Letter to Ireland: Leave Rome and Seek Christ!
Dear Irish Friends,
On May 26, 2018, Ireland voted to end the ban on abortion. Abortion is morally wrong. It is a sin in the sight of God. Concerning the unborn child in the mother’s womb, the Bible states; “For thou hast possessed my reins: thou hast covered me in my mother’s womb.”[1] The Bible also states, “Thou shall not kill (i.e., murder).”[2] Consequently, abortion is murdering an unborn child.
Prior to May 26, 2018, many people were truly amazed at the absence of the Catholic Church at the Abortion Referendum.[3] Thus, many are reprimanding and rebuking the Papal Church for its failure to attend and make a stand for the unborn.
However, this might also be an historic opportunity. Perhaps the Lord might be opening your eyes to the false promises of the Catholic Church. This might be an occasion for you to find the true saving grace in the Lord Jesus Christ alone, not in Catholic rituals or sacraments.
Now I speak to you because in the Lord Jesus Christ, I care about you. I loathe the Catholic system, but you I cherish. My desire is that you might be set free from the bondage of Roman Catholicism.
Catholic Indoctrination False Teaching on Salvation
The official teaching of the Catholic Church is found in its Catechism of the Catholic Church (1994).[4] The Roman Church refers to its Catechism in Paragraph numbers. Paragraph 824 states:
“It is in the Church that ‘the fullness of the means of salvation’ has been deposited. It is in her that ‘by the grace of God, we acquire holiness.”[5]
However, the truth is that the grace of God is found only in the Lord Jesus Christ, and not in any Church. God’s Word states, “For there is one God, and one mediator between God and men, the man Christ Jesus.”[6]
False Catholic Teaching regarding Priests
“Priests have received from God a power that he has given neither to angels nor to archangels…God above confirms what priests do here below. Were there no forgiveness of sins in the Church, there would be no hope of life to come or eternal liberation. Let us thank God who has given his Church such a gift.”[7]
The Lord God has not given priests to any church; we know this because in the New Testament none are mentioned. Other than the Lord Jesus Christ, Who fulfills the offices of prophet, high priest, and king, the only reference to priesthood in the New Testament encompasses all the Lord’s people, not an elite circle of clergy ordained by men of Papal Rome. The apostle Peter states, “But you are a chosen generation, a royal priesthood, an holy nation, a peculiar people; that you should show forth the praises of him who has called you out of darkness into his marvelous light.”[8]
The New Testament entrusts the leadership of the Lord’s people to pastors, elders, and deacons. Consequently, authority ascribed to man-made priests in the Catholic Church is illegitimate.
False Catholic Teaching on Sacraments
“The Roman Catholic Church affirms that for believers the sacraments of the New Covenant are necessary for salvation. ‘Sacramental grace’ is the grace of the Holy Spirit, given by Christ and proper to each sacrament.”[9].
Sacramental grace is a contradiction in terms. A sacramental is a ritual, a work that Catholic priests perform. Grace is a gift of God and not of works. “For by grace are you saved through faith; and that not of yourselves: it is the gift of God: not of works, lest any man should boast.”[10]
The utter disparity between grace and works is clearly shown in many texts in Scripture. For example, “For if by grace, then it is no more of works, otherwise grace is no more grace.”[11] It is the riches of God’s grace to show His graciousness. The fact that the Loving God alone saves, that is the whole meaning of Divine grace! Nevertheless, the Catholic Church teaches:
“Grace is the help God gives us to respond to our vocation of becoming his adopted sons. It introduces us into the intimacy of the Trinitarian life.”[12]
The Biblical Good News of Salvation
Grace is not merely help, as the Catholic Church defines it. It is the God of all grace[13] that calls men and women out of the darkness of the world and into salvation in the Lord Jesus Christ. Justification is the loving God’s gift to the believer. It is credited to him or her, based on Jesus Christ’s finished work on the cross. Quite simply, justification is God’s righteous judgment of the believer declaring him/her guiltless, as regarding sin, and morally right with Jesus Christ’s righteousness credited to him/her.
This judgment by the Loving God is possible because the justification merited by Jesus Christ’s death and resurrection is credited to the believer. Justification is first and foremost the Lord God’s legal judgment of the believer. As Scripture states, the believer is “Being justified freely by his grace through the redemption that is in Christ Jesus. To declare, I say, at this time his righteousness: that he might be just, and the justifier of him who believes in Jesus.[14]
Justification is the Lord God’s righteous judgment to demonstrate that He is “just and the justifier of him who believes in Jesus.”[15] This righteous judgment of God is the center of the teaching of the Good News of salvation in the Bible.
Papal Rome’s Counterfeit Salvation Leads to Spiritual Bankruptcy
The full picture of the Roman Catholic salvation process begins with new birth, which is said to occur in infant baptism. Infant baptism purportedly washes away “original sin.” Then the process of “salvation” is a long journey through Rome’s seven sacraments, with the sacrifice of the Mass central to most events. Good works merit and saints are all involved. However, the focal point is always on your inner moral goodness, which you must always strive to increase. Papal Rome tells you that you need this in order to be good enough to die in “sanctifying grace.” Unless you live like a “saint,” you must do time in purgatory before perhaps making it to heaven. Papal Rome’s teaching offers you no assurance of salvation, not even to the most devout Catholic!
Conclusion
Consider this wonderful summary of Scriptural truth concerning Christ Jesus and our salvation because of Him; “Who being the brightness of his glory, and the express image of his person, and upholding all things by the word of his power, when he had by himself purged our sins, sat down on the right hand of the Majesty on high.”[16]
In contrast, the Roman Catholic Church stubbornly persists in offering you her “process” program of “dead works” salvation: her system of merits, her burden of confession to a priest with his claimed authoritative absolution, intercession to dead saints, purgatory, and sacraments. All of these dead, and deadly things clearly contradict the total sufficiency of the finished work of the Lord Jesus Christ.
Let the trumpet sound in Ireland and across the world with biblical Good News. To Catholics doubting their belief in the Church of Rome, the voice of the Lord thunders from the final chapter of the Bible and reverberates throughout the world, “Come out of her, my people, that you be not partakers of her sins, and that you receive not of her plagues.”[17] Thus, I have this to say to you, turn to the Lord God by faith alone, through Jesus Christ’s grace alone, for your salvation. Which salvation is based on Jesus Christ’s death and resurrection for those who would believe in Him alone, “To the praise of the glory of his grace, wherein he has made us accepted in the beloved.”[18]
If the Lord has touched your heart by His Sovereign grace, please let me hear from you at:
rbennett@temp.bereanbeacon.org.
Thank you, Richard Bennett
[1] Psalm 139:13
[2] Exodus 20:13
[3] https://anglicanmainstream.org/the-catholic-church-is-absent-in-irelands-abortion-referendum/ accessed on June 4, 2018.
[4] http://www.vatican.va/archive/ENG0015/_INDEX.HTM accessed on June 4, 2018
[5] Catechism of the Catholic Church, Second Edition (1994: Vatican City), Para. 824. Any bolding is my emphasis.
[6] 1 Timothy 2:5
[7] Catechism Para 983
[8] 1 Peter 2:9-10
[9] Catechism, Para 1129 (my emphasis)
[10] Ephesians 2:8-9
[11] Romans 11:6
[12] Catechism, Para.1129 Emphasis added
[13] I Peter 5:10 Taken from this verse
[14] Romans 3:24, 26
[15] Romans 3:26
[16] Hebrews 1:3
[17] Revelation 18:4
[18] Ephesians 1:6
