What does the Bible predict for the church?

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Are there any actual predictions made about the church’s future? Besides the familiar “gates of Hades” quote, and various predictions about false teachers appearing in the last days (which, as a partial preterist, I take to mean shortly before the fall of Jerusalem in AD 70), I can think of little that is applicable here. I could see Revelation being used for such predictions if one adopted the historicist interpretation – which I don’t (though I’m willing to change that if any compelling evidence can be presented for historicism), and Revelation is difficult to interpret in any case. Can anyone offer any suggestions?
 
Check the Catechism around #675, it has some good stuff about how the Church sees the book of Revelation.

In particular, it says the Church will go through a great apostasy:

Before Christ’s second coming the Church must pass through a final trial that will shake the faith of many believers. 573 The persecution that accompanies her pilgrimage on earth 574 will unveil the “mystery of iniquity” in the form of a religious deception offering men an apparent solution to their problems at the price of apostasy from the truth. The supreme religious deception is that of the Antichrist, a pseudo-messianism by which man glorifies himself in place of God and of his Messiah come in the flesh. 575
 
Thanks, but I should perhaps have mentioned that I’m Protestant and don’t consider the Catechism authoritative.
 
The Bible predicts a time of suffering for the Church and the world, generally referred to as the Tribulation. This includes, at some point in time, a brief reign by the Antichrist, followed by the Return of Jesus Christ.
 
Ron_Conte said:
The Bible predicts a time of suffering for the Church and the world, generally referred to as the Tribulation. This includes, at some point in time, a brief reign by the Antichrist, followed by the Return of Jesus Christ.
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Why didn’t anyone before the year 1800 see that in the Bible? Wasn’t anybody studying the Bible before then? :confused:
 
If you check/download the MP3 from the first hour on CA Live from Sept. 24, (calendar is here), there is an excellent show on the Catholic Church teaching about the end times given by noted apologist Jim Burnham.
 
ThunderSandwich said:
Thanks, but I should perhaps have mentioned that I’m Protestant and don’t consider the Catechism authoritative.
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The Catechism is saturated with Scripture. Give it a chance. You’ll get better answers than you will from most of us.

Catholics believe that all of Creation was made for the Church and that Heaven (where the Saints are) is and will be the Church in perfect beauty.
 
scottm said:
Why didn’t anyone before the year 1800 see that in the Bible? Wasn’t anybody studying the Bible before then? :confused:
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St. Victorinius, St. Iranaeus, St. Thomas Aquinas, and many others viewed Revelation as referring to the tribulation and the future. It is not an idea which started in the 1800’s.
 
Yes, although I do take the opinions of earlier theologians and the church as a whole into account. I don’t agree with “solo scriptura.” I’m mostly asking this in the interest of countering the claims of a first- or second-century “great apostasy” that you occasionally see, since naturally one cannot quote church fathers against such a belief (except to show that the historical evidence is wanting).
 
Ron_Conte said:
St. Victorinius, St. Iranaeus, St. Thomas Aquinas, and many others viewed Revelation as referring to the tribulation and the future. It is not an idea which started in the 1800’s.
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Note that I was responding to the idea of a brief Tribulation and the reign of a specific Antichrist. I don’t think those guys taught such a thing. If you can find them teaching it, great. I’ll stand corrected.
 
Essentially, as Jesus was crucified, so will the Church be crucified and resurrected as the New Jerusalem.

If form follows pattern, the Church will be betrayed by her own (either a collective “Judas” or a powerful individual who leads many of the sheep out of the fold)
 
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