A Still Needed Reformation in Rome
The distance between the Holy Door of Saint Peter's Basilica in Rome and the front steps of the Castel Sant'Angelo is just over half a mile. On one bright October Sunday afternoon, there stood a solid line of thousands back at the Castel waiting their turn to walk through the Holy Door (Santa Porta). Half a mile of thousands upon thousands of people waiting to cross through the threshold of a door the papacy declared "holy." Half a mile of multitudes gathered in Rome to walk through a doorway in hopes of receiving a "Jubilee Indulgence" for the "remission and forgiveness of all their sins, which can be applied in suffrage to the souls in Purgatory." Half a mile of sojourners lined up, banking their hope on something they were told would not disappoint.
During my time in Rome, I visited several pilgrimage sites. The confessio of the basilica of Saint Paul Outside the Walls was filled with visitors venerating the Apostle Paul's bones. Crowds walked through the holy door of St. John Lateran (the "mother church" of all other Roman Catholic churches), some stopping to pose with the door for an Instagram-worthy photo to signal their virtue. The twenty-eight white marble stairs, which Jesus supposedly ascended and descended from Pilate's palace (the Scala Sancta), were packed to capacity. Each step was filled with men and women climbing on their knees, saying a penitential prayer at each step to earn a plenary indulgence upon reaching the top. Rome was overflowing with the efforts and effects of securing a place and standing with God through performative actions. You might say that the Jubilee Year in Rome reflected a preoccupation with image and influence rather than with the liberating and restorative ethics that mark the biblical jubilee.
The need for a true gospel reformation within the Roman Catholic Church is as urgent as it was five hundred years ago, when Martin Luther himself climbed the Scala Sancta to the top and thought, "Who knows if any of this is really true?"[1] For there to be true reformation, however, North American Protestants cannot continue to obscure or diminish the differences and distinct trajectories of Roman Catholic theology and evangelical Christianity. We must labor for clarity in three areas.
A Clear Gospel Hope
First, the Protestant church in North America must be explicit in declaring a distinct gospel hope. Unlike Rome, which offers justification through the sacramental practice of infant baptism but then withholds gospel assurance and security unless a person performs sacramental duties and obligations, we have a clear hope. Our hope is that Jesus has fully and totally secured the salvation of everyone who trusts and believes in him. He has secured justification, adoption, sanctification, and full glorification by his death and resurrection (Romans 8:30). There is no additive work that further settles or secures the salvation of those who trust in Christ.
Earning plenary or Jubilee indulgences for the forgiveness of sins is no part of the gospel hope. Instead, it leaves adherents anxious, unsettled, and defeated if they cannot or have not performed the rituals to the correct specifications. Earning creates pride and self-righteous superiority among those who have accomplished the specified obligations. There is no hope in banking on a living loved one to perform the dictates of Rome in order to earn and apply an indulgence to free you from Purgatory once you’ve died.
We have a clear hope: Jesus Christ. He alone is our salvation from sin, Satan, and death.
A Clear Gospel Center
Secondly, the Protestant Church must make absolutely clear who and what is at the center of the Christian faith. Any visit to religious Rome will take you through cathedrals, basilicas, and religious sites in abundance. Yet, the center is often difficult to discern. Appeals are made to the Pope, deceased saints, and especially to the Virgin Mary. Prayers and supplications are made to ancient monks, faithful mothers, and even recent canonized Millennials. Each of these persons is said to be a means of securing whatever forms of spiritual, social, or financial help you need.
The Lord Jesus seems left on the sidelines, confined either to the crucifix or to the consecrated host of the Eucharist, objects that are visibly venerated and bowed before.
The center of the gospel is no one less than the risen Christ. The God-breathed, wholly inspired Word of God declares, "there is one mediator between God and man, the man Christ Jesus” (1 Tim 2:5). Jesus Christ must be placed back in the spotlight, back into the center of our life and faith. We must reject attempts to secure the help and favor of other, subordinate, faux-mediators such as the Virgin Mary. We must abandon our evangelical attempts to co-opt security from political and government powers. We have a Messiah who has already atoned for our salvation. We have a Messiah who has secured and inaugurated the Kingdom of God. There are no other powers that should be at the center.
The gospel message centered on Christ will hold, and there the church will hold as well.
A Clear Gospel Power
Finally, we offer a clear gospel power. Paul writes that the gospel is the power of God for salvation to everyone who believes (Rom 1:16). This gospel power transforms corrupt, damnable sinners into holy, healed saints. It’s the power to overcome the sins, temptations, iniquities, and rebellion of our hearts and replace them with righteousness, holiness, sobriety, temperance, love, joy, and flourishing.
Rome seeks to bring about transformation through the imperial power of its hierarchical structures, papal directives and dictates, and political influence. Yet while a form of influence remains visible, few secular states today take Rome seriously. Political leaders may offer polite acknowledgment, but the authority the papacy seeks to exercise is largely disregarded and ineffective in fostering genuine social transformation.
The only thing that will bring true social reformation is the internal regeneration of hearts by the Holy Spirit. The fruit of the Spirit will only be evident in a society once a people have been born again by the Spirit. We must be saved by faith alone in Jesus Christ alone, which is from God’s grace alone.
A True Hope That Does Not Disappoint
The miles and miles of pilgrims to Rome this year come with high aspirations and sincere devotion. They are seeking the culmination and acquisition of their heart's longing. However, unlike what the papal bull Spes Non Confundit offers, they will find disappointment. The Roman Catholic Church, as it is today, offers no hope of eternal security, no center on a living Savior, no power for true transformation. The work of the Protestant Reformation is not complete, and will not be, until the gospel message of salvation by God's grace alone, received by faith alone in Christ alone, as the Scriptures alone reveal to the glory of God alone, is clear. Until that day, the evangelical church must labor for the clarity of the gospel, love our Roman Catholic friends, and live in the true hope of Christ crucified and raised.
[1] Herman Selderhuis, Martin Luther: A Spiritual Biography (Wheaton, IL: Crossway, 2017), 70.
