We are not saved by works; we are saved for works
What is the greatest Protestant Heresy ? Have a guess? Cardinal Robert Bellarmine (1542–1621) was a figure not to be taken lightly. He was Pope Clement VIII 's personal theologian and one of the ablest figures in the Counter-Reformation movement within sixteenth-century Roman Catholicism . On one occasion, he wrote: "The greatest of all Protestant heresies is _______ ." Can you complete Bellarmine's statement? How would you answer? What is the greatest of all Protestant heresies? Perhaps justification by faith? Perhaps Scripture alone, or one of the other Reformation watchwords? Those answers make logical sense. But none of them completes Bellarmine's sentence. What he wrote was: "The greatest of all Protestant heresies is assurance ." A moment's reflection explains why . If justification is not by faith alone, in Christ alone, by grace alone — if faith needs to be completed by works; if Christ's work is somehow repeated; if grace is n...