The following "Question" was asked by a member of the congregation at Grace Community Church in Sun Valley, California, and "Answered" by their pastor, John MacArthur Jr. It was transcribed from the tape, GC 1301-J, titled "Bible Questions and Answers Part 12."  A copy of the tape can be obtained by writing, Word of Grace, P.O. Box 4000, Panorama City, CA 91412 or by dialing toll free 1-800-55-GRACE. ©1980. All Rights Reserved.

Question

The Roman Catholic Church claims the direct line of Popes beginning with Peter. Since many of the names are of men in the early church, how can they label them as Pope and also there might be some material available for us to research this?

Answer

You see, here we are back to the same situation again. The burden of truth is on them. There is no way under the sun that you can ever make Peter the first pope out of the Bible. In fact, if you study Peter carefully, you have to ask yourself, why in the world would they want him to be the first Pope? You know, I mean the guy is the apostle with the foot-shaped mouth. You know, I mean I hate to think he was speaking excathedra--he said so many dumb things. But basically, there is absolutely nothing in the New Testament to tell us that Peter was the first Pope.

Question (continued)

Yes, they claim that they do get if from there, something about, you know, the rock.

Answer (continued)

They go to Matthew 16 and they say, “Upon this rock I will build my church.” But that is not what it’s talking about. It’s not—Peter’s not the rock. It says, “Thou art Petros (Greek), but upon this petra (Greek) I will build my church.” It’s a play on words. You’re one thing—I’m building my church on something else. And what I believe He’ll build His church on...is that Peter said, “Thou art the Christ, the Son of the living God.” And Jesus said, “You’re a pebble, but upon the rock-bed of that affirmation of my deity, I will build my church.” See the difference? In other words, the rock bed is “Thou art the Christ, the Son of the living God.” Now, Peter wasn’t the foundation, “For other foundation can no man lay than that is laid, which is Christ Jesus, I Corinthians 3.” But Peter was one of the chief stones as the building went up.

But you have to understand this basic thing: Catholic theology is a combination of two things: the Bible and tradition. Both are believed to be of equal truth. So if a church council determines something, it is as if the Bible says it. Now, that’s wrong. The Bible says in the end of Revelation, “If any man adds anything to this book, shall be added to him the plagues that are written in it.” And that goes for the church councils or anybody else. Nobody after this Canon was closed, has the right to say this is the Holy Word of God equivalent to Scripture. That’s where the Roman system got into trouble, see, when they started doing that. And it’s obvious through the years because they’ve been changing their mind so much. They made a whole bunch of people saints at one time, and then they unsainted them the next thing you know. And then they are fighting now over the issue of celibacy and, you know, other things.

But basically the burden of proof is on them. For example, historically it can be verified as far as all evidence is concerned, that Peter never went near Rome, never got there. So there’s just no apostolic succession through Peter; it is simply the fancy or the whim of the Roman system determined by their own, whatever, tradition. I could get into this whole thing, but there are lots of books on this. You could check in the bookstore; ask whoever’s there and they’ll help you with this. But one of the things that’s fascinating, is that they wanted to hold the power. The papacy at one time was the most powerful position in the world. In fact, it was so powerful, that it wasn’t uncommon to have three popes at the same time, all three claiming to be the apostolic successor to Peter and fighting for their right. I mean it was so powerful that there would be three popes at one time. And do you know that some popes were followed by their sons? That’s right. So it was kind of a mess. But they wanted this—they’re supposed to be celibate, right?—but one of the things that was so true was that they wanted to maintain power over the people. They wanted to be the Vicar of Christ. So they wanted to have an apostolic succession, a connection to give them that authority. And that’s exactly where that all generated, but there’s just nothing in the Bible about that. That’s the issue.

Added to Bible Bulletin Board's "MacArthur’s Questions and Answers" by:

Tony Capoccia
Bible Bulletin Board
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