Scripture, tradition and the church

Study 15 of 16 · 16 minute read

Corruption from within: the biblical pattern

Every church agrees that God’s people can go wrong. The real questions are how far, and who. Scripture’s answer is sobering: corruption usually begins on the inside, and often with the leaders.

Within weeks of the Exodus, while Moses was on the mountain, the people asked Aaron to “make us gods”. Aaron, the man about to be consecrated high priest, made the golden calf and proclaimed “a feast to the Lord”. The idolatry was carried out in the Lord’s name, by the appointed leader, with the whole congregation taking part. God’s verdict was: “They have turned aside quickly out of the way which I commanded them.” In Judges the pattern repeats. Israel served the Lord in Joshua’s day, but afterwards “there arose another generation after them, which knew not the Lord”. One faithful generation of leaders did not guarantee the next.

Paul expected the same in the church. He told the elders of Ephesus, men whom “the Holy Ghost hath made you overseers”, that from among them men would arise “speaking perverse things”. His safeguard was not a promise that their office would protect them. It was this: “I commend you to God, and to the word of his grace”. To the Galatians he went further: “though we, or an angel from heaven, preach any other gospel unto you than that which we have preached unto you, let him be accursed.” The gospel already received judges every later messenger.

Christ’s own letters to the seven churches in Revelation 2–3 show the danger already at work. Ephesus is warned that its candlestick may be removed “out of his place”. Pergamos has those who “hold the doctrine of Balaam”, and Thyatira tolerates “that woman Jezebel” as a teacher. Sardis has “a name that thou livest, and art dead”, and yet: “Thou hast a few names even in Sardis which have not defiled their garments”. The recognised congregation and the faithful people were not automatically the same thing.

“The gates of hell shall not prevail”

Catholic readers rightly answer that Christ promised his church would endure: “upon this rock I will build my church; and the gates of hell shall not prevail against it.” He also promised, “lo, I am with you alway, even unto the end of the world.” We believe both promises completely. The question is what they guarantee.

In Scripture, God’s preservation of his people has always meant keeping a faithful people through widespread failure. When Elijah thought he alone was left, God answered: “Yet I have left me seven thousand in Israel”. Paul applies the same principle to his own day: “Even so then at this present time also there is a remnant according to the election of grace.” Israel as an institution carried on, with its temple, priesthood and council, and its high priests condemned the Messiah. God kept his promise through the faithful, not by guaranteeing the decisions of the rulers.

Catholic teaching is more careful than its critics often allow. It does not claim that every bishop or pope is free from error. It distinguishes the failures of individual leaders from a protection it believes is given to the whole Church when doctrine is solemnly defined (set out in the Second Vatican Council’s Lumen gentium, paragraphs 18–25). So pointing to bad popes does not refute it. But that larger claim needs evidence of its own, and Scripture does not make it. Paul calls the church “the pillar and ground of the truth”, and in his very next sentences warns that “some shall depart from the faith”. He also said that before Christ’s return there would come “a falling away first”, with the man of sin sitting “in the temple of God”: inside what called itself the church.

The fair test is this. If a later binding teaching contradicted the apostles, could it be corrected? Paul’s answer to the Galatians is yes, even if the teacher were an apostle. An authority that can be checked only by itself cannot settle the question for anyone who is honestly asking it.

Peter, the keys and the first council

Matthew 16 gives Peter a real and distinctive commission, and we should say so plainly. Jesus gave him “the keys of the kingdom of heaven”, and Peter used them. He opened the door of the gospel to the Jews at Pentecost and to the Gentiles at the house of Cornelius, as he reminded the council in Jerusalem: “God made choice among us, that the Gentiles by my mouth should hear the word of the gospel”.

But notice what the passage does not say. Two chapters later the same power to bind and loose is given to all the disciples: “Whatsoever ye shall bind on earth shall be bound in heaven”. Paul says the church is built “upon the foundation of the apostles and prophets, Jesus Christ himself being the chief corner stone”, and the holy city has “twelve foundations”, bearing “the names of the twelve apostles of the Lamb”. Peter himself could be wrong. Moments after receiving the keys he was told, “thou savourest not the things that be of God”, and at Antioch Paul “withstood him to the face, because he was to be blamed.” Peter later described himself to other elders as one “who am also an elder”.

The Catholic claim needs three further steps: that Peter’s role was meant to pass to successors, that it passed to the bishops of Rome in particular, and that it carries protection from error when doctrine is defined. The text states none of them. The apostles themselves held an office that could not be handed on, because an apostle had to be “a witness with us of his resurrection”.

Acts 15 is a real precedent for authoritative judgment. The dispute over circumcision went “unto the apostles and elders”, and their decision bound the churches: “it seemed good to the Holy Ghost, and to us”. But look at how the decision was reached. Peter testified to what God had done, and James settled the matter from Scripture: “to this agree the words of the prophets; as it is written”. The council reasoned from the prophets, and it included living apostles guided by the Spirit. That gives no ground for thinking that later councils, without apostles, inherit the same guarantee. The churches that appeal to them do not even agree which councils count: the Catholic Church recognises twenty-one as ecumenical, and the Orthodox churches seven.

Tradition: what Paul commanded, and what came later

Paul does command tradition. He told the Thessalonians to withdraw from anyone who walked “not after the tradition which he received of us”, and he told Timothy to pass on what he had heard “to faithful men, who shall be able to teach others also.” It would be wrong to say that all tradition is human invention. The apostles’ spoken teaching carried the same authority as their letters.

Catholic teaching builds on this. The Catechism says that the Tradition in question ‘comes from the apostles and hands on what they received from Jesus’ teaching and example’, distinguishes it from changeable local customs, and concludes that ‘Both Scripture and Tradition must be accepted and honoured with equal sentiments of devotion and reverence’ (paragraphs 80–83). That is the claim to answer, and it should be stated as fairly as that.

The test is whether a later teaching is the same apostolic teaching. Paul’s tradition was something the Thessalonians had already “been taught”. Jude speaks of “the faith which was once delivered unto the saints”. The apostles’ spoken teaching was the same message as their letters, and the letters are where it can still be checked. When a teaching is first defined as binding many centuries later, such as the immaculate conception of Mary in 1854, papal infallibility in 1870 or Mary’s bodily assumption in 1950, the claim that it was always part of the apostles’ unwritten tradition can be confirmed only by the authority that defined it. That is the very point in dispute.

Jesus faced exactly this question. The Pharisees asked why his disciples did not walk “according to the tradition of the elders”, a tradition that was old, respected and taught by Israel’s recognised teachers. Jesus did not ask how old it was. He set it beside the written commandment: “Full well ye reject the commandment of God, that ye may keep your own tradition.” Paul gives the rule for every generation: “not to think of men above that which is written”.

‘Who gave you your Bible?’

This is the strongest form of the argument. The church gathered and recognised the books of the New Testament, so if you accept its judgment about the Bible, you should accept its judgment about what the Bible means. It deserves a careful answer.

A witness who carries and hands on a document is not thereby its infallible interpreter. Israel was entrusted with the Scriptures, copied them faithfully and recognised them, and still its leaders misread them and rejected the Christ they foretold. Jesus held those leaders answerable to the very books they had preserved: “Ye do err, not knowing the scriptures”. The keepers of the text stood under the text.

Jesus and the apostles received Israel’s Scriptures as a known collection, everything written “in the law of Moses, and in the prophets, and in the psalms”. The New Testament books carried authority because they came from the apostles and their circle, and that was recognised early: Peter already places Paul’s letters alongside “the other scriptures”.

Now the honest part. No book of the Bible contains an inspired contents page, and in practice the boundaries took time to settle. Athanasius’ Easter letter of AD 367 lists the twenty-seven New Testament books we all use, but his Old Testament list matches neither the Protestant nor the Catholic one exactly. Catholic and Orthodox Bibles include further books, such as Tobit, Judith, Wisdom, Sirach and 1 and 2 Maccabees, which the Catholic Church calls deuterocanonical and which the Council of Trent confirmed in 1546. We hold to the Hebrew Scriptures, the oracles “committed” to the Jews, which do not include them. Catholic teaching does not say that the Church created inspiration. It says that apostolic Tradition enabled the Church to discern which books were inspired (Catechism, paragraph 120). Our reply is that recognising God’s word is an act of receiving it, not of ruling over it, and that a reliable witness to which books belong does not thereby become an infallible judge of everything else. In practice, every teaching on this website can be argued from books that Catholics, Orthodox and Protestants all accept.

Purgatory

Catholic teaching is this: ‘All who die in God’s grace and friendship, but still imperfectly purified, are indeed assured of their eternal salvation; but after death they undergo purification, so as to achieve the holiness necessary to enter the joy of heaven’ (Catechism, paragraph 1030). It is not a second chance for the lost; the Church says it is ‘entirely different from the punishment of the damned’ (paragraph 1031). The doctrine was formulated chiefly at the Councils of Florence and Trent, and it is closely tied to the practice of praying for the dead. Stated fairly, it is a doctrine about the purifying of the saved.

Two passages are usually offered for it. The first is 2 Maccabees 12:38–46, where Judas Maccabeus has prayers and a sin offering made for soldiers who had fallen in battle. That passage genuinely shows Jewish prayer for the dead in the second century before Christ. We do not set it aside because of what it says, but because 2 Maccabees was never among the Scriptures committed to Israel, and so it cannot decide a doctrine. Even on its own terms, the writer grounds the prayer in the hope of resurrection: if Judas had not expected the slain to rise again, he says, it would have been superfluous and vain to pray for the dead. The passage looks to the resurrection, not to a place of purifying in between.

The second passage is 1 Corinthians 3. Read in context, Paul is speaking about teachers who build on the foundation that is Christ: “I have laid the foundation, and another buildeth thereon.” The test comes on a day, “the day shall declare it”, the day of Christ’s judgment, and the fire tries “every man’s work of what sort it is.” It is the work that is tested by fire, not the person who is purified. The builder whose work is burned “shall suffer loss: but he himself shall be saved; yet so as by fire”, like a man escaping from a burning house with nothing in his hands. The passage names no place, no length of time and no process of purification after death.

The deeper difference is about the state of the dead. Scripture says that “the dead know not any thing”. Jesus called Lazarus’ death a sleep, and Paul says those who “sleep in Jesus” will be brought with him at his return, when “the dead in Christ shall rise first”. There is no conscious soul to be purified in the meantime. And the cleansing a believer needs has already been provided: “the blood of Jesus Christ his Son cleanseth us from all sin.” The full case is set out in Death and the resurrection hope.

The Mass and the one sacrifice

Catholic teaching is often misrepresented here. The Church does not teach that Christ is killed again at each Mass. It teaches that the Mass makes his one sacrifice present: ‘The sacrifice of Christ and the sacrifice of the Eucharist are one single sacrifice’, in which ‘the same Christ who offered himself once in a bloody manner on the altar of the cross is contained and is offered in an unbloody manner’ (Catechism, paragraphs 1366–1367, quoting the Council of Trent). It also teaches that this sacrifice is ‘truly propitiatory’, its power applied ‘to the forgiveness of the sins we daily commit’. That is the actual claim, and it is the one we answer.

Hebrews answers it directly, because Hebrews is concerned not only with how often Christ died but with how often he offered. He “needeth not daily, as those high priests, to offer up sacrifice”, because “this he did once, when he offered up himself.” He was not to “offer himself often”, and the writer gives the reason: “For then must he often have suffered”. In Hebrews, Christ’s offering is the offering of himself in death, made once and finished. The letter knows of no continuing offering of Christ, bloody or unbloody, made on earth by other priests.

Notice the posture. “Every priest standeth daily ministering and offering oftentimes the same sacrifices”, but this man, “after he had offered one sacrifice for sins for ever, sat down on the right hand of God”. The priests stand because their work is never done; Christ sits because his is. Then comes the conclusion: “Now where remission of these is, there is no more offering for sin.” A daily offering presented for the forgiveness of sins is exactly what this verse says has ended. Christ’s priesthood does continue, but Hebrews describes it as intercession, “he ever liveth to make intercession for them”, and adds, “if he were on earth, he should not be a priest”. The New Testament never appoints a special order of priests to offer him. All believers together are “an holy priesthood, to offer up spiritual sacrifices”.

What Jesus gave his disciples is a memorial and a real communion: “this do in remembrance of me”, and “ye do shew the Lord’s death till he come.” Sharing the bread and wine is “the communion of the body of Christ”, which is why Christadelphians break bread every week. Even after giving thanks, Jesus still called the cup “this fruit of the vine”. The bread and wine point back to a finished sacrifice and forward to a coming King. They do not offer him again.

Testing teachings, respecting people

Catholics are New Zealand’s largest church, and many of them love Christ, pray faithfully and read the Scriptures with real devotion. Nothing here questions that. We disagree with doctrines, and we have tried to state those doctrines as the Church itself states them, because an argument against a caricature persuades nobody honest.

Our request is Paul’s: “I speak as to wise men; judge ye what I say.” Read Hebrews 7–10 and 1 Corinthians 3 right through, and ask whether they teach what has been built on them. If you come from a Catholic, Orthodox or other church background, If you come from another church sets out what we already share and where to begin.

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