Dennis Tuuri

# Reformation Covenant Church Sermon Transcript
## Pastor Dennis Tuuri

Use a visual aid there for a minute or you’re maybe hoping I was going to use a visual aid. Well, let’s see.

We continue now the series of talks going through the confession of our church and we’ve spent several months now on the offices of the old covenant looking forward to providing a base to look at the offices of the New Testament. We’re talking about that portion of our confessional statement which talks about the leadership of the church and the government of the church and the participation of everybody in that government.

And so we thought that before we jump into the New Testament verses, we look at the great foundation that God has laid for us in the Old Covenant. And we spent roughly three months going through that. But this Sunday, we move into the New Testament, having finished up with those Old Testament offices. In the next couple of weeks, next week, we’ll be looking specifically at the selection of the first deacons in the book of Acts. And then the following week, we’ll be looking at the Council of Jerusalem in terms of the government found in Acts 15.

But first, I thought it’d be good before we go into those two sections, since both of them involve the group known as the apostles, I thought it’d be good to look first at those first officers of the church that was initiated with the coming of Jesus Christ, that particular form of the church, the first officers of that church, the apostles.

And so, I thought we should spend a few minutes this morning talking about the office of the apostle or the apostleship. Now, although the term “apostle” is used sometimes in a general sense in the New Covenant to mean somebody who is simply sent or a messenger or even a letter occasionally, there’s a specific group of people known specifically as the twelve apostles of course and it’s that particular group we’re going to be looking at this morning and then also the inclusion of Paul.

We’re going to use for our outline verses what I think is the outline the scriptures give us in this passage in verse 17. We read that Judas was numbered with us and he obtained part of this ministry. And then in verse 20, it says that another one had to take his bishopric or office. And so the things we’re going to talk about this morning are first the number of the apostles being 12 and the significance of that.

Secondly, we’ll talk about the fact that the apostles were a ministry. And third, we’ll talk about the apostles as an office. The apostleship as an office. These same three points, by the way, are also referred to until the end of the chapter in verse 25 they may take part of this ministry. So we’re talking about the apostles and ministers this apostleship referring to the office and then in 26 they choose Matthias and he is numbered with the 11 apostles.

So we’ll start with the number of the apostles then the ministry and then the office.

First of all we note that there were 12 apostles. And it’s interesting to note there that these 12 were selected out of a larger group of people. A lot of times that isn’t really observed very closely, but that is what occurred. It wasn’t just that he chose 12 people at the beginning of his ministry. Jesus chose 12 people at the beginning of his ministry and that were the apostles.

No, the scriptures tell us in Mark 3:13-19 and again in Luke 6:12-16 that Jesus both these things are of course relating the same incident. Both of them say that Jesus went up into a mountain and he called unto him whom he would and they came unto him and he ordained 12 that they should be with him and that he might send them forth to preach. In Luke 6, we’re told in verse 12, it came to pass in those days that he went out into a mountain to pray and continued all night in prayer to God.

And when it was day, he called unto him his disciples, and of them he chose 12 whom also he named apostles. And so we see a similar situation here to the concentric circles we talked about in terms of the priesthood. We see that Jesus has a number of disciples and out of that group of disciples he chooses specifically now after a night of prayer on the mountain and meditation he chooses 12 of them to be established as this office known as apostles or I suppose one common way to think of the apostles are as sent ones that’s not the total of the office but it certainly is one of the implications of what he’s going to do here he’s going to send them out do a particular work for him.

Of course, just briefly, there were of course at the in the account we just read in Acts 1, there were about 120 disciples gathered together actually. And these 12 again were a subset of that 120. And another passage of scripture, which we won’t spend any time really looking at today, but there were another group of 70 that were also sent out in twos preaching the gospel. And that number, I think, also has some significance.

If you remember, for instance, that when we talked about the selection of the officers in the wilderness, remember he chose 70 to administer the nation as it were and those 70 remember we talked about the fact that if you looked at the family heads, the tribes and the clans together, you came up with 70 family groups there and remember there were 70 people that came that went into Egypt originally. Seventy people now become 70 big thousands or clans or big huge masses of people. There were now 70 of them. Each was an officer over them.

And so Jesus when he sends out the 70 here I think there’s a reference to that same office and there’s reference to the expansion now that would account would be accompanied by the preaching of the gospel those 70 individuals would become 70 groups again as it were big large families or clans.

So we had the 120 which is a subset of all the rest of the disciples that we knew. There were thousands of them at this time apparently. We had 120 another subset of 70 and then another subset of 12 and these were the apostles. These it’s interesting also to remember here more than interesting it’s important that we do remember that the apostles were specifically chosen by God. This number 12 means there was a specific set of 12 people who were elected or chosen by God and that was one of the marks of apostleship.

These people weren’t elected by the rest of the disciples. They were chosen by Jesus. And so when it got to be time to replace the 12th one Judas who had given up his office through his sin And that has implications for the office and it’s linked to the man. We know that the office is primarily a ministry and if the people don’t exercise the office correctly, the office is taken from them. But any event, when Judas loses his office and the selection is made of Matthias to replace him, that is done by a lot because they recognize that it must be God’s selection of that apostle. It’s not an election by man. It’s an election by God.

Paul who was the 13th apostle as it were, if you look at any of his epistles almost all of them begin with a reference to his apostleship and he always links that apostleship to the call of God. For instance in Romans 1:1 “Paul a servant of Jesus Christ called to be an apostle.” 1 Corinthians 1:1 “Paul called to be an apostle.” 2 Corinthians 1:1 “Paul an apostle of Jesus Christ by the will of God.”

Galatians 1:1 very clear “Paul an apostle not of men neither by men but by Jesus Christ and God the Father who raised him from the dead.” So Paul and I could read more here, but you get the point. And that every one of his epistles, most all of them begin with that sort of reference. He declared his apostleship and was and as part of that declaration of his apostleship, he said he was called or elected by God, chosen by God to be an apostle, not by men. That’s very important to keep in mind. And of course, it teaches the sovereignty of God and the selection of his officers as well. And that was obviously one of the marks of the original apostles, the first 12.

So the number 12 indicates a subset of the larger group and it indicates the election of God. But it indicates something more than that and that is that there is some continuity with the old covenant community here which is what we’ve assumed all along. But now we have very concrete evidence to witness to that assumption that we’ve made of continuity between the two churches the old covenant church and the new covenant church.

Now I don’t base that strictly on the fact that there were 12 and there were 12 tribes but there specifically for instance in Revelation 21:12-14 where the city of Jerusalem the new Jerusalem is being described in the book of Revelation. In verse 12 of Revelation 21 we read that it had a wall great and high and had 12 gates and at the gates 12 angels and names written thereon which were the names of the 12 tribes of the children of Israel. And so these gates had upon them the names of the 12 tribes.

There’s 12 tribes around the gates of the city. Then continuing on in verse 14, it says, “The wall of the city had 12 foundations and in them the names of the 12 apostles of the Lamb.” So we see the new Jerusalem symbolizing of course the church of Jesus Christ in its final completed state as having both patriarchs as it were the names of the 12 tribes and the apostles as part of the apostolic foundation the patriarchs at the gates. And so they’re combined together into one church, one Jerusalem. There’s not two separate entities as it were. There is continuity. There’s one people of God. And that verse in Revelation 21 teaches us that as well as many others.

Of course, later we’ll talk about the fact that the apostles were a ruling office. And specifically, it tells us in the gospels that they were to rule over the 12 tribes of Israel. Again, continuity there with the old covenant community. And so there, the number 12 is extremely important.

Additionally, continuing on in Revelation 21:19-20, we read that the foundations of the wall of the city were garnished with all manner of precious stones. The first foundation was jasper, the second sapphire, the third chalcedon, the fourth an emerald, and he goes on to describe here 12 stones symbolizing or emblems of the 12 foundations of the twelve apostles.

And if you look at the way this is laid out in the Greek, it’s laid out in groups of four groups of three. And what that should remind us all of is these 12 jewels in order like this should remind us of the breastplate of the high priest. Remember we talked about his office that he went into the holy of holies representing the whole people of God. And as part of the teaching device that told us that he represented the whole people, he had this breastplate on which had the 12 stones indicating the 12 tribes.

And so now we see the apostles themselves, the foundations linked to those 12 stones linked to the high priest as it were and linked to the representation of all the people of God including the patriarchs and the old covenant tribal structure. And so the 12 is an important thing because it teaches us continuity between the old covenant and the new covenant community. We don’t see two separate plans of salvation here. We see one plan of salvation, one covenant of grace. And as a result, we see both entities, the patriarchs and the apostles combining together into taking up the new Jerusalem.

And of course, Jesus Christ is the chief foundation of that building. It’s interesting, by the way, just by way of reference here, that the 12 tribes and the gates in Revelation 21:12, we’re told later that those 12 gates are made up of pearls. And that’s where you get the idea of the pearly gates, right? There are these giant pearls at each of the gates. And apparently, a gate was carved out of this pearl represented in this vision of the new Jerusalem.

And it’s interesting to note that in a rabbinic commentary, we read that the following is a rabbinic statement. The holy one, blessed be he, will in time to come bring precious stones in pearls which are 30 cubits by 30 and will cut out from them openings 10 cubits by 20 and will set them up in the gates of Jerusalem. I don’t know where they knew that from. I suppose that if we understand the book of Revelation is a summation of all the prophetic language of the scriptures, we’d see more references to the jewels and the importance of the jewels being the foundation of the church. But in any event, the number 12 is depicted in Revelation 21 links the 12 apostles to the 12 patriarchs of the old covenant church.

Now, it’s interesting too that when you have the addition of Paul as basically the 13th apostle, that may seem to throw that whole thing off a little bit, but Remember that Joseph’s two sons were each given a share and became as it were part of the patriarchs. And so they were actually as it were when you add up those two sons taking the place of Joseph there were the 13 added as it were at a later date. And Paul was the 13th added to the original group of 12. This makes it clear that he was the apostle to the Gentiles. This is extremely important to remember the typology that’s going on here.

The scriptures tell us that Jesus Christ, we’ve talked about this in the past, that Jesus Christ is the true Israel. A good verse for that is Matthew 2:15, which reads that when Jesus was a boy, of course, a baby that, they had to go into Egypt to protect the child from Herod. And in Matthew 2:15, we read, “And was there in Egypt until the death of Herod, that it might be fulfilled, which was spoken of the Lord by the prophet, saying, out of Egypt, have I called my son.”

And so Jesus is identified with that prophecy made originally in Hosea 11:1 which reads “When Israel was a child that I loved him and called my son out of Egypt.” Jesus Christ is the true Israel of God. We are the Israel of God in the sense that we belong in Jesus Christ and the old covenant community was the true Israel of God in that they were found in the coming covenant keeper to come and had faith in him or were part of his household as it were.

Jesus Christ was the true Israel. And the same way that Israel was the father of the 12 tribes. So Jesus Christ, the true Israel, now has 12 apostles imitating that same flow, that same typology of the old covenant, prefiguring, of course, what was to come in the new covenant. And so now we see that Jesus Christ was the true Israel and had 12 apostles replacing, as it were, the 12 patriarchs of the old covenant.

It’s important of course to one of the obvious points of this of course is there is some transition from the old covenant to the new covenant from a physical lineage to a faith lineage. Now we’ve talked enough about the old covenant in this church to know that it was not strictly a physical lineage in the old covenant either. If a person was not found to be in the faith as it were he was excommunicated regardless of his physical lineage.

Additionally when Israel came out of Egypt of course they came out with a whole host of foreigners as it were who were not of the bloodline who had covenanted in who had been evangelized as it were by the people of God in Egypt. So we don’t want to make a hard and fast distinction there but that is obviously a difference in that in the new covenant Christ has spiritual children the 12 apostles as opposed to Israel’s physical children.

Now that is great import as well as we consider the role of the apostles the apostles were to have spiritual sons as well. There’s not a great emphasis placed we don’t know so much about the families of the apostles for instance or their children. There was no succession in terms of a family succession of their office. There was a succession in terms of the office of the church being founded upon the faith of the people that would be brought to the church through the preaching of the apostles. There’s a spiritual lineage.

Then Calvin for instance when he was asked about the fact that he didn’t have any children and sort of put down for the fact that he didn’t have physical seed as it were. He replied that all of Europe was peopled with his sons. He understood that his sons are to be the same as the sons of Jesus Christ in the sense that they were to be spiritual sons and that it’s through evangelism that we expand the kingdom of God and not just through the physical seed that God has given us in our families.

There is a shift here and it’d be important for us not to miss that shift in the shift in the new covenant from the physical lineage to a spiritual lineage. These 12 as I said earlier similar to the 70 when they were called by Jesus to that office they were called for the purpose they would be sent out proclaiming the gospel of Christ proclaiming the kingdom of Jesus Christ and preaching that and producing converts as a result. So it’s important to for instance it’s interesting symbolism again when Jesus confronted in the garden and one of his apostles brings out the sword and tries to cut off the man’s ear and everything that Jesus says don’t you realize that I could pull out 12 legions of angels to assist me here in this fight and to rescue me.

And it’s interesting, he uses the number 12 legions. I don’t know if that’s the specific reason he used that terminology then, but it’s consistent with what we saw in terms of the 70 of the old covenant and now the 12 of the new covenant that there would indeed be 12 legions, 12 large groups of spiritual successors as it were coming forth from the apostles into the new covenant church.

And so we see a much more rapid expansion as a result of that in the new covenant than under the old covenant people. The new covenant within you know a very short period of time had thousands of people members of the church which you could not achieve through physical lineage. Obviously the emphasis was changed from a growing of covenant keepers as it were in the family being the primary method of evangelism to the preaching of the gospel going out into the world around.

It’s important for us to remember then that in terms of remembering that there are 12 apostles to remember that it does indicate continuity of the old covenant, but it also indicates some degree of discontinuity in that now we’re to see the exercise of the church as being one of sending out people to preach the gospel of Christ.

The point I’m trying to make is that the apostles teach us in the number 12 and this all this imagery we’ve seen, we see the importance then of evangelism to the beginning of the church and to the to the continuing task of the church. Now, we placed a lot of emphasis in this church on families. That’s good and proper and the scriptures do as well. We’ll see in two weeks when we talk about the council of Jerusalem that there were two officers represented at the council of Jerusalem, apostles and elders. And remember that elders is primarily a family term.

But it’s important that we don’t miss this fact that the foundation of the church is Jesus Christ and he provides a foundation then of 12 apostles who are spiritual successors to him as it were and they now are going to have spiritual sons to make up the rest of the church as well.

As we stress the family of this church which is good and proper, we should never forget that the preaching of the gospel is the essential task of the church. And there has to be a primacy to evangelism in the church if we’re going to actually walk in the steps of the apostles. If we’re going to be truly successors to the apostles and apostolic succession in terms of faith, we’re going to have to remember the emphasis the scriptures place upon evangelism. And we as a people have to see ourselves as following in the footsteps of the apostles being built upon that foundation of Christ and the apostles and we have to see our job then as going out and to be sent ones as well into our communities preaching the gospel of Christ and making converts.

It’s important that as I said that this church recognizes that and continues to remind herself of her job to go and evangelize the world around us. There’s many ways to do that. I think a lot could be said for having people into our homes today instead of actually going out door to door as it were and knocking on doors. But I think it’s important that we all keep in mind the fact that if we’re going to be truly apostolic in our church as it were, we have to see our church as a church of evangelism, going out preaching the gospel to our neighbors in our community around us and understanding the stress upon that of the church.

If we stress family to the detriment of stressing evangelism through the preaching of the gospel and the relevancy of God’s word to every area of life, we’ve done a disservice to our community and we’ve done a disservice to the Lord who called us into the ministry that has analogies to the ministry of the apostles.

So the number 12 is important and to remind us of the importance of evangelism. Secondly, we said that the apostles were a ministry said that they had to pick somebody to make up the number and because Judas had a part of the ministry in verse 17, he had obtained part of this ministry. And we must as we look at the apostles and the importance of their office recognize that They were called for a job to minister to God to be ministers of his and specifically as that ministry to go forth preaching his gospel.

And so in Mark 6:7 and Luke 8:1, we see that they are sent out to in pairs to preach the gospel and to proclaim and preach the kingdom of God. If the 12 are analogous to the 12 patriarchs, we know that God intends to build a kingdom with them. And that’s specifically the message that they go out with according to Luke 8:1 is the preaching of the kingdom of God. And that kingdom will be accomplished through the conversion of men through the preaching of the gospel and not strictly speaking and not only speaking through having children and then evangelizing them.

It’s important that we see ourselves as fulfilling that ministry by going out in evangelism and preaching the kingdom of God. So it is a ministry and it’s a ministry that though important And though a foundational element of the church itself as we know the apostles were had to be characterized by service to God and to service to the men that God had called us to. We would think that if the apostles were analogous to the 12 patriarchs and we know that they were and we know that they understood this. Jesus had told them they would sit on 12 thrones ruling the 12 tribes of Israel.

We would think then that with that kind of language, it would be easy for them to misunderstand their relationship to the men that they had been called to serve and to see their job as more of a dictatorship or an exercise of authority than it is service. And of course, our Lord reminds his apostles many times that is not to be the case. In Mark 9:35 and he sat down and called the twelve and saith unto them, If any man desire to be first, the same shall be last of all, and servant of all.

Mark 10:42 Jesus called them to him, and saith unto them, Ye know that they which are accounted to rule over the Gentiles exercise lordship over them, and their great ones exercise authority over them. But so it shall not be among you, but whosoever will be great among you shall be your minister, and whosoever of you will be the chief shall be servant of all. For even the son of man came not to be ministered unto, but to minister and to give his life a ransom for many.

The apostles, though they were important as the foundational work of the church, yet had to keep in mind and were constantly reminded by our Lord that they were to be servants. And so we see at the very beginning of the offices of the new covenant church, now we see the idea of servanthood being placed in there as an important element of what they are. They are a ministry. And of course the apostles though they could one could see them as having a lot of glory and honor and this sort of thing. We know in point of fact that most of them ended up martyred, killed, persecuted for the faith. They persevered to the point of death because they saw themselves as servants not as ones who had to get other people to work for them but as working for other people.

And that was the way that they were to lead the people of God by servicing them and by being servants to them. And Jesus gave himself of course as the primary example of that he said that he didn’t come to be served he came to serve others and so it’s important that we consider the offices of the new covenant we understand that they’re undergirded by the 12-fold structure of the apostles showing continuity showing the importance of evangelism they’re also undergirded by the 12-fold office of the apostles also demonstrating to them the need to build their offices upon the idea of service and ministry and of course the last thing that Jesus did before he died was at the last supper with those same 12 people.

And remember that the context these things we’ve just read were the context of him addressing the twelve apostles in the context of that same thing after Judas had departed in Matthew 20. In Matthew and the Lord’s various accounts of the Lord’s supper we know that our lord the last thing he left his apostles with and remember these are to be the kings to come these would be the patriarchs these would be the rulers that he instruct them in political structures. Did he instruct them in the proper use of the rod of the scepter? No.

How he instructed them was he got down on his knees and he washed their feet. And he said that this is what you have to do. You have to serve one another. You have to see your office as a ministry and not as a way to lord it over people. And of course he in other portions of the scripture, he says you’re not to be like the Gentiles. You’re to serve one another.

So the apostleship is also remembered as an office of ministry. And if we’re going to be truly Apostolic in our church today that our officers and all the people of the congregation as well have to see themselves as servants. They have to see themselves as involved in a ministry first to God and then to your neighbor. Remember that’s what we talked about last week with the idea of kings. Kings are to obey the law of God. How? By fulfilling the first tablet of the law to love God with all their heart, soul, mind, and strength. And the second tablet to love their neighbor as themselves.

So if we see ourselves in this church as being in the succession of offices of the faith rather the apostles and going back to the old covenant church as well. We must see ourselves as being ministers and as being servants. We must serve God and men. We must serve the people in this congregation as we seek to minister to one another. And we must serve the people in our communities as well. If we fail in that task, then we become no apostle, no apostolic church as it were, having the faith of Jesus Christ. We deny that faith by denying the service that he was called to and that he calls us to.

So we see that the apostles were 12 in number, continuity, evangelism, service. And finally, the third point is that the apostles were in office. As much as we want to stress the idea that there was service, as much as we want to think about the apostles as being 12 disciples of Christ, and they were certainly that disciples, and yet that wasn’t the point all the point of what Christ was doing with those 12 men. He was discipling them to be to fill an office.

In our scriptures before us it must be read that they knew they had to replace Judas’s position because it says in verse 20 that in it’s written in the book of Psalms let his habitation be desolate let no man dwell therein and his bishopric let another take that word bishopric is goes back of course to the Psalms as it says here in the psalm specifically it’s quoting is Psalm 109:8 which reads, “Let his days be few and let another take his office.”

In the King James reading, Psalm 109:8 we’ll talk about in a little bit here is an imprecatory psalm. It’s probably the strongest of the imprecatory psalms and it has specific reference here at least in one application to Judas, the betrayer of our Lord. And that’s fitting and proper. We’ll talk about that in a little bit. But the point is that This quotation from the book of Psalms pointing to the office of the apostles gives us a link again in terms of continuity with the old covenant. And so just as we said that in the old covenant we had various offices and now in the new covenant we have fewer offices and yet fulfilling the same functions.

This particular verse quoting as it does Psalm 109:8 and the idea of office in the old covenant is a link as it were between the offices of the old covenant and the offices of the new covenant. Jesus Christ of course is that link and through Christ that office comes then and is passed on to the apostles and then to the rest of the church in Psalm 109:8 the Hebrew word there used there is paqid. I suppose we could remember that word by thinking of a similar word but the word is paqid it’s it’s a paqid but I thought of something while I was studying anyway the word is a generalized can be used in the generalized sense meaning an office or an overseer or somebody who’s in charge of something.

But it’s interesting that most of the occurrences in the Old Testament refer to priestly offices or priestly overseers. I read a couple of these for you. Numbers 3:32 and 36. And Eleazar the son of Aaron the priest shall be chief over the chief of the Levites and have the oversight. Okay, the oversight there. Paqid the oversight of them that keep the charge of the sanctuary. Then in verse 36, under the custody paqid and charge of the sons of Merari shall be the boards of the tabernacle and the bars thereof and the pillars thereof and the sockets thereof and all the vessels thereof and all that serveth there too.

And remember that they were the one they were the one of three sons. the Merarites had the care as it says here of the frame of the tabernacle and they had custody paqid. They had officership bishopric as it were office over that specific task in 2 Kings 11:18. All the people of the land went into the house of Baal and break it down. His altars and his images break thee in pieces thoroughly and slew Mattan the priest of Baal before the altars.

And the priest appointed officers over the house of the Lord. Officers, that same word again, a priestly quotation Ezekiel 44:10 and 11. The Levites that are gone away far from me when Israel went astray, which went astray away from me after their idols. They shall even bear their iniquity. Yet they shall be ministers in my sanctuary. Ministers, okay? Having charge at the gates of the house in ministering to the house. They shall slay the burnt offering and the sacrifice for the people, and they shall stand before them to minister unto them. And then one more reference in Isaiah 60:17, for brass I will bring gold, and for iron I will bring silver. For wood brass, and for stones iron, I will also make thy officers peace, and thine exactors righteousness.

And so we see an actual fulfillment of this verse in Isaiah 60:17 which says that your officers will be made peace when we see one of the officers as it were of the 12, one of the 12 Judas being taken out because he wasn’t peace. He wasn’t righteousness as it were to the people and peace to them that he had oversight over.

Well, the point I’m trying to make here is that there is continuity then between the priestly offices and the role of the apostles in the new covenant. Now not only do we see then a relationship of the office of the apostles to some of the functions or office of the of the priests, we also see that being transmitted then to the eldership in 1 Timothy 3:1.

Remember when we started a long time ago talking about the qualifications for eldership and we started with 1 Timothy 3 and that verse one of 1 Timothy 3 says if any man seek the office of a bishop he seeks a good work. Remember we stressed the fact that to work, but it was an office of a bishop. And the same word is used, it’s used here. And so, I suppose some could pervert that into saying that we’re talking about apostles there, but obviously in the rest of 1 Timothy 3, we’re talking about bishops or overseers or elders. We’ll get to that more as we get to that passage in a few weeks.

But the point I’m trying to make then is that this link from the old covenant office of priests and the general offices of the old covenant to the apostles at the foundation of the church and then to the eldership of the church is all maintained to this reference in Psalm 109 being quoted in Acts 1. Now I said that the link is primarily to a term used primarily for priestly functions. And this really if we think about it a little bit shouldn’t surprise us too much.

Remember we talked a week and a two weeks ago about Deuteronomy 33:10 and we talked about the office of the priest. The two functions of the priest were one to teach God’s law and two to offer sacrifices. Remember that. And so, what do we see the apostles doing? They’re sent out to preach the gospel. And they teach the church. That’s specifically what the apostles were to do in their governmental structure of the church was to teach the church. And they also led the church in prayer. And prayer, as we talked about a couple weeks ago, was a priestly function in terms of a specialized prayer. Again, because it represented the sacrifice of God’s people before God.

And our sacrifices today, Hebrews tell us, are prayers. And so, the apostles both in teaching and in leading the people of God in terms of worship and prayer. And remember, worship is sacrifice as well. We talked about the fact that worship was getting down on your hands and your knees and your face before God, representing yourself as a sacrifice in that altar that Hebrews 12:1 tells us to get on as living sacrifices. We’re to worship God by sacrificing ourselves as it were to God and to his purposes. And when at the end of this talk today, we come up and have our offering, that’s what we’re doing when we bring forward our money is representing all that we have, all that we are, and we’re laying down our face as it were before God and sacrificing ourselves to him.

Well, the apostles led the church not the apostles, excuse me, the apostles led the church in that public worship of the church and in prayer, the same way that the priests led the people in the sacrificial system and in prayer for the people as well., Acts 2:42 tells us in the days of the early church that the church continued steadfastly in the apostles doctrine in fellowship and in breaking of bread and in prayers. And so the apostles then lead the church of God as it were through their teaching and through leading in the corporate worship as well.

And so we see a link there also in terms of function now not just the words used but now there’s a link in function between the apostles and the priests of the old covenant. By the way I should talk a little bit now about Psalm 109. Remember we said that one of the specific jobs of the priests was to bless the people. Remember, we talked about this deal. We talk about every week. It’s, you know, it’s a good way to remember that one of the important functions of the priests were to bless the people and they had their hands like that when they blessed them., and we said that comes under the general category of Deuteronomy 33:10 where you got the law and the sacrifices. It comes under the law portion to teach the law of God, to teach God’s law, his scriptures, is to teach the blessings and cursings that flow forth from obedience or disobedience to that law.

And so, they place the blessing upon the people. At the end of this service today, I’ll repeat the same blessing that Aaron was instructed to give to his sons to bless the people of Israel. That blessing is not magic. The blessing is an indication of the importance of God’s law and the importance that God is at now at work in this land here and now blessing and cursing people in relationship to their relationship to him in Jesus Christ. And then also their faithfulness is exhibited through the obedience to the commands he gives us.

And so the teaching of blessings and cursings is also a priestly function. And remember the Levite on Mount Ebal and Gerizim were on Mount Ebal and Gerizim were to speak the blessings and cursings to the people as they went into covenant with God. I could go on and on but the point is that was one of the functions of the apostles also was to issue blessings and cursings upon the people. Remember when Jesus sent them out to the cities around to preach the gospel? Remember what he told them?

He said you go preaching the good news of the kingdom of God and if they if they accept it great and you fellowship with them you got a great time. If they reject you, however, what do you do? You take the sandals off from your feet. You shake them off at the at the town and you declare God’s curse upon that town. And Jesus says, “It would be more tolerable for Sodom than it would be for that town in the final judgment.”

So the apostles also went forth preaching the gospel, but with that preaching of the gospel, they preached curses and blessings. They taught the law of God priestly function. Psalm 109 that this psalm specifically quotes from or that this portion in Acts specifically quotes from as I said is an imprecatory psalm and it would amaze you to read some of the commentators on this psalm. Everybody seems to have a very difficult time understanding how this could possibly have been in the song book of the old covenant. I mean it calls for such terrible curses upon the heads of those who would persecute God’s people and David.

and they say certainly this is not a psalm for the new covenant of grace. Maybe it was a psalm for the old covenant of law. Some people even go have gone so far as to try to say the curses were the curses of David’s enemies against him. It wasn’t David asking for those curses upon their head. and that’s obviously ridiculous, particularly in the light of what we just read in Acts one where it says that David said these things about those that would subvert God’s purposes.

Point I’m trying to make is that the imprecatory psalms are real. They’re with us. They’re part of the general teaching function of the church and its priestly office to the world around. It’s important that we communicate that cursing and blessing to people and it’s important that they understand that God’s curses will come upon them. There is a hell and there is also intermediate curses upon this earth upon people for disobedience and it’s important the church do that. If the church fails to do that, it fails in its priestly task of evangelism to the nations around that what the sending out of the 12 tells us emphatically is that the curses of God and the blessings of God are part of the preaching of the kingdom of God.

And they’re therefore part of the evangel that they’re to preach. The evangelism that they’re to teach is the gospel, the good news of the ascension of the savior king to the throne. And that’s good news for them that are being saved. But it’s not good news for them that are perishing, is it? It’s to their detriment. And if we fail to do that, we take out a central aspect of the preaching of the gospel of Christ. And in doing so, we serve no one around us. It doesn’t help our neighbor to leave him with the impression that he can reject the message of Jesus Christ and still have a good life.

That is no service to that person around us. And it’s a shame upon the commentators that have shamed David for writing Psalm 109 that they write that way. They don’t understand the importance of warning people of the wrath to come if they fail to turn to Jesus Christ.

In any event, the apostles were to do that and that also shows the indication that they are in the priestly exercising a priestly office as it were pronouncing the blessings and cursings of God’s law. Additionally, the apostles were given the keys to the kingdom of God. And there again, we talked about how the priests had a guarding function. And so we see that the apostles of the new covenant church as well. the foundations of the new covenant church, they exercise the keys of the kingdom and they guard as it were the sacred things of God. And they seek to extend those sacred things through the preaching of the gospel of Christ. And so they’re fulfilling a priestly office as it were.

we should point out though that it’s simply it’s not just the priestly office. They’re fulfilling. We said earlier that the scripture stands there to rule in Matthew 19:28. We readily Jesus said unto them, “Verily I say unto you, that ye which have followed me in the generation when the son of man shall sit in the throne of his glory, he also shall sit upon 12 thrones judging the 12 tribes of Israel.”

And then in Luke 22:25-30 and we talked about this earlier about the fact that he told them that we’re to exercise lordship the way the Gentiles do, which is to exact authority over people. But in Luke 22:24-30, he says that there had to risen a strife. Who is the greatest? He said, “Don’t try to lord it over people the way the Gentiles do.” He that’s the greatest among you, let him be the younger, and he that is chief, let him serve. And verse 27, for what?

For whether is greater, he that sitth at meat, or he that serveth is not he that sitth at meat, but I’m among you as he that serveth. Again, he gives himself as the example of service. And he goes on then in verse 28, ye are they which have continued with me in my temptations, and I appoint unto you a kingdom as my father hath appointed unto me, that ye may eat and drink at my table in my kingdom and sit on thrones judging the 12 tribes of Israel.

The point we’re trying to make here is that God said that not only were the apostles to exercise a priestly function, they were also to exercise a kingly function in terms of ruling over the 12 tribes of Israel. And Jesus Christ said, “I appointed you a kingdom. My father gave it to me. I appointed to you at his ascension. It was sitting at the right hand of God, the throne of glory as it were.” At that point, from that point on, the apostles then are sitting on the 12 tribes as it were of the church, ruling over the church. They have a kingly function and a kingly office function as well.

they also exercised functions as judges. And in Acts 9:27 and then again at the council of Jerusalem, we see the apostles as being important for the management of the church in terms of judicial affairs as well. Specifically at the council of Jerusalem, a dispute is brought to them. We’ll talk more about it in two weeks, but they then exercise judicial ruling and that ruling has authority over the churches as they send out that message.

And so they have a kingly function. They exercise a judicial function. They also exercise the function of the sharim or the officers to a certain extent. We read in Acts 4 that the people of the early church would sell their possessions. They’d bring the money and lay it at the apostles feet. And the clear implication there is that the apostles administered those funds the same way that the officers of the officers in the old covenant administered the people of God and assisted Moses of course who was the head administrator. and the head law judge as well in the land.

And so the apostles now administer the church as officers as it were of Jesus Christ. And of course we talked about the fact that they were head over these various tribes, the 12 tribes of Israel. And that indicates that they were also the leaders remember that term we used in the old covenant offices about the heads of the leaders of the people. And so we see that all those old covenant offices we’ve talked about all of them to a certain extent those offices funnel down to the apostles and the exercise of their original order and control over the church.

And now what we’ll see in the next couple of weeks is the spreading out of that and the handing over of certain of those functions to a primary sense to other people. Next week we’ll talk about the deacons and how the deacons were to assume a lot of the administration of the church. The apostles were to be strictly speaking totally consumed with administration. They gave that function to somebody else. And so there’s now a broadening out of the officers of the church as it were.

But it’s important to recognize here is that the apostles were in office. There was an authority structure in place and they were ambassadors for Jesus Christ in their offices as well as in their service to the community about them. They were foundational and authoritative. I won’t look at all these verses now, but Ephesians 4:11, 2 Peter 3:2, 1 Corinthians 12:28, and Ephesians 2:20 talks about the foundational nature of their office and that their office had authority to it. They spoke authoritatively as it were for God before the development of the total of the canon of scripture. And so they were authoritative.

Now what does all this mean to us today? This means that the apostles fulfilled an office. And as a result, we see that at the very beginning, the inception of the church, there are officers, specific designated offices. And that’s what the term bishopric should inform us of, relating back to the old covenant offices as well. There’s a hierarchy is what we’re going to what this obviously teaches us in the foundation of the church and we’ll see that continue now as we go into the rest of the new covenant offices of the church.

This means that there is a hierarchy in terms of authority and it means that we as people must be in submission to the rulers that God has placed over us. It means that and we’ll see about more about this later but that there is an order to the church. The church is not as we’ve said several times a democracy. It’s not what the people all decide to do. That’s what we do. There is an authority structure. There’s a hierarchy. The same way in the civil magistrate.

Now, this is important for us to at least pause and consider for a few minutes. We have been brought up in a nation, the United States of America, which has a good deal of freedom in it. But also, America has a long heritage of a rugged independence. And to a certain extent, that’s good. But like all things that can be perverted. The American church has always had trouble in terms of people seeing themselves is totally independent of any authority. That is particularly true today, of course, and we see ourselves being ruled by civil magistrates who are ungodly to say the least.

I don’t know if any of you saw the press release yesterday, saw Bob Packwood talking at the Dorchester conference. Just appalling. He was lambasting the religious right. And of course, Joe Lutz was sitting in the audience and he was lambasting him as well. And he said, if for those who didn’t hear it, that we’ve had this kind of thing before. By that he meant the Christian involvement in politics. He said we had it before under Cotton Mather. And what we had then was people killing and burning other people because they didn’t believe quite right.

Just an incredible distortion of history and of Cotton Mather’s relationship to the Salem witch trials, which is what he was talking about, and a complete ignoring of the fact that there were thousands of witches burned throughout Europe at the same time. And that in the colonies in America, though we don’t obviously count as what happened there with the burning of witches the way that it was conducted and neither did Cotton Mather but there was Cotton Mather’s influence is one of restraining that influence of a superstitious the superstition that ran throughout Europe in terms of what happened there America was really a shining light there as well in terms of trying to be very judicial and exercising a lot of restraint over that element that was going wild in Europe but any that’s a whole another point but point I’m trying to make is when we’ve got senators like Bob Packwood saying that Christian involvement in politics equals burning people at the stake for bad beliefs.

You know, he’s got to know it’s just a gross distortion of the facts. And in point of fact, it’s the it’s the reign of people like Bob Packwood and other civil governors who promote and encourage abortion that is killing people, burning people through saline solutions, chopping them to