The characteristic features of this highest office in the Christian church have been very accurately delineated by M 'Lean, in his Apostolic Commission. ' It was essential to their office — i. That they should have seen the Lord, and been eye and ear witnesses of what they testified to the world (John xv. 27). This is laid down as an essential requisite in the choice of one to succeed Judas (Acts i. 21, 22). Paul is no exception here ; for, speaking of those who saw Christ after his resurrection, he adds, and last of all he was seen of me' (I Cor. xv. 8). And this he elsewhere mentions as one of his apostolic qualifications : Am I not an apostle ? have I not seen the Lord ?' (1 Cor. ix. i). So that his seeing that Just One and hearing the word of his mouth' was necessary to his being a witness of what he thus saw and heard' (Acts xxii.
14, 15). 2. They must have been immediately called and chosen to that office by Christ himselL This was the case with every one of them (Luke vi. 13; Gal. i. I), Matthias not excepted; for, as he had been a chosen disciple of Christ before, so the Lord, by determining the lot, declared his choice, and immediately called him to the office of an apostle (Acts i. 24-26). 3. Infallible inspira tion was also essentially necessary to that office (John xvi. 13; i Cor. ii. 10; Gal. i. II, 12). They had not only to explain the true sense and spirit of the Old Testament (Luke xxiv. 27 ; Acts xxvi. 22, 23 ; xxviii. 23), which were hid from the Jewish doctors, but also to give forth the New Testament revelation to the world, which was to be the unalterable standard of faith and practice in all succeeding generations (I Pet. i. 25; I John iv. 6). It was therefore absolutely necessary that they should be secured against all error and mistake, by the unerring dictates of the Spirit of truth. Accord ingly Christ promised and actually bestowed on them the Spirit to teach them all things,' to bring all things to their remembrance whatsoever he had said to them' (John xiv. 26), to guide them into all truth,' and to shew them things to come' (John xvi. 13). Their word therefore must be received, 'not as the word of men, but as it is in truth, the word of God' Thes. ii. 13), and as that whereby we are to distinguish the spirit of truth from the spirit of error' (I John iv. 6). 4. Another apostolic qualification was the power of working miracles (Mark xvi. 20; Acts ii. 43), such as speaking with divers tongues, curing the lame, healing the sick, raising the dead, discerning of spirits, conferring these gifts upon others, etc.
(1 Cor. xii. 8-I I), These were the credentials of their divine mission. Truly,' says Paul, the signs of an apostle were wrought among you in all patience, in signs and wonders and mighty deeds' (2 Cor. xH. 12). Miracles were necessary to con firm their doctrine at its first publication, and to gain credit to it in the world as a revelation from God, and by these God bare them witness' (Heb.
ii. 4). 5. To these characteristics may be added the universality of their mission. Their charge was not confined to any particular visible church, like that of ordinary pastors, but, being the oracles of God to men, they had the care of all the churches' (2 Cor. xi. 28). They had a power to settle their faith and order as a model to future ages, to detennine all controversies (Acts xvi. 4), and to exercise the rod of discipline upon all offenders, whether pastors or flock (I Cor. v. 3-6; 2 Cor. x. 8; xiii. to).
It must be obvious, from this scriptural account of the apostolical office, that the Apostles had, in the strict sense of the term, no successors. Their qualifications were supernatural, and their work, once performed, remains in the infallible record of the New Testament, for the advantage of the Church and the world in all future ages. They are the only authoritative teachers of Christian" doctrine and law. All official men in Christian churches can legitimately claim no higher place than expounders of the doctrines and administrators of the laws found in their writings. Few things have been more injurious to the cause of Chris tianity than the assumption on the part of ordinary office-bearers in the church of the peculiar prero gatives of `the holy apostles of our Lord Jesus.' Much that is said of the latter is not at all applicable to the former; and much that admits of being applied, can be so, in accordance with truth, only in a very secondary and extenuated sense.
It is the opinion of the learned Suicer ( Thesaurus, s. v. 'Ar6aroNos) that the appellation ' apostle' is in the New Testament employed as a general name for Christian ministers or pastors, who are `sent by God,' in a qualified use of that phrase, to preach the word of God. But this opinion does not seem to rest on any solid foundation. It is true indeed that the word is used in this loose sense by the Fathers. Thus we find Archippus, Philemon, Apphia, the seventy disciples (Luke x. 1-17), termed apostles ; and even Mary Magdalene is said -yeqa06.1. rots 6aroar6XoLs doroaroXos, to become an apostle to the Apostles. No satisfactory evi dence, however, can be brought forward of the term being thus used in the New Testament. Andronicus and Junia (Rom. xvi. 7) are indeed said to -7T-07)A01 6, Toil of note among the Apostles ;' but these words by no means necessarily imply that these persons were apostles ; they may, and probably do, signify merely that they were persons well known and much esteemed by the Apostles. The luvep-yol, the fellow-workers of the Apostles, are by Chrysostom denominated ZuvarbcrroXoc.