Who is an Apostle? Are there Living Apostles Today?

WHO IS AN APOSTLE? ARE THERE LIVING APOSTLES TODAY?

By Ezekiel Kimosop

Who is an apostle?

According to the teaching of Scripture, an apostle is a person who was personally called and by Christ into apostolic ministry and whom He personally commissioned or was appointed by the church in accordance with the teachings of Scripture as was the case with the special appointment of Apostle Matthias.

According to Acts 1:16-22, a person who is recognized by the church as an apostle must have been an eye witness of Christ's resurrection and Ascension and was identified with Him in person during His entire earthly ministry. He must have been with Jesus right from the baptism of John to His Ascension recorded in Acts 1:1-11. This automatically disqualifies Judas Iscariot from being recognized as an apostle!

Jesus had called the initial 12 disciples who were later recognized by the New Testament Church as deserving of apostolic office. However, one of them,  Judas Iscariot, betrayed Jesus and committed suicide shortly thereafter.

The New Testament Church decided to replace Judas under an elaborate procedure identified in Acts 1 in order to fulfill the biblical prophecy on Judas. Jesus later called Paul on the road to Damascus and assigned him the Gentile ministry (Acts 9).

When Paul wrote his Letter to the Ephesians, most of the apostles were still alive apart from those who had been martyred by Herod such as Apostle James. The view that Ephesians 4:11 is an authority for continuing apostolic office is therefore misplaced.

Let us now turn to the second question:

Are there living apostles today and can any church leader meet the requirements for appointment to apostolic office?

My reading of Acts 1 reveals that no contemporary church leader can even remotely qualify for the post of apostle because no person who lived after the New Testament church era was an eye witness of the Risen Christ.

I can state without any fear of contradiction that there is no living apostle today and that the apostolic office was closed after the New Testament period. Evangelical Christian tradition holds that John was the last apostle alive when he wrote the Book of Revelation and that he died at an advanced age after his deportation to the Island of Patmos.

The Early Church recognized that the office of apostle ceased after all the apostles passed away and they accordingly chose not to replace them with a new set of apostles. They had no authority to do so and neither do we have any today.

Those who lay claim to this office today are therefore self appointed imposters who either deliberately misread the teachings of Scripture for their selfish purposes or are ignorant of the teachings of Scripture.

These latter day "apostles" are not recognized by Evangelical tradition. They are at best church bishops.

Perhaps a second interesting question is also worth examining....

Do we have independent prophetic offices today?

My view is that there is no independent prophetic office in the church today neither was such office recognized under the New Testament church or the early church period. I am aware that some will disagree with my view but I have chosen to allow the word of God alone to inform my theological convictions.

Prophecy is a gift of the Holy Spirit which was exercised in plenary by the New Testament Church. The gift was exercised in the church as the Spirit granted utterance and the message was readily interpreted in plenary (Read 1 Corinthians 14). My view is that once the written Scriptures were made available to the church, they provided the necessary spiritual and prophetic direction for the church.

When a preacher is warning his congregation of the consequences of sinful disobedience, is he not speaking prophetically into their lives under the authority of the word of God? Yes, the Holy Spirit does regularly speak to believers individually and to the Christian assembly in its plenary today but certainly not through self appointed prophets and diviners.

The Holy Spirit speaks to believers in accordance with the teaching of Scripture and more specifically as revealed in John 12:14-20, 26. He comforts and guides them in all truth and illuminating the word of God to them. He also affirms our relationship with God and helps us in prayer while interceding for us (Romans 8:1-27). He reveals to us the mind of Christ in accordance with 1 Corinthians 2:10-16.

Scripture therefore contains all that we need to know concerning the future, including the understanding of the times as we await the soon return of Jesus Christ.

At no time will the Holy Spirit of God speak in contradiction to word of God!

We therefore do not require self appointed prophets to speak into our lives outside the authority of the word of God. This is because Scripture contains our only reliable set of spiritual and prophetic binoculars by which we can look into the future and interpret the seasons and times. The Bible authoritatively speaks into our present and future.

While the Bible generally speaks into our future, there are several passages of the Scripture which specifically address the future of the church and the conclusion of human history. These include Matthew 24; 1Thessalonians 3-5; passages in Daniel, Zechariah, the Book of Revelation, among several other relevant books and passages of the Scripture.

All these passages prophetically reveal the events leading to the final curtains of human history and should be studied in context.

We do not require self appointed "prophets" to speak all manner of proclamations about our Christian experience or our immediate future when the Bible is explicit about it. Any preacher that purports to speak the mind of God outside the revelation and authority of Scripture should be ignored. 

May the word of God and the leading of the Holy Spirit be our reliable guide in our journey of faith.

Have a blessed weekend.

Shalom



© Ezekiel Kimosop 2018