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I'm going to take a bit different tack. Let's assume you know for a fact that:

“Jesus said unto him, I am the way, the truth, and the life: no man cometh to the Father, but by me.”

I am the way, truth and the life.

As kosta so well illustrated, even if we know God said them, we still have to know what the words mean.

He is the truth.

And if one seeks Truth? And Life? And the Way? Isn't it therefore Jesus he seeks?

And if Truth and Life and the Way finds him, isn't it Jesus, isn't it God? Or is there another Truth and Life and Way. And if he is poor in spirit and pure of heart? Will he see Jesus and the Kingdom of Heaven?

the only way to heaven is by and through Christ

Yes.

No church can bring you to God

Who sees this distance between himself and God? Where is God not? What is Church? Where is it? How big is it?

bdeaner:

The "Church" includes ALL of the instrumental means of salvation operating in the world through Christ and the Holy Spirit, no matter where that may be occurring.

Can this Church "bring you to God?" By definition, it is God transforming us through His Church.

I think this is true: If we place limits on His Church, we place limits on God, for they are inseparable. When we reduce Jesus to a name, we lose the better part of God. The more we deny God to another, the more we deny Him to ourself.

I think this is true: If we place limits on His Church, we place limits on God, for they are inseparable.

I completely agree with your statements thus far, and it seems they are very consistent with the teachings on the Church by Vatican II and other official teachings of the Church, particularly the concept of "Baptism of desire."

St. Augustine points out that, "When we speak of within and without in relation to the Church, it is the position of the heart that we must consider, not that of the body . . . All who are within in heart are saved in the unity of the ark" (Baptism 5:28:39). At the same time we must keep in mind that no one who positively repudiates the Church can be said to belong to the Church in any sense. As St. Cyprian put it: "he will not have God for his Father who would not have the Church for his mother."