THE ROCK


INTRODUCTION

One of the key doctrines that supports the Catholic church, as a whole, is the doctrine of Jesus building His church on the Rock, which the Catholics claim is Peter (and subsequently their line of popes). The following will show that Peter is not that Rock, but that only Jesus is that.

CATHOLIC BACKGROUND

We at this website contend that the Catholic church, as a whole, is a physical church, not a spiritual one, and as such does not enjoy a personal relationship with the true head of the church, Jesus Christ. Thus this explains why it is likely, that back in the 2nd century, the church at Rome came up with the doctrine of Peter as the rock that Jesus would build His church on, laying the foundation for Peter as the first pope, and all successive popes. This is a physical hierarchy, not a spiritual one, no matter how spiritual it appears to be.

THE ISSUE OF THE ROCK

The issue of Peter as the Rock is found in:

MATTHEW 16:18  "And I say also unto thee, That thou art Peter, and upon this rock I will build my church; and the gates of hell shall not prevail against it."

The whole issue hinges on the meaning of "this rock".  We simply will make our arguments and the reader can judge for themselves.
  • Jesus does not call Peter the rock. Instead Jesus is called the Rock in 1 Corinthians 10:4  “And did all drink the same spiritual drink: for they drank of that spiritual Rock that followed them: and that Rock was Christ.” 

    (Note that the verb “drank” is in the imperfect tense, meaning they continuously in the past drank from Christ the Rock.  So the source of continuous spiritual health is Jesus Himself, not Peter.)

  • In Matthew 16:18, we break down the wording in the underlying Greek as:

    • you  {subject - nominative, 2nd per}
    • be {present indicative active, that is, presently, 2nd per}
    • Peter, {masculine, that is, individual, tangible, exclusive}
    • also {not necessarily "and"}
    • upon {preposition}
    • this {feminine, that is, corporate, intangible, inclusive}
    • the {feminine, that is, corporate, intangible, inclusive, "the" = indicates abstract, not physical}
    • rock {3rd person, feminine, that is, corporate, intangible, inclusive}
    • build/edify {future indicative active, (usually punctiliar, not always), future, 1st person}
    • I {1st person}
    • the {feminine, that is, corporate, intangible, inclusive, "the" = indicates abstract, not physical}
    • church {feminine, that is, corporate, intangible, inclusive}
    • and
    • gates {feminine, that is, corporate, intangible, inclusive}
    • of-hell {masculine, that is, individual, tangible, exclusive}
    • not
    • prevail-over {future tense, plural, 3rd per}
    • it {singular, feminine, that is, corporate, intangible, inclusive}
  • Observations of the above Greek texts:
    • "Peter" is in the masculine and "the rock" and "the church" are in the feminine, so "Peter" in the masculine does not fit, by default; one can build an intangible church (fem) on an intangible rock (fem), not an intangible church on a tangible person, and today, Jesus is also intangible (save for the Holy Spirit within), so Jesus builds the church on Himself.
    • while 1 Corinthians 10:4 explicitly says that Christ (masculine) is the Rock (feminine), Jesus never explicitly calls Peter (masculine) a Rock (feminine), so he is explicitly not the rock Jesus is talking about either, only Christ is the Rock
    • "build" is in the "at some future point" tense in time, so it tends to show this is event driven, not activity driven, that is, the activity of humans (such as popes) is not involved, but it is an event Jesus shall conduct
    • the use of the article "the" in the Greek before "rock" and before "church" is used in the Greek in the abstract, to indicate an immaterial thing, and this is consistent with the feminine trait of "intangible", and so a tangible church (such as people and buildings) is not what Jesus is talking about at all: so that leaves only the intangible Holy Spirit (neuter) indwelling in true believers that "ties" those true believers together into the true body of believers, that is Christ's church, intangible, corporate and inclusive (feminine traits) via the Holy Spirit.
    • Since Peter is described as a rock in only the present tense, he in no way will be the rock Jesus is talking about in the future tense, or the verb would have been in the future tense in relationship to the name "Peter".
    • "I" (Jesus) is in the 1st person, "Peter" is in the 2nd person and "rock" is in the 3rd person, so Peter is not that rock, else rock would have also been in the 2nd person as well.
    • Note that after Jesus returns to Heaven, Jesus Himself builds the church on Himself, per many Greek NT texts, not Peter or any tangible successors.
    • The concept of building on a rock is the concept of reliability, and Christ is the only reliable Rock. Peter was anything but reliable, denying Jesus and being rebuked by Peter.
    • Note that "it" is in the feminine, a concept not found in English, though the word is also "self", but "self" does indicate gender either in English. This is not a female "self" but a feminine "self" with traits that are corporate, intangible and inclusive.
Then there is this:
  • Throughout the rest of the New Testament, no one ever acknowledges Peter as ever being the leader of the church at large, and even Peter never made that claim about himself.
  • Peter taught we are to obey God, not men (thus excluding popes) in Acts 5:29 "Then Peter and the other apostles answered and said, We ought to obey God rather than men."
  • Peter taught no man is a pope or vicar in Acts 10:34 "Then Peter opened his mouth, and said, Of a truth I perceive that God is no respecter of persons:"
  • Peter claimed only to be just another apostle, a peer to all the other apostles in 1 Peter 1:1 "Peter, an apostle of Jesus Christ, .... "
  • Jesus said to call no man on earth "father", so this excludes all popes, priests, etc as found in Matthew 23:9 "And call no man your father upon the earth: for one is your Father, which is in heaven." And the Greek verb for "call no (not)" is in a tense that means there is no condition under which you may at any time call a man on earth your "father" for any reason at all. Jesus wanted us to know for sure that to call a man on earth "father", in a spiritual sense, was a direct rejection of God as our Father in heaven, and the word for "is" in the words "is in heaven" is in the present indicative active, and that means at any present time. So God in every split second is the one and only spiritual "Father" leaving no room for earthy spiritual "fathers". (Naturally, this being a spiritual context in this passage, is not referring to one's biological or step parent who happens to be male.)
  • 1 Corinthians 3:11, in referring to the church, says “For other foundation can no man lay than that is laid, which is Jesus Christ.”  So the concept of a vicar/pope of Christ is eliminated, outright!
  • 1 Peter, Chapter 2, clearly and distinctly makes all true believers members of a priesthood, and as such, they need no other intermediate earthly priests, seeing that Jesus is the one and only priest between God and them.
  • Because Jesus has direct control over His church-members via the Holy Spirit, it serves no purpose for any human to exert control over church members.  Indeed, a pastor is only a guide and an ensample, not a "lord": 1 Peter 5:3 "Neither as being lords over God's heritage, but being ensamples* to the flock." So Peter makes it clear, neither he or anyone else is to be lord over the church, but only ensamples*, so that rules out for sure popes/vicars with any kind of authority at all.
DISCUSSION:

It should be clear to even the casual reader that the concept of the line of popes/vicars is not biblical. To the contrary, all church leaders are to be ensamples, not lords, no exceptions.

And by the way, the word "ensample" in the old English is not the same word as "example" in modern English. Indeed, the underlying Greek uses two different words. In English, "example" is an outward demonstration of religious behavior, but an "ensample" is one who via the Holy Spirit working within demonstrates spiritual behavior to others.  

Put another way, one who is an "example" demonstrates following rules, while one who is an ensample demonstrates following the Lord Jesus Christ, personally. The difference is remarkable and tangible. Hence, modern translations that use "example" for "ensample" are "dumbing down" the meaning for the reader and robbing them of an important spiritual truth that can make them more spiritual, and less legalistic.

We at this website believe that millions of people follow the pope as the chief "father" or vicar because they likely have no personal relationship with God the Father. We believe they indeed depend on a physical relationship with church "fathers" rather than on a personal relationship with the Lord Jesus Christ. Conversely, without a personal relationship with the Lord Jesus Christ, what is left but a physical relationship with human "fathers" in the organization the Catholics call "the church"? Hence, it is only logical they act this way.

Conversely, other believers take their "orders" from God directly, and on occasion observe the ensamples of their pastors, elders and other Christian mentors in a way that helps them to have spiritual goals to achieve, and thus to grow.  Those "ensamples" also serve to point mentorees towards God's Lordship of their own lives.

Greek grammar notes:
  • there is natural gender (male and female) and formal gender (masculine and feminine)
  • masculine seldom means male, but means an object has a set of traits such as "individual, exclusive, subset of the whole, tangible, a "seeder", and others
  • feminine seldom means female, but means an object has a set of traits such as "corporate, inclusive, the complete set,  intangible, a "nourisher", and others
  • there are other traits besides these, but these are the pertinent ones at the moment
  • Greek gender is used to save time and paper, especially needed 2000 years ago, where a 1-3 letter suffix can represent a large set of implied traits (kind of like two different sets of general adjectives)
  • masculine words can being embedded in a feminine context, and vice versa, because of formal gender, and serves to take a word only found in one gender, and add to it other traits.



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