Chapter 9 deals with a number of vital subjects, but overriding them all is a view of the sincerity and the motivation of the apostle. He tells us about this so that we too can have the same motivation and sincerity.
What is an apostle? The word ‘apostle’ means one who is sent, and the word is used in the New Testament in two senses. It is used of people who held a special office in the early church, such as the apostle Paul, such as the twelve apostles. It is used to describe a special office, special task, special qualifications for that office. It is also used in a lesser and more general sense to speak of anyone who is a kind of missionary. It is used, for example of Barnabas and he is called an apostle in the sense that he was a pioneering evangelist or missionary in his calling. But that is the lesser sense, and there is a great distinction between this and the special sense. The Twelve and Paul were apostles appointed by Christ in the early church, who were not to be succeeded. They did not appoint successors; there were no other apostles after them. When they died, apostles were withdrawn from the church, because nobody other than the twelve and Paul met the qualifications. They were given to teach inspired material, and in many cases to write inspired material to make up the New Testament canon of Scripture, and they were inspired also to authenticate others who wrote Scripture, so that the New Testament in accordance with the promise of Christ came into being, and was authenticated by the apostles in the early church. New Testament prophets together with the apostles formed the foundation, Jesus Christ himself being the chief cornerstone (Ephesians 2:20), so the apostles were the foundation stage of the church. Now we have the Scriptures; they are our yardstick; they are our authority, and the Lord does not any more give revelation, authoritative revelation, to anyone or add to Scripture. Otherwise we would be reverting to the foundation stage all over again.
What were the qualifications of the apostles? We read in Acts that when Judas had to be replaced, one of the qualifications of an apostle was that he had been with the Lord throughout his earthly ministry, and had witnessed all his teaching and miracles. Of course there are no people today who could say that. The apostle Paul was an exception. He was one born out of due time, an untimely birth, he says. He was born out of the period of the twelve apostles, but he was given an appearance of Christ and revelation of all the things that Christ had made known to the others. He was of course appointed by the risen Lord, and that is the second qualification of an apostle. On the road to Damascus Paul was commission directly by Christ, just as the other apostles had been. The risen Christ does not personally and directly commission apostles today, so apostles were only for the foundation stage of the church. The third qualifying feature of apostles was that they worked signs and wonders in the name of Christ. Paul does not refer to signs and wonders here, but he does in 2 Corinthians.