The Highway Forums General Discussion Open Forum Was Matthias God’s Choice?

William,

Actually, after reading through the narrative closely, especially in the Greek, I have to conclude that Matthias was indeed ordained of God to replace Judas Iscariot as the twelfth Apostle. Let us not disregard the fact that God most often uses secondary means to accomplish His divine will among men. It appears to me, at least, that Peter and the other Apostles were applying the OT Scriptures under the guidance of the Holy Spirit in that situation. J.A. Alexander in his excellent commentary on Acts deals with the entire process of the choosing of a replacement for Judas in great detail. At the end of his comments he makes the following observation which I offer for your consideration:

The validity of this whole proceeding has been questioned, upon several grounds; because there is no express command recorded; because Peter was habitually rash and forward; because the Holy Ghost was not yet given to qualify them for such functions; because we read nothing more of Matthias in the history; and lastly, because Paul is thus excluded from the number of the twelve apostles. To these specious arguments it may be answered, that a command is often left to be inferred from the recorded execution, and vice versa; that this, although proposed by Peter, was no more his act than that of the whole body; that the choice was really the act of neither, but of God himself; that the history is equally silent as to most of the apostles; and that Paul might with more probability be reckoned the successor of James the Son of Zebedee than of Judas Iscariot; or rather that he was not one of the twelve at all, but an additional apostle for the Gentiles, as the twelve were the apostles of the circumcision.

Add to all this, that they who had been called the eleven since the death of Judas, are afterwards called the twelve, and that while Saul was still an enemy of Christ; and consider the extreme improbability that so much space would have been given, in so brief a history and at such a juncture, to an unauthorized proceeding of this nature, not omitting even the accompanying prayer, and yet without the slightest intimation or its being uncommanded, and consequently null and void. But apart from these considerations, the whole question, if there is one, seems to be determined by the last words of the narrative itself, which admit of but one natural interpretation, namely, that Matthias was now reckoned, by divine right, as the twelfth apostle. (Compare Matt. 28:16. Mark 16:14. Luke 24:9, 33, with Acts 2:14. 6:2.)

In His grace,