Who were the twelve apostles of the Lamb?

[ernie5349]

In discussing Apostolic succession with a Protestant, I commented on Acts 1:15, the replacing of Judas with Matthias, in that the “office” was being replaced. My friend countered that such may be true, but offices do not have to carry on forever. He states that Matthias was only brought in to get the total back to twelve; and referenced Rev. 21:14 - the wall of the city had twelve foundations, and on them were the names of the twelve apostles of the Lamb.

So of the twelve apostles of the Lamb, would Judas or Matthias be listed?

And what about Paul? I thought he was considered an “Apostle”, although not one of the original twelve.

 

[thessalonian]

The Church doesn’t really say whether Judas is in heaven or hell so until that question is fully answered I don’t think yours can be. I think it is likely Mathias though even if Judas did not go to hell, since Judas died before the resurrection and the Church age, which was when the 12 really began their ministry to go out in to the world and preach the gospel, baptizing in +. My 2 cents.

Personally I’ve never liked the arguement about Mathias being chosen for Apostlic succession of the Catholic Church.
The Bishops are not Apostles but successors to the Apostles. Paul went out and set up leaders in all the Churches. Bishops were ordained through the laying on of hands. Paul further gives instructions for ordaining new leaders through the laying on of hands. Most certainly the rest of the Apostles did as well in there diocese.

The case for succession of the papacy is very easy to make. Peter was given keys. Now I was given keys to my house. These keys give access, control, and authority to me over that house. When I sell the house I pass them on to the next owner.

That’s not all. If you look back in Is 22:22-23 there is a clear parrallel to Matt 16:18 where Eliakim is given “the keys to the house of david” from Shebna who is a corrupt “steward” or spokesman for the king. It says these keys give Eliakim authority over the house of david. The opening and shutting in that chapter is directly parrellel to Matt 16:18 binding and loosing and equivalent to it in rabinical language. No faithful Jew would have missed the parrellel Jesus was drawing. Now Shebna was a steward in a long line of stewards. The keys to the house of david had been passed on to him, as an officer for the king in the davidic kingdom. Jesus is a king in the line of david with offices in his court.

Hope that helps.

 

[ernie5349]

thessalonian:
Thanks for the help. This was just one question from a number of arguments my Protestant friend gave me after I e-mailed him a short (less than one page) commentary on apostolic succession and the primacy of Peter.

Soon thereafter I received about three pages of questions, rebuttals, and other comments that seemed to come right off of an anti-Catholic web site. His final comment was something like: “If Peter was to be the pope/head of the church, then…” followed by a list of a dozen questions or comments “proving” that he couldn’t have possibly been the head.

It’s now my turn to counter, and I think I can handle most of his points. But he really overwhelmed me with the shear volume of comments.

I tried to contact an apologist here at CA for assistance, but the response was that they can not critique documents due to time and resource limitations. Are you aware of any other resources I could use besides the links they e-mailed to me?

 

[thessalonian]

Resources? Well there are tons of resources on the net. I can recommend books as well. Upon this Rock, Steve Ray, Jesus, Peter, and the Keys, Kreft. Madrid’s Pope fiction. There are all kinds of websites. You need to get good with google.

Beyond that if you would like you can send me some of the questions. I have read the books above and have done quite a little study in the area of the papacy. Or if you just want me to go over your answers that would be fine.

But perhaps what I would do is rather than answer all of their shotgun blast start out with a few that are obvious blantan errors, ie. The Pope’s are not infallible because they sinned (shows a definite lack of understanding of the definition of the term) and see how they he recieves it. If he is not at all willing to concede on the obvious arguemnts then you may well be wasting your time answering all of his objections.

By the way it is easy with google to see if he got it off the net. Just do a search for a long phrase of one of his objections. Most of the time when I do this I find they did in fact just copy and past from an anti-catholic website. I can also send you something I wrote that is too long to post.

God bless