The beginning of the church

Having considered the setting in which the church arose, we are ready to take up a second matter of introduction to the Apostolic Church.  As we do so, I want to indicate my repeated indebtedness to a former teacher for what will be presented.  Let us now focus our attention upon a crucial matter for the study of Apostolic church history specifically, and for all of church history in general:

Chapter two 

The beginning of the church

  When did the church of Jesus Christ actually begin?  In the introduction to this course, we briefly considered a general answer to this question.  (Please refer again to the chart - "The Place of the Church in History" (2B).)  We saw that if we stick with the technical, biblical use of the Greek word for "church", the church began with the initiation of the New Covenant at the first coming of Christ to earth.  However, this is still not a very precise answer to our question.  So then, when exactly did the church begin?

When we come to the pages of the New Testament, we find that the answer is not as definite as we might think.  Please read a passage we have repeatedly noted before - Mt. 16:18.  This key text, where Christ is first recorded as explicitly speaking of His church, seems to describe the church as if it were not yet in existence, but would arise in the future.  However, read the second and final explicit recorded mention by our Lord of His church - Mt. 18:15-17.  Although this passage may be understood as being Christ's instructions for a future, soon-to-arrive, era (and that was its primary focus), the Lord here seemed to speak of His church as if she already existed. 

When then did the church begin?  Although this answer might be approached in different ways, a former teacher has helpfully outlined four stages or phases which together constituted the beginning of the church.  Let us consider each one in turn:

I.     Phase one - the initiation of distinct disciples of Jesus Christ by the ritual of baptism.  This process began in a preliminary way with the ministry of John the Baptist who sought to call God's Old Covenant people to repentance and to a believing embrace of their Messiah (Luke 3:2-6; 15-18).  But then, with the beginning of Christ's earthly ministry, this gathering of distinct believing disciples to Himself through the ritual of baptism clearly got underway.  At this point, consider John 3:22-30; 4:1-2.  (We could also look at John 1:35-37).  Among these early disciples of Christ were the twelve Apostles who would be part of the foundation of the church.

So the beginning of the gathering of a distinct, believing, baptized group of followers of Jesus Christ took place during the earthly ministry of our Lord.  However, this did not mean that the church was now in place.  For there still was no Lord's Day nor Lord's Supper, and there still remained the making of the New Covenant in Jerusalem.  So consider with me:

II.    Phase two - the institution of the Lord's Supper and the transaction of the New Covenant.  On the night before Christ's crucifixion, the Lord Jesus instituted the second sacrament of the church, namely, the Lord's Supper.  This first such Supper pointed to the New Covenant which was to be transacted or ratified in Christ's blood the following day.  Here please read Luke 22:19-20.  The next day the Lord purchased His church with His own blood (in the language of Acts 20:28) and became the mediator of a new and better covenant (Hebrews 8:6; 9:15a) which has been made with a distinctively new and better covenant community, the church of Jesus Christ (Hebrews 8:8-12).  Therefore, Christ's cross work, accompanied by the related institution of the Lord's Table, was the second phase of the beginning of the church.

However, more yet remained, which brings us to:

III.  Phase three - the institution of the Lord's Day on the first day of the week, and the corporate indwelling of the Holy Spirit in Christ's church.  These two significant aspects of the beginning of the New Covenant church were the fruit of the resurrection of Christ and the descent of the Holy Spirit at Pentecost, respectively.

The first day of the week was sanctified as a new, Christian sabbath - set apart for the corporate worship of the church by the resurrection of Christ on that day.  For it was on resurrection day that sin and death and hell were forever conquered by our Lord.[1]  The first day of the week also was probably sanctified by the descent of the Spirit at Pentecost.  For it is likely that Pentecost occurred on the first day of the week, due to the way that the Sadducees set this date during the 1st Century A.D.[2]  This is why the resurrection and Pentecost have been grouped together as phase three of the beginning of the church.

Let us focus a bit more on the significance of the day of Pentecost.  The resurrected and ascended Christ poured out His Holy Spirit upon His gathered disciples on this special day, so that in a unique way they were corporately indwelt by the Spirit.  (They had been individually indwelt before.)  Read the account of this in Acts 2:1-4; 38-42.  The day of Pentecost was so significant because of what happened on it and resulted from it that it has often been identified as the true beginning of the church of Christ.  Indeed, if we had to pick a specific day, there are good reasons for drawing this conclusion.  But we do not have to pick a specific day.  And we should not do so because even on the day of Pentecost the basic elements of the church were not yet all in place.  The church was still composed exclusively of Jews.  And thus, another crucial dimension still awaited implementation.

By way of conclusion of the third phase of the beginning of the church, in the resurrection of Christ and the Pentecostal descent of the Spirit the church received her special day of assembly for worship, and her Holy Spirit indwelling as she assembled in Christ's name.  But now, let us hasten on to:

IV.  Phase four - the inclusion of Gentile believers into the church.  Under the Old Covenant, the members of the covenant community were exclusively physical Jews or Gentile proselytes who became full-fledged Jews through circumcision.  Following the day of Pentecost, initially only Jews were added to the church.  However the New Covenant ultimately required and led to the addition of uncircumcised Gentiles to the covenant community.[3]  Read how this addition first began in Acts 10:1-2; 44-48.  Later on, in Acts 11:19-21, we find the record of the conversion of large numbers of Gentiles in Antioch so that they made up a significant portion of the church there.  And not surprisingly, the heavily-Gentile church in Antioch became intensely involved in missionary efforts among the Gentiles through the Apostle Paul who was especially sent to the Gentiles (Acts 9:15; Gal. 2:9)  As a result, many churches containing large numbers of Gentiles were planted.  And thus the Gentiles were fully included in the church of Christ. 

With the inclusion of the Gentiles, the church now possessed all of its essential elements.  And it could be accurately said that the church had indeed fully come to have a separate, distinct existence of its own, apart from Old Covenant Israel, even though this was not clearly apparent until the temple and Jerusalem were destroyed in 70 A.D.

These then were the four phases or stages of the beginning of the Apostolic Church.  Before pressing on, please note with me two applications from what we have seen regarding the beginning of the church from Scripture.  First:

1.    The biblical data helps keep us from the error of wrongly minimizing the radical changes and new distinctive features which confront us as we encounter the New Covenant church and of therefore seeing too much continuity between the Old Covenant and New Covenant periods.  Such errors lead individuals, some of them dear brethren, to wrongly carry over into the New Covenant era elements from the Old Covenant era which have either been radically changed or ended.  One example of such improperly-continued elements is a seventh day of the week, Jewish sabbath instead of a first day of the week, New Covenant sabbath or Lord's Day.

Another expression of this error is continuing to view physical infants of Jehovah worshippers as being members of the covenant community, and continuing to administer a initiatory rite for such infants - now infant baptism in place of Old Covenant circumcision.  The Scriptures instead indicate that membership in the New Covenant community is by spiritual new birth, not by physical birth as was true under the Old Covenant.  Therefore, new members of the New Covenant Community are to be initiated by way of believer's baptism only.

Why do our dear paedo-baptist brethren who hold these latter errors regarding membership in the New Covenant community err as they do?  A major reason is because they consider the church to have begun with Abraham instead of Christ, and view the events which we have just studied to be "the reorganization of the church"[4], rather than the beginning of the church.  However, as we have seen, the church did not begin with Abraham.  It began with a sequence of events closely-related to the coming of Christ.  So the biblical description of the beginning of the church helps keep us from error on the right hand.  But it also keeps us from error on the left hand as well:

2.    This biblical approach to the beginning of the church helps to keep us from the error of tending to see too much distinction between the Old Covenant and New Covenant periods, and of therefore not recognizing the continuity between the two periods which God has intended for there to be.  This error leads individuals, some of them again dear brothers in Christ, to fail to carry over into the New Covenant era elements from the Old Covenant era which are intended by God to continue.  One example is the total rejection of any Sabbath or Lord's Day observance under the New Covenant, even though the sabbath principle is so clearly taught in the Ten Commandments, and a Lord's Day is indicated under the New Covenant.  Another example of this error is a real hesitancy on the part of some to more directly apply to Christians any of the Old Testament and much of the New Testament Scriptures before Acts chapter two, because that part of Scripture applied to the Old Covenant times and we are under the New Covenant.  For example, I once had a pastor who would never select the major text for a sermon from the Old Testament.

Why do our dear, more rigorous dispensational brethren who have this latter, restrictive tendency when it comes to the applicability of Scripture err as they do?  At least one reason is because they generally see the church as coming into existence at one specific point in time on the day of Pentecost.  And therefore these brethren generally fail to recognize and embrace some of the elements which did organically arise out of the Old Covenant order and which continue to apply in the New Covenant order.  A more biblical approach to the beginning of the church as a sequential process helps to protect us from these errors.

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     [1]  In addition to the striking, repeated Scriptural emphasis of the first day of the week as being the day of Christ's resurrection (Matthew 28:1; Mark 16:1-2; Luke 23:56 - 24:1; John 20:1), this day is highlighted during the early days of the church as well as a day for gathering together to break bread and for collecting the gift being given for the saints in Jerusalem (Acts 20:7; 1 Corinthians 16:1-2).  This first day of the week is rightly to be identified with the Lord's Day of Revelation 1:10 (cp. Isaiah 58:13).  It is very significant that we do not find second, third, fourth, fifth, sixth or seventh days of the week being specifically identified and connected with church activities in a similar way after the day of Pentecost.  Only the first day was especially pointed out, for it was instituted as the New Covenant sabbath day commemorating the New Covenant redemption which reached its climax in Christ's resurrection.  As we'll see later, early church history also substantiates that this change in the day of the week had indeed taken place and that the church regularly gathered on the first day of the week.

     [2]  See Bruce, p. 53, footnote 3.

     [3]  Before the Gentiles had been included, there had not actually been worked out the full expression of the fact that "There is neither Jew nor Greek . . . for you are all one in Christ" (Galatians 3:28).  And not yet realized was the biblical description of the breadth of Christ's church found in Ephesians 2:11-22.  There we are told that Christ has reconciled Jews and Gentiles "in one body to God through the cross" and that Gentiles therefore "are no longer strangers and aliens, but . . . are of God's household . . .".

     [4]  Alexander, Acts, p. 39.