Why No Apostles Today?
Introduction
The history of the Bible is God working through covenant to give new spiritual life. That Goal was fulfilled in Jesus. He paid for our sins and died in our place. He rose from the dead to give new life to His people. He gives His Spirit—the Holy Spirit—who gives us the spiritual eyes to see God in faith. So, from beginning to end, all of the promises in scripture find their fulfillment in Jesus (2 Corinthians 1:20). Jesus fulfills the Old Covenant promises and initiates the New Covenant people.
Even though Jesus fulfills the Old Covenant and ushered in the New Covenant, the Sanhedrin didn’t see it that way. They rejected Jesus, their Messiah and His work of the New Covenant (John 19:15). Because the Old Covenant leaders rejected Jesus, now you have two covenant people of God interacting throughout most of the New Testament. You have the Old Covenant Jews who rejected Jesus as m=Messiah, and you have the New Covenant church who followed Jesus as Messiah. If you owned a nice little ship in downtown Jerusalem, who is the true covenant people of God? Who do you listen to? Well, obviously you listen to the church. But how do you know to listen to the church? Because God sent the Apostles.
The Purpose of Apostles
If you went to church 2,000 years ago, the temptation wouldn’t be to go to either the Baptist church or the Methodist church. The temptation would be to follow either the teaching of the Apostles or the teaching of the Sanhedrin. Both sides taught out of the Old Testament Scriptures. Both claimed to be people of God. But the teaching of the Apostles was empowered by the Holy Spirit and gave life while the teaching of the Rabbis was empowered by the Devil and only brought death. The Apostles preached the gospel of Jesus who fulfilled the purpose of the Old Covenant and inaugurated a new covenant. The Apostles stewarded this gospel for a generation so the church could take the baton and run. One way to understand the books of Acts to Revelation is an approximate forty-year baton exchange.
It’s no surprise that we call the first book after the gospels, “the Acts of the Apostles.” It is on the foundation of the Apostles that the church was built. Paul says in Ephesians 4 that when Jesus ascended into heaven, He gave gifts to His church (Ephesians 4:8). The gifts He gave were apostles, prophets, evangelists, pastors, and teachers (Ephesians 4:11). Now the purpose of these gifts is to build up the church into the unity of the faith (Ephesians 4:12). Jesus wants the church to know who one another are so in the early church, He gave Apostles to oversee that unity. This is why Jesus gave the apostles unique authority to gather the early church around their ministry.
So then you are no longer strangers and aliens, but you are fellow citizens with the saints, and are of God’s household, having been built on the foundation of the apostles and prophets, Christ Jesus Himself being the corner stone, in whom the whole building, being fitted together, is growing into a holy temple in the Lord, in whom you also are being built together into a dwelling of God in the Spirit. Ephesians 2:19–22
The Apostles gathered the early church around their ministry because the Apostles were gathered around Christ. This is why the Apostle Paul defended his ministry in 2 Corinthians. If the Corinthian church rejected Paul’s ministry, they rejected Jesus. The Apostles were able to unify the church around their ministry through the Holy Spirit empowering the church and the Apostles with the same gifts. The Apostles spoke in various languages in Acts 2 in order to preach to various peoples (Acts 2:4-8). Jesus gave the church at Corinth similar gifts to unify the church without the hinderance of a language barrier as well as testify to the ministry of Paul. The Corinthian church could trust Paul because he had the same gifts they did.
But is the ministry of the apostle alive and well today? No. For starters, Paul knew he was the last Apostle (1 Corinthians 15:8). Secondly, the Apostles prepared the church for the cessation of the Apostolic office as well as the Apostolic sign gifts (1 Corinthians 12-14). Since the purpose of the Apostle is to unify the church, what happens when the Apostles die? Should the church no longer be united? No, rather the church should utilize the greatest gift Jesus gave them—brotherly love (1 Corinthians 13). Third, as already mentioned in Ephesians 2, the ministry of the Apostles and prophets was the foundation slab to the church building. You don’t pour another foundation in the attic.
Conclusion
Figuring out the doctrine of apostleship is one of those doctrines that, by itself, isn’t really that exciting. I’ve yet to see marketing for a conference dealing with this subject, but I may need to get out more. However, figuring out the ministry of the Apostle affects your understanding of church government, pastoral practice, and the sign gifts to name a few because God gave us a book that fits together perfectly. When we open our Bibles, we can thank God again for the ministry of the Apostles and prophets whom He used to instruct us still today.