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The Mass & Development of Doctrine (vs. Wes Huff)

The Mass & Development of Doctrine (vs. Wes Huff)

Last updated on: July 9, 2026 at 9:03 pm by Dave Armstrong

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The Mass & Development of Doctrine (vs. Wes Huff) 2026-07-09T21:03:29-04:00 Dave Armstrong

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The following is a link to the video, “Two More Reasons Wes Huff Should Be Catholic: The Mass & Development of Doctrine” (7-3-26, Catholic Bible Highlights, with Kenny Burchard) and the transcript of the initial portion.

Wes Huff is a Reformed Baptist apologist, currently working towards a doctorate in theological studies. He is the Central Canada Director for Apologetics Canada. His YouTube channel has 986,000 subscribers. This is our second reply to his video, “Six Reasons Why I’m Not Roman Catholic” (5-21-26). It has 981,000 views. Wow! We think a Catholic response would be helpful. Always two sides to every story! Let’s listen to what Wes has to say, first of all:

29:57 the Roman Catholic understanding of what takes place on the Mass is not compatible with what we see in places like Hebrews chapters 9 and 10 where the mass as a sacrifice is a direct conflict with the juxtaposition of the sacrifices in the Old Testament in the old covenant system being compared with the once-for-all sacrifice of Jesus in the new.

To the contrary, the Catholic Mass reflects what we see in the book of Revelation and worship in heaven. Joe Heschmeyer, in his debate against James White on the Mass in February 2025, noted how there was a difference in the Old Testament sacrificial system between the sacrifice itself and the offering of the sacrifice to God (all of it being part of the same overall process of worship). On the Day of Atonement, known by Jews as Yom Kippur, the holiest day of the year, the sacrifice was performed by the high priest, and then blood was taken from it into the Holy of Holies and sprinkled onto the mercy seat between the two cherubim, which was above the ark of the covenant (Lev 16:14-15), where God was present in a profound way (Ex 30:6).

Thus, he would make “atonement” for the “sins” of the people (Lev 16:16; cf. Heb 9:7, 25). Hence, the second “offering” to God was separate and distinct from the sacrifice of the animals. Before God gave Moses the Law on Mt. Sinai, in Egypt, before the exodus, the feast of Passover was a simpler form of the same sort of sacrifice (Ex 12:5-14). And so the passages in Hebrews 9 and 10 relate to this:

Hebrews 9:11-12, 14 (RSV) But when Christ appeared as a high priest of the good things that have come, then through the greater and more perfect tent (not made with hands, that is, not of this creation) [12] he entered once for all into the Holy Place, taking not the blood of goats and calves but his own blood, thus securing an eternal redemption. . . . [14] how much more shall the blood of Christ, who through the eternal Spirit offered himself without blemish to God, purify your conscience from dead works to serve the living God.

Hebrews 9:24 For Christ has entered, not into a sanctuary made with hands, a copy of the true one, but into heaven itself, now to appear in the presence of God on our behalf.

Hebrews 10:10-14 . . . we have been sanctified through the offering of the body of Jesus Christ once for all. [11] And every priest stands daily at his service, offering repeatedly the same sacrifices, which can never take away sins. [12] But when Christ had offered for all time a single sacrifice for sins, he sat down at the right hand of God, [13] then to wait until his enemies should be made a stool for his feet. [14] For by a single offering he has perfected for all time those who are sanctified.

The word “offer[ing]” appears seven times in Hebrews referring to our Lord Jesus (7:27; 9:14, 25, 28; 10:10, 12, 14). Jesus offered Himself as the “paschal lamb” (1 Cor 5:7) to the Father in heaven (Heb 10:11-14), at least 43 days after His crucifixion, because He spent forty days on the earth after His resurrection before He ascended to heaven (in order to sit down at the right hand of God once and for all).

In other words, there was an offering to the Father of the one sacrifice of Jesus on the cross for all time, that took place some six weeks after His death on the cross. One of the climactic heavenly scenes occurs in Revelation 5:1-7. Verse 6 describes “a Lamb standing as though it had been slain.” Then 5:8-17 describes rapturous worship of Jesus as the slain Lamb, not as Lord of Lords or King of Kings (both appear just twice, in 17:14; 19:16), or Son of Man (1:13; 14:14), Son of God (2:18 only) or Alpha and Omega (1:8; 21:6; 2:13). Even “Christ” only appears eight times.

Since Jesus is revealed as sitting in the midst of God’s throne (5:6; 7:17; 22:1, 3; cf. Mt 19:28; 25:31; Heb 1:8), which is in front of the golden altar (Rev 8:3), then it appears that the presentation of Christ to the Father as a sacrifice is an ongoing (from God’s perspective, timeless) occurrence, precisely as in Catholic teaching. Jesus is called “the Lamb” 28 times in the book of Revelation.

He’s called “Lamb” when He opens one of the seven seals (6:1; 8:1), when He judges (6:16: “wrath of the Lamb”), when the devil is defeated (12:11), in association with the “book of life” (13:8; 21:27), when standing on Mount Zion with the 144,000 (14:1), when He is at war (17:14), in conjunction with the marriage supper (19:7, 9; 21:9), and the twelve apostles (21:14), and as the “lamp” of heaven (21:23).

In other words, the “Lamb” is Jesus’ normative title in the entire book, including when He is worshiped. It’s not Jesus triumphant. Does that sound familiar? It does to every Catholic who attends Mass or who has a crucifix (so often frowned upon by Protestants). Once again we follow the full biblical model. Jesus offered Himself to the Father as the Lamb slain and is worshiped in that way in heaven. The Mass is the earthly reflection of what we know to be the “liturgy” and worship of Jesus in heaven.

***

31:23 the religion of Rome being argued for at Trent, at the Council of Trent, is quite different in places to the religion of Vatican II following 1965.

It’s not. It has different emphases, and is less developed (since it was almost 500 years ago), but not contradictory. How and why it isn’t has to be argued point-by-point, one thing at a time. But as so often in Protestant contra-Catholic apologetics, we get broad statements and bald assertions with very little content. That’s not reasoned argumentation, but merely polemics and preaching to the choir.

32:02 You have Cardinal [John] Henry Newman writing An Essay on the Development of Christian Doctrine in 1848.

The year was 1845, and his name was John Henry, not Henry. St. Cardinal Newman is my hero and this book played the biggest role in my conversion. Development of doctrine is my favorite theological topic. I have edited three books of Newman quotations. I’ll discuss him and development all day long, but the problem is that almost no one wants to have serious debate anymore. They’d rather preach to the choir. It’s a lot easier.

32:16 What Newman outlines is simply not the thinking of those at Trent. It isn’t. They would not have agreed with Cardinal Henry Newman’s thesis.

To put it bluntly: nonsense! It’s a huge topic that we can’t get into here. I urge people to read about development of doctrine. I have a book and web page devoted to it that we’ll link to. Way back in 2002, an anti-Catholic Baptist pastor named David T. King started making claims about Cardinal Newman, that he was a modernist who believed in heretical evolution of dogma. He clearly knew nothing about the topic. I responded by proving that the very conservative and traditional Pope St. Pius X was a big fan of Newman. King was never heard from again, except lobbing insults from safe places. See that link, too.

32:41 a simple example of this is that the medieval church taught that submission to the bishop of Rome, the pope, was a matter of salvation. It was salvific. The papal bull Unum Sanctum issued by Pope Boniface in 1303 [should be 1302] stated “we declare, affirm, define, and pronounce that it is absolutely necessary to salvation that every human creature should be subject to the Roman pontiff.”

I addressed this, too, in a lengthy reply to Reformed Baptist YouTuber Gavin Ortlund, who ignored it, as he has some forty other critiques of mine. We’ll link to that also, and to my Ecumenism page. It contains many articles about salvation outside the Church. Development is not essential change. It’s understanding things in more depth. I would guess that in my 35 years of Catholic apologetics, not one Protestant in 500 properly understands it in the classic way that Cardinal Newman formulated it. So it gets very frustrating. The first thing you do in debate is try to understand your opponents’ view as well as they do themselves. That’s what every middle school debate team is taught. But it almost never happens when the topic is Catholicism. All we can do is explain and “contend for the faith which was once for all delivered to the saints” (Jude 3).

In the last part, Wes expresses a nuanced and in many ways heartening and encouraging, ecumenical viewpoint on whether Catholics can be Christians, and whether the Catholic Church itself is. Basically he says we are and we aren’t. He seems to want to have it both ways. I would only note in passing that both Luther and Melanchthon would have been in favor of drowning Wes Huff and fellow Baptists Gavin Ortlund and James White and Billy Graham and the late John MacArthur as seditious heretics, because of their belief in adult believer’s baptism. This is a matter of historical record. It happened in the 1530s. Anabaptists and Mennonites and Amish are well aware of their own history of being martyred by Lutherans. I won’t even link to my materials on this. Anyone can look it up on my Luther and Lutheranism web pages. As a Catholic, at worst, I would have been banished from Lutheran territories.

44:15 I know people who I believe to be saved within the Roman Catholic Church. However, I believe them to be saved in spite of the teaching of Rome, not because of it.

This is classic. The thing to ask a person like Wes, who skirts the line in his theology between anti-Catholic and ecumenical, but who clearly has a good heart and intentions and lack of bigotry and animus (which I appreciate), is whether a person can be saved and zealously adhere to all of the teachings of the Catholic Church (as I do!). If he says no, then that is the anti-Catholic position: to believe in all of the Catholic doctrines would – if the logic is followed through — exclude one from salvation. In effect it’s saying that Catholicism doesn’t possess the saving gospel. Yet earlier he cited Luther saying that it does. So I think he is conflicted and self-contradictory.

Very few Protestants will say that other Protestants are not Christian, even though they have a host of serious disagreements with each other, and vast sectors of Protestantism are theologically liberal and nominal and completely compromised on various sexual issues. It’s only the Catholics and Orthodox that they’ll talk about in that manner. All the arguments are weak and break down. I’ve examined as many of them as I could over 35 years. See my Anti-Catholicism web page, and especially my long written debate with James White on whether Catholicism is Christian. He never seriously debated me again in writing after that, and it took place in 1995. Many consider White to be the best anti-Catholic Protestant debater. I’ve had the debate up on my website for almost 30 years. He never has put it up on his.

I wish Wes all of God’s blessings. None of this is personal, and like all of my critiques of Protestants, I consider them good faith discussions about honestly held differences among friends and fellow esteemed Christians.

Resources: My Related Articles, Web Pages, and Books

The Sacrifice of the Mass

Biblical Catholic Eucharistic Theology (book: see chapters 15-21)

Eucharist, Sacrifice of the Mass, & Liturgical Issues (web page; see sections V-IX)

Development of Doctrine / Salvation Outside the Church

Development of Catholic Doctrine: Evolution, Revolution, or an Organic Process? (book)

Development of Doctrine (web page; includes many articles about St. Cdl. Newman)

Was Cardinal Newman a Modernist?: Pope St. Pius X vs. Anti-Catholic Polemicist David T. King (Development, not Evolution of Doctrine) [1-20-04]

Catholicism & Non-Catholic Salvation (Vs. Gavin Ortlund) + How Early Protestants Widely Damned Other Protestants Who Held Different Theological Views [2-9-24]

Ecumenism & Christian Unity (web page; see section V: “Salvation ‘Outside’ the Church”)

Anti-Catholicism

Anti-Catholicism (web page)

Bishop “Dr.” [?] James White: Anti-Catholic Extraordinaire (web page)

*****

Summary: Reformed Baptist Wes Huff has nearly a million YouTube subscribers and six reasons he’s not a Catholic. We address two: the Sacrifice of the Mass, and development of doctrine.

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