I can remember my high school Sunday school classes like they happened last week. Some of the best memories of my Christian life occurred doing those two years. I forged friendships and learned concepts my youth pastor didn’t delve into. One discussion that sticks in my head was a study we did on grace. Our teacher asked us simply what we we’re saved by, and most of us responded back “grace” or “faith”. He then asked us to prove it from the Bible. We each flipped to the back, in the concordance, and diligently searched for every mention of the word grace. I found Ephesians 2 and flipped immediately there scanning for every mention of grace. I raised my hand and read off Ephesians 2:8 and ever since that Sunday morning that verse has been grilled on my mind.

Over the years any mention of works in accordance with salvation has thrown up a red flag in my psyche and I would immediately begin quoting, “You are saved by grace through faith…”. Thus, when radio show hosts and preachers would say that Catholics believe you have to work for your salvation it made perfect sense to me that most Catholics weren’t actually saved. They could work all they want, but in the end their good deeds are nothing but filthy rags to God.

I hope you can see that when I looked at salvation from a Catholic viewpoint during this time I was very scandalized. I knew I was saved by grace through faith, but Catholics believe that works play a good part in salvation. How was I to reconcile these issues? Also, what about the Catholic belief that you have to be baptized in order to be saved?

In Church history I remember learning that Martin Luther broke away from the Catholic Church for two very important reasons; his beliefs in sola scriptura (Bible alone) and sola fide (saved by faith alone). In order to validate his belief that we are saved by faith alone he wanted to remove the epistle of James from the New Testament canon. He often referred to it as an “Epistle of straw.” I never quite caught on to that until I reread James and figured out why Luther disliked the epistle of James. Because, the whole latter part of the second chapter James completely defeats his belief in salvation by faith alone!

James 2:19 You believe that God is one; you do well. Even the demons believe–and shudder! 20 Do you want to be shown, you foolish person, that faith apart from works is useless? 21 Was not Abraham our father justified by works when he offered up his son Isaac on the altar? 22 You see that faith was active along with his works, and faith was completed by his works; 23 and the Scripture was fulfilled that says, “Abraham believed God, and it was counted to him as righteousness”–and he was called a friend of God.24 You see that a person is justified by works and not by faith alone. 25 And in the same way was not also Rahab the prostitute justified by works when she received the messengers and sent them out by another way? 26 For as the body apart from the spirit is dead, so also faith apart from works is dead.

Once again, in my previous eight years of being a Christian I had read the book of James countless times. I had preached numerous messages involving the fact that faith without works is dead, but how did I skip over verse 24 for so many years? As an evangelical I had always believed and been told that my justification came by my placing of faith in Christ’s work on the cross and accepting him as my Lord and Savior. Yet now, I have before my eyes, a verse that undeniably states my justification before God is a result of the works I produce because of my faith, and not just by my faith alone.

Clearing this hurdle opened up so many verses that I had been unable to grasp. (Understand every protestant / evangelical/ Christ follower has a list of verses that they don’t know what to do with. These verses don’t fit their doctrinal beliefs so they get placed in the back of their mind until some one can push a square peg through a round hole with those verses) Believing for so long that my salvation was a product of my faith I was unable to understand why Jesus told the people in Matthew 5 that if unless their righteousness exceeded that of the Pharisees they wouldn’t enter into the Kingdom of God, and why he told the young ruler that if he wanted eternal life he needed to follow the commandments. Good works are a product of, and work in cooperation with, our faith in God.

Moving beyond this either or thinking to a both and mindset towards salvation helped me wrestle my next issue, baptism. As a youth pastor, over a four year period, I baptized some thirty teenagers. Before these baptisms I stressed the fact that the water was a symbolic action where they were publically recognizing their faith in Christ and their determination to live for him. The water was just water. It had no special magical powers to save them. Yet, in a verse I had commonly used to argue against the saving power of baptism I found a reason to believe that baptism does accompany salvation.

John 3:5 Jesus answered, “Truly, truly, I say to you, unless one is born of water and the spirit, he cannot enter the kingdom of God.

Believing that salvation was by faith alone, through grace, I pushed a square peg through a round hole and interpreted the water as the water involved in the birth of a newborn child. I knew it sounded weird, and it made Jesus sound way too much like a doctor, but it allowed my doctrine to match. Furthermore, this is the way I was taught to interpret this scripture at Bible College. Jesus said water, but what he really meant was this kinda water.

This interpretation had always bothered me, but I stuck with it. However, as the other pillars of my evangelical faith were falling apart, and the way I personally interpreted scripture, I began coming back to John 3:5 and asking is the water involved in pregnancy really what Jesus meant? As I put myself in Nicodemus shoes I realized if I would have heard Jesus say to me that unless one is born of the water from a pregnancy and the spirit he cannot enter the Kingdom of Heaven I would have immediately asked, “So Jesus you mean to tell me that I first have to be born in order to go to Heaven? Well, everyone alive meets that requirement.” When you put it into perspective how redundant and foolish does it sound for Jesus to tell Nicodemus, and those who would read this text, that we have to born first before we can enter the Kingdom of God? When Jesus said you have to be born of water what he really meant was water!

While that verse will be debated upon until there is no water left, author and speaker, Steve Ray pointed out a verse that is so forthcoming that no one can render a second meaning. What this verse says it means.

1 Peter 3:21 baptism, which corresponds to this, now saves you, not as a removal of dirt from the body but as an appeal to God for a clear conscience, through the resurrection of Jesus Christ.

No matter how you try to sugar coat or dance around this verse the Apostle Peter couldn’t be any clearer. He undoubtedly defines the truth that baptism is an essential part of our salvation. It isn’t just a public announcement of your commitment to Jesus; it’s the very act where we are raised from death to life in our new life hidden in Christ.

As I previously stated, in an office in February 2008, I stared a hole in the computer at work wondering where in the world this scripture had come from. This scripture was John 6, verses 35-59, especially verses 48-56. I had learned in Bible College that Roman Catholics believed that Jesus was truly present in the wine and bread of the Eucharist. However, I had always dismissed it as superstition and a horrible over emphasis on Jesus words at the last supper, “This is my body; this is my blood.” Yet, for the first time I was seeing Jesus say more then that the bread was his body and the wine was his blood, he tells the Jews that his flesh is really food and his blood is really drink. In fact he tells them seven times this truth. No talk about it symbolizing body and blood; no apologizing to the Jews, who leave because they can’t understand this teaching, saying he was only kidding. He makes the point, with no bones about it, he really means his flesh is eatable and his blood is really drinkable.

The first thought that crushed my mind was the dang mackerel snappers were right, however, I assumed that someone had a great argument about what Jesus really meant here and that I was safe. The only plausible argument, brought up by a former Catholic (eternal-productions.com), was that in verse 63 Jesus says the flesh profits nothing. However, Dr. Scott Hahn notes Jesus says THE flesh and not HIS flesh profits nothing. Their minute attempt at trying to grasp this concept will lead them no where. The real presence is truly a mystery that defies any attempt to define it. Just like the doctrine of the trinity.

Next I thought, ok just because these Catholics can make a good argument for the real presence, it doesn’t mean it’s the truth. Someone has to have some proof of the first Christians believing in a figurative Eucharist and then the Catholics screwed it up and it was that way until Martin Luther saved the day. I needed some proof that the first Christians were symbolic rather then literalists. Various websites proclaimed that the doctrine of transubstantiation was invented in the 5^th – 6^th centuries. However, that isn’t the truth. Transubstantiation was formally defined during that time period not invented. In my pursuit of the beliefs of the early Christians I stumbled upon Ignatius, the second bishop of Antioch. As bishop he was entrusted with the care and admonishment of several churches. This leadership is shown in numerous epistles he wrote to the churches under his guidance. While reading his epistles I found what I had been looking for. A formally written belief on whether the first Christians believed the Eucharist was symbolic or literal. His answer scared me.

“Take note of those who hold heterodox opinions on the grace of Jesus Christ which has come to us, and see how contrary their opinions are to the mind of God. . . . They abstain from the Eucharist and from prayer becausethey do not confess that the Eucharist is the flesh of our Savior Jesus Christ, flesh which suffered for our sins and which that Father, in his goodness, raised up again. They who deny the gift of God are perishing in their disputes” (Letter to the Smyrnaeans 6:2-7:1 [A.D. 110]).

A first century Christian leader in the Church defining that the heretics believed that the Eucharist was symbolic, and that real Christians believed the Eucharist was the actual body and blood of Jesus. I was scared. Seriously scared. I thought perhaps this was just an anomaly and that he was a heretic himself; thus, I searched out other writings by the early Christians.  I found a man named Irenaus who wrote an apolagetical work entitled, Against Heresies. It was a second century discourse to the Roman governor about what was really going on when the Christians met on Sundays. He writes…

“He has declared the cup, a part of creation, to be his own blood from which he causes our blood to flow; and the bread, a part of creation, he has established as his own body, from which he gives increase unto our bodies. When, therefore, the mixed cup [wine and water] and the baked bread receive the Word of God and become the Eucharist, the body of Christ, and from these the substance of our flesh is increased and supported) how can they say that the flesh is not capable of receiving the gift of God, which is eternal life — flesh which is nourished by the body and blood of the Lord and is in fact a member of him?” (Against Heresies 5:2 [A.D. 189]).

The Romans had heard rumors of cannibalism within the Church, but Irenaus argues against the charge and describes what is truly taking place. The Christians weren’t feasting on one another, but upon the body and blood of Christ. Beyond this great apolagetical work I still had an issue; another Christian leader who clearly describes the Eucharist as the true body and blood of Christ. I had to dig deeper. My digging led to Cyril of Jerusalem. I already had quotations from the supposed “Golden Age” of Christianity; Cyril would supply me with writings after Christianity had apparently apostatized.  Cyril’s belief backed up what Christians had apparently believed for 300 years. He states…

“Do not, therefore, regard the bread and wine as simply that, for they are, according to the Master’s declaration, the body and blood of Christ. Even though the senses suggest to you the other, let faith make you firm. Do not judge in this matter by taste, but be fully assured by faith, not doubting that you have been deemed worthy of the body and blood of Christ. . . [Since you are] fully convinced that the apparent bread is not bread, even though it is sensible to the taste, but the body of Christ, and that the apparent wine is not wine, even though the taste would have it so. . . partake of that bread as something spiritual, and put a cheerful face on your soul” (ibid„ 22:6,9).

I had before me the evidence that Christians, even the Christians during the supposed Golden Age of Christianity, believed in a Eucharist with the real presence of Christ (I will tell you right now; if you think for one second there was a group of separate Christians who believed in a symbolic Eucharist good luck finding them. In fact you won’t find any Christian literature that consistently points to a figurative Eucharist that is older then 400 years). For 2,000 years the Catholic Church has firmly held and believed in the real presence. After discovering my symbolism of the Eucharist was wrong, and in fact one of the first heresies the church fought, I knew I had to investigate other areas. Yeah, the Catholics got this area right, but they couldn’t be right about something else. Could they?