Featured The church in the OT

What do you mean when you say " OT Church" ? How are you using church here?

I ask because people use this phrase and mean different things.

 

The classic Reformed understanding of the Old Testament Church is that God has had one called-out people for all eternity. This takes into consideration that Old Testament believers were scattered among different cultural and religious systems. In the New Covenant age the church God still has one called-out people, although their exists local assembles ostensibly made up of professed believers in the Lord Jesus Christ.

 

Pneumatology also plays a part in it, since the Holy Spirit became manifest differently at Pentecost.

 

That view is not shared by many Dispensationalists.

 

the OT saved were included into the Body of Christ, the Church, but the Church itself started up on Pentacost!

 

The danger with saying that the Church started with Abraham is that Abraham was commanded to put the covenant sign on his infant son. It seems like this is a rather Presbyterian argument.
There is only one people of God, drawn from both old and new covenants, but those people only began to meet together as believers after Pentecost. The huge majority of Israelites were unregenerate (c.f. 1 Kings 19:18; Isaiah 1:9).
I believe in a universal Church that starts with Adam (2nd London Confession XXVI: 1-2), but the local church starts at Pentecost.

 

The Book of Acts gives the historical narrative of the transition from the Old Covenant Temple/synagogue worship to the New Covenant ekklesia worship.

The book of Hebrews the theological transition of the same.

John 1:17 For the law was given by Moses, but grace and truth came by Jesus Christ.

 

you use the phrase " OT Church" . this has a number of theological assumptions attached to it. What is the "church" ?

Your OP , at least to me, seems to argue that because there are similarities in the OT with the NT church, therefore the Church existed in the OT. is this what you are saying?

 

Read Acts and Hebrews - use a dispensational study bible.

 

Acts 7:38 KJVS
[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:

 

1 Corinthians 10:1-4 KJVS
[1] Moreover, brethren, I would not that ye should be ignorant, how that all our fathers were under the cloud, and all passed through the sea; [2] And were all baptized unto Moses in the cloud and in the sea; [3] And did all eat the same spiritual meat; [4] And did all drink the same spiritual drink: for they drank of that spiritual Rock that followed them: and that Rock was Christ.

 

This is not a Baptistic view of the local church. Note all of the things a local Baptist church has or does nowadays (Biblically) that no OT assembly ever had:

1. Jesus as the head of the church, His body
2. Baptism as a testimony of belief
3. The Lord's Supper (not the Passover)
4. The Great Commission
5. Two offices: pastor and deacon
6. Missionaries/apostles
7. Meetings on Sunday
8. The NT to guide it
9. Church discipline as per Matt. 18
10. Etc., etc.

 

The Greek word for "church" is ekklesia, as you may know, and it is polysemous (having more than one meaning). It is translated as "assembly" in Acts 19:32, and should have been translated that way in 7:38. The assembly in the wilderness was as different from a NT church as it could be and still be called an ekklesia.

 

17th Century Particular Baptists did believe in an invisible church:

26.1 The catholic or universal church, which (with respect to the internal work of the Spirit and truth of grace) may be called invisible, consists of the whole number of the elect, that have been, are, or shall be gathered into one, under Christ, the head thereof; and is the spouse, the body, the fulness of him that filleth all in all.

The also believed in the necessity of the local (or visible) church:

26.5 In the execution of this power wherewith he is so intrusted, the Lord Jesus calleth out of the world unto himself, through the ministry of his word, by his Spirit, those that are given unto him by his Father, that they may walk before him in all the ways of obedience, which he prescribeth to them in his word. Those thus called, he commandeth to walk together in particular societies, or churches, for their mutual edification, and the due performance of that public worship, which he requireth of them in the world.

...and that the local church is to be constituted of professed believers:

26.6 The members of these churches are saints by calling, visibly manifesting and evidencing (in and by their profession and walking) their obedience unto that call of Christ; and do willingly consent to walk together, according to the appointment of Christ; giving up themselves to the Lord, and one to another, by the will of God, in professed subjection to the ordinances of the Gospel.

In the minds of Particular Baptists, the invisible church is simply the sum total of all believers throughout human history. It is nothingness than the whole body of Christ, from the first believer to the last.

I weigh in on this because Particular (Reformed) Baptists are sometimes accused of advocating an authority other than the local church. That is patently untrue.

 

I'm not sure of the relevance of this post, or what you want me to know or answer. The OP and Covenanter's later post make this specifically about the local church, not the "universal" church.

 

Post 18 appears to be plagiarized