SUMMARY – APOSTOLIC POSITION PAPER
We celebrate our Lord Jesus Christ as the foremost Apostle, whom God sent by incarnation into the world to redeem humanity (Hebrews 3:1).1 He chose foundational apostles to write the New Testament Scriptures and lay the foundation of the Lord’s church (Luke 6:13; Galatians 1:1). The New Testament also identifies functional apostles, who followed the Twelve (Acts 14:14). Functional apostles have served in every generation since then to blaze the gospel trail to the ends of the earth. The New Testament term, apostle, therefore, carries the sense of one chosen, gifted and empowered by God and sent on a specific divine assignment.
The role of apostles has always been to plant the gospel in every culture worldwide and do it on the base built by Jesus Christ, the foremost Apostle, and His foundational apostles. Motivated by this sense of the Great Commission, the Lord’s church has advanced steadily. At each of these three levels (Jesus, the foremost Apostle, the foundational apostles, and the functional apostles), apostolic ministry has been marked by signs, wonders, and miracles amid great perseverance (2 Corinthians 12:12).
To achieve the Lord’s worldwide agenda, Jesus asked the Father to send the Holy Spirit to empower believers. The Day of Pentecost, therefore, marked the birth of the church. The charismata, or manifold gifts of the Holy Spirit, have always been fundamental to the Lord’s strategy of global harvest. The apostle Paul wrote that God gave him an eightfold listing he sent to the believers at Corinth (1 Corinthians 12:28-31). The same apostle said the Lord Jesus Christ gave him a fivefold identification of ministry giftings that he sent to the church at Ephesus (Ephesians 4:11-13). Paul further said the Holy Spirit gave him a ninefold list, often identified as manifestation gifts, and that the Spirit appointed bishops in the church at Ephesus (1 Corinthians 12:7-11; Acts 20:28). We believe these gifts and ministries have not ceased but will continue until Jesus returns.
We recognize the active involvement of the Trinity in the giftings of the Spirit. In their composite, these giftings portray the full-orbed ministry of Jesus Christ. The result is that people in every generation have been won to the Lord, planted in churches, and built up in the most holy faith. The International Pentecostal Holiness Church (IPHC) affirms that these gifts are primarily ministry gifts rather than governmental offices.
Functional apostles are named in the New Testament. It is also unmistakable that the foundational apostles, in writing the New Testament scriptures, planted the seeds that birthed the ministry of bishops among the Early Church Fathers, a practice that has continued to this day. Therefore, we recognize the ministry of functional apostles and of bishops in church history as having a close resemblance. We also recognize that false apostles appeared in the apostolic church as well as in church history, and that we must remain alert to the continuing danger of these emissaries of Satan. (See 2 Corinthians 11:13-15; Revelation 2:2.)
By affirming and releasing the leadership ministry gifts Paul identified, and recognizing the governmental roles of bishops and elders, the IPHC provides a biblical and historical form of government that is consistent with two thousand years of church history (Ephesians 4:11; Titus 1:5).
We celebrate that the Holy Spirit has always manifested apostolic witness in every generation of the Lord’s church, including the manifold charismata of the Spirit. And, in the contemporary Pentecostal revival, the multiple giftings of the Holy Spirit continue to demonstrate the ministry of the Lord. As Spirit-filled believers in the modern church, we commit ourselves to the same bold dedication our fathers in the Early Church made to the Lord’s Great Commission. Blinded eyes must be opened everywhere. The gospel must go to the ends of the earth.
Iglesia Casa de Dios 