When We Confess the Church to be Apostolic

Site of the Dura-Europos Church in Syria — Thought to Be the World’s Oldest Church

When We confess the Church to Be Apostolic

I know that this might come as a shock to my fellow baby-boomers, but the Christian church wasn’t founded by the Jesus people in the 1960’s—although their own congregation might have been. Americans often think about the church as though it was founded by Charles Finney during the Second Great Awakening. It was not. Nor was the church established by Jonathan Edwards or George Whitefield during the First Great Awakening. The church was already fifteen centuries old when Martin Luther and John Calvin sought to reform it at the time of the Reformation. There is even a sense in which the church is as old as Adam and Eve and the first family. And Calvin was absolutely correct to affirm that the church existed in its infancy in the midst of Israel before the coming of Jesus Christ. But the Christian church confessed in the Creed was founded by Jesus Christ when he called his apostles to follow him, and is then given a significant Spirit-filled role in redemptive history after Pentecost. When we consider that the church of Jesus Christ is apostolic, this is where we begin.

It is fashionable in those circles dominated by critical biblical scholarship to think of the church as a worshiping community in need of a Messiah–the first Christians supposedly elevated an itinerant apocalyptic prophet (Jesus of Nazareth) to his messianic status and then put pithy “Jesus sayings” back in his mouth. The church was not the fruit of the organizational genius of a group of followers who came to believe that Jesus had risen in their hearts (the so-called “Easter experience”) as they tried to cope with the disappointment they felt once Jesus was put to death by the Romans and his glorious kingdom did not manifest itself as promised. Rather, the biblical record tells us that the church was founded by a Risen Savior who left behind an empty tomb and then appeared to a number of his chosen witnesses the first Easter, confirming that his death on Good Friday was the ultimate triumph over human sin. The church confessed in the Creed was founded by Jesus Christ, victorious over sin, death, and the grave.

The numerous post-resurrection appearances of our Lord to his disciples and recounted in the gospels do not take place in a vacuum. The disciples’ encounter with the risen Jesus take place against the backdrop of his three-year messianic ministry during which Jesus foretold of his own impending death and resurrection (Matthew 16:21-28). His miracles demonstrate that he was that one promised throughout the Old Testament who had come to establish his kingdom and establish his church (John 10:38). Pentecost (as recounted in Acts 2), is often considered the official birthday of the church, but is better understood as the culmination of all of our Lord’s messianic promises and only makes sense against the backdrop of our Lord’s death and resurrection, along with the gift of the Spirit and the dawn of the new creation.

While Israel may have had an infant church in its midst, the on-going progress of redemptive history meant that one day the infant church must grow to maturity. Indeed, when the fullness of time had finally come, God sent forth his son to redeem those born under the law (Galatians 4:4-6). When Jesus began his public ministry shortly after his baptism and reception of the Spirit, we read in Matthew 4:23 that Jesus “went throughout all Galilee, teaching in their synagogues and proclaiming the gospel of the kingdom and healing every disease and every affliction among the people.” A new epoch in redemptive history has begun. The kingdom of God was at hand. The people of God would no longer be limited by the strictures of the Mosaic economy and Jewish nationalism. The gospel must now be proclaimed to the ends of the earth as God’s rule is extended to include every race, nation, and language under heaven.

Shortly after Jesus’ own messianic ministry began, in Matthew 10:1 we read, that Jesus “called to him his twelve disciples and gave them authority over unclean spirits, to cast them out, and to heal every disease and every affliction.” Having called these men to himself, Jesus sent them out on a very important mission. They must preach the message of the kingdom as defined in Matthew 10:5-42, just as Jesus had commanded. Why these twelve men? And why this particular message?

To answer these questions we need merely consider the fact that the apostles are sent to bear witnesses about Jesus Christ, to go throughout the towns of Israel proclaiming the message which Jesus had entrusted unto them. From the moment the twelve are called to follow Jesus, they are also commissioned to be preachers of that gospel which Jesus personally taught them. As witnesses of Jesus Christ and his gospel, they will become the foundation of the church which Jesus came to establish. In Ephesians 2:20, Paul looks back at the founding of the church several decades earlier. He speaks of the church as being “built on the foundation of the apostles and prophets, Christ Jesus himself being the cornerstone, in whom the whole structure, being joined together, grows into a holy temple in the Lord. In him you also are being built together into a dwelling place for God by the Spirit.” Jesus not only founded a church, he founded his church upon the preaching of the gospel, that message which Paul defines as the death, burial, and resurrection of Jesus Christ according to the Scriptures (1 Corinthians 15:1-8). The gospel message Paul preaches is described as “publicly placarding Christ” (Galatians 3:1). The connection between the calling of the twelve and the preaching of the gospel is an essential one. When we confess that the church is apostolic, we are confessing that the church was founded upon the very same gospel which Jesus revealed to his apostles.

According to Matthew 16:18, Jesus promised his disciples that the gates of hell will not prevail against his church. In that same passage, Jesus gives to his church the keys of the kingdom (Matthew 16:13-20). Confessing Jesus to be “the Christ, the son of the living God,” Peter will become the leader of the early church, later joined by other apostles and elders, meeting together to use the keys given them by Jesus and to make decisions regarding the doctrine and practice of the church (Acts 15:1-21). When we confess that the church is apostolic, we mean that the church exercises the authority of its founder, Jesus, through those officers called and commissioned to rule in the name of their Lord (Ephesians 3:2-7; Acts 6:1-7; 20:17; 1 Timothy 3:1-15).

Finally, before his ascension into heaven, Jesus gives his disciples one last point of instruction, “Go therefore and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, teaching them to observe all that I have commanded you. And behold, I am with you always, to the end of the age” (Matthew 28:19-20). Jesus preserves his church through the preaching of the gospel, the making of disciples, and in the proper administering the sacraments. Although things may seem bleak at times for the people of God, it is God who will preserve his people and his church upon the earth. Recall that in the days of Noah, the people of God had dwindled to eight in number! In the days of Elijah, the number of believers in Israel who had not bowed the knee to Baal was a paltry seven thousand. Yet, in every case, dark days for the people of God are a harbinger of a significant advance of Christ’s kingdom.

Indeed the final words of Jesus to his church in Matthew 28:18-20 bear this out. As we read in Acts 2:41, some three thousand were saved on the day of Pentecost alone. That number had grown to over five thousand shortly thereafter (Acts 4:4). In Revelation 7:9, the multitude clothed in white and standing before the throne is so vast that no one can count them. They come from every nation, tribe, and people. But they all confess the same thing–“Salvation belongs to our God who sits on the throne, and to the Lamb!” Jesus has founded his church by calling his apostles. He gave to them his gospel and his authority to bind and loose. Now Jesus promises that he will be with his church until the end of the age. Jesus is not an absentee landlord, he is present with his people until he comes again at the end of the age.

When we confess that the church is apostolic, we are confessing that the churches to which we belong today, stand in direct continuity to the church we see in the Book of Acts. We need not trace an unbroken line of Popes from Peter down to the present day. But we do confess that the gospel Jesus gave to his apostles should be the same gospel we preach and confess today. This gospel summons men and women to faith in Jesus Christ. When received through faith, this gospel justifies sinners and fills us with Christ’s Spirit. This gospel grants Christ’s church authority to bind and loose. This gospel calls us to serve our Lord in his church, just as when Jesus called his first apostles. When we preach and confess this apostolic gospel, we can be assured of our Lord’s favor, protection, and presence.

This, then, is why we confess Christ’s church to be apostolic.