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Thursday, July 14, 2016

Cessationism - Episode 2, The apostles

Our next Episode in the cessationism series.

Additional Episodes:
Our criteria for the cessationism debate is that the argument must
  1. be from the Bible
  2. Not appeal to contemporary expressions of charismata
  3. Not appeal to silence
  4. Not appeal to events or practices of history
That is, any defense of cessationism must be Sola Scriptura.
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Introduction

A cessationist is a Christian who believes that the "supernatural" gifts of the Spirit, including prophecy, tongues, words of knowledge, as well as signs and wonders, did not continue after the death of the last apostle. This is contrasted with a charismatic, or perhaps, a continuationist, who is a Christian who believes the Bible's descriptions of the "supernatural" gifts of the Spirit apply to today's church and should be embraced.

Cessationists also believe that the supernatural existed largely or solely to validate the apostle's ministries, so that their teaching, eventually contained in the NT, would be attested to. With the completed canon of the Bible, there would be no longer a need for these supernatural validations, and thus these things ceased. The reason, they say, is that since signs and wonders had the sole purpose of validating the ministries of the apostles, they are no longer needed because the apostles are gone and we have the completed Bible.

From this they conclude that the Bible is the complete and final revelation of God, and thus He speaks only through the Scriptures today.

Part of the reason they make this claim is if they can restrict the supernatural only to the apostles' ministry, they can invalidate the idea that the supernatural persists to present day.

This series will examine these and other claims.

 How many apostles were there?

Before we proceed to the miraculous, we need to discuss the apostles themselves. Are they unique? Were there only apostles in the first century?

This may surprise you, dear reader, but there were many more than 12 apostles in the NT. Of course, there were the original 12:
"These are the names of the twelve apostles: first, Simon (who is called Peter) and his brother Andrew; James son of Zebedee, and his brother John; Philip and Bartholomew; Thomas and Matthew the tax collector; James son of Alphaeus, and Thaddaeus; Simon the Zealot and Judas Iscariot, who betrayed him." Mt. 10:2-4 
These are the foundational men, unique in stature, chosen by Jesus Himself. Paul writes that those are the men who form part of the foundation of the Church:
Ep. 2:20 ...built on the foundation of the apostles and prophets, with Christ Jesus himself as the chief cornerstone.
But clearly other men were also apostles, and they were leaders and builders and messengers within the church. First we note that the betrayer Judas Iscariot committed suicide and was replaced by Mathias (#13). Then according to the below verses, there were others, for a total of at least 18.
Acts 14:14 But when the apostles Barnabas (#14) and Paul (#15) heard of this, they tore their clothes and rushed out into the crowd, shouting: "Men, why are you doing this?"
Romans 16:7 Greet Andranicus #16) and Junias (#17), my relatives who have been in prison with me. They are outstanding among the apostles, and they were in Christ before I was." (discussed below.)
Ph. 2:25 But I think it is necessary to send back to you Epaphroditus (#18), my brother, fellow-worker and fellow-soldier, who is also your messenger (apostolos), whom you sent to take care of my needs. 
Though not specifically identified as apostles, we could assume by their prominent mention that these might have been apostles. Notably,
  • Apollos (1Co. 1:12)
  • Priscilla and Aquila (Ro. 16:3)
  • Epaphras (Phile. 23)
  • Silas (1Pe. 5:12), and
  • Demetrius (3Jn. 12).
In addition, we might add
  • Timothy
  • Titus
  • Jude
  • many, if not all, the people listed in Romans 16
  • Stephanas, Fortunatus and Achaicus (1Co. 16:17)
  • Tychicus (Col. 4:7) as well as many of the others listed in Galatians 4, and
  • Artemas (Tit. 3:12), as well as the others listed in Titus 3. 
Why couldn't there more than 12 apostles? What Scripture says there isn't? Well, none. In fact, since we know there were at least 18 apostles named, and several more implied, it is quite possible that the churches were actually obeying Ephesians 4:11-12:
It was he who gave some to be apostles, some to be prophets, some to be evangelists, and some to be pastors and teachers, 12 to prepare God’s people for works of service, so that the body of Christ may be built up... 

Either all these people were full apostles in every sense of the word, which negates the idea of the exclusivity and temporary nature of apostleship; or, there were a variety of kinds of apostles, which would be even worse for cessationists because it would negate their belief that there can be no apostles today.

2Co. 8:23 

As for Titus, he is my partner and fellow-worker among you; as for our brothers, they are representatives (apostolos) of the churches and an honor to Christ.

This verse is interesting in that it does not identify these apostles by name. Apparently there were many  apostles, and they were working in every church and doing excellent work. 

2Pe. 3:2 
2 I want you to recall the words spoken in the past by the holy prophets and the command given by our Lord and Savior through your apostles. 
There are a couple things to note in this verse, first, the statement about "your apostles," and second that Peter is not the only person to use this phraseology. 

Your Apostles

Why would Peter say "your apostles," and not "the apostles," of which he was a part? He was writing to this church and yet referred to unidentified "your apostles." In fact, Peter used the word "apostle" only three times in his two letters, twice to identify himself, and the third time as cited above.

"Your" is su. This is a second pers. sing. pers. pronoun, that is, others, not Peter himself, are "your apostles." 

Peter does not include himself, even though he was an apostle writing to a group of churches. We suspect that Peter didn't necessarily consider himself "your apostle" to the believers "scattered throughout Pontus, Galatia, Cappadocia, Asia and Bithynia..." (1Pe. 1:1), and thus he refers to certain other apostles. Because he's addressing a widely scattered group of believers, we believe there must have been local apostles ("your apostles") in every one one of these churches.

Jude and Peter

Let's compare Peter's words with Jude. Here's Peter again with vs. 3 added:
2 I want you to recall the words spoken in the past by the holy prophets and the command given by our Lord and Savior through your apostles. 3 First of all, you must understand that in the last days scoffers will come, scoffing and following their own evil desires.
Now for Jude:
Jude 17-18 But, dear friends, remember what the apostles of our Lord Jesus Christ foretold. 18 They said to you, “In the last times there will be scoffers who will follow their own ungodly desires.”
Jude is not named as an apostle, though he wrote Scripture. Here he appealed to what the apostles foretold. Jude clearly has in mind Peter's letter, for he pretty much quotes it to his readers.

Now follow along. Peter refers to your apostles, and does not include himself. Jude quotes Peter, an apostle, who tells us what your apostles said. Jude doesn't say Peter said this, the apostles did. Jude didn't quote Peter as the apostle, he referred to unnamed apostles.

 Both Peter and Jude refer to unnamed apostles, and not themselves, as authoritative sources for a predictive prophecy.

So, it it is not unreasonable to conclude that there might have been many more apostles, named and unnamed, with various levels of authority and position.

What About Andranicus and Junias?
Some have questioned whether or not Andranicus and Junias were apostles, due to the sentence construction. We note as an aside that since Andranicus and Junias are not the only ones who are identified as apostles, in addition to the Twelve, we are at loss to explain why some would bristle at their apostleship.

Various translations have various takes:
  • (ESV) Greet Andronicus and Junia, my kinsmen and my fellow prisoners. They are well known to the apostles, and they were in Christ before me. 
  • (NIV) Greet Andronicus and Junias, my relatives who have been in prison with me. They are outstanding among the apostles, and they were in Christ before I was.
  • (NAS) Greet Andronicus and Junias, my kinsmen and my fellow prisoners, who are outstanding among the apostles, who also were in Christ before me.
  • (KJV) Salute Andronicus and Junia, my kinsmen, and my fellow-prisoners, who are of note among the apostles, who also were in Christ before me.
  • (NRS) Greet Andronicus and Junia, my relatives who were in prison with me; they are prominent among the apostles, and they were in Christ before I was.
  • (ASV) Salute Andronicus and Junias, my kinsmen, and my fellow-prisoners, who are of note among the apostles, who also have been in Christ before me.
"Well known/outstanding/prominent/of note" is (episémos), which means bearing a mark, notable, conspicuous. remarkable, i.e. (figuratively) eminent...

"Among" is en, and means properly, in (inside, within); (figuratively) "in the realm (sphere) of," as in the condition (state) in which something operates from the inside (within)...

Therefore, our amplified reading would be 
Greet Andronicus and Junias, my relatives who have been in prison with me. They are *eminent/notable/marked* *inside/operating within* the apostles, and they were in Christ before I was.
There is plenty of room to suggest that Andronicus and Junias were apostles. 

 Was Junias a Woman?

Junias is Iounias, Part of Speech: Noun, Feminine... It means a kinsman of Paul... (a woman's name) which is possible...

So we have to admit to at least the possibility that Junias was a woman. It isn't required of us to do so, however, as it is not a key issue for our argument. 

Some have suggested that the use of the word "kinsmen" in the ESV conclusively establishes that Junias was a male. But "kinsmen" is suggenes, which means congenital, akin to, subst. a kinsman, relative, a countryman... a kinswoman...

Hmmm. Both a kinsman and a kinswoman. Further, suggenes is the same word used in Lk. 1:36:
Even Elizabeth your relative is going to have a child in her old age, and she who was said to be barren is in her sixth month.
So here we have it. The word is used to refer to both males and females. Thus Junias may have been a woman. But we don't know for sure, and are reluctant to make an argument from the silence of Scripture.

Can Apostles be Women?

 There is no verse in the Bible that says that apostles must be men. There is no verse that specifically says that there was an apostle who was a woman.

We can infer from those who are named as apostles that all of them were men, with the possible exception of Junias as noted above.

Our continuing refrain has been that we must not argue from silence. Just because something is not mentioned doesn't mean something didn't exist. By the same token, the absence of mention in Scripture does not mean it's not prohibited. Silence does not speak to approval or disapproval, existence or not existence.

This means there could have been hundreds of apostles. It's not mentioned. There could have been women apostles. It's not mentioned. We must not draw conclusions from silence.

As a side note, the issue of women pastors or teachers is sure to come up in some readers' minds. We discuss this issue in some depth here.

A Variety of Apostles

There are different categories of those who are called apostles.
STRONGS NT 652: ἀπόστολοςἀπόστολος, ἀποστόλου, ὁ;
1. a delegate, messenger, one sent forth with orders (Herodotus 1, 21; 5, 38; for שָׁלוּחַ in 1 Kings 14:6 (Alex.); rabbinical שְׁלִיחַ): John 13:16 (where ὁ ἀπόστολος and ὁ πέμψαςαὐτόν are contrasted); followed by a genitive, as τῶν ἐκκλησιῶν, 2 Corinthians 8:23;Philippians 2:25; ἀπόστολον ... τῆςὁμολογίας ἡμῶν the apostle whom we confess, of Christ, God's chief messenger, who has brought the κλῆσις ἀπουρανιος, as compared with Moses, whom the Jews confess, Hebrews 3:1.
2. Specially applied to the twelve disciples whom Christ selected, out of the multitude of his adherents, to be his constant companions and the heralds to proclaim to men the kingdom of God: Matthew 10:1-4; Luke 6:13; Acts 1:26;Revelation 21:14, and often, but nowhere in the Gospel and Epistles of John; ("the wordἀπόστολος occurs 79 times in the N. T., and of these 68 instances are in St. Luke and St. Paul." Lightfoot). With these apostles Paul claimed equality, because through a heavenly intervention he had been appointed by the ascended Christ himself to preach the gospel among the Gentiles, and owed his knowledge of the way of salvation not to man's instruction but to direct revelation from Christ himself, and moreover had evinced his apostolic qualifications by many signal proofs: Galatians 1:1, 11;Galatians 2:8; 1 Corinthians 1:17; 1 Corinthians 9:1; 1 Corinthians 15:8-10; 2 Corinthians 3:2ff; 12:12; 1 Timothy 2:7; 2 Timothy 1:11, cf. Acts 26:12-20. According to Paul, apostles surpassed as well the various other orders of Christian teachers (cf. διδάσκαλος, εὐαγγελιστής,προφήτης), as also the rest of those on whom the special gifts (cf. χάρισμα) of the Holy Spirit had been bestowed, by receiving a richer and more copious conferment of the Spirit: 1 Corinthians 12:28; Ephesians 4:11. Certain false teachers are rated sharply for arrogating to themselves the name and authority of apostles of Christ: 2 Corinthians 11:5, 13; Revelation 2:2.
3. In a broader sense the name is transferred to other eminent Christian teachers; as Barnabas,Acts 14:14, and perhaps also Timothy and Silvanus, 1 Thessalonians 2:7 (6), cf. too Romans 16:7 (?). But in Luke 11:49; Ephesians 3:5; Revelation 18:20, 'apostles' is to be taken in the narrower sense. (On the application of the term see especially Lightfoot on Galatians, pp. 92-101; Harnack, on 'Teaching etc. 11, 3 [ET]; cf.BB. DD. under the word)
Clearly we do not have to think that apostles exactly like the original Twelve are the only ones possible. And, it seems that there is substantial evidence that apostleship was (and by inference is) a broader category than we might think.

Why is this important? Because cessationists do not think there are or can be any more apostles than the original men selected by Jesus. But we have seen there are more than 12 apostles in the NT, and this implies that there might have been many.

We now turn to the next crucial issue, what makes a person an apostle? 

The Qualifications of an Apostle

 Cessationists believe that there can be no apostles today, mostly because of Acts 1:21-22. Here's a typical statement:
According to Peter, the candidate to fill the apostolic office needed to have personally sat under the teaching of Jesus and known the Lord after His resurrection.
So the basic idea is that there can be no more apostles because an apostle needs to qualify in a specific way, a way that is no longer available. We believe this to be seriously flawed.

Let's quote the passage: 
Ac. 1:21-22 Therefore it is necessary to choose one of the men who have been with us the whole time the Lord Jesus went in and out among us, 22 beginning from John’s baptism to the time when Jesus was taken up from us. For one of these must become a witness with us of his resurrection.
Here the apostles set forth their criteria for selecting a replacement for Judas Iscariot. We first note there are two items here, which cessationists believe are two qualifiers for anyone to be an apostle:
  • been with us the whole time... beginning from John’s baptism to the time when Jesus was taken up from us, and 
  • must become a witness with us of his resurrection.
The first qualification (been with us the whole time) disqualifies Paul. He was never with them in any sense, let alone from the beginning. But since we know Paul was indeed an apostle, we must conclude that there was some other reason the apostles wanted an apostle who had been with them for Jesus' entire ministry.

We would speculate that the apostles might have been
  • outlining what they considered important 
  • rushing to meet a perceived need 
  • thinking that someone familiar to them was important. A person who shared the entire experience would be trusted and valuable, and/or
  • acting with presumption. Indeed, we know God was going to provide Paul as a foundational apostle in due time.
And critically, we do not read that the Holy Spirit spoke to them about this. Jesus Himself spent 40 days with them (Ac. 1:3) before His ascension, and two angels appeared to them (Ac. 1:11), so it wasn't like they were unfamiliar with supernatural communications. But rather than asking Jesus while He was with them who the new apostle should be, they cast lots. The casting of lots seems to imply an uncertainty regarding the selection process, as if they didn't have clarity about what to do. Or, they cast lots because it was a traditional way of choosing things. 

We discuss the casting of lots here.

We conclude that there is reason to believe this requirement was not set forth as a permanent template for choosing apostles, rather it was only to select between the two candidates this one time. And it quite possibly shouldn't have been used at all. Jesus had Paul in mind already. In our opinion, it was a human attempt to get a replacement apostle quickly installed.

The second qualification (For one of these must become a witness with us of his resurrection) is the one that is most misconstrued. It isn't a qualification at all. Many cessationists seem to believe that this means the new apostle needed to personally observe the risen Christ. This is a glaring misunderstanding of the plain statement.

First we note the issue of Luke's use of the word "become." The word is Ginomai, which means
  1. to become, i.e. to come into existence, begin to be, receive being
  2. to become, i.e. to come to pass, happen
  3. of events
  4. to arise, appear in history, come upon the stage
  5. of men appearing in public
  6. to be made, finished
  7. of miracles, to be performed, wrought
  8. to become, be made
One doesn't BECOME (come into existence, arise, appear) as a witness to, say, a crime. One IS a witness. Cessationists are using the wrong definition of "witness," They think it means to personally observe some event.  But Luke is not talking about the apostle candidates seeing something. This isn't a case of being required to have seen the risen Christ. Cessationists have read this too casually and misinterpreted it.

...become a witness with us of his resurrection... Luke is not telling us this is a qualification, but rather it is a mandate, a duty for the new apostle. This new apostle must become a witness with us to the resurrection, that is, to join with them, to take on the task of, to re-tell/testify/explain/witness about the importance of the resurrection.

And that is what they did:
Ac. 1:8 But you will receive power when the Holy Spirit comes on you; and you will be my witnesses in Jerusalem, and in all Judea and Samaria, and to the ends of the earth. 
Ac. 13:31 ...and for many days he was seen by those who had travelled with him from Galilee to Jerusalem. They are now his witnesses to our people. 
Ac. 22:15 You will be his witness to all men of what you have seen and heard.
This is how we should understand Luke's statement.

So now we understand some things. First, the apostles were not laying out a template for apostleship for anyone else except their immediate desire to choose an apostle to replace Judas. Second, Acts 1:21-22 does not mean there can be no more apostles. Third, as a result of this we don’t necessarily have to conclude that there are no apostles today.

In fact, we would assert that there are or could be apostles today.

The Ministry of the Apostles

 We tend to think of the apostles as nearly supermen, that they were remarkable in a special way we could never attain to. It's this pedestalization of the apostles that can lead us into error.

We acknowledge uniqueness in the NT apostles in that they wrote much of the NT, they formed the foundation of the Church, and they are largely responsible for the success of the church in being moored in the Truth. In that sense, their work cannot be duplicated. They were the foundation (Ep. 2:20, Re. 21:14).

But as noted above, not all the apostles are foundational. And there were more than 12. 

We believe the ministry of the apostolic continues (or ought to continue) in order to build up the Body to maturity:
1 Cor 12:28-29 "And in the church God has appointed first of all apostles, second prophets, third teachers, then workers of miracles, also those having gifts of healing, those able to help others, those with gifts of administration, and those speaking in different kinds of tongues."

Eph 4:11-13 "It was he who gave some to be apostles, some to be prophets, some to be evangelists, and some to be pastors and teachers, to prepare God's people for works of service, so that the body of Christ may be built up until we all reach unity in the faith and in the knowledge of the Son of God and become mature, attaining to the whole measure of the fullness of Christ."
There is no limitation suggested in these Scriptures as to number of apostles, or the length of time their ministries would last. In fact, there is no limitation anywhere in the NT to that effect.
...he who gave some to be apostles... some to be prophets... some to be evangelists... some to be pastors and teachers...
"Some" means ...where it makes a partition or distributes into parts: that ... this, the one ... the other. That is, certain members of the Body were and are distributed in these positions within the Body. These apostles are not unique, they are given by God and found throughout the Church.

The apostles, as well as the other offices (prophets, evangelists, pastors, and teachers), were and are crucial for the maturation of the Body.

Some have claimed that "pastors and teachers" refer to the same office, because of the construction of the verse that puts "pastors and teachers" together without the connecting phrase "some to be." We think this is incorrect, since Paul is concluding the sentence, and seems to have adequately established that every appointed office is a "some to be." Further, the connecting word "and" (kai) is used nearly 10,000 times in the NT and never conveys a condition of being the same thing. For example, when Matthew names the apostles:
Mt. 10:3 Philip and Bartholomew; Thomas and Matthew the tax collector; James son of Alphaeus, and Thaddaeus...
We know these are separate persons, not two things belonging to one. Therefore, we think to derive a special context from such a common word reads way too much into the text.

Conclusion

There is no Scripture that indicates these things to be the exclusive realm of the apostles, required the presence of the apostles, or was solely for the purpose of validating the apostles' ministries.

There is therefore no reason to believe that the supernatural ceased with the death of the last apostle.

Nor is there any reason to believe that the apostleship ended 2000 years ago.
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