The apostles, whom we know as the Twelve, walked with Jesus for years and saw how He healed the sick and performed other miracles. Blind eyes were opened, deaf hearing, lame walking, etc. They were also taught at His feet. We find several of these sermons with which Jesus taught them in Scripture, such as the Sermon on the Mount in Matthew 5-7 and the so-called Sermon on the Last Things in Matthew 24 and 25 (in the English-speaking world usually referred to as: the second Sermon on the Mount).
Words of Eternal Life
The Twelve had seen wonderful things and knew Who they were dealing with, namely the promised Messiah! In John 6, immediately after the miraculous feeding, Jesus speaks words that are declared, “This is a hard saying” (John 6:60), and many forsake Him at that moment. Then we read:
John 6
67 Then Jesus said to the Twelve, “Do you also want to go?”
68 Simon Peter answered him, “Lord, to whom shall we go? You have the words of eternal life.”
The promised Messiah
Peter knew who he had before him. Jesus is the one who has the words of eternal (Greek: aionion) life. Peter isn’t even referring to what he had seen, but only to what he had heard.
Or, as Peter says in Matthew 16:16: “You are the Christ, the Son of the living God!” Peter knew: this is Him, this Jesus is the one on whom all our Messiah expectations are based and of whom all the prophets have spoken. The turning point in time, the coming of the Savior of the world!
The apostle John also repeatedly mentions that he is an eyewitness to these things:
1 John 1
1 That which was from the beginning, which we have heard, which we have seen with our eyes, which we have looked upon, and our hands have handled, concerning the word of life.
(…)
3 That which we have seen and heard we proclaim also to you…
Paul
Paul was not one of the Twelve, as Peter and John were. He had not been one of His disciples. But Paul did have an encounter with Him. He was called by Christ Jesus from heaven.
Acts 9
3 And it happened, as he was coming near Damascus, that suddenly a light from heaven shone around him.
4 And falling to the ground, he heard a voice saying to him, “Saul, Saul, why are you persecuting me?”
5 And he said, “Who are you, Lord?” And he said, “I am Jesus whom you are persecuting.”
The Risen Christ Appeared to Paul
Paul is called here by the risen Christ, and this is also the moment that his promising career as a Pharisee ends. His career as an apostle begins here. Christ Jesus appeared to him and would appear to him again (Acts 26:16). Paul later indicates that he had received revelations (e.g., 2 Cor. 12:1-4; Gal. 1:16). Christ Jesus had appeared to him and revealed things to him, such as the mysteries.
To gain Christ
Because of these encounters, Paul considered his promising career as a Pharisee as loss and rubbish (Phil. 3:7-8). He later indicates that he was stoned, flogged, imprisoned, etc. (see, for example, 2 Cor. 11:24-27). All this for the surpassing knowledge of Christ and to gain Christ (Phil. 3:7-8).
Task
The apostles were eyewitnesses, commissioned and appointed by Christ with a task. They had committed the divinely inspired words to Scripture and were aware of this (2 Tim. 3:16).
What would be logical for them to do? To leave the gathering of the Scriptures to church councils, hundreds of years after they themselves had died? Or: to gather and compile the Scriptures themselves as a legacy for the generations that came after them and who could no longer rely on the eyewitnesses? To ask the question is to answer it.
Derailment
In the next blog post, I want to show what the apostles say in their letters about how Christianity would develop. They were aware that a major derailment was inevitable and imminent. All the more reason for these delegates and eyewitnesses to take on the important task of gathering the Scriptures themselves.