Preparation For Pentecost (1:12-26).
In obedience to His command they returned to Jerusalem from the Mount of Olives where all this had happened, and entered the upper chamber where they were staying. And from this time on they spent their time in ‘the prayer', probably mainly in the Temple with a number of other disciples (Luke 24:53), waiting patiently for what Jesus had promised.
‘The prayer' may signify the prayer that He had taught them Luke 11:2-4, ‘May Your name be sanctified (by the bringing about of Your purposes - Ezekiel 36:23; Ezekiel 38:23), may your Kingly Rule come, give us day by day Tomorrow's bread (the promised heavenly Bread - John 6:35), forgive us our sins, bring us not into temptation'. Or it may signify ‘the meetings for prayer'.
And it was while they prayed that Peter made a bold step of faith. In view of the new initiative that would soon be theirs it was necessary to make up the twelve.
Much discussion has taken place as to whether his action was justified or not. But there are a number of grounds for seeing it as completely valid.
1) Jesus had already given to His Apostles the Holy Spirit so as to aid their discernment and give them special authority, in contrast with the Holy Spirit's coming on the whole church (John 20:22-23; Luke 24:45). They were thus not acting without the Spirit.
2) The decision was one agreed on prayerfully by the whole gathering of ‘about one hundred and twenty' disciples (Acts 1:15).
3) The decision was supported by citing the Scriptures which had helped them to come to this decision (Acts 1:16-20). For Luke to have given the details of this must be seen as unlikely unless he considered that the argument was valid.
4) Luke devotes eleven verses of valuable space to describing the details of the incident, and providing the information that supported it. He would surely not have done so if he had not seen it as an important and valid decision, especially as he gives no hint of the kind of disapproval which might have indicated that there was another lesson to be learned from it.
5) Nowhere is this decision ever later criticised.
6) If they were to continue going around preaching in twos as they had been taught to do by Jesus (Mark 6:7; Luke 10:1; and compare Acts 3:1) it would be necessary for an even number to be made up.
7) Psychologically it was wise to fill the gap caused by Judas. It made them feel full and complete once again.
Their purpose in making up the twelve would be as a testimony to the fact that their message was for ‘the twelve tribes of Israel', (we note that Paul himself recognised that he was an Apostle ‘to the Gentiles' (Galatians 2:7-8; Romans 11:13), and therefore not one of ‘the twelve' - 1 Corinthians 15:5). It was an assertion of their confidence that the work which had begun when Jesus appointed them was now to continue. It expressed their certainty that Jesus would fulfil His promise of sending to His people the Holy Spirit. It was a clear declaration of faith.
Furthermore the twelvefold eyewitness to the life, teaching and resurrection of Jesus was clearly seen as important (in those days numbers were seen as highly significant), while the making up of the full number would help them to forget the failure of their former comrade. Paul, of course, while an eyewitness to the resurrection ‘out of due time' had not received Jesus' teaching first hand, nor had he witnessed His life from the beginning.
Those who take ultra-literally Jesus' words in Matthew 19:28, “Truly I say to you, that you who have followed me, in the regeneration, when the Son of Man shall sit on the throne of His glory, you also shall sit on twelve thrones, judging the twelve tribes of Israel” necessarily query whether there will be a throne for Paul. But there are good grounds for seeing His words as a pictorial representation of the then future authority that the Apostles would have over the church, and not as indicating literal thrones (which spiritual bodies might anyway have difficulty in sitting on). Paul unquestionably also had that kind of throne (his future declared authority) from which many sought to topple him, but it did not need to be one of twelve. He ‘judged' the Gentiles.
We can compare Jesus' similar words in Luke, having instituted the Lord's Table, “I appoint to you a Kingly Rule, as My Father has appointed to Me, that you may eat and drink at My Table under My Kingly Rule and sit on thrones judging the twelve tribes of Israel” (Luke 22:29-30), and this having stressed that they must not seek to sit in seats but to take the lowest place as those who serve (Acts 1:25-26). Their thrones were thus not to be thrones of exercising lordship, but of humble service.
Here He is probably signifying what Acts reveals that each Apostle would have a Kingly Rule in humility and lowliness over his new flock under the Kingly Rule of Christ, being able, with them, to eat and drink at His Table, both spiritually as in John 6:35 and literally as in 1 Corinthians 11:26. Paul would have the same.
The symbolism of the twelve Apostles as the foundation of the new Jerusalem is irrelevant for this purpose. It was never intended to be personalised but to demonstrate that the future would be founded on the work of Christ's Apostles.
It is also no argument against this to say that Matthias is never again mentioned. Such an argument would exclude a number of other Apostles as well (see below).