Yesterday I had the great honor to travel to Roy New Mexico, with some friends of mine, for a funeral to celebrate and remember the life of Francis Chavez, my friend Regina's mom. I was really encouraged to see Regina's joy as she was comforted to know that her mom is now in heaven with Jesus.
Francis had a very Catholic background, and until the day she died her Catholic roots ran deep. As a result, many of the things that she did were influenced by her lifelong participation in Catholicism. I also have a background in Catholicism and many of the people whom I love the most are devout Catholics. My main problem with Catholicism is this; that they believe in a works based salvation. I was STRONGLY reminded of this at this funeral on Friday afternoon. The priest spoke about how there are those who would believe that salvation comes by faith. (I would be included in that group) He went on to say that that is only partly true. Faith is only the beginning. He taught us that salvation starts with faith and then is completed with love and good deeds, the keeping of the sacraments (baptism, confession, communion, etc.). He was teaching all of this and calling it "the gospel". For those of you that don't know, the word "gospel" means good news. I don't know about you, but I don't think that's good news. It doesn't really matter that much that I have repented and trusted Christ as my Lord and Savior and am living for Him, because if all of that is true, yet I am not loving, doing charitable things and going to confession, then I'm going to hell anyway. And what if I am doing those things? Then praise me! I'm so awesome! I'm going to heaven only in part because of what Christ did, but mostly because of what I've done! All my good, and love, and sacrament keeping has earned my spot in heaven. The problem with that is that the bible doesn't teach that. That priest may wonder why anyone would believe that salvation is by faith alone. Maybe it's because that is what the bible teaches. The bible says, in Ephesians 2:8-9 that we have been saved by grace through faith. It goes on to say that it is NOT A RESULT OF WORKS so that no one can boast. So does this mean that all we have to do is have faith in God and we will be saved? Then we can just do whatever we want for the rest of our lives? Yes and no. The bible says that in order to be saved we must respond to the gospel by putting faith in Jesus Christ to save us. That is it. But if you go on living like the devil for the rest of your life, that would be the evidence that you DID NOT TRULY PUT YOUR FAITH IN JESUS. The bible absolutely does not teach that we are saved BY good works, but the bible absolutely does teache that we are saved FOR good works. (For we are his workmanship, created in Christ Jesus FOR good works, which God prepared beforehand, that we should walk in them. Ephesians 2:10) You see, our obedience to God is not something that we do in order to be saved. Our obedience to God is the evidence that we have been saved. So if we are saved (if we have put our faith in Jesus Christ trusting HIM ALONE to save us from sin, death, and hell) then you will be obedient to what the bible tells you to do; not so that you can earn favor with God, but because you HAVE favor with God because of the cross of Christ. You see, this teaching of salvation by works tells us that Jesus Christ dying on the cross for our sins was not good enough. Jesus crucified wasn't good enough to save us. We need to ADD OUR OWN GOOD WORKS AND OBEDIENCE in order for the cross of Christ to have any saving power. That is blasphemy. What God did, in punishing His sinless SON on the cross for our sins, was ABSOLUTELY SUFFICIENT TO SAVE all by itself. NOTHING ELSE NEEDS TO BE ADDED to what Jesus did on the cross. That is why the last thing that Jesus said on the cross was, "It is finished". What needed to be done in order that people be saved, was finished when Christ was crucified.
I had the great honor to come and administer communion to Francis a few weeks before she died. The bible speaks about how communion isn't for everyone; it is reserved only for believers. As I explained that to Francis before we took communion, I asked her if she had made Jesus Christ her Lord and Savior, trusting Him alone to save her from her sins. Her answer was so classic! Without any pause or hesitation she said with a confidant smile on her face, "Absolutely". She didn't say "I've done all the sacraments." She didn't say "I go to church every week." She didn't say "I've been baptized". She recognized that her relationship with Christ through faith was more than enough to secure her spot in heaven.
Do you know that? Do you know that all the good works in the world couldn't get you to heaven? Do you know that God did all that needed to be done to save you by punishing Jesus Christ on the cross so that all you need to do is believe that message and put your faith in Jesus Christ to be saved? Don't trust in anything but the FINISHED work of Christ on the cross to save you.
Are you "working" on getting to heaven? If so, stop! You'll never be good enough! Nothing that you can do will ever get you to heaven. Jesus said "I am the way the truth and the life. No one comes to the Father except by Me." If you want to be sure that you are on your way to heaven, believe the gospel, turn from your sins, and run to Jesus. Only He can GUARANTEE you a spot in heaven!
2 comments:
Greetings! Saw your post in Google Blogsearch and came to read.
>"My main problem with Catholicism is this; that they believe in a works based salvation."
Um, no Catholic don't. Catholics believe that salvation is by God's grace. Regardless of your previous Catholic background, you have a defective understanding of what Catholics believe, why they believe it, and the Biblical basis for their belief. I would encourage you to learn what catholics truely believe and why. You might start with reviewing the Catechism of the Catholic Church on grace and justification.
>I had the great honor to come and administer communion to Francis a few weeks before she died."
Thank you for your gesture. Too bad that you were unable to provide the Eucharist, the actual body and blood of Christ, to her. Hopefully someone notified a Catholic priest so she could receive Jesus physically also.
>"so that all you need to do is believe that message and put your faith in Jesus Christ to be saved?"
Sounds great. Too bad Jesus himself never taught that. I note that you never once quoted Christ and what he said we needed to do. Why not?
God bless...
+Timothy
Hey Timothy!
Thanks for posting your comments. I will respond to your comments briefly, although this is a personal blog. This isn't a place where I desire to debate or anything like that. This is a place where I share my thoughts on my life and experiences with my family and friends whom I have invited to read and participate in this blog. However, if you do want to continue to discuss these issues I would be more than happy to do so through email. So if you leave me your email I will respond there.
With that being said, let me really quickly respond to some of your comments!
You said; "Catholics believe that salvation is by God's grace. "
- God's grace alone apart from works? That is what the bible teaches in MANY places. One of the most blatant passages teaching this doctrine is Romans 3:28 (For we hold that one is justified by faith apart from works of the law.
). If that is what Catholics believe that's awesome, but someone should probably tell the priest that gave the funeral mass for my friend. He spoke of all the things that must be done in order to be saved. He went so far to say that if you wanted to know how to obtain salvation, then look at John chapter 6 where Jesus speaks of those who eat of His flesh and drink of His blood having eternal life. So all that is necessary for salvation, according to this priest, is taking communion. The least of the problems with that statement is that communion hadn't even been instituted at the time that Jesus said that. Jesus was NOT referring to communion in that passage. Maybe this priest was just uninformed. My experience has been similar, though not as blatant as this priest was.
You said:"Too bad that you were unable to provide the Eucharist, the actual body and blood of Christ, to her. "
- I'm sorry, Jesus is at the right hand of the Father in heaven. He is not allowing Catholic priests to crucify Him again every week on the alter. Not only is it very obvious that the Catholic "host" is not the actual flesh of Jesus, making Catholics cannibals, but studies have been done where the priest "did his thing" and then the host was taken and studied and was proven to still just be a cracker. Nothing at all had changed. By the way, where is it taught that "priests" (bishops, deacons, pastors, etc.) are commanded and/or able to turn a cracker into the body of Jesus? That isn't spoken of at all in the New Testament, and if it was such a huge deal, it would have been. Paul wrote letters to Timothy and Titus, who were pastors (priests?) and mentioned nothing about how important it was that the church eat the actual flesh, and drink the actual blood of Christ. He talked in 1 Corinthians 11 about Communion, but speaks only of conduct at communion, and the manner in which we take it. I just don't see where this is clearly taught and then later affirmed in the bible.
you said: "Too bad Jesus himself never taught that. I note that you never once quoted Christ and what he said we needed to do. Why not?
"
- First of all, I think He did. John 3:16, Mark 1:15, Luke 8:12, John 3:18, John 3:36. All of these passages where Jesus talks about believing in order to be saved. ut really, 2 Timothy 3:16-17 says that all scripture is the word of God. I know that the Catholic church believes that. There was a reading from the book of Romans, written by Paul the Apostle, and it was concluded with the man saying "This is the word of the Lord". So if it is in the bible, it's just good as coming out of the mouth of Jesus Himself. Romans 1:16, which is the word of the Lord, says that the gospel is the power of God to salvation to everyone who believes. Acts 20:21 speaks of Paul reaching the gospel and refers to it as repentance towards God and faith toward our Lord Jesus Christ.
Also, if the priest that did my friend's funeral was at all correct in his Catholic doctrine about faith just being the beginning, and then we have to do the rest, we may want to check out Galatians where Pauls speaks of how salvation is not something that can be started in the Spirit and then perfected in the flesh.
So I hope these responses were helpful to some extent. I would be more than happy to continue this conversation through email as I, again, don't want to use my blog for debating. Thanks and God bless. I appreciate your conversation.
Post a Comment