THIS PASSAGE POINTS in the same direction as the previous passages: “built upon the foundation of the apostles and prophets, Christ Jesus himself being the chief cornerstone, in whom the whole structure is joined together and grows into a holy temple in the Lord” (Eph. 2:20–21). These verses raise two questions: Upon what does the Christian church rest? This verse says, “upon the foundation of the apostles and prophets.” Another passage of Paul says: “For no other foundation can any one lay than that which is laid, which is Jesus Christ” (1 Cor. 3:11). Here in this Ephesians passage he says the apostles and the prophets are the foundation. Which is right? There is no doubt that the Corinthian passage represents the real view of Paul, and that in the Ephesians passage he was telling the Gentiles that they were now in the line of the Hebrew heritage of the apostles and the prophets.
The attempt to found the church on the apostles, thus trying to prove that the claimant has an apostolic church, has created more confusion and disruption in the Christian church than any other one thing. There is no such thing as an apostolic church, and there ought to be none. The apostles were not the terminus of our faith—it does not rest on them. It rests on Jesus Christ. We are not an apostolic church—we are a Christian church. Jesus Christ is the terminus of our faith. Our faith, and consequently our church, does not rest on wobbly apostles, but on the unchanging Lord!
Besides, this passage doesn’t say that the apostles were the foundation—it says the apostles and the prophets. As “the prophets” was a generic term, meaning the forthtellers of the good news, so “the apostles” must have been generic too, meaning “those sent,” and it certainly included Paul who called himself an apostle. The prophets and apostles were “like living stones . . . built into a spiritual house” (1 Pet. 2:5), but certainly not the foundation.
O Jesus Christ, Thou and Thou alone art the foundation of our faith and our church. A structure built on wobbly human beings would be a wobbly structure; only Thou art the foundation. We can and do rest our souls and our destiny on Thee. Amen.
AFFIRMATION FOR THE DAY: On Christ, the solid rock, I stand; all other ground is sinking sand.
