Posted on 09/11/2014 12:08:50 PM PDT by Alex Murphy
There are one billion Roman Catholics worldwide, one billion people who are subject to the Pope’s authority. How, one might ask, did all of this happen? The answer, I believe, is far more complex and untidy than Catholics have argued. First, I will give a brief explanation of what the Catholic position is, and then, second, I will suggest what I think actually took place.
The Catholic Explanation
The traditional Catholic understanding is that Jesus said that it was upon Peter the church was to be built (Matt. 16:18−19; see also John 21:15−17; Luke 22:32). Following this, Peter spent a quarter of a century in Rome as its founder and bishop, and his authority was recognized among the earliest churches; this authority was handed down to his successors. Indeed, the Second Vatican Council (1962–65) re-affirmed this understanding. Apostolic authority has been handed on to the apostles’ successors even as Peter’s supreme apostolic power has been handed on to each of his successors in Rome.
The problem with this explanation, however, is that there is no evidence to sustain it. The best explanation of Matthew 16:18–19 is that the church will be built, not on an ecclesiastical position, but on Peter’s confession regarding Christ’s divinity. Correlative to this understanding is the fact that there is no biblical evidence to support the view that Peter spent a long time in the church in Rome as its leader. The Book of Acts is silent about this; it is not to be found in Peter’s own letters; and Paul makes no mention of it, which is strange if, indeed, Peter was in Rome early on since at the end of Paul’s letter to the Romans, he greets many people by name. And the argument that Peter’s authority was universally recognized among the early churches is contradicted by the facts. It is true that Irenaeus, in the second century, did say that the church was founded by “the blessed apostles,” Peter and Paul, as did Eusebius in the fourth century, and by the fifth century, Jerome did claim that it was founded by Peter whom he calls “the prince of the apostles.” However, on the other side of the equation are some contradictory facts. Ignatius, for example, en route to his martyrdom, wrote letters to the bishops of the dominant churches of the day, but he spoke of Rome’s prominence only in moral, not ecclesiastical, terms. At about the same time early in the second century, the Shepherd of Hermas, a small work written in Rome, spoke only of its “rulers” and “the elders” who presided over it. There was, apparently, no dominant bishop at that time. Not only so, but in the second and third centuries, there were numerous instances of church leaders resisting claims from leaders in Rome to ecclesiastical authority in settling disputes.
It is, in fact, more plausible to think that the emergence of the Roman pontiff to power and prominence happened by natural circumstance rather than divine appointment. This took place in two stages. First, it was the church in Rome that emerged to prominence and only then, as part of its eminence, did its leader begin to stand out. The Catholic church has inverted these facts by suggesting that apostolic power and authority, indeed, Peter’s preeminent power and authority, established the Roman bishop whereas, in fact, the Roman bishopric’s growing ecclesiastical prestige derived, not from Peter, but from the church in Rome.
The Actual Explanation
In the beginning, the church in Rome was just one church among many in the Roman empire but natural events conspired to change this. Jerusalem had been the original “home base” of the faith, but in a.d. 70, the army of Titus destroyed it and that left Christianity without its center. It was not unnatural for people in the empire to begin to look to the church in Rome since this city was its political capital. All roads in that ancient world did, indeed, lead to Rome, and many of them, of course, were traveled by Christian missionaries. It is also the case that the Roman church, in the early centuries, developed a reputation for moral and doctrinal probity and, for these reasons, warranted respect. Its growing eminence, therefore, seems to have come about in part because it was warranted and also, in part, because it was able to bask in some of the reflected splendor of the imperial city.
Heresies had abounded from the start, but in the third-century, churches began to take up a new defensive posture against them. Would it not be the case, Tertullian argued, that churches founded by the apostles would have a secure footing for their claims to authenticity, in contrast to potentially heretical churches? This argument buttressed the growing claims to preeminence of the Roman church. However, it is interesting to note that in the middle of this century, Cyprian in North Africa argued that the words, “You are Peter …” were not a charter for the papacy but, in fact, applied to all bishops. Furthermore, at the third Council of Carthage in 256, he asserted that the Roman bishop should not attempt to be a “bishop of bishops” and exercise “tyrannical” powers.
Already in the New Testament period, persecution was a reality, but in the centuries that followed, the church suffered intensely because of the animosities and apprehensions of successive emperors. In the fourth century, however, the unimaginable happened. Emperor Constantine, prior to a pivotal battle, saw a vision and turned to Christianity. The church, which had lived a lonely existence on the “outside” up to this time, now enjoyed an unexpected imperial embrace. As a result, from this point on, the distinction between appropriate ecclesiastical demeanor and worldly pretensions to pomp and power were increasingly lost. In the Middle Ages, the distinction disappeared entirely. In the sixth century, Pope Gregory brazenly exploited this by asserting that the “care of the whole church” had been placed in the hands of Peter and his successors in Rome. Yet even at this late date, such a claim did not pass unchallenged. Those in the east, whose center was in Constantinople, resented universal claims like this, and, in fact, this difference of opinion was never settled. In 1054, after a series of disputes, the Great Schism between the eastern and western churches began. Eastern Orthodoxy began to go its own way, separated from Roman jurisdiction, and this remains a breach that has been mostly unhealed.
The pope’s emergence to a position of great power and authority was, then, long in the making. Just how far the popes had traveled away from New Testament ideas about church life was brutally exposed by Erasmus at the time of the Reformation. Pope Julius II had just died when, in 1517, Erasmus penned his Julius Exclusus. He pictured this pope entering heaven where, to his amazement, he was not recognized by Peter! Erasmus’ point was simply that the popes had become rich, pretentious, worldly, and everything but apostolic. However, he should have made his point even more radically. It was not just papal behavior that Peter would not have recognized as his own, but papal pretensions to universal authority as well.
I'm going to keep pressing for an acknowledgement of the way things actually played out. Here's a nice little article that I hope you will read that emphasizes context.
Athanasius Contra Mundum: The Courage to Act Alone
I will continue to challenge where I am seeing reasoning from conclusions such as,
This is correlated to the loose network, because the ultimate decisional authority still rests with the local congregation. As Roamer says, if some local group decides to go down a path that leads to error, the remainder of the network is free to continue in the truth.
St Paul must not have gotten the memo on that, if one is to judge from his repeated directions to the erring assemblies to straighten up and fly right. Now, if that type of authority vanished with the death of John, then we have a problem with Athanasius and all the Ecumenical Councils.
If these are the only "doctrines" you are going by to determine which "house of worship" is right, then you will have to concede Islam is right - they don't allow abortion, homosexual marriage and certainly not women preachers. You're going to have to use a bit finer criteria if your claim holds any weight.
What I have experienced is the more closely a denomination holds to the Biblical truth of the Gospel of the grace of God through faith in Jesus Christ the more conservative they are in "social" issues and the more consistent and unified their congregation is.
It is actually because they are born again by that evident word of Truth of the Scriptures, whether they even saw the Bible it came from or not, that they are thus more prone to follow it after (unless they place man higher), versus preaching a message that depends upon hearing it from an approved church or dependent upon it.
In the latter case, converts may be moral and conservative if their church requires it, as well follow as its doctrinal errors, but the majority will also follow its trajectory as the church goes more South, as seen with Rome.
But if they follow the more sure, stedfast, firm, word of prophecy Peter points them to, Scripture, (2 Pt. 1:19-21) then they should never be moved.
Meanwhile, it is indeed a paradox that the section of Scripture that RCs resort to (Ja, 2:16-26) in seeking to provide a positive contrast btwn their church and that of sola fide types indicts their church as being liberal overall and her members as inferior to the evangelicals they attack.
Yea, a man may say, Thou hast faith, and I have works: shew me thy faith without thy works, and I will shew thee my faith by my works. (James 2:18)
And all they're hurting is themselves if they choose to engage.
And any one of us can do that for another brother or sister in Christ because the compass is Scripture.
There doesn't have to be a hierarchical authority structure for believers to admonish one another to live according to Scripture.
Each one of the seven churches in the book of Revelation had different issues and Jesus addressed them individually. There was no one centralized authority that Jesus talked to or put them under.
“What I have experienced is the more closely a denomination holds to the Biblical truth of the Gospel of the grace of God through faith in Jesus Christ the more conservative they are in “social” issues and the more consistent and unified their congregation is”
You just described the Catholic Church for the last 2,000 years. Thanks for the complement.
You can absolutely do that. You can also ignore the first millennium and the Ecumenical Councils, modeled on Acts 15, for defining dogma. You can assert that you have correct belief concerning the two natures of Christ in one Person from Bible study.
You could not have done that in 325. It was all up in the air.
pope, along with the Magisterium hold the deposit of faith.
Are they necessary for salvation or is Jesus sufficient?
Was that from the Gospel according to the Rama-Lama Ding Dong?
You could not have done that in 325. It was all up in the air.
And up until that time, Christians simply put their faith in Jesus for salvation and were saved without having all their doctrine and dogma defined for them.
People can have all their theological i's dotted and T's crossed and still not know Jesus.
And people can do nothing more than that Jesus died for them and they need Him to forgive them and still be saved.
When the Philippian jailer asked Paul what he must do to be saved, Paul replied with a simple, "Believe in the Lord Jesus, and you will be saved".
It's only the religious that demand that people have their doctrine down before they can be saved.
God is perfectly capable of correcting any erroneous doctrine someone may have about Him after they are saved.
What was going on in Acts 15?
The Council at Jerusalem Acts 15 deals with that very thing. The Council at Jerusalem dealt with the Judaizers of their day and this is the recorded outcome.
Acts 15:1-29 But some men came down from Judea and were teaching the brothers, “Unless you are circumcised according to the custom of Moses, you cannot be saved.” And after Paul and Barnabas had no small dissension and debate with them, Paul and Barnabas and some of the others were appointed to go up to Jerusalem to the apostles and the elders about this question. So, being sent on their way by the church, they passed through both Phoenicia and Samaria, describing in detail the conversion of the Gentiles, and brought great joy to all the brothers. When they came to Jerusalem, they were welcomed by the church and the apostles and the elders, and they declared all that God had done with them. 5 But some believers who belonged to the party of the Pharisees rose up and said, “It is necessary to circumcise them and to order them to keep the law of Moses.”
The apostles and the elders were gathered together to consider this matter. And after there had been much debate, Peter stood up and said to them, “Brothers, you know that in the early days God made a choice among you, that by my mouth the Gentiles should hear the word of the gospel and believe. And God, who knows the heart, bore witness to them, by giving them the Holy Spirit just as he did to us, and he made no distinction between us and them, having cleansed their hearts by faith. Now, therefore, why are you putting God to the test by placing a yoke on the neck of the disciples that neither our fathers nor we have been able to bear? But we believe that we will be saved through the grace of the Lord Jesus, just as they will.”
And all the assembly fell silent, and they listened to Barnabas and Paul as they related what signs and wonders God had done through them among the Gentiles. After they finished speaking, James replied, “Brothers, listen to me. Simeon has related how God first visited the Gentiles, to take from them a people for his name. And with this the words of the prophets agree, just as it is written,
“‘After this I will return, and I will rebuild the tent of David that has fallen; I will rebuild its ruins, and I will restore it, that the remnant of mankind may seek the Lord, and all the Gentiles who are called by my name, says the Lord, who makes these things known from of old.’
Therefore my judgment is that we should not trouble those of the Gentiles who turn to God, but should write to them to abstain from the things polluted by idols, and from sexual immorality, and from what has been strangled, and from blood. For from ancient generations Moses has had in every city those who proclaim him, for he is read every Sabbath in the synagogues.”
Then it seemed good to the apostles and the elders, with the whole church, to choose men from among them and send them to Antioch with Paul and Barnabas. They sent Judas called Barsabbas, and Silas, leading men among the brothers, with the following letter: “The brothers, both the apostles and the elders, to the brothers who are of the Gentiles in Antioch and Syria and Cilicia, greetings. Since we have heard that some persons have gone out from us and troubled you with words, unsettling your minds, although we gave them no instructions, it has seemed good to us, having come to one accord, to choose men and send them to you with our beloved Barnabas and Paul, men who have risked their lives for the name of our Lord Jesus Christ. We have therefore sent Judas and Silas, who themselves will tell you the same things by word of mouth. For it has seemed good to the Holy Spirit and to us to lay on you no greater burden than these requirements: that you abstain from what has been sacrificed to idols, and from blood, and from what has been strangled, and from sexual immorality. If you keep yourselves from these, you will do well. Farewell.”
Jesus came to set us free. Not put us back under the bondage of the Law.
It was not about defining dogma and doctrine.
That’s right.
The righteous requirements of the Law were fulfilled in Christ, and then are imputed to us when we accept Christ and have HIS righteousness credited to our account, and we are IN CHRIST.
THEN God looks as us and sees only the righteousness of Christ, who fulfilled the law perfectly, and not out own righteousness, which is as a filthy rag in His sight.
That is not what He said. I see this common instinct to justify oneself by reinterpreting what He said to fit one's personal religious practice, preferences, doctrines, etc. rather than simply believing what He said like a little child and obeying.
The Apostles at Jerusalem recognized the need to settle a dispute. Why did they not simply search the Scriptures?
Act 1:21-22 Wherefore of these men which have companied with us all the time that the Lord Jesus went in and out among us, (22) Beginning from the baptism of John, unto that same day that he was taken up from us, must one be ordained to be a witness with us of his resurrection.That is stated as a requirement, not a "nice to have." Even Paul was required to have met the resurrected Jesus personally on the road to Damascus, else he would not be qualified for the apostolic office. See also Acts 22:14-15 and 1 Corinthians 9:1.
Mar 3:13-15 And he goeth up into a mountain, and calleth unto him whom he would: and they came unto him. (14) And he ordained twelve, that they should be with him, and that he might send them forth to preach, (15) And to have power to heal sicknesses, and to cast out devils:Finally, selection to the apostolic office entailed a unique capacity for demonstration of divine power through miracles:
Luk 9:1-2 Then he called his twelve disciples together, and gave them power and authority over all devils, and to cure diseases. (2) And he sent them to preach the kingdom of God, and to heal the sick.Now, I have some odd people for nextdoor neighbors. They think they are apostles. Seriously. They have a church. They blow shofars. It's a latter rain cult, right on my doorstep. These same "apostles" were systematically disposing of construction garbage that was getting onto my property and damaging my tires. By the grace of God they were forced to withdraw. But needless to say these individuals, no matter how impressed they are with their own sense of apostolic entitlement, have not impressed me with their apostolic qualifications, at least not according to the three points listed above.
Luk 24:44-49 And he said unto them, These are the words which I spake unto you, while I was yet with you, that all things must be fulfilled, which were written in the law of Moses, and in the prophets, and in the psalms, concerning me. (45) Then opened he their understanding, that they might understand the scriptures, (46) And said unto them, Thus it is written, and thus it behoved Christ to suffer, and to rise from the dead the third day: (47) And that repentance and remission of sins should be preached in his name among all nations, beginning at Jerusalem. (48) And ye are witnesses of these things. (49) And, behold, I send the promise of my Father upon you: but tarry ye in the city of Jerusalem, until ye be endued with power from on high.
The Holy Spirit inspired Scripture says this:
2 Corinthians 5:17-21 Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation. The old has passed away; behold, the new has come. All this is from God, who through Christ reconciled us to himself and gave us the ministry of reconciliation; that is, in Christ God was reconciling the world to himself, not counting their trespasses against them, and entrusting to us the message of reconciliation. Therefore, we are ambassadors for Christ, God making his appeal through us. We implore you on behalf of Christ, be reconciled to God. For our sake he made him to be sin who knew no sin, so that in him we might become the righteousness of God.
Romans 4:1-8 What then shall we say was gained by Abraham, our forefather according to the flesh? For if Abraham was justified by works, he has something to boast about, but not before God. For what does the Scripture say? “Abraham believed God, and it was counted to him as righteousness.” Now to the one who works, his wages are not counted as a gift but as his due. And to the one who does not work but believes in him who justifies the ungodly, his faith is counted as righteousness, just as David also speaks of the blessing of the one to whom God counts righteousness apart from works: “Blessed are those whose lawless deeds are forgiven, and whose sins are covered; blessed is the man against whom the Lord will not count his sin.”
Romans 4:20-25 No unbelief made him waver concerning the promise of God, but he grew strong in his faith as he gave glory to God, fully convinced that God was able to do what he had promised. That is why his faith was “counted to him as righteousness.” But the words “it was counted to him” were not written for his sake alone, but for ours also. It will be counted to us who believe in him who raised from the dead Jesus our Lord, who was delivered up for our trespasses and raised for our justification.
The only righteousness that can get us into heaven is perfection and we can't do that. Not to mention that our righteous deeds are as filthy rags in God's sight because they are tainted with sin, so they CAN'T count.
The only way to be considered righteous enough for heaven is to be forgiven and have the righteousness given to us, credited to our account.
Colossians 3:1-4 If then you have been raised with Christ, seek the things that are above, where Christ is, seated at the right hand of God. Set your minds on things that are above, not on things that are on earth. For you have died, and your life is hidden with Christ in God. When Christ who is your life appears, then you also will appear with him in glory.
When God sees us, He sees us hidden in Christ, through a filter, so to speak, that He sees us as righteous as Christ.
I’m sure they did. Well, actually, I’m sure they knew it well enough to not need to.
Anyway, because we are not under the Law any more. We are not obligated to keep it to be considered righteous in God’s sight.
Jesus came to set us free, not to put us under the bondage of keeping the Law for our justification.
Sin is still defined by the Law and eating blood was strictly forbidden by it and interestingly, that was one of the four commands that the Holy Spirit and Council at Jerusalem still endorsed.
They didn’t tell us we were obligated to keep the Sabbath, to be circumcised, or anything else but they did reinforce the command to not eat blood.
That is for the church.
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