Paul's teaching about gifts was about the unity of the
Spirit, not about the difference between the Twelve
apostles and the rest of us. If anything, Paul understood
his use of the word "apostles" to mean all who had been
called to be ambassadors for Christ. And who were they?
Were they a select group of Christians? No! Paul wrote in
his Second Letter to the Corinthians that all Christians
are called to be ambassadors for Christ.
"Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation.
The old has passed away; behold, the new has come. All this
is from God, who through Christ reconciled us to himself
and gave us the ministry of reconciliation; that is, in
Christ God was reconciling the world to himself, not
counting their trespasses against them, and entrusting to
us the message of reconciliation. Therefore, we are
ambassadors for Christ, God making his appeal through us.
We implore you on behalf of Christ, be reconciled to God."
-- 2 Corinthians 5:17-20
This applies to all Christians, not just the Twelve
Apostles. That seems to be what Paul had in mind when he
used the word apostles. He was saying that Christ's
appearance to the apostles, to Christians across the board,
was a necessary element of the resurrection aspect of the
gospel. He was saying that one could not be an ambassador
for Christ apart from personally witnessing Christ's
resurrection appearance in bodily form, that being a
Christian involved a personal seeing or appearance of the
resurrected Christ. Exactly what that means is not as clear
as the fact that it is what Paul said.
As you might expect, the Greek is interesting at this point
(1 Corinthians 15:5-7). The Greek is translated as
"appeared" or "was seen." I suspect that it was a play on
words, that many people would describe as a kind of
mysterious vision or insight, a seeing of something
mysterious. The KJV translates it as "he was seen." There
is a change in the subject of the sentence in some of the
more recent translations. Again, the KJV reads, "After
that, he was seen of James; then of all the apostles,"
whereas the ESV reads, "Then he appeared to James, then to
all the apostles" (1 Corinthians 15:7). In the KJV James
does the seeing, and in the ESV the Lord does the appearing.
Then there is the difference between "appeared to" and "was
seen of." There is no corresponding preposition in the
Greek. It is assumed or added because of the context. A
preposition, of course, suggests a relationship. The word
"of" means belonging to or associated with. The contextual
assumption is that the seeing or appearance of Jesus
belonged to or was associated with the person who saw Him.
The seeing, the belonging and the association are correctly
understood as being all tied up together. Consequently, it
appears that there is more to this seeing of the
resurrected Jesus than meets the eye, if you see what I
mean. I don't intend to be cute or witty, that's not the
point. I'm not sure what to make of it.
James saw Him, then all the apostles saw Him ascend into
the clouds. And finally, said Paul, "he appeared also to
me," or in the KJV "he was seen of me also" (1 Corinthians
15:8). Paul notes in the same verse that he (Paul) was "one
untimely born" (ESV) or "one born out of due time" (KJV).
The Greek is one word (ektroma) and literally means
miscarriage or abortion. John Gill notes that "several
learned interpreters think the apostle refers to a
proverbial way of speaking among the common people at Rome,
who used to call such supernumerary senators in the times
of Augustus Caesar, who got into the senate house by favor
or bribery." Gill goes on to suggest that such senators
were generally very unworthy of their office, and that Paul
"calls himself by this name, as being in his own opinion a
supernumerary (minor) apostle, and very unworthy of that
office." Thus, Paul seems to be suggesting his own
unworthiness with regard to this special kind of seeing or
vision of the bodily resurrection of Christ, unworthy of
his calling to be an ambassador of Christ.
In support of this view Paul goes on to say, "For I am the
least of the apostles, unworthy to be called an apostle,
because I persecuted the church of God" (1 Corinthians
15:9). It should be noted here that Paul probably did not
consider himself to be in the same category as the Twelve
Apostles.
There was symbolic importance to the number twelve because,
with God's apparent abandonment of Judas, the Apostles cast
lots or elected a replacement for Judas -- Matthias by name
(Acts 1:23). Obviously, the Twelve Apostles symbolically
corresponded with the Twelve Tribes of the Old Testament.
With the loss of Judas there were eleven, and with the
election of Matthias the Twelve was restored in order to
maintain the symbolism. So, what was Paul? To consider Paul
one of the Twelve would require discounting Matthias. But
Paul never mentions Matthias, neither does anyone else. So,
I don't think that Paul had any intention of counting
himself among the Twelve Apostles. He was denigrating his
role, not lifting himself up.
Rather, Paul understood himself to be a model for ordinary
Christians to emulate, a model that people would emulate as
a mark of faithfulness. Paul was modeling the role of a
Christian as a prophet. He was prophesying, explaining what
he knew about Scripture, about God, what he knew as a
result of his own regeneration. Earlier in this letter Paul
had called the Corinthians to "be imitators of me" (1
Corinthians 4:16), of Paul. Paul's use of the word
"apostle" was not intended to set himself up as the
thirteenth Apostle. Rather, Paul intended the reference to
his being an apostle to be understood in the generic sense
of an ambassador for Christ, in the sense that all
Christians are called to be ambassadors for Christ in the
midst of whatever circumstances God has given them. Paul
understood himself, not as a great man, but as an ordinary
man who had been called to faith in Christ.
In Paul's own words he was "unworthy to be called an
apostle, because I (he) persecuted the church of God" (1
Corinthians 15:9). Yes, Paul had impressive credentials:
"circumcised on the eighth day, of the people of Israel, of
the tribe of Benjamin, a Hebrew of Hebrews; as to the law,
a Pharisee; as to zeal, a persecutor of the church; as to
righteousness, under the law blameless" (Philippians
3:5-6). Paul had been a thoroughbred Pharisee -- smart,
well-educated, well-bred, etc. He had more biblical
knowledge and skills than any of the Apostles.
But he did not count any of that stuff to his credit.
Rather, he found it to be a liability, to be rubbish in the
light of Christ. "But whatever gain I had, I counted as
loss for the sake of Christ. Indeed, I count everything as
loss because of the surpassing worth of knowing Christ
Jesus my Lord. For his sake I have suffered the loss of all
things and count them as rubbish, in order that I may gain
Christ" (Philippians 3:7-8). Paul's impressive credentials
were worse than nothing in his own eyes. They were not to
his credit, but to his demerit. He threw them away when he
became a Christian. In Christ he saw himself as an ordinary
sinner -- no, rather an extraordinary sinner (1 Timothy
1:15).
Paul strove to be an ordinary Christian, not to be a great
saint. And if we are to imitate Paul, we too should strive
to be ordinary Christians who live ordinary lives in the
midst of ordinary circumstances, to prophesy in the midst
of our ordinary circumstances, which means to endeavor to
understand, explain and apply Scripture in our ordinary
lives. Therein we will find many of the blessings that
issue from salvation in Christ.
----------------------------------------------------
Phillip A. Ross, author of many Christian books, founded
http://www.Pilgrim-Platform.org in 1998. He published a
exposition First Corinthians In 2008 that demonstrates the
Apostle Paul's opposition to worldly Christianity. Ross
recounts how Paul turned the world upside down in his book,
Arsy Varsy -- Reclaiming the Gospel in First Corinthians.
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