The Gospel that Jesus said to “repent and believe?” What Gospel? The Gospel promulgated by the Roman Catholic Church. The release of The Manhattan Declaration has caused much chatter here in Blogville, so we’ll take a 
minute to see if the Gospel proclaimed by Rome is the simple Gospel proclaimed by Paul and the New Testament writers. We have based this post on a chart, explaining salvation in a visual manner, produced and copyrighted by David MacDonald, which you can view here. Please keep in mind that Mr. MacDonald is Roman Catholic – this is not the effort of a disgruntled Protestant. Downloading Mr. MacDonald’s chart would be quite useful for your future reference. Per Mr. MacDonald’s chart, this is the way for a person to salvation:
1) Born with original sin.
2a) Die in unbelief, without being baptized (unless you are an infant who has not been baptized, or are an honest seeker of the truth who is ignorant of God’s mercy. Those people bypass steps 2-9), which results in eternal punishment in Hell.
2b) You are baptized, which washes away original sin and per Rome, infuses justifying grace and righteousness.
3) You are confirmed by the Magisterium, Bishops, Priests, Religious Orders or Lay Christians.
4a) You commit mortal (“grave”) sin, which separates you from communion with God. If not repented, confessed, absolved, reconciled, you go to Hell.
4b) You commit a venial (“not serious”) sin. This sin can lead to mortal sin, which then leads us to step 4a.
5) The repentance required in step 4a involves a “second conversion” – a personal decision for Jesus. If the repentance did not involve a mortal sin, one may skip the confession, absolution, reconciliation step.
6) As part of the process involving mortal sin, you have now acquired a debt that even though you are free from “eternal punishment,” you will now have temporal punishment, which you will endure further down the process in Purgatory.
7) Regardless of which type of sin you committed, you need to perform acts of penance and charity, which include offering indulgences for those who are in Purgatory.
8) You are then brought back to the Magisterium, etc., where you engage in Eucharistic Communion with Mary, Archangels, Saints, faithful Christians, who are praying and praising, helping those on earth.
9) If you, at any point, commit 4a or 4b, you back through the steps again.
10) At death, the believer is ushered into Purgatory for temporal punishment in order for purification to take place. The length of time and the nature of this punishment is not specified.
11) Upon release from Purgatory, one enters Heaven.
Is that what Paul was so careful to protect in Galatians? Or was the Gospel so simple that he had to protect its simplicity – as he did in Romans 6?
“What must I do to inherit eternal life?” “Believe in the Lord Jesus and you will be saved.” (Acts 16:30-31, ESV) Sounds pretty simple to me………
