Here we are at the conclusion of this series. When I began, I intended to rewrite what I published years ago, but had taken down from the internet because the last thing I want to do is communicate rejection or condemnation to Catholic loved ones. However, of late more people I know have expressed interest in the Roman Catholic Church (RCC) or have joined the church. I find this to be puzzling in light of what I know about RCC doctrine and its antagonism to biblical Christianity. That is what motivated me to redo this series. The more I wrote, the more I realized needed to be addressed. The twelve articles in this series certainly do not cover everything, but they do address the core issues.
I began this series with my own testimony, describing how God went after me and revealed Christ to me in a way that transformed me from being a skeptic to a believer. This spiritual rebirth changed everything in my life. From that time on, the only thing I really wanted to do was serve the Lord. My wife Martha and I have been in some form of ministry for most of our adult lives.
When all this took place on the Duke University campus in 1971, I realized that it had absolutely nothing to do with the RCC. I heard the true gospel for the first time from my wife to be, decided it was worth a try, and invited Jesus, if he were real, to come into my life and reveal himself to me. When our Lord actually did this, it was the most amazing, joyful, and transformative thing that ever happened to me. The RCC never even told me that I could know God in this way or have any assurance at all of salvation.
Instead of preaching the gospel, the RCC puts itself forward as the means to be saved.
The second article illustrated that the RCC is a legalistic treadmill of false doctrine and rules that must be kept in order to work towards heaven without any real assurance of arriving one day.
The true grace of God provides eternal salvation as a gift purchased by our Lord Jesus when he died on the cross and rose again.
Paul warned us that anyone who preaches anything other than the true gospel will be accursed or under God’s judgment.
The third article addressed the RCC’s departure from adherence to the Bible as its source of truth in favor of church tradition and the “magisterium,” or official pronouncements of the Pope when he writes or speaks “ex cathedra,” or “from the chair” of papal authority. Isaiah wrote that unless we follow God’s truth in the Bible, we descend into darkness.
Any person or group who rejects the absolute authority of God’s written word will always veer into error, which is exactly what happened with the RCC.
My fourth article addressed the abominable heresy that Christ is re-sacrificed each time the Mass is performed. This doctrine is opposed to the Bible’s clear teaching that our Lord died “once for all.” This is a clear example of syncretism, the practice of blending two or more religions together, in this case the Old Covenant with the New, producing a hybrid that is not faithful to either. This supposed re-sacrifice of Christ is overseen by a new class of priests not authorized by God. The only person sufficient to conduct the sacrifice of God’s only Son was the Son himself, who is the apostle and high priest of the New Covenant (Hebrews 3:1).
The Mass denigrates Christ’s sacrifice and elevates the church to the sacrilegious position of overseeing Christ’s re-crucifixion.
The fifth article addressed the sinful exaltation and veneration that is given to Mary, Jesus’ mother. The Bible never encourages us to venerate anyone, something that can easily slide into adoration among ignorant people. The false doctrines associated with Mary positions her as “Mother of God” and “Queen of Heaven,” which are both non-biblical. In fact, queen of heaven is a title of several pagan goddesses. Shrines have been erected in her honor, and the church is encouraged to go to her in prayer, thinking that she is a mediator between them and Jesus, which is also false.
There is only one mediator, our Lord Jesus.
My sixth article addresses the RCC belief regarding the saints. Before a person is recognized as a saint, miracles must be proven to come from praying to these persons after they are dead. Nowhere in the Bible are we ever encouraged to pray to the dead. Neither are we supposed to turn to anyone else to mediate on our behalf with God.
The Bible teaches that all believers are saints, the word meaning set apart unto God.
The seventh article examines the RCC priesthood in light of the Scriptures.
The priesthood is another syncretistic blending of the Old and New Covenants.
God did away with the Old Covenant sacrificial system after our Lord offered himself as the Lamb of God at Calvary. Those Old Covenant sacrifices foreshadowed Christ’s once for all giving of himself on our behalf. Once the reality came, the shadow disappeared. All believers are now priests unto God, but we offer spiritual sacrifices that are enumerated in the Bible – ourselves, giving, hospitality, and praise. The new order of non-biblical priests in the RCC is heretical.
The eighth article is about the papacy, which is an outgrowth of the error behind the priesthood that there is a divide between common people (the laity) and a clerical order of priests, bishops, and the Pope. The Pope’s words are supposed to be infallible when he speaks officially or “ex cathedra.” Many ex cathedra pronouncements are heretical because the diverge from biblical truth. He is supposed to be Christ’s representative on earth, the Vicar of Christ, but the Bible teaches that we are all Christ’s ambassadors or representatives. The Bible clearly teaches that authority in the local church is vested in the presbytery or eldership. Usually one of the elders in a local assembly has a leadership gift and is part of the five-fold ministry mentioned in Ephesians 4:11 – apostle, prophet, evangelist, pastor, or teacher.
Nowhere in the Bible is any one man or woman given supreme authority over the entire church except for Christ himself.
This heresy arose after Constantine made Christianity the official religion of the empire, and the church began to fashion itself more like an earthly kingdom, complete with a king or Pope.
The ninth article shows how the non-biblical and false doctrine of Purgatory detracts from the finished work of Christ by claiming we must expiate our own sins by suffering prior to being pure enough to enter heaven.
The biblical doctrine of justification shows how God gives to us Christ’s perfect righteousness and relationship with God. He became sin so that we are now endowed with God’s own righteousness. (2 Corinthians 5:21)
The tenth article addresses the error behind indulgences which are supposed to remove the need to suffer in Purgatory either in part or completely. The Pope is supposed to control what is called the treasury of merit by which he can commute suffering in Purgatory. At the time of the Reformation, indulgences were being sold to ignorant people who believed their offering could free a loved one from suffering. This was one of the errors addressed by Martin Luther. Christ’s once for all sacrifice provided complete forgiveness, justification, and reconciliation to God. Nothing more can be added to it.
The only treasury of merit comes from Christ’s shed blood, which is freely bestowed on those who believe.
The eleventh article examines the RCC teaching on water baptism which conflates justification with water baptism, which is our public proclamation of allegiance to Christ. Only the blood of Christ can purify a soul and wash away our sins, not H20.
In this article I outlined the three baptisms listed in the New Testament: baptism into the body of Christ by the Holy Spirit which takes place at the new birth, baptism in water when we publicly identify with Christ, and the baptism in the Holy Spirit which equips and empowers us to be witnesses for Christ.
I show that water baptism should follow conversion, not be done prior as with infant baptism. Infant baptism is a syncretistic blending of Old Covenant circumcision with New Covenant believer’s baptism, resulting in error.
The last article examines the RCC’s non-biblical elevation of the Lord’s Supper into something that closely resembles, or perhaps is, idolatry.
Their doctrine of transubstantiation claims that the bread and wine become the actual body and blood of Christ. People are supposed to regard a piece of bread as if it were God himself, a very strange misconstruing of Jesus’ using the metaphor of bread and wine to illustrate partaking of him and the benefits of his sacrificial death by faith. It is sad that in the one instance in which the RCC chooses to take Jesus’ words literally, they should be understood metaphorically.
As can be readily seen, the RCC has not slightly veered off course. It actually teaches a different gospel, which in reality is not good news at all and brings upon it God’s judgment.
I am amazed that you are so quickly deserting Him who called you by the grace of Christ, for a different gospel; 7 which is really not another; only there are some who are disturbing you and want to distort the gospel of Christ. 8 But even if we, or an angel from heaven, should preach to you a gospel contrary to what we have preached to you, he is to be accursed! Galatians 1:6–8 (NASB95) —
Those who read their Bibles will understand how the RCC is incompatible with the pursuit of truth.
Even though there are genuine followers of Christ in the RCC, their presence is not grounds for overlooking the church’s egregious departure from truth or make it alright to be a Catholic. Instead it is somewhat of an enigma how Bible believing disciples can remain in a church that teaches and practices so much error. I do not believe it is a good idea to remain in it in an attempt to reform it from within. It did not work for Martin Luther, and it will not work for us. My conclusion is that we should pray that God will turn more and more Catholics to the truth, but those Catholics who know the truth already should seriously consider if God wants them to be part of something that is under his judgment for preaching another gospel.
