I’ve been Trying to establish what is meant By the “Church”. Defining terms. I’ve agreed with the term ‘Catholic’ meaning ‘universal’. What makes up the ‘universal’ church?
All Catholics (laity & clergy) are a part of the Church, but the hierarchy of the Church is comprised of the Pope and the Bishops in full communion with him.
Doesn’t the New Testament teach that the New Testament church came into existence with the coming of the Holy Spirit.
Yes, but He came upon the Apostles, so that He could protect the Church from error (cf. John 16:13) and to protect her.
The Holy Spirit comes to indwell each person who ‘accepts Jesus Christ as personal Savior’.
Of course! That’s why St Peter said “accept Christ as your personal Lord and Savior, and you shall receive the gift of the Holy Spirit” in Acts 2:38, right? Oh wait, he didn’t say that at all. He said, “repent and
be baptized every one of you in the name of Jesus Christ, for the forgiveness of sins, and you will receive the gift of the Holy Spirit.” The “personal acceptance = Holy Spirit” thing is an 18th/19th century invention of Baptists. That’s why you won’t find that phrase
anywhere in the Bible.
One verse - 2 Corinthians 1:21 Now it is God who makes both us and you stand firm in Christ. He anointed us, set His seal of ownership on us, and put His Spirit in our hearts as a deposit, guarenteeing what is to come.
All that that verse says is that our salvation is 100% by God’s grace. Catholics believe this too.
Ephesians 1: 11 - 13 "And you also were included in Christ when you heard the word of truth, the Gospel of your salvation. “Having believed, you were marked in Him with a seal, the promised Holy Spirit, who is a deposit guaranteering our inheritance until the redemption of those who are God’s possession – to the praise of His glory.”
Isn’t That stating that God has sealed a person’s salvation with the promised Holy Spirit until the person is with God/ Jesus Christ?
No.
I’ll leave this to the Haydock Bible Commentary:
Ver. 11. In Christ we also are called by lot; i.e. to this happy lot, this share and state of eternal happiness, (he seems to speak with an allusion to the manner by which the lands of a temporal inheritance was distributed to the Israelites, in Palestine) that we (ver. 12) who are saved, may be to the praise of his glory; might praise God for ever in the kingdom of his glory; particularly we Jews, who before hoped in the Messias to come, and also you Gentiles, who now having heard the gospel, have believed in Christ, and who, together with all Christians, have been now sealed as it were with the holy Spirit of promise; i.e. by the Spirit promised, and all those spiritual graces which are an earnest and pledge, which give us an assurance of our future glory and happiness. For our redemption from our sins, and in order to the acquired possession, to the possession of that glorious happiness which Christ, by his incarnation and death, hath acquired for us. (Witham)
Ver. 13. In whom you…were sealed, &c. Having been regenerated in baptism, you have received the Holy Spirit and the supernatural gifts which he communicates, by which he has, as it were, impressed upon you the seal of your sanctification and the pledge of your salvation. It is not an external impression, such as that by which soldiers are marked by their sovereigns, nor circumcision, as of old, but it is a mark within you—the grace with which you are filled—which shews itself outwardly by miraculous effects, &c. (Calmet) — Some refer these words, in whom you were sealed, to the sacrament of baptism; others to confirmation: both, with the sacrament of holy orders, confer a character, or mark, of which St. Paul seems to speak whenever he speaks of God sealing us.
And those people make up the universal ‘church’ / universal meaning all those who have trusted Christ as Savior throughout the world. ‘church’ being the ‘body’/ group of believers.
This idea that the Church is invisible is incredibly contrary to Scripture.
It entails that the Church is the set of all the elect. But this position runs contrary to Scripture, because we know from Scripture that there will be tares within the one, holy, catholic and apostolic Church, until the angels remove them at the end. And yet by definition there can be no tares within the set of the elect (i.e. elect-to-glory). Likewise, when Matthew records Jesus saying to Peter in Matthew 16:18, “upon this rock I will build My Church”, and then saying, in Matthew 18:17, “tell it to the Church”, and “listen to the Church”, the most natural way of understanding these passages is that the term ‘ekklesia’ (‘Church’) is being used in the same way in all three places. And it is clear in the Matthew 18 passages that ‘ekklesia’ there refers to the visible Church, not a merely spiritual entity. Matters of discipline cannot be brought before the set of all the elect. This shows us that the one, holy, catholic and apostolic Church of which Christ speaks in Matthew 16 is not a mere set; Jesus was not meaning “upon this Rock I will build my set.”
