EpisTheology

04/06/2026

Roman Catholic theology says the Mass is not a dramatic reenactment.

It’s not theater. Roman Catholic theology says it’s not a commemoration.

It’s not a memorial. It’s not a remembrance.

It is a real sacrifice that continues the eternal sacrifice of Christ, the eternal victim.

It is not a separated sacrifice, but it is the same sacrifice as the cross continually being offered again, and again, and again, and again, and again.

It’s really an amalgamation of pagan sacrifices which has found their way into Christianity very, very early.

True Roman Catholic devotion is measured by whether or not you genuflect and make the sign of the cross when you see the Blessed Sacrament.

Roman Catholic Catechism quotes Vatican II.

Vatican II says, “As often as the sacrifice of the cross by which Christ has been sacrificed is celebrated on the altar, the work of our redemption is carried out. It is a redeeming sacrifice, as is the cross.”
What utter chaos and confusion is that?

So, where do you look for your salvation? To what sacrifice? The one you had today? Yesterday? The one you’ll have down the road?

No wonder in Roman Catholicism there’s no such thing as assurance of salvation.

How would you ever know?

And let me just compound that a little bit. I was talking to RC Sproul this week back in Louisville, and we were talking about Catholicism.
It’s the background he came out of.

And he said, “What’s really astounding about Catholicism is this: if the priest doesn’t have a pure intention when he offers the Mass, it’s invalid.”

Whoa!

The only way that the thing becomes valid is if the intention of the priest is pure.

Trying to find a pure priest is no easy deal.

And what if he’s immoral? What if he’s a pe*****le? What if he’s a homosexual?

Does that invalidate everything the guy does? And just exactly what does pure intention mean?

— John MacArthur
Explaining the Heresy of
the Catholic Mass, Part 1
April 30, 2006

02/06/2026

Last week I was on the Larry King program, some of you saw it.

That came out of the mouth of one of the priests on that program. “How wonderful it is,” he said, “to be another Christ.”

The Bible warns about another Christ, false Christs, and they will proliferate in the end days. That’s what’s going on in a Mass.

This priest, given for that greater power than the Blessed Virgin, brings Christ down out of heaven.

All he has to do is speak, and Christ the eternal and omnipotent God bows his head in humble obedience to the priest’s command.

The Council of Trent affirms so many things, because they were reacting to the Reformation. But you go back to the Council of Trent, and you’ll get a really good idea of how they feel about the Mass.

This is dogma, folks.

When the Council of Trent said something, the Church says it. When the Church says it, it’s infallible; therefore, it can’t change.

The Council of Trent met in its 13th session.

The sessions went on for a long, long time. Met in this 13th session in October of 1551.

They promulgated at that particular session a decree concerning, quote: “The Most Holy Sacrament of the Eucharist: the Mass.”

At the end of the decree was a list of canons, or laws, and these laws provide anathemas or damnation, strongest thing that they can do, strongest word that they can use is to damn or anathematize.

And, the canons anathematized those who reject the Council’s teaching.

Now, what happens if you look at these canons, is they provide short succinct definitions of their doctrine.

And I want to read to you some of them that relate to the Mass, the issue of what they call the Eucharist.

Canon #1: if anyone denies that in the sacrament of the most holy Eucharist are contained truly, really, and substantially the body and blood together with the soul and divinity of our Lord Jesus Christ, and consequently the whole Christ, but says that He is in it only as a sign or figure or force, let him be anathema.

Damnation is pronounced on anybody who says that Christ is not actually there, body, blood, soul, divinity, in the wine, and the wafer.

— John MacArthur
Explaining the Heresy of
the Catholic Mass, Part 1
April 30, 2006

31/05/2026

John O’Brien, a Catholic priest, has helped Roman Catholics to understand the importance of the Mass.

He has written a book called “The Faith of Millions: The Credentials of the Catholic Religion.” It is a classic work. This is what he writes, John O’Brien, a very popular work.

“When the priest announces the tremendous words of consecration,” [this is the Mass,] “he reaches up into the heavens, brings Christ down from His throne and places Him upon our altar to be offered up again as the victim for the sins of man. It is a power exercised by the priest greater than that of saints and angels, greater than that of seraphim and cherubim. Indeed, it is a power greater even than the power of the Virgin Mary. While the Blessed Virgin was the human agency by which Christ became incarnate a single time, the priest brings Christ down from heaven, and renders Him present on our altar as the eternal victim.”

You wonder why you always see a crucifix and not an empty cross?

“The priest brings Christ down from heaven and renders Him present on our altar as the eternal victim for the sins of man, not once but a thousand times.”

Stop there for a moment. You see the comparison?

Mary only brought Him into the world once; the priest brings Him down thousands of times. He has greater power than the Virgin Mary.

It’s an amazing thing for a Roman Catholic to say, since any study of Mary would indicate to us that they think that she has the very power of God. We wouldn’t expect a system like this to be consistent, would we?

“The priest,” he goes on, “speaks, and lo, Christ the eternal and omnipotent God bows His head in humble obedience to the priest’s command.”

And the last paragraph from O’Brien, “Of what sublime dignity is the office of the Christian priest who is thus privileged to act as the ambassador and the vice-regent of Christ on earth? He continues the essential ministry of Christ. He teaches the faithful with the authority of Christ. He pardons the penitent sinner with the power of Christ. He offers up again the same sacrifice of adoration and atonement which Christ offered on Calvary.

No wonder that the name which spiritual writers are especially fond of applying to the priest is that of "alter christus," for the priest is, and should be, another christ.”

— John MacArthur
Explaining the Heresy of
the Catholic Mass, Part 1
April 30, 2006

29/05/2026

29/05/2026

Any sacrifices being made today are unbiblical and unable to accomplish anything.

Any priests today are false claimants to a special priesthood, a special order of priests, since now we are all priests.

We are a royal priesthood, all believers.

We need no mediator; we all have immediate access to God.

We need to make no sacrifices because there is no temple, there are no altars, there are no sacrifices, and we are not in need of any priests.

In spite of that, the Roman Catholic system has devised a priesthood, has built in every church on the face of the earth an altar, and around that altar continues to offer sacrifice.

Tens of thousands of timed every day, as if they had reinvented the Levitical priesthood.

And they will be doing this until the end of time, until the end of the world, it says there in their literature.

They have reestablished what God Himself destroyed, and it is a variation of the Levitical priesthood.

It is an illegitimate variation of that priesthood.

I say variation because it is mingled with cultic pagan mystery and idolatry.

The Mass is a sacrifice which can be made only on an altar of some kind and only by a priest.

How important is the Mass to Catholicism?

Well, to show you its importance, I quote the Catholic Catechism. Quote: “The Mass is the source of and summit of the Christian life.”

That it is to say, it is the origin of the Christian life and it is the high point.

It was Cardinal Ratzinger, now calling himself Pope Benedict, who said, and I quote him, “The Mass is the sum and substance of our faith.”

This is not peripheral. This is not on the edge. This is not one among many. This is the heart and soul of the system, even though there are seven sacraments by their definition.

This is the main sacrament.

But at the very outset, the Mass is a deception because, as I said, there are no more sacrifices, there are no more altars.

There is no more temple in which God dwells, no more tabernacle, and there is no more priesthood.

It is therefore a false sacrifice on a false altar in a false temple by a false priest.

At heart, it is a denial of the singular sacrifice of Christ on the cross, because the Mass is an offering of Christ repeatedly by an illegitimate priesthood on an illegitimate altar for a useless and ungodly purpose.

As in so many points, as I’ve been saying, Roman Catholicism is a mix.

It is mostly paganism with a little Christianity sprinkled into it and with a lot of Christian terminology in order to deceive and delude souls.

It is a demonic religion that does not bring salvation.

— John MacArthur
Explaining the Heresy of
the Catholic Mass, Part 1
April 30, 2006

29/05/2026

"By this will we have been sanctified through the offering of the body of Jesus Christ once for all.

And every priest stands daily ministering and offering time after time the same sacrifices, which can never take away sins;

But He, having offered one sacrifice for sins for all time, sat down at the right hand of God, waiting from that time until His enemies are put as a footstool for His feet."

«« Hebrews X . xi, xii, xiii »»

The finality of this is so clear.

He came, He made one sacrifice which perfected forever them that are sanctified.

He came, He made one offering for all, never to be repeated, in contrast to priests repeating over and over and over, sacrifices which can never take away sin.

There’s only one sacrifice, made one time, by one person that can take away sin. It is that sacrifice of the Lord Jesus Christ.

All the Old Testament sacrifices did was portray and develop almost a passionate longing for the final sacrifice, which would truly take away sin.

The Old Testament had a priesthood, an altar, and sacrifices which were only shadows, anticipatory, of the final sacrifice that would come with Christ.

He came, He offered that sacrifice, and God punctuated that one sacrifice by destroying the temple using the Romans to do it in 70 AD, by destroying the altars, thus smashing the entire sacrificial system of the Old Testament, and all the records of all the genealogies, of all those in the priestly line, thus ending, permanently, the priesthood.

There are no more sacrifices.

There are no more altars.

And there are no more priests as a special order to offer sacrifices.

It all came to an end at the sacrifice of Jesus Christ.

— John MacArthur
Explaining the Heresy of
the Catholic Mass, Part 1
April 30, 2006

28/05/2026

It was not too many years ago that a document appeared, “Evangelicals and Catholics Together,” known as ECT which struck an alliance between evangelicalism and the Roman Catholic system.

It was signed by many, many well-known evangelical leaders.

It launched no small controversy.

As a result of it, I would up in a seven-hour meeting, locked up in a room with these evangelical leaders while we endeavored to confront the signers of that document with the horrible realities of Catholicism, and their complete misrepresentation of the gospel, and to call these people to take their names off, to deny this document with all their passion and all their heart, none of which they were willing to do.

And so, that embrace of Catholicism has gone on.

And the great reality is that many, many people who would call themselves Christians, and some who are Christians, are confused about the character of Roman Catholicism.

We need to end that confusion because we need to make sure that we understand that they do not believe in the true gospel.

— John MacArthur
Explaining the Heresy of
the Catholic Mass, Part 1
April 30, 2006

27/05/2026

I want you tonight, if you will, to understand my heart.

I have to confess to you that the biggest grief, of course, in my life, and you will understand this because it is yours as well, and it is the Lord’s, is that we find no pleasure in the death of the wicked.

We find no delight in people who are condemned to hell.

We long that people be saved.

That is the great heart cry of every true Christian: salvation for all they know.

As we learned from the story this morning of the rich man in hell, even in hell, he had an evangelistic passion wanting somebody to go and warn his brothers.

If that is the impulse of those who are the damned, what kind of impulse do the redeemed have for the salvation of sinners that they may escape eternal hell?

There are many religions in the world who promise heaven and do not deliver it.

Many religions in the world that are satanic deceptions...

Roman Catholicism belongs in the category of false religions.

Clearly, not because of what I say about them, but because what they say about the Bible, and what they say about the gospel, and what they say about religion.

All one needs to do to understand a false religion is to see what they believe and understand what they advocate, and they can be then measured against the Word of God so that we can clearly understand that.

Today there is a very, very aggressive and concerted effort among evangelical people, so many of whom don’t know the true gospel, not just Roman Catholics but also Protestants, to embrace Roman Catholicism as if it is a true religion.

This run to embrace Catholics and declassify them as non-believers, declassify them as a mission field, is being led by very prominent leaders in evangelical positions, both in churches and para-churches.

This has gone on for a number of years.

— John MacArthur
Explaining the Heresy of the Catholic Mass, Part 1
April 30, 2006

24/05/2026

"For they exchanged the truth of God for a lie, and worshiped and served the creature rather than the Creator, who is blessed forever. Amen."

«« Romans I . XXV »»

Here’s a description of humanity. “Professing to be wise they became fools."

Professing to be wise they became fools and how did their foolishness manifest itself?

They exchanged the glory of the incorruptible God for an image in the form of corruptible man, or woman.

That’s exactly what Romanism has done.

And so, God gave them over. And this is a divine judgment that falls on that. “God gave them over in the lusts of their hearts to impurity, that their bodies might be dishonored among them, for they exchanged the truth of God for a lie and worshiped and served the,” what? "the creature," a woman, "rather than the Creator who is blessed forever. Amen."

And for this reason, God gave them over to degrading passions for their women, exchanged the natural function for that which is unnatural, in the same way the men also abandoned the natural function of the woman and burned in their desire toward one another, men with men committing indecent acts and receiving in their own persons the due penalty of their error.”

Could pe******ia, and homosexuality, and immorality that runs rampant in the Catholic system be part of the judgment of God on those who have abandoned the true God for the worship of a human being?

— John MacArthur
Exposing The Idolatry Of Mary Worship:
What The Bible Says
April 23, 2006

22/05/2026

"But now I am writing to you not to associate with any so-called brother if he is a sexually immoral person, or greedy, OR AN IDOLATER, or a reviler, or a drunkard, or a swindler—not even to eat with such a one."

«« I Corinthians V . XI »»

People going around today saying, “O our Catholic brothers and our Catholic sisters.”

I wish that were true.

You can’t associate with them in an affirming, accepting fellowship if they worship idols.

1 Corinthians 10:14, “Therefore my beloved, flee from idolatry.”

Idolatry is seductive, poisonous; it’s toxic. You can’t stay around it.

Verse 16, “Is not the cup of blessing which we bless a sharing in the blood of Christ? Is not the bread we break a sharing in the body of Christ?”

He’s saying, you know, we come together around Christ, we come together to celebrate Christ in His sacrifice and in His death.

You can’t do that, and then go worship idols.

You can’t do that.

Verse 20, “The things the Gentile sacrifice, they sacrifice to demons and not to God. And I don’t want you to become a sharer in demons.”

Idolatry is demon-designed demon worship.

“You can’t drink the cup of the Lord,” verse 21, “and the cup of demons.” You can’t partake of the table of the Lord and the table of demons.

You can’t worship Mary and worship God, or you will, verse 22, certainly provoke the Lord to jealousy.

Second Corinthians 6 verse 15, “What harmony has Christ with Satan,” Belial is a term for Satan.

“What harmony has Christ with Satan? What has a believer in common with an unbeliever?

What agreement has the temple of God with idols?

We are the temple of the living God.” You have nothing to do with that.

Roman Catholicism has nothing to do with true Christianity, the true church. It is something completely different; it belongs to the kingdom of darkness.

Finally, in Ephesians 5 verse 5, “For this you know with certainty, no immoral or impure person or covetous man who is an idolater has any inheritance in the Kingdom of Christ and God.”

If you worship a false god, you have no part in the Kingdom of Christ and the Kingdom of God.

No part.

And you see, beloved, that is why the Bible says, 1 John 5:21: “Guard yourselves from idols, flee idolatry,” as we just read.

You can’t worship a false god and the true God at the same time.

— John MacArthur
Exposing The Idolatry Of Mary Worship:
What The Bible Says
April 23, 2006