians 11:4).