How “New” is the New Testament Church?

Like it or not, everyone approaches scripture with some amount of bias.  Through previous teaching we may have sat under and conclusions we may have made during our own studies, we tend to create a paradigm in our minds that we believe accurately represents God’s greater plan for mankind.  This paradigm, in turn, becomes a set of glasses through which we view God’s Word.  If correct, these glasses can magnify individual passages and make them clearer and easier to understand because we can see how they fit in God’s overarching plan.  But if incorrect, they become blinders, prohibiting us from grasping the true meaning of scriptural passages.  On the off chance we pause long enough to notice a potential conflict between our systematic theology and a scriptural passage, tragically, the paradigm tends to triumph, as we simply assume someone smarter than us has already contemplated the passage and reconciled it with our view of scripture.

Another significant barrier that can cause confusion is that the Bible was written in multiple different languages.  This greatly complicates the task of those who seek to understand the bigger picture of scripture.  Although we can see constant themes throughout the Hebrew scriptures by tracing how concepts are taught and developed, when we reach the time of the Messiah, the language abruptly changes.  This means the vocabulary of a new language is in use, which forces us to judge whether certain words and phrases we find in the Greek scriptures are meant to communicate new concepts, or instead simply refer to—or expand upon—concepts that were originally taught using the Hebrew language.  Although the answer to this question is sometimes rather obvious, I would contend it is often less so.  Combined with bias, the language barrier has the potential to form a tremendous obstacle to understanding the true meaning of scripture regarding a host of topics.  Not the least of these is the doctrine that many in mainstream Christianity refer to as the “New Testament local church”.

The word “church” in scripture is translated from the Greek word ekklesia, which means “called out to assemble”.  It was used secularly in the first century to refer to a public meeting, such as the assembly in Ephesus chronicled in Acts 19:32.  However, its first use in scripture is found in Matthew 16:15-18:

He saith unto them, But whom say ye that I am? And Simon Peter answered and said, Thou art the Christ, the Son of the living God. And Jesus answered and said unto him, Blessed art thou, Simon Barjona: for flesh and blood hath not revealed it unto thee, but my Father which is in heaven. And I say also unto thee, That thou art Peter, and upon this rock I will build my church [ekklesia]; and the gates of hell shall not prevail against it.

According to mainstream Christian doctrines, the Messiah here is communicating a new concept in this passage—that He is about to create a new institution, the ekklesia, built upon Peter’s statement that Yeshua (the Hebrew pronunciation of “Jesus”) was the Messiah, the Son of God, and that this new institution would replace the “Old Testament” institutions.  As one commentator explained:

“Peter would have understood several truths from the expression….  First of all, ekklesia would have been a striking contrast to Jewish concepts such as temple, synagogue, tabernacle, kingdom, etc.  Peter would have understood that this was a new concept based on the common Greek word for “assembly.”  He would have understood that Christ was not going to use the sacral society of Judaism anymore, nor the institutions thereof.”  (Strouse, Dr. Thomas M., I Will Build My Church: The Doctrine and History of the Baptists, Revised Edition, Bible Baptist Theological Press, p. 38)

On the surface, this understanding seems to make sense—especially if it is true that this was the first time that he had heard ekklesia used in a religious context.  And since it is consistent with the overarching mainstream belief that the church is replaces the “Old Testament” system, most in Christianity look no further.  However, it is interesting to note that the Greek word behind “build” does not mean to “create” or build from the ground up.  Instead, it is often translated elsewhere as “edify”, meaning to build up something that already exists.  This suggests Yeshua was referring to something that already existed in his time.  In addition, it is not in fact clear that Peter would have understood the word ekklesia to be a contrast with the existing religious institutions, nor that he was forced to rely on his understanding of the secular usage of ekklesia to try to piece together what Yeshua meant.  Indeed, we see examples in scripture of first-century Jews using this word to refer to “Old Testament” institutions.  One example is found in Stephen’s sermon in Acts 7:38:

This is he, that was in the church [ekklesia] 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:

In this verse, Stephen uses the word ekklesia during his sermon to a mob of angry fellow-Jews in a clear reference to the assembly that was in the wilderness under the leadership of Moses.  It is reasonable to expect that Stephen would have used terminology that his audience would have been familiar with.  This would indicate that ekklesia was the word his audience would have associated with, and used when referring to, the congregation in the wilderness. 

As a second witness, Paul also seemingly equates ekklesia to the “Old Testament” congregation in Hebrews 2:12:

Saying, I will declare thy name unto my brethren, in the midst of the church [ekklesia] will I sing praise unto thee.

Here, Paul is quoting from Psalm 22:22.  In doing so, he translates the Hebrew word qahal, for “congregation” as ekklesia.  Qahal is used repeatedly in the Hebrew scriptures to refer to the congregation of the children of Israel, from the time of the exodus through the time of the divided kingdom.  Thus, it appears that Paul also used ekklesia to refer to the “Old Testament” congregation. 

If this is the case, it is reasonable to wonder if Peter also would have understood the use of ekklesia to refer to the congregation that already existed during his conversation with Yeshua, instead of something brand new.  Indeed, recognizing the way ekklesia was used in that day, one would expect Yeshua would have been a bit clearer in explaining that the ekklesia he was referring to was in fact a new congregation, distinct from the old one, if that were what he meant.  However, the Messiah did not say anything that would hint in that direction.  Nor, in fact, does the rest of the New Testament.  Nor is the concept ever so much as alluded to—much less prophesied to occur—from Genesis to Malachi.  Indeed, the silence of scripture regarding such a massive institutional change is deafening.  God clearly states in Amos 3:7 that He does nothing without revealing it first to His prophets.  Why, then, is the church, as a distinct institution, never directly called out in prophesy?

 After Yeshua’s death, Peter does not seem to be at all in a hurry to shed connections to existing religious institutions to create something new and distinct.  Instead, he seemed to expect that new gentile believers would attend, as it turns out, a synagogue. 

Wherefore my sentence is, that we trouble not them, which from among the Gentiles are turned to God: But that we write unto them, that they abstain from pollutions of idols, and from fornication, and from things strangled, and from blood. For Moses of old time hath in every city them that preach him, being read in the synagogues every sabbath day.

Here in Acts 15:19-21, the church at Jerusalem offers a prescription for those new gentile believers who were being confused by certain Jews who claimed circumcision was required for salvation.  They suggest that the best thing to do for these new believers was to give them a short list of laws out of the Torah relating to pagan temple worship to work on first.  Obviously, this short list was not all-inclusive, as it leaves out many important commandments, such as those against stealing, murder, false witness, etc.  But Peter argues that there is no need to write an exhaustive list, since these new believers would be able to learn the rest of what God expects of a believer by attending their local synagogue where the Law of Moses was taught.

Interestingly, the idea of believers in the Messiah attending synagogues is not unique to Acts 15.  In his epistle, James also seems to have expected that believers would be worshiping in synagogues. 

For if there come unto your assembly [“synagogue” in the Greek] a man with a gold ring, in goodly apparel, and there come in also a poor man in vile raiment; (Jas. 2:2)

In addition, Paul seems to indicate that when he persecuted and arrested believers in his pre-conversion days, it was out of the synagogues:

And I punished them oft in every synagogue, and compelled them to blaspheme; and being exceedingly mad against them, I persecuted them even unto strange cities. (Acts 26:11)

And I said, Lord, they know that I imprisoned and beat in every synagogue them that believed on thee:  (Acts 22:19)

If the local church was meant to replace the old institutions of worship, what were believers still doing in the synagogues?  All this is consistent with the fact that Paul always entered into the local synagogues to preach while on his journeys. 

Having seen all this, we are forced to ask ourselves this question: Does the New Testament local church replace the old “congregation” that took the form of the “church in the wilderness” under Moses, the Nation of Israel from the time of Joshua until the fall of Jerusalem, and synagogues all over the ancient world after Israel and Judah were scattered?  Or, to the contrary, is the local church perhaps a continuation of it, in a form that God, in His wisdom, has both adapted for the scattered, worldwide state of Israel and also edified with the Messianic covenant?  Is there truly a distinction?