Tim Staples highlights several key passages in Scripture which directly refute the Protestant doctrine of salvation by faith alone and show that Jesus established the Catholic Church as the true authority of His Word.
Host: We go to Andre, who is traveling on highway 55 heading towards St. Louis. He’s listening on 94.7 FM. Andre, drive carefully, you are on with Tim Staples.
Caller: Hey guys, thanks so much for taking the call, and let me first begin by saying how much I appreciate the Catholic Church. I have the benefit of about six years of Catholic training though high school and college myself, and you guys stand for so many great positions, for example the ones that you just mentioned: abortion, the family, and a lot of great things.
Tim: I appreciate that, thank you Andre.
Caller: You bet. Well, I am currently a conservative Evangelical, probably the best way you can put me, and one of those motley non-denominationals, as you described before.
Tim: You got it.
Caller: Yep, and I guess my issue relates to the biblical basis for Catholicism versus, I guess, my current belief system, and I see a disconnect there. Primarily, you know, as it relates to Church-made doctrine versus what I can find in the Bible. And I just want to know, you know, how is it that…you know, cause I understand, I think the apologist online actually was…not a Pentecostal, but some sort of Protestant.
Tim: Yeah, I was Assembly of God. I was an Assembly of God youth pastor, in fact, before I converted.
Caller: Oh, okay then, well there you go, you’re both, then.
Tim: And I was raised to Southern Baptist, so I was raised an Evangelical and became a Pentecostal.
Caller: Okay, well great, because I’ve got a motley background myself, Lutheran and Pentecostal and all that; but, so my point is, obviously, you know, why should anyone who–I think, you know, we’re getting Biblical teaching right–go to or be persuaded by Catholicism that has, at least in my personal views, so many man-made doctrines that it, again, in my view, departs from what I can find in Scripture?
Tim: Sure. Well, I’ll tell you what, Andre, as one who used to believe as you, I will tell you why I did.
Number one: I find that Protestantism that you just spoke of–like the nondenominational Protestantism–itself has absolutely no foundation in Sacred Scripture. As a matter of history, this is where Protestantism came from: Martin Luther taught a doctrine, justification by faith alone, that was never taught by a single Christian for 1,500 years. In fact, it is, as explicitly as I can imagine, contradicted by St. James in James 2:24. In fact, Andre, what I found is, the only place in the entire Bible where the words “faith alone” are found, the words “not by” are right in front of them: “We see then that a man is justified by works and not by faith alone.”
You have Matthew 12:36 and 37 where Jesus, speaking in the context of the final judgement, says–in verse 37, I’ll focus on–“by your words you will be justified, by your words you will be condemned.” Words are more than just faith. That’s something you say, something you do. In Romans 2:6 and 7, St. Paul says, “God will reward each man according to his works. To him who continues in good works, his reward shall be glory, incorruption, and everlasting life.” There, St. Paul says everlasting life is a reward for good works.
Now, is faith involved? Absolutely. Its constitutive of the salvific act in the life of a believer. You have to be a believer to be sure. “We are justified by faith,” Romans 5:1 says, but the problem was, “faith alone” is nowhere to be found. In Galatians 6:7, for example, St. Paul says, “Let no man be deceived: God is not mocked. Whatsoever a man sows–” any farmer knows that’s something you do, sowing seeds– “Whatsoever a man sows, that shall he reap. If he continues to sow to the flesh, he shall of the flesh reap death; if he continues to sow to the spirit, he shall of the Spirit reap everlasting life. Let us therefore not grow weary in well-doing, for we shall reap the reward–” What reward? Everlasting life, “–if we faint not.” Or if, as one translation says, “if we do not lose heart.”
My brother, I could go down a litany of more verses here, but here’s the bottom line: what I found is, Martin Luther’s justification by faith, which became what he called the doctrine upon which the Church rises or falls–that’s his most important doctrine–was absolutely un-Biblical, absolutely false, and this colored the Reformation, and has for the last 500 years.
Now there are some Protestant sects who have moved away from justification by faith alone, and get it closer to correct; but the overwhelming majority of reformers in John Calvin, who–you know, that’s a whole ‘nother hour we could talk about John Calvin–you know, got us even further off track from what the Bible clearly teaches.
So Andre, I look at that, and then I look at what Jesus clearly taught in the Bible. He didn’t give us a Bible, He gave us a Church. Jesus said, for example in Matthew 18:15-18, He says–and this is instructions that are perennial till the end of time, Andre–He says, “If your brother shall offend against thee, go tell him his fault between you and him alone. If he hears you, you’ve gained your brother.” If he won’t hear you, what do you do? You don’t get your Bible out and start arguing; He says, “Take one or two with you, that in the mouth of two or three witnesses every word may be established. If he will not even hear them, tell it to the church; and the one who fails to hear the church shall be as a heathen and a publican.”
In other words, Jesus established the Church to be His authority to speak for Him; that’s exactly what we see happen in the book of Acts–in Acts chapter 15 Andre, I’ll give you homework–when there was a heresy that threatened to tear a fledgling church apart there in Antioch in the first century, what did they do? Paul and Barnabas came in, tried to settle it; they couldn’t settle it. What did they do? They had a council, the Church declared on the matter, and the matter was settled. That’s the way the Church functioned, and my friend, as a matter of history, the Encyclopedia Britannica, for example, will tell you, if you go to its entry on the Catholic Church, you will find it’s the Church started by Jesus in 33 AD.
The fact is, that’s how the Church–one, holy Catholic, and apostolic–functioned for 1,500 years until some men came along and started teaching traditions of men that contradicted the Word of God.