Hi, I'm David Bercot, and tonight we're going to be talking about what the Bible teaches about apostolic succession. We'll also be looking at what the early Christians believed on the subject, although that'll mainly be tomorrow night. Before we begin our discussion, I think it would be wise to define what the doctrine of apostolic succession is. And maybe it'll help if I clarify what I'm not talking about.
I'm not talking about claims of apostolic teaching authority or claims of infallibility that the Roman Catholic and the Eastern Orthodox Church would make. For those issues, let me refer you to two messages I've previously made on the claims of Rome and the myths of the Seven Ecumenical Councils. Those discuss that issue of what's sometimes called apostolic succession. So we're not talking about someone claiming," I'm a successor to Peter.
I stand in the office of Peter or John or something like that." Secondly, I'm not talking about claims that any of those churches might make to be able to modify or further define the apostolic faith. That's not part of our discussion tonight. In fact, it was a bedrock teaching of the New Testament that the faith was once for all handed down. It was complete when the apostles died. Any modification of it is heresy, it's not development.
Paul wrote," But even if we, or an angel from heaven, preach any other gospel to you than what we have preached to you, let him be accursed." So this was long before the first century was even over with that Paul was already saying," The gospel is complete.
If someone preaches to you anything else, let him be accursed." And then, of course, we have Jude 3 that says," Contend earnestly for the faith which was once for all delivered to the saints." And the early Christians after the apostles believed exactly what those scriptures teach. For example, Tertullian wrote," In the Lord's apostles, we possess our authority.
For even they did not of themselves choose to introduce anything new, but faithfully delivered to the nations the teaching that they had received from Christ. If, therefore, even an angel from heaven should preach any other gospel than theirs, he would be called accursed by us. That's in volume 3, page 246 of the Ante-Nicene Fathers.
Again, Tertullian wrote," No other teaching will have the right of being received as apostolic than that which is at the present day proclaimed in the churches of apostolic foundation." It's in volume three, page 286.
So he's saying," If anyone hears something that's different from what we're preaching today or what's being preached in those churches that the apostles had founded, it's not apostolic." As Irenaeus wrote in volume 1, page 414," It is unlawful to assert that the apostles preach before they possess perfect knowledge or complete knowledge, as some do even venture to say, boasting themselves as being improvers of the apostles." He says," They were completely filled and had perfect knowledge.
They departed to the ends of the earth, preaching the glad tidings of the good things sent to us from God." So anybody who claims they're developing the faith, in other words, improving on what the apostles left, they're not improving it. They're adulterating it. And again, I won't say anything more on that subject. I've previously delivered a message on the subject of the faith that was once for all delivered to the saints. And I'll refer you to that for a detailed discussion of that issue.
And finally, when I use the term apostolic succession or the doctrine of apostolic succession, I'm not talking about the fact that there were leaders who succeeded or followed after the apostles in the churches. That is, they followed the apostles as fallible teachers, not as persons who had the same office as the apostles. I don't think anybody disputes that fact. So just showing that there were leaders who took over after the apostles died is not proving the doctrine of apostolic succession.
Okay, so I've talked about what's not the doctrine. Now let me set forth the seven tenets of the doctrine of apostolic succession. And these tenets are as follows. One, ordination is a sacrament. It's not simply an appointment to a ministerial office. A bishop or presbyter holds a priestly office very similar to the office held by the Old Testament priests, okay? That's the first tenet of this doctrine of apostolic succession, how it's taught today.
The second tenet is ordination can only be validly performed by a bishop who has been ordained by other bishops, each of whom have a list of ordainers that can be traced all the way back to the apostles. And that's where the term apostolic succession comes from. Perhaps a better term would be to call it Episcopal Succession, and I may use that somewhat interchangeably tonight. As I said, under this doctrine, only a bishop can ordain. A Presbyter or priest or elder cannot.
Furthermore, it is normally believed that there must be at least two bishops to validly ordain another bishop, and it's preferable to have three. Now I should explain the sacramental churches generally use the word" consecrate" when referring to the ordination of a bishop. They say," This bishop was consecrated rather than he was ordained." But the Scriptures never use that word consecrate in talking about appointing or ordaining someone to an office of ministry.
So I'm not going to be using it, but I am aware that that's the terminology that those churches use. And while we're talking about the method of ordination, I should also mention that under this doctrine of apostolic succession, ordination can only be performed through the laying on of hands. A bishop can't write a letter appointing someone to office or ordaining him to office. He has to physically be there laying hands on him. And this is how the sacrament is passed from one bishop to another.
All right, those are the first two tenets, okay? The third tenet is that in ordination, a special grace is conferred to the ordinand, that is, the person being ordained, leaving an indelible mark on his soul or something similar to that. Now, this special grace that is transferred in the sacrament of ordination isn't simply strength and wisdom for the ministry.
Rather, an ordained bishop or presbyter has special spiritual power to validly administer the sacraments, particularly the sacrament of communion, which a layperson does not have. And a minister who has not been ordained through apostolic succession doesn't have that power either. Okay, that was tenet three. Tenet or principle number four, only a bishop or presbyter who has been ordained with apostolic succession can validly consecrate the bread and wine at communion or in the Eucharist.
That is, Christ is truly present in some real sense in the Eucharist, and the recipients receive grace from God through the sacrament of communion only if the minister who is celebrating the Eucharist has been ordained through this line of apostolic succession. Otherwise, Christ is not present, there is no grace in the sacrament. Likewise, only a bishop who has apostolic succession can lay hands on someone to receive the Holy Spirit.
Tenet or principle number five, a bishop or presbyter can leave the church that ordained him. He can become a heretic, he can live an ungodly life, he can even be excommunicated, and yet he still has this power that was given him in the sacrament of ordination.
Now, the Eastern Orthodox Church would say," No, if he's been excommunicated, then he no longer has that power or if he's left the church." But generally, most people you find today who believe in this doctrine of apostolic succession would hold to that tenet. Okay, tenet number six, this sacramental grace of ordination works automatically. The theological term is in Latin, ex opere operato.
It means if the right procedures are followed with the right ordainers, the right intentions, then the ordinand becomes a bishop or a priest or presbyter, regardless of whether he has any living faith in Christ or regardless of his character. He can be an atheist, a murderer, an apostate. Yet his ordination is valid and he still has this special power regardless of that. And even the Eastern Orthodox would hold to that. They would say until such time as he would be excommunicated.
Because in history, you've had all of those things. In the Eastern Orthodox in Russia, it was thoroughly infiltrated by the KGB. You had total atheists who had been ordained as priests and I think even bishops. And the church would say," Well, everything they did was valid because they were ordained." And you clearly had murderers and licentious men in the Office of Pope and throughout history among the bishops and priests in the Roman Catholic and Eastern Orthodox churches.
And yet both of those churches would say that had no effect on the validity of their office. Okay, tenet number seven. The validity of ordination depends then almost exclusively on having this lineage and on the formula and method of ordination, not on the qualifications or the lifestyle or even the orthodoxy of the person being ordained or of the person doing the ordination. Okay, so it's that doctrine, these seven tenets. That's what we're going to be looking at tonight.
We're going to be seeing," Does the Bible teach that?" But perhaps this would be a good point for me to explain a little bit about where I'm coming from, my own personal pilgrimage. Now, I grew up believing that apostolic succession is simply a lot of nonsense. Nothing to even be taken seriously. You could just dismiss it offhand. However, about 10 years ago, I came to the conclusion that apostolic succession is, after all, a valid doctrine.
In fact, largely as a result of my views on apostolic succession at that time, my family and I, along with several other families, joined what is known as the continuing Anglican Church. Now, the continuing Anglicans are very conservative Episcopalians who left the Episcopal Church back in the 1960s and 1970s when the church took a decidedly liberal turn and when it first began ordaining women as deacons and then later as priests and eventually as bishops.
Now my family and I, along with the families who joined with us, we all held to the kingdom teachings of Jesus that are set out in the Sermon on the Mount. So our lifestyle was more like that of the Mennonites, and we didn't exactly fit in with the Anglicans, even the very conservative ones.
So rather than trying to be members of one of the continuing Anglican parishes, we, with their permission, formed a religious society that was modeled somewhat after the Methodist Society that John Wesley had started over 200 years ago within the Anglican Church. We had our own meetings, our own leaders, etc. Now, in order that I could lead our religious society, I went through the necessary training and was eventually ordained as an Anglican minister or priest.
That means that I was ordained by an Anglican bishop who had been ordained through a line of apostolic succession. However, not long after I had been ordained, I came to the conclusion that the doctrine of apostolic succession is not apostolic. So tonight and tomorrow night, I'm going to be setting forth the evidence that convinced me that the doctrine of apostolic succession isn't true, even though I had been ordained through a line of apostolic succession.
Now, at the same time, I don't view apostolic succession as an absurd doctrine that we can just quickly dismiss. In fact, I think virtually everyone who reads the early Christian writings is going to have to grapple with the issue of Episcopal or Apostolic Succession. And so the messages tonight and tomorrow night are primarily directed to persons who have some appreciation for the writings and positions of the early Church, and who have come face-to-face with the issue of apostolic succession.
So now let's talk about what the Bible has to say on this subject. As most of you know, for well over a decade, I've been arguing that the early Christian writings are the best commentary possible on Scripture, and I still firmly believe that. These writings also provide us with an invaluable history of what happened to the church after the close of the first century. But that's all they are. They're a commentary on Scripture and a history of Christianity after the Scriptures were written.
But the minute we stop using them as a commentary and begin using them as an independent source of authority, they cease to be a helpful tool. Instead, they become a very dangerous one. That's why I want to begin our discussion of apostolic succession by looking at every New Testament passage that in any way sheds light on the subject of ordinations in the first century, or that might shed light on other tenets of apostolic succession.
Now, as I've mentioned, I once accepted the doctrine of apostolic succession, so I've looked at it from both sides. Now, what changed my mind on this doctrine was when I began working on the dictionary of early Christian beliefs. This was back in January of 1996. Now the basic concept of that work was to take various topics and start with the scriptures that pertain to that topic, such as baptism, communion, or in this case, apostolic succession.
And then after listing the pertinent scriptures, then to list every quotation that I had found in the early Christian writings that pertain to that subject, listing them in chronological order. Now, apostolic succession was one of the topics that I was very eager to lay forth the evidence showing that it was a true doctrine. And so right at the beginning of this project of the Dictionary of early Christian beliefs, I began doing a New Testament word search for the word ordain.
And this was in the New King James Bible that I was using. But to my surprise, I could find no verses that used the word ordain that applied to ordaining a person as a leader in the church.
Instead, there were only verses such as 1 Corinthians 2:7 that says," But we speak the wisdom of God in a mystery, the hidden wisdom which God ordained before the ages for our glory." Now this puzzled me, so I went to my Greek lexicons and Bible reference works to find out why I wasn't reading about ordaining bishops or elders in the New Testament.
And what I found is that the New Testament writers use several different Greek words to refer to what we call ordinations, but none of those words mean ordain, at least in a sacramental sense or any kind of theological sense. Rather, the Bible writers use ordinary Greek words that simply mean appoint. For example, they sometimes use the Greek word kathistemi. It's the word used in Acts 6:3 discussing the appointment of the seven so-called deacons.
It's also the word Paul uses in Titus 1:5, where he tells Titus to appoint elders. Now, please understand that when I say that these Greek words simply mean appoint, not ordain in any special sense, in a theological sense, it isn't simply a matter of semantics or translation. Well, okay, you could translate that appoint or ordain. No, the point is that kathistemi is an ordinary word and it just means appoint.
For example, in Acts chapter 7:10, look, they're talking about Joseph says," And he made Joseph governor over Egypt and all his house," okay? Saying that he made him or appointed him. He uses this word kathistemi. Or again, we read in Acts 7:35," This Moses, they rejected saying," Who made you a ruler and a judge?" Again, the Greek word kathistemi, who made you, who appointed you a ruler or a judge. Do you see, it's no special word that has a sacramental sense to it.
Jesus used this word when he talked about the faithful servant who would be appointed over the whole household or as the King James says it made ruler of the whole household. Again, kathistemi. Vine's expository dictionary of New Testament word says this about Kathistemi. It's a strengthened form of histemi and it usually signifies to appoint a person to a position.
In this sense, the verb is often translated to" make" or" to set" in appointing a person to a place of authority, for example, a servant over a household, a judge, a governor, or man himself by God over the work of his hands. Now, the New Testament writers use another word for appointing or ordaining leaders, and that's the similar word tithemi. Vine says this about that. It means to put. It's used of appointment to any form of service.
Some examples in Scripture, Matthew 24: 51, where Jesus said," The master of that servant will come on a day when he is not looking for him and at an hour that he is not aware of and will cut him in two and appoint him his portion with the hypocrites." Okay, there we have the Greek word tithemi. Can you see it has no sacramental significance?
Or again, Peter 2:8 talking about the Jews, he said," They stumble being disobedient to the Word, to which they also were appointed." Or in 1 Timothy 2:7, Paul uses it talking about his appointment as a preacher, an apostle.
He says," For which I was appointed a preacher and an apostle, a teacher of the Gentiles in faith and truth." Or again in Acts 20:28, it's used, where Paul is giving admonition to the elders or overseers, it says," Take heed to yourselves and to all the flock among which the Holy Spirit has made you or appointed you overseers to shepherd the Church of God." So see, they didn't go and pick some special word with sacramental significance, but rather the Bible writers used simple everyday words that had no connotation
to them other than to appoint or to set in a position of authority.
There's a third Greek word they use talking about what we call ordinations, and that's the Greek word cheirotoneo. Vine says this about it. Primarily used of voting in the Athenian legislative assembly and meaning to stretch forth the hands. Paul uses this when he's speaking about Titus saying," Who was also chosen?" And that's the Greek word there, cheirotoneo, by the churches to travel with us with this gift.
So is this some kind of special ordination, a sacrament that Titus was chosen to go along with Paul to carry the gift down to Jerusalem? No, I think we can all see that it's not. And again, the same word is used in Acts 14:23 where it's speaking about Paul and Barnabas. It says," When they had appointed elders in every church and prayed with fasting, they commended them to the Lord." So they didn't use a special word ordain, just the everyday word meaning appoint or chosen.
So right off the bat, I saw that one of the foundations of the doctrine of apostolic succession was nonexistent. That is, the tenet that an ordination is not a mere appointment but a special sacrament because the New Testament writers always use the ordinary words for appoint, which, as we've seen, can be applied to secular rulers, to persons chosen to carry a monetary gift, or even to household servants.
So if there is no special thing as ordination that's anything different than just appointing people, then the entire doctrine of apostolic succession crumbles with it. While we're on the subject of the Word appoint, I want to share with you what I found in the early Christian writings as well. Clement of Rome, this is in volume 1:16, one of the earliest writings we have after the New Testament.
He says," Preaching throughout countries and cities, the apostles appointed the first fruits of their labors to be bishops and deacons of those who would believe afterwards." So even after the New Testament is closed, the early Christians are still thinking of what we call ordination simply in terms of appointments. The Didache says this," Appoint therefore for yourselves, bishops and deacons worthy of the Lord." It doesn't say consecrate them. It doesn't even say ordain them. Just simply appoint them.
In fact, it's not until the third and the fourth centuries that a distinction begins to be made between appointing and ordaining, that certain offices are only appointments, not ordinations, but there's no such distinction in the New Testament at all. It did not come from the apostles and it did not come from Scripture. Now let's go through the New Testament and look at the various appointments that are described there to offices in the church.
The very first one that is after the time of Jesus is Acts 2:26, where the apostles, the 11 faithful ones, replace Judas who had turned apostate. And it says," And they cast their lots and the lot fell on Matthias, and he was numbered with the 11 apostles." Doesn't describe any special ordination, does it?
The next one is Acts chapter 6, verses 1 through 6, which says," Now in those days when the number of the disciples was multiplying, there arose a complaint against the Hebrews by the Hellenists because their widows were neglected in the daily distribution. Then the twelve summoned the multitude of the disciples and said," It is not desirable that we should leave the Word of God and serve tables.
Therefore, brethren, seek out from among you seven men of good reputation, full of the Holy Spirit and wisdom, whom we may appoint." That's the kathistemi we had talked about before over this business. But we will give ourselves continually to prayer and to the ministry of the Word.
And the saying pleased the whole multitude, and they chose Stephen, a man full of faith in the Holy Spirit, and Philip, Prochorus, Nicanor, Timon, and Parmenas, and Nicholas a proselyte from Antioch, whom they set before the apostles, and when they had prayed, they laid hands on them. Okay, so there is our first formal appointment or ordination, and it's referred to in Greek simply as an appointment. And you notice these men like Stephen were already filled with the Holy Spirit.
They didn't receive it after they were ordained. Okay, the next one I found is in Acts 13, verses 1 through 3, where it talks about the appointment of Paul and Barnabas. It says," Now in the church that was at Antioch, there were certain prophets and teachers, Barnabas, Simeon who was called Niger, Lucius of Cyrene, Manaen who had been brought up with Herod the Tetrarch, and Saul.
As they ministered to the Lord and fasted, the Holy Spirit said," Now separate to me Barnabas and Saul for the work to which I have called them. Then having fasted and prayed and laid hands on them, they sent them away." So let me ask you, who did the appointing of Paul and Barnabas? Was it the 12 apostles? No. It was prophets and teachers. So then these early ecclesiastical appointments are not tied to any succession, are they? Because prophets, by their very nature, don't have lines of succession.
Their appointment comes directly from the Holy Spirit. And it was prophets and teachers who ordained Paul and Barnabas. Okay, we go to the next chapter, Acts 14:23 talking about Paul and Barnabas. It says," When they had appointed elders in every church and prayed with fasting." So then these two men, who have no line of succession back to the twelve, they're now appointing elders in the churches where they are taking the gospel.
Now, before leaving the subject of Paul, I want to briefly reflect on something I think you should think about. Now we all know that various ones disputed Paul's apostleship. He's having to repeatedly defend his status as an apostle. Now, under the doctrine of apostolic succession, the very thing he would have wanted to do in order to establish the validity of his orders would be to list how many apostles were involved in his ordination. He would have wanted to emphasize his connection to the 12 apostles.
However, Paul did just the opposite. He told the Galatians this is Galatians 1:11 through 19," I make known to you, brethren, that the gospel which was preached by me is not according to man, for I neither received it from man, nor was I taught it, but it came through the revelation of Jesus Christ. Nor did I go up to Jerusalem to those who were apostles before me. But I went to Arabia and returned again to Damascus. Then after three years, I went up to Jerusalem to see Peter and remained with him 15 days.
But I saw none of the other apostles except James the Lord's brother. So Paul goes out of his way to make it clear that his apostleship, his authority, came directly from Jesus and not from the twelve. But if the doctrine of the apostles had been the doctrine of apostolic succession, there's no way that he would have done that. Now, you need to understand that the early Christians did not view Paul as the 12th Apostle replacing Judas. Nowhere did the Scriptures say that he became one of the twelve.
Rather, the Scriptures tell us that Matthias is the one who replaced Judas as one of the twelve. Paul was an apostle, somebody sent out, but it was in the same sense that Barnabas was an apostle.
Okay, now continuing on with the Scriptures on ordination that we've been looking at, the next one I come across is Acts 20:28, where it says," Take heed to yourselves and to all the flock whom the Holy Spirit has made you overseers to shepherd the church of God." Now, again, an ordinary Greek word meaning to appoint was used here, translated as made you overseers, but nothing is said about succession. We don't even know who appointed these overseers or bishops.
Maybe it was directly from God without any human involved in it. Titus 1:5, Paul says this," For this reason, I left you in Crete that you should set in order the things that are lacking and appoint elders in every city as I commanded you." So Titus was ordaining others. But who ordained Titus? We don't know. There's nothing to indicate that he possessed apostolic succession.
Furthermore, if the tenets of apostolic succession were true, surely Paul would have spelled out the procedures that Titus needed to follow in order to perform a valid ordination. But he does no such thing. He gives no instructions on how to ordain. Instead, he talks about the qualifications of the person who would be ordained. We go to 1 Timothy 3, verses 1 through 7. Again, we find Paul discussing now with Timothy the qualifications for a bishop. But once again, he says nothing about the mechanics of ordination.
Furthermore, again, we do not know who ordained Timothy. There's no evidence that he possessed a line of apostolic succession. Probably more than likely, Paul is the one who appointed him, and we find no evidence that Paul had such a line, do we? And nothing is said in any of these appointments that we've looked at going through the whole New Testament about the need to maintain apostolic succession. And there's nothing surprising about that omission.
The first Christians were all Jews, and the New Testament congregations were modeled after the Jewish synagogues, not after the Jewish priesthood and the temple. There was no line of succession for the rulers of the synagogues. There were no formal ordinations of those rulers. So the first Christians naturally followed the same pattern that they were used to in the synagogue. One of the major tenets of the doctrine of apostolic succession is that only bishops can ordain other people.
A presbyter or a deacon cannot do that. And so unless a minister today can show a list of ordainers who were bishops all the way back to the apostles, then he's not a valid minister. But this whole tenet crumbles when we reflect on the fact that in the New Testament, the terms bishops or overseers and presbyters or elders are used interchangeably.
For example, look at Titus 1 verses 5 through 7, where Paul said," For this reason I left you in Crete, that you should set in order the things that are lacking and appoint elders in every city as I commanded you. If a man is blameless, the husband of one wife, for a bishop must be blameless as a steward of God. See, Paul first talks about appointing elders if they're blameless. And then at the end of that, he says," Because a bishop must be blameless as a steward of God." He uses the two interchangeably.
Another side point here, it appears that only Titus was doing the ordinations. No mention is made of a second person, but the doctrine of apostolic succession, at least most who hold to it, would say you need at least two bishops to validly ordain another bishop.
Another example of this interchangeable use of the terms bishop in Presbyter is Acts 20, verses 17 and 18, and then verse 28, where it says," From Miletus, he," that's Paul, sent to Ephesus and called for the elders of the church, or presbyters, as some Bibles would say.
And when they had come to Him, He said to them," Take heed to yourselves and to all the flock, among whom the Holy Spirit has made you overseers or bishops to shepherd the Church of God." So it says he's addressing the elders or presbyters of the church, but then he calls them bishops or overseers. It's also noteworthy that Ephesus obviously had plural ministry. It's not the bishop, the presbyter. It's a series, a group of them.
Give you another example from the Scriptures, 1 Peter 5, verses 1 and 2, where Peter says," The elders or presbyters, who are among you, I exhort I who am a fellow elder and a witness of the sufferings of Christ, and also a partaker of the glory that will be revealed. Shepherd the flock of God which is among you, serving as overseers or bishops.
So he starts off calling them presbyters, but in the same sentence, he says," Shepherd the flock serving as bishops." Three examples of using the terms interchangeably and there's never an example in the New Testament where you have bishops, presbyters, and deacons. For example, when Paul gives the qualifications for men in the ministry to Timothy, he only lists bishops and deacons. Nowhere do you find a threefold type of ministry.
The early Christian writings also shed light on this fact that originally there were only two offices, bishops and deacons, and a presbyter was the same thing as a bishop. For example, Clement of Rome, one of the earliest writings we have after the New Testament. He said, talking about the apostles," Preaching through countries and cities, the apostles appointed the first fruits of their labors to be bishops and deacons of those who would believe afterwards." See, bishops and deacons, no reference to a third order.
Again, our sin will not be small if we eject from the Episcopate or from oversight, those who have blamelessly and holily fulfilled its duties. Blessed are those presbyters who have obtained a fruitful and perfect departure, having finished their course before now. Again, that second quote was still Clement of Rome, volume 1, page 17 of the Ante-Nicene Fathers.
The Didache says," Appoint therefore for yourselves, bishops and deacons worthy of the Lord." No mention made of presbyters because at that early time, Presbyters and bishops were all one and the same. Now, I want to read to you from a Roman Catholic book. If anyone would have a preconception to want to defend the threefold order, it would be the Roman Catholics because they certainly stand strongly behind the doctrine of apostolic succession. But notice what this Roman Catholic book says.
It's about the message of the Fathers concerning the ministry. It says in the first decades of development, however, the real leadership was apparently in the hands of men who visited the communities only occasionally and irregularly. They might be called apostles or prophets or teachers. The Didache shows with striking clarity the need for a change. Toward the end of his little manual, he urges his communities to choose for themselves, bishops and deacons, and to honor them like apostles and prophets.
So in the early years, leadership was in the hands of prophets and teachers just as we saw there in Acts and the word apostle being used interchangeably with a traveling prophet or teacher. There's no nice and fine list of succession of a bishop to another bishop to another bishop. It's prophets and teachers doing most of the leadership in the early stages, this scholar is saying.
He continues," This is another point of widely divergent interpretation, but in general, it seems that Jewish Christian communities were led by a group of presbyters or elders, while Gentile Christian communities were led by bishops and deacons, with the bishops sometimes also called presbyters or elders. This latter Constitution is found in Paul's letter to the Philippians, 1 Timothy, 1 Clement, and the Didache.
The evidence for government by elders is clearest in Acts 11:30 14:23, chapter 20 verses 17 through 38, James 4:14, and 1 Peter 5, verses 1 through 4, where it always addresses a plurality of leadership. That's my interjection. Okay, continuing on with the quote," Eventually, the two systems gave way to a new structure, first evident in Ignatius of Antioch, Circa 110." The head of the community was a single bishop, the institution of the mono-episcopate, and all authority ultimately rested with Him.
Therefore, He is also called the monarchical Episcopal. We cannot assume that all churches had the structure found in Ignatius. From evidence in the Shepherd of Hermas, for example, it would seem that the monarchical Episcopate was not established at Rome until after AD 140 or so. Again, that's all a quotation from a Roman Catholic scholarly book. It's from pages 14 and 15 of the book entitled" Ministry." It's part of the message of the Fathers of the Church series, Volume 8.
Another Roman Catholic book entitled The Rise of the Papacy says this: Catholic scholars, probably the good majority of them at least, have come to accept the fundamental conclusion that the basic leadership structure of Bishop Presbyter Deacon, the so-called apostolic ministry, is not as such the product of dominical institution, or to put it simply, such offices were not instituted explicitly by Jesus during His earthly ministry.
Rather, the argument goes, local structures developed in various ways and at different rates of speed in different places in the church, so that it only circa the year 175 A.D. could it have been a universal form of local ministerial structure in the world church? The literature of the first century and a good deal for the first half of the second century does not indicate the existence of a single individual, the bishop, in a clear leadership position in the local church.
I'm still reading from this book, The Rise of the Papacy. If Rome's position is closely tied to the importance of its bishop, what would be the result of the discovery that there was a time when it did not have a bishop? I mean the possibility that in the late first and early second centuries, the ministerial offices of the local church at Rome had not yet attained the distinction and clarity seen in the letters of Ignatius of Antioch.
In other words, the leadership role in the local Church of Rome was still being exercised collectively before the emergence of a monarchical bishop in Rome. Such a view is becoming increasingly widespread. The evidence available seems to point predominantly, if not decisively, in the direction of a collective leadership. Dogmatic a priori theses should not force us into presuming or requiring something that the evidence leans against. This work continues talking about the Shepherd of Hermas.
What is of interest here are the incidental remarks which mention the leaders of the Christian community in Rome. These leaders are usually referred to by such vague titles as the leaders. Sometimes they are called elders as" the elders who are in charge of the church." And this Roman Catholic author continues," It is significant to note that these references are all in the plural. In other places, bishops are mentioned again in the plural.
They are usually linked with others, that is, bishops, teachers, and deacons." The book says concerning First Clement," In general, neither Clement nor anyone else appears to occupy a position anything like that of the bishop," as described by Ignatius. Not surprisingly, given the purpose of the letter which was to rebuke the Corinthian Christians for rebelling against their presbyters, there are several references to the leaders of the Church in Corinth, the presbyters.
No indication is given of any different leadership pattern in the Roman Church itself. The abstract term" episcope" is used in conjunction with the presbyters. Once again, the picture given seems to point to the leadership being exercised by a collectivity. This evidence from Clement Hermas Ignatius points us in the direction of assuming that the first century and into the second there was no bishop of Rome in the usual sense given to that title." End of quote.
You know The ironical thing is that just as Roman Catholic scholars are finally admitting that this whole Episcopal Succession model is not supported by historical evidence, we have well-meaning evangelicals who are now adopting the model based on centuries-old faulty scholarship. Now, again, why is the evidence that bishops and presbyters were once one in the same office so significant?
Well, for one thing, it means that most churches can claim apostolic succession just as much as the Roman Catholic, Eastern Orthodox, or the Episcopal churches can. Now, as we're going to be talking about tomorrow, I think there's some doubt whether any church truly possesses an unbroken line of ordainers. But if such a thing does exist, then nearly all of the churches that grew out of the Reformation period possess the same unbroken line of ordainers as does the Roman Catholic.
Because, for example, Zwingli was a Roman Catholic priest when he started the Reformation in Zurich. Menno Simons was a Roman Catholic priest. Most of the leaders in the Lutheran churches were Roman Catholic priests or, in some cases, even bishops.
Years later, a large percentage of the men who started new church movements were themselves ordained presbyters with a line of succession through presbyterial succession back into the Roman Catholic Church and back to the apostles if the Roman Catholic Church can truly prove its goes back to the apostles. For example, John Wesley was an ordained Anglican Presbyter or Minister, so was the great revivalist George Whitefield.
Thomas Campbell, one of the men who helped start the restoration movement of the 1800s, he was an ordained Presbyterian minister. Up to now, we've looked at scriptures that would seem to either disprove the doctrine of apostolic succession or at least present some serious problems for it. Now let's look at some of the verses that supporters of this doctrine would rely on. One would be the appointment of the seven men there in Acts chapter 6 that I read to you earlier.
The problem is that the very churches who claim apostolic succession generally teach that these seven men were deacons. And we have no record in the New Testament or outside of the New Testament of anyone tracing their Episcopal lineage through these seven men. In fact, I don't know of anyone who believes in apostolic succession who would have a line of succession that goes back to these seven men.
Now, I think it is correct to say," Okay, there we do have an example of the apostles personally appointing people to the ministry." But that doesn't prove that everybody who was later appointed to the ministry was appointed by the 12 apostles. We've already seen going through the discussions of appointments in the New Testament that none of them mentioned the 12 apostles after that.
Okay, the next passage that is often relied upon by supporters of apostolic succession is Acts 8 verses 4 through 8, where it talks about the conversion of Samaria. We read," Therefore, those who were scattered went everywhere preaching the Word. Then Philip went down to the city of Samaria and preached Christ to them, and the multitudes with one accord heeded the things spoken by Philip, hearing and seeing the miracles which he did.
For unclean spirits crying with a loud voice came out of many who were possessed, and many who were paralyzed and lame were healed. And there was great joy in that city. And if we go down to verse 14, we read," Now when the apostles who were at Jerusalem heard that Samaria had received the Word of God, they sent Peter and John to them, who, when they had come down, prayed for them that they might receive the Holy Spirit. For as yet, He had fallen upon none of them.
They had only been baptized in the name of the Lord Jesus. Then they laid hands on them and they received the Holy Spirit. Now, that passage is quoted by believers in Apostolic Succession to show that a deacon cannot confirm someone, that is, lay hands on them to receive the Holy Spirit, that only a bishop can do that because here Philip, they say, was a deacon. He was one of the seven.
And he could baptize them because supporters of Apostolic Succession would say even a layman can baptize validly, but a deacon cannot impart the Holy Spirit, only a bishop. Well, I think that's a reasonable theory as to why things happened the way they did in Samaria. But it's not the only explanation for the passage there. Because the passage doesn't say that Philip did not lay hands on them because he lacked the authority to do that. The text gives no explanation whatsoever.
And I think there's a problem with that interpretation given by believers in apostolic succession. And that's when we go later in the chapter and read about the conversion of the Ethiopian eunuch. Let's read that as in Acts 8:26 through 28, where we read," Now an angel of the Lord spoke to Philip saying,' Arise and go toward the south along the road which goes down from Jerusalem to Gaza. This is desert. So he arose and went.
And behold, a man of Ethiopia, a eunuch of great authority under Candace, the queen of the Ethiopians, who had charge of all her treasury and had come to Jerusalem to worship, was returning, and sitting in his chariot, he was reading Isaiah the prophet. We'll skip down now to verse 38. It says," So he commanded the chariot to stand still. And both Philip and the eunuch went down into the water and he baptized him.
Now when they came up out of the water, the Spirit of the Lord caught Philip away so that the eunuch saw him no more, and he went on his way rejoicing. Now, in that episode, no apostles were called to come down and lay hands on the Ethiopian eunuch to receive the Holy Spirit. Philip doesn't lay hands on him, but nor does anyone else. It says he went on his way, which was down to Ethiopia.
So are we to believe this Ethiopian never received the Holy Spirit, never had a full new birth being born of water and the Spirit? I don't think that's very reasonable. I think the problem is when we take that one instance in Samaria and say that that sets a rule that is followed all throughout the Scriptures. For example, Cornelius and his household, they received the Holy Spirit without anybody laying hands on them.
It was in the presence of Peter and others, but no hands were laid upon them to receive the Holy Spirit. The group at Pentecost, the 120, in the upper room. No one laid hands on them, but they all received the Holy Spirit. So there's no ironclad rule in Scripture that the Holy Spirit can only be imparted by the laying on of hands of somebody, let alone that it can only be imparted by the apostles or by bishops.
If you wanted to take the situation in Samaria at face value, you would have to say only an apostle can do it, not a bishop, because the apostles were not bishops. Okay, so that passage really does not prove any of the tenets of the doctrine of apostolic succession. Let's look at another one that's often quoted.
2 Timothy 1:6, where Paul writes to Timothy," I remind you to stir up the gift of God which is in you through the laying on of my hands." Now, believers in apostolic succession would say," See, this shows that at his ordination, a certain gift was imparted to Timothy, that in every ordination, a gift is imparted some supernatural power that that person has to be able to consecrate the bread and wine and administer the other sacraments." But does that passage say anything about that?
Does it say that this gift had any connection with ordination? Paul only calls it the gift of God that was imparted by the laying on of hands. There are a lot of spiritual gifts that are enumerated in the Scriptures, and ordination is never one of the ones listed as a spiritual gift. So why would we even imagine that that passage has something to do with ordination? It's not even in the context.
None of the early Christian writers quote this passage as having something to do with ordination, so we don't even have a historical understanding to fall back on. Now, apparently, that same gift is mentioned again or actually previously in 1 Timothy 4:14 where Paul told Timothy," Do not neglect the gift that is in you, which was given to you by prophecy with the laying on of hands of the eldership or the presbytery." Okay, several things here.
If it's talking about ordination, then it was presbyters doing the ordaining. So that would seem to disprove one of the cardinal tenets of the doctrine of apostolic succession. And he says the gift was given to you by prophecy, not by ordination. Just because men laid hands on him, doesn't mean it was an ordination. It could have been laying hands on him after he was baptized.
Well, in conclusion, I think we've seen that there's not even one scrap of real evidence in Scripture to support the doctrine of apostolic succession. Now, the burden isn't on you and I to disprove the doctrine of apostolic succession. The burden to prove it is on those who teach it as a doctrine. Nevertheless, we have seen that there is a good deal of evidence in the Scripture that would tend to disprove it.
For example, we've talked about the fact that the Scriptures don't even use a special word meaning to ordain. Rather, they use the ordinary everyday words that simply mean to appoint. We've seen evidence that bishops and presbyters were originally the same office. So if there were such a thing as apostolic succession, it could pass through presbyters as easily as it could pass through bishops because originally they were the same office.
In other words, the original links in the line of succession would have been through presbyters. Three, we've seen that there is no chain of ordination back to the apostles at any time given in Scripture. The New Testament talks about the qualifications of bishops and deacons. It never talks about the method of ordaining them, that there was a special way they had to be ordained, special words to be used.
So if we're going to establish the doctrine of apostolic succession, we're going to have to do it through the teachings of the church after the deaths of the apostles because it's not there in the New Testament. Yet, as I said at the beginning, that is a very dangerous thing. Once you allow in your mind that an important doctrine was passed down from the apostles only by word of mouth, without any written evidence, then you've opened the door to believe virtually any teaching.
Before long, you're going to be praying to Mary and believing all sorts of unscriptural teachings. It won't stop with apostolic succession.