The Reverend Harold A. Linn, Pastor

Do Roman Catholics Proclaim the Biblical Gospel?

By Dr. Richard P. Bucher

A Brief Analysis of the 1992 Catechism of the Catholic Church

January 29, 1998

Click here to examine the 1992 Catechism of the Catholic Church (CCC)

Introduction

The recent papal trip to Cuba as focused worldwide attention once again on the Roman Catholic faith. Exactly what do Roman Catholics believe? In this article, I'd like to take a more modest approach. According to the 1992 Catechism of the Catholic Church (CCC), do Roman Catholics proclaim the Biblical Gospel that we are justified by God's grace through faith apart from the works of the Law?

Before answering, though, another question needs to be asked. Is this a fair way to evaluate what Roman Catholics officially believe today? It is according to the Catechism's Prologue:

11 This catechism aims at presenting an organic synthesis of the essential and fundamental contents of Catholic doctrine, as regards both faith and morals, in the light of the Second Vatican Council and the whole of the Church's Tradition. Its principal sources are the Sacred Scriptures, the Fathers of the Church, the liturgy, and the Church's Magisterium. It is intended to serve "as a point of reference for the catechisms or compendia that are composed in the various countries".

The Catechism has also had the full support of Pope John Paul II since it was first envisioned in 1985.1 Therefore, it is fair and accurate to try to determine what Roman Catholics believe on the basis of this Catechism.

Finally, lest this short article appear overly negative, some positive comments. First, compared to those of us who have become familiar with 16th Century papal teaching, there is an astonishing emphasis on the atonement of Christ and on Scripture. This, of course, is a continuation of what was started at Vatican II, but it needs to be noted. From beginning to end the Catechism exalts Jesus Christ as the only Savior and His sacrificial death as the only payment for sin - sometimes in glorious strokes. From beginning to end, Scripture is cited and quoted. I mention this especially for the benefit of those who are not familiar with history. That this should occur in the church of Rome is nothing short of amazing.

However, when the Catechism is studied to answer our question, a much grimmer picture comes into a view. What appears before us is a church that still does not fully understand the Gospel, a church that is unwilling to part with the bad theology of its past, and therefore a Church that, at best, sends out mixed signals about what the Gospel is, and, at worst, perverts the Gospel of Jesus Christ.

(1) The Gospel is Confused with the Law

One aspect of the CCC that tends to obscure the Gospel is their repeated confusion of Gospel with Law. Especially crass is the following passage in which the nauseating phrase "Law of the Gospel" is repeatedly intoned:

1970 The Law of the Gospel requires us to make the decisive choice between "the two ways" and to put into practice the words of the Lord. It is summed up in the Golden Rule, "Whatever you wish that men would do to you, do so to them; this is the law and the prophets."The entire Law of the Gospel is contained in the "new commandment" of Jesus, to love one another as he has loved us.

This obvious confusion of the Law and Gospel in effect turns the Gospel into a new Law, a tragic perversion, since in the Scriptures, Law and Gospel are opposites!2 The Gospel is the gloriously good news that we saved apart from the works of the Law -- the commandments that Christ gave as well as the Mosaic Law. As Paul puts it in Galatians: "I do not set aside the grace of God, for if righteousness could be gained through the law, Christ died for nothing!" (Galatians 2:21).

(2) Justification is Confused with Sanctification

The calamitous error of the 16th Century Council of Trent is repeated in the Catechism: Justification is viewed not only as a divine verdict that occurs outside of us by the merits of Jesus Christ. It is viewed as a progressive sanctification that takes place inside of us. But by turning justification into sanctification it renders our salvation uncertain: If justification is also "the renewal of the interior man" then our justification depends on our performance not Christ's. All becomes uncertain. When something "in us" becomes the basis of our justification, then we are seeking to be justified by the works of the Law. Paul words apply here: "You who are trying to be justified by law have been alienated from Christ; you have fallen away from grace" (Galatians 5:4).

In the Scriptures themselves, justification is consistently God's verdict or declaration that sinners are not guilty or righteous through the saving work of Christ. It is a verdict that stands outside of us. It is not inner renewal. Nor does it ever describe an ongoing process. "Sanctification" is often the word used to describe this. Justification is completed the moment a sinner is converted through baptism and faith. It remains completed throughout the Christian's life - provided they continue to believe in Jesus only for salvation.3 The entries from the CCC follow.

1989 The first work of the grace of the Holy Spirit is conversion, effecting justification in accordance with Jesus' proclamation at the beginning of the Gospel: "Repent, for the kingdom of heaven is at hand."[38] Moved by grace, man turns toward God and away from sin, thus accepting forgiveness and righteousness from on high. `Justification is not only the remission of sins, but also the sanctification and renewal of the interior man.'4
 

1993 Justification establishes cooperation between God's grace and man's freedom. On man's part it is expressed by the assent of faith to the Word of God, which invites him to conversion, and in the cooperation of charity with the prompting of the Holy Spirit who precedes and preserves his assent: "When God touches man's heart through the illumination of the Holy Spirit, man himself is not inactive while receiving that inspiration, since he could reject it; and yet, without God's grace, he cannot by his own free will move himself toward justice in God's sight."5
 

1995 The Holy Spirit is the master of the interior life. By giving birth to the "inner man," justification entails the sanctification of his whole being: Just as you once yielded your members to impurity and to greater and greater iniquity, so now yield your members to righteousness for sanctification.... But now that you have been set free from sin and have become slaves of God, the return you get is sanctification and its end, eternal life.

(3) Saving Grace is Described as Something INSIDE us

As the section on justification confuses justification with sanctification, so the section on grace does the same. Grace is correctly defined as God's favor. Unfortunately, "grace of Christ" is further defined as that which is infused in us to sanctify us, which is said to be baptismal grace! Once again the CCC wrongly focuses all attention on what is going on INSIDE of the person, instead of where it should be: OUTSIDE. Certainly the Scriptures do speak of being "full of grace" (John 1:14; Acts 6:8). But saving grace is something OUTSIDE of us, it is God's undeserved kindness or favor by which he saves us for Christ's sake by faith.6 2 Corinthians 5:17, a beautiful justification verse, is quoted by the CCC as a sanctification verse! Ultimately, one gets the impression that for the CCC, grace is something inside us that enables us to work out our own salvation. According to Scripture, grace is the total opposite of anything in or about us that might lead us to rely on our performance (Romans 11:6).

1996 Our justification comes from the grace of God. Grace is favor, the free and undeserved help that God gives us to respond to his call to become children of God, adoptive sons, partakers of the divine nature and of eternal life.
 

1999 The grace of Christ is the gratuitous gift that God makes to us of his own life, infused by the Holy Spirit into our soul to heal it of sin and to sanctify it. It is the sanctifying or deifying grace received in Baptism. It is in us the source of the work of sanctification: Therefore if any one is in Christ, he is a new creation; the old has passed away, behold, the new has come. All this is from God, who through Christ reconciled us to himself.
 

2000 Sanctifying grace is an habitual gift, a stable and supernatural disposition that perfects the soul itself to enable it to live with God, to act by his love. Habitual grace, the permanent disposition to live and act in keeping with God's call, is distinguished from actual graces which refer to God's interventions, whether at the beginning of conversion or in the with God, to act by his love.
 

2005 Since it belongs to the supernatural order, grace escapes our experience and cannot be known except by faith. We cannot therefore rely on our feelings or our works to conclude that we are justified and saved.[56] However, according to the Lord's words "Thus you will know them by their fruits"[57] - reflection on God's blessings in our life and in the lives of the saints offers us a guarantee that grace is at work in us and spurs us on to an ever greater faith and an attitude of trustful poverty. A pleasing illustration of this attitude is found in the reply of St. Joan of Arc to a question posed as a trap by her ecclesiastical judges: "Asked if she knew that she was in God's grace, she replied: 'If I am not, may it please God to put me in it; if I am, may it please God to keep me there.'"[58]

(4) Human Merit is Made to be a Partial Basis of Gaining Eternal Life

Though the CCC emphatically asserts that our merit is pure grace, statements like paragraph 2010 below cannot but confuse the issue and give the strong impression that we can merit for ourselves eternal life. Much better is Luther's explanation of the Second Article: "not by any merit or worthiness in me."

2010 Since the initiative belongs to God in the order of grace, no one can merit the initial grace of forgiveness and justification, at the beginning of conversion. Moved by the Holy Spirit and by charity, we can then merit for ourselves and for others the graces needed for our sanctification, for the increase of grace and charity, and for the attainment of eternal life. Even temporal goods like health and friendship can be merited in accordance with God's wisdom. These graces and goods are the object of Christian prayer. Prayer attends to the grace we need for meritorious actions.

(5) Faith is a Good Work

At the very beginning of the section on "Man's Response to God" faith is defined as "the obedience of faith." This is a prelude of all that follows. Although there are many fine statements about faith in this section, one looks in vain for a good Pauline definition of faith as the antithesis to works. Faith is usually spoken of as a work that we do, rather than trust in God's Gospel.

143 By faith, man completely submits his intellect and his will to God. With his whole being man gives his assent to God the revealer. Sacred Scripture calls this human response to God, the author of revelation, "the obedience of faith".
 

144 To obey (from the Latin ob-audire, to "hear or listen to") in faith is to submit freely to the word that has been heard, because its truth is guaranteed by God, who is Truth itself. Abraham is the model of such obedience offered us by Sacred Scripture. The Virgin Mary is its most perfect embodiment.

Conclusion

With the above evidence in view, the question whether the Roman Catholic Church teaches the Biblical Gospel must be answered with a sorrowful but firm "no." The Gospel is preached in some paragraphs, in ways that would make Martin Luther rejoice! But in other paragraphs and in the Catechism as a whole, the Biblical Gospel is perverted and turned into another gospel that turns the sinner inward and tells him to focus on what is going on inside him: on his keeping of Christ's commandments, on his own love, his own merits, his own progressive renewal, etc. The real Gospel focuses our attention not on ourselves but on Jesus Christ, on His perfect, death, and resurrection -- on His saving work for us.

1. "The Holy Father, Pope John Paul II, made the Synod's wish his own, acknowledging that `this desire wholly corresponds to a real need of the universal Church and of the particular Churches.'"; Roman Catholic Catechism (hereafter RCC) 10.

2. See John 1:17; Romans 1:16-17; 3:19-28; 4:1-5; 10:1-13; See the discussion on the Spirit and letter in 2 Corinthians 3.

3. This is supported by the way the Scriptures themselves speak of justification: Luke 18:14;

Acts 13:38, 39; Roma 3:24; Roma 3:26; Roma 3:28; Roma 3:30; Roma 4:2; Roma 4:5; Roma 4:25; Roma 5:1; Roma 5:9; Roma 5:16; Roma 5:18; 1Cor 4:4; Gala 2:16; Gala 3:8; Gala 3:11; Gala 3:24; Gala 5:4; Titu 3:7. This long, but beautiful definition of justification from the Formula of Concord, Solid Declaration, also highlights the same truth: "that a poor sinner is justified before God (that is, he is absolved and declared utterly free from all his sins, and from the verdict of a well deserved damnation, and is adopted as a child of God and an heir of eternal life), without any merit or worthiness on our part, and without any preceding, present, or subsequent works, by sheer grace, solely through the merit of the total obedience, the bitter passion, the death, and the resurrection of Christ, our Lord, whose obedience is reckoned to us as righteousness. The Holy Spirit offers these treasures to us in the promise of the Gospel, and faith is the only means whereby we can apprehend, accept, apply them to ourselves, and make them our own. Faith is a gift of God . . . For faith does not justify because it is so good a work and so God-pleasing a virtue, but because it lays hold on and accepts the merit of Christ in the promise of the holy Gospel." Formula of Concord, Solid Declaration III:9-11,13.

4. This last quotation is from the Council of Trent (1547): DS 1528.

5. This also is a quotation from Trent: DS 1525.

6. Acts 15:11; Roma 3:24; Roma 4:16; Roma 5:1-2; 5:15; Roma 11:6; 2 Cor 8:9; Gal 1:6; Gal 2:21; Gal 5:4; Eph 1:7; Eph 2:5,7-8; 2 Thess 2:16-17; 2 Tim 1:9; Titus 3:4-7; Hebr 2:9.