Does the NT church include OT saints? My grandfather thought so. His position was historic premil. I followed my grandfather in this until I applied to my mission board in 1977, and had to write that I disagreed with their doctrinal statement where it said, "The church as peculiar to the age of grace." At the candidate committee, my friend said I came out after 2 hours, white as a sheet and sweating profusely. His interview only took ten minutes! So, they encouraged me to study out ecclesiology for myself, and I did. Dr. Monroe Parker, our director, was extremely helpful in this process when I spent a day with him, and I eventually came out agreeing with the doctrinal statement and spending 33 years in Japan.
The verse Granddad (and others) most go to is Acts 7:38, "This is he, that was in the church in the wilderness with the angel which spake to him in the mount Sina, and with our fathers: who received the lively oracles to give unto us." However, to make this mean something exactly the same as the NT church is to ignore polysemy--a linguistic term meaning that a word can have more than one meaning. Just because the same Greek word is used in two places does not make them the same. I could literally give 100's of illustrations of this from the Bible. In this case (as Dr. Tom pointed out elsewhere), is the "assembly" (ekklesia, same as "church" elsewhere) of Acts 19 a NT church? Of course not! It's a meeting of the male citizens of a Greek city.
Now, note the following comparison:
"Church in the wilderness"--did not meet on Sundays, did not baptize, were not born again, had no membership, included lost people, etc.
Church at Jerusalem--Evangelism, preaching, baptism, membership ("added to them" in vv. 41 & 47), regular meetings, etc.
The verse Granddad (and others) most go to is Acts 7:38, "This is he, that was in the church in the wilderness with the angel which spake to him in the mount Sina, and with our fathers: who received the lively oracles to give unto us." However, to make this mean something exactly the same as the NT church is to ignore polysemy--a linguistic term meaning that a word can have more than one meaning. Just because the same Greek word is used in two places does not make them the same. I could literally give 100's of illustrations of this from the Bible. In this case (as Dr. Tom pointed out elsewhere), is the "assembly" (ekklesia, same as "church" elsewhere) of Acts 19 a NT church? Of course not! It's a meeting of the male citizens of a Greek city.
Now, note the following comparison:
"Church in the wilderness"--did not meet on Sundays, did not baptize, were not born again, had no membership, included lost people, etc.
Church at Jerusalem--Evangelism, preaching, baptism, membership ("added to them" in vv. 41 & 47), regular meetings, etc.
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