Welcome to the For the Gospel podcast. My name is Costi Hinn, and I have the pleasure of being your host. For the Gospel is all about sound doctrine for everyday people. That's what we aim to provide. And on this particular episode today, I want to talk to you about the differences between Roman Catholicism and Protestant Christianity. The reason is that there are over a billion Catholics in the world today professing Catholics. And there's a lot of noise right now. And there has been for many decades an ecumenical movement that is seeking to bring together Catholics and Christians and would claim that we're all of the same faith and we really believe in the same God and we're all part of the same church. We just have some different ways that we apply things. And I would say it is of the utmost importance that a Christian understands the differences between Roman Catholicism and what they teach and what the Bible actually teaches and what biblical Christianity truly is. The doctrine of justification by faith has divided the Catholic Church and the Protestant Church since the Reformation. This is undeniable. But the differences between Catholicism and Christianity go much deeper than just justification by faith. Not that that isn't enough. In fact, it is enough. It's a core tenet of the gospel, and it is a tier one essential. For more on that, you can listen to a previous episode called What is Justification by Faith that we did here at FTG. But for our purposes now, I want to walk you through 15 points of heresy that the Catholic Church teaches. And I'm not just going to give you some hearsay or my opinion. I'm going to read direct quotes from the Roman Catholic Church Catechism. I'm taking these from a dear brother in the faith named Mike Gendron, who we're going to have on the show, and he's going to do an interview. I want to ask him about the Apocrypha so that you, our listeners, can understand why the Apocrypha, which is the books that the Catholics have added into the Bible, are not scripture. So look for that in the coming weeks as well as we talk to Mike Gendron some more. But he's put together a great resource. It's not rocket science, and it doesn't have to be elusive. So when you're in a conversation with someone, I want you to use one of Mike's points that he makes directly from the Bible and quoting the Roman Catholic Church catechism. I'll walk you through these on this episode, and then we'll have more clarity. First, the doctrine of Jesus. The Bible teaches that Jesus is the Savior. Titus 3, verse 5 says, He saved us not because of any righteous deeds which we had done, but because of his mercy. In other words, Jesus is the Savior, he's the one who saves, and we are saved by him and him alone, Christ alone. The Roman Catholic Church in paragraph 1026 and paragraph 1477 of their catechism teach, by his death and resurrection, Jesus Christ has opened heaven to us. And so you might think, well, okay, that doesn't sound too bad. Well, here's the rest of it. Each person attains his own salvation by grace and good works. That's paragraph 1477 of the Roman Catholic Catechism. What does that mean? Well, basically, that Jesus is sort of like a doorman. And he opens the door and he says, Hey, I've gone ahead and opened the door. You do some good works, and grace and those good works will save you. This flies in the face of Paul's words in Ephesians 2, 8 and 9, where he says, By grace you have been saved. It's through faith, not as a result of works, so no one can boast. Your works don't save you. My works don't save you. The Roman Catholic Church teaches that. Now that is also enough, much like the issue of justification by faith, to divide us from the Roman Catholic Church and consider the Roman Catholic Church as those who teach heretical doctrines, but there's much more. Next, the doctrine of Jesus would include that Jesus is and was forevermore the sinless redeemer. First Peter one, verse 17 and 18 says, For you know it was not with perishable things that you are redeemed, but with the precious blood of Christ. That is what a Christian believes. The Roman Catholic Church teaches that Mary is the sinless co-redeemer. Yes, you heard that correctly. And here's the quote from paragraph 494 in the Roman Catholic Catechism. Without a single sin to restrain her, she gave herself entirely to the person and work of her son. She did so in order to serve the mystery of redemption with him. Being obedient, she became the cause of salvation for herself and the whole human race. That's a direct quote. That she is the co-redeemer, that she is the one because of her obedience and sinlessness, who was the cause of salvation. You cannot put Mary on par with Christ. A Christian believes she was the Virgin Mary. A Christian believes, yes, she was chosen by God to be given a baby from the Holy Spirit, who is and was the Christ, Jesus, and that Mary was specifically chosen for that role. But she was human. She had other children. She definitely sinned. She was not and is not our co-redeemer. Another core teaching of the Christian faith, Jesus is our advocate and our only mediator. The Bible makes that clear in 1 Timothy 2.5 and 1 John 2.1, where the Bible teaches God is one. One also is the mediator between God and men, the man, Christ, Jesus. We sing this song in church all the time. I know many Christians do, that there is only one mediator. It is Christ. The Roman Catholic Church teaches that Mary, quote, did not lay aside her saving office, but by her manifold intercession continues to bring us the gifts of eternal salvation. I'm quoting now. She is advocate and mediatrix, a female mediator. That's in paragraph 969 of the Roman Catholic Catechism. That is what they teach. And we have to say emphatically, that is unbiblical. She is not our mediator. She does not stand between God and us. She did not absorb the wrath of God upon herself. She does not usher our prayers into the throne room of God. She is not on par with Christ. He is our only mediator. And you have to either take 1 Timothy 2.5 and 1 John 2.1 at God's word or not. That is false teaching. That's what the Catholic Church teaches. Another one, that Jesus has paid for or washed away our sin. The Bible teaches in Romans 3.25, on the heels of Romans 3.23, which says all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God. Through his blood, God made him the means of expiation or redemption or washing of sin or justification. You can put a whole bunch of different theological truths in there that all come out to mean the same thing for all who believe that he's taking care of our sin. Our sin is not taken care of any other way. The Roman Catholics teach that sin is handled in purgatory through a cleansing fire, quote, and that we must strive to accept this temporal punishment of sin as a grace. That's in paragraph 1030 and 31 and paragraph 1472 through 75 of the Roman Catholic Catechism. Another one. That's just not what the Bible teaches. Communion is symbolic. It is not literally the blood and body of Christ. It's a symbol. That's why Jesus said, This represents basically. Take this, this is my body. He was saying this, when you do this, do it in remembrance of me. It is a symbol. Another one, his life, death, and resurrection provided the only way to be saved. That's what the Bible teaches. There is no salvation in anyone else. Acts 4.12. There is no other name in the whole world given by men or to men by which anyone is saved. Acts 4.12. The Roman Catholic Church denies this and claims that the Catholic Church is, quote, necessary for salvation. Paragraph 846 of the Roman Catholic Catechism, claiming the plan of salvation, I quote, also includes those who acknowledge the Creator in the first place, amongst whom are the Muslims. Paragraph 841. So now we're into some real thick stuff. That the Catholic Church would acknowledge Muslims in the same category, that the Catholic Church would say that they are necessary for salvation. This is where you end up with ideas that the Pope is the head of the church, which is another one I want to explain as well, where the church, the Catholic Church is essential for salvation, and then of course the leader of the Catholic Church is basically a a junior varsity version of Christ, and his word is actually on par with the Bible, that's not true at all. Jesus is the head of the church. The Bible teaches he has put all things under Christ's feet and made him thus exalted. He is the head of the church, Ephesians 1, verse 22 and 23. Well, the Roman Catholic Church teaches that the Pope, and I quote, by reason of his office as vicar of Christ, as pastor of the entire church, has full, supreme, and universal power over the whole church, a power which he can always exercise unhindered. Paragraph 882. His exercises are infallible. Listen to this. When he quote, proclaims by a definitive act a doctrine pertaining to faith or morals, paragraph eight hundred and ninety nine ninety-one. So if the pope decides that homosexuality is allowed, guess what? They determine that that's God speaking. If the Pope decides that you can marry whoever you want, you can do whatever you want to whoever you want. Did you know that the Catholics believe and teach what I just quoted that he is putting in a definitive act of doctrine that now enters into the practice of the church because he's on par with scripture and acting as the authority over the church? Not in a way that pastors and elders do in a Christian church with a delegated authority, really as servants, and our only authority is in scripture alone. No, he can say what he wants and dictate what he wants to the church. That is much more on par with the prosperity gospel heresy and word of faith movement, and these people that say, I'm the anointed leader, I hear from God, you don't, thus saith the Lord, I got a word for you, and they start adding to Scripture special revelation. That's on par with that. Not faithful, orthodox, Protestant Christianity. Let's move into the doctrine of salvation here. The Bible teaches salvation is proclaimed in the gospel. In 1 Corinthians 15, 1 through 4, in Romans 1.16, let me quote a few passages from Scripture. The Bible says it is the power of God leading everyone who believes to salvation. That's Romans 1.16 and 17, where Paul says, I'm not ashamed of the gospel. It's the power of God unto salvation. It's the good news of Jesus Christ, his life, his death, his resurrection in accordance with the scriptures, 1 Corinthians 15, verses 1 through 4. Well, Galatians 1 9 says, if anyone preaches a gospel to you other than the one you received, let a curse be upon him. Anathema is the Greek word. A curse is laid upon that individual. You don't listen to them, they're under a curse. Well, the Roman Catholic Church preaches a different gospel by demanding additional requirements for salvation, including the sacraments. That's paragraph 1129 of their catechism. They have masses that offer merit, so you can actually earn some salvation by going to mass. Imagine if we did that in the Protestant church. If you come to church, you'll be saved. That's why some people fill our churches, they think going is going to save them. It's not. Church membership, another one. And that's important. You should be a member of a church. Your pastors should know you. You should definitely be a part of a church, but it's not essential to be saved. Another one is purgatory. Another is indulgences, paragraph 1498, and baptism. Imagine you teach you gotta do indulgences, and you gotta be baptized in order to be saved. All of that tramples afoot what the Bible teaches about being saved by grace through faith, by grace alone, through faith alone, and Christ alone, not according to works. Another few more as we wind down this episode and hopefully bring some clarity to your understanding of how dangerous. And I say this with a spirit of love and hoping that people would be challenged to either evangelize their Catholic brothers and sisters on planet Earth and say, hey, uh, I call you brother or sister by way of love, but not by way of family relationship in the faith. You're outside the faith. You're made in the image of God. I love you. That's why I want to help put the truth in front of you and see you actually saved into the real church and the real faith. And I also hope that maybe you're a Catholic listening to this somehow and you've never really thought this through. You've never heard the Bible quoted up against your belief system. I would encourage you to relieve the burden of legalism off your shoulders and the burden of all this works-based system. Give your life to the true Christ, walk in faithful obedience to the true Christ, follow his word, the Bible alone. And guess what? Read the Bible for yourself and follow Jesus faithfully. That's what I would want for you. I want liberty and freedom. I want grace to pour over your life. I don't want you to go around every day feeling like you got to do more indulgence, old more indulgences, or show up at a mass, or do the right thing, or go ahead and do this or that, the other to please the Catholic Church in order to be saved. I want you to have the freedom of knowing you can be saved through Christ alone. On that note, I've already mentioned it quite a bit. I want to go and directly quote the Roman Catholic Church from paragraph 1477 and paragraph 1479, they teach salvation through faith plus works. People can obtain their own salvation and at the same time cooperate in saving their brothers through good works and indulgences. Imagine you can vicariously save someone else. When Romans 10 9 says, believe in your heart, confess with your mouth that Jesus Christ is Lord and be saved, the Catholic Church teaches that by doing what you do, you can enact salvation in someone else's life. The Bible teaches that salvation is by grace and not merit. That's clear in Romans 3.24, where the Bible says all men are now undeservedly justified by the gift of God. Justification is undeserved. Salvation is a gift from the Lord. We don't do anything to earn it. It's not even merit-based. It's not because you're pretty or you're handsome or you're fit or you're tall or you're short or you're rich or you're poor or you're black or you're white. No merits help you get saved. It doesn't matter what education you have or don't have, what country you're from, who your parents are. God is not a respecter of persons. I'll go further. He doesn't really care about all of your merits and who you think you are or who you aren't. Romans 11 6 says, it is not because of their works, otherwise, grace would not be grace. Hear me when I say this. It doesn't matter who you are, Jesus can and will save you. Not based on merit, based on his grace. It's a gift. The Roman Catholic Church says in paragraph 2027 of their catechism, they deny justifying grace is undeserved. Quote, we can merit for ourselves and for others all the graces needed to attain eternal life. Imagine living your whole life, understanding that your merits are what save you. What a labor. That's exhausting. I remember one time playing in a men's hockey league, and I invited a friend to church. One guy on my team, and he's a little rough around the edges, a great guy still, nonetheless, enjoyed playing hockey with him, and everybody knew I was a pastor on the team. And so once in a while, language get thrown around and guys would say, Oh, sorry, Costi, I'd say that's all right. I didn't say it. You did. It's between you and the Lord if you believe in him. And one day I decided to go a little further. A few games in, I thought I'm not just gonna be silent about my faith. So I invited them all to church and I told one guy in particular, hey, you ought to come to church tomorrow. Come on, man. And he said, Oh, no, thanks. I I I don't do church. I I hate myself enough already. I'm Catholic. And I remember the whole room burst out laughing. And I I chuckled, kind of joining in a bit of the moment of levity, and I got real serious with him once the laughter died down. I said, Hey man, I get it. I totally get it. You know, I but but seriously, the idea that you can't be saved and God can't love you, and you can't come to church and and you can't reach eternal life because you don't do enough and you don't crawl on the floor enough, and you don't go to enough masses, and you don't take the sacraments, and and you don't beat yourself on the back for every sin. The idea that you don't do those things and so you can't earn your salvation, brother. Let me free you from that burden. And I shared the hope of the true gospel with him. He wasn't there yet. I planted a seed. He didn't end up coming to church. He sort of laughed off me a bit and was like, all right, well, thanks, man. You don't you don't need to do all that and tell me I'm fine, I'm fine, I'm fine. But that comment said everything to me about his Catholic upbringing. Yeah, I don't go to church, man. I hate myself enough already. I'm Catholic. That's what the Catholic Church does. They deny justifying grace as being undeserved. They say grace can be deserved and earned, and so they put burdens on people's shoulders. You got to earn it. Your merits save you. And people go around beating themselves up day after day or being self-righteous and thinking they are just holier than thou because they took the sacraments and they confessed this and they rub their rosary and they go to mass and they got baptized and they took the Eucharist. Let me tell you, we are nothing without Christ. We are a self-run righteous bunch of sinners, or we are those broken in guilt and shame. And it is Christ who liberates us from both extremes, and he becomes the source of all power, and the credit all goes to him as he gets the glory for saving us, not based on works, but based on his work alone. Those are just several of the key points that the Roman Catholic Catechism teaches, up against several of the key doctrinal essentials that the Bible teaches. I think we can say with not a great deal of joy, but perhaps even a brokenheartedness that the Roman Catholic Church is a place of great heresy, that they are teaching a false gospel. I'm not saying that everybody who's caught up in the Catholic Church or even as a Catholic is a heretic. I think there's a lot of cultural Catholics. We know that. There's a lot of people that just say, Oh, I'm I'm Catholic because they grew up in a Catholic church. There are many people that propagate these sort of doctrines. But I want to encourage you, as we always do at for the gospel, go back to the Bible. Go back to Scripture. Let it be the objective truth, the sound doctrine, the reliable source of all truth for your life, and turn to Christ in Christ alone for your salvation. In future episodes, we're going to have uh Mike Gendron on, my friend, to talk about the Apocrypha and put the Apocrypha even up against Scripture and explain more of why it is not biblical to flesh out the rest of this topic and equip you to both engage Catholics, or if you are a professing Catholic, to see the folly of that teaching, but then to experience the great grace and the greater grace of Christ. Thank you all for being with us today on For the Gospel. For free video teachings, go to our YouTube channel and subscribe. There's videos there you can watch, share, and learn from to give and support what we're doing, or for more resources and articles, or learn about our ministry team and our philosophy, go to for thegospel dot org. We'll see you on Instagram, TikTok, Facebook, and Twitter. And we'll be back next Monday with another episode. Keep on living for the true gospel.