The authority of the Apostles of Jesus must be recognized in the church universal as men who laid the foundation of the church, whose teachings were with the very authority of Christ, inspired, infallible, and enduring: through whom Christ established his doctrines of salvation; men who knew the way and led others there.

Galatians 1:8-9
But though we, or an angel from heaven, preach any other gospel unto you than that which we have preached unto you, let him be accursed. As we said before, so say I now again, If any man preach any other gospel unto you than that ye have received, let him be accursed.

1 Timothy 4:16
Take heed unto thyself, and unto the doctrine; continue in them: for in doing this thou shalt both save thyself, and them that hear thee.

Those not realizing the nature and authority of the apostolic office established by Christ and occupied by his Apostles in the church universal go ahead to claim the office for themselves today, thinking that the office is still open to be occupied. Some, with blithe disregard, even go ahead to make light of the Apostles’ injunctions. This is a grave error. Let us examine both what Christ ordained his Apostles to be and the precise nature of the apostolic office.

1. Eyewitnesses of the Risen Christ

The Apostles were intended to be eyewitnesses of the life, resurrection, and ascension of Christ (Acts 1:22). Christianity is a faith based on historical truth, and so Christ wanted the foundational leaders to be firsthand eyewitnesses against future controversies. The primary qualification of an Apostle was that they must know Jesus firsthand, not merely be told about Him like everyone is today. This was a strict criterion for the office. They ought to have seen and been with Jesus.

Paul, after Jesus had appeared to many after His resurrection, had Jesus appear to him uniquely. Thus, he saw the risen Lord and could be an eyewitness to His resurrection (1 Corinthians 9:1). However, those who merely had a vision of Christ in the Apostles’ days could not be admitted into the office by a vision alone (e.g., Ananias).

Consequently, those who claim to have visions of Christ today cannot claim the office either. No one possesses an objective copy of the true likeness of Jesus Christ from His earthly ministry to verify the Christ they claim to see. Anyone who believes such a modern claim does so on blind grounds and to their own peril; even the Bible did not describe how Jesus looked when He was on earth.

2. Firsthand Recipients of Enduring Doctrine

They were to teach, firsthand, doctrines derived directly from Jesus. They were not to be schooled by another Apostle, and these doctrines were to serve as the enduring foundation of the Christian faith. Even Paul, who was called later, was taught many things directly by Christ appearing to him:

Acts 26:16
But rise, and stand upon thy feet: for I have appeared unto thee for this purpose, to make thee a minister and a witness both of these things which thou hast seen, and of those things in the which I will appear unto thee;

Galatians 1:11-12
But I certify you, brethren, that the gospel which was preached of me is not after man. For I neither received it of man, neither was I taught it, but by the revelation of Jesus Christ.

Credence was subsequently lent to Paul’s ministry by the existing Apostles who had heard Jesus firsthand and could verify his claims (Galatians 2:2, 9; 2 Peter 3:15-16). The Apostles were not to teach their fellow Apostles the mysteries of the kingdom; they could not school one another. An Apostle needed to have sat under Christ’s direct tutelage and known the words of Christ firsthand.

Who could spring up today without being taught the message of salvation by someone else and go ahead to teach the church universal as an absolute authority from Jesus? Such a claim is highly dangerous. If a person claims inspiration outside the written words of Scripture, who can measure their errors? With no living Apostles of Jesus to consult, the Church would be left defenseless. Such a person would inevitably claim accounts of Jesus not found in the Bible, alongside “new doctrines”—as we have seen from many false apostles throughout church history. Who could refute his excesses? Being an “Apostle”—the highest delegated authority by Christ in the Church universal—he could boldly refute the teachings of the original Apostles and charge them with error (which some are already doing today).

Where would that take the Church? Others would certainly rise after him, perpetrating further contradictions and heresies. What would then be the final authority for revelation and doctrine? This is precisely why God, in His wisdom, closed the apostolic office with the Apostles of the first century, having given them the complete and final revelation for Christian doctrine (Acts 20:27; Jude 1:3; Galatians 1:9).

Let no one, therefore, claim the Apostolic authority or office today. To subject such a claimant to the teachings of Peter, Paul, James, or John would be an insult to him—he viewing himself as equal to them, they being merely his fellow Apostles and his words equating to theirs. This is arrogance at best.

3. Infallible Guides of Christian Truth

They were to teach the Word of God infallibly so that the truth of the faith could once and for all be established. Infallibility is what makes Scripture. The Apostles were uniquely infallible in their doctrinal teachings; this was a defining feature peculiar to the Apostolic office.

Should their foundational teachings be charged with error, Christianity itself would be false, and the purpose of Jesus would fail, since the very people He entrusted with His doctrines would have misled the world. No one can occupy that office today to add to or correct their doctrines, anymore than one would dare to correct Christ who guided them. Christ would not hide a revelation necessary for salvation only to reveal it in our day, implying that for over two thousand years of church history, all His followers had perished in error.

Jude explained that the faith was once and for all delivered complete (Jude 1:3). Paul stated that the Church was to guard a received Gospel and reject new, novel doctrines (Romans 16:17; 1 Timothy 1:3, 4:16; 2 John 1:10). Only the Apostles, and those men whose writings were directly supervised by them, can be believed to have spoken the infallible Word of God. Without this unique apostolic inspiration, the Church would possess no objective standard for truth.

4. Absolute Delegated Authority

The Apostles were to settle and seal, with the absolute authority of Christ, issues of the faith not explicitly handled by Christ during His earthly ministry. They possessed the infallibly delegated authority of Christ to speak universally on matters of faith:

John 13:20
Verily, verily, I say unto you, He that receiveth whomsoever I send receiveth me; and he that receiveth me receiveth him that sent me.

Many complex issues regarding the early faith were sent to the Apostle Paul. He spoke on them with finality as one delegated by Christ to resolve those matters under inspiration and divine wisdom. The Apostles served as supreme authorities on matters of the faith because they were entrusted with the mysteries of the kingdom (1 Thessalonians 2:4; 1 Timothy 1:11; 1 Corinthians 4:1).

Matters of faith were deliberately not left by Christ to individual Christians to decide based on personal revelations and opinions. To do so would only foster confusion, disorganization, and unquestionable heresies. If an institution is to remain organized, everyone cannot be in charge. Christ carefully achieved this order through the Apostles and permanently sealed it by letting their teachings become final Scripture.

5. A Foundation Can Only Be Laid Once

The Apostles laid the foundation of Christianity, and foundations cannot be continuously relaid.

Ephesians 2:19-20
Now therefore ye are no more strangers and foreigners, but fellowcitizens with the saints, and of the household of God; And are built upon the foundation of the apostles and prophets, Jesus Christ himself being the chief corner stone;

This is why there cannot be any more Apostles after the first century. Christ is not calling anyone else into that office today because He is not laying over again the foundation He has already perfectly established.

6. The Necessity of a Closed Canon

Their writings were uniquely ordained to become Scripture. Church history demonstrates that the original Apostles never appointed personal successors to their specific office. Early Christians who descended directly from the Apostles consistently held that John was the final Apostle.

If people had continuously held that office down through history, we would never have had a closed canon of Scripture. Endless scriptural texts would have rendered Christianity completely headless. Knowing this, the Church Fathers (many of whom were bishops beginning in the late first century) never claimed the apostolic office for themselves. In their fierce fights against early heretics, they never equated their own writings to Scripture, recognizing that Scripture was strictly limited to the writings of the Apostles and the men who sat directly under them. This clear boundary allowed for the collection of the New Testament canon.

Having modern apostles would lead to unending scriptural additions. Who could navigate such chaos? If a modern “apostle’s” teachings cannot be canonized as infallibly divine, then that person is not an apostle in the true, biblical sense of the word.

7. Direct, Non-Transferable Commissioning

One could not ordain another person into the apostolic office. The Apostles were specially ordained by Christ Himself; what He made of the Twelve, He did not make of the seventy.

It is vital to observe that Peter did not simply ordain Matthias into the office on his own authority; God personally chose Matthias through prayer and a public cast of lots (Acts 1:24-26). Nowhere else in the New Testament did the Apostles ever cast lots to ordain individuals into standard church offices. Furthermore, Paul gave explicit, detailed rules on how to ordain bishops, elders, and deacons, but he left absolutely no instructions on how to ordain an Apostle. To further prove this, no human hand ordained Paul into the Apostolic office (Galatians 1:1, 15-19); he only had the church at Antioch commission his first missionary journey alongside Barnabas.

8. Distinguishing the Office from the Function (“Sent Ones”)

In Acts 14:14, Barnabas is called an apostle alongside Paul. However, this was used in the general, descriptive sense of the Greek word apostolos, which literally means “a sent one”—a missionary. They were both apostles in the sense that they were sent out on a specific missionary journey by a local congregation.

There is a vast difference between the general sense of the word (connoting a missionary) and the authoritative office of an Apostle of Jesus Christ, to whom the mysteries of the kingdom were uniquely committed and whose writings became Scripture. Just as anyone who teaches can be described as a teacher in a general sense, it is entirely different from the structural office of a Teacher within the five-fold ministry.

Similarly, the New Testament speaks of “messengers [apostoloi] of the churches” (2 Corinthians 8:23)—representatives commissioned by local bodies. Barnabas and Paul acted as apostles of the Antioch church during their first missionary journey.

Unlike the Twelve and Paul, who were directly commissioned by Christ, there existed these apostolic representatives—delegate missionaries sent by parent churches to convey the true Gospel and set things in order among newly founded Gentile churches in distant regions (such as Timothy). They operated with a broader, delegated authority from key Apostles and parent churches to appoint local elders. When Paul and Barnabas were commissioned by Antioch, they were certified preachers of the mystery of the kingdom with recognized authority to establish churches. Paul would later fiercely establish his special apostleship, proving it was in no way inferior to the Twelve, since he too was personally commissioned by Christ Himself to be the apostolic authority to the Gentile world. His literal, physical encounters with Jesus validated this unique commission. Elsewhere in the Epistles, when the term is applied to other individuals, it is used strictly in the sense of a missionary.

9. Signs vs. the Apostolic Office

2 Corinthians 12:12
Truly the signs of an apostle were wrought among you in all patience, in signs, and wonders, and mighty deeds.

Hebrews 2:3-4
How shall we escape, if we neglect so great salvation; which at the first began to be spoken by the Lord, and was confirmed unto us by them that heard him; God also bearing them witness, both with signs and wonders, and with divers miracles, and gifts of the Holy Ghost, according to his own will?

While the signs, miracles, wonders, and mighty deeds necessary for empowering missionary work remain open to the Church until Christ returns, they must never be mistaken for the apostolic office itself.

While believers can possess a powerful, evangelistic anointing necessary for pioneering ministries, none occupy the foundational office of an Apostle today. Jesus promised miracles, signs, and wonders to all them that believe (Mark 16:17-18). We see this perfectly demonstrated through Philip (Acts 8:5-7), who moved in staggering signs and wonders but was not an Apostle; he was simply a deacon and an evangelist. Miracles validate the message of the Gospel, but they do not recreate a closed, foundational office.