Peter and the Papacy

Catholic Answers ^

[Mrs. Don-o]

"The whole weight of the rest of Scripture tells us that Jesus/God is the Rock."

That is a fact, and I don't see that anyone has denied it: I have not, and neither have any other Catholics as far as I know.

"The Catholic church took ONE verse of somewhat ambiguous interpretation, and builds a whole doctrine out of it...

Actually, Jesus SPOKE one verse which was not at all ambiguous--- Matthew 16:18 ---- where Jesus re-names Simon "Rock" and goes on to say "upon this Rock I will build My Church." Why not consider the implications of what Jesus said directly, in a theological sense?

We have taken interesting excursions into the grammar of the verse and the lexical meaning of "Petros" and "petra", to make sure that the basic meaning was plain, as stated. There are two or three FReepers who wanted to challenge this, supposedly relying on standard lexicons (I won't mention their names because I don't particularly want to ping them) --- but when I produced evidence that standard lexicons, like Strong's, and the NAS (North American Standard) Exhaustive Concordance provide support for the Petros=petra=boulder position, behold, I get no answer. All of a sudden the standard lexicons don't matter! One FReeper told me, "That's just word-play."

At that point, their lack of respect for evidence rendered further discussion futile.

But back to the theological sense: the Lord's affirmation of Simon Bar-Jonah with the name of "Peter", "Rock", should point to the idea that something big is going on here, precisely because this such an unprecedented and norm-shaking declaration. It's not to be brushed away: it's actually much bigger than you might think at first glance.

What we have here is, in agreement with whole weight of the New Testament, the realization that we are, in union with Christ, and by His ordaining, part of His mission, His ministry, even His identity.

I say "we," not just Peter. because Peter himself applies the term "stone" to Christ Himself and to us as believers:

1 Peter 2:4-6
And coming to Him as to a living stone
which has been rejected by men,
but is choice and precious in the sight of God,
you also, as living stones,
are being built up
as a spiritual house for a holy priesthood,
to offer up spiritual sacrifices acceptable to God
through Jesus Christ.
For this is contained in Scripture:

"BEHOLD, I LAY IN ZION A CHOICE STONE,
A PRECIOUS CORNER STONE,
AND HE WHO BELIEVES IN HIM
WILL NOT BE DISAPPOINTED."

This is really quite wonderful, and quite congruent with the whole body of Scripture.

Christ/God is the Good Shepherd, Yet Jesus says to Peter, "Feed My lambs, feed My lambs, feed My sheep.

A Messianic foreshadowing (Isaiah 22:22) prepares us for Jesus bearing the keys; yet Jesus says to Peter, "I give you the keys to the Kingdom of Heaven." (Matthew 16:19).

Only God can forgive sins, yet Jesus says to the disciples on the evening of His resurrection, "Whose sins you shall forgive, they are forgiven them." (John 20:23)

Only Jesus offers spiritual sacrifices acceptable to God, but in 1 Peter, cited above, we are told of a "spiritual priesthood" which will offer up "spiritual sacrifices acceptable to God through Jesus Christ."

This parallels the prophecy in Malachi 1:11---

"From the rising of the sun
even unto the going down of the same
my name shall be great among the Gentiles;
and in every place
incense shall be offered unto my name,
and a pure offering:
for my name shall be great among the Gentiles,
saith the LORD of hosts."

What we've got here is a gift of things utterly divine, into human hands: into Peter's hands--- it is often him by name --- but into our hands as disciples as well, offering incense and a Pure Offering.

Christ/God is the only Rock (a dozen places in Scripture), yet Jesus says to Peter, "You are Rock, and upon this Rock I will build my Church." That is the marvel of it: Christ's work and mission, and his very flesh and blood and Self being shared among all His faithful ones. As He shared in our humanity, so we, His Body, come to share in His divine nature. Peter understood this --- Peter who was given by the lips of Jesus a divine name: the Rock.

2 Peter 1:4
Through these, he has bestowed on us the precious and very great promises, so that through them you may come to share in the divine nature, after escaping from the corruption that is in the world because of evil desire.

"This should give any serious student of God’s word at least a pause to consider if the Catholic claims are legitimate."

Metmom, I couldn't have said it better, myself.

[boatbums]

I find it so very odd that they do not seem to think Jesus is enough. Why is that?

Those of us who came out of the Roman Catholic religion did so because we recognized through the illumination of the Holy Spirit that Jesus IS enough and we had been deceived into believing He wasn't. When ANY religion - and Catholicism isn't alone in this - teaches that you must do certain rituals, works, acts, prayers, devotions and deeds in order to have a semblance of hope that you might be allowed into heaven at some point after your physical death, then they are preaching an accursed gospel and have fallen from grace. Our salvation and justification is by the grace of God which He gifts to us through faith in Jesus Christ and NOT by our works.

[Cronos]

There’s no parsing. The simple fact is that Jesus Christ said - “you are rock and on this rock I will build My Church”. This is not supremacy.

[Cronos]

Mother of Jesus Christ who is God incarnate, ergo Mother (bearer) of God incarnate

[rwa265]

Did you by any chance see Jeopardy today? The category was Bible MVP’s and the clue was: This fisherman was picked specifically by Jesus to be the “Rock” of his new church.

The response was “Who was Peter”?

Alex Trebek said “good”.

[BipolarBob]

“you are rock and on this rock I will build My Church”.

Rock was talking to rock. There are two rocks (one lower case and the other upper case) involved. There is more than one way to interpret this sentence from the words alone. You (your Church) picks the one way that takes away glory from Jesus (The Rock) and gives it to Peter (rock).
If you think Martin Luthers attempted reformation of the RCC was upsetting, then when Jesus comes back to finish the job there will be weeping, wailing and gnashing of teeth.

[Cronos]

There was one word rock, declined for locative — petros in locative is petra in Koine Greek

[WVKayaker]

BB, shake the dust...

Look! Squirrel! (pay no attention to the man behind the curtain TRUTH!)

[Cronos]

Remember as I've said above -- there is the case of locative, so this is one word but in nominative and locative: "you are {nominative case} and on this {locative case}...."

you can replace this with table :) and it is "mensa pones super mensam es" -- you see the declension ending of -m?

[BipolarBob]

you see the declension ending of -m?

I hear the broken record, you see the tree but miss the forest. You have your Papacy thanks to one ambiguous verse. That's a long way to build a bridge from what you have to go on.

[Cronos]

No, I hear a broken record from you not acknowledging a lack of grammar. You said “petros and petra are two different words” — and I showed to you that they are not two different words, rather the same word in two different grammatical cases.

[WVKayaker]

and I showed to you that they are not two different words, rather the same word in two different grammatical cases.

Actually, the distinction does not validate your premise, even if true. I can find a number of sources which disagree with all your drivel. Anybody can post anything, but that doesn't make it so.

Bottom line is to allow Roman Catholics to die in ignorance and worship their goddess mary until the sun sets on their dead body! Unfortunately, that flies in the face of Scripture (again!). We Christians are obligated to point out the errors of the Roman Catholic cult...

Peter was a fisherman. He became a disciple. That's all...

I am a disciple, too! I owned a rocky lot in West Virginia. I have started churches. Does that make me an apostle?

[Cronos]

Actually the distinction does validate my premise that these are the same word in two grammatical cases where Christ clearly says "you are rock and on this rock I will..." -- now as to the premise of what He meant by that you can argue, but as to the grammatical sense of the sentence it is clear -- Simon is the rock on which He will build His Church

Simon was a fisherman, Peter was a fisher of men. He wasn't smarter than or more righteous than or more learned than the other disciples -- he was impetuous, cowardly during Christ's ministry and didn't seem to display any qualities to justify this above statement. Yet Peter is the most mentioned apostle and in the end you see this dumb ox :) calmly obey his Master and head back to be martyred. THAT is the lesson of Peter -- blind trust in JEsus Christ, Lord, God and Savior

Peter was not a monarch over the other apostles but first mentioned among equals, primus inter pares. That is the role for the Papacy among the other bishops. Note though that this is amogn the other bishops who maintained orthodoxy through council, so the wayout beliefs of a Oneness Pentecostal would be non-orthodox

[WVKayaker]

That is the role for the Papacy among the other bishops.

More assumption and less detail, as usual. There is nothing that creates a role of pope. There is everything to suggest it is error to assume such.

Peter is dead. Mary is dead. Jesus is still in control... and gives us through His Holy Spirit, not some guys in funny hats and costumes, hoarding riches from the world.

[Cronos]

Doesn’t make you Jesus Christ’s apostle — unlike you, Simon Peter WAS Jesus Christ’s apostle.