Covenant Essays: One

By T. Hoogsteen

Essays present a fascinating prose communication; well presented, each works out a consistent theme. The essays in this collection, created over a fifteen-year span, stand on their own, although several themes carry through--Jesus's lordship, the kingdom, the church, the faith; these constitute constants framed by the three Forms of Unity, that is, the original stuff of the Reformation.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Resource Publications
• Release date: Sep 9, 2016
• ISBN: 9781498297561

T. Hoogsteen

T. Hoogsteen has served in parish ministries for twenty-five years. Currently he works in, on, and for covenantstudies.com. He holds degrees from Calvin College and Theological Seminary, Grand Rapids, Michigan, as well as De Theologische Hogeschool van de Gereformeerde Kerken, an institution now amalgamated with Amsterdam's Free University. He published God Meant It For Good and The Tradition of the Elders.

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COVENANT ESSAYS

—ONE—

T. Hoogsteen

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COVENANT ESSAYS

One

Copyright © 2016 T. J. Hoogsteen and M. A. Hogeveen. All rights reserved. Except for brief quotations in critical publications or reviews, no part of this book may be reproduced in any manner without prior written permission from the publisher. Write: Permissions, Wipf and Stock Publishers, 199 W. 8th Ave., Suite 3, Eugene, OR 97401.

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Scripture quotations are from the Revised Standard Version of the Bible, copyright © 1946, 1952, and 1971 by the National Council of the Churches of Christ in the U.S.A. All rights reserved.

Scripture quotations are from The Holy Bible, English Standard Version, copyright © 2001 by Crossway Bibles, a publishing ministry of Good News Publishers. All rights reserved.

Table of Contents

Title Page

Preface

The Fear of the Lord

The Old Church and the New Church: In Summary Lines

Paradoxical Studies: In the World/Not of the World

Confessional Studies: The Descent of the Symbols

From the Old Testament to the New: A Bud-and-Bloom Analogy

The Death and the Life to Come

A Biblical Exposition: Resurrection Hope

Exegetical Studies: Legal Findings

Exegetical Studies: At Table With Incompatible Hosts

The Night is Far Gone: A Measurement of These Days

Gospel-Law Interconnectivities

A Last Word

W. Hoogsteen (1916–2000)

J. Hoogsteen-de Boer (1915–2009)

For remembering

PREFACE

Essays present a fascinating prose communication; well-presented, each works out a legitimate theme. The essays in this collection, created over a fifteen-year span, stand on their own, although several themes carry through—Jesus’s lordship, the Kingdom, the Church, the Faith—constants framed by the three Forms of Unity, that is, the stuff of the Reformation.

Some pieces in this collection reopen themes out of THE TRADITION OF THE ELDERS, COVENANT WORKS, and SERMON EVALUATION.

Some pieces, now more or less modified, appeared earlier in The Journal of Reformation, ISSN 1496–2233.

I wrote these essays with no apparent connection between the one and the other, other than the Reformation themes asserted above.

TH

THE FEAR OF THE LORD

The fear in question many exegetes recognize as awe, reverence, respect—a range of meanings that qualify apprehensiveness, even intimidation and dread. Actually, the fear of the Lord in its various historical presentations evokes accountability. The burden of proof?

In one setting, positive, this accountability completes thematically a piece of original wisdom literature. Eccle 12:13–14,

The end of the matter; all has been heard.

Fear God, and keep his commandments; for this is the whole duty of man.

For God will bring every deed into judgment, with every secret thing,

whether good or evil.

This mandate to fear God revokes all legitimacy to and excuse for the dark compulsions of covetousness sought out, tested, and found wanting throughout Ecclesiastes. The Author and the author forcefully reveal that even for the source of sinning the LORD God requires accounting. This forms the fear of the Lord’s burden.

In another setting, negative, for this accountability 2 Kgs 17:34 serves appropriately to engage the covenant community at the approaching condemnation in yir’ath Yahweh,

To this day they do according to the former manner.

They do not fear the LORD, and they do not follow

the statutes or the rules or the law or the command-

ment that the LORD commanded the children of Ja-

cob, whom he named Israel.

Remembering the religiosity of the Ten Tribes, the people held in Assyrian captivity, the LORD God warned Judah of impending grief, the Babylonian captivity. Through this fear, or the refusal thereto, the Savior God shaped history, not only of the covenant community, also of the Eastern Mediterranean world, the turbulent theatre of 1–2 Kings.

In a third setting, also negative, and laden with prophetic tensions, the LORD formed the transition of the Church from the past through the present into the future for the formulation of the New Testament history. Mal 3:5,

Then I will draw near to you for judgment. I will

be a swift witness against the sorcerers, against the

adulterers, against those who swear falsely, against

those who oppress the hired worker in his wages, the

widow and the fatherless, against those who thrust

aside the sojourner, and do not fear me, says the LORD

of hosts.

Out of the hostilities of covetousness, which stokes up the sinning condemned, the Savior withdrew the faithful, Mal 3:16–18, to generate the greater hope in the Incarnation.

---

Earlier, Jacob fleeing revengeful Laban named the LORD the Fear of Isaac, Gen 31:42, 53, thereby to alarm his father-in-law against any trespass of the boundary into Canaan; he too, though an outsider to the covenant history and community the LORD God held responsible for anti-covenantal works.

Scripturally, the fear of the Lord stands forth as a technical term, a linguistic unit, consistent in meaning. Deut 6:2, 13, 10:20, 28:58; Job 28:28; Ps 111:10; Prov 1:7; Isa 11:2; etc. Beginning in the Church and weighing even vast accumulations of hidden sins, in the fear of Lord the Savior God holds all accountable.

---

In the New Testament the phobos theos translated into godly fear, Acts 10:2; Rom 3:18; 2 Cor 5:11; Heb 5:7; etc. In the Hebrews passage reverence weakens the original.

All children are responsible to parents.

All employees are responsible to employers.

All church members are responsible to office bearers.

All slaves are accountable to respective masters, Tit

2

:

9

.

In the more profound sense, of grace, all in Christ he holds accountable to accomplish the works of faith, or the unaccomplished works of faith, the broken commandments. Thereto Christians are slaves, Rom 6:15–9, slaves of righteousness, to do all and only what is right in the presence of the Lord Jesus Christ. Thereto, he bought his, 1 Cor 6:20, with blood. All in Christ are his so much that they find the purpose of life only in him, through accountability. The Lord’s earnestness in this accountability holds at the center of heart, soul, mind, and strength.

2015

THE OLD CHURCH AND THE NEW CHURCH

IN SUMMARY LINES

Continuous reflection on and study of Christ’s one Church remains necessary for more than a single reason:

First: Always—generation upon generation—it is requisite to know our place in Jesus Christ’s almighty rule of grace. Out of all possible people in the world some only he draws into the membership of the Church to hear the proclamation of the Word, thus to mature in faith and life, and to assure that the preaching as well as worship are sound. Also that the communion of saints functions optimally. His purpose, as the Holy Spirit wrote in Eph 4:13, is that all whom he calls arrive at maturity, the measure of the stature of fullness in Christ. With this understanding: outside the Church there is no salvation.¹

Second: Erosion of the Church in contemporary thinking and living compels us to a more intent focus on her significance throughout the ages. The Church’s fragmentation into thousands of independent bodies has changed and defied Christ’s purpose. In this fragmentation, conservative bodies offer at best individual salvation, to please people, and liberal bodies offer global salvation, to escape the fear of the Lord. These new centralities for the purpose of the Church only emphasize the decline into brokenness. Not the glory of God the Father but interests of members center the attention.

Third: Another reason for reflection/study comes out of Dispensationalism, a popular ideology which generally and strangely cuts history into seven sections, to make the Church a departure from the course of the ongoing history of Israel. Dispensationalism now defines Protestantism and Evangelicalism.

These three give cause enough for continuous contemplation on and purification of Christ’s Church.

At the start, it is necessary to say that the history of the Church is one, from the beginning to the end of time.² To make the basic doctrine of the Church clear, we shall call Christ’s almighty salvation work in the first dispensation the Old Church, and in the second dispensation the New Church.

THE OLD CHURCH

In the light of progressive revelation with respect to the Church, Christ created and gathered her from among the patriarchs, that is, from Adam over Noah to Abraham, Isaac, Jacob,³ and Moses. Then already the LORD made her an eschatological community, preparing the Church for the glory of the new heavens and earth.

Adam-Moses

Christ’s church-gathering work began with Adam; in the beginning, church membership consisted of two people, Adam and Eve. With respect to earliest times, it is difficult to speak of congregational worship/life, a fact that remained so for the duration, until Moses. Except for one reference, Gen 4:26b,⁴ little definite with respect to ecclesiastical doctrine appears in the early context of the Church.

Throughout this patriarchal period the heads of families successively in the line of the covenant served as kings, prophets, and priests, first Adam, then Noah, then Abraham. Respecting kingship, the LORD charged these men with government and they ruled respective families. With respect to prophecy, the LORD spoke to these men, they in turn to their respective families. In relation to the priesthood, the LORD called them to sacrifice and these men did so in behalf of their families. Noah, for instance, offered to the LORD, Gen 8:20. Abram/Abraham began building altars to the LORD in the Land of Promise, Gen 12:7. We may in this context also mention Job, who sacrificed on behalf of his children, Job 1:5, and for his friends, Job 42:8. Beyond main functions of the office of the congregation, ruling, prophesying, and sacrificing, it is difficult to garner from the Bible what specific doctrine of the Church the LORD gave the early people of the covenant, other than that they, separated from the world, were his.

In Noah’s era the descendants of Cain, the children of man, had overpowered in popularity the children of God. Gen 6:5, The LORD saw that the wickedness of man was great in the earth, and that every imagination of the thoughts of his heart was only evil continually. As this wickedness burgeoned at the expense of holiness, the Old Church was dying.

Yet the LORD, faithful to his promises, maintained covenant and the line of the covenant promises/obligations moved over Noah to his son, Shem,⁵ and hence to Abraham. However, before Abraham, in the aftermath of the Tower of Babel confusion of language, the Church was dying again; rebellion against the LORD was the current order of the day.

In faithfulness the LORD renewed the covenant promises and obligations with Abraham, and separated him and Sarai/Sarah from the Semites, indeed, from the nations of the earth, so that he and his descendants be a people holy to the LORD. This comes in memorable revelation, Gen 17:7, And I will establish my covenant between me and you and your descendants after you throughout their generations for an everlasting covenant, to be God to you and to your descendants after you. It is important to note already at this point that in the course of time the LORD by progression in salvation-history continually renewed the Old Church: for renewal he broke through the darkness of sin and revealed more of his glorious purposes with respect to the Church.

To Abraham and his descendants the LORD granted the first of the two ecclesiastical sacraments, circumcision, thereby commanding a more liturgical structure to congregational worship, even though the congregation was still limited to Abraham’s immediate household,⁶ and the cutting away of foreskins occurred at home. Eventually the LORD transformed circumcision into the sacrament of baptism, but for the duration of the Old Church retained this bloody rite for Abraham and descendants.

Until the time of Moses and the Exodus, the LORD gathered, defended, and preserved the patriarchal families in the line of the covenant as the one Church. From the perspective of the New Testament she was undeveloped until with progressive revelation he gave fuller knowledge of and structure to ecclesiastical unity and worship.

Moses-Christ

In the way of the covenant and during the Egyptian enslavement, four hundred and thirty years, Exod 12:40–41, or four hundred years, Acts 7:6, the LORD multiplied the descendants of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob as sand on the seashore and stars in the heavens. Under Moses he created them into a nation and revealed more of the reformation of the Church with renewed promises and obligations; from then she remained much the same until the opening of the New Testament period.

Again, as with Abraham and the circumcision of men bought with money, the LORD revealed a missionary initiative among all non-Israelites who chose to leave Egypt with the covenant people at the time of the Exodus, Exod 12:38, A mixed multitude also when up with them . . .. These Egyptian ex-slaves too joined the departure for liberty in unity with Israel, for Moses wrote, Exod 12:41b, . . . all the hosts of the LORD went out from the land of Egypt. To Mount Sinai.

The LORD granted to Israel the second sacrament, the Passover. Exod 12:14, This day shall be for you a memorial day, and you shall keep it as a feast to the LORD; throughout your generations you shall observe it as an ordinance forever. However the Church lived and functioned during the enslavement, the LORD gave the renewed essence and structure even before she left Egypt.

In due time, the LORD revealed the Tabernacle, the Tent of Meeting, and the Levitical priesthood of Aaron, plus the many ordinances for congregational worship involving (bloody) sacrifices. The whole nation of Israel formed one congregation, the renewed Church. Church and nation were one, with ecclesiastical and civil laws. Among the twelve tribes fashioned by the sons of Jacob, the LORD brought out the Abrahamic unity of His people.

At Mount Sinai, upon covenant renewal, the LORD instructed Moses and Israel to build the Tent of Meeting, in order to centralize worship and in unity magnify the glory of God. A central sanctuary, the Tent of Meeting, became a structure of extraordinary beauty, particularly because of the Holy of Holies and the Ark of the Covenant with its mercy seat. Exod 25:22, There I will meet with you, and from above the mercy-seat, from between the two cherubim that are upon the ark of the testimony, I will speak with you of all that I will give you in commandment for the people of Israel. The most remarkable aspect of all this was the central prophecy of the covenant, a new prophet, the Messiah, Deut 18:15–22.

At the conclusion of the Tabernacle construction its significance showed. Exod 40:34, Then the cloud covered the tent of meeting, and the glory of the LORD filled the tabernacle. About this Tabernacle the LORD willed Israel, the Church, to gather at his command, also on Sabbath days.

With the Tabernacle the LORD commanded precise ritual, particularly with regards to the sacrifices, as he had with the construction of the Tent of Meeting, in order that through these ceremonies Israel worship him with all of heart, soul, mind, and strength, which applied no less to the later Temple.

Temple construction under Solomon was as meticulous as the Tabernacle’s. The Temple, even as the Tent of Meeting, was a building of extraordinary beauty, a reflection of the glory of the LORD, with the inner sanctuary, the Holy of Holies, and the Ark of the Covenant, with its solidity and beauty described in 1 Kgs 6:1–36. As at the time of the completion of the Tent of Meeting, so also at the conclusion of the Temple construction, . . . the glory of the LORD filled the house of the LORD, 1 Kgs 8:11b.

In the context of David’s reign, with an eye already on Solomon, the LORD promised a son, the central prophecy at that time. 2 Sam 7:12, When your days are fulfilled and you lie down with your fathers, I will raise up your offspring after you, who shall come forth from your body, and I will establish his kingdom. The Christological interpretation of this text, the only sound one, refers to the coming of the LORD in the flesh, at the time of the Incarnation.

Upon the Exile the returnees, under the ministries of Ezra and Nehemiah, Haggai and Zechariah, rebuilt the Temple, a less imposing and a less beautiful structure. The LORD then called his people to continue the nature of the Church and her worship as given under Moses. A point that may be made here is: the care with which the LORD commanded the Tabernacle/Temple construction serves as an analogy for the way he by the Spirit and the word in the New Testament dispensation assembles the Church.

When also the second Temple became obsolete on account of progress in the LORD’s revelation of the Church, he altered the nature of the New Testament temple forever. Two places may be mentioned. 1) 1 Cor 3:17b, For God’s temple is holy, and that temple you are. 2) 1 Pet 2:5, . . . and like living stones be yourselves built into a spiritual house, to be a holy priesthood, to offer spiritual sacrifices acceptable to God through Jesus Christ. Instead of the stone and gold of Solomon’s Temple, the New Testament Temple, the Church, consists of people. But this brings us to Christ, closer to the New Church.

---

Israel throughout the Old Testament dispensation was, on the whole, a unity, a nation; Church and State were one. The split between Judah/Benjamin and the Ten Tribes, 1 Kgs 11, was healed in a way when Ezra and Nehemiah led remnants of both Judah and the Ten Tribes back to Jerusalem, as Jeremiah prophesied. Jer 30:3, For behold, days are coming, says the LORD, when I will restore the fortunes of my people, Israel and Judah, says the LORD, and I will bring them back to the land which I gave to their fathers, and they shall take possession of it.

At issue: because of the covenant prophecies, notably the central one, regarding the Messiah, completed in Christ Jesus, the LORD continued the renewal of the Old Church from generation to generation, in preparation for the New Church.

Bridge Words

In the Old Testament transition to the New the Holy Spirit developed names specific for the Church of the second dispensation. In the Old Testament appear two such names:

1) qahal, from qal, which means to call. Qahal expressed the actual meeting together of the people of Israel about the Tabernacle or the Temple, and equals the Greek for church, ekklesia.⁷ Essentially, qahal stands for: assembly, congregation, convocation, company, Gen 49:6; Deut 9:10; Judg 21:5, 8; etc.

2) ‘edhah, from ya ‘adh, which means to appoint, to meet, come together (at a specified place).⁸ Applied to Israel, ‘edhah constitutes the congregation formed by the people of the covenant, or even representative heads, assembled or not. A congregation remains such, whether in meeting together before the LORD on the day of rest or during the week. Ps 1:5; Exod 16:22; Josh 22:20; etc. ‘edhah may also mean a company, Ps 22:16, or a band, Ps 68:1.

3) qahal ‘edhah, the two joined, signifies the assembly of the congregation. For example, Exod 12:6, . . . and you shall keep it until the fourteenth day of the month, when the whole assembly of the congregation of Israel shall kill their lambs in the evening. Num 14:5; Jer 26:17; etc.

By all counts these are important descriptions, the significance of which the Author of the Bible carried over into the New Testament, in which there are also two words:

4) ekklesia, from ek and kaleo, has the sense to call out and generally applies to the Church of the New Testament.⁹ The noun ekklesia then means the (convened) assembly. It may apply to the gathered congregation on the day of rest; it may also apply to a congregation during the week. A congregation is a congregation seven days per week.

5) sunagoge (from sun and ago) has at basis the sense of: to come or bring together. In the New Testament this word is used exclusively for the gatherings of the Jews and/or the buildings designated for such public worship. Matt 4:23, And he went about all Galilee, teaching in their synagogues and preaching the gospel of the kingdom and healing every disease and every infirmity among the people. Acts 13:14. In the New Testament dispensation the distinction between Church and Synagogue sharpened before AD 100, when John called the latter the synagogue of Satan, Rev 2:9, 3:9.

These bridge words bring out the line of the Church from the beginning of the Old Testament to the opening of the New Testament period.

Deviation

In the history of the Church and the struggle to understand progressive revelation a non-covenantal¹⁰ strand developed, Dispensationalism, with premillennial roots¹¹ deep in strange Bible interpretation. Dispensationalism is: a theory disrupting the divine ordering of world history.

Dispensationalists divide world history most generally into seven segments, different ways in which God allegedly deals with people:

(1) the dispensation of innocence, i.e., the period before the Fall.

(2) the dispensation of conscience, i.e., the period immediate upon Adam’s Fall when knowledge of good and evil became reality.

(3) the dispensation of human government, i.e., the period after the Flood when Noah and sons received rulership over the world.

(4) the dispensation of promise, i.e., the period beginning with Abraham in which God unconditionally promised care for the father of all believers.

(5) the dispensation of law, i.e., the period following the revelation of the Ten Commandments to Moses/Israel when Abraham’s descendants allegedly had to prove faith by works.

(6) the dispensation of grace, i.e., the period of the New Testament, the Church, a New Testament institution which came into existence only at Pentecost, to be removed, raptured, before the Tribulation and the Millenium. Until God removes the Church from world history, he more or less ignores Israel.

(7) the dispensation of the Kingdom, i.e., Christ’s thousand-year reign after the Rapture and the Tribulation in which Israel receives a second chance to prove faith by works.

In this Dispensationalist scheme one recurrent theme consists of two ways of salvation, contrary to every word of the Bible. For example, "Note carefully that while God refuses works for salvation today, He required them under the other dispensations. This was not . . . because works in themselves could ever save, but because they were the necessary expression of faith when so required."¹² As if works are not a necessary expression of faith today. James 2:17, So faith by itself, if it has no works, is dead. Dispensationalists appear to advocate two methods of salvation, one for the Jews by works and one for the Church by grace; this is an unbiblical distinction: the Church lives by grace, while Israel must earn salvation. This double approach to salvation continues as an undercurrent in all Dispensational writings; authors perceive conflicting forms of salvation for the Church and for Israel.

More radical Dispensationalists even perceive another temple, a third. Many prophesies indicate that Israel will build its Third Temple after the Jewish people have returned from their worldwide captivity and before the return of the Messiah to set up His Kingdom.¹³ The eye is more on Israel than on Jesus Christ, the LORD, contrary to Scriptures. This bears out elsewhere too. An understanding of the prophecies in the Bible makes it clear that Palestine’s past, present, and future is a key to what will happen next in the world.¹⁴ However, this longing for a return to the glories of Old Testament Israel in the future lands Dispensationalist writers in the Pharisaic problem. Gal 3:10a, For all who rely on works of the law are under a curse. The same appears in Phil 3:2, Look out for the dogs, look out for the evil workers, look out for those who mutilate the flesh. This circumcision Dispensationalists do not wish this for themselves; much less ought they, out of love for neighbors, prophesy this for the people of Israel.

Never in the Bible, particularly not even in the Old Testament dispensation from Adam to Christ, did the Savior require salvation by works. Salvation by works became a Pharisaic invention, adapted from idolatry, for only in idolatry must followers earn salvation.

Popular in Dispensationalism is Premillennialism, the theory that the Church will be raptured, i.e., suddenly and unexpectedly taken out of the earth before the great Tribulation, or mid-Tribulation, and thus spared its agonies. Premillennials misjudge that upon the Rapture/Tribulation, Christ will institute his thousand-year reign, during which the Jews receive the last opportunity to earn salvation by obedience to the Law, all Old Testament sacrifices included, as well as reconstruction of a temple in Jerusalem, plus rediscovery of the Ark of the Testimony.

In effect, the Church in the dispensation of grace comes out as an oddity, a people and an institution out of sorts with the Christ’s regular way of imputing salvation.

The key is that especially Dispensational Premillennials for believing the Gospel shall escape the terrors of the Tribulation. Everyone else living may suffer, but not they. "I personally believe that the Bible teaches the Church will escape these calamities. Although believers may well experience severe persecution as the day of Christ’s return draws near, I believe Scripture teaches clearly that believers will be kept from the ‘time of trial’ which God will send upon the world to try unbelievers (Revelation 3:10)."¹⁵ This is love for neighbors in rapturism.

Dispensationalism imposed historical divisions, which on the surface only seem believable; yet such superficiality causes confusion particularly with respect to the place of the Church in history. This type of historical interpretation controls much of the Evangelical/Dispensational world.

Dispensationalists, Premillennials especially, seem to ignore the reechoing power of Isa 6:9–10, a terrible word of condemnation first to the Old Church.

Hear and hear, but do not understand;

see and see, but do not perceive.

Make the heart of this people fat,

and their ears heavy,

and shut their eyes;

lest they see with their eyes,

and hear with their ears,

and understand with their hearts,

and turn and be healed.

Thus the LORD made separation in Israel; in Isaiah’s time he already began the distinction between Church and idolatry. He made the distinction between Church and Synagogue clear in Matt 13:14–15/Mark 4:12/Luke 8:10/John 12:40. Given the conclusion to the Acts, Apostle Paul ended his ministry on this note, when with righteous anger he denounced Israel, the Old Church. Acts 28:26–28,

Go to this people, and say,

You shall indeed hear but never understand,

and you shall indeed see but never perceive.

For this people’s heart has grown dull,

and their ears are heavy of hearing,

and their eyes they have closed;

lest they should perceive with their eyes,

and hear with their ears,

and understand with their heart,

and turn for me to heal them.

Let it be known to you then that this salvation of God has been sent to the Gentiles; they will listen.

---

Isaiah prophesied with respect to Israel’s rebellion; Paul declared it an accomplished fact. The future belonged to the New Church. Isaiah often prophesied of the remnant which the LORD chose as the ongoing Church. At first there were only one hundred and twenty, Acts 1:15.

Unless Scripture is rightly divided, 2 Tim 2:15, the focus of Bible interpretation will be on Israel, rather than on the Christ who since the beginning founded and created the Church.

THE NEW CHURCH

The LORD’s Church is a many-sided revelation, not the least of which appears in the development of her newness; in the past whenever she showed signs of aging, that is, falling into revolution, he recreated her, most frequently beginning with a remnant. In the ongoing history of the Church this was so at the time of the sixteenth-century Reformation: a remnant only fled Roman Catholicism.

Jesus, as the first in the New Testament dispensation, called the people ekklesia; he applied this heaven-sent name to the company of disciples/apostles with him in the district of Caesarea Philippi. Matt 16:18, ". . . on this rock I will build my ekklesia, and the powers of death shall not prevail against it." At this time the Twelve, through Peter, recognized him as the LORD, Messiah and Savior. On the rock, Peter’s confession that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of the living God, the LORD began the work of recreating Israel into the New Church, which is the heart of the coming Kingdom of Heaven. The Church is Messiah’s ekklesia, the ongoing Israel he established in the progressive revelation of the Kingdom.

Later, as result of Christ’s missionary extension of the Church, the Apostles in the name of the LORD established local ekklesiae, each a manifestation of Jesus’s global Church, whom he called to believe and live in liberty and unity.

For this living definition of ekklesia also other references apply.

Most frequently in the New Testament dispensation ekklesia, as opposed to sunagoge, describes a circle of believers, a local congregation in a definite place. Whether gathered for holy worship on First Days or during the week, the name ekklesia remained in effect. Various references in the New Testament bear this out. For the local ekklesia assembled on Sundays, Acts 11:26b, "For a whole year they met with the ekklesia, and taught a large company of people; and in Antioch the disciples were for the first time called Christians." Similarly, 1 Cor 11:18, 14:19, 28, 35; etc. For the local church as a living body during the week, Acts 5:11; Rom 16:4; 1 Cor 16:1; Gal 1:2; 1 Thes 2:14; etc. Biblically it is a fact: each local church is a full-fledged ekklesia.

A variation of the local church consisted of house congregations, believers in Christ Jesus who met in the homes of wealthy and/or important personages for divine worship. Rom 16:23a, Gaius, who is host to me and to the whole church, greets you. Also, 1 Cor 16:19; Col 4:15; Phil 2; etc. Each of these house congregations was an established ekklesia.

The name ekklesia was also given to a group of congregations in a particular area. Acts 9:31, "So the ekklesia throughout all Judea and Galilee and Samaria had peace and was built up; and walking in the fear of the Lord and the comfort of the Holy Spirit it was multiplied." Given this meaning, the Church at Jerusalem and also at Antioch in Syria may have comprised several congregations meeting in different localities.

Another meaning of ekklesia consists of the entire Church, globally, all who profess the Christ as Lord and Savior, and therefore organized for purposes of worship under office bearers. 1 Cor 10:32, "Give no offence to Jews or to Greeks or to the ekklesia of God. . . ." This may apply to the Church at Corinth, but also to all congregations everywhere, the global Church, 1 Cor 11:22, 12:28; Eph 4:11–16; etc.

Most comprehensively ekklesia gathers the whole body of the faithful both in heaven and on earth, all in the past, present, and future whom the LORD calls to be the Church. Eph 1:22, ". . . and he has put all things under his feet and has made him the head over all things for the ekklesia . . . ." Eph 3:10, 5:22–33, 5:27, 32; Col 1:18, 24; etc.

All this means that the New Testament Church is essentially one with the Old Church, the people of the covenant whom Christ gathers to the exclusion of all others. She is the new Israel, Phil 3:3.

As the international character of the New Church appeared her sense of nationhood changed. The Church, however, remains a nation, i.e., a kingdom, a commonwealth, Eph 2:19; Phil 3:20. A nation equals a kingdom, although the extent of a king’s authority may reach beyond the borders of a nation. Under David and Solomon, Israel was a nation and a kingdom. Now more scattered than in the Old Testament, the Church is indeed global, nevertheless with a nation-character, a peculiar people, meant for reformation, whose King rules with a kingship not of this world, John 18:36. At the heart of Christ’s Kingdom throbs the Church.

With the coming of Christ and his completed work of salvation, and also on account of Israel’s stubbornness with respect to the Gospel, he pushed the missionary character of the New Church more definitively. Matt 28:19–20, Go therefore and make disciples of all nations, . . .. This expands upon the Old Testament mandate, as in Ps 9:11, Sing praises to the LORD, who dwells in Zion! Tell among the peoples his deeds! The appointment of Paul to be the Apostle to the Gentiles speaks of this missionary character as much as anything in the New Testament, as well as the fact that Christians walking the roads of the Roman Empire established ekklesiae wherever they settled. Thus the primary missionaries, the members of the New Church, brought the Gospel to all nations, gathering her from all languages and races.

It is noteworthy in this regard that worship patterns, liturgy, also changed; instead of numerous rules and regulations for sacrifices and Tabernacle/Temple care, the fulfilled promises and obligations of the LORD simplified and intensified liturgy, concentrating completely on his accomplished work of salvation, in which the glory of the Father dominates.

The unity of the Old and New Church appears also in various names:

The New Church is the Temple of the Holy Spirit and of God the Father, 1 Cor 3:16–17; Eph 2:21–22; 1 Pet 2:5; etc. Whereas the Temple Solomon constructed was made of stone and precious metals, the New Testament Temple, the Church, consists of all whom Christ Jesus calls into membership. Thus the Church is holy and inviolable, the New Temple, as solid as the flesh and blood of her members.

The current Church is also the New Jerusalem, the city of the great King, now no more a locality in the Middle East, where the LORD promised to dwell with his people of the first dispensation, but spread globally, wherever ekklesiae exist, Gal 4:26; Heb 12:22; Rev 21:2, 9, 10.

The New Church is also the Bride of Christ, Isa 62:4–5; Jer 3:14; Hos 2:19, And I will betroth you to me for ever; I will betroth you to me in righteousness and in justice, in steadfast love, and in mercy. In ways past comprehension this comes to expression in and for the New Church. Eph 5:32; Rev 19:7, 21:2, 9; etc.

Always, the Church,¹⁶ Old and New, is made up of the covenant people.

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The New Church differs from the Old in that Christ accomplished in his living and dying the covenant promises as well as obligations, but the one issue remains; the Church existed in the Old Testament dispensation and the New Church is essential the same as the old, whatever the differences.¹⁷ Such reflection on and study of the Church remains necessary in order 1) to believe and live the great grace of the LORD and Savior for salvation; 2) to counteract the erosion of the Church, with the understanding that there is no salvation outside her; the fact also that there are thousands of different bodies means also thousands of different voices claiming to speak in the name of the LORD. This babel of voices, of course, indicates the departure of the Holy Spirit and the result thereof: a chaos of ideological expressions. And not to forget, 3) to move against every erroneous interpretation of Church History.

The Church remains the community that Christ faithful to the covenant promises gathers; she existed from the beginning of the first dispensation, will exist at the conclusion of the second dispensation, to be taken, raptured into heaven at the conclusion of the Tribulation, which ends Christ’s one thousand-year reign.

2000/2015

BIBLIOGRAPHY

Campbell, D.K., and J.F. Townsend. A Case for Premillennialism: A New Consensus. Chicago: Moody,

1992

.

Jeffrey, G.R. Armageddon: Appointment with Destiny. New York: Bantam,

1988

.

Kee, Howard Clark. Jesus in History: An Approach to the Study of the Gospels. New York: Harcourt, Brace & World,

1970

.

Lindsey, H. There’s A New World Coming: A Prophetic Odyssey. Santa Ana, California: Vision House, 1973

.

Saucy, R.L. The Case for Progressive Dispensationalism: The Interface between Dispensational and Non-dispensational Theology. Grand Rapids: Zondervan,

1993

.

Stam, C.R. Things That Differ: the Fundamentals of Dispensationalism. Germantown, Wisconsin : Berean Bible Society,

1951

/

82

.

Walwoord, John F. Armageddon: Oil and the Middle East Crisis. Grand Rapids: Zondervan,

1974

.

1 Art

28

of the

1561

Confession of Faith, in part, We believe, since this holy assembly and congregation is the assembly of the redeemed and there is no salvation outside of it, that no one ought to withdraw from it, content to be by himself, no matter what his state or quality may be.

2 Heidelberg Catechism, Q/A

21

p, I believe that the Son of God, out of the whole human race, from the beginning of the world to its end, gathers, defends, and preserves for Himself by His Spirit and Word, in the unity of the true faith, a church chosen to everlasting life.

3 Jacob’s twelve sons are also called patriarchs, Acts

7

:

8

. Patriarchs were leaders in the Old Church.

4 Gen

4

:

26

b, At that time men began to call upon the name of the LORD. It is next to impossible to determine in this context the meaning of calling upon the LORD.

An explanatory word: LORD = Yahweh, a primary Old Testament covenant name of Jesus Christ.

5 Shem is the father of the Semites, out of whom the LORD later drew Abram/Abraham.

6 There is a missionary element to the rite of circumcision. Gen

17

:

12

, He that is eight days old among you shall be circumcised; every male throughout your generations, whether born in your house, or bought with your money from any foreigner who is not of your offspring . . .. Specifically male slaves, also those purchased, were subject to the covenant of circumcision.

It goes without saying slavery in the covenant community is an issue separate from the matter at hand, the one Church.

7. Kee, Jesus in History,

156

, "The Greek word for church, ekklesia, has long been recognized as a translation of the Semitic word used in the Old Testament for the covenant community of Israel, qahal."

8 According to Judg

14

:

8

, ‘edhah