Question: Did Christ establish a Church while on the earth?

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Question: Did Christ establish a Church while on the earth?

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Introduction to Criticism

Protestant critics of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints and some others allege that Jesus Christ did not establish a formal Church while on the earth. For protestants this is related to their belief in the Invisible Church which is the belief that the elect of God are only known to him. This contrasts with the notion of a Visible Church (espoused by faiths like Catholicism as well as that of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints) which is the belief in a formal organization established to administer sacraments and which has authority to preach the Gospel.

This article will weigh in on this debate with sources that support belief in a Visible Church as well as reconcile passages that may support Invisible Church within the larger context of Latter-day Saint theology. It will be seen that the concept of a formal organization is known to the primitive Church while also believing that believers form a larger cosmic family, a concept that is eerily similar to the concept of Zion elucidated by texts translated/revealed early in Latter-day Saint history by founder Joseph Smith. Thus they pose no problem for an orthodox Latter-day Saint's worldview.

Response to Criticism

A Formal Church Existed

The concept of a visible Church can be supported by several texts in the New Testament.

Matthew 16:18-19 Matthew 16:18 is a classic passage that supports belief in a formal Church established by Christ:

And I tell you that you are Peter, and on this rock I will build my church, and the gates of Hades will not overcome it. (NIV)

The reference to "my church" (μου τὴν ἐκκλησίαν) may signify that Jesus wanted to build up a singular Church. In subsequent verses Jesus clearly wished to establish a formal authority for declaring doctrine. He told Peter in the next verse (Matthew 19:19):

I will give you the keys of the kingdom of heaven; whatever you bind on earth will be bound in heaven, and whatever you loose on earth will be loosed in heaven. (NIV)

On the language of "binding" and "loosing," two protestant scholars wrote:

19. I will give you the keys of the kingdom of heaven. Cf. Isa 22.22; 1.18 and 3.7 (Jesus has the keys of Death and Hades as well as the key of David); 3 Bar. 11.2 (the angel Michael is the ‘holder of the keys of the kingdom of Heaven’); 3 En. 18.18 (‘Anapi’el YHH the prince keeps the keys of the palaces of the heaven of Arabot); 48 C 3 (Metatron has the keys to the treasure chamber of heaven). Heaven was conceived of as having gates or doors . . . . and whatever you bind on earth will be bound in heaven, and whatever you loose on earth will be loosed in heaven. C. 18.18 and Jn 20.23. Peter is the authoritative teacher without peer. He has the power to declare what is permitted and what is not permitted. Cf. 23.13: ‘But woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! For you shut people out of the kingdom. For you do not go in nor allow those who want to go in to do so’. Here, as the context proves, the scribes shut the door to the kingdom by issuing false doctrine. The image is closely related to 16.19, and the inference lies near to hand that just as the kingdom itself is taken from the Jewish leaders and given to the church (21.43), so are the keys of the kingdom taken from the scribes and Pharisees and given to Peter. Supportive of this is the broader context of Peter’s confession. In the immediately preceding 16.5-12 Jesus warns: ‘Beware of the leaven of the scribes and Pharisees.’ Matthew takes this to be about the teaching of the scribes and Pharisees. It would make good sense for the evangelist, in the very next paragraph, to tell a story in which Jesus replaces the Jewish academy with his own ‘chief rabbi’.

Another protestant scholar, Oscar Cullmann, wrote:

What do the expressions “bind” and “loose” signify? According to Rabbinical usage two explanations are equally possible: “prohibit” and “permit,” that is, “establish rules” or “put under the ban” and “acquit.”

Jesus, then, is establishing that Peter is being given a formal authority to declare and establish doctrine.

Craig S. Keener, one of the foremost Protestant scholars of the New Testament wrote:

That authority is exercised in binding and losing, which were technical terms for the pronouncement of rabbis on what was and was not permitted (to bind was to forbid, to loose to permit). This verse therefore probably refers primarily to a legislative authority in the church.

This same language of "binding" and "loosing" is used in reference to all twelve Apostles in Matthew 18:17-18. We can soundly infer that the same logic is being applied to them as it was to Peter.

Lothar Coenen expresses doubt in The New International Dictionary of New Testament theology that this passage can be used to support the notion that Christ intended the visible Church to come into being. The aforementioned passages in Matthew 16 and 18 are the only times in all the Gospels that the word most often translated as Church in the NT (ekklesía, "ἐκκλησία") is used. "In all probability[,]" he writes, "Jesus himself called together the Twelve, but did not found the ekklesia as such in his own lifetime, not even through the institution of the Lord's Supper." Though "[t]his by itself would not settle the question whether he intended the church to come into being."

Passages that Might Support Invisible Church Support Latter-day Saint Conceptions of Zion

Notes (click to expand)

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