The miniseries explores biblical titles for God's people, focusing on terms like "church" and "body of Christ." It distinguishes between their historical meanings and modern interpretations, emphasizing the significance of assemblies in Jewish tradition. The series ultimately reveals that the true Church exists as a spiritual assembly of believers, transcending earthly definitions.
Core of the Bible podcast #127 - Titles for God's people: The Church
Welcome once again to the Core of the Bible podcast. My name is Steve, and I am your host in reviewing the key focal points in the Biblical narrative.
As I mentioned in previous episodes, we are currently doing a little miniseries on the titles for God's people. Those of you who are regular listeners may wonder why it has been so long since my last podcast episode was published, so I thought a quick word might help bridge that gap. After all, it has been about a year since I started this miniseries on the titles for God's people.
During this time, in my personal studies I have gotten off into some pretty deep rabbit holes regarding the Body of Christ specifically, and I wanted to be sure I had some sure footing before I related some of my thoughts on that title. Since the term is primarily used by the apostle Paul, I have been challenged on some of my previous notions about what he meant in using that term. After months of reading articles and commentary and cross-referencing biblical passages and Greek and Hebrew terms, I believe I have a better understanding that remains consistent with the views I have been presenting here. I just thought you should know that, as believers, we sometimes reach conclusions that can affect our entire worldview, and those are principles that we should think very carefully about.
Over these few past episodes, we have been looking at the following terms in some detail: believer and Christian, the Remnant and the Elect, and we will continue with the Church and the Body and the Bride of Christ. These are all terms that by most accounts are considered synonymous and applicable to the people today who claim to believe in Messiah. However, in these studies I have been looking at scriptural reasons as to why I believe some of those terms do not apply to God’s people today, and yet how God has worked within these various aspects of his people over the ages to accomplish specific things for the good of all.
Last time, we explored how the terms the remnant and the elect designated those through whom God was choosing to work and to whom he maintained his covenantal faithfulness, specifically in that first century generation. We now come to two more synonymous terms which are a little more abstract in nature: the Church and the Body.
Now, while I had envisioned covering both of these terms together, I have so many concepts to share about each that I have decided to break this information into two separate episodes; one on the Church and one on the Body of Christ. So let’s begin today by looking at the title for God’s people known as the Church.
TERMINOLOGY: CHURCH AND ASSEMBLY
The word itself, church, comes to us from the Greek kyriakon meaning “of the Lord”. In the Bible, kyriakon is used only of the supper of the Lord (1 Cor. 11:20) and the Day of the Lord (Rev. 1:10). Over the centuries, the Greek has been filtered through the proto-Germanic kirika and into the Old English chiriche to become “church” in modern English. Even though the English word wouldn’t be invented until the 11th or 12th century, a thousand years earlier the concept had been generally used when speaking of houses of worship as places “of the Lord”. Today, many church buildings are still considered houses of the Lord, but we also see churches as both buildings and as organizations.
More commonly, the word typically rendered as church in the English Bible is the Greek word ekklesia, meaning “a called out assembly”. This word is almost identical in the Latin, which is where we get the term ecclesiastical as it relates to matters of church governance and organization. Based on the concepts of the remnant and the elect that we previously reviewed, it is easy to see how this idea of a “called out assembly” became associated with the believing congregations.
However, in general ancient usage, the Greek term ekklesia really had no religious connotation and was simply used to describe an assembly or meeting of persons who had been called together for a specific purpose; it could have been any type of meeting or gathering. The Strong’s definition states:
“…among the Greeks from Thucydides (cf. Herodotus 3, 142) down, [ekklesia means] an assembly of the people convened at the public place of council for the purpose of deliberating…”
This isn’t describing a religious gathering; it’s more like a civic or town hall meeting. The ancient Greeks loved to deliberate in public meetings which, for those of you who may remember some of your history and government class at school, was the origin and foundation of democratic society.
An example of this non-religious use of the term is found even within the pages of Scripture. You may recall the story of a large mob that had gathered in the amphitheater at Ephesus after the craftsmen of idols were stirring up arguments against Paul and his companions. It was only after several hours that the city clerk could stand before the crowd and get everyone to settle down and disperse.
Acts 19:39-41 – “But if you seek anything further, it must be decided in a legal assembly [ekklesia]. In fact, we run a risk of being charged with rioting for what happened today, since there is no justification that we can give as a reason for this disturbance.” After saying this, he dismissed the assembly [ekklesia].
As you can see, this “assembly” of people in Acts 19 was actually a mob that almost turned into a riot, and had nothing to do with what we would consider a church gathering. But it’s the same Greek word that is used for “church” throughout the New Testament writings in our English Bibles.
As for its more religious connotation in the Bible, the word ekklesia is sometimes used in describing a local congregation and sometimes as describing the overall group of believers in general.
So the word, as it’s used in the biblical writings, had application for individual congregations as well as the combined consideration of all of the believing congregations in a given area. It remains in the context of each passage where it is mentioned to determine its singular or collective application.
I think it’s also important to note in this context that another word in the New Testament that was used widely of religious buildings or gatherings was the Greek word synagoge, where we obviously get the word synagogue. This word was used most typically of Jewish places of gathering or assembling, which is what the word means: “house of assembly”. We have to remember that this is where the believers depicted within the New Testament gathered; there were no separate Christian church buildings at that time.
There is even an instance in James 2:2 where the word synagoge is used of the assembly or meeting of believers in Messiah.
James 2:1-2 – My brothers, do not show favoritism as you hold on to the faith in our glorious Lord Yeshua Messiah. For if someone comes into your meeting [synagoge] wearing a gold ring and dressed in fine clothes…
But in the early centuries (200-300 years after the destruction of Jerusalem) as Imperial Christianity was on the rise, the newly sanctioned Christian movement began to distance itself more and more from Jewish terminology. It became more common to adopt the concept of the church (the kyriakon, of the Lord) as opposed to the synagogue for both the location of Christian worship and to describe the collective Christian congregations which were spreading across the world.
For us to understand the biblical heritage of the word church, we actually need to study its equivalent phrase not only in the Greek of the New Testament writings or the Latin of early church history, but also in the Hebrew of the Tanakh: the Assembly. We just saw how the ekklesia was being described in the New Testament Greek. Once we look for the “Assembly” in the Hebrew of the Tanakh, we find it present throughout the entire narrative.
—
THE ALL-TIME ASSEMBLY
The Assembly is actually a biblical reality that had existed for centuries before the New Testament writings. In Hebrew, the equivalent word for assembly is qahal and it is found all throughout Scripture. The first instance of the word occurs when Isaac was pronouncing a blessing upon Jacob:
Genesis 28:3 – God Almighty bless you and make you fruitful and multiply you, that you may become a company [assembly] of peoples.
This blessing, of course, harkens back to the original blessing that God pronounced to Abraham in which he would be the source of blessing to many peoples, a promise which he simply took in faith:
Genesis 12:2-3 – I will make you into a great nation, I will bless you, I will make your name great, and you will be a blessing. I will bless those who bless you, I will curse anyone who treats you with contempt, and all the peoples on earth will be blessed through you.
Genesis 15:4-6 – And behold, the word of the LORD came to him, “This man shall not be your heir; your own son shall be your heir.” And he brought him outside and said, “Look toward heaven, and number the stars, if you are able to number them.” Then he said to him, “So shall your descendants be.” And he believed the LORD; and he reckoned it to him as righteousness.
That Abraham’s descendants would be as numerous as the stars speaks to the vast nature of the assembly which would come about through his seed. From these beginnings, we find that God continued to clarify and refine his purpose through the Assembly as he brought his people to himself out of Egypt.
Deuteronomy 5:22 – “The LORD spoke these commands in a loud voice to your entire assembly from the fire, cloud, and total darkness on the mountain; he added nothing more. He wrote them on two stone tablets and gave them to me.
Deuteronomy 9:10 – “On the day of the assembly the LORD gave me the two stone tablets, inscribed by God’s finger. The exact words were on them, which the LORD spoke to you from the fire on the mountain.
Deuteronomy 10:4 – “Then on the day of the assembly, the LORD wrote on the tablets what had been written previously, the Ten Commandments that he had spoken to you on the mountain from the fire. The LORD gave them to me…
This is the original beginnings of God’s physical Assembly on the earth: the rag-tag gathering of Hebrew ex-slaves and Egyptian deserters who met with the God of the Universe at Sinai and received the summary of God’s Torah in the Ten Words, or the Ten Commandments written on two tables of stone.
EDAH – Congregation
Another Hebrew word closely associated with qahal as the assembly is edah, typically translated as congregation. These are very nuanced Hebrew terms that are sometimes even used together in the same verses as God’s people are described as coming together.
Exodus 12:6 KJV – And ye shall keep it up until the fourteenth day of the same month: and the whole assembly [qahal] of the congregation [edah] of Israel shall kill it in the evening.
Numbers 14:5 KJV – Then Moses and Aaron fell on their faces before all the assembly [qahal] of the congregation [edah] of the children of Israel.
So the “qahal edah”, the assembly of the congregation, was descriptive of the entire community of the people of ancient Israel. While both words are technically nouns, it seems that, when used together, qahal takes on a verb sense describing the act of assembling or gathering together, while edah is the community once it is assembled, or the meeting that takes place when the assembly is complete.
Beginning in the wilderness journeys and continuing through the succeeding centuries, the qahal/edah/assembly within the tribes of Israel became not just a gathering for religious purposes, but also a place of civic justice. It was in this sense that the Assembly became the gathering for the purpose of exhibiting righteous judgment throughout the land.
Numbers 15:15 – For the assembly, there shall be one statute for you and for the stranger who sojourns with you, a perpetual statute throughout your generations; as you are, so shall the sojourner be before the LORD.
Job 30:27-28 – My heart is in turmoil, and is never still; days of affliction come to meet me. I go about blackened, but not by the sun; I stand up in the assembly, and cry for help.
Proverbs 26:24-26 – A hateful person disguises himself with his speech and harbors deceit within. When he speaks graciously, don’t believe him, for there are seven detestable things in his heart. Though his hatred is concealed by deception, his evil will be revealed in the assembly.
Throughout their history, as Israel continued to exhibit unfaithfulness and was ultimately removed from their land and dispersed among the nations in judgment, their combined Assembly became smaller gatherings within the locales to which they had been brought captive. These synagogue/assemblies became prevalent in most towns to which the Jews had been scattered throughout the known world. This was evident even within the New Testament writings in the book of Acts where James explains this had been the condition for many generations:
Acts 15:21 – For from early generations Moses has had in every city those who preach him, for he is read every sabbath in the synagogues.”
During those turbulent years of exile from about 586 to 516 BC, because they had lost their central Temple worship in their homeland, the synagogues became locations of Jewish worship and also where judgments according to the law were convened. I believe history shows us that the synagogue is actually the real basis for what we generally consider churches today. In recent centuries, rural Christian churches in America functioned much as those ancient synagogues, as they were not only a place of religious worship, but they were also used as schools, places for town meetings, and sometimes court judgments in those sparse environments. Those activities still take place in synagogues today.
It was through these local assemblies that justice was meted out in their communities. I believe it was this type of synagogue assembly that Messiah referred to when working through conflict with a disruptive brother:
Matthew 18:15-17 – “If your brother sins against you, go tell him his fault, between you and him alone. If he listens to you, you have won your brother. “But if he won’t listen, take one or two others with you, so that by the testimony of two or three witnesses every fact may be established. “If he doesn’t pay attention to them, tell the assembly. If he doesn’t pay attention even to the assembly, let him be like a Gentile and a tax collector to you.
Messiah was here highlighting the judicial function of the local synagogue, the assembly of God’s people in that community, in maintaining the integrity of the congregation when conflicts would arise among its members.
So, as we can see from Scripture, when we begin investigating concepts with their original terminology we can arrive at some very different conclusions than by simply accepting the English interpretations. In this case, in exploring the root concept of church as an assembly we can see it threading its way through all of Israel’s history back to Abraham. The Assembly, as an overarching term, is simply the gathering of the holy ones, God’s people. In the Tanakh, the qahal/edah/assembly sometimes speaks of the entire gathering of God’s people in the wilderness of Sinai, or gathering for worship at the festivals, or the gathering of the judges of the people, or the gathering of the people of God at the local synagoge.
—
THE ASSEMBLY OF MESSIAH
Matthew 16:15-18 – He said to them, “But who do you say that I am?” Simon Peter replied, “You are the Christ, the Son of the living God.” And Jesus answered him, “Blessed are you, Simon Bar-Jona! For flesh and blood has not revealed this to you, but my Father who is in heaven. And I tell you, you are Peter, and on this rock I will build my assembly, and the powers of death shall not prevail against it.
This is the single foundational verse indicating how Messiah was intending to establish a unique assembly, his assembly. This would have been a shocking statement among the rabbinical teachers of the day, as to begin a new or unique assembly other than that which preached Moses would mean this rabbi was elevating himself to the status of Moses and breaking with the traditions of the elders.
But in doing so, he also reveals the nature of his assembly by saying “the powers of death shall not prevail against it”. You may be more familiar with the KJV rendering along the lines of “the gates of hell shall not prevail against it”. From the original Greek, the phrase can be more literally rendered the “gates of hades shall not overpower it”. The gates of hades in the ancient world mindset was the entrance to what could be translated as the “unseen world” of departed spirits. Some have interpreted this phrase to have significance as to the place where Yeshua uttered those words: supposedly in a location of pagan cultic worship known as the Gates of Hades. This would imply that whatever group Messiah was establishing, it would rise above all of the pagan idolatry present in the world. This may be a possibility, but I think the meaning is even more far-reaching than that.
Hades in Greek (Sheol in Hebrew) was the place of the dead, all of the dead, not necessarily just a place of punishment for the wicked, as the English word “hell” conveys. By saying the gates of hades (or the unseen world) would not overpower it, I think the RSV gets the intent right when it says “the powers of death shall not prevail against it”. In qualifying his assembly in this way, I believe Yeshua immediately links his assembly which he is founding to a spiritual entity, one in which the reach of death has no power. It is in this sense that the Assembly of Messiah would be different than the Assembly of Moses; in fact, it would become the spiritual fulfillment of the natural assembly of Israel. If the gates of Hades would not prevail against Messiah’s assembly, it would not be something confined to the earth, since everything and everyone here dies. This Messianic Assembly would of necessity be something greater than any physical congregation or earthly organization, even the Assembly of Moses. This would mean that his Assembly was to also be an eternal reality in a spiritual sense. When things are eternal, they can no longer be physical.
The earthly Assembly, stretching from the beginning of the Bible to the first century synagogues of the known world at that time, was to become the seed-bed for the spiritual Assembly of the Messiah. The roots of Torah would nourish these new branches and cause them to flourish, to live spiritually, where the “dead” branches of earthly traditional Mosaic teaching without faith in Yeshua as Messiah would be broken off.
Romans 11:18-20 – do not boast over the branches. If you do boast, remember it is not you that support the root, but the root that supports you. You will say, “Branches were broken off so that I might be grafted in.” That is true. They were broken off because of their unbelief, but you stand fast only through faith. So do not become proud, but stand in awe.
This spiritual Assembly of Messiah was to be an eternal entity; it had to be, as it was to live and breathe in the rarefied atmosphere of the Kingdom of God, so to speak. Its membership was to consist of those whose names were to be metaphorically “written in heaven” (Luke 10:20), in the “Lamb’s book of life” (Rev 21:27), not based in some genealogical record or synagogue membership alone here on the earth.
Paul mentions this principle of eternal things in his letter to the Corinthians:
2 Corinthians 4:18 – So we do not focus on what is seen, but on what is unseen. For what is seen is temporary, but what is unseen is eternal.
To those who believe that Yeshua is the Messiah, the Son of the living God, they have been joined to a spiritual assembly that transcends all space and time. This was not to be just an earthly, tangible assembly that Yeshua was speaking of here. Only a spiritual entity can overcome or bypass the gates of death. Because the assembly he was speaking of was a spiritual entity, then it can exist everywhere and every time throughout all ages.
Earlier, we looked at how the qahal, the edah, the synagoge and the ekklesia are all references to the physical representations of God’s people on the earth, and object lessons of God’s dealings through and among his people. The Assembly of Messiah, however, is different in character, as Yeshua defined it. It was to be impervious to the finality of death, as it was to be the spiritual entity beyond death which does not exist on the earth. This spiritual assembly was to be the true recipient of the blessing of Abraham, as Paul argued in his epistle to the Galatians:
Galatians 3:16, 26-29 – Now the promises were made to Abraham and to his offspring. It does not say, “And to offsprings,” referring to many; but, referring to one, “And to your offspring,” which is Christ. … for in Christ Jesus you are all sons of God, through faith. For as many of you as were baptized into Christ have put on Christ. There is neither Jew nor Greek, there is neither slave nor free, there is neither male nor female; for you are all one in Christ Jesus. And if you are Christ’s, then you are Abraham’s offspring, heirs according to promise.
The true heirs of the promise God made to Abraham are those who belong to his designated “seed” or “offspring”. If we are “in Messiah”, that is, if we have been baptized spiritually into his assembly, then we by default receive the blessing assigned to and intended for Abraham’s offspring. The true Church, the Assembly of Messiah, is that spiritual entity which is built upon faith in him. It does not now exist as any single corporate entity on the earth precisely because it is beyond the gates of death, and therefore eternal.
Hebrews 12:22-24 – But you have come to Mount Zion and to the city of the living God, the heavenly Jerusalem, and to innumerable angels in festal gathering, and to the assembly of the first-born who are enrolled in heaven, and to a judge who is God of all, and to the spirits of just men made perfect, and to Jesus, the mediator of a new covenant, and to the sprinkled blood that speaks more graciously than the blood of Abel.
This is, I believe, the New Testament description of the actual Church, the “assembly of the first-born”. It is a spiritual reality that was prefigured in the earthly congregational assemblies and synagogues of Israel, but it was to exist only where “just men” have been “made perfect”. This is why Paul encouraged believers to keep their gaze heavenward:
Colossians 3:1-3 – If then you have been raised with Christ, seek the things that are above, where Christ is, seated at the right hand of God. Set your minds on things that are above, not on things that are on earth. For you have died, and your life is hid with Christ in God.
The lives of believers were not to be mired in the earthly organizations of the synagogues and what we now call churches, since as earthly entities, they are all subject to dissolution and death. They are only mere shadows of the true Assembly of Messiah.
Matthew 6:31, 33 – Therefore do not be anxious, saying, ‘What shall we eat?’ or ‘What shall we drink?’ or ‘What shall we wear?’ … But seek first his kingdom and his righteousness, and all these things shall be yours as well.
Messiah’s true Church, his Assembly, exists where God reigns supreme, in his Kingdom. According to Yeshua, we are to seek first the Kingdom, not to seek first the Church or the Assembly. It is in seeking the Kingdom that we identify ourselves within the membership of the spiritual Assembly of Messiah. It is a spiritual entity which resides in God’s spiritual Kingdom, which flesh and blood cannot inherit. This is the reality in which the Church, the Assembly of Messiah, lives and thrives.
Those of us who claim to believe in Messiah thus live in a duality: physically we live in this created world to exemplify the principles of God’s Kingdom now; however, positionally we have been joined with that eternal Assembly of the Firstborn within the realm of God’s existence and Kingdom. This dual life is empowered by God’s Spirit dwelling in and among us, the driving force behind our ability to overcome the worldliness of this life while representing his righteousness.
This is the good news that Messiah claimed was the eternal life of God available to those who placed their faith in him: we already possess this eternal life.
John 5:24 CSB – “Truly I tell you, anyone who hears my word and believes him who sent me has eternal life and will not come under judgment but has passed from death to life.
John 6:40, 47 CSB – “For this is the will of my Father: that everyone who sees the Son and believes in him will have eternal life, and I will raise him up on the last day.” … “Truly I tell you, anyone who believes has eternal life.
John 17:3 CSB – “This is eternal life: that they may know you, the only true God, and the one you have sent — Jesus Christ.
Eternal life is not just unending existence, but it is a quality of life that exceeds the natural life of just being born into and living in this world. This is why it involves a process which Yeshua described as being born again, or born from above or of the Spirit. It is a quality of life that God intends for all people where he chooses to live among his people in constant communion and in harmony with his will and purpose, just as Yeshua did.
This is the Kingdom of God come to the earth.
-----
Well, as we wrap up for today, I hope there are at least a couple of concepts and ideas to encourage you to meditate on and to study out further on your own. Next time, we will investigate the concept of the Body of Christ to see what we can learn from those passages that speak about our function in this world and our hope for the future. I hope you will able to come back and visit as we further review these titles of God's people. But remember, if you have thoughts or comments that you would like to explore further with me, feel free to email me at coreofthebible@gmail.com.
Once again, thanks for joining me today! As always, I hope to be invited back into your headphones in another episode to come. Take care!