Apostolic* Succession: Presbyterian-Style

The Roman Catholic Church bases its claim to be the most authentic Christian communion on its assertion that they are the beneficiaries of and recipients of a continuous succession of bishops reaching all the way back to the Apostle Peter himself.

I have no objection to the Roman church's insistence on the necessity of apostolic succession. On this point, as well as on many others, they are 100% correct. Nonetheless, there is an error in their understanding of, and nature of this succession.

Apostolic succession *does* exist, and it *has* been handed-down, in the church, in every age, all the way from the Messiah, to Peter, and subsequently to all of Christ's specially-called ministers (pastors). (Some of these may well have been bishops of Rome.)

But this succession is *not* mechanical; instead, it is spiritual. No one who is not truly called by God to preach the gospel of grace in the Lord Jesus Christ, is in *any* form (or way) part of this "succession." Therefore, if my position is true, then some of the worst of the popes, who had no regard for the fact that Christ's atoning death and perfect life is the only basis for a sinner's justification, (which is to be received by faith alone, by grace alone)--are in any way a link in the apostolic succession.

Actually, the Roman church's premise of its primacy is flawed in a number of ways: one of them (ironically) is that it (the Roman church) is *not* old enough. Presbyterians who follow their Puritan fathers realize that we run our succession all the way back to Abraham (the father of our faith), and even to eras before him, all the way back to the Garden of Eden. (Indeed, as we take comfort in God's eternal decrees, we trace it all the way back to eternity [before the advent of time].)

* By "Apostolic," we do not mean "in the person of the apostle." Instead, we mean, as per the Nicene Creed, "in the teaching of the apostle[s]."