God’s Chosen People ~ The Church

The Greek word for “church” is ekklesia. We find it in the New Testament, but we also find in the Old Testament — in the Septuagint (aka, LXX), which is an ancient Jewish translation of the Old Testament into Greek. There, it refers to the assembly, or congregation, of Israel — God’s chosen people gathered before Him. It occurs at least 77 times, including these, where it refers to:

• The “assembly of God” (Nehemiah 13:1)
• The “great assembly” where God is praised and the good news is proclaimed (Psalm 35:18; 40:9)
• The “congregations” where God is blessed (Psalm 26:12; 68:26)
• The “assembly of the saints” (Psalm 89:5, 149:1)
• The “assembly of the people” where God is exalted (Psalm 107:32)
• The “assembly of the LORD” (Micah 2:5)

Our English word “church” comes from the Greek kuriakos, which speaks of “belonging to the Lord.” But it is the word ekklesia that is usually translated as “church” in the New Testament because it is the assembly that belongs to the Lord. In the Old Testament (LXX), ekklesia likewise refers to the assembly that belongs to the Lord.

God has only ever had one people, and it is the same people in both the Old and New Testaments. In the Old Testament, they are referred to as His own “chosen” people (e.g., Deuteronomy 14:2). In the New Testament, “elect” is the word that is used, which means the same things as “chosen.” All who believe on Jesus the Messiah, whether Jews or Gentiles, are referred to as “elect” (e.g., 1 Peter 1:1-2), “chosen” (e.g., 1 Peter 2:9), and God’s “own special people” (Titus 2:14).

Gentiles, or pagans, who come to the Lord Jesus do not become a new and separate people of God. They are, rather, “grafted” into the one people God chose from the beginning. Paul speaks of this in Romans 11, where he explains that unbelieving Jews, though they be the “natural” branches, have been broken off from the “olive tree” (Israel) because of their unbelief (v. 17, 21). However, when they return and receive Jesus the Messiah, they will be grafted back in (v. 23). Gentiles who believe in Jesus, on the other hand, though they be “wild” branches, are grafted into the “olive tree” of God’s chosen people (v. 17). And because they are grafted in, it can be truly said of them that they are now part of the olive tree, too — made one with God’s chosen people. (See Grafted Into the Chosen People)

In the New Testament, both Jews and Gentiles who believe on Jesus the Messiah are called the “elect” or “chosen” and are referred to as the Church. Does this mean that the Church has replaced Israel as the chosen people? NO, NOT AT ALL! Israel is still the chosen people, and Jews who have received the Messiah remain in it. But now Gentiles who believe on Messiah are part of it, too, grafted in through faith. The chosen people of the Old Testament has been broadened out to include all who believe on Jesus the Messiah — even the pagans. That is why Paul says in the beginning of Romans that the gospel is “the power of God to salvation to everyone who believes, for the Jew first and also for the Greek [Gentile]” (Romans 1:16).

What, then, of the modern nation of Israel? Is the modern political state the same thing as the chosen people of the Old and New Testaments? No, not necessarily. Those in the modern nation of Israel who believe on Jesus the Messiah belong to the chosen people. Those who do not believe on Him do not, because of unbelief. The chosen people is no longer limited to ethnic Jews but now includes men and women of all the nations who believe on the Messiah.

The New Testament Church does not replace Israel as the chosen people, nor is it some sort of parenthesis in God’s plan concerning Israel. Rather, the Church is how Paul speaks of the reality of Israel as God’s chosen people. God has never changed His mind. He has never forgotten His people, or His promise to Abraham, Isaac and Jacob. It has always been His purpose to bless all the families of the world through Abraham and to gather in all the nations as His chosen people.

Grafted Into the Chosen People

For if the firstfruit is holy, the lump is also holy; and if the root is holy, so are the branches. And if some of the branches were broken off, and you, being a wild olive tree, were grafted in among them, and with them became a partaker of the root and fatness of the olive tree, do not boast against the branches. But if you do boast, remember that you do not support the root, but the root supports you. You will say then, “Branches were broken off that I might be grafted in.” Well said. Because of unbelief they were broken off, and you stand by faith. (Romans 11:16-20)

Who are the chosen people? In the Old Testament, clearly, they are the children of Israel. So also in the New Testament. But where the Old Testament uses the word “chosen,” the New Testament uses the word “elect.”

Paul tells us quite a lot about God’s chosen people in Romans 11, where they are portrayed as an olive tree. He tells us that some of the branches were broken off and other branches were grafted in. The natural branches that were broken off represent ethnic Jews who rejected Israel’s Messiah — they were broken off because of unbelief. The wild branches that were grafted in, were grafted in through faith in Israel’s Messiah. These are the Gentiles — the pagans! — who believe on Jesus the Messiah. What, then, of the natural branches? Is that the end of the story for them? No! Paul says,

And they also, if they do not continue in unbelief, will be grafted in, for God is able to graft them in again. For if you were cut out of the olive tree which is wild by nature, and were grafted contrary to nature into a cultivated olive tree, how much more will these, who are natural branches, be grafted into their own olive tree? For I do not desire, brethren, that you should be ignorant of this mystery, lest you should be wise in your own opinion, that blindness in part has happened to Israel until the fullness of the Gentiles has come in. (Romans 11:23-25)

We should note that Paul is not referring to Jews and Gentiles as individuals but as peoples. Though individual Jews may die in unbelief, as do many Gentiles, what Paul has in mind is a wholesale turning of the Jewish people to Jesus as Messiah. In the meantime, God has allowed their turning away from Jesus to be an opportunity for the pagan nations to turn to Him. Even so, Paul’s expectation is that the branches that were broken off through unbelief will one day return, through faith in Jesus, and be grafted back in — “and so all Israel will be saved” (v. 26).

Concerning the election [i.e., being chosen] they are beloved for the sake of the fathers. For the gifts and the calling of God are irrevocable. For as you were once disobedient to God, yet have now obtained mercy through their disobedience, even so these also have now been disobedient, that through the mercy shown you they also may obtain mercy. For God has committed them all to disobedience, that He might have mercy on all. (Romans 11:28-32)

The “election” is still for them, and so also the gospel — and the Messiah. But God has allowed their present disobedience so that the nations might come to the obedience of faith in Messiah and receive God’s mercy. In a similar way, God is using the mercy He has shown to the wild branches as an opportunity for the broken branches to return to the obedience of faith through Jesus. When they do, then God’s mercy will be on all — even as Paul spoke in verse 15: “For if their being cast away is the reconciling of the world, what will their acceptance be but life from the dead?”

So, then, unbelieving Jews, though they be the natural branches, have been broken off from the olive tree (Israel) because of their unbelief. However, when they return to belief and receive Jesus the Messiah, they will be grafted back in. Believing Gentiles, on the other hand, though they be wild branches, are grafted into the olive tree, the chosen people, through faith. And because they are grafted into the olive tree, it can be truly said of them that they are now part of the olive tree, too — one with God’s chosen people.

I Will Build My Ekklesia

On this rock I will build My church, and the gates of Hades shall not prevail against it. And I will give you the keys of the kingdom of heaven, and whatever you bind on earth will be bound in heaven, and whatever you loose on earth will be loosed in heaven. (Matthew 16:18-19)

“Upon this Gospel I will build my Ekklesia.” That is essentially what Jesus was saying. The rock is the revelation* Peter received from the Father that Jesus is God’s Anointed King (see Upon This Gospel). The gospel is the proclamation that the kingdom of God, and its King, has come into the world to fulfill the promise God made to deliver His people and set the world right.

The English word “church” comes from the Greek word kuriakos, which speaks of “belonging to the Lord.” It is found only twice in the New Testament, in reference to “the Lord’s supper” (1 Corinthians 11:20) and “the Lord’s day” (Revelation 1:10). However, the Greek word translated as “church” is actually ekklesia (or ecclesia), and Matthew 16 is where we first find it in the New Testament.

Ekklesia is a compound word that literally refers to that which is “called out” (from ek, “out,” and kaleo, “to call”). It has also been translated as “assembly.” By the time Jesus first used it, it already had a well-established meaning.

In the Septuagint (the earliest Greek translation of the Hebrew Scriptures), ekklesia renders the Hebrew qahal, which usually refers to an assembly of the people of Yahweh, sometimes en masse but often in representative fashion. It is often seen as a deliberative body, agreeing together (1 Chronicles 13:1-4), making covenant as a body (2 Chronicles 23:2-3), deciding together about administrative matters (2 Chronicles 30:1-5), taking counsel together (2 Chronicles 30:23), acting together (Ezra 10:12 and Nehemiah 5:13). When the assembly says “Amen” together, as in Nehemiah 5:13, it is no small thing, it is a deliberative agreement and determination about what shall happen.

The primary meaning of ekklesia in Jesus’ day was much the same:

• Thayer’s Greek Lexicon calls it “an assembly of the people convened at the public place of the council for the purpose of deliberating.”
• Vine’s Expository Dictionary calls it a “gathering” of citizens to “discuss the affairs of state.”
• The Greek-English Lexicon of the New Testament by Bauer, Arndt and Gingrich gives its primary meaning as “assembly, as a regularly summoned political body.”
• The Dictionary of Biblical Imagery (Longman and Wilhoit) considers it the “calling out of citizens for a civic meeting”
• The International Standard Bible Encyclopedia says it was “the designation of the regular assembly of the whole body of citizens in a free city-state,” that was called out “for the discussion and decision of public business.” The ISBE concludes with this, about the pre-Christian usage of ekklesia: “To the Greek it would suggest a self-governing democratic society; to the Jew a theocratic society whose members were the subjects of the Heavenly King. The pre-Christian history of the word had a direct bearing upon its Christian meaning, for the ekklesia of the New Testament is a ‘theocratic democracy’ (Lindsay, Church and Ministry in the Early Centuries, 4), a society of those who are free, but are always conscious that their freedom springs from obedience to their King.”

It is very significant, then, that Jesus says, “On this rock [the confession that Jesus is God’s Anointed King] I will build my Ekklesia.” He is not talking of a merely localized community of followers in Israel. The scope of it is no less than the kingdom of God, the will of God being done on earth as it is in heaven. His Ekklesia is the community of those who belong to that kingdom, and to Him as King.

The Ekklesia is a divine community on a cosmic scale, as Jesus’ next words confirm: “And the gates of Hades shall not prevail against it.” The word “Hades” speaks of death, the place of death and the power of death. The “gates of Hades” includes the devil, who has the power of death — which power has been defeated in the death and resurrection of Jesus the Messiah (Hebrews 2:14). Neither death, nor the devil, nor all the demonic forces can prevent the Ekklesia of King Jesus from fulfilling His purpose of manifesting heaven on earth.

Indeed, Jesus has given the keys to the kingdom of heaven to this divine assembly on earth for that very purpose: “And I will give you the keys of the kingdom of heaven, and whatever you bind on earth will be bound in heaven, and whatever you loose on earth will be loosed in heaven.” Binding are loosing are deliberative actions. The sense of “will be bound” and “will be loosed” is “will have been bound” and “will have been loosed.” The deliberative action of the Ekklesia in the exercise of these keys brings earth into alignment with the will of God in heaven. Jesus amplifies on this in Matthew 18:18-20.

Assuredly, I say to you, whatever you bind on earth will be bound in heaven, and whatever you loose on earth will be loosed in heaven. Again I say to you that if two of you agree on earth concerning anything that they ask, it will be done for them by My Father in heaven. For where two or three are gathered together in My name, I am there in the midst of them.

The Ekklesia acts in the name of King Jesus to fulfill His purposes. Whenever it comes into agreement on earth about a matter, it is done for us by our Father who is in heaven. In this way, the kingdom of God is made manifest, the will of God being done on earth as it is in heaven.

* Peter himself is also called a rock and, as an apostle, is foundational to the establishment of the Church. Paul says that the Ekklesia is built “on the foundations of apostles and prophets, Jesus Christ Himself being the chief cornerstone” (Ephesians 2:20).

Upon This Gospel

Blessed are you, Simon Bar-Jonah, for flesh and blood has not revealed this to you, but My Father who is in heaven. And I also say to you that you are Peter, and on this rock I will build My church, and the gates of Hades shall not prevail against it. And I will give you the keys of the kingdom of heaven, and whatever you bind on earth will be bound in heaven, and whatever you loose on earth will be loosed in heaven. (Matthew 16:17-18)

Jesus asked the disciples what people were saying about who He was. “Some say John the Baptist, some Elijah, and others Jeremiah or one of the prophets,” they answered. These were not bad answers. They all ran in the right direction, but they did not go nearly far enough.

“But who do you say that I am?” Jesus asked. The first question was a setup but this next question was what Jesus was really after. How far had the disciples progressed in their understanding about Him?

Peter stepped forward and opened his mouth. No one was surprised, that was how Peter was. But what he said was a surprise, perhaps even to himself. He answered, “You are the Christ, the Son of the Living God!”

Understand this in the context of a Jewish book written to a largely Jewish group of people. Understand it in the context of the messianic expectation of the Old Testament. Understand it, for instance, in the context of Psalm 2, a messianic psalm. There, God speaks of His Anointed, against whom the kings and rulers of the earth were conspiring (Psalm 2:2). But God laughs at them and says, “Yet I have set My King on My holy hill of Zion” (Psalm 2:6). Then David, the psalm writer, says,

I will declare the decree:
The LORD has said to Me,
“You are My Son,
Today I have begotten You.
Ask of Me, and I will give You
The nations for Your inheritance,
And the ends of the earth for Your possession.
You shall break them with a rod of iron;
You shall dash them to pieces like a potter’s vessel.”

(Psalm 2:7-9)

The Anointed, whom God calls “My Son,” is to be King over all the nations of the earth. Now, with that in mind, listen to Peter’s confession again: “You are the Christ [the Anointed One], the Son of the Living God.” He suddenly understood that Jesus is God’s Messiah, God’s Son, God’s King. The One Israel had long awaited, who would deliver His people and rule over the nations.

This has everything to do with the kingdom of God, His rule and reign over all the earth, which has been Matthew’s subject from the beginning of his gospel account. The genealogy in Matthew establishes the lineage of Jesus as the one who fulfills the promise God made to Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, then on through Judah, to King David and beyond. In Matthew 2, the magi recognize Jesus as a long-prophesied king. In Matthew 4, Jesus begins His ministry preaching, “Repent, for the kingdom of heaven is at hand” (Matthew 4:17). His entire ministry is focused on the kingdom, teaching about it through parables and demonstrating it through healing, signs and wonders. At the end, after the cross and the resurrection, but before He ascended to heaven, Jesus declared to the disciples, “All power has been given to me in heaven and on earth” (Matthew 28:18). The is the language of the King rising to His throne.

But in the middle of the book, Peter finally gets it. Not because he is astute. Not because he is impulsive Peter. It comes to him as a gift, a divine revelation. “For flesh and blood has not revealed this to you, but My Father who is in heaven,” Jesus said. It comes at a kairos point, a pregnant moment in a propitious time. Jesus has been preaching and teaching and saying and doing the kingdom all along, but now Peter finally recognizes that Jesus is the King. This is essence of the gospel, the good news proclamation that the kingdom of God has come to fulfill the promise of God, and Jesus is God’s Anointed King, come to set the world right.

Now Jesus can build on this revelation and, indeed, He speaks in terms of building. “And I also say to you that you are Peter, and on this rock I will build My church.” This is where Peter gets his name, which means “Rock.” He has received the rock-solid, foundational revelation from the Father: Jesus is the Messiah, Jesus is the Son of God, Jesus is the Anointed King. And on this rock, this revelation — this gospel! — Jesus builds His church, His ekklesia (or ecclesia).

We will look at what that means in the next post, I Will Build My Ekklesia.

A Colony of Heaven

For our citizenship is in heaven, from which we also eagerly wait for the Savior, the Lord Jesus Christ. (Philippians 3:20).

Paul knew very well about citizenship. Though he was from Tarsus, in Cilicia (Acts 21:39), he was a freeborn citizen of Rome. And he did not mind invoking its benefits, as we see in this vignette.

And as they bound him with thongs, Paul said to the centurion who stood by, “Is it lawful for you to scourge a man who is a Roman, and uncondemned?”

When the centurion heard that, he went and told the commander, saying, “Take care what you do, for this man is a Roman.”

Then the commander came and said to him, “Tell me, are you a Roman?”

He said, “Yes.”

The commander answered, “With a large sum I obtained this citizenship.”

And Paul said, “But I was born a citizen.”

Then immediately those who were about to examine him withdrew from him; and the commander was also afraid after he found out that he was a Roman, and because he had bound him. (Acts 22:25-29)

Like the American Express ad says, “Membership has it’s privileges.” A Roman citizen had great status throughout the Empire, but Paul knew of a much greater citizenship, one possessed by every believer in Jesus: “For our citizenship is in heaven.”

It is important to understand that citizenship is not about where we are going — it is about where we are from. In Paul’s day, citizens of Rome were sent out to create colonies in every territory that was under Roman authority. They were to establish the life and culture or Rome throughout the empire.

Now think about our citizenship in heaven. Notice that Paul does not say that our “citizenship will be in heaven,” but “our citizenship is in heaven.” He is not talking about where we are going but about where we are from. “We are a colony of heaven,” is how Moffatt’s New Translation puts it.

The Greek word for “citizenship” is about commonwealth or community. It comes from a word that speaks of the administration of a city. To be a citizen of heaven means that our lives are now administered from there. We are no longer in bondage to the lusts and desires of the old way of life we used to know. We are no longer subject to the world systems that are manipulated by principalities and powers.

As a colony of heaven, we are here to establish the life and culture of heaven on earth. For all authority in heaven and on earth has now been given to King Jesus the Messiah (Matthew 28:18), and He has sent out His assembly, the Church, to disciple the nations and teach them everything Jesus taught (Matthew 28:19-20). The end result will be heaven and earth coming together as one (Revelation 21), the will of God being done on earth exactly as it is being done in heaven (Matthew 6:10).

It has already begun — the darkness is already fading away and the true light of King Jesus is already shining (1 John 2:8). Even so, it will not be full and complete until the King comes again. As we watch for that day with eager anticipation, we live out our citizenship here and now, enjoying the favor of heaven and imparting its blessing to the earth.