The Rock Foundation of the Church

The Rock Foundation of the Church. BY A. ADOLPH RAMSEYER.

whom say ye that I am? And Simon Peter answered and But said,Thou art Christ, the son of the living God. And Jesus answered and said unto him, Blessed art thou Simon Bar-jona: for flesh and blood hath not revealed it unto thee, but my Father which is in heaven. And I say also unto thee, That thou art Peter, and upon this rock will I build

my Church : and the gates of hell shall not prevail against it. And I will give unto thee the keys of the kingdom of heaven.

This passage, which is frequently quoted by our elders, (Matt. 16: 15-19) in order to prove the necessity of revelation in the Church, is full, I believe,of much wider significance. It is

indeed true that each one who repents and is baptized into the Church of Christ receives by revelation a testimony of the divinity of the work of the Lord. But this is not all: Peter being asked his individual opinion of Jesus, answers, Thou art Christ, viz., the Anointed, the Messiah. In antithesis to this testimony of Simon Peter, Jesus proclaims Peter to be a rock (Petros, or Petra in Greek, Cephas in Syriac, the mother tongue of our Lord and his disciples, see John 1: 40) upon which Christ's Church was to be built; not upon Peter alone, but upon Peter and the other eleven apostles, as Paul says, when writing to the Ephesians: Ye are built upon the foundation of the apostles and prophets, Jesus Christ himself being the chief corner stone" (2: 20). This promise of our Lord began to be fulfiled on the day of Pentecost, when, through the preach- ing of Peter and the eleven, three thousand souls were baptized and added to the Church. But the word rock has yet another meaning in connection

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with Christ and his apostles. What are apostles and prophets if not messengers sent of God with a message to their contempo- raries? The prophets before Christ, the Lord himself, and his apostles after him, being moved by the Holy Ghost (II Peter 1: 21) spoke for the edification of the Church in all ages. Hence the Savior's warning: "Therefore, whosoever heareth these sayings of mine, and doeth them, I will liken him unto a wise man, which built his house upon a rock: . . . And every one that heareth these sayings of mine and doeth them not, shall be likened unto a foolish man which built his house upon the sands, " with the two well known results. The Book of Mormon, too, is likened to a rock: "For, behold, saith the Lord, I will manifest myself with thy [Nephi's] seed, that they shall write many things which I shall minister unto them, which shall be plain and precious. And in them shall be written my gospel, saith the Lamb, and my rock, and my salvation" (Nephi 13: 35, 36). This passage is corroborated also by the following one: "Behold, I give you a commandment, that you rely upon the things which are written, for in them are all things written concerning the foundation of my Church, my gospel, and my rock; wherefore, if you shall build up my Church upon the foundation of my gospel and my rock, the gates of hell shall not prevail against you" (Doc. and Cov. Sec. 18: 3-5), and thus we get a lucid and beautiful explanation of the much debated passage of Matthew. Have the gates of hell prevailed against the Church of Christ? What emotions were stirred up in our Savior's breast while speak- ing these words, when, with prophetic eye, he foresaw his own crucifixion, the persecution and martyrdom of his Saints by the Jews, by the Romans, and finally by that most abominable church "which slayeth the Saints of God, yea, and tortureth them, and bindeth them down; and yoketh them with a yoke of iron, and bringeth them down into captivity" (I Nephi 13: 5). The gates of hell not prevail against him, nor against his Church, did for he broke asunder the gates of hell, visited and delivered the captives, and afterwards ascended to heaven, and prepared a place in the wilderness where his Church might flee and remain for a season to come forth again in the last days (Rev. 12: 6-14). To claim that Christ's Church remained in the world during

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the eighteen centuries which elapsed since the collection of books forming the Bible was compiled would be to insult the wisdom and the power of the Almighty. A single look at the babel of religious systems ought to convince any sane mind that they do not enjoy the Spirit of God; for "the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, longsuffering, gentleness, goodness, faith, meekness, temperance" (Ephesians 5: 22, 23); while the works of the flesh (Ephesians 5: 19, 20, 21) "adultery, fornication, murders, revellings," etc, abound, and have been abounding in the world during the last eighteen centuries. But, though an apostasy from primitive Christianity was plainly apparent, it must not be forgotten that the rays of living light, which for a brief period emanated from the Church of Christ, have accomplished wonderful results. Who would exchange the condition of things in Europe or America dur- ing the past two or three centuries, for the conditions that existed when imperial Rome governed the world? Christianity has abol- ished slavery, given the toiler one day of rest out of the seven, provided places and opportunity for the soul to be lifted up to the Creator in prayer and song of thanksgiving; hospitals were built and endowed, schools established; philanthropists have taught the masses to help themselves; rulers -have learned to respect the rights of their subjects, their brethren in Christ; while the com- mon man, by keeping the laws of God, has learned to rise above the law of man, thus gaining an independence of thought and unknown to previous ages. nobility of character The pages of Holy Writ furnished exalted themes for poetry, music, sculpture or painting, giving the humblest ones lofty ideals for the improve- ment of morals; ideals which pagan philosophers never dreamed of. These very things, being disseminated as the word of God among our forefathers, have been "of great worth unto the Gentiles" (I Nephi 13; 23) for their spiritual and social development; and thus the word of the Lord, given to the world by his apostles eighteen centuries ago, has been of inestimable value to mankind. The great truths of Christianity are today believed and practiced, not always properly, it is true, in every land and clime. The divine birth of Christ, his miracles, his atoning death, and his triumph over the grave, are implicitly believed by millions of hon- est souls, and millions have been and are being benefited by his