The Problems that Protestantism has with Romans 15:16

This Roman Road is a fatal flaw to Protestant theology

One of the more common theological positions among Protestants is something called the Roman Road to salvation. It claims to give a quick summary/overview of salvation using several verses from the Book of Romans to outline why we need salvation, how God provided salvation, how to obtain it and what are the effects of salvation. A good summary of this can be found here (be careful of GotQuestions, as it is a Protestant website that is virulently anti-Catholic, but it serves our purpose here):

What is the Romans Road to salvation? | GotQuestions.org

The problem, of course, is that developing a theology based on a handful of cherry-picked verses is an almost surefire way to run right into heresy. In fact, this was happening even in the time of the Apostles, as St Peter notes in his second epistle:

2 Peter 3:15 …So also our beloved brother Paul wrote to you according to the wisdom given him, 16 speaking of this as he does in all his letters. There are some things in them hard to understand, which the ignorant and unstable twist to their own destruction, as they do the other scriptures.

In these verses, St Peter is discussing some people in his own day, who are reading St Paul’s letters (possibly including Romans) and these people will not listen to St Peter and the other Apostles about how to properly understand these letters. St Peter explicitly says that there are things in St Paul’s letters which are hard to understand. These people, because they refuse to listen to St Peter about how to properly understand these Scriptures, are risking their own damnation. Eternal consequences are at risk when people will not listen to the Catholic Church about how to understand the Scriptures.

So let’s go to the verse under discussion in this post, Romans 15:16. To be fair to Protestants, I will include both the NIV and KJV Protestant translations (bolding mine):

NIV: 15 Yet I have written you quite boldly on some points to remind you of them again, because of the grace God gave me 16 to be a minister of Christ Jesus to the Gentiles. He gave me the priestly duty of proclaiming the gospel of God, so that the Gentiles might become an offering acceptable to God, sanctified by the Holy Spirit.

KJV: 15 Nevertheless, brethren, I have written the more boldly unto you in some sort, as putting you in mind, because of the grace that is given to me of God,16 That I should be the minister of Jesus Christ to the Gentiles, ministering the gospel of God, that the offering up of the Gentiles might be acceptable, being sanctified by the Holy Ghost.

Now compare those to the D-R and NRSV-CE Catholic translations:

NRSV-CE: 15 Nevertheless on some points I have written to you rather boldly by way of reminder, because of the grace given me by God 16 to be a minister of Christ Jesus to the Gentiles in the priestly service of the gospel of God, so that the offering of the Gentiles may be acceptable, sanctified by the Holy Spirit.

D-R: 15 But I have written to you, brethren, more boldly in some sort, as it were putting you in mind: because of the grace which is given me from God. 16 That I should be the minister of Christ Jesus among the Gentiles; sanctifying the gospel of God, that the oblation of the Gentiles may be made acceptable and sanctified in the Holy Ghost.

There are three highlights that, once we go through each one, will show how this verse is a fatal problem for Protestantism. The first is the word minister, the second is priestly duty/ministering/priestly service/sanctifying, and the final is offering/oblation. We will explore each, even using the Protestant Strong’s Concordance to show these problems

1. Minister: The word translated here is “leitourgon” (λειτουργὸν). This word means a public servant and/or priest. Someone who acts in service to the people of God. Interestingly the same root word is used in Hebrews 8:2, when describing the work that Christ does in the sanctuary in Heaven as our one High Priest and Mediator of the New Covenant.

   Hebrews 8:1 Now the main point in what we are saying is this: we have such a high priest, one who is seated at the right hand of the throne of the Majesty in the heavens, 2 a minister in the sanctuary and the true tent that the Lord, and not any mortal, has set up.

   Now the usage of this word is clearly a priestly and liturgical one, when you consider the rest of the verse where an offering is being given to God. It can’t simply mean a person who offers instruction and service, because the context of the verse is discussing priestly service and oblations.

   Protestantism, specifically those sects of Protestantism which deny a liturgical priesthood exists in the New Covenant, have a fatal flaw with this word because they deny that any liturgy even exists in the New Covenant. This verse says there is one.

2. Priestly duty: This word is “hierourgounta” (ἱερουργοῦντα) and this is the only occurrence of this word in the entire Scriptures. This word is translated as priestly duty/ministering/priestly service/sanctifying in the four translations above. You will see why the KJV translated this word as “ministering” instead of “sanctifying” as the D-R does, because it directly supports Catholic doctrine. This word comes from the words “hieron” which means “Temple” and “ergon” which means “work”. The literal translation of this word is “Temple work”, or performing sacred rites and offering sacrifices to God.

   As you can see, this word alone shows that in the New Covenant, there are men who perform sacred rites, Temple work, in offering sacrifices to God. Protestantism denies this reality and denies that an offering is made to God by mere mortals. Catholicism correctly teaches that in the New Covenant, men ordained through the sacrament of Holy Orders offer, through the power of the Holy Spirit, the Body and Blood of Christ to the Father in the Mass. This is what St Paul is referring to here.

3. Offering: One critical thing to notice here is that the Protestant translations use a sleight of hand to twist the meaning of this verse, where they change it from saying the offering is given by the Gentiles, to saying that the Gentiles themselves are the offering. The Greek in this verse doesn’t say the Gentiles are the offering, but instead are the ones offering something to God. This point is key, because Protestantism denies that there is an offering of bread and wine which, through the Holy Ghost, actually becomes the Body and Blood of Christ which is offered up to the Father. But that’s exactly what the verse means when you look at this word.

   The word here is “prosphora” (προσφορά), which is used twice in Acts to refer to the sacrifices offered in the Temple under the Old Covenant, and frequently in Hebrews to refer to the offerings in the Temple and also the offering of the Body of Christ to the Father. This word is ENTIRELY and COMPLETELY a liturgical word for an offering of the Body and Blood of Christ to the Father by a priest. This is why the D-R translates this word as “oblation” because what is offered is the oblation of the Body & Blood of Christ to the Father. This one word, if you will, negates the entirety of Protestantism. This is why the Protestant translations had to use a sleight of hand tactic to have people not notice that under the New Covenant, there is a priestly offering made in by man of the Body and Blood of Christ to the Father.

There are many such verses like this verse from Romans 15, which when you drill down into the original Greek, you will see that they negate and destroy Protestant theology. This is to be expected, since Protestantism is not Christianity. It is a man-made heresy and as such, there will be glaring holes in the doctrines and beliefs if you look for them.

Catholicism is Christianity itself. It is the one true faith and is the New Covenant itself.