It is the proud boast of Roman Catholicism that the Church of God is founded on St. Peter, and that there is no salvation outside of it. We read: " The Pope is the Universal Pastor, because Jesus Christ said to St. Peter, the first Pope, ' Thou art Peter, and upon this rock I will build My Church, and I will give to thee the keys of the Kingdom of Heaven, and whatsoever thou shalt bind upon earth shall be bound also in heaven, and whatsoever thou shalt loose on earth, it shall be loosed also in heaven.' Therefore all those who do not recognize the Roman Pontiff as their head, do not belong to the Church of Jesus Christ " (The Catholic Faith, a compendium authorized by H. H. Pope Pius X, p. 19).
Place this beside Scripture, and it will be seen how utterly false this claim is, what an insult it is to the blessed Son of God, what a shameless perversion of the very letter of Scripture. There must be many erudite Greek scholars in the Church of Rome, who must know that Scripture does not support this claim.
The Scripture says: " Thou art Peter [petros, masculine] and upon this rock [petra, feminine] I will build My Church."
It is plain that the Church is built upon petra, and not upon petros, upon Christ the Son of God, and not upon Peter. The words are plain and simple and incapable of any other meaning. A reliable Greek dictionary gives the following meanings of these words:
PETROS, a piece of rock,
PETRA, a rock, a crag, a stone.
A stone is not a rock, but a piece of rock. We can build on a rock, but not on a stone.
A reliable English dictionary gives the following meanings:
STONE, a large mass of earthy or mineral matter; the hard material out of which the rock consists.
ROCK, a large mass of stone.
Scripture itself gives us the meaning of Peter's new name: " And when Jesus beheld him, He said, Thou art Simon, the son of Jona; thou shalt be called Cephas, which is by interpretation, A stone [Greek, petros]" (John 1:4242And he brought him to Jesus. And when Jesus beheld him, he said, Thou art Simon the son of Jona: thou shalt be called Cephas, which is by interpretation, A stone. (John 1:42)).
It is very singular that the word petros only occurs in this passage, John 1:4242And he brought him to Jesus. And when Jesus beheld him, he said, Thou art Simon the son of Jona: thou shalt be called Cephas, which is by interpretation, A stone. (John 1:42), other than being enshrined many times in the name, Peter. On the contrary, the word of rock, Greek petra, occurs fifteen times. It is used of the rock on which a man builded his house (Matt. 7:2424Therefore whosoever heareth these sayings of mine, and doeth them, I will liken him unto a wise man, which built his house upon a rock: (Matthew 7:24)), he would surely not build his house on a stone; of the rocks rending, when our Lord died (Matt. 27:5050Jesus, when he had cried again with a loud voice, yielded up the ghost. (Matthew 27:50); of " The rock of offense ", clearly Christ Himself (Rom. 9:3333As it is written, Behold, I lay in Sion a stumblingstone and rock of offence: and whosoever believeth on him shall not be ashamed. (Romans 9:33)); and of hiding in the rocks of the mountains (Rev. 6: is), not hiding in the stones of the mountains but in caves, rocks, etc.
It will be seen how ridiculous it would be to use the word petros, a stone, and not petra, a rock, in these instances. The use of the word Cephas, meaning rock-man, is interesting, as showing that Peter was not the rock, but a rock-MAN, as being one built into the one and only foundation, Jesus Christ Himself.
St. Augustine in his day stressed clearly the difference between Petros and petra, expounding as follows: " Thou art Petros, and on this petra which thou hast confessed, saying Thou art the Christ, the Son of the Living God, will I build My Church: that is to say, on Myself. I will build thee on Myself, not Myself on thee."
So this celebrated early Father contradicts this fantastic claim of Rome.
It is upon petra, the great rock foundation that Christ builds His Church, not upon Peter, for Peter was a stone built into the foundation in common with ALL believers from that day to this.
One verse of Scripture forever shatters Rome's claim that the Church is built upon Peter. We read:
The Church is closely founded on Jesus Christ, whom Peter confessed in the ever-memorable words,
Every believer truly making this confession along with Peter is built on the one and only foundation, even our Lord Jesus Christ.