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Do
You Deny that Jesus Established a Visible, Hierarchical Church? |
Consider:
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Do you reject the concept of authority in the Church? Do you
believe that obedience is not due to any hierarchy in the Church? Click
here *
How can you deny that Christ established a visible, hierarchal
church when Scripture clearly shows St.
Peter received the supreme office in the Church (see Mt. 16:18-19, Jn.
21:15-17)? *
How can you deny that Christ established a visible, hierarchal
church when Scripture clearly shows the
apostles received an office in the Church (e.g. Mt. 10:1, Mt. 28:19-20,
Mk. 16:15-16, Jn. 20:21)? *
How an you deny that Christ established a visible, hierarchal
church when Scripture clearly tells us
that when persons reject those whom Christ sent they reject Him (see Lk.
10:16)? *
How can you deny that Christ established a visible, hierarchal
church when Scripture clearly shows a successor being appointed to take over Judas'
office (see Acts 1:15-26)? *
How can you deny that Christ established a visible, hierarchal
church when Scripture clearly refers to
the hierarchical nature of the Church (especially, the New Testament letters
clearly demonstrate this fact!) [e.g. 1 Cor. 12:28, Eph. 4:11, 1
Thes. 5:12, Heb. 13:17]? *
How can you deny that Christ established a visible, hierarchal
church when history shows that Christ's
Church has always been visible and hierarchical? *
Why would we be commanded to obey the ministers of the church if the
church was not visible or hierarchical (e.g. 2 Thes. 3:14, Heb. 13:17)? *
How can the faith be passed on to future generations without a
visible, hierarchical church?
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How can Sacraments be dispensed without a visible, hierarchical
church (cf. Acts 8:14-18)?
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Can you not see that there has to be a visible structure in the
church to ensure that the authority
given to the apostles by Christ is passed on (e.g. the power of the keys,
the power to forgive sins)?
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Can you not see that there had to be a visible authority to determine the books
of the bible since "there is no 'inspired table of
contents'"? (How would you expect a visible bible from an
invisible church?)
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Considering that all groupings of people have a visible structure (e.g. families, governments,
companies, etc.), why do you deny this to the church? Those without structure
would certainly perish.
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"An invisible church is not biblical."
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"An invisible church does not take into account the realities of
this world with visible people!" *
How can the Church be invisible considering that Christ said..."You are the light of the world. A city set on a mountain cannot be hidden. Nor do they light a lamp and then put it under a bushel basket; it is set on a lampstand, where it gives light to all in the house. Just so, your light must shine before others, that they may see your good deeds and glorify your heavenly Father."
(Mt. 5:14-16)...? *
How would Christ, being visible, have established an invisible
Church? *
Since when does a visible flock not need a visible shepherd? How
would visible sheep be protected by visible wolves without a
visible shepherd? *
Considering that Jesus said that we must consume His
flesh (see Jn. 6:22-69), can you not see how this alone
necessitate a visible church? Note: If you deny the Real
Presence of Christ in the Holy Eucharist, click
here. *
Why would God establish a visible, hierarchical 'church' (so to
speak) in the Old Testament, but not in the New Testament?
*
In this world, men must be governed visibly - it is unreasonable
to expect that visible people on earth could be governed invisibly.
Even in the family setting, we know that children would get into
much trouble without parents, police, schools, etc. How can one
expect better in a much larger grouping of people? Does not common
sense tell you that visible people need a visible government?
*
A visible structure has been necessary throughout history for
protection - there have been many enemies of the faith who would
capture Christians (including men, women, and children) and
torture & kill
them. They have also been captured and forced to submit to
false religions. Under such fierce attacks, it is clearly
necessary that the Church have a visible structure in order to
protect her members.
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The Church's very mission requires her to be visible. How can she
teach if she is invisible? How can an invisible church apply
visible Sacraments? How can an invisible church preserve doctrine
intact?
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How can Christ expect us to obey the church if she is not visible?
Is it not necessary that she be visible to all? "Considering
that forthwith upon salvation being brought out for mankind, Jesus
Christ laid upon His Apostles the injunction to 'preach the Gospel
to every creature,' He imposed, it is evident, upon all men the
duty of learning thoroughly and believing what they were taught.
This duty is intimately bound up with the gaining of eternal
salvation: 'He that believeth and is baptized shall be saved; but
he that believeth not, shall be condemned.'" (Pope Leo XIII,
"Sapientiae Christianae", 1890 A.D.)
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How can there be "one flock" (Jn. 10:16) if the church
is invisible and without structure?
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Since Christ established that the forgiveness of sins would come
through men (Jn. 20:23), this alone necessitates a visible church.
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How could St. Paul have persecuted the Church if it was invisible
(see Gal. 1:13)?
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We see from Scripture that the apostles had authority. How can
this be if the church was not visible and hierarchical?
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How can St. James speak of calling "the presbyters [priests]
of the church (see Jms. 5:14-15), if the church is not visible and
hierarchical?
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How can Jesus tell us to "tell the church" (see Mt.
18:17), if the church is invisible?
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How can Scripture speak of bishops, presbyters (priests), and
deacons, etc. (cf. Acts 14:23, Acts 15:4, Phil. 1:1, 1 Tm. 3:1, 1
Tm. 3:8, 1 Tm. 5:17, Ti. 1:5, Ti. 1:7-9) unless the church is visible and hierarchical?
Closing
Quotations...
"Moreover
as our Savior does not rule the Church directly in a visible
manner, He wills to be helped by the members of His Body in
carrying out the work of redemption." (Pope Pius XII, "Mystici
Corporis Christi", 1943 A.D.)
"Such
is the Church: a spiritual, but at the same time an exterior and
visible society; just in the same way as man is spiritual and
because of his soul and material because of his body, which is an
essential part of his being. The Christian, therefore, should love
the Church such as God has made her; he should detest that false
and hypocritical spiritualism which, with a view to subvert the
work of Christ, would confine religion within the exclusively
spiritual domain. We never can admit such a limitation. The Divine
Word has assumed our flesh; he permitted his creature man to hear
and see and handle him; and when he organized his Church on earth,
he made it speaking, visible, and so to say palpable." (Dom
Gueranger)
"[T]hose
who arbitrarily conjure up and picture to themselves a hidden and
invisible Church are in grievous and pernicious error: as also are
those who regard the Church as a human institution which claims a
certain obedience in discipline and external duties, but which is
without the perennial communication of the gifts of divine grace,
and without all that which testifies by constant and undoubted
signs to the existence of that life which is drawn from God. It is
assuredly as impossible that the Church of Jesus Christ can be the
one or the other, as that man should be a body alone or a soul
alone. The connection and union of both elements is as absolutely
necessary to the true Church as the intimate union of the soul and
body is to human nature." (Pope Leo XIII, "Satis Cognitum",
1896 A.D.)
"[W]e
are told that [the Church] was to spread, and actually has been
spread, throughout the whole world. Now how could such progress
and conquest have taken place, if the spiritual society founded by
our Redeemer had not also been exterior and visible? On earth,
souls cannot hold intercommunication without bodies. Faith cometh
by hearing, says the Apostle: and how shall they hear without a
preacher? When, therefore, our Risen Jesus says to his Apostles:
Go, teach all nations! He distinctly implies that the word of God
will be heard, that it will resound throughout the world, and that
its sound will be heard both by them that obey and by them that
reject the teaching of his ministers... [I]f this people, which is
to attract all others to itself, be not visible, how can it do its
work?'" (Dom Gueranger)
"Thus
it is that the divine Founder of the Church, who willed that she
should be a city seated on a mountain (Mt. v. 14), gave her
visibility; it was an essential requisite; for since all were
called to enter her pale, all must be able to see her. But He was
not satisfied with this. He moreover willed that the spiritual
power exercised by her pastors should come from a visible source,
so that the faithful might have a sure means of verifying the
claims of those who were to guide them in His name. Our Lord (we
say it reverently) owed this to us; for, on the last day, He will
not receive us as His children, unless we shall have been members
of His Church, and have lived in union with Him by the ministry of
pastors lawfully constituted [cf. Lk. 10:1-16]. Honor, then, and submission to Jesus
in His vicar! Honor and submission to the vicar of Christ in the
pastors he sends!" (Dom Gueranger)
"And,
since it was necessary that His divine mission should be
perpetuated to the end of time, He took to Himself disciples,
trained by himself, and made them partakers of His own authority.
And, when He had invoked upon them from Heaven the Spirit of
Truth, He bade them go through the whole world and faithfully
preach to all nations what He had taught and what He had
commanded, so that by the profession of His doctrine and the
observance of His laws, the human race might attain to holiness on
earth and never-ending happiness in Heaven. In this wise, and on
this principle, the Church was begotten. If we consider the chief
end of His Church and the proximate efficient causes of salvation,
it is undoubtedly spiritual; but in regard to those who constitute
it, and to the things which lead to these spiritual gifts, it is
external and necessarily visible." (Pope Leo XIII, "Satis
Cognitum", 1896 A.D.)
"So
that we could fulfill our duty of embracing the true faith and of
persevering unwaveringly in it, God, through his only begotten Son,
founded the Church, and He endowed his institution with clear notes to
the end that She might be recognized by all as the guardian and teacher
of the revealed word. To the Catholic Church alone belong all those
things, so many and so marvelous, which have been divinely ordained to
make for the manifest credibility of the Christian faith. What is more,
the Church herself by reason of her astonishing propagation, her
outstanding holiness and her inexhaustible fertility in every kind of
goodness, by her Catholic unity and her unconquerable stability, is a
kind of great and perpetual motive of credibility and an
incontrovertible evidence of her own divine mission. So it comes about
that, like a standard lifted up for the nations, she both invites to
herself those who have not yet believed, and likewise assures her sons
and daughters that the faith they profess rests on the firmest of
foundations." (First Vatican Council)
"That
the Church is a body is frequently asserted in the Sacred
Scriptures. 'Christ,' says the Apostle, 'is the Head of the Body
of the Church.' If the Church is a body, it must be an unbroken
unity, according to those words of Paul: 'Though many we are one
body in Christ.' But it is not enough that the Body of the Church
should be an unbroken unity; it must also be something definite
and perceptible to the senses as Our predecessor of happy memory,
Leo XIII, in his Encyclical Satis Cognitum asserts: 'the Church is
visible because she is a body. Hence they err in a matter of
divine truth, who imagine the Church to be invisible, intangible,
a something merely 'pneumatological' as they say, by which many
Christian communities, though they differ from each other in their
profession of faith, are united by an invisible bond. But a body
calls also for a multiplicity of members, which are linked
together in such a way as to help one another... Again, as in
nature a body is not formed by any haphazard grouping of members
but must be constituted of organs, that is of members, that have
not the same function and are arranged in due order; so for this
reason above all the Church is called a body, that it is
constituted by the coalescence of structurally united parts, and
that it has a variety of members reciprocally dependent. It is
thus the Apostle describes the Church when he writes: 'As in one
body we have many members, but all the members have not the same
office: so we being many are one body in Christ, and everyone
members one of another.'" (Pope Pius XII, "Mystici
Corporis Christi", 1943 A.D.)
"Christ
our Lord, when about to leave this world and return to the Father,
entrusted to the Chief of the Apostles the visible government of
the entire community He had founded. Since He was all wise He
could not leave the body of the Church He had founded as a human
society without a visible head. Nor against this may one argue
that the primacy of jurisdiction established in the Church gives
such a Mystical Body two heads. For Peter in virtue of his primacy
is only Christ's Vicar; so that there is only one chief Head of
this Body, namely Christ, who never ceases Himself to guide the
Church invisibly, though at the same time He rules it visibly,
through him who is His representative on earth. After His glorious
Ascension into heaven this Church rested not on Him alone, but on
Peter, too, its visible foundation stone. That Christ and His
Vicar constitute one only Head is the solemn teaching of Our
predecessor of immortal memory Boniface VIII in the Apostolic
Letter Unam Sanctam; and his successors have never ceased to
repeat the same. They, therefore, walk in the path of dangerous
error who believe that they can accept Christ as the Head of the
Church, while not adhering loyally to His Vicar on earth. They
have taken away the visible head, broken the visible bonds of
unity and left the Mystical Body of the Redeemer so obscured and
so maimed, that those who are seeking the haven of eternal
salvation can neither see it nor find it." (Pope Pius
XII, "Mystici Corporis Christi", 1943 A.D.)
"The
Apostles received a mission to teach by visible and audible signs,
and they discharged their mission only by words and acts which
certainly appealed to the senses. So that their voices falling
upon the ears of those who heard them begot faith in souls -
'Faith cometh by hearing, and hearing by the words of Christ'
(Rom. x., 17). And faith itself - that is assent given to the
first and supreme truth - though residing essentially in the
intellect, must be manifested by outward profession - 'For with
the heart we believe unto justice, but with the mouth confession
is made unto salvation' (Rom. x., 10). In the same way in man,
nothing is more internal than heavenly grace which begets
sanctity, but the ordinary and chief means of obtaining grace are
external: that is to say, the sacraments which are administered by
men specially chosen for that purpose, by means of certain
ordinances. Jesus Christ commanded His Apostles and their
successors to the end of time to teach and rule the nations. He
ordered the nations to accept their teaching and obey their
authority. But this correlation of rights and duties in the
Christian commonwealth not only could not have been made
permanent, but could not even have been initiated except through
the senses, which are of all things the messengers and
interpreters. For this reason the Church is so often called in
Holy Writ a body, and even the body of Christ - 'Now you are the
body of Christ' (I Cor. xii., 27) - and precisely because it is a
body is the Church visible: and because it is the body of Christ
it is living and energizing, because by the infusion of His power
Christ guards and sustains it, just as the vine gives nourishment
and renders fruitful the branches united to it." (Pope Leo XIII, "Satis
Cognitum", 1896 A.D.)
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