There's A False Church in Rome

Last week we talked about the religion Islam. Now Islam is noticeably different from Christianity. It’s not hard to spot the differences. But for the next two weeks we will look at two religions that are a little tougher to spot the differences. Roman Catholicism and Mormonism.

This week we will talk about the Catholic Church and the title of this week’s lesson is the “False Church in Rome.” Now before we get too far into the Catholic Religion, I want to make something crystal clear. I am not saying that there are no Christians in the Catholic Church. There most certainly are. But what I am saying that the Catholic Church is not a Christian church. I would go further to say that Christians, true Christians, who are in the Catholic Church need to get out and go to a Bible Believing church as fast as they possibly can.

Now there are things that we share with the Catholic Church. We share a history. We claim the same starting point. We mostly share the same Scriptures, though Rome adds books to the Bible.

Does anyone know what those added books are called?

We believe Jesus to be the Son of God, we believe Jesus is God. We believe the creation accounts, we believe the miracles, we believe the crucifixion and resurrection of Christ. So if there are so many similarities between us and Roman Catholicism, why do I say that Rome is a false church? Why do I say Christians should flee from it? Where do we differ?

Now, just like with Islam, we could spend a whole school semester talking about Roman Catholicism, but we only have thirty minutes. So I will not be going into a lot of the history of the church tonight, but if you like history, it is a worthwhile and interesting subject. Tonight we are going to focus on six areas where we differ greatly with Rome. Those areas are:

Scripture

Justification

The Church

The Sacraments (Baptism and the Lord’s Supper)

The Papacy

Mary, the Mother of Jesus.

Scripture

So let’s talk about Scripture for a few minutes. As I alluded to earlier, the Roman Catholic Church follows all of the books of the Bible that we do, but then they also add to the inspired list the Apocryphal books. But is that the only difference in our view of Scripture? No, it is not.

The Catholic Church does not view the Bible as the final authority. The church, in their view, is the final authority. The church has the sole capability of rightly interpreting Scripture and you are not allowed to hold a view outside of the view of the church, no matter what. This was clearly on display during the Reformation of the 16th Century.

Martin Luther had been opposing the church on the issue of indulgences, which we will discuss, as well as other doctrines of the church. In 1521 he was brought before the Diet of Worms and the Emperor to answer charges of heresy and to recant his writings against the church. But Luther took a stand and said:

The Reformation for Armchair Theologians The Diet of Worms (1521): Here I Stand

Unless I am convinced by the testimony of the Scriptures or by clear reason (for I do not trust either in the Pope or in councils alone, since it is well known that they have often erred and contradicted themselves), I am bound by the Scriptures I have quoted and my conscience is captive to the Word of God. I cannot and will not retract anything, since it is neither safe nor right to go against p 35 conscience. Here I stand. I cannot do otherwise. May God help me. Amen.

Luther recognized that Scripture and Scripture alone is our authority and conviction. The church in Rome denied this. Now, since the time of the Reformation, the church in Rome has backtracked this a bit and has affirmed the inerrancy of Scripture and its divine inspiration.

However, the Catholic Catechism, which is the official doctrine of the church, makes clear what they believe is the relationship between Scripture and tradition:

Catechism of the Catholic Church One Common Source …

80 “Sacred Tradition and Sacred Scripture, then, are bound closely together and communicate one with the other. For both of them, flowing out from the same divine well-spring, come together in some fashion to form one thing and move towards the same goal.” Each of them makes present and fruitful in the Church the mystery of Christ, who promised to remain with his own “always, to the close of the age.”41

That is to say, church tradition is on the same level of divine inspiration as Scripture.

This is clearly not a good position which we will see as we move on.

Justification

The next area of difference is Justification.

What is Justification?

Justification is to be declared righteous. We believe this to be by faith alone. We are declared righteous by way of placing our trust in Jesus Christ. This is what Paul wrote in Ephesians 2:8-9 “8 For by grace you have been saved through faith. And this is not your own doing; it is the gift of God, 9 not a result of works, so that no one may boast.”

But is that what Catholics believe?

No the church in Rome believes in a works-based justification, starting with baptism.

Catechism of the Catholic Church I. Justification

Justification is conferred in Baptism, the sacrament of faith. It conforms us to the righteousness of God, who makes us inwardly just by the power of his mercy

There are more examples in the catechism that show baptism is primary for salvation but this is the clearest example.

The church also believes in the idea of penance, rather than repentance, for the forgiveness of sins and we will talk about that more when we get to the sacraments of the church.

The Church

But for now let’s talk about the church itself. What does Rome believe about the church? The church in Rome believes itself to be the one and only true church of Christ.

Catechism of the Catholic Church “Outside the Church There Is No Salvation”

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.

In other words, if you are not Roman Catholic, you cannot be saved. This is a clear contrast between Roman Catholicism and Protestantism.

I may hold to the Baptist tradition but I do not believe you have to be a Baptist to be saved. My Presbyterian brothers likewise do not believe I have to be Presbyterian to be saved. But Rome teaches that you must be Roman Catholic to experience salvation.

The Sacraments

Now let’s move on to Sacraments.

What are sacraments?

Holman Illustrated Bible Dictionary (Sacrament)

SACRAMENT Religious rite or ceremony regarded as an outward sign of an inward, spiritual grace.

As protestants, we believe in two sacraments, or ordinances. Those are Baptism and the Lord’s Supper. The Catholic Church includes these in their list as well, though they view them differently then we do.

The Catholic Church has seven sacraments but we will only cover a few of these seven tonight.

Baptism

Confirmation

Marriage

Extreme Unction

Holy Orders

Penance

The Lord’s Supper

Baptism

As Protestants, we believe Baptism is for believers to demonstrate their choice to follow Christ. It is an outward sign of what has already taken place. Rome teaches that baptism is salvation. They baptize infants and proclaim that infant sanctified. However, they can lose that sanctification and justification causing the need for remedies to their situation to be ongoing.

Confirmation

Confirmation assumes that one has already been baptized. This is a confirmation of the salvation already received and is given by the laying of hands on a child, usually around age seven.

Extreme Unction

Today, this is also known as last rites. A priest is brought in when someone is dying to give them one final “boost” of grace as they prepare to go into eternity. Obviously, no human has this power and Jesus Christ is sufficient enough to begin with.

Penance

Penance is one of the largest places where Catholics and Protestants diverge from each other. This is the idea of confession to a priest. The priest then “absolves” one from their sin. In other words, Catholics confess their sin to another man, also a sinner, for the forgiveness of their sins. Clearly this is unbiblical. But there is another dimension to penance and that is satisfaction. This is the idea of doing good works.

Good works for penance can be saying certain prayers, giving alms, or making a pilgrimage. But one of the favorite ways for the church is what is called an indulgence. And this was the big sticking point with Luther and the Reformation in the 16th Century.

So what is an indulgence? An indulgence is the transfer of merit.

Catholics believe that there is a “Treasury of Merit” and the church alone has the keys to this treasure chest to give out to people for the forgiveness of sins. If a person dies with sufficient merit, they immediately go to Heaven. If not, they go to Purgatory. Purgatory is not Hell. Purgatory is where people are purged from the remaining sin before they enter Heaven.

Some people say the church has abandoned the use of indulgences, but that is not true. It is still clearly in Catholic doctrine.

Catechism of the Catholic Church In Brief

1498 Through indulgences the faithful can obtain the remission of temporal punishment resulting from sin for themselves and also for the souls in Purgatory.

The Lord’s Supper

The last sacrament of the Catholic Church is the Lord’s Supper. It is also known as the Eucharist.

In Protestant churches, we recognize this as a symbol, a remembrance of the Last Supper and what Christ did for us on the cross.

But in the Catholic Church, this is very different. Rome believes that the bread and wine become the literal flesh and blood of Jesus Christ. Let that sink in for a minute, the literal flesh and blood of Christ.

This is a heretical teaching and not at all what Jesus described when he said to do this in remembrance of Him.

The Papacy

But now that we have talked about the sacraments of the church, let’s look at the Pope. What does Rome believe about the Papacy?

The Pope is the leader of the Roman Catholic Church. They claim, though this is very much disputed historically, to have a direct line of Popes all the way back to the Apostle Peter himself as the Bishop of Rome.

They believe that the Pope has something called “Papal Infallibility.” This is the teaching that the Pope is infallible by divine intervention when he speaks in his official capacity or “From the Chair.” This means the Pope is only infallible when he speaks on behalf of the whole church. This is convenient because it means the Pope can contradict himself at other times but they can say it wasn’t Ex Cathedra.

The Pope cannot act unilaterally though. He must do so with the consent of the Council of Bishops. But this does mean that doctrine, not found in Scripture, can be introduced via the office of the Pope. This goes back to a fundamental disagreement on the authority of Scripture verses the authority of the church.

Mary, the Mother of Jesus

The last major area of disagreement we will discuss tonight is what the Catholic Church teaches about Mary, the Mother of Jesus.

As Biblical Christians, we believe Mary to be exactly what she is, a sinner, saved by grace. Yes, Mary did have the distinction of giving birth to Christ, and raising Christ. But does that give Mary some sort of special status that nobody else enjoys? Does Mary have power that the rest of us do not have? Let’s look at what Rome says.

Immaculate Conception

The first teaching of Mary I want to discuss is that of immaculate conception. Now, for years, I thought that the immaculate conception was the teaching of the virgin birth. But that’s not it at all. In fact, the immaculate conception has to do with Mary’s birth, not Christ.

Immaculate conception teaches that Mary was born perfect, without original sin, and enjoyed a sinless life.

Now, this poses several problems.

First, Romans 3:23 “for all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God,” . This would include, not exclude Mary.

Second, if Mary were sinless and perfect, why did she claim that she had a savior? She would not have needed one. However in Luke 1:47 Mary claims that she needs a savior. Luke 1:47

Luke 1:47 ESV

and my spirit rejoices in God my Savior,

The Catholic Church tries to skirt around this issue by claiming she was talking about salvation from something other than sin. However, there is no reason to believe that from the context of the passage itself.

Perpetual Virginity

Another view held by the Catholic Church is the idea of perpetual virginity. This teaches that Mary remained a virgin even after the birth of Christ. However, we know from Scripture this is not true. Matthew 1:25 says that Joseph did not know her, that means sexually, until she had given birth to a son. We also see many times in the New Testament references to Jesus brothers and sisters being with Mary. It is plainly obvious in Scripture that, unless Mary had multiple virgin births, the idea of perpetual virginity is completely false.

The Assumption of Mary

The Catholic Church also believes in the Assumption of Mary.

966 “Finally the Immaculate Virgin, preserved free from all stain of original sin, when the course of her earthly life was finished, was taken up body and soul into heavenly glory, and exalted by the Lord as Queen over all things, so that she might be the more fully conformed to her Son, the Lord of lords and conqueror of sin and death.” The Assumption of the Blessed Virgin is a singular participation in her Son’s Resurrection and an anticipation of the resurrection of other Christians: (491)

Catholic Church, Catechism of the Catholic Church, 2nd Ed. (Vatican City: Libreria Editrice Vaticana, 1997), 252.

So that is to say that Mary did not die, she was taken into Heaven just as Christ was and serves as queen. Of course, none of this is found anywhere in Scripture.

More About Mary

The church also believes that we owe full devotion to Mary. We are to pray to Mary because she, as well as other saints, can intercede on our behalf.

So What Are We To Do?

So what are we to do about the Roman Catholic Church?

We must recognize, again, that there are, in fact, genuine Christians within the Roman Church. However, the Roman Church, as I said earlier, is not a Christian Church.

We need to pray for the enlightenment of those who are stuck under the false teaching of the church. We should talk to our Catholic friends about the Gospel, the true Gospel.

It is harder to talk to Catholics about the Bible though. They are almost brainwashed in a certain way because, again, they believe their church to be the one true church with the one correct interpretation of Scripture.

The keys are to go to Scripture itself. Have them take off the Catholic lenses and just read Scripture for what it actually states, and not for what it does not state.

Some Resources

Some resources for dealing with Catholics are:

Are We Together by R.C. Sproul

Rescuing the Gospel by Erwin Lutzer

Read Church history.

Find out how we got to where we are and how the Catholic Church got to where it is.

Conclusion

Next week we will be talking about Mormonism. But let’s not forget to pray for the Catholic Church that their eyes will be opened to the true Christ, and His true Gospel.