The Church of Christ: Yesterday and Today . . .

THE APOSTOLICITY OF THE CHURCH

We believe in the one holy. catholic and apostolic church.

Our study of the church has been based thus far upon that trenchant statement from the Apostles’ Creed (4th century) that not only affirms the church’s essential oneness, but also its holiness, catholicity, and apostolicity. We have chosen this route because it leads us to the very substance of the Body of Christ, and not merely its forms. When people come to appreciate the church as holy, catholic, and apostolic, the proper forms should follow in due course; but if forms and structures are made paramount, the church is not likely ever to be truly holy, catholic, and apostolic.

The tragic truth is that a community of believers can make such a point of being scriptural “in name, doctrine, and practice” as to be a sect instead of holy, racial and parochial instead of catholic, and traditional instead of apostolic. Thus far we have called for a church that has that holiness “without which no man shall see the Lord” and that universality that embraces all that are in Christ Jesus. In this essay we intend to show that the ancients were right in recognizing apostolicity as an essential ingredient of God’s community upon earth.

By apostolicity we are not referring to the Episcopal view of apostolic succession, which argues that the true church must find its traces all the way back to the apostles, the first bishops, who laid their hands upon their successors, and they upon theirs, to an unending succession to our own time. This is a current problem in ecumenical discussions, for those who believe in the Episcopal succession of ministry do not recognize those outside that succession as true ministers.

Some Baptist groups have a similar notion, though it takes the form of ecclesiastical succession, which is that their church can be traced in an unending line all the way back to John the Baptist and the apostles. It may be a labyrinthine journey, making its way through the Anabaptists and Waldenses, and all sorts of unBaptist-like folk, but one does finally arrive, however shaken.

Nor does apostolicity suggest any kind of “identity syndrome,” which attempts to establish exact likeness to the church of the apostolic era, as if to suggest that such congregations as those at Jerusalem or Corinth are blueprints for the church of our time, when in fact it would be perilous to form ourselves after their likeness. It is folly to suppose that it would even be possible for the Church of Christ of today to be a carbon copy of the apostolic congregations, cultural barriers making it impossible if nothing else. Those of us who dare to presume such similitude to the primitive church would surely be shocked (and perhaps be made most uncomfortable) if we were suddenly transposed to the first century and made a part of one of the New Testament churches. And it would be more than a cultural shock!

Apostolicity means that the church now as well as then must be grounded in the authority of the apostles. It means that the Church of Christ must be “built upon the foundation of the apostles and prophets, Christ Jesus himself being the chief cornerstone” (Eph. 2:20). It means that “God has appointed in the church first apostles” (1 Cor. 12:28), and that the church must always be rooted in what may be called the apostolic experience.

That experience began with twelve men being selected to be apostles. It was not unusual for rabbis and philosophers of the ancient world to gather an inner circle about them, but the nature of the apostolic mission was such as to make this the most unusual relationship in human history. Jesus was not simply one more teacher gathering a band of assistants. He was himself an apostle (Heb. 3:1), sent of God to be the Messiah who had come to redirect Israel and to change the course of history. Indeed, he had come to introduce the kingdom of God to lost humanity, to make whole, and to provide the abundant life. He bore the government of heaven upon his shoulders, as the prophets had said (Isa. 9:6).

The selection of the Twelve was the verdict of eternity itself. “I have manifested thy name to the men thou gavest me out of the world; thine they were, and thou gavest them to me,” prayed the Messiah (John 17:6). Luke tells us that before he appointed the Twelve “he went out into the hills to pray; and all night he continued in prayer to God” (Lk. 6:12). The Messiah was lost in the will of God. In those hills he was gathering the names of those that the Father had selected. He received their commission from the Architect of the plan of the ages. All night he communed with God about twelve men. He was alone. At daybreak he beckons to his disciples to come, perhaps a core of a score or more of inner-circle followers. He begins the greatest roll call ever uttered by human lips: “Simon. (I will call you Peter) … Andrew … James … John … Philip … Bartholomew … Matthew Thomas … James Alphaeus … Simon Zealotes … Judas of James … Judas Iscariot.

What a destiny! Mark alone gives us the purpose of the appointment: “to be with him, and to be sent out to preach and have authority to cast out demons” (Mk. 3:14-15). Already he had disciples to be with him, so these had a peculiar destiny in that “being with him” meant they would be schooled and disciplined as ambassadors of the new reign of God upon earth, his own special envoys of the new order. As he went on to say to them: “In the new world, when the Son of Man shall sit on his glorious throne, you who have followed me will also sit on twelve thrones, judging the twelve tribes of Israel (Mt. 19:28). And Rev. 21:14 enhances the destiny even more: “And the wall of the city had twelve foundations, and on them the twelve names of the twelve apostles of the Lamb.”

It was a discipline of suffering. “I think that God has exhibited us apostles as last of all, like men sentenced to death; because we have become a spectacle to the world, to angels and to men. We are fools for Christ’s sake” (1 Cor. 4:9-10). Though Paul was an apostle born out of season, he was not spared the commission of special suffering: “I will show him how much he must suffer for the sake of my name” (Acts 9:1 6). And according to tradition (and scripture in the case of James, who according to Acts 12:2 was beheaded by Herod) the apostles’ sealed their lives of hardship with tragic deaths. Paul was beheaded and Peter, Simon Zealotes, and Andrew were all crucified. Batholomew was flayed alive and then beheaded, while Thomas was stoned and then pierced with a lance. Others were apparently left to die in prison. However accurate tradition is, they were men with the sentence of death upon them.

But they were heaven’s ambassadors, plenipotentiary ambassadors, in that they spoke with full authority for the King. And it is in that authority that the church has its roots. Paul was referring to his apostolic authority when he wrote: “The mystery was made knuwn to me by revelation, as I have written briefly. When you read this you can perceive my insight into the mystery of Christ, which was not made known to the sons of men in other generations as it has now been known to the sons of men in other generations as it has now been revealed to his holy apostles and prophets by the Spirit; that is, how the Gentiles are fellow heirs, members of the same body, and partakers of the promise in Christ Jesus through the gospel” (Eph. 3:3-6). The blending of Jews and Gentiles into the one humanity was the great mystery proclaimed and sealed by apostolic ministry.

To the apostle Peter the Lord announced: “I will give you the keys of the kingdom of heaven, and whatever you bind on earth shall be bound in heaven, and whatever you loose on earth shall be loosed in heaven” (Mt. 16:19). Jesus gave them two preaching commissions, the first was only to the Jews (Mt. 10:5), while the last was to all nations (Mt, 28:18-19). The so-called Great Commission was, therefore, an apostolic commission, designed to make the church universal. The church today is certainly to witness to its faith, but it is improper to apply an apostolic commission to all Christians. This commission was accompanied by special powers for its execution, not only the power to speak the languages of the nations to which they were sent, but “the signs of an apostle,” which according to 2 Cor. 12:12 included “signs, wonders and mighty works.”

To support them in their mission the Holy Spirit was breathed upon them, filling them and endowing them far beyond what would be the case with an ordinary believer. John 20:22-23 indicates that the measure of their power was determined by the Spirit’s endowment: “‘Peace be with you. As the Father has sent me, even so I send you.’ And when he said this, he breathed on them, and said to them, ‘Receive the Holy Spirit. If you forgive the sins of any, they are forgiven; if you retain the sins of any, they are retained!’”

As the apostolic office was peculiar so the powers that accompanied it were peculiar. It is erroneous for any of us to assume either the apostles’ commission or their powers in the Holy Spirit. That the Spirit is the resource of power for us all, and that he gives us diverse gifts, is to be granted; but this hardly means that there is no distinction between the powers given the apostles and that given to the rest of us. “The signs of an apostle” is a distinct reference, which must be also what Heb. 2:3-4 is referring to: “The great salvation was first declared by the Lord, and it was attested to us by those who heard him, while God also bore witness by signs and wonders and various miracles and by gifts of the Holy Spirit distributed according to his own will.”

This means that only an apostle could say: “We impart a secret and hidden wisdom of God, which God decreed before the ages for our glorification … God has revealed to us through the Spirit. For the Spirit searches everything, even the depths of God … Now we have received not the spirit of the world, but the Spirit which is from God, that we might understand the gifts bestowed on us by God. And we impart this in words not taught by human wisdom but taught by the Spirit, interpreting spiritual truths to those who possess the Spirit” (1 Cor. 2:7-13).

The church, therefore, has God’s revelation only through the apostles, for only they speak for God through the Spirit. The Spirit enlightens us in what has already been revealed, but he does not reveal anything beyond what he gave to the apostles. This is the basis of the apostolicity of the church. It accepts the injunction to “remember the predictions of the holy prophets and the commandment of the Lord and Savior through your apostles” (2 Pet. 3:2).

A church that presumes to receive further revelation is not apostolic in nature. Considering their own special insight as authentic as the apostolic wisdom, such ones cut themselves off from the roots of the Christian faith. And as a “cut-flower” religious culture they are doomed to the fate of their own self-delusion. Once severed from apostolicity, delusion begets delusion and there are myriads of voices echoing the Spirit, all contradicting each other. There are different ways to explain the fallacies of Joseph Smith, Mary Baker Eddy, Ellen G. White, Aimee Semple McPherson, and the like, but it is basically a matter of rejecting the apostolicity of the church.

This means that the church’s faith is rooted in scripture, the universally recognized authority for God’s people for 2,000 years. As the Methodist Discipline puts it: “The Holy Scriptures contain all things necessary to salvation; so that whatever is not read therein, nor may be proved thereby, is not to be required of any man that it should be believed as an article of faith, or be thought requisite or necessary to salvation.” The Methodists are here recognizing the apostolicity of the church.

The Westminster divines in The Confession of Faith (1647) were even more explicit: “The whole counsel of God, concerning all things necessary for his own glory, man’s salvation, and life, is either expressly set down in scripture, or by good and necessary consequence may be deduced from scripture: unto which nothing at any time is to be added, whether by new revelations of the Spirit, or traditions of men. Nevertheless, we acknowledge the inward illumination of the Spirit of God to be necessary for the saving understanding of such things as are revealed in the word.”

The Church of Christ today in looking back upon the apostolic experience, which is expressed in scripture, finds its norms for being the Body of Christ. It is not necessarily to be like this or that church in the scriptures, but out of the apostles’ experiences at Jerusalem, Corinth, Ephesus, Thessalonica, etc. emerges the will of God for us. We are not necessarily to do what the apostles did in those churches in all the particulars, for these differed from one church to the next; but we are to do for our age what they did for theirs: glorify Jesus Christ before men! The source for this is in their word and example as inspired by the Spirit.

This means that the living Pattern for the church today is Jesus, and it is He that we see in the testimony of the apostles and in their struggle to make their congregations into his likeness. This not only frees us from sectism, where men’s traditions are made the basis of acceptance, but also from the Babel of confusion that finds some new voice of the Spirit or a different revelation behind every bush. The apostolic church is impelled by the apostles’ love and liberated by their authority. —the Editor