[NYer]

Unless you are Jesus Christ, you don’t know who is living in heaven and who is not, since we don’t have the ability to see into peoples’ hearts and judge how faithful they were. Since none of us here are Jesus Christ, we cannot assume someone who has passed on is actually alive in heaven.

In Matthew 16:19 Jesus gives authority over his Church to Peter, to bind and loose: "Whatever you bind on Earth shall be bound in heaven; and whatever you loose on Earth shall be loosed in heaven."

In Matthew 18:18, he gives the power to all the apostles: "Amen, I say to you, whatever you bind on Earth shall be bound in heaven, and whatever you loose on Earth shall be loosed in heaven."

The Apostles passed this authority on, down through the millennia to their successors through the laying on of hands.

[Boogieman]

Sorry, buy that interpretation is nothing short of blasphemy. Jesus Christ is the judge of the living and the dead, and He alone decides who receives salvation. He didn’t delegate that out to your church.

“The Apostles passed this authority on, down through the millennia to their successors through the laying on of hands.”

When your “successors to the Apostles” can demonstrate that they actually hold the power of apostles, by say, raising the dead, or something of that nature, I might believe it.

[CynicalBear]

>>In Matthew 16:19 Jesus gives authority over his Church to Peter, to bind and loose: "Whatever you bind on Earth shall be bound in heaven; and whatever you loose on Earth shall be loosed in heaven."<<

Acts 15:8 And God, which knoweth the hearts, bare them witness, giving them the Holy Ghost, even as he did unto us; 9 And put no difference between us and them, purifying their hearts by faith.