How do we know the apostolic word in the present? The apostles and those in the apostolic circle wrote the New Testament for us as stated 2 Peter 3:16, “as he does in all his letters when he speaks in them of these matters. There are some things in them that are hard to understand, which the ignorant and unstable twist to their own destruction, as they do the other Scriptures.” Jesus also foretold of this in John 14:26. “But the Helper, the Holy Spirit, whom the Father will send in my name, he will teach you all things and bring to your remembrance all that I have said to you.”

Reformed Reflections

The last attribute of Christ’s church mentioned in the Nicene Creed is apostolicity—one holy, catholic, and apostolic church. According to Herman Bavinck, “apostolicity is undoubtedly a distinguishing mark of the church of Christ.”[1] Edmund Clowney adds, “the sure sign of Christ’s true church is the preaching of the apostolic gospel.”[2] Protestants generally, and especially the Reformed, see this attribute as closely connected to the apostolic gospel which gave birth to the church. Roman Catholics understand apostolicity to be essentially about the birth and organization of the church and its subsequent history (of which Rome claims to be the true heir), while the Eastern Orthodox closely tie apostolicity to the Eucharist and the succession of bishops who guard its purity. Protestants focus upon the message which is the foundation of the church (the gospel) while others tend to focus upon the history and continuity of the church as an institution which has its origin in the apostolic age (apostolic succession).

Not all Reformed folk frame the matter this way since the foundation of the church upon the preached gospel and its subsequent history of promulgation cannot be fully separated. J. A. Heyns, a South African theologian, contends that apostolicity is not on the same level as the previous three attributes. “Apostolicity is not an eschatological attribute . . . but rather the historical method by which the Church realizes those three attributes” (i.e, unity, holiness, catholicity). “Moreover,” says Heyns, “it is clear that ‘apostolic’ can easily be replaced by ‘biblical’ or ‘scriptural’, so that what is expressed by this term might equally well be included among the notae ecclesiae [marks of the church].” He concludes that “none the less, apostolicity . . . would indicate the Church’s historical continuity in respect of its origin, message, and task.”[3]

Michael Horton offers another important qualification. “Apostolicity is guaranteed neither by immanent history nor by inner immediacy; it is a gift from above, in time and across time. On this point . . . only the ministry of the Spirit working through the Word and the sacraments, maintaining discipline across the generations, is able to sustain this kind of integrated praxis.”[4]

As an attribute of the church, the meaning of apostolicity arises from Jesus Christ creating his church through the preached word in the days of the apostles and sustaining it across time through word and sacrament in the power of the Holy Spirit.

Roman Catholic Teaching

It should come as no surprise that Rome focuses upon the history of the institutional church and the office of the papacy when discussing this attribute. According to Avery Dulles:

The concept of catholicity in time strikes us as unusual because we generally place the historical continuity of the Church under the caption of apostolicity rather than catholicity. But since the theme of apostolicity would raise more specialized questions, such as the succession in the ordained ministry, I prefer to speak first of the abiding identity of the Church as a whole through the centuries.[5]

Protestants respond by noting that if catholicity focuses upon the universality of the church, apostolicity focuses upon the continuity of doctrine from the church’s founding until the present—not the church’s institutions (i.e., ordained offices).

Eastern Orthodox Teaching

The Orthodox Church does not focus upon the priesthood and papacy (the ordained ministry) as Romes does, but upon the Eucharist as the foundation for the church and the basis for its continuity. Steenberg argues that for Orthodoxy (EO):

The Church is ‘one’ precisely here: in the chalice . . . since the Church is the living body of the one there to be met. The Church is ‘holy’ in exactly this act of sacramental communion, the sanctification of the Spirit . . . . And the Church is both ‘catholic’ and ‘apostolic’ inasmuch as the Eucharistic communion is understood as the singular encounter with the one Christ met and known by the apostles . . . It is thus in the Eucharist, the sacrament of sacraments, that the Church finds its fullest definition . . .[6]

According to McGuckin in his volume, the Orthodox Church:

One major factor in this period of the apostolic and immediate post apostolic generation was the organization of worship. The Christian cultus centered around the celebration of Jesus’ salvific life and death and resurrection, as the fulfillment of the scriptural hope (`the Old Testament’ as they soon began to call the ancient prophetic narratives) and as the promise of new life in the present moment.

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