“Just because the church is to uphold the truth, does not mean it is the truth itself.”
Of course not, for the Truth is God Himself. Yet He instituted a Church to preach His commandments and teachings, to be representatives of His authority on Earth.
Christ did not write a single word down as far as we are aware, nor did He command the Apostles to write down a single word of the New Testament; rather, He commanded them to teach all nations:
“And Jesus coming, spoke to them, saying: All power is given to me in heaven and in earth. Going therefore, teach ye all nations; baptizing them in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost. Teaching them to observe all things whatsoever I have commanded you: and behold I am with you all days, even to the consummation of the world.” Matthew 28:18-20
See here the warrant and commission of the Apostles and their successors, the bishops and pastors of Christ’s Church. He received from His Father all power in heaven and in earth: and in virtue of this power, He sent them (even as his Father sent Him) to teach and disciple, not one, but all nations; and instruct them in all truths: and that He may assist them effectually in the execution of this commission, He promised to be with them, not for three or four hundred years only, but all days, even to the consummation of the world. How then could the Catholic Church ever go astray; having always with her pastors, as is here promised, Christ Himself, who is the Way, the Truth, and the Life?
Now, to this you object about the current state of the religion in Rome. To which I wholeheartedly agree, for the sect that currently professes to be the Catholic Church is not so, and hasn’t been since the Second Vatican Council in the early 1960s, when it promulgated doctrines on ecumenism, religious liberty, and religious freedom that contradicted prior Church teaching, Tradition, and Scripture. Since then, it has only gone off the rails even further into the depths of Modernism, demonstrating none of the protections of the Holy Ghost. And how could it be so, for a sect that preaches heresy?
It was the traditional teaching of the Church that certain sins sever one automatically from her fold, due to their nature: among these include apostasy (a wholesale abandonment of the Christian faith), schism (the intentional disruption of ecclesiastical unity), and heresy (to disbelieve or withdraw from any of the truths of Faith, such as the Trinity or the Incarnation).
The gaggle of public heretics and apostates in Rome is not the Catholic Church of the ages, regardless of what the rest of the world may believe or profess, for public heretics have judged themselves without need of recognition by anyone else.
Christ did not *institute* a church.
He said He was going to BUILD it.
And since the church, the Bride of Christ, is comprised of every born again believer, and we have been commissioned to go and preach the gospel and make disciples, then it is the job of every born again believer to do so.
In that way, the church is spreading the good news.
Christ did not write a single word down as far as we are aware, nor did He command the Apostles to write down a single word of the New Testament; rather, He commanded them to teach all nations:
So He didn't write it Himself. SO WHAT??????
The Holy spirit, the Spirit of Christ, AUTHORED Scripture. It is GOD breathed, Holy Spirit inspired revelation.
And you are wrong, too.
Revelation 1:9-11 I, John, your brother and partner in the tribulation and the kingdom and the patient endurance that are in Jesus, was on the island called Patmos on account of the word of God and the testimony of Jesus. I was in the Spirit on the Lord's day, and I heard behind me a loud voice like a trumpet saying,
“Write what you see in a book and send it to the seven churches, to Ephesus and to Smyrna and to Pergamum and to Thyatira and to Sardis and to Philadelphia and to Laodicea.”
Revelation 1:17-19 When I saw him, I fell at his feet as though dead. But he laid his right hand on me, saying,
“Fear not, I am the first and the last, and the living one. I died, and behold I am alive forevermore, and I have the keys of Death and Hades. Write therefore the things that you have seen, those that are and those that are to take place after this.
Revelation 2:1 “To the angel of the church in Ephesus write:
Revelation 2:8 “And to the angel of the church in Smyrna write:
Revelation 2:12 “And to the angel of the church in Pergamum write:
Revelation 2:18 “And to the angel of the church in Thyatira write:
Revelation 3:1 “And to the angel of the church in Sardis write:
Revelation 3:7 “And to the angel of the church in Philadelphia write:
Revelation 3:14 “And to the angel of the church in Laodicea write:
I don't see that being separated from Roman Catholicism is such a big deal.
Salvation is found in a person, that is Christ, not a religious system or organization.
And no sin we commit separates us from the love of Christ. We don't get saved by works and don't stay saved by works.