Saturday, May 06, 2006

Biblical Christianity Vs. Roman Catholicism


In 1515 Martin Luther saw it clearly, man is saved solely by his faith in Jesus Christ. The cross alone can remove man’s sin and save him from the grasp of the devil. The implications of Luther’s discovery were enormous. If salvation comes through faith in Christ alone, the intercession of priests is superfluous. Faith formed and nurtured by the Word of God written and preached, requires no monks, no masses, no prayers to the saints. The mediation of the Church of Rome crumbles into insignificance
The Catechism of the Catholic church says:
882 The Pope, Bishop of Rome and Peter's successor, "is the perpetual and visible source and foundation of the unity both of the bishops and of the whole company of the faithful."402 "For the Roman Pontiff, by reason of his office as Vicar of Christ, and as pastor of the entire Church has full, supreme, and universal power over the whole Church, a power which he can always exercise unhindered.
My Bible says:
Ephesians 1:22-23
And He put all things in subjection under His feet, and gave Him as head over all things to the church, which is His body, the fullness of Him who fills all in all.

The Catechism says:
1030 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.
1031 The Church gives the name Purgatory to this final purification of the elect, which is entirely different from the punishment of the damned.606 The Church formulated her doctrine of faith on Purgatory especially at the Councils of Florence and Trent. The tradition of the Church, by reference to certain texts of Scripture, speaks of a cleansing fire:607
As for certain lesser faults, we must believe that, before the Final Judgment, there is a purifying fire. He who is truth says that whoever utters blasphemy against the Holy Spirit will be pardoned neither in this age nor in the age to come. From this sentence we understand that certain offenses can be forgiven in this age, but certain others in the age to come.

My Bible says:
1 John 2:2
and He Himself is the propitiation for our sins; and not for ours only, but also for those of the whole world.
1 John 4:10
In this is love, not that we loved God, but that He loved us and sent His Son to be the propitiation for our sins.

The Catechism says:
1367 The sacrifice of Christ and the sacrifice of the Eucharist are one single sacrifice: "The victim is one and the same: the same now offers through the ministry of priests, who then offered himself on the cross; only the manner of offering is different." "And since in this divine sacrifice which is celebrated in the Mass, the same Christ who offered himself once in a bloody manner on the altar of the cross is contained and is offered in an unbloody manner. . . this sacrifice is truly propitiatory."
My Bible says:
Hebrews 10:14
For by one offering He has perfected for all time those who are sanctified.
Hebrews 7:27-28
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. For the Law appoints men as high priests who are weak, but the word of the oath, which came after the Law, appoints a Son, made perfect forever.

The Catechism says:
1471 The doctrine and practice of indulgences in the Church are closely linked to the effects of the sacrament of Penance.
What is an indulgence?
"An indulgence is a remission before God of the temporal punishment due to sins whose guilt has already been forgiven, which the faithful Christian who is duly disposed gains under certain prescribed conditions through the action of the Church which, as the minister of redemption, dispenses and applies with authority the treasury of the satisfactions of Christ and the saints."
"An indulgence is partial or plenary according as it removes either part or all of the temporal punishment due to sin." The faithful can gain indulgences for themselves or apply them to the dead.

My Bible says:
Hebrews 9:22
And according to the Law, one may almost say, all things are cleansed with blood, and without shedding of blood there is no forgiveness.
Hebrews 10:18
Now where there is forgiveness of these things, there is no longer any offering for sin.

The Catechism says:
1030 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
My Bible says:
Hebrews 1:3
And He is the radiance of His glory and the exact representation of His nature, and upholds all things by the word of His power. When He had made purification of sins, He sat down at the right hand of the Majesty on high;
Colossians 1:22
yet He has now reconciled you in His fleshly body through death, in order to present you before Him holy and blameless and beyond reproach

The Catechism says:
Outside the Church there is no salvation"
846 How are we to understand this affirmation, often repeated by the Church Fathers? Re-formulated positively, it means that all salvation comes from Christ the Head through the Church which is his Body:
Basing itself on Scripture and Tradition, the Council teaches that the Church, a pilgrim now on earth, is necessary for salvation: the one Christ is the mediator and the way of salvation; he is present to us in his body which is the Church. He himself explicitly asserted the necessity of faith and Baptism, and thereby affirmed at the same time the necessity of the Church which men enter through Baptism as through a door. Hence they could not be saved who, knowing that the Catholic Church was founded as necessary by God through Christ, would refuse either to enter it or to remain in it.

1498 Through indulgences the faithful can obtain the remission of temporal punishment resulting from sin for themselves and also for the souls in Purgatory
My Bible says:
Romans 1:16
For I am not ashamed of the gospel, for it is the power of God for salvation to everyone who believes, to the Jew first and also to the Greek.
1 Corinthians 15:1-4
Now I make known to you, brethren, the gospel which I preached to you, which also you received, in which also you stand, by which also you are saved, if you hold fast the word which I preached to you, unless you believed in vain. For I delivered to you as of first importance what I also received, that Christ died for our sins according to the Scriptures, and that He was buried, and that He was raised on the third day according to the Scriptures,
Galatians 1:9
As we have said before, so I say again now, if any man is preaching to you a gospel contrary to that which you received, let him be accursed.

Some Roman Catholic Prayers:
Hail, Holy Queen
Hail, Holy Queen, Mother of mercy, our life, our sweetness and our hope. To thee do we cry, poor banished children of Eve. To thee do we send up our sighs, mourning and weeping in this valley of tears. Turn then, most gracious advocate, thine eyes of mercy towards us. And after this our exile, show unto us the blessed Fruit of thy womb, Jesus. O clement, O loving, O sweet Virgin Mary.

The Memorare of St. Bernard
Remember, O most gracious Virgin Mary, that never was it known that nay one who fled to thy protection, implored thy help, and sought thy intercession, was left unaided. Inspired with this confidence, I fly unto thee, O Virgin of Virgins, my Mother; to thee I come; before thee I stand sinful and sorrowful. O Mother of the Word Incarnate, despise not my petitions, but in thy mercy, hear and answer me. Amen.


The Roman Catholic church views Mary as being sinless. They put her in a position of deity. Jesus was the only sinless person to ever live. He was God and man.
As we have seen above the Catholic church states that one must be a member of that church for salvation , that the sacraments are necessary for salvation.
The Word of God states:
Rom 10:8-10 "that if you confess with your mouth the Lord Jesus and believe in your heart that God has raised Him from the dead, you will be saved. For with the heart one believes unto righteousness, and with the mouth confession is made unto salvation."
Eph 2:8-9 "For by grace you have been saved through faith, and that not of yourselves; it is the gift of God, not of works, lest anyone should boast."
Notice that the central focus of the Scriptures is on Jesus for salvation. However, central to the Roman Catholic version of salvation is the Roman Catholic Church and their sacraments.
In regards to " another Gospel", my Bible says:
Gal 1:8-9 "But even if we, or an angel from heaven, preach any other gospel to you than what we have preached to you, let him be accursed. As we have said before, so now I say again, if anyone preaches any other gospel to you than what you have received, let him be accursed."
If one does a careful study of the Bible and what it says compared to what the Roman Catholic church teaches, it is evident that they are teaching something contrary to what the Holy Bible says.
Purgatory is a man made doctrine. It was never taught by the early church fathers, and it is not taught in the Word of God! It is, as catechism 1031 says, a "tradition." The rich man that died and went to hell in Luke 16, prayed to Father Abraham, but Abraham told him that his fate was sealed. It could not be changed.
Luke 16:22-26 And it came to pass, that the beggar died, and was carried by the angels into Abraham's bosom: the rich man also died, and was buried; And in hell (what happened to purgatory?) he lift up his eyes, being in torments, and seeth Abraham afar off, and Lazarus in his bosom. And he cried and said, Father Abraham, have mercy on me, and send Lazarus, that he may dip the tip of his finger in water, and cool my tongue; for I am tormented in this flame. But Abraham said, Son, remember that thou in thy lifetime (you had your chance when you were living) receivedst thy good things, and likewise Lazarus evil things: but now he is comforted, and thou art tormented. And beside all this, between us and you there is a great gulf fixed: so that they which would pass from hence to you CANNOT; NEITHER CAN THEY PASS TO US, that would come from thence.
For Rome to sell indulgences, it needed a teaching that Jesus' Blood Atonement on the cross was not sufficient to remove "temporal punishment due to sin" - only eternal punishment. The Church of Rome used 2 MACCABBEES 12:42-44 to show that praying for the dead is "scriptural". This apocryphal book was written by a man who knew it wasn't divinely inspired (ref. 2 MACCABBEES 15:37). For the sales & marketing of indulgences, Purgatory served the Church of Rome well. As far as sound doctrine, purgatory fails. Any teaching that limits the Vicarious Blood Atonement of Jesus at the cross is heresy.

1 comment:

Spiritual StarScaper said...

Good post! It's obvious to those who see God's Word as our standard of authority over any human being, or even tradition - that the Roman Catholic church has brought in too many pagan and humanistic qualities, and left a lot of the Holy Spirit (who actually guides us into all Truth) out. Protestantism corrected a lot of errors, but certainly not all, since even that church is split up into all kind of denominations and still not resembling the church in God's Word as the Body of Christ. We need to get back to listening to God and not human egos! Believers need to unite under the one banner of Jesus Christ!