The Roman Catholic Church and the Papacy have made extremely bold and audacious claims. The papacy has claimed authority to appoint kings or depose them, to grant salvation or to deny it.

Innocent III (1198-1216) claimed as pope that he was the “Vicar of Christ” and of God, and that he was “Supreme Sovereign over the Church and the World.” He claimed that “All things on earth and in heaven and in hell are subject to the Vicar of Christ.” (Halley’s Bible Handbook, p. 883).

Pope Nicholas I (858-67) declared: “We popes alone have the power to bind and to loose,” claiming that the judgment of a pope “alone is infallible” (cited, A Woman Rides the Beast, Dave Hunt, p. 85).

Pope Gregory VII (1073-85), “…declared that the power to ‘bind and loose’ granted by Christ to Peter gave the popes ‘the right to make and unmake kings, to construct and reconstruct governments, to wrest from those who disobeyed all the territory held by them, and to bestow it upon those who would hold it subject to papal authority'” (A Woman Rides the Beast, p. 233).

On what foundation do such bold claims rest? They rest on the proposition that Jesus Christ gave to Peter the power to “bind and loose,” and that power somehow was passed on to a supposed unbroken line of successors. The idea is that Peter was the first Bishop of Rome, and that he was the first Pope, and that his authority has been passed down to his successors as Bishops of Rome.

It would seem that anyone, especially those who are interested in following Jesus Christ, would want to carefully examine such claims, to test their legitimacy. Before turning over your hope of salvation to such claims, wouldn’t you want to know their validity? Let’s then examine the question: “Was Peter the First Pope?”
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