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In this rebuttal Trent examines clips from the documentary “American Gospel” and shows how they distort and fail to refute the authentic Catholic view of salvation and the Gospel.
Welcome to the Counsel Of Trent Podcast, a production of Catholic Answers.
Trent Horn:
Hey everyone, in today’s rebuttal video, I’m going to take a look at some clips from the one hour version of a documentary called American Gospel. The description says, “American Gospel is a critique of the prosperity gospel, which claims that, if you’re holy enough and you give enough money, God will reward you with health and wealth.” Now, I definitely agree the prosperity gospel is false, and it’s just really bad for people. But, American Gospel also tries to define the gospel itself at as being identical to Protestant faith alone theology. So, let’s take a look.
Documentary:
But, moralistic preaching or sometimes identified as moralism is preaching the commands of scripture or the morals of scripture and nothing else. Just pretty much saying to people, “You be a good person, and God will love you for that.” And while we do not intend it, that is not just a sub-Christian message, it’s actually an anti-Christian message.
Documentary:
I was hearing from the Sermon on the Mount from Jesus, “Here’s how not to be sexually immoral.” But then, I’m thinking about the passage in the Sermon on the Mount and the whole point is to try and tell us, “You’re not sexually moral. Your righteousness should exceed that of the Pharisees, and you think that it’s about keeping these lists of rules and the Ten Commandments. Well, I say to you… ” He takes it to the heart, and he says, “If you have lust in your heart, then you’re falling way short.” And, he concludes that section in Matthew 5, by saying, “Be perfect, as your heavenly father is perfect.” But, that’s not the sermon that was preached. It was, “You can be pure. You can be sexually moral, and here’s your 10 tips.”
Documentary:
You’re giving them a goal that they’ll never be able to attain, period.
Trent Horn:
On the one hand, it can be destructive to reduce Christianity to just neurotically trying to follow God’s rules. If you do that, you can turn into a kind of Ned Flander’s version of Christianity from The Simpsons.
Ned Flanders:
Where have I gone wrong? I’ve always been nice to people. I don’t drink or dance or swear. I’ve done everything the Bible says, even the stuff that contradicts the other stuff.
Trent Horn:
But on the other hand, it’s also dangerous to say that God doesn’t really expect us to be righteous. That Jesus… He was just using figures of speech to show that we can’t save ourselves. Now, I agree the message shouldn’t be reduced to, “Be a good person.” It should be, “Be a holy person. Be a new person in Christ. Be a Saint.” In fact, one of the things I love about Catholicism are all of the saints throughout history, all these holy men and women who heard the call, “Be perfect, as your heavenly father is perfect.” And, they chose just to live that. Of course, they stumbled, and they fell. They couldn’t do anything without God’s grace, but they saw that the moral life is not an accessory to the faith. It’s identical to it.
Trent Horn:
That’s why the catechism says, “The charity of Christ is the source in us of all our merits before God. Grace, by uniting us to Christ in active love, ensures the supernatural quality of our acts and consequently their merit before God and before men.” The saints have always had a lively awareness that their merits were pure grace. St. Paul says in 2 Corinthians 5:16-17, “From now on therefore, we regard no one from a human point of view, even though we once regarded Christ from a human point of view. We regard him thus no longer. Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation. The old has passed away. Behold, the new has come.”
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The messages that just say, “be good,” damn people to their pride or to despair.
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There are really only two possible human responses. One response to a “be good” message is, “Been there, done that, checked off that box.”
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The person will believe they can attain it, be the Pharisee and work and work and work and work or be the Mormon, work and work or the Muslim or the Jehovah’s Witness, all of them. You’ll try to earn salvation by trying to be a good person.
Donald Trump:
Why do I have to repent? Why do I have to ask for forgiveness, if you’re not making mistakes. I work hard. I’m an honorable person.
Trent Horn:
I agree that, “be good,” is a very human way of looking at God’s commands. So like I said before, “be holy,” that’s different. To, “be holy,” means you’re set apart, set apart for God and his will for your life. And when we grow in holiness, we thank God for helping us to repent of some of our old ways of living. So, you don’t have to ask for forgiveness for sins you don’t commit anymore and that you’ve already repented of. But, when we grow in holiness, we also start to see how unholy we are. We see the gravity of sins that maybe before our conversion used to think weren’t such a big deal. So, we strive to grow in holiness.
Trent Horn:
That’s all we ask God in the Lord’s prayer every day to forgive us our trespasses. And, we pray in the penitential right, “I confess to almighty God and you, my brothers and sisters that I have greatly sinned. In my thoughts and in my words, in what I have done and what I have failed to do.” Just because pride can always twist self-improvement into self righteousness, that doesn’t mean we should abandon God’s command that we strive to perfectly imitate him. St. Paul put it great in 1 Corinthians 11:1, “Be imitators of me as I am of Christ.”
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Jesus is walking down the road one day and a young man comes up to him and says, “Good teacher, what must I do to inherit eternal life?” Now, it sounds like a very safe question. It’s actually a landmine. What must “I” do to inherit eternal life? Already, it’s about performance. What must “I” do to inherit eternal life? And, Jesus responds with great wisdom. He says, “Why do you call me good? Only God is good” Then he says, “You know the commandments.”
Candace Cameron Bure:
But, Joy, then what… But, what is the standard of goodness-
Joy Behar:
Be good to your neighbor, don’t cheat [crosstalk 00:06:42] on your husband, don’t steal-
Candace Cameron Bure:
But in the-
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Don’t lie, don’t steal, gives them the list of the commands.
Candace Cameron Bure:
But in the Bible, God’s standard is the Ten Commandments.
Joy Behar:
I’m good on that too.
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And the young man immediately says, “All these I’ve kept since I was a boy.”
Documentary:
Jesus just said, “Only God is good.” And two seconds later, what does the young man say? “Me too!”
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In which case, he gives himself the status and the stature of God. It’s just pure pride. And by the way, breaks the very first command. “You shall have no other Gods.”
Candace Cameron Bure:
You’ve never told a lie before, ever?
Joy Behar:
What, is that one of the commandments?
Candace Cameron Bure:
It’s a commandment.
Joy Behar:
… nevermind-
Candace Cameron Bure:
It’s number nine.
Documentary:
Jesus is like, “Okay, sell everything you have.” Dude walks away. So, you’re not good. You can’t be good. And, Jesus already lays out the foundation that only God is good because he defines what goodness truly is.
Trent Horn:
This is a weird interpretation of the story. The documentary basically turns the young man into a prideful idolatrous villain who has no redeeming qualities at all. And, Jesus rebukes him for asking what he, as a person, should do to inherit eternal life. But, let’s read what the Bible actually says. It says, “And, he was setting out on his journey. A man ran up and knelt before him and asked him. “Good teacher, what must I do to inherit eternal life?” And Jesus said to him, “Why do you call me good? No one is good, but God alone.”
Trent Horn:
Now, Jesus is making sure that the young man knows that what matters is not a popular rabbi’s opinion of him, but God’s opinion of him. Of course, Jesus is both of those things. But the young man doesn’t know that. So, he goes on and Jesus says, “You know the commandments: do not kill, do not commit adultery, do not steel, do not bear false witness, do not defraud, honor your father and mother.” And he said to him, “Teacher, all these I have observed from my youth.” Now, the documentary implies the young man… He’s wrong about his ability to keep the law or that he’s being really prideful in claiming that he’s kept the mosaic law. Let me listen again to what they say about him.
Documentary:
The status and the stature of God. It’s just pure pride. And by the way, breaks, the very first commandment. You shall have no other gods.
Documentary:
So, you’re not good. You can’t be good.
Trent Horn:
It makes him sound like a pretty bad guy, right? But now, let’s read a part of the story that the documentary skipped over. We go on in verse 21, “And, Jesus looking upon him, loved him and said to him, you lack one thing, go sell what you have and give it to the poor, and you will have treasure in heaven and come follow me. At this saying his countenance fell, and he went away sorrowful for he had great possessions. And, Jesus looked around and said to his disciples how hard it will be for those who have riches to enter the kingdom of God.”
Trent Horn:
Now, it’s ironic that in a documentary that critiques the prosperity gospel, the creators completely missed the point that this story is about the dangers of wealth and notice that Jesus never says the young man’s desire to perfectly keep God’s law was bad. Jesus loved this young man. Instead, he was showing that you can’t love anything in this life more than God because God wants us not to just keep his law, but to follow him in discipleship, which requires an even more radical commitment to God than what the mosaic law intended.
Donald Trump:
I try and lead a life where I don’t have to ask God for forgiveness.
Documentary:
If you have a proud heart and most people are very proud of heart, and the way to find that out is just say, “Do you think you’re a good person?”
Documentary:
I know if I’m a good person. I don’t really lie, cheat, or steal.
Documentary:
You don’t lie?
Documentary:
You know what, never mind, I’ll take that back. I don’t tell huge lies. I tell white lies.
Documentary:
I believe I’m a good person. I’m very-
Documentary:
You do?
Documentary:
Yeah.
Documentary:
How many lies have you told in your whole life?
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I can’t count them.
Documentary:
Have you ever stolen something?
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Stolen something before? Yes, I have.
Documentary:
I think the misunderstanding is that God’s law was given as a standard for us to live by. Well, try and live by it.
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Well, the law’s a mirror. It’s just simply meant to reflect what God thinks, who God is, how he wants you to live. Then, you get to a look in the mirror and you get to go, “How do I fit that standard?”
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Love God with your heart, mind, soul, and strength and love your neighbor as much as you love yourself because that’s the essence of the law. We can’t do it. Have you ever used God’s name in vain?
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Accidentally, I’m trying to get rid of that.
Documentary:
So, you’ve done it?
Documentary:
Yes.
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It’s called blasphemy. It’s very serious.
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I’ve never known anybody in my whole life that has looked in a mirror and said, “I have something in my teeth,” and then taken the mirror off the wall and tried to pick their teeth with it.
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Now Jesus said, “If you look at a woman and lust for her, you commit adultery with her in your heart.” Have you ever done that?
Documentary:
Yes.
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I’m not going to lie, I did.
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And, you don’t take the law and then try to fix yourself with it. You take the law and say, “I’m in need of help because something is wrong.”
Trent Horn:
The claim that we can’t follow God’s law, or that it’s a misunderstanding that the law was given as a standard for us to live by, that can lead to the heresy of antinomianism. The idea that Christians are not obligated to follow the moral law. There are Christians like Charles Stanley who say that a believer could give up his faith and become a serial killer, and he would still go to heaven because under their view, nothing we do changes God’s act of salvation.
Trent Horn:
Now, fortunately, I think most Christians do not hold this view. But this pessimism towards the ability to follow God’s law, it doesn’t help. The problem is a bad attitude towards the law, not the law itself. Now, you might say, “Well, the law was only for the old covenant, not for the new covenant.” Really? What about Galatians 6:2. “Bear one another’s burdens and so fulfill the law of Christ. For if anyone thinks he is something when he has nothing, he deceives himself.” The moral law, it was perfected for us to follow in humble imitation and obedience of Christ. The law is not an opportunity for self righteousness, but for us to be like John the Baptist. “I must decrease so that Christ may increase in my life.”
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The other human response is, “Wait, what does it mean to be good? Does it mean to be as holy as God is holy, never lie, never be selfish, never in any way do things contrary to God’s law. Oh my, I’m in despair now.”
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But, what you’re doing is you’re revealing in the hearts of your people their shortcomings and failures. So to just leave it in their hands and their effort puts a weight on them they can’t bear up under.
Documentary:
I felt like I was walking on eggshells all the time because it felt as if it at any moment I can go to hell because I’m not doing enough. And, that’s where you see a lot of people who grew up in churches where the gospel might not have been really fleshed out where they become atheist. Because, it’s like, “I can’t do enough to please him anyway, so why trust him? Why believe in him? I’m still the same person. I’m still wicked. I’m still sinful.”
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What if I have failed sexually? If I’m a man sitting in the church service at that moment, I have no hope as I walk out. I’m just told here’s 10 ways that you should try harder.
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We’re damning people to those twin possibilities of pride on the one hand or despair on the other.
Trent Horn:
This is a false dilemma. The choice is not between impossible perfection and committing all these different types of sins. The Bible recognizes that Christians do and do not sin. 1 John 3:9 says, “No one born of God commits sin, for God’s nature abides in him. And, he cannot sin because he is born of God.” But two chapters earlier 1 John 1:8 says, “If we say we have no sin, we deceive ourselves, and the truth is not in us.” So, how do we explain this contradiction? Well, the answer can be found in the distinction between mortal and venial sin. According to the catechism, “Mortal sin destroys charity in the heart of man by a grave violation of God’s law. It turns man away from God who in his ultimate end and his beatitude by preferring an inferior good to him. Venal sin allows charity to subsist, even though it offends and wounds it.”
Trent Horn:
So when John says, “No one born of God commits sin.” One way to understand it is by noting that people in a state of grace are not in mortal sin. You can’t be in friendship with God and commit grave sins that destroy God’s love in our hearts and cause us to lose our salvation. If you’re in mortal sin, then you have to be reconciled to God and the church. But, we also can’t deny that we all commit venial sins or small violations of God’s law that damage our relationship with God and make it more likely we might commit a mortal sin in the future. Now, I know a lot of Protestants don’t believe in mortal and venial sin, but I think nearly all Christians really do believe in these two categories even if they use different terms to describe them. I mean, think about it. Is there a difference between a Christian who occasionally steals one chocolate covered almond out of the barrel at Sprouts, and the Christian who occasionally steals the entire life saving of elderly widows.
Trent Horn:
These are both sins of theft, but one is obviously worse than the other and is incompatible with being a Christian. In fact, a whole lot of Protestants who say, “Salvation cannot be lost.” Would say, “A Christian who continually defrauded widows was never saved in the first place.” But, I highly doubt they would say, “A person who routinely commits grand theft chocolate almond was never a Christian.” The fact they make a distinction between sins Christians do commit and sins Christians do not commit shows they do believe in mortal and venial sin even if they don’t use that language to describe it. Maybe, it’s major sin or minor sin, but they believe in two different types. The sins that Christians do commit even repeatedly and the sins that Christians do not commit, that are not part of the Christian life. They do recognize a difference there, even if they use different terminology.
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In many ways, the defining doctrine of true biblical Christianity is justification by faith alone in Christ alone.
Trent Horn:
That’s interesting given that even Protestant scholars recognize this doctrine was basically absent for 1500 years of Christian history. For example, the Protestant apologist, Norman Geisler and Ralph MacKenzie. They write this in their book on Catholicism. “One can be saved without believing that imputed righteousness or forensic justification is an essential part of the true gospel. Otherwise, few people were saved between the time of the apostle Paul and the reformation since scarcely anyone taught imputed righteousness or forensic justification during that period. The well known Protestant theologian Alister McGrath even said of the reformation, “A fundamental discontinuity was introduced into the Western theological tradition where none had ever existed or ever been contemplated before. The reformation understanding of the nature of justification as opposed to its mode must therefore be regarded as a genuine theological novum.”
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Justification is God declaring us righteous even though we are guilty of sin.
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We see in Ephesians 2:8-9, “For it is by grace, you have been saved through faith. It’s not of yourselves. It’s the gift of God, not of work so that no man may boast.” So, this is the great dividing line between biblical Christianity during the reformation and the Roman Catholic religion.
Trent Horn:
Catholics agree, justification involves God declaring us righteous even though we are guilty of sin. Where we disagree is that we believe that when God declares something, it becomes reality. When God created the world, he declared, “Let there be light,” even though it will was a dark empty void. And what happened, it wasn’t like the darkness was just treated as if it were light in some kind of a fiction in God’s mind. Instead, the dark void became a light-filled creation. So when God declares, “We are justified a baptism,” we actually do become justified and our cleansed of our sins. That’s why St. Peter told the crowd in Jerusalem, “Repent and be baptized, every one of you in the name of Jesus Christ for the forgiveness of your sins, and you shall receive the gift of the holy spirit.”
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The official position of the Roman Catholic church on justification is that they believe that you are justified by faith plus works.
Trent Horn:
No magisterial document says, “We’re justified by faith and works or faith plus works.”
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In fact, at the Council of Trent, which people refer to as the counter reformation, they actually issued an anathema. If anybody believed that they are justified by faith alone, they are condemned done to the anathema of the Council of Trent.
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So, the Roman Catholic church actively was opposing and cursing those who were holding a biblical gospel.
Trent Horn:
The anathemas in the Council of Trent are used to show which Catholics have placed themselves outside of communion with the church for rejecting the church’s teachings. So in that respect, they’re like excommunications. So, they aren’t some kind of automatic declaration, someone is damned or going to hell since a person could recognize the seriousness of what he’s done and repent of accepting these false heretical teachings.
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It is often called the “plus religion” because Catholicism teaches that you are saved by faith plus works, by grace plus merit, by Christ plus other mediators, according to scripture plus tradition and for the glory of God, as well as the glory of Mary and other saints.
Trent Horn:
First, this assumes that sola scriptura is true when the Bible teaches the opposite, actually, about God’s word being given to us in written form and in unwritten form. And second, as I said before, the magisterium does not teach, “We are saved by faith and a certain number of works.” We are saved by baptism, and we remain saved as long as we don’t die apart from God’s grace. Third, the catechism says, “No one can merit the initial grace of forgiveness and justification at the beginning of conversion.” So, we are not saved by grace plus merit. But, as I showed in my video on Mike Winger recently, we can merit eternal life by cooperating with God’s grace and following God’s commands to keep his commandments. And in doing so, God keeps his promise towards us and gives us eternal life for following his commands. The catechism also says that Christ is, “the one and only mediator between God and men.”
Trent Horn:
So, he’s the only one who mediates salvation to the entire world, but that doesn’t keep other people from being secondary mediators along with Christ. Like when you and I pray for other people, we do this through Christ. Finally, we exalt the glory of God, but the Bible also says God’s glory can be communicated to believers. Romans 8:17 says, “If children, then heirs. Heirs of God and fellow heirs with Christ provided we suffer with him in order that we may also be glorified with him.” We recognize that the saints in heaven now share in God’s glory. So, we can venerate them as fellow believers who have already finished the race, so to speak, and can intercede on our behalf to what 1 Timothy 1:17 calls, “To God, the king of ages, immortal, invisible, the only God, honor and glory forever and ever. Amen.”
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When you look at the Roman Catholic plan of salvation, it is a salvation of works and sacraments.
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In the Roman Catholic plan of salvation, baptism cleanses an infant from original sin.
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And, that is the sacrament of regeneration, as well as justification.
Trent Horn:
First, the Catholic plan of salvation is no more works and sacraments than the Protestant plan of salvation is works and formulas. If you are uncharitable, you could say that under Protestantism, you have to say the right words about Jesus being Lord and savior and have the right thoughts in your heart, and then you’re saved. That’s what saves you. Of course, a Protestant would say in response that, “Salvation is from Christ, and he gave us things like the sinner’s prayer for our salvation,” which isn’t actually in the Bible, but I digress. So, in the same way, the Catholic plan of salvation includes sacraments, Christ himself gave us, like baptism and the Eucharist, which are just outward signs of inward grace. And Mike is right when it comes to baptism, the Council of Trent says, “Once you are baptized as an infant, there’s absolutely nothing to prevent you from entering into heaven.”
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That it starts them off on this plan, on this track. Along the way, however, they can commit these small sins, venial sins, which plunges them back down.
Trent Horn:
James 3: 1-2 two says, “Let not many of you become teachers my brethren for you know that we who teach shall be judged with greater strictness for we all make many mistakes.” As I’ve already shown, even Protestants should agree that we commit many small sins that make us less holy, that hurt our relationship with God.
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And, heaven forbid that commit a mortal sin, which knocks him completely off the plan of salvation.
Trent Horn:
Right, heaven forbid we do something that destroys supernatural charity in our hearts and cuts us off from God’s friendship. This is so bad, the Bible warns us repeatedly to not do this. St. Paul warns Timothy. He says, “By rejecting conscience, certain persons have made shipwreck of their faith.” Even most Protestants agree that if they did something really bad, they normally ask God for forgiveness, but why, if God’s already forgiven all of our sins, and we can’t lose our salvation anyways. I think that’s a reflex rooted in God’s design for us that most Protestant theology simply can’t account for.
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And, he must now receive sacraments. He must confess his sins to a priest, which is the sacrament of penance. Then, he must be rejustified by doing good works, by doing penance.
Trent Horn:
The Bible shows that people can be in a state of grace with God, fall out of relationship with God, and then be reconciled to him. For example, in the parable of the prodigal son, the son was alive when he was at home, was dead to his father when he was away. Then, when he returns with a contrite heart, his father says he is alive again. The father says, “It was fitting to make merry and be glad. For this, your brother was dead and is alive. He was lost and is found.”
Trent Horn:
Another example is the unmerciful servant in Matthew 18. The king forgives the servant’s debt. The servant refuses to forgive another servant’s debt. And so, the king reinstates the servant’s debt. This shows we can be in a state of grace with God and then lose our salvation. But since God is merciful, we can be reconciled to him, not through any human good work, but through the sacrament of penance he gave us for this specific purpose. Which is why Jesus told the apostles in John 20:23, “Receive the holy spirit. If you forgive the sins of any, they are forgiven. If you retain the sins of any, they are retained.”
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And, once he is rejustified, then he must maintain his salvation through sacraments.
Trent Horn:
Right, we have to obey Jesus in order to remain in relationship with him. John 3:36 even says, “He who believes in the son has eternal life. He who does not obey the son shall not see life, but the wrath of God rests upon him.” So, what’s wrong with doing what Jesus said? Like, “Unless you eat the flesh of the son of man and drink his blood, you have no life in you.” Or, Matthew 10:22, “He who endures to the end will be saved.”
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And if, in the end, they have enough people praying for them, and if they do enough time in purgatory, they might possibly get to heaven.
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How they get to heaven is based on what they do rather than what Christ has done.
Trent Horn:
Wow, I’m always amazed by people who write entire books, opposing Catholicism, like this pastor, this author, that they can still be wrong. The catechism says, “All who die in God’s grace and friendship, but still imperfectly purified are indeed assured of their eternal salvation.” If you die in a state of grace, you will go to heaven. There is no possibly about it. Even if nobody knew who you were or nobody prayed for you, you will go to heaven. But God is merciful, and he will prepare us to receive the beatific vision in heaven, which means if we’re still attached to venial sins, then we’ll be purified of that before our entry into heaven. That’s the Doctrine of Purgatory.
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But the Bible teaches, “There is therefore now, no condemnation for those who are in Christ.” That when you put your faith in Jesus Christ, the work has been done. He saves you totally, completely, perfectly. And even though, yes, we sin and can repent, the sacrifice of Christ has paid for those sins. So, there is assurance that he has saved you. He has plucked you out of the world. You’re in the Palm of his hand.
Trent Horn:
Wait a minute, listen to this again. Notice he said, yes, we sin and can repent.
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And even though, yes, we sin and can repent, the sacrifice of Christ has paid for those sins.
Trent Horn:
Does that mean you can repent of sins, but you don’t have to. And notice the graphic only depicts the Christian following the Protestant plan of salvation, stumbling a little bit. What happens if a Christian commits a big sin like adultery. Here, there seems to be a dilemma. Does a Christian in that case have to repent and ask God for forgiveness for committing such a sin? If you say, “Yes,” then it seems like you have to do something like a human work to be saved. So, God didn’t really fully and perfectly pay for your sins in advance. If you say, “No, you don’t have to do that,” it seems like the moral life to doesn’t matter, which can lead to moral heresy. Now, you might say, “Well, you need to ask God for forgiveness, but that’s not what saves you. It’s just a sign that you are saved, but this is just the whole, the works or the fruit, not the cause of salvation.” And, that’s going to come up later, so I’ll save my criticism for when it does.
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And, nobody can pluck you out of his hand.
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So, that’s why the reformers cried the five solas. That we are saved by grace alone, through faith alone, in Christ alone according to scripture alone, all for the glory of God alone.
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That message has always found opposition, and the Jerusalem Council, that we read about it in the book of Acts, actually addressed this very same issue. The rabbis and the Judaizers were saying to the Christians, that God will accept you by his grace through faith and your keeping of the ceremonial laws: being circumcised, washing your hands, keeping the food laws. And the entire church agreed, as summarized by the apostle Peter’s statement, that is not the good news. That’s not the gospel. Jesus didn’t come to make salvation possible for those who do their part. He came to accomplish it and to give it freely to all of his people.
Trent Horn:
I want to point out that this is supposed to be about the Protestant gospel, but there are a lot of hints that what they really mean is the Calvinist gospel. And, I’m not alone in seeing this. Most of the presenters are Calvinists and even non-Calvinist Christians have criticized American Gospel for having this slant on the gospel. You can see this in statements like what was just said.
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Jesus didn’t come to make salvation possible for those who do their part. He came to accomplish it and to give it freely to all of his people.
Trent Horn:
So, Jesus didn’t give people an opportunity to accept or reject the gospel. He just saved the people he already decided he would save and made it so that they could never reject their salvation. He gave salvation not to the entire world as the Bible says because if he did some people would reject it, but he only gave salvation to his people.
Trent Horn:
Now, as for the Council of Jerusalem, the council reaffirmed that to be a good Christian you don’t have to be a good Jew first. You don’t need to be circumcised or keep the kosher law, but the council did prescribe rules for Christians to follow. It said, “For it has seemed good to the holy spirit and to us to lay upon you no greater burden than these necessary things. That you abstain from what has been sacrificed to idols and from blood and from what is strangled and from unchastity. If you keep yourselves from these, you will do well, farewell.” Now, the first rule was a disciplinary statement that was later reversed, but the second is an application of the unchanging moral law. So, the gospel does not include things like circumcision, but it does include not defiling the temple of the holy spirit in the form of our own bodies through things like sexual immorality.
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The question is, “How do we know if faith is real, if there’s no works?” Doesn’t the Bible say, “Faith without works is dead.” So, don’t we have to do works to be saved, isn’t that the argument, is that we have to be doing. But, there’s two understandings of that and one’s biblical and one’s not. So, the Roman Catholic view of salvation and really any works based system of salvation takes works and puts it at the root and says that works plus your faith in Jesus is what produces salvation.
Trent Horn:
No, we don’t say works plus faith or faith plus works. We say what Paul says in his letter to the Galatians about true faith. He says, “For in Christ Jesus, neither circumcision or uncircumcision is of any avail, but faith working through love.”
Documentary:
But, the Bible teaches that it’s not the root, it’s actually the fruit. That your faith alone in Jesus, that is what saves. And then, a life that has been saved is sanctified, regenerated heart produces fruit. The fruit of good works. So, a person’s been saved because of their fruit, but the fruit is not the reason they’re saved. They’re saved by God, by grace, through faith in Christ.
Trent Horn:
The big miscommunication that goes on between Catholics and Protestants on this point, it’s really about salvation being a moment or a process. We agree there is no work we do, not even an act of faith that makes us saved or causes initial salvation. We just accept our salvation through baptism. And, this is especially obvious with infants when they’re saved because they can’t do anything. They can’t do any works at all. So, when the doc memory says…
Documentary:
But, the fruit is not the reason they’re saved. They’re saved by God.
Trent Horn:
This is true and false. After salvation, the good works we do, like acts of charity, are not what saves us. It’s not like God keeps a ledger, and will let you into heaven because you tithed just enough money or you volunteered just enough hours per week. There’s no set amount of good works we need to do to get into heaven, all we need to do is just not die in a state of mortal sin. So, the good fruit isn’t the reason we are saved, but the absence of bad fruit like unrepentant mortal sin is the reason we aren’t damned. This is a choice we make, and we will be judged based on that choice. The Bible says this over and over and over again.
Trent Horn:
Finally, I think our own experience really counts against the view that our faith is what saves and good works or at least choosing not to do evil works and die in that state automatically flow from a person who is saved. To Christians who are watching, when you feel tempted to do evil, does it feel like in response, the holy spirit just kind of moves your body and mind do the right thing? Or, do you feel like you have to make an active will. You have to do something to cooperate with the holy spirit, to do what is right to resist temptation. That’s why St. Paul says, “Therefore, my beloved, as you have always obeyed, so now, not only is in my presence, but much more in my absence, work out your own salvation with fear and trembling, for God is at work in you, both to will and to work for his good pleasure.”
Trent Horn:
So to summarize, I agree with American Gospel that the prosperity gospel is bankrupt, and we should not become moralizers who reduce the Christian life to coldly following rules. If you don’t have prayer and sacraments, you’re not going to be able to do that. But, I disagree with our pessimism towards the law and a Christian’s ability to follow it and live a life of radical holiness.
Trent Horn:
Finally, the documentary is just flat out wrong when it tries to refute the Catholic plan of salvation with the biblical gospel. Because, the Catholic planet of salvation just is the biblical gospel: repent of your sins, receive Christ in baptism, believe in him and remain in Christ until death. Now, I hope this has been helpful for you all. And if you want more resources on this subject, I recommend my friend, Jimmy Akin’s book, The Drama of Salvation, as well as my book, The Case for Catholicism. But, thank you guys so much for watching today’s rebuttal episode, and I just hope that you have a very blessed day.
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