Response to Protestant About the Church

A Protestant brother has replied to the previous post (The Church in the Scriptures)

My reply will be in black while his will be in red. 

Greetings in Christ,

Sorry it took me awhile to respond back! 

No worries, brother! :)

“Church is a visible church” – I totally agree with that! I believe that you have the correct references to prove your point of the church. However, we must define this visibility aspect of the church to be able to move on to any other topic that correlates within the church.

I’d like to go into the Scriptures to further show the Catholic view of the Church. It is very important that we understand what the Scriptures teach about the Church. Instead of letting our traditions shape what the Word of God says, we must let the Word of God shape what our traditions say. I’m sure you would agree with me on this.

“Church is a visible church” – I totally agree with that! I believe that you have the correct references to prove your point of the church. However, we must define this visibility aspect of the church to be able to move on to any other topic that correlates within the church.

I’d like to go into the Scriptures to further show the Catholic view of the Church. It is very important that we understand what the Scriptures teach about the Church. Instead of letting our traditions shape what the Word of God says, we must let the Word of God shape what our traditions say. I’m sure you would agree with me on this.

Before we dig in, I think it would be important if I showed the Catholic understanding of the Church. Here is what the Catechism of the Catholic Church says:

752. In Christian usage, the word "church" designates the liturgical assembly [Cf. 1 Cor 11:18; 14:19,28,34,35], but also the local community [Cf. 1 Cor 1:2; 16:1] or the whole universal community of believers [Cf. 1 Cor 15:9; Gal 1:13; Phil 3:6]. These three meanings are inseparable. "The Church" is the People that God gathers in the whole world. She exists in local communities and is made real as a liturgical, above all a Eucharistic, assembly. She draws her life from the word and the Body of Christ and so herself becomes Christ's Body.

771. "The one mediator, Christ, established and ever sustains here on earth his holy Church, the community of faith, hope, and charity, as a visible organization through which he communicates truth and grace to all men." The Church is at the same time: 
-- a "society structured with hierarchical organs and the mystical body of Christ;
-- the visible society and the spiritual community;
-- the earthly Church and the Church endowed with heavenly riches." [Vatican II LG 8]

779. The Church is both visible and spiritual, a hierarchical society and the Mystical Body of Christ. She is one, yet formed of two components, human and divine. That is her mystery, which only faith can accept.

Please note how the Catholic Church sees the Church as two-fold (physical and spiritual…visible and invisible). The Church is hierarchacle and at the same time, spiritual and invisible. Question remains: What do the Scriptures teach?

First of all, according to the Scriptures, there is only One Truth and One Faith (Matthew 16:18, Ephesians 4:4). The Church cannot consist of a “Body of believers that disagree on many issues”. The Church must be one, because the truth is one.

There are many local churches in the Scriptures (1 Corinthians 1:2, 2 Corinthians 1:1, Galatians 1:2, etc.); but they are all united in matters of doctrine (or should be united). For what reason? No other reason than the fact that there is only One Truth and One Faith (Ephesians 4:4).   

The Church is a hierarchy. The Scriptures are VERY clear on this matter. God gives men the power to preach the Gospel and also to forgive sins (Matt 10:2ff,19f,40; Luke 10:16; John 20:21ff; Eph 2:19ff). Let’s think about this from the Scriptures’ point of view and put things in perspective:

·         Christ came and started His Church and taught the Apostles the Truth (Matthew 16:18)

·         He entrusted this mission to the Apostles and gave them authority (Matthew 28:18-20, Matthew 18:15-20)

·         The Apostles entrusted other men to be leaders of the Church through the “laying on of hands” and to pass down the truth and that authority from bishop to bishop. ((Matt 28:18ff; Luke 10:16; John 14:16f; 16:13; Acts 15:1ff; Eph 3:10; 4:4f,11; 1 Tim 1:3; 3:1ff; 4:11ff; 5:17,22; 6:2f,20; 2 Tim 1:6,13f; 2:2; 4:2; Titus 1:5ff; 2:1,15; 3:1)

·         The Church will never become corrupt in matters of the true teachings of Christ (Matthew 16:18, 1 Timothy 3:15, Hebrews 12:28, Ephesians 5:25-27, Daniel 2:44)

·         Because the passing down of the truth will be guided by the Holy Spirit (John 16:13, 14:16ff).

·         And this truth is one (Ephesians 4:4-5) while the believers are united and believe this one truth (John 17:9-26, Acts 2:42-44, Acts 4:32, Romans 15:5, Romans 16:17, 1 Corinthians 1:10, Ephesians 4:11-14, Ephesians 4:3-5, Philippians 1:27, 1 Timothy 6:4, 2 Timothy 2:14, 2 Timothy 4:3).

·         God didn’t only entrust these men to the truth, but he also entrusted them to forgive and retain sins (John 20:19-22)

Is the church an organization or an organism?
I have been studying the scriptures for the past 10 years and not yet have I come across any type of scripture, genuine teacher or qualified theologian that teaches the physicality (building) of the church, however, the scripture has spoken of the spirituality aspect of the church (the body of Christ) numerous times. 
 
When we speak of a physical church, we don’t mean buildings. Though today, it does have to do with a building. But, we need to see things the way they saw it in the early Church. Remember, they would worship in houses in secret in fear of the Romans. For the Catholic, a physical Church does not necessarily consist of a building. A physical Church is a place where there is the Eucharist (Christ) and a valid bishop and/or priest. Since today, we find these two things in a physical church building, people automatically assume that the physical part is the building. This is not so. The physical part is the Eucharist and the validly ordained bishop(s) and priest(s). I highly encourage you to take a look at every single verse that I cited above. I think Scripture is very clear that the elders (priests/bishops) and the overseers (bishops) have authority on earth given to them by Christ. Thus, this makes it a physical Church; not in a way where we have physical buildings, but in a way where we have a hierarchy.
You mentioned that you don’t know of any theologian who teaches these things. I’ll quote some Protestant ones for you.

"Evangelicals also believe that the church is visible, existing now in the world. What is at issue is the claim that the Roman Catholic jurisdiction is the only true manifestation of the body of Christ on earth. This is the question of authority over which Catholics and Protestants disagree.....it is true that when the body of Christ began it was all visible since no believers had died and gone to heaven, so of course it was a visible church when Christ founded it. The invisible church only grew as Christians died and went to heaven. Protestants do not deny that there was a visible Christian church on earth that traces back to the apostles who exercised authority over it, including excommunication. What Protestants object to (and Catholics have not proven) is that [the] Roman Catholic jurisdiction is the sole heir to this original visible church that began with the apostles and will continue until Christ comes without the gates of hell destroying it." (Geisler/MacKenzie, Roman Catholics and Evangelicals [Baker, 1995], page 112, 276-277)

 

Please note that Norman Geisler is a well-respected Protestant. He admits the Church is a physical sense the same way that Catholics do. What he doesn’t recognize is that the Catholic Church is the true Church and therefore he doesn’t recognize it as having authority. That’s a whole another can of warms that we can open. Is the Catholic Church today the same Church as the one in the first 6 centuries of Christianity? From my study of the Patristics, I would say a definite yes.

Here are two more Protestants who admit that the Church is visible:

"But he [Karl Keating] goes too far in thinking that we think that Christ did not establish a visible Church. Christ most certainly did!" (Robert Zins, Romanism [1995], page 139); and "Catholic apologists misrepresent the Evangelical as teaching only a 'spiritual' church, one that is essentially 'invisible.' However, although the Westminster Confession does use the term 'invisible' to describe the universal church, what is meant by the term is not that the church cannot be seen (as so many Catholic apologists mistakenly assume in their arguments against this notion), but that the church transcends time and geographic locale. That is to say, Evangelicals view the church as the body of Christ composed of all believers irrespective of their era, location or denominational affiliation." (Eric Svendsen, Evangelical Answers [1997], page 75)

Here is another Protestant source:

"The authors of the New Testament did not distinguish between the visible and invisible church. To them, the church that existed in the world was the only church there was....This visible church was the church.....we do an injustice to the teaching of the New Testament authors if we impose this conception of an invisible church on the ideas they formulated. These authors were describing the concrete, historical, visible church that had come into existence in their day, and which was rapidly spreading throughout the Mediterranean world. It is this church that they chose to label the ecclesia." (Craig Van Gelder, The Essence of the Church [Baker, 2000], page 105,106)

The last thing a Protestant would want to do is admit to a Catholic belief about the Church…Unless of course, they were being honest with their study of the Scriptures.

From the standard scholarly Greek source Theological Dictionary of the New Testament edited by Kittel/Bromiley:

"...this ekklesia as the assembly of God in Christ is not invisible on the one side and visible on the other. The Christian community, which as the individual congregation represents the whole body, is just as visible and corporeal as the individual man." (TDNT, article on ekklesia ekklesia, 3:534)

These apologists and scholars talk as if this is the Protestant belief of the Church. The truth is, it’s not. There is no official Protestant belief of the Church. There are over 20,000 Protestant denominations and you would be hard pressed to find them all agreeing on what the Church is. My job was just to show you that there are Protestant scholars and apologists who admit that the Catholic Church is right about her idea of the Church. These people have no agenda proving the Catholic Church right because they are Protestants. Their agenda is just to be honest with the studies they’ve done with regards to the Scriptures and to the Patristics (Early Church Fathers). 

End of Part 1