Protestants don’t only protest against The Catholic Church. They also protest against the perfection of Jesus. Amazingly, they think, say, and teach: “We believe in Jesus and The Bible. We think Jesus fulfilled the prophecies written thousands of years before He was born in Bethlehem. We think Jesus is, literally, God in The Flesh, Second Person of The Trinity. And, we Protestants think that Jesus was wrong.”
It’s hard to imagine that contradiction: “Jesus is God, but He was wrong, and, therefore, imperfect. Either Jesus didn’t know what He was talking about or He was intentionally deceptive.”
Astonished Catholics reply: “How could that be? Jesus is God, Son of God, Lamb of God. Jesus is perfect. There is no error in Him. He could not have fulfilled the prophecies and resisted every temptation of the devil if He was flawed. He is God. He loved us so much that He became man to offer Himself as a living sacrifice to The Father, His Father, for our sins.”
The Protestant continues: “We know all that, but Jesus was wrong about many things. How do you think it makes us Protestants feel to read that He said ‘Verily, verily I say unto you thou art Peter and on this rock I build My Church and the gates of hell shall not prevail against it. I give you The Keys to The Kingdom of Heaven.’ How do you think that makes us feel? He didn’t say that to the founder of any Protestant denomination, and we know we’re just as good as those Catholics, so Jesus makes us feel bad about ourselves. That’s not very ‘Christian’. That’s just one reason that we Protestants think Jesus was wrong.
By this time, the Catholic may begin to realize there is something larger, looming. Vanity is becoming visible, elevating itself to such a level that it not only ignores, but insults, Jesus. We may, I hope, be excused for asking “What else do you think Jesus was wrong about?”
“We Protestants think Jesus was wrong to say ‘If you do not eat My Body and drink My Blood you do not have life in you.’ Just because He ordained His Apostles, and they ordained their successors, and so on until now, and Catholic priests and bishops do what He did at The Last Supper, actually change bread and wine into His Body and Blood, why, that’s wrong. They cannot repeat Jesus’ Sacrifice, like those Catholics say they do.”
The Catholic may respond: “You are wrong on the facts. The Church does not repeat Jesus’ Sacrifice at each Mass. His One Sacrifice is presented, again. The Catechism says Christ’s Sacrifice is ‘Re-Presented’ at each Mass. It is not ‘repeated’.”
Then, of course, the subject is changed and we hear that Protestants think Jesus was wrong about something else. “And, where do you get Confession and Absolution? That’s not in The Bible.” When we reply that John 20:23 makes Jesus words to His bishops and priests it clear that ‘Whose sins you forgive on earth are forgiven in Heaven.’ the Protestant insists, “I don’t need that. We can get forgiveness as often as we want, just by asking. We don’t need some Church with a lot of useless ceremonies. We deal directly with God!”
Catholics eventually realize that we are speaking with people who think they are as good as God and have pulled Him down to their level to prove it. Vanity, little pirate ships captained by demons, sail blithely through such minds, blazing away at God and truth.
