Cheryl Schatz

Don comment #12,

“And that he was seen of Cephas, then of the twelve:

Paul is commenting on order of appearance (to the male witnesses – females were not considered valid witnesses in that day). He is not giving groups of people that do not overlap. For example, Cephas (or Peter) is part of “the twelve” so there is an overlap here. The appearance to James is not recorded in scripture.

The next thing of importance is that Jesus appeared to many people over a period of 40 days. Jesus appeared to “the twelve” several times even when they were not all together. Thomas was missing during the first appearance of Jesus to “the twelve”.

During the period of 40 days that Jesus appeared to the disciples we can note that the number of “the twelve” was not complete. Although Matthias would have been around during that time, he was not appointed by Jesus to be the twelfth apostles while Jesus was here in his resurrected body. This is a huge point that should not be missed. Jesus walked and talked with his disciples and he explained the scriptures that were fulfilled by his life, death and resurrection. He ate food with his disciples and he gave them commandments. Yet never once did he say that Matthias would fill the empty space that Judas’ betrayal brought. Why is this? Why was it a full 43 days after Jesus’ death that there was no replacement of Judas? Why did the disciples not ask Jesus who he was going to appoint and why didn’t Jesus appoint a replacement? The answer is simple. The time had not yet come and the replacement had not yet come to salvation. There could be no other reason why Jesus failed to appoint Matthias during the 40 days that he was here on the earth in his resurrected body. There is also no command that Jesus gave to his eleven remaining disciples to chose a replacement that he had failed to chose while he was here in his resurrected body.

My contention is that Jesus did not chose Matthias during the 40 days that he was here and the vacancy was apparent because he was not Jesus’ choice. The time was not yet for the one “born out of time” who would be saved, filled with the Holy Spirit, meet the resurrected Christ and be taught by him and be sent out as a witness to the resurrection.

Don, I will get to your other arguments later. Perhaps you can speak to Jesus’ silence on the replacement of the twelfth apostle during the 40 days. I believe that there was a vacant spot for 40 days and there would continue to be a vacant spot for many more days until the apostle Paul was ready to be sent forth as the last appointed witness of the resurrection by Jesus himself.