Acts 1:15-26

4. The recompletion of the apostolic number. Acts 1:15-26 .

On the apostolic number twelve, see our vol. ii, p. 81. As Jesus is now enthroned on high over the house of Israel, temporal and spiritual, so it befits that his viceroys (see our note on Matthew 19:28) should in their complete significant number receive the unction of the Pentecostal Spirit. Accordingly, we see (Acts 2:14) that the full twelve stand up on that occasion as the divinely recognised number. In this we recognise the full disproof of the opinion sometimes maintained, that Paul, not Matthias, was “the twelfth apostle.” If the apostles in this election acted mistakenly and without Divine guidance, it was an act of most officious impertinence, and it is utterly unsupposable that Luke should record it in full as among truly apostolic acts. His closing assertion that Matthias was “numbered with the eleven apostles” no doubt expresses the permanent acceptance of the Church, even after the day of Pentecost. We do not hesitate, therefore, to reckon it as one of the preparatories for the Pentecost that the organic number of the apostles should be complete.