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March 3, 2013 |
| Apostolic Succession | ||
Apostolic Succession is a concept that is only accepted in the Roman Catholic Church and the Orthodox Churches that split from it. The concept is that something of value was passed from the original apostles to the leaders of the churches they started that those leaders can pass down to the leaders of the churches they started and to their successors in their own church. And going the other direction the concept is that there is some importance in the lineage of a church - that it can be traced back to one of the original apostles.
We all recognize that the teachings of the Apostles were passed down to the churches and that was very valuable to them. But that isn't what we are talking about here. Apostolic Succession is about something being passed down through only the leaders of the churches.
The Pope has abdicated his position and his successor is about to be picked. Therefore Apostolic Succession is on the minds of many people right now because.
In this lesson we will look at this topic, whether it is Biblical, why other Christian Churches don't accept it, and other aspects of it.
Although the churches mentioned above and some others trace their existence back to one or more of the apostles, only the Roman Catholic Church insists that power and authority are passed through this succession of leaders.
The main purpose of Apostolic Succession seems to be to support the existence of an intercessory priesthood. When Jesus died on the cross the curtain to the Holy of Holies was torn in half to show the end of the intercessory priesthood of Judaism. No longer did mankind need to go through a priest to get to God. A direct relationship between man and God had become possible.
Matthew 27 51 At that moment the curtain of the temple was torn in two from top to bottom
But as soon as the Apostles had died off, the Church of Rome, which would become the Roman Catholic Church, revived that intercessory priesthood. With that priesthood there became certain things that only a priest could do. These included baptism, communion, and other notions such as praying a person out of Purgatory. This priesthood also has a hierarchy within it where the person at the top, the Pope, claims to be second only to God and that his teachings on Christianity are never wrong1. They are therefore considered to be as important as the teachings in the Bible. They believe such a man is necessary to keep "a firm hand on the tiller of the Barque of Saint Peter."
Since the Bible does not support the existence of this priesthood, it was necessary to find another source of support. This came from Apostolic Succession. By claiming the transfer of power and authority down through the ages from the apostles, this priesthood supports its existence.
Most of the Protestant Churches do not support this idea. They view the Roman Catholic Church as a manmade organization of men when God's intent was to have the Holy Spirit be the unifying force for a spiritual church.
This new priesthood also created a bunch of holy days that had never existed before. Many of these focused on man and not God. These include Assumption of Mary, All Saints Day, Mary Mother of God, Ash Wednesday, Palm Sunday, and Easter2. They also established a bunch of symbols and observances that had never existed before. These include prayer beads (The Rosary), statues in churches, the Stations of the Cross. None of these have any Biblical support.
The Catholic Church considers itself descended from the Apostle Peter whom they consider to be the leader of the Apostles. There are a lot of problems with this basic assumption. There is no evidence that Peter ever went to Rome so he could not have setup a bishop there. In fact what little evidence there is shows that the church of Rome was not founded by any apostle, but was founded by ordinary people carrying the gospel message from Israel to Rome.
Peter was the Apostle to the Gentiles as was Paul. But Peter was the Apostle to the Aramaic speaking Gentiles only. He was born a Jew in Israel, a son of a fisherman, so he would not have spoken Greek. Therefore a trip to Rome by him would have been difficult because the Romans and even the Roman Jews would have spoken Greek. Paul was the Apostle to all Gentiles. He was born a Roman in a Roman country, and spoke Greek and Aramaic.
The Catholic Church's belief that Peter was made the leader of the Apostles rests on two badly understood and badly translated verses.
Matthew 16 18 And I tell you that you are Peter, and on this rock I will build my church, and the gates of Hades will not overcome it. 19 I will give you the keys of the kingdom of heaven; whatever you bind on earth will be bound in heaven, and whatever you loose on earth will be loosed in heaven."
In fact Peter was no rock and he was about to prove it by denying Christ three times. And if you keep reading after the verses above then 4 verses later you get to this.
Matthew 16 23 Jesus turned and said to Peter, "Get behind me, Satan! You are a stumbling block to me; you do not have in mind the concerns of God, but merely human concerns."
But also verse 18 and 19 do not mean what the Catholic Church claims. The NIV translation is as bad as any in this case. Jesus is not telling Peter that his name is Peter. Peter already knows that - it was the name given him by Jesus. The name Peter means "rock", a rock that is more or less round and bigger than a pebble.
The word translated as rock in the verse above is actually a different word, a word that doesn't have an English equivalent. The closest we can come in English is a compound word like rock-shelf or rock plateau, a rock that is big enough that you could build a building on it.
The word translated as "church" doesn't refer to a church as an entity but as a community. It refers to the individuals, not the organization.
So, two different words for rock are being used here. One is being translated to the name Peter but that produces a silly statement by Jesus - "I tell you that you are Peter". One is being translated as "rock", when it really means something much larger, flatter and stable than what we think of as a rock. These verses should really read something like "You are a rock, on this rock-plateau I will build my community and I will give them the keys to the kingdom of Heaven … ." When we see it this way we can understand that Jesus is talking about building a community of believers on himself - which makes better theological sense anyway and it fits better with the scripture below
Ephesians 2 19 Consequently, you are no longer foreigners and strangers, but fellow citizens with God's people and also members of his household, 20 built on the foundation of the apostles and prophets, with Christ Jesus himself as the chief cornerstone. 21 In him the whole building is joined together and rises to become a holy temple in the Lord.
This verse doesn't give Peter any special mention and note that it includes the Old Testament prophets, not just the Apostles. When we look at the Bible we do not see the other Apostles giving Peter any special honor. They do not kiss his ring … if he even had one. Nor do they go to him for advice. The Holy Spirit is their guide. We do see however Paul scolding Peter in public in Acts for living a double life, living one way with the Jews and another with the Gentiles.
"Paul, in talking to the church leaders in […] Ephesus, makes note of coming false teachers. To fight against their error [Paul] does NOT commend them to ‘the apostles and those who would carry on their authority,' but rather to ‘God and to the word of His grace' (Acts 20:28-32)."3
There are also problems with the idea of succession from man to man by the vote of men. Succession never happened that way in any case in the Bible.
When we look at the history of the early Christian church after the Apostles we see there were three major centers, Rome, Asia Minor (now Turkey), and Alexandria, Egypt. When representatives of these groups got together the representatives of the Church of Rome would insist that they should be in charge because of their lineage from Peter. The representatives of the other church centers would ignore them. So even from the earliest times in the earliest churches we don't see support for the idea that the Church of Rome had precedence4.
There are also problems with the line of succession and the godliness and infallibility supposedly passed down that lineage. Quite a few of the Pope's have been power thirsty, corrupt and sinful5. They have displayed every weakness of mankind. In at least one case a Pope's authority was taken from him and a new Pope was declared. But the old Pope wouldn't get out of the chair and was supported by his friends. For a period of time there were two reigning Pope's. The history of Pope's has shown that they are no more than ordinary men.
The example of Paul scolding Peter above also tells us something about the Catholic Church's claim to Papal Infallibility. The claim is that the Pope gets his doctrinal infallibility from Peter. But Peter was plainly wrong here. The Catholic Church says this is not an example of infallibility because Peter was not teaching the people to do wrong. But we know that we teach not just by words but by actions and the way we live.
The office of Pope has also had problems. In many cases it has been no more than a political office. It was bought and sold many times and achieved by corrupt means in other cases.
The line of succession is also a problem. The Catholic Church has an official list of the Popes / Bishops all the way from Peter. But the problem is that the earliest writers in the Catholic Church have different lists.
With a new Pope about to be chosen what are non-Catholic Christians to make of it? There is no Biblical support for Apostolic Succession or for a hierarchical church built on it. There is no historical support for Peter setting up a bishop in Rome or for that bishop to rule over all the other churches. There is historical evidence that the Popes were ordinary fallible men and have no special spiritual quality.
On the contrary many things taught by the Pope's contradict the Bible. This is the reason why there have been many split offs from the Catholic Church.
But there is one reason for non-Catholics to have an interest in the next Pope. In the 1200s a priest had a vision. In that vision he saw descriptions of men and he understood them to be descriptions of the coming Popes. He wrote them down and sent them to Rome but no one paid much attention for hundreds of years.
But after a while people started looking at it and they found that the cryptic descriptions did match with the sequence of Popes up to that time. When the cardinals chose the Pope who just resigned they made a special effort to choose a man who did not match the description for him. However he chose a papal name that did match the description.
What makes this interesting is that the next Pope is the last on the list and Malachy describes him as the one who will guide the church through to the end. His description is Peter the Roman.
1 Papal Infallibility
2 http://catholicism.about.com/od/holydaysandholidays/a/2013_Lit_Cal.htm
3 http://www.gotquestions.org/pope-papacy.html
4 Called Primacy