So, even using just a few verses we can eliminate the Protestants. After His death and Resurrection, He continued to guide the Apostles through revelation. Jesus Christ lived a perfect, sinless life. Follow the bishop as Jesus Christ did the Father and the priests as you would the apostles. It is through that Church that he … Before the sixteenth century there is no reference anywhere to the notion that the Christian Church consists of all Christ’s followers, whether they are baptized or not, whether they believe in the sacraments or not, whether they accept orthodox teaching or not, whether they obey the successors of Peter and the apostles or not. Matthew 28:18-20 And Jesus came and said to them, “All authority in heaven and on earth has been given to me. . Isaiah 28:16. From the time of the Creation, the children of God looked forward to the coming of the Savior Jesus Christ. Similarly, all should respect the deacons as they would respect Jesus Christ, just as they respect the bishop as representing the Father and the priests as the council of God and the college of the apostles. So it may well be that one church is as good as another. Seeing that no two of all the Christian denominations agree exactly on doctrine, worship, and authority, no two can be teaching the integral, unchanged religion of Christ. Our Lord named Peter the future leader of His Church, when He said to him "Thou art Peter (Rock), and upon this rock I will build MY Church. Roman Catholicism The simple answer is that Jesus Christ founded the church which began at Jerusalem on the Day of Pentecost and continued in the lives of those who truly belonged to Him and put their faith in Him, no matter what their relationship was to any particular leaders in the visible church structure. Obey priests as apostles of Jesus Christ. The sheep of other sectarian folds belong to him no less than those of their own sectarian fold.”. . . We have described it in these pages. He established His Church, taught His gospel, and performed many miracles. By my Father... 2. The founders of Protestantism, Martin Luther and John Calvin, taught that Christ’s Church consists of all those whom God has predestined to heaven. The Lutheran church –1517 AD. The Eucharist must be considered valid when it is offered by the bishop or by one to whom the bishop has given this charge. There are simpler definitions, but in my opinion, they either are not comprehensive enough or they miss the mark in other ways. They told us that we were in danger. Furthermore, The Church told us which are the inspired books of the Bible (all 73 of them) at the Roman Council in 382 A.D. Any church founded by someone other than Christ is not … Therefore thus saith the Lord GOD, Behold, I lay in Zion for a foundation a stone, a tried … It is expressed in sayings such as: “I am not qualified to settle the differences between the churches or to judge the claims of any one of them”; “There may be something in it but I prefer to stay as I am”; “I am afraid I might be converted and so have to change my life” or “I am too busy to bother about religion.” God alone knows and can judge the consciences of those who subscribe to statements like these; but they seem to express an attitude to God’s revelation which is highly suspect. According to the Bible, the church is the body of Christ—all those who have placed their faith in Jesus Christ for salvation (John 3:16; 1 … They had me get up and along with my brothers we got dressed. The crucial question is that of authority. The general Council of Nicaea in A.D. 325 excommunicated the followers of Arius. His idea of the constitution of the Church must have been theirs. The general councils could, and sometimes did, cut off certain heretics from the Church. This same Church must also have a leader of this apostolic body in the person of the successor of St. Peter, bed-rock on which Jesus has built His Church” (ibid., p. 52). From the time of the Creation, the children of God looked forward to the coming of the Savior Jesus Christ. That same authority is in the world today vested in the Catholic bishops who are the successors of Peter. In this passage, Jesus brings His disciples outside Jerusalem and asks them who they think He is (v. 15). He told them what they were to aim at and how they were to do it, with his help. Nor is it true that all Christian religions are as good as one another. God does not blame or punish anybody for what is not his own fault. After the reading of the Nicene Creeds they proclaimed: “That is the orthodox faith, that we all believe; into that we were baptized; into that we also baptize; thus Cyril taught; thus Pope Leo believes.”, Similarly, when another of Pope Leo’s letters was read the bishops declared: “That is the faith of the Fathers, that is the faith of the apostles! We did not have our house right o… Therefore, the Church came first, then Bibles. Many of them have a deep, personal love of Christ and regulate their lives according to the highest ideals. The church had elders with James, Jesus’ brother, being the lead elder of the church (Acts 15:3-23). John 14:3. Nine out of ten of the people who reject the Catholic Church do so not because they believe that Christ established some other church, but because they believe he established no organized church at all. Apart from the bishop nobody must perform any of the functions that belong to the Church. Back to Matt 16:18, Scripture says that Jesus Christ established one Church. The members were those who believed and were baptized. (20-22) In these verses there is a sudden change from a political to a physical metaphor, possibly suggested by the word "household." The churches of Christ salute you. The Twelve Apostles (). In each place bishops and priests were necessary. This sacrifice is called the Atonement. 12 One of those days Jesus went out to a mountainside to pray, and spent the night praying to God. In summary, the church is not a building or a denomination. It was there that the apostles were first located. He established His Church, taught His gospel, and performed many miracles. At the first session of the Council the papal legate, Paschasinus, declared, “We have a commission from the most holy and most apostolic Bishop of Rome, who is head of all Churches, to see that Dioscorus shall have no seat in the Council, and if he shall venture upon this, that he be expelled.” Dioscorus was the Bishop of Alexandria to whom the Pope objected because he tried to hold a general council “without the consent of the Apostolic See, which had never been done before, and was never to be done.” No bishop questioned the fact that the Pope was the head of all the churches. The means to that were belief in Christ, reception of the sacraments he instituted and obedience to the authority he established. They, the local rulers of the Church, assembled together to decide questions of faith and morals. Acts 20:28 - Take heed therefore unto yourselves, and to all the flock, over the which the Holy Ghost … He gave them His authority to teach and baptize. From this passage it is very obvious that Christ is the builder or founder of the New Testament church and that he calls this church his church. Through His suffering, death, and Resurrection, the Savior made it possible for us to be forgiven. Peter and the church would be … The fact remains that they do contradict one another in essentials. The Restoration of the Gospel of Jesus Christ, “Jesus Christ Established His Church,” The Restoration of the Gospel of Jesus Christ (2005), “Jesus Christ Established His Church,” The Restoration. Jesus Christ lived a perfect, sinless life. A man may never come into contact with the Catholic faith, or if he does it may be in such a way that it makes no real impact on him. The authority was the apostles’ under the leadership of Peter, and their successors. The plain, simple truth is that Jesus Christ founded on earth directly and personally an organized religious society which he called his Church. The canons of the general councils–four of them were held in the fourth and fifth centuries, Nicaea (325), Constantinople (381), Ephesus (431), Chalcedon (451)–demonstrate that the Church was regarded as an organization embracing rulers and subjects, teachers and taught, working together with the same means, with the same object in view. What shall we say of those who, through culpable ignorance, intellectual indolence, or moral cowardice, reject the Church God came to earth to found? Jesus Christ selected certain men whom he personally trained to govern his Church under one whom he appointed its head. Jesus taught His followers that revelation from God was the rock on which He would build His Church. Peter has spoken by Leo.” Later, Paschasinus, the Pope’s legate, spoke of Leo as the archbishop of all the churches, whose letter showed “quite clearly what is the true faith.”. None of their denominations even come close to being in Scripture. The church has a part in accomplishing that plan. Here is a quotation from what he wrote to the Trallians: “You must continue to do nothing apart from the bishop. “In every church, all who wish to know the truth may study the traditions of the apostles that is known all over the world. d. That takes place in the 1020 th chapter . Ignatius wrote his letters about a century earlier. When I was a little girl, I remember one night when I was asleep, my mom and dad came into the room and they shook me and said, “Honey, wake up.” I knew that something was wrong just by the sound of their voices, but I was not sure what. The former had been a disciple of Polycarp, who in turn was a disciple of John the apostle. Its supreme ruler was known to be the pope. When, therefore, a Protestant says in the Apostles’ Creed that he believes in the Holy Catholic Church, he may mean that he believes in following Christ in the great unorganized body of Christians, in acquiring Christ’s outlook and living up to his moral teaching in a way his private judgment dictates. There seems to be little point in giving here a list of quotations from the Fathers, emphasizing the point that it was essentially and by Christ’s will a visible organized society, because the fact is so very evident. One can be a perfectly good citizen without belonging to the Masons, the Odd Fellows, the Rotarians, or the Buffaloes. Only Rome makes such a claim, and it was against this very pretension that Protestantism revolted.”. We see in this passage that God has an eternal plan. To-day only the Catholic Church claims, and is able to prove her claim, to be that society. Decisions they were to do nothing apart from the Eastern Empire death and! 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