ABOUT THE CAC

The Communion of Apostolic Churches is a global communion of apostles, prophets, evangelists, pastors and teachers, together with the ministries and churches they represent. It is a worldwide network of networks or ministry spheres, a communion of diverse apostolic jurisdictions of ministers and churches joined together in the Lord Jesus through mutual recognition and voluntary submission for consultation, cooperation, and accountability of the apostles and elders (the ruling pastors or bishops) who are the spiritual heads or fathers of these governmental spheres.

The term apostolic is used by the CAC simply as an adjective to refer to everything that pertains to Jesus the Christ, the Chief Apostle, the Apostles of the Lamb, and the first ascension-gift apostles of the Lord Jesus which has been providentially preserved for God’s people in the Canon of the New Testament. While Church councils and creeds have at times been helpful in dealing with various issues and adversaries throughout Church history, councils have also erred; therefore we understand the Canon of both the Old and New Testament Scriptures to be the only true measure of faith and practice for the Church of Jesus Christ. We further believe that the message of the Old Testament patriarchs and prophets has been unveiled or fulfilled in Jesus Christ, His Kingdom, and His Church, and that the Canon of the New Testament contains the full revelation of these divine mysteries that were entrusted by the Lord Jesus to His original apostles. Thus the CAC is committed to the recovery and restoration of the faith and practice of those first apostles who laid the foundations in the first century for true Apostolic Christianity and for the Apostolic Church.

On the Day of Pentecost Peter and the eleven stood and proclaimed the Gospel of the Kingdom. Peter declared to the lost sheep of the house of Israel that in the resurrection, ascension, and enthronement of Jesus of Nazareth the promise God had made to King David to seat David’s Son on David’s throne has been fulfilled! Peter boldly declared that God the Father has made Jesus whom they had crucified both Lord and Christ (Scriptural code for King). This is the message proclaimed by Peter, Paul, and all the apostles throughout the Roman Empire. The members of the CAC believe with the apostles that Jesus is the promised Christ, God’s anointed King. He is not only Savior, but also Lord of heaven and earth. We believe that the promise God made to David and the fathers of Israel has been fulfilled; Jesus has been seated on the throne of His father David at the right hand of God in heaven, the place of all authority, dominion, and power. He is ruling governments and nations today as King of kings and Lord of lords. The present outpouring of the Spirit globally is the continued witness of the Father that the message proclaimed by the first apostles is still true. And like Peter, Paul, and all the early apostles, we believe that Christ, the Son of David, the almighty Son of God is building His Church (the house of God and the restored house of David) to be the demonstration on earth of life under the government of the King and the instrument of His kingdom purpose to disciple all nations and fill the whole earth with the glory of God the Father.

We believe that the present situation in the Church with it’s doctrinal and ecclesiastical divisions is not only subnormal, but also contradictory, counter-productive, and scandalous, and that the Lord Jesus is pouring out His Spirit today to revive His work in the earth, restore the apostolic foundations, and reform His Church, so that it might be doctrinally, experientially, and governmentally or functionally one, so that His glory might be fully manifested in history and all nations brought to the light of the Church’s rising.

We believe that the earth is the Lord’s and that all cities and nations of the earth belong to King Jesus and to His Church. We also believe that before the Lord comes in His final appearing on the last day for the general resurrection of the body and the final judgment to consummate His Kingdom and hand a perfected Kingdom to our Heavenly Father, the saints shall possess the cities and nations and fill the earth with the glory of the sons and daughters of God. But for this to happen the foundations of the Christian faith established by Christ and his apostles must be fully restored and His Church reformed so that it can function as one body in the cities and nations of the world, a Holy Nation and Kingdom of priests.

We use the word communion to refer to the fellowship of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit. Jesus came down from heaven to redeem the world and make a way of salvation, so that estranged sinners might be reconciled to God and brought into fellowship or communion with the Father through the Son in the power of the Spirit.

In the beginning of His ministry Jesus chose twelve to be with Him and participate in the fellowship He enjoyed with the Father and the Spirit. After His death and resurrection Jesus commissioned twelve (Matthias replaced Judas) to be His witnesses and to proclaim the Gospel of the King to the believing remnant of Israel and the nations. After His ascension to the throne of David, the Lord chose Paul and others to also be His ambassadors to the governments and nations of the earth. They where added to the fellowship or communion of the apostles. And all who obeyed the Gospel of the King that the apostles proclaimed were translated out of the kingdom of darkness into the Kingdom of God’s dear Son. They not only had their sins forgiven and received the gift of the Holy Spirit, they were also brought into this fellowship of the apostles, the fellowship or communion that the apostles enjoyed with the Father, the Son, and the Spirit, finding placement in an allotment of believers under the spiritual oversight or fatherhood of an apostle or elder (ruling pastor or bishop) as part of the larger household of faith.

During the period of the early or apostolic Church this fellowship or communion of apostles was the foundation of the Church’s unity. The early Church was one, with one common faith, the faith or revelation of Jesus the Christ entrusted by Jesus Himself to the original apostles. They had one common experience, the baptism of the Holy Spirit and power by which they were baptized into one body and found placement in an allotment of believers in a locality, and they had one governmental order, the fellowship or communion of the apostles by which the allotments in the cities and regions throughout the Empire where connected or joined together through eldership to function as one Church.

Gradually, however, as the original apostles passed from the scene, the Gospel of the Kingdom became more and more obscured as the apostles’ testimony of Jesus became watered down and mixed with Greek philosophy and Roman religion. The Church became more and more sacramental, sacerdotal, episcopal, and hierarchical in it’s governmental order, culminating in the papacy. While the great reformation of the 16th century restored the doctrines of grace it also contributed to the fragmentation of the Lord’s Church into its present subnormal state of religious sects, orders, and denominations. Bishop Alexander Chisango of Zimbabwe has astutely observed, “Christ’s Kingdom has been hi-jacked by religion and His Church divided into a host of denominations.”

In the upper room, having instituted the great meal of the New Covenant, Jesus, our Great High Priest prayed that His apostles might all be one as the Father and the Son are one, and that as a consequence all who believe in Him because of their message might also be one. Today, along with many others in the body of Christ, we in the CAC believe that God is in the process of restoring the ministry of apostles to the Church and that with the restoration of true apostles will come the restoration of the apostolic faith, the apostolic experience of the fullness of the Spirit, the fellowship or communion of the apostles, and the unity that Jesus Himself established in the very beginning of Messiah’s Day. As the apostolic movement emerges and matures, apostles, apostolic companies, and the networks or jurisdictions of churches that they represent must eventually come together in the fellowship or communion of the apostles as One Holy Apostolic Church in the earth with one faith, one common experience, and one governmental order. Only as this happens, and by the grace and power of God it will happen, will the whole body of Christ be fully reformed, and the governments, cities and nations of the earth come to the light of the Church’s rising.

This is the confidence that we have in the Lord, and towards this end we labor together in His Name.