APOSTLE
APOSTLE
(a-pos'-l) (apotolos, literally, "one sent forth," an envoy, missionary):
For the meaning of this name as it meets us in the New Testament, reference
is sometimes made to classical and Jewish parallels. In earlier classical
Greek there was a distinction between an aggelos or messenger and an
apostolos, who was not a mere messenger, but a delegate or representative
of the person who sent him. In the later Judaism, again, apostoloi were
envoys sent out by the patriarchate in Jerusalem to collect the sacred
tribute from the Jews of the Dispersion. It seems unlikely, however, that
either of these uses bears upon the Christian origin of a term which, in
any case, came to have its own distinctive Christian meaning. To understand
the word as we find it in the New Testament it is not necessary to go
beyond the New Testament itself. To discover the source of its Christian
use it is sufficient to refer to its immediate and natural signification.
The term used by Jesus, it must be remembered, would be Aramaic, not Greek,
and apostolos would be its literal equivalent.
1. The Twelve: In the New Testament history we first hear of the term as
applied by Jesus to the Twelve in connection with that evangelical mission
among the villages on which He dispatched them at an early stage of His
public ministry (Matt 10:1 ff; Mark 3:14; 6:30; Luke 6:13; 9:1 ff). From a
comparison of the Synoptics it would seem that the name as thus used was
not a general designation for the Twelve, but had reference only to this
particular mission, which was typical and prophetic, however, of the wider
mission that was to come (compare Hort, Christian Ecclesia, 23-29). Luke,
it is true, uses the word as a title for the Twelve apart from reference to
the mission among the villages. But the explanation probably is, as Dr.
Hort suggests, that since the Third Gospel and the Book of Acts formed two
sections of what was really one work, the author in the Gospel employs the
term in that wider sense which it came to have after the Ascension.
When we pass to Acts, "apostles" has become an ordinary name for the Eleven
(Acts 1:2,26), and after the election of Matthias in place of Judas, for
the Twelve (2:37,42-43, etc.). But even so it does not denote a particular
and restricted office, but rather that function of a world-wide missionary
service to which the Twelve were especially called. In His last charge,
just before He ascended, Jesus had commissioned them to go forth into all
the world and preach the gospel to every creature (Matt 28:19-20; Mark
16:15). He had said that they were to be His witnesses not only in
Jerusalem and Judaea, but in Samaria (contrast Matt 10:5), and unto the
uttermost part of the earth (Acts 1:8). They were apostles, therefore, qua
missionaries-not merely because they were the Twelve, but because they were
now sent forth by their Lord on a universal mission for the propagation of
the gospel.
2. Paul: The very fact that the name "apostle" means what it does would
point to the impossibility of confining it within the limits of the Twelve.
(The "twelve apostles" of Rev 21:14 is evidently symbolic; compare in 7:3
ff the restriction of God's sealed servants to the twelve tribes.) Yet
there might be a tendency at first to do so, and to restrict it as a badge
of honor and privilege peculiar to that inner circle (compare Acts 1:25).
If any such tendency existed, Paul effectually broke it down by vindicating
for himself the right to the name. His claim appears in his assumption of
the apostolic title in the opening words of most of his epistles. And when
his right to it was challenged, he defended that right with passion, and
especially on these grounds: that he had seen Jesus, and so was qualified
to bear witness to His resurrection (1 Cor 9:1; compare Acts 22:6 ff); that
he had received a call to the work of an apostle (Rom 1:1; 1 Cor 1:1, etc.;
Gal 2:7; compare Acts 13:2 ff; 22:21); but, above all, that he could point
to the signs and seals of his apostleship furnished by his missionary
labors and their fruits (1 Cor 9:2; 2 Cor 12:12; Gal 2:8). It was by this
last ground of appeal that Paul convinced the original apostles of the
justice of his claim. He had not been a disciple of Jesus in the days of
His flesh; his claim to have seen the risen Lord and from Him to have
received a personal commission was not one that could be proved to others;
but there could be no possibility of doubt as to the seals of his
apostleship. It was abundantly clear that "he that wrought for Peter unto
the apostleship of the circumcision wrought for (Paul) also unto the
Gentiles" (Gal 2:8). And so perceiving the grace that was given unto him,
Peter and John, together with James of Jerusalem, recognized Paul as
apostle to the Gentiles and gave him the right hand of fellowship (verse 9).
3. The Wider Circle: It is sometimes said by those who recognize that there
were other apostles besides the Twelve and Paul that the latter (to whom
some, on the ground of 1 Cor 15:7; Gal 1:19, would add James the Lord's
brother) were the apostles paragraph excellence, while the other apostles
mentioned in the New Testament were apostles in some inferior sense. It is
hardly possible, however, to make out such a distinction on the ground of
New Testament usage. There were great differences, no doubt, among the
apostles of the primitive church, as there were among the Twelve
themselves-differences due to natural talents, to personal acquirements and
experience, to spiritual gifts. Paul was greater than Barnabas or Silvanus,
just as Peter and John were greater than Thaddaeus or Simon the Cananaean.
But Thaddaeus and Simon were disciples of Jesus in the very same sense as
Peter and John; and the Twelve and Paul were not more truly apostles than
others who are mentioned in the New Testament.
If apostleship denotes missionary service, and if its reality, as Paul
suggests, is to be measured by its seals, it would be difficult to maintain
that Matthias was an apostle paragraph excellence, while Barnabas was not.
Paul sets Barnabas as an apostle side by side with himself (1 Cor 9:5 f;
Gal 2:9; compare Acts 13:2 f; 14:4,14); he speaks of Andronicus and Junias
as "of note among the apostles" (Rom 16:7); he appears to include Apollos
along with himself among the apostles who are made a spectacle unto the
world and to angels and to men (1 Cor 4:6,9); the natural inference from a
comparison of 1 Thess 1:1 with 2:6 is that he describes Silvanus and
Timothy as "apostles of Christ"; to the Philippians he mentions
Epaphroditus as "your apostle" (Phil 2:25 the Revised Version, margin), and
to the Corinthians commends certain unknown brethren as "the apostles of
the churches" and "the glory of Christ" (2 Cor 8:23 the Revised Version,
margin). And the very fact that he found it necessary to denounce certain
persons as "false apostles, deceitful workers, fashioning themselves into
apostles of Christ" (11:13) shows that there was no thought in the
primitive church of restricting the apostleship to a body of 12 or 13 men.
"Had the number been definitely restricted, the claims of these interlopers
would have been self-condemned" (Lightfoot, Galatians, 97).
4. Apostles in Didache: When we come to the Didache, which probably lies
beyond the boundary-line of New Testament history, we find the name
"apostles" applied to a whole class of nameless missionaries-men who
settled in no church, but moved about from place to place as messengers of
the gospel (chapter 11). This makes it difficult to accept the view, urged
by Lightfoot (op. cit., 98) and Gwatkin (Hastings Dictionary of the Bible,
I, 126) on the ground Of Luke 24:48;APOSTLE
Acts 1:8,22; 1 Cor 9:1, that to have seen the Lord was always the primary
qualification of an apostle-a view on the strength of which they reject the
apostleship of Apollos and Timothy, as being late converts to Christianity
who lived far from the scenes of Our Lord's ministry. Gwatkin remarks that
we have no reason to suppose that this condition was ever waived unless we
throw forward the Didache into the 2 nd century. But it seems very unlikely
that even toward the end of the 1 st century there would be a whole class
of men, not only still alive, but still braving in the exercise of their
missionary functions all the hardships of a wandering and homeless
existence (compare Didache 11:4-6), who were yet able to bear the personal
testimony of eye-witnesses to the ministry and resurrection of Jesus. In
Luke 24:48 and Acts 18:22 it is the chosen company of the Twelve who are in
view. In 1 Cor 9:1 Paul is meeting his Judaizing opponents on their own
ground, and answering their insistence upon personal intercourse with Jesus
by a claim to have seen the Lord. But apart from these passages there is no
evidence that the apostles of the early church were necessarily men who had
known Jesus in the flesh or had been witnesses of His resurrection-much
less that this was the primary qualification on which their apostleship was
made to rest.
5. The Apostleship: We are led then to the conclusion that the true
differentia of the New Testament apostleship lay in the missionary calling
implied in the name, and that all whose lives were devoted to this
vocation, and who could prove by the issues of their labors that God's
Spirit was working through them for the conversion of Jew or Gentile, were
regarded and described as apostles. The apostolate was not a limited circle
of officials holding a well-defined position of authority in the church,
but a large class of men who discharged one-and that the highest-of the
functions of the prophetic ministry (1 Cor 12:28; Eph 4:11). It was on the
foundation of the apostles and prophets that the Christian church was
built, with Jesus Christ Himself as the chief corner-stone (Eph 2:20). The
distinction between the two classes was that while the prophet was God's
spokesman to the believing church (1 Cor 14:4,22,25,30-31), the apostle was
His envoy to the unbelieving world (Gal 2:7,9).
The call of the apostle to his task might come in a variety of ways. The
Twelve were called personally by Jesus to an apostolic task at the
commencement of His earthly ministry (Matt 10:1 ff parallel), and after His
resurrection this call was repeated, made permanent, and given a universal
scope (Matt 28:19-20; Acts 1:8). Matthias was called first by the voice of
the general body of the brethren and thereafter by the decision of the lot
(Acts 1:15,23,26). Paul's call came to him in a heavenly vision (Acts
26:17-19); and though this call was subsequently ratified by the church at
Antioch, which sent him forth at the bidding of the Holy Ghost (13:1 ff),
he firmly maintained that he was an apostle not from men neither through
man, but through Jesus Christ and God the Father who raised Him from the
dead (Gal 1:1). Barnabas was sent forth (exapostello is the verb used) by
the church at Jerusalem (Acts 11:22) and later, along with Paul, by the
church at Antioch (Acts 13:1); and soon after this we find the two men
described as apostles (Acts14:4). It was the mission on which they were
sent that explains the title. And when this particular mission was
completed and they returned to Antioch to rehearse before the assembled
church "all things that God had done with them, and that he had opened a
door of faith unto the Gentiles" (Acts 14:27), they thereby justified their
claim to be the apostles not only of the church, but of the Holy Spirit.
The authority of the apostolate was of a spiritual, ethical and personal
kind. It was not official, and in the nature of the case could not be
transmitted to others. Paul claimed for himself complete independence of
the opinion of the whole body of the earlier apostles (Gal 2:6,11), and in
seeking to influence his own converts endeavored by manifestation of the
truth to commend himself to every man's conscience in the sight of God (2
Cor 4:2). There is no sign that the apostles collectively exercised a
separate and autocratic authority. When the question of the observance of
the Mosaic ritual by gentile Christians arose at Antioch and was referred
to Jerusalem, it was "the apostles and elders" who met to discuss it (Acts
15:2,6,22), and the letter returned to Antioch was written in the name of
"the apostles and the elders, brethren" (Acts 15:23). In founding a church
Paul naturally appointed the first local officials (Acts 14:23), but he
does not seem to have interfered with the ordinary administration of
affairs in the churches he had planted. In those cases in which he was
appealed to or was compelled by some grave scandal to interpose, he rested
an authoritative command on some express word of the Lord (1 Cor 7:10), and
when he had no such word to rest on, was careful to distinguish his own
judgment and counsel from a Divine commandment (12,25,40). His appeals in
the latter case are grounded upon fundamental principles of morality common
to heathen and Christian alike (1 Cor 5:1), or are addressed to the
spiritual judgment (1 Cor 10:15), or are reinforced by the weight of a
personal influence gained by unselfish service and by the fact that he was
the spiritual father of his converts as having begotten them in Christ
Jesus through the gospel (1 Cor 4:15 f).
It may be added here that the expressly missionary character of the
apostleship seems to debar James, the Lord's brother, from any claim to the
title. James was a prophet and teacher, but not an apostle. As the head of
the church at Jerusalem, he exercised a ministry of a purely local nature.
The passages on which it has been sought to establish his right to be
included in the apostolate do not furnish any satisfactory evidence. In 1
Cor 15:7 James is contrasted with "all the apostles" rather than included
in their number (compare 1 Cor 9:5). And in Gal 1:19 the meaning may quite
well be that with the exception of Peter, none of the apostles was seen by
Paul in Jerusalem, but only James the Lord's brother (compare the Revised
Version, margin).
LITERATURE. --Lightfoot, Galatians, 92-101; Hort, Christian Ecclesia, Lect
II; Weizsacker, The Apostolic Age, II, 291-99; Lindsay, The Church and the
Ministry, 73-90.
(from International Standard Bible Encyclopaedia, Electronic Database
Copyright (c)1996 by Biblesoft)
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