The succession the Bible teaches is the succession of apostolic teaching from the Apostles

This succession of biblical teaching is symbolized in the laying-on-of-hands from bishop to bishop, and bishop to priest. The 1830s Oxford Movement resurrected the unfortunate Medieval idea that bishops automatically transfer clerical “specialness” in the laying on of hands that makes some Christians into super-Christians (that leads to silly talk about some ontological change or imputed ‘indelible character’ in the imaginations of those who think of themselves as special).

In our day when clericalism is real, we need to be careful to distinguish an Anglican understanding from Roman Catholicism, and to not elevate the symbolic laying-on-of-hands with the thing symbolized: the communication of the message of the apostles (the Bible) down to our own day.

“Cranmer did not believe that the apostles passed down the Holy Spirit through an unbroken line of holy bishops like a pipeline. No, for Cranmer, the author of the founding formularies of Anglicanism, apostolic succession meant the passing down of apostolic teaching… each generation of the church is to receive, witness to and pass on the Bible and its message of salvation by grace alone through faith alone.”
-Ashley Null “Divine Allurement”

“It is fair to say therefore that, however romantic or appealing the ideas woven round an ‘apostolic succession’ of bishops succeeding to offices held by the apostles, it cannot be demonstrated from the New Testament. The whole bequest of the apostles is summed up in the apostolic faith, and the deposit is available to us in the writings of the key apostles collected for us in the New Testament. Those initial apostles still hold authority on behalf of Jesus Christ in the Church today by their writings, and the Church of God is apostolic today in so far as it lives in a corporate discipleship under that authority of the apostles.” –Bp. Colin Buchanan

The succession the Bible teaches is the succession of apostolic teaching from the Apostles

By Chuck Collins
www.virtueonline.org
April 24, 2024

There is not an unbroken line of ordained bishops and priests traceable back to St. Peter (actual hands-on actual heads back to the apostles); this is an unbiblical and pernicious understanding of Apostolic Succession. The succession the Bible teaches is the succession of apostolic teaching from the Apostles to all subsequent generations to the end of time – the passing on of the catholic faith once and for all delivered to the saints (Jude 3; 2 Timothy 2:2). This is what we affirm when we say, “We believe in the One, Holy, Catholic, and Apostolic Church.”