It has recently become popular to speak of "the five-fold
ministry," a system of church government with apostles, prophets,
evangelists, pastors, and teachers. The neo-Pentecostal
"Restoration" movement and its offshoot, "kingdom now" teaching,
claims that one of the things which God is "restoring" to the
church is this five-fold ministry.
The sole prooftext used to support this concept is Ephesians
4:11-13, which states that Christ gave "some as apostles, and some
as prophets, and some as evangelists, and some as pastors and
teachers,...until we all attain to the unity of the faith and the
full knowledge of the Son of God." The word "until," it is argued,
proves that the church today needs apostles and prophets as much as
evangelists, pastors, and teachers.
However, it is the "building up" of the church (v.12) which
must continue until the church is mature, not all five of the
offices listed in verse 11. This is clear when the whole text is
read as follows: "And He gave some as apostles, and some as
prophets, and some as evangelists, and some as pastors and
teachers; [these offices were given] to equip the saints for the
work of service, [which work has as its goal] to build up the body
of Christ until we all attain to the unity of the faith..." The
offices of apostle and prophet would naturally cease in the church
once their role in "equipping the saints" was completed; that is,
once the New Testament canon was completed.
Some have objected that there is no reason to bracket off the
apostles and prophets from the other three offices listed in verse
11. However, in the very same epistle, Paul states that the church
has "been built upon the foundation of the apostles and prophets"
(Eph. 2:20) and that Christ's mystery concerning the church was
"revealed to His holy apostles and prophets in the Spirit" (3:5).
These statements indicate that the role of apostles and prophets
was fulfilled in the first century.
The New Testament is particularly clear about the temporary
role of the apostles, since they were chosen to give eyewitness
testimony of the risen Christ (Acts 1:21-26; 5:32; Luke 1:1-4; 1
Cor. 9:1). Paul indicated that he was the last person to see the
risen Christ and receive an apostolic commission (1 Cor. 15:8). The
epistles of 2 Peter and Jude, among the very last New Testament
writings to be penned, exhort the readers to avoid false doctrines
by recalling the teachings of the apostles (2 Pet. 1:12-15; 2:1;
3:2, 14-16; Jude 3-4, 17). Peter and Jude did not say, "Listen to
the apostles living today," but instead urged believers to
"remember what the apostles said."
I am not arguing that only the Twelve and Paul were apostles.
Barnabas (Acts 14:14), Silas (1 Thess. 2:6; cf. 1:1), and
Andronicus and Junia (Rom. 16:7) all were apostles of Christ, and
thus were no doubt among the more than 500 witnesses to the
Resurrection (1 Cor. 15:6). However, none of these persons was
chosen as a successor to an earlier apostle (Matthias was Judas's
replacement, not his successor, since Judas had forsaken his
apostleship, Acts 1:21-26).
There are other senses in which the word "apostle" is used in
the New Testament. Certain individuals, including Epaphroditus,
were "apostles of the churches" (2 Cor. 8:23; Phil. 2:25). These
"apostles" had no authority over the church; they were messengers
sent by and subject to their churches. In this latter sense it
would be perfectly legitimate to speak of church representatives as
"apostles," were it not for the confusion which might result from
such usage.
Therefore, in the usual biblical sense of the term, there are
no apostles today. Nor are there any prophets in the usual sense,
as they were part of the "foundation" laid in the first-century
church. This is not to deny the continuing validity of the gift of
"prophecy," since Paul does refer to prophesying as a basic
activity in which all Christians are urged to participate to the
extent God gifts them (Rom. 12:6; 1 Cor. 11:4-5; 12:10; 13:2, 8-9;
14:1-6, 20-33; 1 Thess. 5:20), and in a general functional sense
persons exercising this gift are even called "prophets" (1 Cor.
14:32,37). Yet Paul also speaks of specific persons who occupied an
office of "prophet" which was second in authority only to apostle
(1 Cor. 12:28-29). It is this office of "prophet," not all
prophecy, which I am arguing passed away around the end of the
first century.
Finally, some errors on this matter are worse than others. The
loose use of the world "apostle" to refer to missionaries or church
planters is not a serious error as long as this usage is sharply
distinguished from the concept of an apostle who brings new
doctrinal revelations and wields unquestionable authority. Nor is
it a grievous error to interpret Ephesians 4:11 to refer to
"apostles" in this sense of a church planter. The same would apply
to those who hold that Ephesians 4:11 refers to the ongoing
charismatic activity of prophesying. I do believe these
interpretations are mistaken, but they are not in any way
antagonistic to Christian faith.
On the other hand, to interpret Ephesians 4:11 as a call for a
restoration of the office of apostle of Christ is not only a
mistake in exegesis, it opens the door to heresy. To claim that the
church today needs visions and revelations through modern apostles
and prophets of Christ is to deny the sufficiency of the Bible (2
Tim. 3:16) and to place the church at the mercy of false apostles,
the likes of whom the apostle Paul warned us about in no uncertain
terms (2 Cor. 11:13-15).
The teachers of the "five-fold ministry," in seeking to
"restore" a foundation which has never been moved, are actually
laying a false foundation which will not support the building up of
the body of Christ.
End of document, CRJ0009A.TXT (original CRI file name),
"The Faulty Foundation of the Five-Fold Ministry"
release A, September 6, 1993
R. Poll, CRI
A special note of thanks to Bob and Pat Hunter for their help in the preparation of this ASCII file for BBS circulation.
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