Drippings from the Honeycomb
More to be desired are [the rules of the Lord] than gold, even much fine gold; sweeter also than honey and drippings of the honeycomb. (Psalm 19:10)
 *Many Christians have different views on this subject so please read with care and a charitable eye. What is the Church? Most people answer that question through the lens of the New Covenant initiated by Jesus, so they would speak of the New Covenant Church. This naturally raises the question of “what about Israel”? Many have sought to answer this in different ways[1] but I’ll answer it covenantally and seek to offer what I believe to be the argument of Paul found in Rom 9–11. In the blog series on “What is the Church” this is the highest level of answering that question, taking much more of a bird’s eye view than is usually taken. The question was anticipated by Paul after he had shared about the promises of the New Covenant, or Gospel, and the in-grafting of the Gentiles—had the promises to Israel failed and if so could the New Covenant be trusted? I’ll define covenantalism as: That there is one chosen people of God (the elect) represented throughout history under different covenants. The Bible is a record of God’s one continuous plan of salvation under different covenants involving one spiritual people. What does that look like? Paul uses the imagery of grafting and an olive tree. We all, as sinners, are by nature a wild olive tree. God, in His grace, chose one man’s family—Abraham—through whom He’d rescue a lost world through providing a Saviour. Thus arises ethnic Israel, the physical offspring of Israel (Abraham’s grand-son) to whom God’s covenantal promises are passed down. He chooses this family and turns them into a cultivated olive tree through which He will bless all nations in His plan of salvation (Gen 3:15 and Gen 12). They were the means to the Saviour. We also know that not all of Abraham’s offspring were spiritual descendants for though the promises of the Covenant came to them they needed to trust, exercise faith, to be the recipients of its blessing (Ro 4:11–2; Gal 3:7). Thus there was always a visible and invisible Israel. And the Old Covenant, or Testament/will as the division in our Bible declares, was not a permanent covenant. It was the guardian until Christ came (Gal 3:4), when the prophesied New Covenant (Jer 31:31–4) fulfilled the Old (Mt 5:17; Ro 10:4b; 2 Cor 1:20a; Heb 8:6). At this time the veil in the Temple was torn and later Jesus prophecy against the Temple was fulfilled with its destruction in AD 70. Thus Covenantalism speaks of fulfilment and recognizes the grand sweeping story of God’s plan across the covenants. The Bible says that Christ is the root of all of the elect, His sheep, those He died to save (Ro 11:16b; c.f. Rev 22:16). Ethnic Israel was the trunk of the cultivated Olive tree through which the promises of God (Christ) came. The problem is, like many orchard trees, that there arose dead [unbelieving] branches in visible Israel. At the time of Christ most visible Israelites were spiritually dead and trusting in works rather than the Covenantal promises. Few were looking for the Messiah. These were broken off by the master pruner (God) (Ro 11:17) from the visible covenantal people of God. Those who are described by the prophets of the OT as the “faithful remnant” where the ones who believed in their Messiah. They were the living branches built upon the trunk of their spiritual heritage, these remained faithful. Paul himself was part of this group. This was the beginning of the New Covenant Church as all early followers of Jesus were ethnic Jews (Pentecost; Acts 11:19). All along, however, it had been part of God’s plan to bring about a blessing to the nations and thus the Gentile (non-Jew) inclusion into the people of God had been prophesied through the OT and foreshadowed in Jesus’ ministry. These Gentiles could be grafted into the Covenant community of God through faith in the Messiah, not only for the ethnic Jews, but the whole world. Thus the New Covenant people of God is comprised of both Jews and Gentiles (Ro 1:17). In fact Old Testament terms are applied to this people (1 Pet 2:9–10) and many older hymns apply the term Israel and Jerusalem to the New Covenant Church. Israel is the Church and the Church is Israel, the true spiritual covenantal people of God, elect through the ages, continued in time under the New Covenant. It is therefore right to speak of myself as a spiritual Jew and the Church as Israel (The Greek version of the Hebrew Old Testament, the Septuagint/LXX, used the word “church” to speak of God’s people before Christ). So when we speak of Israel (modern state, geographic area, ethnic Jews), they are actually not Jews at all, in the spiritual sense, but false Jews. The Church, comprised of ethnic Jews and Gentiles, one people (Eph 2:11–22), is the true Israel, the New Covenant community of God’s elect, carrying on the story of God’s people through time. It is the culmination of the cultivated olive tree. But what of those dead branches pruned from the tree, unbelieving ethnic Israel? Paul says there is still hope insofar as they come to believe their Messiah. Many Jews since the time of Christ have trusted in Him as their Messiah and be engrafted themselves. So too, Paul seems to expect a time in the future when there will be a great ingathering of ethnic Jews into the Church/Israel. All of this causes Paul to break forth into praise. Why? Because no one is deserving to be God’s, yet in His grace He has called many men, women and children to Himself through faith in the covenant promises of God throughout the ages, which find their fulfilment in the New Covenant of Jesus Christ. So what is the Church? At the highest level it is the chosen, elect, people of God throughout all ages who have been redeemed from sin through faith in Jesus Christ. One day, we’ll all be together as one people, one Church, one Israel, in the New Heavens and New Earth. What a glorious plan of salvation our God has! Footnote 1- Other views:
Below is a visual representation of what has been presented above:  As we yield to and are filled by the Spirit in the Christian life (sanctification), each Christian is to progressively bear all of the fruit of the Spirit as a witness to the saving reality of our faith (are we who we really profess to be). Such fruit is not limited to the description found in Gal 5. Many other fruit can be found listed throughout the New Testament. James 3:17 is one such place. Speaking of the fruit that comes from the wisdom from above it lists:
Pure, then peaceable, gentle, open to reason, full of mercy and good fruits, impartial and sincere. I’d like to zero in on one fruit: open to reason, or the fruit of “reasoning”, or being reasonable. There is a reason why the Bible speaks so much about good communication and that is because we are so bad at it. Most church conflicts are not about doctrine, or wrong doing, or even personality differences, they’re communication issues that usually arise from a wrong disposition, a want of sanctification. Immediately after James speaks of taming the tongue he shows what someone being transformed by the Spirit will look like in their communications: be open to reasoning. The word here can mean well-persuaded, already inclined, already willing, easy to come to terms with because already willing, etc. It conveys the notion of someone willing to go to great lengths to come to terms with someone, foster understanding, get to the bottom of the situation, be level headed, committed to working something through, labouring to this great end. This is not being quick tempered, which short circuits the intellect, but restrained, mentally engaged and charitable. It is a clarity of the mind and a calmness of our affections. It is a rare quality today, to be patient, peaceable, and restrained, enough to work through a difficulty. It is a key Spiritual fruit that enables us to truly submit to one another out of reverence for Christ (Eph 5:21). So the next time you are presented with a difficult situation, in or outside of the Church, as a believer, would you pray that the Lord would enable you to be open to reason, for everyone’s good and His glory. To God all glory, praise, and love be now and ever given by saints below and saints above, the Church in earth and heaven. (Charles Wesley, “O For a Thousand Tongues to Sing”) It can get lonely thinking you are all alone. That is why a big perspective on what the Church is vitally essential. It reminds us that if we are in Christ we are part of a great cloud of witnesses. The Church militant describes believers who are still alive and still battling on for the Lord in this life. The Church triumphant describes those who’ve won the battle, fought the fight and finished the race, those whose spirits have gone to be in the presence of the Lord and who await the final Resurrection. Here are all of those whose faith was in the promises of God, which point to Christ and are Christ: Abel, Noah, the Patriarchs, Gideon, David, the disciples and all believers since. We pick up this distinction from places such as Rev 7 where John witnesses fellow believers worshiping the Lord in heaven. How encouraging a thought it is to know that we are not alone. Not only is Christ with us in Word and Spirit, but what is more, we are part of a great company of believers, far greater than our isolated geographic distribution allows us to fathom, not only here on earth, but in heaven above. In the words of Heb 12:1 the Church triumphant grace the side-lines of our race and cheer us on as it were. May we be encouraged that as a Christian we are part of the Church militant and triumphant! It can get lonely thinking you are all alone. That is why a big perspective on what the Church is vitally essential. It reminds us that if we are in Christ we are part of a great cloud of witnesses. The Church militant describes believers who are still alive and still battling on for the Lord in this life. The Church triumphant describes those who’ve won the battle, fought the fight and finished the race, those whose spirits have gone to be in the presence of the Lord and who await the final Resurrection. Here are all of those whose faith was in the promises of God, which point to Christ and are Christ: Abel, Noah, the Patriarchs, Gideon, David, the disciples and all believers since. We pick up this distinction from places such as Rev 7 where John witnesses fellow believers worshiping the Lord in heaven. How encouraging a thought it is to know that we are not alone. Not only is Christ with us in Word and Spirit, but what is more, we are part of a great company of believers, far greater than our isolated geographic distribution allows us to fathom, not only here on earth, but in heaven above. In the words of Heb 12:1 the Church triumphant grace the side-lines of our race and cheer us on as it were. May we be encouraged that as a Christian we are part of the Church militant and triumphant! This might sound like a very perplexing statement but I believe it is true; allow me to explain.
The Church, made up of baptized believers in Jesus Christ, ought to be an inclusive welcoming community, yet it is at the same time an exclusive, or distinct, body. Too often Christians fail to appreciate this paradox and opt for one extreme (inclusivity) or the other (exclusivity). Let’s see how this paradox is true, and ought to naturally flow from who we are, taking as our example the teachings of Jesus: INCLUSIVE Jesus was inclusive, if by that definition we mean welcoming or not embracing a judgementalism. He didn’t care if the person was the vilest sinner, He sought to be inclusive of everyone, for He had come as the Saviour of the world (in fact He said that He came to save not the “self-righteous” but sinners, Lk 5:32):
EXCLUSIVE Yet, just as Jesus met people where they were, He didn’t desire them to stay there. In fact in the same breadth in which He displayed an inclusive spirit He made some very exclusive statements. His inclusivity serves to build trust for He wants us to exclusively trust in and follow him and there find true inclusion in the exclusive body of Christ, an entry that can only come through trusting in Him alone:
In an age that champion’s unbridled inclusivity this paradox is a paradox indeed. In an age where Christian writers speak of people needing to “belong before they believe” the call to “believe before you belong” sounds harsh. Yet when it is matched by the inclusive spirit Jesus displayed, the latter loses much of its apparent harshness. We do need to help people feel like they belong, but through that honest welcome, to help them see they must believe if they are to truly belong, belong to Christ and be members of the local body. That is the paradox of the Church and it is the paradox of her Lord. |
