The word “Pope” of course, is not itself in the Bible. The broader and more accurate question would be, “Did Jesus make Peter the Head of the Church in his Stead?”
That gets a simple “no”. Christ declared that only HE was the head of the church (Eph.1:22, 5:23, Col. 1:18). The apostles realized that it would be usurping Christ's rightful place as head of the church if a person or particular church was designated as the head of the universal or "catholic" church. Such a person would then “lord” over the church, which Christ warned about.
Some people in the traditional Roman Catholic Church claim that their church is uniquely the Church of Christ, by virtue of the fact they claim to follow the successor of Peter. Interestingly enough, the Apostle Paul warns against such thinking, even explicitly rebuking Christians who said they followed Peter as their leader.
What I mean is this; One of you say "I follow Paul"; another "I follow Apollos"; another "I follow Cephas (Peter)"; still another "I follow Christ". Is Christ divided? Was Paul crucified for you? Where you baptized into the name of Paul? ( I Cor. 1:12,13) Paul would have none of this sectarian squabbling. This is the same mentality that fuels the denominational system today. One of the most interesting facts about this is that idea of Peter being the first Pope or bishop of the first church is completely absent in early history. The historians Josephus and Eusebius, as well as virtually all of the Christian writers for the first two centuries give the role of the first bishop to James "brother of the Lord". There is a number of biblical texts mentioning of Jesus' brothers (Matthew 12:46; 13:55; Mark 3:31; Luke 8:19; John 2:12; 7:3-10; Acts 1:14 ) James is the one who gets the most individual attention in the scriptures ( Acts 12:17; 15:12-21; 21:17-25; Galatians 1:19; 2:9) and is also mentioned quite commonly by most of the histories of the early church. Just to be clear, there is no indication that the role of overseer of the church (bishop) was not meant to be a substitute for Christ as head. The early church did use the term “Vicar of Christ” meaning one who rules in Christ’s stead, but that term was applied to the Holy Spirit! (Tertullian, Prescription Against Heretics XXVII). It wasn’t until many centuries later that the title was usurped by one particular bishop. So the role of James, although the first bishop, is not to be understood in the artificial and novel role of “Pope”. The priority of James is consistent with Paul’s account in Galatians 2:9, when he says that he went to meet those who seemed to be pillars, and lists them as James, Peter and John. This is also consistent with the Books of Acts, where James presides over the first Council in Jerusalem. (Acts 15:13) In this case, both Peter and Paul make testimonies regarding the work of the Spirit among the Gentiles, and James makes a ruling and dictates the letter that becomes essentially, the first apostolic epistle. The fact that James was the first bishop and had priority was no secret in the early church. It was universally accepted for at least the first 200 years. |
