Audio only:
Tim Staples returns to Focus with a question taken from his School of Apologetics course “Evidence for the Church“: Did Jesus really give his authority to a human institution?
Cy Kellett:
Did Jesus found a church to have his authority and power? Tim Staples is next.
Hello and welcome to Focus, the Catholic Answers podcast for living, understanding, and defending your Catholic faith. I am Cy Kellett, your host. I emphasize Catholic really hard right there because we’re going to defend the Catholic faith today.
Every Christian would say Jesus came with authority, teaching with authority and with power, performing miracles of healing and exorcism, and other miracles as well. But not all Christians would say that Jesus gave that power then to his church, to a visible church with a structure in this world. The power to teach and the power to heal and exercise. We Catholics say he did do that, and Tim Staples is here to explain why.
I want to let you know that what Tim has to say here comes from a course that he did for Catholic Answers School of Apologetics. We’re really proud of the School of Apologetics. I want to, before we get into the conversation with Tim, invite you to check out the School of Apologetics. You can do that, write this down, it’s a very long and complicated, schoolofapologetics.com. Schoolofapologetics.com.
Tim’s course that we’re taking these materials from is called Evidence for the Church. It’s a full course, something like 110 lessons. You take it at your own pace. There’s no grading, but there’s lots of material. There are tests and there are supplementary materials and lectures, beautiful video lectures that you can watch. In sum, it’s a college course, but without the credit and without having to take a final exam. Here’s what Tim had to say about this particular question. Does the church, in a visible sense, have the authority and power that Jesus himself had on this earth? Here’s Tim.
World famous apologist, Tim Staples, thanks for being with us.
Tim Staples:
I am so happy to be here.
Cy Kellett:
You have a course in the Catholic Answers School of Apologetics about the church, Evidence for the Church.
Tim Staples:
Yes.
Cy Kellett:
One of the problems we might encounter there is disagreements about the nature of the church and the purpose of the church, what it is in fact that Jesus founded.
Tim Staples:
Yes.
Cy Kellett:
I guess if you’re a Christian, you believe in the church because Jesus himself said-
Tim Staples:
Right.
Cy Kellett:
… but you have different conceptions about what he was doing when he founded the church.
Tim Staples:
Yes, and a very different conception of the nature of the church. I was raised in an evangelical home where I was taught the church is invisible, and so there is no real hierarchy that has any sort of divine authority. We believed in Sola Scriptura, the scriptures alone have the authority. So church institutionally setting up pastors in this, it’s kind of almost a necessary evil. I mean, you got to have pastors and this and that, but they don’t have any real authority. So if you disagreed with your pastor, what do you do? Well you just find another one.
Cy Kellett:
Get a new pastor.
Tim Staples:
If you can’t find another, well then start your own. Really, the foundation of that has led to today, we’re in a situation where we really don’t know, nobody knows how many denominations there are out there. With the advent of living room churches in these non-denominational communities, you really don’t know. It’s tens of thousands of churches. I don’t think that’s what Jesus had in mind when he prophesied in John 10:16, “There shall be one fold and one shepherd.” How in the world does that translate into what we see? The Catholic understanding is fundamentally found, and quite beautifully, in Ephesians 1:22-23, and it’s throughout the New Testament, but I love Ephesians 1:22-23, where Saint Paul says, “The church is the body of Christ, the fullness of him who fills all in all.” That really says it all, the church is Christ extended into the world.
Not in just some invisible sense, but when Jesus established the church, he made it quite visible. So visible in fact, that he could say in Matthew 18:15-18, “If your brother offends against you, go tell him his fault between you and him alone. If he hears you, you have gained your brother. If he doesn’t hear you, take one or two with you, that in the mouth of two or three witnesses, every word may be established. But if he will not even hear them, tell it to the church.” Obviously, the church is not invisible if you can go talk to the church.
Cy Kellett:
It would be hard to find them.
Tim Staples:
The church has the authority to declare on the issue, whether it’s faith, morals, discipline. The church declares why, verse 18, “for whatever the church binds on earth is bound in heaven, and whatever she loses on earth is loosed in heaven.” The foundation, really, for all the extraordinary claims of the Catholic church, unique claims of the Catholic church, are rooted here. This is the disposition of God. God willed for us, Jesus, the God-man willed for us to have a visible church that has authority to speak for him. That’s the sense in which we say the church is Jesus Christ extended into the world, so radically so that Jesus could say in Matthew 10:40, Luke 10:16, “If they hear you, they hear me. If they reject you, they reject me. If they receive you, they receive me. If they reject you, they reject me.”
That’s the authority that was introduced to me by my good friend, Sergeant Matt Doula, 30 plus years ago. That was really a revolution as well as a revelation in my life. For me, I was raised no, this is it. You get that. You argue here, and this is your foundation. That’s absolutely not what this actually says.
Cy Kellett:
Yeah. The Bible, by the way.
Tim Staples:
The Bible, yes. For those who are not watching, just listening.
Cy Kellett:
Right in the beginning of Mark’s gospel, right there in chapter one, Jesus comes and we see a person of power. He can heal, he can cast out demons, and a teacher of authority. He doesn’t teach like other teachers, he teaches with authority.
Tim Staples:
Amen.
Cy Kellett:
Would you go so far as to say that power and authority belongs to the church?
Tim Staples:
Absolutely and it’s delegated of course, because Jesus is God, he has that little advantage.
Cy Kellett:
The somewhat slight advantage of being infinitely superior.
Tim Staples:
That’s right. He is God and he can’t communicate that to the church. The church is not identical to Christ because Christ, of course, is God. Christ, uniquely, could say in, for example, John 5:19, “the son can do nothing on his own, but only that which he sees the father doing.” Right? So every word that Jesus spoke was inspired of God. In fact, he is the word of God manifest in the flesh. He is the will of God manifest in the flesh, he’s the word of God manifest in the flesh. Right? When he communicated that authority, again, he can’t communicate divinity in the strict sense to the church, he gave strict guidelines as to how that authority was to function.
Cy Kellett:
Okay.
Tim Staples:
What did we say just a minute ago, “Whatever you bind on earth shall be bound in heaven, whatever you loose on or shall be loosed in heaven.” He said that both to the apostles in union with Peter in Matthew 18:18, and to Peter uniquely in Matthew 16, 18 and 19. He gives Peter and his successors a unique singular authority to speak alone as Vatican I defined apart from the consensus of the others and he gives them all a collective power with Peter to be able to declare.
The key point here, and this again was the revelation that became the revolution in my life, the key point is this is the power to say, “Thus sayeth God.” When the Pope individually, when the bishops in union with the Pope, declare, “Thus sayeth God,” you can take that to the bank. That is the truth. What a liberation that was for me, as a Protestant. I was happy where I was, I love Jesus, I thank God for what I had, but when you see the fullness of the truth, it’s so beautiful. It’s so incredible. Could it be that there is someone on this earth that can say, “Thus sayeth God.” Yes there is. Is today it’s Pope Francis and all the bishops in union with him.
Cy Kellett:
This authority that really, because of the difference in the conception of what it is Jesus was doing and founding a church, there’s no Protestant denomination that even claims this for itself. That says I’m the… I don’t know, head chief Lutheran or the top Presbyterian.
Tim Staples:
That’s right, the closest thing you have to it are in some of the cults, as they’re called. These quasi Christian sets, like Jehovah’s witnesses who claim to be the Watchtower and the Mormons who claim to have the profit. Even in those cases, and they are very few and far between where someone does claim to have some sort of authority that can be easily dismissed, because of course, I asked my Mormon friends where would you go in 1810? That would be before 1820. Of course, they would say there was a great apostasy, which is contrary to the teaching of Jesus, he said, “I’ll be with you all days, even the end of the age,” when he specifically gave this authority to Peter, he gave with that his authority so that he says, “I will build my church.” It’s impossible to apostatize absolutely, as Mormon say, when you have Jesus promising that ain’t going to happen, I’m going to be with you specifically.
He says of the episodic authority till the end of the time, into the age, similarly 1877 with the Jehovah’s witnesses, sorry pal, where do you go the first 1,876 years. It’s extraordinary that really the Catholic church is the only church that even claims to have such a living authority, even the Orthodox.
Cy Kellett:
They don’t.
Tim Staples:
They don’t, they don’t have a living magisterium and for various reasons. One is a good number of their bishops acknowledge they need the Bishop of Rome in order to have an ecumenical council, which they see as the supreme authority. They’ve basically been dead in the water since the seventh ecumenical council, second Nicaea in 787. You can’t have another ecumenical council. It is extraordinary the Catholic church is really the only one who effectively even makes the claim. When you look at the reality of the Catholic church, she demonstrates the veracity of the claim in many ways, one of which is one Lord, one faith, one baptism, as St. Paul says it in Ephesians 4:5, we have it.
Cy Kellett:
Right?
Tim Staples:
Never has there ever been a contradiction on any definitive teaching in the church for 2000 years. You can’t explain that other than with divine authority.
Cy Kellett:
Especially in light of what you just said about the Orthodox, there’s this teaching authority: thus say at the Lord, that the church has, and that way acts in proxy for Jesus, or acts on behalf of Jesus. But it’s not just as a teacher, that the church acts on behalf of Jesus. So in that way, we might say the Orthodox are much closer to us Catholics.
Tim Staples:
That’s a good point Cy.
Cy Kellett:
Because there’s the practical healing and exercising and that kind of thing.
Tim Staples:
That is a very good point and very important. You’re right. Jesus came as prophet, priest and king. As prophet, he declares the word of God, “Thus sayeth God,” take it to the bank. As king, he has juridical authority. He establishes a kingdom. He makes the rules, and the church does both of those. But very importantly, Cy, I think you’ve hit on something so important that really became perhaps the most important to me. That is in the church we see, just as Jesus loved the paralytic and Matthew 9:2-6, and he says, “Your sins are forgiven thee,” I say this all the time to my Protestant friends, Jesus loves you today the same as he loved that paralytic and he wants you to hear those same words.
We hear them through that priestly ministry, when Jesus gave the power to the apostles to do the same thing he did. Luke 22:19, “Do this in memory.” Do what? Offer the holy sacrifice. John 20:21-23, “He breathes on them, receive the holy spirit. Whosoever sins, you forgive are forgiven. Whoever sends you retain, they are retained. They are given that healing power.” In fact, I just went yesterday to confession here at the cathedral. Oh, I love confession. I always say to you, I like when I walk out of the confession.
Cy Kellett:
You love it after, right? I know exactly what you mean.
Tim Staples:
But I heard the words, Cy. I absolve you, were spoiled rotten brats as Catholics. We hear the words Jesus speaks. Jesus speaks through the priest, “I absolve you of your sins in the name of the father, son and holy spirit.” That is an essential part of what it means to be Jesus Christ extended into this world and unfortunately our Protestant friends don’t have it. This is one of the most important reasons for evangelism of all, people need Jesus and they need to hear Jesus say those words, “I absolve you. This is my body so that they can be healed accordingly.”
Cy Kellett:
So it is fair to say the church does act in the place of Jesus in all three of his missions as a priest.
Tim Staples:
It’s kind of a tri-mission, right? It’s three essential parts, but one mission. He is prophet, priest, king. So is the church.
Cy Kellett:
Thank God for that. Thanks Tim.
Cy Kellett:
I actually think there are a lot of us, especially in the modern world who don’t like the way that God did it. We don’t like the way that God put other people in charge of us. He gave other people authority. He gave priests power, real power in the world to enact or to make present his will. We are individualists right down to the core. We modern people and so this idea that there’s an institution that has authority and power and that authority and power is actually God’s authority and power on this earth, not a very appealing idea to you modern people, but you know what, once you accept it, that is what God chose to do, and this is what God is, he’s a serial delegator. He delegates constantly to others to do for him, what he can do for himself.
He doesn’t meet us to do these things. Once we see that, we see we are wrapped up in a great movement through history at which God is at the head. He hasn’t abandoned that. He’s at the head at the head of his troops and we’re part of that troops and it’s a wonderful thing. It’s a great, liberating, challenging and exciting adventure to be part of that. I hope that you’re a part of that. If you’re not maybe head over to your local Catholic parish and find out how you can become a part of it. Thanks so much for listening. If you want to send us an email focus@catholic.com, that’s our email address, focus@catholic.com. If you’re watching on YouTube, go ahead and like and subscribe. Bit by bit we’re growing there on YouTube, and we’re very grateful for you liking and subscribing. That helps us to grow.
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