Hey Matt,

Regarding your well wishing of the Pope in his “moving all Catholics young and old to understand the Good News”, I’d be interested to know if you still feel that the Pope in fact has the “Good News” after reading my reply to Nick HERE.

I’m not trying to undermine your statement, but feel it’s important to point out to a fellow Christian that, as I mentioned to Nick, we’re either FOR Christ or AGAINST Christ. There is no middle ground here. So we are either spreading the true gospel message or a false gospel message. And I would argue, as I did in my comment to Nick, that the RCC does not have the true gospel message that is taught by the Bible and therefore the Pope, assuming he follows the teachings of the RCC, does not have the “Good News” to move people toward.

I do believe that we should pray for the Pope and Roman Catholics in general, but not as a general “well wishing sentiment”, but for their salvation. Because if they do not have the “Good News” in their possession then they are in desperate need of the true gospel message and the grace of God. In other words, if I see someone walking toward the edge of a cliff I’m not going to “hope him the best on his journey”, but instead cry out to him saying, “HEY!! You’re about to go over a cliff!! STOP!!”

Eric

You can ask countless questions and go down many rabbit holes while trying to determine what the RCC actually believes in light of what the Bible actually teaches, but I think you can cut straight to the heart of the matter by comparing the Christian gospel with that of the RCC.

As Christians we believe that we are saved by grace alone, through faith alone, in Christ alone. Those “alones” are crucial since the perversion of the gospel message all throughout history has hinged upon whether they are at their rightful place after each of those three declarations.

Now, before we get to the gospel message proclaimed by the RCC let’s look at an example of this sometimes subtle perversion of the gospel found in the Bible. Let’s take a look at Galatians 5:1-4 where Paul wrote:

“1 For freedom Christ has set us free; stand firm therefore, and do not submit again to a yoke of slavery.
2 Look: I, Paul, say to you that if you accept circumcision, Christ will be of no advantage to you. 3 I testify again to every man who accepts circumcision that he is obligated to keep the whole law. 4 You are severed from Christ, you who would be justified by the law; you have fallen away from grace.”

Here we see Paul denouncing the false gospel being proclaimed by the Judaizers (These were Jewish “Christians” who insisted that Gentiles not only had to have faith in Christ but be circumcised and become Jews in order to be saved.) He was stating the fact that those who even add a single work to the true gospel of grace were “obligated to keep the whole law”, “severed from Christ” and “have fallen away from grace”.

Now, let’s look at the gospel message of the RCC. First, let me just point out that when you tell a knowledgeable Catholic (i.e.. not just someone who says they’re Catholic, but one who actually knows what their church teaches) that their religion proclaims salvation by works they will deny it. They will do exactly what the Mormons will do which is point out that they believe that no one can be saved apart from God’s grace. But this is just a red herring since that’s not truly addressing the accusation.

Joseph Smith, the founder of Mormonism, stated in The Book of Mormon that “for we know that it is by grace that we are saved, after all we can do.” This is an example of removing the “alones” from the true Christian Gospel message. And in the same way you will find that the RCC says that indeed we are saved by God’s grace, BUT (and this is a HUGE BUT), without many different kinds of WORKS and essentially hoops to jump through to maintain this grace (notice that after that initial grace given to us by God we are now “taking it from here” in terms of “grace maintenance”) we will not be saved, but indeed fall out of grace and go to hell.

Here is a summation of what a Catholic must do to be saved:

“…the process of salvation for the Catholic means a Catholic must have faith in Christ and the Roman Catholic Church, participate in the sacraments, take the Eucharist, keep the commandments, perform penance, and do indulgences in order to attain, maintain, and regain salvation as well as reduce the punishment due to him for the sins of which he has already been forgiven.” (This reference can be found HERE)

So we can nit-pic all day long about who the RCC worships, who they pray to, etc… but I believe the real question is “what gospel message do they proclaim?” If it is not salvation by grace alone, through faith alone, in Christ alone then as Paul stated regarding those who add even ONE single work to this gracious gift of God, they are “obligated to keep the whole law”, “severed from Christ” and “have fallen away from grace”.

Now what a Christian says about the RCC or their new Pope on Facebook is a whole other discussion, but I think the core of your questions were alluding to whether or not the RCC is truly a Christian religion and if their new Pope should be celebrated by Evangelical Christians or even just politely accepted as a positive addition to a potentially Christian denomination. But I would argue that the Bible is clear when it comes to what the gospel is and is not and the RCC not only proclaims a different message than the Bible, but does so under the guise of “the one true church” (which, ironically, is the claim of the Mormon Church as well).

So to sum up my point and what I think is so important for any Christian to embrace, is the fact that as Christ said in Matthew 12:30:

“Whoever is not with me is against me, and whoever does not gather with me scatters.”

There is no fence riding in Christianity, no neutrality. Christ is either honored or dishonored. So I guess the question I would ask you is, based on what I’ve laid out above, does this “gospel” proclaimed by the RCC honor our Lord?

Eric

but, it is not something to HATE.

I wish the new Pope the best in moving all Catholics young and old to understand the Good News !