In describing how both Jews and Gentiles were reconciled in one body by the cross, Paul says that God “hath raised us up together, and made us sit together in heavenly places in Christ Jesus:  that in the ages to come he might show the exceeding riches of his grace” (Eph. 2:  6, 7).  The unified church of the apostolic day is therefore the divine model for all succeeding ages.

[Sidenote:  Paul’s relation thereto]

Since the first apostles were employed as special agents in establishing the perfected New Testament church, Paul’s connection therewith is of particular importance.  Paul was not one of the original twelve, yet he exerted a tremendous influence in that period and was undoubtedly one of the chief agents used in establishing the church and fixing its external form and character.

Many believe that Paul belonged among the twelve as the real successor of Judas.  According to this view, the election of Matthias to the apostleship was without divine sanction, being proposed by the impetuous Peter, who, before the descent of the Holy Ghost, often proposed inadvised things.  Strength is given this view by the oft-repeated assertion of Paul that he was an apostle, “not of men, neither by men, but by Jesus Christ” (Gal. 1:  1).  We are not forced to that conclusion concerning Matthias, however.  In writing the Acts of the Apostles, Luke the companion of Paul, records the appointment of Matthias without intimating that it was a mistake.  In Scripture usage a certain parallelism is maintained between the twelve apostles of the Lamb and the twelve tribes of the children of Israel.  When we recall that there were literally thirteen tribes in Israel, Ephriam and Manasseh standing for Joseph, we need not be surprized that there should be literally thirteen foundational apostles in the Christian church, Matthias and Paul standing, as it were, in the place of Judas.

There can be no doubt that Paul really ranked with the Twelve.  He was a “chosen vessel,” the “apostle of the Gentiles.”  Although as one “born out of due time,” he himself saw Jesus and from him received the entire gospel by direct revelation.  Consequently the other apostles possessed no advantage over him.  He himself says, “The gospel which was preached of me was not after man.  For I neither received it of man, neither was I taught it, but by the revelation of Jesus Christ” (Gal. 1:11, 12).  He “was not a whit behind the very chiefest apostles” (2 Cor. 11:5).  And it was through Paul particularly that the revelation of the “mystery” was made complete—­“that both Jews and Gentiles should be fellow heirs and of the SAME body,” and he was commissioned “to make all men see” it.

The general church was, therefore, made up of various local congregations, which were “set in order” by apostolic authority.  The essential nature of this organization is determined by the object for which these congregations were formed, the conditions of membership therein, and the kind of laws by which they were governed.