"Who empowered the Church to grant indulgences? Christ. Who's sacrifice made the indulgences possible? Christ.”

I don’t spend too much time interacting on discussion boards these days, but I admit I do skim through the ones on my sidebar. Recently, I found a discussion on Luther’s Mariology (a subject that usually gets my attention). It interests me, because I’m hoping someone else besides me is actually checking citations rather than posting the usual propaganda.

Here’s a recent thread: Luther’s Mariology, which, unfortunately, is a lot of propaganda, at least from the zealous defenders of Rome who contributed. It is being hosted on (the late) Walter Martin’s discussion boards. I found this thread while searching for something else, and yes, I added my 2 cents to the discussion.

When I read the opening post, I realized the words were…MINE! But, not entirely: some of the words were from a Catholic apologist mixed in with mine, without distinction. So I signed up, and just planned on pointing out that I don't mind people citing my work, but please don't cite my words and someone else's words together without distinction.

In the discussion, I received some fairly hostile rhetoric from a guy named “Vladimir.” He’s …you know, one of those guys who would burn you at the stake in honor of Mother Church if he could.

I wanted to point out one particular thing Vladimir said, just to show the mindset of these people. We brought up “Christ alone”, one of the Reformation slogans. Of course, he felt the Catholic Church did embrace “Christ alone.” I replied, “Believing in indulgences is not part of 'Christ alone'.” His response was as follows:

“Sure it is. Who empowered the Church to grant indulgences? Christ. Who's sacrifice made the indulgences possible? Christ.”

This would be funny if it wasn’t so sad. It is sola ecclesia 101, for there is nowhere in the Bible that teaches Christ decided to mix his merit with anyone, Mary, saints, or whoever, in order to sanctify his people. Vladimir’s words show us who the ultimate authority is: Mother Church. They decide that indulgences are true.

But you Christian are reconciled to God by Christ alone, and we have already been reconciled, and need no indulgence:

"For if while we were enemies we were reconciled to God through the death of His Son, much more, having been reconciled, we shall be saved by His life. And not only this, but we also exult in God through our Lord Jesus Christ, through whom we have now received the reconciliation." (Romans 5:10-11)

“Now all these things are from God, who reconciled us to Himself through Christ and gave us the ministry of reconciliation, namely, that God was in Christ reconciling the world to Himself, not counting their trespasses against them, and He has committed to us the word of reconciliation. Therefore, we are ambassadors for Christ, as though God were making an appeal through us; we beg you on behalf of Christ, be reconciled to God.” (2 Cor. 5:18-20)