You wrote:
“Vlad — in that passage of Scripture, Jesus is speaking to His **disciples**, not only to Peter or His other Apostles.”
Even if that were the case, it would in no way negate what I have said.
“I am a disciple of Jesus, and therefore (according to the passage you’ve referenced) have been given the authority to offer forgiveness in Jesus’ name.”
No. You are not a commissioned disciple. You have no such power.
“For what it’s worth, I appreciate the clarity that this discussion has provided — Roman Catholics believe that salvation is not found in Christ alone, but in their particular denomination.”
No one here said that. Also, you cannot divide the Church from Christ - which is what you are doing even if you don’t realize it. The Church is Christ’s body. Those who want to belong fully to Chist want to belong to His Church and not some latter day sect set up sometime after 1500.
“And those who aren’t members of their denomination are not able to experience the fullness of Christ.”
I’ve never been in a denomination. I’m in the Church. Only Protestants really have denominations. And no, someone outside the Church cannot experience the fullness of Christ as He ordained it to be in earthly life - after all the Church is His body. Again, you are dividing Christ from His Church in your thinking.
“Indeed, they may not even be forgiven and saved if they only trust in Jesus, and are not members of the wayward Roman Catholic Church.”
Again we see in your comments a distorted view of reality. That is to be expected from sectarians who mentally divide Christ from His body.
“I appreciate how such heresy has been so clearly stated by certain Roman Catholic FReepers in this discussion.”
I appreciate how easy it is for Protestant sectarians to apparently invent things out of thin air, deny scripture, twist scripture, and be just plain wrong. When someone is in a man-made sect then that is to be expected.
“May this discussion lead people away from Rome and instead toward unadulterated faith in Jesus, our Savior.”
Unadulterated faith in Christ would naturally entail love of His Church and avoidance of man-made sects. Some people welcome the grace to have that unadulterated faith and be members of His body. Others remain Protestant and just post on FreeRepublic.
Gawd, how many have perished over the centuries from THAT bloody vanity!
It is Roman Paganism that is the man-made sect and kidnapped the early Church. It is the RCC that enticed pagans into their religion by telling them that they didn’t have to give up their multiple gods; the RCC invented “saints” that were pagan gods with different names. And the pagans didn’t have to give up their goddess worship; they could now worship Mary otherwise known as Asteria. It was the RCC that invented another pagan concept known as purgatory. It was the RCC that murdered people that wanted to read the Bible in their own language instead of the vulgate Latin. And when scholars translated the original Hebrew and Greek and discovered the many, many errors of the RCC bible, then they were murdered. And that is but a fraction of the history of blasphemy, heresy and apostasy of the RCC.
“Unadulterated faith in Christ would naturally entail love of His Church and avoidance of man-made sects.”
EXCUSE ME?? You mean the Catholic Church is NOT a man-made sect. If I recall my history correctly, the Roman Emperor Constantine wanted a unified system of religion to use for his statecraft. At that time there were a number of different branches of Christ believers. He basically said, get it together and come up with one Christianity for me to support politically. At Nicea after much arguing and counter-arguing the Nicean Creed was promulgated, making all other views heresies. After much fighting both intellectual and physical, the church at Constantinople succeeded in overcoming the very important alternative church at Alexandria. One result of this struggle was the move of some Alexandrian priests to Ethiopia where their form of Christianity has long persisted. Also the Coptic Christian Church followed by about 10% of Egyptians. Another result was the terrible, bloody destruction of the Albigensian heresy in southern France almost a thousand years later.
The ONE TRUE CHURCH was thus the MAN MADE result of a political decision made by a powerful man, the Emperor Constantine. This kind of ignorant pridefulness is just the kind of thing that enables someone like Sandusky or the pedophile priests to justify their behavior.
I said that I am a disciple of Jesus Christ. You responded, “No.”
I sincerely don’t understand. Are you saying that I am not a disciple of Christ? Or are you saying that there are no longer disciples of Christ? Or are you saying that Jesus treats His disciples now differently from the way He treated them then? Is “disciple” a particular “office” according to your denomination?