Six Arguments Against Modern-Day Apostleship
2 Corinthians 12:12
Well, we're going to return this morning to our study of 2 Corinthians, back to chapter 12. It was a bit frustrating in the first service because I didn't get to where I intended to go but that's nothing new with me, I guess. Second Corinthians chapter 12 and I want to just draw you down to verses 11 to 13. We've...we've been working through a portion of 2 Corinthians chapter 12 in which the apostle Paul defends his apostleship which has been under attack. The Corinthian church had not problem acknowledging him as the apostle of Jesus Christ when he first arrived and for nearly two years while he was there teaching them and founding the church and even later on while he was writing them letters. But eventually some false teachers came in, some false apostles, some deceivers, some agents of Satan came into the church and they attacked Paul's apostleship. In fact, they denied it and they began to convince the Corinthians that in fact Paul was the fraud, Paul was the deceiver, Paul was the liar and they were the men who were truly from God who spoke the truth. So Paul is in the very difficult position of having to defend his apostleship. He writes 2 Corinthians basically to do that. And we've gone through that many times. He is defending his apostleship to the Corinthians and to all who have through the centuries read this letter.
Particularly in chapter 11, starting at verse 22 and running all the way down to chapter 12 verse 13, the section we're now at the end of, he is comparing himself to the false apostles. He has in many, many ways defended his integrity, defended his apostleship all through this letter. But here in particular he addresses the issue that he is superior to the false apostles. And if you notice in verse 23 he says, "Are they servants of Christ? I more so." And that sort of sets the tone for this whole passage. Whatever they are, I am more. And so he's affirming his superiority as a true apostle and these men are nothing but charlatans and frauds and false apostles.
So the issue here of Paul's apostleship dominates this portion of the book. And as we've gone through this passage, we've shown you a number of features of his apostleship...his suffering, his supernatural experience of going to heaven, all of those kinds of things were indicative of his apostleship. But coming down into verse 12 we are introduced to another feature of apostleship. The signs of a true apostle were performed among you with all perseverance by signs and wonders and miracles. Paul says, "Look, another way that you can know my apostleship is genuine is because of the signs and wonders and miracles that I did in your presence. They are called in verse 12, the signs of a true apostle.
Now you remember the last time, it's been a couple of weeks now, I told you that Paul is saying his apostleship is manifest through miraculous signs. Therefore they can't be common to everybody or they couldn't be the proof of an apostleship, right? So they are unique to an apostle. Paul says you should know that I am the true apostle of Christ because of the miracles you saw when I was in your presence. That is one of the ways that God confirmed the true apostles, through signs and wonders and miracles.
Now at this point, and probably we should have done it somewhere at the beginning of this discussion, but here we are at the end so we'll inject it here. At this point I want to camp on that concept of the signs of an apostle a little bit because it's a very important issue today. I had a person...well, I've had more than one, but I can think of one in particular come up to me and say, "You might not like to hear this but you are an apostle, in my judgment you are an apostle. You're an apostle to this generation, you're an apostle for this time in my judgment," he said.
Well I quickly told him that I did not agree with him, that I am not an apostle at all in the truest and purest sense of the word, neither is anybody else alive today. There are people who claim to be apostles, there are people who regularly claim to be apostles. People who claim that we should all be doing exactly what apostles did, we should manifest the same power that apostles have and if we don't somehow we're short-changing God's operation. We need to understand the role of an apostle so that we can make application of some of these things to some of the confusion we see around us today. And many of the people, of course, who most vociferously and vocally and through television and media make the widest representation of Christianity are in to this kind of stuff where they feel that all Christians should somehow manifest the same power that apostles had. Is that really the case? Is that really true? In fact, one writer said, you people that don't agree with this viewpoint that we ought to be doing what the apostles are doing, you've just wor...you've just begun worshiping a God quote: "Whose lost all His zip." "Who wants a God whose lost all His zip?" this writer said.
Well if we...if we don't believe that the apostles were unique, if we don't believe that we're supposed to do everything the apostles did just the way they did it, is that some kind of commentary on something that's happened to God? We need to know how to answer that accusation. For some people it's very intimidating, by the way. There are many people very, very intimidated by things that are being said. One professor at Oral Roberts University writes, "Who in the world would want a God who lost His power? Could God do one thing in one century but not in another century? Has God lost His power?" Another writer, Russell Bixler[?] says, "Many Christians have a faith which gives no room to a Jesus Christ who's the same yesterday, today and forever. They're quite comfortable with a distant God who hasn't done anything significant in 2,000 years." Those kinds of things are intended to intimidate us, foolish statements they are, but they're designed to intimidate us and they're saying, "Well, we should be seeing today all the same things that occurred in the time of Jesus and the apostles, that should be the norm for everybody. And if it's not the norm, somehow we're limiting God." That's the accusation.
Is that really accurate? Does that really reflect what the Bible teaches? Well, let's find out about that. So we look at verse 12, we see that signs, wonders and miracles were identified with true apostles. The obvious point you can make immediately is that the false apostles in Corinth couldn't claim any such power, right? Otherwise Paul wouldn't even have an argument. If he's trying to show the difference between himself and them, and that difference is marked because of signs and wonders and miracles, then it's pretty clear they couldn't do any of them. So they were uniquely evidences of a true apostle. And that brings up the question...what is a true apostle? Who were these apostles? And how are we to understand them and were they the standard which all of us are to follow? Did they set the norm for all sort of high-level Christians?
Well it's important to understand this, if you don't understand the role of an apostle, you really have an incomplete understanding of the history of redemption. If you don't understand the role of an apostle, you're going to be very confused about the issue of Scripture, revelation, you're going to be confused about the issue of miracles. So let's go back to this very foundational issue this morning, I'm going to be a little bit like the classroom teacher today. I want to teach you basically what an apostle is, or was.
Now the word "apostle" is a simple word, it's kind of a generic word, it comes from a Greek verb apostello which means "to send," a very simple word, to send. An apostle is the noun form, a sent one, somebody sent, a messenger, in other words. And the word could be used in a generic sense, someone who is sent to do this, that or the other thing. But in the New Testament apostle takes on a technical meaning and it is isolated as a term used as a title for 14 men and 14 men only. I say 14, there were 12 apostles, Judas discredited himself by betraying Jesus, hanged himself, a man named Mathias took his place, that makes 13. Later on Paul was added, that makes 14. It is a technical term, a title given by our Lord to only 14 men. These men fulfilled a very unique place in God's unfolding purpose, not repeatable and not transferable, not reproducible. They were who they were and when they were done there were no more.
Now there are six characteristics of apostles that come through the text of Scripture. Fascinating, by the way, to study these men and you'll find these fascinating characteristics. But they are also characteristics that isolate these men from all other groups in all of redemptive history. Let me give you the six features that define their unique role.
Number one, they were personally chosen by God for this ministry. They were personally chosen by God for this ministry. It wasn't a result of a meeting of the minds. It wasn't a result of a group of people voting. It wasn't a result of some church leaders getting together, some religious leaders getting together. It was a volunteer situation. They were chosen by God. First Corinthians 1:1 Paul says, "He was called as an apostle of Jesus Christ by the will of God." And he says the same thing in 2 Corinthians 1:1, Ephesians 1:1, Colossians 1:1 and 2 Timothy 1:1, repeatedly called to be an apostle by the will of God.
A little more detail comes in Galatians 1:15 and 16 where Paul says, "When God who set me apart even from my mother's womb and called me through His grace was pleased to reveal His Son in me that I might preach Him among the Gentiles." He gives the credit for all of it to God. It was God who ordained before he was ever born, while he was still in his mother's womb that he would be called to Christ, that he would be saved, that he would become a preacher among the Gentiles. So God had ordained this, God had ordained it long ago. It began to be put in motion even when he was still in his mother's womb.
Further he identifies himself in 1 Timothy 1:1 as an apostle of Jesus Christ, according to the commandment of God. These men who were apostles then were chosen sovereignly by God. They were chosen even before their life began. They were chosen way back and that would include even Judas who was the only apostle really prophesied in the Old Testament. The familiar friend who would lift up his heel and betray Jesus. So they were chosen by God specifically.
Secondly, they were appointed by Jesus Christ. Chosen by God, but appointed by Jesus Christ. In Mark 3 and verse 14, "Jesus appointed twelve that they might be with Him," then they're named in verses 16 to 19. So they were chosen by God, obviously Jesus being God in human flesh knew who they were. And Jesus appointed them to be with Him. In John 15:16 Jesus says, "You didn't choose Me, I chose you as God and appointed you."
In Acts 20:24 when Paul refers to his ministry, he says, "It's the ministry which I received from the Lord Jesus." In Romans 1:5 he says, "It was Christ Jesus our Lord from whom we received our apostleship." And particularly Luke 6:13, "Jesus called His disciples to Him and out of the group of disciples chose twelve of them who He named as apostles."
To be an apostle then you had to have been sovereignly chosen by God which therefore was known to Christ who personally appointed the Twelve. It was a personal appointment by Jesus Christ according to the sovereign purpose of God.
Thirdly, and this gets a little more into the details of their life, they were required to have personally seen Christ. They were required to have personally seen Christ. In fact, to have actually been with Him. Go back to Acts chapter 1, this is a fascinating, fascinating account. You remember what happened to Judas. Judas decided to betray Jesus because things weren't going the way he wanted them to go. He was...he was a non-believer among the apostles. He was a wicked man among the apostles. He was filled with avarice. The dominant sin in the life of Judas was greed. He loved money and he wanted power. And the reason he joined the apostles was because he thought Jesus was the Messiah and Jesus was going to rise to the throne of Jerusalem, throw off the Roman Empire, set Israel free and establish His great throne, and Judas wanted to be in on the ride to the top, but Judas was guilty of greed and his heart was wicked and Jesus even said about him when He spoke to the Twelve, "One of you is a devil," he was never a believer, he was never true. When he died it tells us here he went to his own place. He was always a child of hell, never a child of heaven. But Judas, you remember, after he betrayed Jesus was filled with remorse and guilt and so he took the money that he had received, 30 pieces of silver which was the price of a slave, took it back to the...to the rulers of Israel and threw it at them. And then went out, you remember, and hanged himself, committed suicide because he was so overwrought with guilt and remorse over having betrayed the Son of God. The money, the leaders of Israel, didn't want to touch because it was blood money, paid to a traitor, and so with it they purchased a field which was always known as a field of blood.
Well having eliminated Judas from the Twelve, the ranks needed to be filled in. And so we come in Acts chapter 1 verse 15 to this, Peter standing up in the midst of the brethren, a gathering of about 120 persons, he said, "Brethren, the Scripture had to be fulfilled which the Holy Spirit foretold by the mouth of David concerning Judas, " I said again, he was the one of the apostles who was prophesied in the Old Testament, he was counted among us, verse 17, he received his portion in this ministry, he was a part of the Twelve. Now this man acquired a field with the price of his wickedness, not that he bought it but that the Jewish leaders bought it with the money he threw back at them. He went out and hanged himself, but also it tells us here, falling headlong...apparently the branch broke that was over the precipice, or the rope broke and he plummeted down one of those deep chasms around the city of Jerusalem and hit the rocks and burst open in the middle and all his bowels gushed out...a very ignominious death for a very wicked individual, became known to all who were living in Jerusalem, so that in their own language that field which had been purchased with his money was called Aceldama, the Field of Blood. For it is written in the book of Psalms, "Let his homestead be made desolate," it was a desolate place, "let no man dwell in it and his office let another man take." Nobody wanted to live in a Field of Blood where a traitor's money had been used to purchase. And his office had to be taken by someone else. That prediction there in verse 20 comes out of Psalm 109.
So, verse 21 Peter says, "It's necessary to fulfill the prophecy, to do what God wants and to pick somebody to take his place." And he says this, "It is necessary that of the men who have accompanied us all the time that the Lord Jesus went in and out among us." Verse 22, "Beginning with the baptism of John," that's the baptism of Jesus by John the Baptist which is the very initial point of Jesus' ministry, at the very outset of His ministry, "From the baptism of Jesus by John the Baptist till the day that He was taken up from us, one of these should become a witness with us of His resurrection."
Bottom line, to qualify to be an apostle, you had to have been with Jesus from the time of the baptism of John the Baptist all the way through the resurrection to the ascension. You had to have been there and been an eyewitness. Verse 21, "Who have accompanied us all the time that the Lord Jesus went in and out among us." You had to have been there through His entire ministry. These were men who were personally associated with Jesus through the full duration of His ministry, from His initial announcement when John said, "Behold the Lamb of God that takes away the sin of the world," and He embarked on His public ministry, having been baptized, to the time of His ascension, there were men who were there all the time.
Two men were suggested, verse 23. Joseph called Barsabas, also named Justus and Matthias. "And they prayed and said, 'Thou, Lord, who knowest the hearts of all men, show which one of these two Thou hast chosen." Again they are back to the fact that apostles are chosen by God. "We want to know who's to...verse 25..occupy this ministry and apostleship from which Judas turned aside to go to his own place." How do we pick between these two good men?
Well God had designed to reveal His will through drawing lots. They did that. The lot fell on Matthias, he was numbered with the eleven apostles. Now again, Judas, of course, was with Jesus the whole time, up until...nearly up until His death, didn't see His resurrection, but he qualified as one who was there all the time to be an apostle. Of course, he's gone, Matthias steps in to take his place and that fulfills the Twelve. All of them eyewitnesses to the life of Jesus as well as His resurrection.
Turn over to Acts chapter 10, if you will. In Acts chapter 10 verse 38, this too I think is fascinating. Here Peter is preaching and he's talking about Christ Jesus, the Lord, and in verse 38 he says, "You know of Jesus of Nazareth how God anointed Him with the Holy Spirit and with power, how He went about doing good, healing all who were oppressed by the devil for God was with Him and we, being the apostles, are witnesses of all the things He did both in the land of the Jews and in Jerusalem." We were there and we the apostles saw it all. "And they also put Him to death by hanging Him on a cross, God raised Him up on the third day and granted that He should become visible, not to all the people," and his post-resurrection appearances were only to those who believed, "but to witnesses who were chosen beforehand by God, that is to us." There again he reiterates that these were chosen beforehand by God, sovereignly chosen before the foundation of the world, before they were ever born to be these special apostles and they were the men who then were called and anointed by Christ who ate and drank with him after He rose from the dead. And He ordered us to preach to the people and solemnly to testify that this is the one who has been appointed by God as judge of the living and the dead. And so they were called by...chosen by God, anointed by Jesus, and they were with Him through His ministry and after His death they saw Him in His resurrection appearances.
Turn to 1 Corinthians chapter 15 because we need to mention Paul. Paul is an apostle as well. He's the fourteenth, Judas having been eliminated, he's the one added to the Twelve, and it tells us in verse 4 that Jesus was raised on the third day, came out of the grave and He appeared to Cephas, that's another name for Peter, then He appeared to the Twelve. He appeared to Peter alone, and then the other eleven, making all of them the Twelve. Then He appeared to five hundred brethren. Then in verse 7 He appeared to James who was His own brother, you remember, His own brothers didn't believe until after His death and resurrection. Then He appeared again to all the apostles. "And last of all, as it were to one untimely born, He appeared to me also." Paul then was an apostle who had a personal appearance, post-resurrection, He saw the risen Christ. That was essential to qualify to be an apostle. Paul hadn't seen Jesus in Jerusalem and in the land of Israel, He hadn't seen Jesus going in and out as the others hand, He hadn't been there from the baptism of John to the ascension, but He saw the resurrected Christ in a very special way. He says, "As one untimely born...one born in an untimely birth, but He appeared to me also and he said, 'I am the least of the apostles, I'm not even fit to be called an apostle, because I persecuted the church of God, but by the grace of God I am what I am.'"
So in addition to the Twelve, there was this one additional apostle added, the apostle Paul. And to qualify him the Lord had to appear to him personally which He did on the road to Damascus in Acts chapter 9. You remember Paul's on his way to Damascus to execute Christians, and God sends Christ off the throne, as it were, to appear to Paul. And having seen the risen Christ that time, he then saw Him three subsequent times as well. The bottom line is to understand this, apostles were chosen by God beforehand, apostles were personally hand-picked and appointed by Jesus Christ Himself and they were required to have personally seen Jesus and especially to have seen Him after His resurrection from the dead, so that they were actual firsthand eyewitnesses of the risen Christ. And even Paul had to see Christ and see Him in post-resurrection glory to be qualified.
So those were absolutes with regard to who was qualified to be an apostle. Number four in putting together the little list, and we move away from what happened to make them apostles to what they did as apostles. Number four, this feature very important, they were assigned unique ministry duties. They were assigned unique ministry duties.
First responsibility is indicated to us in the third chapter of Mark and verse 14. "And He appointed twelve," that is Jesus, "that they may be with Him." That's the first thing. An apostle, and we've already seen that in the book of Acts, had to be with Christ, to walk with Him, and talk with Him and live with Him and eat with Him and go through all of the issues of life, they were with Christ. Even the apostle Paul had, as I said, at least four special appearances of the very glory of Christ who came to him one to one. He too cultivated a spiritual relationship with the Lord, with an ever-increasing intimate spiritual knowledge of Christ. But it was required of apostles that they be with Jesus Christ.
Secondly, their first duty was to be with Him so that they became true disciples, so that they became true reflectors, copies of His life. Secondly, according to verse 14, "That He might send them out to preach." The ministry duty, first of all, to be with Christ, be in ongoing, constant, intimate fellowship with Christ. Secondly, to preach...to preach. Matthew 28, "They were to go into all the world and preach the gospel to everybody." And Mark 16:20 says the same thing, "They were to go everywhere into the world and preach the gospel." Romans 1:5 says, "They received grace and apostleship, to go and preach obedience to the faith among all the nations." So they preached the gospel of grace, the message of grace, the message of salvation through faith in Jesus Christ. It is the gospel, 2 Timothy 1:10, the gospel, verse 11 says, for which I was appointed a preacher and an apostle and a teacher...Paul says.
So they were called uniquely by God even before they were born, appointed specifically by Jesus Christ. They were eyewitnesses of the risen Christ. They were assigned to be with Christ intimately and to preach the gospel of grace, the gospel of faith, and the gospel of obedience to all the nations.
And another element of the unique ministry duty, they were given authority over demons. They were given authority over demons. This is quite remarkable. Stay right where you are in Mark 3 verse 15, they had authority, it says in verse 15, to cast out the demons...authority to cast out the demons. And that was a comprehensive authority. According to Matthew chapter 10 where the same statement is made, "He gave them authority over unclean spirits to cast them out." And Scripture says they had authority over all demons. Quite remarkable. Luke 9 and Matthew 10 also tell us they had the power to heal every kind of disease and every kind of sickness. Luke 9, I'll just read you that first verse, it's a little bit different, "He called the Twelve together, gave them power and authority over all the demons and to heal diseases."
Now let's just break those down. Go back to the demon one first. They were able to assert authority over, get this, all demons, ALL demons, that would include Satan and every other demon in all the ranks of demons. They had absolute authority over them all to cast them out of people with no regard for what the people wanted or didn't want. The people never entered into it, there were no formulas for it, there were no prayers, there were no necessary confessions, there was no call for repentance on the part of the people, the literally could walk up to a total stranger who had no regard for what was going on and command the demons to leave that individual. They had exorcize power over all demons. There wasn't a demon who could withstand their authority or withstand their power. This is unheard of in all of biblical history. No group of people other than the Lord Himself, no one had this kind of power. This is not normal any time in redemptive history, to have total authority over all demons. But they did. And everywhere they went they were casting demons out of everyone and the demons could not compete and retain their place under this immense authority.
Then further, they had authority not only over the supernatural world but over the natural world. The supernatural fallen world is demons, the natural fallen world is manifest in disease, isn't it? Sickness, disease and death...they had power over all illness, all sickness, all disease. There wasn't anything they couldn't heal instantaneously on the spot completely. You cannot compare anything today going on in the name of healing with this kind of power. They literally banished every disease from Palestine with a word from their mouths.
They had power over the supernatural world and power over the natural world, all demons and all illnesses. They had authority over them all. This was...this was a dramatic demonstration that these men spoke for God because only God could exercise such power over the supernatural fallen world and over the natural fallen world. These truly were the signs of an apostle, miracles, signs, mighty deeds.
Now, further duties, they were given the responsibility to write New Testament books. They were given the responsibility to write New Testament books, they are the main writers of the New Testament. There are few exceptions where close companions of the apostles actually did the writing. For example, the gospel of Luke was written by Luke, close companion of Paul. The book of Acts was written by Luke, close companion of Paul. Luke was inspired by the Holy Spirit, but Luke was a companion of one who was an eye witness to the risen Christ. James who wrote James is not James the apostle, but James the brother of our Lord who was a very close eyewitness to the life of the Lord and saw Him after His resurrection, 1 Corinthians 15, He appeared to James, remember that? Jude, another of the half brothers of the Lord, also wrote the little book of Jude. He too a close companion of the Lord under the influence of the apostles wrote his little epistle. Mark a close companion of not only the apostle Paul but especially of Peter. You see the life of Christ in Mark's gospel really through the eyes of Peter.
So if the...if the book of the New Testament isn't actually written by an apostle himself, such as Matthew and John and, of course, the thirteen books by Paul and John wrote the epistles and John wrote Revelation and Peter wrote 1 and 2 Peter, if the book of the New Testament isn't actually written by an apostle, it is written by one who is very closely associated with the apostle whom the Holy Spirit used to put down that apostolic doctrine. They were the writers of the New Testament books.
Now to show you how this is promised to them, John 14:26, this is very important, John 14:26 says, "The helper...the Holy Spirit...whom the Father will send in My name...Jesus in the upper room talking to His disciples says...the Holy Spirit will come, He will teach you all things an bring to