Calvary Baptist Church, Grenada, MS, USA
Holding to the truths embraced by Baptist for centuries.
New Testament churches, by necessary definition, are not Old Testament organizations nor organisms. We do not feel or learn from Scripture that any church, in our sense of the word, began with Adam, nor with Abraham, nor with Aaron. To be sure, the Old Testament knew a people of God, and Stephen does refer to "the ecclesia in the wilderness'' (Acts 7:38); the concept of an assembly or congregation was present. But there is a distend, qualitative difference in the personal pronominal adjective "My" In Matthew 16:18, when Jesus clearly distinguished His congregation--His kind of congregation--from all others then in existence, as well as all to come later and any that had existed before.
Still, in the light of God's foreknowledge and in the spirit of prophecy, we would anticipate some foreview of the "church age'' in the Old Testament.
To be sure, hyper-dispensationalism refers to the church as "the hidden mystery," with the implication that it is a parenthetical portion of God's permissive will because of Israel's refection of an earthly kingdom. But this ignores the explicit words of Jesus in Matthew's record, chapters 16 and 18, where "the gospel of the kingdom'' is the one which introduces us to the church!
How, then, shall we expect to see the church in the Old Testament? We may expect to see it pictorially, in various types and shadows; we may expect to see it prophetically, in the same way that we see the shadow of the cross; and we may expect to see it prospectively, in partial and predictive events and organizations which lead directly to it.
Many note that Eve is a type of the church, a bride taken out of the wounded side of the first Adam. The idea of the church as a bride is clearly set forth in Ephesians 5:22-23, and in Revelation 19:6-9. This "help meet," or fit helper, is a direct analogy which indicates God's eternal purpose to prepare a bride for His Son by means of the pierced side and the precious salvation of Calvary.
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4 THE CHURCH ON THE ROCK
Rebekah, the bride for Isaac, was sought by the nameless servent who was doubtless a type of the Holy Spirit Who shall "not speak of Himself" as He leads the bride to the Bridegroom (John 16:13-14). Joseph's Gentile bride, Pharaoh's daughter, whom he received while he was rejected by his brethren, is also a beautiful and obvious foreshadowing.
Among the multitude of other bride-types in Scripture, we must not overlook Rahab and Ruth, both Gentiles who by faith were incorporated into the family of Israel and even into the lineage of the Lion of Judah (Matthew 1:5). Should anyone protest Rahab's immoral character, and feel that she is not worthy of inclusion in such a picture, let that person remember that Christ died to save sinners, and that the church is the only organization on earth made up exclusively of self-confessed sinners, forgiven by grace and constantly changed from glory unto glory. There is here no room for pride or haughtiness; we call others to the feast to which we have been invited, not to one we have prepared.
Whether other brides in the Old Testament are pictures of the church may be a long subbed of scholarly debate; suffice it to say that there are clearly three such photos in Genesis, and others in the history of national Israel, which we may in retrospect recognize as the church in prospect.
Psalm 22:22 is interpreted in Hebrews 2:12 (and the New Testament is the only divinely inspired commentary on the Old), as a prophetic statement of the church. In passing, this is evidence for the existence of the church before the day of Pentecost recorded in Acts 2. The Psalmist, David, in describing the agonies of the cross in the fullest picture of crucifixion, given a thousand years before Jesus quoted it at Calvary, tells us of the Suffering Shepherd. In verse 22, he states: “I will declare Thy name unto My brethren; in the midst of the congregation (Septuagint, ecclesia) will I praise Thee.
The inspired author of Hebrews, following the Greek of the Septuagint and giving us a Spirit-led interpretation of the Psalm, sees this praise as singing, and the congregation as the church. lf we are quick to see the cross, the crowd, and the Christ in this passage, why should we be slow to see the congregation? After the Lord set His table in His church on the night before the crucifixion, that body joined in song. He followed the Passover plan of Exodus 12, calling together His closest family (Matthew 12:48-50), in a carefully limited situation out of which grew the communion. What did they sing as they went out? It may have been the “Hallel” (Psalms 113 through 118), or some other songs of Israel, but what we know for sure is that this is the only recorded instance in Scripture on which Jesus sang. It seems, in the light of Hebrews 2:12, to fulfill the prophetic Psalm and to do so in the church.
Also, two prophets of the Eight Century B.C. duplicate one another in describing a glorious event, future from their perspective, which in the
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estimate of many is the establishing of the church. Isaiah 2:1-4 and Micah 4:1-3 both tell of a day in which the Lord will exalt His word and His name above all the powers of the earth, and in which great numbers of Gentiles will come to learn the law of the Lord, which would begin at Jerusalem and be spread among all nations until the end of the age, when final peace shall be granted by this glorious Lord. To defer totally any sort of fulfillment, whether physically literal or spiritually literal, of such glorious gospel promises to a millennial future is to ignore the present response of the Gentiles to the work Jesus began atop the mountain during His earthly ministry, and in part to suggest that His ministry was a failure (Luke 6:12-13; I Corinthians 12:28). From that Message on the Mount recorded by Matthew (5-7) and Luke (6:17-49), the constitution sermon for His church and the ordination message for the twelve, the nations have indeed fulfilled the prophetic word of Isaiah and Micah as they have responded to the exaltation of the Lord of the church and the church of the Lord in all nations. To be sure, absolute fulfillment of Isaiah 2:4 and Micah 4:3-4 must wait the return of the Prince of Peace, and yet even here the gospel knows its victories, peace for the believer, peace among those with whom He is well pleased, and the blessedness of the peacemakers in this age.
But the fullest account of the church in prophecy is found Zechariah, chapters three through six, where several details are found. There we meet the BRANCH of Matthew 2:23, the Nazarene or Netzer. Matthew's statement that "He shall be called a Nazarene'' (not Nazarite) has confused many, because no such expression appears in our English Old Testament. But the prophets, speaking Hebrew, used the word for a broken, dry twig, a fruitless branch, which comes to us as "|Nazarene.'' No wonder the world cried in astonishment, "Can any good thing come out of Nazareth?'' No wonder Nathanael doubted Philip's testimony (John 1:46). Who ever heard of fruit on a broken twig, a "root out of dry ground"? But this was done to fulfill the Scriptures that say, "Not by might, nor by power, but by My Spirit," and again, "Grace, unto it'' (Zech. 4:6-7).
Chapter 5 of this Fifth Century B.C. prophecy gives a foreview of the false bride, building a temple in the land of Shinar (Babylon) "upon her own base," not on the Lord's foundation. The word of God concerning this idolatrous counterfeit, also described in the Revelation, chapters 17 and 18, is: "This is wickedness.'' (Zech. 5:8)
Zechariah 6:12-15, with a primary reference to events of the prophet's own day (foretelling), also gives us an exact picture of the church age. This is in keeping with the "mountain-top principle'' of prophecy, in which the seer, like one viewing several high mountains, cannot distinguish their individuality, but describes them together. Yet as one climbs and descends each, they are found to have intervening valleys and distances not forseen.
While the age in general may be such a valley, the time in which the Lord's church was established was uniquely a mountain-top event, and Zechariah describes the facts connected with it quite clearly from his perspective.
6 THE CHURCH ON THE ROCK
According to the prophet, Jesus was: (1) to grow up out of His place, that is in Nazareth, not in Bethlehem where He was born, nor in Jerusalem, the city of David, nor in Heaven, His ultimate place, but in a worthless little town in the hill country of Galilee, called long before "the land of Cabul," or "worthless" (I Kings 9:13). He was (2) to build the temple of the LORD, the New Testament church (I Corinthians 3:16, spoken to the congregation at Corinth). He was (3) to bear the glory, not to have it but to take it to His Father, Ephesians 3:21. He was (4) to sit and rule upon His throne, as He now does over His kingdom of churches, Acts 2:30-33. He was (5) to be a priest upon His throne, as He now ever lives to make intercession for us, Hebrews 7:25. He was (6) to agree with His Father in our salvation, as Hebrews 10:1-10 indicates He did. The covenant of our salvation is an agreement between the Father and the Son--"between them both," Zec. 6:13 --sealed by the Holy Spirit. And He was (7) to bring the Gentiles to build in the temple which He Himself built. Note how carefully the Holy Spirit used His prepositions! We build in the church by evangelism and missions until He comes, but He is the Builder!
And as it was with the obedience of Israel in the days of Haggai and Zachariah, so in our day with spiritual Israel, "This shall come to pass, if ye will diligently obey the voice of the LORD your God."
According to Stephen, as noted by Scofield (Acts 7:38), the prospect of a New Testament assembly may be seen in Israel as they traveled together in the wilderness. Such a quahal, or congregation, even though made up of two and one half million people, could come to the tent meeting so long as they traveled together, but did not so assemble once in the land. Therefore this "church in prospect'' which moved from Egypt's bondage, under the blood and then through the water, through the wanderings of defeat and into the place of victory, provides many lessons for our churches, as the Spirit said through Paul in I Corinthians 10:1-11.
After the Babylonian captivity, at some time during the interbiblical "four hundred silent years," the synagogues became the local, visible meeting places of God's gathered people as they awaited their Messiah. These were of special value to those in the Gentile world who could not easily travel to the center of worship at Jerusalem, and may have originated during the captivity and been spread through the "Diaspora" or dispersion.
But the central, clear prospective elements, involving a beginning which demands a completion, a type which cries out for an anti-type, are found in the tabernacle-temple analog.
In the days of Moses, God gave on the mount a pattern for the Tabernacle--a visible sign of His invisible presence, a location where His people could gather to praise Him and be strengthened for His service. Contrary to our usual opinion, Moses did not build this tabernacle; he merely
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assembled the materials, according to Exodus 25:1 through 30:38. The actual building of the Tabernacle of the congregation was done by Bezaleel, one of the least-known types of Christ (Exdus 31, 35-40), from the materials prepared by Moses. Bezaleel was, according to the LORD Himself in Exodus 31:2-3, "filled with the Spirit of God." After the tabernacle was built, it was dedicated with sacrifice, Exodus, 40:29, and filled with the Shekinah glory, 40:34-38, symbolic of the Holy Spirit if not His personal presence.
In the days of David, the need was no longer for a place of worship which could be moved, but for a central, focal point where the tribes might go up to worship. This was met by the desire in David's heart to build a temple. As I Chronicles 17 indicates, God allowed this man after His own heart to collect the materials, but not to complete the project. After David's death, Solomon took this material and built the glorious temple (though the actual work was under the direction of a workman provided by Hyram, king of Tyre, I Kings 7:13-14), and dedicated it with blood sacrifices, all recorded in II Chronicles 1-5. God then endorsed this work with the same Shekinah glory, 5:13-14.
Surely the New Testament parallel is too plain to belabor. John the Baptist collected the materials by the preaching of the gospel and the baptizing of believers; Jesus built His church as He said He would; it was dedicated with the sacrifice of His own blood, Hebrews 10:1-14; and on the Pentecost of Acts 2, it was filled endorsed and endued, with the Shekinah glory of the Holy Spirit. In the light of these analogies, let us not again attribute the building of first church to the Holy Spirit, nor (worse) to John. Like Moses and David, John collected proper materials. The Spirit led in this ministry, and by His glorious presence manifested God's approval on the work once dedicated by the offering of blood. He glorifies Christ, Who in turn bears the glory (as Zachariah said He would, and as Paul said He does in Ephesians 3:21), to the author of this purpose, God the Father.
We have now examined a few gleanings from the surface of the older Testament concerning the Church on the Rock. These may be enough to help us know that New Testament churches, like Calvary, are no afterthought nor accident, but part of God's glorious and eternal plan and purpose for the redemption, not just of one nation, but of a people from every nation under Heaven, as Jesus builds again "the tabernacle of David, which is fallen down'' (Acts 15:13-18). We do not suggest that there are no future fulfillments for these passages, but that their present realities are too often overlooked.