Rome’s Teaching Leads to Pride… or Despair Ep. 27

Rome’s doctrine of merit sounds complicated—dividing works into “congruent” and “condign” categories—but the outcome is always the same: it either puffs up the self-righteous with false confidence or crushes tender consciences under unbearable despair. In this episode of Weighed in the Balance, Jonathan Brooks walks through Philip Melanchthon’s critique of Rome’s merit system in the Apology of the Augsburg Confession and shows why the gospel of Christ alone is the only true comfort for sinners. We’ll see how Rome’s teaching fails both the hypocrite and the humble, why Vatican II didn’t solve the problem, and how the Reformation’s emphasis on grace through faith still speaks hope to weary hearts today.