Ray Galea grew up Catholic but after giving his life to Christ was unsure about many of his church’s teachings. After intense study and research, Galea left Catholicism and became an Evangelical. This brief book recounts his journey and the evidence he uncovered along the way. Galea is markedly honest without being overly critical, and is able to freely discuss the differences between Catholic and Evangelical, having first-hand knowledge of both. It’s a useful, informative read.

If Christ has done everything necessary as our great high priest to wash away our sins, cleanse our consciences and bring us to God, why do we need an additional human priest to be inserted into the process – unless there is something unfinished or inadequate about Christ’s priesthood? Why create a class of indispensible human priests to stand between us and Christ, when the New Testament knows nothing of the idea? [35]

Put simply, the Catholic view is that justification is a process, beginning with baptism and continuing throughout our lives, by which God acts to forgive us and then with our cooperation change us by his Spirit to become more righteous and acceptable to himself. He makes us righteous, infusing justice and righteousness into us over time, with our own efforts and good works, and the sacraments of the church, playing key roles in how this happens. Thus, when we arrive on Judgment Day, the basis upon which God will judge us is in part what Christ did on our behalf to take away our sins, but also whether we have become sufficiently righteous in our own character to be worthy of salvation. By contrast, Protestants point to what the Bible says very clearly in numerous places about justification – that justification is an event not a process. It’s a once-off declaration by God that the sinner is cleared of all guilt, and is thus completely blameless and righteous in his sight because of – and only because of – the sacrifice of Christ on his behalf. According to the Bible, when God justifies us, he doesn’t do it gradually by infusing righteousness into us; he declares us righteous when we put our faith in Christ. [62]

The life of the devoted Catholic is one of ritual obligation and performance. The message I received growing up, and which Catholics all over the world receive, was: Keep going to mass, keep going to confession, be a good Catholic, and you’ll give yourself the best chance of going to heaven. The focus was all on what I had to do, and this seems to be the inevitable result of the Catholic sacramental system. [80]

Rather than God’s salvation being a gift of his grace alone, to be gratefully received through faith alone, salvation in Catholicism was an act of collaboration, which relied in part on human works to attract God’s favour and to make satisfaction for one’s failures. [83]

For Catholicism, the human must always be re-inserted, whether it is the role of human priests in the Mass, or the role of the Church in determining the word of God, or the role of our works in meriting salvation. [95] 

TOP