CHRISTIANNEWS.COM. – And he gave some as apostles, and some as prophets, and some as evangelists, and some as pastors and teachers, (4:11)
After his parenthetical analogy (vv. 9-10) from Psalm 68:18, Paul continues his explanation of spiritual gifts. Christ not only gives gifts to individual believers but to the whole Body. To each believer he gives special gifts of divine empowerment, and to the church at large he gives men especially gifted as leaders (see v. 8, “He gave gifts to men”) – as apostles…prophets…evangelists and…pastors and teachers. .
He emphasized the sovereign election and authority given to Christ because of his perfect fulfillment of the Father’s will. Not only apostles and prophets, but also evangelists…pastors and teachers are divinely called and placed.
Are there prophets and apostles in the church today?
In 1 Corinthians 12:28, Paul says: “And God appointed some in the church, first apostles, secondly prophets, thirdly teachers…”. That statement adds weight not only to the idea of divine calling but also to the chronological significance (“first,…second,…third”) in the giving of these gifted men to the church.
The first two classes of gifted men, apostles and prophets, were given three basic responsibilities:
(1) lay the foundation of the church (Eph. 2:20); (2) receive and declare the revelation of God’s Word (Acts 11:28; 21:10–11; Eph. 3:5); and (3) to confirm that Word through “signs, wonders, and miracles” (2 Cor. 12:12; cf. Acts 8:6–7; Heb. 2:3–4).
The first gifted men in the New Testament church were the apostles, of whom Jesus Christ Himself is the chief (Hebrews 3:1). The basic meaning of apostle is simply one who is sent on a mission.
In its primary and more technical sense, apostle is used in the New Testament only in the twelve, including Matthias, who replaced Judas (Acts 1:26), and Paul, who was set apart solely as an apostle to the Gentiles (Galatians). 1:15–17; cf. 1 Cor. 15:7–9; 2 Cor. 11:5).
The requirements for that apostolate They were to have been directly chosen by Christ and to have been witnesses of the risen Christ (Mark 3:13; Acts 1:22–24). Paul was the last to meet those requirements (Rom. 1:1; etc.).
Therefore, it is not possible, as some claim, for there to be apostles in the church today. Some have observed that the apostles were like delegates to a constitutional convention. When the convention ends, the position ceases. When the New Testament was completed, the office of apostle ceased.
The term apostle is used in a more general sense of other men in the Early Churchsuch as Barnabas (Acts 14:4), Silas and Timothy (1 Thess. 2:6), and some other outstanding leaders (Rom. 16:7; 2 Cor.8:23; Phil. 2:25).
The false apostles mentioned in 2 Cor. 11:13 no doubt counterfeited this kind of apostleship, since the others were limited to thirteen and were well known. The true apostles in the second group were called “messengers (apostoloi) of the churches” (2 Cor. 8:23), while the thirteen were apostles of Jesus Christ (Gal. 1:1; 1 Pet. 1:1).
The apostles in both groups were authenticated “by signs and wonders and miracles” (2 Cor. 12:12), but neither group was self-perpetuating. In no sense is the term apostle used in the book of Acts after 16:4. Nor is there any New Testament record of an apostle in either of the two groups replaced when he died.
…Prophets were also designated by God as specially gifted men, and differ from those believers who have the gift of prophecy (1 Cor. 12:10).
Not all of those believers could be called prophets. It seems that the office of prophet was exclusively for work within a local congregation, while that of apostleship was a much broader ministry, not limited to any one area, as implied by the word apostles (“one who is sent on a mission”).
Paul, for example, is known as a prophet when he was ministering locally in the church at Antioch (Acts 13:1), but elsewhere he is always called an apostle.
The prophets sometimes spoke of God’s revelation (Acts 11:21–28) and sometimes simply expounded the revelation already given (as implied in Acts 13:1, where they are connected with the teachers).
They always spoke for God, but they did not always give a newly revealed message from God. The prophets were second to the apostles, and their message was to be judged by that of the apostles (1 Cor. 14:37).
Another distinction between the two offices may have been that the apostolic message was more general and doctrinal, while that of the prophets was more personal and practical.
However, like the apostles, their office ceased with the completion of the New Testament, just as the Old Testament prophets disappeared when that testament was completed, some 400 years BC.
The church was established “on the foundation of the apostles and prophets, Christ Jesus himself being the cornerstone” (Eph. 2:20). Once the foundation was laid, the work of the apostles and prophets was finished.
There is no mention of the last two gifted offices replacing the first two, because in New Testament times they were all operative. But the fact is that, as they continued to serve the church, the evangelists and pastors and teachers picked up the testimony of the first generation apostles and prophets.
Since its inception at Pentecost, the church has been indebted to the apostles, through whom Christ established the fullness of New Testament doctrine (see Acts 2:42). Those uniquely called and empowered men recorded God’s final revelation as He revealed Himself to them.
The prophets, although they usually did not receive direct revelation from God, were nonetheless very important in building and strengthening the Early Church. Both the apostles and the prophets have passed from the scene (Eph. 2:20), but the foundation they laid is the one on which the entire church of Christ is built.
The following is an excerpt from the Commentary on the New Testament of John MacArthur on Ephesians 4. (First Corinthians, The MacArthur New Testament Commentary [Chicago: Moody, 1984], p. 322–24).
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