Is the author­ity of the popes bib­li­cal? NO!

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This tract explains why the Catholic claim of the divine author­ity of the pope is not bib­li­cal. Catholi­cism teaches and believes that the pope is actu­ally the “Vicar” or “king in place of God” on the earth for God. The pope takes God’s place rul­ing the earth. This is as clearly an antichrist as any­thing could be. A “Vicar of Christ” is an “anti-Christ (in place of).”

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In Mat 16:18 Jesus promised to build his Church. Today many churches pre­tend to be the only true church of Jesus Christ. This tract will exam­ine the claims of the Roman Catholic Church con­cern­ing the author­ity and suc­ces­sion of the apos­tles in the popes.

The Doc­trine of Suc­ces­sion of the Apostles

The Apos­tolic Roman Catholic Church teaches that the office of the apos­tles has con­tin­ued through Peter until our days pass­ing from gen­er­a­tion to gen­er­a­tion through the Catholic popes. Accord­ing to them, this gives valid­ity and author­ity to the Roman Catholic Church, and accord­ing to them, the Catholic Church is the only legit­i­mate church in the entire world.

Mat 16:15 He saith unto them, But whom say ye that I am? 16 And Simon Peter answered and said, Thou art the Christ, the Son of the liv­ing God. 17 And Jesus answered and said unto him, Blessed art thou, Simon Bar­jona: for flesh and blood hath not revealed it unto thee, but my Father which is in heaven. 18 And I say also unto thee, That thou art Peter, and upon this rock I will build my church; and the gates of hell shall not pre­vail against it. 19 And I will give unto thee the keys of the king­dom of heaven: and what­so­ever thou shalt bind on earth shall be bound in heaven: and what­so­ever thou shalt loose on earth shall be loosed in heaven.

What we see here is sim­ply Jesus telling Peter that he will build his church upon the rock of Peter’s con­fes­sion (“Jesus is the Christ”) and not on the per­son of Peter. John in 1 John 4:1–2 advises us that the false prophet does not con­fess Jesus is the Christ, God in flesh, and we see this come up in many places as the ele­ment that deter­mines ortho­doxy. The author­ity of God abides in cor­rect doc­trine (con­fess­ing Jesus as your per­sonal Sav­iour), and not in being a part of the church of Peter.

Mat 10:32 Whoso­ever there­fore shall con­fess me before men, him will I con­fess also before my Father which is in heaven. 33 But whoso­ever shall deny me before men, him will I also deny before my Father which is in heaven. (One is saved by his rela­tion­ship with Jesus, not by church mem­ber­ship.)

Peter as the First Pope

Mat 16:23 But he turned, and said unto Peter, Get thee behind me, Satan: thou art an offence unto me: for thou savourest not the things that be of God, but those that be of men.

Fur­ther down in Matthew 16, Jesus him­self had to rebuke Peter for not putting his sight upon the things of God but upon the things of men. Peter did not under­stand the plan of God. He wanted human glory as in the king­dom of Solomon. Really, Catholics ARE FOLLOWERS of Peter and not Christ because the Roman Catholic Church, like Peter here, seeks human glory and not what is spir­i­tual. Why do all Catholic Churches have to be adorned, huge mon­u­ments to human glory when the prim­i­tive church used people’s houses (Rom 16:15; 1Cor 16:19)?

The Author­ity of Tra­di­tion and the Fathers

The rea­son­ing of the Catholics is that those clos­est in time to the apos­tles are those who under­stood best their teach­ings and have the author­ity. They pro­pose that Catholics alone have the doc­trine of the author­ity of the church fathers. But many in those same apos­tolic days did not under­stand Bible doc­trine cor­rectly as in pas­sages like Acts 20:29–30 (these erro­neous peo­ple will “draw away the dis­ci­ples after them­selves”). Here we should note that the Bible teaches Chris­t­ian lib­erty (Gal 2:4; 5:1, 13), and the false brethren seek to enslave us mak­ing us lose our lib­erty in Christ, so that we will be their slaves, enslaved under their false doctrines.

Col 2:8 Beware lest any man spoil you through phi­los­o­phy and vain deceit, after the tra­di­tion of men, after the rudi­ments of the world, and not after Christ.

Paul focused on these false teach­ers that are astute and use decep­tion to drag away the dis­ci­ples after them.

Gal 1:6 I mar­vel that ye are so soon removed from him that called you into the grace of Christ unto another gospel: 7 Which is not another; but there be some that trou­ble you, and would per­vert the gospel of Christ. 8 But though we, or an angel from heaven, preach any other gospel unto you than that which we have preached unto you, let him be accursed. 9 As we said before, so say I now again, If any man preach any other gospel unto you than that ye have received, let him be accursed. 2Cor 11:4

The Bible teaches that sal­va­tion is by grace through faith (Eph 2:8–9) and that it is not works that we have done (Titus 3:5). But the Catholic Church teaches that we are saved by water bap­tism, mass, and being a part of their church, and many other human works. This is exactly the other gospel that Paul warned us to NOT FOLLOW!

For exam­ple, God pro­hibits us “from call­ing any­body on this earth father, because one is our Father, that which is in heaven,” Matthew 23:9. So why does the Catholic Church teach and insist that their priests, bish­ops, and popes are to be called “father”? By their tra­di­tion, they ignore and dis­obey the clear teach­ing of the Bible.

What God has given us with author­ity is in the Holy Scrip­tures (the Bible), not in inter­pre­ta­tions and human tra­di­tions around the Bible which are many times twisted and wrongly inter­pret the clear and obvi­ous of the Bible. To exalt human tra­di­tion is the same as what the Jews did before the time of Christ, and Jesus had to con­front this same error in his day.

Mat 15:3 But he answered and said unto them, Why do ye also trans­gress the com­mand­ment of God by your tra­di­tion? 8 This peo­ple draweth nigh unto me with their mouth, and hon­oureth me with their lips; but their heart is far from me. 9 But in vain they do wor­ship me, teach­ing for doc­trines the com­mand­ments of men.

The author­ity of God does not reside in a church or a chain of popes but in the inspired word of God (doc­trine) that gives us eter­nal life (John 5:39). God rec­om­mended to those in his day to inves­ti­gate Scrip­ture in order to ver­ify and estab­lish the true of every­thing (Acts 17:11).

Mar 7:9 And he said unto them, Full well ye reject the com­mand­ment of God, that ye may keep your own tra­di­tion. 13 Mak­ing the word of God of none effect through your tra­di­tion ….

Jesus clearly rebuked them for sub­sti­tut­ing tra­di­tion as the max­i­mum author­ity in place of Scrip­tures. Peter him­self iden­ti­fied the error of bas­ing the spir­i­tual life upon “a vain con­ver­sa­tion received by tra­di­tion from your fathers.” (1 Peter 1:18) Peter him­self rejected the very things that the Catholic Church of today promotes.

The Apos­tolic Teaching

2Th 3:6 Now we com­mand you, brethren, in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ, that ye with­draw your­selves from every brother that walketh dis­or­derly, and not after the tra­di­tion which he received of us.

But this is the exact point; ortho­doxy has to do with doc­trine, not iden­ti­fi­ca­tion with a line of apos­tolic suc­ces­sors. This bib­li­cal author­ity we have received is in the Bible, in the Scrip­tures, and not in a par­tic­u­lar earthly church. What Chris­tians have passed from gen­er­a­tion to gen­er­a­tion is a body of doc­trine: Eph 2:20; 1 Tim. 1:3, 18; 2:14–15; 4:6, 11, 16; 5:21; 6:13–14, 20–21; 2 Tim 1:13–14; 2:1–2; 3:14–17; Tit 1:5, 9; 2:1, 15.

The Office of Apostle

We should clar­ify here some­thing about the office of “Apos­tle”. The Greek word means “one sent with author­ity and rep­re­sen­ta­tion in a mis­sion.”  But there are two dif­fer­ent types of apos­tles that we see in the Bible, the 12 that were eye wit­nesses of the life, events, and teach­ings of Jesus, and then there are those apos­tles that started churches in new areas (mis­sion­ar­ies essen­tially). Peter gave the require­ments to be one of the 12 apos­tles in Acts 1:21–22 “of these men which have com­panied with us all the time that the Lord Jesus went in and out among us, Begin­ning from the bap­tism of John, unto that same day that he was taken up from us, must one be ordained to be a wit­ness with us of his res­ur­rec­tion.” So then there sim­ply can­not be an apos­tle today like one of the 12, only apos­tles that are like mis­sion­ar­ies to estab­lish new churches. The author­ity of the 12 is not the same as a mis­sion­ary, and it is not pos­si­ble that there is an apos­tolic suc­ces­sion from gen­er­a­tion to gen­er­a­tion, because there are no eye wit­nesses alive of the life of Jesus as Peter imposed by inspi­ra­tion of God as the require­ment to be an apos­tle like the 12.

Even the 12 were not with­out error in the con­duct and doc­trine out­side of the books they wrote that became part of the Bible. They were humans as every­body is. In Gal 2:11, Paul says he had to con­front Peter because of his error to fall under the false teach­ing of the Judi­az­ers. The fact is that he was an apos­tle, one of the 12 apos­tles, and this didn’t impose an author­ity upon the rest as the Catholic Church wants it be today. Peter was walk­ing in false doc­trine and erro­neous con­duct (despite the fact that the Roman Catholic church demands that at this time he was the Vicar of Christ on earth, the first pope). Paul had to rebuke his error and false doc­trine with Scrip­ture (which is the author­ity). In the end analy­sis of things, Peter had to repent before Paul. Peter did not pre­sume to exalt him­self or his posi­tion over the church, but he admit­ted his human­ity and error, and exalted the Scrip­tures as the only true and faith­ful authority.

2Pe 3:15 And account that the long­suf­fer­ing of our Lord is sal­va­tion; even as our beloved brother Paul… 16 As also in all his epis­tles, speak­ing in them of these things; in which are some things hard to be under­stood, which they that are unlearned and unsta­ble wrest, as they do also the other scrip­tures, unto their own destruction.

Do not place your con­fi­dence in any church, but in Holy Scripture!