The Gospel for Roman Catholics

Recently there has been a surge in prominent Evangelicals calling for unity with Roman Catholicism. In one sense there seems to be strong foundational similarities that would justify these calls to unity. Catholics are baptized in the name of the Trinity. God’s revealed word in the Bible -- setting aside their addition of the Apocryphal books, for argument’s sake -- is foundational to their worldview. Catholics love Christ and believe that he died on the cross and rose again to provide grace for sinners.

Obviously there are theological differences associated with the specific teachings of each one of these perceived similarities, and I do not want to minimize the importance of these differences. But for argument‘s sake, at least on the surface, there is some common ground.

There is also a strong agreement in ethical standards. Both Roman Catholics and Evangelicals ground morality on God’s holy nature as revealed in the law of God. This means that on the hot button moral issues of the day; the murder of the unborn, human sexuality, the sanctity of marriage there is solidarity between Roman Catholic and Evangelical ethics because they are coming from the same source. Again, this seems to justify a call to some sense of unity.

Are these good enough reasons to publically stump for visible unity with Roman Catholics? That question is beyond the scope of this post. But there is a more fundamental question that must be answered first. That question serves as the dividing line between followers of Christ and the world, which separates biblical Christianity from every other worldview; does Rome possess and preach the Gospel of Jesus Christ?

The author of the book of Hebrews in chapter 10 contrasts the gospel with that which is but a shadow of the gospel. He argues:

The argument being presented here makes it clear that Christ’s singular sacrifice, his death on the cross, perfects those for whom it is made for. This is the gospel. It is contrasted with the shadow of the gospel in which sacrifices were repeatedly made year after year because though they symbolized the atoning and perfecting sacrifice of Christ, they never themselves perfected those for whom they were made. The gospel of Jesus Christ perfects and any other religious strategies cannot.

This principle is directly applicable to the question of Roman Catholicism and the gospel of God. Roman Catholic worship centers on the mass. The mass is a series of liturgical practices that culminates in the Eucharist which according to paragraph 1068 of the Catholic of the Catholic Church (hereafter CCC) is a divine sacrifice. Paragraph 1367 of CCC calls the Eucharist a “truly propitiatory” sacrifice. This sacrifice is performed repeatedly in the life of a Catholic.

The reason the Eucharist is performed repeatedly is because even though it is claimed to be a propitiatory sacrifice that can make reparation for sins (CCC, 1414), it is a sacrifice that never perfects anyone. According to the Catholic message grace is something that you get from God by performing certain acts. First, God gives you the grace for faith in Jesus (CCC, 2000). Second, when you are baptized God graciously erases the sin of Adam from your record (CCC 1257). From that point on you get more grace by doing things like participating in the sacraments, including the Eucharist. The problem is that when you commit sins, you lose some of the grace you have gained and now need more lest your grace be found wanting at final judgment. This forces the Catholic into a position where they need to return day after day, week after week, and year after year to a priest who serves to repeatedly re-present the same sacrifice which never perfects those for whom it is made, since it only offers grace to cover some sin.

Roman Catholics need the gospel for the same reason we all need it. We are all sinners with such a messed up and low view of how holy holiness really is that we think somehow through our own efforts we can attain it. If we just had enough time and willpower we could somehow have our good deeds outweigh our bad, and this will please God just enough for me to be acceptable to him. This is a satanic lie. A satanic lie that to some degree or another we have all bought into at some point in our life.

But the truth is glorious. God is good and God is holy. He is more good and more holy than we can possibly imagine. God is so good and so holy that anything less than absolute perfection is unacceptable in his presence. It is because of God’s awesome goodness and awesome holiness that in his wisdom he has offered us grace, through faith in Christ. A good and holy sacrifice that absolutely without question completely perfects everyone for whom it is made.

I am an ex catholic.

Here's a little tale that explains it a bit better...

FREE KITTENS

A pretty little girl named Suzy was standing on the sidewalk in front of her home in Salt Lake City. Next to her was a basket containing a number of tiny creatures; in her hand was a sign announcing FREE KITTENS.

Suddenly a line of big black cars pulled up beside her. Out of the lead car stepped a tall, grinning man.

"Hi there little girl, I'm President Thomas Monson. What do you have in the basket?" he asked.

"Kittens," little Suzy said.

"How old are they?" asked Monson.

Suzy replied, "They're so young, their eyes aren't even open yet."

"And what kind of kittens are they?"

"Mormons," answered Suzy with a smile.

Thompson was delighted. As soon as he returned to his car, he called his PR chief and told him about the little girl and the kittens.

Recognizing the perfect photo op, the two men agreed that the president should return the next day; and in front of the assembled media, have the girl talk about her discerning kittens.

So the next day, Suzy was again standing on the sidewalk with her basket of "FREE KITTENS," when another motorcade pulled up, this time followed by vans from Deseret News, The Ensign magazine and KSL.

Cameras and audio equipment were quickly set up, then Thompson got out of his limo and walked over to little Suzy.

"Hello, again," he said, "I'd love it if you would tell all my friends out there what kind of kittens you're giving away."

"Yes sir," Suzy said. "They're Christians."

Taken by surprise, the Living Prophet® stammered, "But... but... yesterday, you told me they were MORMONS."

Little Suzy smiled and said, "I know. But today, they have their eyes open"

According to LDS sources; only about 15% of all MORMONs will make it tom the HIGHEST level of Mormon Heaven.

HEAVEN-The Mormon church teaches there are three levels of heaven (three "degrees of glory"):

Celestial - for Mormons who have kept ALL of the laws and ordinances of their church.

Terrestrial - for religious people who aren't Mormons and for Mormons who have not met the requirements of the Church.

Telestial - where unbelievers go

HELL: A place of torment from which the worst of sinners are resurrected (if they repent) into the Telestial kingdom; only a limited number remain in hell forever, - the devil and the demons and apostates who consciously reject and work against Mormonism.

SALVATION: A word that Mormons qualify in one of three ways: unconditional or general salvation is simply resurrection from the dead, granted to all through Christ's atonement; conditional or individual salvation involves entering the celestial kingdom through works of Mormonism; full salvation means exaltation to become a God as a result of temple ceremonies and other works. The word 'salvation' can have a two-fold meaning: a) forgiveness of sins and b) universal resurrection:

"There will be a General Salvation for all in the sense in which that term is generally used, but salvation, meaning resurrection, is not exaltation" (Stephen L. Richards, Contributions of Joseph Smith, LDS tract, p.5).
"All men are saved by grace alone without any act on their part, meaning they are resurrected" (Bruce McConkie, What Mormons Think of Christ", LDS tract, p.28).

The Mormons have several different levels of "salvation".

General salvation- in Mormon theology, the death of Christ ransoms men from the effects of the fall (Mormon Doctrine, p.62), except for a few sons of perdition who fell with Lucifer. Thus, all mankind will eventually receive general salvation because all men will be resurrected.
Individual salvation - to obtain individual salvation, the standards set forth by the Mormon church must be met. This comes by grace plus baptism plus works.
Exaltation - different degrees of exaltation
Eternal life on the other hand is reserved for the elite few who qualify and are found worthy of this "honor" or "reward" and who will move on to be "exalted." This salvation is in fact the personal "exaltation" or the fast track of the "eternal progression" process in attaining your own self-made status of godhood in order to people your own planet.

Once again I didn't read/ verify for myself if they quoted him in context.

John Anthony O'Brien was quoted accurately.

Here is a link The Faith of Millions: The Credential of the Catholic Religion scroll to pages 255 & 256 for the context. The "priest" attributed the saying to St. Thomas. I assume he means Thomas Aquinas.

I have been around long enough to see people with agendas "quote" things out of context to further their own ends.

Non-Catholics are exceptionally guilty of this.

That would be deliciously ironic if it were not so otherwise so vile & unpalatable due to how O'Brien and most other Romanists often take things far enough out of context from Scripture, history, earliest Church tradition (and early Church "fathers") in their own trumpeting (and bluffing) in regards to the Roman Catholic Church, which though as this particular John Schroeder noted on page 4 of the first chapter of About the Religion of Senators Kennedy and Kerry: An In-Depth Study of Catholicism...Its Heritage and Beliefs; though unarguably emerged from the apostolic Church, is not necessarily to be confused with that earliest Church, for there were others such as the Orthodox, which he mentioned first, before adding Arians, Docetists, Maricons, Ebionists and Gnostics, pointing towards how all "emerged from the same Christian roots and are eloquent proof that common beginnings do not guarantee the truth will be the end result."

Further, on this forum, RC apologists rarely give actual sources for their own claims (unless it be just list of links wherein someone has to go fishing for the argument some RC'er is attempting to make), but instead if source if given at all, it is most usually a derived source; somebody quoting someone else, without definite attribution as to from where precisely they are quoting this other individual, exampled here by O'Brien (link supplied!) to allegedly be quoting Thomas [Aquinas].

Now that that is settled, [cough, cough];

You may now answer the question posed to you by Resettozero at #845

Possibly helpful for everyone's additional consideration, in this portion of comment from discussion of O'Brien's book at the Amazon.com listing for it, although the book was apparently revised in the year 1974, it was for the greater part written much earlier. As one reviewer noted;

Rev. John A. O'Brien's The Faith of Millions provides a representative sample of American Roman Catholic apologetics from the early-to-middle part of the last century. Our Sunday Visitor originally published it in 1963, but some sources state that it was first published 25 years prior, in 1938.

I find this to be important, for all things considered, it helps bring into sharper focus how RC apologetic in regards to "the sacrifice of the Mass" has shifted in relatively recent times from how once commonly described by O'Brien (sacrificed again & again) to now a reliance upon invoking a metaphysical mysticism, merely accessing the once and for all time sacrifice of Christ.

This newer apologetic appears (to my own suspicious eye) to have come about in response to Protestants (and possibly others) pointing to how even some of the ECF's touched upon how Christ's sacrifice was once and for all AND that He (Christ) was now returned to where He was before, now [again] seated at the "right hand of the Father".

It's not as if the testimony of the early Church "fathers" was at all uniformly consistent with any inclusiveness for regard that the "flesh and blood" of the εὐχαριστίας (thanksgiving) be understood as the bread in corporeal sense becoming His body.

The language was somewhat figurative from the time Christ first told them "I am the bread that comes down from Heaven" for He was not the physical substance of the Passover bread itself which He broke and shared with the disciples, not was establishing then and there it was to be considered so, inclusive of regard that the bread later become His corporeal flesh.

No, that corporeal flesh of His he gave unto death upon the Cross, was buried then rose again three days later, then 40 days (give or take?) after Resurrection, in the sight of 3 witnesses (3 at least) Ascended back to where He was before.

The testimony of the Orthodox in regards to their own views of the priesthood of believers, and how that intersects, plays an integral role in the epiclesis lend support to opposition of the sacerdotalism of Rome and it's formal priesthood (alone) to bring about any change to the bread into "being" the body (of Christ), most particularly it be "flesh" as we would otherwise regards flesh to be.

That said, there is place for presbyter, elders deacons and bishops to both guard and present to assembly of ekklesia, Liturgy.

Honor those who labor in the word, eh? (1 Timothy 5:17, 1 Thessalonians 5:12).

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