So last time I explained what I believe the whole gospel is. (See below) How does this impact The Church? We need to look at how God wanted to redeem the world through Israel. In the Old Testament Israel was God’s vehicle for redeeming the lost. They were to
- love Him with all their hearts,
- leading to obedience to His law,
- leading to His blessing on the nation and presence among them,
- leading to authentic worship at the tabernacle/temple,
- leading to the nations seeing God’s blessing on those who love Him,
- leading to the nations’ return to God.
Unfortunately this didn’t work out so well. Israel was lured away by other nations. They thought worshiping a god they could see and touch was better than worshiping the God Who revealed Himself in the pillar of fire and smoke, delivered them from Egypt, gave them their own land, defeated enemies, etc, etc. Rather than revealing God to the nations, the nations drew God’s people away from Him.
Enter “The Church.” Jesus came to “reboot” the system. He is the One Who can truly bring redemption. He lived, died, returned to life and returned to heaven, leaving behind His “body” on earth, called The Church. The Church is all those who are truly faithful to Christ. It is both universal, meaning everyone in all times and places who truly follow Christ. It is also local, comprised of a small piece of the universal Church that meets together. It’s the role of this local church that intrigues me.
So Israel blew it. Jesus came to set up His church to do what was not completed through Israel. How? As I explained above Israel was to…
- Love God with all their heart,
- Obey His laws because of their love,
- See God bless them because He loved them and they responded to Him,
- Worship God as a response to His goodness,
- Give God the credit for the blessing they received. They were to tell others the “good news” of God’s love and blessing,
- Receive those who responded to their message by accepting them into the nation, teaching them God’s ways, allowing them to worship God too.
Bottom line? God was to be glorified through the nation of Israel.
So how does the Church fulfill these?
- Those in the Church are to love God with all their heart, soul, and mind. This is called discipleship. We are to be true lovers of God.
- This love leads us to want to follow Him, listen to Him and obey Him.
- We will experience God’s blessing, not because we earn it, but because He truly loves us and we respond back to Him with love. (Insert argument here that God’s blessing can actually come in a form that may appear bad to some, say, Chinese Christians who endure great persecution but count it a blessing to endure for Christ’s sake. That’s another discussion for another time.)
- We worship Him in spirit and in truth, with authentic worship flowing from grateful hearts.
We give God credit for His blessing. I see this happening in two primary ways:
- As individuals, telling our friends how God has blessed us. We are “witnesses” to His goodness, no matter what our circumstances may be. God uses this witness to draw others to Himself.
- As a church, by obeying Him, experiencing God’s moving, and telling those around us. As a church the “telling” may be different than as individuals. I think it has to do with bringing tangible help to those in need. Jesus said to care for the poor, imprisoned, hungry, widows, etc. (Isaiah 58) As we reach out to those in our communities with love we are saying “God has richly blessed us and we want you to experience that blessing too.”
- As people respond we accept them, disciple them and welcome them into our worship community. As this happens God receives even more glory and worship.
I’d love your comments on this. How do you see The Church (or a church) fulfilling its role as a successor to the Old Testament nation of Israel?
Peace.
Bill