Expert: Sal - 3/31/2007

Question
dear Sal
i was wondering, in one of your answers you stated  that Matthew 16:17,18 is why the catholic church was founded by Jesus. i read the text and all it said was that Jesus said that peter was peter (peter does mean rock in Latin) and that Jesus would  build his church on a/the  rock. but he does not specify which rock. he could be talking about peter, himself or even just a boring old rock. also how does this explain that the catholic church was founded by Jesus. that would say its founded by peter. and did peter in fact actually found the church? doesn't that just mean that the catholics founded themselves and made peter the honorary leader. did peter ever say that he was in fact the founder of the catholics. or is that just a assumption?
an inquisitive for the truth
Seth

Answer
Dear Seth:

The text of Mt 16:18 does not say that Jesus would build his church on “a/the” rock. Rather Jesus said on “this” rock immediately after declaring that Simon was now to be known as “rock”. There is no valid reason for denying that Peter is the rock of Mt 16:18. Protestant scholars, very knowledgeable in the Greek language, agree with the Catholic Church that Peter is the rock spoken of by Jesus in Mt 16:18. For example, Gerhard Kittle, editor of the 10 vol “Theological Dictionary of the New Testament”, wrote “But what does Jesus mean when He says” ‘On this rock I will build my church’? The idea of the Reformers that He is referring to the faith of Peter is quite inconceivable…Rather, the parallelism of ‘thou art Rock’ and ‘on this rock I will build’ shows that the second rock can only be the same as the first. It is thus evident that Jesus is referring to Peter, to whom He has given the name Rock…To this extent Roman Catholic Exegesis is right and all Protestant attempts to evade this interpretation are to be rejected.”

A Baptist (known to be anti-Catholic) Professor of New Testament, Craig Blomberg admits, “Jesus’ declaration, ‘You are Peter’, parallels Peter’s confession, ‘You are the Christ’, as if to say, ‘Since you can tell me who I am, I will tell you who you are’. The expression ‘this rock’ almost certainly refers to Peter, following immediately after his name, just as the words ‘the Christ’ in v. 16 applies to Jesus. The play on words in the Greek between Peter’s name (Petros) and the word ‘rock’ (petra) makes sense only if Peter is the rock and if Jesus is about to explain the significance of this identification.”

I believe that a professor at Fuller Theological Seminary, Donald Hagner, was very honest and insightful when he stated the frequent attempts in the past to deny that Peter is the rock were “largely motivated by Protestant prejudice against a passage that is used by the Roman Catholics to justify the papacy.” I list these few examples (that could be easily multiplied) just to point out that the denial of Peter as the rock is invalid even among intellectual Protestants.  

Jesus clearly said that he would build his Church on Peter. The Catholic Church claims that its first Pope was Peter. Whether you accept this or not all churches that do not make that claim cannot be the True Church. It is the first requirement of the True Church that it be founded by Jesus upon Peter.

Another requirement is that this Church must have been founded in the first century. This requirement immediately eliminates all Protestant Churches. This only leaves the Catholic and Orthodox Churches as possibly being the True Church.

Another requirement is that the True Church must teach truth. The Orthodox Church allows for divorce and remarriage (see Mk 10:11-12), therefore, it cannot be the True Church. This leaves only the Catholic Church as the True Church of Jesus Christ “the pillar and foundation of truth” (1 Tim. 3:15).

We do not know for sure when the Christian Church first took on the name of  “Catholic”. The first mention of the Church being called the Catholic Church occurs in a letter written in 107 AD. The writer of the letter uses the name as if it has been in use for some time. Therefore, it is quite possible that the name was used in the first century. The name of Catholic may have been applied to the Church by the Apostles, but we cannot know for certain.

God Bless You,
Sal