I Asked a Protestant How to Get to Heaven

In this episode Trent interviews a popular Protestant Tik Tok influencer about the “simple” Protestant plan of salvation.

Transcript:

Trent:
When you’re saved, Christians will still tell lies, correct?
Taco:
Yeah, some of them will.
Trent:
Okay. Will some Christians then still murder people?
Taco:
Yeah, it’s possible. Yeah.
Trent:
And you can still go to heaven?
Taco:
Yes.
Trent:
Hey everybody. Welcome to the Council of Trent. Today my guest is Mr. Taco Talks. He is a popular talker. Taco talks TikTok, taco for short. I call him T squared I guess. And he shares a lot of messages about Protestantism, offers some criticisms of Catholicism and I asked him here to talk about, I needed to get his thoughts on the issue of salvation. So Mr. Taco, welcome to Council Trent.
Taco:
Thank you for having me, sir.
Trent:
Alrighty. So yeah, I saw some of the videos that you’ve posted and I think in one of them you kind of do a back and forth or you’re one character’s a Catholic and the others are Protestant and you’re trying to, or there was one where you were trying to explain to Catholics how you get saved and you made it seem like we kind of overcomplicate everything and we just don’t get it. So you needed to just write it out in crayon because it’s really simple how to get saved. Was that kind of the thought behind that one video I’m thinking about?
Taco:
Yeah, I find the vast majority of Roman Catholics that I talk to, they tend to fall into the same kind of category as Mormons, where a lot of them don’t actually understand the doctrine of your church. And so for a lot of them it feels like you have to kind of show them what their church teaches when you’re talking to ’em to see if they actually disagree with you.
Trent:
Okay. Well in that video, what I’m thinking in particular is you were saying Catholics don’t understand the gospel. Do you hold to that view?
Taco:
Yes.
Trent:
Okay.
Taco:
Or that they just reject it.
Trent:
Alright,
Taco:
So what is the gospel? The gospel is the good news of God reuniting his kingdom with his creation. It is him bringing salvation to all those who would believe in him. It is his plan of redemption. And so within that there’s going to be caveats of how we are saved, how we can be reconciled and justified before God. And so those are all going to be correlated within what the gospel is.
Trent:
Okay. Because Catholics certainly believe that God is inaugurating his kingdom and desires to save us through his son. Would you say Catholics believe that?
Taco:
Yeah.
Trent:
Okay. So why would you say Catholics don’t understand the gospel?
Taco:
Because Catholics believe that you have to do certain things in order to merit an increase of grace in order to attain eternal life.
Trent:
Okay. And you’re saying that the gospel is that we don’t have to do those things?
Taco:
Yeah. The gospels that were saved by grace alone through faith alone and Christ alone for the glory of God alone.
Trent:
Okay. Where does the Bible say that that is the gospel
Taco:
In several different places. Ephesians 2, 8, 9 is a good one. Going into verse 10, it explains why God saves us. Romans 3 28, Galatians two 16, Genesis 15, six.
Trent:
Do any of those verses say the gospel is X or use the word gospel?
Taco:
If you go into Galatians, that is going to be used in Galatians one, eight referencing the gospel, specifically talking about a false gospel. And then it goes into clarify that in the following chapter in Galatians two.
Trent:
Right. But does it say the gospel is we are saved by faith alone? Does it use those words?
Taco:
No. The gospel is going to be that kind of broader term that is going to be encompassing all of those different things.
Trent:
Okay. So it seems like more we disagree about how to get to heaven. So I guess what I want to ask you is how, so I would like to get to heaven and I’m sure you could tell me how to do that. Would you say that the Catholic view is just overly complicated and your view or the quote, biblical view is simple about how to get to heaven?
Taco:
I think it’s really simple. Yeah, I think that Jesus paid the full price for all of the sins of all those who would believe in him.
Trent:
Okay, so walk me through it then. Right now I would like to get to heaven. What do I
Taco:
Do? Well, to go to heaven, you have to be sinless, you have to be perfect. And that is not possible for fallen people. There is no one good but God alone. And since there is no one good but God alone, not even one, no one who understands there is no one who seeks after God for all have sinned and have fallen short of the glory of God. That means we’re in a predicament. Because if you sin, you die and the wages of sin is death. But the gift of God is eternal life through Christ Jesus our Lord. So Jesus being God, being the eternal son of God, he took on flesh, he was made to be sin for us so that we might become the righteousness of God in him. And through having faith in him, we are accredited with his righteousness that if we have faith in God, if we have faith in Jesus, trusting his promise that he paid the full price of sin, that he was the propitiation for sin, that it is finished, then that means that through trusting him, not only does he take our sin, but then he puts his righteousness upon us.
So by believing God, we are counted as righteous, and that is undeserved unmerited grace by which Christians are saved through faith apart from the works of the loss so that no one can boast. And the reason God saves us is to use us as tools to accomplish his good works in the world. So the good works that Christians do, those do not merit an increase of grace for ourselves or others, but rather they are merely the fruits in signs of justification already obtained through faith.
Trent:
Okay, so my question though was what do I do? So tell me right now, just give me the formula. What do I do?
Taco:
Believe in the Lord Jesus and you will be saved.
Trent:
Believe in the Lord Jesus. So that’s all I have to do.
Taco:
Yeah, you have to have a genuine trust. You have to believe him. You have to have faith.
Trent:
Okay, do I have to believe So? If I believe in the Lord Jesus and I have faith that he died and he saved me for my sins, and I maintain that belief, I will go to heaven.
Taco:
Yes. I believe that if Jesus has saved you, then you are saved eternally. I do not think that you can lose your salvation. I think your salvation is preserved by God.
Trent:
So then going forward then, so I believe this, I believe this is about Jesus. I and I hold to that. Can I just read my Bible and believe in Jesus and never go to church, but I believe all this about Jesus and read my Bible, but I don’t go to church.
Taco:
Well, going to church will not earn you any increase of grace or get you any closer to heaven. But going and gathering among believers, that is what we’re called to do. The Bible says specifically in Hebrews, do not forsake the gathering. So it’s a beautiful, wonderful thing that Christians should definitely be doing.
Trent:
Okay, but let’s say I don’t do that and I know people who don’t do that. They just believe in Jesus. They read the Bible. If I believe in Jesus and I trust in him alone and I don’t go to church, will I go to heaven?
Taco:
Yes. If you trust in him alone, absolutely.
Trent:
Okay. You don’t have to go to church. So if I don’t go to church, that means I don’t receive the Lord’s supper. So are you saying that I can believe in Jesus trusting him alone, but I will still go to heaven even though I don’t receive the Lord’s supper.
Taco:
So within the category of the Catholic church having a very different view of the Lord’s supper than what I would hold to in John six, Jesus is expressing that whoever believes in him is eating him. That is consuming Jesus is to trust in him. So by believing in him, you are partaking of that. You’re just not partaking of the symbolic ritual.
Trent:
So I don’t have to go to church, I don’t have to receive the Lord’s supper. Let’s say I believe in Jesus, I trust in him, but I choose to not get baptized. Will I still go to heaven?
Taco:
Yeah, because you have been spiritually baptized. If you truly trust in him, then you have been spiritually baptized, not water baptized.
Trent:
Okay? So don’t need Eucharist, don’t need to go to church, don’t need to be baptized. Alrighty, let’s say so I trust in Jesus, I believe in him. He died for me. Rosely dead saved my sins. But I think this doctrine of the Trinity is just Greek philosophy. I don’t think it actually comes from the Bible. So I believe that maybe I believe something else. Jesus is like God, but he’s not fully God. But I don’t believe the Trinity, but I do believe that Jesus died for me, rose from the dead and saved my sins. Will I still go to heaven if I don’t believe in the Trinity?
Taco:
No, John 8 24, Jesus says, unless you believe that I am, you will die in your sins. So if you deny that Jesus is God, that he’s the eternal son of God, then you’re not trusting in the real Jesus. You would be trusting in a different Jesus like second Corinthians 11 talks about,
Trent:
Okay, so you’re saying that it’s not just I can’t just trust in Jesus that he died for me and that he saved me. You have
Taco:
To trust in the real Jesus. So it is still you have trust alone in the real Jesus.
Trent:
In the real Jesus. Okay. So you
Taco:
Have to, would you say that Mormons have a different Jesus than Catholics?
Trent:
Sure, of course.
Taco:
Yeah, exactly. So
Trent:
You’re saying you have to believe a certain set of theological truths about Jesus in order to be saved?
Taco:
Yeah, you have to believe what the Bible reveals. You don’t have to understand it fully, but if you go in opposition to what the Bible reveals about Jesus, what God has revealed about himself, then you would have a different God, A different Jesus.
Trent:
Okay, so is it just you have to just believe Jesus is fully God and fully man,
Taco:
That’s part of who God is. If you want to
Trent:
Down to that, I’m talking about who Jesus is.
Taco:
Yeah, Jesus is fully God, fully man.
Trent:
Okay. So could I believe that the Father and there’s the Son, the son is fully God and fully man, but the Holy Spirit is not fully divine. So could I believe that and still go to heaven?
Taco:
No, because that would still be denying the God of the Bible and therefore it is not actually believing in the proper God, not the proper Jesus.
Trent:
Okay, so it’s not just about Jesus then anymore. You have to have all your correct beliefs about God.
Taco:
Yeah. So whenever I say that Jesus is God, Jesus is Yahweh, Yahweh is one being three distinct co-eternal persons. And if you deny something about God, then you have a different God. That’s why if you look back in Exodus, whenever they made the golden calf, they didn’t say that we’re making a new God. They said, this is the God who freed you from Egypt. They were trying to make a depiction of Yahweh and worshiping the golden calf as God, but they altered God’s attributes and therefore they created a false version of him.
Trent:
Okay, so it sounds like you’re saying that in order to go to heaven, I have to believe everything correct about the nature of God, but I don’t have to go to, I could be someone who doesn’t go to church, doesn’t receive the Lord’s supper, doesn’t get baptized. Let me ask you, let’s try another question then. Let’s say I trust in Jesus, believe in him, and let’s say I get the trinity correct and I do all that, but I was someone who engaged in fornication before this and I still engage in fornication maybe once every few weeks or something like that. I believe Jesus died for me and we’re all sinners and there’s different sins that we fall into. Would I still go to heaven?
Taco:
That would depend just on if that person’s faith was genuine because if it is genuine, then they’re going to over time start to hate that sin. If they don’t already, it is going to be part of the repentance and sanctification. So people will continue in sin initially in a lot of cases because it’s not this perfect instant sanctification, it’s a slower process for some people than others. So it depends on if that person’s faith is genuine. And for me, I cannot tell if that person’s faith is genuine. I can get a guess. I can get an estimate based on how they live their life, but only God knows their heart.
Trent:
Okay, so how would I be able to know if my faith is genuine?
Taco:
If you yourself, do you love your wife?
Trent:
Yeah, I would say so.
Taco:
Do you know for sure that you love your wife?
Trent:
I’d say I’m pretty sure, yeah.
Taco:
Okay. The same way I can be sure that I love God and trust God. You don’t need to have a big standard for yourself. One John five 13, I’ve written these things to you who believe in the name of the Son of God so that you may know you have eternal life. It is simply you can know for yourself if you truly trust God or not. The same way that you can know if you actually love your wife or not.
Trent:
Well lemme ask you a question. Let’s say there is a guy who says, oh yeah, I totally love my wife, but he often goes on OnlyFans to look at stuff there and he does that and he loves his wife even though, but she doesn’t obviously like him doing that stuff, but he says, oh yeah, I love my wife, but he still does these things that hurt his wife. Does that guy love his wife?
Taco:
I don’t think that, no, I don’t think that she would be loving him or he would be loving her in a correct way because he’s committing adultery every single time he does that.
Trent:
Okay, so then a person who says they’re Christian but goes only well OnlyFans once a month, can we say they don’t actually love God?
Taco:
We cannot say that for sure, but we can say that the people who are doing those things that it’s a bad thing that they need to repent of and repentance is a gift of God. So we need to pray that God would grant that to them.
Trent:
Okay, so why were you confident that the guy who looks at OnlyFans doesn’t love his wife, but the guy who looks at it, he could still love God? Why the difference?
Taco:
I don’t think there was much of a difference there in what I said.
Trent:
I said
Taco:
That we can’t know for sure what those people are actually feeling, but by their actions it’s going to give us an idea of what they’re doing.
Trent:
Well, no, lemme ask
Taco:
The question. And so the same way that they’re sitting against his wife or sitting against God is bad in both cases.
Trent:
So the guy who looks at OnlyFans once a month, he says he loves his wife, but he still goes and looks at that. Does he love his wife?
Taco:
Maybe, maybe not. His actions would indicate no because he’s cheating on her.
Trent:
He’s
Taco:
Committing adultery in his heart.
Trent:
So his actions indicate no. Alright, and why wouldn’t that be the same then if a guy who says that he’s Christian does that his actions indicate he doesn’t love God?
Taco:
It could absolutely be indicative of that. That’s what James Stews talks about. It talks about how we can try to get an estimate of what these people are if they’re actually genuine in their faith. But I can’t know for sure. God knows that I can get an idea of it, but I can’t know for sure.
Trent:
So you’re saying that is it possible then that somebody could become a Christian fully trust in Jesus and let’s say they look at for the next six months, they still look at OnlyFans once a week and then they die, they get hit by a bus. Is that person still going to go to heaven?
Taco:
If they truly trusted in Jesus, then yes, Jesus paid for all of their sins.
Trent:
So even if they were looking at explicit images online and had no plan to stop doing that, they’re still going to go to heaven.
Taco:
In first John, it talks about if you sin that we have an advocate with the Father, we’re still going to be sinful while we’re here until the resurrection, we are going to be committing sins of various kinds.
Trent:
Okay. How about a guy
Taco:
Including that?
Trent:
Okay, how about a guy? He converts trust in Jesus alone, but he isn’t just looking at looking at explicit materials involving minors once every few weeks. And the same thing happens
Taco:
Is I would say that guy is almost definitively not actually a Christian.
Trent:
Okay, so well what’s the difference? I thought all sin is sin.
Taco:
No, all sin is sin in regards to you tell a single lie, you’re damned to hell. But obviously the Old Testament ranks sins as different and it’s not that you have eternal consequences that are going to be distinct on that, but some of those like that, the Bible in the Old Testament would indicate that they need to be put to death for harming children in that way.
Trent:
Are there any other sins in the Old Testament where we are to be put to death working on the Sabbath?
Taco:
There’s many.
Trent:
So would you say then that somebody who works on the Sabbath or Sunday, however you would pluck that out, would be doing something just as grave as a Christian?
Taco:
Well, Jesus is the Lord of the Sabbath. So to honor the Sabbath and keep it holy is to worship Jesus as God. So Jesus clarifies that for us in the New Testament. There was that misunderstanding. The Sabbath was always pointing to Jesus.
Trent:
Okay, so my point though is that there’s lots of things in the Old Testament where the death penalty is inflicted or there’s serious crimes. So it sounds like, so you seem to admit that there are different kinds of sins. What I want to get at here, it seems like that when you convert hundred percent,
Taco:
But those sins the one
Trent:
Single
Taco:
Lie, go ahead. Sorry. Go ahead. One single lie will damn you to hell.
Trent:
Okay, and one single murder will damn you to hell.
Taco:
Yeah.
Trent:
Okay, so when you’re saved, Christians will still tell lies, correct?
Taco:
Yeah, some of them will.
Trent:
Okay. Will some Christians then still murder people?
Taco:
Yeah, it’s possible, yeah.
Trent:
And you can still go to heaven?
Taco:
Yes, but typically you’re not going to be doing that in that way. Typically a Christian is not going to murder people, but there’s going to be a lot of gray areas. There’s going to be people who have a severe mental illness, things that lead them to do things that they would not in their right mind do example, if someone is schizophrenic, they literally can change into a different mind and have nothing to do with themselves. Do you think God would damn them because their brain was failing?
Trent:
Right. Well, what I’m talking about though are average people with normally functioning brains. So someone converts, they follow your path saying, I believe and I trust in Jesus, he paid the full price for my sins, but even though I’m saved, I’m still going to commit sins. But I shouldn’t let that bother me because Jesus paid the price for my sins. So a normal Christian, for example, might tell a lie once every few months. Would you say that’s pretty common?
Taco:
Probably.
Trent:
Then could a normal Christian murder somebody once every few months?
Taco:
I don’t think so, no.
Trent:
Why?
Taco:
I think lying is a lot easier for people to do. Murdering is a lot more difficult. But at the same time, Jesus said that if you hate someone, if you hate your brother in your heart, then you’ve committed murder in your heart. So by that technicality then yes, yes, everyone has and will commit murder perpetually in their heart throughout their life.
Trent:
So under your view then that somebody could become saved every few months they tell a lie and this happens for let’s say two or three years, then they get hit by a bus, they’ll still go to heaven, correct?
Taco:
Yeah. If their faith was truly in Jesus Christ, then Jesus paid for all of their sins. Yes.
Trent:
Even though they tell a lie once every few months, then in three years that’s six or seven lies, whatever it may be, then they’ll still go to heaven. Same thing converted. Believe in Jesus, they murder somebody once every few months they get hit by a bus three years later. So they’ve murdered six or seven people, they’ll still go to heaven.
Taco:
If they truly trust in Jesus Christ, he takes the fullness of their sin upon himself.
Trent:
Okay. Alrighty.
Taco:
So it’s not antinomianism, it’s not saying that we have this free ability to sin that’s condemned vehemently by Paul, but within the category, Christians are going to sin less, but Christians are not going to be sinless.
Trent:
Okay? So what do you mean that they’re going to sin less
Taco:
By a natural byproduct of being saved? We are going to start to hate sin and therefore we are going to stop doing it as much.
Trent:
Okay, so, so instead of murdering 20 people a year, I’d only murder one person.
Taco:
Again, if you hate somebody, it’s murder in your heart. So have you ever hated anybody in your life?
Trent:
That’s not the question I asked. The question I asked is, so it’s going to be sinless. So for example, instead of telling a hundred lies a year, I might only tell one lie a year. Would that be a Christian trajectory a person might be on?
Taco:
Do you think Jesus can’t forgive future sins?
Trent:
No. I asked the question, would that make sense if someone they used to tell a hundred lies a year, now they’re saved. They might only tell one lie a year and we could say, yeah, they’re a Christian.
Taco:
Yeah, I would say that people are going to start sinning less. That’s what sanctification is. We’re going to try to stop sinning, but if you do sin, you have an advocate with the father.
Trent:
So it would be the same then instead of doing a hundred acts of adultery, a year might only be one act or a hundred acts of murder, only one act of murder and they would still be a Christian.
Taco:
If your faith is genuinely in Jesus Christ, you are a Christian.
Trent:
Okay, let’s see here. I had a few,
Taco:
Not if you claim it, if you actually truly have that. So I can’t tell if another person has it.
Trent:
Okay? I’m trying to see some other things like what it looks like. So I know, yeah, I believe in Jesus, I’m saved, I know I’m saved. Could it be possible a person is mistaken and they weren’t really saved in the first place?
Taco:
I don’t know. I think that certain people can believe a false gospel for sure. I believe that certain people can believe in a fake Jesus and I think that they could genuinely believe that to be the correct one, but be wrong in the end. Then you’ll see Matthew 7 23 or many people will say to Jesus, Lord, Lord, did we not do this in your name? Did we not do this in your name? And I’ll say to you, depart from me you workers of iniquity. I never knew you. He did not know them. They never knew him. They were worshiping a false version of him, but they were doing it genuinely.
Trent:
Okay, well, have you ever seen someone where it seemed like, oh yeah, I would say they seem like a legitimate Christian, genuine, trusted in Jesus hell to theology and then they became an atheist and never returned to the faith. Have you ever seen anyone act like that
Taco:
Or heard of someone? Of course, but they leave us to show us that they were never really of us. That’s one John two 19.
Trent:
Okay, is it possible then that let’s say you give me the formula and I’m saved, could it be possible I’m in the same boat as that guy and I was never actually saved in the first place and I deceived myself
Taco:
Potentially? Yeah.
Trent:
So how do I know if I actually did get saved?
Taco:
Well compare everything to the Bible.
Trent:
Compare what to the Bible,
Taco:
Compare what you’re actually believing, make sure that you’re believing the correct thing. Test all things in whole to what is good first Thessalonians five. So in that, if I believe that I’m believing in Jesus, I’m going to open up the Bible, I’m going to make sure I’m believing in the right Jesus, the right gospel. That way I can know for sure based on God’s revelation as the standard.
Trent:
Okay, so let’s say I go through all of this believing the right Jesus, believing the right gospel. But suppose I were to read books by Christians like Matthew Vines. He has a book called God and the Gay Christian saying that just as we don’t hold the biblical teaching on slavery anymore, we have misunderstood what the Bible says about homosexuality. And homosexuality is not a sin. So could I still be someone who is genuinely saved even though I don’t think homosexuality is a sin? And I read the Bible in that way.
Taco:
I think that you could be, but I think that you’re just very wrong about that sin and I think that God will eventually correct you and convict you on that. If you’re genuinely a Christian, then God will correct you and convict you on that. Yes,
Trent:
Okay, but let’s say someone believes that their whole life and then they die and they don’t change that belief.
Taco:
Were they participating in that action though?
Trent:
Let’s say that they weren’t participating in the action,
Taco:
That they were just supporting it, for lack of a better term.
Trent:
Yeah, they said it wasn’t sinful.
Taco:
Yeah, I think that those people can be very wrong about something, but that would not be a salvation issue for them to be wrong about what other people are doing as a sin.
Trent:
But then if they read the Bible and they fully trust in Jesus and think, oh, this action, it’s not sinful. You would say though that they’re not actually saved if they engage in it.
Taco:
Well, if you go into, what is that one Corinthians six, nine, he’s listing off these things saying, do not be deceived. These people will not inherit the kingdom of God. He goes through listing off various different things for indicators. He goes through listing off or prostitutes, homosexuals. But then in verse 11 he says, in such were some of you, but you were sanctified, but you were purified, but you were washed clean by the blood of Jesus. So if they were actually in that lifestyle, then maybe they were not actually Christians. But again, it is up to God to determine whether or not someone’s faith is genuine. I cannot guess whether or not someone actually has that true faith.
Trent:
Right? But notice in that list includes things like fornication, and yet what we just discussed earlier you said that, oh, well, being a Christian you’ll just sin less, but you’ll still sin. So maybe you’re not going to fornicate a hundred times a year, but you fornicate once, but you could still be saved. Why wouldn’t we say the same thing about sodomy?
Taco:
Well, I think that it’s again going to be on that different standard. So well, it is actually going to be the same thing there because that word fornicate there, that Greek is pgne, that’s more in reference to prostitution. So I think that would be identical with the OnlyFans argument that we already had.
Trent:
Okay, let’s see if I have anything else here. Yeah, I just wanted to see, because I think a lot of times when Catholics and Protestants talk about salvation, now your position I think is different. There’s many other Protestants I would talk to, I have talked to who say that if for example, if you don’t go to church, you don’t receive the Lord’s supper and you don’t receive baptism, then you are not actually saved. Even if those things don’t save you, they’re necessary fruits. So I guess I’ll go this way. Your belief is that works don’t save you, but good works unquote are fruits of salvation that will be present in the life of a truly saved person. Is that your view? Yes. Okay. So can I find a list of what these fruits are? Gala,
Taco:
Galatians five.
Trent:
Galatians five. Oh, you mean the fruits of the spirit?
Taco:
Yeah, I think that those are very good indications of it. It gives you a list in a single place. But other than that, just if you’re going to be following Jesus genuinely, you’re going to be obeying him.
Trent:
Okay? If you’re following Jesus genuinely, you’re going to obey him. But you just said though, since we all sin, we still are also going to disobey him.
Taco:
Correct? Yeah, we will all still fail.
Trent:
Okay. So you actually don’t need to obey Jesus because since we’re sinners we’re still going to be disobeying
Taco:
Again. So it’s not that you need to obey him to be saved, it’s that if you are saved, you will obey him,
Trent:
Right? It’s
Taco:
A very important sequential order.
Trent:
Yes. If I am saved, then I will obey Jesus. I am saved, therefore I will obey. That’s a typical modus opponent’s argument. But that means the converse is true too. If I’m saved, I will obey Jesus. I do not obey Jesus, therefore I am not saved. Logically it goes the same way, correct?
Taco:
Not necessarily because there’s going to be a seed being planted into the ground that will then grow into a tree. That tree will then bear fruit. It is a sequential order, not a give or take.
Trent:
Okay, lemme see here. So in Matthew 25, Jesus talks about the goats and the sheep. So we’re talking about things like obedience here and for the fruits, the good works that are present in a truly saved person, will there be the fruit of giving to the poor and helping the poor
Taco:
Most likely.
Trent:
So let’s say that’s not there and this person never helps, the poor does not have that fruit. Would that person still be saved?
Taco:
Again, I don’t know how genuine their faith is. God does, they don’t need to prove it or people don’t need to prove their faith to God. If you need to prove something to God, then the God that you serve is not all knowing, is not all powerful and is not worthy of praise. God knows we don’t. So I can’t tell if someone else is saved by their works. I can have an assumption, I can have evidence, but I can’t have proof God has that proof alone. We are not God.
Trent:
But it seems like you could look at people and I would say you could look at people and there is a kind of moral lifestyle that is compatible with Christianity, what you would call minor sins, like let’s say telling lies that don’t cause grave harm versus major sins like telling lies that defraud widows of their life savings. And the latter person, I would say that is incompatible with the Christian faith. I would say that person lost his salvation. I would hope someone with your view would say that person if they’re unrepentant was never saved to begin with. So my view would hold, there are two kinds of sins, those that are compatible with the Christian life. James three, two says, we all make many small mistakes and then there are larger graver, what I would call mortal sins that are actually incompatible. If you don’t repent of them, I would say you’ve lost your salvation. You should say you were never saved in the first place. That’s how I look at it. Does that make sense to you or do you disagree with that?
Taco:
I think that makes a decent bit of sense, but I don’t think that you can lose your salvation. I think it would be evidence that you were never saved to begin with.
Trent:
But
Taco:
The thing about robbing widows and everything, that’s what the Catholic church did with indulgences back in the 15 and 16 hundreds
Trent:
Whenever we were at the fish market. I’m not going to walk down that red herring, but thank you for that. But I want to don’t
Taco:
Think it’s red herring. I just wanted to give you that comparison. You said that was a horrible thing, but that is something that your church has done.
Trent:
Sure. And there are a wonderful amount of prosperity preaching Protestants who tell people to send in your a hundred dollars tithe and you’ll definitely go to heaven. So there’s Protestants that have done robbed widows two. Okay.
Taco:
There are correct. Which is why I’m not a Protestant, I’m a biblical Christian. My theology is based on the Bible, not based on the reformation.
Trent:
Okay, well are you a Calvinist?
Taco:
Yeah, I label myself as a Calvinist because it’s easy for people to understand.
Trent:
Okay.
Taco:
But simplified, I think God chooses who he saves. Yes.
Trent:
Okay, very good. Alright, because I think this is helpful though because I think it’s very dangerous if people think that there’s really all sin has an equal effect on an unsafe person. Because if you’re willing to say there are minor sins compatible with the Christian life, a Christian will commit. They hurt our relationship with God, but they don’t show from your perspective, you were never saved or my perspective, you’ve lost salvation. It helps us to understand the spiritual life so that I can say, yeah, the person who tells a white lie every few months, yeah, that’s compatible with the Christian life. That’s a minor sin. But the person who engages in murder or even the person who engages in fornication or corn, try to keep the algorithm friendly here. That is a, that’s a major sin. And I would say you have forsaken salvation have to be reconciled to God. Or you could say a person who has done that has to be reconciled. Yeah. Well let me ask you a question. Do you think if a Christian, Christian sins, let’s say Christian Guy is trying to walk the Christian life and then he cheats on his wife, does he need to ask God for forgiveness for that sin?
Taco:
Yes, but not in terms it being in a spatial time kind of concept. He should still be asking for that forgiveness. But God has already forgiven him if he is genuine.
Trent:
Okay, so let’s say, tell me what should that guy he does, he commits adultery and he realizes he’s gravely sinned. What should he say to God?
Taco:
He should apologize to God.
Trent:
Okay, now my
Taco:
Next, he should act in the way that David did in Psalm 51 to give a better answer of that.
Trent:
So does a Christian have to act like David did in Psalm 51 after every sin he commits?
Taco:
I don’t think that they have to do it, but I think that you will do that if you are a Christian because you will start to hate sin. You’ll start to understand that every single time that you sin, you are committing an act of hatred for God. And so as you do it, you start to hate that sin and you try to avoid it as best you can.
Trent:
Sir, are you saying that a true Christian will act like David in Psalm 51 and stop everything he’s doing, ask God to forgive him of his sins and to ask for this forgiveness that he’ll do this after every single sin?
Taco:
I think that that would be a level of sanctification that people will eventually come to.
Trent:
So even sins like becoming impatient or failing to give to charity when I should have given to charity, you’re going to act like David in Psalm 51 after every single instance of that.
Taco:
Yeah, that would be a sin of omission rather than a sin of commission, which is still the same concept where you’re doing something that is displaying a hatred for God by having a hatred for his image bearers.
Trent:
So are you saying then that a Christian should act, should ask for God’s, it sounds like you’re collapsing them again, that we should just treat all sins equally in asking for God’s forgiveness after every sin, whether it’s failing to give money to the poor or murdering somebody, we should just have the same response of asking for forgiveness.
Taco:
Yeah, I think that we should always be talking to God, worshiping him, asking him for forgiveness on a daily basis. But if you are a Christian, he has forgiven you fully for everything that you have ever or will ever do.
Trent:
Okay. So let’s say someone lives their regular day trying to live out the gospel, live out the Christian life, and they realize that at the end of the day, yeah, I was impatient here. I told the white lie here. Is it sufficient enough for them just to say in our father where in that prayer they ask God to forgive us our trespasses and that’s sufficient for a Christian response to sin?
Taco:
No, I’m not saying that they should repeat the Lord’s prayer in order to do that. I’m saying that they should talk to God genuinely not recite a script.
Trent:
Jesus teach us the Lord’s prayer in gospels
Taco:
As pray in this way.
Trent:
So why not just recite the Lord’s prayer then
Taco:
To, because he gave us a template immediately after saying, do not pray in vain repetition as the heathens do. So the Lord’s prayer is a template that we’re supposed to pray to the Father according to his will that we’re supposed to pray for what we need, that he’ll forgive us. But it’s not that we need to repeat that verbatim word for word, but again, different
Trent:
Subject. Subject. But there’s nothing wrong with repeating it verbatim.
Taco:
Depends on if you’re repeating it in vain repetition or not.
Trent:
Let’s say you’re just repeating it because you believe those words and you think that the best articulation of the prayer you ought to say to God.
Taco:
Yeah, then that’s fine.
Trent:
Okay. So my point though is if a Christian lives his life, he sins and you say, oh, well he’s saved. We still commit sins each day. But you’re saying, but a Christian will be like David in Psalm 51. He will confess his sins to God. Is it enough to say, oh yeah, well he says at the end of the day I say the Lord’s prayer and I say, forgive us our trespasses. Would that be enough to show that he seeks God’s forgiveness in light of the sins he commits?
Taco:
Maybe because again, people can do things and that’s not necessarily an indication of what they actually believe. And if God has actually changed their heart,
Trent:
Yeah, I’m assuming they’re sincerely doing this,
Taco:
Then yeah, that’s something that they would typically do, but it’s not something that they have to do to be saved.
Trent:
Well, they don’t have to do. But you said that a person who is saved will have the fruits of good works, and would one of those fruits be seek asking God for forgiveness when you sin?
Taco:
Yes.
Trent:
Okay. So it sounds like they do have to do that to be saved. You have to have the fruits.
Taco:
No, again, they’re doing the fruits because they’re saved not in order to get saved. It’s that sequential order. Again, the fruit comes after the tree is already there. If the tree is there, you’re already saved done. The tree is there, it’s going to produce fruit.
Trent:
Right. But if you are saved, then you will have the fruits if A, then B. And you can look this up, modus pons or modus tolin. Very simple logic we learn in logic 1 0 1 if A, then B, a therefore B. But it also goes the other way, not B, therefore not a. So for example, if I am in Dallas, which I am in the Dallas area, then I am in Texas. Okay, so I’m in Dallas, therefore I’m in Texas. If I’m not in Texas, then I’m not in Dallas. A hundred percent true. So if I am saved, then there will be fruits of good works. Logically then if there aren’t fruits of good works, then I am not saved. Correct.
Taco:
Again, there’s going to be different degrees of that sanctification for everybody. So I think those fruits are going to increase and grow rapidly the longer you’re a Christian until death. But even to the one who does not work, faith has credited him as righteous.
Trent:
Are you saying then that a person could be saved and not have any good works or fruits present?
Taco:
It’s possible because if they come to Christ on their deathbed, if they truly believe in him, they’re not going to have fruits. They just died, but they were saved because they trusted in Jesus and Jesus Christ alone.
Trent:
But the fruits wouldn’t also just be positive acts of doing good, like feeding the poor or spreading the gospel. They would also be the fruits of not engaging in grave evils like murder, adultery, things like that. Or looking at online explicit
Taco:
Materials that would be repentance, which the Bible says multiple times. God grants it to us. He gives it to us. It is a gift from him
Trent:
Though as we’ve been discussing though, you said that a person could be saved, but they’re still going to sin and then they’re just going to sin less. That’s kind of where we’re at.
Taco:
Yeah. I would say that Christians sin less, they start to hate it. God changes their heart and makes them view sin more like God’s view sin.
Trent:
Okay. I have some questions for you then because it seems like, look, it’s important for a Christian to be obedient to God. If they’re saved and they’re genuine in their faith and they’re repent and they’re going to be obedient to God is what you’ve been saying. Correct. Even if they fall, they’ll still generally try to be obedient. So in order to be obedient to God, we have to know what God wants us to do in life. We have to know what is moral and isn’t moral. So what is, and so I would assume from your perspective, the source we look to determine that would probably be the Bible.
Taco:
Yeah.
Trent:
Okay. The concern I have is that there are some things that I think are gravely immoral that the Bible doesn’t give us clarity on, and so
Taco:
Can give an example.
Trent:
Sure. I’ll give you, I think it would be gravely immoral for an unmarried Christian man. He says, you know what, I really want to raise children. I’d like to have kids. I don’t have a family, but I want to raise children. So I am going to hire an egg donor and a sperm donor to create a child through in vitro fertilization. And that child’s put in a surrogate womb rented out from a woman for nine months, and the baby is born and then it is sent Amazon two today, so to speak to his house, and bam, there you go. Got a baby to raise. I would say sins of the egg donor, sperm donor, gestational, surrogacy, creating children in a Petri dish apart from their mother and father. I would say that’s gravely sinful, but the Bible was written 2000 years before IV and all this madness. It seems like there’s nothing in the Bible that would tell this guy what he’s doing is wrong.
Taco:
Well, depends. Would you consider that to be equal to either abortion or human trafficking?
Trent:
I think it’s a kind of human trafficking, and it could be related to abortion if some of the embryos are killed in the process of creating this baby.
Taco:
Exactly. 100% agree. Which usually with IVF, they’ll have to fertilize 10 or more and most of them will die. So I
Trent:
Think, but yeah, but let’s say they don’t do that. They just do just one. Just one. Yeah, just one.
Taco:
Okay. So then it wouldn’t be on line with abortion. But human trafficking, Deuteronomy 24 7 is still in regards to that, but the context is more in line with slavery, but it’s still the same context of buying a person, even if that is buying a child or paying someone to do so. So I think that that can still be applied, that there’s stuff in the Bible you can take a principle on. Even if it is not a absolute perfect one-to-one comparison, I think that you can still get that moral value from what scripture says.
Trent:
If a man is found stealing one of his brethren, the people of Israel, and if he treats him as a slave or sells him, then that thief shall die. So you shall purge the evil from the midst of you. I think that person would probably say to you, I haven’t stolen anybody from their family. I brought a new life into the world. They’d probably say That’s totally different.
Taco:
They might.
Trent:
So it sounds like, yeah, it sounds like the Bible doesn’t provide, but it doesn’t provide a lot of clarity there to show that this is wrong. You have to have a really strained interpretation of an Old Testament law to try to get at this very, very contemporary evil.
Taco:
I don’t know. We could probably find other Bible verses off the top of my head. That would be the closest one that came to my head that would regard something like human trafficking. But I think that human or that IVF would be a form of that.
Trent:
Lemme give you another example, and this is a real one. I’m going to use my words carefully here. Once again, I don’t want the algorithm to punish me, but this is a real one, and I have seen Protestants. I know you don’t identify as a Protestant, but I have seen Protestants defend this guy says, look, I’m a young man, I’m unmarried. I get sexually frustrated. I know lust is a sin, but I engage in acts of self-stimulation without thinking thoughts of lust. I just do that to release tension. And so I do that just to help myself. Just physical stimulation, would that be sinful? Would that be wrong
Taco:
If he is doing it lustfully? 100%. That’s what the Bible would talk about.
Trent:
I’m saying he’s not doing it lustful, he’s just doing mechanical physical stimulation to engage in release while thinking about flowers at the zoo or something like that. I don’t know. But not lusting over.
Taco:
Do you think that’s actually possible for someone, aside from someone who’s severely autistic to be able to do that without thinking about it?
Trent:
Well, I’ll have a very in tier of the case in a little bit, but yes, I have heard of people who do describe doing this to relieve sexual tension.
Taco:
Interesting.
Trent:
What
Taco:
Is your question with that?
Trent:
Does the Bible say that that’s wrong? Well, I guess I could say the M word masturbation?
Taco:
Yeah, I don’t know. I don’t know if the Bible would specifically condemn that within that kind of a context.
Trent:
How about a husband who or a soldier travels a lot away from their wife for a very long time? They engage in acts of masturbation, thinking about their spouse.
Taco:
I think that that would be morally acceptable for God. Yeah.
Trent:
Okay. So they can engage in acts of masturbation as long as they’re thinking about their spouse?
Taco:
Yeah, I think that them doing that would still be in a weird way, them having sex with each other, just not actually with each other, if that makes
Trent:
Sense. No, I would say that the sexual act is not ordered towards that, but my morality is not garnered from just a strict interpretation of sola scriptura. So I guess to wrap it all up, we’ve been going for a while here. Would you agree then to be a Christian? There are some essential doctrines you cannot reject and there are other doctrines that you could disagree about?
Taco:
Yeah.
Trent:
Does the Bible say reveal which doctrines are essential and which are not?
Taco:
Yes, I think it does.
Trent:
Where does it do that?
Taco:
So in John 8 24, as I already mentioned, when Jesus says, unless you believe that I am, you will die in your sins. That sounds pretty essential to believe that he is I am, that he is Yahweh. I believe that whenever God is revealing himself and very specifically is condemning idolatry, even if that idolatry is them attempting to worship him in an incorrect way, I think that shows us that not denying, we don’t need to fully understand God necessarily, but if you reject an attribute of God that he has very clearly revealed to us, then I think that that would be a very bad thing. I think that would be essential that you have to worship the correct God and you have to understand and believe the correct gospel and his plan to justify humanity.
Trent:
If a person denies Calvinism, but they’re still a biblical Christian, or at least they are striving to be a biblical Christian, but they deny Calvinism, can they still be saved?
Taco:
Yeah, 100%.
Trent:
Okay. So Calvinism is not an essential doctrine. The Trinity
Taco:
Is don’t correct because Calvinism is saying that God chooses who he saves, but in our perspective, even as a Calvinist, we still feel like we’re choosing God even if God chose us first. So we can only love because he first loved us. If someone doesn’t understand that, I don’t think that’s in any way going to be essential.
Trent:
Now, how about a person who thinks that you could lose your salvation? Is that an essential doctrine to believe?
Taco:
No. I think a lot of people can have some very bad understandings on that, and I think that they can still be saved just because they heard some bad information from people and they need to actually check what the Bible says.
Trent:
How about someone who thinks that the Bible is not iner and that it could have errors in it? Is biblical inerrancy an essential doctrine?
Taco:
I don’t think it is. No. I don’t think them believing the Bible is iner, but I think that they would be foolish if they thought the Bible had heirs.
Trent:
So if it’s not an essential doctrine, then that means they could still be saved, but that could also lead to them believing a whole bunch of other things that are false that would lead to them being damned.
Taco:
If they’re not actually saved, then yes. Okay.
Trent:
So I guess it sounds like you’re giving me different answers, like, well, because I say, where does the Bible tell me, Hey, these are the essential doctrines you got to believe. And it sounds like you can say, well, in this verse Jesus says, you got to believe that I’m God or you will die in your sins. But not every essential doctrine is spelled out in that way. It seems like the Bible does not contain a list of these are the essential doctrines, these are the ones you can disagree about. People have to kind of argue about that. Isn’t that the case
Taco:
In some things like that? But again, I think that’s who God is and what the gospel is. Those are going to be the primary, if not the only essentials that we actually have. So like in Galatians though, in Galatians one eight, it literally says that if these people or if, or an angel from heaven come back to you with any other gospel other than the gospel you received, let them be anma. Then it goes on to clarify what the gospel is because they were falling into the Galatian heresy thinking that they had to do something in combination with having faith to be saved. And Paul says very clearly to them that if you believe that, then you are nullifying the cross of Christ, that Christ would have died for nothing if you could obtain it through the works that you’re attempting.
Trent:
So
Taco:
I think that that’s a very clear indication that it is God and the gospel as the essentials.
Trent:
And then we were saying that not just about what you reject, what God has revealed, but to summarize what we were talking about, a true Christian, maybe you can put this into the final words for people to make sense because I’m still confused on it. If you, a true Christian will be obedient to God, but they also won’t be sinless. Correct. So in some cases they are disobedient, but it seems we had a hard time sorting through how much disobedience shows a person was never saved in the first place.
Taco:
Well, I think that’s a beautiful thing that Paul talks about where he says that I do the things that I hate and I don’t do the things that I want to do. So he’s talking about that while we’re in the flesh, we are going to be battling with that sinful inclination that’s going to linger with us forever. But I think that if you are a Christian, then you are going to start to hate those things so much that you stop doing them.
Trent:
You would say the Bible is clear in teaching. If I read the Bible with an open heart and I seek God, I will be able to discern what I need to do to get to heaven. No more, no less.
Taco:
Yes. Not necessarily no more. You will definitely be able to learn way more from the Bible. The Bible is but
Trent:
No less
Taco:
Amazing. Yeah. I think that if you’re stranded on a desert island, you have nothing. You speak no language except for just whatever. So English say, but you haven’t had any interactions with people. You don’t understand any of the context. If you have a Bible washup on shore and you read that and you go like, this is truth, then yes, you can 100% learn how to be saved.
Trent:
Okay. And you’ve done that with the Bible, but you’ve come to the conclusion that you can be saved even if you choose to not be baptized?
Taco:
Correct. Because again, being spiritually baptized is being born again. Being water baptized is what you do because you have been born again.
Trent:
Would you say that most Protestants would disagree with you because they say that, well, you should still go get baptized either because it saves you, as Lutherans would say, or because it’s something that Jesus commanded, and so a true Christian will be baptized it seems like. Would you agree a lot of Protestants would disagree with you about that on baptism?
Taco:
Well, yeah, I definitely think that you should be baptized, but I’m not saying that you being water baptized is essential to go to heaven.
Trent:
Alright. Alright. Mr. T Squared, Mr. Taco talks, thank you so much for being on the show today. I think it’s very enlightening and we should all be able to approach the question, how do I get to heaven? Where can people learn more about your answers to that question?
Taco:
I mean, if you Google Taco talks, you’ll find me on everything. TikTok, Instagram, YouTube X.
Trent:
Very good. If you’d like to know my answer to that question, I would definitely recommend my new book. Salvation is from the Catholic Church, how Christ uses the Church to Save us. Mr. Taco talks t squared. Thank you for joining us today.
Taco:
Thank you so much. Alright. Appreciate it.