Questions Answered
Basic Bible Teachings
The topics presented in this book address only some of the areas in which the Catholic Catechism differs from the Bible; there are many more. The topics I have presented are very clear and relatively simple to compare to the Bible, and we do not need to be scholars or theologians to do so. We only need to be able to read, think for ourselves, and allow the Holy Spirit to help us understand. As I stated earlier, not all of the Catholic Catechism contradicts the Bible. In fact, many parts are in perfect harmony with the Bible. But contradictions do exist in other areas and become apparent when the teachings are examined. Please remember, as I stated earlier, even though there are many things in the Catholic Catechism that are in agreement with the Bible, I have addressed some of those that are in disagreement because of their seriousness, their importance, and the eternal consequences of believing them. Please also remember, I am not trying to cause discord or problems. I would love to see unity among all people, but we must not sacrifice the truth of God’s Word in our desire for unity. If we do, instead of growing closer to Christ, we may actually be separated from Him.
I have quoted many passages from both the Catholic Catechism and from the Catholic Bible. Having read through all of this, you may find it all somewhat confusing or overwhelming. I will summarize with the following:
God’s Word teaches that we should not nullify His Word with traditions as shown when Jesus said,
“You nullify the word of God in favor of your tradition that you have handed on. And you do many such things” (Mark 7:13).
Therefore, God’s Word must take precedence over tradition and we must refer to God’s Word as the final authority to determine whether or not we should accept and follow any particular tradition or teaching.
God’s Word tells us to
“...love the Lord, your God, with all your heart, with all your soul, and with all your mind” (Matthew 22:37).
Therefore, we should not worship, venerate, or be devoted to anyone or anything other than God. And by doing so, we will not allow our thoughts to become “corrupted from a sincere [and pure] commitment to Christ” (2 Corinthians 11:3).
God’s Word tells us:
“...in everything, by prayer and petition, with thanksgiving, make your requests known to God” (Philippians 4:6).
Therefore, since God’s Word tells us to pray to God and never tells us to pray to anyone else, we should pray to Him and no one else.
God’s Word tells us:
“If we acknowledge our sins, he [God] is faithful and just and will forgive our sins and cleanse us from every wrongdoing” (1 John 1:9).
Therefore, we know that when God forgives our sins, He also cleanses us from every wrongdoing and that we do not need to do anything more to make amends with Him. Further, since Jesus taught that we should ask God to forgive our sins (Matthew 6:12), we can confess our sins directly to God and do not need to confess our sins to a priest.
God’s Word tells us:
“...if you confess with your mouth that Jesus is Lord and believe in your heart that God raised him from the dead, you will be saved. For one believes with the heart and so is justified, and one confesses with the mouth and so is saved” (Romans 10:9, 10).
Therefore, if we believe with our hearts that God raised Jesus from the dead and confess that Jesus is Lord, we know that we are saved. As God’s Word tells us:
“...you may know that you have eternal life, you who believe in the name of the Son of God” (1 John 5:13).
If we believe in Jesus, we can know with certainty we are saved because our salvation is not dependent upon our being good enough to establish our own righteousness. Instead, having no righteousness of our own, we receive righteousness “which comes through faith in Christ, the righteousness from God, depending on faith” (Philippians 3:9).
God’s Word tells us:
“For by grace you have been saved through faith, and this is not from you; it is the gift of God; it is not from works, so no one may boast. For we are his handiwork, created in Christ Jesus for the good works that God has prepared in advance, that we should live in them” (Ephesians 2:8–10; italics added).
Therefore, we know that we do not have to—and in fact cannot—do good works to earn our salvation. And since we are saved by grace through faith and since it is not through works, we are free to worship God through the things that we do. As God’s Word tells us:
“...how much more will the blood of Christ, who through the eternal spirit offered himself unblemished to God, cleanse our consciences from dead works to worship the living God” (Hebrews 9:14).
God’s Word tells us:
“In him [Jesus] you also, who have heard the word of truth, the gospel of your salvation, and have believed in him, were sealed with the promised Holy Spirit” (Ephesians 1:13).
Therefore, we know that if we have heard the gospel and believe in Jesus, we are sealed with the Holy Spirit and do not have to fear losing our salvation.
Seek Jesus
All of these basic Christian beliefs are directly from the Bible. I again encourage you to seek Jesus with all of your heart, with all of your soul, and with all of your mind by reading your Bible for yourself. As the Catholic Catechism teaches in agreement with the Bible:
“...one can abandon oneself in full trust to the truth and faithfulness of his word in all things” (para. 215).
Also, please remember that
“The Church ‘forcefully and specifically exhorts all the Christian faithful . . . to learn “the surpassing knowledge of Jesus Christ,” by frequent reading of the divine Scriptures. “Ignorance of the Scriptures is ignorance of Christ”’” (para. 133).
Some people know about God but still may not know Him and may never have truly accepted Him. The Catholic Catechism is in complete agreement with the Bible when it teaches that
“Interior repentance is a radical reorientation of our whole life, a return, a conversion to God with all of our heart, an end of sin, a turning away from evil, with repugnance toward the evil actions we have committed” (para. 1431).
“God must give people a new heart. Conversion is first of all a work of the grace of God who makes our hearts turn to Him: ‘Restore us to thyself, O Lord, that we may be restored!’ God gives us the strength to begin anew. It is in discovering the greatness of God’s love that our heart is shaken by the horror and weight of sin and begins to fear offending God by sin and being separated from him. The human heart is converted by looking upon him whom our sins have pierced: ‘Let us fix our eyes on Christ’s blood and understand how precious it is to his Father, for, poured out for our salvation, it has brought to the whole world the grace of repentance’” (para. 1432).
We are told that true conversion is “a radical reorientation of our whole life, a return, a conversion to God with all of our heart.” Have you ever experienced internal repentance that was a radical reorientation of your whole life? Have you ever had a conversion to God with all of your heart? Do you love God with all your heart, soul, and mind? Have you stopped attempting to establish your own righteousness by trying to be good enough and instead completely submitted to God’s righteousness through faith? Have you ever accepted Jesus?
You may have answered yes to all of these questions; and if so, praise God! Your answers to these questions indicate whether you really know Jesus and whether He really knows you as someone who believes in Him and as someone who has accepted Him into your heart as your Savior and Lord. The Bible tells us that we must accept Jesus:
“He [Jesus] was in the world, and the world came to be through him, but the world did not know him. He came to what was his own, but his own people did not accept him. But to those who did accept him he gave power to become children of God, to those who believe in His name...” (John 1:10–12).
Our belief in Jesus must lead us to accept Him. If we truly accept Him, then our faith in Him will be evident as we trust and follow Him with our lives. We know that true Christian faith is more than just simply believing in the existence of God and Jesus, because the Bible tells us,
“Even the demons believe that and tremble” (James 2:19).
The demons believe in God, but because they do not accept Him, they tremble in fear of Him. If we have not accepted Jesus as our personal Savior and Lord, then we also should tremble in fear of Him.
If you feel uncomfortable or uncertain regarding your eternal destination, you can have assurance this very day! And when you have that assurance, nothing that anyone says to you regarding Heaven and Hell will make you feel uncomfortable regarding your eternal destiny.
Accept, Follow, and Trust Jesus Alone
How do we accept Jesus? Jesus told us,
“Behold, I stand at the door and knock. If anyone hears my voice and opens the door, [then] I will enter his house and dine with him, and he with me” (Revelation 3:20).
Jesus knocks on the door of our hearts and calls us to Himself. If we hear His voice and open the door to Him, He will come into our lives and our hearts. It is by faith, expressed through prayer, that we open our hearts and lives to Jesus and accept Him. After we accept Jesus and receive Him into our hearts, we are to follow His instruction for living as revealed through the Bible. The Bible tells us,
“This is the way we may know that we are in union with him: whoever claims to abide in him ought to live [just] as he lived” (1 John 2:5, 6).
That is the difference between just believing in the existence of Jesus and believing in and accepting Him. Someone who has accepted Jesus will “walk in Him,” “live just as He lived,” and will worship Him with their life.
Those who only believe in Jesus but have not accepted Him have not been given “power to become children of God” (John 1:12). Therefore they do not have salvation from their sins. It is our sins that separate us from God. The consequence of not believing and accepting Jesus, of not truly knowing Jesus, and of Jesus’ not knowing you as one of His disciples is to not go to Heaven; the consequence is to spend eternity separated from God in Hell. This statement may sound harsh and judgmental, but it is exactly what the Bible teaches. If you truly know Jesus, this statement will not frighten you, nor will it make you feel the least bit uneasy. But if you do not know Jesus, then it may be uncomfortable or even frightening to read the following quote from the Catholic Catechism that accurately quotes the Bible:
“Jesus often speaks of ‘Gehenna,’ of ‘the unquenchable fire’ reserved for those who to the end of their lives refuse to believe and be converted, where both soul and body can be lost. Jesus solemnly proclaims that he ‘will send his angels, and they will gather...all evil doers, and throw them into the furnace of fire,’ and that he will pronounce the condemnation: ‘Depart from me, you cursed, into the eternal fire!’ ” (para. 1034).
Please remember, I did not write this book to condemn anyone, but to encourage you to seek Jesus with all of your heart, soul, and mind, because in Jesus we have hope and the promise of salvation. That is why I want to encourage you to think about what you believe, know why you believe it, and consider the eternal consequences of your beliefs.
Some people are very religious and may go to church every Sunday, but they still may not truly know Jesus. The Bible tells us the following about such people:
“I testify with regard to them that they have zeal for God, but it is not discerning. For, in their unawareness of the righteousness that comes from God and their attempt to establish their own [righteousness], they did not submit to the righteousness of God” (Romans 10:2, 3).
Some people say that they have never done anything wrong or that they have never sinned or that they are not as bad as someone else. But the Bible tells us that
“...all have sinned and are deprived of the glory of God” (Romans 3:23).
And that
“If we say, ‘We have not sinned,’ we make him a liar, and his word is not in us” (1 John 1:10).
God is obviously not a liar, and we should definitely not call Him one. Anyone who says that they have not sinned either does not know the truth or does not accept the truth as revealed by God through the Bible. Some may say that they have done only one or two little things wrong. Well, that is enough to be kept from entering into Heaven, because the Bible tells us,
“For whoever keeps the whole law, but falls short in one particular, has become guilty in respect to all of it” (James 2:10).
So even if someone is basically or mostly a “good person,” they are still not good enough to attain salvation and gain entrance into Heaven based on their own righteousness. The Bible tells us that the consequence of our sins is death, but it also gives us hope when it says,
“...the wages of sin is death, but the gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord” (Romans 6:23).
The death that is spoken of here is a spiritual death, in other words, eternity in Hell. But despite the fact that we are all sinners and deserve death, God still loves us. God loves you! As God’s Word tells us,
“For God so loved the world that he gave his only Son, so that everyone who believes in him might not perish but might have eternal life” (John 3:16).
God can and will forgive all of our sins if we come to Him with sincere hearts and confess our sins to Him. God offers the gift of eternal life to all who accept Him into their hearts and follow Him. He desires that everyone would be saved and that none would be lost. The Bible tells us that God
“...is patient with you, not wishing that any should perish but that all should come to repentance” (2 Peter 3:9).
The Bible also tells us that all who sincerely call out to Him will be saved, for
“...‘everyone who calls on the name of the Lord will be saved’” (Romans 10:13).
And once we call on Him, if we believe in our hearts and confess our belief to others, we will be saved. As the Bible tells us,
“...if you confess with your mouth that Jesus is Lord and believe in your heart that God raised him from the dead, you will be saved. For one believes with the heart and so is justified, and one confesses with the mouth and so is saved” (Romans 10:9, 10).
Additionally, we can know that we have eternal life because God has told us through the Apostle John,
“I write these things to you so that you may know that you have eternal life, you who believe in the name of the Son of God” (1 John 5:13).
You can receive Jesus and have assurance of your salvation right now through prayer. Confess your sins to Him, ask Him for forgiveness of those sins, and acknowledge Him alone as your Lord and Savior. He is our Savior because He saves us from the penalty (Hell) we deserve because of our sins. And He is our Lord because we commit and submit our lives to following Him and His Word out of our love for Him and our thankfulness for saving us. Please know that it is not a special prayer that saves someone, it is Jesus. So just open up your heart to Him and speak directly to Him through prayer.
Then begin or continue to read His Word, the Bible, daily. Each time before you read, pray that God will help you to understand what you are going to read and that He would help you to know Him better. As you continue to read God’s Word, you will begin to know Him better and better each day. If you have tried reading the Bible before but it seemed difficult to understand or seemed like it doesn’t apply to life today, this time try starting in the book of Matthew. Matthew is the first book in the New Testament and tells us about Jesus’ life and His teaching. The entire Bible is important and should be read and studied, but in general, the New Testament speaks more directly about Jesus, Christianity, and our lives today.
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