Chapter Seven — Founded on the Apostles
What is the foundation of the church? We sing the hymn, "The church's one foundation is Jesus Christ our Lord." Sometimes the words of hymns are con duits for misinformation. Jesus is part of the foundation for sure, but in terms of the building metaphor, we can be more precise. He is not just the foundation but He is called the chief cornerstone of the church. The entire foundation is built in Him as the chief cornerstone.
But what's the foundation? The foundation, according
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to the New Testament, is the Apostles and the prophets. Remember at Caesarea Philippi when Peter made his great confession after Jesus asked, "But who do you say that I am?" Simon Peter replied, "You are the Christ, the Son of the living God." Jesus answered him, "Blessed are you, Simon Bar-Jonah! For flesh and blood has not revealed this to you, but my Father who is in heaven. And I tell you, you are Peter, and on this rock I will build my church, and the gates of hell shall not prevail against it" (Matt. 16:15–18). The church that Christ established is built not on a foundation of sand, but it's built upon a rock, and the rock upon which it is built, according to the New Testa ment imagery is the rock of the prophetic and Apostolic Word—the biblical writings.
Consider the book of Revelation. There we read of the vision in chapter 21 of the appearance of the New Jerusa lem, the heavenly city that comes down from above. We see that it's described in magnificent terms. In 21:14, we read this, "And the wall of the city had twelve foundations, and on them were the twelve names of the twelve apostles of the Lamb" (Rev. 21:14). Even the New Jerusalem, is based upon the foundation of the Apostles.
What's the significance of this? I think the attribute of
Founded on the Apostles the church that is most seriously under attack in our day is its Apostolicity, because there has been a wholesale rejec tion within the church of the authority of sacred Scripture. This is rebellion against the church's own foundation. You may reject the teaching of Paul, and you may disagree with the teaching of John, and you may not believe in the integ rity of sacred Scripture, but I plead with you at this point not to try to steal the church of Christ and build it on some other foundation. Why not have the integrity to say, "I reject Christianity" rather than trying to build a new and improved version on some other foundation?
What does it mean to be Apostolic? To answer that question, we have to go to back to the beginning and ask the question, "What is an Apostle?" The term Apostle comes from the Greek word apostolos, which means "one who is sent." Apostles are sent from someone to some where. In Greek culture, an apostolos was somebody who was a messenger, ambassador, or emissary. The apostolos was authorized by the king to represent him in his absence.
Since an apostle is one who is sent by somebody and who has delegated authority, the supreme Apostle of the New Testament is Jesus Himself. He was sent by the Father into the world, and He said when He came, "I have not
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spoken on my own authority, but the Father who sent me has himself given me a commandment—what to say and what to speak" (John 12:49). He also said, "All authority in heaven and on earth has been given to me" (Matt. 28:18).
In this sense, the second Apostle in the New Testament is not one of the disciples (though some of them were Apostles as well) but rather, the Holy Spirit. Jesus said, "And I will ask the Father, and he will give you another Helper, to be with you forever, even the Spirit of truth, whom the world cannot receive, because it neither sees him nor knows him. You know him, for he dwells with you and will be in you"(John 14:16–17).
In the early centuries of the expansion of Christian ity, the greatest threat to biblical Christianity came from a heresy called Gnosticism. The Gnostics (from the Greek word gnōsis) were those people who claimed to have spe cial knowledge. They claimed to be the gnōstikoi, those in the know, and they made a decided effort to supplant the authority of the biblical Apostles. They argued that their knowledge was higher and superior to the knowledge pro claimed by the Apostles of Jesus, and they wrote a massive amount of literature to put forth their claim of superiority.
One of the champions of the Christian faith in that
Founded on the Apostles day was a theologian by the name of Irenaeus. Irenaeus was an apologist for Christianity. One of his most impor tant works was titled Against Heresies. The chief heresy he addressed was Gnosticism. In his refutation of the Gnos tics, Irenaeus used a line of reasoning that's important to us today. That line of reasoning played on the fundamen tal meaning of the term apostle. Again, the word apostolos means, literally, "one who is sent or one who is given duly constituted authority to represent the one who sends him." Irenaeus said that the Gnostics not only rejected the authority of the Apostles, but by an irresistible logic, they rejected the authority of Christ and the authority of God.
How did he come to this conclusion? It went like this: by rejecting the Apostles, those who were sent out by Christ and who were commissioned by Christ's authority, they were rejecting the authority of the One who commissioned them. If they were rejecting the authority of the One who sent out the biblical Apostles, namely Christ Himself, then they're also rejecting the authority of the One who com missioned Christ to come into the world, namely, God the Father. In the final analysis, Irenaeus said to the Gnostics that they were godless and their attack on the Apostles reduced to an attack against God Himself because there is
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a chain of commission going back from the Father to the Son to the Apostles.
The concept of Apostolic tradition is of vital impor tance to the Bible. This tradition is not some unwritten oral content as is affirmed in non-Protestant Christian traditions, but rather the New Testament itself. It is the Apostolic tradition that the church has not invented, but rather, has received. It received it from the Apostles, who received it from Christ and from His Holy Spirit, who received it from God. That's why a rejection of the teaching of the Apostles is a rejection of the very authority of God.