Convenience and Conscience

This is a repost of something I shared on FB.

"Prior to 1973, the United States was a nation whose parents sacrificed so that their kids could have a better future. After the Roe v. Wade decision in 1973, our nation became one in which the parents sacrificed their children so that they could have a better future." - Mike Adams

Think about it. This decision has been made over 57,000,000 times in the U.S. alone since abortion has been made legal.

Pray that God would heal our stony hearts so that we as a nation, especially our lawmakers and judges, would stop murdering for convenience.

Pray for those that are hurting because of the effects of an abortion for God alone can heal a wound so deep.

Here is a website that provides a count on abortions throughout several demographics and provides some background and external links for more information.
 

It's Not That I Hope There Is No God! I Don't Want There To Be A God.

Some of you may know that I recently started down the road toward another degree and a lot of the courses will be about philosophy, logic, and dead guys. As I spent more time with these things (I'm not spending time with dead guys, though), I've come to the conclusion that not being a Christian is illogical.

Now, lots of people disagree with me on this point. But then that doesn't necessarily make me wrong. Popularity doesn't establish rightness... just look at skinny jeans. No, in order to prove that I'm wrong about that someone would have to provide some evidence to demonstrate that it is a sound application of logic to entirely deny God's existence and to deny the fact that Jesus was God's son and that Jesus lived and died and rose again from the dead.

A lot of people, even people that share the same faith as me, would say that such things cannot be proven and that they are simply to be addressed with faith. I agree, but only a smidgen. People believe things day in and day out without consciously thinking, "I'm choosing to believe this or that." Are they nuts? No, they are not, because they have evidence that supports what they think and it is logical, based on that evidence, to believe what they believe.

So it is with belief in theism in general and Christianity in specific. My faith is in God through Jesus Christ. My faith is on evidence that such belief is logical. My daughter and I have a disagreement over whether fairies are real. I don't think it's logical to believe in them. There are many other things that I don't believe in because they don't have substantial evidence to demonstrate the truth of them (like the existence of aliens, for example - no evidence...anywhere).

Anyway, great books have already been written on these subjects so I won't write one here. But here's an interesting quote along the lines of the topic:

“I speak from experience, being strongly subject to this fear myself: I want atheism to be true and am made uneasy by the fact that some of the most intelligent and well-informed people I know are religious believers. It isn’t just that I don’t believe in God and, naturally, hope that I’m right in my belief. It’s that I hope there is no God! I don't want there to be a God; I don’t want the universe to be like that. My guess is that this cosmic authority problem is not a rare condition and that it is responsible for much of the scientism and reductionism of our time. One of the tendencies it supports is the ludicrous overuse of evolutionary biology to explain everything about human life, including everything about the human mind …. This is a somewhat ridiculous situation …. [I]t is just as irrational to be influenced in one’s beliefs by the hope that God does not exist as by the hope that God does exist.”

--- Prof. Thomas Nagel, NYU; "The Last Word"

I Do Not Fear Death by Roger Ebert

Some time ago I read the below article written by Roger Ebert and grew very sad. He lived with cancer of the thyroid and salivary glands from 2002 on that required treatments necessitating the removal of his lower jaw, which cost him the ability to speak or eat normally. He died April 4, 2013.

 

While all suffering weighs on my heart, that is not what saddened me. I was and am sad that Mr. Ebert, who clearly has the ability to reason, had determined to do it so poorly. Based on the comments below the article on the website, he inspired people. That also makes me sad, because they also failed to see the illogical things he espoused brought him comfort.

He wrote some wise things concerning how we ought to care for others. Those words are wonderful. However, there is simply no excuse for someone with the ability to think to refuse a God who makes himself so clear and yet to cling to fairy tales for an afterlife.

Many will likely be annoyed by my taking the time to critique the words of someone who has recently died. It's a cheap shot. Perhaps it appears that way, but words have impact in the world and foolish words must be called what they are. Simply stated, at every point that Roger Ebert has considered post-death events he has simply turned off the thought process and then dressed his foolishness in the nicest clothes he could find.

The Bible says that only a fool says, "There is no God." That is not because it is a sin to have doubts about how God operates or questions about who God is or what He expects of us. It is the doubts and questions that drive us to know him better, for he loves everyone that seeks the truth and does not stop to accept a good imagination as a suitable substitute for evidenced-based faith in him.

I've italicized everything that he wrote that bares zero reasonable evidence for believing, or that there is reasonable evidence that refutes it, and yet he went on believing it.

I do not fear death
Roger Ebert

I know it is coming, and I do not fear it, because I believe there is nothing on the other side of death to fear. I hope to be spared as much pain as possible on the approach path. I was perfectly content before I was born, and I think of death as the same state. I am grateful for the gifts of intelligence, love, wonder and laughter. You can’t say it wasn’t interesting. My lifetime’s memories are what I have brought home from the trip. I will require them for eternity no more than that little souvenir of the Eiffel Tower I brought home from Paris.

I don’t expect to die anytime soon. But it could happen this moment, while I am writing. I was talking the other day with Jim Toback, a friend of 35 years, and the conversation turned to our deaths, as it always does. “Ask someone how they feel about death,” he said, “and they’ll tell you everyone’s gonna die. Ask them, In the next 30 seconds? No, no, no, that’s not gonna happen. How about this afternoon? No. What you’re really asking them to admit is, Oh my God, I don’t really exist. I might be gone at any given second.”

Me too, but I hope not. I have plans. Still, illness led me resolutely toward the contemplation of death. That led me to the subject of evolution, that most consoling of all the sciences, and I became engulfed on my blog in unforeseen discussions about God, the afterlife, religion, theory of evolution, intelligent design, reincarnation, the nature of reality, what came before the big bang, what waits after the end, the nature of intelligence, the reality of the self, death, death, death.

Many readers have informed me that it is a tragic and dreary business to go into death without faith. I don’t feel that way. “Faith” is neutral. All depends on what is believed in. I have no desire to live forever. The concept frightens me. I am 69, have had cancer, will die sooner than most of those reading this. That is in the nature of things. In my plans for life after death, I say, again with Whitman:
I bequeath myself to the dirt to grow from the grass I love,
If you want me again look for me under your boot-soles.

And with Will, the brother in Saul Bellow’s “Herzog,” I say, “Look for me in the weather reports.”
Raised as a Roman Catholic, I internalized the social values of that faith and still hold most of them, even though its theology no longer persuades me. I have no quarrel with what anyone else subscribes to; everyone deals with these things in his own way, and I have no truths to impart. All I require of a religion is that it be tolerant of those who do not agree with it. I know a priest whose eyes twinkle when he says, “You go about God’s work in your way, and I’ll go about it in His.”

What I expect to happen is that my body will fail, my mind will cease to function and that will be that. My genes will not live on, because I have had no children. I am comforted by Richard Dawkins’ theory of memes. Those are mental units: thoughts, ideas, gestures, notions, songs, beliefs, rhymes, ideals, teachings, sayings, phrases, clichés that move from mind to mind as genes move from body to body. After a lifetime of writing, teaching, broadcasting and telling too many jokes, I will leave behind more memes than many. They will all also eventually die, but so it goes.

O’Rourke’s had a photograph of Brendan Behan on the wall, and under it this quotation, which I memorized:
I respect kindness in human beings first of all, and kindness to animals. I don’t respect the law; I have a total irreverence for anything connected with society except that which makes the roads safer, the beer stronger, the food cheaper and the old men and old women warmer in the winter and happier in the summer.

That does a pretty good job of summing it up. “Kindness” covers all of my political beliefs. No need to spell them out. I believe that if, at the end, according to our abilities, we have done something to make others a little happier, and something to make ourselves a little happier, that is about the best we can do. To make others less happy is a crime. To make ourselves unhappy is where all crime starts. We must try to contribute joy to the world. That is true no matter what our problems, our health, our circumstances. We must try. I didn’t always know this and am happy I lived long enough to find it out.

One of these days I will encounter what Henry James called on his deathbed “the distinguished thing.” I will not be conscious of the moment of passing. In this life I have already been declared dead. It wasn’t so bad. After the first ruptured artery, the doctors thought I was finished. My wife, Chaz, said she sensed that I was still alive and was communicating to her that I wasn’t finished yet. She said our hearts were beating in unison, although my heartbeat couldn’t be discovered. She told the doctors I was alive, they did what doctors do, and here I am, alive.

Do I believe her? Absolutely. I believe her literally — not symbolically, figuratively or spiritually. I believe she was actually aware of my call and that she sensed my heartbeat. I believe she did it in the real, physical world I have described, the one that I share with my wristwatch. I see no reason why such communication could not take place. I’m not talking about telepathy, psychic phenomenon or a miracle. The only miracle is that she was there when it happened, as she was for many long days and nights. I’m talking about her standing there and knowing something. Haven’t many of us experienced that? Come on, haven’t you? What goes on happens at a level not accessible to scientists, theologians, mystics, physicists, philosophers or psychiatrists. It’s a human kind of a thing.

Someday I will no longer call out, and there will be no heartbeat. I will be dead. What happens then? From my point of view, nothing. Absolutely nothing. All the same, as I wrote to Monica Eng, whom I have known since she was six, “You’d better cry at my memorial service.” I correspond with a dear friend, the wise and gentle Australian director Paul Cox. Our subject sometimes turns to death. In 2010 he came very close to dying before receiving a liver transplant. In 1988 he made a documentary named “Vincent: The Life and Death of Vincent van Gogh.” Paul wrote me that in his Arles days, van Gogh called himself “a simple worshiper of the external Buddha.” Paul told me that in those days, Vincent wrote:
Looking at the stars always makes me dream, as simply as I dream over the black dots representing towns and villages on a map.

Why, I ask myself, shouldn’t the shining dots of the sky be as accessible as the black dots on the map of France?

Just as we take a train to get to Tarascon or Rouen, we take death to reach a star. We cannot get to a star while we are alive any more than we can take the train when we are dead. So to me it seems possible that cholera, tuberculosis and cancer are the celestial means of locomotion. Just as steamboats, buses and railways are the terrestrial means.

To die quietly of old age would be to go there on foot.

That is a lovely thing to read, and a relief to find I will probably take the celestial locomotive. Or, as his little dog, Milou, says whenever Tintin proposes a journey, “Not by foot, I hope!”

Love Is The Fulfillment Of The Law, Part III

I’m taking a short break in my personal journaling through Romans to cover a topic that may either be just what God is guiding me through at this time in my life, or it may be that this is a prevalent confusion and therefore it deserves some study. 

Today's is a little long, but I hope you hang in there. This is the conclusion and it was a blessing to me when God taught it to me.

Part III

So to this point by exploring only a few verses, most of which are derived from just two or three letters of the New Testament (and by that I mean the other 63 or 64 books of the Bible also support my previous conclusions, but there’s no need to lay out every passage here), we’ve established two main conclusions:

1.     Love is the key attribute which ought to characterize a Christian’s life. The root from which that reality grows and on which it is established is the fact that love is part of God’s character.

2.     The Law is “good and holy and just,” it was designed with specific purposes in mind (which it has fulfilled) and it will benefit us if we do it, because the law is an extension of God character. The things in the Law are “good and holy and just” not because they are laws established by God (as is the case with the local, state, and federal governments) but because they encapsulate in our temporal existence things which God would do (thus, when God became a person He did fulfill the requirements of the Law – see Romans 8:3, 4)

So here we are back to the original issue. How do these two essentials converge? We know the statement “love is the fulfillment of the law” is true, but what I’ve found many a Christian confused about is why that statement of Paul’s is even true?!

This is how this works: Love and the Law both are extensions of God’s character. True love and true holy acts are only judged “true” if they meet the pass the litmus test of truth – God and His character. Therefore, love is the fulfillment of the Law because anything that God would do (the Law, though I am not saying the Law is comprehensively what God would do) is ultimately also loving. To put it another way, if I do the things in the Law I will also be loving others. The converse is also true: if I love others, as God would love them, I will naturally do the things prescribed by God in the Law.

A conclusion, somewhat: So many times I have heard believers loosely quote the song “love is all we need.” While we cannot deny those words in themselves, a Christian must reject any concept of love that does not define itself and confine itself to the fulfillment of the law! Love does not require approval. Love does not demand tolerance. Love does not necessitate conflict-avoidance. After all, within the Law God prescribed do’s and do not’s. Love is serving everyone we meet, but only if it is in his or her best interest and if it brings glory to God. Love means accepting and respecting those around us, but does not mean we capitulate or compromise with the moral protections in the Law.

Today’s study has been somewhat barren of Scripture as I worked through an understanding of Scripture that is both a responsible and a cohesive interpretation of God’s word. At this point now, though, we are able to rightly understand our key verse: “… love is the fulfillment of the law” because now we can correctly appreciate and apply the first half of the verse!

Romans 13:10 in its entirety reads, “Love does no harm to a neighbor, therefore love is the fulfillment of the law.” Why does love fulfill the law? Answer: actions, if they can be categorically listed as “loving” are harmless toward others and that is precisely what God is driving toward in giving us the Law. In it, He is telling us how we ought to live in order to not harm our friends, family and others around us.

At this point someone may object that I am reading my opinions or religious upbringing into these verse. That’s an important concern. I am confident that I am not doing that, however, because of the context – the verses that come before and after Romans 13:10 – confirm it:

“Owe no one anything except to love one another, for he who loves another has fulfilled the law. For the commandments, ‘You shall not commit adultery,’ ‘You shall not murder,’ ‘You shall not steal,’ ‘You shall not bear false witness,’ ‘You shall not covet,’ and if there is any other commandment, are all summed up in this saying, namely, ‘You shall love your neighbor as yourself.’”

Notice what God says through Paul in verse eight – “he who loves another has fulfilled the law.” Paul’s justification for saying we should “owe” love to others is because love will fulfill the Law. Now we can make the same substitution that Paul makes and shorten this passage some for clarity.

“Owe no one anything except to […] fulfilled the law [toward them]. And remember that it is easy to apply the law if you judge all of your actions by the commandment, ‘You shall love your neighbor as yourself.’”

Christians must get beyond the compulsion or tendency to minimalize the Hebrew Scriptures. Jesus and the first generation of Christians likely only had those Scriptures and they were sufficient at that time to spread the gospel by testifying of Jesus’s life, death and resurrection. They were the foundation for everything written in the New Testament.

What does that mean for us? We know that the New Testament writers warned all believers (repeatedly) not to attempt to attain or maintain salvation through efforts to live according to the Law. On the other hand, they also commended believers to do the precepts on which the Law was founded; in other words, Christians were commanded to apply the underlying purpose for which God gave the laws (that concept requires a whole another study, so don't feel you have to trash all of your synthetic-blend clothing or never shave your face or burn off your tattoos. That's not what I'm saying!).

Christian, be encouraged. Though the Old Testament has specific purposes and should not be taken out of the context of the new covenant through Jesus, it is not outdated. The Law is not the result of the efforts of some Hebrew men to control a society. The Law was received from God and is not a black spot on the history of neither Jews nor Christians. We err when we dismiss the Law. We err when we pursue acceptability before God by the Law. We err when we fail to define love the way God defines love. We err when we let the world tell us what love should look like.

Let us not err, but let us glorify God in this matter!

Love Is The Fulfillment Of The Law, Part II

I’m taking a short break in my personal journaling through Romans to cover a topic that may either be just what God is guiding me through at this time in my life, or it may be that this is a prevalent confusion and therefore it deserves some study. The first part of this study can be found here.

Part II

I mentioned yesterday that the Bible, in the letter from Paul to the Corinthian Christians, describes a view of love that surpassed any other framework that humanity had known before. That’s a bold statement to make. It is also an accurate statement. The love that the Bible describes stands separated from merely emotion or affection or selflessness or devotion, though it essentially envelopes those things.

The phrase that I’ve titled these blog posts with, “Love is the fulfillment of the law,” is quoted from the thirteenth chapter of the letter to the Romans, tenth verse. It echos Jesus words that all the Hebrew Law and Prophets hang on the two commandments to love God and love people. Yesterday I discussed key concepts of love (as described by the Bible, which is my test for truth). We cannot correctly understand this verses (and many other verses) without getting Paul’s view of the Law as well.

The Law is not a regret to God.

In Paul’s letter to the Christians in Galatia, he says that, “if there had been a law given which could have given life, truly righteousness would have been by the law” (Galatians 3:20). This is an extremely important fact. The Law is not non-binding on a Christian because it is archaic or worthless or unnecessary. Paul here emphatically rejects any negative view of the Law. In the Romans letter he wrote that the Law is “good and holy and just” (Romans 7:12)! Paul has a high view of the Law!

The Law did not fail its purpose.

Going back to Galatians Chapter 3, Paul says, “if there had been a law given which could have given life…” which appears to be explaining that the Law was inadequate in helping; however, that is not so. What Paul is saying is that no law could have brought us life (speaking here of “eternal life”). Why? Because a set of rules can never express the requirements necessary for attaining that reward? No! Paul says “truly righteousness would have been by the law”! Again, Paul has a high view of the Law. He knows that God gave a perfect Law (which is how David describes it in Psalms 19).

So, why couldn’t the Law bring about the hope of eternal life? Paul answers that question in the Romans letter. There in the beginning of Chapter 8 Paul clearly and frankly states, “for what the Law could not do, in that it was weak through the flesh….” The Law is not the problem for us. We are the problem for the Law. Our inability to actually perform the Law – to live 100% within its guidelines – is the issue.

The Law still served and still serves its purpose.

What then should we think about the law? Going back to Galatians 3 God gives us the answer: “before faith came we were kept under guard by the law” and “the law was our tutor to bring us to Christ” (verses 23 and 24). Kept under guard? That simply means that it is right for us to try to live as the Law tells us to live because the result will be less sin in our lives. One function the Law had before Christ came was to aid us in avoiding sin. By striving to live how God says we should live, we are protected from having our lives ravaged by the consequences of sin. We ought to do all we can to obey God's commandments because they are good for us and will bring blessing to our lives!

What about the “tutor” position then? The tutor teaches. What does the Law teach? It teaches that we are unable to fulfill it. It teaches that we, every person everywhere that ever lived, cannot measure up to God’s standard for perfection – the standard that He sets in Himself. It teaches that we need God to do something else for us if anyone is going avoid punishment for our failure to meet the Law’s requirements. The tutor teaches us about a need for a Savior.

The Law is good.

Is He A Sovereign God?

WARNING! This is a theology post. Proceed at your own risk.

I have been part of a group of men that have been meeting on Friday's at 5am (yawn!) to study theology (double yawn, right?) for the last year and a half, or so. Several times the doctrine of "Sovereign Election" has come up. Some people may know this topic as Calvinism vs. Arminianism (though that is rather a poor generalization, to be historically accurate), or "Double Predestination vs. Free Will".

I post the below extensive quote by Horatius Bonar (19 December 1808 – 31 May 1889) because it contributes to the discussions and considerations that the Wing and a Prayer bible study group have had. Enjoy or loathe. It's up to you, I suppose.

Whether or not you make it to the end, comments are always welcome on the blog of someone who would wake up at 4:10 am to discuss a book call "Systematic Theology" (which I recommend if you're looking for such a book; this one is by Wayne Grudem).

"I do not deny that in conversion man himself wills. In everything that he does, thinks, feels, he of necessity wills. In believing he wills. In repenting, he wills. In turning from evil ways, he wills - all this is true. The opposite is both untrue and absurd. But while fully admitting this, there is another question behind it, of great interest and importance: Are these movements of man's will toward good the effects of the forthputting of God's will? Is man willing because he has made himself so; or is he willing because God has made him so? Does he become willing entirely by an act of his own will, or by chance, or by moral suasion, or because his will was acted on by created causes or influences from outside himself?

I answer unhesitatingly that he becomes willing because of another and superior will - God's, that has come into contact with his, alter its nature and its bent. This new bent is the result of a change produced upon it by Him who alone, of all beings, has the right, without limitation, to say in regard to all events and change, "I will!" The man's will has followed the movement of the Divine will. God has made him willing. God's will is first, not second, in the movement. Even a holy and perfect will depends for guidance upon the will of God. Even when regenerated, a man's will still follows, it does not lead. Much more an unholy will, for its bent must be first changed. And how can this be, if God is not to interpose His power?

The presentation of truth, however forcible and clear, even though that truth were the grace of God, will only exasperate the unconverted man. It is the gospel he hates, and the more clearly it is set before him, the more he hates it. It is God that he hates, and the more closely God approaches him, the more vividly that God is set before him, the more his enmity awakens. Surely, then, that which stirs up enmity cannot of itself remove it. Of what avail, then, are the most energetic means by themselves? The will itself must be directly operated upon by the Spirit of God: He who has made it must remake it. Its making was the work of Omnipotence; its remaking must be the same, in no other way can its evil bent be rectified. God's will must come into contact with man's will, and then the work is done. Must not God's will then be first in every such movement/ Man's will follows. 

Is this a hard saying? So some in these days would have us believe. Let us ask wherein consists the hardness. Is it hard that God's will should be the leader and man's will the follower in all things great and small? Is it hard that we should be obliged to trace the origin of every movement of man towards good to the will of God? If it is hard, it must be that it strips man of every fragment of what is good, or of the slightest tendency to good. And this we believe to be the secret origin of the complaint against the doctrine. It is a thorough leveler and emptier of man. It makes him not only nothing, but worse than nothing, a sinner all over  - nothing but a sinner, with a heart full of enmity to God, set against Him as the God of righteousness, and still more against Him as the God of grace, with a will so bent away from the will of God, and so rebellious against it, as not to have one remaining inclination of what is good and holy and spiritual. This man cannot tolerate. Admit that a man is totally worthless and helpless, and where is the hard saying? Is it hard that God's blessed and holy will should go before our miserable and unholy wills, to lead them in the way? Is it hard that those who have nothing should be indebted to God for everything? Is it hard, since every movement of my will is downwards, earthwards, that God's mighty will should come in and lift it omnipotently upwards, heavenwards?"

- Horatius Bonar

The Shadow Proves The Sunlight

So today we're again facing things that just do not make sense to us.

Apparently it made sense to someone.

It's times like this that we're reminded that there is indeed such a thing as absolute morality, because such a nonsensical act demands justice in our heart (but that topic is for another day). I pray for justice upon these men or women that did this, but I pray even more for the rest of us that this moment will draw us all closer to the Lord.

"But those who wait on the Lord shall renew their strength. They shall mount up on wings like eagles. They shall run and not grow weary; they shall walk and not faint." Isaiah 40:31

"Wait on the Lord; be of good courage and He shall strengthen your heart. Wait, I say, on the Lord." Psalm 27:14

"I will hear what God the Lord will speak, for He will speak peace to His people and to His saints, but let them not turn back to folly. Surely His salvation is near to those who fear Him that glory may dwell in the land." Psalm 85:8-9

"Because he has set his love upon me, therefore I will deliver Him. I will set him on high, because he has known my name. He shall call upon me and I will answer him; I will be with him in trouble. I will deliver him and honor him." Psalm 91:14-15

Answers we may have none of; confidence and hope for tomorrow are within our grasp if we wait on and call on the Lord who loves us.

Catholic vs. Reformers on "Justification"

This is a repost from FB to hopefully get some views outside of my "friends". I think it's important.

To any Catholics out there, I'd love to hear any response on the below citations. This is how I've always understood the Catholic position on salvation, so if any of this is taken out of context please provide some clarification.

Reprise: The ‘Gospel’ According to Rome
by Nathan Busenitz

With a new pope elected, the eyes of the world are on the Roman Catholic Church. No doubt many evangelicals find themselves confused as to the critical differences between the biblical gospel and the gospel according to Rome. Hence today’s post:

In Romans 11:6, Paul says of salvation, “But if it is by grace, it is no longer on the basis of works, otherwise grace is no longer grace.”

By contrast, Roman Catholicism finds itself in the impossible position of advocating a gospel in which salvation is offered by grace plus works. The Catholic church promotes a synergistic sacramental soteriology in which human good works, along with God’s grace, contribute to the sinner’s justification.

This is in distinct contrast to the evangelical understanding of the gospel, in which salvation is received by grace through faith alone.

Despite the ecumenical efforts of some, the difference between Roman Catholicism and Protestant Evangelicalism is one of substance not merely semantics.

Today’s post is intended as a summary of Roman Catholic teaching with regard to the essence of the gospel (in order to demonstrate how it strays from the biblical message of salvation). Catholic sources are included under each of the following points.

* * *

I. According to Rome, salvation is not by grace alone through faith alone; it does not come through the sole imputation of Christ’s righteousness to the sinner.

Council of Trent, Canons on Justification, Canon 9: “If anyone says, that by faith alone the impious is justified . . . let him be anathema.”

Council of Trent, Canon 11: “If anyone says that men are justified either by the sole imputation of the justice of Christ or by the sole remission of sins, excluding grace and charity which is poured into their hearts by the Holy Spirit and inheres in them, or also that the grace which justifies us is only the favor of God, let him be anathema.”

* * *

II. According to Rome, good works are necessary for salvation. They are not merely the fruits of justification (as evangelicals assert), they are actually the root of it. They are meritorious and will be rewarded with eternal life.

Council of Trent, Canon 24: “If anyone says that the justice [or justification] 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 the increase, let him be anathema.”

The Catholic Encyclopedia, in an article entitled Sanctifying Grace, states that the sinner “is formally justified and made holy by his own personal justice and holiness” such that “over and above faith other acts are necessary for justification” including acts of charity, penance with contrition, and almsgiving.

Catholic Answers: “Even though only God’s grace enables us to love others, these acts of love please him, and he promises to reward them with eternal life (Rom. 2:6–7, Gal. 6:6–10). Thus good works are meritorious. When we first come to God in faith, we have nothing in our hands to offer him. Then he gives us grace to obey his commandments in love, and he rewards us with salvation when we offer these acts of love back to him (Rom. 2:6–11, Gal. 6:6–10, Matt. 25:34–40). . . . We do not ‘earn’ our salvation through good works (Eph. 2:8–9, Rom. 9:16), but our faith in Christ puts us in a special grace-filled relationship with God so that our obedience and love, combined with our faith, will be rewarded with eternal life (Rom. 2:7, Gal. 6:8–9).”

Notice the confusion Catholic theology portrays in trying to maintain a gospel of both grace and works. On the one hand, Catholic apologists assert that believers do not earn their salvation through good works. On the other hand, they contend that God rewards good works with eternal life. Those two concepts are contradictory. Is eternal life a free gift (received by grace) or is it a reward (received on the basis of good works)? It cannot be both.

But Catholics do not seem to be aware of that critical contradiction. Hence, the Catholic Catechism asserts that heaven is “God’s eternal reward for the good works accomplished with the grace of Christ” (P 1821). In other words, heaven is offered on the basis of grace plus works.

Catholic theologian Ludwig Ott reiterates the confusing concept that eternal life is both a gift of God’s grace and a reward for human good works.

Catholic theologian, Ludwig Ott: “The Council of Trent teaches that for the justified eternal life is both a gift or grace promised by God and a reward for his own good works and merits. . . . According to Holy Writ, eternal blessedness in heaven is the reward . . . for good works performed on this earth, and rewards and merit are correlative concepts” (Ludwig Ott,Fundamentals of Catholic Dogma [Rockford: Tan, 1974], 264).

Ludwig Ott: “As God’s grace is the presupposition and foundation of (supernatural) good works, by which man merits eternal life, so salutary works are, at the same time gifts of God and meritorious acts of man. (Fundamentals of Catholic Dogma, 264, 267).

In particular, Catholic theology asserts that the sacraments are necessary for salvation — including baptism and the keeping of the Ten Commandments.

Catholic author, John Hardon: “Are the sacraments necessary for salvation? According to the way God has willed that we be saved the sacraments are necessary for salvation” (John Hardon, Question # 1119).

The Catholic Catechism: “The Council of Trent teaches that the Ten Commandments are obligatory for Christians and that the justified man is still bound to keep them [fn, Cf. DS 1569–1570]; the Second Vatican Council confirms: “The bishops, succors of the apostles, receive from the Lord . . . the mission of teaching all peoples, and of preaching the Gospel to every creature, so that all men may attain salvation through faith, Baptism and the observance of the Commandments” (P 2068; ellipsis in original)

Notice that “baptism” and the “observance of the Ten Commandments” have been added to “faith” as being necessary for unbelievers to “attain salvation.” This is similar to the Judaizers of Acts 15, who wanted to add circumcision and Mosaic Law-keeping to the requirements for salvation in apostolic times. In fact, in Roman Catholic theology, baptism is regarded as the equivalent of circumcision, and the Ten Commandmants are the heart and summary of the Mosaic Law.

You can see how Paul responded to the synergistic gospel of the Judaizers in Galatians 1:6–9.

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III. According to Rome, the act of water baptism brings forgiveness for sins. Any major sins committed after baptism must be paid for by the sinner through acts of penance.

The Catholic view on penance represents a distorted understanding of the biblical doctrine of repentance.

The Catholic Catechism: “By Baptism all sins are forgiven, original sin and all personal sins, as well as punishment for sin.” (P 1263)

The Catholic Catechism: “Christ instituted the sacrament of Penance for all sinful members of his Church: above all for those who, since Baptism, have fallen into grave sin, and have thus lost their baptismal grace and wounded the ecclesial communion. It is to them that the sacrament of Penance offers a new possibility to convert and to recover the grace of justification.” (P 1446)

The Catholic Catechism: “Absolution takes away sin, but it does not remedy all the disorders sin has caused. Raised up from sin, the sinner must still recover his full spiritual health by doing something more to make amends for the sin: he must ‘make satisfaction for’ or ‘expiate’ his sins. This satisfaction is also called ‘penance’.” (P 1459; emphasis mine)

John Hardon: “Penance is . . . necessary because we must expiate and make reparation for the punishment which is due our sins. . . . We make satisfaction for our sins by every good act we perform in the state of grace but especially by prayer, penance and the practice of charity” (Question #1320).

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IV. According to Rome, Christ’s sacrifice on the cross is not sufficient to send the redeemed directly to heaven. Thus, sins that are not properly paid for in this life (through penance) will be purified after death through temporary punishment in Purgatory.

Council of Trent, Canon 30: “If anyone says that after the reception of the grace of justification the guilt is so remitted and the debt of eternal punishment so blotted out to every repentant sinner, that no debt of temporal punishment remains to be discharged either in this world or in purgatory before the gates of heaven can be opened, let him be anathema.”

Handbook for Today’s Catholic: “If you die in the love of God but possess any stains of sin, such stains are cleansed away in a purifying process called Purgatory. These stains of sin are primarily the temporal punishment due to venial or mortal sins already forgiven but for which sufficient penance was not done during your lifetime” (p. 47).

The Catholic Catechism says that Purgatory is for “all who die in God’s grace and friendship, but still imperfectly purified, are indeed assured of their eternal salvation, but after death they undergo purification, so as to achieve the holiness necessary to enter the joy of heaven” (P 1030).

Pope Paul VI: “The doctrine of purgatory clearly demonstrates that even when the guilt of sin has been taken away, punishment for it or the consequences of it may remain to be expiated and cleansed. They often are. In fact, in purgatory the souls of those ‘who died in the charity of God and truly repentant, but who had not made satisfaction with adequate penance for their sins and omissions’ are cleansed after death with punishments designed to purge away their debt.” (Paul VI, Indulgentiarum Doctrina, January 1, 1967).

This, of course, is in direct contrast to biblical teaching about divine forgiveness:

Romans 8:1 – “Therefore there is now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus.”

2 Corinthians 5:18–21 – “Now all these things are from God, who reconciled us to Himself through Christ and gave us the ministry of reconciliation, namely, that God was in Christ reconciling the world to Himself, not counting their trespasses against them, and He has committed to us the word of reconciliation. Therefore, we are ambassadors for Christ, as though God were making an appeal through us; we beg you on behalf of Christ, be reconciled to God. He made Him who knew no sin to be sin on our behalf, so that we might become the righteousness of God in Him.”

Colossians 2:13–14 – “When you were dead in your transgressions and the uncircumcision of your flesh, He made you alive together with Him, having forgiven us all our transgressions, having canceled out the certificate of debt consisting of decrees against us, which was hostile to us; and He has taken it out of the way, having nailed it to the cross.”

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V. According to Rome, Christ’s sacrifice on the cross is repeated every time the Mass is celebrated.

Council of Trent: “If anyone says, that the sacrifice of the mass is only a sacrifice of praise and thanksgiving; or that it is a bare commemoration of the sacrifice consummated on the cross, but not a propitiatory sacrifice . . . and that it ought not to be offered for the living and dead for sins, pains, satisfactions and other necessities: let him be anathema” (Doctrine on the Sacrifice of the Mass, Canon 3).

John Hardon: “The Sacrifice of the altar . . . is no mere empty commemoration of the Passion and death of Jesus Christ, but a true and proper act of sacrifice. Christ, the eternal High Priest, in an unbloody way offers himself a most acceptable Victim to the eternal Father as He did upon the Cross. . . . In the Mass, no less than on Calvary, Jesus really offers His life to His heavenly Father. . . . The Mass, therefore, no less than the Cross, is expiatory for sins” (Questions #1265, 1269, 1277).

This is in direct contrast to the biblical teaching about Christ’s death:

Hebrews 7:26–27: “For it was fitting for us to have such a high priest, holy, innocent, undefiled, separated from sinners and exalted above the heavens; who does not need daily, like those high priests, to offer up sacrifices, first for His own sins and then for the sins of the people, because this He did once for all when He offered up Himself.”

Hebrews 10:10–14: “By this will we have been sanctified through the offering of the body of Jesus Christ once for all. Every priest stands daily ministering and offering time after time the same sacrifices, which can never take away sins; but He, having offered one sacrifice for sins for all time, sat down at the right hand of God, waiting from that time onward until His enemies be made a footstool for His feet. For by one offering He has perfected for all time those who are sanctified.”

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The Biblical Position: In contrast to the Roman Catholic position, salvation comes through faith alone by grace alone based on the work of Christ alone. (Though good works result from our new birth, they are not the basis of it. Good works are the fruit of justification, not the root of it.)

Here are just a few verses to make the point.

Luke 18:9–14 – “He also told this parable to some who trusted in themselves that they were righteous, and treated others with contempt: “Two men went up into the temple to pray, one a Pharisee and the other a tax collector. The Pharisee, standing by himself, prayed thus: ‘God, I thank you that I am not like other men, extortioners, unjust, adulterers, or even like this tax collector. I fast twice a week; I give tithes of all that I get.’ But the tax collector, standing far off, would not even lift up his eyes to heaven, but beat his breast, saying, ‘God, be merciful to me, a sinner!’ I tell you, this man went down to his house justified, rather than the other. For everyone who exalts himself will be humbled, but the one who humbles himself will be exalted.”

John 20:31 – “These have been written so that you may believe that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God; and that believing you may have life in His name.”

Acts 16:30–31 – “After he brought them out, he said, ‘Sirs, what must I do to be saved?’ They said, ‘Believe in the Lord Jesus, and you will be saved, you and your household.’”

Romans 4:2–5 – “For if Abraham was justified by works, he has something to boast about, but not before God. For what does the Scripture say? “Abraham believed God, and it was credited to him as righteousness.” Now to the one who works, his wage is not credited 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 credited as righteousness.”

Romans 10:9–10 – “If you confess with your mouth Jesus as Lord, and believe in your heart that God raised Him from the dead, you will be saved; for with the heart a person believes, resulting in righteousness, and with the mouth he confesses, resulting in salvation.”

Ephesians 2:8–10 – “For by grace you have been saved through faith; and that not of yourselves, it is the gift of God; not as a result of works, so that no one may boast. For we are His workmanship, created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God prepared beforehand so that we would walk in them.”

Titus 3:4–8 – “But when the kindness of God our Savior and His love for mankind appeared, He saved us, not on the basis of deeds which we have done in righteousness, but according to His mercy, by the washing of regeneration and renewing by the Holy Spirit, whom He poured out upon us richly through Jesus Christ our Savior, so that being justified by His grace we would be made heirs according to the hope of eternal life. This is a trustworthy statement; and concerning these things I want you to speak confidently, so that those who have believed God will be careful to engage in good deeds. These things are good and profitable for men.”

Conclusion: Before evangelicals rush headlong to enthusiastically embrace the new pope (pretending as if the Reformation never happened), they should stop and remember the fact that the Roman Catholic Church teaches a gospel that is utterly incompatible with the biblical gospel of grace. In the same way that Paul denounced the false teachings of the Judaizers (Gal. 1:6-9), the gospel according to Rome deserves unhesitating words of condemnation.

That means that those who promote Rome’s false gospel, including the new pope, ought to be confronted for their part in the propagation of damning error.