The Church Is Not Israel -- By: Jim Bryant
Journal: Conservative Theological Journal
Volume: CTJ 06:19 (Dec 2002)
Article: The Church Is Not Israel
Author: Jim Bryant
CTJ 6:19 (December 2002) p. 337
The Church Is Not Israel
Pastor, Grace Bible Chapel
San Antonio, TX
Many good men differ on whether or not the Church is the fulfillment of the promises to the nation of Israel. Some interpret the Church to be the elect of Israel in the Old Testament. There are serious issues that surround how the Church is interpreted. It is an important issue beyond its appearance because a wrong interpretation can lead to all kinds of confusion. Issues such as: infant baptism, the Lord’s table as a sacrament, Sabbath keeping, the role of the law, tithing 10%, certain diets, ceremonial garments and rituals, modern prophecy and visions, eschatology, and many other related issues largely have to do with how the Church is interpreted.
The issue is this — who is included in the Church? The Greek word from which we get the term “church” is ekklesia. “It is a compound word made up of the preposition ek, ‘out,’ and the verb kaleo, ‘to call.’ It was used among the Greeks of a body of citizens gathered to discuss the affairs of state (Acts 19:39)” (Vine, 1966, 84).
It can be in reference to the larger grouping we call the “universal Church.” The idea of the universal Church, in the mind of some, is the assembly of all elect who ever lived. In this definition the term for Church becomes synonymous with all saints, all elect, the household of faith, etc. “The church simply means ‘a called out group’. It is most often used in a technical sense of believers whom God has called out of the world as a special group of His own” (Enns, 1989,111).
By specifying a definition for the Church “as the elect of all times” it has been defined in an unbiblical manner. Vine correctly
CTJ 6:19 (December 2002) p. 338
states his first application for the word for Church as: “the whole company of the redeemed throughout the present era, the company of which Christ said ‘I will build My church’” (Vine, 1966, 84). The Scriptures clearly indicate the Church began at Pentecost. Definitions of the Church are derivatives of the hermeneutical approach of the individual defining “the Church.” A literal interpretation will conclude the Church began on Pentecost in a new dispensation, and the Church, rather than being the elect, is a unique group of Jews and Gentiles for this age only.
The idea of dispensations is not new. John Gill, (the respected late 1700 and early 1800 writer/preacher) who preached in the pulpit later to be occupied by Spurgeon, does not specifically address the matter of the Church in the OT (nor do any of the older saints at least in the...
Click here to subscribe