Who Can Be an Apostle #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. If you think about it, the destiny of our eternal souls is utterly dependent on the truth, the truth of the gospel and knowing the truth of where spiritual authority actually lies. To follow false teachers, to follow blind men, spiritually blind men, is to follow them into the pit. It's essential for us to know where we are to go to know the truth about God, about Christ, about the gospel, about sin, about forgiveness, about redemption, about heaven, about hell. It's essential for us to know those things.

Nothing else matters by comparison. I understand, and I'm of like flesh with everyone else, you know, we tend to get wrapped up in human matters, in earthly matters, in human controversies, human disputes and all of that. Beloved, it's essential for us to know what is true and where we are to find the truth. And to stray on this point, to stray on the question of what holds ultimate authority is to put your soul in the most grave of dangers. We are in the midst of a series that we've titled How to Know the Bible is True.

We've preached many messages on it. And ultimately, the question on how do we know the Bible is true comes down to one person. It comes down to two words. It comes down to Jesus Christ. Jesus Christ is the highest authority in the universe. He is the eternal Son of God.

No one else's opinion matters but his. What he says and what he alone says is what we can rely on, on him or those that he has properly delegated to speak on his behalf. And so it's essential for us to understand that the cornerstone of our understanding and our confidence of biblical authority is found in the Lord Jesus Christ.

That is essential for us to understand. There is no higher authority in the universe. Many of you were not here with us on this past Tuesday, but we kind of just went through a stair step of understanding authority and where authority comes from and where spiritual authority is expressed in its final form. And just by way of the quickest of review, we said that God is the ultimate authority.

And he holds authority. There is no authority except from God, it says in Romans 13, verse 1. And so that is the starting point of understanding authority and authority being that which speaks to us about what we must believe and what we must do. Who has the authority to tell us what we must believe and what we must do? In some ways that is the most fundamental question of them all.

And I make no apology for spending a lot of time on this point because it is, you settle this properly and everything else flows as a result of it. So all authority rests with God. God manifested his authority on earth in the person of the Lord Jesus Christ. Christ being the second member of the eternal trinity, the triune Godhead, Christ came and he manifested the authority of God. He manifested the person of God in human flesh during his earthly ministry.

And he proved that in many ways. He proved it in the authority of his teaching, his authority over physical illness, his authority over demons, his authority over death and other matters as well that we looked at on Tuesday. Christ came to earth and established his authority over every realm. Seen and unseen, Christ manifested that he had authority over it all as manifested in his earthly ministry revealed to us and recorded for us in the four gospels.

Now, we continued to go on last time. We went on and on last time and saw that Christ delegated his authority. Christ conferred his authority on the New Testament apostles. And we looked at how the Lord did that. He chose them and he appointed them to go out and to minister on his behalf and delegated his authority so that they could speak with the full authority of Christ and make truth known. Christ using the apostles, the true apostles as the appointed agents of his revelation. And as we went on, we said, and the fourth point, there was God, Christ, the apostles.

We said, and now the question is, how do we know, how do we recognize apostolic authority today? Christ is no longer on earth. He is in heaven. There's no such thing as finding the body of Christ today on earth.

There's no such thing as elements being transmuted into his body and blood transubstantiated into his body and blood. The body of Christ is in heaven, not on earth. The apostles have died and gone to heaven now.

So how then with Christ no longer physically present with the apostles, no longer physically present, how are we to know, how are we to know where does where does authority now reside? Where do we find a reliable final standard by which we understand and know what we are to believe and what we are to do? Beloved, the eternal destiny of your soul hinges on that very question. Where am I to look for truth? Or am I to be guided by what seems best to me? Well, this feels right to me.

This is what makes sense to me. Beloved, would you really want to stake your eternal destiny on your opinion, you who were born just within a few short years ago, you who are fallen in sin, you who have trouble balancing your checkbook, you who have trouble keeping track of the maintenance on your vehicles, you who have trouble in getting a little more substantial about it, you and I who have difficulty in just managing human relationships, are we really going to trust our judgment and what we feel inside to as the basis upon which we would rely and determine what is true and stake the redemption of our eternal soul on what seems right to us? You've got a pretty high opinion of yourself if you think your judgment is reliable on these things, and to stake everything on your own judgment, I wouldn't go there if I were you.

I don't go there myself. Others look to human institutions, human authorities, those that assert spiritual prerogatives and claim to be speaking on behalf of God in ways that we'll look at later. Well, how are we to know whether they're telling us the truth or not? You know, this is a real problem.

This is a real problem. As soon as you step away from Scripture, it's a real, real problem. That's why it's so important for us to know these things of which we're speaking here over these few weeks.

It's so important to know the difference between the true and the false. We're commanded to test the spirits, to know whether they are from God or not. And what we're seeing as we study Scripture today is that it all comes down to this matter of apostolic authority. Now, just to kind of get us into Scriptures, let me invite you to turn again to 1 John, chapter 1. We started there last time.

I want to go back to this again. The simplicity of the language with which John opens this letter belies the fundamental importance of the foundation that he lays for him to speak to believers as he writes. John is giving a practical insight into the reality of his apostolic authority as he speaks and as he writes at the opening of 1 John. And you see that from what he says in verse 1. He says, 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. Here in that verse, John is using the we to refer to the apostolic circle. Without going into all of the New Testament introduction to justify the fact that I'm about to lay out before you, John is writing probably in the early 90s, some 60 years after the time of Christ, after Christ was crucified, resurrected, and ascended into heaven. So that with the mere passage of time, you know that most of his audience that he's writing to, or certainly a significant portion of his audience, they were not direct eyewitnesses of Christ themselves. They were not alive when Christ was.

They were not there at the time that Christ was. And so the readers could not say, in the same way that John does, John says, we heard him. He's not saying, you and I have heard him, you who are in your twenties, who were born 40 years after Christ, you didn't hear him.

That's not what he's saying. What he's saying is we have. We, the apostles, we heard Christ. We saw him with our own eyes. We looked upon him and the idea of gazing on him and studying him and reflecting deeply upon what was considered. We touched him with our hands. This is something that is not true of, of, of general believers.

Certainly today, certainly not of John's audience. What the apostle John is doing here is he is reminding at the very start, he's reminding his readers of the very start that he's saying, I was there with Christ. I heard him with my own ears. I saw him with my own eyes.

I touched him with my own hands. I am speaking to you from direct personal experience and also by the assigned authority, which Christ has given me to write and to speak as an apostle. So that he says in verse three, verse two, I should say, the life was made manifest. We have seen it.

We testify to it. We proclaim to you the eternal life, which was with the father and was made manifest to us. Christ was preexistent.

He was with the father before time began, before the world was created. This is the Christ of which I speak. And he was manifested to us. He was made known to us.

He appeared to us in such tangible reality that we saw him, touched him and heard him speak. And he goes on and he says in verse three, that which we have seen and heard, we proclaim also to you so that you may have fellowship with us. The apostles tell us what they knew, what they learned in their exposure to Christ, what the spirit revealed to them as they wrote scripture. And from that position of final spiritual authority, they make known to us that which enables us to enter into fellowship with them and the fellowship that they had with Christ.

He says there at the end of verse three, indeed, our fellowship is with the father and with his son, Jesus Christ. Beloved, as we're going to see later in today's message, that personal exposure to Christ, that personal acquaintance with the resurrected Christ was an essential non-negotiable requirement of being a true apostle. A true apostle was directly appointed by Christ himself and he had direct exposure to the resurrected Christ. And that's what John is appealing to as he opens up this letter as that which gives him authority to speak to the nature of true salvation and to address problems within the church. The apostles, the true apostles, had unique authority to speak on behalf of Christ.

They had unique authority, beloved, they had exclusive authority as we will see. Now, since the beginning of the church, since the beginning of apostolic ministry and going back well into the times of the apostle Paul, there has been a perpetual problem generated by the adversary of our souls, generated by Satan himself, in that he stimulates men, sometimes women I guess, he moves men, he motivates men to set forth themselves as additional apostles, as those also having apostolic authority. False apostles claiming to be an apostle, but not genuinely being one.

And this has been a problem, this has been a problem from the beginning. Look at 2 Corinthians chapter 11 if you would. 2 Corinthians chapter 11. As you're turning there, Paul writes the letter of 2 Corinthians in order to defend his apostolic authority to a church that was beginning, that was doubting him, and that was following other men, thinking that God was speaking through these other apostles to the detriment of the ministry of the apostle Paul. And this passage here in 2 Corinthians 11 gives you an insight into the nature of the problem. And we see the satanic element, the satanic challenge that is raised against the church at precisely this point.

We cannot overemphasize this, I cannot warn you strongly enough to take these matters with the utmost seriousness for the sake of your own soul. Paul says as he opens chapter 11 verse 1, he says, I wish you would bear with me in a little foolishness. Do bear with me, for I feel a divine jealousy for you, since I betrothed you to one husband to present you as a pure virgin to Christ. Now look at verse 3. Paul says, but I'm afraid. I'm afraid that as the serpent deceived Eve by his cunning, your thoughts will be led astray from a sincere and pure devotion to Christ. He says, he's setting forth himself as a true apostle, and he says, there is satanic opposition at this very point that you need to be aware of that concern me for the sake of your souls. He says, from the beginning, Satan led humanity astray.

He deceived Eve with his cunning, and a same kind of cunning is at work in this matter of apostolic authority. And he says there in verse 4, he says, for if someone comes, see it's a different kind of teaching. It's someone raising up a different Christ, a different gospel to the church. And Paul is correcting and admonishing and rebuking the Corinthians for having been receptive to these false teachers. He says, if someone comes and proclaims another Jesus than the one we proclaimed, or if you receive a different spirit from the one you received, or if you accept a different gospel from the one you accepted, you put up with it readily enough. He says, you're willing to accept people preaching a false Christ and a false gospel to you different from the one that you received from me. And he is warning them and rebuking them against that credulous spirit, against that naive spirit, against that rebellious spirit that betrays fidelity like a spiritual adulterer betrays fidelity to the gospel that was entrusted to them. He goes on, we'll pass into the later part of the chapter now, in verse 12. These teachers came to them saying, we're on the same level as the apostle Paul.

Listen to us. Paul says, they're not on the same level as us. In fact, they are from Satan. And so he says in verse 12, he says, what I am doing, I will continue to do in order to undermine the claim of those who would like to claim that in their boasted mission, they work on the same terms as we do. What he's saying is, there are people who claim that they work just like I do as an apostle.

I am writing to you to undermine that claim, to show you that it is false so that you will not be misled by them. Paul is jealous for them with a godly jealousy that says, I want to keep you in Christ. I want you not to stray from the gospel that you have heard.

And there are men that will lead you astray. They say their mission is the same as mine. They say that they are equal to the apostles.

It's not true. He says it explicitly in verse 13. He says, for such men are false apostles, deceitful workmen, disguising themselves as apostles of Christ. They claim to be an apostle. They give an appearance like they're an apostle, but it's false.

It's a mask. It's not true. And you say, but how can it, but they sound so persuasive. Paul says, don't be deceived by that. It's no wonder that they claim to be apostles. Verse 14, because even Satan disguises himself as an angel of light. Satan takes on a form as a trustworthy angel.

But you have to look beyond the form, the outward form, to look at the reality. And in verse 15, Paul says, so it's no surprise if his servants also disguise themselves as servants of righteousness, their end will correspond to their deeds. Let's let that set in for a moment here, beloved, so that you see the stakes that are at hand in what we are seeing from God's word here today. There are true apostles. There are false apostles.

We need to know who the true ones are so that we can rightly and decisively reject the false apostles. And what we need to see, we need to approach this with a humble, sober spirit, depending upon the Holy Spirit to guide us and to help us, because there is an evil, supernatural force of opposition against an understanding of true apostolic doctrine. Satan disguises himself. Satan would hinder the advance of the gospel. Satan would hinder the salvation of souls. Satan would hinder you and would delight in the destruction of your souls. He would delight in apostasy. And so it is essential for us to understand how it is that we are to determine these things and to realize that as we engage in this study, as we engage in this proclamation of this aspect of biblical doctrine, that we are engaged on the front lines of a spiritual battle over this very particular point, that we come against the kingdom of Satan, the kingdom of darkness, as we assert these things.

And think about it. Look at all of the people trying to make claims to ties to the apostle or being apostles or whatever the case may be. You have the Mormon church with their quorum of 12 apostles.

You have the Catholic church claiming apostolic succession, and that that is the basis of their authority. You have charismatics claiming to have apostles and modern-day apostles and all of that. Beloved, as soon as you see and hear those kinds of claims being made, you should quiver at the recognition that we are seeing a modern-day manifestation of false apostles making the same kind of claim energized by the same evil spirit that Paul was confronting in 2 Corinthians 11.

We have to know the answers to these questions. We have to know the true from the false. When Jesus addressed the church at Ephesus in Revelation chapter 2, he had things that he rebuked them for and warned them about having lost their first love. And we tend to think of the church of Ephesus in those terms.

But before he rebuked them, he commended them. In Revelation chapter 2 verse 2, he said, you test those who claim to be apostles but are not. When a claim of apostolic authority is presented to you, you have to test it in order to be faithful to Christ. You have to test it and find out the true from the false. How are we ever to know such things? It's obvious, isn't it, that it can't simply be a matter of uninformed opinion and speculation? Isn't it obvious that false apostles are not going to come to us in a red suit and with a pointy tail that makes it obvious that they are satanic, that we can recognize them easily by external appearance?

No, to the contrary, they're smooth. They do things that will deceive you and to make it seem plausible that their claims of speaking on behalf of Christ are true. Jesus warned in the Olivet Discourse that false teachers, false prophets would arise so as to deceive, if possible, even the elect. Now, beloved, let's not make the mistake of underestimating the serious nature of what we are considering and the reality of it and to realize that even in the pages of Scripture itself, we see the apostles dealing with these issues.

And we see demonically inspired men raising, puffing themselves up, claiming things about themselves to equate themselves in one way or another with the apostles that are not true, that could never be true. We need to know who to follow. We need to know where do we find apostolic authority. Beloved, I'm not an apostle. We find apostolic authority in the pages of Scripture alone so that—I nearly forgot to say this—so that on Tuesday there were four points. Where do we find authority that who has the power, the final prerogative to command what we are to believe and to do?

State it this way, beloved. Who has the authority to come in and to bind your conscience by instructing you on this is what you are to believe for salvation, this is what you are to do to please God? Who has the authority to bind your conscience so that to disobey, to disregard them is to sin against God himself?

Who has the authority to do that? Well, obviously God does. Obviously Christ does.

You call me Lord and teacher and you're right, for I am, he said. The apostles do because Christ commanded them. We looked at passages where Paul said, Peter said, you know, that the commandments of our Lord Jesus through his holy apostles, so the apostles can speak with that kind of authority. We said, fourthly, that apostolic authority is now expressed in their writings. Apostolic authority is found in the writings of the apostle, and beloved, here's the important point. There is no fifth point. There is no fifth point. Apostolic authority, the authority of God, ends in the written scriptures. Now that the apostles are gone, now that Christ is in heaven, we find the authority of God expressed to us through the written word.

And there is no fifth point. There is no one else to come. All other claims to apostolic authority by men today of equivalent apostolic authority are false and these are men to be rejected, turned away from, spurned, flee from them.

How can we know that? How do you recognize a true apostle? Or to take the way I've titled today's message, who can be an apostle? I'll ask, we put it in the form of a question, who can be an apostle? When we walk through what scripture tells us about the apostolic office, we'll see clearly that there are none today, and that we find apostolic authority as we study the scriptures together. I want to give you three essential characteristics of true apostles, and as you understand these and apply them today, you can see that at every point, that at every point, today's claims of apostolic authority are false and therefore are men to be rejected. And it is essential for us to test those who claim to be apostles, but are not.

So three points for today. Point number one, I want to look at the apostles' qualifications. The apostles' qualifications. We've already hinted at this with our introduction from 1 John, but to get us started, let me invite you to turn to the book of Acts chapter one.

The book of Acts chapter one. To stray from the apostles is to take a step into darkness. It is to walk out of the kingdom of God. I'm not talking about losing salvation as I say this. It's to walk out of the kingdom of God, out of the kingdom of light, into the kingdom of Satan and into the kingdom of darkness.

We must understand this. The apostles' qualifications. Beloved, not just anyone could be an apostle. Jesus personally chose the men that he wanted to be apostles while he was on earth.

We looked at that. Mark chapter three. He chose the apostles. They did not appoint themselves. They did not put themselves forward and assert themselves to be apostles. Jesus said, you did not choose me, but I chose you. Speaking to the apostles when he said that. And so it's a matter of the choice of Christ, which makes perfect sense. Christ has all authority. He has the prerogative to choose whom he wanted to speak on his behalf. And not anyone, you can't just appoint yourself.

Think about it this way. You know, if those of you that have bought and sold homes, for example, can you imagine a random real estate agent saying, I will, I will sell your home for you. I will, I will speak on your behalf. I will make negotiations on your behalf.

And I will conclude the contract for you because that's what I do. You would rightly say, I didn't appoint you. You have no right to speak on my behalf. You have no prerogative to, to act on my behalf. And this gives us a sense of the unthinkable nature of someone claiming an apostolic office that Jesus did not appoint them to. You would be offended.

You would bring a lawsuit against someone who tried to sell your house in an unauthorized way. You're not my agent. I didn't appoint you. Christ chose the men that he appointed. He had the prerogative to do that.

Men do not appoint themselves to the office. That's Don Green here on The Truth Pulpit. And here's Don again with some closing thoughts.

Well thank you, Bill. And my friend, I want to let you know of a special ministry that we have at thetruthpulpit.com that's very near to my heart. We have a ministry to those who are in prison.

And in the nature of life, sometimes we have loved ones that go astray and find themselves behind bars and spending significant time in incarceration. Well, we have a ministry to them. We send them transcripts of messages that I've preached from The Pulpit of Truth Community Church. We do it on a weekly basis.

They get mail every week. If you have a loved one in prison that you would like to have us reach out to in that way, do me a favor. Go to our website, thetruthpulpit.com. That's thetruthpulpit.com. Click on the link that says About, and you'll see a dropdown menu that will take you to our prison ministry. You can fill out the form, and we'll be happy to respond and join in with you in ministering to that one who is outside the normal course of society. So that's thetruthpulpit.com, the About link for our prison ministry.

That will do it for today. We'll see you next time on The Truth Pulpit. 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.