Pitting Jesus Against His Bride (Pt. I)

David Mathis, a Baptist elder from South Carolina, has written a post pretending to be Jesus, and rebuking the Catholic Church. One of the problems with the approach of pretending to be Jesus is that Mathis doesn’t actually spell out his arguments, making it harder to show where his reasoning goes wrong. This is compounded by the fact that Mathis’ grasp of Catholic teaching appears to be rather tenuous.

Saint Peter (6th c. encaustic icon).

For example, one of Mathis’ arguments against the papacy is that: “All my [Jesus’] specially appointed apostles, not just Peter, are my expressly commissioned authoritative spokesmen for my church.” Is there any Catholic on Earth who denies this, who thinks that Jesus had only One Apostle?  On the contrary, here’s how the Catholic Church describes Her own ecclesiology: “Just as in the Gospel, the Lord so disposing, St. Peter and the other apostles constitute one apostolic college, so in a similar way the Roman Pontiff, the successor of Peter, and the bishops, the successors of the apostles, are joined together” (Lumen Gentium 22).

So how does Mathis’ argument disprove the papacy?  If anything, he seems to be proving our point, but too ignorant of Catholicism to know it.  I suppose if the Catholic Church consisted only of the pope, with no other bishops, this would be a good argument. But surely, Mathis realizes that’s not how the Catholic Church is structured.  Nor does pointing out the fact that Jesus had Twelve Apostles disprove that Peter has a unique role within the Twelve, a fact that (the real) Jesus demonstrated several times in Scripture (e.g., Luke 22:31-32).

This is the general pattern: a string of Protestant proof-texts battling straw-man parodies of Catholic teaching, written from the perspective of fake Jesus. Ordinarily, this kind of intellectually-lazy anti-Catholicism is what you’d expect find on the fringes of the Evangelical blogosphere. But in this case, Mathis has quite a soap box, since he’s the executive editor of John Piper’s popular blog, Desiring God. So here are some very basic responses to the arguments that Mathis raises (or, often as not, hints at).

My answer will be in two parts.  Today, I want to address the first three arguments he presents: Mary and the Saints, the Eucharist, and the Papacy.  Tomorrow, I’ll address the last three: Sola Scriptura, Priestly Celibacy, and Justification.

Mathis starts with the usual proof-texting of 1 Timothy 2:5, and his argument against prayer to the Saints gets worse from there:

You have heard that it was said to those of old, “Pray to Mary, and petition the Saints.” But I say to you that there is only one mediator between God and men (1 Timothy 2:5). You need no other go-between than me. Do you not know that you already have an advocate with the Father (1 John 2:1)? Do you not know that I am the way, and the truth, and the life, and that no one comes to the Father except through me (John 14:6)? So, when you pray, ask in my name, that the Father may be glorified in the Son (John 14:13).

I’ve previously said that this use of 1 Timothy 2:5 is “the most egregious use of proof-texting, taking a verse wholly out of its context, and severing it even from the second half of the sentence.” I stand by that characterization.  Here’s the context (1 Tim. 2:1-6):

First of all, then, I urge that supplications, prayers, intercessions, and thanksgivings be made for all men, for kings and all who are in high positions, that we may lead a quiet and peaceable life, godly and respectful in every way. This is good, and it is acceptable in the sight of God our Savior, who desires all men to be saved and to come to the knowledge of the truth. For there is one God, and there is one mediator between God and men, the man Christ Jesus, who gave himself as a ransom for all, the testimony to which was borne at the proper time.

In context, then, 1 Timothy 2:5-6 is saying that Jesus, and only Jesus, bridges the divide between God and man through the Ransom He paid on the Cross. His uniqueness is true in two senses. Christ is the only man who makes this ultimate sacrifice, but He’s also the only Person of the Trinity to serve as our Ransom. So Christ is our Mediator in a sense that even the Holy Spirit isn’t.

Georg Pencz, Holy Trinity (1530)

But Mathis tears v. 5, half of a sentence, out of its Scriptural context, and conflates it with intercessory prayer, or having “an advocate with the Father.”  So from Christ is the sole Mediator, Mathis concludes that Christ is the sole Intercessor and sole Advocate.  That’s a two-fold problem:

• Intercessor: St. Paul begins the passage in question by asking for intercessory prayer (1 Tim. 2:1-2).
• Advocate: 1 John 2:1 simply says that Christ is “an” Advocate before the Father. To say that Christ is the only Advocate would be to deny that the Holy Spirit is also our Advocate. But in John 14:26, Jesus calls the Holy Spirit our Advocate. 

Reflect for a moment on the role that Each Person of the Trinity plays in the economy of salvation. Christ’s Death serves as a sort of Bridge between the Father and fallen mankind. The Holy Spirit leads us to the Bridge, and applies Christ’s merits. We cooperate with the Holy Spirit in bringing souls to Christ, and in this way, can save others (I know that Protestants are often uncomfortable with saying that anyone besides God “saves” someone, but Scripture is clear — Jude 1:22-23; 1 Tim. 4:16; Ezekiel 3:18-19).

One of the ways that we cooperate with the Holy Spirit is in praying for one another. James 5:14-16 says:

Is any among you sick? Let him call for the elders of the church, and let them pray over him, anointing him with oil in the name of the Lord; and the prayer of faith will save the sick man, and the Lord will raise him up; and if he has committed sins, he will be forgiven. Therefore confess your sins to one another, and pray for one another, that you may be healed. The prayer of a righteous man has great power in its effects.

Pitting Christ’s unique role in the plan of salvation against this model of intercessory prayer is pitting Jesus against Scripture (and Scripture’s Author), not just “Rome.”

Moritz Daniel Oppenheim, Seder (The Passover Meal) (1867)

The next proposition that Mathis’ fake Jesus sets out to rebut is this one:

You have heard that it was said, “Kneel before the consecrated host, and worship the one sacrificed in the mass.”

Incredibly, Mathis manages to avoid all of the Scriptural evidence that’s explicitly about the Eucharist. For example, he ignores it when Christ says of the Eucharist, “This is My Body” and “This is My Blood” (Matthew 26:26-28; Mark 14:22-24; Luke 22:19-20; 1 Corinthians 11:24-25), or the six different ways that Jesus says that the Eucharist is really His Body and Blood in John 6:53-58.  Instead, his argument boils down to a misunderstanding of the “once for all” nature of Christ’s Sacrifice, which I’ve already answered recently.

He ends his argument: “I [Jesus] meant it when I said on the cross, ‘It is finished’ (John 19:30).” It’s true, Jesus did mean it. But Mathis has no idea what Jesus was referring to in that passage. The best exegesis of this passage, in my opinion, is the “Fourth Cup” Passover explanation given by Scott Hahn.

In a nutshell, it’s a Passover reference, and actually proves the connection between the Eucharist and Calvary that Mathis spent the rest of the paragraph trying to refute. The Passover Liturgy consists of four stages, marked by four cups of wine.  After the third cup, “the cup of blessing,” Jews pray the Great Hallel (Psalm 136) and drink the fourth cup.

From 1 Cor. 10:16, we know that the cup of blessing is the Eucharistic Chalice. But instead of finishing the Passover Liturgy, Jesus has the Apostles pray Psalm 136 and then leave (Mark 14:26). He then avoids drinking anything for nearly twenty-four hours so that He can drink the Fourth Cup on the Cross. That’s why John 19:28 tells us that Jesus says “I thirst,” not just because He was thirsty (He’s surely been thirsty for hours), but “so that Scripture would be fulfilled.” Now read John 19:30: “When he had received the drink, Jesus said, ‘It is finished.’ With that, he bowed his head and gave up his spirit.” The first underlined part is tied to the second: “it” that Jesus just finished is the fulfillment of the Passover.  In completing His Passover Liturgy in this manner, Jesus forever united the Last Supper and Calvary as a single Liturgical Act.

Like the arguments against Mary and the Saints and against the Eucharist, Mathis’ arguments against the papacy rely on proof-texting passages stripped of context. Here’s what his fake Jesus says:

The Rock on which I have built my church (Matthew 16:18) for two millennia is not Peter alone, but the band of the apostles together (Ephesians 2:20).

In context, the claim that Jesus meant the Rock to refer to the Apostles banded together is easily debunked. In Matthew 16:15, the real Jesus says to the Twelve, “But who do you [plural] say that I am?” Only one of the Twelve answers, Simon. He acknowledges Jesus by His proper Title: “You are the Christ, the Son of the living God” (Mt. 16:16). Jesus responds by blessing Simon, and bestowing a title upon him (Mt. 16:17-19):

“Blessed are you, Simon Bar-Jona! For flesh and blood has not revealed this to you, but my Father who is in heaven. And I tell you, you are Peter, and on this rock I will build my church, and the powers of death shall not prevail against it. I will give you 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 loosed in heaven.”

In the span of those three sentences, Jesus clarifies that He’s talking only to Peter eleven times:

Commission to St. Peter, Sarleinsbach altarpiece (1904)

So Jesus refers to Peter in the second-person singular eleven times in three sentences. He seems to go out of His way to emphasize that, unlike His prior question (Mt. 16:15, which was directed to the Twelve), this blessing is directly only to Peter. And how does Mathis handle this? By inventing a Jesus who says “The Rock on which I have built my church (Matthew 16:18) for two millennia is not Peter alone,” and  invoking Matthew 16:18 as the Scriptural support!

What about the second half of the argument here, then, the one about Ephesians 2:20? In 1 Corinthians 3:11, St. Paul says that Jesus is the Foundation of the Church. But in Ephesians 2:20, he says that the Apostles and prophets are. And Jesus refers to Peter as the Rock upon which He’ll build His Church in the passage we just saw. Are these three images contradictory? Only if you try to meld them together into a single, overly-literal metaphor. In context, each of the three makes sense, and there’s no contradiction. In fact, Matthew 16 shows how they can be rectified: Peter is individually blessed after confessing Christ on behalf of the Twelve. So it’s not Jesus v. Peter v. the other Eleven. It’s Peter leading the Eleven in service of Jesus Christ.

Mathis doesn’t seem to get this. He seems to think that if the Body of Christ has authority, this is somehow a threat to Christ, so his fake Jesus says things like this about the Apostles: “Their authority is not their own, but mine. I am the one who has authority (Matthew 7:29), not your ecclesiastical scribes.” The real Jesus gave His authority to His Apostles (Luke 9:1; Luke 10:19), and poured out the power of the Holy Spirit upon them (Acts 1:8). That’s because the real Jesus isn’t threatened by His Church.

I think that’s enough for today.  Tomorrow, I’ll address his arguments on Sola Scriptura, Priestly Celibacy, and Justification.  If you couldn’t guess, they don’t fare much better.