darth_ender said:

RicOlie_2 said:

I've got a new question for you. In Matthew 15:18 (or verse 17, can't remember for sure off the top of my head) Jesus says "You are Peter and upon this rock I will build my Church and the gates of hell shall not prevail against it."

So my question is, how do you reconcile that with the corruption you believe occurred, causing the Church to fall away from the truth?

Well, there's more than one way you might interpret that. First, in spite of temporary apostasy, one might argue that ultimately the gates of hell shall not prevail against God's church.

But the way we see it is a little different from you. The name Peter means rock, which is the Catholic interpretation on which Christ will build his church. But Christ is also called the Rock of Israel, and many Protestant will say that he is referring to his building the church upon himself, and even if the church might go into apostasy, true believers in Christ will still be built upon the Rock. But if you go back, starting at v. 15 (of chapter 16, not 15, BTW), you see that Christ refers to revelation between God and Peter. God the rock, Peter the rock, and the revelation that God gives to his prophets, taken as a whole, are the rock that the gates of hell shall not prevail against. As long as God speaks to man via his prophets, his church shall stand.

Generally, I hear Protestants say that Peter's confession is the rock. Saying Jesus is Lord is the rock upon which the faith is built.

I'm not particularly convinced, given that he was talking to a man going by the nickname "Rock", but I also don't see why that necessarily implies the Papacy.

But that's a different thread.