Is pope legit?

The papacy cannot be biblically legitimated because it rests on two foundational claims that Scripture explicitly contradicts: apostolic succession and a single authoritative leader above other elders.

The Apostolic Succession Problem

Scripture contains no teaching about an unbroken line of leaders descending from Peter to the present day.[1] The original apostolic commission included no provision for successors, nor were any instructions given for their appointment.[2] When Paul charged the Ephesian elders with church care, there was no hint of transferring apostolic authority.[2] The New Testament shows elders and bishops assuming the apostles’ role, but precisely as elders and bishops—not as apostles—succeeding them in a fundamentally different position.[2]

More problematically, monarchical succession first appears in Irenaeus at the end of the second century without any doctrine of transmitted grace or authority, and the doctrine of succession through ordination doesn’t emerge until the third century, developed by Latin Church lawyers seeking to connect growing ecclesiastical authority with apostolic authority.[2]

The Authority Problem

Roman theology claims apostolic authority was transmitted through a succession of leaders whose teachings carry equal weight with the apostles.[1] This inverts biblical authority structures. The biblical view establishes apostolic teaching as the standard by which all subsequent teaching must be evaluated.[1] In Roman theology, office determines acceptability rather than agreement with Scripture.[1]

The Collegial Model vs. Monarchy

The episcopal polity foundational to papal authority cannot be sustained biblically because the distinction between bishop and presbyter isn’t supported by New Testament usage, and the plural form of “bishops” excludes the idea of one bishop supervising other elders.[2] Churches determine elders based on biblical qualifications that God has clearly delineated—men whom God selects meet these standards.[3]

The pope’s legitimacy fails at every critical juncture: no biblical succession, no scriptural authorization for a single supreme leader, and a model that contradicts the collegial, qualification-based elder leadership Scripture establishes.

[1] Norman R. Gulley, Systematic Theology: The Church and The Last Things (Berrien Springs, MI: Andrews University Press, 2016), 184.
[2] Simon V. Goncharenko, Church Government according to the Bible (Eugene, OR: Wipf & Stock, 2014). [See here, here, here, here, here.]
[3] Daniel Akin et al., Perspectives on Church Government: Five Views of Church Polity (Nashville, TN: Broadman & Holman Publishers, 2004), 68.