How to Stay Above Deception Part 7

THE CHURCH REFORMATION

By Apostle Felix

I give you the name Peter, a stone. And this truth of who I am will be the bedrock foundation on which I will build my church – my legislative assembly, and the power of death will not be able to overpower it! Matthew 16: 18

The church of the Lord Jesus Christ has experienced many transitions since inception. It is these transitions of the church that we need to examine and study in order to understand where we are as the church. It is very interesting to notice that most of the church behaviors are simply recycled.

The birth of the church caused so much an uproar in the world of that time. Christianity spread throughout the Roman Empire, with persecutions because it propagated monotheism in polytheistic societies. However, the church grew stronger and influential across the Roman empire so much that the influence of the church affected the political spheres of the time. Due to its influence and power, the government decided to legalize Christianity by Emperor Constantine 1 in 313. In 380, the church became a state church, and that the birth of the Roman Catholicism. In order to protect the church from doctrinal corruptions, the church came up with a Nicene Creed, which was also called the Constantinople Creed.

It was a statement of the orthodox faith of the early Christian church in opposition to certain heresies, especially Arianism. These heresies, which disturbed the church during the fourth century, concerned the doctrine of the trinity and of the person of Christ. Both the Greek (Eastern) and the Latin (Western) church held this creed in honor, The Creed was adopted in the year, 325 and later amended in 381.

Theological disputes arose in the church, between the Catholic church and the Eastern Orthodox church in 1054. This dispute led to the splitting of the church over theological differences. The separation was over whether the Holy Spirit proceeded from the Father and the Son or not, the fallibility of the papacy and whether unleavened or leavened bread should be used for communion. The Church was split into two: The West Catholic church and the East Orthodox Church. The Catholic upheld the procession of Holy Spirit as from the Father, and that became a fundamental teaching of the church.

However, the church began to decline in its doctrinal morality because the Catholic church started to integrate unbiblical practices and dogmas into the church. The Catholic church introduced indulgences in the church. The Catechism of Roman Catholic describes an indulgence as “a remission before God of the temporal punishment due to sins whose guilt has already been forgiven, which the faithful Christian who is duly disposed gains under certain prescribed conditions.”

Continues tomorrow…