What Does the Bible Say About the Roman Catholic Church #3?

We continue our discussion of the Roman Catholic Church's various doctrines that are not found in the New Testament. We begin by discussing Extreme Unction which is anointing a person who is about to die. We next discuss the use of instrumental music which was added in 666AD. We note 15 Catholic doctrines and when they were established. We close out this study by noting that the Catholic Church began after the first century as a result of the apostacy the apostles said would occur, and its organizational structure is foreign to the New Testament pattern. Consequently, it cannot be the Church Jesus built. We move on to the next denomination on our list, which is the Lutheran church. We note when it dates from and why this can be said. We talk about why what Martin Luther did is so important to understand. As a result of his studies, he came to the conclusion that the Catholic Church had many errors in what it did. Consequently, he nailed 95 theses to the door of the Castle Church in Wittenberg, Germany in 1517. We close out this episode by mentioning his greatest objections to what the Catholic Church was doing. Take about 30-minutes to listen in on our discussion. Have your Bible handy so you can verify what we are saying. There is a transcript of this Buzzsprout episode provided for your convenience.

Transcript

Fred Gosnell: 0:00

This is a presentation of the Woodland church of Christ meeting at 3370 Broad Street in Sumter, South Carolina. We meet for worship on Sunday at ten thirty am and five thirty pm. We meet for Bible study at nine thirty am on Sunday and 7seven pm on Wednesday. If you have questions or comments on this lesson, you may email them to Arnie Granke at agranke440718@yahoo.com, or to Glenn Landrum at scbamaboy2003@yahoo.com or to Eric McClam at ericmcclam50@outlook.com, or to Fred Gosnell at fgosnell@ftc-i.net.

Arnie: 0:55

Good afternoon. This is What Does the Bible Say, brought to you by the church of Christ at Woodland, here in Sumter, South Carolina. We're at 3070 Broad Street Extension, and that's just about a mile up from the north of the main gate of Shaw Air Force Base. Easy for you to find. We hope that you'll, you'll come and visit with us, and we want to talk to you about what does the Bible say. Fred Gosnell is with us, and Glenn, and Eric, and this is Arnie Granke. So we hope that you'll listen, take out your Bible, don't take anything that anybody tells you as being fact until you verified it in your Bible, so you need to keep that handy, and even test us on it. You find that if we've made some kind of an error, why, by all means, call it to our attention, and we'll, we'll be glad to fix that, and if you find it to be the truth, then we hope that you'll comply with what God has said in His word. Glenn, what are we going to work on this afternoon?

Glenn: 2:12

Well, we're, we're in the process of talking about denominations, and what denominations do that are contrary to what the Bible teaches. So, and we're in the denomination of Catholicism, the Catholic Church. We've covered nine of those, those doctrines or teachings that the Catholic Church has that that are not found in the Bible, and you know, in our show, what we're, what we're presenting is called What Does the Bible Say, and we believe that means a whole lot, and we believe that the Bible, which is God's word, actually teaches that. So, before we, we start, I'm going to reread a couple of passages that lets us know what God's word does for us. Second Peter one verse three says, As His divine power has given to us all things that pertain to life and godliness through the knowledge of Him who called us by glory and virtue. So that tells us that that God has given us everything that we need, both for our personal lives and for our service to Him, and that's found in, in the Bible. Also in, in the Peter letters, this will be in First Peter four, verse 11 says, If anyone speaks, let him speak as the oracles of God. If anyone ministers, let him do so, do it as with the ability which God supplies, that in all things God may be glorified through Jesus Christ, to whom belong the glory and the dominion forever and ever, Amen. So, in this passage, Peter was saying that the only things that we should say are the things that we find in God's word. So we can't go and we can't make up our own ideas and make up our own doctrines and use them to teach about God's word. We can only teach what's in God's word. So we're now on an extreme, extreme unction. This is a sacrament in the Catholic Church of the new law, in which by anointing with oil and the prayers of the priest, health of the soul and sometimes of the body is conferred on a baptized person who is in danger of death through sickness. The oil must be specially blessed and the prayers of the priest must have a particular form. Now I would like to give you some scripture about that, but there is no scripture to give you about that, and that's the point. There's nothing said in God's word about a priest having the authority or the ability to do these things, it's not something that that can be done.Now. In the days of the apostles, in the first century, and shortly after that, with some of the people that they had laid their hands on and given the powers they could have done things similar to this, they could have done miraculous things, such as put oil on somebody and cured them, but that doesn't happen today. We've covered the passage in First Corinthians 13 that tells us that all those miraculous type powers would be done away with once we have the New Testament in full. So extreme unction, not something that we find in the Bible. Also, instrumental music, and I'll now talk about it as well. Instrumental music. The liturgical music is essentially vocal, and its decadence was greatly hastened by the introduction of the orchestral instruments. In the Western Church today the organ is permitted, except at office and mass of the dead, and on the ferias of Advent and Lent. On special occasions, other instruments are allowed by a particular leave of the bishop or permission of the bishop, so they're using musical instruments. The Catholic Church was was one of the first denominations to introduce musical instruments into the worship of the church, and that happened in the seventh century, and think about that, over 600 years had passed since Christ had established the church, and no one used instrumental music in worship until the seventh century. So that lets you know that this, that the church that was monitored and administered while the apostles were on earth those that were that had the commission of Jesus Christ to teach His word, instruments of music were not used. So I'll pass Fred now.

Fred Gosnell: 7:52

Well, of course, when we look at a historical record from from the Catholic Church, we can see a lot of these doctrines that they implemented. They had special water that had to be used for particular things, for, you know, baptisms or sprinklings, and they started that in 120 AD. Then penance, penance is another word for repentance, and their penance requires an individual to repent and then have that repentance witnessed by a priest and have have the priest tell them what they need to do, what punishment they're going to accord from that, and then of course change their behavior

Arnie: 8:39

And what it's going to cost them.

Fred Gosnell: 8:40

So that, of course, then they required a Latin mass. You have something to add here?

Glenn: 8:47

Yeah. There's a point to be made about holy water and penance. About when they were instituted, they were actually instituted before the Catholic Church was established. The Catholic Church was not established until, what was it, 336 AD, I believe. What it was,

Fred Gosnell: 9:03

Well, 606 was when the Pope, the first.

Glenn: 9:08

Somewhere around 336 AD is when many would say that the church was established, the Catholic Church was established,

Fred Gosnell: 9:17

So they were, they required at one time. Well, this was in 394 AD. They required that their, that their Mass would have to be performed and said in Latin. And by the way, that's a, that's a, that's a current problem in the Catholic Church today, because they quit that some years back. One of the popes said, "Well, we need to do the mass in English or in the language that you're in. But now with this new pope, they now want to go back to the Latin Mass. Some of them do. So, of course, nobody, very few people speak Latin. But that was instituted 394. Then of course they, they worship Mary, they worship the Lord, quote unquote, and they worship Mary as well, and that requirement was established sometime in the fourth century, as far as we know. Then just talked about extreme unction, that was a requirement in 588. All of these, most of these things, there are writings, Catholic writings that specify when these things were to be done. We talked about purgatory. Of course. Purgatory is is a doctrine that says that people can go to purgate, people who haven't been baptized, they go to purgatory, and then you can pray for them, and you can, they can be changed from purgatory to the good places, to Abraham's bosom, which is, which is where good people go. Then the universal bishop, of course, we mentioned that 606 AD was the first universal pope, and I forget his name, but he was the first one.

Glenn: 11:12

Boniface,

Fred Gosnell: 11:12

Boniface, that's right. Then instrumental music, we just talked about was for the Catholics was 666 AD. Transubstantiation, Transubstantiation teaches that when they have the Lord's Supper, that the bread and the, they use wine, by the way, it is the actual body of Christ and the actual blood of Christ, and so there's some action that the priest takes that makes that happen. Then celibacy in 1015 the Catholic Church required that their priests and pope and those people could not be married. Nuns, they could not be married. And then indulgences. The indulgences were money that was paid, and this occurred. I think we're going to talk about that later on here when we get to the Catholic, Lutheran Church, and the indulgences were money that was paid. Johann Johan Tetzel was the individual that had the biggest part in this, and for a long time, people paid money to help get their dead relatives out of purgatory, and a number of other things that the payment of the indulgences allowed. So those are some of the doctrines, one other auricular confession, that's you have to confess your sins to a priest. Usually they have a, they have a little room where the priest is on one side and there's a, there's a separation between that and you're on the other side, and and then you confess to your priest, there's a little thing he might not be able to see your face, and then you tell him what you did, and then he can then forgive you of those sins that you committed. Then, sprinkling for baptism, we talked about that 1311 AD was a requirement by the Catholic Church, and then the infallibility of the Pope. What the Pope says is always correct and true, and I think sometimes they say when he's in his seat, where he sits, that whatever he says there, it's infallible. Then, of course, jurisdiction over civil authority, 728 1870 the Catholic church for a long time had had authority, quote, over some civil societies, and some of the societies went along with it. So those are some of the doctrines that we know about. There, of course, are many more.

Arnie: 13:54

Well, you know, of course, there's some Bible lessons in here that deal with some of these issues, for example, Matthew chapter 26 and beginning in verse 26, As they were eating, Jesus took bread and blessed and brake it, and gave it to the disciples, and said, Take, eat, this is my body, and he took the cup and gave thanks, and gave it to them, saying, "Drink ye all of it, for this is my blood of the New Testament, which is shed for many for the remission of sins. But I say unto you, I will not drink henceforth of this fruit of the vine until that day when I drink it new with you in my Father's kingdom. And so this idea of of the bread and the and the wine turning into the blood of Jesus and the body of Jesus in, just doesn't gee haw with what Jesus had to say about that, because after he said that it was that, then the passage says talks about drinking this cup, eating this bread, and somehow somebody missed that when they were, when they were trying to create a new, a new doctrine. First Corinthians, chapter 11 is a passage that, that fits in there as well, beginning in, in verse 23 where, where Paul is writing, he said,'For I've received of the Lord that which also I delivered unto you, that the Lord Jesus, the same night in which He was betrayed, took bread, and when He had given thanks, He broke it and said, 'Take, eat, this is My body, which is broken for you. This do in remembrance of me. What was it he took? He didn't take flesh, he took bread, and and spoke of of that. When he'd given thanks. He break it. I read that verse. Let's go down to verse 25 After the same manner also he took the cup when he had supped, saying, This cup is the New Testament in my blood. This do ye as oft as you drink it in remembrance of me. Well, again, it was, it was still not blood, it was, it was what they were to, what they were to drink, and he said, for as often as you eat this bread, drink this cup. It's still a, it's still a cup, and it's still the bread you do so the Lord's death till he come. Whosoever, or wherefore whosoever shall eat of this bread and drink this cup of the Lord unworthily shall be guilty of the body and blood of the Lord, but let a man examine himself, and so let him eat of that bread and drink of that cup, for he that eateth and drinketh unworthily eateth and drinketh damnation to himself, not discerning the Lord's body. And let me, let me give you one other passage here, I'm going to going to flip back here to John, John chapter, chapter six, and in John chapter six, beginning in verse 23 we have information given to us that, How be it there came thither boats from Tiberias nigh unto the place where they did eat bread. So let's see here, Matthew, Paul, and John all thought that it was still bread and and not the body of Christ, there, so verse 23 They ate the bread after that the Lord had given thanks. When the people therefore saw that Jesus was not there, neither his disciples, they also took shipping and came to Capernaum seeking for Jesus, so that's that gives us enough information to compare what the Bible says with what the Pope says, and the Pope gets a score of zero, and the Bible gets 100%

Glenn: 18:40

There's a few things I wanted to mention about a few of the items that Fred had mentioned about some of the doctrines of the Catholic Church, and there is some scripture that we have that doesn't support those that, but actually goes directly against it. He read about the priest and the bishops and the nuns not being able to marry. Well. Paul wrote to Timothy in First Timothy four, beginning in verse one. He says, Now the Spirit expressly says that in latter times some will depart from the faith, giving heed to deceiving spirits and doctrines of demons, speaking lies in hypochrisy, having their conscience seared with a hot iron. Pay attention now, Forbidding to marry and commanding to abstain from foods that God created to receive with thanksgiving by those who believe and know the truth. Well, Paul's telling Timothy that that we don't have the authority to forbid anyone, this is anyone from getting married. We don't have the the authority to command people to abstain from certain foods. God said that we know we should receive those with thanksgiving. The about confessing this auricular confession, confession that we confess to a priest across a screen or something of that nature, James is telling the basically these are Jewish Christians that he's writing to, and in James five, verses six, verse 16, he says, Confess your trespasses to one another and pray for one another that you may be healed, the effective fervent prayer of righteous man avails much. Jesus also talked about when we had had problems against our brother, we should go to the brother and talk to the brother, but we confess, we confess our sins to one another. Also, in First John one verse nine says, If we confess our sins, He, so this is saying, if we confess our sins to Christ, to God, He is faithful and just to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness. So when we have sins against God, we don't go to to a preacher or a priest or somebody like that to get forgiveness. We go to God to get forgiveness for those sins. These are things that that are directly taught against in in the Bible, and we could probably go with each one of those items that we've mentioned and and give evidence from the scriptures, how they are not correct. Arnie did that with, with the elements of the Lord's Supper, that the, that the fruit of the vine and the bread do not become the literal body and and blood of Jesus, they are represent representative symbols of Christ's blood and Christ's body.

Arnie: 22:08

We don't have, we don't have a God that can be eaten.

Glenn: 22:11

No, no, we don't. The conclusion, the Roman Catholic Church began not in the first century, but in the apostasy that followed the first century. Remember, we read about Paul warning the Ephesian elders that there would be people come in amongst the elderships of churches, particularly he's talking about the church in Ephesus. There would be people come in to within the eldership and lead the flock, that's the church, lead the flock astray, so that that's a purpose, purposeful thing that people would do, and he warned the Ephesian elders that that would happen. So the Catholic Church was not begun in the first century. Its organizational structure is completely foreign to what we see in the New Testament as the organization of the church. Organization of the

church is real simple: 23:13

Christ is the head. We have elders that oversee the church, we have deacons who serve the church, and then we just have members or saints, and that's all

Arnie: 23:28

And all those are local people, they're not worldwide.

Glenn: 23:31

Yeah, they're all local, contained in individual congregations, and they don't, they don't have anything to do with other congregations, it says within the congregations. It does not have or even claim to follow the New Testament as its sole authority in religion. It, the Catholic Church, will tell you that the Pope has the authority of God to be able to implement and make rules as he would. The Roman Catholic Church cannot be the Church of Christ established on the Pentecost, recorded in Acts two.

Arnie: 24:09

Eric.

Glenn: 24:11

Either one of you, Fred, Eric

Arnie: 24:13

We stole your thunder.

Eric: 24:14

No, that's OK. But that's going to conclude talking about the Catholic Church. So we're going to move on and discuss about another denominational church, and that's the Lutheran Church. And for the introduction of the Lutheran Church, the Lutheran Church was first was the first of many Protestant churches formed out of the Protestant against the Catholicism during the Reinformant Movement, Reformation movement. Excuse me. The Lutheran Church dates from All Saints' Day, October 30 first, 1517 when Martin Luther nailed his 90-five theses of the castle of the Castle Church door in Wittenberg, Germany, protesting the sale of indulgence Indulgences by the Roman Catholic Church under Tetzel in Germany. Luther's desire was not to start another church, but rather support a great evil or suppress evil. His actions, however, struck a blow at the papacy, which led the Reformation and the origin of the Lutheran Church. Today, there are almost a score of Lutheran denominations, but all of them wear the same name, Lutheran, and look at Martin Luther as the founder of the Lutheran Church, just come from Bill Cruz, Church Origins, page 16, Martin Luther in the origin of the Lutheran Church. Martin Luther, 1983 for excuse me, 1483 to 1546 was the first great reformer. He was born in Eisliben, Germany, in 1483. He had begun to prepare for a career in law, but shocked by the combined experience of a friend's death and a fearful storm, had entered a monastery at the age of 22. He was ordained as a priest, an Augustinian friar only two years later, in 1507. He became a lecturer in Wittenberg University, and in 1512 he made a doctor. He made a doctor of theological theology. During the winter of 1512 to 1513 he studied prompted him to begin to see some errors in the Catholic Church. On October 13, 1517 he nailed his famous 19, 95 theses on the door to church building in Wittenberg, Germany, proclaiming the errors of Catholicism.

Arnie: 26:47

If I may, butt in here, I'll just mention that these brethren here know that I was a Lutheran before I obeyed the gospel, and there wasn't just a dozen or so varieties of Lutheran churches. I was looking at some of my Lutheran material that I still have in my library, and, and I saw that there are about 150 different varieties of Lutheran churches, most of which are right here in the, in the United States. So, if they don't agree with one another, how can you expect them, any of them, to agree with what the Bible said?

Fred Gosnell: 27:33

Of course, one of the things that was, was mentioned, that Luther, when, when he realized, came to the conclusion of these doctrines of the Catholic Church that were wrong, he never intended to start another church, and we need to remember that. So, his, he, he, most of his objections - there are three main ones - were the selling of indulgences, and Johan Tetzel was the one that had came to Germany and started to do that. Then he objected, saw that the authority of the Pope was not in the Bible. He concluded that, and then the doctrine of transubstantiation. He, he understood that, and he, he learned these things from his study of the Bible. So, and as was mentioned, he was the what would be called the first great reformer. Of course, others spoke up and decided that, you know, we can't, can't go along with what's going on here with the Catholics, so they started to reform the things that that they did. And of course, then the great Reformation ended up with a bunch of different churches that were divided, and of course, that's basically what Paul told everybody not to do when he spoke to the Corinthian church. So that's our introduction to the Lutheran Church, and we're about out of time.

Glenn: 29:05

Yeah, we got it, got a couple moments here. One of the things Fred mentioned, and I think it's very important when we look at Martin Luther, Martin Luther really had good intent in his, his nailing of the 95 theses. These are these are 95 things that he found that the Catholic Church was doing in error, and so he was, he was posting those with hope, with intent that the Catholic Church would look at those and change what they were doing. He didn't have intent, as Fred said, of starting a new religion, although people started following him and created the Lutheran Church, just like we read, as Fred mentioned in First Corinthians one. Those people started following Apollos and Paul and Jesus. Who else? Yeah, and another one or two, but they started following other people and calling themselves by those names. It's a good example for us to understand that the only one that we should call ourselves after is Jesus Christ, and follow exactly what He has given us in His Bible.

Arnie: 30:34

So we appreciate you listening to us. Think about these things. Turn in your Bible, we've gave you, give you some passages in scripture. Don't just, you know, lay your Bible down till next week, or not even bother to pick it up next week. Check us out, make sure, and if you find that we've said something that's contrary, give us a holler. We're in the phone book, you can. You can reach us pretty easy. You can get a hold of me at 803-840-6693 and I'll be glad to hear you out if you think we've said something that's that's not the truth. We hope you'll listen to us again next Lord's Day, and we, we wish you a good week.