Acts 1: 12 – 26
The ‘A’ Team
12 Then they returned to Jerusalem from the mount called Olivet, which is near Jerusalem, a Sabbath day’s journey. 13 And when they had entered, they went up into the upper room where they were staying: Peter, James, John, and Andrew; Philip and Thomas; Bartholomew and Matthew; James the son of Alphaeus and Simon the Zealot; and Judas the son of James. 14 These all continued with one accord in prayer and supplication, with the women and Mary the mother of Jesus, and with His brothers. 15 And in those days Peter stood up in the midst of the disciples (altogether the number of names was about a hundred and twenty), and said, 16 “Men and brethren, this Scripture had to be fulfilled, which the Holy Spirit spoke before by the mouth of David concerning Judas, who became a guide to those who arrested Jesus; 17 for he was numbered with us and obtained a part in this ministry.” 18 (Now this man purchased a field with the wages of iniquity; and falling headlong, he burst open in the middle and all his entrails gushed out. 19 And it became known to all those dwelling in Jerusalem; so that field is called in their own language, Akel Dama, that is, Field of Blood.) 20 “For it is written in the Book of Psalms: ‘Let his dwelling place be desolate, and let no one live in it’; and, ‘Let another take his office.’ 21 “Therefore, of these men who have accompanied us all the time that the Lord Jesus went in and out among us, 22 beginning from the baptism of John to that day when He was taken up from us, one of these must become a witness with us of His resurrection.” 23 And they proposed two: Joseph called Barsabas, who was surnamed Justus, and Matthias. 24 And they prayed and said, “You, O Lord, who know the hearts of all, show which of these two You have chosen 25 to take part in this ministry and apostleship from which Judas by transgression fell, that he might go to his own place.” 26 And they cast their lots, and the lot fell on Matthias. And he was numbered with the eleven apostles.
Someone walks up to you and tells you that he is an apostle. How would you handle this situation? Can there be apostles today? How does one qualify to be an apostle? I would say that there cannot be any person today who could claim to be an apostle and here is why I make such a claim.
An apostle (“one sent on a mission”) is one whom God has sent on an errand or with a message. An apostle is accountable to his Sender and carries the authority of his Sender. In fact our Holy Lord Jesus Christ Himself has an “apostleship.” He wears “Apostle” as one of His descriptive titles (Hebrews 3:1). He was sent to earth by the Heavenly Father with God’s authoritative message, which He faithfully delivered (John 17:1–5).
While our Lord Jesus was here on earth, He personally selected from His many followers twelve men and gave them an apostleship—special responsibility to receive and spread His message after He returned to heaven. These chosen and sent ones were His apostles.
One of the twelve was Judas Iscariot, who betrayed Jesus to His enemies. In agony of conscience, Judas hanged himself. Thus, when Jesus returned to heaven, He left behind only eleven apostles.
So, now the eleven guys in obedience to The Lord Jesus’ command they returned to Jerusalem from the Mount of Olives where the Lord ascended back to Heaven and entered the upper chamber where they were staying. And from this time on they spent their time in ‘the prayer’, waiting patiently for what The Lord Jesus had promised.
12 Then they returned to Jerusalem from the mount called Olivet, which is near Jerusalem, a Sabbath day’s journey. 13 And when they had entered, they went up into the upper room where they were staying: Peter, James, John, and Andrew; Philip and Thomas; Bartholomew and Matthew; James the son of Alphaeus and Simon the Zealot; and Judas the son of James.
Some days later the remaining apostles were joined by other disciples including Jesus’ mom Mary, His brothers, and other believers. The group totaled about 120.
14 These all continued with one accord in prayer and supplication, with the women and Mary the mother of Jesus, and with His brothers.
And it was while they prayed that Peter made a bold step of faith. Simon Peter addressed the group and told them that Psalm 69:25 predicted Judas’ desertion and Psalm 109:8 predicted that the defector’s place among the apostles should be filled. The apostleship must fall to someone else. Peter proposed choosing a new apostle and set the qualifications. Not everyone could be considered for an apostleship.
15 And in those days Peter stood up in the midst of the disciples (altogether the number of names was about a hundred and twenty), and said, 16 “Men and brethren, this Scripture had to be fulfilled, which the Holy Spirit spoke before by the mouth of David concerning Judas, who became a guide to those who arrested Jesus; 17 for he was numbered with us and obtained a part in this ministry.” 18 (Now this man purchased a field with the wages of iniquity; and falling headlong, he burst open in the middle and all his entrails gushed out. 19 And it became known to all those dwelling in Jerusalem; so that field is called in their own language, Akel Dama, that is, Field of Blood.) 20 “For it is written in the Book of Psalms: ‘Let his dwelling place be desolate, and let no one live in it’; and, ‘Let another take his office.’
To be apostle candidates a man needed to have been with The Lord Jesus during the whole three years that Jesus was among them. That is, he needed to be an eyewitness of Jesus’ baptism when the Heavenly Father validated Jesus’ person and work. He needed to have heard Jesus’ life-changing teachings and been present to see His healings and other miracles. He needed to have witnessed Jesus sacrifice Himself on the cross and to have seen Jesus walk, talk, and eat among the disciples again after His resurrection. These were the pivotal facts of Jesus’ life, the heart of the message they were to teach, and personal witnesses were required to verify the truth of the good news.
On repeated occasions, the apostles gave witness of their personal observations of Jesus, making such statements as, “We are witnesses of everything Jesus did in the country of the Jews and in Jerusalem. They killed him by hanging him on a tree, but God raised him from the dead on the third day and caused him to be seen” (Acts 10:39–40).
Many people over the centuries have questioned whether Peter’s action was justified or not. There are a number of grounds for seeing it as a completely correct decision.
• 1). Jesus had already given to His Apostles the Holy Spirit so as to aid their discernment and give them special authority, in contrast with the Holy Spirit’s coming on the whole church (John 20.22-23; Luke 24.45). They were thus not acting without the Spirit.
• 2). the decision was one agreed on prayerfully by the whole gathering of ‘about one hundred and twenty’ disciples (verse 15).
• 3). the decision was supported by citing the Scriptures which had helped them to come to this decision. For Luke to have given the details of this must be seen as unlikely unless he considered that the argument was valid.
• 4). Luke devotes eleven verses of valuable space to describing the details of the incident, and providing the information that supported it. He would surely not have done so if he had not seen it as an important and valid decision, especially as he gives no hint of the kind of disapproval which might have indicated that there was another lesson to be learned from it.
• 5). nowhere is this decision ever later criticized.
• 6). If they were to continue going around preaching in twos as they had been taught to do by Jesus it would be necessary for an even number to be made up.
• 7). It was wise to fill the gap caused by Judas. It made them feel full and complete once again.
• 8). their purpose in making up the twelve would be as a testimony to the fact that their message was for ‘the twelve tribes of Israel’. Furthermore the twelvefold eyewitness to the life, teaching and resurrection of Jesus was clearly seen as important (in those days numbers were seen as highly significant), while the making up of the full number would help them to forget the failure of their former co-worker.
I have had people from time to time be concerned that Paul should have been the twelfth apostle. They claimed that Peter was again too presumptuous in going ahead and wanting to fill the twelfth position. They say that The Lord had his eyes on Paul to fill the spot.
The bible answers this point. It should be noted that Paul was an apostle yet he was different from the other apostles. Paul himself recognized that he was an Apostle ‘to the Gentiles’ (Galatians 2.7-8; Romans 11.13), and therefore not one of ‘the twelve’ - 1 Corinthians 15.5). In addition, Paul had not witnessed our Lord Jesus’ life from the beginning.
Luke in his investigation gives us additional information about Judas. Among the Jews, when a man had entered into a contract from which he wanted to withdraw for conscience sake, and the other party refused to accept the money back, a means was provided by which he could take whatever was involved to the Temple and officially hand it back there. By that means he was seen as exonerated from guilt for what he had done. And that is what Judas had done (Matthew 27.3-7). But there were limits as to what contracts could be so revoked, and Judas’ money was not acceptable to the Temple because it was blood money. It could not therefore be taken into the Temple treasury.
So the money remained Judas' until it was decided what to do with it. The authorities then met and decided that it should therefore be used for a non-sacred purpose, by assisting Gentiles (Jews could not be helped with blood money). So Judas' money was used to obtain the potter's field to bury strangers in, and in essence Judas ‘obtained the field’.
We learn here also more detail as to the inglorious death of Judas. The full story of what had happened had now clearly become known. When a man hangs himself his greatest problem is to ensure a quick death, and it was regularly recognized that this could be achieved by a sharp drop once the rope was around the neck. Judas had probably chosen some high spot (a cliff or tree) within the land bought with his money (indicating his clinically depressed state) from which to carry out his suicide (Matthew 27.5) and putting the rope round his neck had leaped to his death. It would appear from Peter’s description here that this had resulted in his being ‘burst asunder so that all his bowels gushed out’. This could easily have happened, for example, if the rope broke and he fell onto rocks below, or if in the fall he swung against something jagged or pointed. All we finally know is that he hung himself and finished with his stomach burst open.
The result of this vivid and seemingly ominous death was that the name of the place where it happened became known to the locals as Akel Dama, ‘the field of blood’. It would not take long for such a story to get around at festival time and for such a name to be given. The incident had clearly caused great horror, and as it would be seen as defiling the land at Passover time, it would be necessary for warning to be given of it that the field might be avoided.
As mentioned Peter then cites two Scriptures which had especially struck him in connection with the incident, one found in Psalm 69.25 and the other in Psalm 109.8. From them he recognized the justice of what had happened to Judas, and that therefore, because of the important ministry to which he had been called, it was necessary that he be replaced.
21 “Therefore, of these men who have accompanied us all the time that the Lord Jesus went in and out among us, 22 beginning from the baptism of John to that day when He was taken up from us, one of these must become a witness with us of His resurrection.”
The credentials for the replacement, for a member of ‘the twelve’, is made clear (which were in fact stricter than the ones our Lord Jesus had required for some of the original twelve). Such a one was to be someone who had been a disciple right from the beginning of Jesus’ ministry when John was baptizing and had travelled with Him extensively, ‘going in and out’ among the disciples and being with them continually, and being a witness of the resurrection up to this very time of Jesus being received up. He was to have been an eyewitness and direct hearer of all that Jesus had done from the beginning, so that he could be a true witness. It involved regular companionship and association with the Lord Jesus.
This requirement confirms that the twelve could not continually to be maintained. Once those who had been with Jesus from the time of His baptism had died out it would have been impossible anyway. And the later acceptance of Paul as an Apostle, on different grounds, stresses the uniqueness of Apostleship. But he too recognized the necessity that he had seen the risen Lord, as one ‘born out of due time’ (1 Corinthians 15.8). Being able to be a witness to the resurrection was thus seen as vitally essential.
23 And they proposed two: Joseph called Barsabas, who was surnamed Justus, and Matthias. 24 And they prayed and said, “You, O Lord, who know the hearts of all, show which of these two You have chosen 25 to take part in this ministry and apostleship from which Judas by transgression fell, that he might go to his own place.” 26 And they cast their lots, and the lot fell on Matthias. And he was numbered with the eleven apostles.
The two finally seen as fulfilling all the requirements adequately, and approved of by all, were Barsabbas and Matthias. Barsabbas means ‘son of the Sabbath’, and Justus would be his Roman name. Matthias was probably short for Mattathias. They were not necessarily the only two who fulfilled the qualifications, but they were seen as the most suitable.
For those individuals who still stuck to their position that Matthias was not really the right man to be an apostle was from these points of view.
1. They only gave God two choices in which to select
2. You do not find God’s acknowledgment of this choice.
Again let us turn to the word of God for the answer to these arguments. First of all I am sure that you are aware that our Holy Lord answers our prayers three ways Yes, no, and no response. You see the 120 people having made their final selections they committed the matter in prayer and sought God’s guidance on the matter. Our Lord could have given them a no response signifying that both of their applications He was not approving either one.
If you go to chapter 6 verse 2 we see that our Holy Spirit is giving recognition of Matthias because he is now counted as member number 12, it says, “Then the twelve summoned the multitude of the disciples and said, “It is not desirable that we should leave the word of God and serve tables.
