The word ‘church’ conjures up different images in different individuals’ minds. From a Christian perspective, the first time the word was used, it was by Jesus. It was on the occasion of his chatting with the apostles, and he was wondering what the rumors were about him. “Who do people say that I am?” he asked. The apostles answered, “Some say you are John the Baptist come back to live; others say you are one of the prophets come back.” Then Jesus asked, “Who do you say that I am?” Simon blurted out, “You are the Christ the Son of the Living God.” And Jesus replied, “Blessed are you, Simon, son of John, for flesh and blood have not revealed this to you but my Father in heaven. And I say to you, You are Rock, and on this Rock I will build my Church, and the gates of hell will not prevail again it. And I give to you the keys of the kingdom of heaven. Whatever you bind on earth, I will bind in heaven; whatever you loose on earth, I will loose in heaven.”
That is a passage that many people will read, and become immediately nervous about what it could possibly mean, and just get past it and never really analyze it because of what it could possibly mean. Others will read it, think about it, and realize that at that point, God Himself spoke to Simon and revealed to him the true identity of Jesus. Jesus himself said Simon was blessed by his Father at that moment. Then Jesus continued, “And I say to you, you are Rock and on this Rock I will build my Church, and the gates of hell will not prevail against it.” At that point Jesus did not have a huge following. The whole crowd in Galilee had just walked away from him, and he had not really done any intensive evangelizing in Judea, so his mind was clearly looking into the future, long after he was gone, when his followers vast in numbers and nationalities. That is what he was envisioning. It was the time when he was long gone, and from then on the Church would be built on the Rock. And not even the powers of hell will be able to destroy it. Then Jesus continued, “And I give to you the keys of the kingdom of heaven, whatsoever you bind on earth I will bind in heaven; and whatever you loose on earth, I will loose in heaven.” Clearly, Jesus was passing on his own authority to Rock, to make rules and change rules, to do what was necessary to prudently guide the Church. It is also clear that Jesus intended that one person would always be at the head of his Church, and the other apostles would work together with him. But it was to Rock that he gave the ultimate authority.
Later on when he told the apostles, “Go out and teach the whole world all that I have taught you, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit. Those who accept you and believe you will be saved. Those who refuse to believe will be condemned. (Not just those who do not believe, but refuse to believe.) And I will send the Holy Spirit upon you to bring back to your minds all that I have taught you. He will be your teacher and guide you until the end of time.
If the apostles were to be with the Church until the end of time, then they must be here today as well. So, there had to be a way in which Jesus authority that he passed on to the apostles could be passed on to those whom they chose. And Paul shows us how that was done. When he called Timothy and chose him as a successor, he placed his hands on his head and called down the Holy Spirit, and in that simple ritual passed on to Timothy the power and authority that Jesus gave to the apostles. And all the apostles did the same to those they chose to succeed them. And that has been done in the Church for the past two thousand years, and every bishop can trace his consecration back to one of the apostles. That’s a lot different from a person getting an idea he wants to start a church and then goes off and gathers a group of people and starts his own religion. Only God can start a religion and tell us how he wants us to worship him.
And there were other things that Jesus taught. He gave power to the apostles and their successors to reconcile sinners to God, and that power has to still be with us.
He promised to give us his flesh and blood as the food of our souls, and at the Last Supper, showed what he meant, “This is my Body, this is my Blood.” At the official sacrificial meal of the Old Testament, where the sins of the people were taken away, he established the official sacrificial meal of the New Testament in his blood, in which our sins are forgiven. He taught that when we eat his body and drink his blood he comes and lives within us, and we become one with him, and he becomes one with us.
St. Ignatius of Antioch who knew Jesus and was taught later by the apostles and succeeded Peter as bishop of Antioch, wrote, “The Gnostics abstain from the Eucharist and from prayer because they do not believe the Eucharist to be the Flesh of Our Lord Jesus Christ.
And let all those who have been baptized and confessed their sins, and believe all that we teach approach to receive the Body and Blood of the Savior.
Jesus also taught that after death the good will rise again on the last day and their souls will be reunited with our bodies, and will live forever in heaven.
Jesus also taught that we must be born again of water and the Spirit in baptism, and St. Peter writes that when we are baptized we become partakers of the divine life of God.
If Jesus promised that the Church would exist until the end of time, and that the apostles would always be present to guide and teach, then they must be here today, and the Holy Spirit is still guiding the Church as Jesus promised. Jesus gave authority to the Church to teach. He never told anyone to write a book or said that a book has the authority to teach. So is it proper to reject what Jesus established as the authority to teach and choose a book instead?
When the Council of Nicea ( 325 A.D.) formulated the Nicene Creed, and stated that the Church is One, Holy, Catholic and Apostolic, what has to be understood is the Council’s definition of each of those words. The Council stated that so the Church could be identified as what Jesus established. “One” means that it is united in faith and all believe the same teachings. “Holy” means that the Church as the creation of Jesus for the sanctification of sinners, it is the channel of all the gifts of Jesus’ redemption, and the vehicle of divine life through the sacraments. It does not mean that its members are holy, nor does it mean that the religious leaders are holy. God never blessed religious leaders with holiness and they, like everyone else, has to struggle to be faithful to God. “Catholic” means universal. When Jesus sent the apostles out into the whole world to preach the gospel,, they did just that, and by the time of the Council of Nicea, the Church was in every known country at that time. Groups who began to teach and believe teachings contrary to the teaching of the Church, as the gnostics, and the Arians and so many others, were mostly local, in small areas or limited to certain countries, which was one indication that they were not authentic members of the Church that Jesus instituted. “Apostolic” means that the Church has to be able to trace its existence not only to Jesus but to the apostles, and that the bishops were legitimately called and consecrated by the same laying on of hands and communicating the the Holy Spirit as the apostles did to Timothy and Polycarp and Titus and the other bishops chosen by the apostles. Each bishop has to be able to trace his consecration through a line of bishops that goes all the way back to the apostles.
Now, this is what the Church according to the mind of Jesus, and is what Jesus taught and the apostles taught. It was not something the Church arbitrarily made up. Many groups today talk about Jesus in a superficial and comfortiing way to attract people, but avoid insisting on what Jesus taught because that makes people nervous, and they want to avoid dissension. But, is that faithful to Jesus. St. Paul told the bishops he consecrated to teach solid doctrine “in season and out of season.”
