Does the New Testament teach that Peter was the First Pope?

Alpha & Omega Ministries

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It's a definite privilege to be here tonight, and I'm glad to see so many that have gathered.

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Before I get into the real substance of the evening, though, I must tell you that there's a red

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Toyota pickup and a brown Bronco that have left their lights on, and we do want your car to start at the end of this evening, so go ahead and take care of that.

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We'll all look the other way while you get up. It's a definite privilege to be here, and especially to have these two fine men here representing their positions.

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One of the things that I particularly delighted in, by the way, I'm Tim Philibosian, I'm the president of Rivendell, located here in town, and with both of these men from different parts of the country coming here tonight, it's been a very distinct privilege for me to meet them over the telephone and now in person.

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The reason is that each of them is committed to the Holy Bible. Each one has said that Jesus Christ is my

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Lord, and I want to do nothing that displeases him. Each of them has said that the

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Bible is what guides me in my beliefs, and each of them is willing to have scripture back up and support the perspective that he takes.

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This is, for me, a real privilege to be here tonight, to hear the Word of God exposed to so many of us.

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With the Pope coming in town some time ago, I started thinking, what can we do to take full advantage of this opportunity?

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There are many people who want to share Christ. There are many people who want to take a stand on the issues of the day.

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But I was thinking, what can Rivendell do to bring something, a greater understanding to each of the people who come here?

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At that time, we were contacted by these two men and asked if we might cooperate with them in sponsoring these two debates.

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We're delighted to do so. Tonight, the topic of the debate is, was

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Peter the first Pope? Tomorrow night, it will be at Faith Presbyterian Church in Aurora.

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There the discussion will center on, the early church did not believe in a papacy.

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Is that a fact, or is it not? These are critical questions.

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As the poster that we have put up all around town states, who is this man? With a billion people professing to be

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Catholics in the world today, we ask, who is this man? And it is distinctly a privilege to be here tonight, and tomorrow night as well.

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We are making tapes available, and if you'd like to pick up a tape, you may do so at the book tables in the back.

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I would like to inform you that this is a full evening. It's not easy to deal with thousands of years of history and thousands of years of debate in one evening, but we're going to do the best we possibly can.

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Having said that, I know that the gentlemen who sit up here, for many of you, champion your cause.

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When I introduce them, I encourage you to applaud, and I hope you applaud the other individual as well.

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But I also trust that that does it for the evening. I would like to be able to go from one speaker to the next, and from one time to the next with a minimum of outbursts.

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I don't want to restrain natural emotion, but on the other hand, we do want to keep things moving.

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So I just ask you to treat the speakers with courtesy. There will be a statement made by each individual tonight with opening statements, and then we'll have rebuttal periods.

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We'll have two rebuttal periods, and then there will be a time of question and answer from each of them. In order to meet our time limitations, it is unlikely that we will take any questions from the audience tonight.

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We might. Then again, we might not. If you have any questions, I would encourage you to contact either one of these gentlemen individually or come tomorrow night.

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It's our intention to have question and answer tomorrow night. I would like to introduce to you each of these two gentlemen.

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This is James White on my right. He received his Bachelor of Arts degree in Bible from Grand Canyon College, and his

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Master of Arts in Theology from Fuller Theological Seminary. He is an ordained Baptist minister.

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In order to further his commitment to biblical truth, Mr. White became the Director of Ministries for Alpha and Omega Ministries located in Phoenix, Arizona.

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With a desire to help others share his passion for scripture, Mr. White speaks throughout the

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United States and provides information for those who seek assistance in gaining a deeper understanding of the

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Bible. Mr. White has taught at Grand Canyon College and has authored several books, including a soon -to -be -released reprinting by Bethany House of his book,

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Letters to a Mormon Elder. He and his wife and two children live in Arizona. Mr.

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James White. On my left is

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Jerry Matitix. He earned a Bachelor of Arts in Classical New Testament and Patristic Greek from the

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University of New Hampshire. After receiving his Master of Divinity from Gordon -Conwell Theological Seminary, he completed the coursework for a

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Ph .D. in Biblical Interpretation from Westminster Theological Seminary. During this time, he was ordained as a minister by the

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Presbyterian Church in America. On Easter Sunday, 1986, Mr.

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Matitix surprised many when he left the Presbyterian Church in America to enter the Roman Catholic Church, thus becoming the first minister of his denomination to do so.

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Since that time, Mr. Matitix has served as a faculty member at numerous educational institutions. He presently serves as Director of Biblical Foundations, producing materials and presenting seminars around the country and abroad to help

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Catholics and non -Catholics appreciate the scriptural case for Catholicism. His first book,

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How the Bible Converted Me to Catholicism, One Protestant Theologian's Pilgrimage is being published by TAN.

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He lives with his wife and six children in Front Royal, Virginia. Jerry Matitix.

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I'm glad you're here, Jerry. Our commitment, our mutual commitment this evening is to the

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Holy Bible, God's Word. On that, we all agree. It is my privilege tonight to introduce to you a gentleman to open our time together in prayer in order to demonstrate our mutual commitment and commit this time to the

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Lord. It's Dr. Gordon Lewis. Dr. Lewis has been a professor of theology and the philosophy of religion at Denver Seminary for many, many, many, many years.

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He just recently announced his retirement. He's a great man of God and it's my privilege to introduce

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Dr. Gordon Lewis. It's a joy to welcome you for Denver Seminary.

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We're glad all of you are here and I'm looking forward to this debate as I know you are.

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Let's join together in prayer. Eternal source of all truth and value, we thank you that you have created us to grow in knowledge and in grace.

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We thank you for every good and perfect gift. And Lord Jesus Christ, we're grateful for all that you did for us on Calvary and all that you did to found the church.

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We're grateful for the conversion of Peter and of Paul, of Augustine and of Luther, and of everyone here who is trusting our

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Savior. And Holy Spirit, we're grateful for your inspiration of the

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New Testament. We're thankful for the way you led the apostles to teach us truth about ourselves and about the social community through which you are working with your people today.

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We pray that you will be our teacher and that everyone of us will be stimulated to more diligent study of the scriptures so that our churches might be more of what they ought to be.

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We pray that each of the debaters will manifest the respect and care that your people manifest for one another.

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And we pray that each of us will respond in a manner glorifying to you.

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We would ask that your will might be done on earth in our churches as it is in heaven through Jesus Christ our

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Lord. Amen. Was Peter the first pope affirming that proposition is

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Jerry Matitix. Jerry, you have 25 minutes. It's a great joy for me to be here in your very beautiful city of Denver, Colorado again.

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I was here two years ago for an annual meeting of the Fellowship of Catholic Scholars and at that time, in fact,

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I made the plea to my colleagues that we Catholics need to do a far better job than we have done in the past of articulating the biblical foundations of our

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Catholic beliefs. And I'm here two years later to put into practice what I preached on that occasion and to demonstrate tonight the biblical foundations of the

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Catholic doctrine of the papacy. Before I do, I want to make a couple of very brief announcements.

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First of all, I would like to draw your attention to a free booklet we're happy to give to anyone who requests one called

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Pillar of Fire, Pillar of Truth, The Catholic Church and God's Plan for You. This has been produced by Catholic Answers, an outstanding apologetics organization, certainly far and away the premier

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Catholic apologetics organization in the country today. And I had the great privilege of working with them a couple of years ago in San Diego and hold them in high esteem and I would encourage you to pick up a free copy of this booklet.

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They're available on my table right outside the door here underneath the clock. They are making this available.

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They have printed up 300 ,000 of these and are giving them out for free to everyone who has come to Denver for the

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Pope's visit, whether they are Catholic or non -Catholic. So please pick it up. It's a succinct summary of the biblical basis for the

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Catholic faith. I'd also like to mention that I'm going to be speaking tomorrow on the topic,

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How the Bible Converted Me to Catholicism, One Protestant Theologian's Pilgrimage, within a lengthy question and answer session afterwards, which is freewheeling and open to any and all questions you might want to ask.

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That's tomorrow afternoon, Wednesday, from 2 to 3 .30 p .m. at Thomas Jefferson High School, which is located at 3950

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South Holly Street, that is just southwest of the intersection of Hampton Avenue right here and I -25, so it's very close.

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And that's from 2 to 3 .30 tomorrow afternoon. You may want to come to that if you're curious why would a

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Protestant, especially a Protestant minister, an Evangelical Protestant, ever take it into his mind to become a

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Roman Catholic. I'm going to do nothing but be very frank with you this evening. I always believe in being completely honest.

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I like to be honest about the strengths and the weaknesses of my own position. I believe that my only security and safety, as is true of all of us, is in the truth, so I'm here to share the truth tonight.

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And I have to, therefore, quite frankly say I feel a little bit like David and Goliath tonight. That's not a reflection, it wasn't intended to be a reflection on Mr.

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White, analogizing him to Goliath, although I think it's important to recognize the prowess that Mr. White has as a debater.

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The general consensus, as I've talked with both Protestants and Catholics, is that he's a far more aggressive debater than I am, far more clever, far more able to really sort of pull out all the stops, and so I do feel a little bit like David going up against him yet again.

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But I'm primarily referring to the gigantic prejudice against the papacy, the whole notion of a papacy that is pervasive in our culture, not only among Protestants, but even among many

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American Catholics. And I recognize that to dislodge that prejudice is an enormous undertaking for one little person to attempt in the limited time we have tonight.

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So I'm really calling upon the grace of God to assist me and equip me. My desire is to submit my heart and mind to the lordship of Jesus Christ and to allow him to proclaim his truth to me and to all of us, so that we might, in submitting to Christ, receive that full faith that will bring us everlasting life.

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So I recognize the prejudice, and I know that I don't need to indict people who are disposed right now, as they're listening to me, to think, come on, the papacy, where is that in the

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Bible? I don't need to indict your intelligence or your sincerity, because for many years

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I was, hopefully, an intelligent and sincere Protestant who absolutely rejected the whole concept of the papacy.

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And I began to study Catholicism, basically to save my very best friend, a fellow classmate of mine from Gordon -Conwell

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Seminary, Scott Hahn, from becoming Catholic. And it was in that process of discovery and that desire to write this definitive refutation of the

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Catholic position on the papacy and other doctrines as well, that God showed me, by his completely undeserved grace, that the

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Scripture supports what the Catholic Church claims for the man who will be joining us in this city in a couple of days, that he indeed exercises an authority from Jesus Christ as his vicar on earth, and that we owe him our attention and our allegiance to show and to demonstrate our allegiance to Jesus Christ, our

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Savior, our Redeemer, and our King. Now, it's important for me to emphasize what this debate is not about, what does not need to take place tonight.

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We don't need to prove, for example, that the word Pope or papacy is in the Bible. That would be a rather superficial argument for someone to launch against the

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Catholic position. If Mr. White were up here debating a Jehovah's Witness, as he frequently does, he would not allow them to say that the doctrine of the

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Trinity is not found in the Bible because the word is not found in the Bible. Nor is this a debate, nor do

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I need to, in this debate, demonstrate to you that the Popes have been absolutely flawless, superlative, moral exemplars of righteousness, that they have never done anything foolish or never done anything sinful.

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Because Catholics do not believe, they do not teach, they never have taught what you might call the impeccability of the

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Popes, that they are unable to sin. We don't believe that. Nor do we need to assert that all the outer trappings and wrappings of the papacy as we experience it today can be found in their full -blown form in the pages of the

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New Testament itself. Both Protestants and Catholics recognize a legitimate organic development of the seeds of truth in Scripture that can come to full flower as God leads the

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Church through counsel after counsel and through phase after phase of Church history to derive a deeper understanding of what is in sacred

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Scripture. What do we need to accomplish tonight? What we need to accomplish, it seems to me, are three things.

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And I want you to write these down and to follow this as the outline. First of all, we need to ask ourselves, does

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Peter have a prominence, in fact, a preeminence in the New Testament among the Apostles?

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Secondly, we need to ask ourselves, is this prominence or preeminence of Simon Peter, is it something that's simply an accident while he just happens to be, by force of his personality or by force of circumstances, this prominent person?

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Or is there a judicial reason behind it? Is there a role or an office that he is exercising that shines that spotlight of significance upon him?

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In other words, is his significance merely de facto, as another

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Catholic apologist, James Aitken, points out in an article I had the privilege of reading yesterday?

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Or is it de jure? Is it based upon some right that he has received, some privilege, some grant that's been given by Jesus Christ?

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And then thirdly, if indeed Peter has this de jure authority, this office in the early church, does this office have successors to it?

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Are there indications in scripture? And tomorrow night, we'll be talking about other indications in church history that the church understood that this office would have dynastic succession to it.

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If we can answer yes to these three questions, then we have established the correctness of the Catholic concept.

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We have established that indeed Peter exercises a significance in the New Testament that sets him apart from all his fellows, and that this significance is because he is the head of the group of the apostles.

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He has a headship over them and over, therefore, the church. And thirdly, this headship continues down to the present day.

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Now, the first point I really think I shouldn't have to take very much time on at all, that Peter has a prominence, in fact, a preeminence in the

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New Testament, to me, would have to be absolutely crystal clear to any person who has opened up the

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Gospels or the Book of Acts. It would have to be, in my opinion, someone who is completely ignorant of the

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New Testament. If they said, no, Peter was just one of the guys. There are several ways of establishing this, and I'm sure that I'm simply pointing out to you things that you have already noticed yourself.

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First of all, we could simply do a numerical count. Peter is mentioned 195 times in the

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New Testament, 45 times as Simon Bar -Jonah, 150 times as Peter or Cephas.

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John the Evangelist runs not even a close second at a mere 29 times,

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James the Greater at 24, Judas at 23, Philip at 6, and then down to 4 for the remaining apostles.

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So references to Peter outnumber those of even his nearest competitor by a factor of 6 to 1.

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That is significant. You have to ask yourself, if you're going to be an honest student of Scripture, hmm, what's going on here?

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What is God saying to me? Holy Spirit, help me to be open to what, in fact, you are teaching me here in the pages of God's inspired inerrant word about this specialness, the significance of Peter.

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Secondly, we could point out to the fact that when there are lists of the apostles in the synoptic Gospels and in the first chapter of the

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Book of Acts, you can find these lists in Matthew 10, verses 2 through 4, Mark 3, verses 16 through 19,

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Luke 6, 14 through 16, and Acts 1 -13, that Peter figures very prominently in these lists.

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James Akin, in this article that I read of his, pointed out that these lists possess fascinating literary structure to them.

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Each of them is composed of three groups of four apostles each, and in the first section you have

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Peter, Andrew, James the Greater, and John. In all four lists, those four apostles come first.

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The order of those differs in all the lists with one exception, that Peter always comes first.

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Then you have a second group of four apostles who are less prominent, and the order differs among them as well.

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And then you have a third set, the final four apostles, who are the least prominent, the least eminent, and the last is always

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Judas. But in every single list, Peter is first, even though he was not chronologically the first apostle that Jesus called.

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And that is significant. In other words, the lists have been put together with a very deliberate literary structure.

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In fact, in each of the three subsets, it's always the same person who's first, Peter, and then

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Philip, and then James the Less. And yet, despite all the diversity in the lists,

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Peter is always first. And Matthew specifically, significantly says, first Peter.

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And the term he uses in Greek, protos, points to this primacy that Peter has.

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He is the first among the apostles, and that too is a significant statement. Matthew, of course, is the gospel preeminently of the church, and the structure of the church, and the authority of the church.

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Now we could go through a long list of episodes and incidents in the gospels which show this leadership of Peter, this preeminence of Peter.

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Frequently, all the apostles are referred to simply as Peter and his companions, Peter and those that are with him. Mark 1 .36,

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Mark 16 .7, Luke 9 .32, Acts 5 .29. Obviously, you're going to have to get the tape of this to be able to, you're not going to be able to write all these down while I rattle them off.

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He is the spokesman for the apostles in episode after episode, speaking on behalf of all of them to our

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Lord Jesus Christ. In Matthew 18 .21, Mark 8 .29, Luke 12 .41, John 6 .69, and Mark 10 .28.

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Jesus does some unusual things for and with Peter that he does with no other apostles. When he meets him, he says something very significant in John 1 .42.

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You are Simon, but hereafter you will be called Kepha, or Petras, which means rock.

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Now John chapter 1, by the way, is loaded with heavy allusions to the book of Genesis.

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Think about the way John's gospel begins, in the beginning, in the beginning, echoing the words of Genesis 1 .1.

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You have references to creation, light, and life, and water. You have references to the Lamb of God who takes away the sins of the world, an allusion that echoes a

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Jewish phrase about the Lamb that God provided, who took away the sins of the world in the Akedah, and the sacrifice of the

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Lamb that caught in the thicket in Genesis 22. You have the dove over the waters at Jesus' baptism, reminiscent of Noah.

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You have the allusions by Jesus' own words to Nathanael of Jacob's ladder. So you have a context that reminds you of Genesis, and people thinking about Genesis as they read

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John chapter 1 or heard it preached to them, when Jesus looks at this man and says, I'm going to change your name from Simon to Kepha, from grain of sand to rock, we think about that man whose name was changed in the book of Genesis, the first and most significant name change,

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Abram to Abraham. There is a parallel here. Peter is at least implicitly, perhaps it is being suggested,

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I wouldn't make this an argument, but in the light of something we'll see in Matthew 16, I would say this has significance. There is a parallel.

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Is it, in fact, perhaps the case that Peter is being portrayed as a new patriarch of the new

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Israel, the church, the new covenant Israel, and as that first patriarch had his name changed, so the second one is.

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We're going to see that in Isaiah 51 verses 1 and 2, God refers to Abraham, the father of the faithful of old covenant

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Israel, upon which he builds as a foundation the living temple of the people of Israel.

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He refers to him as a rock in Isaiah 51 verses 1 and 2. And so Jesus here gives

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Simon the name rock to further underscore that he too is a rock in the new covenant temple.

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Jesus selects his boat to be his floating pulpit and to preach from it and performs this miraculous catch a fish from it.

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He calls him and him alone to walk on the water to him in Mark chapter 14. The reference to preaching in the boat was in Luke 5 3.

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It is Peter who confesses Christ's deity and Jesus makes special privileges and claims to and about him in Matthew 16 verses 13 through 19, a passage we'll come back to.

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It is Peter who speaks on behalf of the inner circle and on the man of transfiguration in Mark in Matthew 17 1 through 8,

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Mark 9 2 through 8, and Luke 9 20 through 36, and he refers to it in his second epistle verse 1 16 through 18.

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It is he the one that is commanded by Christ to catch the fish, which miraculously has a coin in the mouth, the coin that pays for Peter and Christ.

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They are associated, they are identified, they are united together. The one coin pays the temple tribute for the two of them.

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It is Peter that Jesus says he will pray for in a very special way in Luke 22 31 through 32 that he can be a source of strength to the other apostles, to the other governors of the church.

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Peter is singled out. We'll come back to that passage as well. After the resurrection, the angel singles him out.

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Go tell his disciples and Peter that Christ is risen, Mark 16 7. Peter is the one that runs to the tomb when he first hears the women say that they've seen the angels.

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He's the first witness inside the tomb of the evidence, the wrappings of Jesus' bodily resurrection in Luke 24 12.

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And Jesus appears to him first in Luke 24 verse 34. We read that the apostles tell the people on the road to Emmaus that he has appeared to Peter, to Simon.

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It is true. The Lord has risen and has appeared to Simon. Paul echoes that in 1 Corinthians 15 verse 5. Even though when he ran to the tomb,

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John got there ahead of him. In John 20 verse 3 through 8, we read that he defers to Peter's primacy and allows him the privilege of entering the tomb first and being the first witness to see and handle the actual evidence of Christ's bodily resurrection.

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After the resurrection, it is Peter who drags the net at that miraculous catch of fish at the end of the gospel story onto the shore.

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In John 21 verse 11, the net containing 153 fish, which the church fathers point out was the number of nations in the world at that time, representing the truly global scope of the church.

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It is Peter who is in charge of the church. It is he who is the ecumenical patriarch, the one who brings the people of God into the kingdom of God.

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And the net, though loaded to overflowing, does not tear because of the unity, the supernatural unity that God gives his church so that the gates of hell cannot prevail against it.

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Jesus singles him out in that very scene as the one to whom he entrusts in an ultimate sense, in a definitive sense, the pastorship of the church.

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You feed my lambs. You tend to my flock. You care for my sheep. Not that the other apostles weren't supposed to, but Jesus says these words to Simon Peter and to Simon Peter alone.

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So we see a significance here. We see it all throughout the book of Acts. In Acts 1, it is he who conducts the election for the successor to Judas in chapter 1, verses 15 through 26.

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It is he on the day of Pentecost who proclaims the gospel to the Jews and brings them into the new covenant

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Israel. It is he in chapter 3 who performs the first post -Pentecost healing of the man crippled at the beautiful gate in chapter 3, verse 6.

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It is he who explains the gospel before the Jewish ruling council, the Sanhedrin in chapter 4.

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It is he who supernaturally excommunicates and in fact brings about the bodily discipline of Ananias and Sapphira, their death.

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He binds them over, as it were, as St. Paul said he was doing to the incestuous man in 1 Corinthians 5, for the destruction of their flesh that their spirit might be saved on the day of Jesus Christ.

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And he says to them that in lying to him as God's representative, you have not lied to mere men. You have lied to God.

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And hence the severeness of the penalty which they exact. Not that he's God, but that he speaks as God's representative.

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Peter's shadow in chapter 5, verse 15 has this amazing grace to it to bring about healing for those that are simply lying in the streets so that Peter's shadow can touch them and heal them.

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Peter preaches at the Sanhedrin again in verse 29 of that chapter. He is the one that brings the gospel along with John to the

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Samaritans in chapter 8, verse 14 and speaks to Simon the sorcerer. There's this beautiful sort of mirror image here of a true

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Simon and a false Simon. It is not without literary significance in Luke's mind that there are two

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Simons here, a true power and a false power, a true authority and a false authority. And Simon the sorcerer says, pray to me that your words which

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I know have this power will not come to pass in my life, that I can truly repent. It is he who is given this unique revelation in Acts chapter 10, a vision from heaven and a voice from heaven in verse 13.

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And the Holy Spirit speaks to him in verse 19 and says, bring the gospel to the

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Gentiles, to Cornelius and his household. And it is God who says to Cornelius, it's time for you to come into the church.

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And he says, go get Simon. He singles Simon out. Simon, who was called

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Peter in chapter 10, verse 5. He's living, by the way, he says, in the house of Simon the tanner, who lives in a house by the sea.

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Again, the symbolism is highly significant. A tanner is, of course, someone who takes animals and takes their skins, domesticates them and so forth, and renders them to the service of man.

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And here exactly is the beginning of this conquest of the beasts, which the Bible prevalently uses throughout

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Old Testament to represent Gentile powers, which are now to be tamed and to be domesticated, brought into the dominion of Jesus Christ.

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He is here in the house of Simon the tanner, in a house by the sea, for his job is to be the one, as he said in John 21, who goes fishing, and the apostles say, we will go with you.

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Peter's preaching brings down the Holy Spirit upon them in verse 44. He commands them, strong word in the

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Greek, to be baptized. When the people that are with him think, we can't baptize these Gentiles, in verse 48.

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Peter is imprisoned, released, and goes away. The Jews feel that he's more indispensable, the apostles, than the other apostles in chapter 12, after he's miraculously delivered from Herod.

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He is the one at the Council of Jerusalem. I'm sure a passage we'll be hearing more about from Mr. White, who, after much questioning, rises up and addresses his fellows in Acts 15, verse 7, and says, you know, from olden days among you,

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God chose that through my mouth, the nations would hear the word of the gospel and believe,

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Acts 15, verse 7. After much questioning, Peter makes this definitive declaration. It's an exact analogy, by the way, to the scene in Matthew 16, where after much questioning on the part of our

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Lord, who am I? Peter utters the prophetic word, and the entire multitude we read in verse 12 fell silent and listened to Arist, showing two successive actions, so that Paul and Barnabas could once again relate, in verse 12, what they had already done back in verse 4, that God had been with them and put a stamp of approval by his miracles upon their ministry among the

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Gentiles. James gets up and says, Simon has declared, in verse 14, and the Old Testament agrees with this, he says in verse 15, therefore, it should be our judgment that Gentiles are led into the church.

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The teaching of the Magisterium and the teaching of the Scriptures showing at that very first council that they beautifully jive, because they both come from the

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Holy Spirit. Paul affirms this primacy of Peter in his writings, referring to him primarily as Cepha -rock.

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He is the one who is the first witness of the resurrection, he says in chapter 15, verse 5. He is the one to whom he went in Galatians, chapter 1, to confer with, to visit

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Cephas, to make sure, he says, that I had not run in vain, to make sure

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I went by God's own divine command, according to a revelation, he says, in chapter 2, verse 2, in response to a revelation, to ensure that the gospel that I was proclaiming jived with what

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Peter and the pillars of the church, James and John, had in fact been saying, and the same one that was operating in Peter, he says in verse 8, was also operating in me.

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So we see a significance here. Now the question is, why is there this significance? Why is there this preeminence or prominence to Peter?

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The answer is in three important passages, I'll only have time to even begin looking at the first one in my opening statement here, in which

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Jesus confers a special office upon Simon. The passage I'm referring to, first of all, of course, is Matthew, chapter 16, verses 13 through 19.

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You know the story well, I won't take the time to set the scene. Peter makes a confession, you are the Christ, the son of the living

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God. It is Peter who makes it, it is not Matthew, it is not Andrew, it is not

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Philip, it is not Judas, it is Simon. You are the Christ, the son of the living

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God. And the word Christ, as you and I know, means the anointed one, hochristos, hemashiach, the anointed one.

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Referring to a three -fold office, because God sent anointed prophets and priests and kings to his people in the old covenant, because life is three -dimensional, and it has a dimension of being, and knowing, and doing, and we need truth from God, which the prophet brings, and life and grace from God, which the priest brings, and righteousness from God, which the king brings.

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And Peter says, you are the prophet, priest, and king, you are the messiah, you are the anointed one. And Jesus, by his three following statements in verses 17, 18, and 19, indicates that Peter enters into Christ's Christhood, into his prophetic, priestly, and kingly authority by a special grant of God's grace.

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Not in and of himself, it is not according to his own flesh and blood, but you, Peter, you share in this privilege.

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He says, blessed are you, Simon, son of Jonah. And it is interesting that Dr. Craig Blomberg, who teaches

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New Testament here at Denver Seminary, in his commentary on the Gospel of Matthew, points out that it is quite likely, and he is another great evangelical scholar, that by Jesus referring to him as Simon, son of Jonah, he is not referring to his, that is not the name of his actual father, because his father is called

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Yohanan elsewhere, but that he is referring to Peter as the son of a prophet. It is a title, in other words.

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And there is a parallel between Christ as a Jonah coming forth from the belly of the great fish to proclaim to the new

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Nineveh of Israel, that in 40 days, in their case, 40 years, they must repent or they will suffer judgment.

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That is what Jonah did. And Jesus says, I will arise also, like a new

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Jonah, and proclaim to this wicked and adulterous generation. He says so in Matthew 12, verse 40, in the surrounding context. Simon is a son of Jonah, a son of this new

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Jonah. He is a prophet. And Jesus says, you are blessed, because you did not figure this out by your own flesh and blood.

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My Father revealed this to you. You are a prophet, Peter. And Peter exercised a prophetic charism of defining dogmatically who

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Jesus was at a time when the other apostles were stunned into silence by the confusion and the cacophony of this.

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Jesus points out that God has selected him for this special role. And the prophets, of course, were agents of God.

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And they had successors. They were the sons of the prophets. And so there is this idea of dynastic succession. Elisha asks to be the spiritual son of Elijah the prophet.

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I want a double portion of your spirit. I want to be your firstborn son. And the prophets had these sons. And so already the idea of dynastic succession to Peter's prophethood is at least implied, at least we're prepared for it.

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He's the prophet par excellence. It's time. Thank you. Was Peter the first pope?

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That is the affirmative presented by Mr. Metattix.

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Yes, indeed, he was. I would like to challenge those of you who have not believed that to be the case.

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How would you respond to the argument that has just been presented? The knowledge of the word of God is crucial and critical.

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Was Peter the first pope? Stating the answer to that as a negative is

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Mr. James White. You have 25 minutes. For any debate to be useful to those in attendance, the issues must be defined clearly and without confusion.

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To do this, we must listen to the Roman position in its fullness. We can do this by listening to the words of the first Vatican Council's dogmatic constitution titled

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Pastor Itanus, given April 24th, 1870, I quote. We therefore, for the preservation, safekeeping, and increase of the

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Catholic flock with the approval of the sacred council, do judge it to be necessary to propose to the belief and acceptance of all the faithful in accordance with the ancient and constant faith of the universal church, the doctrine touching the institution, perpetuity, and nature of the sacred apostolic primacy, end quote.

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Please note that the council claims that the teaching it will present is in full accord with the ancient and constant faith of the universal church.

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I continue, quote. We therefore teach and declare that, according to the testimony of the gospel, the primacy of jurisdiction over the universal church of God was immediately and directly promised and given to the blessed

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Peter the apostle by Christ the Lord. For it was to Simon alone, to whom he had already said,

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Thou shalt be called Cephas, that the Lord, after the confession made by him, saying, Thou art the Christ, the

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Son of the living God, addressed these solemn words, Blessed art thou, Simon Barjona, because flesh and blood have not revealed it to thee, but my

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Father who is in heaven. And I say to thee that thou art Peter, and upon this rock I will build my church, and the gates of hell shall not prevail against it.

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And I will give to thee the keys of the kingdom of heaven, and whatever thou shalt bind on earth it shall be bound also in heaven, and whatsoever thou shalt loose on earth it shall be loosed also in heaven.

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And it was upon Simon alone that Jesus, after his resurrection, bestowed the jurisdiction of chief pastor and ruler over all his fold in the words,

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Feed my lambs, feed my sheep. At open variance with this clear doctrine of Holy Scripture, as it has been ever understood by the

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Catholic Church, are the perverse opinions of those who, while they distort the form of government established by Christ the

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Lord in his church, deny that Peter in his single person, preferably to all the other apostles, whether taken separately or together, was endowed by Christ with a true and proper primacy of jurisdiction.

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Or of those who assert that the same primacy was not bestowed immediately and directly upon Blessed Peter himself, but upon the church, and through the church, on Peter as her minister.

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If anyone, therefore, shall say that Blessed Peter the apostle was not appointed the prince of all the apostles, and the visible head of the whole church militant, or that the same directly and immediately received from the same our

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Lord Jesus Christ a primacy of honor only, and not of true and proper jurisdiction, let him be anathema."

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This position remains valid to this day. The Second Vatican Council borrowed directly from the language of the first in saying, in order that the episcopate itself might be one and undivided, he placed

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Blessed Peter over the other apostles, and instituted in him a permanent and visible source and foundation of unity of faith and fellowship.

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And all this teaching about the institution, the perpetuity, the force, and reason for the sacred primacy of the

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Roman pontiff, and his infallible teaching authority, this sacred synod again proposes to be firmly believed by all the faithful."

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The Roman Catholic writer Cardinal Gibbons wrote regarding the papacy, The Catholic Church teaches that our

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Lord conferred on St. Peter the first place of honor and jurisdiction in the government of his whole church, and that same spiritual authority has always resided in the popes or bishops of Rome, as being the successors of St.

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Peter. Consequently to be true followers of Christ, all Christians, both among the clergy and laity, must be in communion with the sea of Rome, where Peter rules in the person of his successor."

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Now let us see if we can explain what some of that means. First, the Roman Catholic Church claims that Peter is placed in a position of primacy by the

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Lord Jesus himself. This primacy is one of honor, jurisdiction, and rulership.

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Number two, this primacy given to Peter is presented, according to dogmatic teachings of the

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Church of Rome, in Matthew 16, verses 18 through 19, and in John 21, verses 15 through 17.

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According to Roman teaching, Peter is the rock of Matthew 16, that Christ, in conferring a primacy on Peter, intends this to be understood to apply to Peter's successors as well, and that hence

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Christ is, in this passage, instituting the office of the pope for the Christian church. Rome further teaches that when

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Christ spoke to Peter and said, feed my sheep, he was, by so doing, setting Peter apart as the pastor of all

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Christians, in a way different from all the other apostles. Thirdly, Peter is said to have been the bishop of Rome in the

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Roman position. And number four, because of this, his supposed primacy is passed on to his successors, the bishops of Rome.

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And finally, this viewpoint has supposedly been the ancient and constant faith of the Christian church.

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Supposedly the church has always believed this to be true. Anyone who would express a different perspective is holding to perverse opinions, and are, in fact, anathema.

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Therefore, I believe that it is incumbent upon the defender of Roman Catholic teaching to demonstrate the following.

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Number one, Jesus is without question speaking to Peter in Matthew 16, and is in so doing identifying him as the rock upon which the church is built.

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Number two, that the words the Lord Jesus speaks establish Peter as the prince of the apostles, the very first pope, the head of the

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Christian church. Number three, that these words of Jesus necessarily indicate the creation of an office of pope replete with successors and associated powers.

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And number four, finally, that the Christian church has always held this to be her constant and unchanging faith.

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We must note that my opponent cannot merely demonstrate that the Roman position is probably true, or that it is likely to be true, but that it is true beyond question.

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Rome claims absolute authority in spiritual matters over all believers in Jesus Christ. She claims infallible teaching authority.

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The papacy is not an issue upon which one can be neutral. Pope Boniface made this quite clear in the papal bull,

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Unum Sanctum, promulgated November 18, 1302, quote, consequently, we declare, state, define, and pronounce that it is altogether necessary to salvation for every human creature to be subject to the

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Roman pontiff, end quote. Now, given the large amount of information that must be examined on this very important issue, we have divided the topic up into two debates, limiting ourselves this evening to the

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New Testament evidence regarding the Roman Catholic teaching about Peter and the papacy. Now we first note that the position that the papacy was in fact founded directly by Jesus Christ in the sense that it was functioning from the days of Peter onward is not held by all who call themselves

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Roman Catholics today. While this is certainly the position that has been held historically by Rome, modern apologists have realized that there are deep problems with this perspective.

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Hence we recognize that there are Roman Catholics who would not assert that we can find the papacy functioning in the

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New Testament for, as John Henry Cardinal Newman said in his book, An Essay on the Development of Christian Doctrine, quote, while apostles were on earth, there was the display neither of bishop nor pope.

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Their power had no prominence as being exercised by apostles. In course of time, first the power of the bishop displayed itself and then the power of the pope, end quote.

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Secondly, before addressing the few passages adduced by defenders of the papacy specifically where Jesus supposedly gives this authority to Peter, we must step back and ask the first and most necessary question.

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Does the New Testament as a whole lead us to believe that Peter was considered the head of the church?

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Was Peter viewed as the vicar of Christ on earth? Did Christians think of him as the

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Holy Father? Did the other apostles recognize Peter as their head and leader? Do they direct people to obedience to Peter as the pope?

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Does the New Testament lead us to believe that there was an office of pope to which all Christians looked for guidance and upon which the church's unity itself was founded?

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And do we find in the words, actions, and writings of Peter himself evidence that he interpreted

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Jesus' words at Matthew 16 verses 18 through 19 in the way that modern

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Roman Catholics do? Well, we begin our New Testament survey by recognizing those truths that are not in dispute.

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Peter's name is prominent in the gospel accounts. He is clearly the leading disciple.

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His name occurs more often than any other and is almost always first in the listing, which may simply reflect that he was one of the oldest apostles, maybe the oldest, we don't know.

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He is impetuous and he is often the first person to open his mouth, sometimes with God's blessing and sometimes to his detriment.

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For example, immediately after receiving the revelation from the father concerning the identity of Jesus Christ in Matthew 16,

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Peter demonstrates his great fallibility by standing in the way of God's very plan of salvation through the atoning death of Jesus Christ.

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For when the Lord Jesus begins to speak to his disciples concerning his coming death, Peter takes him aside and begins to rebuke the

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Lord. Jesus' response to Peter shows that Peter was not thinking through his statements before making them.

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The same thing happens on the Mount of Transfiguration. Luke records for us in the ninth chapter of his gospel that Peter again spoke up in the presence of the glory of God and of Moses and Elijah and said,

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Master, it is good for us to be here. Let us put up three for you, one for Moses and one for Elijah.

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Luke is kind to report for us at this point, quote, he did not know what he was saying, end quote.

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If speaking up in the presence of Moses, Elijah, the transfigured Christ and the glory of the father without knowing what you are saying is not indicative of impetuosity,

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I do not know what is. And so no one disputes that Peter takes a prominent role in the gospel accounts.

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However, to leap from prominence to primacy is wholly unwarranted on two very important accounts.

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First, the gospels themselves deny that any of the apostles were in a position of primacy.

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And secondly, the rest of the New Testament shows that Peter did not actually end up taking any supposed position of primacy.

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Now in support of the first point, I call our attention to Luke chapter 22, verses 24 through 30. In this passage, we are told that even as the disciple band walked toward the

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Garden of Gethsemane on the night of Christ's betrayal, the disciples got into an argument about who among them would be considered the greatest.

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One might note in passing that this comes right on the heels of the establishment of the Lord's Supper. Might the argument have arisen because John, the disciple whom

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Jesus loved, had been leaning on the Lord's breast immediately prior to this? Indeed, if the course of history had been different and political and geographical factors had turned out to favor a church established by the apostle

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John, rather than one claiming Peter as its founder, we might this evening be debating if the fact that only

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John is described as the disciple whom Jesus loved does not, in fact, establish Johannine primacy rather than Petrine primacy.

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Be that as it may, it does not seem then, in the light of the recurring arguments about who would be the greatest, that the disciples understood the words of Matthew 16 to establish

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Peter as the foundation of the church, the first pope, the vicar of Christ on earth, for if that were really

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Christ's meaning, the argument would, for all practical purposes, be over. And we should find the

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Lord rebuking the remaining disciples and informing them He had already chosen Peter as the first pope, the head of the church, the prince of the apostles.

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But we do not hear this. Instead, He treats all the disciples alike and speaks of conferring upon them all, not upon Peter alone, a kingdom, so that they might judge the twelve tribes of Israel.

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Indeed, immediately after this, we find the Lord specifically praying for Peter's fate, for Peter, more than any of the other disciples, would dishonor his

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Lord that evening in his betrayal. The second reason that leaping from Peter's prominence in the gospel accounts to the

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Roman concept of primacy is improper and illogical is due to the fact that the rest of the New Testament does not even begin to show us a hint of Peter's supposed supremacy.

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Let us look at some of this evidence briefly. First, it hardly needs to be said that nowhere in the epistles of Paul or John or James or Jude do we find them ever referring their readers to Peter as a pope or as the head of the church.

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At no time do they give us any indication whatsoever of the existence of an institution known as the papacy.

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Secondly, Peter himself, in his own letters, fails to give us the slightest hint that he views himself as a pope, as the head of the church on earth.

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In his first epistle, on the contrary, he speaks as follows, quote, to the elders among you, I appeal as a fellow elder, a witness of Christ's sufferings, and one who also will share in the glory to be revealed.

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Be shepherds of God's flock that is under your care, serving as overseers, not because you must, but because you are willing, as God wants you to be.

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Not greedy for money, but eager to serve, not lording it over those entrusted to you, but being examples of the flock, end quote.

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Peter does not speak as a pope, but as a fellow elder. He does not speak as the chief pastor, but as a fellow pastor.

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There is no reference to Rome, the papacy, or any other element of Roman Catholic claims in this epistle.

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In Peter's second epistle, the same is true. One would expect here to find Peter writing at the end of his life, directing

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Christians to follow his successor in the office of pope, if indeed the Roman position were true, but no such exhortation appears.

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There is no evidence from Peter's pen that he views himself as a pope, and we might add in passing that there is no evidence from Peter's pen that he was even the bishop of Rome, for that matter.

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When Paul wrote to the church at Rome in A .D. 55 through 57, it is plain that Peter is not there. When Paul himself is in Rome and is writing the prison epistles, he never mentions

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Peter. In fact, in one place, those epistles make it clear that either Peter was not in Rome, or he had in fact abandoned

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Paul. In 2 Timothy 4 .16, written close to the end of Paul's life, he writes that no one stood with me at the first defense, a devastating charge against Peter, if Peter had been in Rome at this time, for Paul asked that the

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Lord not hold it against them. Indeed, if we take the view that Peter was the bishop of Rome, but was absent from the church much of the time, it seems strange that either

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Peter never wrote to his own church, for we have no such letter, or they did not think enough of the letter to keep it around in the case of Paul's epistle to the

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Romans. If there is no evidence of the papacy from Peter himself, we should hardly be surprised that there is none in Paul.

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But in fact, we find statements and actions that are contrary to the Roman position, had it existed in the primitive church.

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For example, Paul indicates that he is in no way inferior to the very chiefest apostles in 2 Corinthians 12 .11.

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Now, even if Paul has in mind here someone other than the real apostles of Christ, we can see plainly that he does not have any concept of the papacy in the structure of the church.

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For he writes to the Corinthians that God had placed in the church what? First of all apostles, second prophets, third teachers, et cetera, 1

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Corinthians 12 .28. No Paul, first it is the Pope, Peter, and then the apostles. But this is not the biblical order.

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It hardly needs to be said that in all of Paul's letters in which we find discussions of apostles, bishops, deacons, and all sorts of other positions of ministry in the church, never a word is said about the most important office of all, the supposed office of the

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Pope. And the reason is plain, no such office existed. Paul provides further evidence that he did not view

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Peter as Roman Catholics do today, when he says in 2 Corinthians 11 .28 that, quote, beside those things which are without, that which cometh on me daily, the care of all the churches, end quote.

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If in fact the care of all the churches was in fact the province of Peter, not Paul, then in point of fact

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Paul would be meddling in another man's work. But of course we see that Paul had no concept that Peter was in fact the universal pastor of all

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Christians. We might take Paul's epistle to the Galatians as a test case and ask, does this letter lead us to believe the

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Roman claim that Peter functioned as a Pope in the early church? Well the answer seems too obvious for comment.

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We begin by noting Paul's statement in Galatians 2 .7, on the contrary they saw that I had been entrusted with the task of preaching the gospel to the

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Gentiles, just as Peter had been to the Jews. Here we have a specific delineation of Peter's calling as an apostle, and it is as an evangelist to the

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Jews. Well had he not been used to speak to the Gentiles, indeed he had. But God is now using

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Paul in that role, and Peter is content to speak to the Jewish people. There is nothing in this passage that even begins to hint that Peter is viewed as the prince of the apostles, the vicar of Christ on earth.

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This is even more clearly seen in Paul's willingness to directly rebuke Peter's errant behavior at Antioch, as recorded in Galatians 2, when

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Peter withdrew from table fellowship with the Gentiles. Surely, if Paul viewed Peter as the Pope, the head of all

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Christians, he would be far out of line to publicly rebuke said person and accuse him of not walking in accord with the truth of the gospel.

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But this is fully in line with all of the Pauline corpus, in which you will find not a shred of evidence to support

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Roman claims concerning Peter. Epistle after epistle can pass and review without the slightest evidence of Petrine primacy.

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Even the pastoral epistles, with their extensive instruction on ecclesiastical matters, speak not a word about the papacy, or Peter, or anything even remotely similar to the

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Roman claims. We cannot possibly pass by the most crucial evidence with regard to Roman claims, that being the one book that gives us the clearest insight into the function of the early church, the book of Acts.

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Here, if anywhere, we will find clear and unequivocal evidence of Petrine primacy and the function of the papacy.

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But do we find such evidence? No, we find just the opposite. For example, Acts 8 .14. When there is need to investigate what has happened in Samaria, do we find

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Peter holding forth as a Pope, directing the actions of the church? No, instead, quote, when the apostles in Jerusalem heard that Samaria had accepted the word of God, they sent

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Peter and John to them, end quote. Here, Peter does not function as Pope, but as one of the apostles who is sent to investigate the situation.

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In Acts chapter 11, Peter is called to answer for his actions in going to Cornelius' house. Does he give evidence of papal prerogatives here?

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Does he answer as Innocent III would have answered, or Alexander VI? Hardly. There is no mention of his supposed position as Pope.

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Instead, rather than pleading his position as the vicar of Christ, Peter relates the supernatural vision and direction that had been given to him to proclaim the gospel message to the

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Gentiles. This no more makes Peter a Pope than Paul's receipt of a guiding vision in Acts chapter 16 makes him a

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Pope. Acts chapter 15. Here we have a council of the early church of Jerusalem. Much has been made of this council and its relevance for claims of Petrine primacy.

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Let us quickly note the important features of this account. First, in verse six we read, quote, the apostles and elders met to consider this question, end quote.

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It is not said that the Pope and the apostles and the elders met. Peter is plainly considered an apostle just as all the rest.

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Secondly, the council is not under the direction of Peter. It is plainly under the direction of James, the Bishop of Jerusalem.

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Peter addresses the group, not as a Pope, but as an apostle used by God to bring the gospel to the Gentiles. He concludes his speech as follows, quote, we believe it is through the grace of our

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Lord Jesus that we are saved just as they are, end quote. We note that the deliberations do not end with Peter's speech.

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Instead, we read in verse 12, quote, the whole assembly became silent as they listened to Barnabas and Paul, telling about the miraculous signs and wonders

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God had done amongst the Gentiles through them, end quote. Paul and Barnabas addressed the group and confirmed

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Peter's opinion by relating God's wondrous work in their own ministries. At this point,

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James speaks up and, using the imperative mode, commands the assembly to listen to his words. He confirms

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Peter's words in the citation of scripture, and upon doing this, gives his judgment in verse 19.

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Here, we have the conclusion of the affair. The letter is written at James's suggestion, but again, in the name not of Peter, the

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Pope, but of the apostles and elders, no popes seemingly in attendance. Finally, the words of Peter in Acts 15 .11

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give us our final look at Peter in the book of Acts. From this point on, no mention is made of him, who is allegedly the very head of the church universal, the founder of the church at Rome.

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Even when Paul arrives in Rome at the end of the book, Peter is not to be found. And so we conclude our overview of the

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New Testament evidence with the plain fact before us that the concept of a papacy, with Peter as its initial office holder, is nowhere to be found.

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Not only does the term itself not appear, but the office cannot be found anywhere, and we instead find contradictory data from the pages of inspired scripture showing that the early

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Christians did not look to Peter or the Bishop of Rome as the head of all Christians. In the light of the testimony of the entirety of the

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New Testament witness, the Roman apologist must be able to prove beyond a shadow of a doubt that the few passages to which he appeals proves the establishment of the papacy.

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It cannot be a matter of it being likely that the Roman interpretation is the correct one. We cannot accept the mere possibility that the

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Roman position is correct. Given the absence of the papacy from all the rest of the New Testament, the few passages adduced by Roman apologists, such as Matthew 16 and John 21, must, beyond a shadow of a doubt, plainly and clearly and unequivocally establish

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Petrine primacy and succession in the office of the Pope. But do these passages do this?

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The answer, I feel, is plainly no. Turn with me to John chapter 21, verses 15 through 17.

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I'll address Matthew 16, the primary text used by Rome, in my 12 -minute statement yet to come. Let me first direct your attention to this passage.

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Quote, when they had finished eating, Jesus said to Simon Peter, Simon, son of John, do you truly love me more than these?

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Yes, Lord, he said. You know that I love you. Jesus said, feed my lambs. Jesus said, Simon, son of John, do you truly love me?

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He answered, yes, Lord. You know that I love you. Jesus said, take care of my sheep. The third time he said to him, Simon, son of John, do you love me?

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Peter was hurt because Jesus asked him the third time, do you love me? He said, Lord, you know all things. You know that I love you.

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Jesus said, feed my sheep. While we will be dealing with the early church fathers tomorrow evening,

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Lord willing, I don't believe Mr. Matitix would object to my adopting the words of one of those early fathers and providing my own understanding of this important passage in words more clear than I could ever provide.

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Quoting Cyril of Alexandria, if anyone asks for what cause, he asks Simon only, though the other disciples were present, and what he means by feed my lambs and the like, we answer that St.

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Peter, with the other disciples, had been already chosen to the apostleship, but because meanwhile

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Peter had fallen, for under great fear he had thrice denied the Lord, he now heals him that was sick, and exacts a threefold confession in place of his triple denial, contrasting the former with the latter, and compensating the fault with the correction."

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Here we have the gracious Lord restoring the apostle who in his brash impetuosity had promised to follow him even to death, and yet had denied him three times.

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The threefold question of Peter followed by the command to feed or shepherd Christ's sheep is restorative in nature.

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Nothing in the passage would even begin to suggest to us that this means that the other apostles were not likewise commissioned to feed and pastor

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Christ's flock on an equal basis with Simon Peter. There is no indication that only Peter is told to shepherd

01:00:00

God's flock, nor that all others who shepherd the flock do so derivatively from Peter's supremacy.

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Indeed, if such were the case, Paul seems to have been ignorant of this, for he instructed the Ephesian elders in Acts 20 .28,

01:00:12

quote, keep watch over yourselves and all the flock of which the Holy Spirit has made you overseers. Be shepherds of the church of God, which he bought with his own blood, end quote.

01:00:22

Paul does not say, as Peter is the chief shepherd, you act as under -shepherds of the flock of God. No, again, the only way that such an understanding can be found is if we take a much later development and read it back into the text, as our

01:00:34

Roman Catholic friends are forced to do. This passage in no way sets Peter apart as the prince of the apostles.

01:00:39

Instead it shows that he was in need of pastoral care on the part of Christ. The final passage

01:00:45

I shall address in my opening statements is found in Luke 22, verses 31 -32. Simon, Simon, Satan has asked to sift you his wheat, but I have prayed for you,

01:00:53

Simon, that your faith may not fail, and when you have turned back, strengthen your brothers. Again we see that Peter's denial of the

01:01:00

Lord is here in sight. The Lord warns Peter specifically that he is in danger, and yet Peter replies rashly in verse 33,

01:01:06

Lord, I'm ready to go with you to prison and to death. To which the Lord replies that Peter will in fact deny him three times.

01:01:12

Roman Catholics have cited this passage as pointing out yet once again the preeminence of Peter, and some have even gone so far as to say that the

01:01:19

Lord's prayer for Peter's faith extends to Peter's successors and the bishops of Rome. Yet if there is any

01:01:25

Petrine primacy here, it is Petrine primacy in denial of Christ, not in being the vicar of Christ.

01:01:30

This passage, like John 21, shows us that Peter was more in need of pastoral care by the

01:01:35

Lord due to his impetuosity, nothing more. Thank you very much. We will now have an opportunity for rebuttal on the part of both gentlemen.

01:02:01

This is a 12 -minute rebuttal period. At the end of these two rebuttals, we will take a 15 -minute break.

01:02:09

Jerry Matitix will have the first 12 -minute period. Since Mr.

01:02:26

White astonished me with the weakness and the illogicality of many of his points,

01:02:32

I had far stronger arguments against the papacy when I was a Protestant than he has mustered today. And since he is going to take his 12 minutes to not do a rebuttal but to finish his opening presentation and look at Matthew 16,

01:02:44

I want to spend that time on Matthew 16 as well. I want to finish up my points. Perhaps I'll get to a little bit of rebuttal.

01:02:49

If not, we'll do it in the next rebuttal period. I was pointing out that Matthew 16, a passage which is significant that Mr.

01:02:55

White saved till last but said previously, now that we've concluded our survey, our overview of the

01:03:01

New Testament evidence, leaving out the most important passage of all. As we look at this passage,

01:03:08

I want you to once again, I'm appealing to you to lay aside any prejudices or preconceptions you have, whether you're

01:03:15

Protestant or Catholic, and to objectively examine the evidence. What I want to do is for us to have an inductive

01:03:23

Bible study here. What is going on in this passage? First, we see that Peter and Peter alone has made a unique confession of who

01:03:31

Christ is. And in response to that, Jesus pronounces a threefold blessing upon him.

01:03:38

First of all, a prophetic blessing. You have received a supernatural assistance from the Father in heaven to speak what mere flesh and blood would not enable you to understand.

01:03:48

I was talking about this prophetic aspect. As a matter of fact, Peter is not only like a son of Jonah, but he is being portrayed here, according to many

01:03:57

Protestant commentators, as an analogy to the Old Testament high priest.

01:04:03

There is an entire article by evangelical scholar Tor Forberg in the East Asia Journal of Theology called

01:04:10

Peter, the High Priest of the New Covenant. I'd be happy to supply a free copy of this, photocopy this for anyone who might want it.

01:04:17

He does a brilliant job, which I haven't the time to develop here, showing amazing parallels between the high priest of the

01:04:24

Old Covenant and Peter exercising a high priesthood among the priests, the ministers of the

01:04:30

New Covenant Church. Just as the high priest in the Old Testament had a special job as the bearer on his breastplate of the

01:04:39

Urim and Thummim to discern the will of God at critical junctures when the battle was raging, to cast the lots of the

01:04:46

Urim and Thummim so that God could guide his church through him. So we see Peter, as High Priest of the

01:04:51

New Covenant, doing precisely that, calling for a casting of the lots to bring about the election of a replacement for Judas, who was apostatized and died, because his office, his episcope, he says in Acts 1 .20,

01:05:06

his episcopal seat, his apostolate, must not be vacant. There must be a successor.

01:05:12

That is the way the Bible thinks. That is the way the apostles think. And no one in the early church said, wait a minute, what do you mean by that,

01:05:18

Peter? Of course there must be a successor. We read in John 11, verses 45 -53, that even the high priest who called for the blood of our

01:05:28

Lord Jesus Christ, prophesied, it is expedient that one man die for the nation.

01:05:33

He wasn't even aware of the full profundity of what he was saying, and yet John, the inspired gospel writer, comments upon this and says because he was high priest that year, there was this ex officio prophetic proclamation that had nothing to do with the man's particular holiness or particular spirituality, but that God uses the high priest.

01:05:54

This is exactly what the Catholic Church claims for the Pope. It's not necessarily that every Pope is the holiest man or the perfect man or the humblest man that he could be, but God works through him as he did

01:06:04

Peter here. I agree with Mr. White. Peter was not the brightest of the apostles. It's quite obvious. Many times he put his foot in his mouth and put his foot on the water and it didn't stay there too long.

01:06:14

He did all kinds of things that were rather impetuous, and it is not a reward for his sterling superlative spirituality.

01:06:22

It is because of the sovereign gift of God that God selected Peter for this particular role.

01:06:30

Who was the high priest in the Old Testament? Wasn't he the visible head of the church? If Peter is, as the Catholic Church teaches, the visible head of the church in the

01:06:36

New Testament, then shouldn't we expect to see a parallel use by God to bring about prophetic utterances at critical junctures?

01:06:43

And that is exactly what we see. I would encourage you, by the way, on the Urim and Thummim, to look at Exodus 28, verse 30, and Deuteronomy 27, verses 18 and 21, where guided by the

01:06:53

Urim and Thummim, the people of God as an entire congregation are guided by God in their movements. Very important passage.

01:07:00

So we see this supernatural divine guidance. Now Jesus says a second thing about him in verse 18. He says, and I say to you that you are rock, and on this rock

01:07:07

I will build my church. We saw already that Abraham is referred to as a rock in Isaiah 51 and 52, so there is an implicit parallel here with Peter showing that he is a new rock, a new

01:07:18

Abraham, a new patriarch. There is a reference here also to this foundation stone that the

01:07:23

Temple of Israel was built upon. You can turn to the Protestant's article on the meaning of the word

01:07:31

Petros and Petra in that massive ten -volume dictionary of New Testament Greek, Kittel's theological lexicon of the

01:07:39

New Testament. In volume six, page 96, he talks about the foundation stone upon which the

01:07:44

Temple is erected and shows that it is a parallel in Jesus' mind with the role of Simon, that Christ will build his church upon Peter as the rock.

01:07:53

Is Peter the rock, though? That is what Protestants, many times in the past, have attacked.

01:07:58

They've said, no way he's the rock. Jesus is the rock, following into a very superficial type of argumentation that says if Jesus or God is something, then no one else is that.

01:08:09

Folks, Protestants don't argue this way in any other area of their theology. Why play by a double standard here? Jesus is the good shepherd.

01:08:16

The Latin word for shepherd is pastor, but I don't see Protestants absolutely denying that their ministers should be called pastors because Jesus is the one and only shepherd.

01:08:25

God is our supreme teacher, Jesus says in Matthew 23, but they don't mind referring to teachers or doctors in the church.

01:08:31

Certainly, Jesus is the rock in the ultimate sense in which God is our rock, as Moses proclaimed in his great song in Deuteronomy 32.

01:08:39

But God himself gives us not only permission, but mandates that his agents on earth, such as Abraham and Isaiah 51, can be legitimately the bearers of similar titles by extension because they represent his function and authority in the world.

01:08:56

Is Peter the rock? Mr. White, I believe, is unfortunately out of swim with the current of evangelical scholarship at its finest and best and most honest in denying that Peter is the rock because Mr.

01:09:10

Blomberg, who teaches here, Dr. Blomberg, Alford, Hendrickson, Kittel, and many others are willing to admit that very thing.

01:09:19

Let me give you some examples. First of all, Craig Blomberg, as I said in his commentary, excuse me,

01:09:29

I have a second here, I seem to have temporarily misplaced it.

01:09:39

Let me go here. In his New American Commentary on Matthew, published by Broadman Press, says this,

01:09:49

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,

01:09:54

I will tell you who you are. The expression, this rock, almost certainly refers to Peter, following immediately after his name.

01:10:00

This is the words following the Christ in verse 16 apply to Jesus. The play on words in the Greek between Peter's name, Petras, and the word rock,

01:10:06

Petra, makes sense only if Peter is the rock and if Jesus is about to explain the significance of this identification.

01:10:12

It is often alleged, however, that the rock must be Christ or Peter's confession of Christ, especially since the days of Luther and the

01:10:17

Protestant Reformation. There should be no theological objections to taking Peter as this rock, this Protestant scholar says.

01:10:24

A distinction between Peter and this rock is also often affirmed on the basis of the two different Greek words. The grammar requires this variation because of the ending of Petra is feminine and could not be used for a man's name.

01:10:35

The underlying Aramaic would have used Kepha in both instances, in which case the problem disappears altogether.

01:10:41

So what does Jesus promise Peter? He will be the foundation on which Christ will build his church.

01:10:48

Dean Henry Alford in his Greek New Testament says this in his volume on Matthew, page 173.

01:10:59

The name Petras or Kephas signifying a rock, the termination being only altered to suit the masculine appellation, denotes the personal position of this apostle in the building of the church of Christ.

01:11:10

He was the first of those foundation stones, Revelation 21, 14, on which the living temple of God was built.

01:11:15

This building itself beginning on the day of Pentecost by the laying of 3000 living stones on this very foundation.

01:11:21

That this is the simple and only interpretation of the words of our Lord. The whole usage of the New Testament shows in which not doctrines nor confessions, but men are uniformly the pillars and stones of the spiritual building.

01:11:32

See 1 Peter 2, 4, 6, 1 Timothy 3, 15 and note Galatians 2, 9,

01:11:37

Ephesians 2, 20 and Revelation 3, 12. It is equally difficult, if not impossible, no, nay impossible to deny all reference in this following words upon this rock to the preceding

01:11:48

Petras. Let us keep to the plain straightforward sense of scripture, as Protestant says.

01:11:56

Those who deny the reference of verse 18 that is on this rock, I will build my church of St. Peter, will find it very difficult to persuade in the unbiased

01:12:03

Greek scholar that the following words and I give to you, with you thus lying unemphatically behind the verb is not a continuation of a previous address, but a change of address altogether.

01:12:13

Which, if Mr. White denies that Peter is the rock, he would be forced to say. Now, there are other things

01:12:19

I could quote. I could quote as well Kittel's article in Volume 6 of the Theological Edition of the

01:12:24

New Testament, starting on page 95. I could quote the commentary of William Hendrickson, renowned reformed scholar, who admits that Peter is the rock.

01:12:34

I could quote R. V. G. Tasker's Gospel According to St. Matthew commentary in the Tyndale New Testament commentary series.

01:12:40

But I think heaping up the evangelical commentary in the Bible by Chamberlain, Donald A. Carson's Expositor's Bible commentary, the

01:12:47

Anchor Bible, the New Bible commentary, the Layman's Bible commentary, would simply beat a dead horse here. It is the consensus among Protestants that honest scholarship, not reading, as Mr.

01:12:59

White reminded us that we should not be doing, some denominational bias into the passage, yields the position to any honest examination that Peter is being addressed as the rock here.

01:13:12

Jesus does not use any word that would differentiate him from another rock, such as the word lithos, as he could have used.

01:13:18

The use of the demonstrative, upon this rock I will build my church, the fact that Christ was speaking originally in Aramaic and said, you are

01:13:25

Kepha and upon this Kepha I will build my church, the fact that Christ is giving him a great privilege in verse 17, you are blessed, you are this prophet, and in verse 19, and I'll give you the keys, indicates that in between these two sandwiches he's not putting him down saying, oh you're some little pebble, you're not the rock upon which

01:13:41

I will build my church. As a matter of fact, if you look at the literary structure of the passage, he says, blessed are you, I tell you,

01:13:48

Peter are you, and I will give to you, and the second half of each of these three sentences explains the first half of the sentence.

01:13:54

You are blessed, why? Because God revealed this to you. You are Peter, why? Because on you I will build my church.

01:14:00

I will give to you keys, why? So that you can bind and loose. That is the honest way to deal with the passage.

01:14:06

And lastly, we turn to verse 19, where Jesus gives to Peter and Peter alone the keys. Yes, there is a reference to binding and loosing to the apostles as a whole in Matthew 18, but to Peter alone the image of the keys is used.

01:14:18

And Protestants agree, again, and I have many Protestant scholars I can quote here, that this is an echo of Isaiah 22, where we read in Isaiah 22, verses 20 and following, that the prime minister, or the chief steward of the king, had the keys to the house of David, and that he bound and no one could loose, and he loosed and no one could bind.

01:14:38

And Jesus is saying, you are the prime minister. Really? I had just a minute.

01:14:51

Could you? Oh, I'm sorry. Personally, I shall avoid sharing with you my feelings about the strength or weaknesses of my opponent's arguments.

01:15:05

That is your job as the audience, and I trust you to take care of making your own decision. Now, in regards to Matthew chapter 16, we would like to read it in your hearing.

01:15:13

But what about you? He asked. Who do you say I am? Simon Peter answered, you are the Christ, the Son of the living

01:15:18

God. Jesus replied, blessed are you, Simon, son of Jonah, for this was not revealed to you by man, but my

01:15:23

Father in heaven. 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.

01:15:31

And I will give you the keys to the kingdom of heaven. Whatever you bind on earth will be bound in heaven. Whatever you loose on earth will be loosed in heaven.

01:15:37

No one in this room this evening will deny that Matthew 16 is a singularly important passage. Here the Lord Jesus leads his disciples to a confession of faith in himself.

01:15:45

The Father from heaven reveals the true nature of his Son, Jesus Christ. It is a pivotal passage in Matthew's gospel. Yet this evening we find this passage being used to support a concept seen nowhere else in scripture.

01:15:55

We are asked to believe that not only is the impetuous and frail Peter made the very foundation of the church itself, but this foundational position creates an office of Pope, and that in fact this office involves successors, successors who will sit in the seat of the bishop in the far off city of Rome, 1500 miles distant from where Jesus said these words.

01:16:13

Before we can discuss this passage, it is necessary to address the common claim that we should take Matthew's words and somehow guess how these words would appear in Aramaic, assuming of course that they were spoken in Aramaic.

01:16:24

Some even go so far as to say that Matthew itself was originally written in Aramaic, even though the modern opinion on that topic has certainly changed over the past decades.

01:16:31

We could, of course, take most of our time this evening arguing about whether Matthew was written in Aramaic originally. I could sit here and cite

01:16:37

Alexander Bruce and D .A. Carson, Nigel Turner and Robert Gundry, but I shall simply allow the leading

01:16:42

New Testament textual scholar, Kurt Alon, to summarize my position. Quote, there is no longer any doubt that Greek was the language in which all the parts of the

01:16:49

New Testament were originally written. End quote. Much has been written by Roman Catholic apologists about what

01:16:54

Matthew 16, 18 would read in the Aramaic. Some have gone so far as to assert with complete confidence that they can tell us exactly what the

01:17:02

Aramaic would be. Yet, is it not strange that when dealing with the very central passage used to support the papacy, so many of our

01:17:09

Roman Catholic friends must appeal to a nonexistent, unknown Aramaic original that no one, no matter how great their scholarship, can possibly claim to be able to recreate with certainty?

01:17:19

What kind of solid foundation is this? If you are convinced that Jesus would have been speaking Aramaic at the time of this discussion,

01:17:25

I would like to suggest for your reading the very recent work of Chris Karagounis, available in English translation under the title,

01:17:31

Peter and the Rock. Karagounis provides compelling documentation against the theory that we have here in Matthew 16, a repetition of the

01:17:39

Aramaic term kepha, demonstrating that the evidence would more likely favor the use of the

01:17:45

Aramaic term minra for the phrase, upon this rock I will build my church. In any case, the fact is plain that any supposed recreation of a supposed

01:17:53

Aramaic original is merely supposition and cannot in any way be taken as conclusive in any argument.

01:17:59

The Gospel of Matthew, with which we have to work, is written in Greek, not in Aramaic. Only a few months ago at Boston College, Mr.

01:18:06

Matitix, in debating on the subject of the Apocrypha, claimed that we know that Matthew and the other Gospels are Scripture because Roman councils declared them to be so.

01:18:13

Since this is his position, and since it was the Greek Matthew that was so canonized, why should we need to appeal to some other unknown, unexaminable

01:18:20

Gospel to establish the Roman position? Anyone familiar with the comments of scholars on this passage is aware of the multitude of differing opinions taken about it.

01:18:29

I would first like to provide a straightforward interpretation of the passage, and then discuss some of the areas of dispute.

01:18:36

The central theme of this passage is the Messiahship of Jesus Christ, an interpretation that takes the focus off of Jesus as Messiah is missing the point.

01:18:44

Jesus' questions to the disciples about the opinions of the multitudes, and then their own viewpoints, are all directed toward his own person, his own identity.

01:18:52

When Peter speaks up and confesses that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of the living God, he is confessing the faith of all the disciples, not merely himself.

01:19:00

He is speaking for them all, as he so often does. Jesus' pronouncement of blessing upon Peter is not due to any inherent goodness in Peter, but is due to Peter's being the recipient of a great blessing from the

01:19:10

Father. The Father has revealed to Peter the true identity of Jesus Christ, and of course this revelation was given to the other apostles as well.

01:19:17

We can hardly think that they all sat there amazed at Peter's words, never having even thought that Jesus was the

01:19:22

Christ, the Son of the living God. The point of Jesus' words is that it requires the work of the Father to reveal the

01:19:28

Son. The same theme is struck in John chapter 6, where no man can come to the Son unless drawn by the Father.

01:19:33

In that same context, when all the disciples turned away from Jesus, save the twelve, it was Peter who spoke for the disciples again, saying,

01:19:40

Lord, to whom shall we go? You have the words of eternal life. We believe and know that you are the

01:19:46

Holy One of God, John 6, 68 -69. The subject of the passage remains the identity of Christ, found in the confession of Peter.

01:19:54

When the Lord says, 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, the focus does not change.

01:20:03

Jesus is not here speaking of the identity of Peter. He is still talking about himself and his church.

01:20:08

This is plainly seen by continuing on through verse 20, where we read, then he warned his disciples not to tell anyone that he was the

01:20:16

Christ. Some modern scholars, having missed the fact that the focus remains on Christ all the way through, are so puzzled by verse 20 that they suggest it wasn't in the original.

01:20:26

But such conjecture is not necessary. The rock of which the Lord speaks is that common confession made by all who are part of the church.

01:20:34

Jesus is the Christ, the Son of the living God. This is seen, I believe, in the fact that while the Lord is addressing

01:20:39

Peter directly, he changes from direct address to the third person, this rock, when speaking of Peter's confession.

01:20:45

He does not say, upon you, Peter, I will build my church. Instead, you have a clear distinction between Peter, the

01:20:50

Petros, and the third person, Petra, the confession of faith upon which the church is built. This statement is followed by the promise to, at some time in the future, give the keys of the kingdom of heaven to Peter, so that what he binds on earth will be bound in heaven, and whatever he looses on earth will be loosed in heaven.

01:21:05

I emphasize this is a promise, for the verb is future intense. Yet when we see this authority given in Matthew 18, 18, it is given not to Peter alone, or even primarily, but to all the apostles, and that using the exact same language, word for word, regarding binding and loosing.

01:21:20

If someone wishes to say that Peter receives the key in distinction from the other apostles, as their superior, they are also forced to admit that the giving of these keys is never recorded for us anywhere in scripture, a strange thing indeed for someone supposedly so fundamental to the constitution of the church.

01:21:35

Now, Mr. Matitix may disagree with my interpretation. He may call it illogical. That's fine.

01:21:41

The problem for Mr. Matitix is that my interpretation makes perfect sense. It does not require giant leaps of illogic to see how

01:21:47

I come to my conclusions, and it is obvious that my position has been held by Christians from the earliest days of the

01:21:52

Christian faith until now. Let's say Mr. Matitix can present an equally likely interpretation. In such a case, the

01:21:59

Roman position fails. Why? Because, as we have seen, Matthew 16 is the last bastion of the

01:22:04

Roman cause. We have found no papacy anywhere else. If it is not here, plainly without question, it is nowhere at all.

01:22:11

Yet, the very existence of viable, logical, rational, reasonable, historical alternatives to the

01:22:17

Roman interpretation makes the Roman interpretation just one of many, and such is not supportive of the structure built upon the passage by Rome.

01:22:26

Mr. Matitix cannot simply provide us with a possible alternative. He must be able to prove, beyond all question, the impossibility of the other interpretations.

01:22:34

Yet, Mr. Matitix cannot do this, nor can anyone else, for that matter. Now, it is very true that there are many Protestant interpreters who identify

01:22:40

Peter as the rock of Matthew 16. For example, Dr. William Hendrickson follows this course. However, he and the other

01:22:46

Protestant interpreters that might be cited are quick to reject any papal pretensions that are placed upon this passage.

01:22:52

Dr. Hendrickson, in his commentary on page 645, presents three views that he said must be rejected. One view that is to be appreciated, and one that he takes himself.

01:22:59

The second view presented that must be rejected is that this passage proves that Peter was the first pope.

01:23:05

You'll notice that my opponent cited Dr. Hendrickson, but didn't give you that information. He then quotes the same passage from Cardinal Gibbon's book,

01:23:12

The Faith of Our Fathers, that I cited at the beginning of this evening's debate, and responds to it as follows, quote, The passage does not support any such bestowal of well -nigh absolute authority on a mere man or on his successors, end quote.

01:23:26

Similarly, we find Dean Alford identifying Peter as the rock, but following with the following statements, quote,

01:23:32

We may certainly exclaim with Bengel, All this may be said with safety, for what has this to do with Rome?

01:23:40

Nothing can be further from any legitimate interpretation of this promise than the idea of a perpetual primacy in the successors of Peter, the very notion of succession is precluded by the form of the comparison which concerns the person and him only, so far as it involves that direct promise.

01:23:54

In its other and general sense, it's applying to all those living stones, Peter's own expression for members of Christ's church, of whom the church should be built, it implies his origin, excellently comments on it, saying that all this must be understood as said not only to Peter, as in the letter of the gospel, but to everyone who is such as Peter here showed himself, as the spirit of the gospel teaches us, end quote.

01:24:14

That's what followed the section that Jerry quoted for you. Protestant interpreters who see Peter as the rock are clear in denying the

01:24:21

Roman interpretation of this passage, insisting instead that this passage must be taken historically. Culliman, in the theological dictionary of the

01:24:28

New Testament, follows other Protestants in saying Peter is this, quote, only and not otherwise than as the

01:24:33

Simon whom Christ has taken in hand, end quote. That is the elected Peter. They emphasize, as Dr.

01:24:39

Frederick Dale Bruner writes, quote, the uniqueness, the historical once for allness of Peter's commission as rock.

01:24:45

The text does not say on this rock and on his successors, I will build my church, solus

01:24:51

Petrus. To take this text literally is to honor Peter only. Peter was given the first place by Jesus as the one who first confessed

01:25:00

Jesus Christ, the divine son. And so Peter is made the first rock of the church, for the church is built upon the foundation of the apostles like Peter and prophets,

01:25:09

Jesus Christ himself being the cornerstone, Ephesians 2 .20, end quote. These Protestants' identification of Peter as the rock is of little assistance to their own position, for the fulfillment of Peter's commission as they see it is directly contradictory to the

01:25:22

Roman concept. That is, they see Peter using the keys in a declaratory manner in preaching the gospel first to the

01:25:29

Jews and then to the Gentiles. No basis is admitted by these interpreters for an office of Pope in this passage.

01:25:36

And finally, I comment briefly on the novel attempt by Roman Catholic apologists to apply Isaiah chapter 22 and the key to the house of David to Peter himself in Matthew chapter 16.

01:25:47

Such an attempt at connection is logically necessary for their own position, for there must be some effort to establish succession in this passage, for Matthew's words make no mention of it.

01:25:56

Yet upon what basis do we identify the keys, plural, of the kingdom of heaven, which are associated plainly with the preaching of the gospel of Jesus Christ, with the key, singular, of the house of David, which is messianic in nature?

01:26:07

And should we not instead accept the interpretation given by the Lord Jesus himself when he cites Isaiah 22 -22 of himself in Revelation 3 -7, quote,

01:26:16

And to the angel of the church of Philadelphia write, He who is holy, who is true, who has the key of David, who opens and no one will shut, and who shuts and no one opens, says this, end quote,

01:26:26

Jesus has, present tense, the key of David. He does not say that he gives this key to anyone else. Indeed, when we look at how the

01:26:32

Lord introduces himself in each of these letters, the descriptions set him apart from all creatures. Should we not then reject such an obvious attempt at eisegesis and instead stay with the plain meaning of scripture?

01:26:45

Thank you very much. Applause Okay, we are going to have now a second rebuttal period of seven minutes, and we will start that with Mr.

01:27:03

Matitix. Excuse me, did I ask a question? No, your rebuttal, your second rebuttal.

01:27:10

Oh, I'm sorry. Well, ladies and gentlemen,

01:27:38

I'm glad that Mr. White restrained himself from making any comments upon the strengths and weaknesses of the

01:27:43

Catholic arguments, as he said he would. I believe that Mr. White, with all due respect to him, has not dealt with an enormous amount of the data, or with the scholarly integrity of the

01:27:55

Protestants who have made the points that I cited. Of course they don't accept the conclusions. It was not my intention in my talk to suggest that Protestants, that William Hendrickson accepts the papacy.

01:28:08

I assumed, I was being dishonest, that you would understand that when I said Hendrickson was a world -class, reformed biblical scholar.

01:28:15

My point is that he acknowledges the premises of the Catholic position, and I'm suggesting that there is a reluctance on the part of scholars who are honest in admitting some of the premises to draw the necessary and irresistible conclusion because of prejudices, prejudices which we all bring to our reading of the text.

01:28:36

We need to be aware of that fact when we read the Bible. As I listened to Mr.

01:28:43

White's reasons for rejecting the Catholic understanding of these passages, I found them quite flawed.

01:28:49

I especially take strong exception as a biblical scholar to Mr. White's misrepresenting the whole situation of the

01:28:55

Aramaic. I hope that Mr. White is not saying that Jesus was actually speaking Greek to Peter at this particular point.

01:29:02

The evidence is that Jesus and the apostles, of course, as Palestinian Jews, were speaking Aramaic to each other. And I also object to Mr.

01:29:09

White's saying, which shows either ignorance of the information on his part or a deliberate attempt to mislead the audience, that some

01:29:18

Catholic apologists go so far, were his words, as to strain for the position that it was originally written in Aramaic.

01:29:26

That is not a view of a Roman Catholic apologist straining to come up with some desperate measure.

01:29:34

The statement that Matthew wrote his gospel in Aramaic is the universal consensus of every single church father who comments upon the authorship of Matthew's gospel and the language in which it was written.

01:29:50

I would ask Mr. White to make good his insinuation by citing one example of a church father who said,

01:29:58

Matthew did not write in Aramaic. He wrote it only and always in Greek. And he made much hay of the fact that we don't have this original

01:30:05

Aramaic. Well, I would say the same to Mr. White. Mr. White, please play fair with the audience. Do we have the original Greek either?

01:30:11

No, we don't. You have no more evidence in terms of producing the autographs that the original was written in Greek of Matthew's gospel than you have, than you would argue that I have for the statement that it was written originally in Aramaic.

01:30:23

The point is simply that Jesus, in saying to Peter, you are Kepha, and on this Kepha I will build my church, shows that there is one rock in view and not two.

01:30:31

Mr. White's whole argument about Petros and Petra, which simply indicates a difference of gender, falls to the ground.

01:30:40

To further, after indicting the Catholic with being speculative to say, well, if Jesus was speaking

01:30:46

Aramaic, he would have probably used the word Minra, where I'm not aware of any scholar who argues in any commentary that this is what

01:30:55

Jesus would have called Peter. You are Minra. And the fact is it flies in the face of the Bible we have.

01:31:01

Folks, if that's the case, Mr. White, why is it that there are no places in the Bible where Simon is given the new name

01:31:07

Minra? He's called Kepha. Paul, whom you said does not recognize this special status of Catholic support to Peter, calls him

01:31:15

Kephas over and over again. He calls him rock. And the point of the

01:31:21

Catholic position is that Peter is given this foundational role. And the rock in and of itself doesn't prove that it has successors.

01:31:28

You have to build. I'm building a case here step by step, and all I ask, please, of both Mr. White and of myself and of you, is that you listen honestly and carefully and say, is this point substantial?

01:31:41

And then, what next point can be built upon it? Is it the case, first of all, that there is a special prominence shown to Peter in the

01:31:51

Gospels and the Acts? Mr. White didn't deal with any of that data. He had no way of accounting for the fact that Peter is mentioned more than any other apostle, except for the fact that he's an impetuous fellow and he speaks without thinking all the time.

01:32:02

I agree. The Catholic Church doesn't deny that. That's the very point, you see, that it is not

01:32:07

Peter's human strength that qualifies him for this office, but this special gift that God gives him.

01:32:16

Certainly, he speaks without thinking on the Mount of Transfiguration. Certainly, he does immediately after Jesus receives this special confession from him and gives him all these blessings.

01:32:26

And he says, no, Lord, I don't want you to have to be crucified. But Mr. White, I hope, is not misrepresenting the

01:32:32

Catholic position. The Catholic position is not that the Pope is infallible every time he speaks, that the

01:32:40

Holy Spirit speaks for him on every off -the -cuff remark or on every occasion. If Mr.

01:32:45

White is trying to mislead you into thinking that, then he is really not engaging in the debate. He's here to debate the

01:32:51

Roman Catholic position, not a caricature of it or a straw man. He said that Paul never refers to Peter as Pope, but he refers to him as rock, as I said.

01:32:59

He said that Peter simply refers to the other bishops as my fellow elders.

01:33:05

As a matter of fact, most Protestant commentaries, if you do a survey of them, will indicate that what the Greek word there actually means, if you look at the syntax of the structure of that sentence, is that Peter is saying,

01:33:15

I am a fellow priest with Christ and witness of his sufferings.

01:33:21

But even if he is saying, I'm a fellow elder with you, that doesn't mean that Peter doesn't have a preeminent position any more than when

01:33:27

Richard Nixon said, my fellow Americans, he was saying, I'm not your president. I don't have any extra authority that you don't possess too.

01:33:35

You can come up and run the country as well. Of course, they're fellow bishops. Of course, they're fellow elders. And yet,

01:33:40

Peter, it does not deny that he has a preeminence. He says that, you know, Jesus says, the greatest must be the servant of all.

01:33:47

The Catholic Church admits that the whole attitude of the servants of God should be precisely that.

01:33:54

The Pope's greatest title, perhaps, is servant of the servants of God. He says, Peter doesn't speak like a Pope. I have to assume that Mr.

01:34:00

White hasn't read any encyclicals of this current Pope, John Paul II. If he says that, because this

01:34:08

Pope and many Popes have spoken with great tenderness and with great humility, and they don't lord it over. I mean, just because a father might plead with his children instead of just tyrannizing over them or laying down the law or might be very tender and compassionate with his wife rather than simply ordering her about doesn't mean that he doesn't have a headship in the home, folks.

01:34:29

Now, Christ is the head of every home. But St. Paul says that the husband exercises one under Christ.

01:34:36

And in the same way, the church, as the household of faith, has a headship. Christ's headship doesn't make all other headships impossible.

01:34:42

Time. Okay. Mine must be out of sync.

01:34:49

There's seven minutes. There were, in Mr.

01:34:57

Magic's comments, so many misrepresentations of what I had said that I hope you will fill out that piece of paper. You'll get the tapes and listen to what

01:35:03

I actually said. I'm the only one who has cited the official statements of Rome in regards to the doctrine of the papacy.

01:35:10

That has not been done by anyone else. So there's obviously no intention upon my part to misrepresent or mislead anyone. I'd like to just throw out some things for your consideration.

01:35:18

John was the first one to believe in the resurrection of Jesus Christ. Remember Peter? Peter doubted. He didn't believe.

01:35:25

John is called the beloved disciple, the one who Jesus Christ loved. John records, the only one who's given the ability to record the last night of ministry of the

01:35:33

Lord with his disciples in John chapter 13 and following. John receives the revelation at the end of time.

01:35:38

He's the last of the apostles to die. Would that be basis for believing that John has primacy in the

01:35:44

Christian church? What about Paul? Paul's caught up in the third heaven. Paul is the only one to see Christ after the ascension.

01:35:51

Paul writes at least 13 of the New Testament books. Paul is the apostle to the Gentiles. Paul has the vision that instructs him to go into Macedonia.

01:35:57

He receives supernatural revelation from God, directing him in his ministry. Wouldn't that make Paul prime in the church?

01:36:05

Well, I don't think that it would at all. And yet, what of the arguments that have been presented this evening? Are they not exactly the same character in regards to Peter?

01:36:13

Mr. Matzik said that Peter, Ananias and Sapphira, they dropped dead because they lied to the

01:36:20

Holy Spirit. And he did that in the context of lying to Peter. But Acts says they lied to the

01:36:26

Holy Spirit of God, who is God. It would have been any one of the apostles that could have been there, not just Peter.

01:36:31

Their lying was not because Peter was there. Their death was not because Peter was there. It was because of the fact they were lying to the

01:36:37

Holy Spirit of God. Mr. Matzik, then referring to Acts chapter 15, miscited

01:36:42

James grossly, where he said, therefore, it should be our judgment in summing up James' statements.

01:36:49

When in fact, if you look at Acts chapter 15, that's not what the passage says. James says, therefore, I judge.

01:36:55

Crino, I, me, not us. That is a misstatement on Mr. Matzik's part.

01:37:01

Mr. Matzik then said, well, you know, these Protestant interpretations I pointed out from a number of the places that Jerry had cited, that these individuals, when you kept reading their citation, then went on to say, but this idea of Peter being rock has a specific meaning that is fulfilled historically in Peter as the one who brings the gospel to the whole world and in no one else.

01:37:22

Isn't that somewhat significant? If Mr. Matzik is going to sit here and say I'm ignorant of Protestant theology and interpretation, isn't it somewhat significant that those scholars deny the

01:37:33

Roman Catholic position and in fact say that this entire idea of Peter being rock denies the concept of successors?

01:37:40

I think that is extremely significant. Now, he then asked about church fathers.

01:37:46

We'll talk about church fathers tomorrow night. What he was referring to was the citations that I provided to you. Would you like to write them down?

01:37:51

Look at them. Look at what these scholars said in regards to the subject of the supposed Aramaic original of Matthew.

01:37:57

I was citing Alexander Bruce. I was citing D .A. Carson. I was citing Nigel Turner and Robert Gundry and Kurt Aland.

01:38:04

If you'd like to come up and get those references specifically afterwards, I would like to give them to you. Go read them. You don't have to take my word for it.

01:38:11

You don't have to take his word for it. Go read them and find out for yourself. Now, Mr. Matzik then attempted to say, well,

01:38:17

Mr. White, you don't have the original Greek. There's a Greek text sitting right there on my text.

01:38:24

Right there. It's the Nestle Line 26th edition. It's right there on my desk. Now, that's not the original.

01:38:31

That's not the handwritten one. But as scholars of the New Testament know, we know what was written by those men.

01:38:37

We have a sound text of the New Testament. And so we know what was written by them in Greek.

01:38:43

Show me the Aramaic. Show me the Aramaic. You can't. It's not there. Now, Mr.

01:38:49

Matzik also brought up the fact that the early church talked about Matthew's Gospel being written in Aramaic. And you know what they did? But certainly

01:38:55

Mr. Matzik is aware of the numerous discussions of what the Logia really were.

01:39:02

And the numerous times where New Testament scholars identified this as a quote book of Jesus' sayings and not as the

01:39:08

Gospel of Matthew itself. Certainly he's aware of that. And certainly he should bring that to attention. Now, Mr.

01:39:15

Matzik didn't seem to be listening to what I was saying. He said, Mr. White, he must be trying to mislead us.

01:39:21

Because he's saying, no Protestant scholar I've ever known would say that minra was used in Peter.

01:39:27

And of course, if you listen closely to what I said, I didn't say that, did I? No. If you listen to what I said, roll the tape back, look at the notes.

01:39:34

What I said was that Chris Karagounis, in a recent work, provides excellent documentation demonstrating that the second rock, the

01:39:43

Petra, upon this rock I will build my church, that it is at least equally likely, and probably more likely, given the uses of kepha and minra in the

01:39:54

Aramaic Targums, in regards to the Septuagint translations, that the word that would be used, the second point, upon this rock

01:40:04

I will build my church, would be the Aramaic minra. I never said that he was talking about Peter. I never said that kepha was the term that we were talking about there.

01:40:13

That is just simply a misrepresentation of Mr. Manatek's part. The point is that you can present scholarly reasoning against this concept of kepha, kepha,

01:40:24

Peter being the rock. And the whole point again is, let us remember, let us not be distracted from what we're really talking about this evening.

01:40:31

What are we talking about this evening? What did Vatican I claim? That this is a clear doctrine of scripture.

01:40:39

My friends, allegorical, unclear, convoluted arguments that require us to make huge leaps across massive chasms do not fulfill the necessary weight of proof that is required of the

01:40:50

Roman apologist. You cannot simply say, well, I'm building my case here, see? And I've made this step and this step and this step and this step and I've got 25 more steps to go, and unless you accept every step down here, the whole thing falls apart.

01:41:02

That is not what Vatican I said was the constant faith of the universal church.

01:41:09

And if we are going to say as Pope Boniface that it is necessary for the salvation of men that they be subject to the

01:41:15

Roman pontiff, I'm sorry, you can't say to me that you can take an argument that has 25 steps in it and can be argued against at every one of those 25 steps and say, well, there it is, and that's what you've got to bow to.

01:41:28

No, my friends, we cannot this evening simply allow a probability to become the terrible certainty that the

01:41:36

Roman papacy became, especially in the Middle Ages. If we believe the New Testament, we must listen to all the

01:41:42

New Testament says. And I again ask you, does the New Testament force you to a belief in the papacy?

01:41:48

And the answer is plainly, no. Thank you very much. This next section is sufficiently complex that I want to explain it to you.

01:42:04

We will start with Mr. White, who will present a question to Mr. Matitix.

01:42:10

He will then answer the question. Mr. White will respond to the answer and then

01:42:18

Mr. Matitix will rebut the response to the answer to the question. And so that you may all keep time along with me, he has one minute to phrase his question.

01:42:32

The answer is three minutes. He will then have two minutes and he will have one minute. So there will be four questions that will be asked.

01:42:40

The first one from Mr. White, the second from Mr. Matitix. We will do that four times, each of them having the opportunity to ask two questions.

01:42:50

I will be very prompt and timely with these in order to keep it moving appropriately.

01:43:00

I do remember what I wanted to say earlier. That is tomorrow from 10 to 11 on KLZ.

01:43:08

I believe both gentlemen will be on Radio KLZ 560 tomorrow from 10 to 11.

01:43:16

It's something that they just found out about and they have to make sure their schedules are available.

01:43:22

But I do believe both will be able to be on 560 KLZ tomorrow from 10 to 11.

01:43:32

Wait until I sit down and then you may start. You are on.

01:43:38

Mr. Matitix, why, if your interpretation of Matthew 16 is correct and the only one, do the disciples continue to argue over who would be the greatest?

01:43:47

Does not their arguing show that they did not understand this passage as setting Peter apart as you do? Well, Mr.

01:43:56

White, let me ask you this question. If I walk into some Christian's home and I hear children arguing with their parents, why is that happening?

01:44:04

If they understand that the Bible clearly teaches that parents have authority over their children. That to me seems an incredibly weak argument.

01:44:10

The fact is we are sinful human beings and even though God reveals truth to us, we do not always live up to that truth at times.

01:44:15

The point of those passages is that Jesus is reminding Peter and all of them that they must exercise their authority in a humble and loving way.

01:44:25

Not to lord or tyrannize it over the others as the Gentile overlords did, but to use their power to serve.

01:44:31

I believe that the popes who have been the finest occupants of that office and I hold

01:44:37

John Paul II certainly as a great example in regard to his humility and his holiness have taken that message to heart and have in fact carried out their ministry with that type of humility.

01:44:49

But to argue from that or to argue from the fact that there may be people in the apostolic band or in the early church that might have resisted

01:45:00

Peter's teaching or not obeyed him when he said something and to say that this proves that there was no understanding that this authority was given to him is absolutely absurd.

01:45:08

As I said, that would prove that a disobedient wife proves that a husband is not the head of the home or that disobedient children prove that parents have no authority over their children.

01:45:17

Nor is it the case that what Paul was doing in Galatians chapter 2 is inconsistent with his recognition of Peter's authority.

01:45:24

If you read it carefully, you will see that Paul goes out of his way in Galatians chapter 1 to point out that he went to he went to Jerusalem specifically to verify that his gospel was in line with what he says he did not go up to confer with mere flesh and blood in Galatians 1 .16

01:45:43

talking about his Arabian experience and Protestants, such as as Alford, say that this refers to Matthew 16.

01:45:52

That the idea continues that even when he goes to speak to Peter he's not speaking to mere flesh and blood but to someone that God has used in a supernatural way.

01:46:00

He says he goes to visit Cephas, not the other apostles in Galatians 1 .18 except, he says in afterthought,

01:46:06

James, the Lord's kinsman, I saw him too. He says he went to Jerusalem in response to a revelation in order to make sure that I had not run in vain.

01:46:13

And when he rebukes Peter not for teaching error, but for hypocrisy for not practicing what he preached he was doing what many godly

01:46:21

Catholics have done with Popes. St. Catherine of Siena did the same with Popes of her day.

01:46:26

There is nothing inconsistent with any Catholic calling a Pope to be holy, to live up to what he teaches.

01:46:34

But Peter did not teach error and Paul specifically says so. He says that we agree on the gospel.

01:46:40

You gave me your right hand of fellowship. So there's no indictment at all there in either of those instances of the papal authority that Peter has.

01:46:54

In response to the actual question that I asked you, again, in looking at Luke chapter 22, we see again the necessity on the part of the

01:47:03

Roman Catholic to take a pre -existing assumption, the existence of the papacy, and then read the text in light of that assumption.

01:47:10

The debate this evening is does that assumption exist? Is there a basis for that assumption? Without the assumption, you're never going to come up with the position that Mr.

01:47:18

Mattox is enunciating to us this evening. He says, well, this is due to a sinful nature. Of course arguing over it was a sinful nature.

01:47:24

But what in the passage and what in the Lord's response to the disciples argument would lead any dispassionate observer to believe in a papacy?

01:47:34

What, my friends, I submit to you absolutely positively nothing. Now, I would like to comment on the rest of Mr.

01:47:40

Mattox's response, which was not a response to my question but a tying up of other things. But I do not believe that that's proper in debate and therefore

01:47:46

I will not respond to those things. I did respond to your question and if you look at the passage in Luke 22, the whole concept is about if you look at Luke 22 verses 24 and following, it's a dispute about the greatest and the attitude that people should have.

01:48:08

I spoke to that issue. He says what in the text would lead you to see a papacy? Well, my point is that immediately after verses 29 and 30 where Jesus speaks of the 12 apostles having 12 thrones.

01:48:21

Notice, it is not that every Christian has the same authority in the church.

01:48:27

There are some that are given special authority to sit on the thrones judging the 12 tribes of Israel. And yet immediately after that Jesus says that he will pray for Simon in a special way.

01:48:36

Yes, he needs greater pastoral care because the temptations are greater. Assailing the Pope, that proves in fact that he is this pinnacle that Satan is seeking to get his hands on.

01:48:45

But he prays for him, Simon singular, that his faith would not fail. He does not pray that for the other apostles so that he can be a source of strength to his brethren.

01:48:54

Mr. Matitix, a question for Mr. White. Mr. White, you've said two things that trouble me.

01:49:01

First of all, you've said that you have to read, you have to have the assumption in place and then read it into the text.

01:49:07

But how do you explain the fact that many people, such as myself and many other former Evangelical Protestants that I know, read the

01:49:14

Bible with an attempt to refute papacy and found themselves struggling with these texts and coming against their own initial prejudices to the conclusion that these things do in fact teach the

01:49:24

Bible? You don't see, in this case, at least an instance of someone with an axe to grind. And is it the case, the second part of my question is, is it the case that I must really prove beyond all possibility the impossibility of any other interpretation?

01:49:37

Would you put that burden upon yourself in a debate with a Mormon or Jehovah's Witness that there can be no plausible or no other interpretation in existence?

01:49:45

Isn't that an absolutely unjust and in fact mathematically impossible demand that it sounds good to foist upon the debater but really paints him into an absolutely impossible task?

01:49:57

Would you be willing to take that challenge yourself? Mr. Moderator, which question should I answer? It's your choice.

01:50:04

You have three minutes. Well, in regards to the first,

01:50:09

I guess I could take the easy way out and say a sinful nature is why people convert the other direction. But the point obviously is that no one converts.

01:50:18

That was the answer that was just given to me in regards to why people were arguing. And I was saying that we all read the

01:50:24

Bible with particular perspectives. And anyone will admit when they read the

01:50:29

Bible, if there are other factors involved, and I do not believe that anyone has ever committed the act of conversion, either direction, for absolutely positively one reason.

01:50:40

And that was the only reason there was. Never thought about anything else. Obviously, we as human beings, we look at things in that way.

01:50:47

And so, I don't really see what the relevance of the question why is. Because obviously, I know of individuals who have read the same texts and have left

01:50:56

Roman Catholicism because of these very same texts. And therefore, I don't see that it's a question that's very relevant.

01:51:01

The second question that was asked, a completely different question, was about this burden that Mr. Matic seems to be laboring under.

01:51:08

My friends, I simply remind you that he says, would I accept that burden? Well, if I claimed to be representing an infallible church that makes the statements that my doctrine is in accordance with the ancient and constant faith of the universal church, and that it makes that statement in a supposedly infallible document, and goes on to say in the same infallible document that this is a clear doctrine of Holy Scripture that has been ever understood by the

01:51:41

Catholic Church in the way that they are, and then anathematizes everyone who doesn't agree with me, in that situation

01:51:48

I don't think you can avoid the burden of proof. It is not that I am attempting to put

01:51:54

Mr. Matic in a difficult position. The simple fact of the matter is, the Roman Catholic claims, because they are so broad, and so absolute, have put

01:52:04

Mr. Matic in the position that he's in. Now, I'm sorry Mr. Matic, if you don't want the position that you're in.

01:52:09

If you'd like to soften Boniface's words in Unum Sanctum, when he said it is necessary to be subject to the

01:52:16

Roman Catholic Pontiff. I understand the desire to do that, but the simple fact of the matter is that that is the

01:52:23

Roman Catholic position, that is what is in your infallible documents, it is in your infallible documents to say it's a clear doctrine, and therefore, if there are numerous other equally clear interpretations of the passages upon which your own church has based its claims,

01:52:38

Matthew 16, John 21. I'm sorry that you're in that situation, but that is the reality of the situation which you are in.

01:52:45

And you have to undertake to defend the position that you have chosen to defend. And so, if I was in your position,

01:52:51

Jerry, then I'd have to. Then I'd have to. I'm not in the position that you're in. I'm glad I'm not in the position that you're in, but that is the position that you have to take.

01:53:01

I think you internally misunderstand the point of my question Mr. White. My point is that it is absolutely against the laws of debate for you to insist that the other person, in order to win the debate, must prove that his interpretation is the only possible one, and that no one else could intelligently hold another one.

01:53:19

You yourself believe that the deity of Christ, for example, is the constant teaching, not only of the

01:53:26

New Testament, but of the church for the last 2 ,000 years of Christian history. You would die for that faith,

01:53:32

I would hope. You would defend that doctrine, and yet you yourself are aware that there are people who quote the

01:53:37

Bible, who will argue, Jehovah's Witnesses, modernist Catholics, modernist Protestants, they will water down and whittle down the classical orthodox position on the deity of Christ.

01:53:48

My point is that simply because someone can be found who denies your interpretation doesn't prove that your interpretation isn't the sound one, and simply because there are

01:53:58

Protestants who deny that Peter has this primacy, and that the texts teach this, does not prove that therefore my position can't be defended.

01:54:07

I am not interested in softening Boniface's words. I stand without apology for the teaching of the

01:54:13

Catholic Church that because we must obey Jesus Christ and submit to his authority, that entails submitting to the authority of those to whom he delegates his authority.

01:54:24

Jesus made the same thing very clear in the New Testament. When he sent the 70 out in Luke 10 .17,

01:54:30

he said, whoever listens to you listens to me, but whoever rejects you, rejects me, and in rejecting me, rejects the one who sent me.

01:54:37

If that's true of the 70 elders, it's true a fortiori even more of the 12 apostles.

01:54:43

If someone on the day of Pentecost said, Peter, I reject your teaching of Christ, I reject your

01:54:48

Christology, I'm going to have my own idea of Jesus and my own idea of the authority of the church, that person cannot be saved.

01:54:57

And the same principle applies today. We must heed the apostles and their successors.

01:55:05

I simply wish to remind the audience yet once again that the Roman Catholic Church itself has given us in Vatican I an infallible interpretation of Matthew chapter 16 and John chapter 21 and has said, at open variance with this clear doctrine of Holy Scripture as it has been ever understood by the

01:55:24

Catholic Church, are the perverse opinions of those who, and it goes on from there, and need

01:55:31

I remind you that this is finished off with the anathema that is placed upon those who would disagree and therefore is not strictly analogous to the doctrine of the deity of Christ.

01:55:43

For I can present the deity of Christ directly from Scripture and do not have to say now my friends, this particular council has cited

01:55:51

John 1 -1 as evidence to the deity of Christ and therefore that's it. You cannot question it, we will not discuss it, that's it.

01:55:58

That's it. Infallible authority. I am not in that position and therefore the analogy you create breaks down.

01:56:05

Mr. White, question from Mr. Matiticks. Thank you. Mr. Matiticks, why do we find no one in the

01:56:14

New Testament, including Peter himself, directing people to obedience to Peter as the

01:56:19

Holy Father, the Vicar of Christ on Earth, in a way that is substantially and recognizably different than the authority and obedience demanded for all the apostles?

01:56:34

I have three minutes. Yes. Well, Mr. White, this is another example of what I consider, again with all due respect, a kind of a double standard.

01:56:42

On the one hand, you'll say that if something is missing from Scripture, it doesn't necessarily prove that it wasn't the case.

01:56:50

You said, for example, there's no evidence in John 21 verses 15 through 17.

01:56:55

You said, there's no evidence, even though Jesus recorded his only saying to Peter, feed my sheep, that he didn't tell all the apostles on the beach there, on the shores of Lake Galilee, to feed his sheep, to tend his flock.

01:57:06

So, just because it isn't mentioned doesn't mean it didn't happen. Well, I'll simply give your own answer back to you then.

01:57:12

Simply because in two rather short letters that Peter writes, he doesn't say, now everybody out there remember that I have this special office as chief steward, and you must acknowledge this, you must recognize this,

01:57:24

I hope that you will call me by my proper titles, doesn't mean that the issue never came up. We need to remember again that the

01:57:31

Scriptures are ad hoc documents speaking to specific situations of crisis which come up and they do not even begin to scratch the surface of all that went on in the early church.

01:57:41

Mr. White's remarks about the Book of Acts fundamentally ignored that point because the

01:57:46

Book of Acts purpose and function, as even Protestant scholars and their commentators will admit, is to show how

01:57:54

Paul got to Rome, and it is not to give a complete overview of everything that happened significant in church history.

01:58:01

So, simply because we don't have instances of Peter, in which he flexes his papal muscles, you might say, doesn't mean, in Scripture, doesn't mean that he never did so, unless we're going to believe the unbiblical idea that Scripture records everything which ever happened, which it goes out of its way to say is not the case.

01:58:18

There's a second and a more profound reason, and that is that Peter took to heart, by and large, as evinced by his spirituality after the

01:58:26

Day of Pentecost, we don't see, apart from the incident at Antioch, and everyone of us can fall, but we don't see, apart from that incidence, a

01:58:37

Peter who's vacillating, who's weak, who's cowardly, who's denying. He's been transformed into someone as bold as a lion before the

01:58:43

Sanhedrin. He has been sanctified by the Pentecostal gift of the Holy Spirit, and he evinces therefore a tremendous humility in the way that he speaks to people in 1st and 2nd

01:58:56

Timothy, and his job, and his whole approach, therefore, is not to say you do this because I say so, but to appeal out of love, to find common ground, to not pull rank.

01:59:07

That's the mark of a wise leader, Mr. White. A wise leader doesn't simply get up on his high horse, and peremptorily demand that people submit to him.

01:59:17

He finds a way to move people along by love and by grace, and I believe that Peter does that quite successfully.

01:59:27

He says to these elders that they are to clothe themselves with humility. The literal Greek verb he uses is to put on the apron, such as Jesus did when he served, he washed his disciples' feet.

01:59:35

Does that mean Jesus wasn't Lord? Of course not, Mr. White. First of all, in regards to John chapter 21, we again see the necessity for circular reasoning.

01:59:46

We assume this idea that Peter is the chief pastor, and then we read into the text and go, well, you know, it's only here,

01:59:54

Peter only is told to feed his sheep. Ignoring the fact that in the context, what we have here is the restoration of Peter to the position that he himself had rejected in his denials of Jesus Christ.

02:00:07

We have here simply the restoration of Peter, not a basis of Petrine primacy.

02:00:12

I point out Acts chapter 15, verse 6, the apostles and elders met to consider this question.

02:00:19

Peter is seen as an apostle. This is the clear teaching of the scripture, that he is seen as an apostle, not as a pope, not as someone who is above the apostles, or the prince of the apostles, or anything like that.

02:00:32

That's what you see in his own letters. He writes as an apostle and a witness of the sufferings of Jesus Christ, not as a pope that is in some different situation than all the other apostles.

02:00:41

We keep being asked to believe as a demanded doctrine upon which you can be separated from the church of Christ if you do not believe it.

02:00:49

And yet, Mr. Mattox just admitted, well, I can't show you anywhere where Peter acts as a pope. I can't show you where he, you know, he does this, he does all these things in loving kindness and grace, so on and so forth.

02:01:00

That's fine. That's wonderful. But you don't think that somewhere in the New Testament we would find evidence of Peter acting as a pope?

02:01:06

In the pastoral epistles somewhere? In the book of Revelation? Somewhere we wouldn't find Peter being appealed to as the head of all

02:01:14

Christians? You mean that the New Testament is so very meager in its picture of the life of the church in the

02:01:20

New Testament that it can't give us that information? Certainly, I think that that is a position that we cannot possibly embrace.

02:01:26

And again, I point out, Mr. Mattox must prove that the New Testament teaches

02:01:32

Peter was a pope. Not merely suggest it to us over and over again. He must prove that assertion.

02:01:38

Thank you. Mr. White, again, you're misrepresenting me. I didn't say that there's no place where Peter speaks as pope.

02:01:44

When he speaks and appeals and humbly, he's speaking as a pope should. So I didn't say what you attributed to me.

02:01:51

Secondly, Jesus speaks of his kingdom as having stewards. And in his parables of stewardship, he talks about a chief steward.

02:02:00

The question, Mr. White, is who was the chief steward among the stewards of the kingdom of God? In Isaiah 22, a passage

02:02:06

I referred to in verses 20 and following, we read that the chief steward has special vestments, a special authority.

02:02:12

He's spoken of as a father in verse 21. He's given a key so that what he opens, no one can shut.

02:02:18

What he shuts, no one can open. He's given a seat of honor. That his office descends to spiritual sons through the perennial principle in Old and New Testament of dynastic succession.

02:02:29

When we read Matthew 16 in the light of this, as Protestant scholars themselves encourage us to do, we see that Jesus is identifying

02:02:36

Peter as the chief steward. That makes him the head of the apostles and answers your question.

02:02:43

Mr. Mattatick's final question for Mr. White. Mr. White, I'm a little unsure now as to what, in fact, you are saying the meaning of these passages in which

02:02:55

Jesus speaks to Peter and says things to him that are not true to the other apostles really is. If, in fact,

02:03:01

Peter doesn't have any headship, if, in fact, he doesn't have any special function in the apostles, that they're simply all equals, then why is it that Jesus looks at him and gives him a name that he bears thereafter?

02:03:15

Not simply a nickname like calling James and John the sons of thunder, which they're not called as their proper names. Why does he give them this different name?

02:03:22

Why does he say, Simon, I will pray for you specifically, that you can be a source of strength to your brethren, that your faith will not fail?

02:03:28

Why does he give to him the key and not use that language to the others? Why does he say, contrary to your assertion that I assume in John 21,

02:03:37

I don't assume it, he says, you are the pastor. You feed my sheep. He doesn't say to the others. I'm not assuming it.

02:03:42

Why does Jesus say that? Why does Jesus make these special statements to Peter and to Peter alone? Why is he referred to as a rock?

02:03:54

Well, in answer to those questions, first of all, the Lord Jesus meets his people where they are.

02:04:01

And he ministers to them as unique individuals. Peter, notice

02:04:07

Mr. Matics attributed a position to me that I had already refuted in my opening statement, so that is,

02:04:12

Peter functions as the spokesman for the disciple band. That is very plain.

02:04:18

No one is disputing that whatsoever. But Peter is also very impetuous. And he has a faith that is easily shaken.

02:04:27

He has a faith that, in fact, he ends up denying the Lord three times. He has a faith that requires special ministry from the

02:04:34

Lord Jesus Christ. To jump from the fact that the Lord Jesus Christ meets him at the point of his knee to saying that Peter is a

02:04:43

Pope is a huge leap of monumental proportions that certainly

02:04:48

I hope we see this evening is not one that we can make. Peter is said to pastor the people of God.

02:04:57

And Mr. Matics said, well Jesus didn't say that to the other disciples. Really? Really?

02:05:03

What was Paul doing in Acts chapter 20 verse 28 when he said to the Ephesian elders, shepherd the flock of God which is entrusted to you.

02:05:11

What's Paul doing? Is he usurping someone's authority or do we have to assume that what we've got here is, see

02:05:18

Peter is the one who's been made the chief shepherd, the chief pastor, over against everybody else because Jesus didn't say this to anybody else.

02:05:26

He only said it to Peter. And so through Peter the other apostles have been made pastors and now through them they're making other people pastors.

02:05:34

Is that what we want to call reading the text of the New Testament for what the text itself says?

02:05:40

Or do we not see here the fact that we are taking a historical development that came along centuries and centuries later and putting that on as glasses on our face so that we can see these things in the text when the original authors would never have dreamed of these things.

02:05:56

I believe that's exactly what we have going on. But again we cannot assume we cannot assume things to prove their own position.

02:06:07

Mr. Mattox assumes Jesus never said this to the other apostles and yet the other apostles went out and did the very things that he says

02:06:12

Jesus didn't say to them to do. That doesn't make any sense to me. He is restoring

02:06:18

Peter three times because Peter denied him three times.

02:06:24

Peter certainly could have thought, gracious sakes, having denied the Lord, I am not worthy to any longer function as a pastor and shepherd of Christ's flock.

02:06:32

But the Lord Jesus restores him in loving grace and tells him, yes you will pastor the flock because the people will see in you the fact that faith and grace come from me.

02:06:45

I am the one who will strengthen you. Not in yourself, in yourself you failed. I am the one who will now strengthen you.

02:06:53

Mr. White, you're avoiding the real issue here and that is, why is it that Jesus singles

02:06:59

Peter out for this special reinstatement? Certainly he denied him three times, but all the apostles fled.

02:07:05

I'm not denying that they were all reinstated. I'm not denying that they all had a shepherding responsibility over the flock.

02:07:10

I think again you show that you don't really understand the Catholic position. It is not that the other apostles or the other bishops today derive their episcopal or pastoral authority over the flock from Peter.

02:07:22

They derive it directly and immediately from Jesus Christ. All the apostles did and all their successors do.

02:07:28

So you're misrepresenting the Catholic position. My point is, and I'm not assuming that he didn't say these things to the apostles,

02:07:34

I'm simply saying it's not recorded there. You're the one that says prove it to me out of the Bible or I don't have to believe it as a

02:07:41

Christian. That is your view of psalm scriptura and I'm simply saying the special reinstatement, the special conferring of the care for the flock is upon Peter, is not upon the others.

02:07:50

Of course Paul says to shepherd the flock to the bishops. Of course Peter says to the elders that he speaks to in his epistles that they have a shepherding responsibility.

02:07:58

But it is not singled out in the very extraordinary way in which Simon is in John 21.

02:08:05

I don't deny that Paul says, as you quoted earlier, the care of all the churches is upon me. That doesn't prove that he has universal jurisdiction.

02:08:12

John Wesley said the world is my parish, but that didn't mean that he thought he had universal jurisdiction. All of us should care about,

02:08:17

I mean, if the Christians in Timbuktu or Somalia or here or there are suffering, then if I truly have

02:08:23

Christ's heart I should care for that. But the point is that Peter is given this special thing.

02:08:29

To say that he's only singling Peter out because Peter was a weak man and had shaky faith, that's only true prior to the church age.

02:08:37

After Pentecost you see Peter as a paradigm of virtue. Not a flawless one, not an impeccable one.

02:08:43

We don't claim that. Certainly he sinned the sin of hypocrisy at Antioch, which means not practicing what you preach.

02:08:48

But his preaching was that there was no fault with it and Paul finds no fault with it. First of all, you say that I was misrepresenting the

02:08:58

Catholic position. No, if you listened, I was presenting some hypothetical possible defense of why this is.

02:09:04

I was not saying it was a Catholic position. I was presenting if this is a hypothetical defense, this is the problem with it. Secondly, you mentioned solo scriptura.

02:09:12

Jerry, tonight you agreed to hold to that in the sense that the thesis of the debate is, does the New Testament teach that Peter was a

02:09:18

Pope? I don't see if there's room for complaining when I ask you, well show us these things in the

02:09:23

New Testament. Interestingly in the last thing that you just said, you said, well yes,

02:09:30

Peter was a weak man. But that was prior to the church age. Jerry, the question you asked me was all about statements that Jesus made to Peter prior to the church age.

02:09:39

Obviously my response would fit within the parameters and the context of that which you yourself presented to me. Why does

02:09:44

Jesus say all these special things to Peter? Well, all the things you mentioned were prior to the church age.

02:09:50

So I don't see if that's actually a response to what I had to say. Well, in order to clear up any possible remaining confusion that anyone here may have, each of the gentlemen has 12 minutes to make a closing statement.

02:10:10

We'll start with Mr. Metadix, a 12 minute closing statement. The thing that I was given said that there were two questions from the audience for each person.

02:10:21

Oh, you cut that out? Yeah. The only thing we discussed yesterday was that we would shorten the final thing to 12 minutes each and that we would cut out one of the rebuttal periods.

02:10:37

Well, also we are also committed to being out of here by 10 o 'clock as well. I'd like in my remaining 12 minutes here, before we break for the end of this evening, to encourage you, first of all, to come out tomorrow night because certainly many of these issues can be understood in the light of how the early church understood these texts.

02:11:23

Ultimately, I'm not putting myself up here as an infallible interpreter of sacred scripture, nor, of course, as Mr.

02:11:29

White. His theology, of course, would preclude him from doing so, as would mine from me. But I do believe that the church has been given a function to perform to tell us what is the truth.

02:11:41

The church is called to be that pillar and foundation of the truth as Paul says in 1

02:11:48

Timothy 3 .15. And as Jesus, our Lord, commands each one of us tonight when there are disputes between believers, we are to heed the church, as he says in Matthew 18.

02:11:57

We must be sure that we are willing to take our understanding of these texts and submit them to the understanding that the church provides.

02:12:08

The Bible warns us that it can be misunderstood. Peter himself, the very person that I'm holding up before you as this special representative of Christ's authority based on these texts that we've looked at, he himself reminds us that scripture can be twisted.

02:12:26

It can be misunderstood in 2 Peter 3 .15 and 16. Paul's letters, he says, have some things hard to understand.

02:12:32

So it's possible for me to misunderstand, for Mr. White to misunderstand, for you to misunderstand. How are we going to resolve that problem?

02:12:38

We need to recognize that there is in addition to the inspired, infallible written word of God an authoritative church that Christ himself says he will build upon the rock so that the gates of hell cannot prevail against it.

02:12:54

Contrary to Mr. White's continued insinuations that I came to these texts with some rabid desire to assume

02:13:02

Catholicism ahead of time. Where would this have come from? What could have zapped me to make me just all of a sudden open up the

02:13:07

Bible one day and say I'm just going to start assuming Roman Catholicism when it was the last thing that I wanted to do.

02:13:13

It was the very last thing that I wanted to believe. I struggled over years against what

02:13:20

I found increasingly the inevitable and unavoidable conclusion that these texts mean more than any one particular

02:13:31

Protestant denomination might say they are. And Protestants disagree among themselves on hundreds and hundreds of issues.

02:13:41

These texts were calling for a deeper commitment on my part to the lordship of Jesus Christ.

02:13:47

It is not the case that Jesus Christ does not use agents.

02:13:53

The Bible is clear that God identifies with particular people. He uses them as instruments of his grace and his authority.

02:14:00

He says about Abraham that those that bless Abraham will be blessed by God and those that curse him will be cursed. Jesus said to Saul on the road to Damascus, why are you persecuting me?

02:14:12

To attack my church, my body, is to attack me. Jesus said in Luke 10 17, whoever rejects what you say to the apostles rejects what

02:14:22

I say. People in Jesus' day couldn't say, well I believe in God but I don't believe what you teach Jesus.

02:14:27

Because Jesus said, he who hears me hears the words of God, hears the words of the father. And the same thing is true of the apostles.

02:14:33

It is not the case that we are free to believe whatever we think the

02:14:39

Bible means. People in the days of the apostles were obligated to understand the

02:14:44

Old Testament as it was proclaimed and explained by the apostles. Their interpretation of the

02:14:50

Old Testament was normative. And no one was free to say, no

02:14:55

I get a different meaning out of Isaiah or out of Leviticus or out of that Psalm. It doesn't really refer to Jesus and so forth.

02:15:02

They are not permitted. Jesus gives authority to the twelve.

02:15:09

They sit on thrones. And it is not the case that all receive the same authority. Contrary to what

02:15:15

Mr. White said. Because Matthew 16 is clear that Peter is given a special headship.

02:15:21

He alone is called a rock. I would like to ask Mr. White in his closing remarks to indicate why it is that this name, this proper name of rock is given to this one apostle.

02:15:33

If he is only a rock in the sense in which all apostles, all believers are living stones as he says in 1

02:15:38

Peter 2. That can't exhaust the meaning of the word rock. Terms in the Bible can have a whole breadth of meaning.

02:15:44

Certainly we are all rocks. Certainly Jesus is the ultimate rock. But the Bible itself says the apostles are very special foundation stones.

02:15:52

In the description of the New Jerusalem that we are given in Revelation 22. Are they a stone in the sense in which I am not? Yes. And Mr.

02:15:59

White's logic cannot prevent him from saying yes. Just because we are all stones doesn't mean that they can't have it in a special sense.

02:16:05

Well Mr. White you've got to play fair. If the apostles can be stones or rocks in a special sense in which all believers are not.

02:16:14

Then is it impossible that Peter be called rock in a special sense in which the other apostles are not?

02:16:22

No. It is not illogical. It is not inscriptural. And in fact Jesus calls him rock and him alone.

02:16:29

To argue that because Peter ceased being a career missionary to the Gentiles that he has no jurisdiction over them is an absurd argument.

02:16:37

Because that would mean that the Pope today would have to go and be a missionary to every single indigenous people in order to be able to say he has authority over them.

02:16:46

That is not the way the division of labor works in the church. Someone can have ultimate authority over a family without having to oversee every field of work throughout the church.

02:16:58

He says that Matthew 16 is the last bastion. Here is another reason he says for denying the

02:17:05

Roman Catholic position. It is not the last bastion. It is one of many passages I have mentioned. Even if you are not persuaded that Matthew 16 teaches what the

02:17:13

Catholic Church teaches, and if you are not, I would encourage you first of all to get hold of in the Denver Seminary Library the commentaries

02:17:20

I referred you to. Look at the premises. Look at the facts that are admitted. The fact is that the majority of Protestant scholars today, and I am standing up for this statement and I am willing to defend it.

02:17:32

The majority of Protestant scholars today admit that Peter has a preeminence in the

02:17:39

Gospels and the Book of Acts and throughout the New Testament. There is a special spotlight that shines upon him.

02:17:45

No one can deny that without denying the data. And Mr. White again still has not explained satisfactorily why

02:17:54

Peter figures so prominently in so many of these episodes if he is just one of the boys. Secondly, most

02:18:03

Protestant scholars today will admit that the phrase the rock in the second half of Matthew 16 -18 refers to Peter.

02:18:12

That Jesus is saying you are the rock and on you Peter I will build my church. Sure Mr.

02:18:18

White can quote a scholar here and a scholar there who denies that, but the vast majority of them admit in contrast to Mr.

02:18:25

White's idiosyncratic and eccentric view, which was a prevalent one at the time of the Reformation when people had to go to great lengths to defend their breaking away.

02:18:34

They are divorcing themselves from the church which Christ established. And to come up with terms like the

02:18:39

Pope is the Antichrist. He is the beast. He is the false prophet. At that time extreme arguments were made and on the basis of an insufficient knowledge of Greek people were arguing because there were two different Greek words there that therefore

02:18:53

Peter was not the rock. I would encourage you to just come in any day at your convenience into Denver Seminary and pull down at random say a dozen different commentaries by reputable

02:19:07

Evangelical Protestant scholars and I think that you will find that a significant percentage of them and the majority of them if you did more than 12, but if you read all of them you would see that the majority of them say, because I have done that.

02:19:18

I have sat down and read through them and the majority of them admit that Peter was the rock. This is a special sacred function that he has as the foundation of the temple which

02:19:26

Christ is building. And that means something. And the rock is that which seals the gates of Hades which keeps the father of lies from corrupting the church so that it formally teaches error which it never has through the popes.

02:19:40

And it is amazing to me that even in the instance of popes who as Mr. White would say and I would agree there have been popes who have been bad.

02:19:47

There have been popes, there have been a handful of popes in there who have done immoral things but they never changed the teaching of the church to justify or rationalize their behavior.

02:19:56

You didn't have popes who were notorious perhaps for sexual immorality saying well I am revoking the sixth commandment you know, it is okay thou shalt commit adultery or it is okay to have little bastard children running around the papal palace or it is okay to have you know mistresses or this or that.

02:20:11

God amazingly despite their own, the weakness of their own flesh and blood preserves their teaching from ever falling into formal error.

02:20:21

And that is a resource that Protestants and Catholics would do well to heed in our day when we are subjected to a moral chaos of unprecedented proportions.

02:20:32

Abortion alone is enough to destroy this country many times over unless the plague stops. And I am heartened to see many

02:20:38

Protestants increasingly becoming aware of the fact that abortion flows from a contraceptive mentality and Protestants like Ranald Terry have the courage and the biblical vision to see that contraception leads to abortion.

02:20:51

Now up until 1930 Protestants agreed with the Catholic position that contraception is a mortal sin that artificial contraception is a violation of God's command to married people to be fruitful and multiply we need to heed the fact that even despite the moral laxity of our day and age and I know

02:21:12

I am speaking controversial things here and I understand that and I wrestled with this myself as a Protestant that in our day

02:21:19

God has preserved a testimony to this truth in the encyclical that Pope Paul VI wrote in Humanae Vitae in 1968 and many

02:21:26

Protestants have become Catholic by meditating on the prophetic courage that that encyclical enshrines

02:21:32

I am suggesting to you whether you are Protestant or Catholic and I am under no illusions if you look at the

02:21:37

USA Today poll that was mentioned in the cover story that even if you are Catholic you are sympathetic to me on this issue I am asking you to ask yourself this question is it in fact possible that in our age of moral turbulence and turmoil and tumult that God has a voice that he wants me to listen to that ensures that as I read the scripture

02:21:58

I read them aright and that that voice is the voice of Peter and that it comes to us today through his successors as Jesus says there will be successors there will be those in Isaiah 22 to whom the keys are transmitted there will be these spiritual offspring is it in fact the case that the

02:22:16

Pope is giving us a moral leadership that everyone who professes to follow Christ as Redeemer and King to acknowledge his prophet priest and kingly authority over us must do well to heed if we reject it

02:22:28

I believe that we reject it to the peril of our own spiritual lives the health of the church and ultimately the stability and safety of our society

02:22:36

I plead with you whether you are Protestant or Catholic to at least be open to the possibility Mr.

02:22:42

White says apparently that there is no possibility this could be true it seems to me and I could be wrong and I am willing to be corrected if he is going to say this that he has never even considered the possibility that this could really be true

02:22:54

I ask you Mr. White to be willing to lay aside your own passionate convictions just enough to put your heart and mind before God and say

02:23:01

God is it possible that what Jerry has seen in these texts and what other Protestants have seen in these texts that have brought them to the

02:23:06

Catholic faith just might in fact be plausible it's not as ridiculous it's not these massive logical leaps of nonsense that you accuse them of being please consider this prayerfully thank you very much

02:23:18

God bless you this evening the debate was not upon who are nice people and who are not the debate this evening was does the

02:23:50

New Testament teach that Peter was a pope Mr. Matitix has attempted to substantiate that in a number of different ways for example just to give us an example of the kind of argumentation that has been used just recently

02:24:06

Mr. Matitix brought up the subject of Jesus' parables and the chief steward that is referred to in the parables in Matthew and he asked

02:24:15

Mr. White who is the chief steward Mr. Matitix this is called a parable and you don't need a specific fulfillment of that individual it's interesting to me that the

02:24:25

Jehovah's Witnesses use the same passage about the faithful and discreet slave and identify their organization as that as a firm unflinching proof that the

02:24:35

Watchtower Violence Fact Society is Jehovah's only organization exact same methodology of interpretation you don't use parables and say well who is this chief steward in this parable well it must be

02:24:49

Peter and it must be the papacy and the successors of Peter and the bishops of Rome where did

02:24:54

Jesus say that it's not there Mr. Matitix just gave us and I hope you caught what

02:25:00

I believe is literally a subtle attack upon the sufficiency of scripture did you hear what he said he said that there is an addition to scripture in the teaching authority of the

02:25:12

Roman Catholic Church an addition to scripture to use his very own words

02:25:17

I wrote them down and quoted them we have to attack the sufficiency of scripture this evening because the simple fact of the matter is that if you take sola scriptura and if you take the scriptures alone as we are supposed to do this evening they do not lead you to the papacy unless you have this overriding consideration they don't lead you to the papacy

02:25:36

Mr. Matitix speaks of his personal experience but Mr. White what about me Mr. Matitix what about the thousands who went the other direction is your personal experience and the personal experience of other men that I know who have looked at the exact same passages and come to the exact opposite conclusion of you supposed to be determinative of what

02:25:54

I as a Christian am supposed to submit to as an authority I'm sorry sir it is not it is not and cannot be

02:26:01

Mr. Matitix asked me why does Jesus call Peter rock and I'll answer very briefly because Peter became a rock by the grace of Christ after having proven over and over and over again that in and of himself he was a pebble and boy that sure encourages me when

02:26:20

I feel like a pebble that I can know by Peter's example that I can be a rock but only by the grace of Christ Mr.

02:26:28

Matitix just presented to us the argument from authority the argument from authority he who hears you hears me yes that's true my friends how do we hear the apostles how do we hear the apostles this is where we hear the apostles oh but Mr.

02:26:52

Matitix says we also hear the apostles in their successors and I say well that's an interesting claim but how do

02:26:58

I test it because it's not just Mr. Matitix claiming that he has people who speak for the apostles the

02:27:04

Mormons make the same claim the Jehovah's Witnesses have this authority as Jehovah's only organization how do

02:27:10

I test it when they claim it because he who speaks as a successor of the apostles speaks in harmony with this word that's how you test that's how you know but Mr.

02:27:22

Matitix is basically telling us the reason that the Roman Catholic papacy is correct is because the

02:27:28

Roman Catholic Church is a church of Christ and it says so that's really what the argument from authority is it's a very tight circle it's a very tight circle and that wasn't the argument this evening the argument this evening is not what does

02:27:42

Rome teach the New Testament teaches because we already know that my opening statement I defined that for you from Vatican 1 and if that was the extent of the debate then we could have gone home right at that point we know that Rome says we are the church we have the authority to tell you what the

02:27:56

New Testament teaches the debate this evening is what does the New Testament teach that is the question

02:28:04

Mr. Matitix brought up Galatians chapter 2 and the fact that I had said

02:28:09

Peter is specifically defined as the apostle to the Gentiles and Mr.

02:28:16

Matitix says well that doesn't mean that he didn't have the primacy that does not mean that the

02:28:21

Gentiles were not under his jurisdiction as Pope folks can you hear that?

02:28:29

do you hear what's going on in that interpretation? what is the overriding assumption? if you come to Galatians chapter 2 and derive your theology from Galatians chapter 2 only what are you going to get?

02:28:42

are you going to get support for the papacy? are you going to see Peter functioning as the universal head of the church?

02:28:48

no, but what does Mr. Matitix do? he says well it doesn't mean that he didn't where are we getting our authority?

02:28:55

where are we getting our interpretation? are we getting it from the text? or do we have an overriding assumption that we are then enforcing upon the text?

02:29:03

I think that's what we have going on here when we look at Galatians chapter 2 and Mr. Matitix keeps talking about, he says go to the library and Protestant scholars will say that Peter has the preeminence in the gospels, did anyone hear me say that?

02:29:17

I did, but I said there is a huge leap from having a preeminence in the gospel to a primacy over the universal church which has successors in the bishop of Rome there is a huge difference between those two things and you can look at all the

02:29:35

Protestant commentaries in the world and that's not going to mean that because Peter is the apostle we hear most of in the new testament that that means that the bishop of Rome is the vicar of Christ on earth and head of all

02:29:45

Christians that's what I'm talking about when I talk about huge leaps and that is a huge leap and Mr.

02:29:53

Matitix said that I hold to idiosyncratic views that were popular at the time of the reformation now

02:30:01

I hope you'll come out tomorrow night because the specific thing he was talking about was the majority view of the early church for 5 centuries his is the minority view and I'll prove it tomorrow night idiosyncrasy, only if you could say that the entire majority of the early church was engaging in idiosyncrasies which sort of strips the meaning right out of the term idiosyncrasy then we spent 4 or 5 minutes talking about contraception humanevite and how nice a man the popes can be and I'm sure he's a nice man

02:30:38

I don't know I have it on good evidence this morning I heard

02:30:43

Guido Sarducci on the radio saying he was a nice man so I guess that means he was a nice man and that's certainly enough evidence for me

02:30:49

I don't know, but what does that have to do with the debate this evening he says well there have been bad popes but those bad popes never changed teaching oh, au contraire mon ami innocent for example, not innocent the 3rd but the innocent that immediately preceded the

02:31:07

Borgia pope, Alexander the 6th Cibo, openly embraced his illegitimate children and gave them unheard of riches and bishoprics in the church elevated them to positions of authority within the church

02:31:21

Julius used indulgences to enrich himself what are indulgences? indulgences are selling at that time the remission of the temporal punishments of sins for money and Julius did it if that isn't teaching,

02:31:36

I don't know what is Alexander the 6th as a cardinal sold forgiveness for money saying

02:31:43

God did not want the sinner's death, but that he live and pay and he then used the money he collected as years in his position as a cardinal to buy the papacy and become

02:31:53

Alexander the 6th that doesn't have to do something with teaching you say hey, that's off topic tonight well,

02:32:00

Mr. Matitix brought it up and I thought I might as well respond to it now, Mr. Matitix says my friends rejecting the pope it's dangerous it is dangerous and if there was basis for believing that the pope is the vicar of Christ on earth he'd be right but I'd like to submit to you that usurping the authority of the true vicar of Christ on earth, which is the

02:32:33

Holy Spirit of God and placing a man at the head of Christ's church and investing him with authority that the word of God never invests in a human being is just as dangerous and we must consider it just as deeply where does the

02:32:52

New Testament, my friends show as Peter the pope Mr.

02:32:57

Matitix has so much as said whenever Peter's doing anything, he's the pope you start with the assumption, follow through but don't you think my friends, that somewhere in the 27 books of the

02:33:12

New Testament in the pastoral epistles in Galatians in the book of Revelation where John writes to the churches don't you think that somewhere in there we would find reference to Peter, not maybe by the term pope, but functioning in such a way that we can tell he's not merely an apostle, he is the prince of the apostles with jurisdiction over the entire church and my friends, that's what

02:33:42

Vatican I claims and that is what the Roman Catholic has to defend even if he doesn't want to that's the claim don't you think we'd find it somewhere do you really think that having to go back to Isaiah chapter 22 and find the key of David here and then taking it over to Matthew 16 and not really dealing with Revelation 3 -7 but putting it over here and trying to read succession in here do you really think that that is the solid basis upon which

02:34:12

Vatican I says that this is a clear doctrine that has ever been understood by the church to be this way no my friends if you take the

02:34:23

New Testament as the New Testament and if you read the New Testament and ask the

02:34:30

Lord to know what it teaches if you read it in its fullness, you look at its Old Testament backgrounds, you do everything that the good solid exegetes should do

02:34:39

I submit to you that Mr. Matitix has not given us one reason for believing that you would be forced by the weight of evidence to embrace the bishop of Rome as the vicar of Christ on earth today.

02:34:56

I do not believe that Mr. Matitix has done that which is necessary for the Roman Catholic apologists to do and show to us that scriptures force us by weight of evidence and argumentation to believe that Peter is not just one of the apostles not just the leader of the apostles he is a

02:35:13

Pope. He has jurisdiction over the entire church and hence his supposed successor today has jurisdiction over you.

02:35:22

I do not believe that Mr. Matitix has done that. The New Testament doesn't teach it. God bless you Good evening

02:35:47

Without endorsing the individual but giving appropriate credit to Rush Limbaugh I would like to say that we are now going to take a 21 hour break

02:36:01

This is just the first half of this discussion and it's going to pick up again tomorrow night where we can get into the issue of what did the early church teach what did the early church believe and this will bring the second part of it together.

02:36:16

Also, for those of you who may be thinking that it's unfair that Mr. White was always able to go last, the order switches tomorrow night.

02:36:25

Also tomorrow night, I trust that we may be able to go later and take questions from the audience.

02:36:32

We probably will be able to do that If you think you are committed and you demonstrate your commitment in being here tonight at this late hour

02:36:42

I want to introduce you to Sam Wall who has recently gone graduate of Denver Seminary and started work full time with me at Rivendell.

02:36:51

Sam got married just a week ago and came back from his honeymoon so he could be here with us tonight.

02:36:59

I've asked Sam if he would conclude this evening in prayer. Sam Let's bow our heads in prayer.

02:37:09

Dear Heavenly Father, we're grateful for this evening in which we can think and question and ponder and we pray that the

02:37:17

Holy Spirit will guide each person here to the convictions that you lead them to.

02:37:23

We're thankful that in this country we can discuss differences without civil war breaking out.

02:37:30

We thank you for that and we pray for the speakers. We thank you for their sincerity and we're after truth.

02:37:37

Lord Jesus Christ, you are the truth. We pray now and we close and we pray for another good night tomorrow in the name of the