Expert: Pastor Don Carpenter - 4/3/2009

Question
Pastor Don i have read a number of your responses and while I agree they are certainly thought provoking they are fundamentally flawed. In your references to Catholic theology you ofton quote some websites that are produced by people that do not have the athority to speak for the church. If you want a true and clear representation of Catholic theology why not go to the Catechism of the Church and let the Church speak for itself?

Answer
Hi Dan,

Thanks for your response.  Fair enough... let us go to the Vatican itself and the official RC Catechism and see that they embrace the damnable heresy of salvation by works.

________________

ONE BAPTISM FOR THE FORGIVENESS OF SINS

>977 Our Lord tied the forgiveness of sins to faith and Baptism: "Go into all the world and preach the gospel to the whole creation. He who believes and is baptized will be saved."521 Baptism is the first and chief sacrament of forgiveness of sins because it unites us with Christ, who died for our sins and rose for our justification, so that "we too might walk in newness of life."522

978 "When we made our first profession of faith while receiving the holy Baptism that cleansed us, the forgiveness we received then was so full and complete that there remained in us absolutely nothing left to efface, neither original sin nor offenses committed by our own will, nor was there left any penalty to suffer in order to expiate them. . . . Yet the grace of Baptism delivers no one from all the weakness of nature. On the contrary, we must still combat the movements of concupiscence that never cease leading us into evil "523

979 In this battle against our inclination towards evil, who could be brave and watchful enough to escape every wound of sin? "If the Church has the power to forgive sins, then Baptism cannot be her only means of using the keys of the Kingdom of heaven received from Jesus Christ. The Church must be able to forgive all penitents their offenses, even if they should sin until the last moment of their lives."524

980 It is through the sacrament of Penance that the baptized can be reconciled with God and with the Church:


Penance has rightly been called by the holy Fathers "a laborious kind of baptism." This sacrament of Penance is necessary for salvation for those who have fallen after Baptism, just as Baptism is necessary for salvation for those who have not yet been reborn.525

___________
(Taken from www.vatican.va)

Friend, if baptism could wash away sins, then Jesus died for nothing!  

Galatians 2:21
21 I do not frustrate the grace of God: for if righteousness come by the law, then Christ is dead in vain.

The King James Version, (Cambridge: Cambridge) 1769.

Penance?  Really???  That is offering the wrong payment!  The payment for sin is death not works... we cannot pay for one sin by works.

Romans 6:23
23 For the wages of sin is death; but the gift of God is eternal life through Jesus Christ our Lord.

The King James Version, (Cambridge: Cambridge) 1769.

Romans 11:6
6 And if by grace, then is it no more of works: otherwise grace is no more grace. But if it be of works, then is it no more grace: otherwise work is no more work.
The King James Version, (Cambridge: Cambridge) 1769.

Remember, it is not what a religious body puts into writing, it is what individuals BELIEVE that will make the difference between heaven and hell on an individual basis.  If scores and scores of Catholics, or any other group, clearly reject the Biblical teaching of salvation by grace through faith alone, then one must run from that religion to one that clearly preaches the truth.

I hope that this helps.

In Christ
Pastor Don