Introducing the Signs of an Apostle
The twelve apostles and the apostle Paul possessed the teaching authority of pastors, plus infallible teaching authority, including (for some of them) the authority to write inspired and canonical New Testament Scripture.
These apostles also possessed the ruling authority of elders. Like them, apostles had authority to discipline, hear and decide controversies, and ordain office-bearers. Unlike elders, the apostles had the authority to direct the first-century evangelists and will have the authority to judge the twelve tribes of Israel on the last day (Matt. 19:28).
Moreover, the apostles possessed the authority of showing mercy like deacons. The twelve did the work of deacons in the days of the early New Testament church up to Acts 6. The apostle Paul was the main figure in bringing financial assistance from the Greek churches to the poor believers in Jerusalem (I Cor. 16:1-4; II Cor. 8-9).
In short, the apostles united in themselves the offices of pastor, elder and deacon, and even possessed a greater authority than the combination of these three special and permanent offices. Furthermore, they held this authority universally, for all the churches were under the authority of the apostles. No wonder the apostle Paul could write, “For though I should boast somewhat more of our authority, which the Lord hath given us for edification, and not for your destruction, I should not be ashamed” (II Cor. 10:8).
This authority was derivative and ministerial. After all, the apostles were under the lordship of Jesus Christ, the sole king and head of the church, and they, like us, were subject to the truth of His Word.
In Paul’s battle with false apostles in II Corinthians 10-13, you could say that chapter 10 deals with apostolic authority, chapter 11 with apostolic sufferings, chapter 12 with apostolic revelations and chapter 13 with apostolic discipline. As well as apostolic visions, the supernaturalism of II Corinthians 12 includes apostolic miracles: “Truly the signs of an apostle were wrought among you in all patience, in signs, and wonders, and mighty deeds” (12). Notice the connection here between apostles and miracles!
The true apostolic office is rightly linked with Spirit-wrought miracles in the apostolic age, as recorded in the New Testament. On the other hand, various false churches link their (spurious) miracles with their (counterfeit) apostles.
Consider, first, the Roman church. The Pope is supposedly the successor of the apostle Peter and the papal church claims to be a miracle-working church—in the past, in the present and in the future.
This correlation is evident, second, in Mormonism. Here are the sixth and seventh of “The Articles of Faith of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints” of Joseph Smith: “We believe in the same organization that existed in the Primitive Church, namely, apostles, prophets, pastors, teachers, evangelists, and so forth.” “We believe in the gift of tongues, prophecy, revelation, visions, healing, interpretation of tongues, and so forth.” “Apostles” (6) and miracles of “healing” (7) are closely connected.
We turn, third, to the Catholic Apostolic Church which is associated with, and was inspired by, Edward Irving (1792-1834) in London. The miracles they claimed led them to reinstitute the office of apostle. Like the Mormons, the Catholic Apostolic Church also settled upon twelve as the number of their apostles, the last of whom died in 1901.
Fourth, many charismatic groups claim to possess both miracles and apostles, while other parties that claim to have the power to work miracles are open to the idea of apostles today.
II Corinthians 12:12, cited earlier, uses three significant words for true miracles: “signs,” “wonders” and “mighty deeds.” As “mighty deeds,” miracles are objective works produced by extraordinary divine power. As “wonders,” miracles are marvels that evoke awe, the subjective result in human beings. As “signs,” miracles are indicators pointing to the great spiritual reality: redemption in the blood of Jesus Christ and salvation in Him alone, as infallibly taught by His special divine emissaries.
These miracles or “signs,” “wonders” and “mighty deeds” are of various types. Four are listed in Christ’s commission to the twelve disciples in Matthew 10:8: “[1] Heal the sick, [2] cleanse the lepers, [3] raise the dead, [4] cast out devils.”
This is the promise of the risen Lord Jesus in Mark 16:17-18: “these signs shall follow them that believe; In my name [1] shall they cast out devils; [2] they shall speak with new tongues; [3] they shall take up serpents; and [4] if they drink any deadly thing, it shall not hurt them; [5] they shall lay hands on the sick, and they shall recover.”
“Them that believe” (17) were the eleven disciples who, after the Lord’s ascension into heaven (19), “went forth, and preached every where, the Lord working with them, and confirming the word with signs following” (20).
Of these five “signs,” speaking with “new tongues”—languages that were “new” to the speaker and were not learned by ordinary means—was not unique to the apostles or even the other extraordinary and temporary office-bearers: prophets and evangelists.
Two of the other “signs” are mentioned in both Matthew 10:18 and Mark 16:17-18. This leaves us with six types of miracles from these two New Testament passages: [1] healing the sick, [2] cleansing lepers, [3] raising the dead, [4] exorcising demons, [5] immunity from snake venom and [6] immunity from poison.
But more needs to be said about the nature and the workers of these signs! Rev. Stewart
The Mother of God
A reader has asked, “Jesus has two natures … We know that Mary is the mother of Jesus (being man) but is Mary also the mother of God (for Christ is divine)?”
The difficulty in answering this question revolves around the great biblical truth that Jesus, with His divine and human natures, is still one Person and that He is, personally, the Second Person of the Trinity, the eternal and only begotten Son of God.
The question is whether we may ascribe things that are true of Him as a man to the divine Person. The Bible does this in Acts 20:28: “Take heed therefore unto yourselves, and to all the flock, over the which the Holy Ghost hath made you overseers, to feed the church of God, which he hath purchased with his own blood,” where Scripture, in effect, calls the blood of Christ the blood of God. We know that God has no blood, no “body, parts, or passions” (Westminster Confession 2:1), yet Christ’s human blood is ascribed to Him personally and is called the blood of God. This would seem to justify calling Mary the mother of God (Greek: theotokos or God-bearer).
Mary, we all understand, is not the mother of Jesus’ divine nature, the mother of God, in that sense. According to His divine nature, He is eternal, has no earthly father or mother and no beginning. But, in the same way that His blood is referred to as the blood of God, can Mary be called the mother of God as the one who gave birth to the Person who was God, united at conception with our human nature?
In Roman Catholicism and Greek Orthodoxy, the term, mother of God, is accepted. It was in early use in the ancient church, but there were differences of opinion about it and a controversy erupted as part of the church’s battle against Nestorianism.
Nestorianism arose in the fifth century. Nestorius, Archbishop of Constantinople, separated the divine and human natures of Christ to the point that he was guilty of teaching that Christ was two persons instead of one. At the heart of his teaching was a denial of the union of Christ’s two natures from the moment of His conception in the womb of Mary. His objections centred on the use of the term, mother of God, for he insisted that Mary could not be the mother of the divine nature and that God could not be a baby: “God is not a baby two or three months old!”
The Nestorians were guilty of serious error in teaching that the only begotten Son united Himself with an independent and completely human person, thus denying the reality of the incarnation. They insisted that the proper term for Mary was Christ-bearer (Greek: Christotokos). Mary was only the mother of the human person with whom the divine Son of God united Himself. There can be no doubt, therefore, that Nestorianism, a heresy that continues to plague the church, was wrong in its position regarding the union of Christ’s two natures.
Nestorianism was condemned at the Council of Ephesus in 431 and again at the Council of Chalcedon in 451. Both these councils affirmed the propriety of the term, mother of God. The Creed of Chalcedon not only rejected Nestorianism by insisting that the two natures of Christ were united “without separation” but also used the name, “mother of God,” for Mary: “born of the Virgin Mary, the mother of God, according to the manhood.” For this reason, however, the Creed of Chalcedon has not been recognized by many. Article 9 of the Belgic Confession (1561) mentions the Apostles’, Nicene and Athanasian Creeds, but not the Creed of Chalcedon.
The view of this writer is that, following the example of the Word of God in Acts 20:28, the term can be properly used, but it is not a biblical term and is often used to promote Mariolatry, so it is probably better to avoid it. Nor is it necessary to use the term to defend the truth that Christ is God and man in one Person, fully God and fully man, but still only one Person, and that the two natures of Christ were inseparably united in one Person from the moment of His conception in the womb of Mary.
Actually the Greek term, theotokos, God-bearer, is better than its usual translation, mother of God. The former makes it clear that Mary is in no sense the mother of Christ according to His divine nature and in no sense Christ’s mother from eternity.
It is better, so it seems to this writer, to stick as much as possible to the language of Scripture when speaking of the union of Christ’s two natures and to avoid language that may give offence or lead to misunderstanding. The fact is that the union of Christ’s two natures is a mystery. It lies at the heart of everything we believe but is beyond our comprehension. Any attempt to reason out the union of the two natures, the kind of attempt of which Nestorius was guilty, is bound to end in error.
We must confess that Christ is fully God and fully man. He must be God because only God can “by power of His Godhead sustain in His human nature, the burden of God’s wrath; and … obtain for, and restore to us, righteousness and life” (Heidelberg Catechism, A. 17). He must be man because only man can pay for man’s sin, and only one who is like us in all things, except sin, can redeem and deliver us, body and soul, from our sins. He must be only one divine Person, for the testimony of Scripture is that there are not two Christs but one only and that one the only begotten Son of God.
How that divine Person could speak of being forsaken by God, how He, personally the Son of God, could hunger and thirst, be weary, suffer, die and rise again from the dead is the great mystery of our faith, and we must not tie ourselves in theological knots attempting to understand and explain that mystery, but must bow in wondering awe at what God has done and confess that “God was manifest in the flesh” (I Tim. 3:16).
The old Athanasian Creed sums up beautifully what we by faith are able to say, without destroying the mystery and miracle of the incarnation or by curiously inquiring into those things that are too high for us: “Furthermore, it is necessary to everlasting salvation that he also believe faithfully the incarnation of our Lord Jesus Christ. For the right faith is that we believe and confess that our Lord Jesus Christ, the Son of God, is God and man. God, of the essence of the Father, begotten before the worlds; and man, of the substance of His mother, born in the world. Perfect God and perfect man, of a reasonable soul and human flesh subsisting. Equal to the Father as touching His Godhead, and inferior to the Father as touching His manhood. Who, although He is God and man, yet He is not two, but one Christ.” Rev. Ron Hanko
