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The One Passage that Proves the Papacy (to Protestants)

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Joe Heschmeyer explains why the Catholic doctrine of the papacy isn’t solely based on Matthew 16:18 offering insights from his book, Pope Peter. Use promo code POPEPETER to get 25% off at checkout.

Transcription:

Joe:

Welcome back to Shameless Popery; I’m Joe Heschmeyer and I presently plan to present a passage proving the papacy of Protestants. Now, I’m not going to pretend I was able to do that in one take, but I wanted to make sure I got that mouthful out for a good reason. A lot of non-Catholic Christians believe the entire doctrine of the papacy boils down to one passage and one part of a passage that it’s all about Matthew 16 and it’s all about what it means when Jesus says, you are Peter and upon this rock I’ll build my church. I want to be clear. I think that is an important passage in proving the papacy. But as I point out in my book, Pope Peter defending the church’s most distinctive doctrine in a time of crisis, there’s a better way to go to present the papacy if you’re trying to explain this idea, that may be very foreign to someone not coming from a Catholic background using just biblical text.

So let’s start with why I wouldn’t use Matthew 16 and then get into the passage I would use instead. So in Matthew 16, to give a little bit of context, Simon Peter declares Jesus the Christ, the Son of the Living God, and Jesus responds, blessed are you Simon Barona, son of Jonah for flesh and blood has not revealed this to you but my father in heaven. And I tell you, you are Peter and on this Rocco build my church. And then literally it says, and the gates of Hades shall not prevail against it. I will give you singular here, the keys of the kingdom of heaven and whatever you bind on earth shall be bound in heaven and whatever you loose on earth shall be loose in heaven. And so to hear many people tell it, both Catholics and non-Catholics, frankly, you would imagine that the entire doctrine of the papacy is only defended on the basis of this short passage. Or even more specifically just on that line, you are Peter and on this rock, oh, build my church. Here’s an example of the way I hear it presented, that whether this is what the speakers mean or not, gives the impression that it’s all just about this passage that the entire doctrine of the papacy is hinging on these few verses,

CLIP:

The doctrine of apostolic succession is based on Matthew 16, 13 to 20. This is Peter’s confession of the identity of Jesus and Jesus’s response upon this rock, I will build my church and the gates of hell will not prevail against it.

It has often been suggested that Peter is the foundation of the church. I’d have to say if it was so, it would be a very wobbly building.

According to Roman teaching, Peter is the rock of Matthew 16 that Christ in conferring a primacy upon Peter Intends is to be understood to apply to Peter’s successors as well. And that hence Christ is in this passage instituting the office of Pope for the Christian Church.

Joe:

So that’s actually the first thing I would point to and why I wouldn’t start with Matthew 16 because many Protestants are under the impression that the entire doctrine of the papacy is only from Matthew 16. If they’ve ever heard Catholics describe the papacy, they’ve probably heard of this. And so it’s led people like Dave Hunt who is a fairly anti-Catholic and kind of unreliable author to make the claim that today it’s claimed that Christ’s statement to Peter made him the first Pope, the rock in which the one true church was built and that the Pope’s authority today and the Catholic religion over which he presides stands and falls upon that assertion. Now obviously at the outset this isn’t true, that whatever you think is meant by the rock in Matthew 16, you can believe in the papacy or deny the papacy. The doctrine does not in fact exclusively turn on what we mean by upon this rock. And so let’s talk about that. Who or what is the rock of Matthew 16? This is the second reason I wouldn’t start with this passage is that it’s kind of a complicated question. It’s complicated in part on the Protestant side because many Protestants are eager to affirm basically any interpretation other than the seemingly obvious one that the rock is Peter. So for instance, here’s Mike Winger,

CLIP:

Their case for their authority, that single pillar that holds up all the doctrine of the church, we declare it, therefore it’s true. Well, that pillar is based on two passages. One is Matthew 16. We looked at that last week and showed that whatever it does teach, it certainly does not teach that Peter was the first pope.

Joe:

So I call that the kind of anything but Peter Exegesis. It’s like we know Catholics take this interpretation. So whatever it means, it just doesn’t mean that. And there’s actually a number of Protestants who make arguments like that. About a hundred years ago, a very popular Protestant preacher and scholar at Robertson Southern Baptist, he argues that it’s not perfectly clear how Jesus means to figure to be applied when he says, upon this rock I’ll build my church. We don’t really know what he means. And he says he could mean himself if he pointed to himself that this rock could mean Jesus if he pointed to himself and that really crucial detail was just left off or something. Second, he says, Jesus could mean Peter himself buzzed rock as the representative of the 12 and as confessing his faith in Christ so he can be the rock as long as it’s on behalf of all 12 or third.

He says, Jesus could mean the confession of trust made by Peter as the rock. So the confession could be Peter’s confession, it could be all 12 or it could be Jesus. The one obvious reading that is excluded there of course is that the rock means Peter in some unique and special sort of way, that there’s a reason that Simon has his name changed to Peter and not all 12. So I would just say at the outset it’s a complicated question to start with Matthew 16 because a lot of Protestants don’t really know what they think the passage does mean. They just know what they think the passage doesn’t mean. Or maybe they’ll have a very particular idea, they’re convinced, it means Peter’s confession to faith or they’re convinced the rock is Jesus. Doesn’t matter that those two views, it’s hard to see how they go together, but we’ll acknowledge that because the other group of people who have sometimes confusing interpretations on this passage are the church fathers themselves, the early church fathers.

Were open to a wide range of meanings to this passage. This is a strong point to make if you think that the entire case for the papacy is going to be made or broken by getting the identity of the rock right, you should know that the early Christians took different interpretations and didn’t seem to think it was super important, which one was right. I want to say at the outset here, there’s sometimes a mythology around this even among the well-educated that the one interpretation the early Christians didn’t really take, especially in the East, was that it was about Peter. So here’s Pastor Jordan Cooper making this pretty common kind of historical error

CLIP:

And the way that Roman interprets this, and this is by the way, not the way the earliest Rich fathers interpret this passage, which I think is very interesting and there’s reasons why the Eastern fathers particularly have never held to this interpretation of this particular passage.

Joe:

So that’s a little confusing. But it seems what he’s saying is there’s this Roman interpretation and that’s a common description of the interpretation of Peter as the rock is the Roman view, that there’s this Roman interpretation, but this wasn’t taken by most of the church fathers or anyone in the East and neither of those claims are true. So Edward Ky, who is actually an Orthodox, I believe, former Catholic, he’s married to a Catholic, his kids, I know he’s raising them Orthodox, he’s said that in interviews before. So he’s definitely not a Roman Catholic. He’s Eastern Orthodox non union with the pope has a book called the Papacy and the Orthodox in which he discusses all of the history of this. And so he lays out four of the ways Matthew 16 gets interpreted by the church fathers that the early Christians used four different motifs or four different set of interpretations for what they understood the rock to mean.

But when he talks about Peter as the rock, the so-called Roman view, he’s very clear that the identification of Peter as the rock, he’s hardly a Roman invention. It’s a misnomer to call it the Roman view because it isn’t as if the bishops of Rome are just like the only ones saying this is about them, that rather he says it was probably the intention of St. Matthew that the evangelists himself contextually, it certainly seems as if what we were meant to be taking from this is that the rock is the guy whose name has got changed to rock. And he points out that this was a very early interpretation that we find people like Tertullian. And he also makes the point that contra later orthodox emesis, I would add contra later Lutheran pastors as well. The idea that Peter himself was a rock is certainly also part of the eastern tradition.

The idea that this is just a western or just a Roman thing is flatly untrue. And so he cites to end quotes from both Trulian who I mentioned earlier, St. Cyprian of Carthage, St. Jerome, St. Hillary of Poitier, STIA St. afa, the Persian Saint Basil, the Great and St. Gregory of Nisa, all ranging from the one hundreds to the early four hundreds, all of whom in their writings refer to Peter as a rock upon whom the is built. But here’s the kicker, if that sounds like just a slam dunk for the Catholic interpretation, and I do think the Catholic interpretation here is right, you should know as he points out that many of these same people origin, Hillary, Jerome, Gregory Nis and Augustine used different interpretations throughout their careers and didn’t seem to think it had to be just Peter or just Peter’s confession or just Jesus or just Peter on behalf of the apostles.

They might go from one to the other to the other and even of the individual as one upon whom, and Jesus intends to build his church. So that’s confusing, right? So again, if you’re going to imagine that all of this is just going to be settled, that Rome thinks it means Peter is the rock and Protestants think it means Peter’s not the rock. And if we can just settle that question, the whole debate will be over. It’s not true. To really double down on this, I would cite you to the catechism of the Catholic church, which like the early Christians understands this passage of having multiple plausible and accurate senses of interpretation. So for instance, in paragraph 8 81, it says, the Lord made Simon alone whom he named Peter the rock of his church. If that was all the catechism says, you’d be like, okay, great.

The Catholic view is that Peter and Peter alone is the rock. And in one sense it’s absolutely true, but it also says in paragraph 4 24, on the rock of this faith confess by Peter Christ built his church. So is it Peter or is it his confession? Yes, the catechism is going to affirm both of those things. So if you have the idea that we just have to sort out which one is right, the catechism is like, well, they’re both right. And in fact, in paragraph 5 52, it harmonizes the two saying, because of the faith he confessed Peter will remain the unshakable rock of the church. But in that same paragraph, it also describes Christ as the living stone. So who’s the rock? Is it Peter? Is it his confession? Is it Jesus Christ? Yes to all of those, all of the above. So if that wasn’t confusing enough, let’s talk about the rest of Matthew 16 just for a second.

Hopefully you can see why I don’t start with this. If I’m talking to someone who is not familiar with the papacy or this is all new to them, that’s a confusing amount. You’ve got this confusing passage coupled with the fact that the early Christians interpreted it in sometimes seemingly incompatible ways and didn’t seem to think there was anything confusing or contradictory about that. But then the other thing is by honing in just on this rock, oh, build mind church part of Matthew 16, you’re actually leaving aside this tremendously beautiful rich passage that has a lot to say about the papacy. Just imagine that you are Peter and on this rock wasn’t there? You would still have Jesus addressing Simon by name, Simon Barona, and then telling him that he’s going to build his church and will give to him personally, you singular, I will give you the keys of the kingdom of heaven, and then telling him whatever you again singular address to Peter, whatever Peter binds on earth shall be bound in heaven and whenever Peter looses on earth shall be loose in heaven.

So this phrase is three more interpretive questions for us. Number one, what does he mean by the keys of the kingdom? Now if you want to do a deep dive on this, you can do places like Isaiah 22. You can look to Eki when he’s given the key of the house of David as a symbol of this royal and priestly authority. The second, what does Jesus mean by this idea of binding and loosening? What is that all about? And to make it even more confusing, two chapters later, he’s going to talk about what you do when you have an issue and you take it. You have a brother sitting against you, you take it to him, you bring one or two witnesses with you, and then if he still won’t listen, you take it to the church, something bigger than you, something bigger than two or three gathered in his name.

And the church adjudicates the matter if he still won’t listen to the church. He used to be treated as a gentile and tax collector. And so we’re told whatever you now, it’s collective, whatever you bind on earth shall be bound in heaven whenever you loose on earth shall be loose in heaven. Now, broadly speaking, there’s two ways of reading that. One is this Catholic way that this authority of binding and loosening, this authority of adjudicating disputes and settling theological matters, and all of this is given to Peter and his individual capacity as Pope and to the church collectively. But there’s a popular Protestant view that basically what was originally given to Peter two chapters later is given to everybody in such a way that Peter no longer has any special authority. So does Matthew 18 then render Matthew 16 redundant. Why does he bother to give a special authority to Peter if it’s not going to be special?

Two verses later, he just has special premier access and what’s meant by binding and listening. Many Protestants will say it’s simply the power to declare that Christ has won the power to proclaim the gospel, which is not something that Jesus needed to give Peter because everyone can do that. You don’t even need to be Christian to proclaim the gospel. You could accurately summarize theology without it. So my point here hopefully is to say, I think this passage is very rich, but maybe too rich as a starter course that there’s so much here that if you begin with this, you’re likely to simply overwhelm the person you’re speaking to. And I hope I haven’t done that to you. I’m trying to flag these things, not trying to sort through and adjudicate all of them, but even in this I’m aware this might be feeling kind of topsy-turvy.

So how about a much cleaner, simpler kind of starter? And that would be Luke chapter 22. Now Luke 22, this image of starters kind of works because it takes place at the last supper and at the last supper there’s so much going. Jesus institutes the Eucharist. He announces the inauguration of a new covenant. Judas is betraying him, he’s giving his final discourses all of these most important teachings he seem to have saved for this final night. And what are the apostles doing during this? Well, in verse 24, we’re told that they’re arguing about which of them is to be regarded as the greatest. Now, I respect Jesus’s tremendous reserve here because I think it would be very tempting to upend the tables and to say, I’ve been with you so long and this is what you’re talking about on our last night together. But he doesn’t do that at all.

In fact, he doesn’t even just tell them to get back on track. Instead, he meets them at their level and he talks to them about what it means to be great. And so beginning in verse 25, he talks about what greatness doesn’t look like that we don’t want Christian leadership and Christian greatness to look like the kind of overlords of the Gentiles who exercise lordship over the people that they’ve been entrusted with. He says, not so with you. Instead, he lays out a model of servant leadership. Now that’s really jargony these days, but he literally says that the leader is as one who serves. So in the church there are going to be leaders. That’s good. This is not a mistake. This is not just egoism or pride. There are supposed to be leaders, but leaders have particular things. They’re called to namely service, and Jesus gives himself as the model.

He says, I’m among you as one who serves. That’s verses 25 to 27. Immediately, he then singles out the 12 and he says, in 28 to 30, you are those who’ve been with me in my trials as my father appointed a kingdom for me. So I appoint for you that you may eat and drink at my table in my kingdom and sit on thrones judging the 12 tribes of Israel. So there is leadership in the church. It is apostolic leadership in its origins. We see it with the 12. We have 12 clearly identified leaders. One of them as we know Judas is going to be replaced with Matthias, but they’re still going to maintain this structure of leadership in the church. And then in the very next verse, you know what he does? He turns to one of the 12. If you’re just talking about servant leadership and highlighting the servant leadership of all 12, he singles one of the 12 out.

I bet you can guess which one. He says, Simon, Simon, behold Satan demanded to have you that he might sift you like wheat. Now you need to know here you there is plural. It’s you all. It’s you 12. And we know the context, right? All of them are going to abandon or betray Jesus in some way. Judas is going to turn Jesus in. The other 11 are going to run away. Simon Peter is going to deny Jesus three times. It’s going to be a pretty sorry night for everyone involved here. And Jesus knows this is about to happen. He knows they’re going to undergo this demonic temptation, this sort of sifting like wheat. Imagine like a pitchfork sifting through wheat, not a nice image. And what does he say in response? Does he say, but I’m God, so I stopped this from happening. Does he say he desired to have all 12 of you?

So I prayed for all 12 of you. He says nothing like this. He says something much stranger. He says, but I’ve prayed for you. And now here he switches. Satan desired to have you plural you 12, but I’ve prayed for you. Now it’s singular you Simon Peter, that your faith may not fail, but he knows it will. He knows that he’ll deny him three times. And so he adds. And when you have turned back, strengthen your brethren. Now those three words strengthen your brethren, get to the heart of the papacy and we can identify it in a really simple three-step process. Number one, in Christ’s kingdom, the leader is called to serve. We already saw that here in Luke 22, 2, all of the apostles are called to serve in the church and to serve the church. I mean he says that quite explicitly as well.

Right? Number three, St. Peter is called to serve even his brethren amongst the 12. When he says, strengthen your brethren contextually, he’s talking about the others who are being tempted by Satan that night. The other apostles so have all these leaders, and one of them is to be a servant leader to the other servant leaders. As Pope Saint John Paul II explains, this is what it means to be called to be Pope. And he knows he was in JP two’s words, he says, the Pope’s duty as a service to the church and to humanity. This is why since ancient times, he has been known as serve de servant of the servants of God. This is the model. The idea of the Pope is not someone needs to boss everyone around and kick everybody and get everybody online. It’s true. There are times the Pope has to exercise authority and really settle disputes, use that binding and loosening power.

But most of his authority is to serve and to lead in the Christian humble serving sort of way. In the same way that if you are trying to understand the idea of male headship from scripture looking at the kind of stereotypically macho, kind of overbearing jerk of a guy, it is not going to be the way you understand male headship in a Christian sense looking as Ephesians five says to Christ laying down his life for his bride, the church. That’s how you know what male headship in a biblical sense looks like. Well, so to here the papacy is biblical, but our misconceptions about the papacy, our caricature of the papacy may not be biblical. And so what Luke 22 gives us is what the papacy is meant to look like and be exercised as and so understood in that way is very clear. Now notice you don’t have to get into all of these complicated questions of what’s meant by the keys of the kingdom, what’s meant by the bindin and loosening.

What does this imagery of the rock mean? Why does Jesus change his name to Pats and not pet? Or maybe he uses kha and kha and Aramaic versus Greek. You don’t need to do any of that stuff because it’s just this simple Christ creates servant leadership in the church. He puts 12 people in that role. He puts one in the role to serve the other servant leaders, and that is the birth of the papacy. One guy who will take care of the other ministers who are taking care of the whole church. And you might say, what would a Protestant say in response to that? And I don’t know of a lot of great Protestant responses to this because it’s so clean and simple that I know of some bad Protestant responses to this. So for instance, here’s John MacArthur.

CLIP:

They also use a second passage, Luke 2231, Luke 2231, where Jesus says, Simon Simon, behold Satan is demanded permission to sift you like wheat. I have prayed for you that your faith may not fail and when once you have turned again, strengthen your brothers. They say that is a sort of a declaration of his papal primacy. Boy, that is some stretch. He says, I’m turning you over to Satan and your faith isn’t going to totally fail, but you’re going to deny me before the cock crows. He says in verse 34, but you’re going to be restored, strengthen your brother. So they say, here is the great commission to be the ultimate supreme strengthener, the Pope, again, ludicrous interpretation

Joe:

Of that text. So MacArthur’s take is basically, this is ludicrous because Jesus is not praying for him that his faith won’t fail. He’s turning him over to Satan. But you can simply read the text and see that MacArthur is not telling you the truth about what it says. Jesus says, I’ve prayed for you that your faith may not fail. Now, I realized MacArthur’s view of predestination and free will and all of this precludes the idea that Jesus could want Peter’s faith not to fail and still know that it will fail. Because in his view, if Jesus actually wants Peter’s faith not to fail, it won’t fail because he’s a monarchist. And so he has to say that even though Jesus says, I’ve prayed for you that your faith may not fail, what he really means is I’m turning you over to Satan so that your faith will fail.

As I say in my book, Pope Peter, these kind of responses are not very strong because you can simply read Luke 22 and see quite clearly that something is being given to Peter that’s not being given to everyone else. Why doesn’t he say to all of them, all of you are going to be tried, but I want you to strengthen one another. No. Instead he highlights Simon Peter and tells him to strengthen his brethren. So I would start there. Look, if you’re having a conversation with someone who is not a Catholic about the papacy, it’s probably not going to be a one conversation and everything sorted sort of event. It’s probably not going to be one passage. But if you’re looking to introduce the idea, I would suggest this is a better place to start because it’s nice and simple. And then if you want to do the deep dive on Matthew 16, great.

You can do that. Final thing. For those of you who made it all the way through the episode, if you’d like a copy of my book, Pope Peter, I got a special promo code from my coworkers. So if you put in the promo code, Pope Peter all is one word@shop.catholic.com. I think it’s like a 25% discount. You’ll have to find out yourself. That should be good on both the paperback and the digital copy of the book. So if you want more on this, I’m happy to do more episodes, but if you want to read it, you can pick up a copy for pretty Cheap. For Shameless Popery; I’m Joe Heschmeyer. God bless you.

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