Systematic Theology - Church

Apostolic Succession

Professor: Dr. R.J. Rushdoony

Subject: Systematic Theology

Lesson: Government

Genre: Speech

Track: 26

Dictation Name: 26 Apostolic Succession

Year: 1960’s – 1970’s

O Lord our God, to whom belongs all power, dominion and authority. We come to thee mindful that the battle rages all around us, and the powers of darkness seek to destroy thy kingdom. We thank thee that we have the assurance of our Lord’s words that the gates of hell cannot prevail against his kingdom, his church, and so, our God, we pray that thou wouldst give us faith, courage, and an unwavering resistance that we may be more than conquerors through Christ, that we may go forth without discouragement, to stand in the time of adversity and to conquer. Grant us this, we beseech thee, in Christ’s name. Amen.

Our text this morning is from Ephesians 4:4-16, and our subject is Apostolic Succession. “There is one body, and one Spirit, even as ye are called in one hope of your calling; one Lord, one faith, one baptism, one God and Father of all, who is above all, and through all, and in you all. But unto every one of us is given grace according to the measure of the gift of Christ. Wherefore he saith, When he ascended up on high, he led captivity captive, and gave gifts unto men. (Now that he ascended, what is it but that he also descended first into the lower parts of the earth? He that descended is the same also that ascended up far above all heavens, that he might fill all things.)

And he gave some, apostles; and some, prophets; and some, evangelists; and some, pastors and teachers; for the perfecting of the saints, for the work of the ministry, for the edifying of the body of Christ: till we all come in the unity of the faith, and of the knowledge of the Son of God, unto a perfect man, unto the measure of the stature of the fulness of Christ: that we henceforth be no more children, tossed to and fro, and carried about with every wind of doctrine, by the sleight of men, and cunning craftiness, whereby they lie in wait to deceive us.”

Apostolic succession is a doctrine that is very definitely controversial. At the same time, it is unhappily too little understood, and my hope is this morning to discuss this doctrine without any animosity to the varying views of this subject, but with concern, or an understanding of the truth.

The term “apostolic succession” is usually limited to a description of the Roman Catholic doctrine, as though the doctrine were exclusively the doctrine of the Catholic church. My concern is with the underlying conception, which is common to all churches, although under differing names. What does apostolic succession in its essential meaning imply?

What is says is that a church is somehow in succession in tune with, in conformity with, the apostolic faith as it is set forth in the scriptures. Now, every church believes that. Even false groups, such as the Mormons, claim to be the true church, the Latter Day Saints, having some kind of authoritative succession established by Christ. In some form or another, every church that is Christian or claims to be, declares it has a succession with the apostles, from Christ, from scripture. Certainly, the Reformation saw the New Testament church as normative. This is to say that it held to apostolic succession in some form, the form varies from church to church.

Now, there are essentially three versions of this doctrine of apostolic succession, and I shall start by giving the Roman Catholic version as it is given by Wilhelm in the Catholic Encyclopedia. It represents that form of the doctrine which prevailed from the Council of Trent, in particular, to Vatican I, where of course, it reached its highest point. Since Vatican II, there have been divergent tendencies. It would be very unwise and premature to say what future developments there will be within the Catholic tradition of this doctrine. There have been a variety of opinions on this over the centuries, but to return to Wilhelm’s opinion, the official version at the time that the Catholic Encyclopedia was published, in 1907, and still the prevailing view. He said first, that apostolic succession is found in the Roman Catholic Church. Two, that none of the separate churches have any valid claim to it, and three, that the Anglican church in particular has broken away from apostolic unity.

However, as Wilhelm then goes on to expound this position, he develops another key aspect to the doctrine which is not in his three-point summary. Namely, the role of the papacy as the transmitter of this succession. Because of this factor, some of the most militant expressions of this doctrine within the Catholic tradition have questioned the place of the eastern churches.

Now, I am not interested in discussing, although I’ve begun with the Catholic version because this is what most people understand when you say apostolic succession. I am more concerned with understanding the particular types of belief in apostolic succession that there are, and there are basically three versions of the doctrine.

The first, which from Trent until recently, has been the official position of the Catholic church and before that was quite common, is this: that there is a tactual succession. That is, from person to person, from Peter to the present, by the actual laying on of hands. Moreover, with this tactual succession, the laying on of hands, goes a deposit of grace. This deposit of grace, among other things, enables the one who receives this succession to transubstantiate the elements of communion. This deposit of grace is so abiding that even a renegade priest who leaves the church and denies the faith, becomes an atheist, still has that power to his dying day, and it was a generation or so ago, not uncommon for such reprobate priests to ridicule the faith when they were in a bar, in a predominantly Protestant area, by ostensibly transubstantiating the drink he had in his hand, to the shock of the few Catholics who were there.

This power thus, is by tactual succession. It can go to evil men, and can still empower them. Thus, in the medieval era, many men were made bishops and even popes who were not even priests at the time of their election. In one case, one man was a pirate who later was declared to be an anti-pope, and piracy was the least of his sins, but the men were ordained one day, and consecrated the next day as a bishop or a pope. It was tactual succession. Dante, in his Inferno, put some of these men in hell. He did not deny the validity of their succession. Succession meant and means authority, not necessarily virtue, which is an important point to grasp.

Now, this doctrine usually goes hand-in-hand with a belief in baptismal regeneration. Just as tactual succession confers authority and a deposit of grace in ordination, so tactual succession, so to speak, the tactual power of regeneration is conferred in baptism.

Now, these things I have described as not exclusively Catholic doctrines, although we normally associate it with Catholics. You do find, for example, a belief in baptismal regeneration and tactual succession among some Lutherans. I’ve encountered it among a certain variety of Baptists, come Campbellites, and I’ve even known a Presbyterian or two who has held to baptismal regeneration and tactual succession. So, in describing tactual succession, we are describing a particular doctrine which, while basically it has been the Catholic doctrine is not exclusively so.

The second version of the doctrine of apostolic succession is spiritual succession, a succession of faith, where a man has a call and that is in itself sufficient. Now, the classic example of spiritual succession is your Quaker communion. The Quakers believe in no actual tactual succession. The tactual element is wiped out. The physical element is wiped out of their church. You only have a spiritual baptism, which in origin, was semi-Charismatic. You have a spiritual communion service. No physical baptism, no physical communion, no physical ordination in origin. This is the concept of a purely spiritual succession. A call of God is determinative, and there is no necessary call of men.

Now, this second version, spiritual succession, has been more popular in name than in fact. Many protestants have picked it up and affirmed it without realizing its full implications, because the logic of it is, as those who have practiced it in the past have said plainly, it self-ordination. A man says, “I am called of God,” and he lays his hands upon himself, in effect, and says, “I am hereby ordained as a pastor, or as a prophet.” This view, therefore, has serious defects. It is interesting that we have both these first two versions in some form or another in ancient Jewish practice. The Pharisees, for example, held to a tactual succession, and we have various indications of this in the Gospels. For example, in John 8:33, the Pharisees answered our Lord saying, “We be Abraham’s seed,” and that’s sufficient. They did not need to be taught. John the Baptist encountered this, we are told in Matthew 3:9, and the response of the Pharisees to him was, “We have Abraham to our father.”

You also had, among many of the Jewish cults of the day, a belief in a purely spiritual succession. The sad fact is with the second view, spiritual succession, it does lead to fearful extravagances, as was apparent among the early Quakers.

Now, the third view has elements of both the first two views. The third view affirms tactual succession in some form or another. An Episcopal, a Presbyterian, or a Congregational form of succession. At the same time, it affirms the necessity of the spiritual call and a spiritual succession of doctrine. Thus, to illustrate one example of this position, Calvin. Calvin criticized the Catholic view with intensity. He did see its relationship to the Jewish version. He cited St. Cyprian and Augustine to insist on the necessity of sound doctrine and brotherly love, so what Calvin did was to go back to the early church, and some of the saints of the Catholic church to say, “Look, there’s more to this doctrine than you are affirming.” The early Anglican bishops, as they dealt with this subject, because it was a lively matter of discussion and controversy, held to the same view. Thus, Bishop Jewell{?}, in his answer to Harding, said, “Succession, you say, is the chief way for any Christian man to avoid anti-Christ. I grant you, if you mean a succession of doctrine.”

But Calvin and the Anglican bishops, and others as well, did not, in stressing succession of faith and doctrine, affirm a purely spiritual succession. Calvin cited Ephesians 4:4-16, which we read earlier, as basic to the meaning of ordination and succession. The church is not simply a succession of individuals, although it is that, but also one body with one Lord, one faith, and one baptism. It is the individual in his faith and it is the one body and its faith, and so Calvin said, with regard to Ephesians 4:4-16, “In this passage, he (Paul) shows that the ministry of men which God employs in his government of the church, is the principle bond which holds believers together in one body. He also indicates that the church cannot be preserved in perfect safety unless it is supported by these means which God has been pleased to appoint for its preservation. Christ,” he says, “ascended up far above all heavens that he might fill all things, and this is the way which he does it. By means of his ministers to whom he has committed this office, and on whom he has bestowed grace to discharge it. He dispenses and distributes his gifts to the church, and even affords some manifestation of his own presence, by exerting the power of his Spirit in this, his institution, that it may not be vain or ineffectual.”

Thus, Calvin is emphatic that there must be a succession of doctrine as well as the calling of man, but with it, a tactual succession, a line of authority. Calvin said, concerning spiritual succession, “No man can lawfully exercise this ministry without having been called by God.” But he also went on to say that a tactual succession was necessary, and I’m going to read his statement on that, but note, when he says bishop, he meant either a presbyter or a bishop. He was flexible at that point. “The election and appointment of bishops by men is necessary to constitute a legitimate call to office. No sober person will deny this while there are no many testimonies of scripture to establish it.”

In other words, Calvin held that there had to be the spiritual call and the sound doctrine, and also that men were involved in it, the church and its succession, whatever the form of that church might be.

This substantially was the earlier Catholic position. This third form of succession thus holds to a succession of sound doctrine with a call to that faith, a spiritual call, and some form of tactual ordination and succession. Some have held to the Episcopal, others to the Presbyterian, and others to the Congregational and/or Baptist forms of succession, but what we must say is that all churches in some form, hold to apostolic succession. The point of difference is as to what the form of that succession is.

Moreover, I would say if anything, all are increasingly holding to the necessity of the call, sound doctrine on the one hand, and tactual succession on the other. The difference is as to the form of the tactual succession.

Now, to understand the unity of thought, I’ve pointed out the relationship between a doctrine of purely tactual succession and baptismal regeneration. This unity of thought goes beyond the sphere of the church. Let me illustration, again by Calvin, who is easier to follow in these things, because Calvin was a systematic and logical thinker on the whole. Let us look at Calvin’s view of state authority, the authority of civil government. Of civil authorities, Calvin wrote, “Here let no man deceive himself, for it is impossible to resist the magistrate without, at the same time, resisting God himself.” Now, that’s a strong statement. However, Calvin also said resistance could be possible and, in fact, was necessary for civil magistrates, those within government. Just as he felt those within the church had a duty to resist unsound doctrine, that their office gave them the duty as well as authority to do so.

So Calvin said, that any civil magistrate who did not resist tyranny and seek to replace it with lawful authority under God, was sinning before God, and he said, “In part, for though the correction of tyrannical domination is the vengeance of God, we are not, therefore, to conclude that it is committed to us who have received no other command than to obey and suffer. This observation I always apply to private persons, for if there be, in the present day, any magistrate appointed for the protection of the people, and the moderation of the power of kings, such as were in ancient time before I, who were a check upon the kings in Greece, or the popular tribunes upon the councils among the Romans, or the demarki{?} upon the Senate upon the Athenians, or with power such as perhaps is now possessed by the three estates in every kingdom when they are assembled. I am so far from prohibiting them in the discharge of their duty, to oppose the violence of cruelty of kings, that I affirm that if they connive at kings in their oppression of their people, such forbearance involves the most nefarious perfidy, because they fraudulently betray the liberty of the people, of which they know that they have been appointed protectors by the ordination of God.”

Thus, Calvin held that resistance to evil is a necessity, but it must be a lawful resistance. Thus, he stressed the necessity for recognizing lawful authority, order, and succession. He held that the regulations and the orders of the church are not, “an invention of men, but an institution of God himself.” The sad fact is that today, while we have all churches professing to hold to a particular kind of order, instead they practice anarchy, both Protestants and Catholics alike. They give a verbal affirmation of their church’s position while holding the anarchic right to dissent totally, and the premise of their dissent is not, “Thus saith the Lord,” but rather, “I don’t agree with that.”

Hence, to such men, any discussion of apostolic succession is, in a sense, purely academic, but it is not so from the perspective of the New Testament. When we look at Ephesians 4:4-16, Paul does not say that the church may be called one body if everybody gets together. Rather, he declares that the church is one body, Jesus Christ. He does not summon us to come into a unity by coming together. Rather, he declares that the church in Christ is a unity. It is the body of Christ, and we are either of him, or we are not. We are either a part of the unity which he and his body are, or we are not. The church is one Lord, one faith, one baptism. We can only be baptized into Christ, not into the Presbyterian, Baptist, or Catholic church. We are baptized into and in the name of the triune God.

Moreover, within the church, there are a diversity of gifts, and powers, and authorities. As Charles Hodge pointed out with regard to Ephesians 4:4-16, “This diversity of gifts is not only consistent with unity, but it’s essential to it. The body is not one member, but many. In any organism a diversity of parts is necessary to the unity of the whole. If all were one member, asks the apostle, where were the body? The position, moreover, of each member in the body is not determined by itself, but by God. The eye does not make itself the eye, nor the ear the ear. It is thus in the church.”

But, of course, when you have anarchy, every man says, “I am the head of the church. If I don’t like what goes on, I have the right to say, ‘Too bad for you.’” But just as our body has a head, hands, feet, heart, and more, so the church is a body, a unity because there are diversities of gifts, Paul says. The rule of Christ’s gifts is not our merit, but his good pleasure. The ascended power, Paul says, gives us gifts as a conqueror. The purpose of his exaltation is to fill the universe with his power, rule, and presence, and the gifts of the authority each of us have has, as its function, to bless us in our fulfillment of his purpose, and to bring us to perfection. As Hodge said, the standard of perfection for the church is complete conformity to Christ.

Basic to the unity of the church is the kingship of Christ. This, of course, is the theme of the Book of Judges. “In those days there was no king in Israel.” People had rejected Christ as king, and every man did that which was right in his own eyes. Apostolic succession means submission and life in behalf of the faith which was once delivered unto the saints, as Jude 3 tells us. It means, as against self-allegiance, allegiance to Christ. It means faithfulness to the triune God, to all God-given authorities within that succession of faith. It means the recognition that the Bible has more authority than we have, and it alone confers authority. A faith has no future if it does not have such a past and such a present. Apostolic succession thus, is an important doctrine. To affirm that indeed, we are in succession with what scripture declares, the faith of the apostles, that we are faithful to the authorities it establishes. This is what it means to be a faithful member of Jesus Christ.

Are there any questions now? Yes?

[Audience] The many evangelicals, in their effort to fight neo-Pentecostals, use this passage as evidence that, and others, that apostles and prophets are no longer with us, that they stopped functioning at the close of Revelation, and that the only office that now exists, offices, are the evangelists, and pastors, and teachers, and yet we’re all sent-out ones, and we’re all to do the work of the prophet, we’re all the spread the good news. What is the proper way to view that, the right and orthodox way?

[Rushdoony] Yes, the apostles were those whom Christ chose with the addition of Paul. Their succession does not mean that all are also apostles who succeed them. The term “prophets” has a double meaning. A prophet is one who speaks for God. A prophet also can mean “one who prophesies,” that is, predicts the future. Now, in that sense, only those prophets who are the prophets of scripture, are prophets, but in the sense of speaking for God, all who are called to the ministry are prophets. Now, in the New Testament era, there were some who had prophetic gifts. In that sense, there are no prophets today who have the gift of predicting and speaking directly from God. With the close of the canon, that ended, but the term prophets is a common one in the history of the church, for those who were called to preach the word of God. In fact, within the Church of England, in the first century of that church after Henry VIII, schools of prophets were established. These were essentially ministerial training sessions, because they spoke of them as called to a prophetic ministry, called to proclaim the word of God. These were subsequently suppressed by the Tudor monarchs, but the term did survive in certain circles. Now, in that sense, the use of prophet is legitimate. Yes?

[Audience] You’ve mentioned before that, with the increase of many small independent churches, that mainlines denominations have criticized them as para-church organizations, and I take that to mean illegitimate in some sense. In terms of your third definition of apostolic succession, it would seem that the mainline denominations have some leg to stand on if there is not indeed any tactile succession with the small and many other independent organizations.

[Rushdoony] These independent groups are normally Congregational Baptist, and they believe in a Congregational succession. So, within their own concept of succession, they are valid. The churches that still call themselves Congregational and are now the United Church of Christ, have become semi-Presbyterians. So, in a sense, they have abandoned their particular concept of order, so you have reviving Congregational Baptist tradition among those who are resisting the development of large denominational authority. So, in that sense, they are legitimate. The criticism of para-church organizations is not of these independent church groups. It is of church agencies that are other than the church and directly controlled by the church. Thus, some Catholic conservatives have organized various associations to defend Catholic orthodoxy. They have, in a few cases, been called para-church because they’re independent. It would include things like Lester Olaf’s{?} work among juvenile delinquents, and his home for delinquent children. That has been called a para-church organization. Chalcedon could be classified as a para-church organization. Various independent missionary boards, groups that are conducting missions in the slums, rescue mission, all these are being criticized as para-church organizations in that they are not directly under the church, although they work very often closely, very closely, with the churches, but they still conduct a ministry of the sort, and so many established churches are attacking the whole concept of para-church organizations.

Any other questions? Yes?

[Audience] How is the tactual succession to be achieved in a situation where you may have a problem with an apostate body? {?} was in a, some kind of succession there. He was a monk before he, when a monk is, as far as Roman Catholics were concerned. Calvin, I don’t know much about how he was ordained and all that, but would you comment a little on that, because the Roman Catholic church, at that time, had some real problems, and {?} came out of that background, how would a person normally come out of that kind of thing?

[Rushdoony] Yes. The question is, tactual succession, how was it maintained? Well, of course, the Episcopal church held that it had that independent status before there was a union with Rome, required by the monarchy, and their position has been that we were an independent, apostolic church prior to being forced into union with Rome, and then forced out of union with Rome by Henry VIII, but we had out own continuity. The attitude of other groups such as Lutheran was, that they did gain some kind of continuity, and their bishops and so on, and that’s a highly debatable point, that of the various Reformed bodies was that they had a unity because ordained priests came together as presbyters to establish presbyteries and ordain.

Well, our time is really up so let us conclude with a word of prayer.

Our Lord and our God, make us ever mindful that we are called to be faithful. Make us joyful in the faith and victorious in Jesus Christ as we contend against the powers of darkness. In Christ’s name we pray. Amen.

End of tape