23. 3. PRESENT NOT INTO PAST: THE "CHURCH"

(2 Cor. v. 17): then, in Him, we can be called "sons of God." We are, then, His sons by the act of spiritual regeneration; for, He has created within us a New nature, and given us a "sonship spirit," whereby we are able to say "Abba," i.e., my Father. (Rom. viii. 15. Gal. iv. 6.)

This Pauline usage of the expression is, therefore, quite distinct from the expression as we find it in the Old Testament. Had this been discerned, and the Present Dispensation not read into the Past, it would never have entered into any one's head to have thought that the expression "the sons of God" in Gen. vi. 2, 4, could have been used of the sons of Seth!

(c) The word "Church" may be considered here; for the changes in its meaning, though they might be classed under usage (See Canon III., Part II., below), depend rather on the changes of Dispensation than on usage, as such; and on Chronology rather than on Grammar.

In the Pauline Epistles the word acquires a meaning which it never had before. The meaning which is peculiar to this present Dispensation must not, therefore, be read into the Word when it is used in the Past Dispensation.

As to its Etymology Ecclesia means Assembly, or a Congregation of called out ones. But there are various classes of people who are called out from others.

Israel was an Ecclesia, or an assembly of People called out from other Peoples and Nations. See Gen. xxviii. 3 (its first occurrence), where it is rendered multitude, and is used of Israel as a whole, as called out and distinct from all other nations.

It is used, in Gen. xlix. 6, of a smaller company of Israelites, or assembly of people called out from Israel, viz., of the Tribal Council of Simeon and Levi.

Later on, in the same Past Dispensation, we find it used of another kind of assembly, viz., of those who were called out of all Israel as worshippers assembling themselves together, as such, before the Tabernacle and

1 For, as a matter of fact, we see good and bad men and women marrying every day without any breed of monstrosities such as were the Nephilim, Rephaim, etc.

2 The Greek word ἐκκλησία (ecclesia) is used 70 times in the Septuagint for the (edhali), from which we have our English word, with its meaning, to call. See further, on pp. 218, 219, below.

K the Temple. This is the meaning of the word in Ps. xxii. 22, 25, in the Gospels, Acts vii. 38, etc. A further development of the usage of the word was caused in the closing or transition period of the Past Dispensation, which affected the meaning of the word as used in the Gospels, and in the Acts of the Apostles: at any rate, in the earlier portion of the Acts, which is a transitional book.¹ During that period (covered by the Gospels and Acts) the called out ones are the "Sheep-fold" of John x. The assembly was composed of "the lost sheep of the house of Israel." "The Porter" (John the Baptist) opened it and admitted the true Shepherd and the sheep whom He gathered; Baptism (the pool by the sheep-gate) being the mode of admission. Christ was the good Shepherd of these "lost sheep of the house of Israel" thus called out. Hence He was at once the "door" (v. 7), and the "shepherd" (v. 14).

Peter called out the "other sheep" which the Shepherd had (Acts viii.—xii), and brought them in to the "one flock" (v. 10). They were "not of this (Jewish) fold," but Gentiles (as such), with Israelites in the place of their dispersion, who confessed Jesus as the Christ, the Son of God.

These are the Ecclesia or "Church" of the Gospels and Acts.

They had been led into this fold, but they were to be led out (John x. 9), and this commission was given to Paul. In Acts xix. 9, he began this work when he "separated the disciples," and the "hardening" of Isa. vi. was approaching its "completion." When that Prophecy was fulfilled in Acts xxviii, the change of Dispensation was completed.

Henceforward the word Ecclesia acquires a more restricted meaning, and is used of "the Church of God" eleven times in Paul's Epistles.

We must not, therefore, confuse the truth belonging and peculiar to these Dispensations, which is seen in the various usages of the word Ecclesia.

There are thus no less than five distinct usages of the word Ecclesia.

(1) It is first used of all Israel as called out from the Nations.

¹ See Things to Come, Nov. 1906.

(2) It is used of those of Israel who feared the Lord and were called out as His worshippers (Acts vii. 38).

(3) It is used of this company of called-out ones in the Gospels and earlier chapters of the Acts.

In Matt. xvi. 18 the reference was to a future called-out people. "On this rock I WILL BUILD."

There could have been no reference here to the "Ecclesia in the wilderness" (Acts vii. 38); nor to the Ecclesia of the Church of God in this Dispensation. Those who heard these words of the Lord's promise could not connect them with the Secret or Mystery which was "hid in God," and had not yet been made known to the sons of men. But they could connect them with Hos. i. 10; and ii. 23. This is the promise which the Lord's hearers would have known. Only with that promise in Hosea could they have associated this promise of the Lord in Matt. xvi. 18.

The revelation here made was an addition to the promise in Hosea. The Son of Man was about to be rejected. The prophecies of Him as "the stone which the builders refused" were about to be fulfilled. Nevertheless, the time was approaching when He would become God's "sure foundation" according to Isa. xxviii. 16: "Thus saith Adonai Jehovah, Behold, I lay¹ in Zion for a foundation, a stone, a tried stone, a precious corner stone, a sure foundation," etc. That may be either "I have laid" (R.V.), or "I will lay." Both are true. Christ had been laid already then, in the counsels of God, and He would yet be laid in their fulfilment by God.

The Lord here repeats that promise. And the whole point was, Who was this Son of Man? Some said one thing and some another, and the Lord asks: "But YE, whom do ye say that I am? And Simon Peter answered and said, Thou art the Messiah, the Son of the living God. And Jesus, answering, said to him, Blessed art thou, Simon son of Jona, for flesh and blood revealed it not to thee, but my Father who is in the heavens. And I say also to thee, that thou art [called] Petros (a stone), and on this Petra (a rock) I will build my Ecclesia, and [the] gates of Hades shall not prevail against it, and I

¹ Hebrew, 721 (yissad) may be either the Piel preterite or the Kal future.

g 2 will give to thee the keys of the kingdom of the heavens" (Matt. xvi. 15-19).

In the words which follow we learn that the builders were about to reject God's foundation; for in the very next verse we read "FROM THAT TIME forth began Jesus to show unto His disciples, how that He must go unto Jerusalem, and SUFFER" (v. 21).

Thus, His sufferings are not mentioned until the announcement had been made, that, though the foundation-stone was about to be rejected, it would yet be built upon. This rejected "Son of Man" is indeed the Christ, God's "Anointed," and He will become "the head of the corner."

On Him, the Messiah, His Ecclesia or Assembly, spoken of in the Prophets, would yet be built. "I will build" are His words. "I will call" are Jehovah's words in Hosea: "I will call them my people, which were not my people; and her beloved, which was not beloved. And it shall come to pass, that in the place where it was said unto them, Ye are not my people: there shall they be called the children of the living God. Isaiah also crieth CONCERNING ISRAEL, though the number of the children of Israel be as the sand of the sea. A REMNANT SHALL BE SAVED" (Rom. ix. 25-27).

This Remnant is the Ecclesia mentioned by the Lord in Matt. xvi. 18.

The gates of hell will strive against it, as Rom. ix. 29 testifies, but the remnant shall be saved. This future Ecclesia of Israel is to be built UPON Christ, the Messiah, as the Foundation Stone.

The Church of God, as an Assembly, is also compared to a building; its members are built individually on a doctrinal foundation, but the building itself is "a holy temple IN the Lord; IN whom ye also are builded together by [the] Spirit."

The Church of God is now a spiritual building IN Christ: but the Ecclesia of Matt. xvi. 18 is the future, corporate, saved "remnant" of Israel.

The present Church of God is composed of Jews AND Gentiles, but the Ecclesia of Matt. xvi. 18 taken with Hos. ii. 23. Isa. x. 22, 23. and Rom. ix. 27. is a "remnant" OF "the children of Israel."

(4) In Acts xix. 32, 41 it is used of the guild or "company" of the Ephesian craftsmen as distinct from the rest of the population of Ephesus (compare verse 25).

(5) In Acts xix. 39 it is used of what we call a "Town's meeting," i.e., a duly summoned gathering of the citizens in meeting assembled.

In Jas. ii. 2 the word "assembly" is not the rendering of the Greek Ecclesia, but it is the word Synagogue. "If there come into your Synagogue" (so margin).

From all this it will be seen how necessary it is to confine the meaning of the word Ecclesia, or Church, to the Dispensation in which it is used; and to note whether it is used, in the Past Dispensation, of all Israel; or of Godly Israelites; or of the whole of God's people; or of a portion of them in a certain District, City, or House.¹

The special usage of this word Ecclesia, in this Present Dispensation, by the Holy Spirit was not known until it was revealed to Paul as the Secret (or Mystery) which had been "hid in God" (Eph. iii. 9); "hid from ages and from generations" (Col. i. 26); "kept secret since the world began" (Rom. xvi. 25).

No, the "great mystery," or Secret, is concerning the one spiritual unity of "Christ and His church," and the end of it belongs to this present dispensation, and will close it up when the members of that Body will be

"Received up in glory" (1 Tim. iii. 16).

4. The FUTURE not to be read into the PRESENT.

(a) The Great Tribulation, all believe to be still future; but yet, many Preachers and Teachers hold and teach that the Church of God, altogether or in part, will pass through it in whole or in part.

Some teach that all the Church will pass through all the Tribulation; others teach that only a part of the Church will so pass through it all; while there are yet others who teach that all the Church will pass through

¹ The word is never used of a building; nor is the Pauline sense used in the Old Testament, nor in the Gospels, nor in the earlier transitional portion of the Acts. Our English word "church" is said to be derived from a combination and corruption of two Greek words, eipis, ikyrion, Lord, and olas (eikos), house. Hence Kyriake, the Lord's house, preserved in Scotch kirk.

a part of the Tribulation. These last hold what is known as "the firstfruits view," which identifies the Church of God with the 144,000 of Rev. xiv., and places the Rapture of the Church in or after the middle of the Great Tribulation, and after the revelation of the Beast in his superhuman form, in ch. xiii.

But here, again, we see the confusion and contradiction of reading what refers to Israel in the Future into the Present Dispensation; and interpreting it of the Church of God, to the destruction of its present hope of being alive and remaining at the Lord's coming forth into the air to receive them, its members, to Himself, before the Day of the Lord bursts suddenly like a thief upon a world which cries "peace and safety."

The Church of God is assured that that Day shall not overtake it as a thief. (1 Thess. v. 1--1.)

The firstfruits in Rev. xiv. are the firstfruits of those who are redeemed "from the earth" (v. 3); redeemed "from among men." They stand "before the throne" (vv. 1, 3); and they "follow the Lamb whithersoever He goeth" (v. 4). But all such language as this is foreign to the Church of God. We who are members of the spiritual Body of Christ are already "seated in the heavenlies in Christ Jesus" (Eph. ii. 6); and we shall not "stand before the throne," but be actually seated with Him when He shall have received us up into glory.

The other view, of part of the Church of God passing through the Tribulation is equally erroneous, and misleading. The Body is "one." There is no amputation of the spiritual body of Christ. There can be no deformity such as would be caused by the absence of any of its members. If the Head "cannot say to the feet I have no need of you," while here on earth, how much less can it be said in the day when "the number of the elect shall be accomplished" and the whole body presented perfect, complete, and "faultless" in glory. It is impossible for any one who is imbued with the language of the Pauline Epistles to imagine any connection between the Church of God and the Great Tribulation.

To say that the Church of God will be divided, and part of it go through the Tribulation, and part not; and that this division is based on the degree of holiness or