By RAYMOND DE SOUZA, KM
Part 19
It is of utmost importance to realize the historical facts about the foundation of Christ’s Church. It was not a democratic society, where leaders and especially policies and doctrines were decided upon by majority vote. No. The apostles themselves, who received the teachings for salvation directly from the sacred lips of Jesus Christ, and later from the Holy Spirit on Pentecost, regarded themselves as the authority established by Christ to sanctify, teach, and rule His Church in His Name.
At the very first Church council, held in Jerusalem, they issued an authoritative decree that bound the people who were converted by one or other of the apostles. The Christians in Galatia were not converted by St. Peter, but by St. Paul: And yet they recognized St. Peter’s authority — as well as of the other apostles — because St. Paul explained to them, the Galatians, that all the apostles, himself included, even though he was not among the first to be called, were of the same mind.
This aspect of the apostles’ collegiality is very important, because it refutes right from the beginning of the Church the novel Protestant idea of “denominations,” whereby each pastor runs his congregation as he sees fit, often holding different doctrines and moral practices from the others. Such a procedure never existed among the apostles and their successors. Among the apostles of Jesus Christ there was one Lord, one faith, and one Baptism (Eph. 4:5) in the one Church of God, the pillar and mainstay of the Truth (1 Tim. 3:15).
Their collegiality is further exemplified by the simple fact shown in the New Testament that the authoritative letters written by Saints Peter, Paul, John, and James were received by all Christians, most of whom had not been directly converted by the letters’ writers. They were Catholic epistles, that is, Universal, for all, regardless of who had converted them.
I insist on this important fact of history: There was a common authority in the Church founded by Jesus Christ and ruled by the apostles and later by their successors. We must always remember that there had never been any separate “denominations” among Christians until Luther came around and introduced the doctrinal and moral chaos that remains to this day.
Jesus Christ, the Founder of the Church, gave her the four essential marks, or characteristics, that identify her as a society:
Christ is the One who personally called the first apostles and the seventy-two disciples to spread the good news. When converts were baptized, the ones who baptized them always saw in that rite Christ baptizing, Christ the main minister of Baptism, by which the convert was received into the Church, the Body of Christ.
It was Christ Himself who personally defined the purpose of His Church, the preaching of His Gospel for the sanctification and salvation of the world; the apostles were not the ones who defined it.
It was Christ Himself who personally gave to His apostles the common means they were expected to use to fulfill their mission as apostles: He gave them the doctrines they were expected to believe and preach, the Commandments they were to obey and persuade others to do the same, and the rites to be employed, that is, the sacraments of His Church. The apostles did not invent any doctrine or establish any commandment, let alone institute any sacrament. Christ did it all.
It was Christ Himself who personally gave the apostles the authority to rule His Church in His Name, to govern it and to demand obedience from the people.
The apostles were not appointed by the people, let alone self-appointed. They were appointed by Christ Himself, and they appointed their successors in the Name of Christ to fulfill the mission that Christ had given to them, that is, to teach, govern, and sanctify the people. Christ promised to remain with them till the end of time.
The ineluctable conclusion is this: The apostles’ authority was Christ’s authority; their commands were Christ’s commands; their government was Christ’s government.
Many churches have been founded by many men over the centuries, especially after Luther’s Reformation — or rather Deformation — but all of them fell apart and subdivided themselves through all sorts of schisms. Only the Church founded by Christ remains, because He founded it in a thoroughly complete manner, which will remain to the end of time, in spite of the sins and miseries of many of her members.
A necessary consequence of the foregoing paragraph is rather unpleasant to read in our days of unbridled ecumenism: All the blessings that Christ earned for us through His sacrifice on the cross of Calvary come to us through the Church that He founded, and through no other means. He died to redeem all of us, yes, and He also established the means whereby we receive the fruits of His redemption: through His Church, His Bride, His Mystical Body. He died so that we might have the Church, the Ark of Salvation and Gate of Heaven.
St. Paul says it very beautifully: “Christ loved the Church and gave Himself up for her . . . that He might present the Church to Himself in splendor” — yes, He delivered Himself unto death for the Church, to found her and to endow her with all the gifts that He possessed. Martin Luther was dead wrong when he changed the doctrine of Christ on salvation to through “faith alone.”
It is the Church of Jesus Christ alone, who is the Body of Christ on earth, His representative and agent of salvation, who teaches the Way, the Truth, and the Life that is Christ Himself. He did not found many churches, men did; He did not invent the “Bible alone” heresy, men did; He did not create “Christian denominations,” men did.
The Church founded by Jesus Christ, and no other, shows us the way to Heaven and gives us the means to get there: the One, Holy, Catholic and Apostolic Church that He Himself founded and commanded His apostles to spread throughout the world — He commanded them to evangelize, not to ecumenize.
Next article: How can the Church of Jesus Christ be identified among so many churches today?
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(Raymond de Souza is an EWTN program host; regional coordinator for Portuguese-speaking countries for Human Life International [HLI]; president of the Sacred Heart Institute, and a member of the Sovereign, Military, and Hospitaller Order of the Knights of Malta. His website is: www.RaymonddeSouza.com.)
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