How do you share the gospel with a Roman Catholic? This clip (featuring Evangelist Ray Comfort) will help you to do it lovingly and without offense. Introduced by Kirk Cameron:
Sharing the Gospel with a Roman Catholic
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Category Archives: The Gospel
Righteousness Achieved For Us
This excerpt is from R.C. Sproul’s The Truth of the Cross. Original Source: http://www.ligonier.org/blog/jesus-died-he-lived/
We must see that the righteousness of Christ that is transferred to us is the righteousness He achieved by living under the Law for thirty-three years without once sinning. Jesus had to live a life of obedience before His death could mean anything. He had to acquire, if you will, merit at the bar of justice. Without His life of sinless obedience, Jesus’ atonement would have had no value at all. We need to see the crucial significance of this truth; we need to see that not only did Jesus die for us, He lived for us.
Roman Catholics call this concept a legal fiction, and they recoil from it because they believe it casts a shadow on the integrity of God by positing that God declares to be just people who are not just. In response, the Reformers conceded that this concept would be a legal fiction if imputation were fictional. In that case, the Protestant view of justification would be a lie. But the point of the Gospel is that “imputation is real—God really laid our sins on Christ and really transferred the righteousness of Christ to us. We really possess the righteousness of Jesus Christ by imputation. He is our Savior, not merely because He died, but because He lived a sinless life before He died, as only the Son of God could do.
Theologians like to employ Latin phrases, and one of my favorites is one that Martin Luther used to capture this concept. The essence of our salvation is found in this phrase: Simul Justus et pecator. The word simul is the word from which we get the English word simultaneous; it means simply “at the same time.” Justus is the word for “just.” We all know what et means; we hear it in the famous words of Julius Caesar in the Shakespeare tragedy: “Et tu, Brute?” (“You, too, Brutus?”) Etmeans “also” or “and.” From the word pecator we get such English words aspeccadillo (“a little sin”) and impeccable (“without sin”); it is simply the Latin word for “sinner.” So Luther’s phrase, Simul Justus et pecator, means “At the same time just and sinner.”
This is the glory of the Protestant doctrine of justification. The person who is in Christ is at the very same instant a sinner and just. If I could be justified only by actually becoming just and having no sin in me, I would never see the kingdom of God. The point of the gospel is that the minute a person embraces Jesus Christ, all that Christ has done is applied to that person. All that He is becomes ours, including His righteousness. Luther was saying that at the very instant I believe, I am just by virtue of the imputation of Christ’s righteousness. It’s Christ’s righteousness that makes me just. His death has taken care of my punishment and His life has taken care of my reward. So my justice is completely tied up in Christ.
In Protestantism, we speak of this as the doctrine of justification by faith alone, for according to the New Testament, the only means by which the righteousness and the merit of Christ can come into our accounts and be applied to us is by faith. We can’t earn it. We can’t deserve it. We can’t merit it. We can only trust in it and cling to it.
Just so we are clear
The word “saved” is banded about all the time in our culture. We talk about a goalkeeper making a “save,” but we do not mean by this that the goalkeeper provided atonement for the other players on his team. What we are referring to, of course, is simply that he “saved” the team from conceding a goal. In the same way, we say that a boxer was “saved” by the bell, but we do not mean that the boxer entered into heavenly bliss through his relationship with the bell. We mean that the bell which signified the end of the round, rang at the time when defeat looked inevitable, right at the moment the opponent was about to knock him out. The bell “saved” the boxer from certain defeat.
The point I am making is that when we use the term “saved,” we are referring to the concept of being saved from someone or something – to be rescued from an impending calamity.
So what does the Bible mean when it says that Christ “saves” us. What does He save us from? A low self esteem? A boring, purposeless life? Financial debt? Physical disease? It may be a surprise to discover that Christ made provision for all of man’s needs through His death on the cross. The word “salvation” in both Hebrew and Greek means “wholeness, deliverance, healing, restoration, soundness and protection…” The main aspect of the salvation He provided is to be saved or delivered from the wrath of Almighty God.
It was Jesus who declared that the wrath of God abides on the unbeliever (John 3:36). Christ therefore came into the world to “save sinners” (1 Tim. 1:15), and if a person will repent and believe the Gospel, Christ will save them from the Father’s wrath. As the Scripture declares, “…Jesus delivers us from the wrath to come” (1 Thess. 1:10), “for God did not appoint us to wrath, but to obtain salvation through our Lord Jesus Christ, who died for us…” (1 Thess. 5:9, 10)
All this was the Father’s idea. He sent His Son to save sinners from His own wrath – a wrath that is sure to come on those who do not receive His provision of grace in Christ. In other words, the Gospel or “good news” is that God saves us… from God!
Sadly though, the Church of today doesn’t usually make reference to any of this. The usual modern “Gospel” message being preached is “God loves you and has a wonderful plan for your life.” Though the message is heard almost everywhere around us, when I turn to the New Testament, I cannot find Jesus or a single Apostle preaching this kind of message. Certainly God is a God of love. The Bible speaks of this on almost every page. There’s no doubt about that. But God is also a holy God who will never compromise His holiness.
The Apostles, as God’s fully authorized representatives, didn’t merely “invite” sinners to repent. That’s because the Gospel is not merely an invitation that can be accepted or declined with impunity. The Apostles were sent to summon people to surrender to the righteous claims of a Holy God by commanding that they repent and believe the Gospel or face eternal, terrible consequences. The Apostle Paul declared that God “commands all men everywhere to repent, because He has appointed a day on which He will judge the world in righteousness by the Man whom He has ordained.” (Acts 17:30, 31). We cannot dismiss the fact that God hates sin and punishes sinners with eternal torment. How can we begin a Gospel presentation by telling people on their way to hell that God has a wonderful plan for their lives? Unless repentance takes place, the “wonderful plan” is hell itself!
The big issue in the Gospel is therefore righteousness, rather than happiness. Happiness is important, but it’s the by-product of righteousness – right standing with God. “For the kingdom of God is righteousness, peace and joy in the Holy Spirit.” (Rom. 14:17). Note the order in the verse, first righteousness, then peace, and then joy, in the Holy Spirit. There’s no real peace or joy without first obtaining righteousness.
Once the world sees the perfect standard by which they will be judged, they will begin to fear God and hunger and thirst after the righteousness that is found in Jesus Christ alone. And that’s where the Good News comes in – for it is the Lord Jesus Christ who meets our need for righteousness as He has secured salvation as a free and gracious gift for all those who will believe (Rom. 3:28; 4:4, 5; 5:17; 6:23; Phil. 3:9). Christ is the Lord our righteousness (Jer. 23:6; 1 Cor. 1:30; 2 Cor. 5:21).
God is a God of love, and it is in the cross that we see God’s love for the world. How can we point to the cross without making reference to sin? How can we refer to sin without the Law? One man wrote, “The biblical way to express God’s love to a sinner is to show him how great his sin is, and then give him the incredible grace of God found in Christ.” I wholeheartedly agree. People will much more likely run to obtain the salvation, shelter, and mercy of God found in Christ alone when they are aware of the terrible wrath that is presently abiding on them. To appreciate the good news, sinners need to know the bad news that their sin is not just a minor blemish, but in reality, cosmic treason against a Holy and Righteous God. In hearing of the remedy found in Christ, this becomes to them an expression of love and concern for their eternal welfare, rather than merely helps towards finding a better lifestyle on this earth.
The Gospel is God’s Gospel (Rom. 1:1) and we have no right to seek to “improve” it. That’s impossible anyway. The Apostle Paul wrote, “For I am not ashamed of the Gospel of Christ, for it is the power of God for the salvation of everyone who believes…” (Romans 1:16) The power of God is in the Gospel of God. Let’s not dilute it with man-made imitations but lets go preach the real thing and see the Almighty, Omnipotent power of God awaken His elect from spiritual death. (John 6:37-45, 65; Eph. 1:3-5, 11; 2:1-4; Acts 13:48; 2 Thess. 2:13, 14).
But God demonstrates His own love toward us, in that while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us. Much more then, having now been justified by His blood, we shall be saved from the wrath of God through Him. – Romans 5:8-9