The Gates of Heaven Open & Close

 The heart of God's Gospel is the treasured doctrine of justification. This is the hinge upon which the gates of heaven open and close. Anyone who is wrong about justification is wrong about the Gospel. The Gospel is good news because it reveals the only way a condemned sinner on death row can be declared righteous and set free. Jesus Christ satisfied divine justice so that God could be just and the justifier of the one who has faith in Jesus (Rom. 3:21-28). The sinless Savior went to the cross as a substitute for His people. He endured the wrath of God in the place of sinners who would repent and believe His Gospel. 

Catholicism Totally Rejects Biblical Justification

Roman Catholicism directly opposes God's Word on the doctrine of justification. At first, the papists obscured this core doctrine of the Gospel from its people, then later corrupted it with "infallible" dogmas at the 16th century Council of Trent. We must warn Catholics and everyone else, that if they get justification wrong, they cannot be right with God. Knowing that God's truth shines brightest against the darkness of religious deception, let us consider the following distortions of the doctrine of justification by the Catechism of the Catholic Church (CCC):

• Justification is by faith in Jesus Christ (Gal. 2:16).
• Rome says justification is conferred by the sacrament of water baptism (CCC, 1992). “If anyone says that the sinner is justified by faith alone…let him be anathema” (Trent, Canon 9).
• Justification is instantaneous and changes one’s legal status before God whereby a condemned sinner has been acquitted and declared righteous (Rom. 4:3, 5:12-21).
• Rome says justification is a process and renews the inner man, not his legal status (CCC, 2019).
• Justification is permanent and is never lost by sin. The legal status of a justified man is as unchangeable as the righteousness of Christ (Heb. 10:14).
• Rome says justification is temporal; it can be lost by sin and regained through the sacrament of penance and good works (CCC, 1446, 1861).
• God justifies the ungodly (Rom. 4:5).
• Rome teaches final justification is not for the ungodly but for those who become righteous (CCC, 2016, 2020). 
• Justification is the imputation of the righteousness of Christ to the repentant sinner (2 Cor. 5:21; Rom. 4:5).
• Rome says justification is the infusion of righteousness which renews man (CCC,1989).
• Justification is by grace apart from works. Christ’s righteousness is given as a gift of His grace (Rom. 3:24, 11:6). 
• Rome says justification must include good works. Re-justification must be merited by making satisfaction for sins and expiating sins through penance and works of mercy (CCC, 1459, 2027). 
• God promises to glorify everyone He justifies because those justified can never be condemned (Rom. 8:1, 30).
• Rome says God will condemn to hell everyone who was justified by water baptism but who later dies in mortal sin (CCC, 1861).