It is important, in this
connection, to remember that the phrase twelve apostles is employed technically
in the New Testament to denote the apostolic college. In two instances, the “Twelve”
are respectively thirteen and eleven. In Rev. 21:14 it is said that the
foundations of the New Jerusalem has “in them the names of the twelve apostles
of the Lamb.” It is not supposable that the name of St. Paul, who was second to
no apostle in founding the Christian church, was omitted. Here the apostolic
college is meant, which contained thirteen persons called and set apart by
Christ. Again, in 1 Cor. 15:5 St. Paul calls eleven apostles the Twelve (cf.
Matt. 28:16). If the Twelve may be thirteen or eleven, they may also be four.
Any part of the college acting officially for the body may be denominated the Twelve.
The four gospels, composed by or under the superintendence of the four to whom
they have been ascribed from the very first, are thus the gospels of the Twelve
and have the authority of the whole circle. (William G. T. Shedd, Dogmatic
Theology: Complete and Unabridged, Volumes 1-3 [Reformed Retrieval, 2021], 71)
Further Reading
Revelation 21:14—Evidence against LDS Ecclesiology?
Qumranic Parallels to Revelation 21:14
On the Symbolic Nature of the Heavenly City in Revelation 21
