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I used to hunt to provide meat for our family early in my youth, not for sport. I was quite proud of my skill with my 22cal long rifle until I shot a rabbit and when it was dressed by my mother she could not find a wound or bullet. Apparently, I had just scared it to death. I stopped hunting after that.
Your view of Christ's sacrifice parallels my own but for different reasons than existing dogma. God did NOT need the sacrifice to grant us eternal life, our ignorant savage ancestors demanded it in their ignorance and brutality. We are spirit beings so we automatically are "born again" as spirits after our deaths and have eternal life. But we were separated from God because our spirits were too savage to join Him. We were in a kind of holding pen prior to Jesus.
We needed Jesus to achieve perfect resonance (Identity) with God's Holy Spirit of agape love in His HUMAN spirit. His perfection (Grace) connected us permanently to God. When He brought all our deceased ancestors with Him, His Grace covered all their imperfections while they were being refined out in the lake of fire as our unrepented dross will be upon our death and rebirth as spirit.
That is why God incarnated as a human. He came to achieve what none of us could! As Jesus, God was willing to bring His Holy Spirit to His human consciousness and endure as a human the inevitable consequences of our savage ancestors' ignorance and brutal wrath and vengeance. Jesus endured it because He loved us with the perfect agape love and forgiveness of God Himself. It was also to show that death is actually the way to eternal life and not to be feared and neither is God.
What Scriptures does the Roman Catholic Church and other denominations use to support their belief in apostolic succession? Thanks in advance for your help.
What Scriptures does the Roman Catholic Church and other denominations use to support their belief in apostolic succession? Thanks in advance for your help.
Good question. I attended the Episcopal Church, which does adhere to the Apostolic Succession, and I did not think there was any Scriptural backing for it, but I looked it up.
From Wikipedia:
Quote:
Those who hold for the importance of apostolic succession via episcopal laying on of hands appeal to the New Testament, which, they say, implies a personal apostolic succession (from Paul to Timothy and Titus, for example). They appeal as well to other documents of the early Church, especially the Epistle of Clement.[8] In this context, Clement explicitly states that the apostles appointed bishops as successors and directed that these bishops should in turn appoint their own successors;
(Note: "episcopal" in the above passage does not refer to the denomination but to the meaning of the word: having to do with bishops.)
What I found most interesting and didn't know about was the article on the Epistle of Clement, a first-century letter to the Christians in Corinth. If you click on the Wiki link, you can find the link to the Epistle of Clement. Interesting peek into the formation of the early church whether or not your church follows such a tradition.
In response to Katzpur's above post, we believe that the Bishop of Rome has preeminence over the other bishops because he is the successor to Peter. Peter held a unique place among the Apostles, as he is the "rock" on which Christ was to build His Church. To him alone were given the "keys of the kingdom of heaven", with the power to bind and loose (Matthew 16:18-19).
After Christ's resurrection, he pulled Peter aside specifically and told him three times "feed my sheep" (John 21:15-17).
Even the Eastern Orthodox believers, though they deny the supremacy of the Bishop of Rome, still acknowledge that the Bishop of Rome has some degree of primacy over the other bishops.
As for Linus, we already know that the Apostles had authority to appoint successors. They appointed Matthias to replace Judas. Linus was most likely appointed by either Peter or Paul, as both apostles died in Rome. Linus is even mentioned at the end of 2 Timothy as being with Paul in Rome.
A 4th Century collection called Apostolic Constitutions claims that Linus was consecrated a Bishop by Paul.
My 2c to add in at this point is that it was well under way for centuries After Jesus' time and Before there was any assembled bible.
Jesus said ``I say to you Peter. And upon this rock I will build my church and the gates of hell will not prevail against it .... I give you the keys of the kingdom of heaven ... What ever you bind on earth will be bound in heaven, and whatever you loose on earth will be loosed in heaven `` ... Matthew 16:18,19 .... The church uses this, as Simon Peter is One of the first Apostles of Christ ............. This scripture is also faith for anyone who has gifts of the Holy Spirit, as all gifts of God are there for the great commission of souls for heaven
"'Go ye, therefore, and teach all nations.'... The true Church of Christ must be catholic or universal; she must not only be the Church of all ages, but also more or less the Church of all nations, as we have seen above. She must be apostolical, by a succession and mission derived from the apostles, as we have also seen above. Now these characteristics cannot apply to any of our modern sects, but only to the old religion, which alone is the Church of all ages, and more or less of all nations; and which descends in an uninterrupted succession continued in the same communion from the apostles down to these our days. Therefore, the old religion alone is the true Church of Christ, which can be but one, and in one communion, as we have seen above." - The Grounds of the Catholick Doctrine by Bp. Richard Challoner (1691-1781)
Cletus was a Roman, the son of Aemilian, of the Fifth Region of the city, and the street called Noble. He ruled the Church in the time of the Emperors Vespasian and Titus. In accordance with the precept of the Prince of the Apostles he ordained twenty-five Priests for the city. He was the first Pope who made use in his letters of the phrase "Health and Apostolic Benediction". When he had ruled the Church for twelve years, seven months, and two days, and brought it into an excellent state of order, in the reign of the Emperor Domitian, and the second persecution since the time of Nero, he was crowned with martyrdom, and buried on the Vatican mound, hard by the body of blessed Peter.
Marcellinus served as bishop of Rome from AD 296 until his death in 304.
In the short notice on the life of St. Marcellinus, the reader will meet with a circumstance, which, by some learned historians, is rejected as utterly untrue, whilst, by others equally learned, it is considered as authentic. The holy Pontiff is said to have flinched before his persecutors, and to have gone so far as to offer incense to the idols; but the statement adds, that he repaired his fault by a second and courageous profession of his faith, which secured for him the crown of Martyrdom. The plan of our work does not admit critical disquisitions; we shall therefore not attempt to clear up this difficulty of history; it is enough for us to know that all are agreed upon the Martyrdom of this holy Pope. At the time when the Lesson, which is now in the Breviary, was drawn up, — the fall of Marcellinus was believed as a fact; later on, it was called in question, and the arguments used against it are by no means to be despised; the Church, however, has not thought well to change the Lesson as it first stood, the more so as questions of this nature do not touch upon faith. We scarcely need to remind the reader, that the fall of Marcellinus, supposing it to be a fact, would be no argument against the infallibility of the Roman Pontiff. The Pope cannot teach error, when he addresses himself to the Church; but he is not impeccable in his personal conduct.
Some of the evilest and most corrupt people have been made Popes, Mike. How does that work with "apostolic succession"???
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Originally Posted by EscAlaMike
The literal worst human being who ever lived was an Apostle (Judas Iscariot). Apostolic succession does not guarantee moral sanctity.
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Originally Posted by MysticPhD
What does it guarantee and how does it guarantee it??? How can infallibility EVER be invoked about anything if even those selected by Jesus could not be trusted????
It guarantees that that person has been endowed with the grace necessary to fulfill the duties of their office. This grace is received through the Sacrament of Holy Orders.
We all know from experience that one can be given all the tools necessary to complete a job and then proceed to botch the job royally.
As far as infallibility goes, the regular successors to the Apostles (Bishops) do not possess it. Only the successor to Peter (the Bishop of Rome) possesses this gift, which is logical given what we believe about the nature of the Church.
A common misconception is that infallibility means that we have to believe everything the Pope says, or that everything the Pope says is infallible. That is not correct.
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Apostolic Succession
