Decapitating Christ
I had a discussion recently with someone who was adamantly opposed to the Catholic Church and asked him the question;
What does Scripture say is the pillar and ground of truth?
He didn’t have an immediate answer I think because he knew the question was loaded. Many Protestants and Evangelicals and assorted other non-Catholics will say immediately that the pillar and ground of the truth is the Bible. In fact, that is essentially what the doctrine of Sola Scriptura teaches, and most non-Catholics, other than the Orthodox adhere to that doctrine.
Of course, the answer to the question is the Church. That is found in 1 Timothy 3:15. The following question I asked this person is then, what Church is St. Paul referring to?
This then brings us right into the area of ecclesiology. John Martignoni, the Catholic apologist that I have referenced here more than once has sent another newsletter and he has an interesting take on what it is that the Protestants of one sort and another, particularly the Evangelicals and Fundamentalists tend to do in this area.
He says that they “decapitate Christ.” An interesting way to put it.
Yet let us recall that on the road to Damascus, Saul the Pharisee was asked by the voice in the vision that blinded him, “Saul, Saul, why are you persecuting me?”
As others have pointed out, Christ did not say, “Why are you persecuting my followers?” No, he took it very personally. “Why are you persecuting me?” And as Scott Hahn notes in the course of his conversation with Marcus Grodi here, St. Paul is the one who later develops the theme of Christ as the Head and the Church as the Body of Christ.
Ephesians 1;
22 And he put all things beneath his feet and gave him as head over all things to the church,
23 which is his body, the fullness of the one who fills all things in every way.Colossians 1:
24 Now I rejoice in my sufferings for your sake, and in my flesh I am filling up what is lacking in the afflictions of Christ on behalf of his body, which is the church,
Martignoni points out quite rightly that Jesus identified himself with his Church and St. Paul faithfully taught that Jesus is the Head and the Church is the Body so that any variation of the “me-and-Jesus” mentality is not Scriptural to begin with and is effectively, by separating the Church from Christ, decapitating Christ from his body the Church.
The original question remains, then, what Church is St. Paul speaking of to Timothy. Remember, he is saying that the Church is the pillar and ground of the truth. This is a very important question. It means that whatever the answer, that Church has the authority to teach, and not only that, because St. Paul places the Church above Scripture, that Church has also the authority to interpret Scripture. So, indeed, the answer is very important.
So let us say that the Church St. Paul is referring to is, as many non-Catholics will assert, the “body of believers.” That is to say, all of those who believe in Jesus Christ, who call themselves Christian. (For the sake of simplicity let us equate those who call themselves Christian with those who actually believe in Jesus Christ while in reality the two are not necessarily the same.) Well, how is it then that there is such a wide diversity of doctrine amongst that group? If, as we see from St. Paul’s words to Timothy, that Church has the authority to teach, that is the pillar and ground of truth, how can it contradict itself in matters of doctrine? We know this to be true. For instance, for some, baptism is necessary for salvation while for others it is not. That is just one simple example of a core doctrine that is not categorical amongst Christians. So how then can this body of believers be the pillar and ground of truth?
No, we are going to have to be more specific. We are going to have to go back to the day of St. Paul and realize that he was definitely talking about one Church, a unified, universal (Catholic) Church, which was visible, organized and under the leadership of the Apostles and those who were appointed to fill the offices of those who died. (Acts 1:15-25)
The only Church that claims that universal teaching authority today is the same one that St. Paul was talking about with Timothy (a young Bishop, by the way). That is the One, Holy, Catholic and Apostolic Church, known simply as the Catholic Church, in communion with the Bishop of Rome, the successor of St. Peter.
Let’s go to John 17 for a moment;
9 I pray for them. I do not pray for the world but for the ones you have given me, because they are yours,
10 and everything of mine is yours and everything of yours is mine, and I have been glorified in them.
11 And now I will no longer be in the world, but they are in the world, while I am coming to you. Holy Father, keep them in your name that you have given me, so that they may be one just as we are.
12 When I was with them I protected them in your name that you gave me, and I guarded them, and none of them was lost except the son of destruction, in order that the scripture might be fulfilled.
13 But now I am coming to you. I speak this in the world so that they may share my joy completely.
14 I gave them your word, and the world hated them, because they do not belong to the world any more than I belong to the world.
15 I do not ask that you take them out of the world but that you keep them from the evil one.
16 They do not belong to the world any more than I belong to the world.
17 Consecrate them in the truth. Your word is truth.
18 As you sent me into the world, so I sent them into the world.
19 And I consecrate myself for them, so that they also may be consecrated in truth.
20 “I pray not only for them, but also for those who will believe in me through their word,
21 so that they may all be one, as you, Father, are in me and I in you, that they also may be in us, that the world may believe that you sent me.
22 And I have given them the glory you gave me, so that they may be one, as we are one,
23 I in them and you in me, that they may be brought to perfection as one, that the world may know that you sent me, and that you loved them even as you loved me.
24 Father, they are your gift to me. I wish that where I am they also may be with me, that they may see my glory that you gave me, because you loved me before the foundation of the world.
Besides being a powerful prayer of our Lord to the Father, this is a powerful rebuke is it not? In verse 20 he is praying specifically for you and me when he speaks of “those who will believe in me through their word”. What a humbling and heart-filling realization, that we have here recorded, the very words of Jesus praying for us, roughly 2000 years later. Praise God!
In verse 22 he prays that we will be one, just as he and the Father are one. But we are not one, despite some efforts to dodge around that fact, while sectarian arguing continues apace. We are not one in doctrine, we are not one in practice, we are not one in leadership, we are not one in obedience. Are we not then grieving our Lord who prayed that we would be one?
Lest we try to water down what it means to be one, our Lord says very specifically what he means by it. “…as we are one.” As he and the Father are one. That is a tall order; it is difficult; but it is the express will of Jesus Christ. Are Jesus and the Father in disagreement over doctrine? Did Jesus come to earth to start a Church because he disagreed with the doctrine of God the Father or maybe the pace of Divine Revelation to Israel?
Let us not decapitate Christ. His Church, the body of Christ is here, visible and the gates of hell will not prevail against it. The time of Protest is over; the time of schism is over; the time of self-willed make-it-up-on-the-fly Christianity is over; the time of disobedience is over. Let us in humility remember the prayer of Jesus Christ himself that we would be one.
August 28th, 2009 at 10:48 am
Greetings! I was glad to hear of your successful operation and hope and pray you stay healthy.
I enjoy visiting your blog/website from time to time and couldn’t help responding to this one. I should know better I suppose. Its one thing for Catholics to debate Catholics and Protestants to debate Protestants… but for a Protestant to debate a Catholic is nigh impossible since we start at two very different places.
In any case… I love the passage you quoted from Timothy - its one I often cite in conversation with fellow Baptists who I fear are too enamoured with the postmodern culture and its attitude toward truth.
“the church of the living God, the pillar and ground of the truth”. Notice, though, that it is Scripture that tells us this. What does Scripture say is the pillar and ground of the truth is precisely the question every believer should ask. What does Scripture say? Indeed, we wouldn’t know what the church is apart from these inspired words.
You note what one Catholic has said on the ‘decapitation of Christ’. If Protestants have tended to devalue the body I wonder if Catholics have tended to devalue the Head?
What John Martignoni accuses the Protestant of doing to the body (the Church) is the very thing many Catholics have done to the Head (Christ). They would acknowledge the Lordship of Christ in word and by right (de jure) but in practice (de facto) it is the Church and Pope who are lords. I would argue that the agreement shared among Catholics is due (for the most part) to their allegiance to the Pope and to the church rather than to Christ. There is certainly widespread disagreement among Protestants, but these disagreements are due to our conviction that Christ alone is Head. Rather than giving our allegiance to the body we owe allegiance to Him; and it is only by (and because of) our allegiance to Him that we are part of the body.
I look forward to hearing from you.
Steve
September 1st, 2009 at 2:23 am
Thanks for the comment Steve. Yes, I am gaining in physical strength each day, back to work and trying to get back to the pace. Thanks be to God who hears our prayers, and thanks to the many who interceded for me.
I suppose Catholics and Protestants come from two different places but I have been in both places and I will say this, the Catholic Church looks far different from the inside than it does from outside. Much of that “exterior” perception is just that, perception, coloured, of course from 500 years of sometimes vitriolic and most often distorted descriptions of Catholic teaching.
And, more often than not, we can get a distorted picture of the whole, without any particular animosity, but simply by focusing only on the differences of doctrine, the points of disagreement, and drawing a picture from only those points.
The truth is, rather than minimizing Christ in practice, we receive him body, blood, soul and divinity at each mass. That, you might say, is our “altar call” and is the summit of the Church’s life in each and every parish and for each Catholic whether they know who the Pope is or even who their own Bishop is. We believe what Jesus said in John 6:53-54;
53 Jesus said to them, “Amen, amen, I say to you, unless you eat the flesh of the Son of Man and drink his blood, you do not have life within you.
54 Whoever eats my flesh and drinks my blood has eternal life, and I will raise him on the last day.
On that theme, I was listening today to a convert from the Dutch Reformed Church who pointed out the words of Ignatius of Antioch in a letter to the church at Smyrna. Ignatius was a disciple of John the Apostle, the very John who wrote the words above and in Chapter 6 of Ignatius’ letter he was warning the church of certain individuals;
“But consider those who are of a different opinion with respect to the grace of Christ which has come unto us, how opposed they are to the will of God. They have no regard for love; no care for the widow, or the orphan, or the oppressed; of the bond, or of the free; of the hungry, or of the thirsty.”
In Chapter Seven he continues;
“They abstain from the Eucharist and from prayer, because they confess not the Eucharist to be the flesh of our Saviour Jesus Christ, which suffered for our sins, and which the Father, of His goodness, raised up again. Those, therefore, who speak against this gift of God, incur death in the midst of their disputes.”
Clearly, this disciple of John, on his way to martyrdom in Rome, was taught what we Catholics still teach, that is, the real presence of Christ in the Eucharist.
The convert I mentioned was pointing out that if we listen to Calvin today, some 500 years later, who himself was 1500 years removed from the apostles, how much more should we listen to someone who was taught by John the Evangelist, the disciple whom Jesus loved? And can we not then lay to rest in our minds some stretched symbolic interpretation of John’s recounting of Jesus’ discourse when we see John’s own disciple affirming the plain sense of chapter 6 of John’s Gospel?
No, we cannot forget that Christ is the head and we are the body because we are united to him in a sacramental bond, as he willed and commanded it to be, with the added promise that the gates of hell would not prevail against his Church nor, for that matter, the office of Prime Minister in his Kingdom (see Isaiah 22:20-22).
September 9th, 2009 at 1:39 am
Addendum;
Regarding 1 Timothy 3:15, I suppose one’s perspective depends on which of the two one thinks came first; the Church or the New Testament complete with St. Paul’s letter to the young Bishop, Timothy. If it is realized that it was the Church that came first, it is easy to see how the inerrant Scripture then re-affirms the Catholic position from the beginning forward that it is the Church that has the authority and the Holy Spirit’s guarantee of the truth. God then is confirming this through the words of St. Paul to Timothy.
If however, we are to suppose that the New Testament came before the Church, which we know from history is not the case, and which is also confirmed by the Scriptural accounts, then we might say that Scripture is the higher authority in and of itself.
We all agree that the Scripture is inerrant, inspired by God, and therefore, because the Scripture directs us to the Church as the pillar and foundation of the truth, we must, as I said, take God at his word and therefore it becomes much more urgent to know what that Church is.
Well, if we want to look at what St. Paul was talking about we can verify independently from Scripture what Church it was. That was and still is the Catholic Church. She hasn’t left. Nor has she relinquished guarding and passing on that deposit of faith given by the Apostles themselves. Others have left her, but she is still the same.
Moreover, contrary to the claims of some over recent centuries, it is then manifest that nothing in Scripture contradicts the doctrines and teaching of the Catholic Church.
If we were to meet the adherents of Sola Scriptura on their own ground, we might ask how Scripture is interpreted. The response is by the guidance of the Holy Spirit. To which we say a resounding “Amen!” and re-affirm that the Catholic interpretation of Scripture is just that, guided by the Holy Spirit, and that claim stands beside any other on the ground of Sola Scriptura. But if the opponents of the Catholic Church cry foul, and do not give ground as they would beween a Baptist and a Presbyterian, or between and Anglican and a Pentecostal, then we must insist that there is another underlying principle at work here, namely, a tradition of men.