I remember having a person tell me that they had been taught in their Catholic parochial

school as a part of the matter of course of their teaching that anyone who was a Protestant

could not go to heaven, that you must be within the Roman Catholic Church in order to go to

heaven.

And I had my friends tell me that.

When it comes to spending eternity with God, we don't want to have the wrong information.

What is required of us? And who has the authority to tell us? In the 16th century, Martin Luther challenged the Roman Catholic Church.

And today, R.C. Sprold tackles one of the most important points of contention, then and now.

So let's join R.C. Our topic in this session will be the Church and Salvation. Notice that I have not titled this

lecture merely the doctrine of the church, nor have I titled it the doctrine of salvation.

But we're looking at a very narrow concept of Roman Catholic ecclesiology, that is the relationship of the church

to salvation. So that we're considering not only ecclesiology, which is the doctrine of the church,

but also soteriology.

And soterology is the doctrine of salvation, coming from the Greek soter, which means

savior, sozo, so did so much say.

What I'm trying to get at is what is the relationship between the church

as an institution and salvation as a reality? Roman Catholic theology, the Roman Catholic

institution is usually described as an institution given to sacerdotalism.

Coming from the Latin sacerdotum, which is the Latin term for priest.

Sasserdotalism is an ism in which salvation is mediated through the functions of the priesthood, namely the

sacraments. Notice that the great emphasis in reform churches, and even manifested in its

architecture, is in the preaching of the word, where the center

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