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Jesus said, "I will build my Church, and the gates of hell shall not prevail against it" – Matthew 16:18 KJV.
I’m not so concerned with whether the English translation should better state ‘Hades,’ and ‘overcome,’ unless that has a direct bearing on the meaning of this promise of Jesus.
I understand that the first half of that verse refers to “the rock” upon which he would build his Church, as the rock of divinely-given revelation about who Jesus really is, which Peter was given by God, to enable him to make his confession of Christ as “the Christ, the Son of the living God” (see verses 16 & 17).
My concern is that, if the true church later became apostate and ceased to exist as a true Church, then that would make Jesus a liar. Likewise, if the gates of hell symbolically closed in on his growing Church, to the extent of capturing and totally confining it, it would have prevailed against it, and so Jesus would have been proven a liar. Was Jesus actually promising that his Church would never be so defeated by the powers of hell (which might be translated as ‘death / the grave’)?
If, as some people claim, the church of Christ was so corrupted that it could be said to have ‘died’ over the centuries, then were Jesus’ words proven to be false? Even with fulfillment of NT predictions of apostasy, was the witness of Christ’s church defeated and that Church overcome?
