The "Five-Fold Ministry"
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True Apostolic Authority
We can see even within the New Testament itself that apostolic teachings were considered final and authoritative. Jude is a good example. He wrote, “Beloved, while I was making every effort to write you about our common salvation, I felt the necessity to write to you appealing that you contend earnestly for the faith which was once for all delivered to the saints” (Jude 1:3). After describing the practices and teachings of false teachers, Jude returns to this theme: “But you, beloved, ought to remember the words that were spoken beforehand by the apostles of our Lord Jesus Christ” (Jude 1:17).
The teachings of the apostles are considered authoritative and having been given once for all. Likewise Paul’s writings are called “Scripture” even in the New Testament: “And regard the patience of our Lord to be salvation; just as also our beloved brother Paul, according to the wisdom given him, wrote to you, as also in all his letters, speaking in them of these things, in which are some things hard to understand, which the untaught and unstable distort, as they do also the rest of the Scriptures, to their own destruction” (2Peter 3:15,16).
Paul told Timothy to transmit his teachings to others who would teach others after them: “And the things which you have heard from me in the presence of many witnesses, these entrust to faithful men, who will be able to teach others also” (2Timothy 2:2).
This helps us understand how the building proceeds to be built upon the foundation. Christ’s death provided atonement for our sins, once for all, He is the cornerstone. He appointed apostles and commissioned them to communicate the mystery of God (Ephesians 3:5,6). As the recipients of the New Testament revelation, they are the foundation of the church, which shall remain throughout the ages. These truths were given to others to teach as Paul told Timothy.
One of the very earliest writings of the church after the death of the apostles saw this process as follows:
Ephesians 4:11-13, taken in the context of Paul’s building analogy in Ephesians, shows how the apostles and prophets whom Christ gave the church continue until the consummation of all things. Just as Christ’s work continues for ever, so does the work of the apostles and prophets. Through their preaching and teaching, they constituted the foundation of the church once for all. They are still ministering to all of us through their teachings, which are “the faith,” the unity of which Ephesians 4:13 says we are to attain. They and their teachings are the rock solid foundation that enables us to withstand the “waves” and “winds of doctrine” Paul mentioned in Ephesians 4:14. The foundation stands strong and authoritative to this day and until will continue to do so.
The evangelists, pastors and teachers who Christ provides throughout church history cannot claim any legitimacy if they depart from the foundation of the apostles and prophets. All true evangelists, pastors and teachers are ministering and building because of what Christ has done once for all and bringing no other message than the “faith once for all delivered to the saints.” The preaching of the true evangelist is nothing more than the message of the gospel that was given by Christ and His apostles. The ministry of the pastor must be to shepherd Christ’s flock in a manner consistent with His teachings and example. The teacher must carefully and accurately bring the “whole counsel of God” to those Christ purchased with His blood.
When Is the Building Completed?
One of the key ideas of the latter day apostles movement is that the church must be fully perfected on earth before Christ can return. Just how this perfection is defined is somewhat unclear. Some have even taught that the church will attain immortality this side of the resurrection. The heretical “Manifested Sons of God” doctrine claims that these passages shall be literally fulfilled before the return of Christ by an end times church with restored apostles and prophets: “For the anxious longing of the creation waits eagerly for the revealing of the sons of God. . . That the creation itself also will be set free from its slavery to corruption into the freedom of the glory of the children of God” (Romans 8:19,21). Of course, the key agents of the transformation of the earth, the nations, and the church supposedly will be these new super-apostles whose greatness shall make all previous church history look like a grand failure.
Bill Hamon claims that Jesus cannot come back, though He wants to, until the latter day apostles and prophets complete the “restoration process.” The proof text for all this is Acts 3:20-21: “and that He may send Jesus, the Christ appointed for you, whom heaven must receive until the period of restoration of all things about which God spoke by the mouth of His holy prophets from ancient time.”13 It is claimed that this “restoration” is about a restored New Testament church with apostles and prophets as powerful as the ones in Acts, if not more so. This may seem like an odd interpretation of Acts 3, but since many are giving it credence, it deserves a close examination.
The statement in Acts 3:19-21 is taken from a message preached by Peter to a Jewish audience at the temple after the healing of a lame man. Peter preached the gospel to his Jewish brethren and said to them, “Repent therefore and return, that your sins may be wiped away, in order that times of refreshing may come from the presence of the Lord” (Acts 3:19). What were they specifically to repent of? — “But you disowned the Holy and Righteous One, and asked for a murderer to be granted to you” (Acts 3:14). At issue was whether Jesus Christ was truly the promised Messiah, the One who would bring the restoration of Israel as promised in the prophets. The key issue in the minds of 1st century Jews who heard the gospel what this: “If this Jesus (Yeshua) is indeed the Messiah why was he crucified before fulfilling the promises that God gave Israel for a restored Davidic kingdom?”
That a possible restored Israel was the issue here is shown by the disciples’ earlier question, before Pentecost: “And so when they had come together, they were asking Him, saying, ‘Lord, is it at this time You are restoring the kingdom to Israel?’ He said to them, ‘It is not for you to know times or epochs which the Father has fixed by His own authority’” (Acts 1:6,7). At issue was when the kingdom would be restored to Israel. Jesus did not tell them it would never be restored, but that there was a fixed time. When Peter preached in Acts 3 and mentioned a restoration that was promised from ancient times by the prophets, it can mean nothing other than a restored Israel, with Messiah as her king. There are dozens of O.T. passages that promise Israel a restoration to her land, salvation, peace, and the reign of Messiah. Since Peter was preaching to unsaved Jews in Jerusalem at the temple, and he referenced a restoration promised in the O.T., how could he be speaking of anything else?
Bill Hamon wants us to believe that Peter told these unsaved Jews that Jesus could not return until the church is restored to the power and glory of the book of Acts. Here are several of the many problems with this interpretation: 1. The church at the time was still in the power and glory of the book of Acts, with real apostles present, why would Peter promise a restoration of something that had not been lost? 2. Peter was preaching to unsaved Jews who surely were not thinking about future church history, they had no conception of the church. 3. In the context of Acts the only restoration that had been discussed was that of national Israel. 4. Peter claimed that Christ (meaning Messiah) was appointed for these Jerusalem Jews, they could find no other Messiah (in their minds meaning political savior) truly from God so they would have to embrace the very One they had turned over to be crucified. 5. The point of “heaven must receive until” was that Jesus is indeed coming back to fulfill yet unfulfilled promises to Israel, but now they must repent and turn to Christ if they are to have any hope.
Sadly Bill Hamon uses Acts 3:20-21 and Ephesians 4:11-13 as the foundational passages for his whole theory of church history, with a restoration of apostle and prophets as the key to everything important, but does no serious exegesis of either passage. On these passages, however, hangs his whole theory. Having taken the Acts passage out of context and made it refer to things that had nothing to do with Peter’s sermon or his hearer’s concerns, Hamon concludes: “The restitution/restoration of the Church started in AD 1517 after more than a thousand years of the Church’s apostate condition, called the Dark Ages. On that date came ‘The Great Restoration of the Church,’ when the Protestant Movement was birthed. Beginning with that date there have been five major restorational movements: The Protestant, Holiness, Pentecostal, Charismatic, and Prophetic Movements.”14 Elsewhere in an expaned chart he adds the Latter Rain Movement, Faith Movement (meaning the Word of Faith teaching popularized by Kenneth Hagin and Kenneth Copeland), and the Apostolic Movement (his of course).15 The Latter Rain Movement was popular in some Pentecostal circles in the 1940's and was led by William Branham, who was considered heretical by many.
Where is all this heading? According to its leaders, this movement is marching toward a glorious future where a nearly perfected church, unified, powerful, ruling over the nations, and having fully conquered the world will welcome back Christ. Here is how Bill Hamon interpretes Ephesians 4:11-13 as to the future:
What is curious about Hamon’s teaching relates to this passage in Ephesians 4. According to Paul the result of Christ’s giving of apostles, prophets, evangelists, pastors and teachers is this: “As a result, we are no longer to be children, tossed here and there by waves, and carried about by every wind of doctrine, by the trickery of men, by craftiness in deceitful scheming” (Ephesians 4:14). We are being told to believe that the very perpetrators of the winds of false doctrines are the ones who are going to perfect us! The Latter Rain movement was replete with heretical teaching, and the heresies of the Word of Faith movement have been well documented.17 Yet these are “restorations” according to Hamon.
Conclusion
There are no authoritative apostles after the death of the Biblical ones. The Biblical ones continue to serve foundationally through their inspired teachings. Just as Christ continues to be the cornerstone, and Head of the church, though not bodily present, His apostles and prophets continue to be Christ’s authoritative teachers. Evangelists, pastors and teachers who are true to Christ have no message but that which has been once for all delivered to the saints. God has given all of these to the church to assure that His purposes for her shall come to pass. However, the completion and perfection must await the return of Christ. Those who are claiming new revelations, new power, new authority, and are claiming apostolic status are false. They are leading us farther from the unity of the faith, not closer to it.
Critical Issues Commentary: Apostles and Prophets and the Foundation of the Church
We can see even within the New Testament itself that apostolic teachings were considered final and authoritative. Jude is a good example. He wrote, “Beloved, while I was making every effort to write you about our common salvation, I felt the necessity to write to you appealing that you contend earnestly for the faith which was once for all delivered to the saints” (Jude 1:3). After describing the practices and teachings of false teachers, Jude returns to this theme: “But you, beloved, ought to remember the words that were spoken beforehand by the apostles of our Lord Jesus Christ” (Jude 1:17).
The teachings of the apostles are considered authoritative and having been given once for all. Likewise Paul’s writings are called “Scripture” even in the New Testament: “And regard the patience of our Lord to be salvation; just as also our beloved brother Paul, according to the wisdom given him, wrote to you, as also in all his letters, speaking in them of these things, in which are some things hard to understand, which the untaught and unstable distort, as they do also the rest of the Scriptures, to their own destruction” (2Peter 3:15,16).
Paul told Timothy to transmit his teachings to others who would teach others after them: “And the things which you have heard from me in the presence of many witnesses, these entrust to faithful men, who will be able to teach others also” (2Timothy 2:2).
This helps us understand how the building proceeds to be built upon the foundation. Christ’s death provided atonement for our sins, once for all, He is the cornerstone. He appointed apostles and commissioned them to communicate the mystery of God (Ephesians 3:5,6). As the recipients of the New Testament revelation, they are the foundation of the church, which shall remain throughout the ages. These truths were given to others to teach as Paul told Timothy.
One of the very earliest writings of the church after the death of the apostles saw this process as follows:
The apostles have preached the Gospel to us from the Lord Jesus Christ; Jesus Christ [has done so] from God. Christ therefore was sent forth by God, and the apostles by Christ. Both these appointments, then, were made in an orderly way, according to the will of God. Having therefore received their orders, and being fully assured by the resurrection of our Lord Jesus Christ, and established in the word of God, with full assurance of the Holy Ghost, they went forth proclaiming that the kingdom of God was at hand. And thus preaching through countries and cities, they appointed the first-fruits [of their labors], having first proved them by the Spirit, to be bishops and deacons of those who should afterwards believe.12
This was written by Clement of Rome who may well have been the same Clement mentioned in Philippians 4:3 (the early church considered this to be the case). Likely written around 97AD, this document showed that rather than a succession of apostles, the teaching of the apostles was entrusted to people they appointed. Eventually the canon of the New Testament was agreed upon. The apostles were unique in ministry and authority. There would be no more authoritative apostles after the death of those who Christ appointed. There is no Scripture in the Bible that predicts God will raise up new apostles much later in church history.
Ephesians 4:11-13, taken in the context of Paul’s building analogy in Ephesians, shows how the apostles and prophets whom Christ gave the church continue until the consummation of all things. Just as Christ’s work continues for ever, so does the work of the apostles and prophets. Through their preaching and teaching, they constituted the foundation of the church once for all. They are still ministering to all of us through their teachings, which are “the faith,” the unity of which Ephesians 4:13 says we are to attain. They and their teachings are the rock solid foundation that enables us to withstand the “waves” and “winds of doctrine” Paul mentioned in Ephesians 4:14. The foundation stands strong and authoritative to this day and until will continue to do so.
The evangelists, pastors and teachers who Christ provides throughout church history cannot claim any legitimacy if they depart from the foundation of the apostles and prophets. All true evangelists, pastors and teachers are ministering and building because of what Christ has done once for all and bringing no other message than the “faith once for all delivered to the saints.” The preaching of the true evangelist is nothing more than the message of the gospel that was given by Christ and His apostles. The ministry of the pastor must be to shepherd Christ’s flock in a manner consistent with His teachings and example. The teacher must carefully and accurately bring the “whole counsel of God” to those Christ purchased with His blood.
When Is the Building Completed?
One of the key ideas of the latter day apostles movement is that the church must be fully perfected on earth before Christ can return. Just how this perfection is defined is somewhat unclear. Some have even taught that the church will attain immortality this side of the resurrection. The heretical “Manifested Sons of God” doctrine claims that these passages shall be literally fulfilled before the return of Christ by an end times church with restored apostles and prophets: “For the anxious longing of the creation waits eagerly for the revealing of the sons of God. . . That the creation itself also will be set free from its slavery to corruption into the freedom of the glory of the children of God” (Romans 8:19,21). Of course, the key agents of the transformation of the earth, the nations, and the church supposedly will be these new super-apostles whose greatness shall make all previous church history look like a grand failure.
Bill Hamon claims that Jesus cannot come back, though He wants to, until the latter day apostles and prophets complete the “restoration process.” The proof text for all this is Acts 3:20-21: “and that He may send Jesus, the Christ appointed for you, whom heaven must receive until the period of restoration of all things about which God spoke by the mouth of His holy prophets from ancient time.”13 It is claimed that this “restoration” is about a restored New Testament church with apostles and prophets as powerful as the ones in Acts, if not more so. This may seem like an odd interpretation of Acts 3, but since many are giving it credence, it deserves a close examination.
The statement in Acts 3:19-21 is taken from a message preached by Peter to a Jewish audience at the temple after the healing of a lame man. Peter preached the gospel to his Jewish brethren and said to them, “Repent therefore and return, that your sins may be wiped away, in order that times of refreshing may come from the presence of the Lord” (Acts 3:19). What were they specifically to repent of? — “But you disowned the Holy and Righteous One, and asked for a murderer to be granted to you” (Acts 3:14). At issue was whether Jesus Christ was truly the promised Messiah, the One who would bring the restoration of Israel as promised in the prophets. The key issue in the minds of 1st century Jews who heard the gospel what this: “If this Jesus (Yeshua) is indeed the Messiah why was he crucified before fulfilling the promises that God gave Israel for a restored Davidic kingdom?”
That a possible restored Israel was the issue here is shown by the disciples’ earlier question, before Pentecost: “And so when they had come together, they were asking Him, saying, ‘Lord, is it at this time You are restoring the kingdom to Israel?’ He said to them, ‘It is not for you to know times or epochs which the Father has fixed by His own authority’” (Acts 1:6,7). At issue was when the kingdom would be restored to Israel. Jesus did not tell them it would never be restored, but that there was a fixed time. When Peter preached in Acts 3 and mentioned a restoration that was promised from ancient times by the prophets, it can mean nothing other than a restored Israel, with Messiah as her king. There are dozens of O.T. passages that promise Israel a restoration to her land, salvation, peace, and the reign of Messiah. Since Peter was preaching to unsaved Jews in Jerusalem at the temple, and he referenced a restoration promised in the O.T., how could he be speaking of anything else?
Bill Hamon wants us to believe that Peter told these unsaved Jews that Jesus could not return until the church is restored to the power and glory of the book of Acts. Here are several of the many problems with this interpretation: 1. The church at the time was still in the power and glory of the book of Acts, with real apostles present, why would Peter promise a restoration of something that had not been lost? 2. Peter was preaching to unsaved Jews who surely were not thinking about future church history, they had no conception of the church. 3. In the context of Acts the only restoration that had been discussed was that of national Israel. 4. Peter claimed that Christ (meaning Messiah) was appointed for these Jerusalem Jews, they could find no other Messiah (in their minds meaning political savior) truly from God so they would have to embrace the very One they had turned over to be crucified. 5. The point of “heaven must receive until” was that Jesus is indeed coming back to fulfill yet unfulfilled promises to Israel, but now they must repent and turn to Christ if they are to have any hope.
Sadly Bill Hamon uses Acts 3:20-21 and Ephesians 4:11-13 as the foundational passages for his whole theory of church history, with a restoration of apostle and prophets as the key to everything important, but does no serious exegesis of either passage. On these passages, however, hangs his whole theory. Having taken the Acts passage out of context and made it refer to things that had nothing to do with Peter’s sermon or his hearer’s concerns, Hamon concludes: “The restitution/restoration of the Church started in AD 1517 after more than a thousand years of the Church’s apostate condition, called the Dark Ages. On that date came ‘The Great Restoration of the Church,’ when the Protestant Movement was birthed. Beginning with that date there have been five major restorational movements: The Protestant, Holiness, Pentecostal, Charismatic, and Prophetic Movements.”14 Elsewhere in an expaned chart he adds the Latter Rain Movement, Faith Movement (meaning the Word of Faith teaching popularized by Kenneth Hagin and Kenneth Copeland), and the Apostolic Movement (his of course).15 The Latter Rain Movement was popular in some Pentecostal circles in the 1940's and was led by William Branham, who was considered heretical by many.
Where is all this heading? According to its leaders, this movement is marching toward a glorious future where a nearly perfected church, unified, powerful, ruling over the nations, and having fully conquered the world will welcome back Christ. Here is how Bill Hamon interpretes Ephesians 4:11-13 as to the future:
All fivefold ministers must function until Christ’s Church is a fully restored Church, a glorious spotless Church, an overcoming-all-things Church, which subdues all Christ’s enemies and places them under His feet. If the rapture of the Church takes place before this is accomplished, then declaration would have to be made that these scriptures failed to come to pass, or the apostles, prophets and other fivefold ministries have to continue their ministry after the rapture until these scriptures are fulfilled.16
The passage will not bear the weight of this interpretation. There is nothing in Ephesians 4 that shows that “until we all attain to the unity of the faith” is something that will happen only to a few elitist Christians at the end of the church age. It makes more sense to take “we all” to be the entire church, including those who have gone before us. Are we to assume that Paul himself is not included because he happened to live in the first century? This final perfected unity will come about when Christ returns, not before. That the ministries given shall persist until He returns is true, as long as one understands the apostles and prophets to be the Biblical ones
What is curious about Hamon’s teaching relates to this passage in Ephesians 4. According to Paul the result of Christ’s giving of apostles, prophets, evangelists, pastors and teachers is this: “As a result, we are no longer to be children, tossed here and there by waves, and carried about by every wind of doctrine, by the trickery of men, by craftiness in deceitful scheming” (Ephesians 4:14). We are being told to believe that the very perpetrators of the winds of false doctrines are the ones who are going to perfect us! The Latter Rain movement was replete with heretical teaching, and the heresies of the Word of Faith movement have been well documented.17 Yet these are “restorations” according to Hamon.
Conclusion
There are no authoritative apostles after the death of the Biblical ones. The Biblical ones continue to serve foundationally through their inspired teachings. Just as Christ continues to be the cornerstone, and Head of the church, though not bodily present, His apostles and prophets continue to be Christ’s authoritative teachers. Evangelists, pastors and teachers who are true to Christ have no message but that which has been once for all delivered to the saints. God has given all of these to the church to assure that His purposes for her shall come to pass. However, the completion and perfection must await the return of Christ. Those who are claiming new revelations, new power, new authority, and are claiming apostolic status are false. They are leading us farther from the unity of the faith, not closer to it.
Critical Issues Commentary: Apostles and Prophets and the Foundation of the Church
1
1still_waters
Guest
So the apostles falsley assigned the 12th apostleship to Matthias huh? Not buying, but good try
Was Matthias chosen by lot or by the literal call of Jesus?
Again, the standard for true apostleship comes from a cal from Jesus. Not a call by some lots.
Also this was done before the day of pentecost so there is a legit question on their ability to decide certain things.
Sorry yes your right, Christ does take away my sin, by forgetting it. Declaring me not guilty. I have no sin on my account.
In that way we are like Christ. Spotless.
Sorry, dunno what I was thinking.
Course he was.
Its the other guy I wonder about....uhm...lolz...I cant even remember his name! lolz!
its not legit.
listen to this sermon, perfectly exegeted. then you will know for certain. at least you'll have a good starting point for your studies.
this is not speculation, it is Biblical proof. we CAN know.
follow along in your Bible. use your reason as well.
No More Prophets
http://www.sermonaudio.com/sermoninfo.asp?SID=81102151228
when you click play or download you will go to a donation page: scroll down and click LATER, it will automatically redirect you for listening (donate if you can...its a great site).
Even iof Matthias wasnt an Apostle (which he was) Barnabas would still make 13
Acts 14:14 Which when the apostles, Barnabas and Paul, heard of, they rent their clothes, and ran in among the people, crying out,
M
MaggieMye
Guest
Just no need for apostles thats all we're sayin'.
Who here said no pastors or teachers?
1
1still_waters
Guest
Not in the sense of the 12 foundation laying apostles no.
This thread isn't about people still being used as 'messengers' today. This is asking the question if the office of apostle ie exactly like the 12 original is still operative today.
Barnabus wasn't an apostle in that sense.
So the apostles falsley assigned the 12th apostleship to Matthias huh? Not buying, but good try
They didnt make mistakes?
Also it could have been a temporary apostleship. They knew there should be 12.
He didnt bear witness to anything. He was sent forth for a particular reason. Just a delegate. Another temporary job.
EXACTLY.
as with Matthias.
there were many called apostle during that era, but not THE Apostles. there were only the twelve for the foundation.
don't forget also, there were actually 13 tribes, including the Levites.
we'll document this. its EASY.
A
Abiding
Guest
1
1still_waters
Guest
They made the decision BEFORE Pentecost. BEFORE the power from on high came upon them.
Matthias was chosen by lot.
So Matthias was chosen by lot, by people who hadn't been endued from the power from on high that Jesus told them to wait for.
Paul WAS chosen directly by Jesus. No lots.
1
1still_waters
Guest
Maybe these people are still looking for foundation laying apostles, because their foundation keeps getting torn down.
I guess if my belief system rested on a foundation that kept falling down, I'd be lookin for some new fellas to come along and lay down new foundation.
I guess if my belief system rested on a foundation that kept falling down, I'd be lookin for some new fellas to come along and lay down new foundation.
The bible says there are still apostles, so I believe their are. God's word is what my beliefs rest on.
The bible also says Matthias, and barnabas were apostles. So even you try to dismiss that I will not. Including Paul we have atleast 14 Apostles, that blows the 12 out of the water, not to mention James the Brother of Jesus was not one of the original 12, but was an apostle. We are now at 15 and counted...Jude..16 ect, ect, ect,