Why you shouldn't become a Catholic - Mike Winger - Session 2 Contending for the Faith Conference

[Music] do it um okay so let's just we'll just say welcome back to our contending for the faith uh conference with mike winger and this was actually supposed to be a conference in phoenix mike was going to fly in we were going to do six sessions uh two on jehovah witnessed two on mormonism and two on catholicism all day we decided that's a good thing that didn't happen because that would have been too exhausting so uh because of the whole coronavirus madness we had to make this into a webinar so that's what we've done so real quick uh if you want to know more about our ministry go to here women's bible study dot com uh we have over 350 videos that you can watch on a plethora of different topics so that's how you get a hold of us and then we're grateful to mike winger his um [Music] website i'll also draw about there biblethinker.org i always say you definitely want to go there and listen to anything that mike has to say so how's that oh we already did our two but you're like that's that's pretty big uh we already did two sessions about jehovah witnesses two on mormonism and um now today we're going to talk about catholicism which is kind of a big deal actually for both mike and i were just it's a big topic um what do we say there's uh 1.2 billion catholics in the world and when you talk against not even against but confront that that's a big that's a big thing to do so um there is a place for you to write a question i have no idea if we're going to get to them just so you know that like please write the questions and then we'll we'll see at the end but we're at this point we got a lot to cover so all right this is how i want to start uh last week mike i was in california we were there for vacation and apparently you guys it's mandatory for you to wear face masks okay yeah um i think i'm supposed to even wear one right now while i'm alone at home i think i think is that required yeah but in phoenix when we left phoenix we were all fine we didn't have to wear face masks to go anywhere so i guess california and i went to walmart and i tried to talk my way out of it like i don't really have to wear a face mask do i oh you're in you you don't want to walk around here without a face mask unless you want to potentially be attacked well they said well basically if you want to shop you have to wear a mask so all that to say is that in this life there's all these rules that we have to abide by that aren't really suggestions and so it's kind of the same with what we're talking about today with this whole conference like god has like they're not suggestions on how to get to heaven and how to spend eternity with him it's really like his way only and so that's really the reason why we wanted to do this conference so we're not bashing anyone's religion so talk about that for a second oh yeah there's in fact to be honest um this is to me one of the hardest topics to cover catholicism because we have so much we agree on and in so many ways it is part of the christian tradition yet there's out there also important areas really important areas where there is disagreement and it's major disagreement and so it's it's like this challenge you see catholics on one side who you're like i love you and i want to have a relationship with you and i want to affirm you as much as i can you know with truth and on the other side i say but then there's this thing called catholicism that has specific doctrines and teachings and has made claims claims about the whole earth claims about the whole church claims about salvation and a bunch of stuff that's that we have to look at and we have to examine and it ends up being a hairy issue but it's too important not to talk about and so many people won't even address it even guys i know who are great at theology you know great at studying and thinking about these types of things they won't talk about catholicism they just like yeah i don't deal with that issue right and um and so i want to hopefully not be harsh and judgmental and cruel about it or misrepresent and also not pretend like these things don't actually matter when they really do they really do i think that's the thing like when jude said like you've got to contend for the faith that was once delivered to me like what does that mean which actually will will bring about our first question which we've done i think each one of these segments like first of all even just go what is the faith once delivered because people are going to be confused at that right away yeah so we get this actually in in the book of jew where it says that we should contend earnestly for the faith that was once and for all delivered to the saints and that phrase the faith we we often think is talking about your personal uh act of believing but it's not it's actually talking about like the doctrines like the beliefs the theology you might say of that was once and for all delivered to the saints about who jesus is and how he saves us these are kind of the primary things and so we have like romans 1 16 for instance paul his attitude about the faith he says i'm not ashamed of the gospel of christ for it is the power of god for salvation to everyone who believes to the jew first and also to the greek so that we're seeing that you're saved by these this message of the gospel the gospel is is like a list of truths you know um it's things that we're supposed to believe about jesus about his death and resurrection about our sin and about uh how he saves us so these things are pretty important in believing this gospel in responding to god's truth that he's revealed you relationally become joined to him you become saved so these are in other words it's kind of like saying if i if i handed you a pill and i said you're going to die unless you take this pill and let's say that it's true how important is that pill right that's pretty important how important are the ingredients in that pill that it's made just the right way that's pretty important and so that's like the faith it's like these core you know central issues of christianity that we we must hold to we must fight for not physically but we have to be committed to and strive to maintain and you can't add someone you can't take away you can't be like well i'm just going to add a few things to it yeah yeah we don't want to add or take away and we don't want to just say like some people do well it's just about jesus it's not about theology mike it's just about jesus it's like yeah but you don't know a single thing about jesus unless you do theology like that's what that's what the word jesus unless it has a a theological meaning it's not about anything and so yeah we we have a um like for instance in in the book of galatians the apostle paul he deals with false gospels in particular a false gospel that does relate to the conversation we're having today in galatians 5 4 he says you are severed from christ you who would be justified by the law you've fallen away from grace now the the thing that i want to point out about galatians in particular is that the group of people that are there they believe in jesus they believe in his death and resurrection they believe in who he is right there's paul's not rebuking them for confusion about the person of christ the one thing he rebukes them for is that after they thought they were saved by grace they started adding works and thinking that those works were going to help accomplish their ultimate salvation that it was required of them and he effectively he flips out right he apostolically flips out on them and writes galatians and he's like you're severed from christ if you would be justified by the law you've fallen away from grace so what i'm saying is it's not just who jesus is that matters it's also how he saves that seems to be a biblical principle that we have to hold to if we're going to be honest with scripture so every christian is called to know and fight for this this this pill in my in my metaphor this pill of essential theology about jesus and salvation perfect all right let's talk about let's talk about this whole idea of catholicism because it is like you said extremely complicated it just is and a lot of catholics they don't even know what the church teaches which is kind of interesting to me and so i want to cut to have you talk about that because we did um a short thing on catholicism at bible city one time and people were just they came up and said i had no idea the catholic church teaches that so why why is that talk to us a little about that well let me let me say from the outset um i've i've spent a lot of hours on this topic and i'm very open to changing my mind i've i in all honesty i want to change my mind um my concerns are that catholicism does touch and alter essential gospel truths and it breaks my heart i don't want to say that right like i i mean i'm just being my bias is i don't want to say this i want to find a way to be able to affirm that the gospel of jesus is intact in the authoritative teachings of the catholic church and and it breaks my heart that i say well in some of the teachings it seems intact and other teachings it seems like very much like it has been compromised so i'm also convinced that this is the case um now when i talk about the complexity of catholicism um let me just mention for those who don't know perhaps maybe you're not catholic you were you weren't raised catholic they actually have a lot more than the bible that they have to look to to understand what they're supposed to believe so they do include the bible right the bible's an authority but then there's this new authority or a secondary authority which is ultimately the pope and the bishops who are in agreement with the pope they have to be in agreement to be kind of included in that group and then the priests that are underneath them in the new testament there are no priests there i mean well i'll put it this way first peter 2 9 it tells us you are chosen race a royal priesthood a holy nation so we're we're all priests in the new testament but the roman catholic church says yeah you're all priests but in addition to that in addition to that there is a special class of priests and they can give us access to to the body and blood of christ access to forgiveness access to the treasury of merit the forgiveness of certain kinds of sins and others you have to go up the ranks to a bishop um in scripture a bishop and an elder are synonymous terms they're these are leaders in local fellowships they're not even leading whole cities they're just leading local fellowships of christians and groups of these guys come together and kind of lead a city group well in catholicism there's they separate this and they say no no bishop is different than elder and in the catholic catechism the catechism the catholic church which is this book right here this is like an official teaching from rome it's oh boy um 900 pages there's a lot of documents here but this is like a pretty authoritative coming from rome on what catholics are supposed to believe and this is separate from scripture of course although it quotes the bible a lot but in the in the catechism of the catholic church 1549 it says the bishop this new class of people that's different than the new testament is like the living image of god now the pope is considered the chief bishop he's like the bishop of bishops and in the catechism in paragraph 937 it says the pope enjoys by divine institution nothing less than supreme full immediate and universal power in the care of souls so the the pope is is is the boss right he's the boss actually in catholicism he's the boss of the world he stands as the representative of jesus on earth and he's in charge of all of all the christians all the believers in jesus and he's also ultimately in charge of secular governments whether they choose to obey him or not that's his job he is he outranks them um the official titles of the pope are vicar of jesus christ successor of the prince of the apostles supreme pontiff of the universal church the primate of italy the archbishop uh and metropolita and metropolitan of the roman province the sovereign vatican city state the servant of the servants of god these are like official titles of the pope so when when we look at the pope in the catholic church we're not looking at a pastor who's like a pastor for everybody or some it's no it's it's a different kind of role altogether the degree of authority that's there they claim that he has the the ability to infallibly tell you what the bible means that the pope or the church when when they're in agreement with him have the ability to infallibly declare doctrines that you maybe who've never heard of but you are now required to submit to so these are pretty strong claims i mean if someone your local church down the street was like hey guys i'm in charge of the whole world like you you would you would be like that's a big claim right this is a big claim to authority and the question is whether it's biblical or not but at least you should know that's a big claim there's um various issues related to that we'll talk more about later but that's just the roles the bishop the priests the pope in addition they also have not only the bible but what they call sacred tradition and sacred tradition is basically the same as scripture they call it the word of god and they they survey kind of through church history and sort of pull out little pieces of church history and they go that's that's sacred tradition this is something you have to obey it's difficult to know what the catholic church thinks is authoritative tradition because it's it's it's just not really lined out very carefully like when a church fathered their quoting is authoritative or when he's he's not um it's very difficult to tell so this makes it confusing like you said complicated but how much content is there well there's 21 ecumenical councils the ecumenical councils are different than the church fathers in that these are as far as catholicism teaches this is when like the pope and the bishops are in agreement and so the things that is that are taught in these 21 councils throughout church history they are authoritative infallible and true so it's a little more complicated than that but that's the general idea but just so you get an idea this is the text from just one of those councils vatican ii this is the most recent council in the 1900s this is the text from just the one council we've got 400 pages of content one of the 21 councils what is in there like what what are they just telling like doctrine about or what you believe yeah it's a huge variety of stuff in here so um it's going to talk about decrees about beliefs about the role of the pope um and they actually upgraded uh prior to this they basically would have thought from the council of trent or previous council they would have thought that non-catholics who will not submit to the pope and they know about him and won't submit that they're basically they're basically damned but vatican ii upgraded non-catholics to separated brethren because the catholic church is very much interested in like rejoining reconnecting everyone together but this is key they still want to connect everyone together under the authority of the pope okay so nothing's really substantially changed there um so there's lots of different declarations that are in there um this is the council of trent this is probably the most important council in my opinion in the in the roman catholic church at least for our interests and the council of trent was in response to the reformation of martin luther and john calvin and those guys what they did was they gathered pardon me they gathered together and they declared infallibly a whole bunch of stuff that we'll talk about today we'll actually get into today but you start to add all this stuff up you've got the bible you've got this you've got the other councils the other i mean 19 councils of the catholic church you have church tradition so you have all these church fathers that you could make a mountain out of the books from the church fathers the first 800 years of the church and this stuff starts to get overwhelming um i think a lot of catholics don't really know what catholicism teaches and i've even talked to informed catholics who didn't know what trent said i mean these are catholics that are smart intelligent thoughtful they read they study but it's just such a massive amount of data right so when i talk about catholicism i mean all this official stuff i don't mean catholics catholics may or may not even know or agree with even informed thoughtful i've talked to a catholic apologist who disagreed with the council of trent i read to him from the council of trenton he just said i said what do you think of this and he said i don't really know i don't know what to do with that so i don't want to assume anything about any catholic even if they're educated right um so yeah there's there's countless countless stuff there's there's also latin terms that are confusing in catholicism for a lot of people the priesthood where the priest is an altar chris do the the treasury of merit the nature of transubstantiation purgatory indulgences the magisterium the seven sacraments mortal and venial sins and those all weigh in very heavily on whether you are saved or not right so i actually asked a different gospel um what's that it really does become a different gospel when you add all of that stuff into it it's not just the simple gospel that that you know we're supposed to yeah it's definitely not simple it's definitely added to the gospel and then the real tough question is do those additions actually compromise the gospel or are they just like unnecessary additions and in many cases they're just unnecessary additions but in other cases i think that they really do compromise the actual gospel of christ the gospel of grace so um i asked a devout roman catholic friend how to be saved i was like how is it that not just when i am like a baby getting baptized like how is it that me you know i put my faith and trust in christ and then i'm like i get old and i die 70 years old i die how is it that i will be saved please just explain it to me and he said that he didn't want to answer the question he's a devout roman catholic thoughtful man because he was afraid he would get the answer wrong because on catholicism the gospel is incredibly complicated and that's that's that's the concern we had dinner with a priest one time and i asked him if he were to die that night um would he go to heaven and he was like i have no idea i said well what about me am i going and he said well i'm a speedboat you're a robot that that was his comment and i was like well you're a rowboat yeah i mean he's going to get there faster than me and i'm thinking i i said i don't think that's really what the bible says but anyway okay go to like unlike mormonism and jehovah witness catholics really do believe a lot of the same thing so like you know we know catholic jehovah's witnesses and mormons do not believe in the same jesus of the bible but catholics do so what are a couple things that we do agree on well um this is huge this is i mean this this catholicism is not mormonism it's not jehovah's witnesses i don't really feel like i can put it in the same category and not i felt like we needed to talk about it yeah and these are some of the reasons why um we believe in jesus like catholics would hold arm and arm with me to proclaim who jesus was that he was born of a virgin he lived a sinless life he rose bodily from the grave he ascended to heaven and he's returning in glory to judge mankind they would affirm all these things they would affirm the trinity the very nature of god which is a huge huge issue i mean this is a big issue that separates you know true christian doctrine from false doctrines um and they would affirm that there's one god he exists eternally and three distinct but co-equal persons father son and holy spirit this sets catholicism apart from like some sort of weird apparent groups it's not it's not islam it's not mormonism it's not jehovah's witnesses it's not any of that kind of stuff it is truly i mean you could say it's truly a christian tradition it's truly a christian tradition and and as far as the world's concerned as far as the visible church is concerned there's so many ways in which catholicism is part of christianity it is and and i want to acknowledge that they respect the bible it goes more than that they respect the word of god that the old and the new testaments are inspired that's a belief that they're infallible that's you know a lot of catholics believe that some of the theologians nowadays are a little on that but the same can be said for some protestant theologians this is just a doctrine that a lot of people are compromising um but the problem is that the bible while they respect it and believe it's god's word it's not the only word of god in catholicism right there's the there's a lot more outside the bible that is considered god's word than in the bible that's considered god's word that's a problem um but on things like moral issues like pro-life issues pro-marriage pro-family values we're so in agreement on on tons of essential and divisive issues we agree with with catholicism and catholics so even the first creeds of the church the first creeds of the church that are kind of like meant to like separate true christianity from you know false beliefs we would agree with those we'd be able to echo you know the nicene creed together but there becomes a lot of problems as you keep tracking down and those problems do touch the gospel itself yeah okay you know it's funny because people are like why are you just being so nitpicky about this like like it's ridiculous we're just we're close enough like i kind of don't think that's true and i think that's what scares me the most it's like this is a big issue because salvation is at stake yeah i i wanted i wish i was being nitpicky i even called friends uh multiple people um who are you know they do theology they're theology guys i even talked to the author of a book on catholicism who's a protestant who affirms that catholics are that their gospel is good their gospel is solid right and while i would affirm lots of catholics are saved lots of catholics are saved i think it's in spite of the teachings of catholicism i'm going to address the teachings today not the salvation of every individual catholic which is depending on what they personally believe um but but yeah i don't i don't think that's the case um i i call these guys and i was like please help me convince me please help me that the catholic gospel doesn't compromise the essential gospel of jesus christ when it comes to working for your salvation and what i found was that even the christians that i talked to who affirmed that the catholic gospel does save that it's salvific that according to trent according to the official canons of the church those guys didn't have any really good reasons like they just said well you know you don't have to have right theology in order to be saved or perfect theology and i was like yeah well i agree you don't have the perfect theology but it seems to me that the book of galatians outlines that you do need to believe it's by grace right and that when you add works it's no longer the gospel of christ that this seems to be the clear teaching of relations and the guys i talked to were like yeah that's a tough one and i thought here they are affirming that this gospel is true which is a big affirmation yeah and they don't even have a good reason and that concerns me so um it's not just the gospel though there's other issues too that do really matter even though they're not self salvation related and that is that the catholic church has this the magisterium or the the authoritative teaching structure of the catholic church the pope ultimately and the bishops when they agree with him these are radical authority claims that they make and tons of new doctrines have been added over the years um we we just can't we can't just pretend that nothing's in fact this is the version of ecumenicism that we get from catholicism hey those issues don't matter now come under the wing of the church and accept all of our authority and you're like wait a minute you can't say it doesn't matter and then still keep making your authority claims it it turns out that the roman catholic church is the divisive one they're saying we have full authority over you and you just need to give in and that's their version of ecumenicism is like yeah just just just yield all right just yield to these authority claims and we'll talk more about the authority too if you had 30 seconds in an elevator to tell someone what the difference what would you say that's tough so let me give it a shot um maybe i could try to boil it down to like just a handful of issues and i'd say well um the first thing i'd say is you know catholics stick around hear me out you probably feel like i'm personally attacking you but you haven't heard the reasons all the reasons i'm going to give for why i'm saying these things but i'll say that i do think the catholic church has unbiblical authority that the roman catholic church in particular and especially the pope they claim authority over every christian how we live and what we believe and that we have to actually be submissive to the pope in order to be saved this is an official claim of the church although it's muddied by vatican ii but it is a classic claim with the false authority that they have that they weren't given by jesus and that isn't in the new testament or the first century or the second century or the third century without false authority they made countless additions and changes to the bible adding unbiblical traditions and jesus had a problem with this right he complained about the pharisees because they were teaching his doctrines the commandments of men in mark 7 7 yeah you're teaching as doctrines the commandments of men this this is what jesus came against if jesus comes against that sort of thing shouldn't i if paul comes against a gospel that adds works shouldn't i do the same and the gospel itself in catholicism is confused it's fundamentally i hate to say it but it's been compromised compromised the grace of christ right the official teachings here i'm not talking about individual catholics who may affirm the grace of jesus christ entirely but the official teachings of the church is that gracious is um necessary but it's not enough right you need works too and the councils outright deny the sufficiency of faith in christ for salvation you have to add your works to earn your salvation and those works are not just fruit of what jesus did so that ultimately speaks of a rejection of the of the fullness of the sacrifice of christ and it sounds to me like a compromise of the gospel right yeah it sounds like that to me too um talk to me because whenever i talk to people about catholicism they'll say but we were the first church we were the first people so can you kind of give i had a girl write to me before and to ask like at what point in history did the church be the catholic church like it's very confusing like you know so explain that history uh you know so we can understand it better yeah um i've heard this a lot too and it does come up a lot this is this is um this is a good sign that the person you're talking to hasn't really thought about these issues and definitely hasn't studied maybe they've looked at like catholic answers website or something but they haven't like actually studied the topics themselves so the word catholic you know originally the word just means universal that's all it means it's not a title for a denominational group catholicism is basically like a big denomination it's not a title for that it just means universal originally the the early church writers would use the term it never it's never in the new testament but they use the term to say we're talking about true believers everywhere that's all they meant by the true church by the catholic church the universal church or you might think of the invisible church the all the real believers in jesus everywhere over time over time hundreds and hundreds of years rome started saying the catholic churches whoever is submitting to rome okay this is radically sectarian this is like what are you doing dude this is like the gospel of christ is this organic thing that creates this organism of the body of christ they're saying you know whoever submits to rome that's ultimately the catholic church roman catholic as a title is not the same as saying the universal church where you're using the word like a definitional term universal instead of a name for a denominational type schismatic group which is what catholicism ultimately is the first church was in the first century right in the new testament epistles and acts we can read about this early church we don't you don't read about the roman catholic church in the bible anywhere or in the first century or the second century for that matter there's a there's a book by jerry walls and kenneth collins that i would recommend i think it's very interesting don't agree with them on everything but a lot of great content on there and it's called roman but not catholic and that's kind of their thesis in their book it's like oh yeah you're the roman church but when you say you're the catholic church that's not true you aren't the universal church you're you're claiming this like special status for your group and trying to rob it from everybody else and that's what we would say in response yes there is a catholic church it's the universal church like lowercase c the catholic church but when you say catholicism is the universal church that's just not true so after um jesus after the early church after the apostles how how did it even show up like you know what i mean because it went bishop and then different areas and i mean how did suddenly peter's the pope like how did that even happen well that happened really gradually over time and so um the the first time we see a connection between bishops and peter that i'm aware of is in the late second century so over 100 years after jesus we have leo um in rome who's suggesting that that he's getting um that his office connects to peter's office he's connecting it to peter but at the time they were more thinking that every bishop is connected to peter it wasn't like just the roman guy is that wasn't really the the view that was much later development over time so basically and we'll get more into this a little later but but the development is very gradual and historical and what i think most catholics think is that the modern roman catholic view of who the pope is and of his role that that was pretty much held throughout time and that's demonstrably false there's just there's no way to maintain this belief even though you have to believe that to believe what the councils of the church say they're like it's always been the case but we'll talk a little bit more about that i think later uh some questions on that all right okay so the next question is this uh like we we talk a lot about um how the catholic church is added on to jesus alone like we're saying faith in jesus that's just the way it is so this is going to be a really long like this will probably take up the rest of the first session i would assume um but it's really really important to see what what have they added to this whole jesus alone concept so all right well what i'm going to do here and i want to remind catholic viewers of this pardon me is that i'm going to be quoting from catholic sources so if you want to say that i'm misrepresenting catholicism what you need to do is go to those quotes and figure out why they don't mean what i'm saying they mean or what they seem to mean as you read them at face value don't just assert as i see in my videos all the time mike doesn't understand catholicism and i'm like i just quoted trent you just quoted the catechism you know you need to do better than that you can't just wave my way wave it away so i encourage people to really think these things through i know that our our blood gets hot i'm trying not to be that way i encourage you to not be that way as well so um in a biblical view of of the gospel right we trust in jesus that is we repent and believe so i turn from sin towards faith in christ and i get all of the benefits of christ through faith meaning i don't do anything to earn it so i have justification which means that the imputation of my sin to jesus like it talks about in first corinthians that that happens i have i am then declared righteous and this is key and the righteousness i have it's a declaration and it's god's righteousness or jesus's righteousness not my own so philippians 3 9 talks about this notice that the righteousness i have is not my own it says and be that paul wants to be found in him in jesus not having a righteousness of my own that comes from the law but that which comes through faith in christ the righteousness from god that depends on faith as in not works because to paul faith and works are two antithetical ideas it's either faith or works and he's like you get righteous and you get there by faith apart from your works so that that's the gospel right you're saved by faith in fact ephesians 2 verses 8 through 10 it says by grace you have been saved through faith and this is not your own doing it is the gift of god not a result of works so that no one may boast for we are his workmanship created in christ jesus for good works which god prepared beforehand that we should walk in them notice this i included verse 10 because i know it's important here we're saved apart from works but works are then a future result of our salvation right we then do good works because we're saved we don't do them to get saved so saved by grace through faith apart from works resulting in works this is this is because romans 11 6 it gives us and this is honestly this is one of my key verses in the whole issue with catholicism romans 11 6 says if it is by grace it is no longer on the basis of works otherwise grace would no longer be grace catch this this is key paul the apostle inspired by the holy spirit is defining the terminology of salvation and he says grace means no works if you add works it's not grace anymore and that's going to be my thesis on on catholicism once you add works it's not grace anymore so you could say oh it's grace plus works but ultimately it's just works now based on what paul says in romans 11 6. i've never heard a good catholic response to romans 11 6. i'd like to i'm interested but i've asked it's never heard one so romans 10 verses 3 and 4 giving us the gospel it says for being um excuse me giving explanation of why um the the jews many of the jews not all of them were rejecting the gospel of christ it says they were being ignorant of the righteousness of god and seeking to establish their own they did not submit to god's righteousness for christ is the end of the law for righteousness to everyone who believes yet catholicism will teach that we're we maintain our salvation through our righteous deeds romans 4 verses 4 through 5 it says this not of the one who works his wages are not counted as gift but as his due and to the one who does not work but believes in him who justifies the ungodly his faith is counted as righteous now in roman catholicism this whole idea of do of of what you're what you are owed d-u-e that concept is actually part of the gospel they think that you're gonna you're gonna be owed salvation because of what you did this is a big now they're going to add jesus so it's jesus and you but but according to romans 11 6 according to the gospel of of uh the new testament this is not the case like this isn't a possibility so we have all these beautiful things right what we're we're saved we're justified the righteousness of jesus is imputed to me as my sins have been imputed to him um and then salvation results in then following up sanctification that's a fancy word for you become more like jesus right you're more godly in your heart in your behaviors but that's the fruit of salvation salvation is clearly by grace through faith that's my salvation the result of it as it plays out in my life is fruit this is what first john talks about he's like basically if i could summarize first john for us right hey if you're saved you're going to look like it right and he doesn't say you're going to be good to earn your salvation he's talking about it being if you're born of god you're going to love like this is the result of it it's not how you get it it's what it causes that's that's huge now let's talk about the roman catholic view instead of the i went through sort of a biblical view very briefly and quickly a roman catholic view is that your justification and your final entrance into eternal life it requires sanctification or your obedience your personal holiness and their view of justification is very different than what we see from paul the apostle who he seems to think justification is your declared righteous like god declares you righteous on behalf of christ's righteousness so it's it's alien to me right not of not of myself a righteousness is not from my works it's from christ but on catholicism justification is is like a substance you're given where god like makes you righteous or makes you a good person and then you have to live out that good person life in order to keep your salvation okay so it's so it's uh god does work in me so grace is involved but then it's completed by works starts with grace finishes with works so it's a process let's read from the council of trent canon 32 where it says if anyone says that the good works of the one justified are in such manner the gifts of god that they are not also the good merits of him justified or that the one justified by good works that he performs notice that the guy's justified according to them by good works he performs by the grace of god in the merit of jesus christ whose living member he is does not truly merit an increase of grace eternal life and in case he dies in grace the attainment of eternal life itself and also an increase of glory let him be anathema so let's leave this on the screen this text here for a minute but i want you guys to realize first we don't usually talk this way so you don't really start a long run-on sentence this is just you know people just did this more in the past than they do currently but they're saying look if you make these claims you're anathema and if you're so if you deny that you are meriting an increase of grace through your good works then you're you're anathema which means you're accursed now there's a debate over what anathema means does it mean we just kick you out of the catholic church or does it mean you're not saved like i'm not going to worry about that the point is is giving you the doctrine of catholicism you merit an increase of grace now if we could go to romans 11 6 here's my point meriting grace is incoherent it's it's a meaningless phrase these are words that just don't make any sense when you put them together because merit is earning and grace is unearned romans 11 6 if it's by grace it's no longer on the basis of works otherwise grace would no longer be grace this is like shocking and this is these are the verses i quote in trend to every catholic i talk to i say explain this to me and i've yet to see a good answer um in response let's let's give you another one trent canon 24. now this is the authoritative according to the church the catholic church infallible teaching of the church they say if anyone says that the justice received is not preserved and also not increased before god through good works but that those works are merely fruits and signs of justification obtained but not the cause of its increase let them be anathema now this is still doctrine in catholicism they have not left behind trent um and you can look at the modern catechism of the catholic church paragraph two zero six eight this is this is more recent right this is the you know in case people are thinking well trans old school but like you don't understand catholicism if you think trent doesn't apply anymore the council of trent teaches that the ten commandments are obligatory for christians and that the justified man is still bound to keep them the second vatican council confirms the bishops successors of the apostles received received from the lord the mission of teaching all peoples and of preaching the gospel to every creature and then listen to how it defines the gospel so that all men may attain salvation through faith baptism and the observance of the commandments so this is significant because the the catholic church is teaching us that we can get saved in part by observing the commandments by doing good works now we would agree that we're bound by our faith and trust in christ and our new birth to obey god and to walk in holiness and you can't just easily believe his oh i believe and i can do whatever i want with my life we're not teaching that but they're teaching that these works are actually causing you to be saved and they say that that's the gospel now when we go to the bible it seems to completely refute this in the verses i quoted before but i'll add another galatians 2 16. it says yet we know that a person is not justified by works of the law what what did they say you're going to increase your justification through obeying the commandments those are works of the law right galatians 2 16 says you're not justified by works of the law but through faith in jesus christ so we also have believed in christ jesus in order to be justified by faith in christ and not by works of the law because by works of the law no one will be justified so i have to pick between you know paul's view in rome's view in rome's view we're saved by grace and works but paul makes it very clear there's no both and here it's one or the other and he adds this is the scary part to me he's like and if you add works grace is gone yeah and that's the part that scares me because i i don't feel like i can just say um catholicism yeah they have a wrong gospel but it's okay they're still saved because you don't have to be right about everything to be saved sure you have to be right about everything but you do have to be right about this i think based on what you know galatians teaches us so it's possible in roman catholic theology um that you could have true faith in jesus but not have enough of your own good works to actually be saved because it involves grace and works works aren't just fruit they earn grace which is an incoherent idea but that's what they teach staying saved you staying safe depends on your good works and it's not just do good stuff so let's talk about some of the good works that you're supposed to do because we talked about just the commandments you're supposed to obey the 10 commandments they say but there's more first you get baptized it starts with baptism according to the catholic church being justified or declared righteous before god is actually a process it's a process and it begins at the moment of baptism and then progresses and is maintained by a person's participation in these seven sacraments have you heard of the seven sacraments before yeah most of us have right we've at least at least heard of the seven sacraments even if we're not too familiar with them i know you have because you watched my teachings on this stuff so but the seven sacraments of the catholic church are and i'll go through them really quick here my version of really quick um baptism one is the first one i'll mention is baptism um specifically you're supposed to be baptized with a a formula that's approved of by the church um and it generally happens at infancy generally it's important for one second because when you're talking about the sacrament so this is what they have to do to acquire grace into their life so in order to be saved this is something that they are required to do yes they see the sacraments as ways of getting grace okay and i love and i can't wait to get to that part about grace because it that totally made me understand now how catholics think like i never knew that before so we'll get to that eventually but yeah they have to do go ahead yeah like i said thankfully a lot of catholics wouldn't even would be like wait trent says what like right now they're learning and they're going i didn't know that because lo and behold they've been catholic their whole life and they never even believed this and i'm like yeah you know because i want them just to trust in jesus christ man and whether they are officially catholic or not is not my main concern i want them to be saved but but this is the teaching of the church um so so you start by getting baptized according to the catholic encyclopedia baptism quote makes us christians um and it's also according to vatican ii baptism is quote only a beginning but necessary for salvation so baptism is one of the many steps that you need to take in order to be saved now against this the bible actually has examples of unbaptized saved people even after the gospel is being proclaimed so you can't say well that's old testament right um in acts chapter 10 cornelius and his family they are saved filled with the spirit speaking in tongues and then paul's peter's like i guess we should let him get baptized now i mean look god saved them already so this so you can't you can't have this like law that baptism is required for salvation based on that um then the second one is penance penance is kind of complicated especially for like a protestant mind or someone who's not part of catholic church because you have no idea what's penance like what is that you know um penance has to involve a few elements one it involves contrition over sin so you being truly and genuinely sorrowful over sin now we think that's a good thing and that that's like an element of repentance and putting faith in christ that's good but it goes a lot further than that they believe it involves confession and specifically confession to a priest and so now you're like oh yeah that's why they have these confessionals in the catholic church that's why you go to the priest to tell him about your sins this is actually the part that i think most catholics don't like about catholicism from the ones the guys i've talked to and they're just like i don't think i should have to talk to the priest about and it's embarrassing and it's awkward and those types of things but um according to the catholic church the priest is an altar christ an al alternate christ he's another jesus and alter christus is the term vatican 2 says this the priest receives a special sacrament by which through the anointing of the holy spirit he is conformed to christ the priest in such a way that he can act in persona christi that is in the very person of jesus christ so when the priest goes or when you go to the priest it's like you're actually going to jesus for forgiveness of course the implication is that you can't just go to jesus normally without that guy but that is ultimately the teaching of the church there are exceptions but the general rule is you need a priest to be forgiven pope benedict the 16th recent guy he said the priest is quote the minister of their salvation wow those are big terms for people who really read the new testament you go well you don't really usually talk like that you know um only the church has the power to forgive sins they believe that there is this thing called the treasury of merit and so when i go in and confess i i need remember it's not just grace i need works to help me with the forgiveness of my sins jesus's works but also mary's works and the saints works so there's imagine if you can a big bank vault in the sky and in this bank vault it's called the treasury of merit this is catholic theology and in that bank vault you have the works of jesus the works of mary and the works of the saints but not just any works it's the works they did that were um even more than enough because saints are are people who've done more than enough works to enter heaven so their extra works can be stored up in this bank fault and i go to the priest and i say hey priest i confess i did this and he's like okay spiritually i have the keys i'm gonna unlock the bag vault take some of those merits and i'm gonna apply them to you so that i'm i'm the one bringing you forgiveness through the works of other people other than jesus i mean this is ah it's crazy i mean it doesn't make it doesn't it does it's not biblical yeah as much as i love catholics like i have to like i'm shocked i'm shocked when i hear these these teachings so finally the third part of penance is following the instructions of a priest so whatever he tells you to do afterwards usually this involves like praying 10 our fathers or 10 hail marys praying the rosary you know it's something you do to merit grace at times it requires a religious pilgrimage to a shrine of christ or mary or wearing painful clothing or doing some other charitable deeds some other good works in america it's more relaxed i think in south america they often give them bigger jobs to get forgiveness um so this deals with specific sense is it kind of like uh you're at ground zero with with uh grace in your life and then you know you you sin so you lose a little and then you have to go more and then you do something and that your whole goal in your life is to just build this grace up to where you have enough for when you die i mean is that kind of is that sort of what you're saying here um it's kind of like that so they have venial sins and mortal sins these two different kinds of sins we'll talk more about them later but briefly i'll just say this venial sins are sins that you have to pay for but you're still you're still saved right like you committed us in and you'll pay for it in purgatory or in this life and you go to the priest to deal with venial sins hey i did this it's not the worst thing in the world but and he gives you forgiveness then there's mortal sins now when you commit a mortal sin you lose the grace of salvation and on catholic theology so like not attending mass is generally considered a mortal sin so you don't go to mass you lose salvation that week when you go back you confess and the priest kind of gives you back salvation you actually walk in unsaved and you leave saved again and you can do this over and over again throughout your life so the problems with this are a lot but one of them is that you're you're earning grace and that's incoherent i'm going to put this verse up again because i want you guys to memorize it romans 11 6 if it is by grace it is no longer on the basis of works otherwise grace would no longer be grace now catholicism says that works arness are necessary doesn't that mean that that's no longer grace i think the answer is very sadly i think the answer is yes so there is also there's no roman catholic priesthood in the bible for this this doctrine of penance this sacrament there's no priesthood in the bible that's like the roman catholic one um i've actually already shared this verse in first peter 2 9 so we we don't need to put it up again but we're all a royal priesthood and there's no mention of the kind of catholic priesthood that you'd think would be pretty important since it's essential for your salvation right to mention it somewhere in the new testament according to the bible you go straight to god through jesus that's what the whole book of hebrews is about he's our high priest in fact first timothy 2 5 it says that there's one god and there's one mediator between god and men the man christ jesus but in catholicism priests are the mediators between you and your mediator there's lots of mediators the saints the priests mary they're all mediators between you and your one mediator well wait a minute if there's only one mediator and why do i have so many so let's talk about the third sacrament which is eucharist and i'm gonna move through some of these more quickly but eucharist will spend a little more time on um this is actually what's meant by the word mass when we say going to mass what they mean is you're going to partake of eucharist or it's the communion meal right the bread and the wine that's what it's referring to the bread and the wine but eucharist is a very particular doctrine in the catholic church they believe in what's called transubstantiation and again we're getting into the complexity of catholicism here this is basically where the bread and the liquid and the wine in their view it literally not symbolically but literally becomes the body and the blood of jesus christ and and it it maintains the substance or it the substance of the body and blood of jesus and the accidents or the appearance of bread and wine so it looks like bread and wine but literally physically it's actually the body and blood of christ now the reason why this is kind of important is because in catholicism um you need the eucharist it's part of it's a sacrament it's how you're going to gain more grace that you're going to need for your life for salvation but the only way you can get a hold of the eucharist is through the priest because the priest he's the one who literally invokes the body he holds it up and he brings it back down and now it's the body and blood of jesus so if you had communion on your own or a group or a christian church has communion somewhere that's not the eucharist that doesn't work because they're not priests right that so this kind of like says oh now you need the catholic church to administer to you these special sacraments in order to be saved now in the scripture it's just in remembrance right but this is actually isn't just a remembrance of jesus this is jesus the eucharist is jesus and we have a long discussion there's lots of verses that come up when you have this conversation but this is one of the reasons why um in the catholic church they have the adoration or the worship of the eucharist and it makes sense because they think it's jesus so they're worshiping it i i'm confused as to whether jesus is alive or dead in the eucharist that's a little bit confusing to me because isn't he alive and forever alive and yet he would have to be dead for you to be consuming him as a sacrifice that i have a question about um and there's too much to get into historically but basically it evolved over time this doctrine of eucharist evolved over time catholic apologists will often quote select passages from different church fathers throughout history but they won't tell you what church history actually says about the issue it's very select it's a very edited version of church history to support their teachings but this ultimately forgets the jewishness of jesus and his disciples they're not going to eat blood you know this is it's symbolic it's representative the passover meals representative of christ um they didn't think they were drinking blood that was forbidden and it was continually forbidden even in acts 15 the church was forbidden to drink blood and so what eucharist is requiring us to drink blood to be saved and yet to bring forbidden to drink blood jesus in john 6 talks about his flesh and blood but he continues to make it clear that he's talking about it in a symbolic sense john 6 63 he says it's the spirit who gives life the flesh prophets nothing the words that i speak to you are spirit and they are life meaning that you're to believe the message that's how you partake of christ as believing in his message believing in him is how you eat his flesh and drink his blood and this isn't about actually communion so much as communion is about the believing in christ that's actually what it's really about you know we went to a catholic church one time and they wouldn't let us take communion and now that actually makes sense now because it wouldn't do me any good according to them because i'm not catholic so i don't need the grace and all that kind of stuff yeah you're not part of their their fellowship in that so yeah yeah you don't get a particular communion with them so it's not believing in jesus there's enough you have to submit to the to the roman pontiff you know um and it's more complicated than that though i think they may have some people who don't quite submit to the roman pope but they can still take communion i i shouldn't speak too harshly on that because i don't know how that all works out a lot of these issues are very complicated right so so yeah eucharist that's that's needed for salvation according to them um so mass involves and this is where we get to the theology theology of it i want us to really understand this mass or the eucharist the truth the whole event what the reason why they're doing this the reason why you need this is because it involves and i'm going to be very careful with my words here representing the sacrifice of jesus to the father in order to appease god's wrath and cover over people's sins so jesus is sort of he's not being sacrificed again in the mass he's he's being but he's being offered again right he's being re-offered freshly for your sins that you have committed up until that point next week we'll do it again so so that's what mass involves and grace has given out piecemeal in roman catholicism pieces of grace here and there throughout your life this is part of the reason why the the guy you talked to was like i'm not sure if i'm saved i'm not sure if i would actually go to heaven because it's you know it's like am i in grace right now let me think have a community crying out loud like you'd think by by now even but that's the outgrowth of their theology right so um so it's um it's not just what happens to the bread and and wine that they become the body and blood of christ it's what they do in your life that's really important in catholicism they apply the grace of jesus in little pieces you get you get it again today you get it again next week but what does scripture say about this does scripture weigh in on this re-offering of jesus uh hebrews 10 verses 11 through 14 and i've got underlined a couple of parts of it for you i've been underlying a lot of the underlines are all me okay so obviously the bible doesn't come with underlines nor does the catechism or anything else but hebrews 10 11-14 it says every priest this is speaking of the old testament stands ministering daily and offering repeatedly the same sacrifices which can never take away sins but this man after he had offered one sacrifice for sins forever sat down at the right hand of god from that time waiting till his enemies are made his footstool for by one offering he has perfected forever those who are being sanctified so wait one offering how many offerings was in the catholic church well every sunday there's countless offerings around the world but according to this text jesus was offered once and then he sat down he no longer offers himself again and again which would imply that the job's not done instead verse 14 makes it so clear by one offering that was 2000 years ago he has perfected forever those who are being sanctified and this is i love this because i i am perfected in christ i'm forgiven i'm assured of my salvation i'm still growing in sanctification i'm still growing to be more like jesus i'm being sanctified but i am perfected forever by the one sacrifice that happened a long time ago meaning that communion is really important but the eucharist is not a biblical teaching the mask is just in in roman catholicism you can take in the blood of jesus thousands of times and still die and go to hell that's that's a pretty big deal scare me like i don't know that i would want to become a catholic just because i would never feel assured of my salvation like i i don't know who would ever want that and then now here's a question as a christian i commit sins i have issues in my life how do i go about getting right with god and there is a relational break there i mean i'm not i don't lose my salvation as i commit a sin but there's like i feel the damage in my walk with god right like there is that relational issue that's going on there well romans 5 it talks about how you uh how do you get continued grace from god for the sins that you continue to commit romans 5 verses 1 and 2. notice how it answers this question therefore since we've been justified by faith we have peace with god through our lord jesus christ through him we have also obtained access by faith into this grace in which we stand and we rejoice in the hope of the glory of god so it's not like the priests right who invoke jesus for us to get us right again and again after potentially losing our salvation again and again instead it's more like no i stand in grace and i access it not through a priesthood not through eucharist i access it by faith the same way i got saved i just i just continue believing in jesus and that's and i continue benefiting from his salvation that's it that's why i have peace with god but in roman catholicism it's more like a ceasefire right well you got peace right now but later today you might come into mortal sin peace is over yeah so it's it's a pretty big deal um i'll move quicker now through these through these seven sacraments pretty quick actually so the fourth one is confirmation this occurs when a bishop lays his hand on the head of a catholic signifying that they're coming of age so this is like their free will decision to be a catholic another sacrament is matrimony or marriage it's a big deal to have a catholic wedding um this is part of the reason why they seek because they see marriage as a sacrament it's part of the reason why they think that you that divorce is actually impossible so they allow annulments but not divorces um and i i actually just did a whole teaching on that so i dealt with that as well um and i will be doing a video on catholic annulment coming up a short video coming up sometime in the next month or so um then there's uh you know you don't have to all be married i'm not saying you have to you have to do every one of these sacraments these are just ways of getting grace right um the holy orders which is the office of the bishop priests or deacon or the pope these types of things are a sacrament now you don't do that as a catholic you never do that right but you need them in place because they're helping to get you grace that's the idea they give you access to grace and then finally the anointing of the sick or the last rights her last rights you know where the priest comes and the you know it's not just a ritual in the in the catholic theology the last rites is where the priest is uh resolving and absolving you of mortal sins venial sins your hope is to avoid purgatory to get you a clean slate and to make sure that you get to heaven because even though you have faith in jesus even though you really trust in him it's not enough you need more and so you need this access to this alter christ alternate christ ultra christu because he's gonna once again give you access to the treasury of merits and grace and get rid of your sins and stuff like that and those are those are the seven sacraments but it's not it that's not all you have to have to be saved in catholicism because you have to just observe the commandments whatever that means right that's what the catechism says in chapter 20 68 all men may attain salvation through faith baptism and the observance of the commandments so we have to follow the commandments um yet the verse and i'll put it up again because i want to burn it into our hearts romans five one look at verse two we have acts we have uh also obtained access by faith into this grace in which we stand not by works not by sacraments of things we do we've we've got access by faith that's it so typical catholics do not know all the stuff i just told you and many of them are going to be so mad at me right now as they hear me talk about this that they're just thinking mike's just making stuff up i'm not going to believe it oh no that's okay at least consider it at least go look into it for yourself find out for yourself most catholics i think they find a couple catholics that they trust and they just believe whatever they say about the catholic church which is weird because it's like that guy is now their authority rather than going to the actual like sources of catholic authority the infallible proclamations of the catholic church and that's what i want to talk about because i can't hold the catholic church to what even a pope says in a lot of cases it's got to be the infallible proclamations yeah i talked to a girl one time i said do you understand that what you believe is not in the bible and she said oh i just listened to my my priest he tells me what to do and i'm good to go and i'm like who does that but apparently a lot of people do so i think that's why why this is so [Music] important [Music] you

Channel: Women's Bible Study

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Keywords: Women's, Bible, Study, womens bible study, bible study, womens bible study series, womens bible study on james, mike winger catholicism, mike winger jehovah witness, contending for the faith conference, mike winger, bible study for women, womens bible study videos, womens bible study 2020, catholic answers, catholicism vs christianity, catholicism vs protestantism, catholicism explained, catholicism vs orthodoxy, bible study for womens ministry

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Length: 60min 57sec (3657 seconds)

Published: Thu Aug 06 2020