Faith Only Gospel - The Bible Teaches the Protestant Doctrine that Good Works have nothing to do with salvation and thus refutes the claims of the Catholic Church
Recommended Book, By Faith Alone, RC Sproul, Hodder & Stoughton, London, 1995
THE CATHOLIC VIEW DENIED
The Catholic Church holds that the sinner gets rid of sin by repenting and
trusting in God and that makes him justified though he has done no good works.
But after that he must do good works with God’s help to remain right with God
and to become more right with God and deserve salvation more. The only
alternative to this view if you want to believe in salvation by grace, a belief
that that is commanded by the Bible, is that once you are justified you are
justified forever even when you sin.
Paul was clear in his letters that if God says the sinner is righteous the
sinner cannot be charged with wrongdoing. But he is talking from God's
perspective and is clear that from ours Christians do wrong. He charges
himself and Christians with sin so it does not mean we are to think of a
justified person as perfect or a saint.
In Romans 11:32 we read that God consigned everybody whoever existed to
disobedience only that he might have mercy on all.
In Romans 11:33 we read that God’s ways are strange meaning that God letting
people sin is odd in our eyes. So God can stop sin but won’t so he ordains sin.
It would not be strange if he could do nothing about it. This is a statement of
predestination or unconditional election because if God causes our merits and
our faith and God chooses the believers then God’s choosing us had nothing to do
with our efforts and merits.
Romans 11:34 repeats that nobody can understand God’s thinking.
Romans 11:35 says that nobody can give God anything so that God owes him
something back. The context is about how strange it is to us that God saves some
and ruins or damns. It would not be strange if the damned freely chose to be
damned without being predestined by God. So predestination is a fact. The verse
means that nobody can deserve salvation or deserve the chance to be saved and
the saved then are saved randomly by God. Paul said good works deserve rewards
so he meant you cannot deserve salvation.
Romans 11:36 for from him and through him and for him are all things.
This says that God has made all things and all things come from him. From the
verse before we see what it has to do with. They are saying that we cannot
deserve salvation from him for all we are doing is giving him back what he gave
to us. That must be what it is saying for why else would he be drawing attention
to creation at this point? If you help a sick person it is God that enables you
to do it by holding you and your abilities in existence. No work that we do
deserves anything from God.
Paul rejects the Catholic teaching that when God forgives you and declares you
clean and free from sin and fit for Heaven it is a gift but after that you have
to deserve Heaven by doing good works with the help of God’s grace. He denies
that you are justified by your good works for that means God owes you something
for doing good. If Paul agreed with the Catholic teaching he would have written
that nobody can give God anything so that God owes him something back when that
person is not doing this work with the help of grace.
Perhaps good works are the fruit of a free salvation and so are gifts from
God as well and don’t deserve a reward though they get one? But they are still
your works and you don’t have to perform them but do them freely.
Note that Paul is speaking in the context of saved people. Therefore he is
saying that even those who have been and are justified by faith cannot do any
good work that contributes to their salvation by making them deserve it. The
Catholic doctrine is wrong.
Romans 11:36 he says that the reason God can owe nobody anything is because God
makes all things. The Catholic Church says on the contrary that we are justified
by our good works only when God helps us do them by grace. That is saying God
owes you salvation for doing these works that he helps you to do. But if all
things belong to God as Paul says and that is why he owes us nothing then works
that God helps you to do make him owe less than nothing to you! The Catholic
doctrine is blasphemous and is trying to manipulate God by getting from him what
he doesn’t owe. It shows that pride is the root of Catholic spirituality not
holiness.
FAITH ONLY DENIED?
One big boost to the anti-Jesus industry in the Catholic Church is her too
easily seen through claim that the Protestant doctrine of salvation is
contradicted by scripture. Out of pride the Church wants to believe it has to
contribute something to salvation. The Bible says that good works are essential
to salvation in the sense that the saved person will do them not in the sense
that they preserve one’s salvation or earn it. This is what James 2 meant by
saying that justification was by faith and good works.
Jesus told the rich young man to keep the commandments of God to have eternal
life (Mark 10). This does not contradict Paul for Jesus may have meant, “Unless
you get saved once for you won’t be able to please God and really keep his
commandments. Keep them.” He was indirectly commanding him to accept salvation
by faith alone. Jesus said elsewhere that nobody can be saved unless God
helps. He said with man it is not possible but only possible with God.
Other texts are twisted to make them seem to support the Catholic doctrine. One
is where Paul (Philippians 2:12) asks us to work out our salvation. This is
supposed to say that we have to work for our salvation. But the word salvation
is used in the Bible to mean things other than gaining eternal salvation at
times. Work out your marriage means live as a married person not to earn your
marriage. Work out your salvation means act like a saved person. Some
translations give us something like work to earn your salvation which if right
is certainly proof that this verse does not mean eternal salvation which Paul
considered to be entirely gratuitous.
Paul wrote that there is faith, hope and charity and that the greatest of these
is charity (1 Corinthians 13). Charity is greater than faith in the sense that
it persuades a person to make a saving act of faith in Christ. Faith is an act
of love. Paul’s saying does not refute solifidianism for it is still faith that
justifies.
Paul said he was nothing if he had faith alone and no charity. Catholics say he
would have been something if faith alone would do. Maybe he meant he would be no
good not that he would have been un-saved if he did not do good works. He may
have meant that if he had no charity then he would not have really been saved at
all for the saved always do good works.
Paul said that all have to be punished for their deeds, “what they have done in
the body”, at the judgment seat of Jesus (2 Corinthians 5:10). Catholics hold
that this refutes salvation by faith alone because if we are saved by faith only
then God cannot punish us after death. Not necessarily for even Calvinists
believe God punishes the saved in this life so why not the next. But as
Calvinists reject Purgatory (the Catholic idea that there is a place of
punishment and purification for the saved after death before they can go to
Heaven) the answer for them is that since Paul believed the saved do not pay for
their bad deeds after death for salvation wipes the slate he meant by what they
have done in the body was that they chose salvation and that the wicked failed
to do this. They are punished for not choosing salvation and the sins of the
unsaved are punished not because they are sins but because they were done
instead of choosing salvation. There is a difference a huge difference.
Catholics suppose that when Paul declared that he had to do good works to avoid
being rejected as worthless (1 Corinthians 9:27) and that a bishop who lets his
family go off the straight and narrow is worse than an infidel (1 Timothy 5:8)
that this proves that a saved Christian can lose salvation. But Paul meant he
would be worthless not in the sense that he would not get salvation but in the
sense that he would be of no use to God or other people. The bishop can be worse
than an infidel and still be going to Heaven.
Catholics say that when Paul said that we must not sin in the belief that we
will get more grace if we do (Romans 6:1) that his import was that salvation
depends on faith and good works and not solely on faith. Paul is not denying
that sin makes God give you more grace and justification but denying that you
should sin to get grace. Sin to sin but not to get grace. Luther condemned sin
though he told his people to commit it meaning that they had to sin anyway.
Catholics could say the same for they believe sin is inevitable. They teach that
the more you sin the more grace you will get when you repent. The grace is meant
to undo the power of sin so it is sinful and illogical to sin to get it.
Everybody commits a certain amount of sin and Paul is saying that extra sins
that should not be expected should not be committed. He is not saying that the
more you sin the less grace you will get but that you should not abuse God’s
generosity by abusing it by sinning. There is no hint in this that he means that
salvation by faith alone is incorrect. In fact, if he thought that it was then
how could people possibly think they get more grace the more they sin for the
fact that they sin shows they are resisting grace? If the grace he means is just
the grace of imputation, you being considered good because Christ’s account is
credited to you, and not the other grace that changes you from inside into a
holy person, people would say the more sin the better for then the more chance
God gets of being generous. So what Paul said was the extent of imputed grace
does depend on how much sin you commit but that must not be used as an excuse
for sinning. When he meant imputed grace this denies the Catholic doctrine that
you have to be really righteous not just declared righteous as in a legal
fiction.
Peter called on Christians to make sure their election, their being saved, by
doing good works (2 Peter 1:10,11). This does not mean make sure you get to
Heaven but make sure you are going to Heaven by doing good works for the saved
will do good works – good works prove that one has been saved.
Salvation is a free gift but good works earn rewards so let nobody argue that
since the Bible promises rewards for good works that it denies salvation by
faith alone.
It is understandable that many see that it is very easy to repent and believe in
Jesus so it makes salvation too easy while the Bible says that salvation is
going through a narrow gate and is unpopular. The narrow gate stuff implies that
you have to believe certain things and that most people will work against the
truth being known. Objectively speaking, there is no reason why anybody would
refuse salvation when it is that simple. We all want to do some good works so
the person could simply purify these works when he is doing them anyway and
offer them to God. No thief or homosexual or heretic or whatever would object to
getting saved for they could still sin afterwards.
JAMES 2
This epistle says we are justified by good works not just by faith alone. Yet it
quotes with approval and to support that declaration. a verse that says that
Abraham believed God and it was counted to him as righteousness. That is a verse
teaching salvation by faith only. James said that faith needs to be lived out by
good works and works of faith to be any good. By works he means living out the
faith and making it real. It is about having real faith. It is not about doing
good works to earn God's approval. You are justified by works in the sense that
your works are your faith. Far from being a denial of salvation by faith only,
James is affirming the doctrine.
CONCLUSION
The Bible denies that good works have anything to do with obtaining salvation.
Thus it condemns the Roman Catholic Church for teaching that sacraments and good
works are necessary for salvation. That the Bible says nothing to deny that
salvation or justification is by faith alone proves that the Catholic Church is
opposed to God because it won’t take that as proof that the doctrine must be
true. The Bible would say if it didn’t want to teach that doctrine. The
Bible never asks us to take God’s gift of eternal life and pay back the gift by
obeying him so it has no vision of good works having anything to do with
salvation except to express gratitude.
WORKS CONSULTED
A Catechism of Christian Doctrine, Catholic Truth Society, London, 1985
ANSWERS TO QUESTIONS CATHOLICS ARE ASKING Tony Coffey, Harvest House, Eugene,
Oregon, 2006
A Summary of Christian Doctrine, Louis Berkhof, The Banner of Truth Trust,
London, 1971
A Withering Branch, Joseph H Harley, John English and Co, Wexford, 1956
All One Body – Why Don’t We Agree? Erwin W Lutzer, Tyndale, Illinois, 1989
An Examination of Tulip, Robert L Sumner, Biblical Evangelism Press, Indiana.
1972
Apologia Pro Vita Sua, John Henry Newman, JN Dent & Sons Ltd, London, 1955
Born Fundamentalist, Born Again Catholic, David B Currie, Ignatius Press, San
Francisco, 1996
Can a Saved Person Ever Be Lost, John R Rice, Sword of the Lord, Murfreesboro,
Tennessee, 1943
Christian Answers About Doctrine, John Eddison, Scripture Union, London, 1973
Doubt The Consequences Cause and Cure, Curtis Hutson Sword of the Lord,
Murfreesboro, Tennessee, 1983
Eight Gospel Absurdities if a Born-Again Soul Ever Loses Salvation John R Rice
Sword of the Lord, Murfreesboro, Tennessee, 1946
Encyclopaedia of Bible Difficulties, Gleason W Archer, Zondervan, Grand Rapids,
Michigan, 1982
Four Great Heresies, John R Rice, Sword of the Lord, Murfreesboro, Tennessee,
1975
How to be a Christian without Being Religious, Fritz Ridenour, Regal Books,
California, 1970
HyperCalvinism, John D Rice, Sword of the Lord, Murfreesboro, Tennessee, 1970
Is it necessary for you to be baptised to be saved? Hoyt H Houchen, Guardian of
Truth, Bowling Green, Kentucky
Legalism – A Smokescreen, Mike Allison, Sword of the Lord, Murfreesboro,
Tennessee, 1986
Radio Replies, Vol 1, Frs Rumble and Carty, Radio Replies Press, St Paul
Minnesota, 1938
Radio Replies, Vol 2, Frs Rumble and Carty, Radio Replies Press, St Paul
Minnesota, 1940
Radio Replies, Vol 3, Frs Rumble and Carty, Radio Replies Press, St Paul,
Minnesota, 1942
Reasons for Hope, Editor Jeffrey A Mirus, Christendom College Press, Virginia,
1982
Saved For Certain, John R Rice, Sword of the Lord, Murfreesboro, Tennessee, 1953
The Catholic Church has the Answer, Paul Whitcomb, TAN, Illinois, 1986
The Catholicity of Protestantism Ed R Newton Flew and Rupert E Davies,
Lutterworth Press, London, 1950
The Dark Side, How Evangelical Teachings Corrupt Love and Truth, Valerie Tarico,
Ph.D, Dea Press, Seattle, 2006
The Eternal Security of the Believer, Curtis Hutson, Sword of the Lord,
Murfreesboro, Tennessee, 1982
The Grace of God in the Gospel, John Cheeseman, Philip Gardner, Michael
Sadgrove, Tom Wright, The Banner of Truth Trust, Edinburgh, 1976
The Great Acquittal, Tony Baker, George Carey, John Tiller and Tom Wright,
Fount, London, 1980
The Institutes of the Christian Religion, John Calvin, Hodder and Stoughton,
London,1986
The Other Side of Calvinism, Laurence M Vance, Vance Publications Pensacola,
Florida, 1991
There is no Difference for all have Sinned, John R Rice, Sword of the Lord,
Murfreesboro, Tennessee, 1939
Unitarian Christianity and Other Essays, William Ellery Channing The
Bobs-Merrill Company Inc, Kansas, 1957
Why I Disagree with All Five Points of Calvinism, Curtis Hutson, Sword of the
Lord, Murfreesboro, Tennessee, 1980
BIBLE TRANSLATION USED
The Amplified Bible
