Militant, Suffering and Triumphant Church

 A Roman Catholic View of the Church

Roman Catholicism classifies the Church of Jesus Christ into three categories - the Church Militant (on earth), the Church Suffering (in Purgatory) and the Church Triumphant (in Heaven).

The Church Militant

This idea in Roman Catholicism is probably best summarized in the 1994 Catechism of the Catholic Church, page 358, #1426. "This is the struggle of conversion directed toward holiness and eternal life to which the Lord never ceases to call us." In "Without Money and Without Price", Daniel Shanks offers a rebuttal. He writes, "The aim of the Gospel is to qualify the sinner, not to direct the sinner to qualify himself."

The question, put simply is, "Is the end of our life here (The Beatific Vision of God or Eternal Life) reached by proving our qualification for this blessed state, or by being made qualified because of God's imputed righteousness?

The Church Militant loses its aura when we realize that people are made members of this Church long before they could voluntarily enlist, by a sacramental act performed by a man. We know this can not be a new birth into spiritual life because John 1:13 tells us the New Birth is not accomplished by the will of man.

The Church Militant finally loses all credibility when we realize that those who eventually graduate to The Church Triumphant do so as a result of meritorious living. The 1994 Catechism of the Catholic Church plainly states (page 10, #16), "The ways of reaching beatitude [Heaven] - through right conduct, with the help of law and grace, through conduct that fulfills the twofold commandment of charity, specified in God's Ten Commandments."

The Church Suffering

It is easy to understand the basic doctrinal difficulties with this setup. The Church Suffering is suffering in Purgatory to remit the remainders of the temporal punishment due for sins already confessed and supposedly forgiven. Since the Bible says nothing about this temporal punishment, Roman Catholic apologists rely on Tradition.

The logic they use to prove temporal punishment is amazing. Sin, they say, is stealing from God. When you steal from anyone you must ask for forgiveness, but you are also obliged to pay back what you stole. This is true when you steal from God. Forgiveness, which is the absolution for eternal punishment, comes in the Confessional, and paying God back is called temporal punishment. This can be paid on earth through giving alms, bearing your cross and saying indulgenced prayers.

These indulgenced prayers owe their efficacy to the Treasury of Merit, which is a vast reservoir which comes from the infinite merits of Christ, the superior merits of Mary, and the excess merits of the saints, who apparently dropped into this pool of merit the extra merit they did not need for Heaven.

The whole scenario fails when one considers the actual cleansing is accomplished only by Jesus Christ. Hebrews 1:3 tells us that Christ, by Himself, effected our cleansing from sin. The Roman Catholic Confraternity translation renders this passage "Christ has effected man's purgation from sin."

However, the Roman Catholic plan tells us that if we have any unpaid temporal punishment remaining when we die, we go to Purgatory. The Roman Catholic St. Peter's Catechism solemnly tells us that all of the Suffering Church will get to Heaven when "they have atoned for their sins." They atone in Purgatory through suffering.

The Bible has a different message. "For Christ hath once suffered for sins, the just for the unjust, that he might bring us to God" (1 Peter 3:18).

The Church Triumphant

At first blush, this sounds like a glorious thought. We think of hymns like "'Tis a glorious church, without spot or wrinkle, washed in the blood of the Lamb." We remember Bible verses like "Thou art worthy . . . for thou wast slain, and hast redeemed us to God." One cannot fail to be moved by the songs of triumph that eminate from the redeemed in Heaven.

When looking more closely at the Catholic concept, we have serious problems. If the Church is triumphant, what caused the triumph? 1 Peter 1:3 speaks of God's mercy that has begotten us again to a lively hope, with a place in Heaven reserved for us.

One often comes upon a different view of mercy in Catholicism. A Catholic lady wrote to a priest who had a column in Leaves, a very conservative Catholic journal. She was concerned about her mother who was suffering during her bout with cancer. The priest wrote to assure her all was well. "Do not worry, Mary," he said, "your Mother is buying mercy from God."

Romans 6:23 assures us eternal life is a gift from God. The Teaching of Christ, a Roman Catholic catechism, seems to agree with this. However, after asserting that heaven is indeed a gift, they qualify this by stating, "Not only does God give Heaven as a free gift, He gives man the extra gift by allowing him to gain blessedness as a merited reward."

If the Church Triumphant is in Heaven, we wonder which Heaven they are in. For all in God's Heaven are there solely because God sees merit in their lives - merit earned by our Lord Jesus Christ and His death upon the cross.

As the hymn writer truly said,

"Nothing in my hand I bring; simply to thy cross I cling

"Naked, come to Thee for dress; helpless, look to Thee for grace

"Foul, I to the fountain fly; wash me, Saviour, or I die."

The Visible Church

One reason we go to lengths to discredit the Roman Catholic concept of the Church is that the very nature of the Church is a subject for debate.

The point of argument concerns Visibility and Invisibility of the Church.

The Catholic Church has always been insistent upon the visibility of the church. They do not mean that there are many local churches, each of which is visible. Nor, of course, are they referring to a building that one can see.

By a visible church they mean an organization whose structure can be plainly seen, and whose members can be easily identified. They maintain that a hierarchical structure, an attribute almost always attributed to them alone, is a necessary component of the true church.

(While the word hierarchical or hierarchy is popularly used to mean any organizational structure, its actual meaning is restricted to being "the rule of priests.")

They see the rudiments of this organizational structure in the New Testament, and maintain that if Peter was the head of the church. there must have been a visible church over which he and his successors would rule.

Catholics would freely admit that the visibility of their Church subsists in its government, i.e., Pope, Cardinals, Bishops, etc. Some would even argue that this form of government is a necessity for any viable organization, be it religious or secular.

The Lord Jesus Christ did not make many rules about the makeup of His Church. Most of the instructions for local church government and discipline are found in the Pauline Epistles.

However, what He did say is important because we are commissioned to teach that which He taught (Matthew 28:20). Because of this, the few glimpses Christ gives us about His church are very important.

The first mention Jesus made of His Church was a promise to establish it. This establshment was to be according to the foundational rules He Himself laid down. He said "upon this rock," and while we are not tied to the "Church Fathers" to interpret scripture for us, it is notable that a large majority of them felt it was Peter's confession of faith that Christ had reference to. Surprisingly, this interpretation has also found its way into the 1994 Catechism of the Catholic Church (#424, page 106, "On the rock of this faith confessed by St.Peter, Christ built his Church.")

The second mention Jesus made was in Matthew 18:17 - "And if he neglect to hear thee, tell it to the church . . ." Roman Catholics insist that this must mean their concept of a world-wide visible church, but Jesus is talking about disagreements between brothers. The first court of appeal to iron out the problem is between the two individuals. If it can't be resolved, two or three witrnesses are to be called, and if they do not hear the witnesses the matter is to be brought to the church. In the context of what the verse is all about, the only logical conclusion is that it is speaking of a local church, a visible group.

In the third, the word "church" is not mentioned, but Jesus is speaking of some movement in the future which will consist among the apostles. That verse, which becomes pivotal to this question, is found in Matthew 20:25,26:

"The princes of the Gentiles exercise dominion over them, and they that are great exercise authority upon them. BUT IT SHALL NOT BE SO AMONG YOU. . ." (emphasis added).

This can mean one of only two things:

(1) A Church governed according to the way the Gentile powers are ruled is not a true Church of Christ - or

(2) A Church governed according to the way of Gentile powers is a disobedient Church of Christ.

If (1) is true, the Catholic Church is not a Christian Church.

If (2) is true, if the Catholic Church is a Christian Church, it is disobedient.

To find out which is true, we will have to obey 1 Thes 5:21 - "Prove all things: hold fast that which is good." We can only prove all things by going to God's Word, which is truth (John 17:17).

Twice in the Book of Revelation (2:6 and 2:15) we see the word Nicolaitanes. This word signifies the conquering of the laity by an uplifted clergy. In both instances, the testimony of God is "I hate this."

The subjection of the laity to the clergy is a normal result of a hierarchical church which tends to have uplifted clergy. We see this in Roman Catholicism, albeit not as readily as we might have seen it centuries ago. It is unfortunate that we also see it in many Baptist congregations.

God foresaw this problem's arising as He moved Peter to speak directly to the shepherds of God's sheep. In 1 Peter 5:3 He says, "Neither as being lords over God's heritage, but being ensamples to the flock."

It will interest you to note that in the context of that verse we have the warning of another mark that is usually prevalent in ministries that are inclined toward Nicolaitanism. Peter writes in verse 2, "taking the oversight . . . not for filthy lucre." (While it may be necessary to point out that the old term "filthy lucre" had to do with illgotten financial gains, and the term may be judged archaic, I rather like the old term. "Filthy lucre" sounds more graphic than "illgotten gains"!)

Putting all this together, we see that if the Catholic Church is merely a disobedient Christian system, God preserved that which He hated and tolerated blatant disobedience to His Word for many centuries. It seems a different scenario is called for.

The Catholic will be quick to point out that the preservation of the Catholic Church, in spite of its many weaknesses, is proof of divine preservation. We would agree that it is a proof of supernatural preservation, but would not be prepared to believe that supernatural protector is God.