The Twelve Apostles of the Lamb
The Apostle declares that other foundation can no man lay than
that is laid--Jesus Christ. (`1 Cor. 3:11`) Upon this foundation
our Lord, as the Father's representative, began to rear his
Church, and in so doing he called twelve apostles--not by accident,
but by design, just as the twelve tribes of Israel were not
twelve by accident, but in conformity to the divine plan. Not
only did the Lord not choose more than those twelve apostles
for that position, but he has never given authority since for
any more--barring the fact that Judas, having proved himself
unworthy of a position amongst the twelve, fell from his place
and was succeeded by the Apostle Paul.
We notice with what care the Lord watched over the apostles--his
carefulness for Peter, his praying for him in the hour of his
trial, and his special appeals to him afterward to feed his
sheep and his lambs. We note also his care for doubting Thomas
and his willingness to demonstrate to him thoroughly the fact
of his resurrection. Of the twelve, he lost none save the son
of perdition--and his deflection was already foreknown to the
Lord and foretold in the Scriptures. We cannot recognize the
choice of Matthias recorded in Acts as in any sense of the word
the Lord's selection. He was, doubtless, a good man, but was
chosen by the eleven without authority. They had been instructed
to tarry at Jerusalem and wait for endowment from on high by
the holy Spirit at Pentecost, and it was during this waiting
period, and before they were endued with power, that they mistakenly
cast lots and chose Matthias to take the place of Judas. The
Lord did not reprove them for this undesigned meddling with
his arrangement, but simply ignored their choice, and in his
own time brought forward the Apostle Paul, declaring, "He
is a chosen vessel unto me"; and, again, we have the Apostle's
statement that he was chosen from his mother's womb to be a
special servant; and, further, that he was not a whit behind
the chiefest of the apostles. `Gal. 1:15`; `2 Cor. 11:5`
From this it will be seen that we are entirely out of accord
with the views of Papacy and of the Protestant Episcopal Church,
and of the Catholic-Apostolic Church, and of the Mormons, all
of whom claim that the number of the apostles was not limited
to twelve, and that there have been successors since their day
who spoke and wrote with equal authority with the original twelve.
We deny this, and in evidence note how the Lord particularly
chose those twelve, calling to mind the prominence of the number
twelve in sacred things pertaining to this election; and we
cap the climax by pointing to the symbolical picture of the
glorified Church furnished in `Revelation 21`. There the New
Jerusalem --the symbol of the new Millennial government, the
Church, the Bride united to her Lord--is very clearly delineated;
and in the picture the statement is most distinctly made that
the twelve foundations of the City are precious, and that in
the twelve foundations were the names written of the "twelve
apostles of the Lamb"--no more, no less. What better proof
could we have that there were never more than twelve of these
apostles of the Lamb, and that any others were, as the Apostle
Paul suggests, "false apostles." `2 Cor. 11:13`