The church existed from Adam to Godly Seth to Enoch to Noah to Abraham to Isaac and Jacob. The church was in existence when Melchizidec visited Abraham. The church was in existence with Moses and the prophets. David bespoke of the church when he asserted in the Psalms..."the Lord said to MY LORD, sit thou at my right hand!" The church was existence before time and space...before Abraham was, Christ IS. The church is Jesus Christ, our vine and we have become his branches. The church is the 6 years that went and accepted Jesus as her Saviour at the southern Baptist church last Sunday. The church is the rollicking Catholics of West Africa singing and dancing in the aisles before their Lord. The church is three Marines in Fallujah praying to Jesus over their injured comrade....
It is blasphemy to say that one bureaucracy on the Tiber is God's chosen church, a bureaucracy itself so in need of inner cleansing and moral/spiritual regeneration.
Those who have called upon the name of the Lord and have truly repented of their sins in spirit and in truth are his church. We all know what those sins are thru his word and in convictions of our conscience by the Holy Spirit, so none of us has any excuse.
I speak of not just Catholics but any line of reasoning that has one tradition or denomination claiming it is the true church. Jesus Christ is our true author and finisher of our faith and no Catholic priest will be there for each of us as we face Christ before his judgment seat. We each will face him individually...the only real question we will be asking our-selves is..will he say he knows me or knows me not? Will our names be found in the Lamb's book of Life? Will he tell me to depart from him into the place built for Satan and his minions?
The wolves have attacked the flocks in the Catholic and Higher Protestant churches. This loathsome Catholic triumphalism and the thoughtless counter Catholic Bashing from Protestants must cease and we must attack Godlessness together!(we must hang together for otherwise we shall certainly hang together---Ben Franklin)
God will work out the denominational differences in the day of resurrection....probably by pointing out where both Catholics and Protestants have gotten it wrong over the millenia!
The Master wishes us to be a little more discerning than that.
"Bear not the yoke with unbelievers. For what participation hath justice with injustice? Or what fellowship hath light with darkness?" (2 Cor. vi.14)
Would you care to comment on any of the Scriptural defenses for Extra ecclesiam nulla salus presented in the article?
Amen. Amen. Amen.
The Church is not the bureaucracy, it is the Divinely instituted organization that serves His will. The fallible human bureaucracy serves as means carrying out His will. Try not to confuse the two: one is perfect and the pillar and foundation of truth, the other serves, sometimes well and sometimes not so well, the truth. It is that core of truth that is the Church and it is only found in it's fullness in the Catholic Church.
You believe He left a confused rabble of divergent interpretation. I do not.
I'm always amazed at the willing ness of other Christians to point out the sometimes wicked actions of some who serve the Church and attempt to use those actions as evidence of the illegitimacy of the Church. If the acts of a rebellious few can destroy the legitimacy of the Church, than Christianity as a whole has been "proved" illegitimate by the acts of individual "Christan's" throughout history. The last centuries alone featured "Christian" institutions like Apartheid. Does this invalidate the whole of Christianity? No, it simply invalidates the defective nature of individual interpretation of scripture, aka YOPIOS.