Salvation
The way of salvation according to the Roman Catholic Church |
This is
what the Roman Catholic Church teaches about salvation. |
By his sin
Adam, as the first man, lost the original holiness and justice he had
received from God, not only for himself but for all human beings. Adam and
Eve transmitted to their descendants human nature wounded by their own first
sin and hence deprived of original holiness and justice; this deprivation is
called "original sin". As a result of original sin, human nature is
weakened in its powers, subject to ignorance, suffering and the domination of
death, and inclined to sin (this inclination is called "concupiscence").
The world has fallen into slavery to sin. However, God in His love sent forth
His Son who died and rose from the dead on the third day so that men might be
saved, that is, redeemed from sin. But how can a man be
saved by Christ? Well, Catholic priests answer this question saying that
salvation is obtained by baptism and penance. Therefore, the ‘sacrament’ of
baptism and the ‘sacrament’ of penance are necessary for salvation, according
to the Roman Catholic theology. |
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Baptism |
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‘Through
Baptism we are freed from sin and reborn as sons of God; we become members of
Christ, are incorporated into the Church and made sharers in her mission:
Baptism is the sacrament of regeneration through water in the word’
(Catechism of the Catholic Church, 1213 – From now on I will call it CCC). In
other words, through baptism a man receives the forgiveness of original sin
and all personal sins, and becomes a son of God for he experiences the new
birth: ‘The fruit of Baptism, or baptismal grace, is a rich reality that
includes forgiveness of original sin and all personal sins, birth into the
new life by which man becomes an adoptive son of the Father, a member of
Christ and a temple of the Holy Spirit. By this very fact the person baptized
is incorporated into the Church, the Body of Christ, and made a sharer in the
priesthood of Christ’ (CCC 1279). Baptism consists in pouring water on the
candidate's head, ‘while pronouncing the invocation of the Most Holy Trinity:
the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit’ (CCC 1278). Baptism is administered
not only to adults but also to infants. |
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Penance |
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‘Those who
approach the sacrament of Penance obtain pardon from God's mercy for the
offense committed against him, and are, at the same time, reconciled with the
Church which they have wounded by their sins and which by charity, by
example, and by prayer labors for their conversion …. It is called the
sacrament of forgiveness, since by the priest's sacramental absolution God
grants the penitent "pardon and peace." It is called the sacrament
of Reconciliation, because it imparts to the sinner the life of God who
reconciles: "Be reconciled to God.’ (CCC 1422, 1424). ‘Christ instituted
the sacrament of Penance for all sinful members of his Church: above all for
those who, since Baptism, have fallen into grave sin, and have thus lost
their baptismal grace and wounded ecclesial communion. It is to them that the
sacrament of Penance offers a new possibility to convert and to recover the
grace of justification’ (CCC 1446). In other words, when a ‘Christian’
commits mortal sins (such as murder, blasphemy, adultery, fornication), he
loses his baptismal grace, and thus he is on the way to hell. That’s why he
needs to be reconciled to God. How can he be reconciled to God? The answer is
this: by the priest’s sacramental absolution, in that the priest has been
appointed by God to forgive men their sins and reconcile them to God. So he
must go to confess his sins to the priest (at least once a year), who will
grant him God’s pardon and peace. So the penitent will escape hell. You may
ask me, ‘Why do you say ‘when a Christian commits mortal sins’? Do you mean
that there are sins which don’t need to be confessed to the priest in order
to be forgiven? Yes, that’s exactly what the Roman Catholic theology teaches,
for if a ‘Christian’ commits the so called venial sins (for instance, if he
tells a lie in order to have fun, or if he tells a lie to excuse himself, or
if he steals a small sum of money from a rich man) he does not need to
confess his sins to the priest, for he can obtain the forgiveness of his
venial sins by repentance and good works. Otherwise he will expiate his
venial sins after death in purgatory, which is
a place of torment. |
Now let’s
come back to the confession to the priest. Even though the Roman Catholic
theology says that by the priest's sacramental absolution God grants the
penitent ‘pardon and peace’, the penitent is not completely absolved. Why?
Because ‘Absolution takes away sin, but it does not remedy all the disorders
sin has caused. Raised up from sin, the sinner must still recover his full
spiritual health by doing something more to make amends for the sin: he must
"make satisfaction for" or "expiate" his sins. This
satisfaction is also called "penance." The penance the confessor
imposes must take into account the penitent's personal situation and must
seek his spiritual good. It must correspond as far as possible with the
gravity and nature of the sins committed. It can consist of prayer, an
offering, works of mercy, service of neighbor, voluntary
self-denial, sacrifices, and above all the patient acceptance of the cross we
must bear. Such penances help configure us to Christ, who alone expiated our
sins once for all. They allow us to become co-heirs with the risen Christ,
"provided we suffer with him." (CCC 1459,1460).
That’s why the Roman Catholic theology affirms that a man is not justified by
faith alone, but by faith plus good works; because he needs to expiate his
sins (committed after baptism) by good works and sacrifices. You may ask now,
‘Can one who has made satisfaction for his sins say that he has been
completely absolved and justified and thus when he dies he will go to heaven?
Not at all. For in 1547 the council of Trent clearly stated: ‘If any one
saith, that, after the grace of Justification has been received, to every
penitent sinner the guilt is remitted, and the debt of eternal punishment is
blotted out in such wise, that there remains not any debt of temporal
punishment to be discharged either in this world, or in the next in
Purgatory, before the entrance to the kingdom of heaven can be opened (to
him); let him be anathema’ (Council of Trent, Sixth session, Canon XXX). As
you can see, even if a Roman Catholic does all the things commanded to him by
the Roman Catechism, he will never be able to say, ‘I am saved, and so when I
die I will go to heaven to be with the Lord,’ for not all the debt of eternal
punishment has been blotted out, that is, he still has some debts of temporal
punishment to be discharged both in this world and in purgatory. |
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Confutation |
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Water
baptism is to be administered by immersion to those who have repented and
believed, and it does not regenerate |
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In the
light of the Holy Scripture, the baptism taught and administered by the Roman
Catholic Church is not the water baptism instituted by our Lord Jesus Christ.
Here are the reasons. |
Water
baptism is to be administered by immersion. Here is what the Scripture says
about the baptism which was administered by Philip the evangelist to the
eunuch: “And as they went on their way, they came unto a
certain water: and the eunuch said, See, here is water; what doth
hinder me to be baptized? And Philip said, If thou believest with all thine
heart, thou mayest. And he answered and said, I
believe that Jesus Christ is the Son of God. And he commanded the chariot to
stand still: and they went down both into the water, both Philip and the
eunuch; and he baptized him. And when they were come up out of the water, the
Spirit of the Lord caught away Philip, that the eunuch saw him no more: and
he went on his way rejoicing” (Acts |
Water
baptism is to be administered to those who have repented and believed on the
Lord, and thus it can’t be administered to newborn babies for they are not
able to repent and believe in the Lord. In the early Church water baptism was
administered only to people who had believed. Here are some passages of the
Scripture which show this. “Then they that gladly received his word [the word
of Peter] were baptized: and the same day there were added unto them about
three thousand souls” (Acts 2:41); “But when they believed Philip preaching
the things concerning the kingdom of God, and the name of Jesus Christ, they
were baptized, both men and women” (Acts 8:12); “And Crispus, the chief ruler
of the synagogue, believed on the Lord with all his house; and many of the
Corinthians hearing believed, and were baptized” (Acts 18:8). As you can see,
in the light of these biblical passages, a person can’t be baptized unless he
has repented and believed in the Gospel. |
Water
baptism does not regenerate. For according to the Scripture we have been born
again not through water baptism but through the word of God, as it is
written: “For you have been born again, not of perishable seed, but of
imperishable, through the living and enduring word of God” (1 Peter 1:23 –
NIV), and again: “He chose to give us birth through the word of truth, that
we might be a kind of firstfruits of all he created” (James 1:18 – NIV). In
other words, it was not through water baptism that we became sons of God, but
through our faith in the Word of God. When we believed in the Word of God –
which states that Jesus Christ died on the cross for our sins and rose again
for our justification – we were made alive and became sons of God by the
power of the Word of God. The Scripture clearly teaches that a man becomes a
son of God by faith; John says: “He came to His own, and His own did not
receive Him. But as many as received Him, to them He gave the right to become
children of God, to those who believe in His name: who were born, not of
blood, nor of the will of the flesh, nor of the will of man, but of God”
(John |
Now you
may ask, ‘Since water baptism does not regenerate nor forgive sins nor
justify, why should a believer be baptized? What’s
the meaning and the importance of water baptism?’ Here is the answer to your
questions. |
The
apostle Peter says that water baptism is “an appeal to God for a good
conscience” (1 Peter |
All of us,
after we believed in the Lord, felt we needed to be baptized because we
perceived in us by the Spirit that even though we were sons of God washed in
the blood of Jesus Christ, we had to obey the Lord’s command concerning water
baptism in order to have a good conscience before God. Of course, we were
sure that we were both saved and forgiven, but, notwithstanding this, we felt
we had to be baptized in water according to the order given by Christ, our
Saviour. Therefore, according to the Scripture, by water baptism we obtained
a good conscience before God. |
At this
point, someone may ask: ‘Does a believer have a good conscience before he is
baptized? Or does the good conscience follow water baptism?’ Well, according
to the Scripture, the conscience of a believer is cleansed from dead works by
the blood of Jesus Christ and not by the water in which he is immersed after
believing, as it is written: “For if the blood of bulls and goats and the
ashes of a heifer, sprinkling the unclean, sanctifies for the purifying of
the flesh, how much more shall the blood of Christ, who through the eternal
Spirit offered Himself without spot to God, cleanse your conscience from dead
works to serve the living God?” (Hebrews 9:13-14 – NKJV). Therefore, it is
when a man believes in the blood that Jesus Christ shed on the cross for the
remission of our sins that his conscience is purified. In other words, it is
by faith in Christ that a man receives the remission of his sins, not ‘by
faith and water baptism’, but by faith alone. The apostle Peter said to
Cornelius and his household: “All the prophets testify about him that
everyone who believes in him receives forgiveness of sins through his name”
(Acts 10:43 – NIV), and Paul confirmed this concept by the following words he
wrote to the Romans: “God presented him as a sacrifice of atonement, through
faith in his blood” (Romans 3:25 – NIV). Therefore, every believer has a good
conscience before he is baptized. Why then does Peter say that water baptism
is an appeal to God for a good conscience? Because after one has believed in
the Lord he must strive to have a clear conscience before God, that is to say,
he must see that he keeps his conscience clear. How can he do this? Well, he
can do it by keeping the commands of the Lord, and among His commands is the
command concerning water baptism. The apostle Paul one day said before Felix:
“I myself always strive to have a conscience without offense toward God and
men” (Acts 24:16 - NKJV). He was an apostle of the Lord, thus He was a born
again Christian, washed in the blood of the Lamb, his conscience had been
cleansed from dead works by the blood of Jesus, and he had been baptized as
well, yet he stated that he was striving to have a good conscience (or a
conscience void of offense) before God and men. Therefore, no wonder that any
newborn babe in Christ feels he needs to be baptized in order to keep his
conscience clear before God. His conscience bears him witness in the Holy
Spirit that he must be baptized. Let me tell you something that happened to
me several months after my conversion. In 1984 I went to |
In
addition to this, by water baptism we were buried with Christ, as it s
written: “Know ye not, that so many of us as were
baptized into Jesus Christ were baptized into his death? Therefore we are
buried with him by baptism into death: that like as Christ was raised up from
the dead by the glory of the Father, even so we also should walk in newness
of life” (Romans 6:3-4). And since it is the dead who are buried and not the
living, we can say that when we were buried through baptism into the death of
Christ we had already died to sin, since we had repented of our sins and
believed in the Gospel. In other words, we were already born again, thus,
dead to sin, before we were immersed in water; and through baptism our old
man was buried with Christ. Just as Christ was already dead to sin when He
was buried (“for the death that He died, He died to sin once for all”, says
Paul. Romans |
Through
water baptism we told the devil and his ministers (as well as the people who
were present or heard about our baptism) that we have become disciples of
Jesus Christ, and that we do not want to live for ourselves any longer, but
we want to live for Him who died and rose again for us. So we proclaimed that
we have decided to deny ourselves and the pleasures of sin, which the devil
offers us through this evil world. For we should always remember that when we
were born again we were delivered from this present evil age, which lies
under the sway of the wicked one and we were conveyed into the kingdom of the
Son of God; and also that before our new birth we used to serve sin but after
the new birth we begin to serve righteousness. Water baptism, therefore, is an
act through which we proclaimed that we died to sin and to the world. Just as
through the Lord’s Supper we proclaim the death that the Lord died to sin
once for all, so through water baptism, which one undergoes once during his
life, we proclaimed that we died to sin and to the world. And keep in mind
that just as the Lord’s Supper is not the repetition of the Lord’s death, so
water baptism was not an act through which we died to sin because our death
to sin took place before we were baptized. Consider that in some countries to
be baptized in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ means to be condemned to
death by one’s countrymen: this is why many of our brothers in these
countries have been killed after water baptism, for thus they proclaimed
publicly their decision to follow Christ. That shows that in these countries,
according to the enemies of the Gospel, everyone who decides to be baptized
has decided to proclaim that he has denied his former religion and embraced a
new religion, and thus he deserves to be put to death for he is a traitor or
apostate. |
Water
baptism is an act through which we declared that we are not ashamed of
Christ, but we are willing to bear His reproach in this world of darkness.
Therefore, the fact that many believers, before their water baptism, have met
with strong opposition on the part of their unbelieving parents and relatives
is due to the fact that the devil, through those who are under his power,
tried to induce them to be ashamed of their Saviour. For the adversary knows
that Jesus said: “Whosoever therefore shall be ashamed of me and of my words
in this adulterous and sinful generation; of him also shall the Son of man be
ashamed, when he cometh in the glory of his Father
with the holy angels” (Mark |
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Christians
must confess their sins to God so that He may forgive them their sins |
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As we saw
before, the Roman Catholic theology says that ‘Christ instituted the
sacrament of Penance for all sinful members of his Church: above all for
those who, since Baptism, have fallen into grave sin, and have thus lost
their baptismal grace and wounded ecclesial communion. It is to them that the
sacrament of Penance offers a new possibility to convert and to recover the
grace of justification’ (CCC 1446). When did Christ institute the sacrament
of Penance? When He said to His apostles: “If you forgive the sins of any,
they are forgiven them; if your retain the sins of
any, they are retained” (John |
As you can
see, from the above mentioned incident we learn that in the days of the
apostles believers had to confess their sins, committed after their water
baptism, to God, and not to someone else, in order to obtain the forgiveness
of their sins. |
This is
confirmed by the apostle John, one of the apostles to whom Jesus said: “If you
forgive the sins of any, they are forgiven them”, who wrote in his first
epistle: “If we confess our sins, He is faithful and just to forgive us our
sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness” (1 John 1:9 – NKJV). To whom
did they have to confess their sins? To God, of course, for the apostle said
that if they – so he included himself – confessed their sins to God, He in
His faithfulness and righteousness, would forgive them their sins and would
cleanse them from all iniquities. It could not be otherwise, for John knew
that Jesus, when He taught them to pray, had commanded them to say to God:
“Our Father in heaven …. Forgive us our debts ….” (Matthew 6:9,12 – NKJV), and thus they had to address their confession
to God. A little further, still in his first epistle, the apostle John said:
“My little children, these things write I unto you,
that ye sin not. And if any man sin, we have an advocate with the Father,
Jesus Christ the righteous: And he is the propitiation for our sins: and not
for ours only, but also for the sins of the whole world!” (1 John 2:1-2).
Note that he did not say: ‘If any man sin, you have the apostles of the Lord,
or the elders, who can forgive you your sins’, but he said: “We have an
advocate with the Father, Jesus Christ the righteous”. That means that John
believed that even if a believer sins he will be forgiven by God, coming
directly to Him in the name of His Son. |
Let me
quote also the following words written by James, the brother of the Lord, to
the twelve tribes which were scattered abroad, so that you may understand
that the ‘sacrament’ of penance did not exist in the days of the apostles:
“From whence come wars and fightings among you? come
they not hence, even of your lusts that war in your members? Ye lust, and
have not: ye kill, and desire to have, and cannot obtain: ye fight and war,
yet ye have not, because ye ask not. Ye ask, and receive not, because ye ask
amiss, that ye may consume it upon your lusts. Ye adulterers and adulteresses, know ye not that the friendship of the world
is enmity with God? whosoever therefore will be a
friend of the world is the enemy of God. Do ye think that the scripture saith
in vain, The spirit that dwelleth in us lusteth to envy? But he giveth more
grace. Wherefore he saith, God resisteth the proud, but giveth grace unto the
humble. Submit yourselves therefore to God. Resist the devil, and he will
flee from you. Draw nigh to God, and he will draw nigh to you. Cleanse your
hands, ye sinners; and purify your hearts, ye double minded. Be afflicted,
and mourn, and weep: let your laughter be turned to mourning, and your joy to
heaviness. Humble yourselves in the sight of the Lord, and he shall lift you
up” (James 4:1-10). Now, according to the roman catholic theology those
believers had committed ‘mortal sins,’ in that they killed, they lusted, they
had become friends of the world and enemies of God. So James should have told
them to confess their sins to the apostles or to the bishops of the Church;
don’t you think? Yet he did not mention the ‘sacrament of penance’ at all, for
he said to them: “Draw nigh to God, and he will draw nigh to you. Cleanse
your hands, ye sinners; and purify your hearts, ye double minded. Be
afflicted, and mourn, and weep: let your laughter be turned to mourning, and
your joy to heaviness. Humble yourselves in the sight of the Lord, and he
shall lift you up”. Therefore, James also exhorted the saints to come to the
throne of God, to confess their sins to God and not to an apostle or another
minister of the Gospel. |
All the above
mentioned passages show that Christ gave no authority to the apostles to
forgive sins, for the apostles never exhorted the saints to confess their
sins to them. But they exhorted the saints to confess their sins to God so
that He might forgive them their sins. On the other hand, the early believers
had the writings of the Old Testament which confirmed that they had to
confess their sins to God and not to men, even though those men (that is, the
apostles of the Lord) were holy men who had known personally Jesus. For
instance, David said to God in the Psalms: “I acknowledged my sin unto thee,
and mine iniquity have I not hid. I said, I will
confess my transgressions unto the LORD; and thou forgavest the iniquity of
my sin” (Psalm 32:5). Do not these words prove that they had to confess their
sins to God alone? |
In the
light of what I have said, therefore, if we sin we must confess our sin to
God for God is ready to forgive us in His mercy, and He will certainly
forgive us our sin. |
Let all
those who confess their sins to the priest know that they are wasting their
time, for the priest has not the authority to forgive men their sins. |
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A true
Christian has the assurance that God has forgiven him all his sins, therefore
he is sure that when he dies he will go to be with the Lord in the Kingdom of
heaven |
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As I said
before, when a man repents of his sins and believes in Jesus Christ he
obtains the forgiveness or the blotting out of all his past sins, for it is
written: “All the prophets testify about him that everyone who believes in
him receives forgiveness of sins through his name” (Acts 10:43 – NIV).
Therefore a man’s conscience is cleansed from dead works by faith, and not by
water baptism for baptism follows faith (cf. Acts 15:9). Jesus Christ, by His
blood, cleanses the repentant sinner from all the sins he has committed, and
he becomes as white as snow in the sight of God. The repentant sinner
receives not only forgiveness of sins but also eternal life, for Jesus said:
“He who believes in Me has everlasting life” (John |
If anyone sins
after his conversion, he must repent of his sins and confess them to God, for
John wrote to the saints: “If we confess our sins, He is faithful and just to
forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness” (1 John 1:9 –
NKJV). As you can see, according to the promise of God, every child of God who
confesses his sins to God will be forgiven and cleansed from all
unrighteousness. This means that there remains no debt of temporal punishment
to be discharged either in this world, or in the next before the entrance to
the kingdom of heaven can be opened to him. In other words, after a child of
God has been forgiven by God, he must not ‘make satisfaction for’ or
‘expiate’ his sins. His debts have been forgiven and blotted out by the
precious blood of Jesus Christ, why then should he do something more to make
amends for the sins he has confessed to God? If we were to expiate the sins
we have confessed to God and which have been forgiven us,
that would mean that the forgiveness of sins promised by God to us is
a false forgiveness and thus God has told us a lie. However, God cannot lie
against the truth, but it is the papal theologians who lie against the truth,
as it is written: “Let God be true but every man a liar” (Romans 3:4 – NKJV),
for they make the Scripture say what it does not say. The truth is that the
blood of Jesus Christ cleanses us from all iniquities, and it is able to make
us whiter than snow: “Wash me, and I shall be whiter than snow” (Psalm 51:7 –
NKJV), says David in the Psalms. In other words, after we confess our debts
to God they are blotted out by the blood of Jesus, thus there remains no debt
of temporal punishment to be discharged. That’s why we have the assurance
that when we die we will go to heaven to be with the Lord at once; because
when we confess our sins to Him the blood which was sprinkled upon us
cleanses us from all iniquities and makes us as white as snow, so that by the
blood of Christ we are enabled by God to appear without stain before Him at
any moment. Therefore, we are not presumptuous in saying that when we die we
will go to heaven, but rather we show our trust in the purifying power of the
blood of Jesus Christ. There is no condemnation to those who are sprinkled
with the blood of Jesus Christ; there is no debt of temporal punishment to be
discharged either in this world, or in a so called purgatory,
before the entrance to the kingdom of heaven can be opened to them, because
the blood of Jesus made full satisfaction for all their sins. |
Brothers,
beware of what the papal theologians teach about salvation, for their teaching
is contrary to the sound doctrine. What they teach about salvation is a
damnable heresy which has plunged into the torments of hell hundreds of
millions of people so far all over the world. Stand firm in the faith,
confess your sins to God for He is a faithful and merciful God, and He will
forgive you and cleanse you from all iniquities by the precious blood of
Jesus. |
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Venial
sins and mortal sins |
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As we saw
before, according to the Roman Catholic theology sins are divided in two
classes: venial sins and mortal sins. |
The
Scripture says that “all unrighteousness is sin” (1 John |
However,
there is a sin of which a believer cannot repent, that is, the sin
unto death (cf. 1 John |
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Salvation
by grace and salvation by works |
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The
Scripture says: “And if by grace, then it is no longer of works; otherwise
grace is no longer grace. But if it is of works, it is no longer grace;
otherwise work is no longer work” (Romans 11:6 – NKJV). Therefore, if
salvation is by grace it cannot be by works, while if it is by works it
cannot be by grace alone. |
According
to the Scripture, salvation is by grace alone. In other words, a man is not
justified nor delivered from his sins nor does he receive eternal life by
works, but by grace alone. However, the Roman Catholic Church teaches that a man
is justified, delivered from his sins and receives eternal life by works. By
so doing the Roman Catholic Church sets aside the grace of God, and deceives
millions of people all over the world. Abhor their teaching and expose it
with all boldness. Read also
this confutation. |