Well, let me repeat: This "true Church of Christ", I'm happy to say, consists of all those who hold to the same faith of those early believers. We are all part of that universal body of Jesus Christ.
If your understanding of Christ is fundamentally flawed, how can you belong to the Church?
This "knockoff facsimile that only remotely resembles the Church that Christ created and the Holy Spirit commissioned at Pentecost" could very well define the Roman Catholic Church as this knock-off.
Only to a true antiCatholic.
Whereas the spiritual body of Christ, the called-out assembly created at Pentecost, more closely defines those assemblies that adhere to the same doctrines taught in Holy Scripture - those letters that God inspired in the writers of the New Testament to ensure the truths Christ taught them both before AND after he was seated in Heaven are and forever will be our authority.
The NT churches were definitely under the authority of the bishops. The free thinkers were either brought into line or else rejected.
What today calls itself THE Church, has been shown to no longer represent that universal spiritual whole BUT God has always kept a "remnant" for himself that have not bowed the knee to false gods.
Hands up all those who claim membership in this remnant for no other reason than that they claim it.
This is what has always set apart those who faithfully follow the true path of righteousness found in Jesus Christ.
Now you are claiming righteousness? Jesus calls us to be perfect, yet no one among is perfect.
Good grief. Do Catholics not read scripture at all?
1 Corinthians 6:11 And such were some of you: but ye are washed, but ye are sanctified, but ye are justified in the name of the Lord Jesus, and by the Spirit of our God.
Hebrews 10:14 For by one offering he hath perfected for ever them that are sanctified.
Maybe you're getting it after all.
Nobody is perfect but anyone who trusts in Christ, who is IN Christ, has been declared righteous. We have been clothed in His righteousness because our lives are hidden with Christ in God.
Colossians 3:3 For you have died, and your life is hidden with Christ in God.
God does not count our sin against us, even though He does have the right to if He chooses. But he chose not to for those who by faith accept the work of Christ on the cross for their sins.
It's a legal pardon. Sure God knows we sin, but has chosen to not count our sins against us for Christ's sake.
Romans 4:1-10 1What then shall we say was gained by Abraham, our forefather according to the flesh? 2For if Abraham was justified by works, he has something to boast about, but not before God. 3For what does the Scripture say? "Abraham believed God, and it was counted to him as righteousness." 4Now to the one who works, his wages are not counted as a gift but as his due.
5And to the one who does not work but believes in him who justifies the ungodly, his faith is counted as righteousness, 6just as David also speaks of the blessing of the one to whom God counts righteousness apart from works: 7 "Blessed are those whose lawless deeds are forgiven, and whose sins are covered; 8blessed is the man against whom the Lord will not count his sin."
9Is this blessing then only for the circumcised, or also for the uncircumcised? We say that faith was counted to Abraham as righteousness.