VERIFICATION OF PAUL’S APOSTLESHIP
(April 25, 2010)
KEY VERSE – It is for freedom that Christ has set us free. Stand firm, then, and do not let yourselves be burdened again by a yoke of slavery. (Gal. 5:1) SECONDARY THEME VERSES: “A man is not justified by observing the law, but by faith in Jesus Christ” (Gal. 2:16); “If righteousness could be gained through the law, Christ died for nothing” (Gal. 2:21).
THEME: Salvation by grace alone, through faith alone, in Christ alone releases us from the yoke of the law, freeing us to live a life of love through the power of the Holy Spirit.
Legal (Imputed) Righteousness: We are justified by faith in Christ (Gal. 2:16). Imparted Righteousness: Immediate Moral Change at conversion (Gal. 6:15); Gradual Moral Change through the fruit-growing work of the Spirit (Gal. 5:22) which requires our cooperation (Gal 5:16-17, 25, 6:8). We cooperate by using CCRC (Concentration, Choice, Reflection, Confession/Thanksgiving. Foundational verse, “By one sacrifice He has made perfect forever those who are being made holy.” (Heb. 10:14)
TEACHING GOAL: Show that Paul’s apostleship derived from God and was accepted by the NT church.
Paul, an apostle—sent not from men nor by man, but by Jesus Christ and God the Father, who raised him from the dead— and all the brothers with me, To the churches in Galatia: Grace and peace to you from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ, who gave himself for our sins to rescue us from the present evil age, according to the will of our God and Father, to whom be glory for ever and ever. Amen. (Galatians 5:1-5)
REVIEW: Paul and Barnabas on a two year missionary trip around 44 AD spent two years in the southern area of the Roman province of Galatia (South Central Turkey) and started several churches. Judaizers (Jewish believers in Jesus who taught that to be saved one must also obey the Jewish ceremonial law) infiltrated these new churches and taught that t the new Gentile converts needed to follow Jewish law in order to be complete Christians. Paul wrote the “Epistle to Galatians” to counter this false teaching. A year later he went to the Jerusalem Conference (Acts 15) and the gathering confirmed the content of the Gospel he preached. Martin Luther taught a five month course on Galatians at the University of Wittenburg in 1518-19, the year before the birth of the Reformation. In the 1670s John Bunyan discovered an old copy of Luther’s commentary on Galatians and called it his favorite book after the Bible. In 1738 Charles Wesley comes to Christ during a reading of the preface of Luther’s commentary on Galatians.
THEME: Salvation by grace alone, through faith alone, in Christ alone releases us from the yoke of the law, freeing us to live a life of love through the power of the Holy Spirit.
Key Verses: It is for freedom that Christ has set us free. Stand firm, then, and do not let yourselves be burdened again by a yoke of slavery. (Gal. 5:1) A man is not justified by observing the law, but by faith in Jesus Christ (Gal. 2:16); If righteousness could be gained through the law, Christ died for nothing (Gal. 2:21).
VERIFICATION OF PAUL’S APOSTLESHIP
1. Form of Ancient Letters
2. Negative Views of the Apostle Paul
3. Definition of an Apostle
4. The 12 Apostles and Paul’s Apostleship
5. Paul’s Proof of Apostleship
I. FORM OF ANCIENT LETTERS
Paul’s letters were probably written with the help of a stenographer.
It is best to picture Paul walking back and forth in a room while his stenographer tries to keep up and write what Paul is saying.
It appears that Paul had a problem with his eyes: “If you could have done so you would have torn out your eyes and given them to me” (4:15). It seems that he takes the pen himself and writes the last section of the letter – “See what large letters I use as I write to you with my own hand!” (6:11)
We need to remember that when we read Galatians it is like listening to one side of a telephone conversation. We do not fully know all the details re the circumstances he is dealing with.
An important rule of Biblical interpretation is to try to grasp how the readers understood what he was writing. This is not always easy to do because we are twenty centuries removed. But a greater understanding of who the listeners are, what their lives were like, will help us in understanding Galatians.
Paul adopts and adapts the form of ancient letter writing. Ancient letters included “greetings” (chairein) and Paul changes that to “grace to you” (charis hymin). He frequently adds a description of the sender and of the recipients and sometime anticipates the contents of the letter as in Galatians 1:4.
One thing different in Galatians from all of Paul’s letter is that the opening includes a doxology: “ . . . to whom be glory forever and ever. Amen.” (5) Also Galatians includes no note of thanksgiving.
Even in his opening to the Corinthians Paul praises them and gives thanks for them, even though the Corinthians had all kinds of moral and theological problems, but not here, in the opening of Galatians.
II. NEGATIVE VIEWS OF THE APOSTLE PAUL
Books have been written with the basic thesis: Pauline Christianity is a distortion of the teachings of Jesus. Liberal Christians don’t like Paul. Muslims don’t like Paul.
Scholars often challenge Paul. Professor C.H. Dodd wrote: Sometimes I think Paul is wrong, and I have ventured to say so.”
Skeptics today accuse Paul of inventing Christianity.
Thomas Jefferson wrote: Paul is the first corruptor of the doctrines of Jesus.
We need to remember that the writings of the Apostles in the NT are all as inspired by the Holy Spirit and are what our Lord Jesus taught. They all spoke under the direction of the Holy Spirit. We are always wrong if we equate what our Savior said as of higher value than what Paul or John or Peter wrote. For this reason we need to be careful of “red-letter” editions.
III. DEFINITION OF AN APOSTLE
“In the ancient world, an apostle was an official messenger, like an emissary or ambassador. The messenger had the authority to represent his superior, something like an agent who holds the power of attorney. In the New Testament, the term ‘apostle’ has a more specific meaning. It denotes the official spokesman for Jesus Christ, especially his original twelve disciples.” (Ryken, 6)
“To the Jew the word (apostle) was well defined; it meant a special messenger, with a special status, enjoying an authority and commission that came from a body higher than himself.” (John Stott, quoted from Cole, pg. 13; See Cole, pg 66)
In one sense Paul was an “apostle” when he was sent from the Sanhedrin to go to Damascus and take Christians and bring them as prisoners to Jerusalem. (Acts 9:1-2)
IV. THE 12 APOSTLES AND PAUL’S APOSTLESHIP
The first twelve apostles were commissioned by Christ.
He appointed twelve—designating them apostles—that they might be with him and that he might send them out to preach . . . . These are the twelve . . . Simon (to whom he gave the name Peter), James son of Zebedee and his brother John (to them he gave the name Boanerges, which means Sons of Thunder); Andrew, Philip, Bartholomew, Matthew, Thomas, James son of Alphaeus, Thaddaeus, Simon the Zealot and Judas Iscariot . . . (Mark 3:14-19)
And repentance and forgiveness of sins will be preached in his name to all nations, beginning at Jerusalem. You are witnesses of these things. I am going to send you what my Father has promised; but stay in the city until you have been clothed with power from on high.” (Luke 24:47-48)
But you will receive power when the Holy Spirit comes on you; and you will be my witnesses in Jerusalem, and in all Judea and Samaria, and to the ends of the earth.” (Acts 1:8)
Paul did not meet the very specific qualifications for apostleship among the 12 that were used to replace Judas Iscariot: Therefore it is necessary to choose one of the men who have been with us the whole time the Lord Jesus went in and out among us, beginning from John’s baptism to the time when Jesus was taken up from us. For one of these must become a witness with us of his resurrection.” (Acts 1:21-22)
So was Paul commissioned as an apostle with the same authority as the twelve?
The term “apostle” was also used for those outside the circle of the twelve. James (the Lord’s brother) is referred to as an apostle although he was not one of the 12 (Gal. 1:19). And note Romans 16:7 – Greet Andronicus and Junias, my relatives who have been in prison with me. They are outstanding among the apostles, and they were in Christ before I was.
The Judaizers claimed that Paul was an unfaithful, renegade apostle, not on the same level with the Jerusalem apostles, teaching a law-less gospel that was made simplistic (stripping away of circumcision and law-keeping) in order to entice the Gentiles to become followers of The Way.
V. PAUL’S PROOF OF APOSTLESHIP
“Paul, an apostle – sent not from men nor by man . . . “
The Lord Jesus was challenged by the chief priests, the teacher of the law and the elders: By what authority are you doing these things? Who gave you authority to do this? (Mark 11:28)
How does Paul prove his apostleship? Can we rightly accept Paul as an apostle with the same authority of the twelve even though he was not one of the twelve?
“. . . he was not appointed by a group of men, such as the Twelve or the church at Jerusalem or the church at Antioch . . . he had not been appointed to Christian apostleship by any group of men. Not even, granted the divine origin of his apostolic appointment, was it brought to him through any individual human mediator, such as Ananias or Barnabas or anybody else. Paul insists that human beings had nothing whatever to do with it. His apostolic commission was human neither directly nor indirectly. It was wholly divine.” (Stott, 14)
“No human means of any sort was involved in his apostolic commission. No human source, no human ceremony, no laying on of hands by any group in Jerusalem, Antioch, or anywhere else was involved in his call to apostleship, though the elders at Antioch were a part of the sending process of his special mission tour to evangelize (Acts 13:1-3). (MacArthur, 3)
So what does Paul use for proof of his apostleship?
1. HE SAW THE RISEN LORD
QUESTION: Why does Paul start with a reference to the resurrection in verse 1 and not a reference to the crucifixion until vs. 4?
One of the key qualifications to apostleship was to have seen Jesus, been a witness to his resurrection: Therefore it is necessary to choose one of the men who have been with us the whole time the Lord Jesus went in and out among us, beginning from John’s baptism to the time when Jesus was taken up from us. For one of these must become a witness with us of his resurrection.” (Acts 1:21-22)
Paul’s conversion begins with a dramatic encounter with the risen Savior on the road to Damascus (Acts. 9:3-5). He mentions several times in Scriptures that he saw the risen Lord.
“Am I not an apostle? Have I not seen Jesus our Lord? (I Cor. 9:1)
“Then he appeared to James, then to all the apostles, and last of all he appeared to me also, as to one abnormally born.” (I Cor. 15:7)
Paul claims that Christ spoke to him in a vision encouraging him to remain in Corinth (Acts 18:9); during a trance telling him to leave Jerusalem (Acts 22:17); while in prison telling him to take courage for he would be going to Rome (Acts 23:11).
2. CHRIST CALLED PAUL TO APOSTLESHIP
But the Lord said to Ananias, ‘Go! This man is my chosen instrument to carry my name before the Gentiles and their kings and before the people of Israel.’ (Acts 9:15)
“I am Jesus . . . I am sending you to them (the Gentiles) to open their eyes and turn them from darkness to light, and from the power of Satan to God, so that they may receive forgiveness of sins and a place among those who are sanctified by faith in me.” (Acts 22:15, 17-18)
“But when God, who set me apart from birth and called me by his grace, was pleased to reveal his Son in me so that I might preach him among the Gentiles . . .” (Gal. 1:15-16)
In his letters, especially in the opening of his letters, again and again he refers to his apostleship: “Paul, . . . called to be an apostle . . . “ (Romans 1:1); “Paul, called to be an apostle of Jesus Christ . . .” (I Corinthians 1:1); “Paul, an apostle of Christ Jesus by the will of God . . .” (Eph. 1:1)
My calling is to do the work of an apostle, evangelist and teacher to the Jews but primarily to the Gentiles with a focus on witnessing to them about what I have seen of the Lord Jesus Christ and learned from him with a goal of turning the Gentiles to God so that they might experience the forgiveness of sins.
3. ANANIAS CONFIRMED HIS APOSTOLIC CALLING
It is interesting that God made Paul blind and made him blind for three days . . . time to digest everything that had happened. Then he had a vision of confirmation …. This is just not a heat stroke . . . a man named Ananias would come to him and lay hands on him.
But the Lord said to Ananias, ‘Go! This man is my chosen instrument to carry my name before the Gentiles and their kings and before the people of Israel.’ (Acts 9:15)
Ananias, completely apart from Paul, was told by the Lord that Paul was to be an apostle. Paul’s apostleship was confirmed by a secondary source.
4. PETER & APOSTLES CONFIRMED PAUL’S APOSTLESHIP
As for those who seemed to be important . . . those men added nothing to my message. On the contrary, they saw that I had been entrusted with the task of preaching the gospel to the Gentiles, just as Peter had been to the Jews. For God, who was at work in the ministry of Peter as an apostle to the Jews, was also at work in my ministry as an apostle to the Gentiles. James, Peter and John, those reputed to be pillars, gave me and Barnabas the right hand of fellowship when they recognized the grace given to me. They agreed that we should go to the Gentiles, and they to the Jews. (Galatians 2:6-9)
5. MIRACLES CONFIRMED PAUL’S APOSTLESHIP
For God, who was at work in the ministry of Peter as an apostle to the Jews, was also at work in my ministry as an apostle to the Gentiles. (Gal. 1:8)
So Paul and Barnabas spent considerable time there (in Iconium), speaking boldly for the Lord, who confirmed he message of his grace by enabling them to do miraculous signs and wonders. (Acts 14:3)
Does God give you His Spirit and work miracles among you because you observe the law, or because you believe what you heard? (Galatians 3:5)
6. JAMES, THE LORD’S BROTHER CALLED AN APOSTLE ALTHOUGH HE WAS NOT ONE OF THE TWELVE
James, the son of Zebedee and Salome, brother of John. James the son of Alphaeus (Mark 1:19-20; 3:16-19, 15:40)
James, the Lord’s brother (Gal. 1:19)
SO WHAT????
1. By reading the New Testament letters through the eyes of the recipients, the original readers, we will get a better grasp of what God is saying to us.
2. There is no such thing as “Pauline Christianity.” The whole NT is God’s revelation, not just the words of our Lord. All the teaching of the NT carries the same weight. All is inspired by God.
3. Paul is a bona fide apostle. He saw the risen Christ, was appointed by Christ. His calling was confirmed by Ananias, the Jerusalem apostles and the miracles that God performed through him.
4. Have we heard the call of God on our lives? Are we obedient to it? Paul testified to King Agrippa: I was not disobedient to the vision from heaven. (Acts 26:19)