“Remember therefore from where you have fallen; repent, and do the first works, or else, I will come to you quickly and remove your lampstand from its place – unless you repent” (Rev 2:5 NKJV).
Jesus asked his disciples: ‘But who do you say that I am?’ Simon Peter answered and said, ‘You are the Christ, the Son of the living God.’ Jesus answered and said to him, ‘Blessed are you, Simon Bar-Jonah, for flesh and blood has not revealed this to you, but My Father who is in heaven. And I also say to you that you are Peter, and on this rock I will build My church, and the gates of Hades shall not prevail against it. And I will give you the keys of the kingdom of heaven, and whatever you bind on earth will be bound in heaven, and whatever you loose on earth will be loosed in heaven’” (Matt 16:15-19 NKJV).
This statement begs questions such as: What was this Church which Jesus built? What was its structure? How was it governed? What were its doctrines? How did it worship God?
The proof is overwhelming….isn’t it?
One would think that the surest way to determine which church can claim to be the New Testament Church or closest to it is to read the writings of the men who were around in the time of the apostles and the years immediately after them. It was these men, known as the Church Fathers, who knew the apostles, had very early copies of the New Testament writings, and, being bishops, monks, and senior religious figures, were the leaders of this apostolic and post-apostolic period (i.e. ante-Nicene period up to 4th century). The earliest Fathers actually knew the apostles (or at least some of them) and they knew those who knew the apostles – surely, then, what these men have to say must have authority.
Their writings, besides the true doctrines of divine revelation, are also saturated with specifically Catholic teaching and practice, as one would expect, seeing they were Catholic. All of the Catholic doctrines and practices come from this early period, and are, therefore, not inventions by a later “corrupt” Church intent on using deception to gain power – that came later. Their theology, church polity, and practices, were drawn from their Old Testament Septuagint bible or Alexandrian canon, and the Old Latin, or Itala, both of which included the books and additions of the “apocrypha”. The Itala was a translation of disparate Latin texts, mainly the Old Latin.; these were superseded over the next centuries by the Latin Vulgate of Jerome (early 5th century), which is the official bible of the Catholic Church.
At this early period, the Church was one, but there was a geographical, linguistic and cultural division, namely East (Greek speaking) and West (Latin speaking). This division later became forever established when Rome in the West, excommunicated the Eastern Churches, and the two separated from each other forever in 1054 AD. Until this time, the universal Church was called Catholic, but following the schism, the West, with Rome at its centre, retained the name Catholic; and the East, with Constantinople at its centre, officially retained the name Orthodox, as they had also been known since the second century. So it’s right to refer to the early Church as “Catholic” because that is how they described themselves.
Those that followed, the later Ante Nicene and Post Nicene Fathers, taught the same doctrines and practices, but sometimes in expanded detail. As the Church grew and became established, it was able to define doctrine more precisely, e.g. the doctrines of the Trinity and the Person and Work of Christ.
The seven Ecumenical Councils (325 AD to 787 AD), so called because they were representative of the whole Church, formulated and defined many doctrines that only get a mention by the Apostolic Fathers. The pronouncements of these Councils were, and still are, regarded as infallible by the Catholic and Orthodox Churches; some of the Reformers acknowledged the first four of them; nevertheless, the majority of these doctrines continue to be “the pillar and ground of the truth” (1 Tim 3:15).
The Bride of Christ becomes the leopard beast of the Apocalypse
But centuries later, as the power of the Roman Church increased, it eventually became unrecognisable as Christian due to its centuries-long history of abuse of power, murder, genocide, brutality and barbarity, and institutionalised physical torture and cruelty such as can only be described as emanating from hell itself; and the morality of many of the Popes rivals the most disgusting, lecherous and depraved characters in history.
While we may lament that the Catholic Church descended so far that right-thinking Christians can only see it as a habitation of demons now, we ought not be surprised because Scripture foretold this strange situation to the prophet Daniel, and these prophecies have, ever since, consistently been reiterated to the Church through biblical prophecy and confirmed by history.
When it had reached its deepest depths of depravity, European scholars, such as the great Erasmus, were writing scathing criticisms and parodies of the corrupt mediaeval Popes, and many were calling for church reform. But before the Church finally submitted to calling a Church Council to discuss the situation, Martin Luther had nailed his Ninety-Five Theses on the door of the church at Wittenberg for discussion. It snowballed into the revolution known as The Reformation, and whole nations and states were involved, and a new movement began. The Reformation was violently opposed by the Catholic Church, and multiple thousands of Protestant Christians, Jews, and any other non-Catholics were tortured, burned alive, strangled, and murdered, whether individuals, villages, nations, and even empires. Because of its unspeakable and abounding wickedness, the lampstand of the Catholic Church was removed (Rev 1:12; 2:5).
Too late to stem the tide, the so-called Counter Reformation was launched at the Council of Trent and, although it cleaned up the corruption and abuse on the surface of the Catholic Church, it has continued on in the world as a lifeless church, devoid of the presence of Jesus and the Holy Spirit, having replaced them with Mary and the saints to whom Catholics pray, and with the Pope, the self-styled vicar of Christ.
And by the pinnacle of blasphemy, the ultimate affront to God, the Catholic Church is on the way to pronouncing Mary, who is already regarded as the Queen of heaven, as Co-redemptrix with Christ, due to her suffering as she anguished over her Son on the cross.
History written in advance – Daniel
“I saw the woman, drunk with the blood of the saints and with the blood of the martyrs of Jesus. And when I saw her, I marveled with great amazement” (Rev 17:6).
Scripture, confirmed by history, describes the descent of this apostate church so that it is easily identifiable, with no room for doubt. The prophet Daniel, for example, was given the first revelation of this strange evil entity.
“The prophecies of Daniel are cumulative and widening in their view, each carrying matters farther than the preceding one, and bringing out more explicitly and more in detail important features down the stream of time. In Daniel 2, under the fourth universal kingdom, , the Papacy is not represented under any direct symbol or figure at all – simply Rome in its united and divided state; in Daniel 7 Rome is symbolized by the ‘little horn’ coming up among the ten horns representing the divided state of Rome; while in Daniel 8 the only figure used to represent the fourth world power is the ‘little horn’ which waxed ‘exceeding great’.
In each of these last two chapters the little horn is introduced to tell especially of the workings of the same terrible power – Rome papal. Both chapters deal with the same great apostasy. In the seventh chapter, the little horn takes away the law of God. In the eight chapter, it takes away the gospel. Had it taken away only the law, this would have vitiated [made less good] the gospel; for, with the law of God gone, even the true gospel could not save, because the law is needed to convict and give a knowledge of sin. And had the Papacy taken away only the gospel, and left the law, salvation through such a system would still have been impossible, for there is no salvation for sinners through even the law of God itself apart from Christ and the gospel. But to make apostasy doubly sure, this power changes, vitiates, and takes away both the law and the gospel.
In changing the Sabbath, the Papacy struck directly at the very heart and seal of the law of God, just as in substituting its own mediatorial system for that of Christ’s, it struck directly at the heavenly sanctuary and its service, which, in his epistle to the Hebrews, Paul shows to be the very heart and essence of the gospel” (Bible Readings: The Vicar of Christ, 1921, p. 228).
History written in advance – Revelation
“As already learned from studying the book of Daniel, a beast in prophecy represents some great earthly power or kingdom; a head, a governing power; horns, a number of kingdoms; crowned heads or crowned horns, political rulership; waters; ‘peoples, multitudes, and nations, and tongues’ (Rev 17:15).
‘The beasts of Daniel and John are empires. The ten-horned beast is the Roman power…The head is the governing power of the body. The heads of this beast represent successive governments’ (Romanism and the Reformation by H. Grattan Guiness, p. 144-145)’”.
The apostle John describes the beast which he saw in vision:
“And the beast which I saw was like unto a leopard, and his feet were as the feet of a bear, and his mouth as the mouth of a lion” (Rev 13:2).
“These are the characteristics of the first three symbols of Daniel 7 – the lion, the bear, and leopard there representing the kingdoms of Babylon, Media-Persia, and Grecia – and suggest this beast as representing or belonging to the kingdom symbolized by the fourth beast of Daniel 7, or Rome. Both have ten horns. Like the dragon of Revelation 12, it also has seven heads; but as the dragon symbolized Rome in its entirety, particularly in its pagan phases, this, like the ‘little horn’ coming up among the ten horns of the fourth beast of Daniel 7, represents Rome in its later or papal form. Both it and the little horn have a ‘mouth’ speaking great things; both make war upon the saints; both continue for the same length of time.
It is an undisputed fact of history that under the later Roman emperors, beginning with Constantine, the religion of the Roman government was changed from pagan to papal; that when Constantine removed the seat of his empire from Rome to Constantinople in 330 AD, the city of Rome was given up to the bishop of Rome, who, from Constantine and succeeding emperors, received rich gifts and great authority; that after the fall of Rome, in 476 AD, the bishop of Rome became the ruling power in Western Rome, and by decree of Justinian, March 15 533, was declared ‘head of all the holy churches’; and in a letter of the same year he was designated as ‘corrector of heretics’. Thus, Rome pagan became Rome papal; the seat of pagan Roman became the seat of papal Rome; church and state were united; and the persecuting power of the dragon was conferred upon the professed head of the church of Christ, or papal Rome. As Dr. H. Grattan Guiness, in his ‘Romanism and the Reformation’ p.152 says, ‘The power of the Caesars lived again in the universal dominion of the popes’. (Bible Readings: A Great Persecuting Power, 1921, p. 268).
All beasts lead to Rome
“And there was given unto him a mouth speaking great things and blasphemies; and power was given unto him to continue forty and two months. And he opened his mouth in blasphemy against God, to blaspheme his name, and his tabernacle, and them that dwell in heaven. And it was given unto him to make war with the saints, and to overcome them: and power was given him over all kindreds, and tongues, and nations” (Rev 13:5-7).
“All these specifications have been fully and accurately met in the papacy, and identify this beast as representing the same power as that represented by the little horn phase of the fourth beast of Daniel 7, and the little horn of Daniel 8 in its chief and essential features and work (see Daniel 7:25; 8:11, 12,24, 25). (Bible Readings: A Great Persecuting Power, 1921, p. 269).
A deadly wound
“And I saw one of his heads as it were wounded to death; and his deadly wound was healed: and all the world wondered after the beast” (Rev 13:3).
“This wound was inflicted upon the papal head of this beast when the French, in 1798, entered Rome, and took the Pope prisoner, and for a time, it seemed, abolished the Papacy. But in 1800 another Pope was placed upon the papal throne, and the deadly wound began to be healed. Temporal dominion was taken away from the Papacy in 1870, but nevertheless its power and influence among the nations have been increasing since then. ‘In that year, the Papacy assumed the highest exaltation to which it could aspire, that of infallibility’ (Romanism and the Reformation by H. Grattan Guiness, p. 156). To such a position of influence over the nations is the papacy finally to attain that just before her complete overthrow and destruction she will say, ‘I will sit a queen, and am no widow, and shall see no sorrow’ (Rev 18:7 – see Isaiah 47:7-15; Rev 17:18)”. (Bible Readings: A Great Persecuting Power, 1921, p. 270).
“I beheld then because of the voice of the great words which the horn spake: I beheld even till the beast was slain, and his body destroyed, and given to the burning flame” (Dan 7:11).
Bible Readings for the Home Circle, New Edition, Revised and Enlarged, 1921, Review and Herald Publishing Association, Washington DC.