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We're going to begin today a
study of the specific teachings which make up the content of
the Roman Catholic tradition. We're going to begin with the
papacy. This comes under our general heading of authority.
We've looked in detail at the issue of authority relative to
tradition and the scriptures, and now we want to look at the
issue as it relates to the church as embodied in the office of
the papacy. There are basically two fundamental teachings of
the Roman Catholic Church related to the papacy. Those being, first
of all, papal primacy, or if you will, papal rule, and secondly,
papal infallibility. We will look, first of all, at
the issue of papal primacy this week, and to some degree also
next week, and then at the issue of infallibility in the week
to follow. The Roman Catholic Church teaches that the Pope
has been given the authority by Christ to rule the entire
church. He is, according to the teaching
of the Roman Catholic Church, the vicar of Christ, invisible
head of the church. This was dogmatically decreed by Vatican
I in 1870, and the biblical basis for this claim, according to
the Church of Rome, is found in Matthew 16, verses 18 and
19. It's the same passage which they used to support the doctrine
of infallibility. I've given you a copy of the
decrees of Vatican I, which you can read at your leisure. For
our purposes here, I will simply summarize what Vatican I teaches
relative to papal primacy. It would take too long to go
through and just read through what Vatican I teaches, but you
can do that on your own. Let me, if I could, just summarize
the teaching of Vatican I, and those basic teachings can be
summarized in the following propositions. Number one, Christ gave Peter
the primacy of jurisdiction over the entire church as well as
the entire world. Number two, this right of jurisdiction
is passed down to Peter's successors, the bishops of Rome, for all
time. Number three, the Roman pontiff
has absolute authority in himself, possesses authority over all
councils, his judgment cannot be questioned, he himself can
be judged by no human tribunal. Fourth, these teachings have
always been held in the entire church through all the ages and
can be validated by the scriptures, by the canons of general councils,
and by the unanimous consent of the fathers. Fifth, it has
at all times in the history of the church been necessary that
every church throughout the whole world should agree with the Roman
Church. And then sixth, it is necessary
for salvation that everyone who professes to be a Christian must
be submitted to the authority of the Roman Pontiff in all areas
of faith and morals and discipline, and if anyone disagrees with
these teachings of Vatican I, they are anathematized, that
is, they are put under an eternal curse, eternally condemned. Now, these teachings are a major
part of the Church's tradition. We want to examine the claims
of Vatican I that they can be supported by the Scriptures,
by the testimony of the Fathers, and by the experience of the
overall Church. The foundational passages of
Scripture upon which the Roman Catholic Church rests its claims
for the papacy are Matthew 16, 18 and 19, along with John 21,
15 to 17, and Luke 22, 31 to 32. According to the Roman Church,
the Lord Jesus Christ, in response to Peter's confession that he
was a son of God, promised to build his church on Peter and
entrusted him with supreme authority when he said, Thou art Peter,
and upon this rock I will build my church and the gates of hell
will not prevail against it. And I will give you the keys
of the kingdom of heaven. Whatever you shall bind on earth
shall be bound in heaven. Whatever you shall loose on earth
shall be loosed in heaven. Now on the basis of this passage
the Church of Rome teaches that Peter was given the authority
by Christ to rule the entire church and that this right of
jurisdiction is transferable to those who follow Peter as
the bishops of Rome. Consequently the church teaches
that Christ inaugurated or instituted the institution of the papacy
beginning with Peter as the first Pope. The rock in Matthew 16.18
is interpreted by Rome to mean the person of Peter himself.
The exegesis of that passage is that Christ changes Peter's
name from Simon to Peter and then tells him that he's going
to build his church on him personally. And that this is the meaning
that Christ intends, they say, is placed beyond all doubt by
his words to Peter. and the promise that he makes
to him relative to the keys when he says to him that he will give
him the keys of the kingdom of heaven with authority to bind
and loose. Roman Catholic apologists point
out that since keys represent authority in scripture, Peter
is given supreme authority over the entire church and this is
supposedly passed on to the Roman bishops who are his successors.
The Protestant and Eastern churches on the other hand generally assert
that this exegesis is incorrect. They maintain that when Christ
states that he will build his church on a rock, he is not referring
to Peter personally, but to Peter's confession that Christ is the
Son of God, and therefore to Jesus himself as the rock. In the original Greek, Christ
refers to Peter as Petros, and then he says on this Petra, I
will build my church. Christ addresses Peter directly
in the second person. But when he uses the term, this
rock, he changes his address to the third person, indicating
that he's not referring to Peter as the rock. He is talking to
Peter about the rock, referring back to Peter's confession that
he is the Christ, the son of the living God. If he had meant
to refer to Peter specifically, he would simply have said, you
are Peter and on you, Peter, I will build my church. Now,
this point of view is validated. by a number of lines of reasoning
without having to rely strictly on an interpretation of Petra
and Petros in Matthew 16 is a great deal of ink that has been spilt,
if you will, along the lines of interpreting what does Petra
and Petros mean in the interplay that Christ gives to those two
words, his play on words, if you will, between Petra and Petros.
But you don't have to rely on a strict definition or interpretation,
if you will, of the Petros-Petra contrast in that passage. to
conclude that what Jesus means is not that he has referred to
Peter specifically as the rock, but actually to himself. Those supporting evidences basically
are four in number. First of all, you have Peter's
own interpretation of the rock of the church and what that means.
Secondly, you have the contextual meaning of the word rock from
both the Old and the New Testaments. Thirdly, you have the contextual
interpretation of the entire Matthew 16 passage, beginning
with verse 13 and then through verse 19. And then finally, you
have the overall patristic interpretation of Matthew 16. What is the historical
exegesis from the point of view of the fathers and how they viewed
this passage? Did they, in fact, view Peter
to be the rock upon which the church would be built? Did they
agree, in other words, with the Roman Catholic interpretation
that is presented today? What I'd like to do is look at
each one of these briefly. First of all, you have the issue of
Peter. If there is one person who should have known what Christ
meant by the words he spoke, as recorded in Matthew 16, 18,
it was Peter himself. Did Peter consider himself to
be the first pope and the rock on which the church would be
built? Well, Peter himself gives us the answer in 1 Peter 2, verses
4 to 8. In this passage, he says this,
And coming to him is to a living stone, rejected by men, but 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. But this is contained in Scripture. Behold, I lay in
Zion a choice stone, a precious cornerstone, and he who believes
in him shall not be disappointed. This precious value, then, is
for you who believe, but for those who disbelieve, the stone
which the builders rejected, this became the very cornerstone
and a stone of stumbling and a rock of offense. Peter is appropriating
passages here from the Old Testament, specifically from the book of
Isaiah and from Psalms, which we are going to look at in more
detail in a moment. These passages prophesy of the stone or the
rock which God would establish as the foundation of the church.
and Peter specifically applies them, as does the Apostle Paul,
to the person of Jesus Christ himself. The precious stone and
cornerstone, the rock upon which the church will be built, is
according to Peter, not himself, but the Lord Jesus Christ. But
does Peter view himself as being vested with authority over the
other apostles? Well, in 1 Peter 5, 1-4, he says this, Therefore
I exhort the elders among you, as your fellow elder and witness
of the sufferings of Christ, and a partaker also of the glory
that is to be revealed, shepherd the flock of God among you, exercising
oversight, not under compulsion, but voluntarily, according to
the will of God, and not with sordid gain, but with eagerness,
nor yet as lording it over those allotted to your charge, but
proving to be examples to the flock. And when the chief shepherd
appears, you will receive the unfading crown of glory." Peter
refers to himself simply as a fellow elder, with the other elders
of the church, all of whom are under the ultimate authority
of the chief shepherd, the Lord Jesus Christ. Peter does not
refer to himself as the vicar of Christ with the visible head
of the church. He is an apostle among other apostles of equal
standing and a fellow elder with other elders. There is only one
head and one ruler of the church and that is Jesus Christ. Now
this exegesis of the rock as being Christ who is the foundation
of the church, as the one upon whom the church would be built,
Find support from both the Old and New Testaments, in addition
to this one passage that we have looked at in Matthew 16. In the
Old Testament, we find the Lord himself described as the rock,
the one sure foundation of security and salvation. For example, in
Psalm 62, verses five to six, it says, My soul wait in silence
for God only for my hope is from him. He only is my rock and my
salvation, my stronghold. I shall not be shaken. In Psalm
18, verses 1 to 2, it says, I love thee, O Lord, my strength. Thou
art my rock, my fortress, my deliverer, my God, my rock in
whom I take refuge, my shield, the horn of my salvation. And
then in Psalm 89, verse 26, you have a statement by the Lord
himself referring to David when he says he will cry to me. Thou
art my father, my God and the rock of my salvation. There are
many other examples of this. But the point is that over and
over again in the Old Testament, the person of God himself is
referred to as the rock, as the one and only source and foundation
and refuge for salvation and deliverance. And of course, if
you remember, there's the prophecy in Daniel of the stone which
strikes the statue in Nebuchadnezzar's dream and destroys it and then
completely displaces the kingdoms of the world on the earth. And
the Jews viewed the stone to be the person of the Messiah.
It obviously represents that which is divine, for it is described
as a stone cut out without hands, and it fills the entire earth,
the kingdom of God. That stone is the Messiah, the
person of God himself. We've already seen that in the
New Testament, the Apostle Peter himself refers to the rock or
the stone as being the person of Christ. So the stone or the
rock is a person, but it is not Peter. It is God. and it is Jesus
Christ. Now, the word foundation is another
important word that is similar to the word rock that is also
used in reference to the person of the Lord himself. In the Old
Testament, the word in a physical sense refers to the foundation
upon which a building rests and is erected. For example, in Ezra
3.10, it says this, And when the builders had laid the foundation
of the temple of the Lord, the priests stood in their apparel
with trumpets to praise the Lord. Now this word is extremely important
to understand for it is used in a foundational passage in
the Old Testament that is appropriated by the New Testament apostles
to refer to the Lord Jesus Christ. It's therefore predictive of
His person and His ministry. That passage is Isaiah 28, 16. It says this, Therefore thus
says the Lord God, Behold, I am laying in Zion a stone, a tested
stone, a costly cornerstone for the foundation, firmly placed. He who believes in it will not
be disappointed." Now, if you remember what we just quoted
from Peter, out of 1 Peter, this is the passage he's quoting about
the cornerstone, which is being placed by God as a foundation. He says, he who believes in him
will not be disappointed. He applies this to Jesus Christ.
Now, you notice the threefold description out of Isaiah 28.
A stone, a cornerstone, and a foundation. The stone or rock is not only
a cornerstone, it's a foundation. Of course, as mentioned, this
is the very passage, again, that Peter uses to refer to the Lord
Jesus Christ. Now, he, along with Paul, applies
Isaiah 8, 13, in addition to Isaiah 28, and also Psalm 118,
verse 22, where they say that Christ is the rejected stone,
the stone of stumbling, the rock of offense. Peter uses three
passages or rather uses these passages in his preaching in
Acts 4, verses 11 to 12, where he equates Jesus with the stone
in the context of salvation and the preaching of the gospel.
He says he was the stone rejected by you, the builders, but which
became the very cornerstone. And he says that very famous
passage, there is salvation and no one else. There is no other
name under heaven given among men by which we must be saved.
So here we see the term stone and cornerstone being equated
with salvation which applies in particular to the person of
Jesus Christ. Now Paul re-emphasizes this in three other passages
in his writings. In Ephesians 2.20 he states that the church
is built upon the foundation of Christ as the cornerstone.
And in 1 Corinthians 10.4 he states specifically that the
rock is Christ. And then in 1 Corinthians 3.11
he says this, For no man can lay a foundation other than the
one which is laid, which is Jesus Christ." Who then did the scriptures
both Old and New Testament consistently point to as the rock, the stone,
the cornerstone, and the foundation upon which the church would be
built and who is the rock of our salvation? Jesus Christ,
the Lord, the Son of the living God, God Himself, the same as
in the Old Testament. The rock is a person, a divine
person. the Lord Jesus Christ. So these
scriptures then give us a broader context in which to interpret
Christ's words to Peter in Matthew 16 so that we might understand
what he means by the rock. Now in justifying his teaching
that the bishops of Rome have been delegated authority to rule
the church universal, the Roman Catholic Church interprets the
rock of Matthew 16 not to Jesus Christ specifically, but to the
person of Peter. But we've seen that Peter does
not refer to himself as the Rock, but to Christ, and that the broader
context of the scriptural teaching on the Rock justifies our interpreting
the Rock in Matthew 16 as referring to the person of the Lord Jesus
Christ as opposed to Peter. But the Roman Catholic claims,
relative to their interpretation of Matthew 16, are actually undermined
by the passage itself. The Roman Church states that
in the giving of the keys to Peter, this passage suggests
that Christ established a dynasty, if you will, with successors
to Peter, those being the bishops of Rome. But there is absolutely
nothing in the Matthew 16 passage which speaks about successors
to Peter and the passing on of his personal prerogatives to
them. Sometimes Roman Catholics appeal to the authority of Protestant
theologians, such as Oscar Coleman, who say that they personally
feel that the rock of Matthew 16 does in fact refer to the
person of Peter. These Roman Catholics are quick to say, well
you see, even the Protestants agree with us that the rock is
Peter. But such appeals are illegitimate
and sometimes actually broach on being dishonest. For they
rarely go on, the apologists that is, rarely go on to explain
that these exegetes in no way support the Roman Catholic point
of view. For they all unanimously state that this passage has nothing
to say about successors and they completely repudiate the Roman
Catholic interpretation. The keys, rather than signifying
the establishment of the institution of the papacy and supreme authority
to rule the church and the world, are representative of the authority
to exercise discipline in the church and to proclaim the gospel
and declare the free forgiveness of sins in the Lord Jesus Christ.
Such a declaration opens the kingdom of God to men or if they
reject the message, it closes it to them. The keys are also
not the possession of a single individual. For exactly the same
authority which Christ promises to Peter, he also grants to the
other apostles in Matthew 18-18 and in John 20 verses 22-23,
they are all given the authority of binding and loosing by declaring
the forgiveness of sins through Christ. They are all equals under
the authority of one head, the Lord Jesus Christ. The authority
they are given is a delegated declarative authority which in
Christ which is in Christ's name and comes from him who alone
possesses the supreme authority to rule the church." To justify
that kind of an interpretation, we need to make a careful investigation
and to take a closer look at what Matthew 16, in terms of
the entirety of the passage, is teaching. We have to begin
with verses 13 or with verse 13 and go all the way through
verse 19 to get the flow and the context of this passage.
Now, Jesus tells his disciples in this passage that he will
build his church and the gates of hell will not prevail against
it. He reveals that there are two
kingdoms on this earth, the kingdom of God or of heaven, and all
who are part of the church are part of this kingdom. And then
you have the kingdom of Satan, which is represented by the gates
of Hades. These two kingdoms are in conflict with one another.
Now gates, when Jesus says the gates of hell, gates are defensive. Gates are not used in offense. They are used to defend. Gates, if you will, figuratively
enclose Satan and the men and women who are doomed to eternal
destruction. When Jesus says that he will
build his church, he is saying that he is going to invade Satan's
kingdom and his defenses will not be able to prevail against
the attack. The church will be built. The kingdom of God will
be advanced. But how are the prisoners within
Satan's kingdom set free into the kingdom of God so that the
church is built? The answer is through the proclamation of the
gospel, which declares the forgiveness of sins, deliverance from Satan
and eternal judgment and the certain gift of eternal life.
all based on the person and atoning work of Jesus Christ. What is
the great promise of the gospel? It is what has God described
it to be in Romans 1, for example, where he says it is the power
of God to salvation. It liberates men and women. It
frees them. See, men enter the kingdom when
they are born again and redeemed by the blood of Christ. And it
is to this specifically that the terms binding and loosing
in Matthew 16, 19 refer to. The Greek word for loose is luo.
It means to destroy, to set free one who is bound, to loosen,
to release, to dissolve. It's used, for example, in 1
John 3.8 where the Apostle John writes these words, The one who
practices sin is of the devil, for the devil has sinned from
the beginning. The Son of God appeared for this
purpose that he might destroy the works of the devil. The word
destroy here is luo and it has direct reference to Satan and
sin. This emphasis is brought out even more emphatically by
Revelation 1 5. To him who loves us and released us from our sins
by his blood. Now the word released is the
word luo and it could just as accurately be translated who
loosed us from our sins by his blood. That's the basic idea
behind Lucy. It speaks of deliverance from
Satan through repentance and coming under the dominion of
God and therefore into his kingdom and receiving forgiveness of
sins through faith in Jesus Christ on the basis of the atoning work
that he has made as a propitiation for the sins of the world and
the shedding of his blood and the laying down of his life. Now
in addition to the primary word, Luo, There are a number of derivatives
of that word which are also used in the New Testament which reveal
that the application of the word loose when dealing with the kingdom
of God primarily refers to sin and Satan and with deliverance
from the guilt and the power of sin. Apoluo, for example,
is one word. It means to release, to set free,
to send away, to dismiss, to forgive. Another form of the
word luo is lutron. which means a ransom or the price
for redeeming something. So it refers to a loosing that
takes place, a setting at liberty that is effected when a ransom
has been paid. And the significance of this
can be seen from the fact that the Greek word for redemption in
the New Testament is apolutrosis. Now that's a form of the word
lutron which goes back to the word luo or loose as its primary
root. Apollutrosis or redemption means
a releasing effected by the payment of a ransom. It specifically
means redemption, deliverance, or a liberation procured by the
payment of a ransom. Now this word is used in the
New Testament to describe deliverance from Satan and forgiveness of
sin based on the atoning work of Jesus and the shedding of
his blood and the giving of his life as a ransom or a payment
for sin. You remember what Jesus said
about himself? The Son of Man has come not to be served, but
to serve and to give himself a ransom for many. He's going
to pay a price. And in paying that price, he's
going to free or liberate men and women who are bound in sin
and under the authority or the dominion of Satan. Let me just
give you a couple of illustrations of how this word is used relative
to the kingdom of God and relative to the whole idea of being set
free from dominion, from the dominion of Satan and from the
power of sin. In Colossians 1.13-14, the Apostle Paul writes this,
For he delivered us from the domain of darkness and transferred
us to the kingdom of his blessed Son, in whom we have redemption,
the forgiveness of sins. Ephesians 1.7 says, In him we
have redemption through his blood, the forgiveness of our trespasses.
And in Romans 3.24-25, it says being justified as a gift by his grace through the redemption
which is in Christ Jesus, and God displayed publicly as a propitiation
in his blood through faith. The Greek word that Jesus uses
in Matthew 16, 19 for binding is Deo, which simply means to
be bound, to be in bonds, to be a captive. Now another form
of the word is Duleo, which means slavery, and it's used to speak
of the condition of men who are apart from Jesus Christ and in
bondage to Satan. They are slaves of sin. Thus, binding and loosing, if
you will, have to do with the proclamation of the gospel and
the offer of forgiveness and deliverance in Jesus Christ,
if men and women will repent and believe and come to Christ. If they receive the message and
come to him, they will be loosed from their sins and Satan's doomed
kingdom, and they will enter into the kingdom of God, eternally
free, eternally changed. eternally forgiven. You see the
same truth in the parallel passage in John 20. Just before Jesus
commissions his disciples to invest them with the authority
of the keys on the night before he was crucified, he says to
them, as the Father has sent me, I also send you. He then
grants them authority to continue to do what the Father had sent
him to do. The Father sent Jesus with authority
to preach the gospel. And in giving the disciples authority
to forgive and retain sins, he is simply authorizing them to
also preach the gospel. The authority they receive is
a delegated authority. And that's clear from Matthew
28, 18 through 19, where Jesus says, All authority has been
given to me in heaven and on earth. Go, therefore, and make
disciples of all the nations. Now, this delegated authority
was not a jurisdictional authority, if you will. It was declarative.
It was an authority to proclaim the message of the gospel. And
that can be seen also from the passage in Luke 24, the commission
that Jesus gave to his apostles. In Luke 24, verses 46 to 49,
Jesus says, Thus it is written that the Christ should suffer
and rise again from the dead the third day, and that repentance
for forgiveness of sin should be proclaimed in his name to
all the nations, beginning from Jerusalem. You are witnesses
of these things. And behold, I am sending forth
the promise of my Father upon you, but you are to stay in the
city until you are clothed with power from on high." Following
the anointing of all the disciples of Pentecost, the book of Acts
relates how they exercised the function of the keys in proclaiming
the gospel they were commanded to preach. They faithfully testified
to the person and work of Jesus Christ and the urgent need for
repentance and faith, assuring them that they could be loosed,
but warning them that if they rejected the message, they would
be bound. This is the application of the
keys, the meaning of binding and loosing as Jesus describes
it in Matthew 16, 19. It's authority. It's an authority, if you will,
to declare the gospel and to offer to men the kingdom of God
and free forgiveness of sins. And as Jesus is preached and
men respond, the kingdom of God will be extended The church will
be built and the gates of hell will not prevail against the
truth of the gospel and the power of God to snatch men and women
from Satan's grasp and to give and to bring them to himself. Some Roman apologists teach that
the keys of the kingdom granted to Peter is an allusion to the
key of David mentioned in Isaiah 22, which was given to the prime
minister in the Davidic kingdom. This position had successors. This, they say, justifies the
teaching that Christ is establishing Peter as what you might call
the prime minister of his church with successors in the bishops
of Rome. But such an assertion is undermined by the very words
of the Lord Jesus himself in Revelation chapter 3, verse 7,
where he says that it is he alone who possesses the key of David.
He alone holds ultimate ruling authority in the church, and
this has been delegated to no man. Scripture teaches that the
Lord Jesus Christ is the only head of the church and that the
Holy Spirit is his vicar on earth. In John 14, 16, Jesus promises
to send the Holy Spirit to his church to permanently indwell
believers. He says, and I will ask the Father and he will give
you another helper that he may be with you forever. That is
the spirit of truth. Note that here he refers to the
Holy Spirit as another helper. The word another here obviously
implies that just as Jesus had been the helper to the disciples
during his ministry on earth, so the Holy Spirit would take
his place when he ascended into heaven. The Holy Spirit will
rule the church and direct it in Christ's absence. Jesus did
not appoint a human head and ruler of his church, but told
us that the Holy Spirit will himself fulfill that function.
Now, as convincing as these arguments are, there's an additional reason
why the Protestant interpretation of Matthew 16 is seen to be the
correct interpretation. And that is that it best fits
the history of the New Testament church as well as the history
of the church in the centuries following the apostolic age.
Vatican I states that it can validate its claims and its interpretation
of Matthew 16 by the practice of the church throughout all
the ages as well as through the universal consent of the fathers.
So there are two tests by which the church's claims can be validated.
First of all, the test of history and practice. Secondly, the test
of historical interpretation of Matthew 16. Therefore, if
the Roman Catholic interpretation is correct, after the resurrection
of Jesus, his ascension and the outpouring of the Holy Spirit,
we would expect to see certain things take place. We would expect
to see Peter as the undisputed head and ruler of the church,
acknowledged as such by the apostles and the church in general. We
would expect to see Peter playing the dominant role and the building
of the church. And we would expect to see a
clear and unanimous testimony of the early church in its teaching
and its practice to the Roman Catholic interpretation of Matthew
16, 18 and 19. Since this is supposed to be
the key passage in the charter of the church as to how it is
to be organized, we would expect to see in the tradition of the
church a unanimous consent of the fathers regarding this passage
in particular. We would expect to find a clear
expression in the church in the ensuing centuries of the acknowledgement
of the Bishop of Rome as the successor of Peter and supreme
ruler of the entire church with ultimate authority in all matters
related to faith, morals, and discipline and a submission to
him in that rule. After all, Vatican I explicitly
says that it has at all times been necessary for all Christians
to be in agreement with the Bishop of Rome and that this has in
fact been the perpetual practice of the church from the very beginning.
And then finally, we would expect to find the popes exercising
their special prerogatives in leading and guiding the church
in positively proclaiming the truth and protecting it from
heresy. This is what we would expect. What did the historical
facts tell us? Well, we're going to look this
afternoon at the issue of the interpretation of Matthew 16,
and then next week we will look in detail at the historical facts
dealing with the role of Peter in the early church, as well
as the attitude and practice of the early church and its relationship
with the bishops of Rome. Vatican I, Turning now to this
whole issue of interpretation, Vatican I claims that the Roman
Catholic interpretation of Matthew 16, 18, and 19 has been universally
or unanimously held throughout the Church, and that it can appeal
to the unanimous consent of the Fathers and the universal practice
of the Church to support its teaching that the Bishop of Rome
has always been acknowledged as the supreme ruler of the Church.
The foundation to this assertion, obviously, is the interpretation
of Matthew 16. While the early fathers are quite
varied in their opinions and interpretations of Matthew 16,
18, and 19, some speak of the rock to mean Christ, some to
mean Peter, and others to mean Peter's confession of Christ.
No fathers of the early centuries can be cited as supporters of
the Roman Catholic interpretation of Matthew 16, 18, not one. The
fathers of the first two centuries are completely silent on the
interpretation of the rock of Matthew 16. And the overwhelming
majority of the Fathers throughout the entire patristic age, such
as Augustine, Tertullian, Cyprian, Chrysostom, Cyril of Alexandria,
Athanasius, Ambrosiaster, Cassian, Epiphanius, Cyril of Jerusalem,
Ephraim of Sirius, John Cassian, Theodorae, and even Gregory the
Great, and many others, do not recognize the supremacy of the
Bishop of Rome. And all of them disagree with
the Roman Church's interpretation of Matthew 16.18. In fact, there's
not a single father who recognizes the personal prerogatives of
Peter as being transferred in a personal way to the Bishop
of Rome, thereby making him head of the church. There is a unanimous
consent of interpretation in Matthew 16, 18, and 19, in that
it is a near unanimous opposition to the Roman Catholic interpretation
which has been articulated by Vatican I. Augustine is fairly
representative of the opinion of the fathers In his comments
on Matthew 16, I'd like to just give you those comments. Now,
this is just one one comment that he's made. He's made similar
comments and other other writings that he has. But this is representative
of his thoughts. He says this, But whom say you
that I am? Peter answered, Thou art the
Christ, the son of the living God. One for many gave the answer,
unity in many. Then said the Lord to him, Blessed
art thou, Simon Barjonas. For flesh and blood hath not
revealed it unto thee, but my Father which is in heaven. Then
he added, And I say unto thee, as if he had said, Because thou
hast said unto me, Thou art the Christ, the Son of the living
God. I also say unto thee, Thou art Peter. For before he was
called Simon. Now this name Peter was given
him by the Lord, and in a figure that he should signify the church.
For seeing that Christ is the rock Petra, Peter is the Christian
people. For the rock Petra is the original
name. Therefore, Peter is so called from the rock, not the
rock from Peter, as Christ is not called Christ from the Christian,
but the Christian from Christ. Therefore, he saith, Thou art
Peter, and upon this rock which Thou hast confessed, upon this
rock which Thou hast acknowledged, saying, Thou art the Christ,
the Son of the living God, will I build my church, that is, upon
myself. the son of the living God, will
I build my church? I will build thee upon myself,
not myself, upon thee. For men who wished to be built
upon men said, I am of Paul, and I am of Apollos, I am of
Cephas, who is Peter. But others who did not wish to
be built upon Peter, but upon the rock, said, I am of Christ. And when the apostle Paul ascertained
that he was chosen, and Christ despised, he said, Is Christ
abided? Was Paul crucified for you? Or
were you baptized in the name of Paul? And it's not in the
name of Paul, so neither in the name of Peter, but in the name
of Christ, that Peter might be built upon the rock, not the
rock upon Peter. Here we have the most renowned theologian
of the Catholic Church after five centuries of church history,
the preeminent member of the infallible magisterium. giving
an interpretation of the most important passage of Scripture
in all of the Bible for the Roman Catholic Church, which is foundational
for its claim to authority, which is directly contradictory to
the Roman interpretation. And how do you explain that?
If there were truly, as Vatican I states, a unanimous consensus
of interpretation of the meaning of this passage, why do we find
Augustine deliberately going against such a consensus? The
answer is quite simply that there never was such a consensus, as
an investigation into the patricic exegesis of this passage reveals.
Tertullian, in the beginning of the third century, was the
first to identify the rock of Matthew 16 with Peter and his
treatise on modesty. What's interesting about his
comments is that he is writing them in opposition to the Bishop
of Rome, who had legitimized certain practices that he had
initiated by applying to himself the authority of the keys given
to Peter. These are his words. If because the Lord has said
to Peter, upon this rock I will build my church, to thee I will
give the keys of the heavenly kingdom, or whatsoever thou shalt
have bound or loosed in earth shall be bound or loosed in the
heavens. You, therefore, presume that the power of binding and
loosing is derived to you, that is, to every church akin to Peter.
What sort of man are you, subverting and wholly changing the manifest
intention of the Lord, conferring, as that intention did, this gift
personally upon Peter? On thee, he says, will I build
my church, and I will give to thee the keys, not to the church,
And whatsoever thou shalt have loosed or bound, not what they
shall have loosed or bound. For so wither the result teaches.
In Peter himself the church was reared, that is, through Peter
himself. Peter himself assayed the key.
You see what key? Men of Israel, let what I say
sink into your ears. Jesus of Nazarene, a man destined
by God for you, and so forth. Peter himself, therefore, was
the first to unbar in Christ's baptism the entrance to the heavenly
kingdom, in which kingdom are loosed the sins that were before
time bound, and those which have not been loosed are bound in
accordance with true salvation." Now, Tertullian does state that
Peter is the rock, but what he means is not that Peter is the
rock in the sense that the church is built on him, but that it
is built through him as he preaches the gospel. And the keys are
a declarative authority to proclaim the forgiveness or loosing of
sins in Jesus Christ. And he states very explicitly,
no bishop of Rome has a right to apply to himself a promise
and authority which he says were given to Peter alone. He denies
that this passage has any application to the bishops of Rome at all.
Cyprian, like Tertullian, states that the rock of Matthew 16 is
the person of Peter in his famous treatise on the unity of the
church. But like Tertullian also, he did not mean this in the sense
of the Roman Catholic interpretation. His view is very similar to Augustine,
or if you will, Augustine's view is very similar to Cyprian's,
since Cyprian preceded Augustine. It's very similar in that he
maintains that Peter isn't an example of the principle of unity.
The entire Episcopate, according to Cyprian, is the foundation,
though Christ himself is the true rock. All of the bishops
constitute the church and rule over their individual areas of
responsibility as co-equals. This is what he says, Certainly
the other apostles also were what Peter was, endued with an
equal fellowship both of honor and power, that a commencement
is made from unity, that the church may be set before us as
one, which one church in the song of songs that the Holy Spirit
design and name in the person of our Lord. The Roman Catholic
historian Michael Winter affirms the fact that Though Cyprian
does describe the rock as referring to Peter, he does not mean this
in a pro-Roman sense. He says this, Cyprian used the
patron text of Matthew to defend Episcopal authority, but many
later theologians influenced by the papal connections of the
text have interpreted Cyprian in a pro-papal sense which was
alien to his thought. Cyprian would have used Matthew
16 to defend the authority of any bishop. But since he happened
to employ it for the sake of the Bishop of Rome, it created
the impression that he understood it as referring to papal authority.
Catholics as well as Protestants are now generally agreed that
Cyprian did not attribute a superior authority to Peter. A Latin father
who is often cited in support of the Roman interpretation of
Matthew 16 and 18 is Ambrose. It's not uncommon in polemical
literature to read the following quote from his writings. Ambrose
says it is to Peter himself that he says, you are Peter and upon
this rock I will build my church. Where Peter is, there is the
church. And the interpretation given
to these words is that the rock is Peter and that the bishops
of Rome are his successors as rocks of the church. Therefore
the church is founded upon the universal rule of the bishops
of Rome for where Peter is, there is the church. But Ambrose has
made other comments on Peter and Matthew 16 and has explained
exactly what he means when he says that Peter is the rock.
He does not mean what the Roman Catholic Church says it means
today. Listen to his words. He then,
who before was silent to teach us not to repeat the words of
the impious, this one I say when he heard, but who do you say
that I am, immediately, not unmindful of his station, exercised his
primacy. That is the primacy of confession,
not of honor. The primacy of belief, not of
right. This then is Peter who has replied
for the rest of the apostles, rather before the rest of men.
And so he is called the foundation because he knows how to preserve
not only his own, but the common foundation. Christ agreed with
him, the father revealed it to him. Faith then is the foundation
of the church. For it was not said of Peter's
flesh, but of his faith. The gates of hell shall not prevail
against it. But his confession of faith conquered hell. And
this confession did not shut out one heresy. For since the
church, like a good ship, is often buffeted by many waves,
the foundation of the church should prevail against all heresies.
Make an effort, therefore, to be a rock. Do not seek the rock
outside yourself, but within yourself. Your rock is your deed. Your rock is your mind. Upon
this rock your house is built. Your rock is your faith. And
faith is the foundation of the church. If you are a rock, you
will be in the church, because the church is on a rock. If you
are in the church, the gates of hell will not prevail against
you." When he says then that Peter is the rock, he means it
in the sense that he was the first to openly confess faith
in Jesus Christ as the Messiah and Son of God. The rock then
is not Peter himself, but Peter's confession of faith. It is this
faith which is the foundation of the church. Peter possesses
a primacy. But he explains it as one of
confession of faith, not of honor or rank in the sense of ruling
over the other apostles. Thus, when Ambrose states that
where Peter is, there is the church, he means where Peter's
confession is, there is the church. He does not mean the Bishop of
Rome at all. So the comments of Tertullian, Cyprian, Ambrose,
and Augustine summarize the views of the Latin Church from the
3rd to the 5th centuries. And what's been said of the Latin
fathers can be equally said of those from the East. For example,
Chrysostom is typical when he refers to Peter as the leader
of the apostles and the head of the choir, but he does not
interpret the rock of Matthew 16-18 in the Roman Catholic sense. He'll say great things about
Peter. He has very high-sounding language for Peter, but when
it comes to interpreting Matthew 16, he does not interpret that
rock to mean Peter personally. And what's interesting is that
the same kind of high-sounding language that he attributes to
Peter, he also attributes to the other apostles. He makes
these statements. He speaks from this time lowly
things on his way to his passion, that he might show his humanity.
For he that hath built his church on Peter's confession, and hath
so fortified it that ten thousand dangers and deaths are not to
prevail over it. And I say to thee, thou art Peter, and upon
this rock I will build my church, that is, on the faith of his
confession. The rock is not the person of
Peter, but Peter's confession of faith. in Christ to be the
Son of God. And while Chrysostom does speak,
again, of Peter in very lofty terms, I'll just say again that
he says the same thing about the Apostles John and Paul. For
example, when referring to John, he says that with Peter he received
the keys to the kingdom of heaven and was given authority along
with Peter to rule the world. So John and Peter are on an equal
footing in the eyes of Chrysostom. Like Ambrose, he says that where
Peter is, there is the church and the sense of Peter's confession.
But he applies it not to Rome, but to Antioch. He says, though
we do not retain the body of Peter, we do retain the faith
of Peter. And retaining the faith of Peter,
we have Peter. Now, what I'd like to do is just
go through a number of quotes from some of the leading fathers
of the patristic age to give you a sense of what the consensus
is, if you will, of what these fathers really taught about Matthew
16. Now please bear with me in quoting these, they are somewhat
lengthy, but as with the quotes on Sola Scriptura, the combined
effect of these comments is quite impressive. Hilary of Poitiers
makes this statement. A belief that the Son of God
is Son in name only and not in nature is not the faith of the
Gospels and of the Apostles. Once I asked, was it that the
blessed Simon Barjona confessed to him, Thou art the Christ,
the Son of the living God. And this is the rock of confession
whereon the church is built. That Christ must be named not
only Son, but be believed to be the Son of God. This faith
is that which is the foundation of the church. Through this faith
the gates of hell cannot prevail against her. This is the faith
which has the keys of the kingdom of heaven. Whatsoever this faith
shall have loosed or bound on earth shall be loosed or bound
in heaven. The very reason why he is blessed is that he confessed
the Son of God. This is the foundation of the church. Thus our one immovable
foundation, our one blissful rock of faith, is the confession
from Peter's mouth, Thou art the Son of the living God. If we too have said like Peter,
Thou art the Christ, the Son of the living God, we become
a Peter and to us there might be said by the word, Thou art
Peter and upon this rock I will build my church. For a rock is
every disciple of Christ, of whom those drank who drank of
the spiritual rock which followed them and upon every such rock
is built every word of the church. But if you suppose that upon
the one Peter only the whole church is built by God, what
would you say about John the son of thunder or each one of
the apostles? Shall we otherwise dare to say that against Peter
in particular the gates of Hades shall not prevail, but that they
shall prevail against the other apostles and the perfect? Does
not the saying previously made, the gates of Hades shall not
prevail against it, hold in regard to all, and in the case of each
of them? And also the saying, Upon this rock I will build my
church. Are the keys of the kingdom of heaven given by the Lord to
Peter only, and will no other of the blessed receive them?
But if this promise I will give unto thee the keys of the kingdom
of heaven be common to others, how shall not all things previously
spoken of, and the things which are subjoined as having been
addressed to Peter, be common to all? Thou art the Christ,
the Son of the living God. If anyone says this to him, he
will obtain the things that were spoken according to the letter
of the gospel to that Peter. But as the spirit of the gospel
teaches to everyone who becomes such as Peter was, Excuse me,
it says, but as the spirit of the gospel teaches to everyone
who becomes such as that, Peter was. For all bear the surname
of Rock, who are the imitators of Christ, that is, of the spiritual
Rock which followed those who are being saved, that they may
drink from it the spiritual draught. But these bear the surname of
Rock, just as Christ does. But also, as members of Christ
deriving their surname from him, they are called Christians and
from the rock Peter's. And to all such, the saying of
the Savior might be spoken, thou art Peter, et cetera, down to
the words prevail against it. Cyril of Alexandria, for when
he wisely and blamelessly confessed his faith to Jesus, saying you
are Christ, son of the living God, Jesus said to divine Peter,
you are Peter. And upon this rock, I will build
my church. And by the word rock, Jesus indicated, I think, the
immovable faith of his disciple. Upon this rock I shall build
my church and I shall give you the keys of the kingdom of heaven.
In the first place, he says that the church is under his own authority,
but scripture elsewhere affirms that the church is subject to
God rather than to any man. For Paul says that Christ has
prepared the church for himself to be without any wrinkle of
blemish. The church which he has founded, the foundation itself
being predicated of him. And in response, Peter exclaimed,
You are Christ, son of the living God. And when Christ heard this
true opinion of him, he repaid Peter by saying, And I tell you,
you are Peter. And upon this rock, I will build
my church and the gates of hell should not prevail against it.
The surname, I believe, calls nothing other than the unshakable
and very firm faith of the disciple, a rock upon which the church
was founded and made firm and remains continually impregnable,
even with respect to the very gates of hell. Eusebius. Yet you will not in any way err
from the scope of the truth if you suppose that the world is
actually the church of God and that its foundation is in the
first place that unspeakably solid rock on which it is founded.
As Scripture says, upon this rock I will build my church and
the gates of hell shall not prevail against it. And elsewhere, the
rock moreover was Christ. For as the apostle indicates
with these words, no other foundation can anyone lay than that which
is laid, which is Christ Jesus. Then, too, after the Savior himself,
you may rightly judge the foundations of the church to be the words
of the prophets and the apostles in accordance with the statement
of the apostle, built upon the foundation of the apostles and
prophets, Christ Jesus himself being the cornerstone. Jerome,
the one foundation which the apostolic architect laid is our
Lord Jesus Christ. Upon the stable and firm foundation
which has itself been laid on solid ground, the church of Christ
is built. But the church was founded upon
a rock. Upon this rock the Lord established his church and the
Apostle Peter received his name from this rock. You are Peter
and upon this rock I shall build my church. Just as Christ himself
gave light to the Apostles in order that they might be called
the light of the world, so other names were derived from the Lord.
For example, Simon who believed in the rock Christ was given
the name Peter. Was there no other province in
the whole world to receive the gospel of pleasure and into which
the serpent might insinuate itself except that which was founded
by the teaching of Peter upon the rock, Christ? Gregory of
Nysa. The warmth of our praises does
not extend to Simon insofar as he was a catcher of fish, rather
it extends to his firm faith, which is at the same time the
foundation of the whole church. Basil the Great. Now the foundations
of this church are on the holy mountains since it is built upon
the foundation of the apostles and prophets. One of these mountains
was indeed Peter. Athanasius. Thus it is written,
thou art the son of the living God. Peter confessing it by revelation
of the father and being told, blessed art thou, Simon Barjona,
for flesh and blood did not reveal it to thee, but my father who
is in heaven and the rest. No one, therefore, will ever
prevail against your faith, most blessed brethren. And so the
works of the Jews are undone, for they were a shadow. But the
church is firmly established. It is founded on the rock and
the gates of hell shall not prevail against it. Now, what does he
mean by the rock? He says up in what I just quoted to you,
no one, therefore, will ever prevail against your faith. He
says the gates of hell shall not prevail against the rock.
What is the rock then? It is faith. Ambrosiaster, wherefore
the Lord says to Peter, upon this rock I shall build my church.
That is, upon this confession of the Catholic faith, I shall
establish the faithful in life. Ambrosiaster goes on to say this
about Paul and his conflict with Peter. To his faith, to his face,
Paul says, I oppose him. What does this mean, except that
Paul contradicted Peter in his presence? And Paul has added
the reason because he stood condemned. condemned assuredly by evangelical
truth, which Peter's act of separating himself from the circumcision
opposed. For who dared to contradict Peter, the chief apostle to whom
the Lord had given the keys to the kingdom of heaven, except
such another who in the assurance of his election knew that he
was not unequal, and so could firmly disavow what Peter had
thoughtlessly done. Pass in. The Lord spoke to Peter
a little earlier. He spoke to one that from one
he might found unity, soon delivering the same to all. Epiphanius,
Peter stands forth for us in the likeness of a solid rock
upon which the church has been fully erected and upon which
as a foundation, our faith in the Lord rests. Among the foremost
in faith, Peter confessed that Christ, the son of the living
God, and in return he heard upon this rock of solid faith, I shall
build my church. Cyril of Jerusalem. As the delusion
was extending, Peter and Paul, a noble pair, chief rulers of
the church, arrived and set the era right. Aphrahat, thus also
the true stone, our Lord Jesus Christ, is the foundation of
all faith. And on him, on this stone, faith is based. And resting
on faith, all the structure rises until it is completed. For it
is the foundation that is the beginning of all the building.
For when anyone is brought nigh unto faith, it is laid for him
upon the stone. That is our Lord Jesus Christ.
And his building cannot be shaken by the waves, nor can it be injured
by the winds. But the stormy blast, it does
not fall because its structure is reared upon the rock of the
true stone. And in that I have called Christ
the stone. I have not spoken my own thought,
but the prophets beforehand called him the stone. Ephraim of Cyrus shouted forth
in thy beauty as the beauty of the sun, who clothed himself
with suffering. They all passed in thee, since
they handled thee roughly as they did his hands, and because
he suffered he reigned, as by thy sufferings thy beauty increased.
And if they showed no pity upon thee, neither did they love thee,
still suffer as thou mightest. Thou hast come to reign. Simon
Peter showed pity on the rock. Who so has smitten it is himself
thereby overcome. It is by reason of its sufferings
that its beauty has adorned the height and the depth. Who is
the rock according to Ephraim? It's Jesus Christ. Deodorae. Let no one then foolishly suppose
that the Christ is any other than the only begotten Son. Let
us not imagine ourselves wiser than the gift of the Spirit.
Let us hear the words of the great Peter. Thou art the Christ, the
Son of the living God. Let us hear the Lord Christ confirming
this confession. For on this rock, he says, I
will build my church, and the gates of hell shall not prevail
against it. Wherefore, to the wise Paul, most excellent master
builder of the church, has fixed no other foundation than this.
I, he says, is a wise master builder, have laid the foundation
and another buildeth thereon. But let every man take heed how
he buildeth thereon, for other foundation can no man lay than
that is laid, which is Jesus Christ. Surely he is calling
pious faith and true confession a rock. But when the Lord asked
his disciples who the people said he was, blessed Peter spoke
up saying, You are the Christ, the son of the living God. To
which the Lord answered, Truly, truly, I say to you, you are
Peter. And upon this rock I shall build my church and the gates
of hell shall not prevail against it. Gregory the Great. Moses is set on a rock in order
that he may look upon the form of God, for unless a person holds
fast to the firmness of faith, he does not know the divine presence.
And concerning this firmness, the Lord says, upon this rock,
I shall build my church. According to this firmness, which
he says is the rock. Well, what is the firmness? He
quotes that he says the firmness of faith. So what is the rock,
according to Gregory the Great? It is faith. What are all thy
brethren, the bishops of the universal church, but stars of
heaven whose life and discourse shine together amid the sins
and errors of men, as if amid the shades of night? Are not
all the bishops together clouds who both reign in the words of
preaching and glitter in the light of good works? And when
your fraternity despises them and you would fain press them
down under yourself, what else say you but what is said by the
ancient foe, I will ascend above the heights of the clouds? Certainly
Peter, the first of the apostles, himself a member of the Holy
and Universal Church, Paul, Andrew, John, what were they but heads
of particular communities? And yet all were members under
one head. Not one of them has wished himself
to be called universal. Now, let your holiness acknowledge
to what extent you swell within yourself and desiring to be called
by that name, which no one presumed to be called. It was truly holy.
Now, those words were written to John of Constantinople by
Gregory the Great. because John of Constantinople
was assuming to himself the title of universal bishop, chief ruler
of the church, and he is rebuked by Gregory for claiming for himself
a title which was indicative of a position that did not exist
in his day. He said that even Peter and James
and John were all equals under one head, there's only one head,
the Lord Jesus Christ. He says to try to call yourself
a universal bishop or a pope, if you will. He says it's the
spirit of Satan himself because he says, in so doing this you
would fain press down others under yourself. He says, what
else say you but what is said by the ancient foe, I will ascend
above the heights of the clouds. He says it's the height of pride
to attempt to call oneself and to position oneself as the universal
bishop of the church. Didymus the Blind. How powerful
is Peter's faith in his confession that Christ is the only begotten
God, the Word, the true Son of God, and not merely a creature.
Peter believed that Christ was one and the same deity with the
Father, and so he was called blessed by him who alone is the
blessed Lord. Upon this rock the church is
built, the church which the gates of hell, that is the arguments
of heretics, will not overcome. Cassiodorus. You are Peter, and
upon this rock I shall build my church, and the gates of hell
shall not prevail against it. For the church cannot be moved,
because it is known to have been founded on that most solid rock,
namely Christ the Lord. The church's foundation is Christ
the Lord. From this foundation Christ is
rightly inferred, who is an immovable foundation and an inviolable
rock. Concerning this, the apostle says, for no other foundation
can any man lay than that which is already laid, which is Christ
Jesus. Palladius of Helianopolis says
this, You however, who do you say that I am? Not all responded,
but Peter only, interpreting the mind of all. You are Christ,
son of the living God, the Savior, approving the correctness of
this response, spoke, saying, You are Peter, and upon this
rock, that is, upon this confession, I shall build my church and the
gates of hell shall not prevail against it. Basil of Seleucia. You are Christ, Son of the Living
God. Jesus confirmed this statement and with his approbation, thereby
instructing all. Blessed are you, Simon Barjona.
He called Peter blessed so that Peter might join faith to his
statement. Now Christ called this confession a rock, and he
named the one who confessed it Peter, perceiving the appellation,
which was suitable to the author of this confession. For this
is the solemn rock of religion. This is the basis of salvation.
This is the wall of faith and the foundation of truth. For
no other foundation can anyone lay than that which is laid,
which is Jesus Christ. Notice of Ansara. If, moreover,
a man of the Lord is met, the first to be compared to go would
be Cephas, whose name is interpreted rock. This is the highest of
the Apostles, Peter also called Cephas, who furnished in his
confession of faith the foundation for the building of the church.
Asterius says, aptly indeed Isaiah says prophetically that the father
was laying the son as a cornerstone, doubtless signifying that the
whole structure of the world was born upon the foundation
and base. The only begotten calls Peter the foundation of the church,
saying, You are Peter, and upon this rock I shall build my church.
Now this chief, as it were, great and hard stone Christ, was set
into the excavated hollow of this world, into this veil of
tears, as David says, in order that he might bear all Christians
founded upon him aloft into the domicile of our hope. For no
other foundation can anyone lay than that which is laid, which
is Christ Jesus. Isidore Seville, the last of
the church fathers in the West in the mid-7th century, says
this, Christ is called a foundation because faith is established
in him and because the Catholic Church is built upon him. So Peter first received the power
of binding and loosing and he first led people to faith by
the power of his preaching. Still the other apostles had
been made equal with Peter in a fellowship of honor and power. And then finally, John of Damascus,
who is the last of all the church fathers, he is an Eastern father,
writing in the middle of the 8th century. And Peter, fired
by a burning zeal and prompted by the Holy Spirit, replied,
You are Christ, son of the living God. This is that firm and immovable
faith upon which, as upon the rock whose surname you bear,
the church is founded. Against this, the gates of hell,
the mouths of heretics, the machines of demons, for they will attack,
will not prevail. This rock was Christ, the incarnate
word of God, the Lord, for Paul clearly teaches us the rock was
Christ. Let me just summarize the views
expressed by these fathers from the 3rd to the 8th centuries
from both the East and the West on the meaning of Matthew 16.
The rock and the foundation of the church is Jesus Christ, or
Peter's confession of faith, which likewise points to the
person of Jesus. Peter is the rock or foundation
in the sense that he is the example of true faith, In other words,
he exemplifies faith. Peter is also representative
of the unity of the entire church. What Christ spoke to Peter, he
spoke to the entire church. And what was given to Peter was
given to all the apostles and through them to the entire church.
The keys are a declarative authority to teach the truth and preach
the gospel and to exercise discipline in the church. Now what all this reveals is
that there is no patristic consensus to support the papal interpretation
of Matthew 16, 18-19, which equates the rock with the person of Peter
and thereby assigns to him and the Roman bishops preeminence
in the church through the authority of the keys. The Roman Catholic
Church cannot appeal to the unanimous consent of the Fathers to support
its exegesis of Matthew 16 because such a consent does not exist.
The quotations that I have cited in the documentation that I've
handed out to you at the beginning of our session list the comments
of those major fathers of the patristic age from both the East
and the West up through the 8th century on the meaning of the
Matthew 16 passage, demonstrating that the overwhelming majority
view of the church has not been that set forth by the Roman Catholic
Church. Theologians Carl Fried Froehlich and John Begain have
shown us that the predominant historical exegesis of Matthew
16-18 after the patristic age all the way up through the time
of the Reformation, did not equate the rock with Peter, but with
Christ or with faith. Roman apologists often claim
that the Protestant exegesis of Matthew 16-18 grew out of
the Reformers' need to legitimize their opposition to the papacy,
and consequently they invented, they say, an exegesis which contradicts
the traditional view of the church as a whole. But that is simply
not the case. Oscar Coleman confirms this when
he says, Joseph Ignaz von Dallinger, who taught church history as
a Roman Catholic for 47 years and was the preeminent church historian of the last
century, basically says the same thing. I'm going to give an extensive
quote from Dollinger, but it is very,
very important in what he says because he sums up for us the
whole attitude and the whole leaning, if you will, of the
patristic age relative to the interpretation of Matthew 16
and their attitude to the papacy. And not really the papacy as
much as to the Bishop of Rome. This is what he says. In the
first three centuries, St. Irenaeus is the only writer who
connects the superiority of the Roman Church with doctrine. But
he places this superiority rightly understood only in its antiquity,
its double apostolic origin, and in the circumstances of the
pure tradition being guarded and maintained there through
the constant concourse of the faithful from all countries.
Tertullian, Cyprian, Lactantius know nothing of special papal
prerogative or of any higher or supreme right of deciding
a matter of doctrine. In the writings of the Greek
doctors, Eusebius, Athanasius, Basil the Great, the two Gregories,
and Epiphanius, there is not one word of any prerogatives
of the Roman bishop. The most copious of the Greek
fathers, Chrysostom, is wholly silent on the subject, and so
are Cyril of Jerusalem and Cyril of Alexandria. Equally silent
is the Latin fathers, Hilary, Passian, Zeno, Lucifer, Sulpicius,
and Ambrose. Augustine has written more on
the Church, its unity and authority, than all of the other fathers
put together. Yet from all his numerous works, filling ten folios,
only one sentence and one letter can be quoted where he says that
the principality of the apostolic chair has always been in Rome,
which could, of course, be said with equal truth of Antioch,
Jerusalem, and Alexandria. Any reader of his pastoral letter
to the separated Donatists on the unity of the Church must
find it inexplicable that in these seventy-five chapters there
is not a single word on the necessity of communion with Rome as the
center of unity. He urges all sorts of arguments
to show that the Donatists are bound to return to the church,
but that the papal chair is one of them, he says, not a word.
All of this is intelligible enough if we look at the patristic interpretation
of the words of Christ to Saint Peter. Of all the fathers who
interpret these passages in the Gospels, not a single one applies
them to the Roman bishops as Peter's successors. How many
fathers have busied themselves with these texts? Yet not one
whose commentaries we possess, Origen, Chrysostom, Hilary, Augustine,
Cyril, Theodorae, and those whose interpretations are collected
in Catinas, has dropped the faintest hint that the primacy of Rome
is a consequence of the commission and promise to Peter. Not one
of them has explained the rock or foundation on which Christ
would build his church of the office given to Peter to be transmitted
to his successors. But they understood by it either
Christ himself or Peter's confession of faith in Christ often both
together, or else they thought Peter was the foundation equally
with all the other apostles, the twelve being together the
foundation stones of the church. The fathers could the less recognize
the power of the keys and the power of binding and loosing,
any special prerogative or lordship of the Bishop of Rome. In as
much as what is obvious to anyone at first sight, they did not
regard a power first given to Peter and afterwards conferred
in precisely the same words on all the apostles as anything
peculiar to him or hereditary in the line of Roman bishops,
and they held the symbol of the keys as meaning just the same
as the figurative expression of binding and loosing. The importance
of this patristic interpretation of Matthew 16 cannot, as I mentioned
last week, be overstated relative to the Roman Church's claim to
be an infallible interpreter of Scripture and its subsequent
claim then to ultimate authority in the Church. Here in Matthew
16, we're dealing with a matter of interpretation relative to
the most important and foundational passage in all the Scriptures
for the Roman Catholic Church. And as we investigate the specific
interpretations of Matthew 16-18 of the early fathers in both
the East and the West who make up the Magisterium of the Church,
we find they give an interpretation that does not agree with the
Roman Catholic Church today, but with the view held by the
Protestant Reformers. Now this clearly, totally undermines
the claims of the Roman Catholic Church to be an infallible interpreter
of Scripture. The Roman Catholic Church teaches
that the Magisterium of the early church was infallible in interpreting
scripture. The Roman church is not infallible
then if the interpretation it gives today does not agree with
the infallible magisterium of the early church. The very decrees
of Vatican I in their very nature prove that the Roman church is
not infallible, nor is a Roman council infallible. For it teaches
that its decrees on papal infallibility and papal rule are based on its
interpretation of Matthew 16, which it says was a unanimous
interpretation of the fathers of the early church. Now, as
we've seen, that is not true. Therefore, these decrees are
based on a lie. Vatican I anathematizes anyone
who rejects the interpretation that it imposes on Matthew 16.
That interpretation is contrary to the patristic interpretation
in tradition. Therefore, it anathematizes Augustine
and the majority of fathers who composed the Magisterium of the
early church. In fact, when you take the decrees
of the Fourth Lateran Council in 1215 on the Eucharist, the
decrees of the Council of Trent in Vatican I, and the papal decrees
of Mary, or on Mary, by the specific popes who have given us those
decrees on Mary, The entire church of the patristic age and beyond
for many centuries is anathematized for no father agrees with the
vast majority of those teachings. Once again, as with the teaching
on tradition, the Church of Rome has demonstrated that it has
departed from the faith of the early church and has introduced
teachings as articles of faith, which it says are necessary for
salvation, which were never taught in the early church. So relative
to the issue of authority, We've seen that the Roman Catholic
Church claims ultimate authority because it says that it established
the canon of Scripture and that it has been granted an infallible
authority to interpret Scripture. Therefore, it is not Scripture
which is the ultimate authority, it's the Roman Catholic Church
itself, embodied specifically in the head, or what it would
say is the head, the Bishop of Rome. Both of these claims, relative
to the canon and relative to infallible interpretation, obviously
fallacious. The Roman Catholic Church did
not establish the canon for the church as we saw a couple of
weeks ago. In fact, the Council of Trent
has introduced books into the canon of Scripture which were
rejected by the Jews in their canon and which were universally
rejected by the church throughout the centuries all the way up
to the Reformation as we saw in our time on the canon. And
the church is obviously not an infallible interpreter of Scripture,
for it has interpreted this major passage of Scripture contrary
to that which was held by the early church. Next week we want
to look at the historical aspect of papal rule and just see if
these claims by Vatican I can be validated by the practice
of the early church. And in the following week we
will look at the issue of infallibility.
Lecture 6 - The Papacy - Matthew 16 - Peter and the Rock
Series Roman Catholic Tradition
| Sermon ID | 1241412133410 |
| Duration | 1:12:17 |
| Date | |
| Category | Teaching |
| Language | English |
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