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The Church of Christ is made up of born again believers. I came out of the Catholic Church and joined a church made up of Born Again Believers. The Catholic Church is NOT the spotless bride of Christ. The collective of Born Again Believers all over the world from the time of Christ up until His return are the Spotless Bride of Christ. They are made spotless by His sacrifice, because He willingly went to the cross as the Spotless Lamb of God, where God put the sins of all those who would believe on His son and put His own Son to death as propitiation to satisfy the judgements of God. 2 Cor 5:21 says "For He (God) made Him (Jesus) who knew no sin to be sin for us, that we might become the righteousness of God in Him."
Only those who are Born Again will be part of the Spotless Bride of Christ.
That's an improper exegesis of the text. Peter or in the Greek Petros = stone, pebble or small rock. Rock in Greek is Petra = Rock, cliff, or ledge.
Christ was referring to the statement Peter had made about Christ when he said "You are the Christ, the Son of the living God.”
17 Jesus answered and said to him, “Blessed are you, Simon Bar-Jonah, for flesh and blood has not revealed this to you, but My Father who is in heaven. 18 And I also say to you that you are Peter, and on this rock I will build My church, and the gates of Hades shall not prevail against it.
It is also evident that Peter was not the first Pope or even the head of the Church in Rome because in Acts 15 Paul goes to meet with the Apostles and Elders of the church to discuss whether gentiles need to be circumcised, and it is James, the brother of Jesus, who makes the ruling for the church, and not Peter.
Catholic teaching is that Peter is the first Pope and that there is a direct line of succession from the Pope of today all the way to Peter, except history tells us otherwise. I was once a practicing Catholic and was taught doctrines of Catholicism. I left in 1982 and became born again in 1989, and joined a Bible preaching church, that teaches sola scriptura, sola gratia and sola fide, that is, scripture alone, by grace alone, through faith alone. That is to say salvation is not by works, but by the Grace of God, through faith which is a gift of God, based on the Gospel which is the Word of God.
In Aramiac there is only one word for rock and that is Kephas. So it would say "your are Kepha and upon said Kepha I will build my Church." Augustine is only 350 years separated from Christ so I trust him over you. And Cyprian was only 200 years separated.
The exegesis of the early Church Fathers is far more accurate than anything someone 2000 years removed can say.
The New Testament was written in Greek, and that is why the distinction between pebble or small rock, and the rock or boulder of the statement Peter made, which was as Jesus said, "revealed to you from my Father who is in heaven."
Notice that a few verses later, Jesus calls Peter Satan. "22 Then Peter took Him aside and began to rebuke Him, saying, “Far be it from You, Lord; this shall not happen to You!”
23 But He turned and said to Peter, “Get behind Me, Satan! You are an offense to Me, for you are not mindful of the things of God, but the things of men.”