Section 01 - The Apostolic Types

Chapter 01 - A New Apostolic Era

This book follows on from the first teaching on the ministry of the apostle entitled The Apostolic Calling.

Now that you have established that you are called to be an apostle, it is important that you understand how an apostle functions as a minister.

What are the main functions of the Apostolic Minister? To understand this I want to look at a passage in the New Testament that points very clearly to the Old Testament. Acts 7:44 to 47 says this.

Our fathers had the tabernacle of witness in the wilderness, as he had appointed, speaking to Moses, that he should make it according to the fashion that he had seen.
Which also our fathers that came after brought in with Joshua into the possession of the Gentiles, whom God drove out before the face of our fathers, to the days of David;
Who found favor before God, and desired to find a tabernacle for the God of Jacob.
But Solomon built him a house.

This short passage, taken from Stephen’s famous sermon that led to his death, gives us some interesting information.

Teaching on the ministry of the apostle is not easy, because there is so little taught in the New Testament about how the apostle should function. There are few pictures that we can find to show how an apostle should function.

The apostles only really came into being after the day of Pentecost, and the only clear pictures we have of them are recorded in the book of Acts.

This book is in fact entitled The Acts of the Apostles. But it does not contain a clearly laid out teaching on how to identify an apostle. We cannot learn much from Acts about what an apostle does, and how he or she is trained.

Getting the Full Picture

If we want to fully understand how the apostle is meant to function in ministry, we need to go back to the Old Testament.

Paul said that the Old Testament was given to us as an example or model. It contains pictures or symbols that show us what is taught more clearly in the New Testament.

To understand the Scriptures more clearly, we often have to put the two testaments together. We need to look first at the picture or type in the Old Testament, then see how it was fulfilled in the New Testament. When we do this, we get a complete picture of what God is telling us about that subject.

The ministry and office of the apostle are very much like this. To understand them clearly, we need to start with the types and shadows of the Old Testament. As we add the teaching we have in the New Testament, the picture becomes clearer.

It is like we are adding extra pieces to a puzzle, until the picture becomes very clear. If you have ever done a puzzle you will know that if just one piece is missing, the picture is not complete.

If a person’s nose is missing in that one puzzle piece, you may not even recognize the person in the puzzle. Just having the head, ears and mouth may not be enough. But as you drop the last puzzle piece in place, you suddenly recognize the person.

Many who have tried to teach on the Apostolic Ministry have looked only at the Scriptures found in the New Testament. That is because the word apostle is not mentioned in the Old Testament. It is a word that Jesus chose and applied to the 12 men that He chose.

They are the ones He trained and left behind. So if you want to find this in the Old Testament you have to look for types and shadows. 

New Types of Apostles

When I use the term apostolic types, I mean that there is more than one kind of apostle. All apostles are not the same, and if you compare them you will often see differences between them.

I will show you using the Old Testament what these different types look like. The New Testament teaches us about what Jesus did with His 12 apostles.

We see how after the Holy Spirit came at Pentecost, the apostles went out and formed the church. They caused it to grow and spread throughout the earth.

We read about how Paul went and founded churches. We see John writing to the churches in the book of Revelation. And because of this limited knowledge, many think that an apostle is just someone who goes out and starts new churches.

Many of the teachings available have taken this approach. But they leave out a very important element. The early apostles started a new era that had never existed before. And the same thing is about to happen in these last days.

God is raising up a new breed of apostles to bring in a new era. This era will herald a new church and reveal the plan that God has for the church of the end times.

This will be a more glorious church than we have seen in the past. It will be even greater than the early church.

One of the debates that is still going on concerns the dying out of the apostles. Some say that the apostles and the Fivefold Ministry died and disappeared.

Others say that this never stopped and that apostles have continued to function through the years, planting churches and doing the work of the apostle. Missionaries are often thought to be apostles since they are sent out.

Bishops and Apostolic Succession

Another teaching says that when the early apostles died, they passed on their heritage to others. Those who received the apostolic mantle from them are called bishops.

It is taught that Peter was the first bishop of Rome. And since Rome was considered a capital, and Peter was the chief apostle, anyone who took over from him was considered the supreme leader of the church.

Roman Catholicism has therefore formed a doctrine known as apostolic succession, with the Pope being the supreme leader or apostle of the church.

Others who take the title of bishop also believe that they are descended from a bishop, who was originally appointed by an apostle. So they claim authority through apostolic succession.

I am amazed to find out that there are Charismatic and Pentecostal brethren who believe this, when it is so clearly contrary to the Scriptures and to the Word of God.

The apostles could never ever appoint and pass on what God had given them, because Jesus calls the apostle.

Just before Pentecost, Peter came up with the idea that they needed to appoint someone to replace Judas. He suggested that it would have to be someone who was a close disciple of Jesus and associated with the apostles.

So they sat down and figured out in their minds whom Jesus would have chosen. They came up with two names and figured that Jesus probably would have chosen one of these to replace Judas.

They took a vote and Matthias came out with a majority vote, so they appointed him to be the twelfth apostle. Matthias’s only claim to fame is that after he was appointed he disappeared. We never hear about him again.

This twelfth apostle was appointed by the other apostles. So if apostolic succession were possible, then he should have become part of the 12.

Jesus Chose Paul

I cannot make this a doctrine, but I will give you my personal opinion on what really happened. I believe that Jesus rejected Matthias as Judas’ replacement, because He had someone else in mind.

He chose Saul of Tarsus, whom He made into the great apostle of the Gentiles. He became even greater than the others.

I personally believe Paul was Jesus’ replacement for Judas, but I cannot prove it from Scripture. However if you just read your Bible, you will find that most of the New Testament was written by Paul.

There is plenty of proof that Jesus chose Paul. We read that as he was traveling along the way to Damascus he was struck to the ground and heard a voice saying,

Saul, Saul why are you persecuting me?

When Paul asked who he was He replied,

I am Jesus.

Jesus called Paul directly, face to face. He said,

“I am taking you and sending you to suffer for my name sake. I’m not sending you to the Jews that you were so zealous for Paul. I’m sending you to the Gentiles.”

Jesus appoints the apostles, not man. Not even an apostle has the right or the authority to take his mantle and give it to someone else unless Jesus says so.

Don’t ever forget that. It is important. We need to know it. Apostolic succession is not Scriptural.

Restoration of the Church

The end times church is not going to look like the early church. It is going to be totally different.

I believe that the apostles did die out. And yes I believe the Fivefold Ministry ceased to function in the body of Christ until the Lord began, not that long ago, to bring about a restoration of the church.

Throughout the many years of my life I heard this word restoration. Before that time you heard the word reformation during the time of Martin Luther when justification by faith was restored.

There were Renewal Movements and what was known as the Charismatic Renewal Movement. These words renewal and restoration were used throughout the last two centuries in referring to the church.

What were they referring to? They were speaking about bringing back what had been lost. Well if it wasn’t lost, how could it be restored?

God is now about to do something new. Restoration has been accomplished and is now complete. Justification by faith has been restored to the church.

The Evangelistic Ministry has been restored to the church. The pastoral, teaching, prophetic and apostolic ministries have all been restored to the church.

New Apostles for the End Times

Restoration is complete, but there is a new move coming that will be different.

That new move is the manifestation and revelation of the end times church. And God is bringing forth a new breed of apostles that are different to the 12 apostles that started the early church.

The church must prepare for the coming of the Bridegroom, and the Bride must be made ready.

It is going to take a lot more than the 12 dead apostles of the early church to accomplish this. It is going to take live apostles to do it, and in the day and age in which we now live there are new needs.

There are new circumstances. And there has arisen a new series of teachings with new revelation.

Some have called this the Present Truth Movement, but many of these teachings are a delusion. Nevertheless, God is bringing in new revelation concerning His plan for the Church.

God is both changing His original plan and bringing in something new. He is bringing both the Old and New Testaments together into one final plan for the body of Christ.

This plan will be based on the old but will not be the same. It will include some from the First Church of the Old Testament and some from the Early Church of the apostles.

But it will include some new elements. To find out more about this, read my book entitled The Mystery of the End Times Church.

To understand all of this, we must start at the beginning and work through the old types and shadows. Then we must add the New Testament to see the birth of the Early Church, which was seen in an Old Testament type known as the former rain.

There are signs there that there will be a new thing called the latter rain.

Something Greater

In the rebuilding of the temple and the restoration there are pictures of a new house. We read that the new house will be greater than the previous house.

The principle of birth, death and resurrection of a vision is seen throughout the Scriptures. A vision was born at Pentecost but it died. It went into the Dark Ages and it vanished.

Today we are living in the era of resurrection. There is coming a resurrection of God’s vision for His church. It is a new vision, and the resurrection is always far greater than the original vision. That is why the original vision had to die.

What did Jesus say to His disciples? He said,

The things that I have done you shall do, and greater things than these shall you do because I go to my Father.

Can you think of some things that the disciples did that were greater than what Jesus did? You could say,

“Well they won a lot more souls to the Lord.”

Is that what Jesus was referring to when He said that we would do greater works?

Yes they did wonderful works. They did marvelous works. They moved in the same power that Jesus did. But I would like to suggest that what Jesus prophesied has not been fulfilled yet.

There is a new dimension and a new era coming in which the body of Christ will rise up. It will not only be the apostles who are going to rise up in power as they did in the early church. All believers will in fact do this.

The Scripture says that signs and wonders were done at the hands of the apostles, but the rest of the people had to sit and learn. So when the apostles died out the power seemed to die out with them.

The Holy Spirit was still there though. He has been there all along. He was never withdrawn.

People were so used to relying on the apostles to give out the power, that when they were gone there was nobody to give out the power.

They became absorbed by the World System. And now the church was like Israel in Egypt, in bondage to the World System and enslaved to the Pharaoh of this world, the god of this world.

They are slaves under bondage, working under their taskmaster, and not living in the liberty and the power that God intends.

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