Matthew 16:18-19, Yet Again...

You replied to Dennis's post on Feb 6, 2008 at 2:54 PM.
Dennis,

"Leaving that aside though, it is audacious for the Catholic church to claim it is the "one true church" when it didn't even come into existance until some one to two hundred years after Christ. (See the quote and link below)"

The link seriously oversimplifies the history and passes over a great deal of it.

"Until that time "true Christianity" existed without any head save Christ himself, as opposed to a pope, and there was no formal organization called the "Catholic Church." Not only that but the first official declaration came from the writtings of St. Ignasious (sorry if I spelled it wrong) in a letter considered apocrypha by so called protestant churches today. "

The main letters of Ignatius are not regarded as Scripture by anyone, but most scholars accept them as authentic, particularly Protestant ones. Aversion to those letters comes about because Ignatius was clearly a Catholic and not a Protestant.

There is a plethora of patristic and early Christian evidence in favor of great authority exercised by the bishop of Rome as a result of his claiming to be the successor of Peter and regarded as such. Have you looked into this?

Care to tell me why Novatian got away with deposing so many people in the eastern churches? (If you are not familiar with this I could give you an overview).

"That being the case I have to disagree with you that all "protestant" churches are break aways from the Catholic church which did even exist when Christianity first began. Evidence of this can be found in the book of Acts which was written between 63 AD and 70 AD. In the chapter eleven verse twenty six the Apostle Luke records that the term "Christian" was first coined with reference to believers and followers of Christ."

The only qualification is that many Protestant churches broke off from other Protestant churches. We also shouldn't consider Protestantism as "non-Catholicism." You can't say the early Christians were "just Christian" and think that possibly gives a historical claim to nondenominational Protestants. Protestant imputational theology was completely absent in the early period, as was sola scriptura and a host of other beliefs. Historically speaking, Protestantism did indeed come out of Catholicism.

You haven't exactly shown that the Catholic Church did not exist very early on - indeed, from the very outset.

"We have also had this discussion before regarding the authority of Peter. Scripture does not indicate that he was the head of the church or that Jesus gave him power above the rest of the Apostles. In Matthew 16:17-18 Jesus said you are the rock [petos in the Greek meaning "detached rock"] which referred to Peter's confession. Then Jesus continues by stating that "upon this rock [petra in the Greek meaning "bedrock"] I will build my church." The first form of the word is feminin while the second is in the masculine voice. Quite clearly Christ was not stating that he would build his church on Peter but rather that he would build it on Peter's confession. "

The confession is not the focus at all.

In first century Koine Greek, there is NO DISTINCTION IN MEANING between petros and petra. If you would like, I can copy and paste quotes from various Protestant sources and scholars that concur that there is no real difference between the two terms in Matthew 16:18. Plus Jesus spoke in Aramaic, and it would have been "cepha" and "cepha" - the same word used for rock in both places. The "detached stone" or "pebbles" argument has been conclusively dismantled and destroyed.

Christ wasn't speaking in GREEK. Rather, Cepha is translated as "Petros" because to call Simon "Petra" would be to give a man a feminine name. Simply put, you don't call the Apostle Paul "Paula" so why would you call Peter "Petra"?

You are assuming that "petra" refers to Peter's confession when there is absolutely no evidence to suggest this - you assume this, and you have not provided anyone in this topic discussion with an exegetical basis for this assumption.

"I have a car, and it is blue." What's blue? The car. The most immediate antecedent for the demonstrative pronoun "taute" is PETROS...so "and upon this rock" (kai taute petra) would refer to the previous noun, Petros. Peter is the rock.

Notice also that Jesus doesn't dwell on the CONTENT of the confession. Verse 17 isn't about the confession; it is about the revelatory process by which Peter received the confession. You seem to have overlooked this.

You also appear to have overlooked verse 19, in which Peter, (you, SINGULAR) is given the keys of the kingdom of Heaven.

So here is the picture of what is going on in this passage:

Jesus asks the Apostles a question, about who others say He is. Then He asks them. And Peter, the usual spokesperson, speaks up and makes his confession in verse 16. Then Jesus calls him blessed because he received that confession from a REVELATION FROM THE FATHER - that is what Jesus focuses on.

Next, Jesus changes Peter's name to Cepha, or "Rock" and since we know biblical name changes involve a person receiving a new role and authority dependent upon the meaning of their new name, we know that Peter's new role was to be "the Rock."

Contextually, then, it is RIDICULOUS to insist that "taute petra" is not referring to the exact same person that Jesus, for the first time, just RENAMED rock and bestowed upon the ROLE of Rock.

Jesus even then gives Peter the keys (says He will give) of the kingdom of Heaven and the authority to bind and loose. While in Matthew 18:18 we read that all of them could bind and loose, ONLY Peter receives the keys. Why? Because of the typological involved.

See Isaiah 22:20-22. Just as Eliakim functioned as the prime minister or "master of the palace" for the king in the Old Testament, Peter was to serve that role in the early Church.

Doctrinally speaking, is the Church built upon Peter's confession? Absolutely.
Doctrinally speaking, is the Church built upon Christ (the other usual preferred referrent of Protestants for this verse)? Absolutely.
Doctrinally speaking, is the Church built upon the faith of Peter? Absolutely.

Yet are ANY of these things, according to a full-out contextually-minded exegesis of Matthew 16, the primary referrent of "taute petra"?

No.

The contextual and grammatical evidence favors the Catholic interpretation, and as many Protestant scholars have admitted, the primary motivation among Protestants for denying the Catholic interpretation has been anticatholic bias.

"we non-Catholics do not believe in this teaching because it is not founded in Scripture"

Well, where does Scripture say to not believe in any particular teaching because it is not founded in Scripture? It doesn't say that; Sola Scriptura is unbiblical, yet another invention of the Protestant Reformers.

- Sean