“No, my salvation rests solely on Jesus Christ no matter what any human may say.”
“On Christ the Solid Rock I stand
All other ground is sinking sand
All other ground is sinking sand”
“. . . some other party not mentioned in the Bible . . .”
This was written by someone using circular reasoning to infer that the Roman Catholic Church is mentioned in the Bible.
There are certain Baptists who believe that they are able to trace an unbroken line of succession all the way back to John the BAPTIST. They will say, “See, we can find ‘Baptist’ in the Bible.” And there are actually some of these churches which have constructed (concocted) elaborate histories of “Baptist” peoples and churches all the way back to Christ, they say. These are wrong, of course. They use that circular reasoning.
And Rome uses circular reasoning to find itself in the New Testament. The Church of Christ (Campbellite and the Disciples of Christ denomination) basically does the same thing. In fact, you can earmark many successionist groups, including Rome, by their insistence that Matthew 16:13-19 must always refer to themselves or to their system. The “church” which Jesus would build must always be their church. Circular reasoning.
People interpret the New Testament in this way: “We exist, and we do it this way, so us and our way must be what the New Testament is really talking about.” Circular reasoning.
As much as I disagree with the Baptists who declare that the Bride of Christ is exclusively a Baptist Bride, I do recognize a distinction thusly: No Baptist-Brider I have ever met or read would say that the salvation of the soul or fellowship with Christ is in and through a Baptist church. Even the strictest Baptist-Briders will declare that regeneration and salvation is through deliberate personal faith in the Person and Merits of Jesus Christ alone, and can not be through a church; no, not through any church on earth.
No true believer in Christ and His New Testament has “jettisoned the Church” as suggested by the author of the article. The Church of which all true believers are members has one and only one Head, and that Head, Christ, is far above all heavens. The Holy Spirit which made us members, did so by a baptism unfelt and unseen (1 Corinthians 12:13; Colossians 2:11, 12) — “the operation of God,” not of any earthly priest; not even of any earthly minister at all. No member of Christ can jettison Christ's Body, the Church (Ephesians 1:17-23; 4:4, 5).
The Roman Catholic Church, along with the Baptist-Briders and others, tend to over emphasize the earthy assembly and earthy ministers to a twisted extreme, denying the oneness of the Body of Christ by the spiritual work of God. And this is what the author is doing — only seeing the earthy visible church with visible leaders and visible structures and sacraments and ordinances performed by sinning men in clerical garb.
ON CHRIST THE SOLID ROCK I STAND, ALL OTHER GROUND IS SINKING SAND is the correct position. And IN CHRIST THE HEAD OF THE TRUE CHURCH I SIT IN HEAVENLY PLACES (Ephesians chapter 3), regardless of the insistences of Rome or the Kentucky Baptists.