One and the same thing, so it's either both or neither.
The Catholic church is the same as the Lord?
Not in the slightest.
The Catholic church did not die for our sins on the cross, was not raised from the dead, did not ascend to the Father nor send the Spirit of God.
It was the Holy Spirit who inspired Scripture to be written and who interprets it to us. Jesus said that the Spirit would take what was his (Jesus') and give it to the 12 disciples, John 16:14. Some of these disciples wrote the Gospels.
It was Jesus, our Lord, who said "I am the Bread of life", "I am the true Vine" and "this is my blood, shed for the forgiveness of sins."
It was Jesus who celebrated a final Passover meal with his disciples before his crucifixion, and it was he who told us to do this in memory of him. All of this was from the Lord, not the Catholic church.
See, the Church existed before the Bible, put the Bible together and had the authority, given by Jesus, and the historical context to interpret what was meant.
Jesus told his disciples that the Spirit would remind them of everything that he had said - because they would be the ones to proclaim the Gospel and teach the faith to new believers. After the resurrection Jesus stayed on earth for 40 days before he ascended to the Father and taught his disciples, Acts of the Apostles 1:2-3.
Some of the Gospels were written by these disciples; directly, or indirectly (Mark.)
It is the Holy Spirit who inspired these Gospels, and Paul's epistles, to be written and it is He who interprets, and applies, God's word to us.
When the NT was being compiled the criteria for inclusion was the books that were by Apostles, by close friends/disciples of the apostles, or were true to apostolic teaching. Some books, like the Gospels of Peter and Thomas, did not make it into the canon.
And the Apostles were still Jews; Jews who believed that the Messiah had come - they weren't Catholics.
.No, we say that Jesus said so. Because he did.
No he didn't.
If he had said "on PETER I will build my church", that would be clear and unambiguous. Although I have asked what it means in practice to have a church built on Peter and received no reply.
Jesus said "On this ROCK I will build my church".
Catholics say, "oh, he said, 'you are Peter and on this rock I will build my church'; so the church is built on Peter."
Others say , "yes he said that, but the Rock on which the church is built is Peter's declaration, revealed to him by God, that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God."
A church that is built on a human, whatever that means, will be fallible, finite and eventually fail. In this case, Peter denied Jesus - not only failed to admit that he was a disciple, but swore with an oath that he did not know what the servant girl was talking about. I am certain that had anyone said to Peter after Pentecost, "the church is built on you" he would have strongly denied it and pointed people to Jesus. Because that's what he did after the resurrection; he pointed people to Jesus.
A church that is founded by, and built on, the Son of God, however, cannot ultimately fail, even if the devil does his best to inflict wounds along the way.
Jesus is the foundation of the church and a living stone - Peter said that.
I don't know where that came from. No I'm not a Gnostic.
You said:
Because historically, what is meant by what was written was known by the original Church, and then changed 1500 years later.
That implies that either the early church knew something about the Lord's Supper but chose not to write it down so it is not in the NT, or what was written in the NT about the Lord's Supper wasn't what happened, and that 1500 years later someone changed Scripture to reflect what the apostles knew.
Yeah we do know because our Church has the history to back it up.
Claiming that you, or a group, has access to special knowledge that interprets Scripture and which no one else has, sounds just like Gnosticism to me.
