The True Successors of the Apostles
by
Gary Ray Branscome
“Beware of false prophets, who come to you in sheep’s
clothing, but inwardly are ravening wolves,” for “from your own number men will
arise, speaking perverse things, to draw the disciples away after them”.
(Matthew
At the time of the reformation, the hypocrisy of those
who claimed Apostolic-succession while contradicting and condemning what the
Apostles taught was obvious. They not only opposed the Gospel but hunted down
and burned at the stake anyone who owned an English translation of the Bible.
And, if, after searching a house, they could not find an English translation of
the Bible, they would burn them anyway if they so much as found that one of
their children knew the Lord’s prayer in English. That
was the situation in
That fact alone should make it obvious that those who
claim Apostolic-succession have no legitimate claim to authority. The Apostles
not only did not set up a hierarchy, they warned believers against trusting in
men. Furthermore, the congregations that they started were organized along the
same lines as the synagogues they had grown up in. In those synagogues
ordination was simply a Jewish custom. Christ did not institute it, and there
is no divine promise connected with it. Moreover, the Jews ordained the
lay-elders of the congregation, not the paid Rabbi. Those elders, not the paid
Rabbi, were the overseers (bishops) of the congregation, and they were
answerable to the congregation. It was human egotism, and the lust for power
(the mystery of iniquity), not the will of God, that gradually twisted that
system (in which the Bible was the supreme authority) into a hierarchy. A
hierarchy that replaced the Word of God as set forth in Scripture, with the
word of man. An ungodly system in which some men exalt themselves over God’s
people, and even try to usurp for themselves the place of God Himself, as the
head of His church.
Ordination to the ministry by the laying on of the
hands and prayers is not a divine ordinance, but a church custom or ceremony,
for although ordination is mentioned in Holy Writ, it is not commanded
(1Timothy
THE TRUE SUCCESSORS OF THE APOSTLES
The only men who can honestly claim to be the
successors of the Apostles, are those who teach the doctrines that the Apostles
have given us to teach. Nevertheless, you know as well as I that virtually
everyone claims to be teaching what the Bible says, no matter how far they are
from the actual words of Scripture. They all have their own ideas,
explanations, and opinions! However, those ideas and explanations are not the
Word of God, and therefore are not the doctrine given to us by the Apostles. In
order to teach what the Apostles taught, we must teach what the Apostles
actually (explicitly) said, not the ideas men have come up with!
When Paul wrote his epistles, he did not want those who read them to make
up explanations or dream up “principles”, and then teach those explanations or
“principles” to the congregation. On the contrary, the words, “For we have not
written anything to you, other than what you read or understand” make it clear
that the only meaning God wants us to teach, is the plain grammatical meaning
of the words themselves (2Corinthians 1:13). Only those who teach what the
Bible clearly and explicitly says, without trying to supplement it with their own
explanations, are the true successors of the Apostles. Any meaning that men
place on the words of Scripture, other than the plain grammatical meaning of
the words, is not of God. Yet, in church after church, the plain meaning of the
words (the Word of God) is ignored, while the opinions of men are eagerly
promoted.
As Dr. Francis Pieper put it, “We human beings in our
perverse desire to reach false heights, like blind idiots, take no notice of
the divine simplicity of the words of Christ. The first and foremost duty of
the exegete consists in holding the flighty spirit of man to the simple word of
Scripture and, where he has departed from it, to lead him back to the simple
word of Scripture.” [Christian Dogmatics”, Vol. 1,
page 360]
THE DOCTRINE OF THE APOSTLES
Because the Apostle Paul set forth the basic doctrines of the Christian faith
in his letter to the congregation at
In order to lay the groundwork for his presentation of
the doctrine of Justification by Faith, Paul condemns both the sins prevalent
among gentiles (Romans
Having shown that all are guilty the sight of God, and
that the law cannot take away that guilt, Paul then devotes the rest of chapter
three to the doctrine of Justification by Faith (Romans 3:21-28). In chapter
four, Paul goes on to clarify and explain the doctrine of Justification by
Faith, and that explanation is our doctrine of Imputed Righteousness.
In chapter five, Paul sets forth the doctrine of the
atonement, as he reminds us that Christ’s suffering and death is the source of
our forgiveness, and thus the focus of our faith (Romans 5:5-11). He then draws
a parallel between Adam’s sin, which brought condemnation to all men, and
Christ’s atonement, which provided a way of salvation for all men. And, what he
says in those verses is our doctrine of The Fall and Redemption (Romans
These are the basic doctrines of salvation, and no
one, and I mean no one, who contradicts any of those doctrines, or makes any
statement of Scripture of no-effect, by explaining away what it says, has any
right to claim to be a successor of the Apostles.
I am aware that the epistles have much more to say
that just this. However, much of what they say does not deal directly with the
salvation message, but with various problems that cropped up in the respective
churches. Nevertheless, whenever the epistles address the topic of salvation,
they simply summarize or compliment what is said in the book of Romans. The
third chapter of Galatians gives us the doctrine of The Law and the Promises,
the fifth chapter of Galatians enlarges on what Romans eight says about the
work of the Holy Spirit in the life of a believer, and the second chapter of
Ephesians summarizes the salvation message. The point I am trying to
drive home is that the true doctrine consists of what the Bible clearly and
explicitly says, not what men say, and only those who teach that doctrine can
honestly claim to be the successors of the Apostles.
THE WHOLE COUNCIL OF GOD
After presenting the doctrines of salvation, the
Apostle Paul goes on, in the book of Romans, to deal with questions that relate
to those doctrines. Chapters six through eight deal
with the question of how we should live if we are not under the law, and
keeping the law does not make us righteous. However, if we are true successors
of the Apostles we will teach what the Bible actually says, instead of man-made
explanations. Only those who are themselves in darkness think that the Bible
needs to be explained. Those who have the truth know that it means just what it
says.
Because everything necessary for our salvation is
clearly and explicitly stated in the words of Scripture, we do not need all of
the ideas and explanations by which men attempt to clarify what God has said. On the contrary, anything men come up with tends to
lead people away from the truth of Scripture. The church today, in spite of all
of its books, is full of confusion because it has lost sight of the doctrine
explicitly stated in God’s Word.
CONCLUSION
The point I am trying to drive home is that the true doctrine is not some
abstract philosophy deduced from Scripture, but the plain meaning of the words.
And because those words are the words of the Apostles, the only men who can
honestly claim to be the successors of the Apostles are those who let those
words be their doctrine.
A church that is truly Apostolic,
“does not base its doctrine on any exegesis, not even on the exegesis of
Luther, but on the bare words of Scripture… all error in doctrine can be traced
to the refusal of the teacher to continue in the wholesome words of Christ.
This refusal prompted Luther’s constant warning against substituting an
interpretation (gloss) for the Scripture words themselves.” [Dr. Francis Pieper
“Christian Dogmatics”, Volume one, page 323]