Yesterday I posted a blog ‘The Pope of Probably the Antichrist‘ and pointed people to another blog with the same title. While my blog was meant to be taken with a grain of salt (I wan’t actually saying the new Pope is the antichrist), the blog I linked to was very helpful in thinking through what some of the Reformers thought about the Pope and the Roman Catholic Church.

The main issue I see with the Roman Catholic Church is with justification (see John Piper on what he would ask the Pope). If the Catholic church says that they do not teach that we are justified by faith alone, through Christ alone then they are teaching a heresy. I do not think Christians today are willing enough to call people out for theological issues. Many people will say they don’t agree with someone else but people within the church are too often willing to allow many false teachings to slide by without properly confronting them.

My response when people ask about the Catholic church is that yes, there are many people within the Catholic church who are not believers, just like there are many people within the E Free Church, who are not believers, and the same can be said about every other denomination in the world. The world does not need Christians who just go to church on Sunday and leave it at that. James 1:22 says, “Be doers of the word, and not hearers only, deceiving yourselves.” If a brother or sister claims to be a believer but is not acting as the Bible commands, they should be confronted of the sin in their lives, and if they are not willing to repent there should be questions about their faith.

So ultimately, do I think the Pope is the antichrist? No. But I do think the Catholic church teaches some things that are contrary to Scripture and I look forward to the day when Christ will return to right all the wrongs that have gone on in the world today.