The Apostles’ Authority Confirmed
The Apostles’ Authority Confirmed
Our impression of the uniqueness of the apostles is confirmed in two ways. First, they themselves knew it, and so exhibit in the New Testament their self-conscious apostolic authority. This is certainly so of Paul and John. Paul not only defends his authority as an apostle (as we have seen); he asserts it. Listen to the dogmatic instructions he gave the Thessalonian church:
We have confidence in the Lord that you are doing and will continue to do the things we command…. In the name of the Lord Jesus Christ, we command you, brothers…. For even when we were with you, we gave you this rule…. Such people we command and urge in the Lord Jesus Christ…. If anyone does not obey our instruction in this letter, take special note of him. (2 Thess. 3:4, 6, 10, 12, 14)
Who is this “we”? It is the plural of apostolic authority. And who is it who presumes to issue these authoritative commands and to demand obedience? Again, it is an apostle of Christ, who speaks in the name of Christ. He claims that Christ was speaking in and through him (2 Cor. 13:3). As a result, when he first visited Galatia, although he was disfigured by illness, the Galatians did not scorn or despise him, but actually received him “as … an angel of God, as … Christ Jesus” (Gal. 4:14). Paul does not rebuke them for paying him an exaggerated deference. On the contrary, they were right to receive him thus, for he was an apostle, an ambassador, an authorized representative of Jesus Christ.
John also used the plural of apostolic authority (for example, 3 John 9) and constantly recalled his readers to the original teaching he had given them. In view of the prevalence of false teachers he dared even to write:
We are from God, and whoever knows God listens to us; but whoever is not from God does not listen to us. This is how we recognize the Spirit of truth and the spirit of falsehood. (1 John 4:6)
In other words, a safe test by which John’s readers could discern between truth and error was whether what was taught was in accord with his teaching. False teachers would show their error by not listening to John, while the true Christian would authenticate himself by his submission to the apostle’s authority.
The second way in which the unique authority of the apostles is substantiated is that the early church recognized it. For example, in the post-apostolic period, round about AD 110, soon after John the last apostle had died, Bishop Ignatius of Antioch sent letters to several churches of Asia Minor and Europe. In his Epistle to the Romans (ch. 4), he wrote:
I do not, as Peter and Paul, issue commandments unto you. They were apostles; I am but a condemned man.
He was a bishop. But he recognized that even a bishop’s authority was not comparable to an apostle’s.
When in the fourth century the church came finally to settle which books should be included in the New Testament canon and which excluded, the test they applied was whether a book came from the apostles. That is, was it written by an apostle? If not, did it nevertheless emanate from the circle of the apostles and carry the endorsement of their authority? It is important to add this, for not every New Testament book was written by an apostle. But it seems to have been recognized that if a non-apostolic document nevertheless carried a kind of apostolic imprimatur, it should be recognized as “apostolic.” For example, Luke was known to have been a regular companion and colleague of Paul, and Mark was described by the early church fathers Papias and Irenaeus as “the interpreter of Peter” who faithfully recorded Peter’s memories of Christ and the substance of his preaching.1 Thus, the church was in no sense conferring authority on the canonical books; it was simply recognizing the authority they already possessed.
It is time now to summarize the argument which has been developed. Christ endorsed the authority of the Old Testament. He also made provision for the New Testament by authorizing his apostles to teach in his name. Therefore, if we desire to bow to Christ’s authority, we must bow to Scripture’s. It is because of Jesus Christ that Christians submit to both Old and New Testaments.
What are the alternatives to this conclusion? There are only two.
The first is to say that Christ was mistaken in his view of Scripture. In this case the argument would run somewhat as follows: “The incarnation imprisoned Jesus in the limited mentality of a first-century Jew. Of course he accepted the authority of Scripture, for this is what the Jews of his day believed. But that is no reason why we should. Their view and his are outmoded.” This is the so-called theory of “kenosis,” from the Greek word which declares that he “emptied himself” (Phil. 2:7 RSV) when he became man. He certainly emptied himself of his glory when he took the form of a servant. But he did not empty himself of his deity in becoming man. And although as man he seems to have been ignorant of certain matters (he said he did not know the day of his return, Mark 13:32), the remarkable fact is that he was not ignorant of his ignorance. He knew the limits of his knowledge. Consequently in his instruction he never strayed beyond these limits. On the contrary, he insisted that he taught only what the Father gave him to teach (for example, John 7:14–17; 12:49; 17:8). Therefore we claim that he was inerrant, that all his teaching was true, including his endorsement of the authority of Scripture.
The second alternative which has been proposed may be expressed like this: “Jesus knew perfectly well that Scripture was not entirely the Word of God and reliable. Yet because his contemporaries all believed that it was, he accommodated himself to their position. There is no need for us to do so.” But this suggestion is quite intolerable. It is derogatory to Christ, and incompatible with his claim to be the truth and to teach the truth. Besides, he never hesitated to disagree with his contemporaries on other matters, so why should he have done so on this? Further, this reconstruction would attribute to Jesus the very thing he detested most—religious pretense, or hypocrisy.
So we reject both the “kenosis” and the “accommodation” theories. Over against them we must insist that Jesus knew what he was talking about, and that he meant it. He taught knowledgeably, deliberately and with entire sincerity. He declared the divine origin of all Scripture for the straightforward reason that he believed it. And what he believed and taught is true.