Episode 41: Year A – 22nd Sunday of Ordinary Time
In this episode, we focus on three details that are relevant to doing apologetics. The first of the three comes from the second reading, which is taken from Romans 12:1-2. The relevant apologetical topics are the relation that our good works have to Christ’s sufficient work on the cross and our final salvation and the nature of our justification as interior righteousness. The other two details come from the Gospel, which is taken from Matthew 16:21-27. The apologetical topics that come to the fore there are, again, the relation of good works and our final salvation along with the Papacy.
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The Sunday Catholic Word
Episode 41
22nd Sunday of Ordinary Time, Year A
Hey everyone,
Welcome to The Sunday Catholic Word, a podcast where we reflect on the upcoming Sunday Mass readings and pick out the details that are relevant for explaining and defending our Catholic faith.
I’m Karlo Broussard, staff apologist and speaker for Catholic Answers, and the host for this podcast.
In this episode, we’re going to focus on three details that are relevant to doing apologetics. The first of the three comes from the second reading, which is taken from Romans 12:1-2. The relevant apologetical topics are the relation that our good works have to Christ’s sufficient work on the cross and our final salvation and the nature of our justification as interior righteousness. The other two details come from the Gospel, which is taken from Matthew 16:21-27. The apologetical topics that come to the fore there are, again, the relation of good works and our final salvation along with the Papacy.
Let’s get started with Paul’s letter to the Romans. Here’s what he writes in Romans 12:1-2
1 I urge you therefore, brothers, by the mercies of God, to offer your bodies as a living sacrifice, holy and pleasing to God, your spiritual worship. 2 Do not conform yourselves to this age but be transformed by the renewal of your mind, that you may discern what is the will of God, what is good and pleasing and perfect.
The detail that we’re going to focus on here is Paul’s instruction for the Romans to “offer [their] bodies as a living sacrifice.” It has apologetical significance in two ways. First, it relates to the Catholic-Protestant conversation about good works and the sufficiency of Christ’s sacrifice. Second, it ties into the nature of our justification as interior righteousness.
Let’s consider the relation it has to good works and the sufficiency of Christ’s sacrifice. Often, Protestants object to the Catholic Church’s teaching on good works as contributing to the discharge of temporal debt for sin and to our final salvation by saying it takes away from the sufficiency of Christ’s sacrifice on the cross. Our salvation and the discharge of all debt of sin is purchased for us entirely by the cross of Christ, so it’s argued.
The problem with this line of reasoning is that it conflicts with what Paul says in our second reading from Romans about offering our bodies up to God as a sacrifice. If Christ’s sacrifice is sufficient in the sense that after accepting his sacrifice there is nothing else that we must do for our salvation or the discharge of the debt of sin, then why is Paul commanding the Christians in Rome, who have already accepted the saving work of Christ on the cross, to do something for their salvation and the discharge of the debt of their sin—namely, offer sacrifice? It doesn’t seem he would do this if he accepted the notion that there’s nothing else that we must do after accepting Christ’s sacrifice.
The sacrifice applies to our final salvation in the sense that it’s an expression of our love for God in that Paul says it’s a form of worship. For Christians, worship of God is love of God. And it’s love of God that saves us.
Moreover, it applies to the discharge of at least the temporal debt of their sin in that it’s a sacrifice. Sacrifice pertains to discharging debt of sin. It can’t be the eternal debt of sin, since only Christ can discharge the eternal debt of sin. So, it must pertain to the discharging the temporal debt of sin, something that we can do as creatures.
Since Paul commands the Christians in Rome to offer sacrifice, it follows that the idea of Christ’s sacrifice being sufficient in the sense that after accepting his sacrifice there is nothing else that we must do for our salvation or the discharge of the debt of sin is false. Therefore, if a Christian accepts this teaching of Paul in Romans, which they must, then no Christian should have a problem with the Catholic understanding of good works as it relates to our final salvation and the discharge of the temporal debt of sin.
Now, a Protestant might counter and say, “Your argument misses the target. We’re not concerned with sacrifice when it’s a form of worship, which is what Paul says here in Romans 12:1-2. What we’re concerned with is the Catholic teaching that the offering of sacrifice can take away the debt of sin.”
The problem with this counter is that it begs the question against the Catholic because it assumes worship is mutually exclusive from an act of making up for sin. But that’s the very claim of a Catholic: An act of making up for sin when directed God is a form of worship, and sacrifice is one way of doing that. So, affirming sacrifice as worship doesn’t negate that very same sacrifice as being for sin. I mean, wasn’t Jesus’ sacrifice, which was for sake of taking away sin, also an act of worship to God? Sure, it was! So too the sacrifice of our living bodies can be both an act of worship and an act that makes up for sin.
The second way that Paul’s command for us to offer our bodies as living sacrifices relates to apologetics is that it helps us understand the nature of our justification as something interior.
Some Protestants believe that our peace with God, or our justification, is grounded solely in God’s extrinsic or forensic declaration that we are just, and not in anything that’s internal to us, like our interior righteousness.
But, as I will argue, this conflicts with what Paul command for us to offer our bodies as a living sacrifice. And the key to seeing this is understanding the internal nature of our bodily offering.
Aquinas can help us out here. In his Commentary on Romans, he explains that there are two aspects to the acts by which we serve, or worship, God: external and internal. And as Aquinas argues, our service doesn’t consist principally in the external act. He appeals to Paul in Romans 14:17 for support, where Paul writes, “the kingdom of God is not food and drink.” Rather, our service, or worship, of God consists principally in the internal act by which we believe, hope, and love God. Aquinas quotes Jesus in Luke 17:21 for support: “the kingdom God is within you.” The assumption here is that our service or worship of God is something that makes members of the kingdom.
Now, Paul says that when we offer our bodies as a living sacrifice the sacrifice is pleasing to God. Well, remember as Aquinas teaches, our sacrifice is an external expression of the internal acts by which we believe, hope, and love God. It follows, therefore, when we offer our bodies as a living sacrifice to God our internal acts of belief, hope, and love are pleasing to God. And if our acts are pleasing to God, then we from whom the acts proceed must be pleasing to God. You can’t separate the person from his acts in the sense that the acts don’t have any bearing on the person.
But to be pleasing to God is to be at peace with God, which, for Paul, is nothing more than a state of justification.
Therefore, our justification is grounded in something that’s internal to us—namely, our minds and wills being properly ordered to God in our belief, hope, and love. This disproves the idea that our justification is not grounded in our interior holiness or righteousness.
Let’s now turn to the Gospel reading, again, taken from Matthew 16:21-27. Here’s what we read:
21 From that time on, Jesus began to show his disciples that he must go to Jerusalem and suffer greatly from the elders, the chief priests, and the scribes, and be killed and on the third day be raised. 22 Then Peter took him aside and began to rebuke him, “God forbid, Lord! No such thing shall ever happen to you.” 23 He turned and said to Peter, “Get behind me, Satan! You are an obstacle to me. You are thinking not as God does, but as human beings do.” 24 Then Jesus said to his disciples, “Whoever wishes to come after me must deny himself, take up his cross, and follow me. 25 For whoever wishes to save his life will lose it, but whoever loses his life for my sake will find it. 26 What profit would there be for one to gain the whole world and forfeit his life? Or what can one give in exchange for his life? 27 For the Son of Man will come with his angels in his Father’s glory, and then he will repay everyone according to his conduct.
There are two details that we’re going to focus on here. The first is Jesus’ response to Peter, “Get behind me, Satan!”
When arguing for the Papacy, Catholics often appeal to the unique nature of Jesus giving the keys of the kingdom of heaven to Peter. “Jesus gave the keys to Peter and Peter alone,” so it’s argued, “which shows that Peter has a unique authority over and above the other apostles.”
But some Protestants counter this appeal with the detail that we’re focusing on here. Norman Geisler and MacKenzie articulate the comeback this way:
No Catholic commentator gives Peter primacy in evil simply because he was singled out in Jesus’ rebuke a few verses later: “Get behind me, Satan! You are an obstacle to me. You are thinking not as God does, but as human beings do” (v.23). Why then should Peter be given primacy in authority because of Jesus’ affirmation? [Geisler and MacKenzie, Roman Catholics and Evangelicals, 207. ]
The first thing to note is that the unique giving of the keys to Peter doesn’t stand alone as evidence for Peter’s unique role in the Church. It’s only when combined with what the keys symbolize that it reveals Peter’s unique role. It symbolizes Peter’s role in Christ’s kingdom analogous to the chief steward in David’s kingdom. And it’s that role that makes Peter unique in his authority since the chief steward in David’s kingdom was unique in authority relative to others in the kingdom. So, if Peter alone receives the keys, then he is the chief steward. And if the chief steward, then unique in authority.
Secondly, Peter was the only one present who made remarks questioning Jesus’ mission to redeem the world. Since he was the only one, Jesus rebukes him alone. Had the other apostles said similar things, surely Jesus would have corrected them, too. There is no “primacy in evil” that Jesus’ rebuke confers by necessity.
Conversely, had the other apostles replied with Peter, “You are the Christ” (v.16), Jesus would not have given them all the keys. Why? Because by definition there only can be one chief steward of the household. The interpretative context of Isaiah 22:15-22 excludes the idea of Jesus giving the other apostles the keys of his kingdom in the way that he gave them to Peter. Other apostles could have said something requiring a rebuke from Jesus, but only one person can wield the keys.
There’s one other detail in this Gospel that has apologetical significance: Jesus’ teaching that “the Son of Man will come with his angels in his Father’s glory, and then he will repay everyone according to his conduct.”
Some Protestants believe that our good works have nothing to do with our salvation whatsoever, even receiving the reward of eternal life at the end of our lives. But here Jesus makes it clear that each will be repaid according to their conduct, which is like what Jesus teaches in Matthew 25:31-46 where the sheep go to heaven for performing the corporal works of mercy and the goats go to eternal damnation for not performing such works. Therefore, our good works do determine whether we will receive our final reward of eternal life or not, contrary to what some Protestants believe.
Now, a Protestant might counter and say, “But you’re assuming that by ‘payment’ Jesus means eternal life. He could be referring to simply the different rewards that each person receives in heaven.”
This actually is a good counter because the “repayment” is indeed vague. It’s not clear whether it refers to eternal life or rewards in heaven. So, more work does need to be done.
Here’s the key: other passages that speak of God’s angels coming in judgment with Christ at the end of time involve hell as the end result, which means the opposite is heaven, i.e., eternal life. Consider, for example, Matthew 13:41-42: “The Son of Man will send his angels, and they will gather out of his kingdom all causes of sin and all law-breakers and throw them into the fiery furnace. In that place there will be weeping and gnashing of teeth.”
As most Christians believe, aside from the universalists, the “weeping and gnashing of teeth” is a reference to Hell.
Matthew 13:49 is another passage: “So it will be at the close of the age. The angels will come out and separate the evil from the righteous.” Given Matthew 25:31-46 where the sheep, the righteous, are separated from the goats, the wicked, in that the sheep go to heaven and the goats to hell, we can conclude that the separation of the righteous from the evil spoken of here in Matthew 13:49 is a reference to the righteous going to heaven and the evil people going to hell.
So, we have biblical precedent for interpreting the payment issued on account of conduct at the time of Christ coming with his angels in judgment, mentioned in the Gospel reading, as a reference to heaven or hell. Heaven is for those who had righteous conduct. Hell is for those who had unrighteous conduct. Therefore, the Gospel reading reveals that heaven is given as a reward for our good works, which contradicts the belief among some Protestants that our good works do not contribute to our final salvation.
Well, the readings for this upcoming 22nd Sunday of Ordinary Time, Year A doesn’t leave us wanting when it comes to apologetical material. It gives us opportunity of focus on several apologetical topics:
- The relation of good works and Christ’s sufficient work on the cross,
- The relation of good works and our final salvation,
- The nature of our justification, and
- Peter unique role in Christ’s kingdom as the Chief Royal Steward
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I hope you have a blessed 22nd Sunday of Ordinary Time.