What if a dear friend left you a wonderful inheritance of furniture, food, and even a community of new friends but you had no where to enjoy them? How ironic would that be?
The Dividing Wall Is Down
We should be deeply grateful that our Lord has not only made us “heirs of God and fellow heirs of Christ” (Rom 8:17), “heirs of the promise” (Heb 6:17), i.e., of the promises that God made to Abraham (Gal 3:29), “heirs of the kingdom” (James 2:5), “heirs of the grace of life,” (1 Pet 3:7); and “heirs according to hope of eternal life” (Titus 3:7) but he has also engrafted us into the church, the people of God.1 Paul puts it this way:
So then you are no longer strangers and aliens, but you are fellow citizens with the saints and members of the household of God, built on the foundation of the apostles and prophets, Christ Jesus himself being the cornerstone, in whom the whole structure, being joined together, grows into a holy temple in the Lord. In him you also are being built together into a dwelling place for God by the Spirit (Eph 2:19–22).
There was a time when most of the world was outside the promises and people of God (Eph 2:12). From the formation of the national Israelite church under Moses, the world was, from the biblical perspective, divided between Jews and Gentiles. The temporary ceremonial and judicial laws, which were fulfilled by Christ and which expired with and were abrogated by his death (Acts 10 [all]), taught that not only certain foods were unclean (and illegal) and defiling but also that whole people groups were also unclean and defiling. Since the Lord instituted the sacrament of circumcision under Abraham (Gen 17:9–14) the Jewish church had been literally and figuratively cut off from the surrounding Gentile religions. With establishment of the Jewish state under Moses, the Israelite nation was now also separated from the unclean world (Exodus 12:48; Ezek 44:9; Isa 52:1). Thus, before Christ there was a “dividing wall of hostility” that separated Jews and Gentiles (Eph 2:14).
It is not, as some suggest, that the church has replaced Israel. It is that national Israel was, for a time (beginning 430 years after Abraham according to Gal 3:17) the church. The church began with Adam after the fall. It continued with Noah, then Abraham, and then the Lord added the national covenant with Israel on top of what had already been but Israel was the church, the Christ-confessing covenant community.
The Christ-Confessing Covenant Community
We know this because, in Deuteronomy 9:10, the Hebrew Bible uses the noun Qahal (קָהָל) for the covenant community. Scripture says, “Yahweh gave to me the two tablets of stone written by the finger of God. On them were all the commandments Yahweh proclaimed to you on the mountain out of the fire, on the day of Ha Qahal” (i.e., the assembly).2 The Greek translation of the Hebrew Bible, from which the writers of the New Testament drew, uses the noun ekklesia(ἐκκλησία) , which we translate with the English word church. We see the Old Covenant church gathered at the foot of Sinai in solemn covenant assembly at the constitution of the national people (Ex 19:1–20:21). The church gathered in solemn covenant assembly for the feasts, beginning with Passover (Ex 12:1–28), that structured the Israelite calendar (e.g., Num chapters 28 and 29 [all]).
After all, when the sovereign Lord rescued his church out of Egypt, he sent his minister Moses to say to Pharaoh, “Let my people go, that they may worship me in the wilderness” (Ex 7:16).3 In other words, we have been saved by God’s sovereign grace to be part of his Christ-confessing covenant community, to gather with them at the foot of the mountain, as it were. Where the Israelite church gathered at Sinai, in the New Covenant, we have not
come to what may be touched, a blazing fire and darkness and gloom and a tempest and the sound of a trumpet and a voice whose words made the hearers beg that no further messages be spoken to them. For they could not endure the order that was given, “If even a beast touches the mountain, it shall be stoned.” Indeed, so terrifying was the sight that Moses said, “I tremble with fear.” 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 firstborn who are enrolled in heaven, and to God, the judge of all, and to the spirits of the righteous made perfect, and to Jesus, the mediator of a new covenant, and to the sprinkled blood that speaks a better word than the blood of Abel (Heb 12:18–24).
Where the covenant assembly at Sinai was for national Israel, now, under the New Covenant, Gentiles have been added to the church. The adding of Gentiles did not begin absolutely after Pentecost. Some were already being added to the church, under the types and shadows (e.g., Joshua 2 [all]; 2 Kings 5:1–14; Ruth 1:16) , but in the New Covenant, after God the Son became incarnate, obeyed in our place, died, was raised, and ascended to the right hand of the Father where he reigns over all things until he comes again, the promise made to Abraham, that he would be the Father of many nations (Gen 15:1–6), began to be fulfilled. So Gentiles are being added to the church. According to Christ, the ingathering of Gentiles into the church is a turning point in the history of redemption:
Now among those who went up to worship at the feast were some Greeks. So these came to Philip, who was from Bethsaida in Galilee, and asked him, “Sir, we wish to see Jesus.” Philip went and told Andrew; Andrew and Philip went and told Jesus. And Jesus answered them, “The hour has come for the Son of Man to be glorified. Truly, truly, I say to you, unless a grain of wheat falls into the earth and dies, it remains alone; but if it dies, it bears much fruit. Whoever loves his life loses it, and whoever hates his life in this world will keep it for eternal life. If anyone serves me, he must follow me; and where I am, there will my servant be also. If anyone serves me, the Father will honor him (John 12:20–26).
This part of what Pentecost is about. The promise made to Abraham, that one day the Gentiles would be added to the church, began to happen. We see this during the Feast of Pentecost, when thousands of Jews were gathered in Jerusalem from all over the ancient world (Acts 2:5). The Holy Spirit was poured out upon the Apostles and they, by the power of the Holy Spirit, began to preach in the languages of the peoples gathered there (Acts 2:4,7–12). Peter explained to them that they were witnessing a fulfillment of the prophecy given in Joel 2:28–32. The last line of that prophesy, which Peter quoted to them, says: “And it shall come to pass that everyone who calls upon the name of the Lord shall be saved” (Joel 2:32; Acts 2:21). He said that Jesus, “according to the definite plan and foreknowledge of God” had been “crucified and killed by the hands of lawless men” (Acts 2:23) but “God raised him up, loosing the pangs of death, because it was not possible for him to be held by it” (Acts 2:24). Jesus of Nazareth, not King David, is the fulfillment of Psalm 16:8–11. Jesus has been raised even while David remains in his tomb (Acts 2:29). According to Peter (Acts 2:34–35), just as Psalm 110 had foretold, Jesus is the Adoni (אדֹנִ֗י) to whom Yahweh said, “Sit at my right hand” (Ps 110:1). Peter prosecuted them for their sin and preached to them the good news: “Let all the house of Israel therefore know for certain that God has made him both Lord and Christ, this Jesus whom you crucified” (Acts 2:36).
The Spirit convicted the men who heard the sermon (Acts 2:37) “and they cried out: Brothers, what shall we do?” (Acts 2:37). Peter replied, “Repent and be baptized every one of you in the name of Jesus Christ for the forgiveness of your sins, and you will receive the gift of the Holy Spirit” (Acts 2:38).
Under the types and shadows, the sacrament of entry into the church was a bloody rite that anticipated the circumcision of Christ (Col 2:11–12). Now, however, the sacrament of entry into the church is baptism and, as it had been since Abraham, it is for believers and their children and including the Gentiles whom God is calling into the church in fulfillment of the promise God made to Abraham: “For the promise is for you and for your children and for all who are far off, everyone whom the Lord our God calls to himself” (Acts 2:39).
We who believe in Jesus, both Jew and Gentile, are not homeless. We have been given a home in Christ’s church, where we have the privilege of the communion of the saints and many other blessings, which we will explore next time.
notes
- All translations are from the ESV unless otherwise indicated.
- My translation.
- My translation.
©R. Scott Clark. All Rights Reserved.
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R. Scott Clark
R.Scott Clark is the President of the Heidelberg Reformation Association, the author and editor of, and contributor to several books and the author of many articles. He has taught church history and historical theology since 1997 at Westminster Seminary California. He has also taught at Wheaton College, Reformed Theological Seminary, and Concordia University. He has hosted the Heidelblog since 2007.
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