The Apostles and NT Authority #1

Welcome to the Truth Pulpit with Don Green, Founding Pastor of Truth Community Church in Cincinnati, Ohio.

Hello, I'm Bill Wright. Thanks for joining us as we continue teaching God's people God's Word. Don begins a new message today, so without further delay, let's join him right now in the Truth Pulpit. Well, as we come to God's Word this evening, I ask you to turn to the book of 1 John toward the end of your Bibles this evening.

There's a text I want to read to set the stage for all of the instruction for this evening. 1 John chapter 1, we'll read the first four verses together. That which was from the beginning, which we have heard, which we have seen with our eyes, which we looked upon and have touched with our hands concerning the Word of life, the life was made manifest, and we have seen it and testified to it and proclaim to you the eternal life which was with the Father and was made manifest to us. That which we have seen and heard, we proclaim also to you so that you too may have fellowship with us. And indeed, our fellowship is with the Father and with his Son, Jesus Christ.

And we are writing these things so that our joy may be made complete. When John opens this letter, he is setting forth an extended statement of his apostolic authority. He's stating why he has the ability and the authority and the prerogative to speak about the nature of salvation, saving faith, and the truth of Jesus Christ to those to whom he is reading. John, you'll notice that John is appealing to the fact that he had direct personal experience with the Lord Jesus during the time that he was a disciple of Christ while Christ was on earth. He heard, verse 1, he heard Christ teach. He saw Christ with his own eyes. They looked upon him.

They touched him. And therefore, they had a direct personal experience with the Lord Jesus that is different and distinct from anything that anyone could truthfully claim today. John is writing as an apostle of Jesus Christ that goes to the question of why would we listen to what John has to say in 1 John. As stated, framed the question a little bit differently, why must we believe what the apostle John says in this letter?

State the question another way. How is it that John, the writer of this epistle, what is the basis upon which he can interpret Christ and interpret the teaching of Christ to the church for all time? That is a most essential question to be able to answer in a clear and direct way if you are going to have what we are calling a Christian mind. If you are going to think properly, if you are going to have a transformed mind as a believer, you must understand the nature of the apostolic office. Why can John interpret Christ for us? John was one of the apostles. And tonight we're going, if you're taking notes, and I encourage you to do so, tonight we're going to talk about the apostles and New Testament authority. Last time on Sunday we looked at Christ and New Testament authority, and we saw that during his earthly ministry, Jesus Christ prepared for and anticipated the writing of the New Testament canon after his ascension. He told the apostles that he was going to send the Holy Spirit upon them so that who would bring to mind everything that he said and guide them in the truth. And we need to understand the role of the apostles in the foundational aspect of New Testament Christianity. And we're going to spend two or three messages on this.

Tonight is a very important introduction. Martin Lloyd-Jones says this, he says, Do we always realize that the apostles claimed for themselves a unique authority? They asserted it constantly. We need to reconsider the New Testament teaching about the apostles. It was not their own authority. It was the authority they had derived and received from Christ. They did not speak as ordinary men. They spoke as apostles, end quote. Now, this is such a fundamental question. Who is it that has the authority to reveal and declare truth from God since the ascension of Jesus Christ? In some ways, there is no more important question than that. Can anyone stand up in a charismatic prayer service and say, Thus saith the Lord, and legitimately give new truth from God to those that hear?

Is that legitimate? Can the Catholic Church add to doctrine through their teaching magisterium? Can they add to truth and establish new doctrines? And can the pope speak infallibly when he sits ex cathedra and makes pronouncements that are binding on the conscience and carry the authority that what he is, what he says must be believed and obeyed? Does he have that authority?

The answer is no, he doesn't. But that's for another time. We're not simply talking about about the teaching office of the church today. We're not simply talking about what we're doing here this evening, where a man opens up the Bible and teaches and explains what it means by what it says. That's not the same thing as what the apostles were doing as they delivered New Testament Scripture to us.

The apostles were speaking with an authority that must be believed and must be obeyed in a way that is different and distinct from anything else. Who has the right, in other words, who has the right to declare truth about Christ and salvation? Or who is the appointed agent of revelation of truth about Christ and salvation?

Listen to me carefully, beloved. I'll give you a one sentence answer to that question, and then we'll spend three or four messages explaining why it must be the case. Who has the right to reveal truth about Christ and salvation since his ascension? The New Testament answer to that question is this. Only the apostles do. Only the apostles do. Only the 12 apostles do. The 12 minus Judas plus Matthias added in Acts chapter one, and then the apostle Paul to the Gentiles.

They are the unique authorized representatives of Jesus Christ to the church. And since their passing, there is no more apostles. There is no such thing as apostolic succession, despite the fact that many religions try to build their authority on that. There is no such thing as apostolic succession. There is no New Testament instruction on how that authority would be transferred. And it's because the authority was unique and it was limited to them and them alone.

That's a that's a truth of massive, massive implications. If this sounds new to you, if this is something that if this is new teaching to you, I want to assure you and encourage you to apply yourselves to what is to come, because this has just incalculable consequences for the entire nature of truth and of the New Testament church. Jesus Christ uniquely and exclusively commissioned the apostles before his ascension.

And what I'm doing here is I'm just giving you overview, an overview summary of it, and then we'll go back and we'll justify everything that we're saying in the you know, in the days to come, including this evening. The apostles have unique authority. They have non repeatable authority.

They have non delegable authority. And this is this is so crucial for us to understand the word apostle. Our English word apostle comes from a Greek verb, a Greek, a Greek root apostolo. And that verb has the idea of it means to send an an apostle is one who is sent. And it stresses the word apostle stresses that the sender commissioned the person who is sent so that the apostle goes out with an authority that is given to him by the one who is who is sent out.

And we'll look at examples of that in future messages. But for now, you just need to be of be of a mind that that the word apostle has the idea of someone who is sent on a mission. And it carries with it the idea that there was a an authoritative sender who commissioned them to the work that they undertake.

Now, in New Testament studies, the the word apostle is used in a technical sense that is in connection with the 12. And we're going to look at I believe it's four principles this evening to help you understand their unique authority and how we how we know and receive their authority today. And what I what I want to lay out for you here is just a very the idea of a commission with authority. Keep that in mind, one who is sent on a commission with authority. And I find it helpful to think about it this way, to think about it in a chain of command.

Those of you that served in the military, thank you for your service. I did not serve in the military, but I know just enough to know that the chain of command is very, very important in the idea of military discipline. Well, we can think we can borrow an idea like that to help us see the position of the apostles and to realize the nature of their authority. And and I think I personally find that, as I said on Sunday, I find this I find these doctrines about the apostles to be very stimulating, very encouraging, very exciting to understand that the apostles authority, the chain of command by which the apostles spoke with the authority that we saw in First John, the chain of command flows, beloved, straight from the throne of God. These men were not self-appointed.

They were not men who took up their pen because they had human insights that they wanted to share with others. No, they spoke with a unique, non-delegable authority that comes from God himself. And so here's here's how we're going to here's how we're going to structure it this evening. First of all, understand and you think about these things and they're they're so obvious when it's just set forth before you.

There's nothing difficult about this. First of all, our first point for this evening is going to be that that authority rests with God. And it's stated differently. God himself has all and final authority in and of himself. Authority rests with God.

That'll be our first point for this evening. Our second point for this evening, it will be that authority rests in Jesus Christ. Authority rests in Jesus Christ.

And we'll look at a few things to establish that beyond any dispute. Thirdly, we will see that authority rests in the apostles. So God, Christ, the apostles. And then fourthly and finally this evening, what we're going to see is that authority rests in the scriptures. Authority rests in the scriptures. So you have God with all authority. He sent his son, the Lord Jesus Christ, with all authority on earth. Christ assigned authority to the twelve apostles and the apostles then wrote authoritative scripture that is binding upon the church today. There's a chain of command. It's a direct chain of custody of the authority of God that goes from the throne of God ending in the apostolic scriptures and ceasing there. There is a reason why we hold to Sola Scriptura a message that I'm going to preach as part of this series on how to know the Bible is true. And so four principles for this evening that I've already outlined for you.

The first two will go by rather quickly. First of all, that authority rests in God. Now I could just assume this point, but I'll take just a couple of minutes to just give you a couple of scriptures to base your thinking on. You think about God whom we know exists. We know that God exists because we've established that.

We established that in the earlier parts of our series. We know that God exists because he has revealed himself. He has made himself known. He's made himself known in creation. He's made himself known in the canon of scripture. He has made himself known in the principle of human conscience. He has made himself known in the person of Jesus Christ.

He has made himself known in the reality of the conversion of his people. The existence of God is established conclusively in the mind of God in his testimony to man. Now the very nature, the very being of God then is that he is the one who has all authority. God is the sovereign king of the universe and he had all authority before creation began. He has never lost authority. He has authority throughout the whole course of human history and he will have full authority when he brings human history to an end.

And consequently, beloved, that is our starting point. God whom we know exists, God has all authority and authority rests in him. As a result of that, any legitimate authority traces its source back to the living God. God has all authority. He establishes structures of human authority and human institutions which mediate his authority, but all authority finds its source, all legitimate authority ultimately finds its source in God himself. And there is no true authority apart from him.

Let me give you just a couple of scriptures. Psalm 103 verse 19 says, The Lord has established his throne in the heavens and his kingdom rules over all. In the Nasby, it reads, His sovereignty reigns over all, words to that effect.

The word kingdom and sovereignty are used to translate the underlying Hebrew term. In Romans chapter 13, Romans chapter 13 verse 1, the apostle Paul says, There is no authority except from God. And that's in the context of calling Christians to obedience to human government. So authority rests in God. There is no authority except from God. There's no one that has an independent authority, independent of God.

There's no one that has a rival authority against God. He is alone in his authority. He is holy. He is separate.

He is unique. He is king over everything. And he holds ultimate authority. And therefore, God and God alone is the dispenser of human authority. Now, at this point, it might be helpful to give just a brief definition of the term authority, since we're staking so much on that term here today. Authority, just to give you a very simple definition, in the context of what we're talking about here in biblical truth and all of that, authority is the right, or the prerogative, authority is the right to command belief or action. Simple enough.

I'm not trying to be exhaustive, give a technical lexical definition. Just to give you a working sense of what we're talking about, authority is the right to command belief or action. Okay? Now, who then has the authority? This is an ultimate question, beloved. And I mean this is an ultimate question.

There are a few questions, if any, that are more fundamental than this question. Who has the authority to command us to believe and to behave in a certain way, in the way that he determines best? Who has the ultimate authority? Who has the final authority to command belief and behavior? And the biblical answer is that only God does.

Only God does. And legitimate authority, parental authority, and children must obey their parents, parents have that authority because it's derived from God who established the institution of the family. An employer has a right to command certain behaviors and call for obedience from his employees because God has established that institution.

And you read about that often in the New Testament. But when it comes to the matter of commanding belief, of establishing a way of salvation, of establishing eternal laws for the soul that must be obeyed upon penalty of eternal judgment for a single act of rebellion, only God has that authority. And so authority is the right to command belief or action. There is no authority except from God. We find authority rests in God and in God alone.

Okay? Now secondly, with that basic principle in mind, let's move on to our second point that authority rests in Christ. Authority rests in Christ. And when we think about God before creation, before all time, God existing in the blessedness of the ineffable Godhead, the triune Godhead, and all authority resting with him and all power resting with him, understand that in human time and space, God manifested his authority uniquely in the Lord Jesus Christ.

Uniquely in the Lord Jesus Christ. Our Lord, our blessed Lord, is the second person of the eternal and blessed Trinity. Jesus Christ has co-equal authority with the Father and the Spirit because they all share the single indivisible divine essence. And so Christ shares in the authority of God as a member of the blessed Trinity. And thus, when he came to earth, he came manifesting the authority of God, the character of God, revealing God in human flesh. And the four gospels are written in part to help us understand that Jesus of Nazareth is the Christ of God. He is the divine appointed Messiah. Now that's a claim of massive proportions to claim that Jesus Christ, or that Jesus is the Christ, that he is the Messiah. That's not a claim that can be lightly made, that you are the anointed one of God. And so, actually, if you turn back to the Gospel of John, just to give you a...

This would really be better as a summary at the end rather than an introduction, but that's okay. John chapter 20, the Apostle John, says this in John 20, verses 30 and 31. Now Jesus did many other signs in the presence of the disciples which are not written in this book, but these are written so that you may believe that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God, and that by believing you may have life in his name. These signs were attesting miracles that Jesus did during his earthly ministry. They were miracles that showed his authority over different realms that we're going to look at. Jesus exercised his authority over different realms of the spiritual and natural realm, which showed that he had a unique authority that belonged to no one else.

And John said, writing under the inspiration of the Holy Spirit, I wrote down the things that have preceded in the prior 20 chapters, so to speak. I wrote these things so that you would understand and know and believe that Jesus is the appointed Messiah of God and that all authority rests with him. And so that's the goal of the gospels, is to set forth Christ before us so that we would believe in him, recognize his unique authority, submit to him, believe in him, repent of sin, and receive him as he is presented to us in the gospel as our prophet, priest, and king. So, all authority rests with God, and Christ is sent by the Father into the world to manifest and to reveal God in human flesh and thereby display his authority. Now, tonight I just want to very quickly, this could be a complete independent message of its own, I just want to show you how the gospels show us at least five different ways that Christ displayed authority on the earth. This authority to command belief and action belongs to Christ uniquely, and he demonstrated that he had authority in the spiritual realm to command belief and behavior by the way that he exercised authority over things on earth. And we're just gonna cover this briefly tonight, we'll cover this more thoroughly in future weeks and months when we consider how to know that Jesus is Lord. This brief survey here over the next few minutes is only to stimulate your thinking in the context of dealing with the authority of the apostles.

So, be ready to write quickly here. One way that Christ manifested his authority was that he taught with authority. He taught with authority in a way that was recognized by those who heard him while he was on earth. In Matthew 7, verses 28 and 29, you do not need to turn there, I'll just read this to you. Matthew 7, at the end of the chapter, we read this. When Jesus finished these sayings, the Sermon on the Mount that he delivered on one occasion, found in Matthew 5 through 7. When Jesus finished these sayings, the crowds were astonished at his teaching, for he was teaching them as one who had authority and not as their scribes.

They were used to teachers quoting other authorities, other human authorities, and teaching like that. Jesus Christ came and said, you've heard it said that such and such is true, but I say to you. Six times in Matthew 5, he says, but I say to you. He speaks on his own authority. He doesn't need to quote others to support the authority of what he teaches. And the crowds who heard him at the time recognized that. And there was something about the manner and the instruction and the content and his demeanor as he taught that astonished them. And they said, we've never heard a man speak like this before. That was often said of Christ in his ministry.

Words to that effect, we've never heard a man speak like this. The very nature of his teaching manifested his authority and set him apart from all of the other teachers that they had. Christ taught with authority, and that is one way that we know that authority rests in him. Secondly, as we look at how Christ manifested his authority, as you read the gospels, you see that Christ healed diseases and he cast out demons.

He healed diseases and cast out demons. Just write down the verse reference and then I'll read it to you. Mark chapter one, verse 34.

Mark chapter one, verse 34. We read that Jesus healed many who were sick with various diseases and cast out many demons and he would not permit the demons to speak because they knew him. Jesus, unlike the charismatic charlatans of today, Jesus healed immediately things of observable, things of observable, verifiable affliction.

You remember how he told the lame man to get up off of his bed, pick up his pallet and walk? A man by the pool who had not walked for his 38 years or so and Jesus commands him to get up and walk and he does. He exercised, beloved, he exercised direct authority over the realm of physical human disease and cured it in a way that no one else could do and had ever done and therefore distinguished himself as one having authority. He cast out supernatural beings. He cast out demons.

He controlled them. He commanded them, told them what to do and they had no choice but to obey and do what he said. And so in the physical realm, Christ manifested a unique authority that vindicated that God's authority resided in him. He exercised authority over the spiritual realm, showing again that God's unique authority resided in him, in the person of Christ. So we join two things together there, but we see Christ, how do we know that all authority rests in Christ?

He taught with authority. He healed diseases and cast out demons. Thirdly, Jesus Christ forgave sin. Jesus Christ forgave sin.

Now the next two texts that we're going to look at are just a little bit longer and so I'll have you turn to those so that you can read along with me. Mark chapter two, Mark chapter two, beginning in verse nine. Mark chapter two, beginning in verse nine. You remember the story.

I've already alluded to it in a general sense. Jesus was teaching in Capernaum. Many were gathered together, verse two.

There was no room to get to him, not even at the door. And some men came and they had a paralytic that they were carrying. In verse four, they could not get near Jesus because of the crowd, so they removed the roof above him, the soil roof that would have been above him.

They made an opening and they lowered the bed on which the paralytic lay. And in verse five, when Jesus saw their faith, he said to the paralytic, son, your sins are forgiven. Now some of the scribes were sitting there, verse six, questioning in their hearts, why does this man speak like that?

He is blaspheming. Who can forgive sins but God alone? And that word can, who can forgive sins is implying who has the authority to forgive sins against God except God alone.

No one has that authority. Only God can forgive sin. In verse eight, Jesus didn't back down from the challenge. Instead, he pressed the point. Verse eight, immediately Jesus, perceiving in his spirit that they thus questioned within themselves, said to them, why do you question these things in your hearts? Which is easier, to say to the paralytic, your sins are forgiven, or to say rise, take up your bed and walk? He said, you can say either sentence with equal ease, but how do you know that there is authority behind the words that are spoken?

How do you know that it carries the right of command and the right of declaration? Jesus, so he goes on. He says, anybody could say those words. The problem with forgiving sins is it's in an unseen realm where you can't observe it with your human senses. And so Jesus addresses that objection and that concern and manifests his authority. Verse 10, but that you may know that the Son of Man, here it is, has authority on earth to forgive sins. He said to the paralytic, I say to you, rise, pick up your bed and go home. And this man who could not walk, verse 12, got up. He rose and immediately picked up his bed and went out before them all so that they were all amazed and glorified, God saying, we never saw anything like this. This is new to human experience to see a man heal a paralyzed man by his spoken word alone, tell him to get up and walk out, and he did. And that was only secondary to the greater reality that Christ is asserting the authority to forgive sin so that the sign, the miracle of healing a man with the spoken word established his authority over the physical realm. And the point is that that authority over the physical realm shows that he has authority in the spiritual realm to be the one to forgive sin.

And so Christ forgave sin, and they knew it, and they were astonished at the sight of what they saw. That's Don Green here on The Truth Pulpit. And here's Don again with some closing thoughts. Well, my friend, thank you for joining us here on today's broadcast of The Truth Pulpit where we love to be teaching God's people God's word.

And I just want to send a special invitation to you. If you're ever in the Midwest area, come to see us at Truth Community Church. We're on the east side of Cincinnati, Ohio. We're easy to find, easy to get to. We have services at 9 a.m. on Sunday and 7 p.m. Eastern time on Tuesday evening for our midweek study. You can also find us on our livestream at thetruthpulpit.com.

That's thetruthpulpit.com. But we would love to see you. And if you do happen to be able to visit us in person, do this if you would. Come and introduce yourself to me personally. Fight your way through the people and tell me that you listen on The Truth Pulpit and that you're here visiting. I would love to give you a word of personal greeting. So hopefully we'll see you one day in person at Truth Community Church.

You can find our location and service times at thetruthpulpit.com. That's Don Green, founding pastor of Truth Community Church in Cincinnati, Ohio. Thank you so much for listening to The Truth Pulpit. Join us next time for more as we continue teaching God's people God's Word.