Titus 3:5-7

Titus 3:5: “Not by works of righteousness which we have done, but according to his mercy he saved us, by the washing of regeneration, and renewing of the Holy Ghost;
6 Which he shed on us abundantly through Jesus Christ our Saviour;
7 That being justified by his grace, we should be made heirs according to the hope of eternal life.”

This goes back to a fundamental principle: we are saved by grace, not by works. The Catholic Church hates this doctrine because they teach that Jesus’ death on the cross was not enough to save you. They say that you must also be baptized, and live a life of good works, and do many other things, and if you do all that and stay in the church until you die then you might have a shot at being saved. (Catholicism teachings that believing that you are saved is a serious sin.) This is why they condemn the idea of “salvation by grace through faith” in the strongest terms, saying that anyone who believes that is going straight to Hell.

But yet this is precisely what the Bible teaches, in place after place after place. We are saved by grace through faith; it is not of works, lest any man should boast. We can see proof of this right there in verse 5, where it explicitly says our salvation is “not by works of righteousness which we have done”. There you have it! Or look at verse 7: we are justified by His grace. End of story. Our works play no part in the matter. This is why we cannot lose our salvation: we were not the ones that earned it.

Catholicism says that Jesus is not enough; you need works too. The Bible says that Jesus is all you need, and salvation is not of works. Catholicism says that if you go the “faith alone” route you will go straight to Hell. The Bible says that if you disregard faith alone and depend on your own works for salvation, you will be eternally lost. This is one of many reasons why I believe the Catholic church is not a Christian church at all. It flatly denies the foundational doctrines of salvation and condemns those who believe them in the strongest possible language. Any church that gets salvation wrong is not a true church at all.