Not all is Israel is Israel, true, yet is all the church the church?
Yes, all of the Church is the Church
*.
First and foremost, in scripture the word "church" or "ecclesia" is
always a reference to people. It is never a reference to a building, never a reference to a religious or political institution. Those are not inherently misuses of the word, but they are
extra-biblical uses. When scripture uses the word "
church" it always means the saints, those who are the temple of God, the body of Christ. This is evidenced in places like Paul's first letter to the Corinthians. Paul opens his letter stating the letter is addressed to the church at Corinth, and then he proceeds to elaborate on their identity, such as,
1 Corinthians 1:2
To the church of God which is at Corinth, to those who have been sanctified in Christ Jesus, saints by calling, with all who in every place call on the name of our Lord Jesus Christ, their Lord and ours........
So, the "
church," the "
ecclesia," is synonymous with the saints, those sanctified by Jesus, those who call upon
Lord Jesus. There may be a lot of people sitting next to you or I in the pew on Sunday, but they have not all been sanctified and they do not all call upon Jesus as Lord (and Savior). They are in a church building, but they are not the Church
*. Or, as
1 Corinthians 3:16 elaborates, they may be in a church building, but they are not the temple of God. The ecclesia are always the
naos Theous.
To put it in Old Testament vernacular would be to say the
qahal, the assembly of God, is the Israel that is Israel. It is those who live by faith in the Christological covenant promises of God that are the Israel that is Israel, the assembly of God's people. This is kinda important because the first time the word "Church" or "ecclesia" is used in the New Testament
it occurs before Calvary or Pentecost! It happens in Matthew and Matthew was probably written first in Aramaic and the translated into Greek (some say that was an effort to reconcile it with Mark's gospel). Whether correct or not, Jesus did not preach/teach in Greek. He was a Jew and most likely spoke in Hebrew and Aramaic. He, therefore, didn't use the word "
ecclesia." He used the word "
qahal,"
but to his original audience that would have been understood as an equivalent to ecclesia in Greek because that was already established when the Jews translated their scriptures into the common language of Greek.
Matthew 16:17-20
And Jesus said to him, "Blessed are you, Simon Barjona, because flesh and blood did not reveal this to you, but My Father who is in heaven. "I also say to you that you are Peter, and upon this rock I will build My church; and the gates of Hades will not overpower it. "I will give you the keys of the kingdom of heaven; and whatever you bind on earth shall have been bound in heaven, and whatever you loose on earth shall have been loosed in heaven." Then He warned the disciples that they should tell no one that He was the Christ.
This passage has been the source of much debate but much of that much debate can be discarded when it is understood Jesus was saying, he would build his assembly, those he called out, upon Peter
and his statement. Jesus was not going to build the qahal/ecclesia on Peter's denial, Peter's hypocrisy, Peter's flightiness, etc. It would be stupid to think such a thing. It's just as foolish to separate the man from what he stated in that moment.
Matthew 18:15-18
If your brother sins, go and show him his fault in private; if he listens to you, you have won your brother. But if he does not listen to you, take one or two more with you, so that by the mouth of two or three witnesses every fact may be confirmed. If he refuses to listen to them, tell it to the church; and if he refuses to listen even to the church, let him be to you as a Gentile and a tax collector. Truly I say to you, whatever you bind on earth shall have been bound in heaven; and whatever you loose on earth shall have been loosed in heaven.
This clarifies the matter somewhat because Jesus was
not teaching his disciples to take other disciples to the Sanhedrin (or the Sadducees, Pharisees, or other Jewish leaders). Such an interpretation would be wholly incompatible with what ensues the rest of that day and the next because all of those guys were actively plotting to resist Jesus and by the end of the day kill him! Jesus was NOT saying, "
Take your brother to my murderers." He was saying, "
Take him to those my Father has called out," those indwelt with the Holy Spirit by which any matter can be adjudicated justly." That teaching is so laden with prophetic promise Jesus' original audience would have dumbstruck. They'd have instantly thought of piles of Tanakh references, such as the first "song" of Isaiah in Isaiah 42.
Isaiah 42:1-4
Behold, My Servant, whom I uphold; My chosen one in whom My soul delights. I have put My Spirit upon him; he will bring forth justice to the nations. He will not cry out or raise his voice, nor make his voice heard in the street. A bruised reed he will not break and a dimly burning wick he will not extinguish; he will faithfully bring forth justice. He will not be disheartened or crushed until he has established justice in the earth; and the coastlands will wait expectantly for his law....
I've cut that short for the sake of space, but the point is those in
assembly hearing that on the day of Jesus' entrance into Jerusalem would have understood Jesus was talking about a justice brought about by God's suffering servant.
Not all assembled that day were part of the assembly. This is made clear as Matthew recounts what happened after
Jesus cleaned out the temple and returned the next day to find it re-infested with death and desolation. Two days later Jesus would be dead by the hands of the Jewish leaders conspiring with Roman occupiers. They were not the Israel that is Israel, nor are they the qahal or the ecclesia.
The church has always been the church. There are no fakes in Christ's actual body.
Matthew 7:21-23
"Not everyone who says to me, 'Lord, Lord,' will enter the kingdom of heaven, but he who does the will of my Father who is in heaven will enter. Many will say to me on that day, 'Lord, Lord, did we not prophesy in your name, and in your name cast out demons, and in your name perform many miracles?' And then I will declare to them, 'I never knew you; depart from me, you who practice lawlessness.'"
Lots of poseurs.
Galatians 4:6-9
Because you are sons, God has sent forth the Spirit of His Son into our hearts, crying, "Abba! Father!" Therefore you are no longer a slave, but a son; and if a son, then an heir through God. However, at that time, when you did not know God, you were slaves to those which by nature are no gods. But now that you have come to know God, or rather to be known by God, how is it that you turn back again to the weak and worthless elemental things, to which you desire to be enslaved all over again?
It's not enough to claim to "know" God or Jesus. A person must know
and be known by God to be a member of the Church, the ecclesia, or as Paul put it in the letter to the Church in Galatia, those whom Jesus rescued from that present age according to the will of his Father, those who by the grace of God were called to the gospel of Christ.
*
I capitalize Church because of the ambiguity inherent in the word so as to distinguish the body of Christ (the Church) from the local congregations (the churches). A variety of monikers have been assigned the word "church" over the millennia, such as the "invisible" versus "visible" church, or the fact the word "church can mean a building, not people. Scripture never uses that word in any of those ways.
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