No church until the incarnation

eejoseph

Some people read “church” in Acts 7:38 (KJV) and conclude that there was a church in ancient times. That may explain why practically every new movement in Christianity is bound to be a juvenile enterprise, an Israel copycat, full of conflicted meditations, grounded in inferiority, and offensively oddball. Church is a Messianic construct: it is either a diverse group of people defined by Christ or it is a Jews-only entity. You do not have to guess why the church, in a council (Acts 15), decided to reject circumcision, and the law of Moses.

People are God’s tabernacle, not leather, wood and metals,

“The Holy Spirit is signifying this, that the way into the holy place has not yet been disclosed while the outer tabernacle is still standing,”

Hebrews 9:8

Connecting God’s way to the tabernacle is risky business, because the tabernacle has no final function in God’s effective work for humanity. Christ is propitiation for the whole world. Christ is the sacrifice, the mercy seat, and the perpetual advocate (Romans 3:25, Hebrews 2:17, 1John 2:2, 1 John 4:10). The tabernacle and its furniture are irrelevant and ineffective (1 Peter 1:18). The law governing the levitical system is expired (Hebrews 7:12). Whenever there are tabernacle descriptions of salvation apart from Christ himself something is fatally amiss.

JICIO

  • Juvenile: the elementary principles of animism (agricultural practices, astronomical observances, and physical taboos) are a juvenile phase (Galatians 4:8-9, Colossians 2:20)
  • An Israel copycat was never a goal (Acts 15, Romans 11:1-2)
  • Conflicted: because Moses himself predicted that he would not be the authority (Deuteronomy 18:15-19)
  • Inferior: deference to “the prophet” makes Mosaic instruction either secondary or irrelevant (Deuteronomy 18:15ff)
  • Oddball; not only uniquely weird but notoriously deformed, instead of wondrously peculiar (Gal 2:14, Jeremiah 24:9)

I can’t imagine a responsible and literate teacher trying to establish that long before Christ sent the Holy Spirit to live in believing persons there was a church. When Christ spoke about the church it was then future. “I will build my church” is a prediction.