In the period between the Ascension of Jesus and Pentecost,
we have one action taken by the early church recorded in Acts. Peter called the
gathered followers of Jesus to select an apostolic replacement for Judas. This
little incident has caused quite a bit of controversy, and there are a number
of opinions about just what this episode means.
There are some who think the early church jumped the gun.
They point to Paul’s call as an apostle, and claim that he was meant to be
Judas’ replacement. However, this argument rests on the faulty assumption that
Paul’s apostleship was the same thing as that of the disciples. When we look at
the qualifications Peter laid out for Judas’ successor, we see that Paul met
neither of them. Paul’s encounter with the risen Christ came well after He had
ascended into heaven. Therefore Paul, while legitimately an apostle, was an
apostle in a different sense than the Twelve.
Some questions are raised about the way the church chose the
new apostle. Given the qualifications stated by Peter, there would have been a
number of men qualified to take Judas’ place. It is likely (though not
explicitly stated in Scripture) that Joseph and Matthias were both part of the larger group of disciples (70 or
72) sent out by Jesus, as recorded by Luke in Luke 10. That means there were
probably several dozen others who met the minimum criteria! Something about
these two stood out, however, as the group gathered together examined all of
the men. If the “they” of verse 23 is the entire group, which I think is
likely, the decision probably came down to these final two men.
Once the final candidates were chosen, the church decided to
make the selection not by a vote or a decree of the apostles, but by lot. This
seems odd to us today; would you call a pastor based on the flip of a coin? But
the church wanted this decision, which had tremendous consequences for these
men and for the new congregation forming, to be the Lord’s choice. The use of
lots may reflect the way the high priest would seek the Lord’s counsel through
the use of the Urim and Thummim (whose precise function we don’t know). It also
reflected their belief that even what seems to be chance to us is in fact
controlled by God. They cast the lot, and Matthias was chosen.
While Judas was replaced among the Twelve, this is the last
time that this happens. When James is executed by Herod, there is no
replacement sought for him. Nor do we see any of the other apostles replaced
after their deaths. Why, then, did Peter call for a successor to Judas? First,
he cites prophecy, but I think more significant is the statement in verse 25: “to take the place in this apostolic service that
Judas left to go to his own place.” Taken together, there was a sense
that Judas had abandoned his place among the apostles, and that there was a
need to complete the number Jesus had chosen. When the apostles later died,
they died still in their place, having remained faithful until the end.
This leaves us with the
question of what this scenario means to us today. Certainly decision making in
the church has changed since the coming of the Holy Spirit, something they did
not yet have. I think that the choices made, and even the procedure used, show
us that the earliest followers of Jesus did not want to put their own thinking
and wisdom ahead of God’s will when making choices. There was a dependence on
the Lord and His wisdom that we in the church can sometimes neglect in favor of
our own ideas. While I certainly don’t advocate tossing dice to solve church
problems, I do think we need to keep a constant awareness of God’s will and
wisdom, and rely on the Holy Spirit to guide us into His truth, not ours.
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