Do you remember? Previously, I wrote about a visitor to the church I pastor. She wanted to know whether people in the church had ‘the gifts of the Spirit’. She clearly believed that all the gifts that were given to the churches of the New Testament must be around still and should be found in every church today. ‘After all’, she said, ‘Jesus Christ is the same yesterday, today, and forever so he must give the same gifts now as he did at the beginning.’
Well, I tried to show her that there’s at least one gift that the Lord gave in the first century that he doesn’t give now. ‘God has appointed in his church first apostles…’ (1 Corinthians 12:28); ‘He gave the apostles…’ (Ephesians 4:11).
Who were these apostles? They were men chosen directly by the Lord Jesus (Luke 6:13). He delegated to them supreme authority to speak and to act in his name (Matthew 10:40). He appeared to each of them after he was raised from the dead and appointed them to be witnesses to the resurrection (Acts 1:21-26, 1 Corinthians 15:3-7). The ‘mystery of Christ’ was revealed to them so that, with the prophets, they might become the once-for-all foundation of the church (Ephesians 2:19-22, 3:4, Revelation 21:14). Paul declared himself to be the very last apostle – the apostle ‘untimely born’ (1 Corinthians 15:8-9).
Are there such people around today? Clearly not. There is not one person alive on earth who matches the New Testament definition of an apostle. And reluctantly our friend had to acknowledge that fact.
